#i'm actually cooking something bigger and cleaner but you can have this for now

[vesper100]

Can we please have more genderbent Pentiment content . For the masses

absolutely. SPOILER WARNING if u scroll

do you see my vision here

[unmakingandincorporeality]

Shen I think of existing in a postcapitalist community I do imagine myself doing dishes, moving boxes, cooking for people, because obviously that stuff has to happen for everyone to live comfortably and happily so obviously I would enthusiastically take up that work when I have the chance and the capacity. But when it comes to actually communicating the way I imagine those futures, I don't wind up saying that, because it barely even registers in my mind as work—it's just being-in-community.

I recently got a new housemate, and we're both very neurodivergent and struggle with keeping spaces maintained. When we talked about setting up a plan for handling chores, I suggested something I've wanted to try for a long time: rather than either of us having any obligations to get any particular thing done in the house, we've just been having detailed & empathetic conversations about the things we notice that make us feel kinda gross about the space. We go into sensory detail—like, "I don't like when I can feel a difference in texture on the sink compared to clean porcelain" versus "I don't like when I can see that there is buildup on the sink." So we know how to check whether something is unclean by the other's standards and we know how much cleaning needs to happen to get it up to those standards.

And like it's only been a couple months, so maybe this is gonna fall apart. And I can't read their mind, maybe my housemate secretly hates me over this. But the apartment has been way cleaner than any space I've ever lived in before (including my own bedroom, which they have no influence over), I've been doing more chores than I'm usually able to get myself to do, and I've been noticing that a lot of the things I don't get to are getting done. The house isn't immaculate, but even some of the bigger disordered chunks are getting chipped away at.

And it feels really invisible. It doesn't feel like I'm devoting huge chunks of time to difficult and unpleasant labor the way it's felt when I've had a chore chart. To me, at least, it has felt like I still spend all day making TikTok content, livestreaming, and in meetings—and I've also had more time for my hobbies. I've started painting postcards again and I'm learning to play guitar.

Again: it's been a couple months. Maybe we're a week away from some critical failure point where the apartment is going to explode into insurmountable filth. (Maybe the CIA is gonna send some agents to fund a counterrevolutionary chore schedule.) But so far it's feeling like when you replace obligation with diligent communication and empathy all the work gets easier, and more of it gets done.

I don't like pitching people on postcapitalism with "you'll do the dishes and drive a delivery route," even if that's what they'll wind up doing. What I want to pitch is "you'll be encouraged to help others get their needs fulfilled, and to make your needs clearly known to an empathetic community." But how the hell do you convince people who don't believe now that they'd be willing to do anything other than sit on the couch for three straight days every weekend because they're so tired from their life that that doesn't mean "you're still going to have to beat the shit out of yourself working to meet other people's needs, and you won't even get paid for it?"

I've been talking to friends about this chore thing lately, and a couple of them have said they might try it. I'm really hoping to get feedback on whether it works for other people, because if it does this feels like a really good strategy. It's, like, a free trial subscription to anarchy. And I feel like it could seriously be persuasive for anyone whose cohabitants are all at least sort of mature and empathetic.

Honestly if your response to "I dont have many skills that would be useful in a post-capitalist society" is "so I guess I'll just be pursuing my intellectual hobbies as my contribution to my community" instead of "so I guess I'll be doing dishes in the cafeteria/janitorial work/manual labor" you should really reconsider how you come at the very concept of work and society as a leftist. Is socialism no longer appealing if you have to do the work you previously took for granted? Is the liberation of the proletariat not worth it if you have to contribute something besides your dream job in academia or leading support groups? Are you really "too good" for "that type" of work, even if it is for a world where no one starves?

we will still have hobbies/run d&d/learn other languages under socialism - in fact, we would likely have far more time to pursue them than under capitalism - but when we think of our future labor, we ought to consider the "menial" tasks that keep society running; loading boxes onto trucks, cooking in a factory kitchen, packaging medical supplies for distribution, building new homes as a worker and not an architect. these jobs will never disappear, and to assume that someone else will do them while you lead workshops or go to school to become a trained professional is to announce your continuing loyalty to petite bourgeois ethics. The dream of socialism is not a fantasy where you continue to do the exact same thing you want to do under capitalism, but now with a clear conscience about it. It's to build a better world as one global movement, to lift up the most oppressed and downtrodden from the muck; a task which requires, above all else, heavy and thankless work that we must be prepared and happy to undertake if we ever hope to succeed.