Initial Idea

I  have been a bit behind with posting on this blog,  below is the idea that I have send in the email that started our group, I am posting it here for the record!
I think as Cain said, although we might end up working on a different project all together, we seem to have still adopted some aspects of it as a group.

SOCIAL IDEA: 

 In my own experiences I've always felt more at ease in one-to-one interactions, because in groups often group dynamics 'take over' and I never fell integrated.

Two scenarios seem to always develop for me: in the past I was always disengaged and on the edges of a group, or I become pretty vocal and it makes me increasingly uncomfortable because it makes me feel like I am dominating or being confrontational. I don't feel comfortable with  others dominating because I am not a 'follower", I feel like my autonomy is somehow squashed. Crowds of fascists are made up of followers!

 For the same reasons I don't want to lead anyone. Finding an open, equalitarian group very seldom happens. 

I feel like the preference for 'one to one' interactions is in itself social training and conditioning that I have received from the society that we live in. 

 We life in a sexist, capitalist world, where the only interactions we are expected to want or have are sexual ones which take places in the confines of our homes. 

We don't have large social circles, the partner is to provide all the functions that would have previously been provided by a village of people.  I live in a flatshare where everybody else is really isolating themselves from other couples. 

I have difficulties interacting with people and really hearing their side, rather than concentrating on my own point, and in a sense I feel that academic interactions encourage this even further: say your mind, rather than listen to others mind. This course seems to be a bit different in that it encourages us to build something together. I feel that overall we could all have fuller lives if we were able to transgress into a more open, autonomous way of being in groups. 

There is the potential to become a 'better version' of ourselves through interaction with others: the whole being more than the sum of the parts. 

Is it possible to become more autonomous through the help of others in  a group? Is it possible to mutually benefit from interaction that will enrich our everyday lives? Is it possible to be engaged with others on equal terms, feel integrated in a group without loosing a sense of personal integrity?

 Is it possible to have an egalitarian setting in which each person becomes 'their best self'  rather than 'their worst self'?  The political aspect of it is important in the sense that radical political movements often fail because on the basic level group dynamics mess things up when the group is in the organising stage. I went to a feminist group meeting recently for example, and the amount of censoring, what is acceptable to talk about and what not,  was unreal. 

I liked what the other group did regarding adopting something from other peoples lives: maybe we could do something similar in that we  took some time every week to do something together as a group, I don't know... doing something that we otherwise would not do alone, or helping one of us do something that this person feels they cannot do alone, for example. 

Or maybe make something together, build something that would also be beneficial to others.