Retreat as communal remaking differs from solitary renunciation
Evidence
FELIX’S DREAM OF a permanent retreat registers a familiar and age-old reaction to an untenable situation: leave and find a place to start over. Unlike the solitary mountain hermits of East Asia or the Desert Fathers who wandered into the sands of Egypt, this dream involves not only renouncing society but attempting to build another one with others, if only in miniature. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 143
Categorization
- XREF: The distinction drawn here—communal retreat versus solitary flight—bears on whether Odell’s program is ‘withdrawal’ or something else; supports the anti-misreading defense. — connects to: Retreat to a monastery can be chosen as a stanching of inner wound — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 219; Ritualized retreats get co-opted when packaged as productivity tools — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 141; Communal escape necessarily reintroduces the governance problems it sought to avoid — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 165 (+4 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Retreat to a monastery can be chosen as a stanching of inner wound — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 219; Ritualized retreats get co-opted when packaged as productivity tools — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 141; Communal escape necessarily reintroduces the governance problems it sought to avoid — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 165 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Communal escape necessarily reintroduces the governance problems it sought to avoid
#complicates(0.82) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 165 - Ritualized retreats get co-opted when packaged as productivity tools
#complicates(0.78) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 141 - Essentialized views of community overlook diaspora, hybridity, and members’ negotiated settlements and dissent
#complicates(0.76) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 368 - Brief attentive retreats change how one perceives ordinary life afterward
#complicates(0.75) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 66