this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
51 points (100.0% liked)
Asklemmy
1454 readers
75 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I was raised Catholic, but I've been an atheist for—oh fuck I'm old—more than half my life. But... Monastic life seems pretty dope. Why can't there be a secular order that's just devoted to knowledge/contemplation for its own sake (or the betterment of humanity). I know it kind of sounds like I'm describing a university, but I mean with the personal discipline, strong communal bond, and simple lifestyle.
You and me both. Also means giving up certain comforts, but that's kind of the point. Maybe that's why the secular monastery doesn't exist- it'd be a huge sacrifice for those who would participate in it and still require some cooperation/consent/aid from others in the community/society (as much as self-sufficiency would be ideal). I'm thinking about how much people (and governments) already don't want to fund universities which give tangible benefits, and how much worse it'll be for secular monasteries.
But hey, I also want this, and it'd be interesting to see what insights would come from a place of thinking unconstrained by the trappings of modern society.
(Or it could basically just be libraries and being a librarian but more extreme lol)