Notes on urban Kibbutz, mutual aid and social erotism
Social imagination for a collective society
Today’s public debates often lack visions beyond slogans of integration and participation. What alternative imaginaries can we envision for society, and which ones inspire creative thinking and actions to address current crises? Currently, positive collective action tends to be fleeting. Many social imaginaries seem exhausted or abandoned as relics of the past. Three essays explore this phenomenon. The first examines urban kibbutzim, which stem from traditional models that have failed to adapt to modern economic realities. By analyzing these past futures within their current urban contexts, can we reignite our social imagination and foster collective practice? The second essay considers the role of artists in shaping social imaginaries. Do the initiatives of the Jerusalem art group Bait Rek (Empty House) reintroduce concrete utopia by transforming social imaginaries into collective art practices, or do they merely create an aesthetic theme park devoid of deeper meaning? The third perspective conceptualizes social imaginaries' formation across temporal, collective, and individual dimensions. "Memes, Genes, and Codes" examines social imagination through genetic (genes) and cultural (memes) frameworks, introducing the concept of eroteme as a means to reclaim freedom by negotiating the constraints of genetic and cultural influences.
