The Barbarian Village - Modern Barbarian

The nuclear family is not enough any more, just as it hasn’t been enough through out history. It has been know historically and now again that multi generational homes have longer healthier life spans that those isolated into single generational ones. It is important don’t get me wrong the nuclear family is the main building block but if you are limiting your self to that your setting you self up for failure and to be manipulated and controlled by The Empire. It makes you dependent on the The Empire, its products and systems. You cannot depend on The Empire for community or support. Everything that it provides comes at a cost, whether its your health, your money, or your soul. Sometimes modern problems require ancient solutions the only way you are going to not only survive but thrive is return to a more tribal way of living. Small self sufficient decentralized barbarian communities built around your extended relatives, common beliefs and/or views. Working together for both the modern and ancient definitions of survival.

The Basics

The two main ways thoughts on this are intentional community or Multi generational living. The basic idea is the same with the only difference being that multi generational living is typically built around a group of blood relatives, where intentional communities are built around ideas or a certain way of living and different people or families come together to live together. I believe ideally it would be a little bit of both. Multiple groups of blood relatives with shared views and beliefs but either way the end results are basically the same. For the modern barbarian, family does not mean blood related so it simply means you and your tribe are circling the wagons.

Technically this doesn’t need to be on one piece of land or even adjacent plots but they need to be within close distance of each other. Community is built around proximity so ideally you would all be within in walking distance. Ideally this would be on a single large plot of land or multiple adjacent ones (depending on how you want to structure the purchase) in order to facilitate that community and belonging. Even multiple houses in the same neighborhood would work but I would recommend getting out of the city to do this more effectively and safely. You will want to consult an expert on trusts/legal structures to structure the land purchase in a way that protects everyone involved.

So what would a modern barbarian village look like?

It would start with a true brotherhood. A group of men that can depend on each other and want whats best for each other. This brotherhood should have common views and beliefs that bring them together. They should participate in some form of martial art or fight sport as this will not only strengthen their bond but their mental fortitude, and ability to defend themselves and each other In times of crisis. Starting here at the brotherhood would be easiest because it will likely be easier to find a group of individuals with like minds than multiple families all at once, thought that still wont be as easy as we might think. Starting small and building out. Their common views would imply that their families likely have similar views as well. This brotherhood would be the back bone of the village.

The brotherhood would then start having get together involving their close families. BBQs, camping trips, whatever fits their lifestyles and views. Letting the brothers meet each others families as well as the families meeting each other. Making sure there would be no deal breakers or conflicts that they are not able to over come. After a while the brothers would bring up the topic of building the village and consolidating resources with their respective families and move forward if they are open to it.

They would want to decide before hand on how problems and disagreements will be solved and what the general plans and goals the people would want to accomplish. How the purchase will be made of the land or plots of land and resources will be pooled how everyone will contribute and how much.

Next they get the land, maybe they buy one plot of land in a trust and build separate houses or maybe they build neighboring plots individually if you want to keep the purchases more separate.

Working together

The group came together to pool resources and work to thrive, so what does that look like?

Finances and the war band

When financially pooling resources you not only reduce and consolidate bills reducing the cost of each family, you add income streams to allow for wealth generation and growth at a faster rate. They would have decided before hand how much contribution each family will need to make to cover the shared bills such as mortgage if there is one or property taxes as well as what is to be contributed regularly if anything for village projects or if this is to be done on a per project basis.

The war band does the business which we covered HERE, Ideally they will be more entrepreneur minded for the sake of self sufficiency. The war band build businesses and other income streams maybe pool money for investments held by the trust to ensure future financial well being of the village or other future projects/events etc. If they are more entrepreneur minded or many work from home you could have a communal “office” space to get together to work and collaborate more effectively or maybe they just have a group of people who work day jobs and pool a portion of the money allowing others to stay home and contribute in other ways Such as……

Food

We know they cannot trust the food in the grocery store much any more but when you have a whole tribe around, Growing their own food can be easier. As much food as possible should be self produced through garden or livestock. This sets them up best for both health and survival, as well as having a potential income stream of any excess that could be sold or bartered. The food would be stored in a community cellar or storage of some kind which would become the village “grocery store.” Shifts could be worked in the gardens by everyone or if anyone likes gardening or working with animals more could take responsibility. What ever works.

Education

The public and most private school systems are a joke and more and more families are finding the benefits of home schooling. With resources pooled allowing some tribe members to stay home, Homeschooling the children would be on a great step toward self sufficiency. This could be done on individual house hold basis or they could take turns teaching subjects that different members excel at. Beyond typical school topics survival skills, food production, finance, investments and business should all be covered in lessons to name a few, as well as martial arts and physical fitness, health and nutrition. Depending on how they decide to structure the education, they could have a “school house” or maybe they just go to each person house on different days .

Private and communal areas

Their homes and living spaces should obviously be private to the immediate families. How ever their could be a dorm like set up if children want to move out but stay with the tribe or tribal held money could be set aside for additional cabins or neighboring properties to be purchased etc.

Anything that multiple families need or want could have a community version. We have covered “office space” already but other ideas could be a community gym with equipment and space for the martial arts training. For the sake of community a large fire pit area and or dinning hall would be a great addition for regular tribal gatherings. Especially important or useful if the their is shared religious views, or common holidays.

This just sounds like a city whats the point?

In most ways it is. You are essentially building a small town in some ways like the frontiers man of old, except the barbarian village is private. The group came together themselves and formed this group. They can allow people to join if they want or they can keep it exclusive. If they do allow new members they can set any kind of restrictions or requirements they want.

One other key difference Is Its size. Humans are not meant to live in such large numbers as is evident by Dunbar’s number. Philosophies such as the golden rule or treat others like you want to be treated only work in small tribal settings. Small groups where everyone pulls their own weight and at least somewhat knows each other. They do not work in cities where you know fewer people than you don’t. Cities where their are no shared beliefs across the population.

The barbarian village shares values, and beliefs, and only those within the tribe have a say in its future but they all also have to pull their own weight. They decided at its inception how group decision would be made. The size is small enough that everyone’s voices can in fact be heard and a consensus system can be used. No one is dragged along for the ride by decisions that they had no say in or don’t agree with like majority rule systems used by larger cities today which is basically polite mob rule.

How many people do you hear talk about what America’s values used to be? and how Americans don’t share those views or values any more? Well unfortunately they are not coming back any time soon. As we covered HERE Its a cultural problem the culture allowed those views and beliefs to die out or be killed off. So your only option to try and build them back your self, no one is going to do it for us and its not going to be possible if you allow the culture as it is today to raise the future generations for us.