I wish people would stop trying to unironically apply revolutionary thinking to every little faucet of life. You end up looking like an insane Maoist at worst, and an annoying brat at best
The problem is people just use that thinking to justify whatever they're already doing.
If you want to talk about revolutionary principles I would think class solidarity and cooperation with your neighbors would be a lot better argument than "I should be able to do whatever I want without consideration for other because I'm working class so not letting me do whatever I want is suppressing the working class"
the personal is political. Every little facet of life is touched by and reciprocated by political and cultural ideology.
Everything is political, but that doesn't mean that "the revolution" is at stake when your neighbors are being noisy.
After you seal the deal with a socialist fraternal kiss, a Soviet is formed
The idea that either answer is the correct one from a socialist perspective is completely missing the issue.
(*I'm not directing this at anyone specific here, just about these kind of debates in general)
You assume the worst about people or only think in your own terms because you live in a society that is not only ruthlessly individualist, but actively pits you against everyone else.
You don't know and have some sort of mutual relationship with your neighbours because this hyper capitalist society has deliberately destroyed any sense of society and worked to dismantle communities.
The fact that you're working exhausted working two jobs, or some people work day shifts, others nights, others early mornings is because you're forced to by exploitative capital that has no interest in tailoring work to human need or paying a survivable wage.
If you're only emotional interaction with someone next door is when their noise irritates you or their actions seem to impinge on your ease of life, of course that breeds hostility.
But what if housing and architecture was built to have communal and public social space, with private spaces being that and utilising things like soundproofing and proper insulation? Instead of trying to cram as many paper-thin 'luxury' shoeboxes into a space to maximise absurd profits without the whole thing (hopefully, usually) collapsing or burning down?
What if you could make a decent living without having to work 12hour shifts, or two jobs, or nights? Then you'd probably be at that party, ideally in some communal space. Perhaps the party could be at an appropriate venue like a club instead of the flat, that would be affordable, and still exist instead of being killed by capital building overpriced luxury shoeboxes next to it, using the nightlife as a selling tactic, and then getting the owners who bought the flats as investments to petition the council to shut down the venues.
And perhaps people could choose where they wanted to live, have options that suited different lifestyles and preferences, be able to move jobs or careers. Instead of having to live in these sprawling banlieues of almost unaffordable but barely functional worker housing in order to live within commuting distance of economies centred entirely around tiny enclaves of the ultra wealthy capital class.
That reality might not be tomorrow, but it's possible.
Which neighbour is right isn't even a struggle session. It's just happily shit-flinging in service of capital's ongoing divide and conquer strategy, while refusing to even look at the real issue. And doing it on Twitter as though it's the most serious political question of our time only makes you, and the ideology you claim to prescribe to, look fucking idiotic.
Stop fucking arguing online and talk to your neighbour. Ideally start a tenant's group or something, but honestly just introducing yourself and giving them some banana bread or some shit would be a million times more useful than yelling on Twitter.
Yes. I get wanting to get sleep to be able to have my labor squeezed from me like I'm a lemon the next morning, but maybe I want to blast music or blast w/e yt shit so I can listen and get stuff done around the house without putting on headphones and potentially giving myself a headache because they're right up against my eardrums. We should all have the luxury of being able to make some sort of noise without upsetting another and that comes done to how our sardine cans are constructed and currently it's a race to save every penny and charge thousands by renting or selling.
I hate to be the centrist guy... but...
Yeah there are people who are too loud but then there's also people who will call the fucking cops if a cricket crips too loudly at the moon, not cuz it's actually bothering them but because they view not being able to 100% control their surroundings as an affront to their existence.
I've seen boomers flip shit over someone have a 5 person BBQ where they weren't even playing music, but someone laughed a bit too loud at a joke past sundown, THE HUMANITY!
Also if you live in a city I think you're implicitly consenting to having some noise going on at weird hours of the day. Sorry you can't live downtown and not have to deal with the occasional block party going on past 9pm, get a fucking white noise machine asshole.
Gotta love people who move somewhere then complain about the location.
We've got a small airstrip the next town over. Somebody moved into a house neighboring the airstrip then went to the hanger to try to find somebody to complain to about the fact that a bunch of loud planes were taking off and landing near him.
And this is a dirt runway with no lighting and no planes bigger than a 2 seater so it's not like it was jumbo jets landing at 10 pm.
Also, there are SO many easy ways to mitigate noise that even a working class person can afford. Some tapestries, curtains, rugs, a fan or two. Even if the walls are thin there's reasonable work around a that should muffle most noise, if people are being loud enough that that's not even working then yeah sure you have grounds to complain.
It really depends on how shitty the building is. I've lived in places where you can hear the neighbors cough, and the quiet old grandma walking around upstairs sounds like a horror movie staircase. The worst was a shared living situation where all the room doors were clangy metal.
You can't try to mitigate that, but you'll only get so far if the building is shit.
Yeah no I hear that.
That's the whole thing, there's a lot of debate to be had about what is and isn't reasonable behavior when it comes to being noisy, and it depends a lot of situational factors. There are totally both people who are too damn loud and people who throw a fit over totally banal levels of noise.
I have a very hard time understanding people who live in the city or suburbs and enthusiastically engage in anti-social behavior in general. Housing is literally half the price if you drive 30-40 minutes away, why are you here if you can't interact with other humans in a non-aggressive manner?
For me it's people who cover half their yard with "don't let your dog poop/pee/walk/breathe on my lawn" and "you're on camera" signs. If you didn't want that happening, you probably shouldn't have purchased a home in the suburbs. What are you going to do if my dog does pee on your lawn? Call the cops? I'm sure they will be thrilled to respond to that call. At the same time, fuck people who don't clean up their dog's shit (or bag it and just leave it there). Totally reasonable to get mad about that, but my senior dog is going to piss like 20 times on a walk and you're going to have to deal with three drops on your precious Kentucky bluegrass.
Also these houses tend to be pretty nice so like, I know you can fucking afford to go get some land in the country fucker. Sure your commute will be longer by wtf are you living in the city if you can't handle mild inconveniences?
I actually would love to go fuck off to some cabin in Vermont but sadly I can't work remote yet, if ever, and regardless I don't have the money yet. You can tho but apparently you chose to live near the noisy brown people you hate for some reason.
People get mad about dogs peeing in their front yard? Why? If anything it's free fertilizer.
Yeah there are people who are too loud but then there’s also people who will call the fucking cops if a cricket crips too loudly at the moon, not cuz it’s actually bothering them but because they view not being able to 100% control their surroundings as an affront to their existence.
The second ones are like 50 times rarer than the first. I lived in several places from country house to dense big city and i only ever met 2 of the second cathegory and one of them was absolutely justified by her neighbours being aggressive drunken lumpen that had cops called on them 3 times per week for other reasons too. And i won't even count the cases of dickheads with small brains but large loudspeakers. And the fucking loud dogs everywhere (surprisingly in the country they were the least problem, but in city there is tons of those small york shits that are very loud all the fucking day).
Nothing yells my-hedonism-uber-alles than blasting music to your kkkolonizers neighbours who were finally able to sleep their krakerling crotch-spawn
The bourgeois pig is the developer who colludes with contractors to put no sound insulation in the walls.
For hundreds of years you could just fill the wall with dirt, and it would make great soundproofing. This is what they stole from you.
common decency is not revolutionary praxis, being an asshole is not revolutionary praxis
NEITHER OF YOU ARE LENIN SHUT THE FUCK UP
im a centrist, i think your dickhead neighbors should be allowed a few loud parties & fireworks when appropriate, the more reasonable party in noise complaints is not automatically the one trying to sleep.
i also think people blaring music unreasonably loud for themself & pulling shit like turning it up when someone asks them to turn it down should be given wedgies by the state
My brother often talks about how line work drove his love of cooking out of him. Fortunately he's come back around on it and is doing a bit more lengthy cooking for pleasure, but damn it sucked the soul out of him.
Under communism building code for apartments will also include mandatory soundproofing in all walls and floors
Love how they're trying to say you're suppressing the rights of the working class person living in the apartment as if their neighbor in the identical apartment next door trying to sleep is some rich guy slumming it for shits and giggles.
how are you going to build communism when you can't even compromise with your neighbors. "Hey we want to have band practice on Thursdays and have a drum kit, is 10pm a good end time for you and would you like to come to our concert next month?" It's that easy. I think that some of the folks who start this discourse have little experience in close housing. When my neighbors are fucking I put in earplugs and go to sleep. I texted them a warning before I broke in my 1.5hp air compressor. Who cares.
Also, lots of people work night shifts, have babies, etc. We can't be be quiet 24/7 to accommodate all possible schedules; you have to talk to your neighbors to see what the individual situation is.
It's that easy.
Until you've got one person in the community who always says "No" to everything and another person who blatantly violates any kind of good faith efforts at compromise. Living together in close quarters with people of mixed minds is rarely easy. And while outreach is the first step, it isn't a panacea.
Sometimes you have to think a bit bigger than "Can I please do loud band practice in the space adjacent to the guy with a skittish dog?" Sometimes you have to talk about the idea of doing real communism - public band halls and practice rooms, improved insulation in buildings, an Apartment Stalin who will find and murder the guy who keeps spray painting over people's cars for the lolz.
I agree that talking to people is only the first step and that sometimes compromise is impossible. I think that discourse pictured in the OP is a waste of time because it doesn't consider the possibility of anything but a blanket-level set of norms. Either noisy or quiet, all the time and in every situation. Not every issue needs a structural solution: sometimes the neighbor brings their dog to the dog park every Saturday and you can have band practice then. Maybe they're cool with IEMs and an e-kit. Maybe practice needs to be at a different band member's place. I think that talking to your neighbors is the first step to things like a tenant's union asking the landlord for better insulation in the walls, or working together to find the guy who keeps fucking up their cars.
Every situation is different, but it's always been that easy for me. In my various small apartments I have never encountered a persistently anti-social neighbor. We bring each other misdelivered mail, feed pets while the other is away, shovel their walk, etc. I think that bad neighbors get over-represented online and most people want to be nice.
Every situation is different, but it's always been that easy for me. In my various small apartments I have never encountered a persistently anti-social neighbor.
I've had a lot of mixed experiences. My current neighborhood is incredibly pleasant and friendly, but the development of adjacent lots is periodically performed in the most obnoxious and intrusive manner seemingly possible.
The various apartments I've lived in have had lots of very pleasant neighbors. But a few really annoying ones stick out in my brain - we had a guy high on mushrooms screaming at the top of his lungs at 1am one night "They're trying to kill me!" over and over again. A not insignificant amount of drama really did just boil down to the quality of the construction. Thin walls versus thick. Open hallways versus covered. People throwing big parties at the community swimming pool who were happy to have someone come by, versus folks who gave you dirty looks if you so much as crossed through the space.
I think that bad neighbors get over-represented online and most people want to be nice.
The impact of a bad neighbor is far more pronounced than the impact of a good one.
Its definitely always helpful to reach out and be a friend. But not everyone has your good fortune.
I must express myself at the cost of everything and everyone around me is an inherent individualist and bourgeoise approach to living. You could quite literally, host a party on weekends, listen to loud music during off-hours before 10pm, wear headphones, invite your neighbor to jam some music. A million thing to be done before...I must play really loud music during sleeping hours.
as someone who is habitually nocturnal and partially deaf, so louder than most even when I'm trying to be quiet, both sides are equally right and wrong.All that I know is that I hate how annoyingly and continuously loud my neighbors are but I wouldn't call the cops about it.
I'm generally very quiet.
I wish my neighbors would just break up or get divorced already, they are constantly screaming at each other
My contribution to the discourse is that I dont think there should be inherently different standards for parties and single people when it comes to noise like this.
Whatever the standard is, you should basically get to do the same stuff if you are just alone in your apartment trying to let loose a little as if you have gotten a party together.
I think there's an unspoken understanding that people need to party every now and then and that social norms are somewhat relaxed in that context. We make concessions for people partying because we also want those concessions made for us. This holds up as long as they're not partying all the time making the same people make concessions for them.
There definitely is that understanding, I just think it should be more or less extended to single people as well, if you dont have any interest in big parties then there should still be concessions made for you, not just for "when its your time to have a party."
I guess you just have to be occasionally loud in a way that people understand is you using your license to party.
Here's a weird idea... what if there was designated space on every block (or in every apartment building) for gatherings?
We have that in our housing association. You still have to pay for it (hooray for capitalism) but it's a reasonable price if you have a big party and it's close to home. Having a space for gatherings also means that you can have all sorts of social activities happening. From monthly communal dinners to Christmas parties for the kids to concerts and town hall meetings.
Some housing associations also have small guest apartments that you can rent for a very reasonable amount of you're having guests staying over.
