I'm not a freemason, but from the outside it looks like it went the way of many other former political organizations and became essentially a community organization -- there was a lodge between my college and the Rite-Aid, and all their [visible] activities were things like car shows.
There are probably freemasons with blogs; I ran across one years ago, read through the archive, and got the impression that either they're a standard community organization or ~that's what they want you to think~. Given that the latter is indistinguishable from the former unless something breaks, starting a new organization sounds better than entryism -- at least assuming there are enough people to make it viable and useful.
Given that the latter is indistinguishable from the former unless something breaks, starting a new organization sounds better than entryism -- at least assuming there are enough people to make it viable and useful.
Better how though? I just meant that setting up our own organization and getting a viable initial population to join would be work, and it seems pointless if we'd achieve the same result by joining an existing one.
I recently stumbled over the relationship between freemasons and networks of social and economic influence (e.g. nobility).
I wondered what could be learned from a society which exists so long and has ideals that are not that far away from the LW goal of refining human rationality.
It is interesting to note that the freemasons seem to have highly tolerant and rational values. The freemasons orginated from independent craft guilds but became 'speculative freemasons' during the enlightenment and this is reflected in their commitment to tolerance and reason which builds on crafts traditions of teaching, truth, reliability and craft perfection. Somewhat problematic may be their unusual customs and the prejudice they face. Nonetheless they obviously can cooperate which our kind can't.
Note: I didn't attend any freemason meetings and don't know any details. What I read on Wikipedia was mostly asbtract. I might attend a meeting but unsure about it's value of information.
What do you think: What can we learn from freemasonry? What should be avoided? Is there any freemason here who might provide insights?
Relevants comments (no posts) on LW:
LW as a cult like freemasons.
LW as exclusive phyg
Interview systems for admission to LW
Use of prejudice about freemasons
A post about an LW symbol prompted this comment about freemason icons.