3. Place, membership, rootlessness
Hong Kong childhood, three decades in England, eleven years in California: rootless by his own account. Wendell Berry writes for people who already have a place; James asks what rootedness means for the rest of us.
Answer in progress: porous-community. First commitment is to the place and the beings in it, non-human included. Membership by presence, not heritage: if you are here, your ways matter, you care for the place and others care for you. Tradition respected by default but can't override some people's needs for others'. Bounded without being frozen; most communities need rebuilding around who and what is actually there now.
Connections: the idea of departure-in-place, foundational to all the threads (the writing is his, see writing-is-his; revised 2026-10-26: was "the book … out of scope for research"); practical inquiries local-low-dependency-living (East Bay, or does it require moving?) and post-purpose-towns (Western towns that outlived their industry; Richmond and El Cerrito may already be the field, see local-archives).
Open: what rootedness means for the rootless; whether the East Bay can hold a low-dependency, high-responsibility life.
Live: one of his open threads. Re-check with James before relying on it.
Provenance: james-open-threads.md, uploaded by James 2026-10-11, assembled from his own descriptions, autumn 2026 (unverified). Disposition: live.
Related: porous-community, philosophy-of-technology, local-low-dependency-living, post-purpose-towns, departure-in-place