LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Historical Presentation 2005
Devon Kitch
60s Communes & Intentional Communities
Houston Chronicle
October 30, 1996
“Communes.
Remember them? Sixties college kids in tie-dyed shirts and dirty cut-offs,
with dilated pupils and frantic parents, nattering on about getting back to the
land. Seventies yuppies trailing
greedy gurus into American hamlets with exotic names, like Antelope.”
“Communes.
Most died; others changed and survived.
And now they’re finding new appeal.”
“Schaub
and his communards believe that that interest in communal living is climbing
again in this country because many Americans, with their lives and work
relegated to suburban homes and vast, lay-off prone corporations, are looking
for ways of increasing isolation and financial insecurity.”
“One
element that almost all intentional communities do have in common- at least in
theory- is the sense of belonging that many people believe is seeping out of
mainstream culture”
“There
seems to be a sense- and sociologists are trying to make sense of it- of the
weakening of strong ties between people”
“There
is still the need in the human being for warm, holistic interaction.
There’s the need for community”
*Ecotopia
-friendship communities, emotional support
(writers group)
-back to the land
The New York Times Monday, August 3, 1998
“The
later, more successful communes, he said, were a result of lessons learned in
the early movement: ‘there has to be some leadership and decision-making, some
control of membership, that you can’t sell drugs to people in town, go skinny
dipping in the town pond and offend your neighbors.”
“Then,
all these years later, Mr. Houriet’s eyes filled with tears and his voice
choked up. ‘There was a brief,
shining moment when we knew it could work,’ he said, scanning the panel of his
fellow communards. ‘We knew it could work, but we blew it.’
http://60sfurther.com/Communes.htm
Objective
3-- Given the fact that utopian
communities always fail (usually sooner rather than later), what historical
critique of utopia is possible…for instance, the fact that people continue to
imagine or attempt utopias.
History:
Rachel
Meunier- grew up in The Farm
*communes
existed since history has been recorded
-Puritans in Mass. Bay Colony
-Late 1960’s more than 2000 communes were
formed
*Causes
of the commune movement:
1.)
Industrial boom post WWII leading to the young people’s feelings of
estrangement,
isolation, impersonalization
2.)
Technology, the atomic bomb and television, made them feel detached
-TV coverage of Vietnam War
3.)
Political scandal (Watergate)
-Assassination of JFK, Bobby
Kennedy, MLK
-4 students at Kent killed
-2 black student killed in Jackson
-Assassination of Black Panther
leadership
*Factors
caused a feeling of detachment among the youth, both educated and uneducated.
*2
types of communes
-Anarchistic
-Intentional
The Farm
*Stephen
Gaskin-former English teacher at San Francisco State U
*Haight-Ashbury-street
where college drop-out conglomerated and experimented
*Stephen
began holding alternative classes discussing Taoism, the I Ching, Magic and Mysticism, as well as other
beliefs.
*He
was asked to travel the country and speak at different schools.
-The tour ended up a four month caravan b/c so
many followers went with Steven and people joined along the way…
“In 1971, 300 San Fran hippies loaded up their kids in brightly colored, old
school buses and left to criss-cross the country in search of the perfect place
to create a utopian community. Calling
themselves the Technicolor Amish, they landed in Summertown, TN.
They called it The Farm, one of the most famous, longest-running communes
in the country. W/ more than 1500 people living together at its peak!
Early
days:
-open
membership “your badge is your belly-button”
-naïve
optimism of human nature…rescue you from nightmare of American culture
-reverence
for sacred drugs…LSD
*Perhaps the hippies were not the first
communal druggies; the shakers after all,
had been major producers of Opium.
-free
love
*multiple partners
*multi-lateral relationships
*no commitment
*no boundaries
*Oneida community:
group marriage involving hundreds of members that lasted for
over thirty years.
Later:
*traditional
family values (4 marriage and 6 marriage)
-monogamic social order promised greater
long-term social stability
-after 1972-3,mahority practiced monogamy, with
prohibitions on promiscuity and pre-marital sex.
*if
you wanted to join, you had to be faithful.
If you had sex you were engaged, pregnant, you were married.
*people
encouraged to choose a job they desired
*anti-materialism-
not having more than necessary
-rejection of capitalism
-return to the basics
*vegetarianism-
more food around the world if they ate soybeans instead of cattle
*no
alcohol, cigarettes, or hard drugs
*Re-personalize
society, making person to person relations the core of existence to promote
greater intimacy and fuller human development
*competition
replaced by unity and cooperation
*Economics-
Book of acts “Those who believed shared all things in common; they would sell
their property and goods, dividing everything on the basis of each one’s
needs.”
*1982-Gate
closed
Religion:
“Energy and love that pass in the here and now”
Trinity
of sacraments= sex, marriage, and
childbirth
Birth
control:
*Until
1978, they did not believe in artificial birth control…after, any method was acceptable.
*Abortion
prohibited-farm
served as a supportive birthing environment for young, unmarried women.
-A standing offer had been made to pregnant women: “ Don’t have an
abortion.
You can come to The Farm and
we’ll deliver your baby and take care of it, and if you ever decide you want
it back, you can have it”
Statement:
Goals of the community can be described as restorationist than as progressive.
What do you think?
Does
this go along with Objective 3b? What
is utopia’s relation to time? Does
it stop time or does it evolve?
Objective
3c…is the utopian impulse universal, become extinct or evolved,
progressive/liberal or reactionary/conservative.
Objective
3e… what social structures, units, or identities does utopia expose, extend,
or frustrate? What changes
in child-rearing, feeding, marriage, aging, etc, as a result?
Wheeler
ranch pictures:
http://www.imaginationwebsites.com/folkseden.html
http://www.imaginationwebsites.com/folksdixie.html
http://www.imaginationwebsites.com/folksfeastgroup.html
http://www.imaginationwebsites.com/folkspeace.html
People
wanted to get back to the land, but did not have much organization.
Findhorn-Scotland
*Began
in 1962
- The Findhorn
Foundation is the educational and organisational cornerstone of the Findhorn
Community, and its work is based on the values
of planetary service, co-creation with nature and attunement to the divinity
within all beings. We believe that humanity is engaged in an evolutionary
expansion of consciousness, and seek to develop new ways of living infused with
spiritual values. We have no formal creed or doctrine. We recognise and honour
all the world's major religions as the many paths to knowing our own inner
divinity.
-. The land in the caravan park was sandy and dry
but he persevered. Dorothy discovered she was able to intuitively contact the
overlighting spirits of plants - devas - who gave her instructions on how to
make the most of their fledgling garden. Again Peter translated this guidance
into action, and with amazing results. From the barren sandy soil of the
Findhorn Bay Caravan Park grew huge plants, herbs and flowers of dozens of
kinds, most famously the now-legendary 40-pound cabbages. Word spread,
horticultural experts came and were stunned, and the garden at Findhorn became
famous.
God
spoke to me-
by Eileen Caddy (still in print after 35 years!)