Small Scale Utopia

[Requia ☣]

Not exactly what I'm thinking of, but it fits well the goal I'm after (the commune or co-op or whatever is a means).

[Vaudeville Vigilante]

Okay, first off, I REALLY like this idea.  I've thought of it often over the past few years at least.  I think it can be done, but there are always limitations.  

If you haven't read Aldous Huxley's Island, I recommend doing so.  The story involves a small society of people living on an island for very similar reasons as yours, with very similar goals.  Don't finish this paragraph if you don't like spoilers, but if I understood what I read right, I think the way Island ends sort of shows that Huxley felt these kinds of small utopias only last so long, before the outside world starts to figure out what you're getting away with, and comes in and annihilates everything you've achieved.  Well, almost everything.  Depending on how long you can pull it off, much of what you've gained may be salvageable in some way or another for future endeavors.  The reason things fall apart in Island, iirc, is that the Islanders are sort of betrayed by one of their own, which falls in line I think with RAWs observations about organizational structures.

I watched a documentary, and have read quite a bit on the web about small urban communes, some which have failed miserably, and some which have been able to create, for a time, semi-self-sustaining communities.  If you've never heard of Orange Twin, I'd also recommend perusing their website http://www.orangetwin.com/village/index.html and reading about their successes thus far.  I haven't checked on them lately, but I know they have been planning, organizing, and raising funds and resources from members and outside supporters for years for a type of community they call a "Pedestrian Village".  They have had some measure of success establishing a land area with modern housing, generated electricity and solar power, propane tanks, self-sustained water supplies, and income generated by selling art, music, productions and performances made by members of the community.  As far as I know, they have all the modern conveniences that most Americans do, with many advantages that most Americans do not.  Part of their mission statement states:
"We want to create an integrated community in which the residents can live, work and pursue their interests. We hope our community can serve as a model of sustainable living, using viable solutions that do not further harm, but rather help to heal the earth."

I think if you're really serious about doing this, it can be done, but will require an immense amount of planning, organizing, resource pooling, possibly fund-raising, and serious dedication.  

[Elder Iptuous]

interesting link, VV
i'll have to check out the Huxley book (so that i can finish your paragraph)

[LMNO]

This also reflects the life cycle of artist communities.

1) rents are cheap in a shitty part of town, usually ex-industrial.

2) starving artists rent the lofts, and violate building codes by living in them.  No one cares, because it's a shitty part of the city.

3) the artists start helping each other out with food, repairs, safety, and ultimately artistic collaboration.

4) their block of the neighborhood becomes identified with "cutting edge art."  Newspapers begin reporting the innovations coming out of the "downtown _____ scene."

5) middle-class pricks who want to seem cool buy up property in the area.

6) rent escalates, forcing the artists out and destroying the scene.

7) rinse and repeat.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This also reflects the life cycle of artist communities.

1) rents are cheap in a shitty part of town, usually ex-industrial.

2) starving artists rent the lofts, and violate building codes by living in them.  No one cares, because it's a shitty part of the city.

3) the artists start helping each other out with food, repairs, safety, and ultimately artistic collaboration.

4) their block of the neighborhood becomes identified with "cutting edge art."  Newspapers begin reporting the innovations coming out of the "downtown _____ scene."

5) middle-class pricks who want to seem cool buy up property in the area.

6) rent escalates, forcing the artists out and destroying the scene.

7) rinse and repeat.

Sedona and Jerome, AZ, are ironclad proofs of your hypothesis.

[Reginald Ret]

Requia,
are you thinking about it in the way that John Robbs is with his advocating us to 'Tribe Up'?

Do you mean John Robb of the global guerillas blog?  I haven't been able to access it for a couple weeks now.  Hard to check.

How do you manufacture a strong community that protects, defends and advances the interests of its members?  You build a tribe.  Tribal organization is the most survivable of all organizational types and it was the dominant form for 99.99% of human history.  The most important aspect of tribal organization is that it is the organizational cockroach of human history.  It has proven it can withstand the onslaught of the harshest of environments.  Global depression?  No problem.

If you are like most people in the 'developed world,' you don't have any experience in a true tribal organization.  Tribal organizations were crushed in the last couple of Centuries due to pressures from the nation-state that saw them as competitors and the marketplace that saw them as impediments.  All we have now it is a moderately strong nuclear family (weakened via modern economics that forces familial diasporas), a weak extended family, a loose collection of friends (a social circle), a tenuous corporate affiliation, and a tangential relationship with a remote nation-state.  That, for many of us, is proving to be insufficient as a means of withstanding the pressures of the chaotic and harsh modern environment (D2 in particular).

The solution to this problem is to build a tribe.  A group of people that you are loyal to you and you are loyal in return.  In short, the need for a primary loyalty to a group that really cares about your survival and future success. 

So how do you build a tribe?  A strong tribe, in this post-industrial environment*, isn't built from the top down.  Instead it is built organically from the bottom up.  A simple tribe starts with cementing ties to your extended family, a connection of blood.  The second step is to extend that network to include other families and worthy  individuals.  A key part of that is to build fictive kinship, a sense of connectedness that leads to the creation of loyalty to the group.  That kinship is built through (see Ronfeldt's paper for some background on this):

    * Story telling.  Shared histories and historical narratives. 
    * Rites of passage.  Rituals of membership.  Membership is earned not given due to the geographic location of birth or residence.
    * Obligations.   Rules of conduct and honor.  The ultimate penalty being expulsion.
    * Egalitarian and often leaderless organization.  Sharing is prized. 
    * Multi-skilled.  Segmental organization (lots of redundancy among parts).
    * Two-way loyalty.  The tribe protects the members and the members protect the tribe.   If this isn't implemented, you don't have a tribe, you have a Kiwanis club.

The development of fictive kinship will likely be key to the development of resilient communities (as it is already for global guerrillas).  We can already see this process at work in the UK's Transition Towns movement with their story telling, honoring elders, re-skilling, and leaderless approach (see the 12 steps).

*Nationalism is a form of fictive kinship manufactured/bent to serve the needs of the state during our industrial phase of economic organization.

sounds like peedee

[The Good Reverend Roger]

sounds like peedee

PD goes away when I turn off my computer, though.

[Faust]

I can't even accomplish a one man utopia, increasing the scale at all makes it seem impractical to me.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I can't even accomplish a one man utopia, increasing the scale at all makes it seem impractical to me.

7 people is the absolute limit, and then only if at least 6 of them are passive types.

[Richter]

I like the cheap shity artist space idea, myself.  It'd allow some seperation, no forced constant community, which is where I see humanity REALLY starting to fuck things up in any commune - esque idea.  

I've got one or two scouted out in the NE, and am considering bailing to one if the current dwelling situation melts down.  

[Vaudeville Vigilante]

EDIT: I forgot to include the post I was referring to.

This also reflects the life cycle of artist communities.
1) rents are cheap in a shitty part of town, usually ex-industrial.
2) starving artists rent the lofts, and violate building codes by living in them.  No one cares, because it's a shitty part of the city.
3) the artists start helping each other out with food, repairs, safety, and ultimately artistic collaboration.
4) their block of the neighborhood becomes identified with "cutting edge art."  Newspapers begin reporting the innovations coming out of the "downtown _____ scene."
5) middle-class pricks who want to seem cool buy up property in the area.
6) rent escalates, forcing the artists out and destroying the scene.
7) rinse and repeat.

This is why I think it is a better idea to actually acquire ownership of some piece of land.  Chances are, someone will come in and steal it out from under you at some point, but I'd bet it will take them longer than LMNO's example.

I also forgot to mention in my first post that to make this idea work, you'll need a shitload of Luck.  One of two things seems to happen to people who go out on a limb to live life on their own terms.  If they are Lucky, they are fairly successful, sometimes very successful.  As for the others, they get chewed up, digested, regurgitated and burned in a compost.  I'm pretty sure that if there were a statistical analysis on this, I wouldn't want to see it.

[LMNO]

If you can afford to buy property, you're probably already a middle-class prick.



LMNO
-"I'll be your mirror..."

[Vaudeville Vigilante]

If you can afford to buy property, you're probably already a middle-class prick.
LMNO
-"I'll be your mirror..."

Not necessarily.  See the aforementioned -> Orange Twin.

[Elder Iptuous]

I'm a middle class prick, looking for land.
but i don't want any hippy artists clogging it up with their colorfully muraled housing and crappy acoustic guitarring.
I would consider firearms to be an effective way of determining whether the land i find is suitable.

[Vaudeville Vigilante]

I'm a middle class prick, looking for land.
but i don't want any hippy artists clogging it up with their colorfully muraled housing and crappy acoustic guitarring.
I would consider firearms to be an effective way of determining whether the land i find is suitable.

Probably still doable.  I think this falls in line with the "sharing a vision" thing.