Hello all, I apologise if this is a little off-topic but this board on the forum seemed like the place where I'm most likely to find people who will be interested in this. Basically I'm forming an intentional community, based around some political philosophy of mine. Please have a look at the article I have posted at http://communityone.ourproject.org/members_motivations#article to find out what this is all about. There is a mailing list at http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/communityone-talk and I would ask that you direct discussion there, as I have posted this on numerous forums where I believe people may be interested. Below is a copy of the 'article': Code: ------------- Community One ------------- by John Preston (gizmoguy[the number one] [@t] gmail [d0t-c0m]) This document intends to explain my reasons for wanting to live in a commune, and what that commune should look like in certain respects. If you'd like to pick my brains a little more afterwards, e-mail me at the above address, replacing the square bracketed sections with the appropriate text. The working title for the commune is "Community One", and throughout the text it may be referred to by such, or by "the commune", "C1", or some other appropriate term. Why? ---- My main motivation is the greedy motivation: it's what I want. I want to live in a society that isn't harmful to nature (or perhaps I should say, is less harmful to nature), I want to live in a society where I have the freedom to do what I want (within the limits of our ethics, which we will discuss later), I want to live in a society where I don't have a care in the world, and where I can live each day as I wish, I want to live in a world free from higher government, capitalism, and injustice, I want to live out my days with some close friends. Moving to a commune is a great way to achieve these goals with maximum success. Another reason, which is much more important, is for the Book. The Book will be the total collection of all of the knowledge we (used throughout the rest of the article to refer to the future population of the commune) will have used to build C1. This may not seem too critical, but when you learn a bit more about what the commune will be like, you'll see why this mammoth task matters so much. In short, (I believe that) no other commune like this has been built, and as a key part of my philosophy I see providing this knowledge in the form of the Book as potentially revolutionary. If you're someone interested in living in such a society with me, I will likely find your reasons for why irrelevant. That's not to say I am not interested, but rather that it will probably have no bearing on our shared life together; it's not about any one's why, it's about our what. My philosophy ------------- As someone interested in politics and ethics, I find myself thinking about them a lot. My eventual move to the commune is merely a practical extension of my thought. Surely one should judge a philosopher by what he does, not what he says or thinks and then subsequently fails to do. There are a number of approaches to various problems I have pondered which have led me to my conclusions, but I'll start off with what I believe to be the easiest and strongest argument. I believe that legitimate action must come from an agreement beforehand between all parties affected by said action, and that all other forms of action are illegitimate. Two people should be able to fight to the death if they've both consented to it. Obviously, it can start getting more complex when you introduce other factors such as one's "state of mind", (and one can argue about the effects on their friends and family when someone dies, etc. It's not the best example I've ever made) but that's the core idea: consent, agreement, tolerance. From this, we quickly arrive at the conclusion that if one can move to live in a forest in an independent way that doesn't affect the rest of society, then one should be able to do so. This is what I'm doing with the commune, creating a fork of society that will exist independently, and that will hopefully co-exist with the current one (by which I mean the 'society at large' that you are likely in as you read this). What? ----- And so we arrive at the one unshakeable tenant, the core philosophy of the commune: complete independence. Now you can see why the Book is so important; such a task has not been documented before, and if it is documented then other people can read that documentation and make their own communes with ease. People will then have the ability to live as they want much more easily in their grasp. My philosophy (cont. I) ----------------------- I hypothesise that dissemination of the content within the Book will help to lead us to a new stage of social evolution. If new societies can be created, then we will see the rapid (compared to history so far) prototyping of social structures on a wide variety of scales. Want to live in a communist monarchy? No problem, just leave me alone. Want to see if capitalism works effectively with only a handful of people? Sure thing. By enabling 'society at large' to fracture in this way, we not only give the individual the power to live as he wants, but we also get more data about more 'radical' social structures, characteristics, and policies, and we create stronger feedback between societies and their inhabitants, which I foresee leading to a politics that better fits human nature, and that is more flexible to change over time. Not to mention the positive ecological effects of lower-tech, lower-population, distributed living (assuming such new societies follow our environmental ethos to some degree). All of that, of course, hangs on writing the Book and getting it out there, which is why I see the creation of the commune as something so important. What? (cont. I) --------------- As of writing (2012-01-18) I am the only 'resident' of C1, and so the entire vision for how it will look is mine. Naturally, I'm open to input from the rest of the populace, it's just that there isn't any one else yet. As I said before, I want to live out my days with my friends, so what I hope is that I can find other people who agree with my arguments, or just want to live in a similar way, and we can become friends and end up living together in a way similar to the one I envision. There are some things I feel strongly about, but I am willing to give way to reason in all parts of my life. The reason I often feel strongly about these things is because I believe them to be well-reasoned! That said, logic is my guide, and I would very much like to live with other people of a similar vein, perhaps causing C1 to become a "city of philosophers". The first key principle is the Principle of Complete Independence, as already discussed. This means we must have security in food, water, shelter, everything we will ever need. This also means that we must be able to replace everything we use in the construction of the commune. Complete Independence means not only the ability to be self-sufficient, but the ability to remain completely separate from any community for as long as desired, and for new communities to have the ability to form from ours, as is the purpose of the Book. If we can build a community using only tools that we ourselves can make, then we have created a complete split from our current society, not just for us but for the future generations of societies that may eventually arise. The second principle I hold dear is the Principle of Minimal Environmental Impact. Whatever we do will likely have some detrimental effect on the rest of nature, and I believe that such effects should be minimised, for the sake of all life on the planet. This also ties in with preventing unwanted interaction between separate societies, as the biosphere affects everyone, and so any damage to it will probably indirectly affect someone in an unwanted way, and that's just from a purely anthropocentric perspective. This principle means things like permaculture gardening, compressed earth construction, complete composting, etc. The third principle is the Principle of Consensus. We all live together, and as a small community I believe consensus decision making will work to provide the best form of government. This doesn't have to follow any strict rules, and there doesn't have to be any strict adherence to my theory of consent or any other ethical, political, or social paradigm. However, I think we should all listen to each other, and try to come to agreements on matters in the commune. As a small society, we need small government, and we should respect everyone's thoughts and opinions. When? ----- Forming a new society with these goals is a difficult task, and I foresee that this will take many years. As more people read this (and similar) documents, some will become interested in these ideas and in C1, if they do not start forming their own communities. After a network of us has been established and a definite population has been found, the next stage is the learning and mastery of all of the skills we will needs to survive. Years of research will have to be done, and many experiments will have to be conducted. We will have to be able to build houses, to make pots, to grow crops. Over time, as learning continues, our communication will result in the formation of friendships, and by the time we will have mastered the necessary disciplines for the formation of the commune, we will know each other well, and we will know who we do want to live with. As such, the educational stage can take place as an open affair not specific to C1, but as a global collaboration by interested individuals. This knowledge will form the basis for a preliminary copy of the Book. Soon after we feel we are ready, we will move out to form C1, where we can live in the reality of our own construction. Here, we will finish the Book, and this will be delivered into the larger society we will have left for dissemination. -- Thank you for your time. John Preston
John, Sound interesting to me! You might want to check out the place I live - The Lafayette Morehouse community. Since 1968 it has been an on-going social experiment to find out how a group of people can most pleasurable live together with the highest quality of life. Decisions are made by a process called "One No Vote", a form of consensus that guarantees that all viewpoints are heard and that everyone in the group has equal power. The community believes in freedom of expression - within the limits of consent of all parties involved - and, pragmatically, within the laws of the state of California, etc. There are three Morehouses (Oakland, Hawaii, Lafayette) of which the youngest is over 35? years old, and there are associated groups in NY and Atlanta that have been together for decades. We are not an eco-village, but we over the years we are becoming less and less harmful to our environment, and we've tried a lot of interesting experiments - buildings made of waste paper, home-made biodiesel, etc. etc. However, technology is not our long suit, we are social astronauts <smile> I think you would find our philosophy interesting, and you might find our social experience useful in both getting your group off the ground and keeping it going. In the process of setting up our group, we looked squarely at a lot of the issues that cause groups to fail, and tried many many things. We've even tried a number of different monetary systems. Best of luck!
I am pretty sure you can exert yourself from todays society legally and create your own laws, but by doing so I think its against the law to interact with anyone outside of your little "Commune" Like the U.S. and Cuba. Kind of bullshit to me that I have limits or even the fact that I have rights to be honest, we shouldn't even have a label for freedoms, they should just exist. I will leave it at that. I agree, I am totally interested. And if was you I would do this soon, a revolution is near in the U.S. Anarchy will break out soon my friend.
The "Atlanta Morehouse" - they don't really have a website, but here is what there is - it has a phone number & an email. http://atlantamorehouse.com/ Don't get confused with Morehouse college (which is in Atlanta) - you will get a million web hits on that.
Friends, thank you for your replies. I am sorry that I am only just getting back to you, I thought I had e-mail notifications tunred on but I didn't. I'm glad to see so many of you are interested, I thought my fellow hippies might be. I actually e-mailled LaFayette today asking about visiting sometime. It sounds wonderful. aesthetic: I believe it would be illegitimate to interact with the outside world anyway (unless an agreement was reached beforehand, see my definition of legitimate action), so this isn't a problem. This is also why self-sufficiency is necessary. logan et al.: What do you want to know? There's not much more to say really. This hasn't even entered the planning stage really, I need to drum up interest first. Much research and communication will have to be done by/between the interested parties, and my belief is that through this phase we will naturally discover if we are compatible to live together or not, so I think a long planning phase is essential to the life of the commune. Interestingly enough this seems to contradict the objectives a little, hmm...
