The Fatal Flaw In All "Planned" Communities
By SpaceshipEarth.com
"Lewis Mumford's first book, The Story of Utopias (1922), outlined with prescient accuracy the fatal flaw in all "planned" communities. On paper, utopias appear to be reasonable alternatives to the status quo. In practice, however, they tend to have no room for alternative utopian visionaries -- anybody whose own views might be at variance with the original plan -- which is why utopias, from Plato's Republic to the many utopian experiments on American soil, tend all too easily and often to become totalitarian."
Reference: Battle of the Titans: Bucky Fuller and Lewis umford offered contrasting ways of looking at technology and ivilization, by Scott Eastham.
Moral: Focus on the broad view (sustainable, ecological living), embrace social diversity, and don't sweat the small differences.
A community, a real community, is made up of a diversity of lifestyles, jobs, skills, incomes, political views, philosophies, religions, sexual orientation, educational backgrounds, interest, diets, taste, opinions, etc., etc., etc. A community implies diversity.
There have been many attempts at new, alternative communities that failed. I'm confident that so many have failed because of a narrow focus of interest that suffocated the life out of the community. The most bitter infighting I've ever seen was among communities of people with a narrow focus of interest. And this has been observed by others as well. The most dynamic and successful communities are culturally rich. They grow and prosper because they are attractive to so many people. They're a lot like a three ring circus. There's always a multitude of interesting, entertaining, and challenging things going on. The more diverse the community the more tolerant and accepting the community is of differences among residents, and this makes it more livable for everyone. A narrowly focused community becomes intolerant of every minor difference making living intolerable for everyone.
Answers to humans social problems can always be found in nature. The success of an organism is directly related to the diversity of genetic material that allows it to adapt to a wide variety of conditions. A healthy ecosystem consist of a wide variety of organisms. Take away much of the diversity and the whole system breaks down. Even in the "sterile" confines of a space colony or an artificial Biosphere, the inhabitants must introduce as wide a variety of organisms as possible, especially microorganisms, to prevent pathogens from taking over, and to prevent the collapse and decay of the life support systems. When the genetic material in an organism becomes too narrow and refined that organism is soon to become extinct. Ecosystems breakdown and collapse with the loss of diversity. In a monoculture of a single species pest and disease spread rapidly. Diversity is the essence of a thriving community, social or ecological.
People who talk about building a community based on a single "lifestyle" also talk about what a wonderful thing "cultural diversity" is. They say that they cherish and embrace cultural diversity on the one hand yet shun differences on the other. There are many people of diverse lifestyles and mind styles that want to live in alternative communities. What do they want that is different from existing communities? One thing they often seek is greater acceptance, appreciation and support for their lifestyle, and thus they think they want to form a community of their own "kind," separate from other "kinds" -- a monoculture. But the average life span of these New Age monoculture communities is only about three years -- they seldom even get off the ground. I think that they suffer from a narrow vision and a lack of cultural diversity that would make the community dynamic.
Studies in anthropology and evolutionary biology found that overspecialization is the cause of extinction for both human cultures and plants and animals. If there's one thing we've learned from nature, it's that diversity is the key to success. One overarching feature that every alternative community seems to seek is harmony with nature. That's a good start, but we must first understand that nature thrives on diversity and becomes stunted and dies with overspecialization. The world needs culturally diverse communities that are in harmony with nature. They are our only hope for human survival. Focus on developing a sustainable, ecological, economically viable community that embraces cultural diversity and success is assured. A monoculture community intolerant to differences of lifestyle and opinion or alternative utopian visions will soon become extinct.
The question is how much does this apply to the kind of community we're discussing here, and how do we do it? If we're ever going to get other people to see our world-view, we're going to have to include them in our world. I've noticed that the guiding focus of alternative communities is a desire to live in harmony with the Earth. That's a good start!. It's a firm foundation to begin building from. I think it's an interesting and important topic of discussion; how to include a diversity of lifestyles in an Essene community. Will it create more problems than it solves and alienate the people we most want to attract? Is this an important part of our outreach program? Any community we build is going to be connected to the outside world. How close should those connections be, and shouldn't we make the closest connections with those that share our vision of living in harmony with the Earth, but may not share our other core beliefs? I think there are many difficult questions in dealing with this, too many for me to ponder right now.
SpaceshipEarth.com
|