Washington University Cooperative

The title says it. This is our theme for the week, in the public course, "Cooperation, Sustainability, and Spirituality, " meeting this Sunday, September 21, at the Cervantes Coop House, 6036 Pershing Avenue (just across the street from "The Perry" Coop House), 4-5pm. This class is FREE, in every sense of the word. This week, in the Webster University class, we are discussing failed utopian experiments from the nineteenth century, including a community founded by Robert Owen. Apparently, failure to screen its members properly contributed to this community's demise. How can we do better? How can we screen members and maintain order, while maintaining an open network and freedom of initiative?

Here are some essay questions, relating to three utopian communities:

Discussion Questions on Utopian Communities (Please Add Your Own!)

Oneida

1) Discuss the mutual criticism sessions practiced by the Oneida Community. Would you want to be subject to such a system? Why or why not?

2) Discuss the complex marriage arrangements practiced by the Oneida Community. How important was “free love,” “amative sex,” for Oneida community building? What can we learn about sustainable community building from the Oneida experiment?

3) Discuss the eugenic experiments practiced by the Oneida community. Were these effective and justified?

4) How important were perfectionist religious beliefs for Oneida community building?

5) How important was charismatic leadership to the success of the Oneida Community?

6) How free was the “free love” practiced by the Oneida Community? Compare and contrast to LeGuin’s Anarres and the hippies of sixties America (and/or Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, a novel based to some extent on the Oneida experience, and greatly influential upon the hippie culture of free love). How can we prevent sexual abuse, use of sex for social control or personal power?

7) Why isn’t the Oneida Community around today (except as a brand name)? Why did Oneida succeed as a business, but fail as a community?

8) Do you think that the Oneida Community could have existed as a secular community? How central a role did religion play in the experiment?

9) A main reason's for Oneida's fall was the increasing frailty of Noyes and the absence of any personality to replace him. If Noyes had directed in collaboration or had trained younger members in anticipation of his retirement, would the Oneida community still have been the same? (pg 267)

10) "As part of the complex-marriage system at Oneida, women were formally freed to participate in almost all aspects of community religious, economic, and social life, in contrast to the far greater restrictions that they faced in the outside world" (262). Will women in our society ever reach this status? Or is it impossible without first stripping the women of their natural
roles and appearances, such as the Oneida did?

Hutterites

1) Discuss Hutterite agricultural practices. How sustainable is Hutterite farming and industry? [What do you mean by “sustainable”?] To what extent can this serve as a model for other communities, farms, and businesses?

2) Discuss the ideal and practice of communal ownership of property by Hutterite colonies, in imitation of the early Christians. Hutterites have abandoned and reestablished this practice at various times and places. Why is this so important? Why do they keep coming back to this? Is this a core value? Could it be a key to their success?

3) How important are Anabaptist religious beliefs for Hutterite community building? (Compare and contrast to other Anabaptist groups, e.g. the Amish and Mennonites).

4) How important has conversion been to Hutterite community building? How open to new ideas and “new blood’ have the Hutterites been? (Compare and contrast to the Amish and Mennonites).

5) Why are there so many successful Hutterite colonies today? Why has the Hutterite movement lasted for centuries, surviving persecution, dislocation, and virtual extinction? Are Hutterites more successful community builders than the Oneida perfectionists or the American Jewish agricultural colonies? What can we learn from them about sustainable community building?

6) Hutterite leadership is often chosen at random. Hutterites believe this is not really random, it is the work of the Holy Spirit, the source of all charisma. In the short run, this seems not to be a good system. Is it better in the long run to put one’s trust in divine charisma, rather than human charisma? Compare and contrast the Oneida Community and the Hutterite Colonies.

7) "Religiously, politically, and economically the Hutterites are most successful when interaction with the larger society exists on a limited basis." Is the ideal utopian community completely shut off from the rest of society? Is this possible? Is it possible to retain a separate community and still interact with the greater society? (328)

7) One of the Hutterite articles of faith is “governing authority, rejection of oaths, rejection of war, and rejection of participating in government but including a willingness to pay all tithes and taxes that did not support war” (325). Why did the Hutterites believe that social isolation, but not monetary isolation constituted one of their articles of faith? Would the Hutterites have been less migratory and have had fewer internal problems if they had participated in the government along with paying tithes and taxes?

American Jewish Agricultural Colonies

1) Discuss American Jewish agricultural practices. How sustainable are these practices? [What do you mean by “sustainable”?] To what extent can this serve as a model for other communities, farms, and businesses? (Compare and contrast to the Oneida Community, the Hutterites, and the Israeli kibbutz movement).

2) How important have Jewish religious beliefs been for the American Jewish agricultural colonies? (Compare and contrast to the Hutterites and the Israeli kibbutzim).

3) Why are there no Jewish agricultural colonies, and no “Jewish Farmer” magazine, in America today? Were the American Jewish farmers successful community builders, or not? If not, why did they fail? What did they contribute to American society?

4) Could the American Jewish agricultural colonies be reestablished? If you were to attempt this, which model would you use, the Hutterites, the Israeli kibbutz, or some other model?

Ishmael Questions

1) If you were given the chance to leave “Taker” civilization and become a “Leaver,” would you do it? Why, or why not?

2) What does Ishmael mean when he says that "to live at the mercy of the world" is not to "be truly man"? What does it mean to be truly man? (pg 68)

3) In Ishmael's story of creation only the gods have "the knowledge of who shall live and who shall die." Is there some higher Being/s that determine/s this? Do we have the right to control this on any level as Takers? Are we in an inherently hubristic battle with the gods/God? (160)

4) Consider the narrator's philosophy paper that examined the future of
the world if the Nazi's had won. Is this a plausible prediction? Would anyone eventually realize that they were being lied to? Are we being lied to right now?

General Questions

1) Ursula LeGuin obviously did a lot of research before writing her “Ambiguous Utopia,” The Dispossessed. Do you suppose she modeled her imaginary world on the Oneida community, the Hutterites, or the Jewish agricultural colonies (American or Israeli)?

2) Of the three American utopian communities in our readings for today, only one exists today. What makes a community a success? Is mere survival enough?

3) Is sustainable community building really possible? All organisms grow old and die. Some die in infancy, and some are stillborn. People die, but we honor their memory, and carry on the work of our ancestors. Why should communities be different? How can we honor the memory and preserve the legacy of utopian communities that are no more?

4) Would you want to live in the Oneida Community, a Hutterite colony, or an American Jewish agricultural colony? Would you want to live in Anarres or Urras? Please rank your preferences!