Experiments in Community

by Norman J. Whitney

Overview

The six essays in this pamphlet describe what are sometimes called intentional communities. A community is called "intentional" when it deliberately adopts a way of life, a type of culture, different from that of the society which surrounds it. As such, it may be perfectionist because, observing the faults of society in general and endeavoring to avoid them, it creates a so-called "utopia," in which a specific philosophy of life can be fully carried out without obstruction from persons of different ideology. It differs from the average village, which is an accidental aggregate based on geographical propinquity.

The usual village is not without certain concepts regarding the right way of living which the members generally share, but these conceptions prevail for the most part throughout the whole contemporary social structure. The intentional community on the other hand expects all its members to act according to the way of life it has adopted. As such, it is in the world but not of it. This creates a difficult problem. The community maintains itself by commercial and other relations with the world around it; to be other-worldly and this-worldly at the same time may prove too difficult. The world gradually seeps in, but this usually occurs when the founders have been replaced by their grandchildren, who have inherited the property but not the zeal and determination of the predecessors.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940150163249
Publisher:	Pendle Hill Publications
Publication date:	12/01/2014
Series:	Pendle Hill Pamphlets , #149
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	91 KB

About the Author

Norman Whitney was born in upper New York State, an area which, during the nineteenth century, nourished the spiritual explorations of a variety of groups, among them the Mormons, the Oneida Perfectionists, and the Shakers. Possibly the climate itself produced a taste for nonconformity, for during the author’s forty years of teaching at Syracuse University he developed and displayed a long-time interest in the nonconforming approach to religion and pacifism. This led to contact with the American Friends Service Committee, where he has worked, he assures us, as everything from office boy to board member, serving on the staff during World War II and as Director of Peace Education afterward.
His hobbies, too, have been unorthodox. Collecting intentional communities with the enthusiasm that some apply to postage stamps, he has visited and studied a number of groups whose members seek to live in the world but not of it. About them he has written vivid descriptive sketches which have found their way, from time to time, in his commentary, the “Spectator Papers.” The present pamphlet was culled from these sketches on a basis of personal selection and experience. It is prefaced with an introduction by Howard H. Brinton, Director Emeritus of Pendle Hill, who has long been a student of planned community.
Incidentally the author’s sister, Mildred C, Whitney, who also has worked for the Service Committee for many years, appears in these pages as “Hannah,” a fiction established in the “Spectator Papers.”