Is It Utopia Yet?: An Insider's View of Twin Oaks Community in Its Twenty-Sixth Year by Kat Kinkade

by Kat Kinkade

In 1973, Kat Kinkade's highly acclaimed A Walden Two Experiment told the country how a unique attempt at shared living had struggled and triumphed in its first five years. Now, with Is It Utopia Yet?, Kat brings us another lively, firsthand account of Twin Oaks' continued development as one of America's most prominent and successful cooperative communities.The book includes detail about some of the conflicts that Twin Oaks has lived through and the people who were caught up in them. Kat speaks frankly and thoughtfully about the changes Twin Oaks has gone through and her own changing role in the Community.As a bonus, the 320 page book also contains over sixty cartoons about community living from the pen of Twin Oaks member Jonathan Roth.What is it really like to live in a "Utopian" community? What happens to the high ideals of equality and social justice under the pressures of daily living with a continually-changing population of nearly a hundred people?Creating a new society presents many challenges- making a living, inventing a government, sharing the labor, raising children collectively, and reaching agreement about such things as diet, standard of living, and commitment to caring for the environment.Facing these tasks as a group means taking a hard look at the original principles. Does full economic equality really work? How far can a group compromise its ideals for the sake of holding its members? How much social conformity is necessary for peaceful cooperative living? Just how simple should the simple life be? Kat tells how these fundamental issues have been worked on through 25 years of communal living at Twin Oaks.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Utopia

Unknown Binding

First published August 1, 1994

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A FOLLOW-UP BOOK, FOR TWIN OAKS’ 25TH ANNIVERSARY

Author Kathleen Kinkade (who was one of the original 8 founders of Twin Oaks) wrote in the Foreward of this 1994 book, “This book is partly a report on how an egalitarian community is doing in its 25th anniversary year, and partly a record of my personal relationship with the community I helped to found, as it has moved beyond the original vision and become a creature of its time. I am the only one of the original founders to continue to live at Twin Oaks. This is my second book about Twin Oaks Community… I have tried to write this one in such a way that it can be understood independent of background reading… Among other radical departures, I should mention that Twin Oaks no longer claims any connection other than historical with ‘Walden Two’ or [B.F.] Skinner. Many parts of our organization and culture were in fact derived from ‘Walden Two,’ based on some of Skinner’s good intuitions. However, his central idea, behaviorism worked out on a community scale, was abandoned long ago.”

She explains in the first chapter, “As of spring 1993 we are a group of eighty-five adult members and 15 children, and those numbers are subject to change in either direction. The adults range in age from nineteen to sixty-eight, the children currently between infancy and sixteen… At least forty current members have lived here for five years of more, and nine of us for over ten years. Each adult member (whether single or married) has a private room in one of seven large residences. We share bathrooms (about one bath for every eight people) and living rooms, some of which double as libraries… We earn our living by a variety of cottage industries, chiefly the manufacture of rope hammocks. We have a modest income, considered ‘poverty’ by national standards and ‘luxury’ by some other intentional communities. The Community owns eleven cars and small trucks… which are usually maintained by our own mechanics. We also have two tractors and a couple of big trucks.” (Pg. 2)

She states, “I once tried to figure out what the factors are that account for Twin Oaks’ success to date… Here are some… we have enough work equality so that members don’t feel badly ripped off by each other… We keep enough money coming in… We maintain a communal economy and hold a rein on personal consumption… Out visitor program has provided us with a stream of new members to take the places of those who decide to do something else…. [We] do not insist on intellectual or spiritual conformity… We have freedom… We’re big enough to survive upheavals and turnover.” (Pg. 5)

She recounts, “It was not a love of pioneering that motivated me in 1967. It was a vision of community… The only thing that mattered was the glorious goal: Walden Two or bust! I didn’t get Walden Two, and this book explains why not… Walden Two idealism is nothing now but a quaint and somewhat embarrassing part of our history. What we created instead is a sturdy, modestly prosperous, self-governing community with no one ideological name tag beyond ‘egalitarian.’” (Pg. 13)

She observes, “after 25 years, I still think labor credits are… more a solution than a problem. Basically labor credits are Twin Oaks’ internal economic currency. One credit equals one hour of work… every member is required to work an equal number of hours for the Community each week… This year it’s 46 hours a week… it turns out to be a leisurely pace when one considers how much work it covers… house cleaning, shopping, childcare, laundry, cooking, mowing the lawn, doing household repairs… going to the doctor, voting in local elections, writing letters to Congress, going to relatives’ funerals, and repainting our own rooms, in addition to virtually unlimited sick time.” (Pg. 29-30) But she acknowledges, “In no way do I deny that there are problems with it… The labor credit system does nothing to control those few people who lie on their labor sheets…The system’s most serious flaw is one it shares with the wage system… people who set about earning labor credits as if they were dollars … are distract[ed] from the intrinsic worth and enjoyment of the work they are doing.” (Pg. 35-36)

She explains “our relatively strict financial rules…. We wipe out any gross economic differences among members… Communal earning and spending allow us to prioritize allow us to prioritize…. Expenditures that are basic to health and well-being… We have a meaningful tax advantage by being fully income-sharing… We do not get rich members… Social Security payments and child support come to the Community.” (Pg. 49)

She also recalls, “I left Twin Oaks, taking two members and some visitors with me, and we set out to form another community [East Wind] which would be like Twin Oaks in every way except one: we would never close our doors!... In response to the people who say to me, ‘But you said you would never leave Twin Oaks,’ I reply, ‘I didn’t mean to. I meant only to take a year off and get another group started, then come back home. But… I got caught up in the East Wind version of community and spent five years there.” (Pg. 87) Later, she adds, “What we seem to have learned from the branch experiment is that Twin Oaks can’t handle it. This is disappointing to me…” (Pg. 101)

She admits, “The children were not coming out quite the way we had expected. In defiance of carefully androgynous training, the girls fixed their attention ... on dolls, ruffles, and weddings, and the boys on trucks and tractors… The Community as a whole felt that communal child rearing was working fine.” (Pg. 92)

She recounts, “this problem [of communal cooking] has been complicated by a third major subdivision of eating preferences: Vegan/vegetarians… Giving in to one another and taking turns is not a Food War, Food Wars come when any one of these sectors dominates the diet…. Or makes discriminatory food policy...” (Pg. 119)

What about childhood education? “For years our children attended … a private cooperative school… [but it] closed in 1990… some parents successfully lobbied for an experiment in home-schooling… This effort was not entirely successful, either… At the end of the season some parents decided that the public schools could probably do as well as we could… The Montessori school turned out to be very good… It is hard to predict what will happen next.” (Pg. 145-146)

She explains, “Legal marriage, lifelong monogamy, and celibacy are not dominant patterns of relationships at Twin Oaks, though we have some of all of those. Both serious love affairs and casual sex are treated as normal and usual. Homosexuality for both sexes is accepted without great question or much excitement… Legal marriage is uncommon but still done occasionally… All of the above are matters of personal choice.” (Pg. 177)

She points out, “We have begun to ask ourselves… why do we have so few Black people, so few blue-collar men, so few gay men? We certainly do not discriminate along such lines. Minority group members usually meet friendliness and welcome when they visit. You could even say they are courted for membership. Yet they seldom join…” (Pg. 193)

She notes, “there is … an obvious New Age cultural ambiance at Twin Oaks… We have twenty kinds of herb tea in the snack kitchen. We subscribe to ten or fifteen radical leftist magazines… We go in for underwater births… nude swimming… and pagan rituals… however… these surface features … do not command the loyalty of all of its members… More than half of us do several of the following: eat meat, drink coffee, read Newsweek, go to regular AMA physicians… and kill flies with a clear conscience.” (Pg. 200)

She recounts, “Most of us can be trusted. What is so frustrating is that at any given time there may be one or two people who cannot, and we never know who they are… Some of the petty stealing has been done by our children. We didn’t find this out for years…” (Pg. 217) She continues, “Twin Oaks bylaws contain a list of legitimate cause for expulsion, including theft, physical violence, and the like. They do not include any mention of offensive verbal behavior, and there are times when we wish we did.” (Pg. 218)

She suggests, “Most Twin Oakers came here for two reasons. The first was to improve their own lives. Almost every conspicuous flaw they see in society at large is conspicuously absent and or at least toned down in this environment… The second reason is ... We came here to be of help to the world. We want our lives to have a positive impact on the globe.” (Pg. 223)

She concludes, “If this book stirs you to want to visit and maybe add your name to the waiting list, write to us… If you can’t join but want to give some financial help… [we] would be grateful… I’ve been frank enough about the problems of communal living. Obviously Twin Oaks isn’t Paradise… We can, however, strive for Utopia. Never mind that we haven’t quite got there yet. We’re working on it.” (Pg. 307-308)

In 2000 at age 70, Ms. Kinkade moved away from Twin Oaks. But after she developed breast cancer in 2008, she was invited to return to Twin Oaks, for end-of-life care. She died in 2008.

This book will be “must reading” for those studying such communities as Twin Oaks.

[Julie Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kat's reflection of her experiences founding and living in Twin Oaks is fascinating and informative. She thoroughly explains the theories that the community members tried to put into practice, and interpretation as to why it failed, but doesn't seem to lose faith that these things could be possible, still. For example, egalitarian schooling and child-rearing, in which the children are considered to belong to the community, and not their parents. My students study the theory & practice of raising children in an egalitarian society (according to Kat) while we read Lowry's The Giver. While I find the reasons why their theory doesn't work in practice in a community with high turnover to be the most interesting part of that section of the book, they are usually appalled at the theory!

What really stood out more than anything were the flaws, the frustrations, and a sadness that it never may quite become Utopia for them after all of these years trying. It does seem, however, like an ideal place for the adults to live, if even for a while. My favorite moment was when all this controversy and hostility erupted when Kat tried to have a microwave oven in her room. All this bitterness and hysteria over a microwave, as it was seen as something evil that would scramble the brains of all the poor children, etc. Ha!

I definitely gained some perspective and vital vicarious experience reading this book and I recommend it to anyone.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kat's memoirs are super interesting take on the Twin Oaks Community.
As much as she was a founder of Twin Oaks, it's clear that the community doesn't worship her every move. Her memoir contains many of these disagreements, including the spans where she left the community.
I was lucky enough to visit the community for a few weeks and finished this book while there. It's honestly incredible how much the community changed in between her first two books (year 5 and year 25); with much of what was written in this memoir still holding true at year 55.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a lively and opinionated look at the commune of Twin Oaks in Louisa, VA, from the perspective of a woman who was one of the founders, left for awhile, then returned and has lived there for many years. It's particularly interesting because in a lot of ways the author is not a "typical" commune dweller. She makes very clear that these are her own personal opinions as an insider, and doesn't try to create an objective history, which I think is good. She has a lot of really good commonsense thoughts for anyone who's interested in living in or creating an intentional community, though I also think that it might be of interest to others.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish the last couple of chapters, because I had to return it to the people I borrowed it from.

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading this novel in college my fiance and I actually went to Twin Oaks. I figured why not the society was only a few hours from my home and it was a chance to really think outside the box. I would never personally move there but I understand and appreciate the concept.

[Solentiname · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this book is Kat Kinkade, she founded Twin Oaks. A great lesson on solidarity and living together in a community

[John Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it. Was an insightful look into running a community, covering the nitty gritty, the fights, the resolutions. I loved the addition of the humorous cartoons to break up the chapters. Would highly recommend to anyone who is interested in community living.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is It Utopia Yet? offers a mixture of memoir and history with a focus on the economic strucutre and governance of Twin Oaks during the author's years living there. Kinkade was one of the original founders and lived there from 1967-1972, at which point she left to help found the East Wind community in Missouri. After living at East Wind for another five years, she returned to the outside world and tried living a middle class life in Boston with a straight job and a regular apartment. Realizing this was not for her, she returned to Twin Oaks in 1981 and lived there until 2000, at which point she moved out on her own to nearby Mineral, VA. In 2008, in the latter stages of metastatic breast cancer she returned to the Community, which provided end-of-life care for her. This book primarily covers the period between 1981-1993 (the book was published in 1994). An earlier book by Kinkade (A Walden Two Experiment: The First Five Years of Twin Oaks Community) deals with the initial years of Twin Oaks, and Ingrid Komar's book Living the Dream covers much of the intervening years.

Kinkade is completely transparent about the biases she has, which enables readers to learn a lot about Twin Oaks, while remaining fully aware that they are not getting the full story. For one, Kinkade is particularly interested in leadership and how it has manifested itself at Twin Oaks throughout its history (she had ongoing issues with what she perceived as the Community's dogged attachment to egalitarianism). Also, Kinkade fully admits to not being a very social person, and so the book does not provide much in the way of insight into the social milieu of Twin Oaks, although she does touch on some aspects. Kinkade solicited feedback on her manuscript from the Community and it was published with their blessing. The book is available, along with the other two mentioned above, through the Twin Oaks website.

[Unwisely · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not quite a memoir, but it's a very personal story of a communitarian (I mean commune, not the Etzioni flavor). She was a founding member of Twin Oaks and had come back to it. (She apparently also died there in 2008.) There have apparently been two other books written about that community (neither of which I've read), but it didn't matter that I knew nothing about it going in - she discussed enough about Twin Oaks that I was okay having no background. She talks a bit about the history, a bit about some people, and a lot about her experiences. What makes this book different than all the other ones out there is that Kit Kinkade is from a generation earlier than most of the memoirs I read - she is opinionated and somewhat curmudgeonly and doesn't hold a lot of the values common among the current hippie-types I know. She is frustrated by many things but sticks it out.

A good read for anyone who has thought about trying to live in an intentional community. I only wish she had written an update 15 years later to carry on the story.

[Pam]

I remember being very engrossed in this book as I read it. In our senior year of college, my now-husband and I took a class together, and it was awesome. The class was focused on utopian and distopian fiction and it got me reading books I never would have picked up otherwise, such as this one. Good times, and fond memories.