What do you think?
Rate this book
A Walden Two Experiment
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1973
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 10, 2024
A FASCINATING OVERVIEW OF THE TWIN OAKS COMMUNITY
B.F. Skinner wrote in the Foreword to this1973 book, “What should a person do when he does not like his way of life? The Utopian answer is clear: Build a better one. But of course it is easier said than done… And to most people the word ‘Utopia’ still means impossible. New ways of life have nevertheless been explicitly designed and built/ The blueprints of workable religious communities are to be found, for example, in the Rule of Augustine and the Rule of Benedict… But in the 16th and 17th centuries glowing reports of life in the South Seas suggested the possibility of heaven on earth… Etienne Cabet’s ‘Voyage en Icarie’ seemed to promising that Cabet and a group of followers left France in the 1850s to build Icaria…many similar communities were being founded in the United States at that time. Conditions were unusually favorable for such ventures in the 19th century… Contrary to popular belief, most 19th century communities were economically successful. If Utopia continued to seem impossible, it was because there were other problems to be solved. The important ones concerned personal relations.” (Pg. v-vi) “Whether or not the kind of life I described in ‘Walden Two’ was feasible and worthwhile … remained to be shown. Kat Kinkade and her associates founded Twin Oaks, in … Virginia, in 1967 on the model of Walden Two. What happened to them is told here with delightful and disarming candor.” (Pg. ix)
Ms. Kinkade wrote, “When we first came here we knew nothing of farming or any other way of making a living, other than working for wages… What we did know was what kind of a world we wanted to live in. Of the eight people who started this Community, only two are still here. But the central idea of the Community has not changed. We are still after … a better world, here and now, for as many people as we can manage to support… A large part of our group were dropouts from universities and colleges.” (Pg. 5) She continues, “For my part, it was more than political ideology that brought me to turn my energies to community… At the time I read ‘Walden Two’ I was 34 years old, divorced, raising a child, and making a living working at office jobs. I wanted to get into an environment where I would find more interesting people to talk to…” (Pg. 7) She adds, “The average Community member… is 23.5 years old and has two years of college… quite intelligent… familiar with counter-culture values and definitely not interested in the jobs that he could get working for the corporations.” “ (Pg. 13)
Of the first July and August, she recounts, “Pete and Rosa were trying to get adjusted to community living, especially profane language, sexual freedom, and a general atmosphere of chaos. Their baby, Maxine, was taking a great deal of our time and attention… [By spring] Pete and Rosa finally gave up trying and went away.” (Pg. 32-33)
She notes, “Neither is there any truth in the classic assertion that there is no incentive to work without personal financial gain. We have members who have the same intense dedication to their work that characterizes happy professionals in the competitive outside world. Their involvement is with the work itself and with building the Community.” (Pg. 49)
She explains, “In general our approach to systems has been to take first the one proposed in Walden Two and stick to them as long as they work well. As we find fault with them, we then make changes to correct the faults and make the systems fit our situation better. Skinner’s book has been of immense service to us in giving us a point of general agreement for a starting place. Because we have Walden Two, we do not need a leader or teacher. Cooperation of possible because we have all… agreed upon the general principles of the community described in that book.” (Pg. 56-57)
She acknowledges, “The single biggest problem this Community had in trying to get on its feet was membership turnover. Turnover… has crippled us repeatedly and prevented us from going into skilled business… ‘Why do people leave?’ The answer is this: Because we aren’t Utopia yet. We don’t have a perfect life. There are things missing. There are problems we haven’t solved. We have not achieved Walden Two.” (Pg. 108-109)
But she later adds, ”One of the reasons we are on our feet in 1971 is that we have closed our doors temporarily to families with children.” (Pg. 129) She continues, “In 1969 we definitely clamped the restriction down. No More Children. Not until we have a children’s house and a children’s staff who can take care of them properly, Not until we have our own children who aren’t going to get up and leave, wasting all our time and energy and emotion.” (Pg. 145)
She states, “Monogamy was so common among us in the beginning that single people found life with us intolerable… This pattern broke down in the summer of 1968 when a large number of young people joined the Community at about the same time. From then until now sexual freedom has been the Community’s norm, both in theory and in practice. This, of course, includes monogamy. We don’t have anything against monogamy, as long as it is desired by both parties.”” (Pg. 164-165)
She admits, “To this day we are not quite certain how to act when neighbors visit us. We show them around if they haven’t seen the place before. But it isn’t always a showplace that we are proud of. More often than not it is untidy or even dirty, and we sense that they would certainly not receive company in their homes unless then had cleaned up first.” (Pg. 183)
She reports, “From time to time Twin Oaks has been plagued by misunderstandings and group friction that has polarized the Community into mutually hostile groups. This polarization never lasts long, and with each issue that divides us, the division takes place along different lines. Such division as planners versus ambitious nonplanners, competent people versus tolerant people, agriculture lovers versus agriculture critics, new culture versus youth culture, and so forth, will find any given member first lined up with certain others, then with a different group on a different issue.” (Pg. 212)
She acknowledges, “The truth is that having visitors is part of Twin Oaks life. Our membership turnover would long ago have killed the Community if we had not been able to fill the empty spaces with people who originally came here as visitors. Three quarters of our current members were visitors at one time.” (Pg. 217)
She clarifies, “Another frequently recurring dispute is the question of our obligation to bring about social change in America---more specifically, what we are doing for the ‘Revolution.’ The Walden Two line is clear here… a Walden Two community is not political, and that we will be doing all we can do simply by being a successful community, providing an alternative, and being an example.” (Pg. 230)
But ultimately, “a Walden Two community is not a hierarchy. Nobody is on top of anybody.” (Pg. 243)
She notes, “[In] the foregoing chapters … I have concentrated on the conflict, and the resulting presentation of Twin Oaks is badly unbalanced… conflict notwithstanding, we have a very good life here. If we aren’t Utopia, we are still happier than most people.” (Pg. 246)
She concludes, “There is no end to where we can go from here. Dwight used to say that if the commune movement ever got big, the Government would close it down. That’s his guess. Mine is that it won’t. My guess is that we can keep growing until we run out of people who would be better off than they are now if they went communal. That time is a long way off.” (Pg. 271)
Kat Kinkade left Twin Oaks for the East Winds community for five years, once. Today the community has largely turned away from Skinner's original vision, but has developed into one of the most successful intentional communities in North America, and is committed to "sustainability" as an eco-village. (See Kinkade's 1994 book, 'Is It Utopia Yet?: An Insider's View of Twin Oaks Community in Its Twenty-Sixth Year,' for an updated perspective.) For persons interested in intentional communities, communes, utopian societies, Walden Two, and B.F. Skinner, this book will be fascinating reading.
B.F. Skinner wrote in the Foreword to this1973 book, “What should a person do when he does not like his way of life? The Utopian answer is clear: Build a better one. But of course it is easier said than done… And to most people the word ‘Utopia’ still means impossible. New ways of life have nevertheless been explicitly designed and built/ The blueprints of workable religious communities are to be found, for example, in the Rule of Augustine and the Rule of Benedict… But in the 16th and 17th centuries glowing reports of life in the South Seas suggested the possibility of heaven on earth… Etienne Cabet’s ‘Voyage en Icarie’ seemed to promising that Cabet and a group of followers left France in the 1850s to build Icaria…many similar communities were being founded in the United States at that time. Conditions were unusually favorable for such ventures in the 19th century… Contrary to popular belief, most 19th century communities were economically successful. If Utopia continued to seem impossible, it was because there were other problems to be solved. The important ones concerned personal relations.” (Pg. v-vi) “Whether or not the kind of life I described in ‘Walden Two’ was feasible and worthwhile … remained to be shown. Kat Kinkade and her associates founded Twin Oaks, in … Virginia, in 1967 on the model of Walden Two. What happened to them is told here with delightful and disarming candor.” (Pg. ix)
Ms. Kinkade wrote, “When we first came here we knew nothing of farming or any other way of making a living, other than working for wages… What we did know was what kind of a world we wanted to live in. Of the eight people who started this Community, only two are still here. But the central idea of the Community has not changed. We are still after … a better world, here and now, for as many people as we can manage to support… A large part of our group were dropouts from universities and colleges.” (Pg. 5) She continues, “For my part, it was more than political ideology that brought me to turn my energies to community… At the time I read ‘Walden Two’ I was 34 years old, divorced, raising a child, and making a living working at office jobs. I wanted to get into an environment where I would find more interesting people to talk to…” (Pg. 7) She adds, “The average Community member… is 23.5 years old and has two years of college… quite intelligent… familiar with counter-culture values and definitely not interested in the jobs that he could get working for the corporations.” “ (Pg. 13)
Of the first July and August, she recounts, “Pete and Rosa were trying to get adjusted to community living, especially profane language, sexual freedom, and a general atmosphere of chaos. Their baby, Maxine, was taking a great deal of our time and attention… [By spring] Pete and Rosa finally gave up trying and went away.” (Pg. 32-33)
She notes, “Neither is there any truth in the classic assertion that there is no incentive to work without personal financial gain. We have members who have the same intense dedication to their work that characterizes happy professionals in the competitive outside world. Their involvement is with the work itself and with building the Community.” (Pg. 49)
She explains, “In general our approach to systems has been to take first the one proposed in Walden Two and stick to them as long as they work well. As we find fault with them, we then make changes to correct the faults and make the systems fit our situation better. Skinner’s book has been of immense service to us in giving us a point of general agreement for a starting place. Because we have Walden Two, we do not need a leader or teacher. Cooperation of possible because we have all… agreed upon the general principles of the community described in that book.” (Pg. 56-57)
She acknowledges, “The single biggest problem this Community had in trying to get on its feet was membership turnover. Turnover… has crippled us repeatedly and prevented us from going into skilled business… ‘Why do people leave?’ The answer is this: Because we aren’t Utopia yet. We don’t have a perfect life. There are things missing. There are problems we haven’t solved. We have not achieved Walden Two.” (Pg. 108-109)
But she later adds, ”One of the reasons we are on our feet in 1971 is that we have closed our doors temporarily to families with children.” (Pg. 129) She continues, “In 1969 we definitely clamped the restriction down. No More Children. Not until we have a children’s house and a children’s staff who can take care of them properly, Not until we have our own children who aren’t going to get up and leave, wasting all our time and energy and emotion.” (Pg. 145)
She states, “Monogamy was so common among us in the beginning that single people found life with us intolerable… This pattern broke down in the summer of 1968 when a large number of young people joined the Community at about the same time. From then until now sexual freedom has been the Community’s norm, both in theory and in practice. This, of course, includes monogamy. We don’t have anything against monogamy, as long as it is desired by both parties.”” (Pg. 164-165)
She admits, “To this day we are not quite certain how to act when neighbors visit us. We show them around if they haven’t seen the place before. But it isn’t always a showplace that we are proud of. More often than not it is untidy or even dirty, and we sense that they would certainly not receive company in their homes unless then had cleaned up first.” (Pg. 183)
She reports, “From time to time Twin Oaks has been plagued by misunderstandings and group friction that has polarized the Community into mutually hostile groups. This polarization never lasts long, and with each issue that divides us, the division takes place along different lines. Such division as planners versus ambitious nonplanners, competent people versus tolerant people, agriculture lovers versus agriculture critics, new culture versus youth culture, and so forth, will find any given member first lined up with certain others, then with a different group on a different issue.” (Pg. 212)
She acknowledges, “The truth is that having visitors is part of Twin Oaks life. Our membership turnover would long ago have killed the Community if we had not been able to fill the empty spaces with people who originally came here as visitors. Three quarters of our current members were visitors at one time.” (Pg. 217)
She clarifies, “Another frequently recurring dispute is the question of our obligation to bring about social change in America---more specifically, what we are doing for the ‘Revolution.’ The Walden Two line is clear here… a Walden Two community is not political, and that we will be doing all we can do simply by being a successful community, providing an alternative, and being an example.” (Pg. 230)
But ultimately, “a Walden Two community is not a hierarchy. Nobody is on top of anybody.” (Pg. 243)
She notes, “[In] the foregoing chapters … I have concentrated on the conflict, and the resulting presentation of Twin Oaks is badly unbalanced… conflict notwithstanding, we have a very good life here. If we aren’t Utopia, we are still happier than most people.” (Pg. 246)
She concludes, “There is no end to where we can go from here. Dwight used to say that if the commune movement ever got big, the Government would close it down. That’s his guess. Mine is that it won’t. My guess is that we can keep growing until we run out of people who would be better off than they are now if they went communal. That time is a long way off.” (Pg. 271)
Kat Kinkade left Twin Oaks for the East Winds community for five years, once. Today the community has largely turned away from Skinner's original vision, but has developed into one of the most successful intentional communities in North America, and is committed to "sustainability" as an eco-village. (See Kinkade's 1994 book, 'Is It Utopia Yet?: An Insider's View of Twin Oaks Community in Its Twenty-Sixth Year,' for an updated perspective.) For persons interested in intentional communities, communes, utopian societies, Walden Two, and B.F. Skinner, this book will be fascinating reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review