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Pendle Hill Pamphlets
Experiments in Community
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 The world gradually seeps in, but this usually occurs when the founders have been replaced by their grandchildren, who have inherited the property but not the zeal and determination of the predecessors.
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 The world gradually seeps in, but this usually occurs when the founders have been replaced by their grandchildren, who have inherited the property but not the zeal and determination of the predecessors.
41 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 30, 2014
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May 27, 2024
How appropriate for the entry in the Pendle Hill series following one that suggests we are becoming increasingly violent and individualistic to focus on profiles of intentional peace-loving communities!
Written in 1966 and discussing some communities that no longer exist, the pamphlet is a series of six interesting and descriptive essays on the communities of: Ephrata; The Amish; The Doukhobors; The Shakers; The Bruderhof; and Monteverde in Costa Rica.
The pamphlet begins with an introduction by the widely regarded Quaker scholar and leader, Howard H. Brinton. Also well-known to the Pendle Hill pamphlet series as one of its most prolific and important contributors. In his intro, Brinton describes his own interest and study of intentional communities, including leading a Pendle Hill term studying the subject. Through that, the participants identified 10 “definable causes of successful cooperation.”
1. Loyalty to a leader or leaders whose authority is based on ability, personality, and selflessness.
2. Religious exercises carried out in common by the group as a whole, including the old and young. The average life of a [studied] religious community was about 50 years, of a secular community about five years.
3. Cooperative discipline, neither too rigid nor too lax.
4. Sufficient economic resources but not so high a stand of living as to interfere with simplicity, nor so specialized as to be incapable of adaptation to changing conditions.
5. Education of children and new members in the practices and purposes of the group. A period of probation for newcomers.
6. Loyalty to a social theory, but avoidance of fanatical obsession which prevents accommodation to altered circumstances.
7. Predominance of group loyalty over family loyalty.
8. Balance between intimacy and seperateness, too much fellowship is as disintegrative as too little.
9. Enough separateness from the outside world to afford opportunity for working out unique ideals, along with a vital concern for the outside world.
10. A unit neither too large nor too small. A frequent optimum has been between 50-150 people. Limitation of size promotes face to face relationships among the members so that a single living organism results, and the community is enabled to resist the assaults of the ‘world.’ Also the participation of children in group activities is fostered by the small community. They are welded into the group before the reach the age of questioning and rationalizing.
Brinton continues, “It is probably that these same causes operated in the highly successful tribal communities in which our remote ancestors lived for perhaps half a million years. In fact, they may be said to have been too successful in preserving the primitive type of life, for little change occurred during this prolonged period.” (pp. 5-6)
One thinks of Thomas Jefferson’s vision of the U.S. ideal as predominantly an agrarian culture would have been predicated on the importance of villages and small towns for trade, community and governance. And the sense of the best cities being comprised of economically and socially integrated neighborhoods advocated by city reformers like Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs.
Whitney was able to visit several of the communities of which he writes. The final group, Monteverde was an intentional Quaker community set up by several families of Friends from Fairhope, Alabama. Much of their land became one of the best preserved cloud rain forest preserves in the world.
Written in 1966 and discussing some communities that no longer exist, the pamphlet is a series of six interesting and descriptive essays on the communities of: Ephrata; The Amish; The Doukhobors; The Shakers; The Bruderhof; and Monteverde in Costa Rica.
The pamphlet begins with an introduction by the widely regarded Quaker scholar and leader, Howard H. Brinton. Also well-known to the Pendle Hill pamphlet series as one of its most prolific and important contributors. In his intro, Brinton describes his own interest and study of intentional communities, including leading a Pendle Hill term studying the subject. Through that, the participants identified 10 “definable causes of successful cooperation.”
1. Loyalty to a leader or leaders whose authority is based on ability, personality, and selflessness.
2. Religious exercises carried out in common by the group as a whole, including the old and young. The average life of a [studied] religious community was about 50 years, of a secular community about five years.
3. Cooperative discipline, neither too rigid nor too lax.
4. Sufficient economic resources but not so high a stand of living as to interfere with simplicity, nor so specialized as to be incapable of adaptation to changing conditions.
5. Education of children and new members in the practices and purposes of the group. A period of probation for newcomers.
6. Loyalty to a social theory, but avoidance of fanatical obsession which prevents accommodation to altered circumstances.
7. Predominance of group loyalty over family loyalty.
8. Balance between intimacy and seperateness, too much fellowship is as disintegrative as too little.
9. Enough separateness from the outside world to afford opportunity for working out unique ideals, along with a vital concern for the outside world.
10. A unit neither too large nor too small. A frequent optimum has been between 50-150 people. Limitation of size promotes face to face relationships among the members so that a single living organism results, and the community is enabled to resist the assaults of the ‘world.’ Also the participation of children in group activities is fostered by the small community. They are welded into the group before the reach the age of questioning and rationalizing.
Brinton continues, “It is probably that these same causes operated in the highly successful tribal communities in which our remote ancestors lived for perhaps half a million years. In fact, they may be said to have been too successful in preserving the primitive type of life, for little change occurred during this prolonged period.” (pp. 5-6)
One thinks of Thomas Jefferson’s vision of the U.S. ideal as predominantly an agrarian culture would have been predicated on the importance of villages and small towns for trade, community and governance. And the sense of the best cities being comprised of economically and socially integrated neighborhoods advocated by city reformers like Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs.
Whitney was able to visit several of the communities of which he writes. The final group, Monteverde was an intentional Quaker community set up by several families of Friends from Fairhope, Alabama. Much of their land became one of the best preserved cloud rain forest preserves in the world.
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