Simplicity

    The Quaker testimonies, or precepts, of Simplicity, Integrity, Community, Peace, and Equality (all proper nouns in my book) have been asserted not to be "beliefs" per se. Rather they were a call to action as a way of helping people live a good and virtuous life. ("Virtue" has become a political football mostly centered on modern sexual mores; this would have been an absurd idea to the great Greek philosophers, rather than a philosophical abstract, so I hope you won't get stuck on that word at the moment.) I find the "call to action" handle insufficient. There are subtle differences between "belief" and "doctrine," although there are also subtle similarities. I think that the use of "doctrine" as a stated principle is not inappropriate here, but I am mindful of how our philosophy tends to regard the idea of form and mindless creed.

Our first precept is Simplicity. The doctrine of "Peace" was chronologically first, but we are talking about the order of our precepts in our lives. Peace comes later, and I assert that it is a natural outcome of the practice of Simplicity and Integrity.

I think it is axiomatic that the continuous complexity and stressful stimulation of modern life have brought about a great deal of misery even as it has brought about the comforts and conveniences we can no longer even imagine existing without. We have exchanged immediate and localized manual labor for climate controlled electronic entertainment and "news." Some of that exchange is very welcome. Some of it has resulted in universal anger and resentment and the mass hysteria that is now playing out in the media as well as obesity, drug use, depression, despair, and self-injury.  But how to practice Simplicity in American and Western modern Life? Well, I am going to get to the how-to of it in future posts. In this post, I want to examine the benefits of Simplicity.

I believe that in the absence of oppression and want people are, for the most part, rational and reasonable. I think that to be human is to be rational and reasonable (of course, that implies that the unreasonable and immoral are somehow less than human). People suffering from oppressive forces, be they political as in the case of the current mass hysteria, or physical as in the case of hunger or material need, can indeed behave less than reasonably.

Simplicity to a Free Friend is not necessarily the wholesale rejection of technology, electricity, or vehicles while spinning wool or reading by candlelight. Simplicity is a mindset of limiting what sensory inputs we are going to allow into our orbit in some rational way before they can negatively influence us and then examine the inputs that we allow into our lives—and carefully examine them—before taking a course of action. How much and what influences and inputs we allow into our lives is the perusal of the individual. A thoughtful and contemplative person practicing Simplicity will be able to discern what is best here, and most if not all of us will avoid getting trapped by things that harm our well-being. Because Simplicity is first and foremost about the ultimate importance, we place on our well-being.


The ancient Greek philosophers had a beautiful word for the satisfaction that comes about through keeping one's life simple—Eudaimonia. The best English translation of the idea that this word describes is "human flourishing." And this is why we say that Simplicity must come first. Because the remaining precepts of Integrity, Community, Peace, and Equality can only exist in an environment where the people themselves, the individuals, are flourishing. Aristotle said it this way—

We take what is self-sufficient to be that which on its own makes life worthy of choice and lacking in nothing. We think happiness to be such, and indeed the thing most of all worth choosing, not counted as just one thing among others'.

Well-being has a long list of attributes: First on that list is good mental and physical health. We cannot be good and loving husbands and wives and parents if we are not in good health, and it is the individual who is responsible for their health. Loving relationships, pleasant friendships, satisfying and productive work—work we can be proud of, sustained by, and made secure with—are indeed near the very top of this list. All of these are the very essence of our precept of Simplicity as it is expressed on a personal level and this implies the acceptance of personal responsibility for our well-being. We represent this responsibility to ourselves by avoiding self-destructive behaviors and engaging in healthful and beneficial behaviors (overindulgence in food/drink/drugs is self-destructive; marring our bodies (think tattoos/piercings or any other form of self-injury or scarring) in any way is simply unacceptable. Of course, past mistakes must be forgiven and forgotten; today is a new day).

If each member of the community must be a contributing member, it then follows that the first step is to be in a position where one sees to their own needs first. Otherwise, what is it we would have to contribute if we do not have enough of what we need? Think about that for a moment and then compare that counter-intuitive but perfectly logical conclusion with the nonsensical virtue-signaling dominating the world around us.


The practice of Simplicity will keep us out of debt and other unnecessary financial entanglements that put undue strain on ourselves, our families, and our communities. Pride in our work and personal success is an essential component of our well-being. Material competition with our neighbors is not; this requires a combination of finesse, courtesy, and generosity in our relationships with other members of the community.

Politics and Simplicity are almost certainly mutually exclusive. Oh, you can vote if it turns you on, and you should vote if you are informed and capable of reason. But politics is anathema to the practice of Simplicity—and the more virulent the political persuasion, the less it is in keeping with Simplicity. When Ayn Rand said—

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.

—She was not referring to letting our children, extended family, clan, or community do without while we saw to our own needs. What she was saying was that one must see to his or her own house, family, and community first and foremost. If you have any doubt about this, consider what Rand said about Integrity—

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not “selflessness” or “sacrifice,” but integrity. Integrity is loyalty to one’s convictions and values; it is the policy of acting in accordance with one’s values, of expressing, upholding and translating them into practical reality. If a man professes to love a woman, yet his actions are indifferent, inimical or damaging to her, it is his lack of integrity that makes him immoral.

—Rand and Aristotle were very Quakerly in their philosophies!


Practicing Simplicity is the practice of keeping our lives in balance. It means doing many or even most things for yourself—and this yields both skills and personal satisfaction. An over-concentration on work/achievement will take its toll on the family, as will underachievement; This is not easily reconciled with our culture of specialization—until you look down and realize that you have not seen your toes in many years due to the effects of all of that specialization.

Robert Heinlein, the author of one of the 20th centuries best selling novels, "Stranger in a Strange Land," had this to say about specialization:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Many of us will still have to specialize for a long stretch of our professional lives, but I think it is important to consider just how unhealthy it is and to find a way to introduce non-specialized, Simplicity focused activities into our lives—gardening, woodworking, construction, cheesemaking, sewing, knitting, gathering firewood, cutting the grass with a reel mower, fishing, sports with the kids, and anything else we can think of. Simplicity is a form of meditation, one that you can discuss with your other community members.

But most of all, Simplicity starts and ends with you as an individual and with your very personal well-being, the well-being of your family, extended family, and community.

You can "like" and follow us on Facebook (click the link!) here.

People interested in helping us make it happen: We need money, volunteers, contributing and active members, sponsors, patrons, drivers, babysitters, diapers, canned food, clothes, skilled tradesmen, etc.


Greg, QUUC

Introduction to Free Quakerism, part 2

In the last decade or so there appeared to be a resurgence in Quaker thought, faith, and practice here in America. Meetinghouses were refurbished. Facebook groups popped up. Blogs and podcasts were published. My sense of it now is that this is far more political and less Quaker Faith and Practice, but that would depend on the definition of "Faith" and "Practice".

Parallel to this, writers such as Dmitri Orlov, Rob O'Grady, Sharon Astyk, James Howard Kunstler, and others were tackling the issue of community, one of the five Quaker testimonies, in books and articles—though it must be mentioned quickly that none of these writers/authors/thinkers thought or knew they were examining community from a Quaker perspective. But a rose by any other name...

And of course, I wrote "Prosperous Homesteading" about our experience with the incredible Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities we have lived among.

A definition of "community" is in order. This is not as easy as it sounds. "Community" is another of those slippery abstracts that get slapped onto many ideas and groups that are no such thing—the "Intelligence Community" comes immediately to mind.

A quick look at an online dictionary yields:

1. a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. "Rhode Island's Japanese community"
synonyms: group, body, set, circle, clique, faction; More
2. a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

I don't think that this is the "community" that those who wish to live in cooperative and mutual interdependence had in mind. Too, the etymology that best captures the concept is from the Old French "comunete"—which can be best translated as "reinforced by its source" or self-reinforcing.

Here is my attempt at a working definition: A group of people living in close proximity and working cooperatively—but not collectively—and reinforced by its source: the people making up the community itself. This definition eliminates "online communities/groups", political parties, political special interest groups, advocacy groups, et al as being properly defined as a community. (Of course, you are free to come up with your own definitions and your own make-believe community.)

Can a community, thus defined, survive with outside political influence or belief systems that pit the members against each other? Can a Dunbar-150 community (click the link!) survive with traditional families and radical feminists, or Democrats and Republicans, or any form of multi-culturalism? I respectfully submit NEARC (Not even a remote chance). No, a small, 150 person cooperative community living in close proximity that is self-reinforcing, that bears and raises children and instills the ethos of the community in their children, cannot survive with the members at each other's throats over politics. We must reject these distractions—feminism, collectivism, authoritarianism— that I referred to in my last post (and all other political or divisive distractions).

No community has ever survived for more than a single generation via recruitment or proselytizing new members in place of establishing families and raising children.

A community of 150 adults will be burying all of them over any 50 year period. There must be replacement adults, people who were raised to identify with the community and who are committed to the survival of the community or the community will collapse. There has never been nor will there ever be an intergenerationally successful community of feminists or LGBTVQRS or Shakers. It matters little if this offends an individual. We are speaking of "community" here. It then follows that such groups and belief systems—but not individual LGBTVQRS offspring or converts of the community, no one is denying their place in the community or their humanity—are anathema to the Quaker testimony of Community as are all outside political interference.

Communities require families and children. What is the point of putting in all of the effort to construct a community of like-minded, cooperative people that is going to implode in much the same way that every commune that ever existed has?

A thought experiment: Just imagine a small tropical island paradise colonized by a Dunbar number of childless, self-actuating collectivist intellectuals. Ask them all to keep a detailed diary. Come back in 40 years and read the entries in the diaries of the last 15 survivors. What do you think those entries say?

There is another Quaker philosopher, Sam Barnett-Cormack, living in the UK who believes that he can overcome all of my assertions to create a childless/or child-light community. Or at least that is what I have taken his writings to mean. You can follow him here.

"Community" might mean many things to many people, but that is not the point. If we wish to have the cooperative, self-reinforcing, and self-sustaining community that my ancestors once had and that the Amish and Mennonites have, right now as I write this, then we must accept certain parameters and rules or all our efforts will be for naught.

Would you like to get involved? We need money, volunteers with skills and who are in reasonable condition to put in a day's work, and young families to build a community around. The Quaker Universalist and Unitarian Church, Inc.

Contact me at greg at quuchurch dot org

Introduction to Free Quakerism

The Quaker Universalist and Unitarian Church, Inc. (“QUUC”) was organized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. We are a non-denominational and non-autocratic community-based faith organization. QUUC is also known as “The Free Quaker Society of Friends”. Quakers interchangeably refer to themselves and other Quakers as “Friends”. We also refer to our members as either “Free Quakers” or “Free Friends”. We have spent many years living among Older Order Mennonite and Amish communities (Quakers are not Amish! We use electricity, technology, and vehicles when necessary and dress the same as the average American). This experience has been incredibly instructive as to how functioning cooperative communities work and thrive over many generations. We believe that real and abiding communities can come into existence again for average Americans. If you are interested in living in a cooperative community please contact me at the email below.

Our organization is a break from the Faith and Practice and ideology now ensconced in the establishment Quaker organizations. Free Quakerism rejects collectivism, feminism, and authoritarianism in all forms—but especially in the name of Quakerism, the Religious Society of Friends, and any other name that Quakers or Friends are or were known by. We are an egalitarian faith, practice, and philosophy—not an advocacy group for identity politics. We desire to share this world with goodwill towards our fellow man and to engage ideas on the merits—not waste the limited moments of our existence in a constant state of anger, resentment, and frustration.

Our Free Quaker faith and practice is not governed or autocratically informed by the foundational texts of the great religions or by intermediaries. Our faith and practice is a way of life and our creed is our personal moral foundation and the manner in which we live our lives. Our ethics springs from reason and the rational nature granted mankind by our Creator. Many Friends refer to this as our Inner Light. Others see it as a spark of the Devine that resides in all men and women. We do not purport to know the mind of the Creator, and there is no institutional requirement that Free Friends believe or deny the mysticism which envelopes and defines many other faiths.  This is an intensely personal and individual choice, and Free Friends must be at liberty to go where their good conscience takes them and are encouraged to look within themselves. Traditionally and since our very inception, Friends sought substance and placed little importance on outward forms.

Free Quakers have five precepts; early Quakers referred to these as the five testimonies.

Simplicity: We hold that arranging one’s life in such a way as to reduce tension, pressure, and hurry will lead to greater satisfaction, pleasure, and joy with our lives during our brief existence. Our primary responsibility is our own, individual well-being: we must, ourselves, be well before we can meet any obligations to our families or to participate in our communities, and it is the practice of simplicity that yields the calm and peaceful mind necessary if we are to live out our next precept of Integrity. Therefore it is Simplicity that must come first.

*****

Integrity: We hold that we are to be industrious and avoid idleness, frugal and provident in our efforts, fair in our dealings, moderate in our consumptions, and place significant emphasis on personal responsibility so that we may enjoy the virtue that one feels when properly providing and caring for our children and family. Integrity precludes despair. Sorrows will come, and Life and the family must go joyfully on and it is our Integrity that brings this about.

*****

Community: Thomas Paine, more than anyone else the Father of the American Revolution, and a Free Quaker, wrote this in his seminal work “Common Sense”.

“…the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour [sic] out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the meantime would urge him to quit his work, and every different want would call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for, though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.”

Those practicing Simplicity and Integrity will be in a position to contribute to the wellbeing of the community. No community can stand for long without a balance between giving and taking. A community is a voluntary organization of mutual assistance and interdependence. That assistance and interdependence begin in the home of a family where the children are raised and extends from there into the community. The raising of happy, healthy, cultured, and educated children into fitly functioning and well-adjusted adults—this being part and parcel of our personal wellbeing—is our primary responsibility.

A community—and its members—must have an ethos of intergenerational stability or the community will not last. Children must be imbued with values that will perpetuate the community.

*****

Peace:  Free Friends do not initiate the use of force or violence—and will not countenance the use of force or violence by proxy—to achieve personal, moral, or political agendas. This does not preclude Free Friends from defending their persons, their family, or personal property that their life may depend on. “Violence by proxy” is as abhorrent as personal violence and is defined as supporting or approving of the application of violence by others—police, military, judiciary, and the non-official—to achieve personal, moral, or political agendas that we as individuals would reject using personally. If an action is immoral it is immoral—and it does not become moral by having or approving a proxy to commit violence for us even if the violence is somehow approved of democratically.

*****

Equality: Free Friends are equal before our Creator, and; Free Friends are equal before the community in what they may expect from the community and in what the community expects from them. Egalitarianism is the rule.

Our precepts—or testimonies—are a call to action. They do not represent the entirety of the human virtues that are important to us.

Our mission is to provide a locus and support system for real communities of cooperation, collaboration, and mutual assistance to coalesce around. We feel that respect for the sovereignty of the individual and the rejection of a way of life that leads to isolated and alienated individuals are the proper course to take for real community. Your rights and value are yours as an individual and are best recognized in community with other like-minded individuals. We believe that a real and productive community that enjoys a common culture and common expectations of reasonable behavior, and that holds personal responsibility and meaningful member involvement in high regard can provide community members with comfort, stability, and security—while also respecting the autonomy of the individual. To us, this is what it means to have a community. The definition of autonomy or freedom is not freedom from responsibility. Rather true freedom implies responsibility. A community is not something one plays at. Real community implies effort and work that result in real contributions by all so that the community enjoys a surplus of capital, or if you prefer—‘abundance’. After all, a community suffering want will not last long.

We cannot do this alone. We need your help in the form of money, members, and volunteers. We ask that donations under $500 be made at our "Go Fund Me" page (click the link!) and that larger donations be made directly (Go Fund Me is not free). All donations are tax-deductible. Your money will be put to good use in very real and measurable ways. If you would like to know more please email me and include a phone number (I don't carry a cell and use google voice) and I will get right back to you.

Thank you.

Greg Jeffers, Quaker Unitarian and Universalist Church, Inc.
greg at quuchurch dot org