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