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Contents
Editor’s Column
Dear Friends.
Following a brief
note from the president, Faye Crosby, The June edition is divided into
three segments.
The first is devoted
to “Utopia Bound” A paper by Louise H. Kidder of Temple University. We
hope to begin a debate/discussion and will be happy to include your comments,
suggestions and replies in the next issue of the newsletter.
The second segment
provides information about relevant and recent books and publications.
The list was prepared by Ron Cohen. If you come across interesting books
that are not on the list – please share the knowledge with us. We can also
add a section for recently published articles – so send me your references
for the next edition!
The last segment continues to inform you about the current research projects
of those of our members for whom no information was provided in our last
newsletter. If you haven’t sent a description of your work, feel free to
send it to me, and it will be included in the next edition.
As always – the updated list of members is enclosed. Karen Hegtvedt takes
care of updates, so – please inform her of any changes (
khegtve@emory.edu
)
Next issue (that will appear – hopefully - in November) will include
information about our June 29 - July 2, 2004 conference in Canada.
Please send
all suggestions, comments or material you want to include
to
dmoore@colman.ac.il
and we’ll do our best to include it.
Dahlia Moore
Back
A brief note from the President
Dear Colleagues.
According to
the ISJR bylaws, the President serves a term of two-years. Also,
the president-elect is elected one year prior to serving as President.
Thus, this summer, we will hold elections. We are fortunate to have
two very well qualified candidates for President:
Claudia Dalbert
(Germany) and Jim Olson
(Canada). In a short while, a paper ballot will be sent to all
members. In the meantime, if anyone would like to nominate another
candidate, including him- or herself, please send an email immediately to
Faye Crosby at fjcrosby@ucsc.edu
. All members of the executive committee and the two candidates
are devoted to the continuing democratization of ISJR.
Faye Crosby
Back
Utopia Bound
Louise H. Kidder
, Temple University
My unwitting fieldwork began in the summer of 1972 when I joined an intentional
community. It is a community on the outskirts of Philadelphia founded in
1940 by 6 families from the city. They included social workers, socialists,
Quakers, and a stained glass artist. They wanted to live in community and
live off the land if need be for they had experienced the Depression of
1929. The homesteading movement as described by Ralph Borsodi in his
School for Living and his book Flight From The City :An experiment in creative
living on the land gave them models for both community and self-sufficiency
(Borsodi, 1933).
When my husband and I with our 1-year old son began membership visits
in the fall of 1971 we were often asked, not in jest, "are you going to study
us?" I always said, "No. I just want to live here." For 29 years
that was true-I lived here and conducted research in Philadelphia or Tokyo,
always studying social justice but never studying intentional communities.
Then something happened that made me want to examine my community and others
like it. A conflict developed over (of all things) septic systems.
It called into question our assumptions about "communality," "blame" and
"responsibility." I refrained from writing field notes or interviewing
neighbors but I worried about what was "fair," who should be "responsible,"
and who was to "blame".
That was when I decided to study intentional communities. With
a copy of the Communities Directory, a 45-day "See America" Greyhound bus
pass, several plane tickets, and rental cars, I traveled to intentional communities
from Pennsylvania to California and Massachusetts to Mexico. I kept
my promise not to study my own but I drew on 30 years of living in community.
When asked to explain who I was and why I wanted to visit I always referred
to my own membership in an intentional community; I was a fellow traveler.
Gates and Boundaries
A critical legal scholar challenged me when I described my interest in
communes and intentional communities-places I implied were idealistic,
idyllic, left-leaning, right-living, and justice-seeking. "How are
these communities any different from gated communities?" she asked.
I struggled to say intentional communities "include" people for the right
reasons and "exclude" only those who would defeat "community." But
the question lingers and I have begun to see how "liberal" and "open-minded"
intentional communities create boundaries, with or without gates.
My focus changed from the original questions of "blame" and "fairness"
to an interest in "bounded" communities with or without gates. Studying
these boundaries might tell me something new about social justice, though
for now they are a concern unto themselves.
Intentional communities all have boundaries that distinguish members
from non-members, the "inside" from the "outside." They differ in
the ease with which people can join or resign. They differ in the
ease with which members can cross outside on a daily basis.
Some differences are a function of the economy of the community. Some
are a function of the philosophy.
Bound by the Economy of a Community
Tax laws and the Internal Revenue Service have created strange bedfellows.
They have placed a naturist (also called "nudist") community in the same
category as a nunnery, and an experimental community with poly-amorous pagans
in the same category as a monastery. These unlikely pairs share economic
arrangements which place all property ownership in the hands of the community
and limit private ownership to a few possessions and a small monthly allowance
(e.g. $60 in one community). What these economic arrangements create
are a shared experience of "voluntary poverty" and barriers to participation
in the world outside the community.
For instance, leaving the community and going out on a Saturday night
could consume half of a member's monthly allowance: a movie ticket,
($6-$9), a modest meal ($10-$20) and mileage costs for the use of a community
car ($5-$10). As one former member of such a community said, "relationships
... are the currency of a community." This person had resigned his
membership several years earlier when his relationship with a woman in the
community ended. It was impossible to "date" anyone outside the community
on such a limited budget, and if the "dating scene" inside the community
was not good, the alternative was to leave. The economy of the community
creates a barrier too high to cross more than once or twice a month.
On the other hand, the economic constraints that limit daily travel facilitate
extended trips to similar communities. Communal living and working make
"exchanges" possible among the communities that belong to the Federation
of Egalitarian Communities. A member can have a "free" working vacation
in another egalitarian community. Several communities participate
in a system of Labor Exchange known as "Lex". Someone from a northern
urban community can live and work in a rural southern community or vice
versa. The boundaries that limit travel to the outside world facilitate
travel among these communities (provided one can hitch a ride or buy a bus
ticket to travel the distance). The ease of visiting among egalitarian communities
occurs not only because of their shared labor economies, but also their common
philosophies. They belong to a network, they share friends, they understand
how to live and work communally.
From All Things in Common to Private Ownership
Intentional communities are as varied as any other kinds of communities.
No one philosophy, family pattern, or economic arrangement characterizes
all. No one community is exactly replicated anyplace. Communities
also change within their lifetimes in their patterns of ownership and philosophies.
In 1970 a hippie commune began as "a caravan of brightly painted
school buses, VW vans, trucks and campers left San Francisco...These pioneers
became Okies in reverse, trading the spectacular vistas of the Bay Area
...for the underdeveloped farmlands and blackjack oak forests of middle
Tennessee" (Fike, 1998, p. vii). No image could be more different
than this one from the founding of my community. My community archives
have sepia-toned photos of the founding members picnicking on the farmland
they hoped to buy in the late 1930's. The women wore black dresses,
the men wore dark suits, they all had laced-up shoes and several wore hats
as they surveyed the land and envisioned 80 homesteads. What did these
laced up social workers and Quakers have in common with hippie communards
in VW campers? Not much, until 1982.
The caravan and commune that landed in middle Tennessee grew to a population
of 1500 or more. No one knows the exact census, but everyone knows
it became impossible for the people working small enterprises on the farm
and the small number of men working on construction crews in town to earn
sufficient wages to support the farm and a thousand people. The community
had a "Front Door" where seekers and visitors come by the hundreds.
"They showed up happy and together, testy and on medications, able-bodied,
frail, all stages of pregnant, some down-to-earth, some delusional, many
with only the slightest idea of what we were about" (Fike, 1998, p.36).
The experiment in openness and communal caring grew and grew until 1982
when "the community was starting to collapse under its own weight (Fike,
1998, p.xi). Members who lived through that period and stayed, refer
to the period as "the changeover." They speak with some nostalgia
about the early years when 40 or 50 people lived in leaking army tents and
make-shift shelters. Except for some founding members, they are glad they
"changed over" from collective sharing of everything to private incomes,
property houses, and payment of dues. No one I talked with referred
to the thousand or more people as "free riders." They say instead
that the situation became unworkable, and they risked losing everything,
including the land, to creditors.
The commune members who remained on the farm are now middle-aged and
largely middle class. The Gatehouse of the commune, which was
once called “The Front Door”, is now closed at night. No one would
call this a "gated community" despite the industrial strength front gate,
but it is no longer a hippie commune either. Private ownership of
incomes and private ownership of homes and businesses on the land saved
the farm and changed it. Many members go off the land to work and come
home to single-family homes at night. They can afford to go out on
weekends or stay on the farm for community viewing of videos. Many
send their children to public school rather than pay tuition to attend
the farm's private school. Some outsiders who know about the community
may characterize people from The Farm as "different" in positive or negative
ways (a nurse in the nearest big town guessed I was staying at the farm
because I appeared to have "an aura"). But for the most part, they
are indistinguishable in the outside world, much like the people from my
community. Our two communities now have a great deal in common, including
the by-laws of my community which helped guide the farm members as they "changed
over" from "everything in common" to private ownership.
Bound by Philosophy and Like-Mindedness
It is true as the critical legal scholar charged-many intentional communities
are made up of like-minded people by virtue of being intentional rather
than coincidental. This does not mean everyone thinks alike on all
issues, but they are likely to share political preferences. (In my
community we joke about having only one or two members who do not vote a
straight Democratic ticket, and one of those attends Anarchist and World
Federalist meetings. It is no wonder our community has not been warmly
embraced in a largely Republican township.) They may also share other
values that are part of a life-style (e.g., organic gardening, home schooling,
and vegetarian cooking) though none of these is a criterion for membership.
Several members of a community listed in the Communities Directory disavow
their listing on the grounds that they are not an "intentional community"
because they do not want to live in seclusion with like-minded people.
They value a freewheeling diversity of opinion and life style and regard
themselves as an urban laboratory in the desert rather than an idyllic community
in the country. They have considered deleting their entry in the Communities
Directory so as not to be mistaken for an "intentional community" of similar
people. Their wish to be freewheeling and urban was illustrated in a dispute
that pitted the rights of a skate-boarder to use a public space adjoining
another member's apartment. Aside from this generational clash that
might have occurred as easily in an intentional community, the members
of the urban laboratory in the desert seemed no less like-minded than the
members of other intentional communities I have studied. They shared
an interest in creating an alternative society, they were a small group
(about 60 adults) most of whom worked and lived within the boundaries of
their laboratory. Their residences and work lives are unlike those
in the surrounding area. Their low rent and equally low salaries
(roughly minimum wage) within the community make forays outside the community
relatively infrequent. They have chosen to live in a unique place.
It is not surprising that they share values and life-styles.
Is It Utopia Yet?
One of the founders of Twin Oaks, an egalitarian community asks Is It
Utopia Yet? (Kat Kincade, 1994). Her work and my fieldwork in intentional
communities suggest that the quest for utopian communities remains elusive
but worthwhile. At worst, the quest may disappoint, at best, it will
inspire, and it is guaranteed to be interesting. My travels and analyses
have just begun. I look forward to continuing this work and I welcome
others to join me.
Information about
the Fellowship of Intentional Communities is available on the web at
www.ic.org
. The Communities Directory can be ordered online through that
website and over 700 communities across the U.S. and around the world are
listed there with their descriptions, phone numbers, and websites.
References:
Ralph Borsodi (1933) Flight From The City: An Experiment
in Creative Living on the Land. NY: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
Kat Kincade (1994) Is It Utopia Yet? Twin Oaks Publishing.
Rupert Fike, (1998) (Ed.) Voices from the Farm: Adventures in Community
Living, Summertown, TN: Book Publishing Company
Back
Applications
Applications to join ISJR are very welcome
and may be addressed by e-mail to
Faye Crosby
(fjcrosby@ucsc.edu
) including your curriculum vitae and a list of publications.
Back
Members Research Interests
Manfred Schmitt
( schmittm@uni-trier.de
)
I am currently involved as p.i. in four justice research projects. (1)
Jürgen Maes and I are testing causal models of the effects of fraternal
deprivation on well-being and protest. We use a large longitudinal data
set on the psychological effects of the German unification.
(2) Jürgen Maes and I use the data from the German unification project
also for testing our (Montada, Dalbert, Schmitt) relative privilege and
existential guilt theory. Using structural equation modeling, we find, in
support of our theoretical model, unique longitudinal effects of existential
of West Germans on changes in solidarity with deprived East Germans.
(3) A third line if research is devoted to justice sensitivity as a personality
trait. Several of our studies have shown that justice sensitivity is a
powerful predictor of emotional reactions to and protest against injustice.
Currently, we are looking more closely at cognitive processes that mediate
these effects. Using the emotional Stroop paradigm, we were able to show
that perceived injustice directs attention to negative information. The
strength of this effect varies systematically with justice sensitivity.
Using a dual task paradigm, we were able to show that justice sensitive individuals
use more cognitive capacity than insensitive individuals for processing information
about an unfair event. As a consequence, justice sensitive individuals have
less capacity left for a second task.
(4) A fourth series of studies looks at synergistic interactions among
functionally equivalent person and situation factors of justice behavior
and justice judgments. In a series of studies, we were able to show that
individuals with a favorable attitude towards equality as an allocation
principle put less weight on performance and need differences between recipients.
This effect is not additive. Rather, attitude and context amplify each other
systematically.
Recent Books and Publications about and around Justice
(Gathered by Ron Cohen)
Ahmed,
E., Braithwaite, J., Braithwaite, V., & Harris, N. (2001). Shame Management
Through Reintegration: New York: Cambridge University Press.
Albin, C. (2001). Justice and Fairness in International Negotiation.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Barbalet, J.M. (1998). Emotion, Social Theory and Social Structure: A
Macrosociological Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Barkan, E. (2001). The Guilt of Nations : Restitution and Negotiating
Historical Injustices Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Braithwaite, J. (2002). Restorative Justice & Responsive Regulation
(Studies in Crime and Public Policy). New York: Oxford University Press.
Cairns S. Greig, J. and Wachs M. (2003). Environmental Justice &
Transportation: A Citizen's Handbook
http://www.its.berkeley.edu/publications/ejhandbook/ejhandbook.html
Darley, J.M., Messick, D.M., & Tyler, T.R. (2001). (Eds.). Social
Influences on Ethical Berhavior in Organizations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Duncan, G.J., & Chase-Lansdale, P.L. (2001). For Better or For Worse:
Welfare Reform abd the Well-Being of Children and Families. New York: Russell
Sage Foundation.
Silver, H. & Miller S.M., "Social Exclusion: The European Approach
to
Social Disadvantage." Indicators: The Journal of Social Health 2, 2 (Spring
2003): 5-21.
Jost, J.T., & Major, B. (2001). Eds.) The Psychology of Legitimacy:
Emerging Perspectives on Ideology, Justice, and Intergroup Relations. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Kaplow, L., & Shavell, S. (2002) Fairness Versus Welfare. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Kelly, P. (2001). Impartiality, Neutrality and Justice. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Kessler-Harris, A. In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for
Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Kolm, S.-C. (2002). Modern Theories of Justice. Camnbridge, MA: MIT Press.
Langholtz, H.J., Marty, AT., Ball, C.T., & Nolan, E.C. (2002). Resource-Allocation
Behavior. Boston: Kluwer.
Mamdani, M. (2001). When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism,
and Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton: Princeon University Press.
Mansbridge, J. J., & Morris, A. (2001). (Eds.) Oppositional Consciousness:
The Subjective Roots of Social Protest. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Miller, D., & Hashmi, S.H. (Eds.) (2001). Boundaries and Justice:
Diverse Ethical Perspectives. Princeton:Princeton University Press.
Moellendorf, D. (2001). Cosmopolitan Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Monroe, K.R. (2002). (Ed.) Political Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Moore, D. & Aweiss S. (2003) Outcome expectations in prolonged conflicts,
perceptions of sense of control and relative deprivation. Sociological
Inquiry. 73(2): 190-212.
Moore, D. & Aweiss S. (2002). Hatred of ‘Others’ among Palestinian,
Arab and Jewish students in Israel. ASAP: Journal of the Society for the
Psychological Study of Social Issues, 2(1):151-173. (Also -
http://www.asap-spssi.org/
).
Murphy, L., & Nagel, T. (2002). The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and
Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Neuffer, E. (2001). The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in
Bosnia and Rwanda. New York: Picador.
Raphael, D.D. (2001). Concepts of Justice. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Rescher, N. (2001). Fairness: Theory & Practice of Distributive Justice
Transaction Pub
Ross, M., & Miller, D.T. (Eds.) (2002). The Justice
Motive in Social Life: Essays in Honor of Melvin Lerner. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Salomon, G., & Nevo, B. (2992). Peace Education: The Concept, Principles,
and Practices Around the World. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Strang, H., & Braithwaite, J. (Eds.). (2001). Restorative Justice
and Civil Society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Strang, H., & Braithwaite, J. (Eds.) (2002). Restorative Justice
and Family Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tangney, J.P., & Dearing, R.L. (2002). Shame and Guilt. New York:
Guilford Press.
Teitel, R.G. (2001). Transitional Justice. New York: Oxford University
Press
Uslaner, E.M. (2002). The Moral Foundations of Trust. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Van Ness, D.W., & Strong, K.H. (2002). Restoring Justice. Cincinnati:
Anderson.
Walker, I., & Smith, H.J. (2001) (Eds.) Relative Deprivation: Specification,
Development and Integration. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, P.R., & Scharf, M.P. Peace with Justice?: War Crimes
and Accountability in the Former Yugoslavia. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.
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