When George W. Bush was re-elected, some people in the Pacific Northwest expressed a longing to secede from the Union, perhaps incorporate with British Columbia and form a new state: Call it "Cascadia."
We were joking. Kind of.
A recent post by The Practical Conservative reminded me that the impulse to break away from the mainstream and form utopian communities is an enduring theme in American history.
My mother's family were Mormons, my father's were Anabaptists, so I come from a long line of people on both sides who were utterly convinced that there was "one correct way" to live, and I was weaned on tales of the hardships they endured, the sacrifices made, to achieve their utopian visions. I am the offspring of two people who escaped from religious-based communities governed by rigid patriarchal ideals, and who never looked back. And I don't want to go back either. In fact, I would be willing to sacrifice everything to maintain my individualism. And if I had to be dependent on a community where people like SSM or the Queens set the standards of socially acceptable behavior, I'd take my chances on surviving in the wilderness.
This I believe: There is more than one way to be a human being on this earth. There is no one "correct way" to live.
While I don't remember the details, I seem to recall learning at school about a group of people from my own part of the world (South Australia), who went off to Paraguay in the 19th Century to build their own version of a Utopian community there. Alas, it didn't work, as often seems the case; these sorts of things don't seem to have a terribly good track record. Despite that, I can see their allure, having often found myself romanticizing something similar: the remote community, where one can go to be far, far away from the modern world, and all its attendant dangers and stresses. Unfortunately, these places tend not to be that great in reality either - everyone knows everyone else's business; the strongest and meanest person in the place tends to end up running it; and there's usually a lot of icky stuff like inbreeding and sexual abuse going on as well. A classic case would be Pitcairn Island, although I've heard of many other examples.
ReplyDeleteDespite my age, I was never able to romanticize the communal experiments of the 1960s, probably because my mom, who grew up in an isolated Mormon town in the Tetons, had given me a good idea exactly what it would be like.
DeleteUtopian communities have a very high failure rate - but before they go down, they get wacky. Sexual abuse becomes rife. It didn't work for the Israeli kibbutzes and it's not going to work for the gazillionaires who think they can built their own floating sea world (truly, they're doing it).
ReplyDeleteI was looking at my paternal geneology the other day, and I was struck by how often my ancestors had moved. What prompted these constant shifts were squabbles and schisms within their religious-based communities. Being pacifists, their only recourse was to move away and form new tiny oppressive communities.
DeleteI read a book about Pitcairn Island a few years ago. It should have been called "Nightmare in Paradise."
DeleteWhen he was alive, my father moved us all around the state to a variety of towns (he worked in local government), and was once apparently interested in taking up a job on an island somewhere. The headmaster of the first school I went to, who'd lived and worked on the tiny Pacific island of Naura, however, talked him out of it, saying he never wanted to go live on an island. Apparently, the principal in question had found living on such a tiny bit of land in the middle of the ocean so oppressive, not being able to get away from everyone else there and all that, that he'd apparently take a small boat he had out onto the water on the weekend, and just sit some distance offshore for the better part of the day, as it was the only way he could enjoy a bit of solitude!
DeleteCinzia isn't this adorable? :P
ReplyDeleteradishmag.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/heroes-of-the-dark-enlightenment/
Thanks for the link. Yeah, I'm looking forward to savoring that tonight when I have more time and leisure to devote.
DeleteI remember when I first went on Buddhist retreat, within hours I realized I could not stand living in close proximity to the same bunch of people day in day out.
ReplyDelete