Why the IC movement is in a rut

And how it might be able to get out

This has been slightly edited from the original version that went out to subscribers, based on some feedback from some friends.

Another whistle blower

Sky Blue, a well-respected public servant in the FIC (Foundation for Intentional Communities) and FEC (Federation of Egalitarian Communities) recently wrote an article published on ic.org, where he argued that ICs were mostly started by people who 1. wanted to make a transformational impact on our world, as opposed to 2. merely being nice places for a few wealthy escapists from the unpleasant aspects of our civilization, and that they have mostly failed in both of these endeavors. I am mostly on board with his analysis of how ICs have failed in both these goals, with the caveat that the second one be reworded as “making ICs nice places for most people to live”, instead of just a few wealthy escapists, and I want to suggest ways for moving forward in achieving them, based on Emergence and Multi-Level-Selection theories. I will use some of his points in that essay, to respond to in this essay. I won’t provide too many references to scientific studies here, because this is not just an academic subject, and besides we have Google. ICs are a serious attempt to improve life on this planet, and their failure is tragic not just for the many idealistic young people who try hard to make them work, but for our whole species. While understanding and scholarship are important, we also need to try some new approaches, even without full understanding. I hope this essay will inspire people to try some new approaches. My responses are bolded.

Why form ICs?

There is a tension/dialectic between the human need for variety and choice (liberal), and the human need for stability and strength in one's connections (conservative). In a way, ICs were supposed to solve/synthesize that tension by choosing whom your connections are and becoming more strongly dependent on them, but they failed mostly in the latter, and mostly I claim the failure was due to capitalism and their strongly liberal nature (the conservative ones do better). I think there is more to the stability of a medieval village or a Native American tribe than authority, proximity and trust. Trust is built because people depend on each other for basic needs (food, shelter, defense, connection, stories, meaning), and those villages that survive (barring external threats) are those where that interdependence (and hence trust) is strong.

Sky Blue writes:

“Why Intentional Community? Intentional Community is an idealistic response to a critical analysis of the problems with human society. Inherent to Intentional Community is the fulfillment of a dual purpose: 

• To be good places for people to live and work together, according to values that support their mutual wellbeing; 

• To be vehicles for social transformation by experimenting with and demonstrating ways of living that show how society could look if it were based on a different set of values. “

  To this I would add:

• To provide an intermediate level of human organization, between a family and a nation state, that makes the state less likely to be disrupted by internal complexity (of either the free riding variety, or the totalitarian control variety). In fact another level between an IC and a state will be necessary, namely an economic network of ICs, bound by mutual local trade interests. AND,

• To provide a higher level of organization for individuals (the family, of several possible flavors), that makes individuals less likely to conflict with each other, and a higher level for families (the IC), that makes them less likely to conflict with each other.

“What do ICs have to offer? The experience of living in ICs cultivates belonging and accountability, which inspires us to act from a deep understanding of our interdependence. Some of the key aspects of this experience include:

• Living together intentionally, with an articulated understanding of shared purpose, and engaging in consent-based decision-making.

• An emphasis on intimacy and care in relationships, and relating to ourselves and each other as whole people.”

  There are also negative aspects of this, which limit the personal agency of individuals and families. We can get our needs for belonging, accountability and intimacy mostly from our families (and for some from the level of the community of faith, which has been eroding in recent times for the same reasons as ICs-capitalism). Trying to skip the family level can lead to a decrease in both intimacy and agency, as well as more potential for conflict. Consensus for decisions affecting mostly individuals is not beneficial to practice at the family level. Consensus for decisions affecting mostly families is not beneficial to practice at the community level (etc to higher levels, and also lower levels than individuals, but we won’t talk about organs or psychological parts making decisions here, see work by Michael Levin on that). There are very few decisions that need consensus at the community level, especially if families live separately and interact in clear ways according to well (pre-) defined economically and culturally synergistic roles; most decisions would then be at the family and individual level, with only a few at the community level.

• “Sharing resources, and the responsibility for generating and managing those resources, and getting to see our efforts directly benefit our community. This shifts us out of a commodified, transactional way of relating, and towards a paradigm based more on the root word of economy – eco, from the Greek word for home.”

  So why not have families live close to each other in an IC, so they could share some resources, especially cultural ones like dancing, singing, playing music, engaging in spiritual activities, and more importantly than sharing resources, actually producing goods and services for each other (as opposed to producing money for each other by giving their energy to an impersonal system, and getting goods and services from an impersonal system)?

Propagating liberal values within a system which dissolves membranes (including IC membranes)

“We’re not going to turn the whole world into a bunch of ICs. ICs should be seen as pre-figurative. Eventually there may still be things that look like today’s ICs. But if we’re successful, they won’t be needed in the same way, because regardless of where or how people live, it will be according to values like cooperation, equity, and resilience.”

Here I disagree. The human world started out as a bunch of small hunter-gatherer communities/tribes/bands (with families and individuals as levels below them), and it will have to go back to that arrangement for the same reason that our bodies are made up of organs and cells, instead of a soup of organic molecules-having to do with managing complexity and free riding*. Intentional communities started forming (mostly, with a few exceptions like the Diggers and Anabaptists) after the industrial revolution, and there was no loneliness crisis before the industrial revolution. Before that there were unintentional communities, in the form of tribes and later villages. What changed is capitalism (which started out shortly before the industrial revolution with mercantilism and the triangle trade), which tends to dissolve these intermediate levels of organization (family, community, federation of communities) between an individual and a state or a large corporation. It even seems to dissolve integrated individuals, seen as collectives of psychological parts (see The Social Dilemma movie), for reasons we won’t get into here, and also sometimes weaken the power of states. We absolutely need the level of small communities, whether they are intentional or not. This goes beyond the liberal values mentioned above. We need them to prevent chaos, at all levels below them (including families), and we need families to provide secure psychological attachment. Only within capitalism do some people have the illusion that we don’t need communities.

“Let’s get real. For the most part, the models being used by most ICs, particularly regarding ownership and economics, tend to focus on individual lives and households, with insufficient capacity being collectivized towards a larger mission. If you simply tally up where people in an IC are putting their time, energy, money, etc., it is highly skewed towards individuals, with the community usually being given the minimum, and the mission getting way less than what it needs.”

I disagree again. ICs within capitalism do NOT focus on individuals and households/families. They focus their energies on their jobs (and/or the internet), which connect them to the global capitalist economy. I do agree that there is MORE focus on individuals and families than the community, but that in itself is as it should be. The problem is that after giving most of their energy to (and taking from) the global economy, and giving a bit to their families, there is almost nothing left for the community.

Theory of change-strategies and tactics that include conservative values and heeding generalized Dunbar numbers

“The need for new models and strategies. The goals may have been well intentioned but they lacked a theory of change, a sense of foresight, or a commitment to dedicating the resources necessary to generate meaningful momentum. In other words, there is an idea that if we do X (start a certain kind of IC)  then Z (change the world) will naturally happen. But we don’t think through Y (how will the community change the world), which is what would actually make Z happen. And in the absence of that, it’s entirely unclear whether our vision for X makes sense.”

Yes to new models and strategies, based on science and a deep study of history. People think through Y, but they have been wrong so far in their understanding, because Y hasn’t worked. Y has included: “Be the change you want to see in the world”, “If you build it, they will come”, and “some supernatural entity (God, Jesus, Gaia, aliens/spirits from another dimension, etc) will surely help us because we’re the good guys”. This doesn’t work because the kind of change that goes against the current of the mainstream requires collective action at a large scale from humans, not just individual action or small scale community action, even if assisted by supernatural entities. It requires to be able to gain some strong measure of independence from the mainstream, in order to change it or at least offer an alternative (instead of being changed by it), which individuals, or even small bands of them can’t do on their own.

Or Y has been various ideas of reforming capitalism to be more transparent, worker-owned, or more environmentally circular (instead of linear), and having community businesses exemplify these transformations. This doesn’t work because capitalism is at the root of our problems of not being able to keep families, communities and integrated individuals intact. Not in some conspiratorial way, but simply due to natural social/economic selection within capitalism. In production, If we can make money from a job in the global economy, producing something for the global economy, we are less dependent on our community members and the land around us. In consumption, if we can buy what we need from a store that is plugged into the global market, we also become less dependent on our community members and the land around us. Both of these are currently easier to do than to produce for and consume from our community members and the land. The membrane of a community is not usually physical. It relies on economic agreements between community members, and capitalism simply makes these less desirable. Even a community-owned company has this problem of diluting the inter-dependence between community members by introducing the third wheel of the global market to mediate between community members, through its needs and through money. Money is not the problem either, as money exchanged just between community members is fine and better than direct goods and services when these are not possible. But anyone in a community who decides they will only buy or sell to other community members is at a disadvantage relative to those who buy and sell from the global market, and will be selected against. It’s a collective action problem that needs collective action agreements, and technology that facilitates local production and sourcing, as solutions.

Or Y has been (a more sophisticated version of “Be the change”): “We will show by example a better way to live because we have better conflict resolution, communication, trauma healing, caring deeply about each other and the land, and governance technologies than the mainstream world.” The idea that we need these “soft” technologies, in order for ICs to thrive seems like a good, reasonable idea (especially since most ICs fail due to internal conflict), but I’m not aware of any data to support the claim that the more ICs use these technologies, the better they do on any objective metrics that are correlated with thriving and impact, like happiness, lifespan or (low) turnover. There IS data that more conservative communities do better on community lifespan (see work by Richard Sosis and Elizabeth Kanter), and I am guessing surveys will also show they are generally happier than secular communities, and have lower member turnover, despite doing worse on these technologies. It is obviously insufficient and something is missing from this version of Y. These technologies try to implement what evolved from liberal, European Enlightenment values of respect and care for individuals, respect and tolerance for diversity of ideas and religions, respect for reason as a way to influence people and make decisions together (as opposed to brute power and violence, or at least giving the monopoly for violence to a state, to be used only as a last resort to punish free riding/violations of consensual agreements), and of course justice and equality. These are a counterpoint to the conservative values which have held villages and tribes together before the industrial revolution and have the potential to do so again (strong boundaries for the village and family, loyalty to both and some hierarchy for decision making/respect for competent authority). However, without these liberal values above, many villages and some tribes before the industrial revolution were oppressive for many people, and also boring and xenophobic. Capitalism has been mostly a liberalizing force, as already noted by some of its proponents like Thomas Friedman. We need conservatives for community glue and keeping the boundaries of intermediate levels of organization like ICs, we need liberals for having a vibrant life for the majority of people and being able to adapt to and communicate joyfully (instead of hatefully or fearfully) with the world beyond the IC (especially for people on the tails of the normal distribution such as intellectuals and artists who are unlikely to find enough compatriots within most small communities), and we need a balance of these two for coming up with a system which can outcompete capitalism, or at least coexist as an alternative. That way we can solve not only the loneliness crisis, but also Climate Change, because land-based communities will take better care of their land, and federations of these in a watershed will ensure that no community tries to pollute our common atmosphere, rivers and oceans to gain an advantage for itself at the expense of everyone else. Also problems of justice and inequality can be tackled more effectively at the levels of family and IC than the levels of state or UN (no time to get into this now).

“Without a sense of purpose, it’s much easier to let passive-aggressive, conflict-avoidant behavior prevail, and there is an epidemic of unresolved conflict in ICs. This then makes addressing other forms of dysfunctional and problematic behavior in constructive and compassionate ways even harder. Tensions around identity politics make people who could be cooperating turn on each other. And groups tend to have tremendous difficulty in having open, direct conversations, particularly around trauma, identity, and different levels of maturity or capacity.

Many communities get stuck in a polarized dynamic between those who are resistant to change, typically those with more power and privilege, and other, often newer members, who criticize or attack others, or the community, in generalized and exaggerated ways, without offering anything constructive or a willingness to hold responsibility. “

Having communities become more conservative in their values (but not too conservative) will solve all these issues. Right now, most ICs are suffering due to being too liberal. The long-time members at Twin Oaks are too liberal to stand up to the woke members and point out the counter-productiveness of their identity politics and oppression olympics. These will become non-issues with well functioning integrated individuals, families, ICs and networks of these. Unity within ICs is needed in order to compete with capitalism, and the wokesters are sowing division.

“Because people don’t take the time to learn about different models, or deal with the baggage they bring in, there is a tendency to fall into inefficient, ineffective governance and decision-making. People become unwilling and incapable of making changes. This leads to frustration, disengagement, and classic dynamics like martyrs vs. slackers, or mavericks vs. authorities. There is also tremendous ambiguity around what constitutes appropriate leadership. “

There needs to be agreements enshrined in a constitution for each IC, which delineates values, in order of importance. Again, more conservative people can help more liberal people come to agreement on this. It still remains to decide which values are more important than other ones, but for this we can have much variability among communities-the important thing is to achieve agreement within a community, it needn’t happen among different communities. Similarly we don’t know at this point, but we can find out empirically, if liberal and conservative values are best integrated within individuals, communities, federations of these, or even nations.

I have already told you hypotheses for what I think Y (the means to Z) could be, based on emergence science and my understanding of history (but it would probably work better if someone had supernatural visions about this, from alien communication or God, since science is not very inspiring for most people). Here is a summary:

1. Choosing people for the IC who are internally balanced among their psychological liberal and conservative internal parts, or 

2. Having liberals and conservatives live in same communities, or

3. Having liberals and conservatives live in different communities, but in the same network.

4. Having higher levels (networks) of communities that trade material and cultural resources in synergistic ways, and 

5. Keeping a sufficient (we don't know yet what that is) amount of resources internally in the community relative to how much is exported to or imported from the greater economy, or even the network, to encourage greater interdependence within the community.

6. Having pods/families, not just a bunch of individuals in the community.

7. Having compatible prioritization of values among members of an IC.

Here is another one, which is still undergoing research:

8. Encouraging some friendly competition among pods/families in the community, and communities in the network, in order to maintain greater freedom at these levels. Competition at the individual level is already happening plenty (sometimes too much, weakening families and communities) and does not need encouragement.

“By “transform the world,” I mean the fundamental transformation of global human society based on values such as cooperation and interdependence, reverence for all life, equity and justice, sustainability and regeneration. “

Nice liberal values, but we also need the conservative ones, in order to form resilient families and ICs.

Funding, inspiring and shared understanding

“This movement doesn’t tend to attract people with a lot of money, and people who do have a lot of money tend to want to do their own thing. The movement is also too small, scattered, and isolated, and not focused enough on marginalized populations or key issues to be attractive to big funders. There is a catch 22 of the movement not being relevant enough to attract the funding needed to become more relevant.”

Liberal donors are concerned with marginalized populations. But if we courted more conservative donors, which focus on community building, and productivity/wealth creation through development (and resuscitation) of more local technologies, we might be able to raise more money. We may also be able to get more donors through developing the science of Emergence and applying it to social issues, including how to build better ICs and economic networks of them. It may even be possible to start companies that capitalize on Emergence ideas, just in order to raise funds within capitalism, gradually shifting both their input and output towards the new system of ICs and federations of ICs.

“A problem in progressive movements is a focus on treating symptoms. Not that treating symptoms isn’t important. We need to do what we can to care for and protect each other from oppressive and exploitative systems. We also need to have a clear sense of what we’re ultimately going for, so we can address underlying causes, and in our efforts to treat symptoms, find solutions and strategies that also work towards the end goal. We need a vision of where we’re going so we know we’re moving in that direction, not just stuck in a cycle of endless defense. “

Yes! Conservatives will help with this. And so will Emergence science, which will inspire an Emergence-based spirituality. And the problem is not oppressive and expoitative systems, not in the western world today. The problem is a system that destroys intermediate levels of human organization. As long as we are completely dependent on it, we will not solve the problem. I wish the problem were oppressive and exploitative systems, as these are much easier to mobilize against, especially with the narrative of “good guys/bad guys”.

“Regional self-sufficiency and resilience, combined with cooperative and equitable economic and political systems, are our best bet for weathering the coming storm, regardless of its strength. Rather than eschewing local and regional economic, political, and social systems, we need to participate in their development. “

Yes, but with intact intermediate levels, and also higher levels than regional, to reduce conflicts between regions.

“We also need to consider how our regions will interact with other regions, and ultimately scale up to encompass all of global human society.”

Yes, but not as a soup of individuals. We need cells within organs within individuals within families within ICs within federations of ICs, within nations within a functional UN. We don’t have time to critique what is currently dysfunctional about the UN . And this, combined with a balance of the liberal and conservative values mentioned above, is also a vision that could unite us and give us some of the meaning that we seek. We could take it to higher levels for a spiritual dimension, like including the whole earth, not just humanity, and even beyond the earth.

“A precursor to consent-based, collective decision-making is collective sense-making. We have to make sense of things, together. We need a shared understanding of what the problem is before we can come to a shared understanding of what to do about it.”

To some extent, humans need epic stories to make sense of the world. I think Emergence Science will be the precursor of one such story. On the other hand, some of our sense making comes from just being parts of higher levels, and this we share with other creatures that have accomplished some amazing things like ants and bees. So some of the shared understanding will come once we can create viable communities that are attractive places to be, and a good economic network of them,

*Note that without evolutionary levels higher than tribes/communities, there will be more conflict between tribes/communities (at least according to multi-level-selection theory). So I’m not suggesting going back to paleolithic times. I’m suggesting keeping these intermediate levels, while also having the higher levels like state and federations of communities and states, that were missing for hunter-gatherers and even agriculturalists.