If anyone would like to visit ZEGG and other intentional communities in
Europe next year, there is a great opportunity here. You could go to the
conference without presenting a paper, or you could go with some
information that people will really appreciate, get your name out there
in the community movement and the academic communitarian network, and all
that jaz. The survey we have been working on about what exmembers think
about their experiences in community and of leaving community (results of
which I recently posted) could do all that.

Actually, I think it would be great if this could be done via a
networking effort. A bunch of people could take on gathering this
information via a collective research project. It could be expanded to
other communities and lists, involving exmembers of many different
intentional communities. I'd help, but I couldn't take on such a large
project by myself. (Other surveys could be done of current members of
communities, but that is another project.)

I do, however, firmly believe that such information is extremely valuable
to the communities movement. Not just for our interest, but to help new
and existing communities. So there are rewards for doing this work, not
just personally, as in academic rewards and personal appreciation, but
rewards to the movement as a whole.

If we, those of us no longer living in community as well as those
currently in community, are interested in seeing the movement continue to
grow and develop, then surveying what exmembers feel about their
experiences in community and making this information available to the
general population, not just via academic and movement publications like
the ICSA and "Communities" magazine and directory and Website, but also
potentially to the dominant media and various alternative media outlets,
can result in many good things, the sum of which I can not project.

What we created and experienced in intentional community (and what those
currently in community are creating and experiencing) is obviously of
significance, even profound significance, to the world, which I think of
as the "circumstantial community." It used to be that people were born
into community, as in clans, tribes, neighborhoods, villages and small
towns. Now when people talk about "community" they talk about ways to
create a sense of something that has to be consciously created, against
the forces that break down community. In industrialized cultures the
natural forms of community lifestyles no longer exist, unless they are
deliberately created. (I could go into ideas on why this is so ....)
The only way to recreate what we have lost in our culture is through
building intentional community.

People now have the choice to live in intentional or circumstantial
community. And we have good outlets now for people in community to
express why they live there and what they think of their current lives.
The voices that we do not hear are those who have left intentional
community and now live again in the world of circumstantial community.
What do those people, what do WE think? What can we say about the
choices we made to join then to leave community? For anyone
contemplating building or joining community, or contemplating leaving the
community they now live in, what we have to say is significant. Our
thoughts and our voices need to be heard.

There is much work to be done. I can't and don't want to do it alone,
but I would be willing to work with others. We know what community is.
We know how to work together, we know how to do surveys. We can show to
ourselves and to others that living in community is not a short term
fling or an inconsequential part of our lives past, but an experience
that has certain value to us, and potentially similar value to others.
We just need to find out from each of us what we think and feel, and
share it.
Allen


PS The message below is from the director of the International Communal
Societies Association (ICSA), sent after I forwarded to him our exEast
Wind member survey results. Bill is the ICSA director, living in a
collective house in Queensland, Australia, while the ICSA headquarters is
in Kibbutz in Israel. They hold international conferences every three or
four or five years (I don't remember, I'll have to look it up). ZEGG in
Germany in 2001 will be a great opportunity to meet communitarians (and
academic communitarians) from all around the world, in a conference in a
community that was created on the site of a former Stassi, East German
secret police center. ZEGG is a community focused upon polyamorous
relationships, turning what used to be a place of hate, fear, pain and
death into one of love. Going there with information on why people
joined and left community would be a wonderful experience for anyone or
any group of people representing us all. (So Brett and Mila and Nina and
Jack and others in Europe, how about it?!). I don't think I'll be able
to make it. A.

PPS Got another message from Diana, editor of "Communities" magazine as
a result of sending to her the survey results:
Dear Allen,
Thanks so much for sending this. I may use some of it in the next
Community Grapevine column I'm doing (Winter '00), and will email you
then
for more info, if needed. Thanks!
Diana



--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: william metcalf <w.metcalf@...>
To: allenbutcher@...
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 10:19:18 +1000
Subject: Re: Survey of Exmembers of East Wind Community


Thanks Allen;
Why were you doing this survey? Is it part of some larger research
program?

Your results are very interesting. It is a shame that your sample is so
small,because it weakens how sure we can be about these results, but I
agree
with you that they are highly suggestive.

Will you be persisting with this research?

I assume that you have received a brochure about the next International
Communal Studies Conference which will be held in ZEGG commune, Germany,
in
late June 2001? If not, let me know and I'll post one to you.
If you are able to come, I suggest you offer a paper based on this
research
and your best-guess analysis thereof.
It sounds quite valuable.

Also, you will find ZEGG, and the other three communal groups we shall
visit, quite amazing places.

Great to hear from you again.

Bill Metcalf

-
50 Mabel St
Highgate Hill Q 4101
phone/fax: 07-38448922