 Diana Leafe Christian's book Creating a Life Together
lays out in painstaking detail the process to create an Intentional
Community. She is unapologetic about airing the dirty laundry of the
90% of Intentional Communities
that have failed, because these are the lessons that must be learned if
the next generation of communities is to succeed. "This", says Patch
Adams in the book's preface, "is the work for political activists who
want to live their solutions." If we want to change the world, we need
to Be the Change, and create the model that others can look at and say
"See, it works! There is a better way to live!".
As a business adviser who has helped many entrepreneurs plan out and
start up their companies, I tend to take a lot of the advice in the
book for granted, and forget that most people have never learned about
the different legal forms of ownership and enterprise, and about
enterprise finance. Intentional Communities are essentially Natural Enterprises, and just about all the advice in my book resonates with Diana's advice.
The book is extremely pragmatic, perhaps a little too much so for us
idealists. I am a believer in self-selection and self-management of
enterprises, allowing people to find each other, opt in and opt out as
the enterprise or community evolves in ways they like or don't like.
Diana's book is address to founders, and assumes that someone will be
'in charge' of the community. And while the book carefully lays out the
principles of consensus governance, it warns that such governance isn't
right for every community, and unless done properly 'structural
conflict' can be the community's undoing.
Here's the process outlined in the book, in a nutshell:
- The qualities needed to found, and belong to, an Intentional Community
- Creating the community Vision
- Setting up decision-making and governance processes,
fundamental operating principles, preliminary timeline, membership
criteria, and documented log of critical decisions made
- Selecting members and determining what each member must equitably contribute and commit to
- Conflict resolution and effective communication
- Legal forms of organization
- Deciding on land needs, researching, form of holding,
registering, creatively financing it, and dealing with neighbours and
zoning (in many areas, multi-family buildings are prohibited by zoning
laws designed to keep density low, but can have the effect of
torpedoing Intentional Community building plans)
- Site planning
- Making the community sustainable
Wisely, the decision on buying land is near the end of the process (in
most failed Intentional Communities it's done too soon and using
unobjective criteria). The section of the book on Vision is especially
good, and again, it's sound advice for any enterprise: Make it clear,
goal-oriented, inspiring, make sure it doesn't create false or
unreasonable expectations, and above all, make sure it's a
collaborative vision, one that all members take ownership of and buy
into.
The book has a number of exercises to teach members how to craft a
vision document. These exercises 'bring out' the wallflowers in the
group, clarify in each member's mind their expectations and ambitions,
'out' unreasonable demands and bullies, and surface hidden
expectations. One interesting exercise has each member identify
"things, situations and systems that must be or must not
be present" in order for them to go forward as a member of the
community -- a brilliant and innovative process to level-set and
clarify expectations. Another exercise, ascribed to process consultant
Rob Sandelin, called Where Do We Draw the Line, has each member use red
dots on a large easel to define minimum acceptable and ideal standards
and values for the community on matters as diverse as what foods will
be raised and eaten, the use of automobiles in the community, and moral
and aesthetic standards. The exercise quickly shows where there is, and
is not, consensus, and which members are going to be uncomfortable with
the group's consensus.
There's an interesting discussion on privacy. It turns out most
people's initial concerns about not having enough privacy in an
Intentional Community is unwarranted. "It's much easier to get solitude
in the midst of community than to get community in the midst of
solitude", notes Tom Moench, a member of one community. When people opt
out, it's more likely to be over personality incompatibilities, unmet
or changed expectations, or financial, power or principle disputes --
the same problems that cause many marriages to fail.
The shocker to me was the size of successful Intentional Communities.
In a survey by the author, successful communities envisioned an average
of 50 members in the community, and had an average of 25 participants
in early meetings prior to formation. But the median actual number of
members is only eleven. an average density of only one person per eight
acres of community land! Diana is only interested in establishing how
many members a successful community needs, so she doesn't answer the
question of why so few successful communities have a substantial number
of members. With more practice, as we start to overcome the zoning and
other hassles that interfere with Intentional Community formation, and
as the Internet and other social networking capabilities allow us to
find like minds more easily, will this median size grow closer to the
theoretical maximal community size of 150? And is our primeval need for
physical and psychological space, and proximity to nature, behind the
low density of successful Intentional Communities -- historically
hunter-gather communities averaged only one person per hectare (2.5
acres)?
The only thing that disappointed me about the book is the fact it
doesn't mention something that I think is critical to the cohesion and
evolution of successful natural enterprises of all kinds: Love. The word isn't mentioned at all, even in the context of creating community 'glue'. I believe you need
to love the members of your community. Diana believes you need to be
hard-nosed, realistic and unemotional in (co-)creating and
(co-)managing communities, and she's right, but that doesn't mean you
have to, or even should, suck the passion out of the venture. When you
love each other, you can sustain more adversity, you exercise more
patience, you compromise more, you find consensus more easily, you
trust each other more, and the whole enterprise is more fulfilling,
more fun. I think love is instinctive, more than emotional -- there's
something in us that allows us intuitively, if we trust that intuition,
to know who we want to make a living with, and how to do it.
The book sidesteps issues of human morality other than ecological
issues such as veganism and sustainable living processes. Just as in
marriage, however, moral issues, differences and lifestyles are a big
issue. In the 1960s, a lot of communes collapsed because of differences
over monogomy vs. polyamory philosophy, over the acceptability of
nudity and public displays of affection (especially in front of
children), and over 'it takes a village to raise a child' issues of
responsibility for others in the community. The book presupposes the
continued existence of monogamous relationships and personal property,
and there are many Intentional Communities for which these are
critical, contentious issues.
But on the whole this is a thorough, brave and valuable handbook for creating Intentional Communities. Another addition to my How to Save the World reading list.
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