On Community

On Community

1. Earth has long been a proving ground and a school for the human soul. More recently it has presented a stage for the individual to explore the limits of free will. Community has had to take second place. But as individuals become enlightened, by which I mean more focused on making their lives meaningful, then they will come to understand the prime importance of living in enlightened communities. Only within communities can individuals flower properly; else the marauding and unenlightened freedoms of others conflict with their own and cancel them out, cutting across what they are trying to achieve. Here I describe a basis for organizing communities of the future.

2. A city, that is, a metropolis, cannot be a single community: it is both too large and too heterogeneous. A true community is culturally homogeneous: this is what makes it a community. Much of what is termed ‘evil’ is actually the imposition by one community upon another: cultural imperialism. A city may be considered as a melting pot of many cultures. Sometimes one culture enriches another: this happens if neither attempts to impose on the other. But as often, the oil of one culture is forced on and emulsified with the water of another; the result is a false amalgam, a cheap margarine with no flavour or quality which we accept only because it is cheap. Once cooked together, both cultures are forever denatured: that is, incapable of return to their original estate. Those mixed together have mixed-up emotions, mixed motives; their cultural heritage is scrambled and ruined. Humans become, in effect, “uncultured”. For if a smaller less dynamic culture is utterly assimilated into a larger, more aggressive culture, its rich heritage is effectively lost.

3. Consider parents bringing up a child in the city: the parents have absorbed or adopted certain cultural values or doctrines, which they naturally impart to their child. People around them have other values, some of which conflict with their own. The parents unwillingly accept that the child will see their own values violated and disregarded by other adults. They deal with their discomfort by ignoring people culturally at odds with them, or at least ignoring behaviour that they cannot accept. Seeing this apparent indifference, the child no longer sees alternative behaviour as undesirable: it becomes neutral. Already the child is semi-detached from its parents and their values. This accommodation is forced on the city-dweller by proximity. Strong views become an embarrassment. Over generations, Liberalism turns gradually into nihilism: the absence of values of which people can be proud. Ultimately, Morality becomes a mere matter of taste. Hence the city is a poor place to impart values. It is necessary to disentangle the many cultures of the city so that true communities can once again be born

4. Why have people lived in cities? Usually, because they have had no choice. Historically, a move to the city was made in order to survive – to find work. The advantage in material terms may well be considerable, both to the individual and to the society. But usually, the work is unfulfilling. In an Iscatite community, an individual is provided with more than mere survival; his life is more than wage-slavery, that is, wages in exchange for timeserving and labour. A community provides a lifestyle, a vocation. It allows real commitment and true fellowship. Above all, it is democratic: it allows people to live as they wish with others who celebrate their mutual sense of identity. Naturally, an individual may change and evolve. If the community is outgrown, an individual can move on to another, more suitable community, or into the associated Iscatite town to offer a greater commitment to the general good.

5. The aim of the Iscatite Foundation is to help enlightened people, particularly the poor, to escape the cities, dominated by commercialism, fashion, drudgery and escapism, and enter into Iscatite communities. It seeks the capital to resource this. It expects to obtain this capital by contributions from the rich and disillusioned; also from idealists who will raise funds by sponsored activities. When the Foundation has a high working capital, it will purchase neglected farmland and derelict sites, which will then be readied for rent-free leasing by approved chartered communities. Housing will be constructed in co-operation with the community founders. Necessary equipment will be provided.

6. Town administrators will be appointed by the Foundation, after passing examinations in Iscatite community ethics, maintenance and management skills. They will receive a salary for this. It will be their task to aid the small rural communities under their aegis to establish and maintain themselves on Iscatite principles; and to ensure that certain minimum standards of health and safety are applied. Where the conditions are satisfied, the community may apply for a stipend.

7. Only a subsistence stipend will be paid: a quarter to the community as an annuity to be used for the general good; three-quarters to individual members to meet their individual needs. Members are expected to supplement their stipend by selling their surplus at market or in the city, together with the various products of their labour, their arts and crafts, or their services. The Foundation will levy a tithe or purchase tax of 10% of the price of all material products sold outside (at market or in the city) as a contribution towards administration and services in the town.

8. Iscatite land and buildings will be held in common by the community’s members, leased rent-free from the foundation (in perpetuity) on behalf of the community. Individual ownership of land or the buildings on them will not be permitted, as this conflicts with the community ideal. However, everyone within the community will be assigned their own living quarters and (if sought) their own land for which they have responsibility and stewardship - a high level of individual responsibility and control within the limits of the Iscatite community ethos.

9. It is not intended that Iscatite buildings will be mean or merely utilitarian. On the contrary, every effort will be made to provide gracious living in spacious accommodation so that members feel highly valued and more civilised than they were before joining the community. Members will be encouraged to decorate and adorn their accommodations to as high a standard as they can. Living in and visiting Iscatite communities should be a delightful and enlightening experience

10. A healthy community gives its members control over their own lives. It encourages the use of tools and services which they can themselves manufacture; failing that, the means to buy them second-hand and maintain them on site. Thus will members feel in control of their own destiny, which is an essential element of true democracy.

11. A community’s self determination will also be encouraged if it produces its own power. It is envisaged that this will be achieved mainly by use of efficient woodburning stoves sourced from local woodland; but also, where possible, by use of other renewable resources such as windmills, water mills and solar gain. It will access its own water supply; and it will compost and recycle its own wastes. The equipment and skills to supply and maintain these services on site will all be provided by the Iscatite Foundation and its Town administrators.

12. A community reinforces its spirit if it educates its own children. It will do this to the limits of its members’ skills and abilities. Where required skills are not available in a community, either a neighbouring community will offer its services or the Town administration will provide teachers. Higher education for older children or adults will also be offered by a college in the local town.

13. A fundamental principle of the Iscatite ideal is this: Each individual should be able to attach himself to a community whose style and ethos accords with his own temperament and conscience. Thus will he find comradeship, security, and status; and thus will he be better able to realise his potential, fulfil his aspirations and come closer to happiness.

14. Within a community, each person has his own needs, including the right to his own space – his privacy; and to his own time - his recreation and relaxation. The community also has rights: the right to each person’s fidelity and work on its behalf. If there is a conflict between the two, the community has the greater right on its side, since it acts for the greater good. So any man frequently out of step may be exiled from the community if he does not choose to exercise his right to leave of his own accord

15. A general law is this: a healthy society is one which holds in balance the rights and responsibilities of its members. Insofar as responsibilities are neglected by some, rights will be lost to others; insofar as rights are abused by some, responsibilities will be more onerous for others. If rights and responsibilities are not in equilibrium, the members of that society will not feel integrated; there will be no true sense of mutuality; the sense of community in that society will disintegrate.

16. Fair trade can best be assured between equals. For communities, equal status can best be achieved by approximate equality of size and equal access to resources. Where trade is not between equals, then it is better not undertaken, unless the smaller community initiates the process with a limited transaction. Otherwise the larger side may seek to exploit the smaller. Exploitation results in cultural pollution; the community that cannot cleanse this poison from its culture will slowly die, like the aboriginal Australians, the Celtic communities and the American Indians of old.

17. A healthy community should not be so large that it reduces its members to anonymity and insignificance; nor so small that each man must attempt to master all trades. Therefore no community should form with a rump of fewer than 60 members. It should not grow beyond 500 members; if it does, it should split and the smaller splinter group should reform on another site. The exception to this is the town. A town’s charter is to serve the general good. It acts as a centre for all surrounding small communities. Here will be found the market, where all communities may send representatives to trade. Here will be found a hospital, a health centre, a college, a theatre, a concert hall, an arena and an administrative centre. Clearly the town must be bigger: up to 5000 people. But it should not lose sight of its clear function: to serve the needs of the smaller communities. To maintain this focus, it cannot be allowed to sprawl like a city. But it will be built spaciously and elegantly, not meanly and narrowly, to glorify its inhabitants and impress its visitors.

18. A healthy community needs common (communal) goals and ideals. A written charter, drafted by the founders best achieves this. All members formally subscribe to the charter, which may be a code of conduct, a set of disciplines, a statement of intent or articles of faith, whilst resident in the community. Failure of anyone to follow the charter without the promise and practice of change shall mean loss of rights and exile from the community.

19. A healthy community must itself be subject to change and responsive to its members. Therefore if over half the members desire a change or require an addition to one or more of the terms of its charter, this should be enacted. In the event of a dispute or major disagreement, the smaller group should splinter to form a new community, or disperse

20. A healthy community protects the innocence of its children and educates them in accordance with its own charter. But in a small community, it is unhealthy to indoctrinate children to the extent that when they attain adulthood at 18 or 21, they are not fit to determine their own destiny. Lack of links with the outside world renders the body vulnerable to diseases and the mind vulnerable to novelty for its own sake when the inevitable contact finally occurs. Therefore, apart from visiting teachers from the Town, the community shall undertake to allow its children to visit other communities, and receive in return the children of those communities for the purpose of cultural and educational exchange. It shall also organise sporting links with other communities and encourage its children to visit towns to witness trade, commerce, and other civic activities on a larger scale.

21. A healthy community seeks to recruit new members and shall, where it has the scope, advertise for them, open its doors to interested parties around and not shut out the world. In this way it will not become insular, suspicious of strangers, even xenophobic- likely to seek conflict with outsiders. Instead, it will seek to trade, to make cultural and sporting links with neighbouring communities wherever appropriate, unless such links would risk the integrity of its charter.

22. One community should distance itself from another. The boundary of one should be at least as far from the boundary of its neighbour as a man can shout; for safety fully 2 kilometres. Mankind is by nature territorial, and a neighbourly distance encourages neighbourly harmony.

23. Individuals who seek to belong to an Iscatite community have certain fundamental core values. They seek Virtue over Vice. Virtue expresses itself in honesty, enthusiasm, trust, altruism, patience and friendship. Above all, it appreciates the purity of innocence, and seeks to protect it. Vice expresses itself through greed, spite, lust, disinterest, deceit, aggression and intimidation. Above all, it despises the purity of innocence, and seeks to pollute it. No one individual perfectly embodies Virtue. But an Iscatite prefers the path of Virtue and when he briefly strays, becomes aware of his failing and seeks out the path again.

24. All people have a right to be treated with courtesy, respect and dignity. By the same token, all people have the responsibility to treat others with courtesy, respect and dignity. So it is proper to greet everyone as you would be greeted yourself; and mutatis mutandis, expect everyone to greet you as a worthy comrade in the joint field of human endeavour. Where such reciprocation is not made, either from man to man or from community to community, the parties will be unable to act as equals. In their relationship, in their trading, there will be no faith, trust, or equity; instead will be sown the seeds of mistrust, enmity and deceit.

25. A healthy community believes that human activity enriches the environment; that the discharge of waste impoverishes and contaminates the environment; that therefore such discharges should always be minimised. All Iscatites will live with the aim that any impact they have on the environment will be an enhancement rather than a degradation.

26. The members of a healthy community make regular reference to their written charter or constitution. Weekly meetings should be the norm to reinforce their beliefs. If a problem arises, they discuss any change needed to the charter and its likely consequences. They may then vote democratically to determine whether or not too accept that change. If so, it is embodied in the revised constitution.

27. Democracy in a community means that everyone has the chance to express a view. It means that where there are alternative views that a debate should occur. At the end of the debate, there should be a full vote by ballot box. It also means the community will act on the decision of the majority vote if this vote is not in conflict with Iscatite principles. If such a vote risks being in conflict with fundamental principles, the decision must be referred on to the Town Administrator for investigation.

28. For a community, evil generally derives from an unwanted and unwarranted external influence. Another community makes territorial claims, steals the fruits of their labour; brings in disease to which they are not resistant; or insinuates itself into their culture and undermines it. Therefore, society should be so structured that communities are protected from outside interference. It is true that a community may willingly take in an influence which overwhelms it and changes it forever, not foreseeing the long-term evil, only a short-term good. But where it does this from greed, it proves itself culturally weak and may therefore in any case be unfit to survive.

29. No community can forever remain static and immune to new ideas. But the process of change cannot safely be accelerated: a community needs the space to breathe its own air and the time to consider how it will evolve: it must be allowed to develop at its own pace.

30. There are certain freedoms we all obligated to give up, wherever we live: the freedom to commit crimes, for example. By sharing common beliefs, Iscatite communities free their members from the fear of crime and the curse of incompatible cultural contamination; so allowing them to blossom, according to their true natures. In exchange, the community asks them to adopt certain standards and behaviours which they already prefer. So paradoxically, the member of an Iscatite community has greater freedom than an ordinary uncommitted city-dweller, who lives in suspicion or even in fear of his neighbour and who finds his lifestyle threatened or undermined by the behaviours of others.

31. To receive a stipend, the Iscatite communities must follow this charter; to which they will add paragraphs of their own which do not conflict with it. Each community understands that it is always open to inspection by the town administrators. Failure to allow inspection would automatically forfeit the stipend and might result in the closure of the community. All communities must heed the advice of the Administrator and follow any ruling made. If there is a disagreement, an independent arbiter may be called for conciliation. These checks and safeguards will ensure the integrity of the Iscatite ideal.