Utopic Communities: Paulville

(adopt-a-texan.net)

I don't know very much about Ron Paul, besides that he is a Libertarian, and that I was once told that he is so conservative he is now considered by some to be liberal. Whatever that means.

His supporters have a dream, and it is Paulville. Here's from their website:

"The goal of Paulville.org it to establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty.

The process is forming a co-op of people buying shares in the community and these people would be granted land use at a minimum of 1 acre per share, for as long as they homesteaded the land. The community would be privately held by the co-op to establish private property for the general community thus preserving the community is 100% freedom and liberty lovers. The community votes on all community efforts, such as utilities etc. However no one is forced to consume these utilities and or pay for them, AKA people can be off grid on their share of land. This is in line with the ideals that you're free to live your life the way you want and not be forced to do or pay for other people's life styles you may not agree with."

Apparently a community already exists in West Texas (Ron Paul is a Congressman from Texas, something else I didn't know). You can read about the community in West Texas (here).

Thanks to Marion for this.

what's with the utopic communities?: Bicycle City

landscape models for bicycle city (howardmodels.com)

An ad in my gmail popped up the other day for Bicycle City, USA. What?

"City Highlights include a strong community; active and healthy lifestyle; vibrant economy with good jobs; top education and health centers; diversity of people and ideas; social justice; clean technologies; eco-friendly, sustainable development; eclectic urban designs and architecture; organic agriculture; alternative energies; and a celebration of the arts." (BicycleCity.com)

How can you include "social justice" in your city highlights? I know that 'New Town' is actually legitimate because it's a capitalistic enterprise and someone (Whittaker, namely) is benefiting. But, the Bicycle City website says that it has raised funds and is looking for the perfect place in America to create its utopia.

Didn't this type of thing happen a lot around the turn of the century? A huge trend of utopic community upstarts? Bits and pieces of my history classes are running through my head. The Oneida community in upstate New York?

(Side note: here's a really funny wikipedia sentence, "The branches were closed in 1854, except for the Wallingford branch, which operated until devastated by a tornado in 1878. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1881, and eventually became the giant silverware company Oneida Limited." - what? our utopic commune failed? well, let's just make silverware)

Bicycle City says they gain a lot of their inspiration from the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright and John Naisbitt (look up that guy - interesting)

"John Naisbitt in 'Megatrends' wrote about a 'high tech / high touch' future in that as we are inundated with more and more technology we will embrace the 'high touch' aspects of life to create a balance. For Bicycle City this means embracing the AND - the best, clean, safe and sustainable technologies AND the softer side of life: organic farming, sense of community, holistic, family, beauty, music, art, etc."

"There is a niche of people in the world who want to live somewhere better. Somewhere that isn't an asphalt jungle. Somewhere their kids are safe and won't get hit by a car. Somewhere with clean air, beauty and a good job. They want less stress. They want a new design for a city - a place that is designed and built now for this century not endless patchwork on top of designs from 100-200 years ago."

It just sounds like the rich people fleeing the city. More on that later with stuff about St. Louis' history. Thoughts?

culture, community, & balance, part 2

(link)
"...the strength of family bonds differs from society to society; it also varies relative to other types of social obligation. In some cases, there appears to be something of an inverse relationship between the bonds of trust and reciprocity inside and outside the family: when one is very strong, the other tends to be weak. In China and Latin America, families are strong and cohesive, but it is hard to trust strangers, and levels of honesty and cooperation in public life are much lower. A consequence is nepotism and pervasive public corruption." (Francis Fukuyama, "Social Capital" in Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress)

I love the word nepotism. I always forget it when I want to use it in sentences. Also, I went to a high school where there were multiple teachers and administrative staff who were married or related. This made it quite difficult to bring grievances about a teacher to the principal - who happened to be her husband.

This is a continuation of what I was trying to look at in the last post. Is there a link between how family-centered a society is and how corrupt they are? As a disclaimer (Ailsa), I don't believe that the two could ever be directly connected. But I'm wondering if the same cultural idea that puts a high priority on family also builds a distrust of those who are not family, which is bad for society in general. For a society to run well, there needs to be a certain level of trust between strangers.

Again, with the balance. We must (obviously) value our families. This is an interesting idea, and I want to see where it goes.

culture, balance, & community

"Balance" - won the 1990 Oscar for Best Animated Short

"The truth is that a large percentage of Latin Americans either nurture or tolerate relationships in which personal loyalty is rewarded and merit is substantially ignored. In Latin American culture loyalty rarely extends beyond the circle of friends and family. Thus the public sector is profoundly mistrusted and the notion of the common good is very weak." (Carlos Alberto Montaner, "Culture and the Behavior of Elites in Latin America" in Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress)

A couple weeks ago I was sitting next to Julie in church, acting like a brat. Being a cultural studies major I have a hard time listening to speakers talk about things relating to culture because I spend the whole time quibbling with the things they say inside my head. Also, I'm a senior in college and I think I know everything.

We've all heard the sermons and talks about how individualistic America is and how our utter lack of community is putting us on the road to hell. Right. Well, if I've learned anything from cultural studies, it's that every culture can turn good things into bad by taking them to the extreme. Just like in most things in my life, if I forget to maintain a balance, everything is ruined.

I've been slowly working my way through this awesome book (that I've talked about before) called Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, and you could basically call it an anthology on how sin affects entire cultures and holds them back. It's sin's destruction and human depravity on a meta-scale: meta-depravity.

The quote above is how Latin America (and other cultures, too) has screwed up a good thing like community and family. When a culture gets to a place where they don't trust the public sector, where individuals cannot win elections or make business agreements without bribery, the reliance on community has gone too far. Henri Nouwen says that (I'm paraphrasing) if an individual cannot be alone, they should not be in community, and if an individual cannot be in community, they shouldn't be alone. Balance.