the 6 values for resilient, temperamentally liberal communities

In Alanon, the first step towards recovery from alcoholism is to recognize that there is a problem and the alcoholic's current strategies of dealing with it are not working. We have a tendency (unless we've done some inner work) to try to pretend that we don't have a problem, that the problem is with something or someone else (and sometimes it is!) or to distract ourselves with other pseudo-problems which give us a dopamine rush, but do not address the real problem (e.g. addictions). Such is the case, I believe with the liberal (I don't mean classic liberal, I mean temperamentally liberal, as in very open to new ideas and experiences)) intentional communities movement. There is large turnover, there is a low community survival rate, there is much unhappiness, there is no or little replication or growth, and/or there is nothing radical (e.g. a neighborhood association that does not challenge the status quo) but instead of learning from conservative (or rather more precisely, traditionalist) ICs that have much smaller turnover and much larger survial rate, we pretend that we don't have a problem, for example to redefine community to mean what already exists everywhere in cities or workplaces or rural homesteads, or to define success in purely subjective terms that are independent of retention, survival or turnover rate. We pretend moreover that we can't learn from conservative ICs because we think their success is due to religious brainwashing, or we pretend that the real problem is racism, or patriarchy, or capitalism or individualism. It's not that these other things are not potential problems, but the fact that there are conservative ICs that have figured out how to keep members, tells us that these can be dealt with and surmounted. Or we keep hoping that somehow all the other people who have left were just not a good fit to our community (but nobody fits for very long except the original founder or founding couple, except when people get stuck and can't leave), that they need something else (but no community is able to provide for their needs), or are wounded (but everyone is wounded). I've talked previously about how conservatives do better on the so-called unifying values of respect for authority, group solidarity and rallying around the sacred/keeping out harmful-to-community (profane) behaviors, whether from internal free riders or external threats. Liberals in ICs would be wise to learn how to embody these values better. I want to re-examine these values, not just the 3 conservative ones, but the other 3, from the perspective of how they can be used to create strong communities that are offering an alternative to our declining mainstream culture. Jonathan Haidt looked at care/compassion on a national or international scale or in the abstract. He did not try to ask in his survey about care/compassion in the family, or in intentional communities. If he had surveyed questions on the smaller levels, I doubt he would have found liberals score higher than conservatives on care/compassion. I'm going to look at each one of these, how they can help a community and how they support each other. 

1. Care/compassion for others: is easy to feel in the abstract, but hard when other people's needs conflict with one's own. It can definitely help create group cohesion when individuals feel valued by others. The group that values its individuals is the group that has its own individuality and cohesion. It can happen at the level of the family, or the level of the community. It even happens when individuals value themselves, because those individuals are a community of different cells and organs, different gut bacteria, different brain/personality parts. As the size gets larger than a village of 100 or so people, it is harder for the humans to care much about all the other individuals and care/compassion decreases beyond that level, though liberals are able to have care/compassion in the abstract for outgroup memebers better than conservatives. Coming from western culture as it has developed lately, most people have trouble even within a small family of 2. In many liberal ICs people have trouble making eye contact with each other, or being vulnerable and responding to each other's feelings if the feelings are too deep. But looking at communities like the Bruderhof, the 12 tribes, the Brotherhood of Christ or other traditionalist communities, it is apparent (even without formal surveys) that there is much love between the members of these communities. A religion or ideology can encourage care and compassion for others, but at the root this must be a choice that people make when they join. It can happen that people are too absorbed in their own trauma to either extend love to others or be open to it from others. This can be negotiated, as long as it's not the default. Being open to support from community members in times of trauma is a skill that can be learned with much positive benefit. Many people coming from mainstream culture are not skilled at this. Also being open to supporting others emotionally can be beneficial for getting out of a personal funk. 

2. Group solidarity: "Conservative" rituals that require practice and coordination, and sometimes hierarchy and a sense of the sacred, like folk dancing, animal sacrifice/hunting, playing orchestral or choral music, and participating in church services can create hive-like states of consciousness, where the parts/individuals become a super-organism/individual. But there are liberal equivalents in ecstatic/improv dance and jazz or improvisational folk music or "cult-like" group spiritual or entheogenic ceremonies and services that can do just as well. Also certain games and group activities can encourage group solidarity. Another important ingredient is having a common mission that is ongoing and where progress towards it can be monitored. Apocalyptic missions are self-extinguishing when the apocalypse consistently fails to show up. Common enemies can unify, as can hardship and competition with other groups, but they are not sustainable (unless the competition is not too extreme). 

3. Individual autonomy: It's a no-brainer that if people only focus on this one and don't understand the tradeoff with group solidarity, that it will destroy any community. However, the tradeoff can be minimized if individual gifts are actively matched to community needs, so there is more individual autonomy with work. Also the tradeoff can be minimized if people are free to have their domestic sphere only with people they choose and feel most comfortable with, and then invite (or be invited by) others into their sphere. The danger here is sliding into "homesteadization" where there is not enough other community glue besides sharing meals. Children can help with community glue, but a culture that centers around children is a dead culture because the adults have no life apart from the children. Children need to learn that there is a life that they can aspire to, not just one they leave once they are adults. In addition people could have individual occupations that may not be useful to many in the community and yet still contribute to their own happiness. Happy individuals are a solid foundation for a community. 

4. A sense of the sacred and the profane: A sense of the sacred could be due to a unifying religion or ideology, and/or a unifying mission. It is most effective when it imbues all of daily life, as well as marking special occasions with such solidarity-encouraging activities discussed in # 2 above. For liberal communities, patriarchal gods are not a good idea. More appropriate are nature spirits, or pan-entheistic deities. Humanism seems to be too cerebral and not sensual enough, so such values as pacifism, no usury, organic food, population control and diversity are fine but not in the category of the sacred and the inspiring on a communal level. A mission needs to keep being sexy, cool and inspirational for many generations. A sense of the profane is important to prevent internal (free riding) as well as external threats. Liberals tend to prefer gentle rehabilitation to punishment of free riding, but either way the important thing is to impose a cost on free riding to dis-incentivize it. 

5. Justice--this is partially about preventing free riding and jealousy and encouraging conflict transformation. Justice is about having small Gini coefficient in the distribution of ratio of each individual's benefit to cost. Many liberals don't understand this and think justice is about equality of benefits or of costs. Having good arbitration processes like restorative justice and good communication like NVC is important. Justice is something that many more warlike tribes did not implement--it was the alpha male and his consorts that got most of the benefits and the least costs. Most of the gentler tribes that had more internal justice did not get to pass on their genes and memes to us and so we are mostly wired for chimp-like hierarchical injustice, instead of bonobo-like justice. One would naively think that liberal feminist values would remedy this kind of evolved injustice, but the opposite happens. Most men's needs (except the alpha) become secondary to most women's needs, and people are not even aware this is happening. Most men sacrifice their health and put themselves in danger for the community. Most women in communities are not even aware that men have much needs and feelings, as men are encouraged to repress those. This kind of injustice is not sustainable, though most are blind to it. These things also happen in conservative communities but the difference is that there men get respect, gratitude, and other benefits for their sacrifices, so the benefit to cost ratio is more equal between men and women in conservative communities (more justice). However some conservative communities like the amish have injustice for women....

6. Respect for authority. It's fine to have gentler, flatter hierarchies than in mainstream, but even bonobos have hierarchies, mostly based on social capital competence. Hierarchies need not be oppressive. Leaders need to be supported and monitored. More experience and competence should translate into more weight in decision making (topic specific) if the community is to survive and thrive. Liberals who don't get this are not community material and should go work in a mainstream company where they will feel totally oppressed. Many liberals bring leaders down, even competent ones. Communities should not waste the talents of good leaders by getting rid of them.