SUNDAY, JANUARY 23, 2022: NOTE TO FILE
WaterShed00B0
The Oneida Community Option
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: ONEIDA COOPERATIVE, FROM THE WIRES, SUSTAINABLE SOCIAL SYSTEM
Abstract: The Oneida Community was a perfectionist religious communal society founded in 1848 near Oneida, New York. As Matthew 22:30 notes, "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage" and Paul advised "to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried." If in heaven there is no marriage, then why wait? To live the good life to come, start now. So in the Oneida Community all adults were in effect married and sex by consent was the only limitation. To limit births, especially in the early years when the community could not afford to raise children, a distinction was made between amative (amorous) and propagative love, so unless procreation was intended, men practiced sexual continence, i.e. they did not ejaculate. In the first 20 years, there were only twelve unplanned births. Post-menopausal women would teach adolescent and new male members how to fully satisfy a woman without ejaculating, making them safe for other women. Women's pleasure was the norm (otherwise women would not consent) and men who failed them were subject to group criticism to help them improve. Possessiveness and exclusive relationships were viewed as aberrant because in the Oneida Community they were. After one year of nursing, children were raised communally and biological parent/child attachment discouraged. Women were of equal status. Group marriage worked because only women who preferred polyamorous society joined. After 33 years, the community disbanded because most of the children preferred possessiveness and exclusive relations, i.e. the human biological serial or long-term monogamy norm.
COOS BAY (A-P) — Following the general principles of watershed management design involves going with what works, and the Oneida Community was successful for over thirty years. But the founding adult population failed to raise children having their predilections as such were not inherited nor culturally transmitted. One solution would be to maintain a viable population by recruitment instead of procreation. Individuals born into monogamy normal watersheds/communities who were polyamorous could emigrate as most children born into the Oneida Community did. In today's large cities, subgroups can easily form (e.g. fursuiting), but in a low population, low mobility world, individuals who are 'aberrant' should have the option of joining groups within which they are normal. A community could form in which all adults spent as much time as possible playing chess, but living to play chess may not be inherritable or culturally transmitable, so a community of chess players might need to perpetuate itself by recruitment rather than procreation.
Policies
Whether an Oneida like community within a watershed or a watershed where all communities were variations on an Oneida theme, the details of their biophysical economy and practices could vary. They could be an agrarian community, or artisans who export their works, or who manufacture trade items. The point of interest is that not all individuals who fail to be normal in one viable community, who threaten its viability, would be aberrant in another with different norms. If the difference involved the use of some types of recreational drugs, then viability may not be possible. The Oneida Community was different, but apart from failing to perpetuate itself, it was functional. Nature selects for what works. Monogamy works, and non-monogamy societies might also work. Given variation, some individuals will not fit into their community/watershed of birth, so a design for a viable civilization needs the option of emigration to an accepting community.
