Communiversities
Communiversity
The original Communiversity model for a new social structure
(1968)
 | "Communiversity" is my term for a self-sufficient university-based community. |
| A Communiversity would consist of a cluster of intentional communes centered around a small community supporting university. |
| The community supporting university is the key to the Communiversity concept. This type of university would support its cluster of communes by supplying all the technological information and organization needed to create and maintain a healthy community. In other words, the university would be a working school as well as a center for study. Besides teaching liberal arts and science courses more or less Free University style, the university would function as the center for community management. |
| The university would also serve as the center for ecological study and action for the surrounding local and regional eco-systems. The university would be co-operatively run by commune members to meet the needs of each commune as well as the whole community. |
| The population size of a Communiversity would be around 500 persons, the universal average number for a dialectical group. The number of persons per commune with a Communiversity will have to be worked out between participating communes. A maximum population limit for each commune and the whole community should be mutually agreed upon and enforced. If not, both commune and community structure will eventually disintegrate with over-population pressures. |
| The Communiversity would be located rurally away from dense population areas. Ideally, the community site would be at least 1500 acres of forest and open meadows well watered by streams or a river. |
| Architecturally, the Communiversity would break away from the practice of designing community structures like concrete fortresses. Communiversity homes, school, and work environments would be organically designed, varied, and unobtrusive. Great care would be taken to insure that local eco-systems would be kept from harm. |
| The Communiversity could support itself in our competitive economic environment through various small co-operative enterprises such as: organic food production, mail order supplies (Whole Earth Catalog-type stuff), printing and publishing, arts and crafts, fairs and festivals, and manufacturing self-sufficiency kits for communes and communities, to name only a few possibilities. The community-based industries could have big city outlets with a rotating schedule for community workers. As self-sufficiency technology progresses, communiversity members would have to spend proportionately less time doing community support work. |
| The beauty and utility of the Communiversity concept lies in its role as an organizing catalyst for a true pluralistic society, albeit on a small scale. By combining strength with the communiversity structure, intentional communes will have a greater chance to survive and flourish, providing needed models for better social arrangements. The co-operatively run communiversity provides the basis for the unification of communes without the loss of communal identity. How the participating communes are socially constructed and internally governed would be their own affair. The most important criteria for membership within a communiversity would be each commune's ability to co-operate with the rest. |
The Mateel Communiversity
(1986)
From 1985 to 1990 I maintained a community activist resource library and meeting hall
called "The Bridge". Of all my social change efforts, The Bridge was the most
successful. We had many different groups using the facility and many local people in the
Mateel community (Southern Humboldt County in N. California) gained cooperative community
information and learning experience in their visits to The Bridge. In 1986, I tried to
develop a new version of the Communiversity concept to fit the times which were fairly
anti-communal as the communal movement had died in the previous decade leaving a legacy of
disbelief in the intentional cooperative community approach. The Mateel Communiversity
also didn't last long (about four months) as a major problem arose which was lack of
follow-through commitment by local people. The Communiversity needs "students"
to function well and our Mateel Community is full of older counterculture veterans who
have their own visions to follow. In short, we had too many chiefs and not enough indians.
Below is a listing of classes and events that went into the Mateel Communiversity before dissolving. One project though was resurrected a few years later, the New County formation project which became the Sequoia County effort to break off from Humboldt and Mendocino Counties to form a new county with a new and fairly radical agenda. The Sequoia County effort was unsuccessful at getting enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot and it too dissolved but the impetus for formation of a new county still simmers in the Mateel and Southern Humboldt community.
First Meeting: January 6th at 7PM at The Bridge will be the time and place to lay out a
schedule of dates, hours, topics, and formats for the Mateel Communiversity as a learning,
teaching and study center. Here it will be possible for those of us interested in some
fairly well defined topic to decide to gather periodically to work the topic over.
Enclosed is a Study Group/Class Proposal form. You can fill this out as much as is
pertinent and return it to The Bridge or bring it to the January 6th meeting. We're hoping
to begin to fulfill the original mission of universities--to pass on, and further develop
by critical discussion and experimentation, solid knowledge and understanding. As a
Communiversity, our learning activities would have the specific intent of directly
benefiting the community we live in.
Topics for study that have been already raised include "Old Growth/wilderness", "Climax Social Evolution Theory", "The Individual vs. the State", "Healing", "Studies in Spiritual Ecology and New Gnosis literature", "Social Process, Social Psychology", "Works of Ivan Illytch", "Anthropology", "Vegetarian Cooking", "Arms Control issues", "History-- Goddesses and Patriarchs", "The Legal System", "Women's Studies", "Co-counseling", "Life drawing", "Course in Urantia", "Shakespeare reading", and "Philosophy of Transformation". Bring yours-
Third Meeting Friday, January 20th at 7 PM is the evening to deal with the issue
of the Mateel Communiversity as Economics. This issue was on almost everyone's mind (with
a few strong exceptions) at the December gathering. The range of discussion covered
cottage industries, local businesses & services, creation of an actual trading center,
marketing products & services to the world, community self-sufficiency systems, a
money-less economy, kinship economics, developing saleable skills, sheltering the homeless
and feeding hungry people. Economics was spoken of as a paradigm for our whole lives. With
the idea that our community is unique in its commitment to developing and living
alternative ecological and spiritual lifestyles, we see the Mateel Communiversity as
economic democracy in action providing a local community-run organizational base
to assist in marketing our homegrown skills needed by all societies facing
post-industrial change-over or extinction. We see the Mateel Communiversity as an economic
umbrella organization that will help facilitate cooperative cottage industry development
and cooperative self-sufficiency so we can free ourselves of crippling economic dependency
on single revenue sources such as marijuana growing or timber harvesting.
Fourth Meeting On Friday,
February 3rd at 7 PM there will be a First Birthing Ceremony for our new Mateel
Communiversity. The time from Jan. 31st through Feb. 3rd is auspicious as Chinese New
Year, Wiccan Sabbat, Imbolc, Candlemas, Midwinter, Ground hog Day, the 3 days of the
Lesser Eleusian Mysteries, are all crowded in together. This is a time to orient ourselves
spiritually and deal with the theme of New Consciousness. We gather to determine how to
effect the transformation necessary to birth a new era.
Notes on the Communiversity as a Government system
(1986)
Community Synergy: The important thing about any governing system is its relationship with its people. Do the people using the governing system identify with it, do they feel the system, whatever its form, is an organic extension of themselves, does it speak and act for them, does it unify and solve their life problems? These are the real criteria. A political-economic governing system which works for the benefit of a small percentage of the community at the expense of the whole community and its environment makes no social or biological sense in either the short or long run. A community governed by such a system is a community on the road to failure.
Life is learning, Life is a school. The Communiversity is no ivory tower university. It is run cooperatively with direct participation of the community. The Communiversity brings knowledge and organizational skills to the community. The Communiversity guards against provincialism by creating an on-going forum where fresh ideas are discussed, tested, and applied to real life situations. No dummies should govern us. No popularity contest winners should govern us. The Communiversity government structure is part of the learning community--both learning and guiding. Students and community members are the same. The best qualified people to work on community problems are community members who are students of those problems, not politicians with other agendas.
Communiversity levels of government organization:
Watershed Communities, e.g. in
our area--Salmon Creek, China Creek, Whale Gulch, etc... Towns: e.g., Redway, Garberville,
Shelter Cove.
Watershed Management Council Classes: These classes parallel county or city services:
Essential Services: water, power, fire protection, road maintenance, health and safety maintenance.
Community Social Services: crisis intervention and dispute mediation, healthcare delivery, mobile libraries and Communiversity classes, education in general.
Watershed environmental protection and community ecology planning, general plan for the Mateel community, alternative energy systems, alternative building techniques instruction.
Food Production, distribution and marketing.
Sanitation and Recycling.
Community legalities, e.g., Insurance alternatives.
Communiversity Government Classes are continuous. Class coordinators plus projector
service library keep continuity from season to season, year to year.
Communiversity Government Classes form service teams to carry out service functions. Each class determines its own method of decision-making at the outset. Type of decision-making process depends on time available and class members' desires. Majority rule always means minority views are left out. Consensus is impossible with large and diverse groups. Elitist rule in any form is undemocratic. These are some of the pros and cons of differing systems.
Major issues vs. minor ones: A major issue is whatever issue directly affects the whole community or significantly affects one of the watershed communities or towns that make up the Mateel community. Minor issues are all other issues not deemed major issues.Each Class makes proposals for projects for the coming year or for longer time periods, e.g. Five Year Plans, Decade Plans, Century or Millennium Plans. (Remember, it takes about 900 years to grow a giant redwood tree--we have to have a long-term perspective if we are to take care of the environment correctly. These class proposals for major projects are presented as initiatives to the whole Mateel Community to be voted on, approved or disapproved.
Communiversity Class Structure: levels of responsibility and authority: Students for the 1st year. Students are volunteers for community projects that interest them. Assistant Coordinators--with at least one year's experience. They assist Class Coordinators. Coordinators--at least two years experience. They coordinate class learning and project action. Consultants--more than two years experience. Usually called in on temporary basis.
Choosing Coordinators: Choosing method is left up to each class, every season. This gives more group autonomy allowing individual circumstances to determine political dynamics. No rules necessary other than capacity to arrive at group decisions cooperatively and carry out class services and projects.
Coordinators set prerequisite core classes or standard of skills necessary for future coordinators. Coordinators are responsible for continuity of services and projects.
Coordinators are paid for their work. Rates are set by Communiversity Government Economic class(es). Rates are commiserate with outside pay-scales if community service benefits are added in.
Communiversity Government economic support: County, State, and Federal funds available for incorporated city or county of Mateel. Income generated from Communiversity products and services. Percentage of Communiversity profits are plowed back into Mateel community service maintenance and community development. Includes salaries of community government class coordinators, project and service coordinators.
Communiversity Income Projects
1) Outside Student tuition and student housing (grants and loans for low income students).
2) Mateel Video College Library sales and rentals.
3) University and trade school-type instructional video tapes sold to other schools and universities as well as the general public.(See the Mateel Video College Proposal).
4) Communiversity Co-op arts and crafts marketing, also Co-op publications.
5) State, Federal, and private foundation Grants.
The Communiversity should develop a reputation as a leader in rural ecological lifestyle development. Under the school's non-profit organizational umbrella many groups engaging in many different community and individual development projects along with ecological community developers will be eligible for numerous grants. Communiversity Classroom rentals alaŽ The Bridge operation example.
"Communikits" manufacture.* Ecological community self-sufficiency "kits" made for poor American communities and 3rd World countries to get themselves out of poverty and eco-disastrous development. Kits will be software at first--printed and visual materials plus computer software programs, and later hardware kits as we develop them. Charitable organizations that currently fund food relief programs for 3rd World countries will fund Communikits because these kits will eventually end the need for these impoverished communities.
* See the Communikits page.
Perhaps an ecological Theme Park with endangered species preservation as part of the proposed Redwood Museum. A Mateel Community Land Trust that shifts ownership of large land holdings to the community as a whole. Communiversity ecological silvaculture practices could still mean the community could earn money on timber production while keeping eco-systems intact.
Please remember: All these words are merely scaffolding for a Communiversity structure. Minimum verbal definition gives room for maximum individual and group interpretation. You define the structure as you build it.
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