Twin Oaks Community
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Twin Oaks Community is an ecovillage and intentional community in rural Virginia, located about halfway between Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia, that has sustained itself since 1967. It was one of the first secular egalitarian communities in the U.S. in the 20th century. It is a founding member of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities.
Twin Oaks uses a communal shared-labor system involving community work, organic gardens, hammock-making, book indexing and a tofu factory. Members work in community-owned businesses, with the community providing for all basic needs (housing, food, health care, etc.). All income from the businesses is shared, as are vehicles and houses. As of late 2006, about 95 people live at Twin Oaks - 12 of them children under 18, the rest adult members. The longest-staying members have been there over 30 years, about half of the community members have been there 7 years or less.
Twin Oaks is a living experiment in creating an alternative culture to the mainstream. Values include economic models based on cooperation instead of competition, ecological living and egalitarianism (equal access for all members to resources as well as to decision-making power). Twin Oaks strives to create a living model for an equal and fair society. Twin Oaks was originally based on the ideas found in the utopian novel Walden Two by B.F. Skinner, but Skinner's behaviorism was set aside within a few years of the founding and plays almost no role in the community today.
The community also has a pond, sauna, sawmill, and dairy. A different person bakes fresh bread and makes cheese every morning.
Twin Oaks has helped establish two daughter communities, Acorn Community about 7 miles away, and East Wind Community in south central Missouri. Throughout its existence, Twin Oaks has maintained an active visitors program through which outsiders can come live in the community for 3 weeks, and then may choose to apply for membership at the end of this visitor program.
Twin Oaks also hosts annual intentional community gatherings which are cosponsored by the Fellowship for Intentional Community. The Communities Gathering and the Women's Gathering both take place in August or September every year.
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[edit] History
In the mid-1960s, Kat Kinkade, a self-described "bored secretary," read B.F. Skinner's book Walden Two. Inspired by the fictional behaviorist utopia depicted in the novel, she became fascinated by the thought of implementing his ideas. She and some others attended an academic conference on behaviorism at the University of Michigan hoping to gain funding and support for a living experiment in behaviorism, but the conference was divided between those who wanted to act on Skinner's ideas as soon as possible and those who took a more detached, scholarly approach.
Although the conference failed to result in foundation or government grants for a behaviorist project, Kinkade was undeterred. In 1967, a group of 8 members was able to purchase an old tobacco farm in rural central Virginia, thanks to a loan from one of the wealthier member. The community struggled greatly during its first few years, as member turnover was high and the community could not find a good way to support itself. During this time, the community agreed to avoid the problems stereotypically associated with communes (particularly laziness, freeloading, and excessive lack of structure) by adopting an extremely organized labor system that each member committed to before joining.
As the community headed toward its fifth birthday, it had struggled with various ways of trying to make money. A breakthrough came in the form of the hammocks industry. Twin Oaks was able to develop a long-term, profitable relationship with Pier One Imports, which was the backbone of its economy from about 1971 until 2004, when Pier One substantially cut back its purchasing of Twin Oaks Hammocks. The community also began to expand, growing from 8 members to 40 members in the early 1970s to an average of about 80 adult members from the late 1970s to now. Twin Oaks was able to use the income from its hammocks business to expand its facilities, provide a higher standard of living to its members, and help launch two other intentional commuties, Acorn Community and East Wind. During this time, the behaviorist ideology that had launched the community fell to the wayside in most aspects of life, and building a model of an egalitarian society became the group's undisputed main priority.
Today Twin Oaks is perhaps the largest nonreligious intentional community, and is a linchpin of the Fellowship for Intentional Community and the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. With Pier One's exit in 2004, Twin Oaks has expanded its tofu-making business, it's book indexing business and work outside the community. While it is not as well off financially as it was prior to Pier One's exit, it has compensated for most of the lost revenue through its expanded other businesses. Twin Oaks continues to run an active visitor and outreach program, and hosts several conferences each fall.
[edit] Culture
Egalitarianism is at the core of Twin Oaks' culture, both in work and outside of it. All members are obligated to work about 40 hours a week, though exceptions are made for sickness and elderly members. Domestic labor that is often not counted as "work" in mainstream society is, at Twin Oaks, regarded by the labor system as equally important as income-generating work. Nearly all members choose to work several different jobs every week - from weaving hammocks and tofu processing to cooking, cleaning, gardening - rather than to specialize in only one area.
Like many of the community's "norms" (a word used in lieu of "rules" at Twin Oaks, because there is no penalty for breaking them), there's always an exception, as the community has a primary gardener/herbalist and auto mechanic, and book indexers are free to opt to work solely in that field as well.
Twin Oaks members commit to resolve disputes peacefully, to treat each other fairly, and to share equally in labor and reward. Feminism is a large part of Twin Oaks' culture, and many kinds of traditionally "male" work are done by women and men alike at Twin Oaks. (The converse is also true - that men do some traditionally "female" work - but perhaps not quite to the same extent.)
[edit] Life As A Member
Members do work 40+ hours a week, but 15 of those hours might be spent cleaning your house's living room or bathroom, doing childcare, cooking dinner, or even traveling to a nearby city for supplemental work in the community's industries. Members also have plenty of free time for leisure time activities, as shown by the community klezmer band The Vulgar Bulgars, the street circus troupe Circus Ruckus (they perform sporadically at the Charlottesville Downtown Mall), and the periodical plays performed by members of the community. Several members also have jobs outside of Twin Oaks, from selling art to computer and construction work. (Money earned from outside labor goes into a member's "vacation earnings", popularly known as "VE money," and members are not allowed to spend this money while on the farm - not that they could, since Twin Oaks operates as a cashless society within its membership.) Members also have means to attain "vacation" time, and they may also "suspend" their own memberships for long periods of time (usually to go on vacations and spiritual quests) through a PAL, or "personal affairs leave."
Twin Oaks members are known to be fun-loving individuals, and "parties" can vary from small sing-along circles at Degania to big dance parties in the Tupelo living room. Other events include movie screenings, listening parties, coffeehouses/talent shows and board game nights. Twin Oakers also tend to theme their goodbye parties, a recent one being a "Feed Your Friends" party. Fingerfoods were prepared for consumption, however members were not allowed to feed themselves, but only each other.
During the first half of this decade, about 80% of Twin Oaks' members were white. While many members of Twin Oaks come from middle-class backgrounds, there are numerous members who grew up wealthy or in poverty as well. About 15% of the community members hail from outside the United States. There are about 12 children under 18 years old living at Twin Oaks, but they are not considered official members of the community and thus are not required to work quota.
Residents live in 8 houses spread out across the community, with each member having a separate bedroom while sharing bathroom and kitchen space. Residences are named Harmony, Oneida, Ta Chai, Kaweah, Morningstar, Degania, Nashoba, and Tupelo. The visitor residence is Aurora. Llano, which members lived in when Twin Oaks was founded, now houses dairy processing, a business office, the hub of the computer and telephone networks and a communal kitchen for the courtyard. Zhankoye (better known as ZK) is the main dining hall of the community and hosts twice-daily group meals, mail slots, and a very active 3x5 board. All Twin Oaks residences and kitchens are named after other historical communes.
Within each house is one or two small living groups. More commonly known as an SLG, they serve to provide a familial atmosphere for members within the vastness of its membership. There is a three week visitor period for each SLG, after which members decide whether or a new member will be accepted to come live in their space. This is done to ensure compatability and agreement with the SLG's norms, as well as to help the prospective member decide if they want to join the SLG, as well. Twin Oaks SLGs include the wimmin's group in the downstairs Oneida living space. The Sunrise SLG in Kaweah is off the electricity grid and heats itself and it's water using renewable energy sources.
Of current members, the average length of stay is 7 years. Many Twin Oaks ex-members who have left the community live in nearby Charlottesville and maintain ties to the community (or at least to individuals within the community).
Twin Oaks members are religiously diverse, and the membership includes Christians, Atheists, adherents to eastern religions such as Buddhism, Pagans, and many others. The community hosts both Pagan handfastings and Equinox parties, as well as Christmas feasts and Easter Egg hunts. While cooperation is a central value of Twin Oaks, in any group of 100 people, disagreement is a fact of life. Some conflicts are inter-personal, while some concern political topics (for example, whether Twin Oaks should seek to be "rigidly egalitarian" to the maximum possible extent, or whether the systems and processes should be more flexible and make decisions on a case-by-case basis).
[edit] Membership Process
Persons interested in joining Twin Oaks have to write a letter of introduction to the community and then participate in the three-week visitor period. During the visitor period, visitors work quota (currently 44 hours per week) as members do, take tours, and attend orientations. The visitor period costs between $50 and $250 on a sliding scale. There are typically eleven visitor periods in a year. If someone applies for membership, there is a three-hour interview later in their visitor period, in which they tell their life story and answer questions. Ten days after the visitor leaves, the community makes a decision about the visitor's membership. Most visitors are accepted (about 75% of people applying), some are asked to visit again, and some are rejected. Visitors who are accepted have up to 6 months to join the community. There is no cost to join the community, nor any rent or ongoing costs associated with living there.
It is possible to participate in the visitor program just for the experience with no intention of joining. There are three-hour walking tours offered on many Saturdays. The community routinely expels people who drop in unannounced: all visitors and guests must arrange their visits before they arrive.
[edit] Twin Oaks in the media
The history of Twin Oaks Community is detailed extensively in two books by Kathleen (Kat) Kinkade, one of the co-founders of the community. The first, A Walden Two Experiment, covers the first 5 years of the community. The second, Is it Utopia Yet?, covers the next 20 years. Another book from the 1990s, Living the Dream, by Ingrid Komar (the mother of a member at the time the book was written), also discusses Twin Oaks' history. Many newspapers and magazine articles have been written about Twin Oaks. About half a dozen dissertations and a dozen master's theses have been written about Twin Oaks. Many of these publications are available at the community's website. In 1998, the Washington Post Magazine did a cover story on Twin Oaks.
[edit] Criticisms of Twin Oaks
Commonly, the first thing people want to know about Twin Oaks upon finding out about it is, "Is it a cult?" People are led to this line of questioning upon finding out that the farm is secluded, the members are usually averse to eating overly processed foods, Christianity is not as revered there as it is in the rest of the US, and the simple use of the word "commune" alone causes alarm from the general public. What most people don't know are the common traits of cults - a shared spiritual path, all personal wealth turned over, mandatory private or group therapy, living charismatic leader, and isolationist philosophies - and they fail to realize that none of these aspects (except the return of personal wealth generated during time spent in the commune) exist in the culture of Twin Oaks Community.
The basic idea of egalitarianism has been castigated by many on the political right, certainly not solely in relation to Twin Oaks. Ayn Rand briefly mentioned Twin Oaks in one of her essays, in a disparaging context. Those unfamiliar with Twin Oaks may characterize the community as escapist, non-serious, and/or full of hippies. Twin Oaks' commitments to absolute nonviolence and absolute equality are obviously not appealing to people of all political persuasions.
Those who know more about Twin Oaks and are sympathetic to egalitarianism may criticize Twin Oaks on several grounds. Some have suggested that the fact that it is less racially diverse than the US population indicates it is not serious about equality. Others point out that only modestly well-off people have the freedom to join a community where they cannot make money to care for their elderly parents. Finally, some have stated that they believe Twin Oaks is too withdrawn from the world.
Proponents of Twin Oaks counter that Twin Oaks is extremely engaged politically in building a model of a better world, and that while it is imperfect in terms of class and race diversity, it is far more diverse than most neighborhoods. Additionally, they argue that Twin Oaks has been enormously successful in creating a mini-society in which economic rewards are not tied to race or prior class background. The community also boasts an extremely low crime rate and basically no violent crime. Members also point out that it costs nothing to join the community and the community takes care of its sick and elder members as a priority. Members point to Twin Oaks' staying power and the impact it has had on its members' and ex-members' lives as evidence for its significance.
[edit] References
- Kinkade, Kat 1994. Is It Utopia Yet?: An Insider's View of Twin Oaks Community in Its Twenty-Sixth Year . Twin Oaks Publishing. 2nd Edition. ISBN 0-9640445-0-1
- Komar, Ingram 1983. Living the dream: A documentary study of the Twin Oaks community . Norwood Editions. ISBN 0-8482477-4-4
- Kinkade, Kat 1974.. A Walden Two Experiment; The First Five Years of Twin Oaks Community.William Morrow & Co . ISBN 0-6880502-0-4
[edit] External links
- Twin Oaks Community online
- Federation of Egalitarian Communities
- The Vulgar Bulgars, the Twin Oaks klezmer band
- TOAST Twin Oaks Academic Speaking Tour
