Twin Oaks
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Twin Oaks 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 US 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, healthcare, etc.). All income from the businesses is shared, as are vehicles and houses. As of early 2006, about 95 people live at Twin Oaks - 15 of them children under 18, the rest adult members. The longest-staying members have been there over 30 years, but slightly more than half of the community members have been there 5 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, egalitarianism (equal access for all members to resources as well as to decision-making power), and feminism. Twin Oaks strives to create a living model 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 southcentral 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.
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 members (who was wealthy). 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--such as 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 substaintially 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 Community. 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 and book indexing business. While it is not as well off financially as it was prior to Pier One's exit, it has compensated for much 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.
Culture
Egalitarianism is at the core of Twin Oaks' culture, both in work and outside of it. All members are obligated to average working 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 - such as cooking, weaving hammocks, washing dishes, gardening, and indexing books - rather than to specialize in only one area.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.)
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 15 children under 18 years old living at Twin Oaks, but they are not considered official members of the community.
Residents live in 8 houses spread out across the community, with each member having a separate bedroom. House residents shared bathroom and kitchen space.
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. 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 alterable on a case-by-case basis.
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.Criticisms of Twin Oaks
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 highly disparaging context. Those unfamiliar with Twin Oaks may characterize the community as escapist, non-serious, and/or full of dirty hippies. Twin Oaks' commitments to nonviolence, feminism, and 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 (slightly) less diverse racially 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 in which they do not make money to take care of sick elders with. 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 successfully in creating a mini-society in which economic rewards are not tied to race or prior class background. 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.
External links
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