 
To: "Jon C. Slenk" , david.banks@ANDREW.CMU.EDU
Cc: +dist+/afs/andrew/usr/js9b/Public/camc.dl@ANDREW.CMU.EDU,
        Thomas_Price@KANGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: the Altoona Mandarin Society
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 03 Feb 93 13:49:53 EST."
              
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 93 17:03:17 EST
Message-Id: <1080.729381797@KANGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Thomas_Price@KANGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU


I was just reading some stuff by Stephen Gaskins -- founder of The
Farm -- and thought: if I had n tens of busloads of people and we
were going forth to find a new way of life, I wouldn't go start 
a commune. I would find a small city and install myself and my
group as the cultural elite, in a (hopefully) mutually beneficial 
arrangement. We'd be fairly sly about it, so as to avoid resentment.

(this is the plot of a short story I was working out, called "The Altoona
Mandarin Society")

Here's what would be needed:

1) A spiritual center. The establishment of either a Zen Center or a
non-violence, peace and justice center. Why? Because the elite need 
at least one place to act as a focus of spiritual/human energy, and
some transcendental point of agreement to provide community feeling
despite inevitable practical differences and problems arising from
unrelated action. I choose the two options above because I am interested
in both but also because I think Zen is conducive to tremendous creativity,
and beause non-violent activism is conducive to community spirit and 
social productivity.

2) A performance space ... which could conveniently be associated with
the above.

3) Control of media. The mandarins will either purchase, establish, or
get jobs on the editorial board of a traditional or alternative 
newspaper.

4) Representation in government. This can vary from explicit (running
for office) to de facto (an architect offering to do volunteer work
for the city planning office, or create a city plan in the likely 
absence of one, in order to create walking space and a `cultural district')
to indirect (working through the Chamber of Commerce or the Rotarians).

They would then work to harness:

5) Educational resources. By getting jobs at local colleges (community or 
otherwise), places within the school district (either on the school board or 
in the volunteer organizations associated with school districts)

6) Library resources. Lecture programs coordinated with the library,
through its volunteer program. Journals and materials.

7) Local volunteer organizations and charities. See about getting consolidated
office space close to the municipal building and working closely with city
government.

8) Local musicians -- organize concerts, provide role models or information
about role models, encourage discussion and ambition among the local
talent

9) Local craftspeople and artists -- similarly

10) Imported musicians, craftspeople, and artists. Start bringing them in from
- well, in the case of Altoona, god knows where from -- but from elsewhere.
Make it worth their while to come to this place.

The point of all this is that a lot of resources exist already, redundantly,
and without any real direction or sense of place. If I had 20-40-60 people
who were interested in creative/intentional community, I'd try to get
us all to some little city with low property values. We'd then do our
thing -- probably with a mixture of little farmsteads in the mountains
outside of town, cooperative houses inside of town, and individual, ordinary
dwelling arrangements -- all knowing one another and paying attention to
one anothers' work -- and share our thing with the town, in the meantime
benefitting everybody by assembling the tools necessary for a cultural life.


      Tom Price   |    tp0x@cs.cmu.edu   |   Free will? What free will? 
 *****************************************************************************
  plutoniumsurveillanceterroristCIAassassinationIranContrawirefraudcryptology



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