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The Polyamorous Christian Socialist Utopia That Made Silverware
- aaron-lebo 10y agoInteresting how Mormonism came out of the same area at the same time. Were any other religions or cults part of that tent revivalism culture? I thought JW's but that's further south and a few decades later.
- garysieling 10y agoCharles Finney too, and the predecessors to Seventh-Day Adventists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned-over_district https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned-over_district
- davidw 10y agoThis was another one that went on to produce housewares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies
- beat 10y agoThat's so weird... I lived near the Amana Colonies (in Grinnell, and then Iowa City) for 15 years, and always assumed they were Amish. Love that place!
- jaskerr 10y agoDid you live in Grinnell, or go to the college? If you weren't a student I could understand. If you were a student, why didn't you ask Prof. Andelson? He did his PhD work in the colonies. The colonies are definitely a good place to visit. Tho' you have to travel a bit further and look carefully to begin to pierce the veil they put up for outsiders. Even then, you are still an outsider.
- beat 10y agoWent to the college. Actually took basic anthropology from Prof. Andelson, back in the '80s. But that wasn't about his own research, that was the usual intro-class stuff.
- jaskerr 10y agoAh, OK. Tho', I never took Andelson's class ... Learned about the Amanas through independent research. As for the Amish, they're here in NY. Not what you would think. A good start is Amish Society, by Hostetler.
- beat 10y agoThere are plenty of Amish in southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, too. I have a hard time telling Amana from Amish by looking, although I could easily tell Amana and Mennonites apart when I lived near them in Iowa.
- subpixel 10y agoThat part of NY State was called the 'Burned-over district' because "the area had been so heavily evangelized as to have no 'fuel' (unconverted population) left over to 'burn' (convert)". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned-over_district https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned-over_district
- neuromantik8086 10y agoI read a theory once that the religious fervor may have also been fueled by upstate New York's notoriously terrible weather. It certainly encourages some prayer for sunlight! :)
- h4nkoslo 10y agoBroadly, that's the entire Second Great Awakening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening
- natecarroll 10y agoI just read a great book called Paradise Now about 5 different Utopian movements in the US, Oneida being one of them. It seems the most successful colonies blended business savvy with a coherent set of values and cultivated familial closeness. Capitalist individualism obviously dominated the 20th century, but I can imagine a tech-focused system of common ownership making a comeback. https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Now-Story-American-Utopianism/dp/0812993705/ref=sr_1_3 https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Now-Story-American-Utopianis...
- toasterlovin 10y agoBut isn't the common thread that all of these groups ultimately failed?
- beat 10y agoThe Amanas (mentioned downthread) are still around.
- cjensen 10y agoSure. But according to Wikipedia, they abandoned communal ownership of property in 1932. Seems like the common thread is still that all attempts at fully communal systems fail sooner or later. Successful group ownership of a business by the workers is pretty common; it just has to stop short of a commune.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zepto 10y agoIt's possible that they fail because they have to operate against a capitalist backdrop.
- omginternets 10y agoIt's also possible (and, I would argue, more probable) that they fail because for any sedentary peoples, the accumulation of material wealth is inevitable, and such accumulation is unequal. Thus, some degree of "capitalist individualism" grows organically out of sedentary societies. The only successful societies with anything resembling fully-shared ownership are those which can't accumulate much of anything. I say this not to defend ultra-liberal capitalism or anything, but rather to point out that utopias tend to be very artificial (and therefore short-lived) constructs.
- saikit 10y agoThe Met has on display furniture designed and manufactured by members of the Shaker Community http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/shak/hd_shak.htm http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/shak/hd_shak.htm
- jenkstom 10y agoThis is one of my favorite stories that hardly anybody knows about. I actually did consulting for Oneida briefly a long time ago, and I don't think anybody there had a clue that it was started by a communist sex cult.
- JshWright 10y agoReally? I live ~20 miles away, and it's pretty common knowledge here...
- Gibbon1 10y agoLikely the people that work for Oneida aren't going to get into the Commie Christian Sex Cult origins with a random contractor.
- neuromantik8086 10y agoFellow upstater (grew up near Utica) here to confirm that this is common knowledge.
- dkhenry 10y agoFor what appears to be such a well researched article, the author completely gets the theology of Methodists and Baptists wrong. Not only does he do a poor job of trying to explain Arminianism, and he associates it with Baptists, which it isn't, but he says the Baptists and Methodists originated as part of the Second Great Awakening they both predate it by a century or more. Also I have never even heard of "perfectionism" and a quick google/wikipedia of it turns up no reference other then to this specific cult. As a clarification Puritan and Calvinist theology would hold to the "sainthood of the believer" which appears to be identical to the idea of Perfectionism raised in this article.
- rubidium 10y agoI wouldn't put it quite so starkly as "completely... wrong". It was a jumbled time for the movements and sects of Protestantism. Perfectionism was a valid strain of Methodism, see Wesley's sermon: http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-40-Christian-Perfection http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons.... There are PhD's thesis I could point you to if interested (look through Notre Dame's archives). Sainthood of the believer is a bit different from perfectionism, as perfectionism was the final stage of the christian journey in some strains of Methodism (vs. the predestined state).... but it all got a little messy in that era. Regarding that it's true both baptists and methodists originated well before the 2nd great awakening, but both certainly saw big growth due to it. All of that fun history stuff aside, the Oneida Community was clearly off in terms of normal Christianity theology and practice (and the article points to many examples of poor discernment). They made a nice brand of silverware though!
- ktRolster 10y ago"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." -Matthew 5:48
- koenigdavidmj 10y agoIt's actually pretty rare among Christians to believe that this implies that ceasing sinning is possible. The Nazarene denomination is really the only notable group that believes that today. The more common understanding is that lines like this are meant to drive to despair ("Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" -Romans 7:24) anyone who thinks they're getting close to perfect obedience. Only the perfect obedience of someone else (Christ himself being the only one fitting that description) is suitable to reach glory.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JshWright 10y agoThe Mansion House is really lovely building that has been well kept up. It's a popular field trip destination for local schools. You can stay there: http://www.oneidacommunity.org/lodging-rentals/overnight-guest-rooms http://www.oneidacommunity.org/lodging-rentals/overnight-gue... (they even have several apartments they rent out)
- DamnInteresting 10y agoThis commune was also home to Charles Guiteau for a time, the man who later assassinated President Garfield: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Guiteau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Guiteau
- sverige 10y agoAnd he was such a strange kind of loser that none of the women wanted anything to do with him and he was kicked out. Twice.
- Stratoscope 10y agoWhatever else they did, the Oneida Community certainly created a lasting brand. I bought this $13 santoku knife at Safeway 6-7 years ago, and it's still going strong: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Q8TXFA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Q8TXFA Easily as good quality as some of my much more expensive knives. Of course the brand has been sold, and it's probably just a label on products they import from wherever, but somebody is paying attention to quality and value - and I appreciate that!
- buovjaga 10y agoAlice Stockham was influenced a lot by the Oneida Method when formulating the Karezza practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Bunker_Stockham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Bunker_Stockham For an in-depth history of Oneida-like continence in the West, I recommend this book by Arthur Versluis: https://www.innertraditions.com/the-secret-history-of-western-sexual-mysticism.html https://www.innertraditions.com/the-secret-history-of-wester...
- andyjohnson0 10y agoI noticed that in the first picture in the article, the woman in the front-centre and the two women on the right appear to have no feet or lower legs. It doesn't seem be due to the length of the grass because the shoes of men nearby are visible. Also, the trousers worn by the woman standing sideways in the centre don't look wide enough to conceal her feet. Anyone know an explanation?
- JshWright 10y agoI think it's a combination of the pants legs being a bit wider than you think, and the grass being a bit taller than you think. I can assure you the Oneida Community had no bizarre foot amputation practice...
- kahrkunne 10y agoI love how many oxymorons there are in that title... "polyamorous Christian", "Christian socialist", "socialist utopia", "polyamorous utopia"
- JshWright 10y agoWhat's wrong with "Christian socialist"? While we have conflated (evangelical) Christianity with right-wing politics in the US, that is far from universal. Most of the Christian churches described in the Bible are, in many ways, socialist communes.
- zbyte64 10y agoAnd in many ways that is how the early Church started. It provided social services that the failing states of the time could not.
- taneliv 10y agoChristian socialist is definitely not an oxymoron. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_democratic_parties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_democratic_p... : "Christian democracy often advocates centre-right positions on cultural, social, and moral issues and Social market economic policies" and further, "whereas in the very different cultural and political environment of Latin America they tend to lean to the left". Utopian socialism is an actual thing : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism , related to socialist utopia, in a way that is characterised as "possible ways society can turn out to be in the future".
- throw2016 10y agoThis is a fascinating read. What I got from this is it's important for men to be laid regularly or there is a risk they will go and form a cult cum commune in a 100 year experiment that always ends badly. How many women have formed cults? They are not as driven by sex, and cults seem to be closely connected to sex, either the embrace of it in some way that is against current convention or the puritanical rejection of it. And thank god for the invention of the the condom. In perspective it has to be the most important human invention in 2000 years finally freeing women from the risk of childbirth or disease for every encounter. I think this in many ways fundamentally changed the evolution of our social structures.
- rokosbasilisk 10y agothe condom doesnt stop the spread of all stds or diseases. but it is still better than nothing.
- timthelion 10y agoI keep seeing the assumption, that anything that ceases to exists is a failiure. I feel that this could not be further from the truth. Perhaps the members were happy for a time and then died. Just because a woman ceases to be beautiful with age does not mean she was never beautiful at all. Go make some mandalas people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_mandala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_mandala !