This week Weird Things’ Matt Finley explores the failed utopian societies of history. Monday, he traipsed through the memories of the Oneida sex community, Wednesday we delved into the most oxymoronic utopia ever conceived. Enjoy!

As Monday’s post was all about fringe spiritualists and Wednesday’s was dominated by fringe philosophers, you’ll be glad to hear that today you get a little of both. New Harmony, Indiana – even the most well-mannered smart-ass among you surely can’t help but ask, “What happened to Old Harmony?” (And even the most dapper pothead among you can’t help but snigger and give the well-mannered smart-ass a limp high-five.) The answer is “finicky Shakers and drunken abolitionists.” Harmony was established by the Harmonists, a sect of Lutheran separatists who, according to the Historic New Harmony website, “lived by combining the Swabian work ethic (‘Work, work, work! Save, save, save!’) with the Benedictine rule (‘Pray and work!’).” So… “Pray and work, work, work! Pray and save, save, save!” Constant excitement. The Harmonists had already established a colony in Harmonie, Pennsylvania, but, with an eye on expansion, purchased the much larger tract of land in Indiana.

Starting in 1814, they built an entire town. Visitors from nearby Shaker communities stayed with them. Their neighbors, a rowdy (or, at least, rowdy by Harmony standards) group of abolitionists looked at them. Then the Shakers started getting argumentative, and the abolitionists (who they viewed as drunken lollygaggers) began to harass them. Finally, in 1824, a comparable land opportunity opened up in Western Pennsylvania, and Harmony founder George Rapp sold Harmony to British utopian idealist Robert Owen. The Harmonist gang – work horses, save benches and prayer mills in tow – headed back to PA, and Owen went to work on New Harmony – a godless paradise for working class radicals.

New Harmony was founded on the basis that religion is nonsense, an individual’s will and actions are 100% environmentally defined (the “blame society” model) and labor ought always be conducted via the put-out system (individual skilled subcontractors putting out in the privacy of their own homes rather than uniting in a factory for mass whorish industrial orgies). Owen was so confident about the success of his communal, 800-person “New Moral World” that he shipped over progressive European educators and scientists to help ensure the commune’s success. United States currency was abandoned in favor of Harmony-minted “time money,” with each note worth a certain number of labor hours; necessities were assigned prices in the form of time increments, and sold at the “time store.” Luxury items and the notion of private property were also abolished, so that everyone would work for the good of the community, which would, in turn, ensure each individual’s personal well-being.

Well-mannered smart-ass – is that you laughing? You’re nothing if not perceptive. With no common goal or shared belief system beyond the perpetuation of an arbitrary cloistered society, Harmony quickly fell apart. The first problem was that, while many of the community’s residents were dedicated thinkers, skilled laborers and imported academics, plenty of others were wandering philosophers, transient misanthropes, and even petty criminals looking for a fresh start. The second problem was a complete and utter lack of leadership, or even mutually held ideological beliefs (this partially stemmed from Owen’s refusal to live full-time in the community, as he was simultaneously managing a similar failing communal experiment in Europe). In four years, Harmony collapsed under the weight of the very same ideals it was founded upon, as, without individual responsibility, residents were able to selfishly exploit community resources while blaming their capitalist upbringing.

I know, dapper pothead – no high-fives here. No high-fives here.

This week Weird Things’ Matt Finley explores the failed utopian societies of history. Monday, he traipsed through the memories of the Oneida sex community. Enjoy!

Jumbo shrimp. Military intelligence. Anarchist organization. Classic oxymorons, right? And the founders of the now-defunct Ferrer Colony in Stelton, New York, don’t disagree. In fact, they repeatedly stressed that the colony was not an anarchist organization, but rather an organization of anarchists (a semantic parsing that seems, at best, a lateral move, but if it makes the anarchists happy…). This all took place back in the first half of the 20th century, when Ferrer Schools – self-proclaimed Libertarian learning institutions named for Spain’s famous educator and anarchist, Francesc Ferrer i Guardia – were becoming more popular among working class idealists who wanted to ensure their children were educated from a secular, liberal and socio-culturally conscious point of view.

Formed as an experimental offshoot of Manhattan’s Ferrer School, the Ferrer Colony was intended to take anarchist education to its logical extreme through the establishment of a year-round settlement for students and their likeminded families. Now, I don’t want suggest that the philosophical Poobahs of fringe ideological movements aren’t always the most pragmatic people, but the Stelton project lacked a certain degree of planning forethought. The land was unfit for farming. The bathing facilities were a nearby stream. Early pupils lived in makeshift tents and shacks, from which they watched the dormitory’s sluggish construction. The first winter (1915/1916) found the school staff and five resident families living in a freezing shantytown (though the farmhouse kitchen and nearly-completed dorm had limited heating) where the only bright spots were communal Saturday night dinners, which often ended in joyful, raucous all-night celebrations.

Finally, come spring, the dorm was finished and more families began arriving.

You’re wondering where the anarchy comes in, aren’t you? I mean, organizationally speaking, doesn’t this bear all the markings of idealized socialism? Or a ranch for raising free-range hippies?

You’re not wrong. Many of the school’s founders identified with (and even wandered the outskirts of) the socialist movement, especially in light of the then-raging Russian revolution. In fact, life at the Ferrer Settlement often found itself at the whim of various social fads, including a variety of dubious dietetic trends that Stilton defenders cite when recounting the colony’s stellar health record during the 1918 flu epidemic. Still, to play anarchists’ advocate, the colony’s few written organizational tenets were defined only as a matter of legality, and there were no membership requirements or visitation regulations. The community’s only stated purpose was to provide an inclusive institution to “lead a group of people back to a natural, mutually self-sufficient relationship with one another.”

The colony, which offered an increasing number of adult classes and opportunities for artistic – especially musical – performance, grew throughout the late teens and early 1920s. As one would expect from anarchists, most of the adult couples were unmarried, and the biggest ongoing ideological conflicts revolved around the use of violence in furthering the anarchist agenda (or would that be “the agenda of anarchists”?). Folks were marginally bummed that an increasing number of colonists were converting over to full-on socialism, but, generally, everything was copacetic. While most sources agree that the colony only truly achieved its humanist goals during its earliest days, when residents were forced to rely on each other for survival, the collapse of the Ferrer Colony wasn’t born out of internal struggles, but rather out of outside conflict and the dependable ravages of time. The last straw came during WWII, when the government erected numerous barracks on the land surrounding Stilton, and rowdy soldiers allegedly began vandalizing the school and assaulting residents. The aging colonists left and the community dissolved, proving that, as oxymorons go, the communal individualism of anarchy is no match for the organized chaos of war.

Friday: New Harmony… because old harmony went to the drunks