Black to the Land

A back to the land movement has existed for as long as people were deserting the land to live in cities. Before agriculture and the rise of civilization, everyone lived in small groups and foraged or hunted for their sustenance from their natural surroundings. With civilization came the State, a social entity that through the threat of violence coerced all members of a society to adhere to its rule of private property, a rule which resulted in the accumulation of wealth by an elite. The desire to return to a primordial state of grace has always remained strong, the oppressed classes continually resisted the alienating, destructive forces of the bosses. In the 19th century, revolutionary intentions of the masses were articulated by the philosophies of anarchism and communism. Whereas the communists sought to use the State to achieve its vision of a classless society, anarchists wanted to do away with the State altogether in favour of a voluntary co-operation among all members of society.

After a couple of world wars and many thwarted revolutions, it was becoming obvious to many progressive thinkers that the State could not be used to achieve the good society. Thinking that they could be the change they wanted to see in the world, a number of people left the cities to adopt rural lifestyles. The movement started becoming obvious in the late 1960's when hippies started communes around the world, following Timothy Leary's advice to "tune in, turn on and drop out".

Course Description

The back-to-the-land movement itself did not change society and many people who tried it returned to the city. It is still going strong and pockets of such people in between cities are the nucleus of progressive institutions such as women's shelters and coops. The area around Killaloe is the source of Cool Hemp frozen desserts and Straight Goods news service.

This course is being called "black to the land" to denote that re-connecting to the natural forces that sustain us is more than a matter of individuals or families raising their own food on a small farm. The end of humanity's alienation from Nature will come about through people acting in communities to realize their own dreams. Black is the colour associated with anarchism and a network of communities and workers collectives associating with each other is an essential tenet of the anarchist vision. Black is also associated with earth, the source of all our livelihoods.

So this is a practical course with the goal of enabling students to seize the time. By co-operating with others of like mind in a rural setting, they should eventually be part of an effort to build a new world within the shell of the old one.

Given the climactic changes that we are witnessing and the financial collapse that is imminent, we should act soon while we still have a choice. It is well known, even among the elite, that the present course of society is not sustainable so the question is - where will we be and who will be around us when the complicated infrastructure that now keeps things running breaks down?

Reading Material

The corpus of works that informs this subject is immense. My own education started with reading about man's desecration of Nature and utopian visions of correcting the problems. The book Quest for Community by Robert Nisbet was important to my understanding of modern alienation and acceptance of anarchism as a viable philosophy.

Authors that are useful for conceptually placing ourselves in the world during these changing times: Murray Bookchin, Jean-Paul Sartre, Theodore Roszak, Starhawk, Wilhem Reich, Abbie Hoffman, Rudolph Steiner, John Zerzan, William Blake, Germaine Greer, W.I.Thompson. Adrienne Rich, bell hooks

Articles about Dragonfly Farm (that i am a member of) will be provided experience there and that of resource persons from other intentional communities will inform many of the presentations. Uprising Books has copies available of Kick it Over with my article "Dragonfly is 25" in it.

Other useful materials and sources: Directory of Intentional Communities, Celebrating Community website, ecovillages, Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF), green anarchy, primitivism, permaculture, Whole Earth Catalogue, Earth First, feminist science fiction, utopian novels, poetry. Handouts being prepared are a review of The Quest for Community, Bookchin's "Ecology & Revolutionary Thought" and a communitarian timeline. A more detailed reading list will be available to participants in the course.

Course Outline

The course will be roughly structured to answer the 5 W's of forming anarchist communities in a rural setting - Why, Who, What, When & Where. Each class over the course of 10 weeks will delve into each W and its antithesis. I plan to bring in guest speakers to help explore the dimensions of going "black to the land".

Why - Anarchist communities as means to changing the world, Place to be when society collapses, Creating healthy situations for selves & future generations, Alternative to work & suburbs, Changing modes of production

why not - Reasons for failure of previous attempts, Draining of other struggles,

Who - Structure of group, Decision making, Conflict Resolution, Relations with other populations, Skill sets required, Children

who not - Sources of differences, Reasons for leaving, Problems of couples

What - Activities planning, Income generation, Infrastructure creation, Food growing, Connections to city, Engagement with local issues

Halfway through the course, we have decided to engage in a game where we pretend that we have piece of land to work with. An old farm is southern Ontario will provide an opportunity for the class to figure out how to implement the dream of going back to the land.

About the Facilitator

Stu Vickars <edenvick@resist.ca>

I was one of the founders of Dragonfly Farm, an intentional community between Bancroft and Algonquin park that was settled in 1978 by people from the radical milieu of Kitchener/Waterloo. It was my home until the early nineties when a change in circumstances forced me to move to Toronto. Dragonfly continues to this day although not too many live there now. Anarchists from Toronto have bought a couple of properties next to Dragonfly and are bringing new energy to the area. My partner and i hope to move up there next year to contribute to Dragonfly and reap the rewards.

Stu

edenvick@resist.ca

• Dragonfly2.doc: Article that appears in Kick It Over

• communalist_project.html: Latest Bookchin article

• Booksnotesquotes.pdf: book list, preparatory notes

Black to the Land

• http://www.ic.org Main intentional comunities site. Global
• http://web.ncf.ca/di760/ Celebrating Community
• http://annares-net.org/%7Etheland/?THE_LAND The group next to Dragonfly Farm
• http://www.aworldofpeace.org/ A motherlode of interesting & useful links
• http://www.newfarm.org/ Organic Gardening & Farming
• http://road.cjb.cc/ Rural Ontario Anarchist D(?)irectory
• http://www.kimbercote.org/index.htm Anarchist community NW of Toronto
• http://www.social-ecology.org/ Institute in Vermont started by Murray Bookchin
• http://www.rochdalefarm.ca/ What happened to a free university of a generation ago
• http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3821 How-to book of intentional community
• http://www.carrvillecommunitygarden.com/ Suburban co-op garden