Communal Society Research Articles

La Formation d'une Pensee Sociologique: la Societe Polonaise de l'Entredeux-guerres

next two years converted between 150 and 200 to the banner of'Hare Krishna' and the belief that one could 'stay high all the time, discover eternal bliss' without drugs. Those who came to him were young college dropouts adrift in the counter culture sea who tuned in to this guru. Most entered this ascetic and communal society after encountering the Hare Krishnas chanting and dancing in the streets. They came because the philosophy attracted them and because their initial contact with the devotees was warm and friendly. By 1975 there were 30 centers spread throughout the USA. In the mid-1970s there was a decline in sect membership as the counter-culture wound down and the founder died. Prabhupada's death in 1977 precipitated a power struggle between the international governing board of the society and leading gurus some with peculiar western sounding titles such as Northwest Guru, Foreign Guru and Western Guru. The book's last section deals with those disputes and briefly touches on the sect's international growth (forty-three centers in Europe and forty in Latin America by 1983). This final section is most suggestive for other researchers. Rochford has clearly struggled over his material for many years with considerable personal and professional anguish. Yet there are many missed opportunities in this study. For example, he tosses away (in an intriguing footnote) the fact that many members came into the society because they liked the vegetarian regime. A study of the eating habits of such sects might tell us a good deal about their appeal. It is a rare communal society that does not at some point in its history produce a cookbook just like the Ladies Aid Society. Why? And many groups had heated debates over the role of food (the Shakers for one) in their spiritual scheme. Rochford is so interested in interactional analysis on a personal level that he virtually ignores the dispute between the gurus and the Governing Board Commission which reads like the struggle over spiritual authority that characterized both the early Christian settlements and the Avignon papacy. Scholars of contemporary religious movements will find much raw material here that should enlarge our understanding ofthe relationship between prophetic authority, modernization and religious belief. Robert S. Fogarty Antioch College

Organizational Efficiency and Egalitarian Democracy in an Intentional Communal Society: The Kibbutz

Kibbutzim differ from one another in democratic and egalitarian practice and in equality itself. We explore hypotheses in 49 kibbutzim that attempt to explain these differences by the opposing effects of a technological imperative that implies a rational striving for economic efiiciency and an ideological imperative that implies a commitment by members to traditional kibbutz values. Cross sectional data were obtained from economic records of the kibbutz federations and from four survey research studies in kibbutzim. They suggest, with some significant exceptions, opposing effects of the two imperatives on democratic and egalitarian practices although not necessarily of one imperative on the other. Implications are discussed for theories about the inconsistency between technological progress and communality. This research explores hypotheses regarding the conflict between the striving for organizational efiiciency and the values of equality and direct democracy in the kibbutz. The kibbutz was conceived as an egalitarian society based on the principle, from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Ultimate decision making power in the governance of the kibbutz resides formally with an assembly that meets weekly and all members can participate in the decisions of this assembly. Thus, the kibbutz, in principle, is an unusually egalitarian and democratic society, although whether it is as egalitarian and democratic as its ideology and formal procedures of governance imply has been a subject of controversy. Change in the kibbutz since its early years from a simple agrarian settlement to a modern, industrialized society implies increased emphasis on a 'technological rationality' that a number of authors argue is inconsistent with the traditional, egalitarian ideology of the kibbutz. Kibbutzim, in fact, differ from one another in the extent to which they meet their traditional ideals. We explore hypotheses that attempt The British Journal of Sociology Volume XXXVIII Number 4 522 Menachem Rosner and Arnold S. Tannenbaum to explain these differences by the opposing effects of a technological imperative on the one hand that implies a rational striving for economic efficiency, and an ideological imperative on the other hand that implies a commitment by members to traditional kibbutz values.

郷の立替え立直し-出口王仁三郎

郷の立替え立直し-出口王仁三郎

Rousseau's Inhibited Radicalism: An Analysis of His Political Thought in Light of His Economic Ideas

It is generally agreed that Rousseau affected a pessimistic posture toward modernity and that this posture resulted from his failure to deal with the problems of modern industrial society. Underlying this failure, I would like to suggest, is a contradiction between Rousseau's economic ideas, i.e., his defense of private property, and his political ones, i.e., his call for the creation of a communal society in which freedom would be realized through obedience to the general will.In a society based on private property, as Rousseau had to admit, an inevitable conflict exists between private economic interests and the general interest of society. In order to minimize that conflict, so that the general will would have a chance to prevail, Rousseau advocated a return to a simple society based on a primitive economy. This, however, was bound to be a short-lived solution, because, as he very well knew, the forces of economic development could not be arrested, and the appearance of a full-blown competitive economy could not be long delayed. Thus, Rousseau's clear insight into the problems of an emerging bourgeois society, coupled with his inability to find a way of alleviating these problems, constituted the root causes of his pessimism.

Location and Pollution in a Communal Society

The model presented in this paper attempts to explain the recent trend among Australian Aboriginals in remote Australia to abandon large settlements in favour of much smaller decentralized settlements. The model does, however, have implications for modern Western societies. Aboriginals are assumed to like money and non‐money income, stability of income, nearness to a place of significance and a low degree of private property rights, and to dislike pollution when interpreted broadly. Each of these determinants of werfare is expressed as a function of location and degree of private property rights alone and a utility function is maximized with respect to these two variables. The impact on the optimal location and property rights decision of a number of recent changes is then considered.

Planning in a communal society: A comparison between physical planning in the kibbutz and in the city

This article presents a model of the development of the physical system of the kibbutz as an example of the physical planning of a communal society. A comparison of the kibbutz model with parallel urban models of physical planning in a capitalistic consumer society reveals great similarity between the two. Thus, although the socioeconomic value system of the kibbutz is different from that of the city, the kibbutz may nevertheless be considered a “micro-city” with regard to the solution of physical planning problems. The primary conclusion seems to be that physical planning is less influenced by social system than many planners claim.

Acquiescence and Conventionality in a Communal Society

An attempt is made to test the hypothesis that the conventional behavior of individuals reared in "folk" societies is attributable to their tendency to acquiesce willingly to the expectations of the group. Utilizing a modified Crutchfield-type group pressure technique, children reared in the conventional, and structurally "tight," Hutterite communities are compared to a group of children from the host society. A sample of Old Colony Mennonite subjects, representing a conventional but "looser" society is also tested to assess the effect of social tightness/looseness on conformity. The findings indicate that Hutterites are only marginally more acquiescent than "worldly" subjects, whereas Mennonites score significantly higher. An alternative explanation of Hutterite conventionality is therefore suggested which reduces lack of deviance to lack of individual autonomy and the opportunity to be different.

Foundations for a Radical Concept of Planning

Abstract Not only the goals of planning, but its internal structure as well needs changing. At present, it perpetuates elitist, centralizing, and change-resistant tendencies. A new paradigm rising to challenge the “rational-comprehensive” model of modern planning is based on systems change and the realization of a decentralized communal society that facilitates human development in the context of an ecological ethic by evolutionary social experimentation. Planning in the radical sense is the facilitation of this change through a dialectical synthesis of rational action and spontaneity.

Maternal Child Rearing Attitudes in Hutterite Communal Society

Maternal Child Rearing Attitudes in Hutterite Communal Society

Adolescents' perception of themselves and adults in Hutterite communal society.

(1971). Adolescents' Perception of Themselves and Adults in Hutterite Communal Society. The Journal of Psychology: Vol. 78, No. 1, pp. 39-48.

Social role perceptions of children in Hutterite communal society.

(1969). Social Role Perceptions of Children in Hutterite Communal Society. The Journal of Psychology: Vol. 72, No. 2, pp. 183-188.

Aldous Huxley: Satire and Structure

unique existence led by Francis in Those Barren Leaves (1925)' best illustrates the extent to which Aldous Huxley satirizes the majority of his characters for being escapists and eccentrics. section entitled The Autobiography of Francis Chelifer informs us that the young poet has abandoned verse to edit Rabbit Fanciers' Gazette, to live in wretched rooms in Gog's Court, and even to praise the unintelligent babbling of his fellow boarders at Miss Carruthers'. On the surface, resembles the eccentrics who abound in Huxley's novels. He is apparently like Henry Wimbush in Crome Yellow (1921), an amateur historian who devotes himself to research on lavatory sanitation in the Middle Ages; or like Gumbril Senior in Antic Hay (1923), an architect who squanders his competence on plans to rebuild London according to the drawings of Christopher Wren. But Chelifer's eccentricity is conscious. He has seen, as has Huxley, the break-up of communal society into an amorphous collection of tangential egoists, each of whom inhabits his own private world. This break-up is, for him, such an actuality that to live anywhere except among eccentrics and as an eccentric would constitute escapism. Through Chelifer, Huxley shows that eccentricity and unreality have become so firmly established that the artist can

Personality in a Communal Society.

Personality in a Communal Society.

PRESONALITY IN A COMMUNAL SOCIETY: AN ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THE HUTTERITES. By Bert Kaplan and Thomas F. A. Plaut. Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1956. 116 pp. $3.25

Journal Article Presonality in a Communal Society: An Analysis of the Mental Health of the Hutterites. By Bert Kaplan and Thomas F. A. Plaut. Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1956. 116 pp. $3.25 Get access Paul H. Glasser Paul H. Glasser University of North Carolina Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 36, Issue 1, October 1957, Page 94, https://doi.org/10.2307/2573764 Published: 01 October 1957

Review of Personality in a communal society: An analysis of the mental health of the Hutterites.

Review of Personality in a communal society: An analysis of the mental health of the Hutterites.

Respublica Christiana

I think it was Lord Halsbury, in the Scotch Church case, who stopped one of the advocates in his use of the word Church, saying that they as a Court had nothing to do with that, and that they could only consider the question as one concerning a trust. In other words, with a religious society as such they could not deal, but only with a trust or a registered company. This is only one instance of a fact exhibited in the whole of that case: namely, the refusal of the legal mind of our day to consider even the possibility of societies possessing an inherent, self-developing life apart from such definite powers as the State, or the individuals founding the body under State authority, have conferred upon them explicitly. In this view, apart from the State, the real society—and from individuals the living members of the State—there are no active social unities; all other apparent communal unities are directly or indirectly delegations, either of State powers or of individuals. To such a view the notion is abhorrent of a vast hierarchy of interrelated societies, each alive, each personal, owing to the State loyalty, and by it checked or assisted in their action no less than are private individuals, but no more deriving their existence from Government concession than does the individual or the family. In other words, these phrases of Lord Halsbury are but the natural expression of the concession theory of corporate life which sees it as a fictitious personality, the creation by the State for its own purposes, and consequently without any natural or inherent powers of its own. This theory is not so universally accepted as was once the case, but Professor Geldart's inaugural lecture on ‘Legal Personality’ shows how great are the obstacles still to be encountered by that theory of realism which is for most of us associated with the name of Gierke, and was popularised by Maitland. The latter, moreover, has shewn how this very English institution of the trust has preserved us from the worse perils of the rigid doctrinaire conception of the civilian. For under the name of a trust many of the qualities of true personality have been able to develop unmolested. But this has not been all to the good. It has probably delayed the victory of the true conception, by enabling us to ‘muddle through’ with the false one. Moreover, the trust is and assimilates itself always rather to the Anstalt or the Stiftung than to the living communal society, the true corporation, with its basis in the Genossenschaft; and consequently, as was proved in this Scotch case, the necessary independence of a self-developing personality is denied to it, and its acts are treated as invalid on this very ground—that it is only a trust tied rigidly to its establishing terms, and not a true society with a living will and power of change.