Perspectives
Ever changed your views and then your life? Do you “buy in” to the competitive consumer oriented life style? Or would you like some alternative? Read about alternate ways of life that are cooperative, sustainable and enjoyable.

UTOPIAN WRITINGS

Looking Backwards - Arthur Morgan wrote a small book on the significance of Utopian writings as a way of modeling alternative social organizations. He also wrote a biography of Edward Bellamy, the author of Looking Backwards, which was one of the three most read books in the latter half of the 19^th century, the other two being Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben Hur. After this book was published, Bellamy Societies were formed across the nation. The book represents a way of life which utilizes technology but which is grounded in higher principles. Reading this, one can see how far away from the spirit of community our particular way of applying technology has brought us. Published in the last 1800s.
Read Looking Backwards online

Ectopia  - Probably this book and Small is Beautiful represents some of the best thinking on culture in the 1960 - 1980 period. Its theme is the secession of Northern California, Oregon and Washington from the United States and the creation of an alternative culture based on community relationship and respect for the environment. This book shows how meaningful and joyous life can be in the modern time if not focused on consumerism and competition. First printed in 1975 and reprinted in 1990. Written by Ernest Callenbach.

Community of the Future - Which is better for the optimal community - the city or the country?  Arthur Morgan believed that in many ways the small rural community was the superior, though he did write about creating communities as subsets of larger urban populations.

Can we prove that this opinion is true?  Morgan published a book entitled The Community of the Future in 1957.   Interestingly enough,  Peter Drucker, America’s leading management consultant, business writer and teacher, published a book with the same title in 1998.  These intelligent men have very different understandings of rural versus urban living in America, bringing different insights into the challenges facing us today.

Buddy Up, America - There is a common theme running through much of Community Service’s offerings on this website.  That common theme, subtle and not immediately obvious, is our tremendous use of fossil energy sources to fuel a geographically diffuse style of living.  Many of us have had the experience of living in a region where even the simplest errand requires traveling several miles.  A quart of milk requires either a car trip or several hours to walk to the market and back. Our current lifestyle can require the family car for everything, from finding playmates for our children to attending church to taking our refuse to the local dump.   

It is this pivotal point, the repetitive use of the automobile, where pressure can be brought to bear to change how Americans think and act about oil.  We have all seen rush hour traffic in which the vast majority of cars are occupied only by a single occupant.  For now, gasoline is still cheap enough that we use it to purchase this convenience.

But what if sharing cars was convenient, as well as efficient?  We could save enormous amounts of energy by attacking that portion of our energy expenditures which performs enormously redundant tasks, namely many people, driving individual vehicles to the same destinations. 

We asked ourselves how such efficiency might be created. One answer is to use our advanced technology to compile and disburse information about individual vehicles, their destinations, and their passengers. The use of such technology could, for the first time in history, halt the increase in per capita oil usage in the US.  Indeed, it could save enough oil to allow many additional years of transition between our centralized, city-based culture, and the decentralized, smaller communities envisioned by our founder, Arthur Morgan.