[P2P-F] The Economics of Monasticism by Nathan Smith

Thu Jan 31 09:23:51 CET 2013

 Dear Anna,

I resonate with that comment,

having spent a few years living in, and more interested in, intentional
communities, some with a strong spiritual identity, I had come to the same
conclusion, i.e. that no community without children AND elders, was
'realistic'.

However, as the New We documentary shows, there are now multi-gender and
multi-generational communities w hich have subsisted over several decades
and at least two generations

also of course, monasteries were hierarchical/feudal in their authoritity
structure,

Michel

 1. Re: The Economics of Monasticism by Nathan Smith (Anna Harris)
   2. Fwd: Be part of the new Edgeryders community: independent,
      bottom-up and self-organized. (Kevin Carson)

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:22:20 +0000
From: Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] The Economics of Monasticism by Nathan Smith
To: P2P Foundation mailing list <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org>
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The element left out of this analysis is the fact that monasteries are
single sex establishments which do not have to cope with child rearing.
They are therefor parasitic in the sense that they live off the produce of
the society at large which provides them with the personnel while leaving
them free to indulge in their 'spiritual capital'.

There is no doubt in my mind that child rearing is the most difficult and
undervalued profession, since it is performed in the main voluntarily by
untrained people out of love, and therefore does not appear to require any
specific investment. Consequently it can be ignored as in the above
discussion as though living in a secular socialist commune could be
compared to living in a monastery.

I am not decrying the need for a spiritual element in helping to sustain
indivuals and groups. Indeed I think it is essential to bring meaning in
the present situation of imminent 'collapse of civilisation', but it needs
to be able to be interwoven into our everyday lives, not hived off into
separate cloisters which may be beneficial for the inmates but do not
really contribute to the sustenance of the rest of us.

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