Oneida
But perhaps the most interesting in this menagerie of religious concepts is the example of the Oneidas. The Oneida take their name from a people living in northern New York State. In the 1850s, the authorities bought land from them and sold it to one of the wealthier followers of a fractious new cult. Its members quickly cleared a piece of forest and erected outbuildings, and then, as the group grew, more and more grandiose buildings. Eventually, the non-productive part of their site looked like a Swiss sanatorium, with a beautifully maintained park and a three-story complex of buildings in the Pompeian Second Empire style fashionable in the 1870s. Amid these "confectioner's dreams" strolled happy people, vivid advertisements for a better life. Men and women shocked visitors, and you should know that the visitors were not small in number and many stayed. After all, Oneida women could wear pants, both slim-fitting and Far Eastern-inspired sarees, they could not wear corsets, and in addition they could cut their hair as they pleased, and - note - they could perform any profession possible in this great enterprise. From working in the fields, to working in the kitchen or in any specialty in the factories of baskets, suitcases, game traps (big business), to managing the silverware factory, which, by the way, still operates today as Oneida Silverware. A woman, if she wanted, could also become a carpenter (here, fortunately, I don't have a problem with the feminative!), a hunter (here I have a problem), an administrator or, quite standardly, a teacher. For visiting middle-class New Yorkers this was unthinkable.
Even more of a shock was the daily life of the Oneidas. While they had the option of marrying, the emphasis was not on family formation, but on pairings, and these were usually temporary. Women and men lived in separate modest rooms, and interaction between them took place in numerous communal rooms, the most important of which was a meeting room, painted with frescoes and provided with a piano standing on a stage, where they recited, listened to informative talks, sang and subjected each other to constructive criticism. This criticism, like cultural activities, served the purpose of self-improvement and the emergence of the morally and spiritually highest individuals, who were eventually to meet in perhaps an equally important place. This place was the so-called hall of tents of about a hundred square meters, where twelve reduced tipis were set up. For here men and women were to practice, Minister Glinski, close your eyes, FREE LOVE. And to hear each other for more excitement. For what? For pleasure?
I know what comes to your mind now, after all, the possibility of copulation with any person in the room, usually on the thick pink carpeted floor of the living room of a villa in Malibu, was invented by hippies and Hollywood stars. And not true! Well, behind the Oneida experiment was a certain John Humpfrey Noyes, a former student at a Protestant college, from which he was expelled after he began to claim that there was nothing to wait for the Messiah, because he had already returned long ago. And that now mankind, in the name of loving Jesus Christ, should focus on spiritual, moral and physical self-improvement. Because man was supposed to be more perfect for God. This thought, which has its roots in Catholic pietism, curiously coincided with the extraordinary popularity of eugenics, a theory proposed by Sir Francis Galton, otherwise Darwin's cousin. Eugenics, the results of which in the realm of crossing species of flowers and livestock fired the imagination of Americans and Europeans, Noyes elevated to a parareligious level.
Well, according to his vision, people, just like dogs or roses, could also be mixed (regardless of skin color) with the angle of obtaining a morally superior human being over the rest of the greedy, petty and fearful us. Only that in order to make such a man, one had to create the right conditions for this, and let's remember that genetics, microbiology and in general even the pipette were then non-existent concepts. Well, maybe the pipette didn't, but Noyes decided to create conditions for the use of natural pipettes, in addition, in an environment that was segregated from the American reality. In a word, drowning in trimmed greenery, italinizing and pumping buildings looking like fashionable kursaal were the equivalents of today's laboratory. It was Noyes who invented the notion of Free Love, but also coitus reservatus, or (here I ask the Minister to close his eyes again) extravaginal ejaculation. This ejaculation was for the purpose of non-fertilization, of course. After all, coitus goo-no-reservatus was supposed to be the privilege of only the best men and women in the commune, who were supposed to create the SOVEREIGN. "Boom and bang!" - you will say - "we know where this leads: Nietsche and Hitler!" and the Minister will exclaim: "In Vitro, LGBT and jender!". Well, let's not get into it any deeper (oops!), because why bring the elderly to spasms.
You will ask about children, after all, anyone who has had to deal with coitus reservatus knows what an imperfect form of contraception it is. Of course, "cute slip-ups" did happen, but Noyes came up with a way around that as well. One of his demands was to give women freedom from having to perform traditional social roles. Thus, a resident of Oneida could, even without being "chosen" in the eugenic project, become pregnant and give birth to a child, with the identity of the father being of no particular importance. The born child in a separate wing of the so-called Big House was cared for by specialized members of the community, and the mother, if she wished (as did the father, if one was found or admitted), could visit the child every day. At the appointed time. In this way, the offspring grew up in a posh nursery, kindergarten and boarding school, without disturbing the mother too much, who could, during this time, excel intellectually or professionally, wear sarees in public and make love with whomever she pleased. If any reader thinks this is a cool idea, I invite you to read the details. The format is ready and waiting to be pushed into the 21st century. Just kidding: the idea was later copied by Israeli kibbutzim, but due to bad psychological effects, the kibbutzim abandoned the principle of separating parents from offspring in the 1970s. Here, by the way, comes Mrs. Ina May Gaskin, whose idea of happiness for people, including children, is radically opposite: closeness, closeness and more closeness.
Here I end about the Oneidas, I will only add that this eugenic project only lasted thirty years and collapsed precisely because of children. Well, it failed to create a superhuman: the offspring born from the "chosen" couples turned out to be as naughty and weepy as any brat in the world. As a result, the whole Noyes figure and the means employed made no sense. Eventually, the paracommunist principles of common ownership were turned into a joint-stock company, which Oneida Silverware still is today. For the reassurance of Ministers Gliński and Chernak, I will add that in the course of designing the utopian communities and their premises with students, we did not deal with concepts of sexuality. On the other hand, for the concern of the aforementioned gentlemen, I will mention that new utopias, for now on a micro scale and with a rather limited program, are just happening in Poland. Namely, according to the sales managers of two friendly companies offering prefabricated summer houses, they have been dealing with a new "sales phenomenon" for some time. Well, when they are approached by customers to buy several recreational houses at once, they invariably fall into two categories. The first is people who want to build a small agritourism business. The second, and growing in number, are, esteemed ministers, swingers. Usually in sets of three or four couples aged 50+, who increasingly proudly tell stunned representatives of sales divisions about their preferences. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's even happening at our place!
If you, dear readers, want to learn more about various examples of sometimes very exotic community projects for the future, I immediately announce that I am currently writing a book about them. Unlike my previous one, "Welcome to a world without architects," it will be rather aimed at more mature readers. Also those aged 50+.
