The Daily Blog Open Mic – 26th September 2023

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018908219/olive-jones-anarchy-and-idealism-at-the-graham-downs-commune

This book has just been published (and sold out in Page and Blackmore the Nelson bookshop which is taking names for a reprint) about a societal try-out late last century with ideas about how people could develop sustainable lives. The discovery of the tech possibilities changed the horizon, and then the economic myopia that arose in parallel, has resulted in the tale told to be of great relevance for seekers and adopters today. It will be noted that many people had what they thought were brilliant ideas, and were prepared to break something that was working to follow a different path.

In 1979, inspired by the countercultural movement sweeping the country, teenager Olive Jones embraced rural communal living.
By the age of 21, she was one of the founders of the Graham Downs farming community in the Motueka Valley.
It was a bold experiment, built on anarchy and idealism, with the aim of self-sufficiency.
Jones’ book Commune: Chasing a Utopian Dream charts the course of the commune…
Anarchist John Glasgow was one of the co-founders of the commune, which was built on anarchist principles.
He believed anarchy was a strong basis for social organisation, self-governance, and the assumption that we are all capable of dictating the terms of our own lives, Jones says. Those principles held sway for a at least a decade.
“For the first 10 years it was really vibrant, with a large number of people coming and going and huge food production, we worked draft horses, it was very much like pioneering, really, working, doing everything by hand without electricity, building our own shelter, and probably supporting 30 to 40 people most of the time and a group of children.

“So, it was a very dynamic and exciting place. People who came there were very caught up in the spirit of what was going on
In hindsight, they were naive to think the commune could carry on that way, Jones says, especially when children came along. Their policy of open access was also proving a problem.
“We became quite overwhelmed by some of the people that were attracted to the place who weren’t necessarily helping the cause, if you like.”

Running the farm was hard, physical work, Jones says, and she talks in the book about the euphoria she felt at the end of a hard day’s work after having supplied the food which was grown on the property…
…“Hand-milking cows, for example, is really physically hard work, as well as everything that goes with processing the milk and all the rest of it.”
Gradually the meetings the commune held to make decisions about the farm became unbearable, she says.
“They became these very intense places of conflict. And you knew of really strong characters who would always be entrenched in their position. And it didn’t matter what one side proposed, the other would oppose. It just always happened.
“And I just found the conflict and the inability to move forward just so frustrating, and really was upsetting as well over a long period of time, because it just stymied what we were trying to achieve.”…

The philosophy behind Graham Downs took too rosy a view of human nature, she says.

“I think it was an expression of our naivety, believing in the inherent goodness in all people.
“I think you’re always going to have self-interested people and you’re always going to have opportunists and freeloaders and they are always going to take advantage of something.”
Eventually life on the farm became rather squalid, she says, with the idealistic founding principles long gone, and fringe dwellers just using it as a place to “hunker down”.
“I still carry a lot of sadness about how such a beautiful, bright dream kind of unravelled, to the extent that it did.”
Jones remains on the board of the trust that still owns Graham Downs and there is hope of a revival, she says.
“We are really keen to attract young people who have the same kind of ideals that the trust holds to, get back into a farming collective enterprise on that land.”

Lewis Carroll tapped into our minds when he wrote his Alice books. This was one result from partaking of a powerful potions. Why have we not taken up these Graham Downs ideas en masse, or did we not spell things right, instead ‘on mess’?

What happens when Alice drinks the elixir and what does she worry might happen?
After drinking the potion, Alice shrinks and cannot reach the key on the table. The helplessness that comes with her exaggeratedly small size represents the feelings of insignificance of childhood.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Chapter 1: Down the Rabbit Hole …
sparknotes.com
https://www.sparknotes.com › lit › alice › section1

Things have changed since the 1970’s when Gordon Lightfoot sang these words in Carefree Highway.
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream
I wonder how the old folks are tonight?
Her name was Ann
And I’ll be damned if I recall her face
She left me not knowing what to do
Carefree highway
Let me slip away on you
Carefree highway
You’ve seen better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you
We took a wrong route, looks like we need to go back and start again, sadder and wiser, but some of us able to discern the best road ahead. This book will be helpful to those who seek knowledge and want hard-headed examples of what is needed to succeed.

2 COMMENTS

Sinic September 26, 2023 At 5:01 pm

FYI, Bankflation
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/498814/new-campaign-hits-out-at-record-profits-by-anz-asb-bnz-and-westpac
Greywarbler September 26, 2023 At 9:23 pm

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018908219/olive-jones-anarchy-and-idealism-at-the-graham-downs-commune

This book has just been published (and sold out in Page and Blackmore the Nelson bookshop which is taking names for a reprint) about a societal try-out late last century with ideas about how people could develop sustainable lives. The discovery of the tech possibilities changed the horizon, and then the economic myopia that arose in parallel, has resulted in the tale told to be of great relevance for seekers and adopters today. It will be noted that many people had what they thought were brilliant ideas, and were prepared to break something that was working to follow a different path.

In 1979, inspired by the countercultural movement sweeping the country, teenager Olive Jones embraced rural communal living.
By the age of 21, she was one of the founders of the Graham Downs farming community in the Motueka Valley.
It was a bold experiment, built on anarchy and idealism, with the aim of self-sufficiency.
Jones’ book Commune: Chasing a Utopian Dream charts the course of the commune…
Anarchist John Glasgow was one of the co-founders of the commune, which was built on anarchist principles.
He believed anarchy was a strong basis for social organisation, self-governance, and the assumption that we are all capable of dictating the terms of our own lives, Jones says. Those principles held sway for a at least a decade.
“For the first 10 years it was really vibrant, with a large number of people coming and going and huge food production, we worked draft horses, it was very much like pioneering, really, working, doing everything by hand without electricity, building our own shelter, and probably supporting 30 to 40 people most of the time and a group of children.

“So, it was a very dynamic and exciting place. People who came there were very caught up in the spirit of what was going on
In hindsight, they were naive to think the commune could carry on that way, Jones says, especially when children came along. Their policy of open access was also proving a problem.
“We became quite overwhelmed by some of the people that were attracted to the place who weren’t necessarily helping the cause, if you like.”

Running the farm was hard, physical work, Jones says, and she talks in the book about the euphoria she felt at the end of a hard day’s work after having supplied the food which was grown on the property…
…“Hand-milking cows, for example, is really physically hard work, as well as everything that goes with processing the milk and all the rest of it.”
Gradually the meetings the commune held to make decisions about the farm became unbearable, she says.
“They became these very intense places of conflict. And you knew of really strong characters who would always be entrenched in their position. And it didn’t matter what one side proposed, the other would oppose. It just always happened.
“And I just found the conflict and the inability to move forward just so frustrating, and really was upsetting as well over a long period of time, because it just stymied what we were trying to achieve.”…

The philosophy behind Graham Downs took too rosy a view of human nature, she says.

“I think it was an expression of our naivety, believing in the inherent goodness in all people.
“I think you’re always going to have self-interested people and you’re always going to have opportunists and freeloaders and they are always going to take advantage of something.”
Eventually life on the farm became rather squalid, she says, with the idealistic founding principles long gone, and fringe dwellers just using it as a place to “hunker down”.
“I still carry a lot of sadness about how such a beautiful, bright dream kind of unravelled, to the extent that it did.”
Jones remains on the board of the trust that still owns Graham Downs and there is hope of a revival, she says.
“We are really keen to attract young people who have the same kind of ideals that the trust holds to, get back into a farming collective enterprise on that land.”

Lewis Carroll tapped into our minds when he wrote his Alice books. This was one result from partaking of a powerful potions. Why have we not taken up these Graham Downs ideas en masse, or did we not spell things right, instead ‘on mess’?

What happens when Alice drinks the elixir and what does she worry might happen?
After drinking the potion, Alice shrinks and cannot reach the key on the table. The helplessness that comes with her exaggeratedly small size represents the feelings of insignificance of childhood.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Chapter 1: Down the Rabbit Hole …
sparknotes.com
https://www.sparknotes.com › lit › alice › section1

Things have changed since the 1970’s when Gordon Lightfoot sang these words in Carefree Highway.
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream
I wonder how the old folks are tonight?
Her name was Ann
And I’ll be damned if I recall her face
She left me not knowing what to do
Carefree highway
Let me slip away on you
Carefree highway
You’ve seen better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you
We took a wrong route, looks like we need to go back and start again, sadder and wiser, but some of us able to discern the best road ahead. This book will be helpful to those who seek knowledge and want hard-headed examples of what is needed to succeed.

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2 COMMENTS