Friday Sessions London

5th November, 2006

Kathrin,
Somehow the radical promise of Christiana is undermined by its reality. My partner/colleague and I Reiko Goto spent an hour or so online yesterday reading various materials. I've been trying to grapple with what has facilitated its development to date. I keep coming back to the scale of the social network. It seems to me that it is the small scale and a core of people committed to being in that place that makes this 'free society' experiment possible.

At the same time, the continued reliance upon governmental economic, health and infrastructure subsidy raise critical questions about the sustainability of such an endeavour. I kept wondering if it wouldn't be interesting to compare Christiania to another Danish community of similar scale and density. Are the relationships to subsidies and payment (through taxes) similar? Is Christiania more or less ecologically/socially sustainable? Who advocates for nature in a 'free society'? Finally, the means of social guidance is interesting - but having extensivie experience participating in 'open' online communities I know that there are power dialectics that are based in time and voice as well as the more typical capitalist models of political power and property interest. I was curious about the power dynamics that occur there. Your friend has started to unpack some of that in her film work.

Christiana is in a crtical period at the moment. It may be assimilated, or it will begin to mature and develop further.  Freedom can be defined in terms of the ability to be heard, the freedom to affect change, the manifestation of freedom as a mix of autonomy and social relatedness. Christiana seems to do the latter extremely well. I am not sure that the freedom to ‘not-own’ your own house is as radical an idea as it once was, I think it is a shadow of the past that gets in the way of what may be really important, creative self responsiblity. The critical question is what is freedom in the 21st century and what might the Christiana community be able to contribute?

In light of this, I was struck by the fact that the presentation was dominated by history and relatively devoid of a vision for the future. There are opportunities and constraints within every change. I am going to talk to my friend Malcolm Miles later today he has been working on intentional communities for the last year or so, traveling all over the world to understand the different models that are out there. He might have some interesting insights, he usually does.

Tim Collins, Wolverhampton
 

5th November, 2006

Kathrin,
Somehow the radical promise of Christiana is undermined by its reality. My partner/colleague and I Reiko Goto spent an hour or so online yesterday reading various materials. I've been trying to grapple with what has facilitated its development to date. I keep coming back to the scale of the social network. It seems to me that it is the small scale and a core of people committed to being in that place that makes this 'free society' experiment possible.

At the same time, the continued reliance upon governmental economic, health and infrastructure subsidy raise critical questions about the sustainability of such an endeavour. I kept wondering if it wouldn't be interesting to compare Christiania to another Danish community of similar scale and density. Are the relationships to subsidies and payment (through taxes) similar? Is Christiania more or less ecologically/socially sustainable? Who advocates for nature in a 'free society'? Finally, the means of social guidance is interesting - but having extensivie experience participating in 'open' online communities I know that there are power dialectics that are based in time and voice as well as the more typical capitalist models of political power and property interest. I was curious about the power dynamics that occur there. Your friend has started to unpack some of that in her film work.

Christiana is in a crtical period at the moment. It may be assimilated, or it will begin to mature and develop further.  Freedom can be defined in terms of the ability to be heard, the freedom to affect change, the manifestation of freedom as a mix of autonomy and social relatedness. Christiana seems to do the latter extremely well. I am not sure that the freedom to ‘not-own’ your own house is as radical an idea as it once was, I think it is a shadow of the past that gets in the way of what may be really important, creative self responsiblity. The critical question is what is freedom in the 21st century and what might the Christiana community be able to contribute?

In light of this, I was struck by the fact that the presentation was dominated by history and relatively devoid of a vision for the future. There are opportunities and constraints within every change. I am going to talk to my friend Malcolm Miles later today he has been working on intentional communities for the last year or so, traveling all over the world to understand the different models that are out there. He might have some interesting insights, he usually does.

Tim Collins, Wolverhampton
 

5th November, 2006

Kathrin,
Somehow the radical promise of Christiana is undermined by its reality. My partner/colleague and I Reiko Goto spent an hour or so online yesterday reading various materials. I've been trying to grapple with what has facilitated its development to date. I keep coming back to the scale of the social network. It seems to me that it is the small scale and a core of people committed to being in that place that makes this 'free society' experiment possible.

At the same time, the continued reliance upon governmental economic, health and infrastructure subsidy raise critical questions about the sustainability of such an endeavour. I kept wondering if it wouldn't be interesting to compare Christiania to another Danish community of similar scale and density. Are the relationships to subsidies and payment (through taxes) similar? Is Christiania more or less ecologically/socially sustainable? Who advocates for nature in a 'free society'? Finally, the means of social guidance is interesting - but having extensivie experience participating in 'open' online communities I know that there are power dialectics that are based in time and voice as well as the more typical capitalist models of political power and property interest. I was curious about the power dynamics that occur there. Your friend has started to unpack some of that in her film work.

Christiana is in a crtical period at the moment. It may be assimilated, or it will begin to mature and develop further.  Freedom can be defined in terms of the ability to be heard, the freedom to affect change, the manifestation of freedom as a mix of autonomy and social relatedness. Christiana seems to do the latter extremely well. I am not sure that the freedom to ‘not-own’ your own house is as radical an idea as it once was, I think it is a shadow of the past that gets in the way of what may be really important, creative self responsiblity. The critical question is what is freedom in the 21st century and what might the Christiana community be able to contribute?

In light of this, I was struck by the fact that the presentation was dominated by history and relatively devoid of a vision for the future. There are opportunities and constraints within every change. I am going to talk to my friend Malcolm Miles later today he has been working on intentional communities for the last year or so, traveling all over the world to understand the different models that are out there. He might have some interesting insights, he usually does.

Tim Collins, Wolverhampton
 

thought it was a rockn evening, thank you for making it happen, please make sure they come again soon and keep us all informed/involved

this was on bbc news website tonight: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ifs_news/hi/bb_rm_fs.stm?news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&nol_storyid=6145868
cheerio for now,
trenton