Being Light on the Earth: Eco-Village Policy and Practice for a Sustainable World. Volume 1

By Paolo Vincenzo Genovese

The world of Eco-Village is a universe of particular complexity, too often considered as a simple return to Nature and to an ideal and unrealistic Arcadian model of living. This book aims to illustrate how rich and articulated are the ideas that, over the centuries, have generated the contemporary concept of Eco-Village and Eco-Living. This publi­cation is the most extensive and scientifically founded investigation of Eco-Villages published to date. The author, an expert on environ­mental issues and history of architecture, through an extensive research lasting more than ten years, intends to describe the philosophical, cultural, historical and theoretical aspects of this complex topic. The discussion, rigorous but very readable, proposes the description of the fundamental concepts of the Eco-Villages, their complex philoso­phy and the technical aspects, all illustrated with many examples. Because the subject has been comprehensively described for the first time, the book is split into two volumes. The first volume describes the historical and conceptual aspects of the contemporary Eco-Villages, supported by an extensive bibliography and accurate examples. The second is focusing more on the technical aspects, illustrating the most important Eco-Villages in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Casa editrice Libria srl
• Release date: Jun 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9788867642465

Book preview

Introduction

0.1. What is this book about and why did you finance it?

The Eco-Village universe is not a topic which can be easily described. It is a concept that appears to concern small communities, mostly rural, where the people live in accordance with the natural law, intentionally separated from the evil urbanized society. This vision is commonly intended as an Eco-Village community, but in fact there is something much more complex compared to this tender innocence. Every possible approach to the Eco-Village’s community does not concern a simple philosophy of life or even less a banal technology. Everything is much more complex than it may appear to be at first glance.

Firstly, one needs to heed a very important warning: the Eco-Village cannot be described in terms of technological solutions for an Eco-community. The technology, as always, must be considered only as a tool, or better a toy which the creatures known as «human beings» gain much enjoyment from. It is definitely a dangerous toy, if we consider the state of the world nowadays, but ultimately it still remains a plaything.

This assertion hides a very complicated perspective that this book intends to follow. Owing to their peculiar nature, human beings act by giving meaning to the universe. What does it mean? And how does this abstract sentence relate to the Eco-Village?

We start with the second question: An Eco-Village is a complex phenomenon deeply rooted in its history and with a very deep philosophical background, extremely complex in its process of thinking, in its actions and in its process of developing a community which is radically different and substantially separated by the common process of life adopted in Modernity. In most cases, the Eco-Village is not simply a village. Or rather, it was never a village. An Eco-Village is mostly a process, a way of living, a way to interact with Nature and a way to identify an individual inside a much larger context which is Nature. This is the sense of the initial sentence. The human being, before the mystery of the universe, possesses the natural need to explain its sense, the meaning of existence. In order to pursue this impossible dream, human beings attribute meanings to things. In other words, human beings act by attributing the meaning of reality to the universe. If this attribution has sense, if the universe really has a meaning, this is a question that belongs to the metaphysics and not to a book related to the Eco-Village process. But the fact remains: every human being intends to research the meaning of existence. And in order to give an ultimate answer, human beings continuously create a complex interaction between reality and their process of understanding. Every form of philosophy, art, religion and even physics and mathematics, ultimately intends to describe the reality out there.

From this perspective the Eco-Village finds a deeper sense. We must reiterate that, an Eco-Village is not a village, and it is not only based on technologies being able to solve material problems. It is mostly a process of life. And because of that it not only concerns philosophy and technology, but mostly the intention and vision of the world. The Eco-Village is a way to intend the universe and, somehow, respect the Natural Process hidden in the reality. We believe that this is the deepest explanation of the nature of the Eco-Village. An Eco-Village is a way to adhere to Nature. But the idea of Nature is not simply intended as Mother Nature, or a vague New Age idiocy. In our specific context Nature means something deeper, a sort of life-style which must follow the nature of the Nature in its deepest process. Hence, we assert that the Eco-Village is not a simple description of villages based on self-sustainability, on specific technologies – high-tech, middle-tech, or low-tech – or people who would be described as funky freaks who refuse civilization in order to live like old-fashioned Hippies.

In most of our work, the main intention is to gives the reasons and processes, and especially the ideological background of Eco-Villages as a movement more than a physical entity.

0.2. The structure of this book and the overview of the contents

This book is structured into three main parts, and divided into two volumes.

The first part mostly concerns the philosophy, and the theoretical concepts of the Eco-Village movement, including some social and political organizations which are the foundation of every possible action in the direction of the sustainable community. There is one crucial point. We will never discuss politics in terms of a trick of governance. Yes, in fact the original meaning of politics, πολιτικά [Politiká] means «what concerns the city» which implies «art of governance of a state»¹, ideas which nowadays no longer exist. When we touch on the idea of politics in this book, we will mostly concern the philosophical and ethical aspects of this term.

We will discover that there are very political matters in the organization of the Eco-Villages. At the same time there is no concern about the idea of fighting for power, or there is (almost) the complete absence of abuse of privileges that are usually implied in modern politics. In addition, the process of decision-making represents a step forward compared to the decision-making in the so called contemporary democracy. The decision making is not based on the leadership will (including God or His agent) and it is not based on the majority’s opinion. There is something else, and extremely interesting: only when 100% of the people agree, then the decision is taken. Impossible? Not at all. It is one of the common practices of Eco-Villages, but the process of capturing this result is complex and based on what the politics should be: the idea of πολιτειά [politeia], an extremely articulated concept².

The Eco-Village is undoubtedly based on ecology and sustainability. This is probably one of the most evident elements in this community. But why do they think in this manner? According to our understanding, the reasons are very articulated and it is not only a reactionary ideology which intends to refuse any form of progress. In actual fact Eco-Villagers are extremely well cultivated people, and not simply ignorant farmers. In fact the ignorant farmers do not exist at all because the knowledge of the natural cycle implies extremely high intellect and culture. There is evidence which demonstrates that the sustainability rooted in the Eco-Village is the result of a very precise philosophical and intellectual position.

No group of people can understand Eco-Villages in their true meaning without the full understanding of Plato’s Republic, or St. Augustine of Hippo’s De Civitate Dei, Utopia by Thomas More, or the anarcho-communism of Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin. A brief history of the idea is necessary in order to understand that Eco-Villages are not made up of brutes, uncivilized or uncultured communities; on the contrary they are populated by people who are extremely conscious of their choices against the contemporary society.

A crucial part of the description of the Eco-Village is its history. Against the evidence, we still believe that history can impart knowledge. Chapter 2³ intends to summarize some important steps in human history in order to illustrate the roots of the contemporary Eco-Villages. The intention is to demonstrate that these communities are radically different from the ancient villages, or farmers villages. They are the final result of a very long path of the development of human settlements, with some extreme and progressive changes in the last two hundred years. In other words, the history of the Eco-Village will be able to illustrate the development of ideas and practices in these specific communities. They are quite different, in fact there are differences between farmer villages and the cities. And it will be necessary to understand the origin of their process in order to better define their nature.

Chapter 3 plays a crucial role in offering some definitions⁴. The author of this book adopts a precise perspective in the study of Eco-Villages and sustainability: the scientific approach. The investigation and the analysis is based on evidence, reference books, on-site investigations when possible, philological analysis of sources, quantitative analysis of data, and so on. Numbers count, but intellect interprets. Beside the contemporary idea of science, the author intends to understand the meaning of those quantitative analyses in terms of philosophy and, where it make sense, metaphysics. At the same time, this book is extremely against every form of New Age, the worst possible perspective in the interpretation of data (with the exception of the conspiracy theory which is much worst but forgivable because it is pathological). This chapter is dedicated to definitions which intend to clarify some important concepts, which are fundamental in order to have a common vocabulary of discussion, and even more a common basis to understanding each other. We all know that definitions are always partial and subject to change. There are many definitions of suitability and Eco-Village. We will offer descriptions for some of them.

However, this section’s primary task is to illustrate the hidden structure of a complex process which is something more abstract, above the Eco-Village life. In order to be clear we need to mention that an Eco-Village is not simply a village based on ecology or sustainability. Above everything there is a philosophy and even higher there is something that can be called a super-structure, an articulated system of organization, thinking, actions, process, which characterize the Eco-Village life. Some ideas illustrated in this chapter are general, whilst some are more specific and detailed. They can be considered as detail of a much more complex scenario. For example, the concept of «Synergetics»⁵ is something that transcends the area of sustainability and implies something much more abstract and general. At the same time the idea of the «3 Rs»⁶ – reduce, reuse, recycle – is strictly and only connected to the concept of sustainability and it is one of the bases of the Eco-Villages.

The idea of Eco-Villages is apparently only related to a village. Village is commonly intended as a human settlement, mostly rural, small in size, in balance with its surrounding. This is definitely true but too narrow for the scope of this study. There are rural villages, but there are also urban villages⁷. There are villages built and managed using low technologies, and villages which represent the ultimate conquest of the human intelligence which include the best technologies ever created. The idea of village, then, is quite flexible. But this is not the core of the Eco-Village. We always insist on the concept that an Eco-Village is a strategy, a philosophy of life, more than anything else. Hence, chapter 4⁸ intends to analyze the Eco-Village within a larger geographical scenario, such as the idea of Bio-region for example. This concept came directly from the lesson of Kropotkin who was a geographer and proposed the idea of mutual support among living creatures.

What is the connection between Eco-Village and territory? It is logical and consequential. Because the Eco-Village is based on the idea of self-sufficiency and sustainability, this automatically implies a very delicate balance between the natural environment and human settlement. Food, water and the recycling of waste must be considered at the same time at the local scale, middle scale and also at the level of Bio-region, or even in a bigger scenario. In other words, human activities consume energy and natural resources. For this reason, the Eco-Village intends to create a virtuous relationship with the natural surrounding. Without the concept of Bio-region, it will be impossible to create a perfect balance between natural territory and human settlement in terms of resources.

From outside to inside. These are the differences between chapters 4 and 5⁹.

The social aspect of the Eco-Village is probably one of the most remarkable and original elements of its organization. We reiterate, that the Eco-Villages are not simply villages, but they are mostly settlements with vast differences from the cities and metropolis, but they are also very distant in concept and process to the traditional villages. The only similarity is that they are villages. Eventually the Eco-Villages could appear as villages, but the organization, the logic is very far compared to the traditional settlements. One of these differences lies in their social organization.

In most cases, when the human community reaches a certain complexity, a certain size and number of inhabitants, it becomes necessary to form a social organization. This social organization is an expression of the culture of that specific place and time. We offer an example to illustrate the point. In the historical investigation of the traditional village a fundamental part of the research concerns the social structure of the family, or even the reconstruction of the family tree. This is necessary because the spaces of both the houses and the village, include the urban structure, which is always a reflection of the complexity of the family and the local culture.

In a broader sense, of the investigation about Eco-Villages, it is possible to find at least three main characteristics:

a sort of socialism which rarely coincides with any existing political party,

an anarchism, often very radical, which is probably one of the most interesting characteristics of these settlements, and

a sort of spiritual communitarism which, again, does not precisely correspond to any specific religion, but it is more related to tolerance of every religion (or even more).

In short, the social analysis of the Eco-Villages could be described as a sort of island where all the common beliefs and political institutions, including economy and culture, are extremely different and separate to the rest of the world. This is one of the most original characteristics of the Eco-Villages; their very unique spirit.

Since PART I of this book «fly high in the sky», describes the abstractness of the idea, we have to also touch on the realism, pragmatism and materialism of the Eco-Villages. The Eco-Villages are not «flying islands», according to the ironic vision of Jonathan Swift¹⁰. Actually we can assert that an Eco-Village is a human settlement where the practical and material problems are very pressing. As an old natural law said: «there is no free meal in nature». Which means: if you want to eat then you need to run faster than your prey. In most cases the Eco-Villages are self-built settlements and this means that the inhabitants act as a self-managed community. There is mostly no external help. The village is self-planned by the community, the houses are self-built, there is almost no interference from real estates (or at least there should not), banking and similar macro-economy entities. A common and strong policy is to produce and recycle everything utilized in daily life. For this reason, the problems that the community must solve are extremely practical, often very technical, even though they range between low- and middle-tech.

And this is the topic covered in PART II¹¹ of this dissertation, published in Volume 2. In addition, there is a very interesting trend that will be precisely described in this section concerning the idea of «Appropriate Technologies». This means the use of the suitable technology related to the local economy. The logic of PART II, then, has the intention to describe in a general view, some possible technologies, solutions and materials commonly used in the Eco-Villages for construction and problem solving. We will mostly describe building materials and relative constructive systems, the logic and the process of self-construction and self-help building.

On this point, we believe, that there are no radical problems to face. One issue must be made very clear in our discussion. We believe that technology is very useful. It helps to solve problems, to improve life and all the common ideas related to this point. But unfortunately the situation is not so simple and every form of technology implies some consequences in terms of use of energy, waste, and even in the human behavior. The technologies are extremely useful and we deny the real advantage to come back to the origin. The ancient life is good only because it is gone, but the simple hypothesis to bring back the traditional world today is not only a dream but nonsensical. Hence, in most cases we choose the idea of low- and middle-tech for our description. There are certainly extremely high-tech solutions which are fascinating. In many of our researches we are personally involved in these kinds of areas. But precisely because we know the matter, we are also scared of some negative side effects of those solutions. Above all the Artificial Intelligence which we are not going to discuss in this essay causes the incredible and difficult consequences that such technologies could bring.

There is one important issue that needs to be considered: water and food. This is the basis of every form of human life. There is no need to emphasize this issue because it is obvious in itself. What is not obvious is the complexity of the topic and the dramatic situation nowadays. In many countries around the globe the environment is seriously compromised, and there are no short term solutions to solve the problems. If some multinational corporations and even countries deny this, it means that they deny reality, the facts, and the numbers that count. There is compelling evidence of this dramatic situation. But we can understand that every big and complex organization has its own priorities and policies and sometimes this will necessitate the need to hide the truth in order to control a situation that could easily become chaotic in the face of the truth.

Even while facing the current situation, as difficult and often irritating as it is, we still believe that there is hope. Our task in PART II is to illustrate the facts according to sources, and explain some reasons of these dramatic current events, and illustrate some possible solutions. And something will be very surprising: solutions exist and they are very simple to apply in most cases. This is also valid in the production of energy. Human beings have every kind of technology, every kind of possible solution and toy to offer a very comfortble life for everyone. We emphasize the concept: comfortable life not luxurious life. The difference between comfortable and luxury is very clear. Life in the Eco-Village is extremely comfortable but it is not luxurious. On the contrary, and paradoxically, a luxurious life could be extremely uncomfortable. A magnificent super-sport car is not necessarily more comfortable than a cheap city-car, but it is definitely unsustainable in terms of costs. One of the possible topics to illustrate this issue is the concept of Zero Kilometer Building. In other words, the cost of the building should not be considered anymore in terms of price, even no more in terms of cost, but only in terms of how much energy is necessary to build it, an issue that will be introduced in the following volume¹².

The final chapter of PART II is dedicated to a very complex issue concerning the transportation. In most cases, the Eco-Village practices are based on small scale, limited number of inhabitants, close-cycle¹³, and circular economy¹⁴. This immediately implies a radical decrease of transportation. Because all is created at a human scale, therefore there is no need to use cars, for example, commuting from home to work. Everything could be planned at walking distance. But this could eventually work inside the village, in the organization of the life in the Eco-Village. But a larger problem still exists: it is impossible to separate the village from the rest of the world. For this reason chapter 4 in PART I and in several points in PART II of our work, will discuss the problem of the smart transportation and insert the Eco-Village in a larger scenario.

If we consider this issue only inside the Eco-Village the problem of the transportation is basically easy to solve. The complexity becomes higher if we consider the fact that many inhabitants may have to commute to work in other places, a fairly common situation. In addition, we must admit that it is idealistic (unrealistic) to consider a village completely self-sufficient. There is always the necessity to import many goods; for example a village cannot produce computers, televisions, PV panels and so on. Internet is a necessity nowadays and this fundamental technology could not be localized. All these kinds of complex technologies and products, which are daily life necessities must be imported. For these reasons it will be necessary to spend some words on the topic of transportation and we will further insist on the sustainable transportation and the smart-node policy.

PART III¹⁵ is the easiest to introduce and the most difficult to write. It is an investigation about the best practice cases around the world related to the Eco-Village. This section will illustrate some important Eco-Villages which are fundamental examples to describe how these settlements work in reality. We will discuss cases in a critical way. Many publications – especially the ones produced by the activists who are deeply involved in the Eco-Village life – are too optimistic. With a few exceptions, it seems that the Eco-Village life is the obvious solution to solve all the evil problems of this planet. The existence inside the Eco-Villages seems perfect and harmonious with the environment, life is happy, healthy, and there are no social conflicts, everything is fantastic. But unfortunately paradise does not exist on this valley of tears¹⁶. This is why we will adopt a critical perspective, which does not necessarily mean that we will criticize, but we intend to interpret the facts alongside the intentions. The Eco-Village organization is a very wide and well organized system. With thousands of villages interconnected by the internet (GEN¹⁷) and with important events, and conferences. The intention of this book is to give the correct interpretation of this positive movement and support this system which we consider very important. But necessary skepticism will be very useful in order to avoid some assertions which are unsustainable.

Probably the most difficult part overall is the definition of standards and numbers which are able to characterize the quantity necessary to create a good Eco-Village. Because we are in an age of quantity¹⁸, it is a common practice nowadays to trust numbers as a sign of quality. This is a big but common misunderstanding because quality cannot be standardized. Nevertheless, without quantity it is extremely difficult to create the basis of a good project of Eco-Village. For this reason, the chapter dedicated to the standards intends to give a sort of recipe in order to prepare a good Eco-Village. As common practice, in order to prepare a delicious meal it is necessary to have good ingredients, the correct measurements and finally the ability to create the desired taste. Taste is quality, dosage is quantity. Both are necessary. All these quantities will come from the best-practice cases and they are not the opinion of the author.

Finally the conclusion intends to summarize all the contents of the book and give a conclusive perspective of the Eco-Village trend until now.

0.3. On the intention of this book

There is an important note on this book. This essay intends to be simultaneously scientifically solid and educational. It will be indicated to scholars, professors, students, and also people who are interested in the Eco-Village theory and practice. The intention is to create a book capable of explaining the background of the Eco-Village’s trend and at the same time able to seduce people to open their curiosities into a healthier way of life. Most of us live in big cities. Some of us live in a megalopolis. This topic will be not discussed in this book because we have already done so in some of our publications¹⁹.

The framework of this research is quite complex. The results of this book are based on research, experience and financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, named 2009年国家自然科学基金 «中外生态村 (Eco-Village) 的比较研究与实践(50678112)», English translation «Comparative study and practice of Chinese and Foreign Ecological Village (Eco-Village)» in 2009, number 50678112, directed by Professor Paolo Vincenzo Genovese. That research was very extensive and part of the results flow directly in this script. The logic of the National Natural Science Foundation is to finance research in order to create expertise in some specific fields. Because China is mostly rural (in its history and even in the contemporary age) the strategy of management and implementation of rural villages is a national priority. Our research was always directed towards theoretical issues and practical cases in order to understand the right strategies to implement in these rural settlements. Further work is carried out in China and more needs to be done in order to solve some issues still pending in this field. Our research has this specific goal: to offer a solid study, both theoretical and practical, although necessarily general, in the practice of sustainable planning and management of villages.

Only rural villages? No. During our investigation and study, in our practice as designers, we found out that there are not only rural villages, but also urban villages. They are ancient villages with specific identities, which were absorbed by the cities during their progressive growth. This is the case of the urban village (also definable as a town) of 安海 [Ānhaˇi] in the prefecture of 泉州 [Quánzhōu] in 福建 [Fújiàn] China. This research was already illustrated in another publication²⁰. Hence, in this book we will only describe the case of the Eco-Village which does not specifically belong to the case of urban villages.

The research is incomplete and we must write more extensively on this topic. We hope that this essay will fix some important concepts in the area of theory and practice of Eco-Villages.

PART I: FLYING HIGH IN THE SKY...

Or the world of ideas in the Eco-Village life

Chapter 1

The philosophical principles, culture and background of the Eco-Village

1.1. Introduction

The beginning of our discussion has to be based on a sort of declaration of intents. This is a sort of perspective which will give a precise interpretation of all our work and discussion. This book is based on the culture of sustainability and more specifically on the culture of Eco-Villages.

It has become apparent that the topic is simple and concerns the description of the sustainable settlements, where the Eco-Village is one of the examples. The discussion is quite complex and concerns topics which are at the same time extremely philosophical and extremely technical. For this reason we have to declare that this specific work has a very precise philosophical and methodological perspective and, necessarily, this position will modify the description and understanding of our topic. The approach of this book is scientific. Our knowledge of the topic is based on literature reviews, on-site investigations, discussions with experts and the collection of all the materials included in this script is based on the contribution of many people. But at the same time, nothing is objective because it is the nature of the subject to know and to understand.

The key question in the beginning of the discussion is to clarify the perspective and the interpretation of this book’s topic. In the recent decades, at least since the Post-Modernist era, with its philosophy and consequences into the different cultural areas, after the wide spread of the Deconstructivism and what was called Weak Thought¹, the analytical processes and the understanding of the reality was subjected to a radical change. It seems that one of the most important lessons of Jacques Derrida² is the assertion of the irreparable crisis of the Reason, unable to propose a unified interpretation of history. It is seemingly impossible to create a global conception of reality, which is able to coordinate knowledge in a unified universal vision. According to the latest scientific discoveries – specifically the most advanced being the conquest of physics, for example – there is the acceptance of the absurdity of a rational or logical order that is able to create a general theory which offers an ultimate solution as conclusion of the analysis of the reality. If this reality exists and if it is definable...

At the same time this complex thought generates a sort of bivalent position in the contemporary conception of reality. On one hand there is the understanding that the reality is articulated and interconnected into an extremely complex network of inter-relationships. On the other hand this complexity generates the necessity of an extreme specialization which implies fragmentation. This contradiction – interconnection versus fragmentation – is probably one of the most difficult and uncomfortable situations in the contemporaneity. Undoubtedly, something new happened in the last decade and it concerns the progressive digitalization of reality, where everything is dominated by digital technology, IT, IoT, AI and other interesting acronyms³.

A direct consequence is what is otherwise known as the «losses of the center»⁴. In other words, in contemporary thinking there is no longer a unified philosophy, a universal principle able to explain all the possible reasons of an organic, coherent and ultimate reality. From this point every form of Metaphysics completely halts. This situation definitely generates some positive consequences such as the opening to the differences, to the multiplicities and the trans-disciplinary cultures, the only process able to generate models of interpretation complex enough to understand an extremely articulated reality.

This position is without a doubt accepted in the contemporary culture but it also represents a serious weakness. There is a strong deficiency in the contemporaneity to accept or even understand the importance and the processes of a thought which represents the otherness. What is excluded from the multiplicity, indeterminateness, and uncertainty, has no right to exist because of the heritage of an old, and consequentially incorrect, process of thinking.

Nevertheless, in the analysis of the ancient cultures this position is unable to express the real nature of mental processes which generated masterpieces of architecture, books, and philosophy. This premise, apparently far from the topic of Eco-Villages, is contrarily very coherent with our topic. In fact, Eco-Villages are not simply communities where people decide to live close to nature. The intentions of the inhabitants are extremely complex and solid in terms of cultural background and it is necessary to analyze them in detail.

1.2. Utopias and Anti-Urbanism models. On the premises at the base of the ecological culture.

What appears to be abundantly clear in the information portals such as literature reviews and website content concerning Eco-Villages, as well as discussions among experts and activists, is a sort of refusal of urbanism, the idea of a city as a positive entity and very often even the idea of civilization. There is one crucial factor, from which the investigation about the Eco-Village begins; it concerns an obvious fact: the people who decide to live in these settlements intentionally choose a life in contact with nature, with all its difficulties and limitation in terms of so called comforts. The city can be deemed slightly more comfortable and more performative than the countryside, but for some specific and clear reasons many people intend to deny this modality of living in order to follow other lifestyles. Only lifestyle? Not at all, because what appears from the investigation is that the Eco-Villages are deeply rooted into a very precise model of thought which could be called Utopias and Anti-Urbanism.

Pic. 1-2-0-1. Thomas Cole, Dream of Arcadia, 1838 (ca.), Denver (Colorado), Denver Art Museum.

The two terms, though used together are not synonymous nor identical to each other. The first one is related to a very precise and ancient philosophical trend which, has been a constant presence in the history of human thought. Sometimes this issue is more evident, but more often it is hidden in the folds of the culture. Contrarily, the Anti-Urbanism movement is very clearly related to the Eco-Village trend. If the second term intends to revise urban life as corrupted, idealizing the life in the countryside as a perfect state of nature of the primordial human being, the first one is more philosophically solid and intends to create an idealistic and perfect system of life, not necessarily related to the rural life.

1.2.1. Characteristics of Utopias

The utopias are probably the most interesting trend in this direction because they are very complex in their process of thought. In the Utopias all the speculations are directed to the vision of a different society, as opposed to the existing one. The Utopic societies are reconciled with Reason, history and happiness⁵. This philosophy is a constant in different historical periods, both in the contents and also in the forms.

This is clearly reflected in the arts, architecture and urban planning. It is crucial to remember that every era generates forms and these forms are the results of some philosophical and metaphysical principle inherent schools of thought that are time specific. Oftentimes these forms change according to the styles and languages of the regions in which they appear, however these are actually only superficial modifications because the essence is identical. Typical of the Utopic thinking is the acquisition of the philosophical, historical, scientific or architectonic language⁶ from different times – Renaissance, Neoclassicism, Modernism –, but ultimately expresses the same intention: a radical attack to the whole society. But finally, what is Utopia?

It is a project or a detailed description of ideal societies with a clear provocative and visionary intention⁷.

We have to be clear that Utopias are mostly literary or philosophical compositions, who merely by chance become architecture or cities. Because of this nature, they have a strong tendency of being abstract and unrealistic. This does not mean that they are meaningless or are simple intellectual diversions. On the contrary Utopia has strongly influenced the global culture. Despite common opinions, the notion of a Utopia does not come directly from Plato’s Republic, which is probably the most influential source of this concept in Western culture. The myth exists under slightly different forms in different parts of the world, including Asia and Africa, a fact that we are not going to demonstrate in this script, because of spatial constraints.

Since in most cases Utopias are mostly philosophical or literary phenomena, however they are also highly theoretical. They are proposed as an alternative history, separate to the official one. They are a narration of a possible reality, parallel or alternative histories compared to the one which has actually been accomplished. The Utopia is a social, political and philosophical order opposed to the historical reality. To be more precise it can be considered a system that is not contaminated by all the societal vices and ills, which we observe in today’s society. It is exactly in the differences that one can see most important aspects of the Utopia. It is in the direct comparison between the two realities (the historical and the utopic) that the Utopia expresses its originality and its sense. The contrast of two realities – the historical and the visionary – reawakens in the readers the awareness of all the wickedness of the real world and, at the same time, the necessity of a subversive charge based on the proposals which are formulated in the utopic scripts.

It could be interesting for us to describe some of Utopia’s common elements, as there are some important concepts that are included in the Eco-Village philosophy.

Talking about Utopia, one finds that in most cases it is entirely possible to find the description of an absolutely unknown place, new in all its aspects. In a majority of those situations, the narrator is a traveller who, on his way back home from an adventurous journey, arrived fortuitously in a fantastic place just after a shipwreck or after a rather perilous circumstance. The interesting paradox is that the narration is presented as a description of a real experience. The facts are methodically and very logically described. There is no confusion between the style of narration before and after the discovery of the lost Paradise; the utopic script is mostly in the form of a memoir or diary and it is never presented as literature. The text intends to presents the real life of the protagonist who, thanks to an extraordinary twist of fate, had the possibility of discovering an unknown place. In most cases, this utopia is usually an island, or a place physically separated from the rest of the world. It is not tracked in any map and oftentimes even the protagonist is unable to locate it. Separateness is one of the indispensable stratagems for the utopian narration. It is not a case that the etymology of the word «utopia» came from «u» [not] «topòs» [place], «a place that is not there», or even better «a place that does not exist». It is important to notice that separation may not only be physical, but in some cases it also becomes temporal. In this second case the places remain the same but the time is different, mostly located in a bright future.

Thanks to the inherent visionary process of the utopic thinking, the author – partially a fictional character who in fact expresses the philosophical intention of the writer – is not a novelist but a real prophet of absolute Truth, as he loves to define himself. The utopist⁸ is the inventor of the unimaginable and intangible, according to abstruse hermetic and cabalistic descriptions of these books. We need to remember that especially in the age of maximum development and diffusion of the utopic literature, the 18th Century, this form of philosophical construction was an erudite form of production, mostly directed at an elite and cultivated group of people who enjoy the intellectual provocation contents in these speculations.

Nevertheless, they are extremely important because their effects go beyond the simple literary pleasure. Finally, they radically influenced the cultures of their time and prepared the big changes which culminated in the French Revolution in 1789. This historical, yet fundamental political event in the history of the world was obviously not only influenced by the utopic literature; therefore, it cannot be considered a direct consequence of this philosophy. But it is also true that thanks to their innate nature, these forms of philosophical scripts though under the appearance of a simple novel, penetrate the human mind and create radical movement against a previous regime. Often-times, one finds that it is difficult to pinpoint the specific yet philosophical lines in a utopic script. They can be collocated in the same area of thought. There is one additional complexity, though not clearly declared, there always appears to be a radical political vision inside these scripts. However, this is not the most important element of our investigation.

The fundamental point, probably, is the fact that the adventure, the unusual situation of the main character, is always linked to a vision of a world, a social and political organization. All of this is reflected into what one would call a vision of spatial order. In other words, it is possible to notice that those books create a philosophical edifice which has consequences in the social and political organization of that fictional world. Since it concerns the description of a society, consequentially there are large sections of the book, which are dedicated to the effects that the political and social status generated in that space. It is a constant trend in human history and the fact that it exists is the very precise effect in the space organization generated by the political and social conformation of a culture. The Utopia has no difference. In every case, the description of the society implies the description of the space where this political organization is settled.

The utopic literature has several forms of narration but basically they can be summarized into:

an imaginary journey,

an ideal plan of legislation,

a political novel.

These narrative models are radically different from each other, with specific characteristics and goals. But in every case they have the ambition to recreate a new society, healing the corrupted real world. Sometimes this happens through a direct process using a feasible plan of legislation, philosophically solid or, in other cases, using a more fictional process, illustrating the virtue of a healthy society in opposition of the corruption of the historical world.

Every utopic book is based on identical processes. The narrator lost his way back home and finally arrived in a strange island, or a place totally separated from the rest of the real world. Here he meets some unusual creatures, or more often some human beings developed a society completely different and separated from the real world. Here, after a moment of disorientation, the main character is educated on the new system, and finally becomes the prophet of the new vision of the world. Once he is back home, he evokes the perfection of the ideal society where he temporarily lived. The utopic world becomes a sort of anticipation of what will necessarily happen in the real society in the near future. From the perspective of the author writing on Utopia, it is inevitable that this «new order» will soon appear because the logic and the goodness of this system is so evident that the political and social system will naturally adopt it, because the evidence of its success seems factual. This future development is a consequence of a system so logical and rational that every scientific society will conquer.

In this process of evolution there are mandatory and constant steps that one must go through. Revolutions, violent civil fights and the destruction of the previous order are all necessary steps to reach the «true society», the «world of light». But then the «world of light» will finally come and become a bright example for the whole world. It will be impossible to avoid this new order because the inherent quality and logic of this social and political organization is evident. The spatial system is a direct consequence of this new organization. It is a physical expression of the logic of the new society.

And here lies a very important element in our description. Very often, there exists a sort of identification between writer and main character of the book. More precisely, the Utopic literature tends to lose the distinction between literary fiction and realty. Consequentially, it has generated a close interdependence between the two areas, reality and fiction. This phenomenon is very important in history. In fact, this often generates the possibility of creating a mutual influence between the two systems, fictional and reality. On one side there is the political, social and economical situation in the real world that is imperfect and problematic, is ready to generate reactions, oppositions, dreams – from the utopias, indeed –; on the other side the utopias contribute to create a model of action (often based on anarchism) against the real society, a reaction which is able to subvert the existing political situation or at least to change the society.

The case of the Utopic literature is extremely complex and very important in order for us to understand the logic of the Eco-Village. Apparently the two issues are distant. It is therefore necessary to consider, that in fact, the author of the Utopic literature has the intention to actively involve the reader in the story, asking the reader to find similarities and contrasts between Utopia and reality. From this contrast a complex system of interaction appears. The fiction is clearly denounced. Some details are absurd and even inconsistent. But it contains some other elements which are definitely reasonable, logical and fair. They are only too radical to be real; what we mean is that they are extreme in their condition. The laws, for example, are not simply a human construction for the regulation of the Utopic society. They are universal laws, clear and bright in their splendid evidence. There is no doubt that every human being has to accept them without objection. They are perfect and uncontroversial. Only apparently this is fictional, because these books touch on some sensitive points of the contemporary society. The problems that they denounce are real. The Utopia becomes a manifestation of the concerns at that time and the utopic proposals included in the script are the answers. Only apparently they describe a world of perfection, a metaphysical construction. On the contrary they are a precise illustration of the crisis of their time, … and their solutions.

1.2.2. A brief history of Utopic literature and the consequences on Eco-Village theory

One noticeable fact, is that the maximum development of the utopia as literary category flourished in a very special moment in human history, the 18th Century, an age of great revolution in everypossible area of human activity.

We all know that the Utopia started with Plato’s Republic. The key characteristics of a Utopia were clearly defined by Thomas More with this influential book Utopia published in Latin in 1516. However, it was only in the 17th and 18th Century that this model was largely developed and even obsessively repeated. Only in France, between 1676 and 1789, was it possible to find over 80 examples of utopic literature. They were written in different forms, from different perspectives and with some radical variations⁹.

Pic. 1-2-2-1. Thomas More, Map and alphabet from the paratext to More’s Utopia, c/o British Library.

It is not a case that this process of thinking and argumentation was revived in this age, and exploded as a phenomenon after two hundred years of oblivion. The society at that time was ripe for change and the needs of a radical revolution in the Western world were feverishly high. The Utopia became a way for society to not only complain but to express its views and hopes for the future. In order to understand the importance of a Utopia in the modern world and its revolutionary scope, it is necessary to understand the strict synthesis between utopism and reformism, between philosophical play and provocation, and the real effect that they contribute to create the real world.

But finally: why is it so important to discuss Utopia in a book related to Eco-Village? The Utopias are a form of literature, or at most a philosophical construction, based on fictional narration of unrealistic events. On the contrary, the Eco-Villages are a model of sustainable settlements with specific and practical problems to solve.

Actually, the connection is very strict. In this moment we are discussing the Utopias, because they are the theoretical models of the Eco-Villages, specifically they are the roots. It is obvious that a certain distance between models and results exists. But the differences are only apparent.

Essentially, what is a Utopia? It is mostly a philosophical model where the society of the real world is competently turned upside-down in the direction of an ethical and fair system. All the unfairness, the sins, the problems of the world in which we live are totally wiped out. The reasons lie in the intention of the Utopia to create a universal modality of life.

And then a fundamental question arose: which kind of order did the Utopia intend to create? In all the cases, we are facing an idea of supreme justice. And here we can find the critical point. This superior law does not strictly follow the human law. It is not even a religious law. In most cases, Utopia refuses the idea of belief, or political order. There are some cases where Socialism, or enlighten theocracy or Anarchism is more evident, but this is not the core of the problem. In order to be more precise, we can even categorize these utopias in the following categories:

Egalitarian utopias;

Utopias related to equal properties;

Anarchic utopias, also called spontaneous utopias;

Statalist utopias;

Primitivism or retrospective utopias;

Urban utopia;

Agrarian utopia.

The differences are in the names and there is no space to illustrate the little variations between them because, ultimately, they are all very similar (and rather uninteresting). In the end, in most of these cases there is something else which unifies all these forms: the adherence to the Law of Nature. What is common in all the utopias, what they finally assert is that the human philosophy is always fallacious and imperfect, but the Law of Nature is unavoidable and the perfect state for the human being who follows the right intellect.

At this juncture, the utopias face a contradiction which was never solved. They radically criticize every form of society because the human being is unable to create a fair society. Nevertheless, the author of the Utopic book proposes his own alternative that, for a mysterious and unexplainable reason, is better than anything else to be created in history. There is no solution of this contradiction. It is the weakness of this form of literature. But a positive point concerns the fact that, deeply rooted into every form of utopic construction, there is the adherence to Nature.

In every author, since the early cases of Plato until the latest expression in the contemporary world¹⁰, there is the assumption that human beings are basically good and if correctly educated, if enlightened by the reason of the Truth, they will finally spontaneously accept the evidence of a superior Law of Nature. In other words, what will finally win is not the human law, but the Law of Nature.

This is symbolized in different ways, such as the idea of light (enlightenment or similar). Probably the best case in this direction is the example crated by the anomalous Léger Marie Deschamps. He was a Utopian-Socialist Benedictine monk (sic!) who created a theory called «nullism», a sort of mystical materialism (a clear form of oxymoron). In his vision, the society does not have any form of property, no social class, there is perfect equality and all properties and women are shared¹¹. Every form of hierarchy, order, power, obligation, duty, is abolished. Dom Deschamps was an atheist monk who imagined a sort of communist utopia which refused even the materialism of Denis Diderot¹². In his desecrating proposal he did not protect any taboo, nor did he accept any compromise¹³. What is particularly interesting in this proposal is that the new state of absolute freedom is a natural and consequential development of the human society. After the primitive state, after the history where the people are necessarily unhappy because of kings, magistrates, priests, laws¹⁴, only beyond this will it be possible to have a state without laws where the existence can be conceived as a «universal whole». And it is exactly from this concept, that Dom Deschamps started to demonstrate that the «absolute» is the «nothingness», following a rigorous (and useless) philosophical process¹⁵. It is important to note that in Dom Deschamps the abolishment of the private property is a direct consequence of the adhesion on the Natural State. In other words, human beings suffer because they have become increasingly separated from the beatitude which lies in the obvious obedience of the Natural Laws.

This extreme case of Dom Deschamps is extremely important for us, because with compelling evidence, it expresses some trends and some ideas, which were always present in all the utopic literatures from the previous years. In the French Benedictine there are some tendencies, which appear more evident, and totally manifest and are clearly expressed without any metaphor.

The Utopic settlements he created are simply based on the abolition of any possible human law, necessarily artificial, fallacious, based on the misconception of the real State of Nature and subjected to the corruption and the sin of humanity. His position is completely anti-intellectual. He intends to deny the predominance of Reason in favor of a life in conformity to Nature. In other words, his adhesion to Nature does not stem from a cultural position, by philosophical speculations, but by a waiver of them. In his discussion, he asserted that because the human being will live in harmony with the universe, it will no longer be in need of any form of reason. The end of reason will proclaim the victory of Freedom.

And here lies an interesting point for our discussion. The renouncement of the state, and the human laws, implies the losses of the civilization, including the concept of the city. For Dom Deschamps the destiny of the human being will be to live in villages and in rural communities. There is no division in families. In his conception, because there is no need for luxury goods, there is also no need for extra work. All the people will only work for the goods of primary necessity. There is no more private ownership but everything is public, without any distinction between man and woman. Even the concept of marriage will be abolished because this is related to the idea of ownership. There will also be no modesty, hypocrisy, and all sexual inclinations will be accepted including the most extreme, and consequentially sexual perversion and the prostitution will too disappear. There will no longer be beauty, ugliness, or mystery, but only pure enjoyment, which will always be easy to obtain and without any disgust¹⁶.

Even religion is attacked. Beyond the abolition of any faith, he also rejects the idea of atheism, because this position stops halfway. To destroy the idea of a personal god, atheism does not propose an alternative to any other metaphysical idea, limiting itself to doubt or at most to a partial truth.

Dom Deschamps represents the most extreme form of Utopia, but at the same time he asserts the end of every possible speculation about this philosophy. In fact, the abolishment of every form of language was declared, because even this was considered to be a form of imposition of a non-natural rule and, consequentially, in disharmony with the idea of total freedom that the new society must reach. The direct consequence is that nothing more could be elaborated, nothing more could be discussed or asserted. Dom Deschamps declared the pure evidence of his proposal and then nothing more could be said because everything was deemed useless, including speaking because in his world there is no mediation between people and nature. But in this case, because every form of discussion will be terminated, it will no longer be possible to distinguish the truth from falsehood. He asserted that the State of Nature is the only possible one. Regardless, in this interesting position, it is also evident that there is a confusion between the utopic and non-utopic state. Because there is no possibility of discussion, then there is the impossibility to assert anything. Because all the rules are wiped out, also the possibility to have a rule is omitted.

Using a historical perspective, Dom Deschamps is the real end of the utopic literature. Obviously, after him there were several other scripts concerning this topic; also in the modern ages, there have been several movies and other forms of media, which were produced in the direction of Utopia. But they are simply out of date, a sort of mannerism of something that is no longer original.

In conclusion, in Dom Deschamps all the elements, characteristics, and weaknesses of the utopic literature are distinctly expressed. This position contains several elements which are very important in our future discussion related to Anti-Urbanism. We will illustrate these concepts in the whole book.

For now it is critical to notice that deeply rooted in the Western culture is a sort of rejection of the city, as it is considered a place of sin and corruption. This is clearly manifested in all the Utopic literatures, though not exclusively. It is a reiterative issue expressed in several manifestations of Western culture. Probably one of the most famous cases is the dialogue of Gonzalo in The Tempest by William Shakespeare where the good and probe councilor asserts:

GONZALO

I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries

Execute all things; for no kind of traffic

Would I admit; no name of magistrate;

Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,

And use of service, none; contract, succession,

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;

No occupation; all men idle, all;

And women too, but innocent and pure;

No sovereignty;--

SEBASTIAN

Yet he would be king on’t.

ANTONIO

The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the

beginning.

GONZALO

All things in common nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,

Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,

To feed my innocent people.

SEBASTIAN

No marrying ’mong his subjects?

ANTONIO

None, man; all idle: whores and knaves.

GONZALO

I would with such perfection govern, sir,

To excel the golden age.¹⁷

The words in this dialogue clearly express the fundamental points of every possible utopia realized in the following centuries.

There is something else. In the Utopia, there is a parallel manifestation which is the project of legislation. Every time a single writer or a group of people intends to reform a state, a culture, a society, they act according to these two processes: or create a Utopia, or a political system based on a supposedly better and more logical or more fair legislation. The examples are innumerable, but the discussion in the previous pages provides a clear example of what the utopias proposed. In all these cases we are facing a world totally separated from the known countries, where the social-political-ethical conceptions are expressed in a social and spatial organization. This is probably the key point in all our discussions here. The Anti-Urbanism is considered a direct consequence of all the people who are against civilization and its sins, weaknesses, sicknesses and so on; the reaction is always in the direction of a more fair and equal society. This society is better merely because it adheres to the State of Nature. Because Nature is self-evident, self-regulated, perfect in its own essence, consequentially everyone who intends to live in happiness, must follow Nature and do so according to his or her natural inclinations. In our knowledge, the utopic literature expresses itself in the most clear processes, the key idea that later flows into the Eco-Village philosophy.

We will discover in the following chapters that the Eco-Villages are settlements where social, political and spatial organization are strictly related and where there is always a very strong adherence to the State of Nature. Once again we have to remark that they are apparently similar to farming villages. On the contrary, they are extremely philosophically solid and aware of their role against modern civilization and the technocratic society. This position is not present in the farmers’ settlements because they have always considered the cities as some sort of dreamlands.

1.3. Being more realistic: Politeia, Socialism, Anarchism, spirituality and the idea of community and social organization

As stated in the previous section, there is always a strict connection between Utopia and political reform. Our book is not strictly related to utopia, which is only the beginning of our analysis. Because Eco-Villages are always an alternative way of living, more adherent to Nature, whilst simultaneously refusing contemporary society through a different level of radicalism, it is also important for them to emphasize the necessity of a firm opposition against all the weaknesses of the modern world.

One of the most important elements in this revolution concerns political and social issues. There is no possible way to separate these two terms. They are simply two sides of the same coin. A political organization generates a social system and the intention of the people involved in this system generates the political contents. The discussion concerning Utopia shows one of the most evident examples in the history of the western culture, where politics, social and space create a clear (and often contradictory) example of settlements.

It is necessary to emphasize that the formal organization of the Utopia –