> Deriding eccentricity does not
> seem, in general, like a promising path of theoretical
> development.
The Mohegan Colony in New England around the time of WW2 is a good example:
"The colony had no working class base. The inhabitants were largely middle class, mostly faddists and eccentrics. Many of the women were health and food faddists, devotees of Dr. E.K. Stretch, an advocate of health foods. When Hitler's troops were invading all over Europe, [one of them] made up a jingle: 'The soldiers march, because of starch.' (Starch was taboo among the Stretchites.)
[....]
"I can't think of one normal one among the bunch. All had some kind of quirk. There was an Englishman named Bill Stevens, a real crank, dour and taciturn. He'd meet you on a rainy day and gloat, 'Lovely weather.'" (Fermin Rocker in _Anarchist Voices_, Paul Avrich ed., p. 25)
Or the Stelton Colony in the 1930s, also in New England:
"The trouble with Stelton was that it wasn't really an anarchist colony but a hybrid with a libertarian streak. People owned their own houses, worked for wages, and worked outside the colony. ... In fact, there was never a true anarchist colony in the United States. All such experiments were disparate, mixtures, vaguely libertarian in their ideas and apsirations, and diluted by the presence of non-anarchists - socialists, liberals, sympathizers. Stelton, like other colonies, was infested by vegetarians, naturists, nudists, and other cultists, who sidetracked true anarchist goals. [One member] always went barefoot, ate raw food, mostly nuts and raisins, and refused to use a tractor, being opposed to machinery; and he didn't want to abuse horses, so he dug the earth himself." (Sam Dolgoff in _Anarchist Voices_, Paul Avrich ed. p. 227)
Brian
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"And Mr. Block thinks he may / Be President some day." - Joe Hill, "Mr. Block"