Admission
Los Horcones community is open to visitors and new members.
We welcome all people who really want to cooperate in building a new society, a communitarian culture.
You can come to help during short periods of time or stay permanently.
We welcome all people who want to live at Los Horconeswork for the common good*,who want to replace their own individualistic and competitive behaviors by altruistic and cooperative ones.
* We are open to people who want to work together to improve the quality of their lives. Of course, we know that it is not easy to change our competitive and individualistic behaviors. Los Horcones precisely attempts to become the physical and social setting where we are studying precisely how to learn to cooperate and think about others (the common good) instead of thinking only on ourselves. Cooperation and altruism are human behaviors. Thus, the science of behavior (behavioral or behaviorist psychology-behavior analysis) is fundamental to achieving the objectives of Los Horcones community. The science that can help us change our behavior is for Los Horcones the most important sceince of all.
We invite you to visit Los Horcones. See Visiting. We also invite you to join as members see Membership .
Our growth in population is not limited by the size of our present location or size. We want to start communities like Los Horcones in other parts of Mexico and the world. See How to help and Walden Two International Association.
If you want to be part of this community, please read the requisites listed further below in this page.
Some reflections for those
who want to live at Los Horcones
Many people are dissatisfied with the current society (with their lifestyle, what they do in daily life is not satisfactory -positiviely reinforcing). Many people wish to live in a different society, but very few act effectively to make a different society.
We believe that in order to build a new society, we need to change our behavior (attitudes, values, way of thinking, etc.). We cannot build a new culture without changing our old ways of behaving. We cannot build a cooperative and egalitarian community if we continue behaving competitively, in a self-centered and elitists maner (egocentric behavior). This is very clear to us, the members of Los horcones. Is it clear to you?
Thus, for Los Horcones, personal change is a means to change achieve a social change.
In order to live in Los Horcones personal change skills are fundamental. In order to change our behavior we need to know how to do so. Thisis why in the community we try to help each other learn these skills, although we don't always succeed (visitors do not join and stay, some members leave). Our competitive and selfish behaviors have been strongly reinforced (promoted) outside Los Horcones; it is not easy to extinguish (unlearn) them.
During 30 years we have observed that it is not easy to learn to think of others, to be concerned about others. It is not easy to seek the common good instead of merely seeking our own personal, exclusive good -in other words- learning to feel communal good as our own. But altruistic behaviorism is not difficult in itself, it becomes difficult because most of us were raised and educated in the Western Culture where we learned competitive and individualistic behaviors and values. (reinforcers)
It's difficult to consider the common good as our own good. Even at the family level we have not always learned to cooperate for the good of the family.
The contradiction between individual and common good is apparent. Los Horcones seeks individual good and wellbeing of every nad each of its members. This is why we say that Los Horcones seeks the common good.
Improving ourselves as persons
Living at Los Horcones does not just means living closer to nature, having a variety of interesting activities to do, relating and know to people from different parts of the world, learning to do new and interesting jobs, eating and sleeping well and having a lot of time to oneself. Living at Los Horcones means mainly trying to improve the way we are, our behavior. This involves having a communitarian attitude toward life. Our main task is to change our behavior and help others change theirs. We are not living at Los Horcones merely to live more naturally in the country nor to scape responsibilities (with ourselves and with all the people who do not live here).
Admission Requisites
Everyone can live at Los Horcones either as a visitor, soliciting member or permanent member.
Every person who wishes to become a member of Los Horcones, in order to make a better based desision, needs to first spend a period of time in the community as a visitor. We recommend from 2 to 5 weeks in order to mutually know each other. After this visiting period, you may request to become a soliciting memeber. After living here for a year or two you may request to become a permanent member. The time a soliciting member should to live in the community before requesting to become a permanent member does not depend upon the time spent here but rather upon how much commitment to ommunal life he/she shows. Regularly this involves from one to three years.
VISITING REQUISITES:
1. To inform us about your interest in visiting Los Horcones. You can do so personally, by telephone, letter or e-mail. Please describe who you are, how did you find out about Los Horcones, why you are interested in visiting, a brief history of your life, your present situation, what you expect, like or dislike (what is reinforcing or aversive for you). You also need to tell us when are you planning to visit, for how long and if other people are accompanying you.
2. Every visitor, whether interested or not in becoming a member, should pay a daily fee during the first 2-5 weeks and is expected to participate in the daily labor activities of the community.
3. Visitors from foreign countries, will have to demonstrate having enough money to buy their ticket to retourn to their country (such money will be saved here to be used when you go back). In case you stay and join you may use that money to visit your country again.
Communal life involves
personal change
Many people from various parts of the world have spent short or long periods of time visiting Los Horcones. For one reason or another they eventually leave the community . We have observed that one of the most common reasons why they leave is that they have not learned to work in making a better community. We can say that those of us who now live at this community have not been able to teach them these behaviors. We do not blame them or us for what happens. Both, them and us are responsible for our behavior. At Los Horcones, we are precisely studying how to learn and teach these behaviors.
Note. It does not mean that all community members have learned to cooperate. The community functions as a setting where we learn to be more cooperative; in this sense it is like a school.
Community progress = individual progress
When we feel the community's progress as our own, we enjoy living at Los Horcones. When we think just about ourselves, we do not enjoy living here.
To learn that the common good is our own personal good is undoubtedly the main challenge for new members. Of course, all members help one another to achieve it.
It is very hard to live happily in a community like Los Horcones if one keeps thinking about oneself without thinking about others. Living a productive and satisfactory communal life requires caring about others.*
* Sorry for repeating this idea, but we want to clearly inform you that if you come to Los Horcones without seriously trying to become interested in the rest and learn to feel the community porgrss as our own progress it is very unlikely you can live a happy and meaningful life here.
Note.- Many of the letters we receive from people who want to live in Los Horcones, include sentences like the following: "I want to live in the country, close to nature." "I want to live a tranquil life.""I want to live a healthier life" "I want to give my children the opportunity to live close to nature.", "I want to learn new kills.", "I want to have more time for myself.", "I want to be with people who think like me.", "I want to have time to read, to study," etc.
Few people, if any, say: "I want to change the way I am.","I want to learn to cooperate and share.", "I want to learn to think of others, to care for others.", "I want to learn to help."
If you want to live in Los Horcones, ask yourself: What am I looking for? You can discover in your answers how appropriate your reasons are,and how you are probably going to feel in Los Horcones. If you are really looking to become a better person, you will feel very happy in Los Horcones because here there are many opportunities to do just this. If you are just looking to get what you want without changing, it is very likely that you will feel uncomfortable and unhappy here.
Please do not expect an ideal community
Please, when you visit Los Horcones, do not expect to find
a finished community, where all members are ideal communitarian people.
Los Horcones is in constant development and progress. Its members are constantly
trying to reeducate themselves and become better people.
We are not ideal people, we are
people who are trying to become better people.
Please do not expect a Walden Two community like the one described in B.F. Skinner's novel. We are building this community day by day, please don't come just to enjoy what has been built.
You will possibly find here something of what you expect,but maybe not all. However, you can help us achieve what we have not achieved. Please help us change what we need to change, instead of getting discouraged and say: "Since Los Horcones does not have this or that, I better leave." Many people have left after placing themselves in such a position.
Remember Los Horcones is not based on the novel Walden Two , but on the science of behavior. This was the science on which Skinner based his novel. We are not following the ideas Skinner expressed in his novel. We are not a community inspired by the novel, wibut on the Science of Behavior and its philosophy, Radical Behaviorism .
Los Horcones is not merchandise for sale
Often, people interested in joining Los Horcones, see this community as merchandise, as a commodity. They ask us, what does the community offer me? Depending upon our answer they decide if they will buy it (join) or not. However, in the case of Los Horcones this is not an appropriate attitude, since this community is a project where everybody is invited to contribute. It is not a finished or a private project. What Los Horcones offers you is the opportunity to cooperate in designing a culture which seeks the common good.
If you come to Los Horcones with a helping and non-consumeristic attitude you will succeed.
Of course, by telling you all this we are not trying to make you feel that living at Los Horcones is too hard and discourage you from comming. We just want to be honest with you from the very beginning. We want to help you reflect on how willing are you to change your behavior and cooperate for a common good.
A new society can only be built with people willing to change.*
*We are trying to design this community in such a way that it motivates you to change. However, it is necessary to point out that our design is not always successful.
Los Horcones is our home and it can also be yours. Nobody likes being an object of consumption. Please come here to help the community, not to use it.
Do not repeat this repeated story
First: A person wrote us saying that she/he is very interested in and excited about coming to live at Los Horcones.
Second: She/he arrives at the community and says: "I'm very happy to be here. I am living my dreams. This is what I was looking for. I like everything I do here, etc.."
After some time, what she/he does in the community stops being as pleasant as in the begining (the activities are not novel anymore). He/she feels as dissasfied as he/she was before comming here. His/her life at Los Horcones does not have a sense anymore. He/she discovers that he/she really needs to help make a better community, that the project is cooperative and that he/she haven't come just to enjoy what is already made but also to help building it and improving it.
Third: when realizing that to do so is difficult, she/he then start criticizing, disapproving and complaining, saying that there is a lot of work, that Los Horcones is not a community, etc. She/he start blaming us and eventually leave the community.
Note.- Generally, people come to Los Horcones thinking about doing what interests them (work at what they like, have plenty of leisure time, eat well, have other people to socialize with, learn new knowledge and skills,etc.). When they can not do some of these things or when they feel dissatisfied with the community. They then think about leaving, instead of staying and working to achieve these goals.
If you read the novel Walden Two, please do not think that Los Horcones is a thousand members' Walden Two. We are a Walden Two community because we are based on the same science of behavior B.F. Skinner was based to write his novel.
Please do not expect a replica of Walden Two. We are inviting you to build it.
Come and visit us
Last up-date: May, 2003
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