WALHDOS
THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER FROM COMUNIDAD LOS HORCONES
Issue # 1
January-February 1999
This kiosk is at the center of the community. Here children play, students study, or adults chat. In Mexico, kiosks are typical of the squares of small villages, it is also a place where the band plays. At Los Horcones we do not have a band as yet but we do sometimes play guitar and sing or simply bring the CD player and listen to music or dance.
In the back of the kiosk waves the earth's flag which we have adopted because it represents all the countries as one world without boundaries. Under the flag post there is a sign that reads:
"A world without boundaries, a flag for all the earth".
Dear Friend:
This is the first issue of our electronic newsletter.
Maybe you are among those subscribers who have been patiently waiting for it, thank you. We hope you enjoy it.
It will be published bi-monthly. It will always include a section about news about the development of Los Horcones as a Walden Two community, personal accounts of a member's daily life in the community, reviews of articles written by Los Horcones and "bits" of our history.
If there is a particular subject you would like us to include, please let us know.
Thank you for your support.
LATEST AND BELATED NEWS
LOS HORCONES RECEIVES AN AWARD
We recently received the following notice of award:
Congratulations! On Behalf of the Board of Directors of the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, it is with pleasure that I write to inform you that Comunidad Los Horcones has been chosen as the recipient of the 1999 Award for International dissemination of Behavior Analysis. The community's dedication to the field of behavior analysis is well recognized. We all appreciate your efforts for the last 25 years developing a An experimental community. In addition, the Community is well known by its school for children with disabilities, a school for the community's children and space to hold classes, workshops, publications and conferences on behavior analysis, as well as your recent development of a satellite community in Tucson, AZ. You have brought behavior analysis far in the international arena.
RECENT GUESTS
We enjoyed the recent visit of an artist from Holland who became a good friend of ours. He gave us drawing lessons. He was a professional teacher and in a few lessons he taught us a great deal about painting. Through his interesting lessons some of us learned to better appreciate painting, learned a new hobby, skill (or reinforcer). He also offered to come back and give painting workshops at Los Horcones for people from abroad and from Mexico as well.
We also had two good friends from Spain, Ana and Javier who actively participated in the community life.
A group of students and teachers from Wheaton College near Boston Massachusetts U.S.A. spent a week visiting Los Horcones. The students had a rich experience by being exposed to two different cultures at once (Mexican and Walden Two). They attended conferences, helped in community work and participated in recreational activities such as a trip to the beach, horseback riding, wall climbing, singing and dancing. The teachers also participated in the activities and together with community members they made plans to revitalize the project we once developed together. It consisted of helping them organize residence halls in their college in more cooperative ways by its residents. This includes writing a book on the application of behavioral principles to cooperative residence halls.
NEW MEMBERS
Gabriel.
He came to Los Horcones from Israel in August 1998 and joined the community. Gabriel was born in the States. In his late teens, he left the competitive society to join a Kibbutz, a communitarian effort to create a better society through cooperation. Later, through the reading of Skinner's Walden Two novel/philosophy of the science of behavior, he became interested in behavior analysis. Spent some time back in the States studying behavior analysis, looking for Walden Two like community options.
Papers by and about Los Horcones helped make the choice clear. So a few years ago Gabriel began corresponding and lending his support to the community. For the longest time he believed that that support "from a distance" would be the extent that he could make a viable contribution. In the interim, once again in Israel, he asked why limit my contribution to "from a distance"? Packed his bags and left Israel, called to tell us he had arrived in Hermosillo, Mexico and if he could catch a ride out--he had come to join the community. He had lived on Kibbutz some 30 odd years.
Adriana.
She is from Hermosillo, Sonora. Adriana joined in early December. She is a psychology student in her early twenties. She joined Los Horcones after a year of spending various periods of time participating in the community and learning about it. She was introduced to the community by one of our sons. She was part of a group of psychology students who regularly attended a course on behavior analysis applied to cultural design given in the community. She said that as she learned more about Los Horcones she became more interested and as time passed she liked better living here than in the city.
Fernanda.
Fernanda is from a city south from Hermosillo and she was also part of a group of psychology students who regularly attended a course on behavior analysis applied to cultural design here in Los Horcones. She was Adriana's classmate and friend and they encouraged each other about joining. The main reason Fernanda gave for joining was that she saw that her peers as well as other young people who visited Los Horcones Were always excited about it and liked it very much, but as she noticed they never joined. She said she wanted to support a project like Los Horcones directly, she wanted to help it survive and here she is.
Generally speaking, in Mexico, girls are still expected to (Live with) their family until they marry. It was not easy for Adriana and Fernanda to find support for their decision of joining(From)their families. This fact has already discouraged many single women once interested in joining. We are especially happy to see Adriana and Fernanda able to pursue their communitarian ideals.
WEEK-END CAMPS FOR CHILDREN
Since early 1999 Los Horcones started organizing week-end camps for children who live in the cities and villages nearby Los Horcones. We offer them recreational activities within a cooperative setting. Some of these activities children enjoy are: cowboy-like outings on horseback, camping, campfire cookouts, wall-climbing, fishing, biking, hiking, star gazing through a telescope and various arts and crafts. Parents send their children as a birthday present, as a reward for their efforts at school, or simply to expose them to a different environment. Both children and parents seem to be satisfied with the week-end camps.
MOUNTAIN BIKING AND FAMILY RECREATIONAL SUNDAYS.
Some of the children who have grown up in Los Horcones, have been practicing mountain biking and developing it as a sport in Sonora. In January Javier (our son) opened a small store in Los Horcones where he sells mountain bike parts and gear. He also made tracks (single tracks and dirt road) where bikers can ride. Since bikers were coming on week-ends to ride their bikes and did not like to leave their families. Javier with the support of the rest of Los Horcones' members organized "family-Sundays" an event where one or both parents bike the trails around Los Horcones while their children can enjoy recreational activities offered by the community. An outdoor meal is also offered. After biking, some parents enjoy the opportunity of participating with their children in some fun activities like fishing or wall climbing. Next time we will include a talk for parents on child education. They find this "Sunday-package" appealing.
LOS HORCONES AT THE 1998 ABA CONVENTION IN ORLANDO.
Los Horcones is a member of the Association for Behavior Analysis(ABA) which organize a convention every year. We used to Attend these conventions often to present papers and meet with behavior analysts. However lately we have participated less often because of our financial situation and the expenses it represents. In 1998 we were invited to present a symposium since ABA was celebrating the 50 years of publication of Skinner's novel Walden Two.
Here, our son Juan starts the symposium "Walden Two: 50 and 25 years later." It consisted of 5 presentations from which we include the abstracts below.
Juan, Javier and Linda from Los Horcones with Phil Hineline (blue suit) and the French behavior analysts Jean Claude D'Archeville (light blue shirt) and Vinca Riviere (white shirt) who presented and interesting paper and poster session.
Symposium: "Walden Two: 50 and 25 years later."
Following are the abstracts of each of the articles we presented.
1. Morning Star: beginnings and sequel of Walden Two novel.
In 1945 Skinner wrote his novel Walden Two. He describes a very successful community which is already ten years old and has a thousand members.
In this presentation we will try to modestly portray a possible beginning for the Walden Two community and also present our version of what it could be like if it existed today. Although the characters in this novel are the same as in Skinner's novel, they are presented in a different way because they are partly fictional and partly real. Our idea of writing this novel emerges from one of our last conversations with B. F. Skinner.
In this presentation we speculate how Walden Two could have been initiated and to imagine how Walden Two would look now if it had started back in 1935.
2. Walden Two: what it is and what it is not.
In this paper we present the characteristics that define a Walden Two society as seen from a Walden Two perspective. We emphasize the fact that Walden Two is not just a novel, but a proposal for a model society based on the science of behavior. Furthermore, it is a proposal for social change based on this science. This paper also includes clarifications of the most frequent misinterpretations made about Walden Two novel and Los Horcones as a living Walden Two experiment.
Los Horcones: 25 Years of a Walden Two
A presentation is made of all the areas of Comunidad Los Horcones such as economy, government, education, family, etc. and mainly about the area of human behavior. Slides were shown to illustrate the content of the conference or presentation in a more recreational way.
We spoke about the problems we have had and the ways in which we have solved them. Also, we present the plans related to building communities in other parts of the world and the difficulties involved.
B.F. Skinner's contributions to cultural design.
During his lifetime B.F.Skinner established, developed and promoted a science of behavior; identified by himself as the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Although Skinner used rats and pigeons as subjects for his experiments, to him, the behavior of non-human organisms was not interesting for its own sake. In his first book The Behavior of Organisms Skinner pointed out: "The importance of a science of behavior derives largely from the possibility of an eventual extension to human affairs." Furthermore to Skinner the technology derived from this science was not to be used only in the remedial patchwork of the present culture, "for futilely corrective purposes", but mainly in the design of a new one that prevents the problems the present culture is producing. To Skinner this culture is Walden Two.
This presentation focusesd on B.F. Skinner's contribution to cultural analysis and design.
Los Horcones: Its contribution to cultural analysis and design.
From a Walden Two perspective, current cultural practices are producing the serious problems we face in contemporary western society. Many of its practices are competitive and individualistic.
In order to survive, we need to change these cultural practices. To do so, it is necessary to understand how these practices operate.
Los Horcones during 25 years, have analyzed these cultural practices and modified them at an experimental level to measure their effect on the behavior of the members of a culture. As a result of this analysis, Los Horcones has elaborated a conceptual framework that includes terms coined by Los Horcones to analyze and design the culture.
A women's meeting.
Here you see some of the women members of Los Horcones gathered to discuss personal issues related to gender roles, like the way we were raised differently from men and how this affected our personal lives in the community or before we joined. We analyze how it influences the ways in which we relate to each other, to men, and the ways in which we respond to children. Of course, we also talked about what can we do to provide the conditions to increase gender-equality behaviors in members. This kind of meeting which men are also welcome to attend, help us in getting to better know each other and ourselves. In their search for equality, the women of Los Horcones do not want to discriminate against men.
Meetings like these, strengthens our efforts to contribute to an alternative society like Los Horcones where the new generations can be raised in a more egalitarian way.
The members of Los Horcones (men and women) consider ourselves feminists because together we are trying to build an egalitarian society and gender equality is one of its forms. We want to understand gender-related behaviors more scientifically to become more effective in our feminist actions. We have a behavior analytic approach to feminism which means observing, describing, explaining and changing gender related behaviors and the variables of which they are a function, of natural events. We call it behavioristic feminism. (A behavior-analytic approach to feminism.).
This is a view of our small store we call "tiendita" where we gather in the afternoon to relax and socialize while having a snack or refreshment. It is a nice break in the middle of the day. We combine work and recreation, instead of working until work becomes aversive. In this way we prevent the problem of members becoming overtired and not socializing.
We were finally able to invest in an irrigation system for the grass areas which help us save water, and use it more wisely. Here Amin is working on the installation of the pipes.
Alejandra (12 ) with some of the community's pets: a young boa constrictor and a dog called "mancha" which in English means "spot".
During our trip to Orlando, Florida to the ABA Convention we took the children to Disney World. Guess who had more fun....the little guys on the right.
Daniel and Andrés will be 6 and 3 years old by the end of February. Both are very active, enjoy playing and feeding animals specially the dog and turtles. Despite their age difference they're good playmates. They have learned not to discriminate against children with behavior problems. In fact they play a lot with them, teaching them with great patience to participate in their games. It is amazing to see how much these children respond to them at play.
BITS OF OUR HISTORY.
Eighteen years ago, on January 21, 1981 Los Horcones community moved >from the outskirts of Hermosillo to our present location (63 Kms.. from Hermosillo).
When we bought this place it was totally bare in relation to houses or installations of any kind. We used to come on the weekends to make fences and then to start building the first house. By the time the members (14 adults and 7 children) moved here, there were two rooms and a bathroom which are now part of the children's house- and almost finished the kitchen and what is now the central part of the dinning room. Most of us were kind of camping here until we gradually built more facilities.
It was not easy to start building a community all over again leaving behind the other place where we had built about 11 buildings, planted a citrus orchard (which we successfully transplanted here against all odds) some corrals and a large vegetable garden.
Here we devoted the first three to four years of hard labor to build some private rooms for members and communal facilities. This undoubtedly represented a severe slow down on our research and educational activity. Los Horcones also lost a few members in this transition which implied living farther from the city, doing more physical work and thus a reduced social life.
However, this new place offered some advantages to all of us. It was the answer to get away from the industries that were settling around our first place and their consequent pollution. Also, in order to be self-sufficient and grow in population we needed a larger piece of land and this was 200 acres larger. Here we had more agricultural land and space to have more cattle and other animals and, of course, this place provided some of the necessary conditions to grow in population.
Now after 18 years Los Horcones has developed and matured along with its members. It is not yet the ideal community we wish to build (in its physical and social aspects) but it surely has improved our quality of life and has become a better alternative for more people. What you do not see here now (more people, schools, universities, hospitals, arts, sports, etc.) it is not because we do not want it, but merely because we have not been able to do it yet. Our human and financial resources have always been scarce, which, seen from a more positive perspective, shows people that it is possible to build a community with its own member's resources. This place is meant to become a model behaviorally planned cooperative village where members live happily and productively. (By behaviorally planned we mean not leaving human affairs merely to personal insight or common sense).
In everything you see in Los Horcones now, it is the cooperative effort and love of the present and past members who have contributed to make this community what it is now.
PERSONAL COMMENTS FROM A MEMBER OF LOS HORCONES
Note. In this section of "Walhdos Newsletter" we will include personal comments made by members of Los Horcones about our life in comunity. What we do, talk, think and feel. People who write to us are often interested in learning about what it is like for a particular member in a Walden Two community.
Linda.
I was born 43 years ago in Sonora, Mexico, and have lived at Los Horcones for over 25 years. I have been married the same number of years to Ramon. I love and have raised, along with the other members of the community, several children of whom I gave birth to four. I would like to tell you here about my reasons for living in this community. I have learned that it is the accumulation of simple meaningful events in our daily lives which makes it reinforcing (happy, pleasant) enough to keep us living here. Most members share many of the reasons (reinforcers) I mention. Some of my broader reasons for living here can be summarized as:
Seeking an alternative lifestyle which prevents and solves the many social problems in today's world by applying the science of behavior to the design of a better society.
The following list I have written of the more concrete reinforcers (pleasures) I enjoy by living in Los Horcones. Some of them of course can be found in other places within a different lifestyle. Hoever, as you read you will be able to identify those that are characteristic of a Walden Two communal life I did not list them in any particular order.
- Living, working and learning together with my family (biological and communal family).
- Having more people to share the problems with and look for solutions together.
- Communal meals.
- Learning more about myself.
- Learning new and different things often.
- Working effectively together in a group.
- Being able to work in what I enjoy.
- Having varied work.
- Not having to always cook or do housework everyday.
- Not having to be preoccupied by money concerns.
- Not having to carry money in my pockets.
- Not being too exposed to advertisements, sales, etc. that make one think that we need more material goods to be happy.
- Receive affection from members of all ages.
- Looking at a flock of quails and other wild desert animals while I work in the office.
- Being corrected by children who have grown up in the community.
- Not having to spend time driving from one place to another.
- Children coming to my workplace any time of day to ask me a question or share the tenderness of a hug or kiss.
- Combining intellectual and manual work.
- Being able to quit a job and choose a new one easily.
- Not having to keep a job that is no longer satisfying out of fear of loss of income.
- Living a more tranquil life, not being exposed to a quarrelsome environment, despite the fact that we interact a lot.
- Living with others and yet privately.
- Working other than for money.
- Not being discriminated for my sex, age, or anything else.
- Having friendly and loving relationships with all children.
- Sharing all kinds of things.
- Going from one building to another in the community, feeling the fresh air, looking at the fruit on the trees, the flowers, the herbs and listening to the birds.
- Easily reaching agreement in meetings and being able to communicate among each other.
- Not living within hierarchies, classes, elites.
- Working with different members, including my children.
- Seeing children growing up healthy, learning many things and spending their time creatively.
- Living in a place where one is not threatened by violence. Not living surrounded by watch dogs, iron bars, tall fences, alarms, private police, etc.
- Having a place where children can play and run freely outdoors without being exposed to dangers or violence.
- Eating the food we produce and harvest.
- Going for walks or hikes with friends or alone
- Looking towards a productive, satisfying and not lonely old age.
- Agree with the rest of the adults on education.
- Having our own school where we can implement effective educational practices.
- When others tell me not only what they dislike of what I do but also what they like.
- Watching the sunrise or sunset.
- Looking the ways our grown up children manage their everyday lives.
...and this is only a partial list!