admin @ Sun, 2006-03-05 09:00
Perfection. A wild town that worships male and female deities, uses a drum to herald the day's activities and sets aside every Thursday for free love.
These imaginary utopias were designed by separate groups of students from Centre College, a small liberal arts school an hour south of Lexington in Danville, Ky.
Most knew that the concept of leaving familiar territory to find a better - or rather, perfect - life elsewhere is a distinctly American phenomenon. What they didn't realize was this utopian pastime, not nearly as prevalent across most of the South, has deep roots in the area around central Kentucky.
"You don't start a utopian community in Minnesota. It's too cold," said Milton Reigelman, an English professor who instructed the class. "You'd think, gosh, they'd go to southern Florida. But the bulk of them are established in the Midwest, and the bulk of those were established in this area."
Reigelman's class visited such utopian landmarks as a Shaker colony, an abbey founded by Trappist monks and a wildlife refuge inspired by Henry David Thoreau - all in Kentucky. Just across the Indiana border in New Harmony are two more utopian experiments that began on the banks of the Wabash River.
With a curriculum focused on designing "the perfect utopia," the students initially determined geography wasn't very important. But the more they thought about their surroundings, the more they concluded perhaps the Shakers and monks were on to something when they pegged the Bluegrass as the perfect place to find perfection.
"It made sense that they built a community farther west and away from cities because that's kind of where they viewed the problems," said Mari Rayl, a Centre student from Wichita, Kan. "It's kind of funny that this is farther out. You'd just be riding around on your horse, and all of a sudden you see this giant community."
Retired anthropologist Don Janzen, who has visited about 100 "intentional communities" and compiled a database of nearly 3,000, says utopias have been established all over for countless reasons.
Janzen, who lives in Louisville, says he figures it's the success of a small handful of communities - not necessarily the numbers - that has made the area of central Kentucky, southern Indiana and southern Ohio stand out.
The Ohio River provided a sort of interstate highway. The climate was calm enough to live and even grow crops. And unlike the slave states of the Deep South, where there was rigid structure, this was untapped land - geographically, but also ideologically.
"It was fertile ground for converting people who were already asking the same kinds of questions," said Larrie Curry, vice president of Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, Ky. "There was an awful lot of experimentation with different lifestyles and planned communities in the new west."
Shaker Village, founded in 1810, skyrocketed to a population of 6,000 by 1840, making it one of the largest communities of Shakers in the nation. It now is a tourist attraction about 25 miles southwest of Lexington, featuring a hotel and restaurant.
The Abbey of Gethsemani, which still operates near Bardstown, Ky., was organized by French monks. Brother Rapheal, a former Marine fighter pilot in World War II who has lived there 52 years, said it has been a real source of peace for him.
"When they came here it was a wilderness," he said. "The utopia would be kind of the end - the focus, a union of God through the work of Christ."
Reigelman's students were fascinated by the abbey, and one group even based its imaginary utopia on a monastery - with the catch that it would be a multi-religious one. When the class started arguing that the leader's religion would influence the community's beliefs, the group tapped an atheist to lead it.
"It seems so ideal, at least for me, to spend most of your day just contemplating things," said Matthew Howell, a Centre student from Louisville. "If that could be translated into some sort of multi-religious utopia, perhaps people could grow to understand each other better. Looking back on it, it does seem kind of silly."
Another group, which called itself The Bouncers, was modeled after the Shakers - with numerous caveats. There was constant music - particularly the drum, more roles for women and a Thursday "Sabbath," set aside for sexual experimentation.
"It was really a psychological projection of the trio that did it," Reigelman said. "What they didn't really like about existence, they fixed."
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