New Harmony, Indiana

So far in our class discussions and readings, we have dealt with scientific experiments and we are now getting into political experiments. But are these two categories mutually exclusive?

Think back to 1825. George Rapp and his group of religious followers, after escaping religious persecution in Germany twenty years earlier, establish an experimental society in the southwest corner of Indiana. Money was banned. Property was public. Four years later, this communistic experiment came to a halt, and the town felt apart due to numerous disputes.

Following the dissolution of the society, Josiah Warren, a participant in the New Harmony experiment, said, “It appeared that it was nature's own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us ...our 'united interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation... and it was evident that just in proportion to the contact of persons or interests, so are concessions and compromises indispensable.”

This story right here seems to encapsulate much of what we have discussed so far in the class. Specifically, New Harmony clearly relates to Bacon’s New Atlantis and the American experiment readings we read this week. At first glance, Bacon’s story and the Declaration of Independence seem to be entirely unrelated, as one deals with a scientific experiment and the other is a political experiment, we can definitely draw some connections. New Harmony, Indiana, combines the scientific, Utopian aspect of New Atlantis with the American political experiment of democracy. Thinking about it for a while, however, I’ve begun to believe that political experiments are scientific experiments. In setting up a new type of government or living arrangement, the experimental aspect is to see if it will succeed. This success ultimately depends on the reactions of the people and consequences of people’s actions. This is science AND politics. The experiment at New Harmony would then be classified as an experiment in political science.

So then, how are the separate entities of politics and sciences related? Do political experiments always involve some sort of science? In scientific experiments, do politics affect them in some ways (e.g. Royal Society)? Any thoughts on these questions…

[pic from Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry http://www.bsu.edu/ourlandourlit/Literature/Authors/snedekercd.html]