The Oneida Community, situated in Oneida, New York, was crafted to serve as an utopian society in the eyes of its founder, John Humphrey Noyes. The community upheld the values of self-perfectionism and communalism. This led to the larger, but few houses to accommodate the "group-family" and the overall practices that involved the entire community giving back to each other. Their economic base was agricultural and industrial, focusing on what they reaped from the land (farming, handicrafts, etc.) Diving further in, however, many criticize the community for its rogue approach to Christianity, but most of all, its doctrine of Complex Marriage (all are married to each other and may have sex with each other so long as no two people are attached to each other exclusively).
In some ways, the community upheld the idea of humanism. They sought to better themselves (self-perfectionism) by working together as a community. Ideally, this relates to Whitman's stance on celebrating oneself while also helping and appreciating others because we are all different, but equally divine. Everyone is assigned a task according to one's skills and abilities, taking advantage of one's personal contributions to the community in ways that also take advantage of one's potential. In particular, the doctrine, Equality of the Sexes, was drawn from the community's belief that all men and women were equal and shared participation in committees and activities -- women even wore pants under their dresses!
Such equality brings the community together as one while they banded to become live to be the best they could be.
And yet, the doctrine of Mutual Criticism, where someone is criticized by the community in hopes to remedy their "bad traits" for the sake of the whole of the people, while it seems to help improve oneself, also seems to strike at the self negatively in a way that cuts one down to size in comparison to others, maybe drawing a line within their union -- and this is probably not okay from Whitman's point of view. Nevertheless, most of community seemed to have appreciated the feedback so that they could better themselves.
Hillebrand, Randall. "The Oneida Community." New York History Net. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb 2012. <http://www.nyhistory.com/central/oneida.htm>
"The Oneida Story." Oneida. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb 2012. <http://www.oneida.com/aboutoneida/the-oneida-story/>.
Excellent!
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