3 More Important Lessons I Learned About Civilization From Living In A Hippie Commune

Last summer I had the opportunity to help build a miniature civilization.

As I wrote about in “3 Important Lessons I Learned About Civilization From Living In A Hippie Commune,” every year there is an event called Rainbow Gathering, where roughly 15,000 hippies gather in the middle of the woods and set up a temporary civilization. Think a more “granola-y” burning man.

I ended up going with this cute hippie chick, and it was a blast. I really wanted to go, however, so that I could learn about civilization. I wanted to see how the bureaucracy evolved over the course of a couple of weeks, how the people would be fed, and if there would be a healthcare system or not. I wanted to learn how to build a society from the ground up.

The first three lessons that I covered were that most human beings are very lazy, natural gender roles emerged, and that women are attracted to power. The ROK community liked these lessons so much that they wanted a “part 2,” so if you haven’t read “part 1,” I would highly recommend it (click here to read it).

So, without further ado, here are three more important lessons I learned about civilization from living in a hippie commune.

1. We Are Incredibly Oppressed and Repressed

After getting to my campground, the very first thing I was struck by was the amount of generosity and genuine happiness of several individuals. Yes, some people were very negative and conniving, but most people were incredibly genuine.

Upon arriving, I was immediately greeted by a dread-locked, hemp-pants-wearing hippie man. “Hey, dude! Need any help with your tent?” Yeah, I did, actually. He was more than willing to help me set up my tent, a deed that took around 45 minutes (it was a huge, two-room tent).

I was a bit surprised that he had been willing to help me out without even knowing me, but I figured, hey, everyone’s here relaxing on vacation, so that’s to be expected.

Then, no more than an hour later, I was trying to find a particular outpost. One of the men offered to walk me there. After a 25 minute trek through winding dirt paths and marked trails, we arrived. “Thanks man,” I shouted. “Any time, brother,” he responded. And like that, he walked away.

There are dozens of examples of little things like this happening that I could cite, but the point is, that people were genuinely happy to help one another. It wasn’t some fake guise, like the bellhop who gives you excellent service just to get a nice $20 tip. It was genuine.

I started to realize that this is the natural state of man; to want to build a community and help one another, so that as a whole, we may achieve greater things than we could alone. This is how man existed for years. It’s in our nature to be outgoing and helpful! I wondered why “regular society” wasn’t like this, and the answer became abundantly clear: the culture is different.

We live in a manipulative, fake, shallow, back-stabbing, pseudo-third-wave-feminism-infested culture that completely robs us of our humanity. We have the passion and joy for life crushed out of us at a young age by our warped school system, and any sort of humanity that we express is quickly capitalized upon by the droves of sociopaths that lurk in the workplace.

I recall seeing two men greet one another on a dirt road. “It’s good to see you, man,” one of them spoke. The other looked deeply into his eyes and replied: “It’s good to see you too, my friend.” They embraced, as if they were two WWII soldiers meeting for the first time in years, and then walked down a dirt path together.

This type of thing would be seen as “gay,” or “weird,” in our repressed society. A beautiful representation of the power of male bonds that can span a lifetime, is belittled and twisted to be something that’s “gay.” This expression, then, was only “normal” outside of the brainwashed culture that we live in.

Our society is incredibly repressed—we cannot express emotions that were normal for 99.9% of history without social repercussions. And not only are we incredibly repressed, but we’re also incredibly oppressed.

In the forest, there really were no rules. Just don’t be a violent psychopath, and we’ll pretty much be fine. And although America calls itself the “Land of the Free,” the drastic juxtaposition of “forest culture” vs. “American culture,” outlined the folly of such a title very quickly.

If a group of men wanted to start a campfire, share a bottle of whiskey, and hoot and holler all night long, they could. If a man was tired of walking so far to the latrine, he could just dig a giant hole and make another one. If we didn’t like the way that somebody was acting or behaving, we could get a group of men together and tell them to stop.

In the “Land of the Free,” any one of these actions would be met with severe consequences. Oh, you’re out drinking in public with your mates? Sorry—doesn’t matter if it’s one in the morning on a Friday, it’s illegal. Here’s a $125 fine and you’re going to prison for the night.

Oh, a girl willingly goes home with a guy? “SLUT, WHORE, BITCH, SKANK!” yells the crowd of gossipy bitches. “Uh-no! He raped me, it’s not my fault!” Then the next thing he knows, he gets thrown in jail.

Oh, a man doesn’t like the chipping paint in his apartment and decides to paint it? Or he doesn’t like the lack of lighting in his apartment, so he decides to install several upgrades? “Sorry, sir—that’ll be a $1,500 fine.” “But I literally upgraded your apartment for you!” “Sorry, it doesn’t matter. We’re a massive bureaucracy and you have zero freedom to deviate from our cookie cutter apartments.”

We say that we are free, but we are not free.

2. Communism Isn’t Practical on a Large Scale

There were certain elements of communism within our civilization. Everybody got fed regardless of whether or not they contributed money or helped gather and prepare the food. Everybody had access to medical care if they needed it. There were a ton of activities and workshops to do, for free.

But do you know what made those things possible? The fact that there were rewards for doing these things. This is the essence of capitalism: you get rewarded more (whether it be through money, power, girls, connections, or social status) by doing certain things that benefit the group.

I talked about this concept in “part 1,” but it’s basically the idea that the men who put in the work to help the village are rewarded in some way. The men who collect and organize the food get first pick. They get to choose who eats what. If someone’s an asshole, they won’t get any food.

The Native American man who was in charge of the clinic got rewards, too. His students got to learn first hand and gain massive experience. His school (he had a natural medicine school out West somewhere) got massive publicity. He gained social status, and the respect of his peers for healing the sick.

The man who put on the yoga workshop for free? He loved doing it, got to network with people, and probably had a ton of girls invite him back to their tents to “chill.”

Do you see the point? Putting in work is rewarded, and this allows us to have a mildly communist system. The problem is that when the system gets too big, helping out your community is actually discouraged.This is the reason why communism does not work on a large scale. When it’s implemented on a large scale, you actually get PENALIZED for helping your community.

Oh, a doctor works really hard, goes to school for the first 28 years of his life, and then busts his ass for 90 hours a week, helping sick people get better? Haha, sorry mate! Gotta take 65% for the masses.

Oh, you want to start a business? Good luck covering overhead costs when you’ll be taxed twice and will have to jump through countless loops and holes in order to register with our corrupt government so that we can take even more of your money.

Policies such as exorbitant, progressive tax scales, and setting up barriers to entry, actually DISCOURAGE men from helping their communities. So, none of them do. Business and innovation stagnate, nobody is willing to put in any actual hard work, and the economy goes to shit.

3. Men Need Guidance

Without male mentors, boys do not grow into men. Past societies recognized the importance of male mentors; from the Spartans to the tribes of South America, nearly every culture that has come before us encouraged male mentorship.

They recognized the importance of developing your masculinity, because without it, your life goes to shit. Boys need to be taught how to be men, because masculinity is something that’s developed through struggles, through hardship, and through overcoming challenges. It isn’t something that just randomly comes into your life when you’re 16.

Despite the obvious importance of male guidance, our society gives none to young boys. They go to school where they’re indoctrinated by feminist, man-hating teachers, and then they go home and play Xbox for the next 5 hours without ever going outside, exploring, or rough-playing.

It was quite refreshing to see how the “hippie culture” of the forest seemed to actually embrace masculinity, and the need that young boys have for male mentorship. The entire tribe had a small circle of elders (anywhere from 5-15 depending on if they could all make it to the yearly gathering or not), that was in charge of governing the growth of our civilization.

These were men that had put in their dues before; they had worked long and hard in their younger years, setting up countless kitchens, digging countless latrines, and sweating for countless hours helping build the tribe. Because they had to work their way up, they understood how to actually govern a society. They weren’t some isolated aristocrats raised in a bubble. They know the common problems that Rainbow Gathering faces, and how to deal with them.

When two of the men in the village got in a fight over some girl, what do you think the elders did? They let them get in the fight. They didn’t try to intervene, because they understood the importance of men confronting one another over many things (especially women). Rather than some stuck up feminist who thinks she knows exactly what boys need trying to raise boys, we actually had men raising boys.

When we were uncertain about the best strategic position for a kitchen, the sanitation of a particular water line, or how to deal with a particular criminal, whose knowledge do you think we drew upon? The elders.

The elders sought their best to preserve the natural, gender-role-based culture that we had by showering good deeds with praise. I recall at one point that a young man, probably around the age of 19 or so, was taken in front of everyone at dinner time. Thousands of hippies sat in the middle of a field as they chowed down on the soup that was served to each of them. The great elders stood up, and raised their hands to quiet us.

They brought this young man up, and congratulated him: “Last night, a man was caught breaking into this woman’s tent. She cried for help, and the man that stands before you single-handedly apprehended this criminal, and saved a woman of our tribe from being raped. Thank you, my friend—you have earned our respect.”

The crowd burst with applause, and the young man seemed to stand five inches taller. He was proud of himself, as he should be. By giving honorable men praise, the elders were able to perpetuate a culture of honor. That young man probably got laid more in the next three days than I’ve ever been laid in my life time, as he should be.

We live in a culture that forces men to repress their masculinity, but then in times of stress or violence, they’re expected to somehow magically know what to do. The elders understood that this was ludicrous, and that if you want men to act a certain way, you must reward those men who act as such.

Every day, one of the elders would visit the “Kid Village,” a designated safe-space for children, so that they wouldn’t be exposed to the drugs and alcohol that most partook in. The elder would tell them a story about some noble warrior of the past; he would inspire them, and breathe masculine life into their little minds. And they thought it was the coolest thing ever.

The young boys would rough play. They’d tussle and fight one another, all in good fun, because that’s what boys do. In fact, they were actually encouraged to do this. The elders, and the entire forest civilization, understood the importance of boys exercising their masculinity.

Now, in modern day society, we punish men for being honorable, and then somehow expect them to be honorable. Being genuine, helpful, and outgoing, will oftentimes get you stabbed in the back by a man-eater or a manipulative co-worker. And then we look around and wonder what happened to honor.

If we want an honorable culture, we must create it by giving young men guidance. The men of today create the culture of tomorrow, and most men of today are doing a pretty shitty job.

Summary

All in all, I learned a great many lessons on this journey. I gained insight into the emergence of civilizations that most men will never experience, and I’m very grateful for that. I hope that you can all learn from the lessons that I’ve brought to you today.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. I love hearing feedback on my articles and try to answer any and all questions that you might have. Until next time, friends.

Read More: 3 Important Lessons I Learned About Civilization From Living In A Hippie Commune