A revenge-driven commune leader replaced anarchy with a rigid Walden Two technocracy.

Evidence

But he returned later that year with six people he’d met on the West Coast, determined to form a new work-oriented commune entirely under his command. Ransom had given up anarchism in favor of behavioral science, and wanted to create a technocratic Walden Two community whose rigidity was his vengeful answer to the “love heap.” When Houriet visited a second time, he found an Arendt-ian tyrant running “the diametrical opposite of leaderless, ruleless Bryn Athyn.” Now members lived in a modern house with regular appliances, worked eight hours a day six days a week, and kept strict visiting hours. The new emphasis was on “mechanized efficiency.” Hoping to wipe the slate clean once again, Ransom changed the name from Bryn Athyn to Rock Bottom Farm. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 201

Categorization

• XREF: Exemplifies Arendt’s fear that escape attempts collapse into tyranny; supports the reader’s argument that retreat-as-design is not genuine withdrawal.
• SEED: The commune-founder-as-tyrant arc — revenge driving a shift from anarchism to behavioral technocracy — could ground an essay on how utopian retreats invert into their opposite.