There are many different sustainable communities throughout the world. However, there are many different approaches to how it can succeed. Sadly, most don’t ever survive past the founder’s generation but there is a small minority that moves the lives of future generations. In this report, we will focus more on the minorities that have impacts on the future generations, like the Findhorn communities and Auroville for instance.

1. 1
Andy Lai
Dr Sarah Eltantawi
Movements and Migrations
January 29, 2017
The Sustainable Model and Religious Practices of Sustainable Empires
There are many different sustainable communities throughout the world. However, there
are many different approaches to how it can succeed. Sadly, most don’t ever survive past the
founder’s generation but there is a small minority that moves the lives of future generations. In
this report, we will focus more on the minorities that have impacts on the future generations, like
the Findhorn communities and Auroville for instance.
Keywords: sustainability, intentional communities, capitalism, models, civic intelligence
ARGUMENTS AND FORMULATION OF THE SUSTAINABLE EMPIRE
There are many different sustainable communities throughout the world. However, there
are many different approaches to how it can succeed. Sadly, most don’t ever survive past the
founder’s generation but there is a small minority that moves the lives of future generations. In
this report, we will focus more on the minorities that have impacts on the future generations, like
the Findhorn communities and Auroville for instance. There are many different aspects of an
intentional educational community that makes it sustainable to both the planet and the people
living within it. However, what are the elements and why do they function well together the way
they should function? Through some of the investigations and hunting of those intentional
communities, my goal is to first create a systematic relationship between the elements which

2. 2
governs an intentional community and second to simulate how it functions through an ideal
intentional educational community. Through some of the arguments about a sustainable culture
from Plato’s Republic, Nicola’s The Prince, and the Cakkavarti Sutra in Buddhism, I found the
founding principle of a sustainable civilization is: 1) the culture must learn to get along with one
another, 2) there are administrative hierarchy where people can agree on and has a clear loyalty
towards, 3) the civilization only seeks to control within the limits it powers and the nature of its
system can permit, 4) have a strong network for trade and allyship, and 5) have a strong culture
in virtuous actions and means and can attain such matters through personal efforts.
In order to understand such elements of a sustainable civilization, I must look into some
of the theories from Malthus and others about how does a civilization become less and less
sustainable and investigate into the problems with the modernist society which stems from the
Enlightenment. Upon looking through studies from Environmental Restraints and
Interdisciplinary Approach to help show the evidence and correlations, I see how the
environment can limit progress unless such progress has reached its limits and thus, the society
examines its own ways in order to come to a fix about the issue. Hughes et al showed how the
Human Development Index, through the base (or normal issue) line, would continue to grow
indefinitely. However, when they reach an Environmental Challenge, it led to the leveling of the
progress in which consumption will reach its limits while, at the same time, progress slows but
then they started to shift towards equity within a society. Then, by the time that such society
reach Environmental Disaster, all of the resources consumption leveled off while education and
other forms of progress in human resourcefulness increase.1 Thus, this indicates a long-standing
pattern about the nature of the capitalist societies today, is, just like its own paradigm it came
1 Barry B. Hughes et al., "Exploring Future Impacts of Environmental Constraints on
Human Development," Sustainability 4, no. 12 (2012): , doi:10.3390/su4050958.

3. 3
upon when it is born, it will continue to consume as much as possible and is likely to think about
the response when it is close to crisis. Thus, when such capitalist society hits a crisis,
It is largely because of those that the Environmental Disaster scenario explored
here did not lead to a Malthusian or Limits to Growth-like collapse in IFs
forecasts, but rather to a dramatic slowdown in the advancement of human well-
being and something of a stand-off between the two sets of forces. That kind of
uneasy stability would, of course, most likely not persist for long.2
In other words, from the standpoint of Plato and Socrates’s argument about form and nature, I
found the form of capitalism to be inarguably unsustainable for a system we are in today because
it takes on the basic form of greed. When greed and injustice strikes a nation, it leads to its own
citizens to hate one another and corrupts the society, which, at its breaking point, can lead to its
own collapse or the vulnerability of being conquered by a stronger nation.
In looking at the antithesis of Plato’s argument, I found the examples in Dubai from
Gridlock to prove how capitalism does not mimic the power of a sustainable community.
Through looking at some of the common problems in Dubai, I found the city to use
discrimination as a means to help it attain its own economy while over-relying on the migrant
workers for such labors. Moreover, the discrimination of space within the city prevents the city
from being truly sustainable since discrimination has breed first resentment and exploitation of
certain people within Dubai, and through exploitation which then can manifest into people
feeling unsatisfied due to the structural violence the system created.3 Through such system, only
a few people can benefit from the majority of workers whom sacrifice their own well-being in
order to create the infrastructure one finds in the city as
Most of the Emiratis do not occupy, and do not wish to occupy, apartments in the
new high-rise developments that continues to dot the Dubai skyline. These
2 Ibid, 976
3 Pardis Mahdavi, Gridlock: labor, migration, and human trafficking in Dubai (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 48-60.

4. 4
expensive edifices are intended to attract EuroAmerican noncitizens and wealthier
migrants from parts of Asia and the Middle East.4
Thus, how is that considered sustainable when only a small portion of the economy of Dubai
goes into the hand of a small group of people while the poor migrant workers in other social
economic background lived under poor situations? How does that build a just and “beautiful”
society in which Socrates spoke about? According to the models in Sustainable Civilization,
Egmond considered that the problem with society is how it goes through the syndrome of
civilization;s centrifugal force where
The social developments of the successive worldview are initially positive, but
ultimately all degenerate to become their own caricature. This process causes
social continuity and sustainability to be lost. The B1 worldview, [as indicated in
the diversity-idealist worldview map], ended in enormous religious wars and
extreme intolerance in the form of inquisitions. The A1 worldview, [indicated in
the collectivist-materialist worldview], produced humanitarian disasters in the
form of communism and Nazism,... [which later on led to the change towards the
diversity-collectivist worldview and back to where it originally comes from
where] values in the opposite worldview (as in any other worldviews in other
domains) are no longer being respected or may even be violently repressed (as
indicated with some of the cases with religions and ideologies stemming from
esoteric Christianity, for instance, which came from the B2 region, got repressed
by the more dominant Roman Catholic ideology, which is from the B1 region).5
In investigating some of the issues of sustainability in some of the religious ideologie starting in
the early times of the Roman Catholic Church till the Western Enlightenment, I found the same
principle has been in motion.
In both of the case for any of the ideological development from the Catholic Church and
those of the Enlightenment, both of them fell into the danger of the periphery as I find the
Catholic Church first dominates the public sphere of Europe to the point it “left such littele room
for ‘diversity’ that it resulted in large-scale persecution of dissentients by the Inquisition.”
Through there, it then lead to the development of science as a separate entity of its own, which
4 Ibid, 57
5 Klaas Van Egmond, Sustainable civilization (New York City: Palgrave Macmillan,
2014), 90-91.

5. 5
leads to the separation between church and state, spirituality from science.6 Thus, the motions
continue to exist where movements like the absolute state, Nazism, and communism resulted
afterwards. But then, what is the solution to solve such a problems?
The goal is not to look through just the consumption and the ways people behave from
the outside, but to look at the worldview within the culture itself. Through such investigation, I
found hope in such sustainable models. One of such ideology is the philosopher king and self-
development and the other is the integral worldview. Throughout Plato’s Republic, Plato argued,
through some of his own understanding of fundamental forms of justice, that the outside
manifestation of justice is that the person will leave peacefully among their citizens without
hatred and wars. Thus, when chaos struck the land, it will then also lead to the downfall of the
citizen’s wellbeing and bodies as they are subjected to illness and thus, needs medical attention.
It is through such understanding that I found that the basic principle of beauty, through
Socrates’s understanding, is to live in according to the principles of nature where one treats one
another with justice. Through justice, from what I learn in the Plato’s Republic, the society and
empire that one rules and lives upon, will also live in peace. All of these debates in Socrate’s
teachings has led him to formulate the following characteristics of an ideal king
Philosophers become kings in our poleis or those now called kings and rulers
genuinely and adequately philosophize, so that these two things, political power
and philosophy, are coninstantiated, while the many natures of those who at
present pursue either apart from the other are necessarily excluded, there can be
no rest from troubles for our poleis… The key to his identity lies in his name -
wisdom-lover. Because he is a lover, he loves all of what he loves… Because it is
wisdom he loves, he must love everything that one can learn or come to
know…Because the philosophic nature loves all learning, it must also love the
truth, for wisdom and truth are so related that no one can love the one but not the
other. Because its desire is focused solely on wisdom and truth, it is not interested
in the pleasures of the body or those of making money. For “when someone’s
desires are strongly directed to one object, we know that they are thereby
6 Ibid, 79-80.

6. 6
weakened towards others, like a river that has been canalized in another direction.
Again, because the philosophic nature is not small-minded, but “lofty enough to
theorize about all time and all substance,” it does not “believe that the life of man
is a big thing.” Hence it is brave, for it does not fear death. Finally, since no lover
of anything could find it difficult to learn or easy to forget what he loved, the
philosophic nature is easily guided to the form s of each of the beings and does
not forget what it has once learned. It follows not only that all of the cognitive and
ethical properties requisite in a ruler are naturally compatible, but that all must be
coinstantiated by a psyche which is going to have an adequate and complete grasp
of being. Thus when those who possess a philosophic nature “are completed by
education and maturity”, leadership of the polis should be turned over to them
alone.7
From Socrate’s arguments, I formulated the following axiom about a leader: 1) he must have a
love for learning and is willing to appreciate the forms of what nature and philosophy is 2)
because he has such appreciation, he will appreciate the actions which aligns with such truth and
value and 3) will protect whom he sees as fit to such beauty by defending them with his own
power. Through such an appreciation for philosophy, where it is defined by my own definition as
the understanding of the principal of nature, which led the king to create a sustainable
community which everyone is well-nurtured and can live under the accordance to the law of
nature.
Some societies are better than others in how they address the members of their society.
However, the ones that intrigues the most to people are the intentional communities, where
people come to live together under an agreed terms rather than because of economical or societal
benefits. It is through such nature I want to take into the account of what makes intentional
community successful in the history of mankind, along with some of the boarding schools which
are in existence (since this project is engaging in the field of education and society). Through
examining some of the elements about an intentional community, along with the boarding
school, will it lead me to proposea sustainable model where all great philosophies of living
7 C. D. C. Reeve, Philosopher-kings: the argument of Plato's Republic (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1988), 191-192.

7. 7
throughout different eras of time can promote the well-being of the individual in a society. The
goal is to create a society and boarding school based on the foundation of well-being, wisdom,
and intentional living. The first part of a sustainable society is the acknowledgement of nature’s
role in shaping society and its environment. Through having such acknowledgement and its
studies within the innovation, it will lead to consider factors and possibilities which can benefit
the sustainable society. Going back to the studies on the Human Development Index, one of the
reason why such societies end up with the consistent pattern of rapid growth and then eventual
“level off” is because of the fact that most of the countries conducted in the studies followed a
common pattern of society: capitalism first before the people and the environment. Thus, this has
led to the high consumption of resources which outperform the rate the natural environment can
rejuvenate itself. However, there are some examples which showed the solution to the problem
on the sustainable models, models in which it is close to the centers of the centrifugal force from
Egmond’s model where it is not affected by the dualities of the extremes and instead allows the
members in society to engage in a dialogue with one another through various disciplines. In
searching for some of these sustainable systems in societies around the world, one of those
examples will be the Findhorn and the GENOA Project.
And more or less, there are some events created through intentional communities which
presents such sustainable models as well: The GENOA project in the Oceanic region. Examining
the case for the project, I found it does teach one aspect of a sustainable social model which tend
to be overlooked: an organization which brings people from different backgrounds together in
order to learn from one another’s experience. Jurianz has described how
GENOA held its first big gathering, the Emergence Convergence at Maia Earth
Village, an intentional community, in Palawan, Philippines. The Emergence
Convergence was a beautiful experience and space of gathering that brought a
variety of people together from different disciplines and walks of life to a

8. 8
common place of deep listening and sharing. The convergence hosted more than
75 people from all over the region and from the international community. The
convergence not only strengthened GENOA’s network, but it is also catalyzing
the emergence of the ecovillage network in the Philippines.8
In looking at how does this promote sustainability, I found such meetings has led the intentional
community members throughout different regions of the world to discuss about the various
practices which can efficiently make use of the resources and funds they have avaiable while
addressing the different needs of the intentional communities by placing people into different
pods (similar to what people do in a workshop). Thus, this also goes consistent with some of the
other examples of intentional communities like Findhorn where they host educational activities
and create schools which centralizes around a principle of sustainability and spirituality and
people came to the location to learn through its universities. Thus, through such education and
investment into allowing people to come and talk about their varying issues, it allows the
different societal systems to interact with one another in order to build a bridge between its stage
of development with that of others. However, this is just the beginnings of a sustainable society.
While it is true that most of these intentional communities don’t have a centralized
government like states, I found that, according to my own standards, it does not come anywhere
near as sustainable as bigger social structures like the Chola Empire, the Pandayan Empire, and
many others that exhibit strong sustainable models and lasted more than a millenia. Thus, it led
me to consider one other factor which allows many social structures to be sustainable: a strong
leader. In looking at what Machiavelli speaks about the different forms of leaderships, I found
the same pattern arise: the leaders that came through power through their own efforts tend to be
the most stable and most successful. Machiavelli showed
8 Trudy Juriansz, "GENOA," From Deeper Levels of Insight, January 25, 2017, ,
accessed February 23, 2017, http://gen.ecovillage.org/en/node/9570.

9. 9
Such innovators, [the ones which maintain his own principalities through his own
talents and efforts], then, have to confront many difficulties’ all the dangers come
after they have begun their enterprises, and need to be overcome through their
own ability. But once they have succeeded, and begin to be greatly respected
(after they have extinguished those envious of their successes), they remain
powerful, secure, honored and successful [both by the people and the aristocrats
whom they have maintained trust and control over].9
Furthermore, because of the fact that human culture and civilization does not depend solely on
the society’s agriculture, education, and other external elements, there is another underlying
element that needs to be addressed upon creating a sustainable community: the religion and
morality of the community. Plato showed how the philosopher king must not only have the
ability to rule but also the ability to appreciate the arts, I found society will also benefit from a
ruler whom have wisdoms of the beauty of the arts, as Plato has stated. It is through such
appreciation which allows the ruler to protect such beauty from harm within his own kingdom,
along with spreading its beauty to whom can appreciate it. When you have a sound society where
people can learn from one another, have a clear set of beliefs and values they share, and a ruler
who embodies the “beauty of philosophy” to his kingship, the society will prosper and live long.
CONCLUSION
Recapturing the problems of capitalism and the modern society, I found the problem with
the modern society is first its dissociation of its worldview from its own fields and practices,
which has led to reactions which are not well suited for both the environment and the society
itself as it is not balanced in its views and not in alignment with its ways. Along with its outward
discrimination of different people in different backgrounds, using resources beyond its own
needs and the ability for its environment to replenish, and its deterioration in the people’s trusts
9 Niccolò Machiavelli, Quentin Skinner, and Russell Price, Machiavelli: the prince
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 21.

10. 10
in leadership, the modern society today has shown what Egmond has feared most: a society
which is most affected by the centrifugal force of the cycle of the changing worldviews.10
In creating the sustainable models and religious practices of intentional communities, one
of the first elements of an intentional community is that 1) they must, as Egmond has indicated,
must stay in the middle between the two extreme forces which governs the worldview
(collectivism-individualism; idealist-materialist), and 2) must use such worldviews in order to
balance out with the needs of the society rather than to continue with one’s own way of living in
capitalism (which through Egmond’s definition, capitalism puts a society on the danger zone of
the periphery), and 3) the intentional community must have a “philosopher king” whom have the
understanding of such principles and apply such rulership to the people. Through such rulership,
it will lead the society to be balanced and centered. Through such centeredness, it led the society
to be sustainable in their consumption and ways of living, just as what Socrates and Machiavelli,
to a lesser extent, promised.
10 Klaas Van Egmond, 61.

11. 11
Works Cited
Badiou, Alain. Plato's Republic. Translated by Susan Spitzer. 1st ed. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press, 2012.
Hughes, Barry B., Mohammod T. Irfan, Jonathan D. Moyer, Dale S. Rothman, and José R.
Solórzano. "Exploring Future Impacts of Environmental Constraints on Human
Development." Sustainability 4, no. 12 (2012): 958-94. doi:10.3390/su4050958.
Egmond, Klaas Van. Sustainable Civilization. 1st ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Print.
Fadl, Khaled Abou El. The great theft: wrestling Islam from the extremists. New York, NY:
HarperCollins, 2005.
Juriansz, Trudy. "GENOA." From Deeper Levels of Insight. January 25, 2017. Accessed
February 23, 2017. http://gen.ecovillage.org/en/node/9570.
Machiavelli, Niccolò, Quentin Skinner, and Russell Price. Machiavelli: the prince. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988. (Chapter 6-11)
Mahdavi, Pardis. Gridlock: labor, migration, and human trafficking in Dubai. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2011.
Moore, Robert L., and Douglas Gillette. King, warrior, magician, lover: rediscovering the
archetypes of the mature masculine. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.
Reeve, C. D. C. Philosopher-kings: the argument of Plato's Republic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1988.