the peckham experiment
:
The Peckham Experiment took place between 1926 and 1950, initially generated by rising public concern over the health of the working class and an increasing interest in preventative social medicine.
Williamson and Pearse recruited 950 local families to be part of “The Peckham Experiment”. Paying one shilling (5 pence) a week, they had access to a range of activities such as physical exercise, swimming, games and workshops.
Members underwent a medical examination once a year, and they were monitored throughout the year as they participated in the Centre’s events.
Central to Scott Williamson’s philosophy was the belief that
left to themselves people would spontaneously begin to organize in a creative way, and this happened,
‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
the members initiating a wide range of sporting, social and cultural activities using the facilities offered by the Centre.
The Pioneer Centre was designed by Sir Owen Williams and moved away from the idea of traditional lines dominating medical buildings. Williams created a large open space using the latest structural techniques allowing the Centre’s doctors to properly observe the members. At the middle of the Centre a large swimming pool was covered by a glazed roof, which, along with large areas of windows, allowed natural light into the building. These windows could be fully opened to circulate fresh air into the building. The cork floors allowed people to move about barefoot.
The Centre went into abeyance during the Second World War, but was restored to a condition fit for re-opening by the members themselves. In 1950, however, it finally closed, since its innovative approach did not fit well with the new National Health Service, and it proved impossible to obtain adequate funding from other sources to keep it going as an independent concern.
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echoes of mincome.. ness..
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from seeds beneath the snow.. last chapter of epilogue:
via :
The Peckham Experiment took place between 1926 and 1950, initially generated by rising public concern over the health of the working class and an increasing interest in preventative social medicine.
Williamson and Pearse recruited 950 local families to be part of “The Peckham Experiment”. Paying one shilling (5 pence) a week, they had access to a range of activities such as physical exercise, swimming, games and workshops.
Members underwent a medical examination once a year, and they were monitored throughout the year as they participated in the Centre’s events.
Central to Scott Williamson’s philosophy was the belief that
left to themselves people would spontaneously begin to organize in a creative way, and this happened,..t
‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
the members initiating a wide range of sporting, social and cultural activities using the facilities offered by the Centre.
The Pioneer Centre was designed by Sir Owen Williams and moved away from the idea of traditional lines dominating medical buildings. Williams created a large open space using the latest structural techniques allowing the Centre’s doctors to properly observe the members. At the middle of the Centre a large swimming pool was covered by a glazed roof, which, along with large areas of windows, allowed natural light into the building. These windows could be fully opened to circulate fresh air into the building. The cork floors allowed people to move about barefoot.
The Centre went into abeyance during the Second World War, but was restored to a condition fit for re-opening by the members themselves. In 1950, however, it finally closed, since its innovative approach did not fit well with the new National Health Service, and it proved impossible to obtain adequate funding from other sources to keep it going as an independent concern.
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echoes of mincome.. ness..
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from seeds underneath the snow by david goodway.. [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-goodway-anarchist-seeds-beneath-the-snow] from last chapter of epilogue:
peckham experiment: the study and cultivation of Health: not with the treatment of disease..
They had no doubt that as biologists studying the human organism they had to deal ‘with free agents’, for ‘any imposed action or activity becomes a study of authority, discipline or instruction…t not the study of free agents plus their self-created environment’. Possibly foolhardily, they spoke warmly of ‘a sort of anarchy’, believing that ‘a very strict “anarchy”… will permit the emergence of order through spontaneous action…’
huge.. any form of m\a\p
his lack of paternalism… as far as this is humanly possible, was complete. He was not interested in how people should behave, or in how they might be made to behave, but only in how they did behave in any given circumstance… this made for a kind of democracy in the Centre which I doubt has ever been seen anywhere else. … He had a rooted objection to the leader in society, regarding him as someone who pushed around the human material he wished to study in spontaneous action, and who exerted the force of his personality to drive more ordinary people out of the true of their natural behaviour into activities unsuited to them and which they half-consciously disliked
socrates supposed to law et al
brown belonging law et al
So while the ‘health overhauls’ enabled individuals to learn what they might be suffering from, the doctors did not direct them what to do, allowing them to make informed, autonomous choices. Williamson told the London Anarchist Group: ‘I was the only person with authority… and I used it to stop anyone exerting any authority!’
colin ward: ‘…for many of us the experience of Peckham was a unique laboratory of anarchy, it was a study of the living structure of society, exploring principles of organization applicable not only to health but to every aspect of social welfare, to housing and above all to the organization of work.‘..t
1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen
2\ if we create a way to ground the chaos of 8b legit free people (by org ing around legit needs)
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also written up in colin ward‘s anarchy in action .. starting p 25
and in sophie scott-brown‘s colin ward and art of everyday anarchism:
64
As with Ward’s squatters, another tactic was to seek out and promote ‘vernacular’ examples of mutual aid in practice. The most important of these was Richards’ account of the resurrected Peckham Health Centre, a longstanding source of fascination for the FP group. In 1926, Dr George Scott Williamson and Dr Innes Pearse had begun the project as a means of investigating the factors that made for positive health rather than the mere absence of disease. The plan was simple — 875 local families (2,000 individuals) were recruited to join as members (for which they paid a low weekly rate) and given total free rein over the centre’s facilities, which included a swimming pool. Their progress was charted through annual health checks. Scott Williamson’s hypothesis that, given the right environment, people would self-organise with beneficial results for their overall health was realised in full. Members not only used the facilities regularly but initiated their own social activities.
The success prompted the building of a new centre which opened in 1935, a model of modern social architecture using cutting-edge research to fashion large, light open spaces believed to stimulate social interaction. During the war, Peckham closed and was converted into a factory but, owing to the efforts of the members themselves, it reopened in 1946. There was, in this tale, much to attract the anarchists: the centrality of the environment in shaping human behaviour, the idea that self-determination not only fostered individual good health but created a sense of community. Peckham, Richards contended, ‘vindicated the sound biological basis of the Anarchist philosophy’.It also paid tribute to how effective and efficient an autonomous, community-based organisation could be, in contrast to the unwieldy centralised administration of the NHS whose costs were already beginning to spiral.
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The attraction was not without its contradictions. The vindication of the ‘sound biological basis’ Richard spoke of was the result of meticulous planning and exhaustive monitoring. In this sense, the directors always retained a significant degree of control. The ‘users’ were observed subjects fulfilling the promise of a theory, a fact reflected in Richards’ account which made no space for the voices of the people themselves, only for the directors.
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
ie: imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. the unconditional part of left-to-own-devices ness.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
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sicko – mm jason on health care in spain_________
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be you. 