Shakers have nearly died out.

[luchog]

I don't know, is there some fundamental reason it couldn't work on a larger scale?

The Free Rider Problem.

As the population increases, so does the instance of free riders.

 

[Psi Baba]

If anyone is interested in hearing wonderful Shaker songs, I highly recommend this recording: Simple Gifts: Shaker Chants and Spirituals

by Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata. It was recorded at Sabbathday Lake and features several of the surviving Shakers singing along with the Camerata vocalists.
Listen to samples here
Official website:
http://bostoncamerata.com/cd/titles/shakercd.htm

The Shakers carefully preserved thousands of their songs in various kinds of special musical notation ("normal" staff notation, along with part-singing and instrumental playing, did not come into general use until after 1870). The library of the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, contains extensive music holdings, including some important manuscripts by Elder Otis Sawyer, a key figure in the history of Maine Shakerdom and a fine musician. Many of the songs we perform were transcribed during the spring of 1994 from original Shaker manuscript and printed sources; a large number of these from Elder Otis' lovingly preserved copy books.

 

[sackett]

Somebody (it was just possibly me) once called Shakerism “American Zen.”

Consider: Shakerism is certainly American – Protestant and puritanical – and like Zen it’s celebate, uncomfortable, neat, spare, clean, vegetarian, quiet, non-rational, and satisfying in small amounts.

The two best styles of interior decoration in the world are Japanese and Shaker, uniting the practical with the spiritual as closely as they can.

Both Shakerism and Zen use mental discipline through repetition to reach a desired state of existence.

Of course there differences. Zen is always fun, and you can be a smart Aleck as much as you like (and take the consequences), while Shakerism is narrowly quietist, and seems to appeal more to the elderly. Zen is mystical and hard to grasp (some would say you aren’t supposed to grasp it), while Shaker tenets are few and easily understood, and the cult doesn’t really require much of you but steady application.

I couldn’t live in a Shaker community, and I couldn’t endure a Zen monastery either. But I like the peace that glows out of both – and of the two, I think the Shaker variety is more intense. I believe I’d call it an implosive peace. I think that the Shakers will never vanish, and will always be just on the edge of vanishing.

 

[LW]

We have evolved to live in clans of, at most, 200 or so people--the largest number of people one can expect to know personally with some degree of affinity.

I'd say that 200 is too large figure by almost an order of magnitude since hunter-gatherer tribes are rarely larger than 30 persons. But otherwise I agree with your post.

 

[Gurdur]

Shaker-made furniture and quilts are extremely highly prized and valued, BTW.

 

[Gurdur]

Not one of the traditional evolutionary survival traits.

While that might seem like a truism, humans are more complex; the RC priesthood is still around after 1500 years of celibacy, after all.

 

[Cleon]

While that might seem like a truism, humans are more complex; the RC priesthood is still around after 1500 years of celibacy, after all.

It's not the same. While Catholic priests are (supposedly) celibate, Catholics as a whole are not. When you become a Shaker, you're supposed to become celibate. Which kinda hurts the prospects for more Shakers.

 

[Gurdur]

It's not the same. While Catholic priests are (supposedly) celibate, Catholics as a whole are not. When you become a Shaker, you're supposed to become celibate. Which kinda hurts the prospects for more Shakers.

It's not quite the same, granted, but this was part of what I was getting at. It's more similar than you suppose --- the Shakers have their own (or did have) attached communities of non-full-Shaker supporters (non-celibate) and dependents; one of the last remaining full Shakers is just such a former dependent (an orphan cared for by the Shakers). After all, the Shakers did make it for 200 years, which is pretty good going for such a group with strict celibacy for full members.

Similar parallels would be celibate Buddhist monks and nuns, or of course the celbate Christian monastery/convent orders; IOW, celibacy is not quite the automatic bar to long-term group survival that some might assume it to be.