The Advantages of Communal Living
How Living in Communities Benefits People and Environment
May 18, 2008
Although communal living is often thought of as a phenomenon of the '60s and '70s, it is enjoying a comeback today. More and more people are becoming dissatisfied with isolated, energy-intensive separate households, and want to live more lightly on the earth. Living in communities has many advantages to both individual and the wider environment.
Communal Ideals and Values
Communities as we understand them today arose out of Utopian theory. Utopianism, according to Rosabeth Moss Kanter in Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective (Harvard University Press, 2005), idealises social unity and is based on an idea of ‘heaven on earth’, or happiness in the present.
The movement back towards communes in the 1960s and 1970s , says Rachel Meunier in Communal Living in the Late 60s and Early 70s, was about ‘re-personalising' a society that , post-WWII, had become increasingly about materialism, about 'things'. Today, communal living has expanded to more forms than ever before. There are eco-villages, group marriages, kibbutzim, co-housing groups, ‘intentional communities’ and many others.
Bill Metcalf, in his book Shared Visions, Shared Lives: Communal Living Around the Globe (Findhorn Press, 1996) opens up the stories of 15 ‘communards’, finding common threads in their experience of trying to create a better life for themselves and the planet.
These are some of the key ways that communal living is good for people and planet:
Self-Sufficiency Not Competitiveness
A larger community can provide for all its own needs without having to outsource. A good example is the well-known community of ‘The Farm’ in Tennessee. Childcare can be shared amongst the communards, which is very useful for mothers who want to do other work without outsourcing childcare. The emphasis is on people helping each other to fulfil their needs, rather than competing with one another to be the best.
Maximizing the Use of Resources
While individual households tend to use and waste a lot of resources, a community can, for example, bulk buy ecologically sound and ethical products. Instead of each family or individual needing a car, one can be shared between several.
Communal Living and Children
Young people are often vilified as societal problems, and this can be traced to the segregation of children from wider society. Through being part of something larger than themselves, children grow up with a sense of purpose often lacking in today’s competitive society. Children grow up seeing people around them do the various jobs that make it possible for everyone to live and thrive, teaching them about what it means to be a productive, helpful member of society.
Alternative to Selfish Materialism
Growing up as part of a community teaches and develops values such as being co-operative, respectful and caring human beings. The nature of communal living is that less is owned, but more is shared. This brings us out of the selfish, materialistic mind-set so prevalent in today 's world, which, according to psychologist Oliver James (Affluenza, Vermilion, 2007) is a leading cause of mental distress and unhappiness.
Older and retired people, often sidelined by our profit-obsessed culture, can be seen as useful members of society by being part of communities, where they can pass on their wisdom to younger members.
Fulfils our Need for Community
A fundamental human need is for community, and we seek this out in many different ways. Increasingly society has been splintered into smaller units,with famiiles separated by large geographical distances or dysfunction. Communal living provides an alternative, chosen 'family', and can help to remedy the isolation and lack of work/life balance so endemic in our society, particularly for single parents and older people.
However, it is important to remember that communal living may not be for everyone, for example, people with a high need for privacy. Also, cautions Helen Prescott in ‘What Price Commune Living’ (Fourth World Review No.13, 1986), no form of living makes us immune to the more negative aspects of human nature. Living communally requires a lot of committment and effort, and attempting to live out ideals is a demanding task.
