The idea of communes may be distasteful to the American ideal of one family and one home. Communes can conjure up images of hippies living in happy squalor at the best , and of Manson-like cults at the worst.
But, Americans also have a proud history of political activism and communal living may, in fact, be the ultimate act of political activism. Communes seek to change the idea of what of what society is, by living in an alternative society.
A new book examines the history of one of the longest sustained periods of communal activity in the United States, the 1960s-1970s.
Communal History of the United States
A commune could be roughly defined as a group of mostly unrelated people living together in an intentional community in which tasks are delineated and shared among the members of that group. They are often united around a shared principle, or philosophy. In a way, the early Puritans exercised some aspects of communal living in their first colonies in the new world. The state of Israel honors the kibbutzniks who helped found their nation.
Richard Fairfield, in his new book, The Modern Utopian: Alternative Communes of the '60s and '70s, examines what he says is the longest sustained period of communal experimentation in the United States, the 1960s-1970s.
The communes were sometimes religious, or political in nature, but all shared a desire to live in a different type of society.
Fairfield says in his book, that while communalism is often regarded as radical in the United States, the communal instinct runs deep in this country. back to the 60s, in fact, the 1660s,“Many historians identify the first American commune as Plockhoy's Commonwealth, or Swanendael, which was established at what is now Lewes, Delaware, by a group of Dutch Mennonites in 1663. Many of the 1960s communes were secular in orientation and started sprouting up in Colorado and California in the early 1960s. Those states, at the time, had abundant, cheap land.
But the communal instinct persists to this day in the United States.
Modern Communalism in the United States.
Modern communes, or co-housing, as it is sometimes called, still appeals to some Americans. Some people wish to simplify their lives and communal living allows people to share expenses.
Raines Cohen, a cohousing advocate, told The New York Times, that modern communalists realize that they don’t have to own everything themselves, "A lot of people also realize that not everyone has to have their own washer and dryer, their own lawn mower and their own backyard pool. Sometimes it makes sense to share." Some of these things are shared in modern co-housing arrangements.
Americans are individualists, but our history also shows a strong desire for us to share our lives together and to pursue alternative living arrangements.
Jon Pike - Pike is a Ph.D. in communication and writes about activism and popular culture topics for Suite101.
Join the Conversation