In my experience most of the communes, that start off with a few idealised people, soon become infested with crackheads. I say this because I know a few people that have lived a communal way of life but eventually - for some inexplicable reason the ideals get watered down and a heavy sort of drug dependence creeps into the community Why do you think that happens in hippy and anarchist communities?
we had that experience at our nwr cooperative living project in providence, ri. some reasons that things like this happen are that hippys and anarchists don't want to judge and condemn other people. we believe in letting people do their thing and be who they are. the problem is that we live in a warped and self centered immediate gratification oriented society. so there are a lot of people out there who don't practice responsible considerate behaviour, like most drug addicts. being kind, open hearted community oriented people, what do we do when someone in need of help shows up at our door? we open the door and try to give them help. this is pretty unusual behavior. opening your door and offering help to someone who needs it. in this case that someone is a drug addict. nice person. but has plenty of problems. next thing you know, they tell all their friends about this place where people live together, try to help each other, you can do your own thing, if you don't have any money that's ok. well guess what? pretty soon your idealistic community is swamped by people in need of help including plenty of drug addicts. because there are a lot of people in this world who need a lot of help and there are not enough places to help them. the moral of the story is that although we are kind hearted community oriented people, we need to set standards of responsible behavior and figure out ways to make sure they are followed or there is a tendency for a downward spiral of irresponsible behavior to become established. after all many people seem to think that it is more fun to get high and watch tv than to work. they don't seem to understand that it takes work to build a house and pay the bills necessary to keep it going. i guess they didn't have good parents or teachers when they were kids. and it's a lot harder to teach an older dog new tricks than to teach a puppy. i don't want to seem too negative. i'm still working to build communities. i still believe it can be done. but it takes plenty of work along with the play. peace nwrfred
When you have more free time in your hands your are going to use it for recreation reasons . when you live in regular society the job alone consumes 6,8,10 "some even more" hours of your life . now if you pick crack as your side kick thats your own problems.
and also you dont hear too many brits in this forums . and the germans left for south america "or spain" again i guess.
Put simply"the bad always drives out the good."Think back on situations you were in --in your or others lives.It's a damn shame ,but where humans are concerned,it seems to apply.
