Communes in the 60's and 70's had a tendency to fail, arguably due to poor structure and foresight. I've heard hippies themselves argue it was the drugs, or the belief that hard physical work wasn't fundamental. Perhaps a hippie forum isn't the best place for my idea to be shared but so many other "community" forums have turned me down, and I figure I have nothing to lose. For many reasons a commune is the most effective / efficient way to bring about change to our planet. In aims of not writing too much I wont go into detail but feel free to ask or debate me. So my idea, obviously, is to build a commune that wont fail, that wont turn corporate, that wont corrupt, poison everyone, seduce the homeless or whatever else we may fear. If you don't believe this is possible then feel free to ask or debate me. In theory this is a very simple operation but in practice the initial actualization is a difficult foothold to obtain. I come to the hippies for one reason: they successfully started communes which is something most movements have not done. So that's where I am, at starting a commune. I really dislike the word commune. Anyways, I'm looking for advice, participants, critics, annnything more than "you're crazy" (which is a surprisingly useless comment). If you want details on my belief structure, or my strategy, or how many people are already involved, just ask; I don't want to write too much. Obviously location and technology are important issues as well. Wish me luck...
Humans are strange most want to know what's in it for me. Communes failed in the sixties for just that reason.
For centuries monastaries and convents have worked. Perhaps a closer look at how they are organized and formed would be helpful. In essence they are self supporting communities.
The biggest commune failures I have see are where people have TOO much strength of personal ideals and ways of doing things. That's all very lovely, but does not work in a situation where people are trying to live together with a common goal. In order for a commune to work or even a close community, is for their goals to BE common, and all willing to work for these COMMON goals. People MUST have room for COMPROMISE in order to live together in close quarters. People also MUST have plenty of room for DIFFERENCES and allow those differences up to the point where they actually become a PROBLEM, instead of CREATING PROBLEMS due to differences. I think a lot of the reason why hippy communes failed was due to putting too many too strongly opinionated people too close together. Far better for all to have their OWN SPACES where they can do their OWN THING, and have COMMUNITY spaces for gathering and meetings. RESPECTING OTHERS and PULLING YOUR OWN WEIGHT is crucial to any communal life. Best example of a continuing successful commune I can think of is Stephen Gaskin's Farm in Tennessee. Don't ever expect utopia! Perfection is unattainable. There is ALWAYS something you can label as WRONG, but working within a reasonable structure and allowing for individual privacy will go a long ways.
what i saw in my area was a lot of jealousy and division due to the whole 'free love' thing. as an ideal it was lovely, in reality not so much so. it broke up a lot of budding attempts at communal living.
These are amazing insights! Thank you very much! My idea is to base the "commune" heavily on the importance of the individual. Another idea I have is to structure the system around the principal of giving. For example, the more work you give, the higher "value" you have, and the more you receive in turn. There's no distribution hierarch, just a community of everyone trying to give as much as they can to each other to push their own lives forward. Obviously the common goal would be stabilizing protecting the environment, controlling food and water shortages, and benevolent things like that. I think personal ideals and lifestyles should be a consideration in a community just the fact that "I am alive, therefore I should promote life." Are there any more thoughts?
Well, that's how it works in real life anyhow. I think rather than having too structured of a living plan, better to aim for simply SETTING GOOD EXAMPLES and living COMPASSIONATELY, first within the commune, and then taking it to the outside world. I think things would simply fall into place that way.
