Communes still thrive decades after the ’60s, but economy is a bummer, man
Sky Blue found his proper place in the world when he was 19, a college dropout who visited a Virginia commune called Twin Oaks. Fifteen years later, he’s still there, amid a thriving mini-society spread out over 450 acres of farmland, gardens, woods and small factories.
Twin Oaks was created to demonstrate how a completely classless society could work, and Blue was attracted to a life that might offer him an alternative to the drudgery of dutiful moneymaking he felt was the sole goal of his education
None of the typical totems of adulthood are necessary for life in Twin Oaks. But that doesn’t mean that the common burdens of adulthood don’t creep in – like the economy.
Still, he didn’t intend to stay long. He’d grown up knowing Twin Oaks existed – in fact, his parents had met there – and he figured that he’d explore a range of alternatives to mainstream existence before settling on one. But after three years he had a son, and a deeper commitment to the community’s project of egalitarianism.
Blue (his real, given name) took on leadership roles, including a stint as one of three Planners, the top rank in Twin Oaks’ government. Blue was serving in that role when, a few years before the global economy’s full-blown financial meltdown, Twin Oaks faced an economic crisis of its own, one that nearly derailed its financial future.
It’s not an isolated blow. In recent years, many of the U.S.’s roughly 3,000 intentional communities – a term their members tend to prefer to the word commune and its connotations of sex, drugs and burned-out hippies – have had to tighten budgets as the economy has slowed down. They’ve also had to grapple with how ballooning student debt may be constraining new membership. A look inside an intentional community in the midst of the economic slowdown is a look at what it’s like to live set apart from our society’s dearest economic values – acquisition and individual ownership, debt, consumption as fuel for the growth imperative – but still remain under their influence. Czytaj dalej „Communes still thrive decades after the ’60s, but economy is a bummer, man”