Communes and community clusters have always intrigued me. Of course, I have never lived in one, unless you count eleven people living in the same house at one time as a commune. (No, I didn't think so either...)
So I have been thinking about three very different types of communes and community clusters in recent days; and four, if I can make a passing comment on a commune in 100 Mile House, BC. I'm thinking of the Emissaries of Divine Light, a New Age cult (with international headquarters in Loveland, Colorado). This group lives in separate houses, but all in the same property.
The other three under discussion today are as follows: A Hutterite colony, a First Nations reservation, and a Sikh family home. I am quite serious when I state that I think there is a bona fide topic for some doctoral student's thesis paper there, namely, a study of three commune-types thrown together, one way or the other, and with a detailed examination of the good, the bad, and the ugly of said arrangement.
The Hutterite colony is the most common form of communal living familiar to most of us. I have spent many hours at various area colonies over these past ten years, buying, visiting, touring, and teaching. They are a remarkable study in how people banding together can produce great things in an cost-efficient way.
The First Nations reservation model is something I am only vaguely familiar with, usually by way of passing near them. Thanks largely to the media, I am actually more familiar with many of their dangers, their educational and vocational struggles, and the apparent two-tiered system of perks and quirks (the chief and his relatives versus the rest of the tribe). Nationally, of course, we are often told that they are very much a Third World community within our Dominion.
Lastly, the Sikh family “commune.” Well, not exactly a commune, but very much a community within a single house. My experiences in BC's Lower Mainland is the basis for this discussion. Caucasians have often laughed at the three families crammed into one of those monster houses, leaving the old people to raise the kids, while the respective moms and dads trundle off to work every day. This happens for years at a time, until the “joke” is over: Four to six years later, not only is that particular house paid for, but two others are also, thus allowing all three families to have their own spread..
Banding together for the common good, at least for a time, is the common thread here. The Hutterite model is the most intriguing because of its positive economics. Land and animals, trades and machinery, meals and accommodations, form the backbone to their success.
Reservations, of course, are an unmitigated disaster at every level--educationally, vocationally, morally, spiritually, and economically. One of the chief contributing factors is that money is simply dumped in, via the Department of Indian Affairs, with little or no accountability, little or no checks and balances. Space doesn't allow me to develop my thesis about how completely futile this network of cultural ghettos is.
I have met so many outstanding First Nations peoples who have been freed from that “cradle-to-grave” mentality that we've given them, and I wish more would get it. I have also seen whole bands in BC (Osoyoos, Westbank, Kelowna, and Kamloops, for example) take complete advantage of working together for their own good.
Lastly, there are few orthodox Sikhs out here in Southern Alberta, so you may not be that familiar with them. It's simply the concept of two to four families banding together, on a much smaller scale than the Hutterites, and producing something to their advantage—without political intervention, without historical interference.
It's good to have a sense of independence, but it's bad to be so independent that there is no cohesive approach to economics and employment, no combining of mutual resources. On a lesser scale, that's why carpooling works; that's why bulk buying is prudent; that's why block parties and food co-ops should be encouraged. (Bet you you never made that connection, did you?)
And that's why there's such valuable resources in a large family, with all members combining their gifts and resources for the common good of the home. More people mean more work; but more people also means more workers. Channeled or harnessed, there's nothing like it. Just ask me: As a family, we get far more done by pulling together than we doing going our own separate ways.
And by the way, that would be a great way to run this country.
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