Communes and Communities

Abstract

The ideal of communal living often fails to survive the ordeal of practical realities. A recent book by Clem Gorman combines a survey of the movement towards communitarian life-styles in Britain since about 1965 with a practical manual for would-be communards which is packed with useful information and some reflective insight. At no point does the author make any reference even to the existence of monasteries and convents. It is fascinating and touching to see how, in an experiment less than a decade old, the problems and structures arise which have been familiar in religious communities now for centuries. People always have to learn things for themselves, of course; and one need not lament the fact that the hard-won wisdom of monastic experience has not been available for modern communards to draw upon. For that matter, our communities have been undergoing fairly radical changes during the relevant period, and we have not always given much attention to the proven principles we have inherited, far less practised them impressively enough to instruct others. In fact the blunt advice which Clem Gorman offers can perhaps help to cut through the pious odour that hangs about religious life and sometimes prevents its practitioners from realizing elementary facts. The sheer naivety of the discoveries the communards are making casts fresh light on the hoary truisms of monastic life.Clem Gorman prefers to speak of ‘communes’, but he allows that the difference between communes and communities is not clear. He sees a spectrum, with a left and right wing: ‘On the far left are the very poorest communes, often squatting, frequently having to support a fair proportion of members who are not working, and probably more likely to involve group marriage and absence of personal property concepts.