Everything I Learned from a Year of Touring the World’s Communes
By Rich Thornton
When I set out to spend a year touring the world’s communes I expected anarchic, possessionless wanderings. I wanted to burn my Air Maxes, quit Facebook, and forsake hygiene. I imagined dancing around a Druid pyre while downing cups of elk blood. What I found was a bureaucratic internet maze of credit card payments, application forms, and groups of middle-aged people making sure they washed at 30 degrees.
Communes have grown up. Gone is the time when you’d drive off in your parents’ car, sell it, and give the money to some all-supreme leader before being treated to a welcoming orgy in a goat shed. Now communes patiently ask visitors to only come on designated “Welcome Weekends” and not make any noise after 10 PM.
In reality, true communes are almost extinct. A commune is only a commune when the members share all their possessions. In order to understand how today’s communes function we have to call them by their proper name: intentional communities.