Personally, if I couldn’t stay friends with both, and there were no one clearly in the wrong, as in currently hurting the community, I would avoid both of them, or even leave the commune if that proved un-workable. I lean more towards the sort-of skilled labor I mentioned before as belonging at the periphery anyways:
Well it’s less about how you would react individually, and more about how the commune as a whole would deal with the internal division.
In small interdependent groups, social breakdowns can cause the entire community to fail, because every member is an essential part of how the community supports itself and there are no backups for any skill set.
The bus factor problem applies if people start refusing to work with each other.
Communities shouldn’t be able to fail like so. Your average stand-alone commune doesn’t get that much bigger than a family-farm. The idea that everyone should have to lock-in to such an arrangement is kind-of toxic.
Don’t approach the problems you’re talking about from the perspective of a serf.
EDIT: On reading your link, you’ve hit upon precisely why I wouldn’t encourage too deep an integration between artisans and single communes. Everyone in the commune should know how to make their commune work and who do go to outside the commune when specific tools or expertise are needed beyond their commune’s residents.
No one person in a commune should be irreplacable or capable of taking the whole thing down in a way that prevents residents from being able to just up and leave.
Communities are always able to fail like so. A division between members can absolutely fracture any kind of social cooperation.
Your average stand-alone commune doesn’t get that much bigger than a family-farm.
This isn’t a commune, it’s a compound. Or a live/work arrangement. Or just a cult, depending on how “we’re all family here” they are.
I wouldn’t encourage too deep an integration between artisans and single communes. Everyone in the commune should know how to make their commune work and who do go to outside the commune when specific tools or expertise are needed beyond their commune’s residents.
This isn’t a commune, it’s just a town, or a village.
The whole concept of a commune is self-supporting, self-sustaining and to at least some degree self-contained. Also, frequently, self-absorbed.
No one person in a commune should be irreplacable or capable of taking the whole thing down
The smaller the group is the more inevitable this is. At a very small size (less than 20 people), where the group is dependent on itself for food production, then just the loss of basic labor might ruin the group’s ability to provide for itself.
in a way that prevents residents from being able to just up and leave.
If everyone just up and leaves, what was even the point of forming a commune? Again, what you’re talking about is just a town. A primarily agrarian town maybe, but still just a town.
Congratulations, you missed any notion of nuance and scale in my original comment. A community is indeed much larger than a single commune, in much the same way a village is bigger than a farm.
If a given commune’s members move to another commune, nothing is truly lost. The original commune is down to the two who hate eachother, or one will screw up enough to get forced out before that happens, so what? Eventually, new members will show, or nearby communes will take on the work and any resources no longer being utilized.
Meanwhile, you’re insisting the whole setup requires twenty or so people, hell-bent on being insular and self-sustaining(near impossibilities for long-term survival in Western countries - the Feds will come calling), all under the same roof. These are ALL notions I rejected in my initial comment. A commune, and/or a community composed of communes and individuals/infrastructure hosting multiple communes, is more than a glorified polycule or a cult.
Don’t look to me to defend the effigy you’ve decided to burn in your head. If you read my other comments, I’ve made clear that my own preference is to avoid en-meshing myself in any potentially dysfunctional, singular commune.
If we’re going to extremes, I prefer the Beduins or Travellers to the setups you’re concerned with “disproving” or whatever. Even though I called it a lazy example on my part, there’s good reason I mentioned the Amish originally, and not the Branch Davidians or all the FLDS drama you can watch on TV. If you’re so concerned about Jonestown, stop pretending that’s the only setup out there, or that glorified polygamy with religious overtones is what people want from a commune.
Personally, if I couldn’t stay friends with both, and there were no one clearly in the wrong, as in currently hurting the community, I would avoid both of them, or even leave the commune if that proved un-workable. I lean more towards the sort-of skilled labor I mentioned before as belonging at the periphery anyways:
Well it’s less about how you would react individually, and more about how the commune as a whole would deal with the internal division.
In small interdependent groups, social breakdowns can cause the entire community to fail, because every member is an essential part of how the community supports itself and there are no backups for any skill set.
The bus factor problem applies if people start refusing to work with each other.
Communities shouldn’t be able to fail like so. Your average stand-alone commune doesn’t get that much bigger than a family-farm. The idea that everyone should have to lock-in to such an arrangement is kind-of toxic.
Don’t approach the problems you’re talking about from the perspective of a serf.
EDIT: On reading your link, you’ve hit upon precisely why I wouldn’t encourage too deep an integration between artisans and single communes. Everyone in the commune should know how to make their commune work and who do go to outside the commune when specific tools or expertise are needed beyond their commune’s residents.
No one person in a commune should be irreplacable or capable of taking the whole thing down in a way that prevents residents from being able to just up and leave.
Nobody said anything about serfdom.
Communities are always able to fail like so. A division between members can absolutely fracture any kind of social cooperation.
This isn’t a commune, it’s a compound. Or a live/work arrangement. Or just a cult, depending on how “we’re all family here” they are.
This isn’t a commune, it’s just a town, or a village.
The whole concept of a commune is self-supporting, self-sustaining and to at least some degree self-contained. Also, frequently, self-absorbed.
The smaller the group is the more inevitable this is. At a very small size (less than 20 people), where the group is dependent on itself for food production, then just the loss of basic labor might ruin the group’s ability to provide for itself.
If everyone just up and leaves, what was even the point of forming a commune? Again, what you’re talking about is just a town. A primarily agrarian town maybe, but still just a town.
Congratulations, you missed any notion of nuance and scale in my original comment. A community is indeed much larger than a single commune, in much the same way a village is bigger than a farm.
If a given commune’s members move to another commune, nothing is truly lost. The original commune is down to the two who hate eachother, or one will screw up enough to get forced out before that happens, so what? Eventually, new members will show, or nearby communes will take on the work and any resources no longer being utilized.
Meanwhile, you’re insisting the whole setup requires twenty or so people, hell-bent on being insular and self-sustaining(near impossibilities for long-term survival in Western countries - the Feds will come calling), all under the same roof. These are ALL notions I rejected in my initial comment. A commune, and/or a community composed of communes and individuals/infrastructure hosting multiple communes, is more than a glorified polycule or a cult.
Don’t look to me to defend the effigy you’ve decided to burn in your head. If you read my other comments, I’ve made clear that my own preference is to avoid en-meshing myself in any potentially dysfunctional, singular commune.
If we’re going to extremes, I prefer the Beduins or Travellers to the setups you’re concerned with “disproving” or whatever. Even though I called it a lazy example on my part, there’s good reason I mentioned the Amish originally, and not the Branch Davidians or all the FLDS drama you can watch on TV. If you’re so concerned about Jonestown, stop pretending that’s the only setup out there, or that glorified polygamy with religious overtones is what people want from a commune.