Communes, Communes, Communes

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. "Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective." Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.

It' s interesting to read this article at this point in history. When Kanter wrote it, in the 1970s, an upswelling of communal living was underway, and I can't know for sure how this influenced her writing, but she does reference some "contemporary" communes. I'm interested in analyzing Kanter's piece in light of the "waves" of communal living in the 19th century communes, the 1970s communes, the communal living that exists today, and all the others in between that I may not know about.

What strikes me about Kanter's observations of communes are the presence of a strong central leader, the relationship to Christian values, and the emphasis on completeness and physical size. The theoretical explanations for these things make good sense--especially when it comes to the basics of how people organize themselves, and act out in different power structure. It doesn't reference particular thinkers on the matter, but Locke and Hobbes are looming. This is one aspect of the article that leaves me wanting more; the very idea that "renunciation," "mortification" and "transcendence" are important to community bonds is predicated on some overarching assumptions about the human condition.

I had a question about the idea of centralization as a major tenet of communal life. Can that center be ideological? Or is she arguing forthe Freudian model, where the center is a leader, and the harmony of the commune relies on an egalitarian relationship to that leader? My instinct is that such centralized leadership, even if it is just in the form of a "charismatic leader," is contrary to the communist ideals emphasized elsewhere in the commune. Then again, this brings me to my other thoughts, which revolve around contemporary communes and the principles (or anti-principles) of anarchy.

It struck me that co-housing was identified as a form of commitment among unsuccessful communes, since that is the type of communal living that seems to have endured. I don't have a strong basis for this statement, other than knowledge of communal housing among young people in the U.S., both within university institutions and without, and the existence of such housing in the 1970s, especially inthe lesbian separatist movement (who also created communes in the 19th century tradition). Kanter does make the useful point that 19th century communes attempted to create community gradually, which is not the case in most co-housing communes.

Another thought: (133) "Some commitment mechanisms arose from necessity rather than ideology." When does a communal group decide when to stop "mechanizing"?? Is there a possibility that the community will unravel in a communal tyranny? Is that part of the function of a centralized leader, to provide direction and priorities for the group, so that all concerns do not result in a new "commitment mechanism," which could lead to an unreasonable or unbearable lifestyle? Kanter discusses religious communities whose commitment mechanisms are guided by shared beliefs, and writes that communities bound by political beliefs may also find ties in a similar framework. I wonder, though, about the distinctions in the "nature" of those two belief systems. Some political belief systems involve questioning, dissecting, analyzing and confronting ideas, and although there may be doctrine involved in the social order of the community, the potential for bumps in the road to communal life may be heightened compared to religious communities.