Thursday, Sept. 18, 2003 - 11:06 p.m.

Decade of Deviance

Ten years ago today, I joined Twin Oaks Community. It was a huge step for me. I was both running away from the world I despised (money, employment, locks, status symbols, consumerism, selfishness, competition, hierarchy, alienation) and running toward the world I wanted to see, a world of sharing and cooperation, a practical, secular, grassroots, do-it-yourself communism. And I let myself believe that it was close enough to the anarcho-communist world I envisioned that it would enable me to practice what I preach.

I thought that the people there really knew how to do things. I thought there was a lot I could learn from them.

Ha ha!

What I did learn was that community is not necessarily a cure for alienation, that selfishness, competition, and hierarchy will mainifest if those socialized patterns are still operating in people, that worrying about money feels a hell of a lot better than worrying about labor credits, that formal organization does nothing to help, and usually harms the quality of human relationships, and that there's no substitute for shared vision and purpose. I learned some ways people can help each other, and I learned how people can hold each other back. I learned that compromise only leads to resentment, mediocrity, and depression. Most importantly, I learned from all the members who left to get the hell out of there.

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