My communalist community ideas

This is part of a set of essays describing what I think is needed for a basic lifestyle and for sharing resources that you don't need for much of the time.

In planning a community, it is important to keep in mind the purpose of the community. Ultimately, for me, the purpose must be ``For the greater glory of God''; secondary purposes include the sharing of resources that it would be exhorbitant to have one each of (this of course also being to greater glory of God, as it is a way of treating his giving of creation with respect), and companionship to those who cannot live a solitary life (if there really are such people; I suspect it is an illusion resulting from people seeing others accepted apparently more widely than they).

If something resulting in general inconvenience seems to be making its way into the plans, careful review must be made, possibly many stages further back, to eliminate not only this thing but also those things which made it seem necessary. For example, requiring people to travel some unreasonable distance or an unreasonable pace to meet at an agreed place and time (one of the present banes of my life) is to be kept out, by limiting the distance one is expected to go to things and requiring a certain amount of warning... easily accomplished by defining the community to be within earshot of a particular bell, and allowing as notice time the time that it takes to walk from the agreed perimeter to the bell (which under normal acoustics should be close to the centre of the area).

My ideas of community generally assume that all members are responsible people who put the community's good before their own. In practice, people will from time to time depart from that and then some kind of disciplinary measures must be taken.

John C. G. Sturdy

Last modified: Sun Jun 10 22:12:57 GMT Daylight Time 2007