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In Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity; and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties? (Thomas More, Utopia, 1515)

People have set our to construct the ideal community of their dreams before and since the Sixteenth Century English statesman Sir Thomas More wrote these words. The title of his book has entered the language to signify the ideal society We know that utopian communities have risen and fallen in Australia since the 1850s. Metcalf has shown that more utopian intentional communities are dreamed of an planned, than actually come into existence. And of those that are established, few endure. The last quarter of the Twentieth Century saw the establishment of more intentional communities in Australia than the previous two centuries of European occupation. And of these a number are enduring past one generation. As post-industrial becomes increasingly fragmented, impersonal and instrumental on a global scale, small but increasing numbers of people choose to drop out, into small, personalised communities more in harmony with ecological values.

Australian intentional communities are varied. Size ranges from four or five adults to about 160 permanent residents. Religion is central to some communities and hardly tolerated in others. Many communities are rural, and others are in the cities or suburbs. A few have explicit political ideologies, some are avowedly non-political and many are indifferent to national politics. Some have shared wealth, and most are based on private ownership. But Bill Metcalf found some important similarities.

All the Australian communities described in Metalf (1995) describe spirituality as important to the lives of the communities and their members. All place important on the ecology, and most combine these two principles into a central concern which may be called 'eco-spirituality'. All intentional communities find the dynamics of interpersonal relationships presents one of their biggest challenges. Metcalf reports common tensions between 'doing' and 'being'; and between individualism and communalism. The recruitment of new members and continuation of the community beyond the original founders is a challenge. The members of intentional communities in Australia report that it hard work to make a community work, but rewarding in the long run.

References

Metcalf, Bill. (1995) From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality. Sydney: University of NSW Press.