But I digress. It felt even more hippie-esque considering the total absence of any furniture beyond the bare necessities residing in the kitchen. The dinners on a mattress in the living room and ashtrays on the floor accompanied by constantly refilled wine glasses and philosophical musings stand out as memorable experiences thus far. It has also been a major improvement on decentralised suburban dwelling, not only because of the fact that CBD living is convenient and central, but also because living in a complex with so many flats provides many more opportunities for meeting new people, making new friends and, in South Africa, the safety in numbers thing is also really appealing.
Beyond that, however, the virtue of communal-type living, at least thus far, has been the ability of each individual to find a particular niche within the grand scheme of things. Individuals have specific strengths and weaknesses that they are able to contribute to the household, doing things they feel comfortable with and are good at in terms of particular tasks: washing, dishes, cleaning, mopping, cooking, sitting, sleeping, and eventually, when children do happen to come along, child-rearing as well!
I have long arranged with my closest anarcho-feminist socialist friend to co-parent and co-habit exactly for this reason. It is practical, functional, and indulges a component of my being that allows me to fully live out my potential being an extrovert and pitting joy out of nurturing and taking care of others.
Maybe it does stretch beyond only me, and beyond utility, indulging instead an altruistic, nurturing and collectivist inclination in humankind most likely obscured by the premium placed on western individualism, greed and materialism emanating from the social structure required by capitalism.
But perhaps that is getting a bit too philosophical about it.
The beauty of it all lies in the ability to choose. I understand fully that not everyone is an introvert or wants to take care of others, preferring instead the pleasure of their own company or being taken care of. In a post-modern world – one in which individual experience, preference and even the idea that everything means nothing and nothing means everything dependent on your point of reference – Engels’s idea that the free development of each is the necessary precondition for the free development of all is even more applicable.
Post-modern hippie communalism works for me, and I guess, as Kierkegaard said: “I have to find a truth that is true for me… the idea for which I can live or die.” Life is a process, after all.
Author
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