September/October 1985 RAIN Page 13 different direction than that of the orthodox commune. Ames: Yet wasn't this diversity of thought and expression a kind of common value? Morgan: Definitely. There was a broader, overarching perspective as a basis of unity in which a wide diversity could live together. And also, for Celo, we conceived that it should be intimately involved in the surrounding community, rather than isolated from it. Ames: Orthodox communes often seem to have been intended to surpass traditional family roles. One wonders if some of the people who later abandoned the communal experiment were not reacting to such heavy expectations. Morgan: Historically, it has been looked upon as an either/or situation: either you maintain the isolated biological family or you eliminate it for the commune. That, to me, is a discussion I would not want to engage in. It may seem fitting to people who are reacting to the disaster of the present-day fanuly, but in the long run I don't think it makes sense. For thousands ofyears all kinds of experiments have taken place, yet the biological family still remains a universal in human society. We recently had a visit from an Antioch graduate who had been living with Point Barrow Eskimos. He observed that if there are any people in the world that would have eliminated the biological family in preference for the commune—in terms of their experience and circumstances—it would have been these people. They are so utterly dependent upon one another. Under such primitive conditions, any member of the family can be gone in an instant, not coming back from whaling or what not. Why, he asked, had they not dissolved their families for a totally communal existence? Although there are all kinds of factors that do not exist in our society, he came to the conclusion that the biological family is a fundamental unit of economy and responsibility. Without it you get into so many complications, it simply takes too much energy. I have observed this again and again when people have tried to by-pass the family. For scores of thousands of years, in hundreds of thousands of societies, all kinds of experiments have taken place, yet the biological family still remains a universal in human society. A person can think, well. I'm going to invent a new way of walking in which we'll have our feet in the air and our hands on the ground—all manner of experiments can happen. But I'd like not to repeat what most of human evolution has explored pretty thoroughly. We need to start with what is the fundamental nature of human society and to go on from there. When we do that, we have tremendous possibilities ahead of us. All the evidence I have seen—and I think there is tremendous evidence—leads to the conclusion that the biological family cannot exist without the larger association of the small community and that the small community by and large does not survive without the biological family. If you have mass rearing of children, for example, as compared to their being dealt with individually, some of the fundamental qualities of individuality are lost. Rosabeth Kanter has said that individualism must be given up. But individuality is a very distinctive quality without which we become mass-think. I think it is a chacteristic of human life. By and large, we don't have litters of young. A mother gives attention to one baby or two babies. When we start to by-pass that process, I think we do terrible violence to human character. American society is characterized, says Robin Williams, by polarization between the idea of the individual as supreme and the society as supreme. Anthropologist Paul Radin said that the stable, competent societies are those in which this is not conceived of as a dichotomy. That is to say, both are sacred—the individual and the unities—and neither at the expense of the other. This is made possible by having a larger configuration in which both the family and the community are conceived of as having their own life, neither one secondary to the other. As long as we view it as an either/or situation, it's like saying, which are we going to dispense with, the right leg or the left? Small Towns Ames: What is the significance of the current migration of Americans back to small towns—where the intent is something less than building intentional community? Morgan: A great deal of this movement is more healthy than most communal and intentional community endeavors. But there must be an added ingredient if this hopeful development is not to become sterile and dead- ended. A larger vision is necessary to carry it further. Without that vision, it can become another kind of provincialism. This new input of life from the city could become isolated and be lost within a generation. Ralph Borsodi preached his "Back to the Land" message during the Depression of the 1930's. Lots of people did go back to land. But they found it was sterile, they couldn't stand it, the economics of it wasn't working. We could have a repetition of that experience unless we have some new insights—some process to maintain the integrity of the community. The same is true for intentional communities. They must have a larger vision and process. One of the problems is that people who are communicating in this setting are almost exclusively a university- trained, middle class group. They are isolated from the local "folk society." One Antioch alumnus who was teaching here is now getting down on the ground in Adams County, Ohio—the poorest county in the state. The folk society that he is living among means a tremendous amount to him. But he, alone, living there would
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