In 525 BCE, there was this man who was completely
obsessed with triangles. Naturally. Right? And
he actually convinced a whole group of ancient
Greeks to give up meat, abandon mainstream society,
and just spend their lives arguing about geometry
in the secluded, custom -built settlement. Which
sounds exhausting. Honestly, it really does but
that man was Pythagoras and long before he was,
you know tormenting high school geometry students
He was essentially running one of recorded history's
earliest intentional communities which Completely
shatters the image you probably had in your head
just now Oh a hundred percent because when you
hear intentional community your brain immediately
defaults to a very specific Culturally ingrained
trope, right? You picture a dozen people in tie
-dye shirts living out in the woods sharing a
single acoustic guitar exactly and like a highly
questionable pot of lentil stew. Yeah, it's the
classic 1960s hippie commune stereotype and it
stubbornly dominates the public imagination.
We seem to have trapped ourselves in this binary
view of human habitation. Well, the assumption
is that you either live in a standard atomized
suburban cul -de -sac or you are entirely off
the grid somewhere weaving your own shoes at
a bark. Right, there's no middle ground. Exactly.
But the reality of human settlement is far more
complex and frankly, far more interesting. And
that is exactly what we are getting into today.
Welcome to the Deep Dive. Our mission today is
to explore the fascinating, sometimes bizarre,
and deeply human urge to break away from mainstream
society. To build the custom -made way of living.
Yes. Because today we're unpacking a really comprehensive
Wikipedia source on intentional communities.
And as the source material proves, these communities
are not just fringe cults or flower child holdovers.
Not at all. They include ancient intellectual
societies, highly profitable modern ecovillages,
and even corporate company towns. And, you know,
the timing for this topic is incredibly relevant
for anyone listening. When you look at the sociological
driver's detail in the text, you see that the
modern iteration of these communities is a direct
reaction to modern life. Like the isolation of
it. Yes, the profound isolation of contemporary
housing. I mean, we live in these densely packed
towering cities or sprawling suburbs, yet people
consistently report feeling more isolated than
ever before. Yeah, you don't even know your neighbor's
names half the time. Right. So intentional communities
represent this highly structured quest to reclaim.
traditional village -style social bonds. It's
an attempt to literally engineer a living situation
where collaboration and mutual support are built
into your daily life. OK, let's unpack this.
Because before we can look at the historical
mechanics of how these work, we really need to
define what exactly qualifies as an intentional
community. We have to shake off some of that
terminology baggage first. For sure. So based
on the source, an intentional community is defined
as a voluntary residential community designed
from the ground up to foster a high degree of
social cohesion and teamwork. You're sharing
resources, you're sharing responsibilities. And
you're usually guided by common values. And those
values can be literally anything, right? Political,
spiritual, utopian, or just purely practical.
Anything that binds the group together, yeah.
To me, it sounds like opting into a permanent
real -world group project. Which sounds like
either a utopia or a nightmare, depending on
your personality. Oh, absolutely a nightmare
for some. Like, there's no teacher to grade you,
and you can never go home to escape the guy who
refuses to do his share of the work. That is
a terrifyingly accurate analogy. The friction
of the permanent group project is exactly what
makes or breaks these societies. But you mentioned
terminology baggage earlier, which is crucial
here. Right, the commune word. Yes, the text
explicitly points out that the word commune is
heavily loaded. It carries massive cultural weight,
often leaning negative, and it's frequently linked
pejoratively to leftist politics or the counterculture
of the mid 20th century. So people hear it and
immediately make assumptions. Exactly. So intentional
community serves as a much broader, much more
accurate umbrella term because the spectrum of
how people actually implement this is staggering.
The variety detailed in the source is a massive
umbrella. I mean, we are talking about modern
eco -villages focused on carbon neutral living
and co -housing setups. Well, you have your own
house, but share a massive communal kitchen and
garden, right? Yeah. But the definition also
encompasses monasteries, hardcore off -grid survivalist
retreats, kibbutzims, which are Israeli agricultural
collectives where even the children were traditionally
raised communally. And of course, spiritual ashrams.
Right. And because that umbrella is so vast,
it naturally covers an incredibly wide spectrum
of ideologies. A very wide spectrum. The source
material analyzes setups spanning from left -wing
anti -capitalist communes all the way to right
-wing heavily armed surviv - Which means we need
to set some ground rules for you listening right
now. While our source touches on these highly
politically charged concepts from both ends of
the political spectrum, our goal here is strictly
impartial analysis. Never. We are unpacking the
factual history, the logistics, and the sociological
data contained in the Wikipedia article. We are
not endorsing any political ideology left, right,
or center. We're just analyzing the mechanics
of how and why human beings form these alternative
groups. Precisely. We're just looking at the
engine under the hood. And if we look at the
historical timeline, humans have been trying
to build and tune this specific engine. for a
very long time. A really long time. Ashrams,
for instance, are widely considered by historians
to be the earliest intentional communities, and
their origins trace back around 1500 BCE in India.
That is 3500 years ago. It just proves how deeply
wired this instinct is. You don't just endure
the sheer difficulty of building an alternative
society unless the drive to do so is fundamentally
human. It's hardwired into us. The text also
notes Buddhist monasteries appearing around 500
BCE. Which is right around the same time our
friend Pythagoras was setting up his vegetarian
math camp in southern Italy. Yes, the triangle
enthusiast himself. But, you know, whether you
are an ancient Greek philosopher or a modern
eco -warrior, the second you put a group of people
together, You immediately hit a wall. Governance.
Yes. How do you actually manage the inevitable
chaos of living together? That is the ultimate
hurdle. And the 1995 Communities Directory provides
some incredibly revealing statistics on how these
groups attempt to solve it. What did they find?
Out of the communities they surveyed, they found
that 64 percent operate democratically, usually
relying on consensus decision -making or voting.
OK, that makes sense. They also noted the geographic
split. 54 % of communities were rural and 28
% were urban, which directly challenges the assumption
that you have to flee to the woods to build an
alternative community. Wait, I want to drill
down into those governance numbers for a second,
because that same directory noted that 11 % use
a mix of structures, but 9 % are strictly hierarchical
or authoritarian. Yes, they are. I have to push
back on the logic there. If the entire underlying
premise of leaving mainstream society is to escape
rigid hierarchies, bosses, and oppressive power
structures, why would they choose an authoritarian
setup? Exactly. Why would almost 1 in 10 of these
groups voluntarily choose a structure where someone
tells them exactly what to do? This raises an
important question, and it really gets to the
heart of human psychology. It comes down to the
deep often unacknowledged tension between the
desire for freedom and the desire for order.
So they actually want rules. Well... While many
people join intentional communities seeking absolute
egalitarianism, a significant subset of people
are actually fleeing the chaos and unpredictability
of modern life. They are seeking absolute certainty.
Oh, wow. And in many of those hierarchical communities,
the structure is driven by strict religious or
spiritual doctrines. OK, that reframes it completely.
So the leader isn't seen as a boss. They're seen
as having a divine mandate or at least a highly
specialized spiritual authority that you're choosing
to submit to. Exactly. When the shared value
of the community is adherence to a specific faith
or a highly regimented spiritual path, the desire
to follow that doctrine flawlessly, easily overrides
the desire for democratic voting. You aren't
there to debate the rules in a four -hour consensus
meeting. Right. You are there to submit to a
higher order that you believe mainstream society
lacks. And the irony is that consensus democracies
in intentional communities often suffer from
paralyzing inefficiency. Trying to get 30 people
to agree on what color to paint the barn can
tear a community apart faster than a strict leader
simply dictating the color. This tension between
absolute freedom and the desperate need for operational
order is exactly what shattered the most famous
utopian experiments in modern history. The 1960s.
Yep. We have to pivot to the 1960s counterculture
because that era completely defined this concept
for the modern Western imagination. It did. And
this is where we really need to tighten our definitions.
According to the Fellowship for Intentional Community,
a true commune as distinct from the broader category
of intentional communities is defined by 100
percent income sharing. The literal execution
of the common purse. Yes. And we need to explain
the sheer logistical nightmare of what a common
purse actually entails. It doesn't just mean
chipping in for rent. It literally means you
do not have a personal bank account. Everything
goes to the center. Right. You hand your paycheck
or whatever money you generate over to a centralized
committee. If you want new boots or a bus ticket
or a tube of toothpaste, you have to justify
that personal purchase to the entire group. It
is the ultimate test of collective trust. The
text details prominent 60s communes in California,
like California and Wheeler's Ranch, that operated
on these extreme collective principles. What
were their main goals? Their core tenets were
a radical rejection of the dominant culture.
They aimed for human scale living, arguing that
mainstream society had become dangerously industrialized
and factory sized. So they wanted to shrink everything
down. Yeah. They were fiercely anti -bureaucratic,
rejecting consumerism, restrictive social norms,
and perhaps most pressingly for the youth of
that era, the military draft. But the source
material drops a very stark sociological reality
check about who was actually participating in
this movement. It's quite revealing. According
to the demographic data, the residents of these
60s communes were predominantly white, upper
middle class youth. Minorities and low income
individuals very rarely joined. And the reason
the text provides is brutally logical. Voluntary
poverty just isn't appealing if you are already
marginalized. It's a profound observation about
the mechanics of rebellion. To reject material
wealth and mainstream comfort, you first have
to have experienced it. Or at least have a safety
net. Exactly. a privileged background to fall
back on if the communal experiment fails. If
you spent your entire life fighting just to survive
within the capitalist system, the idea of intentionally
walking out into the woods to be poor is not
a utopian dream. That's a regression. Right.
The counterculture movement for all its egalitarian
ideals was largely populated by people who had
the societal luxury to opt out. So what does
this all mean for the legacy of that era? It
implies that dropping out of capitalism requires
a massive amount of societal privilege in the
first place. You can really only reject the system
if the system hasn't already been actively crushing
you. Viewing the whole peace and love commune
movement through that socioeconomic lens. completely
changes the narrative. And even with that inherent
privilege, the data shows these 60s communes
were incredibly fragile. The text notes, they
frequently collapsed. Usually not from outside
pressure, but from severe internal tensions.
Like what? Well, a major recurring source of
friction was the divide between the original
family, the founders who established the commune
and the new arrivals who showed up later. Ah,
the classic founder syndrome. We were here first,
we built the cabins, we suffered through the
first winter, so we subtly get more say in how
things run. Which instantly breaks the promise
of radical equality they were advertising. It
creates a shadow hierarchy. Add to that the complexities
of intense media publicity, the constant turnover
in leadership, and, as the text explicitly points
out, the sheer destructive power of sexual jealousies.
Oh right, free love. Yes. When you attempt to
dismantle traditional monogamy but fail to dismantle
basic human jealousy, you create a social pressure
cooker that destabilizes the entire community
from the inside out. It's the permanent group
project blowing up because two of the members
started dating and had a bad breakup. Pretty
much. But to prove that this urge to build a
custom society isn't just an American hippie
phenomenon, the source material takes us on a
fascinating global tour. These case studies show
how differently the mechanics of intentional
living play out across different eras and cultures.
The historical examples are amazing. Let's start
in Ireland in the year 1831 with the Raleighine
estate. Raleighine is a brilliant historical
example of an entirely different economic engine.
It was established by a progressive landlord
named John Vandler on his estate in County Clare.
And it was strict. Incredibly strict. A highly
regulated environment. They completely abandoned
the British pound and operated on an alternative
economy using credit notes. Which is fascinating
mechanically. Instead of money, they use labor
notes. You worked a 12 hour day in the summer
fields. You received a specialized note and you
could only trade that note at the Commune store
for goods. It completely isolated their micro
economy from the outside world. And the rules
were intense. Absolutely no alcohol, no tobacco,
and no gambling allowed. But despite all those
rigid restrictions, or perhaps because of the
stability they provided, the social experiment
actually prospered. Agricultural yields went
up, the residents were reportedly content, and
new members were eager to join. It was functioning
as a highly optimized, localized utopian model.
Until 1833. Right. Here's where it gets really
interesting. In 1833, it spectacularly collapsed.
And not because the workers rebelled against
the 12 -hour days. But it was the founder. Yes.
Because the founder, John Vandalour, had a secret
gambling addiction. He lost his entire fortune
and, by extension, the entire estate, forcing
the commune to dissolve overnight. It's devastating.
It's like a modern -day tech CEO who builds this
perfectly optimized, highly disciplined wellness
startup and then banked with the entire company
on a weekend bender in Vegas. It perfectly illustrates
the fatal vulnerability of top -down intentional
communities. If the land, the wealth, or the
legal standing of the community is tied to a
single charismatic founder or a single benefactor,
the whole thing is basically a house of cards.
Exactly. The entire society is incredibly precarious.
But to see a model that actually solved this
fragility, we can look at a massive triumph in
Scotland, the Findhorn Foundation. Founded in
1962. Findhorn is incredible. It started as a
small spiritual community in a caravan park and
has grown into an eco -village housing over 400
people. It's a huge scale. And what makes Findhorn
stand out is how deeply practical they are with
their infrastructure. They aren't just sitting
around meditating. They've integrated technology
so successfully that the community actually functions
as a net exporter of electricity. And the how
of that is what makes it a successful intentional
community. How do people seeking spiritual harmony
marshal the capital to build a functional power
grid? Yeah, windmills aren't cheap. Right. They
did it by pioneering collective investment. They
erected their own wind turbines by pooling resources
and forming community benefit societies. So effectively
crowdsourcing the funding. Yes. Without relying
on traditional hierarchical corporate structures,
or a single wealthy benefactor like Vandaler?
They figured out how to make the common purse
build heavy infrastructure. It proves that breaking
away from mainstream society doesn't require
being anti -modernity. You can pioneer sustainable
tech that the rest of the world actually ends
up learning from. But the text doesn't shy away
from the dark side of history either. No, it
doesn't. Moving from a triumph to a deep tragedy,
it details the fate of the Tolstoyan communities
in Russia in the 1920s. This requires a bit of
historical context. These communities were deeply
inspired by the later teachings of the novelist
Leo Tolstoy. They were strict pacifists. Yes,
strict pacifists. They rejected state authority
and they held their land communally, attempting
to live simple, agrarian, self -sufficient lives
based on nonviolence. But the fatal flaw wasn't
in their internal mechanics. It was their timing
and geography. They existed in the immediate
aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolutions. A
very dangerous time to be independent. Exactly.
And as the Soviet state consolidated power in
the late 1920s, it launched massive campaigns
of collectivization. The state was forcibly seizing
private land and consolidating it into massive
state -run agricultural enterprises. Because
the Soviet regime demanded absolute centralized
control over all resources and all ideology.
So they saw the communes as a threat. Completely.
Independent intentional communities operating
under their own peaceful decentralized rules
were perceived as a direct threat to the state.
It exposes a massive blind spot in the whole
utopian commune idea. You can build a perfect
harmonious micro society with your friends, but
if the macro society you live inside turns totalitarian,
your utopia gets crushed. The state demands ultimate
loyalty. And a commune inherently splits that
loyalty. Precisely. The text documents of these
pacifist Tolstoyan communities were systematically
targeted and wiped out. Their leaders were put
on show trials. Many residents were sent to the
Gulag prison camps, and others were forced to
flee to the freezing wilderness of Siberia. Or
emigrate to places like Canada just to avoid
being liquidated. It is a grim historical reminder
that intentional communities are never truly
isolated. They're always at the mercy of the
larger political environment that surrounds them.
Which naturally brings us to a highly complex,
highly controversial modern example detailed
in the source, Oronia in South Africa. We should
pause here. Yes, just to be completely clear
with you listening, our goal here is to neutrally
unpack the sociological and demographic data
the source provides on how this town was built.
We are examining the mechanics of it and we are
in no way endorsing, validating, or supporting
the community's political, racial, or social
ideologies. That distinction is vital. We are
analyzing it purely as a sociological phenomenon
of intentional community building. So what does
the text say about Orania? According to the text,
Orania was founded in 1991 during the twilight
of apartheid. It is an exclusively Afrikaner
town. The founder's stated goal was to create
a cultural stronghold for the Afrikaner minority
group. To preserve the Afrikaans language and
culture through strict demographic isolation.
Right. And mechanically, they have built an incredibly
robust alternative system. They operate on a
model of strict self -sufficiency. Meaning they
don't hire outside help. Exactly. They exclusively
employ their own residents refusing to rely on
outside labor, and they have established their
own local government council, their own cooperative
banks, and even their own internal physical and
digital currency, the aura. And when we look
at the data, the town is experiencing rapid demographic
growth. By 2022, the population had reached 2
,500 residents, which was a 55 % increase just
since 2018. Wow. They are actively expanding
their infrastructure to accommodate this influx,
which is wild to think about from an analytical
perspective because it hits every single defining
marker of an intentional community that we discussed.
High social cohesion, shared values, pooling
resources to build an alternative economy and
a deliberate separation from mainstream society,
but the shared value uniting them is racial and
cultural exclusivity. If we connect this to the
bigger picture, looking at the pacifist Kolstoyans,
the tragic collapse of Ralehine, the ecological
triumphs of Feinhorn, and the strict exclusivity
of Orania, we arrive at a fundamental truth about
intentional communities. What's that? The framework
itself is essentially an amplifier. It takes
whatever values the founders pour into it and
magnifies them by removing the moderating friction
of mainstream society. That makes perfect sense.
It can amplify the absolute best of human nature.
sustainability, profound mutual support, and
innovative economic models. But it can equally
amplify the worst. Rigid exclusivity, vulnerability
to flawed or tyrannical leaders, and dangerous
ideological echo chambers. The community structure
is just a vessel. It is the intent behind it
that dictates whether it becomes a utopia or
a cautionary tale. And that brings us right back
to you listening to this deep dive. Think about
your own day -to -day life. Yeah, take a second
and actually think about your own living situation
right now. Are you feeling that modern fragmented
housing isolation the techs talked about? Do
you ever look out your window and wish you could
just seamlessly share a lawnmower with your street?
Or split grocery costs with your building? Or
just have neighbors you actually know and deeply
trust? If you do, the historical data proves
that it is an entirely natural feeling. This
desire is not some trendy modern concept cooked
up by real estate developers pitching co -living
spaces. It's a 3 ,500 -year -old human instinct.
We are deeply inherently social creatures and
the atomized, highly -invisualized way we live
today is, historically speaking, the real anomaly.
You're not crazy for wanting more connection.
The urge to build that permanent group project
is literally in our DNA. But I want to leave
you with a final provocative thought that builds
on a tiny fascinating detail mentioned in the
source material. The human outposts. Yes. The
text briefly references the establishment of
human outposts and the colonization of new lands
as historical catalysts for intentional communities.
People seek a literal blank slate as far away
from the entrenched problems of existing society
as physically possible. A completely blank slate.
where you are unburdened by the macro society,
allowing you to write the rules of governance,
economics, and social cohesion entirely from
scratch. Right. So if intentional communities
are born when people seek that ultimate untouched
blank slate, will the ultimate intentional community
of our era not be built on Earth at all? You
mean space. Yeah. Will it actually be the first
human colony established on Mars? That is a brilliant
application of this sociology, because those
future astronauts will be entirely cut off from
the rest of humanity. Won't just be sharing a
lawnmower. No, they will have to consciously,
intentionally design every single aspect of their
society from day one. Their resource sharing,
their conflict resolution and their governance
structure. It will literally be the highest stakes
group project in human history. How do you design
a society when survival demands absolute flawless
cohesion but human nature demands individual
freedom? It's the ultimate test. It really is.
So as you go about your day, maybe take a look
at your own neighborhood, your own cul -de -sac
or apartment building, and ponder that. If you
had a completely blank slate on another planet,
what kind of community would you intentionally
build?