Intentional communities are groups of individuals who voluntarily to live and work together toward a common goal. Old-school hippie "communes" (a word that is now considered to be out-of-date) were the first and most well-known form of intentional community, but the modern intentional communities movement generally focuses a bit more on ecological sustainability and self-sufficiency.
Ecovillages, or intentional communities designed with green living in mind, are now in the public eye as our culture makes a shift toward sustainable living. There are roughly ten-to-twenty functional ecovillages in the U.S., each with roughly twenty-to fifty individuals, and interest in them has been growing rapidly.
Like many young idealists, I chose to join an ecovillage in my very early adulthood, hell-bent on the idea of saving the world. My mind was clouded by daydreams: I envisioned an idyllic community of happy people who could lived, loved, and shared. I thought about eating granola while lying on a hammock. I thought about drum circles and sing-alongs and children playing in the woods.
Intentional community, for me, was not without its drawbacks. What I found in the ecovillage was not heaven: it was Hell. These are just a few examples of the not-so-uncommon problems that I experienced with ecovillage living.
Malnutrition.
Adjustment to a vegan lifestyle, which was somewhat requisite for life in this particular community, took a severe toll on my body and likely shed several years off my life. A diet composed of locally grown fresh vegetables and brown rice will make a person sick very quickly. You can read about "My Recovery from Veganism" by clicking the link. The human body requires a diet with sufficient levels of protein and plant-based fats. Locally-grown vegan foods are incapable of providing this level of nutrition.
Constant Lies to the Public.
The community I lived in encouraged members to lie to visitors and tourists. Although our cars ran on regular diesel, and we only used biodiesel when it was commercially available locally, we were encouraged to tell people that we ran the cars on it exclusively and made it ourselves. Telling a visitor anything besides the 100% positive aspects of ecovillage life would gain a member resentment from fellow communitarians.
Social Isolation.
It is impossible to put a group of fifty people together and say "These people will all be friends". As the youngest member by ten years and someone who was hopelessly lost in my own idealism, I was lonely and terrified. When I joined, I wasn't welcomed with open arms and friendliness; I was ostracized and resented. If I asked questions about community life ("Who do I talk to so I can start a garden? Why are none of the heterosexual couples here married? Do I have to get group consensus if I want to adopt a cat?"), pre-existing members would roll their eyes at me and insult my intelligence. Worse was that I had to cook, eat, and brush my teeth beside people who obviously didn't like me. Naturally, it took a toll on my self-esteem.
Creeps, Weirdos, and Perverts.
Many members of the community lived there because they had psychological or social handicaps that prevented them from leading even remotely normal lives. Many people there had bizarre quirks and were subject to outrageous moodswings, and the lack of structure harmed the mental health of many members, myself included. Most alarmingly was a specific member, a man who was (for lack of a better word) creepy. When I saw him spending as much as ten hours a day with a young boy there, going skinny-dipping with the child, and even sleeping next to him at night, I became very worried. Naturally, I talked to the child's parents about my concerns for his well-being. I was then insulted by every member of the community for being "judgmental", "paranoid", and "sick-minded". I found out three years later that the man was a registered sex offender.
Excessive Red Tape.
The amount of consensus required to accomplish day-to-day tasks was suffocating. At one point, the entire community was in an uproar for months about whether or not it was against community policy to put a high-efficiency microwave oven in the common house. People would become exceedingly emotional but hide behind "non-violent communication". Meetings were full of people yelling things like, "I hear your concern, but I disagree with it!" and "I know you have a piece of the truth, but you're wrong!". Months of meetings, arguments, and emotional tensions were required to accomplish very simple tasks.
Substance Abuse.
Predictably, the intentional communities movement is littered with drug addicts and alcoholics. While some members there were distinctly straight-edge and avoided all mind-altering substances, many people who lived there were lost in their own drug-induced delirium. Whiskey, home-brewed beer, and marijuana were a part of nearly every party. And yet I was insulted for enjoying the occasional cup of fair-trade coffee.
Very Poor Hygeine.
Unless you're okay with dumping buckets of someone else's poop into wooden compost bins, washing your clothes and dishes only in cold water, only peeing outside, and showering every other week, don't join an intentional community. The lack of cleanliness in the ecovillage was literally sickening, and I was constantly battling urinary tract infections, colds, coughs, and stomach bugs.
After ten months of living in this surprisingly hellish community, I packed my bags and returned to the city. The adjustment was mentally and emotionally much more difficult than I ever could have expected; it had been almost a year since I had seen a stoplight, a toilet that flushed, or an electrically operated clothes-dryer. I might as well have been returning from a third-world country, but all the romantic ideas about that were long gone.
My experience in ecovillage living was sobering and disappointing, although some people find that intentional community lifestyles are appropriate for them, they did not match my goals, ambitions, or expectations. While I am not someone who now crusades against intentional communities by claiming that they are cults or terrorist organizations, I do strongly caution people against joining them without carefully considering the pros AND cons beforehand.
A Note: To protect the identity of the indivuals discussed, I am not releasing the name of the community I was involved in. Please do not ask.
