My egalitarian scene

What do you think about the “commune”? Do you really understand it? Do you appreciate it?

Many years ago I became aware of how 1970s communes lived in the Waikato area in New Zealand when I went to visit a friend. She loved where she was, but at that stage that one didn’t really get to me. It was a little bit later, in the 80s, when we found the closest living in a sort of commune was living with my family in my motor home. We met many other people who had a wonderful life living like this. We drove all around the North Island, stopping at any place we liked. I worked for companies and my husband got a job as security and we both cleaned the places where we were staying.

Later, I lived with my kids for many years in a small house, and, after moving to Australia, lived with my second husband in rather larger houses and met a lot of friends. Falling apart happened over the next few years, and after my brain aneurysm I found myself entirely alone. Except for my dogs. I know I did not intend to be alone, especially without a workplace.

My life had become a long story, and I needed to find something where I could finish my future. Very recently I went to have a look at a farm resident’s place, and I fell in love with it. This place, which I think of as “home”, is the get-together of a small group of retired people and, for me, comes under a couple of commune descriptions – “co-operative” and “egalitarian”. It isn’t a real commune, but however I wish to make it for me is entirely up to my own mind. Perhaps I can name my own cabin – “Reibus”!

“Egalitarian” means a whole lot to me. In a CPD (Centre of Policy Development) website Fred Argy wrote in 2005:

“An egalitarian society can be defined as one which looks after its poor and treats them with dignity, actively discourages all forms of discrimination, widely shares the benefits of rising national productivity, allows its workers an adequate say in the workplace on matters affecting their wellbeing, and strives hard to achieve 'equality of starting opportunity' (i.e. where income and quality of life differentials in the market place are due overwhelmingly to differences in personal capacities, skills, attitudes to risk, motivation – rather than to low parental family income, inadequate education, poor location or inadequate access to affordable public services).”

If this is what you agree with, go into the link and read it in full. It is definitely reality for me. Egalitarian communities should look after the disabled, even those like me who don’t even think that of ourselves. Egalitarian workplaces should replace many hierarchical employers which, in the last few years, enjoy their own income but will not pass that on to their employees other than base wages or lower. Fighting for a feminist right to equal pay actually cost me my job… at least, that’s partly how I look at it. I lost my job for two very different reasons – my argument over what I saw as not exactly legal training to be conducted by a person I did not agree with and, later, with my brain aneurysm CT two months before I got kicked out. (Two days before my CT I received a very good salary increase, 21%, and yet very recently I read that my ex-employer said that my qualification was not the reason, just my argument. Very weird.)

Anyway, I mentioned earlier about how my life had become a long story, and I needed to find something where I could finish my future. When I found this farm and my friend and I visited, it dug into my still-recovering brain. After falling in love with it, I made a decision that it would be my new home.

I gave notice to my landlord two days before I got my QIRC decision (very different than I had expected… it’s mentioned at the end of my new book, “Aneurysms with Aphorisms”, sold on Kindle for $6.47AUD – click on the link and buy it!). I’ve had a couple more drives up to it with my small car loaded with stuff for my cabin and will head up, permanently with the rest of my furniture, early next week.

 
Egalitarians return to egalitarian homes. This place is definitely egalitarian! I think I agree with Michael Moorcock, a famous science fiction and fantasy writer. Yes, definitely!