"Enlightened consciousness" here isn't referring to communal living,
first and foremost. Obviously, communal living is not talked about much as a
practical "solution" for humanities ills. Still, the argument
will be made later for a form of communal living.
But for
now, this "enlightened consciousness" refers to the many variations suggesting that......people's basic needs, namely food and shelter, should
(in some way) be assured, guaranteed or provided for.
There certainly seems to be something that makes sense about this, however,
practically speaking, it cannot possibly work. What would work
however,
instead of "providing" food
and shelter for everyone, what seems far more desirable,
and for a number of
reasons, is providing all with the opportunity to
secure their own food and shelter....either individually or
cooperatively. In this way, not only do we get the
satisfaction, exercise, and comrade of doing these things for ourselves
and with others cooperatively.......there is also the incentive to be
efficient, given that efficiency would be rewarded by needing to
do less work. Also, where consumer and producer are one and the
same, there would be the added incentive to create food, housing and
culture of high quality and uniqueness. And practically speaking,
cosmetic imperfections regarding fruits and vegetables (which have nothing to do with
quality) could be ignored when unpreventable, which can translate
into higher quality and lower labor costs.
While it is true that the land necessary for people to secure their
food and shelter could be provided (individually) and in
this enlightened way, as long as
the land wasn't personally owned (i.e. Henry George type economics);
the problem with that
"individual" approach is in its
social isolation and inherent inefficiency. Social isolation requires
transportation and inefficiency requires more work; these things have an
effect on our personal lives and on the environment. This inefficiency and almost 0 net gain
over the anarchistic "everyone for themselves" approach that we
presently employ, is why this liberation of the individual has never taken place.
So, why take this enlightened approach only half way, and
ostensibly only receive half the benefits? Communal living may conjure
up images of Maoist, Stalinist rural five-year plan nightmares, but
simply to leave it at that, with no further "critical analysis" would be like saying that the freedom of
industrial age England, or those living in America presently are living in some sort of
utopia. How can Americans be living in some sort of utopia of
freedom when 2 million of its citizens are in prison, health is so poor,
drug addiction, it gets involved in war after war and escapism is so rampant.
It's citizens are spending so
much of their lives working just to survive .......and remain
provincial, small minded and ignorant world citizens. One could go on
and on proving that Americans are hardly "free" or "advanced".
Freedom to indulge one's greed and compulsions is hardly advanced.
Americans are
militaristic and exploitative (of both each other and others).
Regardless of whatever way of life Americans think they are
living, the American way of life is having a devastatingly negative on
people, and nature around the world. That is simply the reality, not the
hype. As Derrick Jensen says, we are a "Culture of Make Believe".
This battle between communism and capitalism could only take place
between peoples who are not well read, and whose mindset is basically
provincial; and a peoples whose primary concern is production,
consumption, acquisition, pleasure (their own), myopically focused on
the family, and lost in the pursuit of some
sort of ideal.
Life is not an "ideal" nor an intellectual exercise. What
is being advocated here is neither idealism, capitalism, or communism. It is
not something to believe in; the ethics it is based upon are something
one simply "knows" or doesn't. The goals are something one wishes
to achieve, or not. It is simply a workable and achievable design for
maximum freedom, maximum health and maximum (responsible) enjoyment of life.
