It is hard to find a word held so low in the public esteem as “communalism”. For most people it carries a toxic whiff of both “communism” and “commune”, implying dropouts, flakes, fanatics and cultish leaders. If you’re in any doubt about how frightening the word is to the average citizen, try telling your next-door neighbour you’re going to live communally: they will veer away from you (believe me, I’ve done it), imagining drugs, sexual deviancy and squalor.
Evangelists for communalism – a way of life in which people agree to share, or have in common far more than is normal in the “real world” – have an uphill struggle to rehabilitate the concept. It is rare to get beyond snide comments about freeloaders or free-lovers. I have written two books about communalism and both times it was fantastically difficult to persuade friends, let alone my agent and publishers, that communalism has something fascinating to say about and to our society.
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