Visiting A Utopian Commune
This weekend, my mother, my best friend, and my seventeen-month-old daughter visited a reconstructed British village nestled in the Tennessee mountains.
In 1880, an author named Thomas Hughes founded Rugby as a Utopian society for those who wished to escape the class structure of Britain.
Nevertheless, these “second sons” — who were never groomed in leadership like their firstborn brothers — did not know how to lead this community.
They played tennis instead of plowing fields. They swam instead of drilling wells. They feasted, flirted, and danced their way to extinction.
The community floundered and imploded twenty years after it began….
Today, the village stands as a bittersweet reminder that a Utopia society cannot exist on this side of heaven: a truth that I witnessed from the time I was ten to fourteen years old and watched our community destroy itself from the inside out.
And yet, walking down those ancient, tree-lined paths soon after my twenty-seventh birthday, I envisioned those who walked before me and are now buried in the graveyard at the end of road.
I envisioned living in one of the Victorian cottages with my family and my best friend’s family living in another across the road. I envisioned the hours passing sweeter as we worked the loom, wove baskets, baked bread in a stone hearth, and — yes — swam in the Clear Fork Creek.
Perhaps I will never experience the wonder of true community on this earth, but that does not mean my heart — though trepid because of the past — will not continue to yearn for it.
The fact that reconstructed Rugby is thriving one hundred and thirteen years after its original community’s demise is proof that, in this search for kinship, I am not alone.
Have you ever been drawn to a communal lifestyle?
Do you think this is part of the allure of Amish fiction?
Do you believe that a Utopia community can exist on this earth? Why or why not?
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talesofwhimsy
Great post!
I’m with you. Utopia can’t exist.
Parts of communal lifestyle are intriguing to me. But what I think truly draws me to the Amish way of living is it’s simplicity. I try to life my life simply and not put too much emphasis on physical objects.
Katherine Scott Jones
How fascinating that this attempt at Utopia survived a mere 20 years…one generation. Our spirits do yearn for that ideal, so it’s not surprising that we continue to try… doomed though these earthly attempts must be.
Melissa Crytzer Fry
I think we are all drawn to community and the sense of family that can sometimes be found there. But maybe, in the end, the best utopian societies are the small ones made of our immediate loved ones… Even if SOME days with family are less perfect than others.
The community you visited was fascinating; loved the pics.
jolina
We have that same goal too, juju — trying to live simply. In this busy world, we at least have to try!
jolina
One generation — I never thought of it like that, Katherine. It’s so sad!
jolina
Very true, Melissa — family will stay with us through thick and thin!