“Walden Is Alive Again”

Looking through a good deal of the literature about communes, one is persuaded that something important must be afoot, and that the writers have not discovered in what the importance consists. About one thing there can be no exaggeration: communes represent the most visible form of rebellion against modern industrial society. It is not yet an effective or thoroughgoing rebellion—communards wait every month for welfare checks from The Beast—but it is extremely personal. It does involve a d...