"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

In reading about collaborative communities I came across the Kibbutz communes of Israel. They began with the ideas of planting trees and draining swamps to make the land of Israel productive, "making the desert bloom." A combination of socialism and Zionism, it really takes the idea of "it takes a community to raise a child" to the extreme.

Kibbutzim believed that parents were amateur and children could be better raised by nurses and teachers, and mothers would be better served to spend their time working or on leisure activities. Therefore, children were not raised in their families but were instead raised in similar age groups. Even children were viewed as communal property.

Dining halls consisted of benches for seating instead of chairs, because chairs are individualized and benches are shared. Some Kibbutz communes discouraged the use of teakettles, because if people could make their own tea, they could spend more time in their homes and not with the community.

In many ways, Kibbutz is similar to the present-day Amish lifestyle. The Amish discourage technologies such as telephones, cars, televisions and computers not because of the use of electricity or because of their dislike of modern life, but because they have a very strong desire to keep the family and community together. Telephones mean you can contact anyone from anywhere, and take away from together time. Cars allow you to travel great distances in a short amount of time, which then allows you to leave the community. Televisions and computers are a distraction from communicating with family.

All of this reading today, along with other readings about mass collaboration in internet technologies, brought to mind a quilt: An art project that is collaborated on for the specific purpose of comfort and warmth.

More tomorrow.