Communal Sleeping

As I was putting my daughter to sleep last night she said to me, "I wish you and Daddy could sleep here in my room with me.  Actually, I wish our WHOLE family could sleep here in my room!"  She went on to explain how she would put all of her toys, books and furniture into her closet so we could all (she named all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents as well) sleep in her room with her.  My 4 year old little girl hugged me tight and whispered in my ear that this arrangement would be the "bestest" ever.  As I softly closed her door behind me thinking about her desire to have her entire family sleep in her tiny bedroom I couldn't help but be reminded of communities in developing countries that live in exactly this manner.  I wondered if they were on to something.  Western culture is so bent on autonomy and isolation that I ponder the considerable cost we absorb to achieve independence. 

Charles Taylor discusses this condition in his critique of capitalism and consumer society, "Legitimation Crisis."  Taylor attributes our autonomy as a product of mobility and concentration:  "[T]he reproach that our society pushes inexorably towards bigness and concentration, and in the process inexorably destroys smaller communities and long-standing ties between people.  This is often seen just as another aspect of the price we pay for our Calliclean path.  Mobility and concentration have been seen as essential conditions of rapid growth."  As we consume and expand our economic opportunities we move towards acquiring and furnishing a private space.  A space to house our family and our things privately away from others.  We have moved away from a society that recreates communally to one that recreates privately.  The good life is now defined by making a comfortable living for the nuclear family to enjoy.  That is the ideal anyway.  What is broken in the process is a sense of solidarity.  This expresses itself in many ways such as divorce.  Without the community being heavily vested in our unions, we not only lack the support to work things out but we lack the audience, for lack of better word, to hold us accountable.  Our private lives are kept so hidden from the community that a sense of accountability is lost.  We no longer depend on each other.  This could also explain the widespread depression that new mothers feel in Western cultures.  Western mothers are overwhelmed and ashamed of their desperation.  Raising children is hard work, Western culture seems hesitant to admit that fact.  In communal cultures where it literally takes a village to raise children, women are not alone in child rearing. 

Now, by no means do I want to romanticize or idealize the conditions of living in an underdeveloped community.  There are tremendous drawbacks, obviously.  Women in Western culture have an enormous degree of freedom by comparison.  Women are more educated and have much greater opportunity for economic development.  Practical living conditions and health-care are also incomparable.  However, in a social sense one cannot help but long for something missing in Western culture, a sense of togetherness and community.