Communalism

When people think of communalism, the spectre of communism and stifled individuality come to mind. Understandably, it is a very disturbing prospect, being forced to march in step with everyone else whether you like it or not.

However, communalism as understood by most will involve social communalism, whereby people are expected to adhere to a strict set of social rules and are afforded limited freedom of self-expression. I am considering more along the lines of communalism as diverse independent groups being discrete yet able to commune with one another.

Learning is the cornerstone of human survival, and communalism in learning is what sets humans aside from the animals that do not and thus do not learn from their predecessors. Independent isolated communities may have greater individuality, but do not share their knowledge. This encourages redundancy and inefficiency, as ideas generated by one community will not be shared with or learned by any other.

Strangely, society seems less concerned about such issues. Inefficiency is encouraged by guarding ideas and restricting their free flow. Worse yet, the myriad ideas forced to be generated through such regulations are also kept to their creators. Ideas are cheap, and it's really putting them to action that is priceless. How unusual, then, that people are made to march in line yet keep their ideas to themselves: the opposite of what would create a spontaneous, creative people.