Searching for Utopia, Part 1: The freedoms and failures of of an intentional community in India – KCRW

This is the first in a two-part series about utopian societies exploring the benefits of community cooperation and its dark sides how the rejection of the status quo can morph into extremism and fanaticism.

Utopian societies are not a modern invention. The word utopia was first coined in 1517 by Sir Thomas Moore. Though his vision for the perfect society was more puritanical than the free love hippie communes of the 60s and 70s, the ideal is the same a rejection of the tyrannies of the established state and an embrace of a more egalitarian form of society.

History is rife with examples of these communities, and, for better or worse, utopian systems continue to exist communes, monasteries, ashrams, and intentional communities all embrace communality, simplicity, and egalitarian values. But what happens when the noble intentions of the collective collide with the complexities and differences of human nature?

Akash Kapur is author of Better To Have Gone: Love, Death And The Quest For Utopia In Auroville. Kapur was raised in an intentional community in India, then moved to the U.S. at age 16, where he attended a prestigious East Coast boarding school and later attended Harvard University. He joins KCRW host Jonathan Bastian to talk about the realities of life in utopian communities and his experiences in Auroville, where he and his wife Auralice Graft grew up.

His book traces the history of Auroville in southern India, inspired by the philosophy and yoga of a sage named Sri Aurobindo and founded by Mirra Alfassa, an elderly French woman known to everyone there as the Mother. Kapur talks about his own parents and why they moved there, and shares some of the mysterious history of his wifes mother and stepfather and their untimely death. His perspective is unique and clear-eyed, both about the freedoms and ideals of Auroville, but also about the many darker realities of the place he continues to call his home.

Continued here:

Searching for Utopia, Part 1: The freedoms and failures of of an intentional community in India - KCRW