Communal escape necessarily reintroduces the governance problems it sought to avoid

Evidence

Probably the biggest problem that the communes faced, though, was the idea of starting from scratch. In many ways, “going back to the beginning” meant rehashing timeworn struggles over governance and the rights of the individual, albeit in capsule form. There was, after all, a potential paradox at the heart of the whole endeavor. Retreat and refusal are the precise moments in which the individual distinguishes herself from the mob, declining to buy a house and a car and conform to a stodgy, oppressive society where, as Diamond puts it, “there was always some Total Death Corporation job with your name on it.” But in order for these refuseniks to stay out there and function as a commune, they needed to negotiate a new balance between the individual and the group. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 165

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures the core paradox that frames Odell’s argument: refusal is individualist, yet survival requires collective negotiation, so retreat undercuts itself.
• XREF: Parallels the reader’s known interest — like the Frankfurt school’s finding that the revolutionary act is undermined from within; also echoes the dorm-room governance theme in We.