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community-living

Life in New Athens emphasizes live entertainment, audience participation, and communal infrastructure, such as no private cars and shared services.

1 chapter across 1 book

Childhood’s End (1953)Arthur C. Clarke

Chapter 20

In this chapter, George Greggson and his wife Jean discuss the frustrations of television as a medium for artistic expression, leading George to consider joining a deliberately planned cultural colony called New Athens. The colony aims to preserve human independence and artistic traditions in a world dominated by the Overlords' passive entertainment culture. George and his family move to New Athens, where life is structured, community-oriented, and free from modern distractions like private cars, reflecting a conscious social engineering effort to maintain creativity and cultural vitality.