Re: Re: more perspective on rules and regs | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Liz (lizsignificant.com) | |
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 09:30:49 -0700 (PDT) |
Also, different kinds of rules in terms of who makes them. top down autocracy top down but with input democracy top down but with representation community created, by a vote community created, by consensus.The idea of consensus, I think, is that we don't have any rules for the community that we haven't agreed to. So they are almost agreements, rather than rules.
-Liz (The Rev.) Elizabeth M. Magill liz [at] significant.com 508-450-0431 On Apr 21, 2006, at 10:46 AM, Alexander Robin A wrote:
Couple of points - there are different kinds of rules. The ones I object to and call "bureaucratic" rules are ones that are easy to state and enforce but don't necessarily accomplish the intended goal. Having worked many years in education I am painfully familiar with such rules. We are setting up a new cohousing in Madison and had a discussion of rules regarding pets. The first proposal was to limit the number of pets to 1 or 2. This is a canonical bureaucratic rule - easy to understand, easy to enforce but mostly irrelevant to the implicit goal of having pets not be a nuisance. (A similar rule is used in many apartments that take dogs - if they are under 20 pounds, say.) One badly behaved dog can be much more of a nuisance than 3 or 4 well trained an good natured dogs, for instance. We threw out the bureaucratic rule and substituted what we actually wanted to accomplish - dogs will be kept on leash in the common areas, poop will be picked up, etc.I think people are more likely to react positively to rules that make sense rather than arbitrary or bureaucratic ones. Also, my philosophy is to not make a rule unless there is a good reason for it. Some people bring up the example of condo rules, which are often extensive and detailed. I propose that while condos and cohousing are similar in some senses, there is a key difference. In most condos, there is not the intention to live together in some form of community. In condos, the set of rules are a substitute for the intention to work together constructively to deal with the problems of living in community. Cohousers are, or should be, more willing to learn and practice constructive conflict resolution.I don't quite agree with the last statement below. People focused mostly on self-interest and egoism, in my experience, won't pay attention to the rules anyway. Trying to enforce them on unwilling subjects can cause a lot of problems in a cohousing. For "good community members" rules help clarify expectations and reduce confusion.Robin Alexander ________________________________ From: ken [mailto:gebser [at] speakeasy.net] Sent: Fri 4/21/2006 6:31 AM To: Cohousing-L Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Re: more perspective on rules and regs Hans G. Ehrbar wrote:Thank you for forwarding the New York Times article reference. I live at Wasatch Commons in Salt Lake City. In our community we tend to think that one cannot force people to be good community members, this must and will come voluntarily. Of course, if we don't enforce rules, this makes it possible for parasites to encroach, as the New York Times article says. What can we do about this? I teach Marxism at the University of Utah, and from my perspective, we should resist the temptation to fall back onto a more rule-oriented regimen. Reasons: (1) It is not possible to design rules which, if followed, turn you into a good community member.Rules aren't for good community members. They're for those who tend toward self-interest and egoism.(2) As long as capitalism is rampant, self-serving parasitic behavior is encouraged and even necessary. People who are socialized this way are not necessarily bad.True. But neither are those who profess IC visions and values necessarily good.(3) Our economic system is such that most people get robbed, oppressed and exploited 8 hours a day on their jobs, and they don't seem to mind. But if they perceive their neighbor to act a little selfish, they are all up in arms about it, although the damage to them is usually not very great. The greatest damage is that it discourages us, but we do have that under control. We can just laugh it off and not be discouraged. If we can survive capitalism, we can certainly survive cohousing.Setting up, or even just getting into, cohousing requires more time and effort and perhaps too more money than just buying a single-family house in the burbs. The compensation and rationale for enduring these is thatwe'll have a better, nicer place to live than what the larger societyhas to offer. So people's expectations for community are higher and, tomy mind, these expectations are justified. (This isn't to say that wecan't see failures with a sense of humor and a bit of tolerance.) So I hope we wouldn't excuse crap here because there's crap there. This is asetup for a "slippery slope" argument.(4) Participation in the community is fun and very fulfilling. People who don't receive the benefits of this will probably move out again. Hans.Having read most all of the posts on this thread and having both agreedand disagreed on both sides of the rules/no-rules arguments, it seems that rules are necessary at times and so should be in place. But the community should strive to live and work together without having to resort to using rules, i.e., that the community's common values andvision by themselves should make things work and make people happy... orat least content. When values and vision fail-- which we'd hope wouldnot happen often-- then the hard reality of rules would kick in. Aren'tmore options generally better than fewer? -- "This world ain't big enough for the both of us," said the big noema to the little noema. _________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/ _________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
- Re: more perspective on rules and regs, (continued)
- Re: more perspective on rules and regs Hans G. Ehrbar, April 19 2006
- Re: Re: more perspective on rules and regs Sharon Villines, April 20 2006
- Re: Re: more perspective on rules and regs ken, April 21 2006
- Re: Re: more perspective on rules and regs Liz, April 22 2006
- Re: Re: more perspective on rules and regs Diane, April 23 2006
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