Re: Cohousing as a crucible for values
From: balaji (balajiouraynet.com)
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:15:28 -0800 (PST)
Robert is certainly correct when he says cohousing communities tend to
define themselves as "liberal."  But one could see them quite differently.
 The reason is that cohousing itself is profoundly conservative, at least
in this sense:

1.  Only in the last 150 years have we departed radically from the social
norm, which was to live in communities made up of strongly interdependent
members.

2.  Evolutionary theory suggests that we are genetically prepared to seek
out, and respond to, social attachment, and that we do not adapt very well
(socially or psychologically)to circumstances that require us to act or
live alone.

3.  Most of the rest of the world continues to live in kinship-based,
interdepenent communities.

In this sense, then, the emphasis on the individual as primary constituent
of society can be seen as a departure from established patterns.  This is
the Enlightment view of the world, and it has usually been taken to be
foundation of modern liberal society.  The same holds true for the living
arragements we have created for the individual, i.e., individual houses,
served by individual cars, in suburbs where little or no importance
attaches to community support.  It's our current liberal/individualist
society, in the other words, that is radical and different, not the
cohousing communities.

In its return to established patterns, therefore, cohousing is deeply
conservative and traditional.  One might even call it reactionary.  (But I
mean that in a good way!)

Charles Nuckolls
Utah Valley Cohousing Community
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/utahvalleycohousing/
http://wiki.utahvalleycohousing.org
http://UVCoHo.blogspot.com (core group; by invitation only)



> As a general trend I think it is safe to state that most people in
> cohousing
> would be more towards the liberal side of the political spectrum. That is
> certainly true of all the cohousing projects which I have visited.
> Cooperation is seen as a liberal, heck even radical activity and it seems
> to
> attract people who are more liberal. Cohousing is by design a place where
> it
> is easy to have conversations among neighbors, and news and politics
> certainly are talked about. From this ever ongoing conversation
> participants
> get the insight and reflection on the values of their neighbors.  One of
> the
> difficulties that emerges in this milieu is when people want to insist
> that
> their values become the stated values of the group.  This is where things
> like anti-war or environmental activism can create conflict. It is often
> not
> that the sentiment is unsupported, rather it is the intensity of the
> actions
> or feelings that differ.
>
> It is my own personal observation that in my youth I fiercely denounced
> family and others who were living the "wrong way", and I used all sorts of
> judgmental words attached to their wrongness. I wanted to convert them to
> rightness and I annoyed them to no end for several years.  I have been
> much
> more satisfied in my life when I began applying my own values only to me,
> and stopped trying to apply them to others. My expectations then are that
> you are free to follow  and live to your own values and you don't have to
> live up to mine.  Granted, there are extremes which I do not condone, but
> I
> rarely ever encounter them. It is true that I make choices with whom I
> hang
> out with, largely based on similarities in values but this is not
> exclusive
> anymore.
>
> As a community you have this balance between personal values which can be
> often clearly defined and group values which are often not well defined.
> This balance often tugs back and forth in your decision making as a group
> and sometimes when things are stuck, dropping down to what is the value
> being expressed here might be useful.
>
> Rob Sandelin
> Sharingwood
> Snohomish County, WA
>
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