Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: When world(view)s collide/why do we fear?

[Racheli&John (jnpalme]

** Reply to note from "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous [at] msn.com> Thu, 22 Mar 
2001 21:32:10 -0800
>From Racheli

Why do we fear? and: what degree of fearfulness is "reasonable'?

Rob wrote (in part):   
>  The present is a  check to see if what happened
> in the past is really likely to happen again now. 

IMO this is incredibly tricky!  Assume a child got kidnapped 
from a park 1,000 miles away within the last year.  Is this likely
to happen in the park next to your house?  - Probably not.
Is there a good reason to be anxious? - How does one measure??
I suspect that how one feels about it  goes deep down to how 
we are "wired"  and a lot of it is subconcious.  It also inter-relates in
complex ways to our views and feelings on so many issues,
and on what habits we have, which might encourage certain
fears.  People who watch TV news (or read the parts of a
newspaper which relate the details of every "newsworthy"
murder in the US ) are more likely,  to be fearful of
such things occurring in their own neighborhood. 
This applies to other areas as well.  I, for example, read a fair
amount about the issue of toxins in the home (as well as 
elsewhere).  So I'm a lot more fearful about practically
anything I bring into my home than most of my neighbors.  
To many, this seems like paranoia.  It took me a long time to 
convince some people that one truly needs to worry about VOC's, 
molds, etc.
Some, though, still use any paint which appeals to them visually
with abandon, and find my anxieties to be baseless, or at least
highly exxagerated.  

My point is that while sharing our perspectives on such
issues with our community members is important, it's doubtful
that there is any kind of "objective", or logical way to 
move people from where they are (especially not in a hurry!)
This is the case both because there is no algorithm which 
determines how a certain likelihood should be translated
into behavior, and also because what we choose to do is
determined by many factors other than the purely logical/
factual ones.

 


 
 
> Rob Sandelin
> Community Works! Group process consulting for social change non-profit
> groups around the world.
>   
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
> [mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Howard Landman
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 4:44 PM
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: [C-L]_When world(view)s collide
>   
>   
> I'm wondering if anyone out there has had experience reconciling radically
> different world views into a consensus.
>   
> The specific problem we're facing now goes something like this:
>   
> - We need to have someplace for our bigger kids (say 6-12 years old)
>   to play.  We already constructed a sandy play area, but it's mostly
>   being used by the toddlers, and there are issues with the older
>   kids being too rambunctious for the little ones.
>   
> - We are located directly adjacent to a large city park with trees,
>   a large playground, tennis courts, basketball courts, a farm,
>   and river access.
>   
> - We have 34 units on 4 acres, so there's not a lot of space to
>   spare.  (This contrasts with nearby Grayrock, which has 15
>   acres in addition to its main property.)
>   
> There seem to be two main opinions about this (I may be distorting
> things slightly to simplify the presentation):
>   
> (1) One group believes deeply that it is completely unsafe and
>     unacceptable for kids under 10 to be in the park without adult
>     supervision, even if they go there in groups of 2 or 3.  They are
>     concerned about "predatory types" doing something unspeakable to
>     their kids.  They are worried about the river.  Therefore, it is
>     "obvious" to them that we *must* build a play area specifically
>     for the bigger sub-teen kids, and that it must be in the central
>     part of our site so that parents can keep a constant eye on them.
>   
> (2) The second group sees nothing wrong with kids that age going to
>     the park and back by themselves.  They reminisce about doing
>     much more dangerous things when they were kids, and just don't
>     see the problem.  The idea of building a playground on our
>     limited space when there's a perfectly good playground a couple
>     hundred feet away seems silly and redundant to them, a waste of
>     a very limited resource.  It is "obvious" to them that this is
>     a bad idea.
>   
> Having started off in camp 2 and having made some effort to understand
> the camp 1 folks, I now am faced with the "Where do we go from here?"
> question.  I think I know the scope of the divergence of opinions, but
> I'm not sure how to work towards consensus.  The 1 folks are frustrated
> because they've brought up this "urgent" issue several times and gotten
> nowhere (but they failed to develop a consensus that there was in fact
> a problem that needed solving before trying to get specific solutions
> adopted).  The 2 folks are frustrated because the issue refuses to go
> away (but are not doing a good job so far of listening to the concerns).
>   
> Any ideas?  I'm not interested in hearing that "group 1 is right" or
> "I agree with group 2".  I want some way to begin synthesizing both
> viewpoints into something we can all live with.
>   
>       Howard Landman
>       River Rock Commons, Ft. Collins CO
> _______________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list
> Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe info:
> http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l
>   
> _______________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list
> Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe info:
> http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l
 


_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l