Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Fifty Plus Cohousing + ?

[Howard Landman (howard]

> It WOULD be stereotyping to say that "anyone who would prefer to live
> without something is hostile to that things".  However,  I didn't say it,
> You did.  and I don't think I implied it, either.   What I DID say was
> that it makes sense for those who are hostile to children to live in
> a place where there are no, or very few children.  

You implied, because you were replying to someone who simply said she
didn't wish to live with children at this stage of her life, that such
a person was necessarily or likely "hostile to children".  Also, in a
later email, you *insisted* on the term "hostility":

> Just because you met people out of cohousing who feel
> that way doesn't prove that it isn't hostility

(Actually, it does.  If you make a blanket statement that purports
to be universally valid, then it only takes one counterexample
to prove it false.  He was responding to your original apparent
position, but here you shifted your apparent position from "must be
hostility" to "might be hostility sometimes".)

I felt your choice of "hostile" was inflammatory, insulting, and not
logically justifiable.  It's a very strong and emotionally loaded term
(see the definition below).  And I'm not the only one who felt that.
You don't seem aware that insulting people might cause a reaction.
Or maybe you didn't expect anyone to feel insulted?

Anyway, I was trying to point out that the (unstated) logic you
appeared to be following simply didn't make sense.  To do that,
I had to state what you left unstated, that is, explicitly state
the logical premise that you appeared to be using.  Since you now
say that you disagree with it as well, I'm puzzled about how you
reached your conclusion.  You leapt from "doesn't want to live
with children" to "is hostile to children".  How did you get there?

        Howard A. Landman
        River Rock Commons
        Fort Collins CO

hostility, n:
  1. a feeling of enmity, ill will, unfriendliness, etc.; antagonism.
  2. (a) expression of enmity and ill will; active opposition;
     hostile act; (b) a state of war; acts of war; warfare.
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