Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: red/blue schism

[normangauss (normangauss]

The opportunity to "do your own thing" in a project can be determined by the
physical setting.

For example, our project is built on a ridge top with little opportunity for
additional parking beyond the two designed central parking facilities.  The
entire grounds were planted with ground cover and trees and irrigation lines
extending everywhere.  There is little opportunity for "doing your own
thing".  Our townhouse design limits peoples private space to front porches,
small back patios or decks, and for some units, a small piece of ground they
can use for a pet enclosure or a small garden.  Anyone expecting more is
very disappointed when they find out how limiting our physical setting is,
and how much money would be required to implement changes to it.

Libertarians focusing on designing the outdoors would be frustrated here.
So, we increasingly have had to adjust to a physical setting that is not
easily adapted to new uses.  Even common land is precious.  Most of us liked
what we saw when bought our unit, and had no desire to make significant
changes.  Others joined our community with the idea that they could initiate
changes that suited them.  It is a similar philosophy of some brides that
whatever deficiencies they detect in their husbands can be improved by
intentionally "changing" them.

The conservatives are more likely to be comfortable in the setting they
found when they moved in.  The liberals are the creative ones who are urging
us to "think outside the box".  The conservative approach is more
predictable and "safe".  The liberal approach is more uncertain and risky.
The conservative approach stifles creative urges of the liberals.  The
liberal approach frightens the conservatives because they see their vision
of the project that they bought into being threatened by change.

The dichotomy is present in full force here at Oak Creek Commons.

Norm Gauss
Oak Creek Commons
Paso Robles, CA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Snyder-Grant" <jim.snyder.grant [at] gmail.com>
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 7:47 AM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ red/blue schism


> I think one place these sorts of political/temperamental difference
> run through coho groups is in what we might call the
> libertarian/communist split (to exaggerate a bit, for effect).
>
> The communists like to propose agreements for reinforcing maximum
> community involvement: mandatory work agreements, meetings at which
> everyone is expected to attend, architectural designs that force folks
> to be at particular places at particular times (around mailbox
> placement & parking, for example).
>
> The libertarians reflexively reject mandatory social arrangements.
> They look for lots of choices, each person fitting in as they may,
> even at the price of some folks drifting away. Cars near houses don't
> worry them very much at all.
>
> Again, I'm exaggerating for effect. Really there is a continuum. But
> even in seemingly homogeneous coho groups, these differences emerge,
> and the temperaments of the founding members can elevate one end of
> this spectrum or the other to community norms.
>
> At New View (Acton MA), we were started largely by libertarians, and
> we've ended up with the following:
> -Some mailboxes at the parking lots, some in the CH.
> -Almost 1/2 the houses have drive-up parking.
> -No mandatory work agreement or expectations.
>
> Will this mean we will drift apart in to isolated suburban slumber?
> Not so far, but give us another 10-20 years and I'll have more data.
>
> As some of the earlier postings showed, one way to map our basic
> political temperments is on a 2-dimensional axis, with left/right on
> one axis, and libertarian/socialist on another axis. I'd agree that
> overwhelmingly what I've seen is a a left-ish composition in coho
> groups. But along the other axis, there is plenty of variation.
>
> -Jim
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