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

[Stephan Wik (stephan]

On 24 Feb 2005, at 20:41, Jan wrote:

> It is very difficult for a person raised in a non-supportive 
> environment to
> come from a "self-empowered place."

Indeed. I'm sure the very term would be Greek to them.

> On the other hand, certain fundamentalist organizations seek those 
> with low self-esteem.

Which is exactly what happened in the '30s in Germany. With disastrous 
results of course.

> Becoming part of a fundamentalist organization is better than 
> succumbing
> to drugs, alcohol, depression, a life or crime or suicide, to name 
> some of
> the paths often taken by persons of low self esteem.

When you put it that way it does seem like fundamentalism is the lesser 
of two evils. Unfortunately there are some fundamentalist organisations 
that encourage behaviour that leads to even worse damage, both personal 
and social, than the above named paths.

You may be interested to know that this is one of the biggest problems 
that Intentional Communities and anything that seems remotely similar 
such as co-housing grapple with in some parts of Europe (especially 
France and Belgium). 'Sects' have a bad name (and rightly so IMHO) but 
unfortunately this has lead to anything 'alternative' being labelled as 
a Sect. Steiner schools, environmentalists, alternative medicine; all 
have been thrown into the same category as some total nut cases such as 
Solar Temple

http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_solar.htm

Read about the French Law on Sects here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4196233,00.html


> If one must be self-empowered to be active in cohousing--and it seems 
> to me
> this is so--cohousing is definitely not for everyone.

I would not agree. The cohousing we lived in Denmark was full of 
totally 'normal' people that would certainly not have called themselves 
'self-empowered'. Having said that the Danes are a pretty 
self-empowered society with a high level of personal self-esteem 
compared to many other countries I've lived in so maybe it's not so 
clear cut.

> Current social trends seem to be producing many non-self-empowered 
> people.

Maybe because if people are self-empowered they buy less? :-)

> The comfort of belonging and the assurance of a better life in heaven 
> are non-trivial benefits.  Another great benefit is the avoidance of 
> disastrous life choices for one who follows the rules. Having been 
> "saved" by such rigidity, it may be difficult for a person to turn 
> one's back on it.

Until the rigidity becomes a straight-jacket!

I enjoyed the clarity of your input.

Stephan
Leuven, Belgium