Community Basics Re: The Future of Cohousing | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Wayne Tyson (landrestcox.net) | |
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2011 16:05:16 -0800 (PST) |
RD and CoHo: Yes, but . . .If Dunbar's 150 Rule rules, somewhere around 20 to 40 (maybe as many as 60--at a family size of 2.5--households) is probably about right, so your point is not only well-taken, it just might be a crucial (tipping?) point in more ways than one. While I'm a big fan of shots from the hip, WAG's, SWAG's, and intuition, I don't exactly throw out the intellectual baby with the bathwater either. The principle, however, is sound: "You can't recognize, know and care about all your neighbors if you live in a 600-unit complex.
With respect to hierarchy and centralized institutional authority, however, it is not mere suspicion, but a reaction to clear evidence, that correctly brands such concepts to the history of culture, as I am examining in an essay I'm working on entitled "Culture Against Society." Co-housing is an objective component of an intuitive reaction to the enslavement of social impulses by cultural frameworks.
But co-housing in its most refined form could go far beyond mere condos for "hippies," and actually question invasive bullies at any level, isolating them, for example, as in more basic, not-so-primitive-after-all, truly social groups where leadership is shifting and consultative and based upon ability and consent rather than linear election politics for arbitrary terms of "office."
But then expediency and sustainability have never mixed very well/not at all.
WT----- Original Message ----- From: "R Philip Dowds" <rpdowds [at] comcast.net>
To: "CoHoL" <Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org> Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 2:58 AM Subject: Re: [C-L]_ The Future of Cohousing A deep suspicion of hierarchy, of centralized institutional authority, has been a strong theme in American culture, all the way from the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson (this, in a context where political parties themselves were seen as the embodiment of dangerous ³factionalism²), right through the counter-cultural and protest movements of the O60¹s, and to the Tea Party of today. So if you are worried about concentrations of power, you are a member of a very large and honorable club. But keep in mind that the ³welfare state² of the O30¹s and the invasion of Iraq were both promoted, not by popular grass roots initiative, but by a strong federal government having a vision of what needed to be done. Our federal government can help people, or it can murder them. It¹s up to us, the voters. How this ties to cohousing is interesting. ³Big² does not work for the cohousing model. You can¹t recognize, know and care about all your neighbors if you live in a 600-unit complex. So we all share, more or less, an agreement that cohousing communities of 20 to 40 households are in the range of right-sized < especially for consensus-based participatory democracy. Yes? Philip Dowds Cornerstone Cohousing Cambridge, MA On 2/6/11 12:34 AM, "Wayne Tyson" <landrest [at] cox.net> wrote:
The very labels "Executive Director" and "CEO" scare the hell out of me. That's because of past experiences with the concentration of power that I believe is fundamentally corrosive of social transformation.
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- The Future of Cohousing, (continued)
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The Future of Cohousing Zev Paiss, February 5 2011
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Re: The Future of Cohousing Wayne Tyson, February 5 2011
- Re: The Future of Cohousing R Philip Dowds, February 6 2011
- Re: The Future of Cohousing Naomi Anderegg, February 6 2011
- Community Basics Re: The Future of Cohousing Wayne Tyson, February 7 2011
- Re: Renters and Owners and other Holly McNutt, February 7 2011
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Re: The Future of Cohousing Wayne Tyson, February 5 2011
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The Future of Cohousing Zev Paiss, February 5 2011
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Re: The Future of Cohousing Sharon Villines, February 6 2011
- Re: The Future of Cohousing Racheli Gai, February 6 2011
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