Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Use Proposal

[Wayne Tyson (landrest]

Kay and CoHo:

Please excuse the length of this post; much as I believe that brevity is the 
soul of wit, I am compelled to attempt to cover a larger scope of this simple, 
yet complicated situation. 

Kay's reply is very responsive (as, of course, have been many others). Her 
remarks are engaging intellectually and show considerable intuition. 

That statement is, like the statement she quotes, an assertion, not a 
conclusion, and certainly not a commandment, chiseled in stone, cast in 
concrete, or posted for all to obey. Her practice of identifying the specific 
statement she wants to discuss is an excellent way of helping the discussion to 
stay on track, without constructing straw-men or otherwise evading the 
particular point she wishes to address. This helps me hone my own thoughts. It 
is not, and was not my original intent, to demand that rules not be posted, but 
to suggest an alternative. That has not changed. 

I'm personally not a big fan of weasel-words, but that discussion would lead us 
farther off into the weeds, so I'll resist pontificating on that whole can of 
worms. I have, however, developed a couple of weasley generic statements that I 
use in a lot of situations (context-adaptive) that is germane to the 
discussion: "The roughest guess that gets the job done," and "Is a statement 
more true than untrue or more untrue than true?" And, oh yes, "How much 
intolerance is tolerable, and how much tolerance is intolerable?" The first is 
a kind of "first cut" on a position that provides a level of efficiency and 
saves a lot of question-begging, not-very-relevant detail, aka, cherry-picking 
to boost an argument rather than find a point of reconciliation. Any statement 
of principle, while more true than untrue or more untrue than true, can be 
"argued," by cherry-picking cases; more commonly done in response to the first 
instance than the second, which are easily refuted without resort to 
digression, etc. I presume (true, sometimes this faith is misplaced) that there 
is no need to "qualify" statements by using weasel-words to cover possible 
exceptions. Brevity is the soul of clarity, and honors the recipient rather 
than him or her. Again, the purpose of my comments is not to "win" an 
"argument," but to share perspectives in the pursuit of a "truth" that I, and 
perhaps others, might have overlooked. I presume that recipients will interpret 
any statement according to the fruits of their own consideration of its merits 
and faults, and offer a revised statement, e.g., "Laws are cooperative, 
commonsensical and adaptable, more able than social mores to find "best-fits. 
Social mores presume the worst, laws the best." Is this statement more true 
than untrue or more untrue than true? 

Is everybody always right? Is anybody always right? 

The Civil Rights movement and the laws presumably stemming from it, were a 
result of a "highly-developed" culture, emphasizing an oligarchial hierarchy 
and over, classical features of said cultures. Laws are signposts of the 
failure of social mores and the state of mind, cooperation and mutuality from 
which they were derived. The history of development of civilizations are 
littered with such cases, but they are not social (cooperative and mutual), 
they are cultural (competitive and exploitive). I suggest, therefore, that the 
Civil Rights movement etc. was a social phenomenon rebelling against the 
anti-social laws of a unilaterally dominant culture. 

The case of India is similarly the result of labeling a culture a "society." 
This does not detract, however, from the validity of the cases Kay cites. 

But Kay, your statement "I don't think that assuming the best of racists, 
rapists, and wife murderers strengthens community" is inconsistent with the way 
you started out. This is a classic "straw-man fallacy" (please point out to me 
why I should not consider it such) and I presume that you were upset when you 
used it to falsely characterize my statement as endorsing racism, rape, and 
wife-murder. In normal conversation, the dominance shifts around to all 
participants, each speaking according to the merits, asking for clarifications 
rather than making accusations, and kicking ideas back in forth in a civil 
exchange. I'd be willing to bet that if we were relaxing in a common house, 
face-to-face, that you might not indulge in that tactic. I am confident that 
you are a good human being. We all have seen the effects, at all possible 
scales, of unilateral action and hierarchical dominance (I do not intend that 
refer to anything you have said.) See, I really can "weasel" when I feel it 
necessary. Listservs, like laws (and even social mores), are imperfect, and 
conversation is not always civil. But that is up to the participants to decide 
whether or not to be social, dominant, or servile. Social mores are certainly 
unwritten "laws" in some sense, and even resistant to change. Who knows, but 
resistance to change on the part of mores or laws might have been responsible 
for, for example, the abandonment of Easter Island (or possibly the extinction 
of its human culture). 

"Isn't better compliance to beneficial rules a good thing for a community?" 
--Kay Argyle. "Compliance" is pregnant with meaning. I prefer cooperation. I 
never expect compliance, nor do I want to impose it. It's in the category of 
coercion, and that's why I don't like posted rules; they tend to rule out 
social intercourse--or at least interfere with it. "Violation" of social mores 
is usually met with immediate counter-action. 

I don't like unilateral dominance (e.g., men over women or vice-versa). I live 
with laws as necessary evils, but not to control social behavior, to deal with 
the places where voluntary cooperation (society) has broken down. I can accept 
such laws and rules when they reflect commonly-held social values, but when 
they are not necessary, they should not be imposed a priori, especially in 
communities where everyone knows and is in contact with each other. That is, in 
the case of posting rules in a common-house, social integration is 
short-circuited; the clear presumption is that others must be "reminded" of 
responsibilities which are, or should be, intuitive and thus voluntary. It sets 
a negative, presumptuous tone; it is control in advance. It presumes that 
people are irresponsible. 

To provide an illustrative (comparative, but not perfect) example: As manager 
of the very large ("resource-based") parks of a fairly large city, one of the 
major issues with human behavior was public restroom vandalism. (I guess we 
could have posted a notice like: "Thou shalt not vandalize restroom 
facilities," but we didn't. A study of public restroom facilities revealed the 
following interesting information: There was an inverse relationship between 
vandalism and restroom quality. That is, the "worst" restrooms, especially 
those "hardened" against vandalism (to the point of strongly resembling prison 
facilities), had the worst vandalism. The better the restroom, the lower the 
vandalism.  One restroom had zero vandalism. In fact, users went so far as to 
clean up after each use (most of the time). This facility was quite 
counter-intuitive in its design. The walls were paneled with cedar, a soft wood 
which one would think would invite inscriptions with ball-point pins, pocket 
knives, and markers of various and sundry kinds, but there were none, at any 
time, over several years. A broad spectrum of social groups, including 
"druggies" and "the poor" used these facilities. There were even fresh flowers, 
soft, indirect lighting, large mirrors and pleasant decor, including 
reproductions of antique catalog pages on the wall above the toilet, and other 
amenities. There were no notices of any kind (e.g. "Please Flush," "Please do 
not throw butts in [sic] urinal," "Please lower toilet-seat cover after each 
use," and incredibly, not even "No Smoking" (I must admit I would be tempted to 
post that one.). 

Some studies have indicated that social groups tend to "bud off" when its 
numbers reach around 150, more or less; larger ones start to become 
increasingly bureaucratic, less efficient, less pleasant. But the data (if I 
remember correctly) were based on relatively high levels of internal 
sufficiency and less upon external dependency, though not entirely so. I'd like 
to know, for example, what the populations of co-housing communities are, and 
which characterize themselves as "content" or "satisfactory." It would be 
interesting to know to what extent things like barter of goods and services and 
voluntary exchange, hospitality, etc. differ between cohos. 

I do understand the frustration of people who carry most of the load in groups. 
I have never known of a group where the equity distribution was perfect or 
anywhere near so. I do not challenge the idea of posting rules; I only suggest 
that the alternatives be considered. I am appalled to hear that slackers are 
somehow drawn to cohos. It would be interesting to compare the degree of the 
problem prior to posting rules and the degree of compliance following their 
insertion/distribution. 


WT


 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kay Argyle" <Kay.Argyle [at] utah.edu>
To: "'Cohousing-L'" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Common House Use Proposal


> 
> "Laws are coercive and lead to cultural rigidity, social mores are
> cooperative, commonsensical and adaptable, more able to find best-fits. Laws
> presume the worst, social mores assume the best." - Wayne Tyson
> 
> If you like making sweeping statements, you need to learn to insert weasel
> words like "often," "many," "typically," "in my experience (YMMV)," and so
> on.  As it stands, your statement is demonstrably untrue in many specific
> cases.
> 
> Two generations ago, the social mores among a small subset of U.S. society
> changed. That subset was in a position to push through certain federal laws.
> Those federal laws coerced others parts of U.S. society to act against their
> own social mores. It was authoritarian, undemocratic, top-down, coercive --
> deplorable, right? 
> 
> It was called the Civil Rights movement. Those coercive laws greatly sped up
> evolution of mores against racism among the still-racist parts of U.S.
> society, but it is a multigenerational process still underway. 
> 
> Laws prevent defense attorneys from arguing that a rape victim was "asking
> for it" by being in the "wrong" part of town, or outside at the "wrong" time
> of day, or by wearing clothing urged upon her by the culture. The problem
> wasn't that attorneys said it -- but that your average jury of twelve people
> regarded it as a perfectly adequate, appropriate defense. This attitude is
> still common; spousal rape laws are still controversial.
> 
> In parts of India, setting a woman on fire or beating her to death is
> regarded as merely a mild over-reaction to her parents' failing to provide a
> promised refrigerator to her husband's family. I believe that likewise has
> been made illegal, but last I heard it still happened and was often not
> prosecuted.
> 
> I don't think that assuming the best of racists, rapists, and wife murderers
> strengthens community.
> 
> It is the misbalance of power in a society that makes agreements coercive,
> not whether they are official or informal, written or unspoken. Let's
> rephrase: "[Non-egalitarian rules and customs] are coercive and lead to
> cultural rigidity, [consensual agreements or laws] are cooperative,
> commonsensical and adaptable, more able to find best-fits."  That's at least
> slightly more true, IMHO (there's another weasel word for you!).
> 
> ... and this is where this conversation is relevant to cohousing. Writing a
> rule down is a device to obtain better compliance, which is independent of
> the society's balance of power. Obtaining the consent of the governed when
> devising a rule leads to rules more beneficial to the governed. Isn't better
> compliance to beneficial rules a good thing for a community?
> 
> I'm not arguing for law-like enforcement of agreements within a cohousing
> community. I'm simply tired of arguing about what the community did or did
> not agree to, or of community members being left high and dry after keeping
> their side of a bargain which other people "don't remember" making and
> therefore don't feel bound by.
> 
> Kay
> Wasatch Commons
> 
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