Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Political context of cohousing

[RAYGASSER (RAYGASSER]

I found Craig Willis' missive quite interesting, concernong the political 
context of CoHo, and living in a group of *like-minded* people. It seems that
for people to get together, meet regularly for two to four years, pool
resources, find and agree on a housing site and buy or build houses together,
people must have similar mind-sets.

On the other hand, I think it gets a bit dangerous to be living and hanging
out only with those of similar belief. Conversation and discourse can get
a bit boring if every time you say something, the person across the table
agrees. E.g., my wife and I think so much alike that it often seems like we
don't even need to speak. Thank the deities that we have lots of things we 
enjoy doing together, or we'd probably bore each other to tears!

And besides being *boring*, dealing only within one limited viewpoint can
lead to narrow-mindedness, and  if it is rarely challenged with opposing
ideas, can lead to a feeling of "correctness" or elitism. "If nobody around
me tells me I'm wrong, I must be right!"

But I know what you mean. I'd rather live with people I agree with most of
the time, too.

On the economic side: My family was interviewed for the March 94 issue of
American Demographics Magazine (a Dow Jones Pub) for a cohousing section
of an article on Environmentalism. We are part of EcoVillage at Ithaca,
which is cohousing deeply integrated with internal sustainability and is 
set up as a non-profit educational and environmental study group chartered
to change the way people live. The magazine is for people who want to know
how to sell things and who to sell them to.

The article was extremely positive about cohousing, probably because it 
was based almost exclusively on interviews with us and with our guiding
light, Joan Bokaer. But somehow someday someone's gonna turn this into
more "how can I make a buck on cohousing?" The last paragraph reads:

"The news from Maplewood should give marketers pause. Five hundred people
moving to EcoVillage certainly won't hurt anyone's profits, But what happens
if millions of people start paying attention to these ideas? If you're
selling something people don't really need, the results could be cata-
strophic."

Yeah, and the fact that maybe we're saving some of the planet might not
matter.

Personally, I don't care if people make money of of the cohousing idea. As
long as people look at it, check it out thoroughly, and use it if it makes
sense for themselves, cohousing will eventually become a mainstream social
technology.

Ray Gasser, Maplewood, NJ     EcoVillage at Ithaca, NY
raygasser [at] delphi.com