Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Alienation in housing caused by the rich and powerful?

[Jeff Papineau (jeffp]

A comment and a pointer on the "reason's we need co-housing/communities";
something I have found a bit scattered in this group.

My $1700 a month "straight-jacket" is a powerful motivation to "reconnect"
my concepts of hive-theory and realize that my "oppressor" is the 
"illusion of separateness" that our media and culture try to integrate and 
promote in my counciousness. 

Regardless of whether or not it is "intentional" or a "symptom", I really don`t
care to argue. The result is the same, and I would tend to walk the middle
path and say it's a bit of both, with some other extenuating circumstances
thrown in for good seasoning...

Community should be centered around the ideals that inspire it, and for me
the ideals that inspire it are:

Love    as a central value to the community.
Shared  experiences that are beyond the material in value.
Growth  as individuals and as a group.
Wisdom  that comes from a collective mind available for consultation.
Conservation    of resources that do not need to be duplicated over and over.
Socialization   and new opportunities for networking; real and cyberspace.

But even below these ideas are some basic underlying tenants that are highly
personal and philosophical in nature, but cannot be ignored. I can't stop
working, and I may not do what I "really want" to do, because I'm locked into
a large financial commitment every month. A commitment I at one time believed
was my only option for true happiness. An option that at the present, leads
me to believe that my culture intentionally has not promoted the course of
community as an acceptable option, because it would relieve the rich and 
powerful of the only means by which they have to influence, and therefor
control me. 

My hive theory says I can live in a .5 million mansion with my friends
and have a house payment of $500 a month.

With my newfound hive-theory firmly in mind, I am free to live my
life as I choose, based only on my interests and desires, still a land
owner, but free of the bonds of my "rugged individualism"; the result
of my "illusion of separateness".

Only the market conditions of competition will keep communities financed
by banks. Otherwise, I'm sure banks would have little motivation to
cooperate with a way of life the "thumbs the nose" at bankers profits.

For more on these ideas, read "Alien Dreamtime" by Terrance McKenna, and
M. Scott Peck, "A Different Drum".

Alien Dreamtime is available in text format at the following anonymous
ftp archive:

ftp hyperreal.com
login:anonymous
password:email-address
cd /drugs/psychedelics/mckenna/alien.dream.time
get alien.dream.time

bye


Jeff-



On 3-Sept. "Craig D. Willis" <willic3 [at] rpi.edu> wrote:

>But one thing that I
>am very aware of is that cohousing has the potential to be a threat to
>powerful vested interests in our society.  I do *not* expect the
>status quo elements of our society... those who profit from the
>powerlessness and alienation that has been engineered for the masses
>in terms of their living (e.g. housing) choices... to be supportive of

  What evidence do you have that the alienation most of us (non-cohousers)
are experiencing in our living arrangements has been DELIBERATELY imposed on
us by the rich and powerful? What would be the motivation for them to create
this alienation?
  I think this alienation has occurred as a side effect of developers,
bankers, etc. considering housing a "commodity", not as a deliberate plan
of some sort.

>our efforts to find alternatives to the straightjacket we've been ever
>more solidly confined in for the entirety of this century.

  Please tell us more about this "straitjacket". I do feel that we are in a
straitjacket in the sense that people only have two choices: to build new
single-family houses (which are beyond the means of many people and too large
and alienating for single-person households) or to accept the designs of
others in condos and apartments. Cohousing is the first housing model I have
heard of for multi-family housing in which the residents have control over
the design of the structures and grounds.
  I think the powerful (bankers, town planning boards, etc.) DO often oppose
cohousing, but do so mainly due to fear of the new and unconventional, not due
to a deliberate scheme to create alienation.


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