Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: RE- Diversity and value

[Karen Frayne (Karen.Frayne]

        Reply to:   RE>>RE: Diversity and values
Rob S. said first:
Typical  value conflicts are : environmental, low income, sexual issues,
personal  independence vs. group authority, Pets, Children and kid raising,
affordable housing, religious expression, equality of power, racial issues,
money issues, food issues, personal lifestyle issues.

Mike M replied:
Rob, seems to me if people had to agree at length and in detail about all the
subjects you listed, it would either be a very small, non-diverse group or it
would take forever to come to anything like consensus.  

Now it's Karen F talking, and I appreciate both insights.  I like Mike's idea
of having a mission statement that agrees to live with (or celebrate)
difference.  But I think the essence of what Rob is saying is right, too. 
For successful community, people either have to mellow out about their values
or else change them.  And not everyone *can* mellow out about values.  It may
be easier for people who have been thru higher level academics to look at
values in a relativistic way:  and that fact may cut out some diversity. 
Real life example:  someone is about to move out of our group house, and
here's why.  When people moved in, we had the following rules outlined:  1)
we will live together as a community/household  2) we will maintain a
substance free household  3) if one person wants quiet, and another person
feels like being loud, the quiet person can overrule the loud person 4) upon
moving in, a person must agree to a system for keeping the house clean.  6)
overnight guests staying a week or more have to have the consent of the whole
house.  These rules seemed to work, and it seemed like a great system.  But
two guys sharing a bathroom wound up totally disagreeing about how clean it
should be.  One of them was 19, the other 27.  The 19 year old had come from
a very neat household and couldn't believe anybody could stand living with
hair on the floor or in the tub.  The 27 year old had been living in co-op
type situations for awhile and thought he was way neater than most people. 
They moved quickly from fighting about the hair to fighting about each
other's personal integrity.  ("You were raised with no manners!"  "You are so
narrow minded!")  This probably sounds stupid.  But after two housemeetings,
arrangements about who's job is what, etc, they can't live with a compromise,
and one of them (the older one) is deciding to leave.  I feel really sad
about this.  But it makes me ask questions about what I would want to leave
over.  I could live with (have tried it) lots of noise and a quantity of
partying around me.  I wouldn't want to live next door to somebody who deals
crack or somebody who is on a mission to convert me to a religion I don't
believe in, or someone who puts out rat poison, or someone who lies to me. 
Wow, I just invented neighbors from hell:  would such people even exist in
coho?  But I come back to something else Rob said:  chances for community are
better in coho than the world outside.  I agree.  But what about chances for
disaster:  what a heartache it would be to have to move out after living so
closely and forming friendships.   kf