Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Anti-Social Americans

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

To answer the questions Harry asked:

- Do you feel all Americans are anti-social?

Nope. In my opinion, American culture is becoming more anti-social than 
it used to be, and it is getting more anti-social as time goes by.  To 
say ALL Americans are anything would be foolish and I would never make 
such a statement.

- Or are all Americans anti-social except those people interested or living
in cohousing?

My observations are that people today in my culture do not have much 
interactions with their neighbors, and much less than in the 
neighborhood I grew up in.  In my opinion, this is a cultural change in 
American society which has taken place between my parents and my 
generation.    Few folks my age (thirty somethings) I ask  seem to even 
know the names of their neighbors.  I just had breakfast with a work 
friend and asked her if she knew her neighbors at all.  She has lived 
in the same rental house for 3 years and does not know the name of a 
single neighbor on either side of her.  When I speak to people about 
cohousing, or give tours of Sharingwood, one question I ask folks is, 
why are you interested in cohousing?  One common answer people tell me 
is that they want to have more connection to their neighbors.  Does not 
knowing your neighbors make you anti-social?  Probably not.   What I do 
think, based on my observation, is that American Culture has become, 
and is becoming much less social than it used to be, especially at the 
neighborhood level.  I find neighborhoods with a even a small level of 
social contact between the neighbors are the exception.


- Or a transformation automatically happens to anti-social people when they
move in or become involved with a cohousing group?

Yes I have observed folks who were not very social when they first move 
in to cohousing become much more social, and tremendously grow in their 
cooperative and communication skills.  For example one couple who 
joined Sharingwood the woman was very social, the man was not.  Boy has 
he ever bloomed.

- Or because of special skills certain people are able to change those
anti-social folks to pro-social folks?

I have observed behaviors change when people live in a cooperative 
environment. Perhaps the biggest change I have observed is in the area 
of communication skills.  Some people are very poor at communicating 
and in my observation, living in an environment where daily interaction 
requires communication, those folks learn from others in the group and 
learn better communication skills, or get trained in better 
communication skills as a group endeavor or interpersonal counseling.  
Whether this makes them more social or less social depends on their 
choices.  One big key to social skills is communication.

- Or folks hanging out on your porch are really anti-social but are
pretending to want to socialize by hanging out on your porch?

No, the folks who choose to live in cohousing, choose that because they 
WANT a more social place to live. So, for the most part, the folks on 
my porch are being social because that is what they want to do.  The 
exception of course is when folks come to deliver a specific 
communication.  In this case they are not necessarily on my porch 
because they want to be social, but because someone they need to give 
information to is there.

As to the sixties, I miss the relevance of the point.  The 60's are 
ancient history in my culture.

Rob
Sharingwood