Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: economic Class and Cohousing

[Tony G. Rocco (tgr]

I began looking into the option of cohousing in order to find a 
solution to the alienation of modern urban living. Since subscribing 
to this cohousing list service, I have been more than a little 
alienated by the leftist political rhetoric proffered by cohousing 
types. Is it necessary to have a far left political orientation to 
want to live in a cohousing community? All this pseudo-Marxian 
philosophizing and social criticism doesn't resonate well for me. I 
am a hard working, upwardly mobile, upper middle-class, straight 
white male. I am no right winger by any means, but like many 
Americans, I believe in the American dream. I work hard to earn 
money to live a better life in a material sense. I just want a 
little more community in my life, that's all. I am not satisfied 
with modern urban living because people are too alienated from each 
other, don't have much meaningful contact, and just don't seem to 
give a damn about their fellow man.

Is this reason enough to live in a cohousing arrangement or do I 
also have to share all the other back-to-the-earth, leftist, 
pseudo-ideologizing that I hear expressed by the cohousing advocates 
I have heard from here? Will I be ostracized by my fellow cohousers 
if I drive home each day in my Mercedes Benz, am seen in $500 Armani 
suits, and am found to have a $10,000 stereo system in my living 
room? If it is discovered that I collect rare French wines and own a 
cellar worth the price of a modest middle-class home?

I ask these questions in all sincerity. I don't see why prosperity 
and community need be mutually exclusive. I must know what I am 
getting into before I get into it and learn that I just don't have 
the left-wing values necessary to be accepted in a typical cohousing 
community.

Sincerely,

Tony G. Rocco