Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Political diversity - Confession

[John Major (jmajor]

> I posted a message claiming to be a wealthy, hard-working yuppie with a
> Mercedes Benz, large wine collection, and generally opulent lifestyle. I
> asked if my wealth would preclude me from joining a cohousing community,
> something I, in fact, would like to do.
> 
> I got thoughtful responses from some people, of course, but I was
> surprised at the amount of hostility I got from many others.

Delicious! I followed the original reactions very closely - particularly
because the grumpy "gentleman from Arizona" who said you should "get yer ass
kicked" ("keep the hell out of my community" was another choice phrase) is in
fact the thoughtful, kind and hard-working founder of Wasatch CoHousing - and
a good friend whom I couldn't imagine every behaving like that off-line! You
may remember that *he* got an earful for his trouble, too... Something about
"why would anyone want to live in *your* community around attitudes like
that?" There was, of course, much illuminating discussion as well.

I agree that you've got some penance to do for your tweaking of our earnest
discussion - how about a tour of the Usenet alt.xxx groups doing public
self-flaggelation    ;-)  - but the whole exercise, and the current talk, if
viewed from ten thousand feet, is a wonderful example of how subtle,
stimulating and central these issues are. 
The Rich man/Poor man/Diversity/Unity story has undoubtedly been thrashed out
in small communities for *thousands* of years, but it seems to have banned
from American national consciousness. I've *never* seen them discussed at the
mass media level like this. Maybe we could get Bill Moyers interested?!?   
;-)

Now, let me see - how do we know you *aren't* a wealthy, hard-working yuppie,
and are just tweaking us again?!?   

John Major
Wasatch CoHousing
jmajor [at] dayna.com