Cohousing-L Mailing List: cohousing as a means of re engaging a sense of control (longish)

[Hans Tilstra (tilstra]

As I'm trying to gently introduce the "co" into housing, I'm becoming more
aware of some of the tensions I'm working with.

First, the author who got me thinking: Hugh Mackay asserts that "... people
in the 21st century experience disconcerting contradictions or paradoxes -
in particular, a tension between optimism and pessimism. In our individual
psychology we experience, simultaneously, feelings of both confidence and
insecurity about our future.

This feeling feeds the "heroic individual" perspective. So, individuals
disengage from the national agenda and big picture issues, due to a
perceived lack of control. (As a creature raised in the seventies, I find
this quite irritating).

Instead, we are becoming more engaged with those issues that we can control.
These are essentially personal in nature - such as whether to buy a new car,
or which cable television channel to purchase."

What about cohousing?

Do children, raised in a cohousing context differ in the extent to which
they waver between optimisim & pessimism?

curious,

Hans

Mackay, Hugh (1999) "Turning Point: Australians Choosing their Future", Pan
Macmillan, NSW