Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: sliding scale

[Robert P. Arjet (rarjet]

cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org writes:
>>One of the concerns that has
>>>been raised is how we would handle someone who consistently "abuses" the
>>>policy.
>
>You have to really let go of this. 

This reminds me of an earlier post that pointed out that "Most of us come
from such a competitive and fear based western culture where
rules/punishment/reward is the way that we are used to being controlled
even when most are reasonably benign.  The fact that we aspire to live
co-operatively is terrific but challenging."

Four of us talked last night about the idea of having our meetings
followed not by pot-lucks, but by common meals, cooked by a couple of
members (we are waaay pre-construction).  Of course, the question arose of
how to pay for it.  We discussed several options, and ended up deciding to
propose one that was very vulnerable to abuse.  We decided that, in the
absence of evidence to the contrary, we would assume the best about our
fellow group members and take the risk that somebody might try to abuse
the system.  I think cohousing fundamentally requires choosing to assume
the best, rather than the worst, of people.  Yes, we will get burned from
time to time, but the cost of being cheated is so very much less than the
cost of continuing to live in our "competitive and fear based western
culture."

My $.02

Robert Arjet
Central Austin Cohousing 
http://www.austincohousing.org


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