Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Some advice for forming communities

[Chris ScottHanson (chris]

on 1/15/02 9:27 AM, Robert P. Arjet at rarjet [at] LearnLink.Emory.Edu wrote:

> maybe examining some of the assumptions about
> TV--and discussing various solutions--would be very important.

In my experience, discussing and expressing views is very different from
actual behavior.

Take for example the venerable issue of food in the common house.  The
vegetarians can be pretty noisy, and would lead you to believe that they
NEVER eat meat.  Well I remember more than one dinner where the vege and
meat proportions were prepared to match the stated preference of the diners,
and the meat chili was gone long before the meal was over, and there was
vege chili left at the end. A lot of vegetarians accidentally tried the meat
chili.

Now how does this happen?

I would suggest that we all have a tendency to say what we think is right,
or what we want to believe, or what we think we ought to believe, when in
fact we don¹t act on these same principals.  And since we behave in ways
different from what we claim, those discussions and decisions taken before
moving in need to be tempered with a review of actual behavior after moving
in.

I was once married to an animal rights activist/vegan who ate beef once a
month, in private.  She often commented, between bites, that at least they
had lived wonderful lives on the open range.  Well nobody is perfect.


Chris ScottHanson 

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