Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Is living cooperatively an ideology of itself?

[Chris Scheuer (cscheuer]

>>Rob said;

>>I would say 85% of the people I have met
>>involved in  cooperative living, with whom I have some idea of their
>>politics, are political liberals.

15%? that's not such a small number, given the scope and nature of cohousing
in the US currently, I was surprised it was that high.
I agree that the conscious self-identification with cooperative living may
be tied closely to left liberal political beliefs, however, cooperative
living is as old as humanity (well older, if you include animals)- current
political viewpoints are a little bit younger. I believe that people
intrinsically gravitate towards some form of community, in a very broad
sense, but there are often competing forces (like oppresive fuedal baronies
or 500 channels of television for example) which might get in the way of
people creating community. I believe you can find examples currently of
vibrant communities, where the people would not identify themselves as
politically liberal, or interested in living cooperatively, though they may
be living that way (older urban communities, some rural communities). This
discussion got me thinking about some descriptions I read a while ago of
traditional Islamic communities in Morocco. There was an incredible sense of
attachment, involvement and cooperation in the community. In fact If I
remember correctly traditionally there were no set "laws" but the local Imam
would negotiate conflicts among neighbors in the interest of the community
based on the current situation (of course filtered through Koranic
traditions).

Kif Scheuer

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