Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Chris Kemp's Response to Rules & Regs Violation

[Lyle Scheer (wonko]

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Liz,

        I am also not yet living in co-housing, but my group is about a month
away from breaking ground.  Your view seems overly simplistic to me.  I
think you may be missing a few subtleties.  See below.

Liz wrote:
> And I am hearing, mostly, from this list that if my community decides on
> a principle that is important to us, and comes to consensus on that
> issue, that we should not assume that there is any good reason to
> actually FOLLOW what we agreed to.

That was not my takeaway.  It seemed like the person involved was new to
the group and was not a participant in that consensus discussion.  It
further appeared that the breakdown had to do with introducing new
members to the previously consensed upon decisions and possibly (not
actually stated in any e-mail, but an open issue in my mind in this
case) providing an appropriate method to revisit those decisions.

> AND, if I were to go to a co-housing list and ask for advice on how to
> deal with an issue, in addition to some good ideas, I'd get 50% feedback
> that it was wrong for my community to want what it did and, by consensus
> agree to it.

Also not my takeaway.  At least 50% of the group understands that there
will be breakdowns and misunderstandings, and that a good co-housing
community needs methods to resolve conflict, understand the true root
causes of the breakdown, and address those root causes.  This may or may
not involve rewriting the previously consensed upon policy.

- - Lyle
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