Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: All Residents (homeowners) are HOA Directors

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Oct 5, 2007, at 12:30 PM, Doug Huston wrote:

> I would prefer members in cohousing (and society) to view themselves
> in a role in which they are stewards of something different, and dare
> I say more important than themselves.

But any goals or objectives I accept or desire become a part of  
myself. If I am joining together with others to achieve those goals,  
they are shared goals, In that sense you could say they are larger  
than myself but only to the extent that I have made those goals mine  
and joined a larger group that shares these goals.

If I support the goals of others, even if I don't share those goals,  
the goal is still mine in that I choose to support that goal. The  
benefit to me is that I might feel good because it makes me feel like  
part of a community. "Something larger than myself." I'm giving to  
others.

But the goal does not exist outside of the people who make it their  
own. Positing a supernatural essence in the definition of cohousing  
is not necessary to explaining why people like to live there or how  
they should make decisions.

I find that this comes up most often in the context of perceived  
"positive" goals. Turn it around and look at Nazi goals. Were they  
larger than the people who advocated them? Should the people who  
supported them have gone along in the interests of the greater good?  
Whose greater good?

Because there was coercion and intimidation and all of that, many  
people were forced to go along. But many people accepted these same  
goals as part of the "greater good," as supporting something larger  
than themselves. And it was very dangerous.

> members potentially make decisions that benefit needs transcendent of
> their own needs.

I would assert that this concept of transcendence is part of being  
human and is thus in their own interests. People like this feeling.  
And it does lead to good things. But it can also lead to bad things.  
The Aryan Nation also believes in transcending their everyday  
experience.

Sharon