Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: In response to the responses to Norm's last email (onCHmanagement)

[Kay Argyle (kay.argyle]

> airing his community's
> dirty laundry in a public forum... is
> DEEPLY offensive to me.

The people responsible for dirty laundry depend on their victims' reluctance
to wash it in public. That's the code that upholds playground bullies and
wife beaters ("Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear," as one book title
put it). 

> Dealing with people who
> aren't happy living in cohousing and who are trying to turn it into
> something else is a heavy burden to bear. Been there, done that.

Sometimes the reason someone is unhappy is that the community is failing, in
a major way, to live up to its ideals - they aren't trying to turn the
community into something else, they're trying to turn it back into
cohousing. 

That's my "been there, done that" - being the troublemaker who wants the
community to keep its agreements; to walk the walk, not just talk the talk;
who thinks it's not enough to bask in a glow of claiming virtuous community
values, you have to actually make some effort to adhere to them.  So
naturally people would often rather that I just shut up and went away.

Kay