Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Did your community celebrate last night?

[Dave and Diane (daveanddee]

Hi all,

I think this pretty much nails it. The only thing I was going to add  
is that cooperation strikes me as more of a liberal (or "Nurturing  
Parent") value, whereas living in your own house that you manage  
independently strikes me as more or a conservative (or "Strict  
Father") value. I have given tours of JP cohousing to some from the  
"Strict Father" point of view, and they are very skeptical of how the  
whole cooperation thing works out.

To my way of thinking this conversation is an important one to have  
on Cohousing-L because it helps clarify what we mean by "diversity."  
As Rob Sandelin has pointed out many times, major conflicts in the  
consensus process usually revolve around conflicting values.  
Therefore, it makes sense to examine the underlying assumptions about  
"diversity" and ask ourselves what do we mean by this term? Should we  
encourage people with a value that differs from one of the  
fundamental concepts of cohousing ("cooperation") to live in this  
kind of a housing situation?

Food for thought....

--Diane(:^]


outreach facilitator
jp cohousing  617-522-2209
Box 300420 boston ma
http://www.jpcohousing.org
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"The people who surround you define the quality of your life."

On Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:41:18 -0700, Tim Mensch wrote:

> In broad strokes, Lakoff claims that folks who fall in the  
> conservative
> camp tend to think of politics in the Strict Father frame, where  
> people
> in the liberal camp tend to think of politics in the Nurturing Parent
> frame. This is also probably too simplistic, but Lakoff argues
> convincingly that these two frames can explain at least to a first
> approximation the sometimes contradictory differences between liberals
> and conservatives--things like why "pro-life" and "pro-death-penalty"
> can be rationally supported by the same person. It's possible to apply
> different frames to different aspects of your life (politics, family,
> job, etc.), so it's likely also possible that even in one person  
> the two
> frames can be applied differently to different issues, which may  
> explain
> the other variations.
>
> Clearly (at least it seems to me) one needs to be at least comfortable
> with expressing the Nurturing Parent frame to do well in cohousing. I
> mean, who is the moral leader of a cohousing community? (Unless it's
> affiliated, officially or not, with a religion and has an implicit  
> moral
> leader?) In the Strict Father frame, people are more comfortable  
> either
> leading or being told what to do, and in no cohousing community have I
> experienced many people who like to be told what to do. :)