Re: Consensus vs Majority Voting
From: Howard Landman (howardpolyamory.org)
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:13:01 -0600 (MDT)
> Most of us have grown in cultures where when one
> side is "right", the other is "wrong"(and being wrong is bad!);

You know, there *ARE* times when one side or person *IS* right and
another is wrong.  This in fact is usually the case in science or
engineering or mathematics when there is a disagreement.  And
being wrong *IS* bad ... unless you think the Tacoma Narrows bridge
collapse, and creationists trying to force their particular cult's
ludicrous creation myth down the throats of our young people in place
of fact-based knowledge of evolution, are just peachy.  Feelings
have no legitimate place in these discussions.  You can't BS an
electron or make it behave differently because you're unhappy.
Nature just does what it does, following its own laws.  You can be
in harmony with those laws ("the Tao") or out of harmony with them.

And there are times when it is *ONLY* how people feel which matters.
Facts - if such can even be said to exist - are irrelevant.  Only
perceptions and emotions count.

The trick for me is to know, for each thing in my life, where on the
spectrum between those two extremes it lies, and to act appropriately.

> authentic consensus work calls for a paradigm shift
> truly committed to consensus

I don't subscribe to the religion that consensus is the only or always
the best way of making decisions.  It's just one decision-making
process out of many.  It has some good properties and some bad properties,
and whether it is the right thing to use in any particular context
depends very much on that context.

At RRC, some things require community consensus and some don't.  It
depends on various factors like:
- how many people does this affect?
- do we already have a policy in place for this?
- can this be handled by a committee?
- does this bring any of our core values into question?
- does this challenge a previously-consensed decision?

For example, construction or landscape changes can be:
Level 1: no approval necessary
Level 2: approval of immediate neighbors required
Level 3: approval of neighbors and Design Review Committee required
level 4: community consensus required
and we have a policy in place to determine the level.  When there
is fuzziness, people usually bump up the level just to be safe.
Recently, installation of the first "swamp cooler" in the
development should have been level 3 by the policy, but the unit
owner decided to bring it to the whole community since there were
a few niggling concerns about maintenance, damage, what happens on
resale of the unit, etc.  This was a good move since some people at
the meeting raised issues that no one else had considered.  And I'll
be doing some "level 1" concrete work in my backyard soon, but I've
already started talking to my neighbors about it.

        Howard A. Landman
        River Rock Commons
        Fort Collins CO
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