Re: Emotion, consensus, and power. | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Bitner/Stevenson (lilbertearthlink.net) | |
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 00:24:04 -0600 (MDT) |
. > > My question is: isn't this really a massive hole in the idea that consensus > decision making is democratic. We do not all have equal power, because we > are equipped with widely varying abilities to sustain dissent. I'm sure we > all know this intuitively; I'm trying to surface it and formalize it somewhat > so it can be examined. > > And I'm warning you now; if you all disagree with me, I'm going to > unsubscribe :-) > > Stuart. I don't believe that there is any community where everyone has true equality, not the way that you mean. Since we are social animals, were are programmed to have a hierarchical nature. Obviously, since we have such complex brains, we are much less so than, say, baboons. Egalitarian communities are the exception rather than the rule, for now, and we are all in the process, however small scale, of evolving society. What we can do is try to mitigate the effects of our naturally dominant or submissive nature by making sure that there are rules or traditions of making people more comfortable about saying "no" to the group. I hope you don't have as difficult a time with your community as you did with that email group! One of the things that we did when we first moved in was let some people block consensus without requiring much from them in the way of justification. Always, the issues got resolved later. My belief is that they felt so much more comfortable with the power that we as a group had given them, that they were able to let go of their fears and reach consensus. We have what I call our "canary in a coal mine" people who are much more sensitive to the kinds of behavior that might hurt people than those of us who are more of the steamroller type. Some of us fit into both categories.;) There is one person in particular whom I find very valuable at meetings, since she frequently alerts us when we are "steamrollering". Listen to the sensitive people. Even if you agree with a proposal, don't let the discussion end if you don't think the process worked or if there is someone whom you feel has been left out. If everyone in the community takes responsibility for this, then few are hurt by the process. -- Liz Stevenson Southside Park Cohousing Sacramento, California
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Emotion, consensus, and power. Stuart Staniford-Chen, October 19 1999
- Re: Emotion, consensus, and power. Bitner/Stevenson, October 19 1999
- Re: Emotion, consensus, and power. Lynn Nadeau, October 20 1999
- Re: Emotion, consensus, and power. Fred H. Olson, October 20 1999
- RE: Emotion, consensus, and power. Rob Sandelin, October 21 1999
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