Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Consensus vs Majority Voting

[Racheli Gai (jnpalme]

>From Racheli
Sonora Cohousing

I agree with many of Rob's comments, but disagree on some crucial issues. 
The idea that if you use majority vote the controllers get
held in check is false, IMO.  Such groups allow at least as much scope for
controlling personalities as those working by consensus, perhaps even more
so.
I remember, for example, that in the kibbutz I grew up in, there were  a
number of members who believed that the democratic process  (majority
vote) allowed a few individuals to manipulate and achieve  positions of
power, which left others feeling disenfranchised and disillusioned.

I still think that working by using consensus can be (potentially)  a
transformative thing, and if a group is serious about wishing to  learn to
do it well, there are many resources out there.  This is not  to minimize
the difficulties. 
One of the things which I like most about consensus is that it forces a
group to think about process constantly.  I've seen (and been) in  so many
groups where people interact and make decisions without a clue or a
glimmer of consciousness regarding how they behave, and what are the
underlying power issues. I think this is detrimental to sucess,  even when
on the surface it might produce decisions more "efficiently". A related
point which hasen't been mentioned in this thread so far is, that the
making of a decision isn't the end of the process, since  making decisions
isn't an end in and of itself.  This is something which efficiency-
efficionados often neglect to recognize.  The evaluation of the process 
must include a look at the quality of implementation: 
I notice that when we make half-assed decisions, they basically get
ignored  much of the time.  The important thing is to have people feel
that decisions made are ones they can stand behind (and we're much more
likely  to support decisions that we had an active role in making, or that
at least we had the option of being actively involved with if we so
chose).

In our community (and I bet in many others) people often judge the success
 of a meeting by whether we've managed to reach consensus on a given item
(or more).  However, a decision is meaningless (or worse)
if it's not a good one. It could prove, in fact, to be the enemy of
"efficiency" if it has not addressed vital issues, and has not been
arrived at in an inclusive manner.


I want to take issue with another of Rob's points.  It seems to me that
blaming the lack of good process on a few "bad apples" is a great
over-simplification.  Most of us have grown in cultures where when one
side is "right", the other is "wrong"(and being wrong is bad!);  where
competition is highly valued; where some form of hierarchical  structure
is in place (so for everything, there is an "expert" who can  save us/set
us straight); where conflict is shunned/swept under the rug-  until such
time that emotions explode; ...  This is all antithetical to good 
consensus work.  It means that even with the best of intentions, one can
expect a long process of learning and (at best) incremental  improvement,
because doing authentic consensus work calls for a  paradigm shift, not
simply moving from employing procedure A to  using procedure B...  

Chances of succeeding in eventually attaining a good
process depend, I think, on whether there is a sufficient number of people
who are truly committed to consensus within the group. If such "critical
mass" doesn't exist, and efforts aren't exerted -
in a consistent manner- to identify weak areas and work on them,  chances
of success are probably very much diminished.

R.


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jnpalme [at] attglobal.net (Racheli Gai)
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