Cohousing-L Mailing List: consensus and majority vote

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi folks,

Naturally i couldn't resist jumping in on this fascinating--for "process"
folks at least!--thread.

I feel much resonance with "pieces of the truth" presented by Rob, Racheli,
and others.  I think it's all part of the mix.  I personally feel really
inspired about consensus, and would rather work on supporting groups in
fixing the problems Rob points out, rather than giving up on the method.
However, i've also worked with groups such as the Green Party who choose to
do "agreement-seeking" (a consensus-influenced voting method) rather than
consensus, and i can respect their choices.  

In the cohousing movement, there is not unity on the question of
decision-making method: some, like Rob, believe that having a strong voting
back-up to consensus prevents manipulation of the process; others believe
that having too accessible of a voting option removes the incentive to do
the hard work of finding solutions that genuinely work for everyone.  I
think there is truth in both views.

Rob wrote:
"Most cohousing groups don't have a process for dealing with process
problems, few ever intervene with inapproiate or damaging behaviors of
individuals, and seldom do groups formally train themselves in  good process
and expect all new members to take the same training."

These seem like some great points for groups to keep in mind.  New groups
in particular have a wonderful opportunity to create solutions to these
potential difficulties.

Rob also said:
"Consensus, with a well trained and functional group works well and
reasonably fast, certainly as fast as Roberts Rules of Order."

I definitely concur with this.  In fact Robert's Rules seem awfully
burdensome to me--with all these nitpicky formalities required, it looks
like it really slows things down compared to what a well-functioning
consensus group can do.  However, particularly in our culture as Racheli
pointed out, many people have had few if any chances to see
well-functioning consensus groups in action!  

Chris wrote:
"Community has existed for as long as living beings have, generally without
any formal
decision making process guiding it."

I've done some amount of research on this, admittedly far from exhaustive.
The impression i've gotten is that almost all peoples have used consensus
process, and that in many cases it actually has been in some formal setting
such as a council.  I expect that process has consistently been
supplemented by many informal and one-on-one conversations, just like it is
in any contemporary community.  

I think some of our lack of knowledge about this is due to cultural
blinders.  There's a great example in The Poisonwood Bible, a novel by
Barbara Kingsolver.  The book takes place in the Congo, and the tribe there
makes decisions by consensus, which the chief then has responsibility for
supporting implementation of.  The people there think it's absurd that
White people would make decisions that lack full enrollment.  The White
people look at the indigenous people and think the chief is in charge and
deciding things, when really it's consensus-based.

The historical example that started clueing me in to all this was when a
friend showed me a section in a book on Poland that explained how the
Polish parliament used formal consensus until 1763.  And it said that "Some
such convention originally existed in virtually every parliamentary body in
Europe, and survived in areas such as the English jury system" (The Polish
Way, by Adam Zamoyski, p. 101).  Which of course became the American jury
system as well.  Reading that made me realize that indigenous White people
also used consensus, and only later turned to majority voting.

Chris also said:
"So its not the process that makes the community, but the people.  Any
format can work if it works for the people involved."

I've heard Geoph Kozeny, who's been to over 350 intentional communities,
say something very similar.  He's been to places that are led by gurus,
consensus places, majority vote, you name it.  If you ask him which
decision-making method is best, he'll say whichever one works well for the
people who live there, whatever has their confidence and goodwill.

On the other hand, the structures we live in do strongly influence our
lives.  For example, US land use patterns are structured such that for many
people, it is very difficult to get basic needs met without using a car.
(I personally have never owned a car so i know that it's possible, but i
recognize that many people, especially if they have physical disabilities
or small children, would find my chosen lifestyle prohibitively difficult.)
 I think most Americans know that cars are having a terribly destructive
effect on the environment that we rely on for life itself.  Not to mention
there are 76,000 deaths per year attributable to automobiles (30,000 due to
air pollution, 46,000 from accidents).  And that's not including climate
change patterns that are wreaking major destruction: windstorms, flooding,
all kinds of stuff is already happening that is documented to be caused by
humyn-induced climate change.  But are all the people driving cars bad
people?  I don't think so.  Rather, we are caught in larger systems that
greatly constrain our choices.  

I think the same is true of political systems, including decision-making
systems.  (Witness the "spoiler effect" of third party candidates in a
two-party system when the whole thing could be replaced by Instant Run-off
Voting which uses ranking to avoid both wasted votes and spoilers.)  So i
think it's important to be careful about what decision-making methods we
put in place in our homes.  I don't think consensus is the best choice for
every group, at every time.  But i do think it's worth aiming at, and
learning to do as well as possible.

In closing, i'll share an excerpt from Ann Zabaldo's closing speech at the
Cohousing Conference in 2001:

---------------------

By its nature cohousing creates a place where we can experiment with
solutions.  We can do this experimenting because of the collaborative
nature of cohousing communities.  And what makes this possible is the
consensus process.  Consensus is the sleeper in this whole thing.  It's the
grease that makes this work.

It builds communication.

It builds collaboration.

It builds community.

(And sometimes you even get a decision!)

The trend i see is that using a consensus process in community is changing
the way we are in the world.  It's moving us from a competitive, almost
totally litigious society to a collaborative, cooperative one.  You cannot
use consensus legitimately and not be changed by it.  It's a way of being
in the world.

I hear people in my community when referring to outside groups that use
voting, "It doesn't feel right anymore."  "I don't like it."  We take this
collaborative aspect out into the larger world where we can influence other
systems.

------------------

Best wishes,

--Tree



-----------------------------------------------

Tree Bressen
1680 Walnut St.
Eugene, OR 97403
(541) 484-1156
tree [at] ic.org
http://www.efn.org/~bressen
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