Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: RE: Voting backup

[Robert P. Arjet (rarjet]

cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org writes:
>So, if you don't have a voting backup, you should at least have in place a
>process that holds the blocker somehow accountable to the group

I think that's very important.  I have serious reservations about voting
(not the least of which being that if I know I'm in the majority, there's
much less incentive to truly struggle for consensus) but hate the idea of
one dysfunctional individual deliberately sabotaging decisions. 

One process that I like is requiring the objection to be a) principled and
b) based on the threat of harm to the group.  This (I'm told) goes far to
eliminating frivolous or bad-faith objections. 

One note: I loved Sharon's earlier post that pointed out that since
consensus is a full agreement among group members, you can't "block"
consensus--you can't block what doesn't exist.   The behavior described by
Rob ("These type of people have held groups decision  making hostage by
blocking all decisions") does, however, seem to deserve the term
"blocking."  That is, they are blocking not consensus, but the entire
decision-making process.  

If we use voting as an analogy,   "I'll block that proposal if it comes
up" doesn't mean "I'll vote against it," but "I'll burn down the polling
station."  It's not a statement of opposition to a proposal, it's a
rejection of the entire decision-making process. 

Robert Arjet
Central Austin Cohousing
http://www.austincohousing.org

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l