Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: new consensus resources

[Racheli Gai (racheli]

I disagree that people can't get "kicked out".
For any process to work well, there need to be rules regarding those
who break the rules.  This includes working by consensus.

I agree that many groups have a hard time carrying this part out, which
is a problem.

Racheli.





On Dec 14, 2006, at 3:18 PM, Brian Bartholomew wrote:

> > The Importance of Nurturing Dissent in a Consensus Process
> > http://treegroup.info/topics/A12-nurturing_dissent.html
>
> | Like that's going to happen.  The power dynamics insist that anyone
> | who dissents be kicked out.
>
> | The American way is about power and control.  This unfortunately
> | includes too many cohousing groups.
>
> If it's consensus, then dissenters can't be kicked out, and there
> structurally doesn't exist power or control beyond the persuasiveness
> of an argument.  Those are great features of consensus.
>
> For instance, in the open source software world, there are splits and
> rifts between camps that have been ongoing for years, and I think the
> participants are behaving like monkeys at the zoo who scream and fling
> dung at each other.  However, no set of monkeys can vote any other set
> of monkeys off the island.  This is consensus.
>
> Maybe a lot of cohousing groups are actually running on some sort of
> majority vote.
>                                                         Brian
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