Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing and Sociocracy

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Jan 7, 2007, at 2:48 PM, Brian Bartholomew wrote:

> I will certainly be buying your book, but at the moment I am very
> confused.  In my understanding of the words, 'consensus' and 
> 'democracy'
> are philosophically incompatible things.  Consensus is about
> unanimity, and democracy is about doing what a minority doesn't want.
>
> How does your preferred version of sociocracy work?
> Is it unanimous, or democratic?

The definitions of democracy from the OED:

1. Government by the people; that form of government in which the 
sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised 
either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by 
officers elected by them. In mod. use often more vaguely denoting a 
social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or 
arbitrary differences of rank or privilege.

 2. That class of the people which has no hereditary or special rank or 
privilege; the common people (in reference to their political power).

We tend to equate democracy with majority rule but that is not the 
definition of democracy -- it is only the way we have learned to 
believe it can work. Sociocracy is for many a "true democracy". The 
decision making method in sociocracy is "consent" meaning "no 
objections." Further, objections must be "paramount" and "argued." They 
must materially affect one's ability to work toward the aim of the 
organization and they must be presented clearly enough to be resolved 
("argued").

To contrast that with "unanimous" or "consensus" means defining those 
words.

I have also revised my essay  on consensus/consent and you might like 
to take a look. This is an evolving process of understanding how 
sociocratic definitions and methods fit into what people are actually 
doing now. The theories make certain assumptions but one person's 
consensus is another's something very different. That is one reason why 
sociocracy has chosen a very specific definition.

http://www.sociocracy.info/consensus.html

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Coauthor with John Buck of the forthcoming
We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy
The Complete Guide to Sociocratic Principles and Methods
http://www.sociocracy.info