Consensus Decision Making is not from the high tech tradition of Wikipedia vs. Encarta, or of The Starfish and The Spider, or Here Comes Everybody, or The Wisdom of Crowds, but in fact was designed in the brutally hierarchical Collective Farms of the Soviet Union (in spite of what Wikipedia tries to say about it). The Haudenosaunee (better known by the less acceptable term Iroquois) did have a form of consensus, but it was the consensus of the Hoyane (great minds), or what we would call the Chiefs. This tradition is far from leaderless. It was however horizontal and decentralized, where the Great Presiding Hoyane, who was so important that they recorded their names down thru 1,000 years of history, has only one vote in the council just like all of the other Hoyane. The only way any Hoyane could bring about any decision was thru the revered tradition of public oratory (a great way to smoke out ulterior motives) . One example is warfare. The western hierarchical model is "the king and privy council decide to go to war and you go or die", the American model (circa 1142 AD) is "I need to convince you to go to war thru the power of my beautifully crafted argument, but I can't force you to go".
As I said, I am not willing to invest time in a consensus organization (where the guy who just wants to know where the free camping is has the same input as someone who has worked on something for a long time), however I would be very interested in being the part of a discussion about this topic in an effort to try to bring about a change of direction. I don't know what the best answer is, but I feel very strongly that it is not the Anarchist's contribution of Consensus.
ps One idea I just had is what if we had idea wikis where a dedicated group could go back and forth crafting an idea or initiative and then when they decide it is ready then it is brought up for consideration at a GA with little or not chance to alter it. Only vote it up or down, and if down, then send it back with suggestions and anyone who is now interest can participate in the small group discussion.
Michael
On 11/10/2011 2:31 PM, James wrote:
Michael,
I spoke to you the other night about coming to the goals/ed group. I am empathetic regarding your feelings on what is happening and concur that there is an issue. However, withdrawing is not the answer. I believe the folks are well intentioned as you said. However, I also believe that the main issue is a group of people who may be trying to work in a leaderless structure without truly understanding what that means. This happens to be the issue which is closest to my heart and which I am working toward helping people understand (I will be passing out a tract I wrote tonight regarding the importance of this issue). When people truly do not understand and function within the framework of an organic, leaderless, decentralized network they will naturally gravitate back to what they do know (hierarchical, top-down, position-oriented). I believe it is my part to help people understand the leaderless framework, then hopefully, when enough people understand it and strive to function within it, they will be able to spot those who are trying to implement the other and keep these folks from imposing the structure we say we don't want.
My goal is is simple regarding this issue...know what you believe, know why you believe what you believe, then be able to effectively communicate what and why you believe to others.
James
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