> I expressed myself poorly. I meant to ask if the decision to move on with
> the agenda was undertaken by consensus. I just sense that the notion of a
> scurrilous veto has to be cashed in non-consensus terms, or by defining
> certain behaviour as unacceptable, and I don't see how that can be done by
> consensus.
This is done in a meeting run by consensus. It's not like you put every process point up to a vote. There are other tools used in the consensus process such as straw votes.
I guess I'm not giving a good explanation of this. I should look this situation up, since I haven't run into this problem very often.
> The behaviour you don't like is not giving reasons. But in some situations -
> not far fetched ones, but ones that I have witnessed - people have good
> reasons but do not want to share them in a big public group. Openness and
> transparency can be terrifying to people, and can be themselves the tools by
> which people exert power. That's what my comment about wanting decisions,
> not confessionals is about.
Sure, I can understand that there are certain situations, such as the issue being sexual assault committed by one group member against another or the handling of sensitive personnel records.
I don't have an easy answer for this situation, but I suspect that one course would be for a special group to be set up to deal with the situation comprised of people that the person feels comfortable with.
> It is true that I don't have the stereotypical spokescouncil in mind. I am
> thinking of running workplaces by consensus, union meetings, arranging
> production (ah, 1936!, Catalonia!) and deciding on laws.
Sure, I understand your concern. Consensus has been used in those situations, but I have no experience in those situations so I can't speak to those scenarios.
> Consensus meetings, with the rules and definitions you yourself have
> provided us, are human made things and we can change them if we don't like
> them. (They are, I think, fairly artificial. If you look at how consensus is
> reached in, say, Big Man politics in the highlands, it ain't anything like
> the games we play.) If people don't want to be part of such processes,
> that's their choice. I think it is condescending to suggest that such opting
> out would be due to lack of political education, and hence the process is a
> way of enhancing people's capacity for democratic action. It may be that,
> and it often is, but it also may be self-perpetuating, and it often is that
> too.
There isn't any one perfect implementation of consensus and I'm all for making special adaptions. But there is alot of animosity towards consensus from people who have had bad experiences with bad uses of consensus.
> I should say that I think that consensus processes are worth trying out, if
> only to shake the bats out of the tree. No one knows how to do democracy,
> everything is worth trying out, and practically anything is better than
> farcical representation - but that also includes non-farcical
> representation.
>
> ¡¡¡No methods!!!
>
> Thiago Oppermann
Right. I think the goal should be to have democratic, egalitarian meetings.
People have often said that consensus meetings are so long, but the longest meetings I've ever been party to involved the "more efficient" Roberts Rules of Order.
Chuck0