this is also a response to the use of analogies of brotherhood, friendship, family that are invoked to understand solidarity. Julo acknowledged it was a poor analogy. It's not just that. It was the use of these relationships as a model for solidarity that was the *real* problem with the 60s movement you mention, and as others have shown, is also the cause for the rise of internal schisms in movements that weren't horizontal.
in Freedom is an Endless Meeting, Polletta shows how one of the things that Direct Action folks have learned over the years, and tried very hard to incorporate into their process (the very *why* behind process in the first place) is the problem with not clearly defining a set of rules for engagement. When you do not define any rules people try to draw on what they know in order to understand how solidarity should work.
there was a lot of bitching about the process, still is. but this formalization was necessary because, when it wasn't formal, they used informal models based on family, friendship, church.
This, Polletta shows, is *why* consensus democracy didn't work in the past. Those models for consensus democracy were the problem, not consensus democracy itself. In the case of modeling relations of solidarity on the family/sisterhood/brotherhood it fostered the development of cliques because, beyond a trusted few with whom you've directly worked, it's impossible to sustain such a sense of commitment to one without the regular interaction and experience of intense feelings of warmth and love toward one another.
the formalized process that people have bitched about was to guard against the easy slide into cliquish little friendship groups or 'bands of brothers'.
Now, there are problems in terms of some people being "hidden" leaders. These are, much as they were in the past, women. Women, much as with the civil rights movement, were the ones who did the nitty gritty work. They were the people who made the civil rights struggle work, who selected MLK not because they thought he was a leader, but because they thought he was, bascially, to young to be much of one at all. ha ha.
at any rate, as you know, when there are certain people who are always taking on the load, the only ones who stick with something, and are also doikng the grunt work, they end up being informal leaders: they have the organizational awareness and memory. "Oh, if you want to know why that is, ask Leslie! She's the one who always ends up doing that stuff b/c no one else does."
It is much the same as the way the administrative assistant to a dean has informal organization power. it's not that there isa formal position, but there is an informal one that happens by default, because that is the person who spends the most time, does the grunt work, and see the organization from the bottom up, so to speak.
this is, again, why direct action folks have implemented formal organizational controls to prevent that from happening. as much as possible, they try to have other people take on those roles, rotate them, etc. so no one ends up doing it by default, because no one else will, etc.
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