

The Theology of Consensus - smacktoward
http://berkeleyjournal.org/2015/05/the-theology-of-consensus/

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leejoramo
I am a Unitarian Universalist, and like the Quakers consensus is at the core
of my faith's practice.

As the president of my congregation, I can attest that consensus can be a
difficult and time consuming process. During my time in leadership, I have had
to navigate some very difficult and contentious issues. Facilitating an open
consensus based process, led to everyone feeling their thoughts and feelings
were honored. In the end consensus led to strongly unified decisions.

I know that pure consensus doesn't work in all situations. But it is a
powerful tool in the process of decision making. Even when the question is
ultimately decided by a vote, including consensus can lead to much greater
acceptance of the final decision.

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jerf
I'm really interested in alternative political or economic organizations...
but there's an _enormous_ gulf between those who look at what we have, deeply
analyze it, attempt to understand how and why we got where we are, do a 5
Whys-type analysis on the problems, and think about how we might be able to
avoid them, even as they are aware that what we have is likely a very strong
strange attractor... and those whose approach is basically "Capitalism's,
like, evil, man. Let's do whatever that isn't. Consensus, is, like, probably
really good. Let's do whatever someone somewhere theorizes might lead to it."

I wish the latter were a strawman, but, alas, at times it's rather accurate.
Particularly the part where someone, somewhere comes up with a _really_ nice
sounding theory and it makes the leap straight to Accepted Truth, without
passing through much or any intervening testing of the theory. You can also
see that happening just over and over in the education field, too. Entire
massive multi-decade enterprises, if not occasionally multi-century, can be
erected in the economics or education fields on things that often turn out to
basically have flattered some group of intellectual's fancies, and have little
other basis. (Everybody's lists might differ, _ahem_ , but everybody
interested in either topic ought to be able to come up with at least a couple
they'd describe that way.)

On the direct topic, note that there's really no trick to governing, say, 20
people. _Anything_ works at that scale, especially for a group of self-
selected people who came together due to some unifying interest, which is Easy
Mode for governance. Your hypothetical governing method isn't even interesting
until you're at least bumping up against the Dunbar Number (regardless of
whether it is "right" or "true", it's still a decent heuristic), and you're
still four or five orders of magnitude away from something that can run a
modern society at that point.

~~~
baddox
You might like the book Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better Than
You Think. The entire book is dedicated to analyzing historic examples of
Super Hard Mode for governance, and how solutions can emerge that reduce
violence and other undesirables without what we would recognize as a
government or state.

It's a pretty accessible pop-econ book with a compelling premise and a good
amount of historical examples and citations.

[http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Unbound-Self-Governance-
Cambri...](http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Unbound-Self-Governance-Cambridge-
Economics/dp/1107629705)

~~~
walterbell
I just tried to upvote your post and may have downvoted it instead :( I wish
the upvote and downvote buttons were separated horizontally at opposite ends
of the post title, instead of vertically by 1mm.

~~~
baddox
I've still got 1 point on that comment, so either you cancelled out someone
else's up vote, or you cancelled out someone else's down vote. :)

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donovanr
I think it's somewhat disingenuous of the article to claim to be a history but
maintain an almost entirely adversarial tone. It's clear that consensus has
issues at scale, but a more fair analysis might include some settings and
constraints where modern consensus-based decision making also does pretty
well.

For instance, with large, disparate groups of people intending to accomplish
something ambitious, things are bound to get hairy no matter what process you
use, and all things considered, the consensus process is probably not helping
much or the best choice to use. The article is full of examples of this.

On the other hand, for small-ish groups of people, who aren't trying to pull
off any major new projects, but are instead more interested in maintaining
some sort of infrastructure and taking on smaller tasks, my experience has
been that formal consensus is pretty great. You might argue that almost any
process works with a small group of people... if that's your experience, well,
maybe you spend time with less ornery and headstrong people than I do.

Living with people is a great example of where consensus can work really well.
For small-ish groups, where everyone has to (literally) live with the
decision, and especially with the other people who made it, my experience was
that the formal consensus process was a pretty great way to ensure that no one
felt left out, harbored silent resentment, etc.

When we used a consensus-based process to run a collectively-owned co-op where
fourteen or so of us lived, it was pretty great. It didn't necessarily lead to
more optimal decisions (though it often did), but it did lead to me realizing
that theoretical optimality isn't nearly as important to most people as
feeling that their voice is being heard, and feeling included in the process.

Obvious caveats of good faith etc apply, but in practice, it was rarely an
issue.

~~~
fineman
I've found that _informal_ consensus, the tautological type you have when you
don't label it, is good. This is just what you have when everyone has hashed
something out and found a solution that fits.

But _formal_ consensus is a horrible thing where you're slowly bullied into
dropping your objections to something you don't agree with under the guise of
everyone agreeing. It's a nightmare because when you're openly bullied you
don't have to get up after and tell everyone how wonderful it feels.

I'm okay with being the loser in a vote and to have to do your thing, but to
have my thing twisted until I'm told we're all happy. Not.

It's a compliance trick. The person running it or most invested in it can pick
almost anything they want and the victims of the process are often very ...
cult-like ... in defending the decision. Which has to be the case because
consensuses are literally never defendable with technical arguments or the
argument would have sufficed.

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exelius
Interesting history -- but consensus building is really just another name for
politics.

Anyone who has participated in an organized protest can tell you that they're
chaotic, and when things start to organize, it's usually because one person or
faction takes control and starts barking orders. Other factions emerge with
other demands, and usually consensus is reached through "back room" dealing.

"Consensus building" as a term has become synonymous with the practice of
approaching all members of the group ahead of a decision event, obtaining
their approval and input on a plan, and giving them just enough of what they
want to get them to agree to it. But it's not about being inclusive --
sometimes the consensus is "Yeah, we all agree on this but John doesn't, so
we'll all agree to disagree with him but we're doing it our way."

~~~
frandroid
That is not what consensus is. That's what majority politics is. Two groups
that come to agreement through their leadership is not consensus, it's
leadership-based agreements. There can be dissension within each of the
groups. So you don't have consensus.

~~~
exelius
Any organization that becomes sufficiently large has leaders to improve
efficiency.

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jessaustin
This is unconvincing. We might stipulate that consensus is inadequate to
governing a nation, but TFA seems explicitly to address the decision-making of
activist groups. There's no reason why any particular activist issue should
only be addressed by one group (in fact every issue I can think of seems to be
addressed by dozens), so if you don't like how Group Z makes its decisions,
then just join Group Y, if they'll have you. If it had any examples of a
strictly hierarchical-leadership-style group being more effective in some way
than a consensus-based group, then TFA might have had some (anecdotal) point.
As it is, it merely seems to say "some people like consensus, and others
don't, and by the way the former are _wrong_."

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tunesmith
Yeah, consensus isn't the same thing as finding the optimal solution for all
involved. For the latter you need a safe way to register opposition and an
efficient way to incorporate it until all nodes understand the entire system
and respect all the roles appropriately.

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username3
> _Consensus can easily be derailed by those acting in bad faith. But it’s
> also a process that is ill-equipped to deal with disagreements that arise
> from competing interests rather than simple differences of opinion. The rosy
> idea embedded in the process that unity and agreement can always be found if
> a group is willing to discuss and modify a proposal sufficiently is magical
> thinking, divorced from the real-world rough-and-tumble of political
> negotiation._

Deal with competing interests by letting them compete. Iterate consensus.
Don't wait for complete consensus. Try each competing interest and try again.

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anonymousguy
> “Consensus is a creative thinking process: When we vote, we decide between
> two alternatives. With consensus, we take an issue, hear the range of
> enthusiasm, ideas and concerns about it, and synthesize a proposal that best
> serves everybody’s vision.”

This sounds like the same reasoning that defines climate consensus.
Unfortunately, consensus is politics and not science even if you add the word
scientific in front of it. I feel confident, though, most people cannot tell
the difference.

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llamataboot
If one is interested in a more philosophical debate around consensus decision
making among non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian groups, I highly
recommend Mark Lance's essay Fetishizing Process:
[http://www.academia.edu/1110507/fetishizing_process](http://www.academia.edu/1110507/fetishizing_process)

