This kind of debate and discussion is very much needed in activist circles so that the major gains of the Occupy movement move forward; so that the quest for social justice moves forward; so that the domination of a small group of people, who under their system of capitalism have hijacked what are human legacies--technology and wealth, shall be challenged and defeated; so that humanity can save itself from their ecology-destroying economic system whose ends are only the gratification of this small group of people for more wealth and power at the expense of the rest of humanity.
He begins by explaining the difference between rules and principles in relation to consensus decision-making. It seems that some people have confused the two and want to abandon consensus altogether. Consensus decision-making is informed by two fundamental humanistic values: equality and freedom from coercion. The following excerpts express these central features of his arguments:
...a set of principles, a commitment to making decisions in a spirit of problem-solving, mutual respect, and above all, a refusal of coercion. It [consensus as practiced in the Occupy movement] was an attempt to create processes that could work in a truly free society.
Consensus is not a set of rules. It's a set of principles. Actually I'd even go so far to say that if you really boil it down, it ultimately comes down to just two principles: everyone should have equal say (call this "equality"), and nobody should be compelled to do anything they really don't want to do (call this, "freedom.") ...The rules are just a way to try to come to decisions in the spirit of those principles. "Formal consensus process," in is various manifestations, is just one technique people have made up, over the years, to try to come to group decisions that solve practical problems in a way that ensures no one's perspective is ignored, and no one is forced to do anything or comply with rules they find truly obnoxious. That's it. It's a way to find consensus. It's not itself "consensus."
Our power is in our principles. The power of Occupy has always been that it is an experiment in human freedom. That's what inspired so many to join us. That's what terrified the banks and politicians, who scrambled to do everything in their power—infiltration, disruption, propaganda, terror, violence—to be able to tell theword[world] we'd failed, that they had proved a genuinely free society is impossible, that it would necessarily collapse into chaos, squalor, antagonism, violence, and dysfunction. We cannot allow them such a victory. The only way to fight back is to renew our absolute commitment to those principles. We will never compromise on equality and freedom. We will always base our relations to each other on those principles. We will not fall back on top-down structures and forms of decision making premised on the power of coercion. But as long as we do that, and if we really believe in those principles, that necessarily means being as open and flexible as we can about pretty much everything else.
