[Dialogue] (no subject)

[frank bremner]

Dear colleagues

Recent discussions about ICA issues in the US (and various archives, and 
various boards), and the discussion about the prolegomena etc - these have 
pushed me to articulate a few questions.  I'd appreciate any reflections, 
answers, comments.

1)
A former Baptist minister, now social worker, told me a few years back how 
he had ben asked to write the constitution for a new Baptist congregation in 
his suburb.  He asked lots of people for what they wanted in it and so on.  
They didn't quite understand why he asked questions about how many months 
notice would be needed to have a vote to change the constitution.

But he was able to write in "two months (or maybe it was more) months 
notice" was required for discussion before any motion to change the 
constitution was to be put to the vote of a meeting of the congregation.  A 
few years later a fundamentalist sub-group tried to take over the 
congregation by a swift change in the constitution - theological and 
procedural wordings would be changed.  People at last were grateful for 
George's wisdom - he was as gentle as a lamb, but as wily as a servant.  He 
showed the congregation that they were living in the real world.

In earlier days of the Order of the Ecumenical Institute, the 
Order:Ecumenical, the Ecumenical Institute, and the Institute of Cultural 
Affairs there was a lot of cultural pressure and tradition that just kept 
things going by consensus (albeit flawed in process at times).  Despite 
there being a triangle in the Social Process about "Bureaucratic Systems", 
"bureaucracy" became a "boo word".  Never-the-less there was a small amount 
of formal organisational legalism that kept us in relationship with 
"community and polis".

When were there events, incidents, periods of time when the smallness of 
that formal organisational legalism (I may have the wrong word here) became 
a real problem?  I do recall that we had an adolescent confidence that we 
would "live forever" (as in the title song from the musical "Fame") and 
could "do anything", and that legalities were for "the world" and not for 
us.

Those of you who have read a lot of Niebuhr and so on - what have they to 
say about this?  I know we used Bonhoeffer to say that a person, group, etc 
makes decisions with due consideration of lwas, duties, etc - but my sense 
was that "due considferation" was often swept aside in that adolescent 
confidence, as we let "the indicative" tell us what to do.  My unformed, but 
intuitive, question back then was "How do you decide, and who decides, what 
"the indicative" is?"  And within what framework - maybe history long, 
cosmos wide, and soul deep?

It's like a Lutheran pastor of my acquaintance telling his flock, and the 
management committee of the ecumenical centre we once sat on, that "We 
should not be pushing our own agendas, but be asking what God wants us to 
do".  I only wish I had had the courage (I was new on the scene) to ask 
"What;s the process for asking God?"

So: at one pole we have very strong, tight and limiting procedures, like law 
that is never up for interpretation or discussion, unlike that on Boston 
Legal or whatever.

At the other pole we have very open "we'll decide it for ourselves" that 
does not consider the "commonweal".

Maybe my polarity is flawed.  Comments are welcome.

2)
"The Polity of the Order:Ecumenical" (c 1974) was out of date as soon as it 
was written.  The collators of that document said so in their introduction - 
like religious doctrine, it was a snapshot of theory and practice at that 
time.  But by gathering the threads together from our practice, and many 
dfferent writings, papers and documents the collators were able to develop a 
very useful document.  I used many of its principles when writing about 
educational administration in the late 70s and early 80s.

One section referred to "the Permanent House Church" as a group of guardians 
of the tradition.  was this ever spelled out in detail, anywhere?  Or 
discussed and never noted, anywhere?

My reflection at the time of my ed admin wrirtings was that this "Permanent 
House Church" functioned to provide a creartive tension with our 
participative processes.  No sub-group could insert their agenda too easily 
into the participative decision-making and bend the developing consensus.  
like "the Regulatory" at a summer research gathering, it could monitor the 
process.

So: another polarity.  "the Permanent House Church" at one end, 
participative processes at the other.

3)
I remember one summer gathering where a workshop leader was just ignoring 
participant contributions that didn't fit the outcome he wanted.  He had 
already decided the outcome.  A member of the Global Panchayat leant over 
and pointed this out to me.  I replied "Yes, there seems to be a bit of 
"getting people to fit a predetermined agenda" going on here". Was that 
participative process or something else.

I remember a workshop leader at a Community Meeting in a suburb of Adelaide, 
in the late 70s, who tied to steer the participants.  The problem was that 
he was the electorate secretary to the local Labor Party member, and in 
later years would be the MP for that seat, and then go on to hold several 
ministerial positions and then premier of South Australia.  He now works in 
SE Asia for a prominent NGO.

To those of you with backgrounds in political philosophy and history.  Are 
these examples of the USSR use of "soviets"?  Do they fit Stalinist 
thinking?  "No matter what the cost" thinking?  It's certainly not the sort 
of thing that we'd teach these days in ToP training - the various kinds of 
questions and frameworks we use certainly put a check on such actions.

4)
I've heard "the Panchayat principle" used as a phrase over the years.  Again 
it seems to have been used when some "executive action" seems to be taken, 
or the influence of some "executive" is brought to bear.

Sometimes it seems to have been used over against any around-the-table 
thrashing out of issues, sometimes it seems to have been used in a 
behind-the-scenes fashion.

These days, when most people (at least in the "developed" world) have email, 
recommendations can be made by a council, group, retrea, or team, and then 
be discussed on email within a suitable time frame.  Remember when Pope Paul 
VI changed the rules for papal elections?  The new  rules gave time for 
members of the conclave to gather from around the whole world (not just 
Europe) in an appropriate and possible time.  The email assists with the 
same principle.

John Cock is reported to have said (and i paraphrase) some years ago at a 
gathering "Around this table we've all been here long enough not to be 
pulling the wool over each others eyes, or to have it pulled over our own".  
Apologies, John, I've quoted this many times over the years.

So: any comments on "the Panchayat principle" over against participative 
processes?

5)
Finally.  The above are similar and yet different polarities.  How do they 
fit with "the ends" and "the means"?  "The ends justifiy the means"?  
"Anything for the sake of the mission"?  Our use of "The Philosophy of 
Revolution" by Jean-Paul Sartre.  I remember reading books on social and 
organisational change mechanisms (in medicine, in agriculture, in education, 
etc) in the late 60s that moved far beyond Sartre's processes.

Were other models considered apart from Sartre back in the 60s/70s?  I 
recognise that in the heady 60s/early 70s "revolutionary rhetoric" was par 
for the course.  In fact, it's part of required reading now, ALONGSIDE other 
models, in any decent organisational change study.  I suspect that we hung 
on to this rhetoric and its processes for too long - - eventually we 
recognised that life includes these processes in more complex ways than we 
used them back when.

'Nuff for now.

Best wishes

Frank Bremner
(in Adelaide, where we've just had weather so cold it reminds me of 
Chicago/Denver/Philadelphia  winters, and where I've just finished reading 
Obama's "The Audacity of Hope")