[governance] [bestbits] emails to Adiel

[Norbert Bollow]

William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Jan 11, 2014, at 2:10 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> > the contents of the
> > letter certainly reflect what was in Bali the consensus of the
> > people who met in person in civil society meetings to discuss these
> > matters,
> 
> Per previous, I and others disagree with this characterization. Not
> wanting to be party to more shouting is not the same as agreeing, or
> expecting that what the people who happened to be in that room said
> permanently committed the networks of which they’re members to a
> position that could not be reviewed and agreed by others later.

I agree that no suggestion of a permanent commitment of any kind was
made, and hence certainly no decision implying a permanent commitment
can possibly have been made.

In my view there's nothing wrong if people later say something like “I
suggest to change this decision for reasons X, Y, Z”; it can be part of
the reasoning that the situation has changed in significant ways.

If however people don't explain that they have changed their view, but
nevertheless those who are in some ways spokespersons for the group act
contrary to what had been a consensus, then I would suggest that
something is going wrong, and it is definitely quite legitimate when
then some pointed questions are asked about what is going on.

Nota bene the definition of the term “consensus” that I'm using (since
a long time, and in all of the above) is “absence of sustained
opposition”, which is by the way a well-established definition. To say
“there is consensus” is very different from saying “everyone agreed”.
There are relatively few political processes in which one seeks to get
the explicit agreement of each member of a group.

Greetings,
Norbert

-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t