Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Consensus and Democracy

Reverend Amy Zucker Morgenstern
July 1, 2007
Palo Alto, CA

There are birthdays when even if they end in zero and it can’t be said that we feel young, exactly, we do feel energetic, happy with where we are in life, looking to the next ten years with zest and confidence. And then there are birthdays that make us feel more world-weary than worldly or wise. Either way, the anniversary of our birth can be a time of evaluation, weighing where we’ve been and where we’d like to go from here. Whether or not fireworks are your thing, we all celebrate a birthday this Wednesday, and for me it’s an annual check-in on the state of our democracy. How’s it going?

What has been called (debatably) the first true liberal democracy in the history of the world looks a little gray around the temples. We have the signs of age without necessarily the wisdom to show for it: the lines of stress and exhaustion at the eyes from looking too long at war and poverty, a lack of confidence in ourselves instead of the brash can-do attitude that was the hallmark (though undoubtedly the folly as well) of our younger days. The world we hoped to shape into our image has turned out to have its own ideas; instead of looking up to us as a hero, it snaps in contempt like an ungrateful and resentful offspring. And the state of our internal decisions has never been shakier. This fall I’ll use this time to propose some of the “moral values” that religious liberals take into the political realm, the basis of our decisions in the voting booth and beyond; today I want to look at the “how” of those decisions. Whatever we believe the United States’ role in the world is or ought to be, there is no question that it is an enormously important one. When we take action, it affects the entire globe. This puts a heavy responsibility on all of us and each of us to decide well. We don’t seem to be doing such a hot job. Half of us aren’t even talking to the other half most of the time (red state, blue state, one state, two state). As Unitarian Universalists we affirm “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large.” How can we improve the way we make decisions together?

An excellent model exists in consensus: agreement of all members of a community on what actions to take. Consensus has been used not only by small communities such as communal households and Quaker meetings, but by much larger and more complex organizations. I used to work for one, the American Friends Service Committee, that has made its decisions by consensus throughout its 90-year history. The Hanseatic League operated by consensus and was a powerful force in European trade for longer than the US has been a nation. The Iroquois Confederacy used consensus, possibly as early as the 12^th century, and the Netherlands makes many economic decisions on the Polder model, which strives for consensus. But I’m not proposing that we start making our decisions as a country, or even a congregation, by consensus. I’m suggesting something much more modest but still potentially revolutionarily transformative: that we adopt some of the wisdom of the consensus process to improve the way we make our decisions together.

We have time for only a brief survey of the possibilities, so I’ll orient all of them toward the biggest objection to consensus: Isn’t unanimity an impossible dream of naive minds? How on earth can we make important decisions when a single dissenting voice can block them? Doesn’t consensus give a minority, no matter how small, complete control over the fate of what might be a vast majority?

Consensus is not the same as unanimity. The aim may be said instead to be unity. Quakers call it “a sense of the meeting.” An idea is proposed and people begin to discuss it. The general sense of the meeting begins to emerge. If someone objects strenuously, conversation continues. He may convince the rest of the group that he has the better solution. (There is a thrilling model of this in the movie Twelve Angry Men, in which a jury — another example of a group that operates by consensus — starts out ready to convict the accused, with Henry Fonda the lone dissenter, and eventually all eleven of the others come around to his view and reach a consensus to acquit.) He may be convinced by the conversationBnot by threats or pressureBto change his mind. In the course of the discussion, he may decide that his objections are minor enough that he can “stand aside”: he does not agree with the rest of the group but he will let their decision go forward. Or he may continue to be in the minority, even a minority of one, but have such strong objections to the proposed course of action that he feels compelled to block consensus.

This requires discernment, which is one of the greatest advantages of consensus. Because everyone needs to agree, the importance of each person’s decision is paramount. No one comes into a meeting thinking “Well, this vote isn’t going to go my way no matter what”; no one comes in thinking, “Well, lots of people disagree with me but I have the numbers on my side.” Discussion can’t be short-circuited by a call for a vote. This gives each person a tremendous amount of power, and that power can be abused; but it also calls each person to discern his or her opinion and be able to articulate it clearly. Each of us needs to know, and be able to express to others, the difference between a comparatively trivial matter on which we can “stand aside,” and a moral issue on which there can be no compromise.

Discernment becomes the central activity of decisionmaking, which is the heart of the matter. For the great gift consensus offers us, members of this democratic congregation and citizens of this democratic country, is this: the insistence that the point of our process is to reach the truth. Not to convince others, not to win, not even to change our minds, but to reach the best possible understanding, each of us and all of us.

When was the last time you felt that the purpose of a national election was for the country to discern what was true and good and act upon it? When you felt that the process of campaigning and debating and deciding was one of “trying to find the truth of a matter, rather than thinking in terms of sides”? ¹

The process of consensus-building requires that each of us be willing to be changed. If there is one dissenter, everyone needs to listen to him or her. Everyone has a strong incentive to find a way to incorporate this person’s concerns into whatever is proposed. Thus a decision emerges that more fully represents the will of everyone present, a decision that might never have been made if the group had been asked simply to vote on proposal A, B, or C. We do this when we gather in our annual meeting and suggest amendments and alternatives. It is slow, which is why we so often press for a vote after only a few minutes of discussion. With the option of a majority-decided vote closed to us, we might decide more wisely. Consensus compels us to be patient. We can only learn the sense of the meeting if everyone is heard, and that takes time and excellent listening.

It doesn’t always work. But of the Friends, the Quakers, it has been said that “The experience … in which the differences [within a group during a discussion] are overcome by a deeper understanding occurs so often that Friends expect it.” “The very freedom and sobriety of the discussion lead each participator to some new position which is genuinely uniting … decisions are reached jointly which never could have been reached separately.” ² By acting as if we needed to reach not just a 50%-plus-one majority, but consensus, we could stretch our capacity for patience, perseverance, discernment, and listening. And by exercising these abilities, what wisdom might we discover?

What might we accomplish? Consensus councils have made great progress on such problems as the rebuilding of Angola’s society after a civil war. They have brought together thee right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation and the NAACP to talk about affirmative action, and found a common ground that enabled the two groups to unite on inner city education projects. Unlike debate and a vote, which can be extremely divisive, the process of building consensus absolutely requires the building and sustaining of relationships.

Imagine a nation whose decision-making process, instead of deepening the rifts among us, helped us to understand each other. If that’s too much, start smaller: imagine a congregation, a group of only 350 people who already hold many values in common, being able to state with confidence that its decision had been made well because everyone had been heard, had been open to transformation, and had sought the truth.

We look around our nation and see great gulfs between us, a lack of the trust and even the common experiences and values that could make consensus possible. The world depends upon our learning to make decisions better than we have done so far. We don’t need to aim for a conversion to consensus-based democracy; we just need to learn what the practitioners of consensus have learned and can teach us.

Instead of a country divided into red and blue, each side looking across the chasm and seeing demons, imagine striving to bridge the gap, build relationships and a better understanding within ourselves and with each other. Consensus offers us many of the tools we would need: dialogue, clarity of speech, discernment, respect, patience, perseverance. What a wonderful birthday present, if we will accept it.

 

Reflection: Being in the Minority by Rita Hays

 

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