Pages

Thursday, November 1, 2012

The Zeitgeist Movement "Rational Consensus" challenged


"Rational Consensus"

Rational Consensus is not to be confused with the historically failed traditional Mob Rule Democratic Process of "one person - one vote". TZM does not condone total, open mob rule democracy as it is based on the faulty assumption that each participating party is educated enough to make the most intellectually appropriate, unbiased decision.
Proper Decision Making has nothing to do with the interests of a group of people, nor the interests of a single person. Proper Decision Making is a purely technical process of logical assessment of a given set of variables and hence can only be based on upon tangible, technical referents - not abject, unsupported mass value opinion, which is what the pure democratic theory erroneously assumes holds integrity. In other words, each argument of a given member must be logically supported by an external referent/set of external referents – clearly reasoned in communication to support the conclusion given. The manifestation of this reasoning could be called a "Case".
Using the example of a Chapter scenario: When a conflict of agreement occurs between the group, the process of Rational Consensus is commenced which requires each conflicting party to present their Case to everyone else. This Case must consist of technically reasoned factors/instances/examples which can be evaluated outside of the expression of the person who is presenting the problem. In other words, insinuation, assumptions and predispositions have no value. If the argument cannot be quantified in some manner - it isn't valid as an argument.
Let's assume a Member has a problem with a Coordinator's actions and would like to see the removal of that Coordinator. Let's assume the Case reasoning is that the Coordinator is not properly representing the interests/ideas of the majority of the group.
In this scenario, a set of technical examples would need to be provided by which the group itself can review. Then a rational "democratic" consensus is made within that group based solely upon the evidence presented - not the expression of any persons themselves. Now, while this process is simple and direct enough - resembling traditional democracy - the decision can still be overridden in the event the conclusions made are suspect as to their technical reasoning by the next tier degree in the Chapter Structure. This extended evaluation is there to protect from erroneous conclusions made by a possibly un-knowledgeable or biased Chapter Membership.
In other words, for example, the removal of a State Chapter Coordinator, while meeting Rational Consensus in the respective Chapter, might still need to meet Rational Consensus on the State Tier on the Structure. [ie. Consensus by all 50 states] to protect against erroneous or biased group decisions or even infiltrations by 3rd parties with the intent of problem generation. Since these situations are very rare and occur usually within very small, lower tier Chapters, the factors which comprise such an intervention naturally exist on a per case basis.
As an aside, it is important to point out that there is nothing to gain personally by being a Coordinator of any Chapter or Team in and of itself. Abuse of this position offers nothing in self-interest return, except perhaps Ego Satisfaction. There is no pay and typically it is a higher stress position due to the responsibility inherent. Many who come from the hyper-democratic conditioning assume that mass consensus is the only thing we can trust while the individual is not trust worthy at all. This cynical view needs to be adjusted to understand that in an environment where a person cannot find reward for their narrow self-interest, they will have no reason typically to perpetuate that narrow self-interest. This is one of the core reasons, as an aside, The Movement operates without money overall - as money always sets the stage for corruption on a basic level, as history has shown.