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On Nested Councils

By Michael McGehee at Apr 28, 2009

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Just jotting down notes...

I was watching the Z Sessions video by Shalom and Brecher (haven't gotten to completely finish it yet due to a disc error) but was real inspired by Shalom's talk.

I like the idea of nested councils federated through higher levels of councils staffed by delegates that are still largely beholden to their local council. I liked the idea of small numbers for councils to better facilitate face-to-face interaction - direct democracy.

At first I was skeptical that it would be feasible. Wouldn't there be too many layers of federated councils creating static? There are roughly 300 million Americans, 75 million of which are under the age of 18. So assuming we kept political participation in these councils limited to 18 and older how many levels would it take for a country the size of the U.S. if each council consisted of 25 people?

Of course 25 people wouldn't even take care of one side of my street, but my questions don't stop there. What kind of facilitation board(s) would be needed to service over 90 million councils - and would they have to be federated? How would we map these councils? To be in the top council would require those 25 people to be actively involved in the five lower councils. How would they juggle that and their regular jobs?

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Re: On Nested Councils

By George, Justin at Apr 28, 2009 19:19 PM

Brian,

your comment brought to mind fractal patterns, where the same pattern is inlayed within a wider pattern, just as the councils would all sit within each other and be relevant depending on what level you looked at it.

Not sure if this can be easily represented. But its another way that the participatory vision relates to 'hard science' as Complementary holism is perhaps like Quantam theory as it encompasses the broad and the finite and charts the interactions, compared to the more rigid boundaries of the sciences or other social theories etc.

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By Small, Brian at Apr 30, 2009 17:43 PM

Michael McGehee's blog post got me to sit down and see that 244 million people could, concievably be represented by 6 layers of 25 person councils, each group sending one representative to communicate with the other councils at the layer 'above' or 'within.' I had to doodle on some scrap paper and find a calculator widget though. I'm probably not alone in rarely doing that when I generally have 20 tabs and three browser windows open. That's way some kind of Java app with fuzzball graphics that you could play with popped into mind. Thanks for making my post sound  intelligent - I was visuallizing MakkuroKurosuke 'dust bunnies' instead of fractals so it was fun to see some kind of connection with science.

My previous comment attempt (lost somehow) veered off into my recent PTA experiences. I was wondering if we can imagine a neighborhood as organized as the PTA at a random Japanese elementary school. Each household has a role. The teacher asks each guardian to sign up for a committee. There's continuing education, recreation, newsletter production.... But those musings might be more appropriate in relation to Tyler Tarwater's comment on Michael McGehee's ParPolity post.

I was trying to imagine how the 25 member council on Michael's section of the street would interact with the rest of the neighborhood. In practice I imagine there has to be a lot of overlap, parecon council members hanging with parpolity council members. I have no idea how participatory my PTA experiences are going to be (made) but I wanted to think a bit about the issues in Tyler Tarwater's  comment. How to get everyone to participate equally in councils. Maybe John Gastil's Democracy In Small Groups would help?

How much trust building and information exchange would actually need to go on in other community activities?.. I had written about feeling afraid to get involved with neighbors - what if they're right-wing conspiracy gun-nuts or something? But then you can find common ground with just about anyone working together for your kid's safety - maybe yanking SUV drivers out obnoxiously driven cars when they put school kids in danger - or more proactively installing a speed bump or something.... I gotta run out to a May Day event. Who know about them unless you live in Japan or read Chomsky?

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Re: Neighborhood Organization

By Small, Brian at Apr 29, 2009 20:38 PM

Justin, your response to my commented got me to write a long response but it disappeared. Disappointing!

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By Small, Brian at Apr 28, 2009 16:46 PM

You got me thinking of fuzzballs. I wish I knew how to make an expanding graphic of circles with 25 hairs sprouting out of them. At the end of each hair is another much smaller circle that would expand into a similar fuzzball when you put your mouse over it. Then you could arrange the fuzzballs in a circle and show how the inner fuzzball was a way of connecting the outer fuzzballs. Those arrows could even be bi-directional graphically showing recall capabilities and their function as a communication conduit. It would be cute if the outermost fuzzball hairs ended in 25 different person icons.

Pyramid images just get you thinking 'control pyramid'. I stumbled on a mindmapping book in a store a while ago then went on a mapping software downloading binge but don't know if I'll ever sit around and doodle with them enough to figure out how to use them. The mind mapping stuff just clicked when I read your post, got me thinking it would be neat to see the idea in more of a circular network format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mind_mapping_software

http://vue.tufts.edu/help/index.cfm?CFID=11370879&CFTOKEN=94133274

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