New Hand Signals

[benbrucato]

The "disagree" and the "block" are too specific. We need a couple new hand signals:

"AUTHORITARIANISM": Meaning 'What is happening now or is being said now is authoritarian, either explicitly or implicitly.' In the former instance, it could be an example of someone who has considerable influence in the movement using this influence to shut down conversation or steer it in their desired direction. David jokingly suggested a raised middle finger. That's very funny, but we obviously would want something that would start a conversation rather than build tension around the hand signal itself. Suggestions?

"LIBERAL NONSENSE": Meaning 'What is happening now or is being said now is a fallback to failed liberal politics and tactics that this movement has always been an alternative to. Think outside of the box (and outside of your privileged zone), because we've been through this a billion times before, and it's politically bankrupt and strategically empty.' I know many of us radicals/revolutionaries/insurrectionists/etc. are used to being shut down, and our demands for inclusion have been met with stronger tendencies to sideline us. That's why many of us have no interest in even showing up at the GAs any more, and many of us feel so alienated from the politics and tactics of OA that we have a hard time showing up at all. Since launching the RC, this is a comment I get from about 5 new people every week, and at least 20 people who have not been to more than 1 RC meeting (most not at all), mostly from poor people, women and people of color. This would be a way of reclaiming our space, and visibly demonstrating every time the pervasive liberal nonsense is going on. Suggestions for the hand signal?

[vincent]

"AUTHORITARIANISM": a back and forth crossing of the arms, one over the other; it would be like the signal employed by baseball umpires to signal that the runner is "safe." Changing its meaning by placing it in an alien context would make Wittgenstein and Weber proud.

There are a couple of others as well that I saw being employed in NYC yesterday: "CLARIFYING QUESTION: forming the letter "C" with one's pointer and thumb and holding it high to get the facilitator's attention. We may have the pinky hold up (I think), but I prefer the "C" to the pinky. Unless there is confusion, don't fix it if it ain't broken.

ALSO, there is "DIRECT RESPONSE" where the original speaker gets to respond to the critique being made against his/her comment. This consists in the original speaker moving his/her pointer fingers back and forth between himself/herself and the current speaker; when the current speaker is finished, the original speaker skips the stack and contests or concurs with the challenge/comment. This helps to keep the conversation on topic and more natural (I know that having hand signals is unnatural, but I still think that short of natural conversation that this is an improvement) as well as prevents hijacking from people who want to hand out bumper stickers.

[colin]

The facilitation working group has considered some of these issues before. After a long discussion we chose to use "Point of Information" instead of "Direct Response" because Direct Response is so commonly used to jump stack when people get excited by something they heard and don't want to wait their turn to speak (most often this occurs with privileged males who don't want to follow stack - particularly progressive stack). Direct Response should really only be used when you have a directly relevant piece of information that needs to come in right away....hence we use Point of Information.

I like the Clarifying Question idea but we do already use that as a category of questions that we begin with when considering a proposal. But certainly we could consider its expanded use in other situations if folks think it would be useful.

I don't think the Liberal Nonsense hand sign is a very good idea. I've done facilitation and consensus for a long time and have never heard of anything like that before. Consensus strives to respectfully listen to all view points and incorporate different concerns into a proposal in order to make it stronger and more reflective of the whole. Apart from the fact that a specific "liberal nonsense" hand sign seems divisive and to go against the spirit of consensus, I could also see it leading to slippery slope where more liberal leaning folks come up with a Radical Nonsense hand sign in response and then we need a separate signal for our Trotskyist friends to denote Trotskyist Nonsense, if Libertarians come we'd need a libertarian hand sign, etc..... If you have a substantive disagreement with the content of someone's position for being liberal it seems you can get on stack and say so. You can also wiggle fingers down.

I guess I'm open to the Authoritarianism sign but Authoritarianism is a very very serious charge and I would have a huge problem if it is lightly used against facilitators who are simply trying to keep a discussion on topic, on stack, or on time. If someone is abusing their standing to subvert the process we already have "Point of Process" so I don't see why we'd need a separate hand-signal for "Authoritarianism". Again slippery slope issue: there are dozens of different ways in which process can be subverted - I don't think we need separate hand signals for each one of them. "Point of Process" covers authoritarian abuses of process without unnecessarily multiplying hand signals.

Just some thoughts - now back to Thanksgiving preparation - I'll bring extra pies by the Occupation tomorrow - their delicious! : )

[Ryan R.]

Ok, I have gone on record as having a bit of disagreement with the whole idea of hand signals, but the "liberal nonsense" sign is just brilliant.

And as one of the leading "Trotskyist Friends" (hilarious term, by the way) of the movement, I would also like to say that I am perfectly fine with the existence of this slippery slope.

[philbuilder]

"Nonsense" is pretty much what takes place when words are used in a fashion that doesn't resemble any meaning we would find in the dictionary, right?

And if we want to cut through the propaganda, which alters the meaning of language, we have word roots to protect language. Right?

Liberal- suitable for free man.
liberal (ˈlɪbərəl, ˈlɪbrəl) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]

— adj
1. relating to or having social and political views that favour progress and reform
2. relating to or having policies or views advocating individual freedom
3. giving and generous in temperament or behaviour
4. tolerant of other people
5. abundant; lavish: a liberal helping of cream
6. not strict; free: a liberal translation
7. of or relating to an education that aims to develop general cultural interests and intellectual ability

— n
8. a person who has liberal ideas or opinions

[C14: from Latin līberālis of freedom, from līber free]

Hey, most of that is what this movement for the 99% is all about, isn't it? Therefore, the expression "liberal nonsense" can't possibly pertain to our discussions, can it?

Now let's look at "authoritarianism"- quite a mouthfull.
authoritarian (ɔːˌθɒrɪˈtɛərɪən) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]

— adj
1. favouring, denoting, or characterized by strict obedience to authority
2. favouring, denoting, or relating to government by a small elite with wide powers
3. despotic; dictatorial; domineering

— n
4. a person who favours or practises authoritarian policies

authori'tarianism

But isn't this movement all about the 99% claiming the appropriate authority from the 1% who hold way too much of that authority? And doesn't civilized society move forward by assigning and obeying appropriate authority? Imagine the chaos if we had a society with no authority at all! Does Somolia come to mind as a place where the vacuum of non-authoritarianism has been filled by corrupt authoritarian war lords who are worse than our Wall St. robber barons?

So put both word meanings together and what do we get? Liberal authoritarianism, golly gee whiz! A system where free people determine and control the authority necessary to maintain a system suitable for themselves rather than just the 1%.

I think our system of group communication is both far from perfect- and also quite adequate. We have a dynamic straw poll of waggling fingers which is a great feedback system to tell the speaker if he is reaching the audience- or whether there is even need to keep speaking. We have tools to question, tools to add necessary information. And not that I have the authority here to express more than my opinion, but that opinion is that we sure don't need tools that over-complicate basic group communication. Nor do we need some self-proclaimed authority on the subject coming in to tell us what we "need", especially since the people had already come to consensus in adopting a system suitable to free people.