[Peace-discuss] Tonight's meeting

[C. G. Estabrook]

Al--

I have no doubt that you want to limit "the few" from speaking long and
repeatedly...!  Regards, Carl


On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Alfred Kagan wrote:

> Carl,
> 
> You are turning this on its head. Everyone wants discussion of all 
> points of view.  The way to get that is to encourage everyone to 
> speak and to limit the few from speaking long and repeatedly.
> 
> 
> At 10:26 PM -0500 4/25/04, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> >Here's something that a woman thinks, Al.  Laura Nader, a professor of
> >anthropology at UC Berkeley (and sister of Ralph) speaks of "coercive
> >harmony," which she describes as "basically a movement against the
> >contentious in anything, and it has very strange bedfellows, from people
> >with various psychiatric therapy movements, Christian fundamentalists,
> >corporations sick of paying lawyers, activists who believe we should love
> >each other.  We are talking about coercive harmony -- an ideology that
> >says if you disagree, you should really keep your mouth shut."  (Nader,
> >Laura. 1995. Coercive harmony - The political economy of legal models.
> >Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. 25 p.)
> >
> >Regards, Carl
> >
> >
> >On Sun, 25 Apr 2004, Al Kagan wrote:
> >
> >>  That was a pretty intense meeting tonight.  We have been working
> >>  together pretty smoothly these last two and a half years. I think we
> >>  can congratulate ourselves on that.  One of reasons for our success is
> >>  that we have respectful discussion.  For whatever reason, what
> >>  happened tonight was an exception to our rule.
> >>
> >>  We must provide an environment where people feel free to speak.  I
> >>  think only a small number of the folks in the room spoke tonight, and
> >>  unfortunately I think that is usually the case. So we need to work on
> >>  that a bit.
> >>
> >>  I think that the men tend to speak more than the women.  Perhaps we
> >>  (the men) need to be more sensitive to that, especially when we are
> >>  discussing questions having to do with women's rights and sexism.
> >>
> >>  We also need to be sensitive to the facilitator.  We need to make that
> >>  job easy, not difficult.  We need to give the facilitator some help in
> >>  encouraging everyone.  Likewise we need to support the facilitator
> >>  when someone goes on too long or speaks too many times in a row.
> >>  Everyone should remember that effective meetings will not happen when
> >>  people think they have the right to speak for as long as they think
> >>  they should.  We have to trust our facilitators to put on the brakes.
> >>
> >>  I would especially like to hear what the women think about tonight's
> >>  meeting. --
> >>