At 09:51 AM 2/17/99 -0800, you wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kerry Miller) wrote:
>
>It's debatable whether formal structure is or isn't needed. Some
>people who feel as if they've been left out of the process or that
>their perspectives haven't been given audience want a more formal
>structure in place than the original structure.
>
You will all forgive me for this, I'm sure. I was sitting in my anthropology
class tonight learning about the mechanics of social formations; from the
egalitarian hunter-gatherers to the stratified state hierarchies that had a
degree of central authority, as evidenced by ruins of central structures
that were not residential. It seems, as anyone who has served on any
committee can attest, that the larger the group, the less effective it is
in making decisions. Those who demand a vote, and a voice in the
proceedings, lose heart when they discover that there are hundreds of
others just like them in the mix, and such events as . . . can we say,
hashing out some topic for years on end with no result? . . . never do
reach a decision. It is thus realized, unhappily as this may seem,
that to grant just a wee bit of direct voice so as to get just a wee bit
of an actual, working result may sometimes, in fact, be worth it.
Bill Lovell
