Page 14 - C.A.L.L. #28 - Spring 2007

KALEIDOSCOPE

Browsing through a newsletter from the "La Poudriere" communities of Easter 2006 we
discover a striking metaphor of life in community:

"It was a real "Life Train" which invited us for youngsters who arrive for a few days of
a trip. In that train we filled up 5 wagons, reflection, each one of them bringing along
named respectively Pe, Vi, Bru, Rum and his enquiries, his smiles, his wonderings.
Anderlecht , all drawn by an engine with the And there also are a few complementary
cute name of Presence-Friendship-Justice- travelers. And those who have come to a
Hope and Modesty. decision to get off the train after an extended
But who are the passengers? Of course there trip with us.
are those who boarded the train from the On the train , some unusual events also take
outset and carry on appreciating the place .. And so on and so on: stations on the
landscape, at the same time collecting new way , exchanges between wagons, ticket
passengers... controls, communications, oncoming
.... A few board the train and get off again stations, destinations - and the terminal?
before we can check their tickets . There also Well, we'll leave that to the readers'
are student commuters and school imagination!

Out of the FEC's "Dirt and Dreams" (quite a significant title by itself) of Spring 2006, we
borrow some aspects of decision-making by consensus , as observed by Parke:

Democratic Self-Governance

According to our bylaws, all FEC communities use a form of decision making in which "members
have an equal opportunity to participate, either through consensus, direct vote, or right of appeal
or overrule." This principle reflects the political dimension of our egalitarianism, the aspiration to
realize an equality of power.
Different FEC communities have evolved different ways of sharing decision-making power. The two
largest FEC communities, East Wind and Twin Oaks, have developed systems where all members
have equal access to powerful roles within the community, such as the Board of Planners at Twin
Oaks, even while there is a wide range of degrees to which different members participate in
community decisions. At East Wind, for example, community-wide meetings are relatively rare and
seldom attended by everyone.
In the smaller FEC communities, where it's much easier to assemble everyone together, community
meetings tend to be a regular feature of life, and everyone is expected to participate whenever
possible. In most cases, the smaller communities practice some form of consensus. In FEC Assem-
blies, the community delegates also operate under a consensus model as they make policy and set
budgets for the organization.
These structures enable FEC communities to avoid some of the most obvious abuses of power that
might otherwise intrude, but by no means do these structures insulate our communities from all
problematic power dynamics. While we tend to measure power in units of votes, we often overlook
differences in the persuasive capacity to win those votes in the first place. People who are
persuasive tend to have more power than those who aren't. Some are more persuasive because
they're more articulate or charming; others because they have greater seniority; still others
perhaps because they're more savvy - they know who to talk to outside of the meeting, how to
approach them to secure their support, and so on.
Addressing the abuse of power represents, I think, the most important work we do in community.
The inequality of self-knowledge and skill may represent the most challenging of all inequalities of
power found in community, and the world at large. Community affords the experimental ground
upon which we can wrestle with this issue in a deep and honest way. Happily, the communities
movement abounds with inspirational stories and models related to this theme - along with
myriad cautionary tales. But we must go much further. That better world toward which we all
strive only becomes possible, I believe, when we have become much more skillful in recognizing
and restraining our own abuses of power.

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