I have strong participatory/pro-democratic and activist roots, and this likely won’t change regardless of how many spaces and projects I am excluded from. I am looking to learn some of the practicalities, besides the exclusion procedure itself, that I disagree with (it is not within my threshold of tolerance).
I have no idea who the Karrot team is but it sounds like you had a bad experience somewhere and I’m sad to hear that.
I try to practice mental amputation of the Karrot team from my world for 3 years now, so you’re a lucky one / mentally very skilled that you say it that lightly.
Living systems are interdependant with their context. There are no isolated systems. However, many people in Western cultures have been conditioned to think individualistically, as if we were separate from our context and could ignore our impact on the world around us.
From Many Voices, One Song, chapter 1.1 The values under sociocracy. I definitely lack that conditioning.
I still find it really difficult to go through many of SoFA resources. The theory is very distant from what I experienced.
In the makerspace which got instigated around my short Karrot times, which I hope to be a friendly space for all types of human beings, including mine, I made a modification to sociocracy-like consent-based decision making we’re using (or more going to use, once I learn to trust people again, and allow them in):
Decision making:
We strive to make decisions that are good or good enough (acceptable) for everyone who may be affected by them.
In the Association, our intention is to make decisions by consent (accepting proposals that are good enough for every member; no objections) with two modifications:
- (a) some power is given back to the group over the individuals: the group can suspend a member’s right to object (it gives sabotage-resistance to the group governance, internal or external). That member (or a few members) can exit into a split of the group.
- (b) some power is taken away from the group and given to an individual: there are cadence-based, all-members-entrusted-by-election roles of Members Defendant and Group Protector. GP requests and justifies the expulsion, although any member can do it too. MD decides about expelling a member (or not!), instead of entire group doing it, and gives back the right to object.
Excluding someone from a group of equals, when the connection was not strong enough, as a personal conflicts resolution strategy (Karrot, §4.1b) or because of underperformance (sociocracy, eXtinction Rebellion), also known as ostracisation or mobbing, is inhuman and causes institutional betrayal trauma that has no closure. This is where zombies come from. We don’t do that.
An Annex to the Statute which adds Group Protector and Members Defendant roles can be found here (in Polish).
I was told that I hurt myself by keeping trying - but what alternative do I have? Accept that I don’t belong? what does it mean in practice? How to internalise that?
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I’ll try once again.
It is hard for me to believe that you don’t know who the Karrot team is, if I linked to their meetings in SoFA community pages (Free and Open Source Community circle) and given that a member of that team is in SoFA General circle.
I find your answer dismissive, but I appreciate that you answered. Feeling ‘sad’ sounds like by far non-proportional to what has happened.
It seems to me that maybe you don’t know what weapon you are using? Power of a group used against an individual. A group violence silently accepted by everyone around. For me it was pivotal to listen to the podcast about ostracization and social death effect it has of prof. Monika Kostera (in Polish) as it validated my experience, maybe she would know some accounts of survivors to increase your awareness? She said the mechanism is so powerful that even the sociopaths (who are insensitive to mild stimuli) are not resilient to it.
I found Kostera is one of editors of a collective work Dignity and the Organization. The second chapter mentions Hannah Arendt’s theory - I also referred to the violation of most elementary Human Rights when describing my experience. UDHR was created around the same time as Arendt’s book, both out of the experiences of dehumanization during WW2.
I believe it would be good if everyone who propagates self-organization was aware and educated others also about the threat of a social death of someone being ostracized (actively or non-actively, by shunning) in such a group. So that people could ask themselves if this is really what they want to do? This is relevant especially in the context of online communities, where people interact remotely - over the internet it’s hard to feel empathy and the natural stop conditions for human suffering are off - but the pain and harm on the other side is very real.
I wish dehumanizing practices were abandoned and actively prevented.
So… is there a way to leave this space (I looked and couldn’t find) so that I can truly withdraw myself from the interactions that work only as a source of frustration for me (probably due to missed expectations), or is the only way to mute the notifications and work on self-discipline / behavioural issues?
I believe the issue I have with this statement, is its relativist nature. I believe there are things which are not just ok to accept and pass by next to them as an indifferent observer. Group violence and human rights violation is one of them, for me. Perhaps the text message I sent that made the other person feel uncomfortable was inappropriate - but I was not a danger for the other person to justify the use of violence as a means of protection.
It’s not my bad experience here that needs the attention and to be addressed, but the group and its practices that made me and possibly others have that experience, and seem to not care, neither them nor anyone around.
"the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing“ -Edmund Burke.
I apologise for the moralistic tone, but I didn’t find any better way to express myself.
It seems like you’re very invested in pro-democratic principles and activism, and it’s natural that being cut out of a particular place or project would be frustrating if it goes against your beliefs. It may be useful to pay attention to learning about the mechanics of the process of exclusion itself—what standards or processes are used for deciding on exclusion, and how those can be appealed or changed. Knowing these processes may give you the power to promote more inclusive processes while remaining committed to your beliefs. Moreover, seeking other spaces or developing new ones that resonate with your beliefs may be a means of remaining active and engaged, no matter what challenges you encounter in current spaces.