[CREATE] Code of Conduct

[Gregory Pittman]

On 01/21/2014 10:42 AM, Dave Crossland wrote:
> 
> Power exists, whether if you structure it or not. Groups who oppose
> abuse of power by very large structured groups often think a total
> lack of structure will make them more fair, but this is a mistake.
> Democratic structures are useful for distributing power fairly in
> medium+ groups, so that power is not concentrated in unaccountable
> elites.
> 
> What part of this is nonsense? :)
> 
The nonsense is to say something which is non-novel with a dump truck
load of (pseudo)intellectual verbiage. Frankly, German and French
intellectuals already covered this ground in a more intelligent fashion
centuries ago.

This is a point-of-view of those seeking more power and trying to
rationalize it in some way. Revolutionaries (right or left wing) do this
freely, pretending to "speak for the people".

If you look at some current and more applicable information on creating
change, you might search out work by people like John Kotter, e.g.:

http://www.kotterinternational.com/our-principles/changesteps

Note that his first step is to "Create a sense of urgency". This isn't
something you can artificially produce, in a
chicken-little-sky-is-falling sort of a way. Let's recall that this
whole COC issue came up from Louis, based on his innocent (AFAICT)
question about whether it existed. This rapidly evolved to an OMG!
moment for some in which the urgency of a COC became paramount, whereas
others could see some practical value in a sensible COC, and still
others said, "Wha-?" (not to be confused with WTF, though there may have
been a little of that too).

It would be nice if, at the centenary of World War I, we might stop
digging foxholes, come out of the trenches, and shut down this COC war.

Greg