Rhizome has a very interesting post reflecting on the processes being used by the Occupy movement. It references Ivan Boothe’s post which in turn talks about the tyranny of structurelessness.
What I take from this is that any group process is going to be more comfortable for some than others. It’s easy to miss these differences and end up thinking we’re being frightfully egalitarian when we’re not.
I don’t think there is ever true “structurelessness” in a group – only an unwillingness or inability to see what structures are there. This comes up a lot when talking about Open Space: people will cringe and say it lacks structure whereas it has lot of structure though less of it is created in advance than with some other approaches.
My head starts to spin when I dwell on this for too long. But I often return to the need to focus on managing my own piece of the puzzle and not get too grandiose in my ambitions to manage, outwit, rescue, redeem or otherwise manipulate other people.
