THE QUAKER METHOD

In many places in the book, the need for dialogue between different groups has been stressed. In this context, it may be prudent to acquaint oneself with one of the oldest and very successful method of conducting meetings. The Quaker method has been recognised all over the world. It takes a seat of prominence, in the United Nations, in conflict resolution. Originated in England, Quakers have had a presence of more than a century in India. They enjoyed mutual respect with Gandhi.

The Quaker Method of conducting meetings has proved very useful in political movements in recent times. Quakers’ real name is Society of Friends. They are an antiauthoritarian Christian religious group nearly four hundred years old. They do not advertise themselves or practice conversion. You become a ‘Quaker by Convincement’.  In fact there are Quakers who are agnostics. Quakers can be considered as belonging to pacifist anarchist tendencies, which include the ideas of Tolstoy and Gandhi.

Quakers believe that there is divinity in every individual. This principle translated in secular terms amounts to the idea that every one has access to some aspect of the Truth. In meetings and dialogues, it is assumed that all are searching for truth, that you listen to others carefully and examine your own truth. The objective is not to arrive at a compromise, consensus or agreement, but to realise truth collectively as much as possible.

This method is not unique to Quakers. Quakers themselves observed similar methods in American (Red) Indians. Nearer home, there are reports of Gond tribals in Gadchiorli discussing issues threadbare and reaching a decision only when everyone was clear about it and agreed to it. In recent times in anti-globalisation demonstrations all over the world, groups believing in non-violence and groups believing in ‘unconventional tactics’ including violence, learned to work together successfully. At the Seattle protest against WTO, the varied groups involved used this method to act in unison.

Collective Intelligence and Quaker Practice

By Leonard Joy <leonardjoy@igc.org>

The ways in which society generally provides for collective discernment and decision-making are ill designed to tap our collective intelligence and do much to explain our collective inability to discern and pursue the common good. The fact that adversarial debate is likely to fail to respect all needs and legitimate interests - and, at best, provides for compromise - is fairly readily grasped. Where not all voices are equally heard, the neglect of some concerns may be acute. And where there is no mutual caring between parts and whole, there is pathology, even death.

I have many experiences of sustained decision-making in which, in my judgment, collective wisdom prevailed. I shall now examine the practice that supported this and consider whether its preconditions have general application. The practice in question is the Quaker practice of decision-making. The fact that it is approached as ‘a meeting for worship for business,’ in particular, raises the question of its more general applicability. Let me anticipate and say that, approached as a meeting for discerning the common good, the practice stands up well in secular contexts.

The appended extracts from a Quaker Faith and Practice describe the practice. They also describe its mystical roots - the belief that ‘there is that of God in everyone,’ and that this can be experienced so that discourse can be ‘Spirit-led.’

The essentials of Quaker practice, translated where necessary into secular terms, are as follows (no special order):

1. Grounding of all participants in the desire for the common good

2. Ensuring that all voices are heard and listened to

3. Respect for all - both participants and those outside (but affected by) the decision        making process

4. Respect and caring for the agreed legitimate interests of all

5. Maintaining community-loving relationship - as a primary concern

6. Grounding of all participants in their own humanity and their experience of it during the meeting

7. Sensitivity to interdependence - open systems thinking

8. Speaking out of the silence (the state of being personally grounded)

9. Addressing the clerk/facilitator not one another

10. Speaking simply and not repeating what has already been expressed

11. Contributing personal perceptions and convictions - speaking one’s own truth -without advocating that all should act on it

12. The commitment to air dissent

13. Not using emotion to sway others while being authentic with the expression of feeling

14. Distinguishing ‘threshing’ meetings from meetings for decision-making

15. Preparing factual and analytical material for assimilation prior to meetings for decision

16. The role of the clerk/facilitator in offering syntheses of the ‘sense of the meeting’ that are progressively modified until there is unity

17. The role of the clerk/facilitator in resolving difficulty in coming to unity

18. Decisions are made not by majority vote, nor by consensus, but by unity

19. The organisational structures that bring to bear the voices of many collectivities.

In principle, Leonard Joy’s description of the Quaker Method is a very good guide. However, real life always demands adaptations and practicality. If undertaken from a position of standing on good principles the end result is generally closer to the model.