Hypothetical consensus vs. democracy paradox

[Skyhilist]

Suppose the people of society finally won the right to make their own decisions. Suppose they couldn't decide whether or not democracy or consensus would be better for decision making but knew that they wanted only one or the other, and not a mix of the two. Now suppose they hold a vote to decide whether they want future decisions to be made either democratically or through consensus. The consensus option wins the vote, but only by a very slim margin. Would supporters of consensus as a method for decision making support the decision made in this vote?

Fixed Spelling -Dean

[Skyhilist]

Shit I just realized I misspelled 'hypothetical'. Pretty badly too. Oops.

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm not sure it's any more a paradox than claiming something like "Pinochet was not a dictator because he abided by terms of the referendum removing him from office".

In any event if somebody was a doctrinaire advocate of consensus presumably they won't separate the means from the ends and thus they'd have to turn down the opportunity to establish consensus rule.

[bcbm]

who knows

[Forward Union]

Frankly, can I just say that you are quite right to differentiate between democracy and consensus. The crisis of "how to we decide how to decide things" is not logically answerable, but it always seems to resolve itself. But Consensus advocates are opponents of democracy by definition and so I hasten to add that it's is a great tragedy that this pathetic liberal idea has infected the, shall I say "rotten" fringes of our movement for the last 30 years or so.

[cyu]

Suppose I made a round square. Is it round? Is it a square? My mind boggles! :laugh: