Four Forms of Consultative Architecture
By John Taylor; 2009 Aug 03, Kamal 02, 166 BE
We have been discussing in this series the invention of two new levels of government, each of which is more local and intimate than anything we currently are acquainted with. The household is the nearest level to the individual; it is the closest to face-to-face democracy in its purest form. The household may comprise an extended family of blood relations, or a group of others with a common interest or who work well together.
The second level is the neighbourhood, composed of several dozen families who live in close proximity to one another. They meet in what we are calling a neighbourhood "war and peace room," a specially designed conference space where they work out policy together. These two levels of governance could not exist in our present urban layout of freehold architecture marked by sole proprietorship. They certainly would not arise spontaneously on their own. Rather are the result of a specially designed city planning regime that I call "consultative architecture."
Consultative architecture, briefly, is where the outer form of peoples' living space is a direct outcome of their own decisions, both autonomous and collective. Being owned cooperatively by residents, the specific form of a home or city block is the outcome of millions of negotiated decisions by the individuals, households and neighbourhoods who live and work there. The design of each building in these hillside developments is standardized to allow many modular living units to move around, to coalesce and come apart easily.
This highly protean and flexible physical set-up is designed to engender something very similar to the Hellenic ideal of democracy, perhaps for the first time since Ancient Athens was in its heyday. Let me digress a little on Athenian democracy.
When the Athenians thought of democracy, they did not think, as we do, of selection of a few representatives by a popular vote. They thought, rather, of random choice in the context of universal participation in public service. Every free male citizen had a civic duty to perform serious governmental work, including judging civic and criminal court cases, regularly. The particular time when they served was often determined by lot -- a system we still use in selecting for jury duty.
This combination of randomness and universal participation addresses a fundamental flaw that remains in our present representative democracy. In an election, how do I know that the person I am voting for will do well if they have never done it before? A person may do well in one job situation and poorly in another only slightly different post. A household and neighbourhood government, like the Athenians, will place everyone at one time or another in a responsible position of service or leadership. Within households individuals take turns randomly, and in a neighbourhood entire households assume rotating positions.
Not only democracy but three other forms of government balance one another in a UCS's consultative architecture. This too was understood in ancient times.
Aristotle in his "how-to" book on public speaking, the Rhetoric, advised the orator to make a special appeal to the needs of each audience. Listeners in each type of society have their own particular motives and goals, which are important to them. "For all men are persuaded by considerations of their interest, and their interest lies in the maintenance of the established order." (Aristotle, Rhetoric, translated by W. Rhys Roberts, Book 8, 206) There are, for Aristotle, four kinds of established order, democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy and monarchy. Because society today is a more complex, multi-ethnic mixture of all four elements, Aristotle's advice applies even more today.
Each of the four types has its own supreme authority that rules the hearts and minds of its members. First, democracy. As mentioned, democracy then had nothing to do with campaigns or even elections. For Aristotle, "Democracy is a form of government under which the citizens distribute the offices of state among themselves by lot." Democracy is egalitarian in spirit, but its primary aim is freedom.
The next type of government is oligarchy. An oligarchy is concerned with property as qualification. A modern corporate audience of managers and salespersons, for instance, would be concerned with wealth, competition and success above all. An aristocracy is "rule of the best," and they are concerned with education. Not just any education but one that maintains institutions in power, what has been called `ruling ideas.' Aristocrats uphold the ideas of "those who have held office ... and are regarded as the `best men.'" A current university audience of scientists and academics, then, would be more aristocratic in its reflexes than anything else. The third type is kingship, or rule of one person.
"Monarchy, as the word implies, is the constitution in which one man has authority over all. There are two forms of monarchy: kingship, which is limited by prescribed conditions, and 'tyranny', which is not limited by anything."
Even today, every nation, even those without kings, still places great power in the hands of individuals, from heads of households to corporate CEO's to presidents or prime ministers. Many modern audiences, such as parents, small businesspersons, teachers, police officers, bosses and other officials tend to have a monarchic frame of mind.
Each of these four types of governance is fundamentally conservative, but they tend to have a slightly different emphasis on what leads to security and prosperity.
"The end of democracy is freedom; of oligarchy, wealth; of aristocracy, the maintenance of education and national institutions; of tyranny, the protection of the tyrant."
Consultative architecture dynamically balances all four of these essential factors, freedom, wealth, merit and security. We will discuss each of these successively next time.
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