Une tentative de Gouvernance partagée basée sur le consentement (et pas le concensus)
Peut-on retirer son consentement en sociocratie ?
Pas vraiment: le point de Frands
The word “consent” is used in many ways, and the ones you mention are valid - but not the only ones.
One legitimate one is to say “I give my consent” - If 20 people do that, you have 20 of them. It is a natural thought if the practice is to call the decision phase “the consent round” and the classical practice of asking for people’s consent.
That doesn’t make one person’s consent more of a “thing”, than a promise or a marriage or a word is a thing, and the fact, that consent it is not a material thing, doesn’t mean you cannot give or take or withdraw it like money in the bank. Money in the bank is not things either, by the way. They are promises too. And votes are not things.
To use the word consent in this old-fashioned, individualized way is traditional and legitimate, but it has the disadvantage that it frames the process so many people believe, the best they can do now is give their consent.
Therefore I recommend not to use the word that way, but to call the deciding phase “Objection phase” and ask for objections - because what the process needs, and what one gets.
In that case the word “consent” refers to a state of collaboration and decision that emerges when there are no objections, and there is only one consent, and noone can “withdraw” that - except the whole circle.
The term “withdraw one’s consent” is meaningless, unless you presuppose that the individual has given his individual consent - like a promise or a 100-dollar bill.
The fact that one doesn’t like that way of speaking doesn’t mean there is no such thing as to “withdraw consent”.
If you prefer and decide to NOT use the word “consent” in the traditional, individualized way, the initial question of the subject line just needs another wording, like: “When a decision has happened - what does it mean to raise an objection to it later - when it is too late to included it in the original decision?”
When a decision has been made, and a participant realizes that it was grave mistake, a correction must be made ASAP. That what people refer to when they say “withdraw consent”.
If the implementation doesn’t support fast self-correction, it is dysfunctional in the cybernetic sense. Like US-democracy right now.
Greetings, Frands, Denmark.