Dialogue

The Community - Middle, Dark or Light (part 3, section 15)

Middle, Dark or Light

Investor: The cellar is the low. The tower is the high. What is in the middle? 

Director: The middle ground of our picture? From what perspective shall we look?

Investor: Do you mean inside or outside? Let's start from the outside.

Director: Okay. But let's begin with the foreground. What is it from the outside perspective?

Investor: The wall.

Director: Then what is the middle ground?

Investor: Our activities in the second and third rings?

Director: And what is the background?

Investor: I do not think outsiders see the background, or if they do it is only very little of it.

Director: What is the background from the inner perspective? 

Investor: The whole outside world.

Developer: But it can also be limited to one's own narrow history outside.

Director: Either way, do we want this to be a dark or light background?

Investor: Are you suggesting one paint his own background?

Director: To what extent is that possible? Certainly one can darken a light one. But is it not much harder to lighten a dark one?

Developer: Everyone gets a new start in a newly founded city.

Investor: And that includes a new start for history, in general, too?

Developer: That seems to be the way of these things, my friend.

Investor: But there are, no doubt, youths who want to know the true history, the original history, that is, or anything as close to it as they can get. 

Developer: That can be the lore of the cellars, an oral history.

Investor: Assuming the drinkers are not just telling stories.

Developer: Is it even possible to avoid having the original history degenerate into stories as it passes on across the generations? At the outset, where does this history come from? Us? The school? Citizen parents to their children? Do any of these give a complete and accurate history? Do parents ever tell their children everything?

Investor: It is extremely unlikely there are any parents who tell their children everything. But some tell them much. And some want them to know but do not want to be the one telling.

Developer: This is where our symposiums are of use.

Investor: Perhaps. But you know what I think? Our city is not a painting.

Director: What is it? 

Investor: A song.

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - To the Heights (part 3, section 14)

To the Heights

Investor: Let’s climb out of the cellar now and ascend to the heights. What is the tallest building in our little town? Do we give the school the best and farthest view?

Developer: If we do, who gets the top floor?

Director: A statesman once said the one who can see furthest back can see farthest ahead. So let's give the floor to our history classes, across all grades. Our history is history of any topic imaginable, after all.

Developer: That works for me.

Investor: But what is the preeminent historical study in our school? 

Director: The medieval walled town.

Investor: Do the youths study that throughout their education, or early on, or at the end?

Director: Let's give them a foundation early on and then let them examine it near the end when they are more equipped to do so. But speaking of foundations, we must make the school's strong, for there is someplace higher still than the highest floor - the lookout tower.

Investor: Who ascends to that?

Director: The worst seven students going in to their final year.

Developer: Ha! Excellent.

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - Unofficial (part 3, section 13)

Unofficial

Investor: How do the youths overcome their nerves the first time? For some it is their first time drinking. And it is in a room full of people from another caste.

Developer: The wine helps.

Investor: Yes, but what if they drink too much and become incoherent or even get sick? Do they get to try again, or do they have to wait two years?

Director: No, they get to try again. But if three hours pass there is no doing it again. Nine to midnight is plenty of time. But we set no hard ending time. The symposium ends when the dialogue completes.

Investor: Let's start at ten instead of nine. I like to think of them discoursing through the arrival of a new day.

Director: A fine touch. Now, the point is to discuss sameness, inside and out. The conversation always starts there. But it goes wherever it goes, agreed?

Investor: Of course. Do we somehow record or document the talk?

Developer: No. We do not want to pressure the youths in any way. 

Investor: But maybe someone writes up a summary the next day.

Developer: And what do we do with that? Officially, this conversation never takes place.

Investor: Yes, but the host can keep the summary and sometime later, maybe when the youth is done with school, give him that record.

Developer: To what end, friend? Some things are meant to be said, and only said, and to live on nowhere but in memory. But what I want to know is what we do if we have a youth who knows about the cellar dialogues and wants to take part, but his parents are opposed. Do we go against their wishes and bring him in?

Director: What do you think?

Developer: I think it depends on whether we can trust the youth. Fourteen is old enough to be worthy of confidence. So we must judge. 

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - More Other Things (part 3, section 12)

More Other Things

Developer: Enough of that. What else can we talk about?

Investor: Wine cellars. 

Director: In which to have conversations like this?

Investor: Yes, for rooting around for samenesses like pigs for truffles. We can have awards for the best sameness discoveries and explications. We can be like that people that comes to no decision unless the matter is considered both when sober and drinking first. 

Director: Which of those two states, in decision making, do you think belongs first?

Developer: The sober state. You need to hear all the arguments and facts and weigh them coldly.

Director: But then you later weigh them when heated? 

Developer: Yes, you need to make sure you are listening to your gut.

Director: Why not listen to gut first?

Developer: I do not know if the colder side of many people knows how to make sense of what comes from the warm. It tends to shush it, play it down, and then ignore it altogether. Of course, the opposite problem exists. So maybe we take turns, one state ahead of the other, on and on until the way is clear.

Director: Yes, why not? But is it the same with samenesses? Do we need to consider them in both states, or is this really just for decisions to be taken?

Developer: Perhaps we have to be a little loose to unearth them, the really difficult ones. Then we consider them carefully later.

Director: But friend, here is what I want to know. Is it possible to get at samenesses while stone cold sober?

Developer: It is hard to say, Director. I think it is safer to say it takes a bit of encouragement in the form of libation to get someone to talk about them with others. 

Investor: To talk about or to attack?

Developer: We are begging the question as to who is party to these discussions. Must they be friends who trust one another? Can they be people who attack one another, however politely?

Investor: No, they are friends.

Director: As friends, are they the same kind of people, or do they differ?

Investor: I think they differ. The more diversity, the greater the chance of digging up sameness.

Director: What is one of the greatest differences in our city?

Investor: The difference between castes. 

Director: I am thinking of one greater still.

Investor: What?

Director: The difference between young and old.

Investor: The young are party to the sober discussions?

Director: Yes. But I wonder if they do not take part in the drinking, too. Do we dare break in our cellars the outside law concerning the age of drink?

Investor: You want to give wine to underage youths and hear them out on what they know, or think they know, about sameness?

Director: Is it a bad idea?

Investor: You know that word of this eventually reaches the outside. 

Director: Yes friend, but it is only as a rumor, most likely. Besides, we have friends among the outside authorities. 

Investor: So where do we hold these gatherings, in public or private cellars?

Director: It seems more a private thing, no? I mean, if it is in public and found out, the outside authorities have grounds to cause trouble for the city. If it is private, the trouble is private, too.

Investor: Are their parents present?

Director: I think not. We want uninhibited views. There is much one can learn from the youth when they feel free.

Investor: But you know what the problem is. They need to stay the night. We cannot have them roaming around after hours drunk, in the dark.

Director: The parents must trust the host and other drinkers, must know them well enough to be comfortable with that.

Investor: Are they all from the same caste?

Director: I think the host and the drinkers are all of the same class.

Investor: But not the youth? I assume there is only one.

Director: There are always two youths, actually. And two out of three times the youths are not of the same caste as the adults. You see, each youth has three cellar sessions in his time, one with each class. The one with his own is last. He can inform them of all he has learned from the other castes.

Investor: Is it one session each year?

Director: I am not sure. When do you think they start? Age fourteen, running through fifteen and sixteen?

Investor: No, I think it is sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen.

Developer: Let's say fourteen, sixteen, eighteen.

Director: So be it.

Investor: Do you think parents want it to start that young?

Director: Maybe not, in some cases. But this is not a hard and fast rule that we commit to writing. This is more of an understanding among some parents and other adults. We have some flexibility here. The youth begin when they are ready.

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - Other Things (part 3, section 11)

Other Things

Director: It seems we have abandoned our plan. 

Investor: What plan?

Director: While you were away, Developer and I agreed to drink away the storm while speaking of other things than our city. And yet here we are talking about it again. It seems we cannot help ourselves. 

Investor: Well, we are helping ourselves rather well to the wine. What other things are we supposed to be talking about? 

Director: Cities in general.

Investor: What can one say about that?

Director: All cities have a birth, life, and death. 

Investor: The death of cities is a terrible thing. 

Director: Not all of them go out in fire and flame. Some just fade away. 

Developer: Tonight we are talking about the life of our city. Tomorrow we start working on its birth. Is now really the time to talk about its end?

Director: Not even the big buyout?

Developer: I prefer to think of that as a new beginning.

Director: But not one of which you are part?

Developer: Who knows? Just because a man sells out does not mean he cannot play a role in the new endeavor. 

Director: Suppose we get the city up and running. And suppose all the properties are sold, and everything is working according to plan. But then suppose that, for whatever reason, we come to think that the city is vile, that it makes people act in a way we do not care for, not at all. Suppose we decide the city must die. How do we kill it?

Developer: We attack the vital organs, the arteries, the veins. We can also kill it off by starvation, thirst, or suffocation. 

Investor: Or we simply open the gate to the enemy during the darkest hour of a moonless night. 

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - Sparks (part 3, section 10)

Sparks

Developer: So we create an experimental colony based on their ideas. It grows and prospers. And it is fundamentally a different thing than the mother city, a different city. Yet it is still part of our greater community. How long can that last? Its tendency is to create its own community, a community that gels on its own. Now, it does not take much to imagine the sorts of spats that arise from time to time between child and parent. I believe that, inevitably, one of these little fights becomes more than the colony can take. Now it wants a formal break and buys itself out of any ties to the motherland.

Director: And so we turn a profit on necessity. 

 

Investor: And that is that? We have nothing more to do with them?

Director: That is that. We have the details for the buy-out worked out in their charter. We can provide consulting services to help them with the transfer, and even be available for them after the split if they want help.

Investor: What is the process for their deciding to split?

Director: It is a general vote with a high supermajority requirement. They can work out the money arrangements on their own. 

Investor: It seems so sad.

Director: Oh come on, Investor. We communities can still be friends, or allies at least. How many walled cities are there these days, after all? But tell me, what do you think weighs most heavily in their decision to leave the community?

Investor: Aside from their desire for independence and complete control over their fundamental law and infrastructure? The tax to the motherland.

Director: What do you guess is the spark that finally lights the blaze?

Investor: Oh, I say there are sparks on Foundation Day, when everyone is eating, drinking, and merrymaking for twelve hours or more - and the colonists are staying in the homes of the owners. There is trouble in that, eventually. But, still, let's not make them stay in the hotel.

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - Experiments (part 3, section 9)

Experiments

Developer: Few people are likely to do that.

Director: But our citizens have great means at their disposal, and we know they are at least somewhat adventurous based on the fact that they joined our community in the first place.

Developer: If many people file their intent to sell, and offer as their reason the belief that the way of life in a colony is better, how many buyers does that encourage to purchase property in the mother city?

Director: Are they not buying the established name and reputation? Do they really care very much about something new and strange happening in one of the colonies?

Developer: But are those the type of citizens we want, ones who do not care that there may be a better way of life available elsewhere? Do we not screen people like that out?

Investor: Director, how do you think we can have experimental colonies without undermining the mother city and other colonies?

Director: Let’s look at it this way. What if the experiments fail? What does failure look like?

Investor: People are unhappy. They want to sell.

Director: What is it like trying to get people to buy property in a failed experimental colony?

Investor: Not so good. Something like that is a near total loss, for those who take the risk.

Director: Is there anything we can do to prevent failure? 

Investor: Failure cannot be made impossible, or else there is no true experiment, which means it can never really succeed.

Director: Do we let these colonists have the option of changing their basic law to that of the mother city through means of some extraordinary general vote? Or maybe they can tweak their own experimental basic law through such votes until they get something that works.

Developer: What do they do, tweak the number of classes? Tweak the voting weight?

Investor: Why not, if everyone, or mostly everyone, thinks it is a good idea?

Developer: These are no small modifications. If everything is changeable, no one feels like he has solid ground to stand on. Changes like this are massively disruptive.

Investor: People have to understand that as the risk they take in going to an experimental colony. We can have them sign waivers to this effect. But not everything is changeable, you know, only certain things. They still have their constitutions, contracts enforceable by the outside authorities.

Director: While we are on the topic, is there anything we can do about that outside dependency? 

Developer: What do you have in mind, having buyers sign contracts that are deliberately unenforceable on the outside? That is a pretty big leap of faith, my friend. How much can someone depend on trust and mutual interest alone? 

Investor: We just have to find our own ways of dealing with problems that normally lead to an outside enforcement action, ways that give purchasers confidence.

Developer: However that may turn out, who draws up and approves the experiment?

Director: Why who else but scientists, political scientists?

Investor: Who are our political scientists?

Director: The three of us can pass for such, provided we adequately disguise our non-scientific traits. Perhaps the bank qualifies as one. But who from the community?

Investor: How about the teachers of political science at the school?

Director: A good and obvious choice. Let’s say we pick one of these men to join us. But who called for the experiment in the first place? Citizens, or us? If citizens, they can determine among themselves who they want to represent them. If us, we represent ourselves. In either case, these people all come together in discussion and then draft the experiment. The fundamentals have to approve unanimously.

Investor: So even if the citizens initiate, we dominate the discussions and drafting since we have final say?

Director: If they do initiate, I think it is a mistake for us to do that. We want to help shape the experiment, help shape whatever ideas they have into something that has a chance of success.

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - More Wine (part 3, section 8)

More Wine

Developer: Please, yes. 

Investor: Let me go upstairs and see what it is doing outside first. 

Director: What do you think of all this, Developer?

Developer: I think we can both make good and do good with this thing, friend. 

Director: And what about being good, old friend?

Developer: Ha! I am not so sure about that.

Director: You really intend to live in this city, for good? 

Developer: Yes, I do, even if I have to go down with the ship.

Investor: Oh my goodness! It has gotten worse. It is a complete whiteout. I better get the wine.

Director: Well, Developer, we better not forget the snow removal equipment for the city. Are we leaving anything else out? 

Developer: No, not that I can think of. Let's just drink away the storm and speak of other things.

Director: Of what shall we speak?

Developer: How about cities in general? Are they all, essentially, the same as ours?

Director: You mean are they all trying to protect a surplus?

Developer: I think they are. But do they all aim to counter an outside sameness, at least at first?

Investor: Here we are! Two of my very finest. The bottle in my left hand is one of the deepest, most complex flavored wines I have. The one in my right has some bite still and tastes of cherry and vanilla. 

Director: Thank you, Investor. We were just talking about cities and whether they all are born in strife with outside sameness. 

Investor: Sameness is the desert. 

Director: What about colonies? Must they, too, struggle against the sands?

Investor: Their struggle is similar to that of the mother city, though not quite as great. 

Director: But there is also struggle within cities, yes? Each, in time, develops its own samenesses.

Investor: Yes, and those struggles create the potential to birth new cities, eventually.

Developer: Since the fundamental law governs our colonies, are we talking about buy-outs there, too?

Director: We certainly can put something in their basic law that allows for that. 

Developer: What stops these rebels, or even those in the mother city, from going off and starting their own city, one that has nothing at all to do with our larger community?

Director: Perhaps they do not wish to sever close ties of friendship and family. Being in a colony, instead of a new city, keeps them nearer, if only because of the votes and airstrips. It lets them keep more things in common. Moreover, a colony has the advantage of support from the motherland, both financial, potentially, and otherwise. You know it is not easy to start a city from scratch. We saw that very clearly at the county board meeting tonight. And it no doubt gets worse.

Investor: They say it is easier and more effective to create something new under the guise of something old. 

Director: If you think that is true, why do you think that is?

Investor: Fewer feathers get ruffled. Many people focus on the facade, the paint, the windows, the yard, the roof, the size of the rooms - and miss what has changed: the foundation. If we keep all of those other things more or less the same, we have more leeway when it comes to the basic law.

Developer: So we can change the number of classes in a colony if only the stores, public buildings, and homes look the same?

Investor: I know it sounds crazy. But if we keep those things the same I think we only need a plausible reason for a fundamental change. I am sometimes surprised at how superficial people can be.

Director: I think there is a way we can have a real reason instead of a plausible one. Suppose the city we are talking about starts out as an essentially new city, an experiment conducted by the mother city. There is no insurrection, no fundamental rebellion against the basic law, just daring colonists exploring new forms. 

Investor: Let's put a section on experimental colonies in the fundamental law. 

Developer: But what of dilution of the mother city brand if these colonies do not turn out very well? 

Director: Is there really a problem as long as it is clear to all that the colony is a grand experiment? The very fact that our city can undertake something like this probably increases its prestige with the outside world.

Developer: Suppose we create a colony that has, for instance, no restriction on the number or schedule of general votes. Or a colony whose voting weight ratio is ten to seven to three, instead of ten to three to one. Suppose one of these changes meets with great success. What happens back in the mother city? People there want these changes then, too, no?

Director: Perhaps some of them do. But if they are serious, they, short of the great buy-out, can sell their property and move to the colony they so admire.

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - Council (part 3, section 7)

Council

Developer: How do the councils function?

Director: We are saying that any and all citizens may join in the proceedings.

Developer: So that means we have to have a space large enough to hold all of the citizens.

Director: Yes. Or do we have to create many large spaces because there are simultaneous council meetings?

Developer: Perhaps we limit how often they meet. We do not have the space or resources for many such halls.

Investor: But we want free and frequent deliberation.

Developer: Then that means not every council can accommodate the whole community. So it matters which space a council gets.

Investor: What if we allow virtual participation?

Developer: That helps, but does not address the problem of councils meeting simultaneously. Suppose there is a very popular and important topic being taken up by a council one night, and another group decides to transact some important, though quiet, business at the same time. That group might be quite small and yet able to dominate the important business while everyone else is at the popular meeting.

Investor: Then no two councils can meet at once. We can schedule them throughout the day and evening, starting at seven in the morning and running until ten at night.

Developer: But people are busy during the day.

Investor: Too busy to care about the affairs of their city?

Developer: How do we decide which meetings are during the day and which at night?

Investor: Perhaps we determine this by lot.

Developer: And we change it up every so often so we have less trouble?

Director: That seems good. But we have not gotten to the most difficult part. The councils draw up items to be voted on. How do they do this?

Investor: I think they decide what is to be voted on by weighted vote. 

Developer: Fine. But who actually draws up the proposal?

Investor: Well, the officer leads the council in a discussion of the topic in question. 

Developer: What then? 

Investor: The council forms a drafting committee. 

Developer: How many people are on this committee? 

Investor: Five. 

Developer: So someone in the council raises his hand and says he nominates so-and-so, and then the council votes?

Investor: Yes.

Developer: So one must nominate his candidates quickly. But what if the officer only calls on his friends, who then nominate other friends?

Investor: Maybe we choose committee members by lot.

Developer: Suppose we do. The committee, once chosen, then goes off on its own to draw up the proposal?

Investor: Yes.

Developer: Is the say of each member equal or weighted according to caste? 

Investor: This is the only time the three classes have an equal say. Otherwise it is very difficult to produce the document.

Developer: So they produce a draft proposal. Must they agree on it unanimously, or by majority, before presenting to the council? 

Investor: Let's say they must agree unanimously. We do not want dissenters trying to dissuade the council from accepting the document.

Developer: What happens if the council rejects the document? 

Investor: The committee goes off and produces another draft, and so on until the council accepts their work. More wine?

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com

The Community - Office of Offices, Non-General Votes (part 3, section 6)

Office of Offices, Non-General Votes

Director: Who determines what offices exist in the first place? Is this a function of the basic law?

Investor: Let’s start with nineteen offices in the basic law that cover all aspects of life. If the citizens do not think that is enough they can create more through an office of offices, one of the nineteen. None of the new offices can encroach upon the scope of any of the originals.  

Director: What happens if the citizens create an office but then repent and wish to uncreate? Or maybe they do not repent but the office has simply performed its function and is no longer needed. What then?

Investor: Either way, we have a general vote on the question.

Director: If it is not that the people repent, does the office to be dissolved put forward its own proposal of dissolution, or does that come from the office of offices?

Investor: Let's say that it can be either. That way an office can have the honor of calling for its own end when it completes its function. But if it seems inclined to go beyond its charter, then the office of offices steps in.

Director: Is it harder to create or uncreate an office, or are the processes the same?

Investor: You mean do we need a simple majority or a supermajority for either? I think that the outside sameness is that once something is done it is very hard to undo. So let's say it takes a supermajority of two-thirds to create and a simple majority to uncreate. 

Director: Alright. Let's get back to the non-general votes for a minute. Do each of these votes need an officer and a committee?

Investor: Yes, of course.

Director: Are these officers and committees newly created for each new non-general vote, or can existing committees and officers take them on?

Investor: Since many of these votes are for small things I think we can use the existing offices.

Developer: So an office that might not particularly want a certain non-general vote can have that non-general vote thrust upon it by a general vote.

Investor: Yes, why not? When an office has new responsibilities there is new life and interest among the citizens taking part in the council. What office do we want not to want that?

-------

Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com