Dispatch Boxes (Lecterns) in the House of Commons Parliament.UK
What many in Britain consider a stale feature of their system would be nothing less than a breath of fresh air in ours.
The beginning of a presidential election season in the United States is now greeted by voters with an understandable amount of dread. To be sure, we want to celebrate the idea of elections. No one should be cynical about a system that insists on the consent of the governed. But it is hard to look at the truly awful media spectacle that has unfolded thus far and still be optimistic about our national political life.
Most Americans know that something is seriously amiss, even if it’s not clear how to redeem the campaign process to become what it currently is not: an opportunity for a great national awakening. We have “debates” that are really just joint press conferences, as well as seriously reduced coverage of any candidate that isn’t a poll leader. The reliable Tyndall Report notes that to this point Donald Trump has gotten nearly half the press coverage among all the Republicans seeking their party’s nomination. Moreover, we are saddled with prime-time stories from cable news outlets that constantly verge into “he said-she said” name-calling, as well as too many reporters spending most of their time interviewing other reporters. With the exception of a few serious news organizations, even larger news outlets seem to be averse to boring their audiences with substantive discussions of candidate responses to pressing national and international crises. It’s become so bad that what many in Britain consider to be a stale tradition within their system would be nothing less than a complete breath of fresh air for ours. We could really use something like Parliament’s weekly round of Prime Minister’s Questions (available for viewing at C-SPAN.org).
Every Wednesday Britain’s Prime Minister is obligated to appear in the House of Commons and face questions from leaders of other opposing parties, with the greatest number of queries coming from the leader of the largest faction out of power, and possibly the next Prime Minister. This is the system in most western parliamentary systems, working reasonably well in Australia, Canada and a number of other countries. What it allows is a lowering of the Constitution-mandated wall between the legislative and executive functions that exists in the United States. Reducing that wall makes possible the kind of discourse that is needed in times when leaders need to be on the hook to find solutions to serious national problems, such as our chronic lateness in passing a federal budget. Frequent and direct debate between the leader of the government and those in opposition has a way of reminding everyone of significant issues in dispute.
Prime ministers generally have a good idea of what they will be asked about. And those doing the asking are not above framing questions to score some easy points against the party that actually has to govern. But Question Time has two huge advantages over American divided government. One is that questions in the House of Commons are not filtered through journalists scrambling to get screen time while also trying to function as surrogates for the other side. All that exists between the “dispatch box” of the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition is a distance of two sword lengths, a prudent design decision made long ago by British parliamentarians. The second is that name-calling and personal attacks won’t cut it in PMQs. It’s easier to call an opponent a liar to a reporter than to the opponent’s face. Direct debate without intermediaries means that questions will have to deal with affairs of state. Discussing anything less looks like evasion.
It’s a weakness in our system that nearly all of the political “debate” that occurs happens in the circus of campaigns, or sequentially through speeches by Presidents and congressional leaders given to their most ardent supports. Except for the yearly trek to Capitol Hill for the State of the Union Address, we simply have no mechanism for our national leaders to publicly argue the merits of their ideas in the presence of each other. The debates that do occur are usually private, when congressional members or their staffers meet with White House officials to iron out compromises. In the process, robust public discourse in the world’s greatest democracy withers. On most great issues the best we get is yet more sequential press conferences and the empty posturing that comes with them.
The problems hinted at here are myriad and complex. But its hard to not conclude that our governmental system is broken in part because it depends too much on the press–what optimists used to call the “fourth branch of government”–to report the excruciatingly tough issues that those who govern must address.
Applying Quaker principles to even secular discussions sometimes means withholding a final decision until there is agreement on what to do.
If you should find yourself in a meeting that is chaired by a Quaker the odds are pretty good that you will not be steamrolled. One of the features of working with members of the Society of Friends is that they usually prefer to withhold making a group decision if there is no emerging consensus on the best action to take. No 3/4 split decisions here. The group can wait until everyone is more or less on board. This is democracy at the grassroots, and–quite often–democracy with a heart.
As a tract from a British group describes the process, “So rather than stop at an arbitrary point and take a vote, the meeting continues the consideration of the matter until such time as the whole meeting agrees on the decision to be taken.” 1
The theological justification for delay is that some members have perhaps not “seen the Light.” God has not given them a clear solution to the problem at hand. Quakers also follow norms of the faith that place added value patience and silence. In time both may produce a better decision. Patience always seems to be in short supply, and an attribute that can allow us to hear more than what impatience usually allows. As for saying less: sometimes it means that we don’t have to find a way around verbal potholes of our own creation.
Then there’s the problem of the traditional “majority rules” outcome. A badly split group can make dissenters feel like they have less of a stake in a final decision. A meeting that ends in a perceived defeat for some and triumph for others is not very helpful to a community that must remain cohesive.
My experience with a Quaker Chairperson in a work setting was mostly positive. Academics in particular can spend an afternoon debating what color of Number 2 pencils to buy. As the cliche goes, the debating is so intense because the stakes are so small. But after a rousing discussion with lots of different viewpoints–eight faculty members can usually be counted on to produce eight different ideas–it was not uncommon for our leader to postpone a decision rather than force a vote that would split the group.
Delay provides time to find essential values or principles that everyone in the group wants to honor.
The choice to not to decide can have useful effects. From a social functions perspective, meetings are mostly about expression and recognition. Members want the chance to be heard, and look for evidence that their views are respected. This expressive function of communication is usually its own reward: reason enough to consume large amounts of time. So tabling a decision can have the effect of avoiding the loss of face that comes when vocal members are defeated by the majority. Once the ardor of a meeting has cooled, it is often easier to reach agreement at the next gathering. Finding common ground can be facilitated when members have more time to mull over options that have the advantage of standing alone as ideas, without the complicating effects of their association with distinct advocates. Delay also gives everyone time to find essential values or principles that the group feels duty-bound to fulfill.
My impression is that we exercise this choice of seeking full consensus less and less. Organizations often seem anxious to register a final action, even a questionable one, and even when the decision leaves some in the group feeling disenfranchised.
