Discursive debate in advance is for establishing principles, and establishing the level of trust invested in someone. Then you let them go to do the job you chose them for. If an issue is of such weight that it requires a lot of discussion, and you chose the right people, they will know that already.
On Oct 9, 2013 3:43 PM, "Brian E Carpenter" <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Björn,
On 10/10/2013 10:21, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
> * Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> Either we trust our current and future chairs, on certain occasions,
>> to speak in our name without there being a discursive debate in advance,
>> or we will have no voice on those occasions.
>
> We should think before we speak, and discursive debate is our collective
> thought process. Accordingly I would expect Chairs to anticipate and fa-
> cilitate debates that might be necessary or useful, especially on issues
> where they find giving the collective a voice may be important. It seems
> implausible to me that there would be notably many such occasions. Maybe
> because as German I am inclined towards disregarding phatic expressions.
I assure you that after looking up "phatic" I feel the same way.
And I agree with your point: when there's time to consult the community,
of course it should be done. But sometimes there isn't time, which
is when IMHO we should show some trust in our various Chairs.
Brian