Let’s start with the good news: consensus is needed. It is not always problematic, but often necessary. Without it, very little would actually get done. However, where a conflictual model is often believed to lead to a splintering of society, it is precisely the consensual model, which produces just that splintering, only that it does so by means of a collective passiveness. Ironically, the conflictual model could be understood as the more active and participatory model. Consensus often means a decrease in interaction. No more interaction means stasis. If we would not have mutation, we would have all come to an equilibrium. Whether one is examining state politics, critical decision-making in companies, the way in which projects by non-governmental organizations are run, or the realities of many commissioned projects in the art world, those entities often tend to reach a mode of consensus too quickly.
The Swiss consensus-driven democracy functions – similar to the Dutch Polder Model – fantastically smooth when concerned with the everyday administration of the country. It fails, however, once it is being faced with the task to produce challenging ideas. Consensus at the core of the State presents us with a situation in which everything will be dealt with in terms of pragmatics. Is direct democracy a question of scale? There is no thought and critique where there is consensus. One should critically interrogate whether a populist majority carries with it the necessary enthusiasm – both pro and contra – for or about a specific project. There seems to be an increasing need for the reintroduction of affects, a belief in what one might call a ‘larger politics’, and a setting for belief beyond the smallest common denominator.
If one remembers the example of New Labour, it is not too difficult to detect a certain correlation between an opportunistic reading of participation and superimposed formats of consensus. In such context, the variables are clear and the equation is simple: participation minus consensus equals manipulation. And participation has become a symbolic gesture only. Coupled with the power of the media, popular vote is often influenced by a strategic utilization of fear, especially by the Right. One can- and should not introduce and incorporate the notion of democracy as everyone-can-take-part in all areas, professions and practices. It seems dangerous to only ever submit to democracy as the ultimate tool of solving problems or situations in a politically correct manner. Not every concern or affair should surrender to a popular vote. The catch-all popular party has pacified the potential of the antagonistic execution of non-violent conflict. It seems that in the early 21st century, these parties are losing more and more support, precisely because they are no longer able to deliver agency and mediation regarding societal and political integration and do not manage to communicate well between State and citizen. More so, it seems that the concept of the political party per se has lost support and encouragement, as less and less people associate themselves with it and are decreasingly using this medium as a means of political participation. (1)
In one’s head, hardly anyone is a democrat. The concept of democracy also relies and is based on a certain fiction, the grand narrative that everyone has the right to vote as well as an equal say. A pure implementation of this concept, however, would require two essential variables to come into play in order not to return to a model of democracy which is so concerned with itself that it produces nothing else but stasis: an appropriate amount of stakeholders, which is manageable enough to be administered in this format, and an absence of exterior, for example media, control.
Concerning the concept of consensus at the heart of national decision-making, it is significant to mention the Dutch version of Tony Blair’s simplified idea of politics aka the kiss of death of the establishment: the Polder model. This term was first used to describe the Dutch version of consensus policy in economics, but is now being used in a much wider context, describing the aiming towards a non-conflictual mode of national debate. It is described with phrases like ‘a pragmatic recognition of plurality’ and ‘cooperation despite differences’. The reason for this style of decision-making working so well in the Netherlands is the supposedly unique situation created by the fact that a large part of the Netherlands consists of polders – such as dikes, reclaimed land, flood plains or marshes – below sea-level. Ever since Medieval times, competing or warring cities in the same polder were forced to set aside their differences in order to maintain the polder. They would otherwise be flooded.
This notion of consensus-production is deeply embedded in the Dutch society and goes as far as to the non-approval or acceptance of people, circumstances or political decision-making that are out of the ordinary; or, as someone one the train from Schiphol to Almere once told me, “your head will be chopped off the moment you stick out – do normal, this is already crazy enough”. There is now a trend to send leading Dutch businessman and politicians to a speaker’s academy in London in order to re-learn and train them regarding the idea of disagreement. The Dutch consensus-model has also infiltrated popular cultural in that it coined the term “BNer” (beroemde Nederlanders/ Famous Dutchman) (2). As the term already implies, it is used for those, who – in one way or the other – have gotten fame in or through the media, often for no reason other than that everyone agrees on them.
It is true, “if you want to avoid enemies, you should either become a tax adviser, pharmacist, or midwife” (3). Regarding the notion of the democratic, ‘hatred of democracy’ – as Jacques Rancière points out – is certainly nothing new (4). Rancière describes the word democracy itself as an expression of hatred, based on the way it was used in Ancient Greece: as an insult by those who saw in the unnamable government of the multitude the ruin of any legitimate order. He goes on to illustrate how, alongside this hatred of democracy, history has born witness to the forms of its critique – a critique that acknowledges something’s existence, but in order to confine it within limits: “so, confronting democratic vitality took the form of a double bind that can be succinctly put: either democratic life signified a large amount of popular participation in discussing public affairs, and it was a bad thing; or it stood for a form of social life that turned energies toward individual satisfaction, and it was a bad thing. Hence, a good democracy must be that form of government and social life capable of controlling the double excess of collective activity and individual withdrawal inherent to democratic life.” (5) Ranciere describes democracy neither as a type of constitution, nor a form of society, but the power peculiar to those, who have no more entitlements to govern than to submit: “The power of the people is not that of a people gathered together, of the majority”. (6) He understands a democratic society as one that is never anything but an imaginary portrayal designed to sustain principles of good government: “people like to simplify the question by returning it to the opposition between direct democracy and representative democracy.” (7)
It is precisely at this point, where the self-initiated mode of participation, the role of the uninvited outsider—which I will explain later in this book—, comes into play. The often polarized situation that Ranciere describes, the opposition between direct and representative democracy, needs to be transferred into a productive relationship beyond the black and white, into a parallel condition in which conflict and friction allow for the re-introduction of the notion of the adversary as Chantal Mouffe calls it. It seems that consensus may be a huge part of the problem of many participatory projects. It is also perhaps what is at work in criticism. As Chantal Mouffe advocates in the conversation in this book, there is of course a need for a consensus on democratic principles, but there should be a productive disagreement about their interpretation. In this context, one must question the default. What is at work in the majority of art criticism is just an agreement not to interpret, which ultimately is not a productive means to move forward.
In architecture, one can witness not only a very unproductive, but also idyllic interpretation of why consensus is necessary: architecture often does not embody a space for discourse, especially not for those entering from the outside. Architects are usually being understood as service providers, following the default protocols of their clients and therefore the consensus of the service industry. Compared to the supposed autonomy of the artist, the architect is often stuck within this regime. It assumes that the architect is part of a certain group that acts within and informs a stable territory. This often means stasis.
While Modernism clearly defined roles and told everyone what they can and should do, we are now facing a situation in which disciplines are no longer clearly segregated and stable territories and the question remains how this field of uncertainty can be maneuvered through in the most critically productive manner.
Therefore, the basic question that is emerging is: how does one translate a means of democracy, a ‘larger politics’ of capacity and commitment within a system, network or given framework? How can one facilitate a framework in which stasis is constantly being broken up again?
1. See also: Walter, Franz, Im Herbst der Volksparteien? Eine kleine Geschichte von Aufstieg und Rückgang politischer Massenintegration, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2009
2. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_Model
3. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, in: Heidenreich, Elke and Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Wozu Lesen? (Audiobook), Zurich: Kein&Aber, 2005
4. Ranciere, Jacques, Hatred of Democracy, London: Verso, 2006
5. ibid., p.8
6. ibid., p.47
7. ibid., p.52
(Preview from The Nightmare of Participation, Sternberg Press, May 2010)
