Re: The Right To Not Participate

masyomo — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:04:57 -0000

or recognising that actually you are participating - just not on my terms! (and then the question is should this then be accepted or should people 'participating' out of the mainstream be encouraged to move towards the mainstream so that their message can have more impact?

An example of this is people who didn't vote in the last election out of principal of the Iraq war. People that didn't want to vote Conservative or Labour (both war supporting) or Liberal Democrat (maybe not convincing or just not understandable?) and so either didn't vote or voted for the Green Party for example. I would have considered this a 'wasted vote' - there's no point voting for the Green Party because theres no prospect of them having power therefore you're not influencing change - and by the same measure not voting is a wasted vote.

It would have been very interesting though had there been an option to 'abstain on principle' and to have seen the reasons given. Arguably this would then actually have some power, because if a large number of people cited the same reason, those politicians that want to win these 'non votes' would have some information about what these people want/don't want. (fits the criteria for your 'I should be listening for your reasons for not wanting to participate' Tim). I wonder what would happen if these non votes were the majority though!?

(Those are not my political views - just an example!)

This doesn't just have to apply in politics - in the traditional meeting structure there should be an option to abstain during voting. How many young people sitting on forums, councils and committee's are made aware of this? From what I've seen on courses, very few - most people think voting is a simple yes/no process. Typically though abstentions 'don't count' so maybe its not abstentions thats needed - it is some sort of 'principled non participation'.

Re: The Right To Not Participate

Tim Davies — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:12:40 -0000

Your right not to participate puts no obligation on me not to put forward my opinion that you should participate.

And if I respect you, then I should be listening to your reasons for not wanting to participate, and should be taking that on board in persuading you to participate, or changing the method of participation offered.

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Re: The Right To Not Participate

Re: The Right To Not Participate