RootsCamp update I
October 4th, 2006
Since announcing my intention to start a local RootsCamp last month, I have been flooded with academic readings, assignments and other grad-school-related commitments (”Ph.D.” = “Piled Higher and Deeper,” after all). However, I have made an effort to get things going as best I can. This has materialized primarily in the form of Thought Exercises/Planning and in Internet-based contact. That approach has to change this week, though, as I feel strongly the need to get the sessions sited so I can concentrate on promotion and materials.
My expectations are pretty high — we are in the midst of a hot political season in a community that is very active — but at the same time this has to be tempered with the possibility of utter failure. “Failure” in this case comes in two flavors: Participation, and Effort. I can handle a participation failure, where fewer than a dozen people show up and conversation is diminished as a result. That seems to me to be a matter of improving awareness. What would not be acceptable to me is if this first RootsCamp doesn’t materialize because I am too inhibited to talk to people on the phone or in person, or I find excuses in academia or family life not to do more.
Entry Filed under: In the News, Events
2 Comments Add your own
1. freetrader | October 10th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
I’m trying to figure out the RootsCamp idea.
It sounds good.
There have already been experiments of this sort for many years.
There was a movement several years ago called “Planetary Initiative” which held such meetings and tried to bring them all together to create a “Platform” statement.
To be effective and appealing to everyone, there has to be widespread inclusion of all such groups, whatever they may call themselves.
In other words, there may be such groups already taking place, but which call themselves something other than “RootCamp” or any other term.
The goal then is to somehow bring them all together into a common project. And this project must be designed to appeal to all of them.
What criteria would each group have to meet in order to “qualify” for inclusion as a RootCamp?
I like the word “conference”. But I’m not sure about the “RootCamp” term.
In order for the concept to succeed, there can be no authoritative leadership of the movement. It has to be spontaneous without appointed leaders.
Somehow decisions have to be made. Perhaps each “conference” could hold a vote on one matter or another, and the result would somehow be official, at least for that particular “conference”.
But then how would the whole network of conferences adopt any measure? Would it require unanimous agreement by all the conferences?
Could an earlier decision be revoked by a new conference that meets?
This idea needs to be developed further.
2. kmakice | October 10th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
As to history, try here and here for some history. The parentage of this particular idea is a political version of an open version of a diverse tech talk sponsored by Tim O’Reilly (he, of all the programming books with illustrated animals on the cover).
While there are countless incarnations of political “open houses” and “town hall meetings” and the like, what makes this different is the lack of a prescribed agenda or experts. This is, quite simply, a room and a format for creating small discussions and relating those experiences to a larger group.
In my interpretation of RootsCamp — which, I should point out, is not exactly the same as the people who started the site: to be a forum for progressives to reflect on the past election and strategize about grassroots campaigning — I am looking for an all-inclusive, learners-as-experts-as-learners kind of atmosphere. I am talking to progressives, libertarians, republicans, democrats, senior citizen living communities, college organizations, etc., etc. I don’t know what kind of turnout there will be, but I hope to put a lot of people of diverse backgrounds in the same room with the charge to explore and understand other perspectives and compare them to your own.
You are implying the very thing that I feel is problematic about American politics — the need to arrive at consensus or convince others of a position. Those kinds of motivations, ideally, have no place in my concept of mutual politics, an idea I hope to discuss in this forum. The goal is understanding not persuasion.
To qualify, you just have to show up. Nothing more.
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