If you have ever served in any leadership capacity in a deliberative body, you no doubt have a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order. Robert’s Rules is not in high favor these days. Some believe it does more to frustrate deliberation than help it. When I was the Speaker of the House for my college legislature, I developed a working knowledge of parliamentary procedure. When I was elected to be moderator of my presbytery a few years ago, I brushed up a little and took a correspondence course to bring myself back up to speed.
I am not here as an apologist for Robert’s Rules, but as I read about how this parliamentary authority came into existence, I was struck by the efforts to balance effective decision-making with the protection of minority views. One section of Robert’s Rules particularly grabbed my attention.
When a question is pending, a member can condemn the nature of likely consequences of the proposed measure in strong terms, but he must avoid personalities, and under no circumstances can he attack or question the motives of another member. The measure, not the member, is the subject of debate. If a member disagrees with a statement by another in regard to an event which both witnessed, he cannot state in debate that the other’s statement “is false.” But he might say, “I believe there is strong evidence that the member is mistaken.” The moment the chair hears such words as “fraud,” “liar,” or “lie” used about a member in debate, he must act immediately and decisively to correct the matter and prevent its repetition. (1)
As I read this passage, my mind drifted to Ezekiel Bulver. You may never have heard of Mr. Bulver, but as C. S. Lewis pointed out half a century ago, he was the most important figure of the twentieth century regarding public discourse. Lewis writes:
In other words [in debate], you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it Bulverism. Someday I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father – who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third – ‘Oh you say that because you are a man.’ ‘At that moment’, E. Bulver assures us, ‘there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism our age will thrust you to the wall.’ That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century. (2)
If Bulverism was evident in Lewis’ day, then surely we have Bulverism on steroids in the early twenty-first century. If Bulver had written a parliamentary procedure about decorum, he would have read something like this.
When a question is pending, a member can condemn the nature of personalities in strong terms, as well as attack or question the motives of another member, but under no circumstances should he address the likely consequences of the proposed measure. The member, not the measure, is the subject of debate. If a member disagrees with a statement by another in regard to an event which both witnessed, he should state in debate that the other’s position emanates from lunacy, a mental disorder possibly stemming from some deep seated phobia, outright evil, or at least confusion from association with other similarly maladjusted persons. The moment the chair hears respectful articulation of positions and grace extended to debate opponents, he must act immediately and decisively to correct the matter and prevent its repetition.
Okay, maybe a bit of an overstatement here. Still, I see Bulverism rampant in almost every part of our culture. My personal response in recent years has been, whether on the floor of a deliberative body or writing a blog, I try to at least stay within the spirit of Robert’s idea of decorum. While I am not always successful, I have found that staying within this decorum, even when others do not reciprocate, often makes space for trust and learning to happen. Frankly, I wonder if old Henry M. Robert wasn’t on to something.
(1) Robert’s Rules of Order, 9th Edition, Section 42, Decorum in Debate. P. 387.
(2) C. S. Lewis, “Bulverism,” in C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, 271-277. p. 273.
Leave a Reply