What would Piaget have said.... (Robert's Rules of Order)

... about the 704 pages of Robert's Rules of Order, which are full of disclaimers about the precedence of one rule over another, exceptions that may or may not be codified elsewhere, and the impossibility of providing for every contingency? Piaget wrote a book (The Moral Judgement of the Child) studying the way boys played marbles and girls played hopscotch, and noted that the boys spent time amplifying the rules while the girls complicated their playing field. I always remembered that observation, because I spent a lot of time listening to my three boys debate the fine points of rules they made up for their board games. Calvinball also exemplifies this principle. So, if debate is a game, good ol' General Robert and his heirs are playing it just like Piaget's boys played marbles.

Another thing I find weirdly amusing about this book is the way it treats deliberative bodies as if they had wills and opinions, for example in this sentence: "Parliamentary procedure enables the overall membership of an organization...both to establish and empower an effective leadership as it wishes, and at the same time to retain exactly the degree of direct control over its affairs that it chooses to reserve to itself." (10th ed, p. XLVII) No wonder the Supreme Court thinks corporations are people!

Finally, I realize in reading this book that although I have been in plenty of meetings where motions were offered, seconded and voted on, and where people were recognized and had the floor, I have never in my life been in a meeting truly run by Robert's Rules. Nor, after reading just the preliminary comments to this tome, is that an aspiration of mine. Whew! So much work just to have an argument!

60-69: This Meeting Will Now Come to Order

The only thing in the 60s in either of the libraries I checked was Robert's Rules of Order. Don't see why some book about the founding of the Rotarians or something couldn't have also been included, but no, I have to read Robert's Rules of Order. So far my favorite part was when they said in the introduction that you only have to read the first 5 chapters and skip anything you don't immediately understand. I do like the main goals, though:
1- to make sure you only talk about one thing at a time
2- to give each side of the question alternating time to speak
3- to put a stop to rude or irrelevant comments
4- to provide for dividing a question into smaller parts so that each can be considered on its own.

Seems like Congress could benefit from the last idea. Certainly is irritating how many bills are a big amalgamated mess of amendments.

Extra Credit: Cheat Sheet: How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read

Apparently this book usually is found in 809, but obviously I couldn't wait that long, and I would have put in the 30's, along with the other books about reading. Or not reading. Turns out there is a case to be made, by Umberto Eco (among others who are extensively quoted here), for making the choice to not read books. Skimming them, or indeed just hearing other people talk about them, may be just as good as actually reading them, especially given the high probability that in 10 years you will have pretty much forgotten them anyway. I think of James Joyce's Ulysses. I've heard a lot about it. I've read a page of it. I read ALL of The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, pretty much to my regret. And, based on all that information, I cannot imagine the circumstance which would cause me to regret not actually having waded through all of that notorious experiment in the abuse of English! So I'm glad I now have some theoretical justification for this stance.
  What's your favorite book to talk about without reading?

Still Reading Despite Slim Pickings! (Shocking True Story)

Okay, I could have chosen a more serious tome, but I didn't. The history of Confidential was an easy read and thoroughly explained the origin of the scandal sheets we still buy today, complete with their weird mix of celebrity abuse, consumer scare stories, and occasional forays into party politics (The National Enquirer will be happy to dig up dirt on presidential candidates as well as on actors and poor little rich girls). Confidential was successful as long as it employed fact-checkers to make sure every bit of mud it slung was grade-A, and that the stars so besmirched would have more to lose than to gain from a libel suit. When it got sloppy, it went down, but the book doesn't explain how or why a whole new generation of similar rags managed to take its place. I would have liked a little more historical perspective along with my boffo headlines. But now I know that magazines, if shelved, live in the 50's.