... 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!
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