Non hierarchical decision making, inclusion and dominance of voices?

The uprisings and social change we are seeing(and about to see) globally and locally, don't have the form that they have had in the past. Technologies which allow global informal networks to communicate, mean the traditional hierarchies we are used to, are conspicuously absent.

Does this mean that the exclusion of voices which always results from one particular organisation dominating- won't happen?

Answer is no. People organise naturally. But we have strange ways of organising as people. We are social beings, and even if there isn't a hierachy- we make them. We make them with friendship groups, with voices who are louder than others. With the secret values, prejudices, likes and dislikes we all have. Our innate desire to be with people like us.

Even when hierachies are not official, or formal- they happen. And unless those within them constantly check to see whether they are actually being as open as they believe they are, are not marginalising people cos 'their friend was upset'- are not ignoring voices because acceptance of that view as valid, means addressing flaws in their own thinking or perspective-then the potential to exclude is as great within informal hierarchies as it is in those which are artificially created. THe structural inequalities and privileges which occur as a result of gender, sexuality, class, age or even geography- still exist. They didn't manifest in traditional hierarchies because of intent- they manifested because those hierarchies reflected the values of the society in which they developed.

The marginalisation that results does become more difficult to tackle, because the people dominating can always refer back to the absence of formal hierarchy and a stated desire to avoid it.

Checking privilege is something we generally ask others to do, but it is very very difficult to do in yourself.