Incoming!

I know that once the polycentric movement gets its act together things wont be so busy around here any more. But damn! Bootstrapping it into existence is hard work!

Portland has always been a fragmented place, and in a sense that's going to work to our advantage here in becoming an integrated whole. Does that sound odd? Maybe you need to get up to speed with polycentric thought.

With all the new people and their diverse relationships with one another, the community court system and planning bureaus have joined together to start setting up autonomous self-mediating circles among the citizenry. No longer do we look to the State of Oregon or the Feds to help us solve our problems (or at least not as much!)

These circles are responsible for setting up and handling disputes, sometimes outsourcing to other organizations they trust. To give an example, if two people are a member of a church, and there is some issue of dispute or conflict resolution that needs to happen, it's delegated to that organization to manage it between those people, without having the dispute handed up the ladder of authority to institutions more and more out of touch with the people involved and their unique situations.

The circle that handles any given dispute is usually the smallest circle that contains both parties in the dispute, so, sometimes that circle is defined by family or faith and sometimes it is defined by geography or employment.

The practical upshot is that people have most of their issues dealt with quickly, in a forum they're comfortable with, without putting a burden on the rest of society. When it works, its a beautiful thing.

But that's why I've been so busy! It's such a new expectation that many groups do not have the resources to mediate disputes. So I've been doing a lot of consulting and trainings around town. Oh, and don't even get me started on the militias ...