Universal models as issues for practice development

[Michael Allan]

I've been surveying the Internet lately looking for a place to plant
our practices and start developing them.  Once again I came to realize
that it's a wasteland out there; we'll have to scatter our efforts
widely to give them a chance.  This got me looking for big issues that
are easy to scatter.  I was looking at the European constitution when
I got the idea of a model constitution that could be applied anywhere
in the world.  First I'll explain the idea in constitutional terms,
then I'll expand it to cover other types of issue.  There are two
working parts to the idea:

  1. A normative poll for a model constitution that could be applied
     anywhere in the world.  (Not a constitution for the whole world,
     of course, because there is no world state.)

  2. A ratings poll to identify those places in the world that best
     uphold the model constitution in practice, and those places that
     most offend against it.  The results of the ratings poll are:

     * A ranked list of the upholders specifying for each upholder the
       particular parts of the constitution it best upholds.

     * A ranked list of the offenders specifying for each offender the
       particular parts of the constitution it most offends against.

The second part is calculated to produce an immediate expectation of
change.  Each shift in the rankings is a potential news story.  While
it takes decades to change constitutions, it takes less time to change
people's expectations.

Now we don't just do this for constitutions, but for all laws, plans
and designs that are portable from place to place or application to
application.  We raise ideal models for universal consensus and use
these as "master keys" to enter all forums.  There we keep throwing
the practices at the forums until they stick.

Does this make sense?  I was feeling stuck for a few days, but now I'm
hopeful this is the way forward.  I'll do some light research on the
idea tomorrow (model law etc.) and see what I can learn.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
http://zelea.com/