Thread by @pmarca

"The more unstructured a group is, the more lacking it is in structures, and the more it adheres to an ideology of 'Structurelessness,' the more vulnerable it is to being taken over by a [ruling class]."

"During the years in which the women's liberation movement has been taking shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are called leaderless, structureless groups as the main -- if not sole -- organizational form of the movement."

"The source of this idea was a natural reaction against the over-structured society in which most of us found ourselves, and the inevitable control this gave others over our lives, and the continual elitism among those who were supposedly fighting this overstructuredness."

"The idea of 'structurelessness,' however, has moved from a healthy counter to those tendencies to becoming a goddess in its own right."

"For the early development of the movement this did not much matter. It early defined its main goal, and its main method, as consciousness-raising, and the 'structureless' rap group was an excellent means to this end."

"The basic problems didn't appear until individual rap groups exhausted the virtues of consciousness-raising and decided they wanted to do something more specific."

"At this point they usually foundered because most groups were unwilling to change their structure when they changed their tasks. Women had thoroughly accepted the idea of 'structurelessness' without realizing the limitations of its uses."

"Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion."

"The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved."

"The very fact that we are individuals, with different talents, predispositions, and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness -- and that is not the nature of a human group."

"This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an 'objective' news story, 'value-free' social science, or a 'free' economy."

"A laissez faire group is about as realistic as a laissez faire society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others."

"This hegemony can be so easily established because the idea of 'structurelessness' does not prevent the formation of informal structures, only formal ones."

"Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the women's movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful."

"As long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules."

"Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware."

"'Structurelessness' is organizationally impossible. We cannot decide whether to have a structured or structureless group, only whether or not to have a formally structured one."

"A Structured group always has formal structure, and may also have an informal, or covert, structure. It is this informal structure, particularly in Unstructured groups, which forms the basis for elites."

"Correctly, an elite refers to a small group of people who have power over a larger group of which they are part, usually without direct responsibility to that larger group, and often without their knowledge or consent."

"A person becomes an elitist by being part of, or advocating the rule by, such a small group, whether or not that individual is well known or not known at all."

"The most insidious elites are people not known to the larger public at all. Intelligent elitists are usually smart enough not to allow themselves to become well known; when they become known, they are watched, and the mask over their power is no longer firmly lodged."

"Elites are not conspiracies. Seldom does a small group of people get together and deliberately try to take over a larger group for its own ends. Elites are nothing more, and nothing less, than groups of friends who also happen to participate in the same political activities..."

"...They would probably maintain their friendship whether or not they were involved in political activities; they would probably be involved in political activities whether or not they maintained their friendships..."

"...It is the coincidence of these two phenomena which creates elites in any group and makes them so difficult to break."

"The inevitably elitist and exclusive nature of informal communication networks of friends is neither a new phenomenon characteristic of the women's movement nor a phenomenon new to women."

"Much of the energy of past women's movements has been directed to having the structures of decision-making and the selection processes formalized so that the exclusion of women could be confronted directly."

"Because elites are informal does not mean they are invisible. At any small group meeting anyone with a sharp eye and an acute ear can tell who is influencing whom."

"Once one knows with whom it is important to check before a decision is made, and whose approval is the stamp of acceptance, one knows who is running things."

"The characteristics prerequisite for participating in the informal elites of the movement, and thus for exercising power, concern one's background, personality, or allocation of time. They do not include one's competence..."

"One joins such an elite much the same way one pledges a sorority. If perceived as a potential addition, one is 'rushed' by the members of the informal structure and eventually either dropped or initiated."

"When informal elites are combined with a myth of 'structurelessness', there can be no attempt to put limits on the use of power. It becomes capricious."

"The informal structure of decision-making will be much like a sorority -- one in which people listen to others because they like them and not because they say significant things."

"Informal structures have no obligation to be responsible to the group at large. Their power was not given to them; it cannot be taken away."

"Unstructured groups may be very effective in getting women to talk about their lives; they aren't very good for getting things done."

"When a group has no specific task, the people in it turn their energies to controlling others in the group. This is not done so much out of a malicious desire to manipulate others (though sometimes it is) as out of a lack of anything better to do with their talents."

"Able people with time on their hands and a need to justify their coming together put their efforts into personal control, and spend their time criticizing the personalities of the other members in the group."

"When a group is involved in a task, people learn to get along with others as they are and to subsume personal dislikes for the sake of the larger goal. There are limits placed on the compulsion to remold every person in our image of what they should be."

"Many informal elites hide under the banner of 'anti-elitism' and 'structurelessness.' To effectively counter the competition from another informal structure, they would have to become 'public,' and this possibility is fraught with many dangerous implications..."

"Thus, to maintain [the elite's] own power, it is easier to rationalize the exclusion of the members of the other informal structure by such means as 'red-baiting,' 'lesbian-baiting,' or 'straight-baiting.'"

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