Despite the general lack of homogenous cultural registers, San Franciscans did tend to share a faith in participatory democracy, a prioritization of efficiency, and a rejection of traditional hierarchies: three tenets which made a formalized set of organizational rules a precondition for effective association. As historian Don H. Doyle has argued, the creation and adoption of Robert’s Rules of Order fit hand-in-glove with the transformation of American life during the “golden age of fraternalism.” As markets became nationally integrated, transportation became faster and more easily accessible, and nationwide professional societies of all kinds rose to prominence, a standardized parliamentary authority became both desirable and necessary. “Corporate boards, professional associations, women’s clubs, and reform societies,” Doyle notes, “could no longer tolerate the inefficiency and conflict that diverse local and state traditions of parliamentary procedure allowed.” “Robert's Rules of Order did not simply respond to an obvious demand,” Doyle continues, “it anticipated, as early as the 1870s, the needs of a nationally integrated society. More important, Robert’s Rules in no small way amounted to an indispensable prerequisite—or at the very least a vital catalyst—to the organizational revolution that coincided with its rise.” The near-universal adoption of Robert’s Rules around this time paints a striking picture of American institutions. Organizations of all stripes were hungry for the national stage and no longer satisfied with regional colloquialisms; groups of people everywhere were joining together, eager to get things done, and jockeying for nationwide influence.
In a striking bit of mirror-image serendipity, Robert’s Rules found their most vocal critics just across the Bay, almost exactly 100 years later. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement (FSM) would experience similar growing pains to Robert’s Baptist church, albeit in reverse. The FSM, which prefigured many of the New Left student demonstrations that would follow, roundly rejected parliamentary procedure in favor of consensus decision-making. Although consensus decision-making had its origins elsewhere, the rejection of parliamentary authority in political circles is in no small part due to the Berkeley FSM. “Perhaps the earliest public advocate in the New Left of this ‘new’ style of decision making was Mario Savio, leader of the seminal Berkeley Free Speech Movement,” writes Scott Henson for the American Institute of Parliamentarians. “There’s no doubt,” Henson continues, “the popularization of consensus-driven decisions on the left first flowered beyond Quaker meeting rooms in America with the rise of the 60s rebellions.”