Taking a Seat in the Assembly

With most folks, there is something uncomfortable about standing up to address a body or audience.  Even though standing up gives the speaker a pronounced advantage versus sitting, the tendency is to stubbornly and timidly remain seated.  I doubt that this tendency is a natural one.  I am not much of a psychologist, not having studied crowd psychology (Freud), the collective unconscious (Jung), the popular mind (Le Bon), etc.  Nor do I know much about ethology (look that one up).  Having established my intellectual limits, let me digress along.

If the reluctance to stand was a natural tendency, then there should be a connection with instinct.  Are we a herd animal by nature?  We know that the animal that stands out from the herd, swarm, school, or pack is the one that gets caught and eaten.  Safety in the heard arises from all animals working in cohesive alignment.  This certainly explains many aspects of human behavior.  If so, then it may be that the tendency to remain seated stems from an instinct to stay close to the herd.  It is survival of the throng.

Are we a solitary or roving animal by nature?  Solitary animals have their own built-in defense mechanisms, such as the beak of a woodpecker, the rack of a moose, or the fangs of a viper.  They survive by marking and tending their own territory.  If so, we would naturally desire to separate ourselves or at least distinguish ourselves from the group.  In a human, nothing establishes individualism more than standing out from the crowd.  We tend to exhibit both features, of course -- neither being purely a herd or solitary animal.  One thing for sure -- instinct does not run very deep in humans.

There is glossophobia -- the fear of public speaking -- which affects about 75 percent of Americans. For most people who are terrified to speak, it may take just enough courage to open their mouth. Speaking and standing up? Well, maybe that is too much for the glossophobiac to bear.

I think the tendency to remain seated in the assembly is actually learned behavior.  Nothing has been pounded into our being quite like the modern educational system, which is fundamentally classroom-based.  The American adult has endured somewhere between twelve and sixteen years of classroom interaction -- five days a week for 9 months a year.  In the good old days, students were required to stand when speaking, but this ancient practice has long been discarded. Today, classroom behavior requires only that students raise their hand before being recognized to speak from their seat.  They think on their seat instead of thinking on their feet.  There lies the rub.  The segway from classroom to deliberative assembly is an easy one in the participant's mind.  The chair or presiding officer takes on the characteristics of the classroom teacher and the participants, well, they tend to act just like students sitting at a desk.

Some of it may also be laziness.  It is such a hastle to stand up.  It disturbs our modern sedentary comfort zone to have to stand and sit, stand and sit.  Even Catholics, who stand, sit, and kneel repetitively during Sunday's service, seem to acquire stiff joints during Monday's assembly.  Like the third string of a football team, we prefer to remain benched in mediocrity.  It is as if the participant is welded to the chair.  The modern classroom desk and chair are welded together, and so the sitter's stance seems just as rigid.

Nor does personality seem to matter.  Introverts and extroverts alike are drawn to the reclined habit drilled into us from adolescence.  While the extrovert desires to speak, so too will the introvert when a motion or point in debate calls for it.  The only difference here seems to be the frequency of activity -- the extrovert never appreciating the wisdom of brevity and the introvert always exaggerating the merit of silence.  In either case, they resist the perpendicular posture.  Neither does age, sex, or education level seem to effect the habit.  Introverts and extroverts, young and old, female and male, high school and college degreed are all practitioners of the same engrained habit. 

So what is the real value in standing up?  Part of it is simple physics.  If only one person is standing, everyone can readily see them.  It is clear to all who has the floor.  A person's speech travels through a room better when the person is standing and all others are sitting.  The sound waves carry over the heads of the other participants, rather than being obstructed and absorbed by them as when the speaker remains sitting.  The question of who is speaking and what are they saying is remedied by having the speaker stand.

The rest of it is a matter of control.  The chair must control the proceedings of a meeting, otherwise pandemonium will quickly ensue.  (This fact has been tested and retested a million times over).  Meetings are better run, less confusing, more efficient, and more fair when the chair's authority to preside is maintained.  The basic rule is that only one person may speak at a time.  When a person is recognized by the chair to speak, that person is understood to have the floor and should be the only person standing.  For this reason, the chair should sit, if possible, when another person has the floor and is speaking in debate.  This makes it clear who has the floor.  Often though, the chair must remain standing when procedural motions are being made or a dialogue of sorts between a member and the chair is taking place (e.g., Point of Order, Parliamentary Inquiry, help with stating the motion).

This can also be examined from the point of view of rights and duties.  Other members have a right to know who has the floor, otherwise confusion abounds.  The person with the floor has the duty to direct all comments to the chair, but also has the right of direct access to the chair.  For this reason, there are rules about walking in front of the member with the floor.  In the Texas House of Representatives, there is a wide central isle with a microphone and lectern at each end.  The one at the front is the reading clerk's microphone and is often used by a bill author or sponsor.  The rear microphone is used by others to make motions or debate.  House Rule 5, Section 32 states: "No person shall pass between the front and back microphones during debate or when a member has the floor and is addressing the house."  Rule 17, clause 5 in the U.S. House of Representatives is similar.  One can easily imagine tense moments in legislative history when a member, acting beyond his wits, rises in front of the person to interrupt or challenge their position.  Fist fights, brawls, and even the brandishing of knives have occurred in the U.S. House of Representatives, so it is best to respect tradition.  Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised considers movement around the hall as "disturbing the assembly."  Thus, passing in front of the person with the floor challenges the right of direct access to the chair.

The same problem is presented in a different way if the person recognized as having the floor refuses to stand.  This effectively places all the persons sitting between the chair and the speaker in the arbitrary position of interfering with direct access.  The speaker who sits cannot direct comments to the chair with any certainty or authority.  Again, confusion clouds the proceedings.  The rule that others cannot interfere with the person who has the floor works both ways.  The person who has the floor also cannot interfere with the duty of the other members to maintain proper decorum, which they do best by sitting and remaining silent.

If there is anyone who is best served by the rule on standing, it is certainly the individual member who is trying to get his point across.  Knowing this, why would anyone prefer to sit and risk being obscure, inaudible, and unable to exercise his rights?