Group consciences and Bright Ideas

It is sensible in groups to propose big new ideas, discuss them, and vote on them on separate occasions. That's what we have done for years in my home group.

It turns out that Thomas More set out this idea clearly in his book Utopia (1516):

One rule observed in their council is, never to debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always referred to the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat of discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much that, instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather study to support their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in their motions.

The notion of the 'perverse and preposterous sort of shame' echoes the line in the St Augustine Prayer Book Sacrament of Penance list of character defects.

Shame (hurt pride), sorrow for ourselves because our sins make us less respectable than we like to think we are, or because we fear punishment or injury to our reputation, rather than sorrow for what sin is in the eyes of God. Refusal to admit we were in the wrong or to apologize.