Replying to LO24052 --
Dear Organlearners,
Eric Hatch <hocinc@earthlink.net> writes:
>Humans appear to be hard-wired for some nasty traits,
>territoriality and allegiance to small groups (families, tribes)
>being among them. These traits enable small group survival
>but hinder large group prosperity.
Greetings Eric,
What goes for small groups goes for large groups like nations and
international corporations too. Their allegiance to some triats enable
them to large group survival, but hinder small group prosperity.
Consider, for example, how the richest nations (G7 countries) enslave for
their own survival poorly developed countries which cannot compete with
them. Consider how even in a country like the USA most of its wealth is
concentrated in the hands of a small section of the nation.
However, trying to fix blame will not solve the problem. My comments above
are intended to show that we should not try to equate nasty traits with
group size and prosperity. Nasty traits have to do with a definite stance
in the personality of those people with an inhumane conduct. It can be
summarised by one word: they do not CARE for fellow humans. What I myself
am trying to understand is in what respects should they take care of their
fellow humans.
I myself can codify it in terms of "deep creativity". People should
promote the constructive creativity of fellow humans in order to rid
themselves of their nasty traits. I can use "entropy production" and the
seven essentialities to codify what constructive creativity is about.
However, this codification is worthless if not substantiated by authentic
learning in individuals and organisations.
>I suspect AM DeLange may be confusing values and conduct.
>You can codify conduct; codifying values takes longer and is
>much harder.
I think that there is some misunderstanding here which may cause serious
confusion. I wrote that humane conduct can be codified. But I also wrote
that such codes are useless when not matched by a prior knowledge within
people to recognise the sense of such codes. This prior knowledge cannot
be acquired by rote learning. It has to emerge within a person. It usually
requires spiritual "midwifery" -- another caring human (rather than an
impersonal code) who understand what it takes to upheld humane values. I
think that it is exactly here where traditional education lost complete
insight of its task.
I agree that codifying humane values is longer and harder. Why? Because
each of them is very complex. As a result of this complexity it takes a
lot of time and additional entropy. This requires much free energy which
has to be provided by a creative collapse.
Let us think about wholeness as a humane value. Have you ever tried to
codify it? How many codifications of it have you studied? What do you
think is the most significant aspects of its codification? How much did
such existing codifications on wholeness transformed the norms of society?
>Seems to me that LO is about codifying a certain set of
>values, values reflected in the excerpt above. Reality is,
>our hardwiring (whether cultural or genetic) is not going to
>change without a whole lot of help from every direction....
>including behavioral codes.
I agree that the "hard wiring" will need a lot of help from every
direction. But I want to stress once again that all this help from the
"outside" cannot outweigh the help which is needed from the "inside" by
way of autopoiesis, self-organisation, complex adaptation or whatever we
may want to call it. It can be summarised by a single phrase: "spontaneous
evolution of the personality".
The spontaneous means that "free energy" is needed, far more than what is
presently available. If the present free energy were sufficient, then the
person's behaviour would already have transformed spontaneously. Thus some
more of the total energy has to be made available which has been locked up
to maintain the present organisation of that personality. It is exactly
this "hard-wiring" which you speak of which can deliver by a creative
collapse the free energy so desparately needed.
Questions which we ought to ask ourselves are:
* Is it possible for a person to collapse creatively without the
LO as the invironment to assist it?
* Is it possible for an organisation to emerge into a LO when
its members resist giving up their precious "hard-wirings"?
* What role does the codification of creativity play in the
promotion of creativity?
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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