Replying to LO24888 --
Dear Organlearners,
Winfried Dressler <winfried.dressler@voith.de> writes:
>Now, what would be the top n books coming close to your
>qualification? This is a dangerous question, so I should
>supplement it by asking for the required background for
>gaining benefits from reading each.
>
>Hmm. I am afraid that I have asked for the curriculum of many
>lives of (rote) learning. I think you better don't answer my
question.
>I will compile my own list.
Greetings Winfried,
Yes, trying to give a list of the top N books is indeed dangerous.
It is usually said that when a person A offers such a list, the list is
highly subjective rather than objective. However, the list is indeed
objective from person A's point of view. Another person B may offer also a
list which may differ much from A's list. Thus A will think that B's list
is subjective and B will think that A's list is subjective. Nevertheless,
the fact remains that A has compiled a list on certain criteria and B has
also compiled a list on certain criteria. The "subjectivity" is thus
nothing else than different sets of criteria being used. It is usually
very diffcult for a person to formulate a complete set of criteria because
some of the criteria are only tacitly known. Thus, whenever we have a
formulated set of criteria, we ought to consoder it as an incomplete set.
A may have true, good and right reasons for her/his criteria and so do B
have also. In other words, what they have in common are "true, good and
right reasons", not the details of such reasons, but the FACT that
whatever the reasons, they serve as "true, good and right" reasons. Let us
now try to see behind the "true, good and right" what "thing" actually has
to be served for which "true, good and right" is so important. In other
words, let us try to find the "strange attractor" which the FACT points
to. Call it the GOAL. The hot problem here is whether person A's GOAL and
person B's GOAL is the same?
I have considered many possibilities for this GOAL. For each possibility I
went into a careful dialogue with other persons, one by one, so as to
reach a common understanding of what that particular possibility means. Of
all the many possibilities, the one which gave the best (least exceptions)
agreement, is the GOAL "to create constructively". I other words, I think
that almost every person use a set of criteria for selecting the best
books so that these books can help the particular person to create
constructively. It is easy to test this outcome on our LO-dialogue. Let
every fellow learner whose GOAL is NOT to create constructively, speak up.
I think I have written more than enough so that fellow learners may have a
fair understanding of what "constructive creativity" means. (It is all
the stuff on authentic mental behaviour like authentic learning ;-)
Since every person differs in body and spirit from any other person, each
person will select criteria which serves him/her best so as to create
constructively. In other words, the set of complete criteria will have to
differ from person to person. That is the main reason why I do not try to
find common criteria. The other reason is that we will be working with
mostly incomplete sets of criteria because tacit knowledge is involved.
Consequently I will rather spend much more time on finding out exactly
what will make creativity constructive.
This "finding out exactly what will make creativity constructive" has been
my own personal GOAL in reading the past twenty years.
>>Would a list of "condensates" to the LO-archive not be fine?
>>Should 100 of us each produce one condensate, the power
>>of it all will help us tremendously.
>
>I would love to post a condensate of Bert Hellinger. Mainly for
>two reasons: He is doing authentic work and his work is totally
>unknown to most of you. Unfortunately he writes in german
>language. Does it matter? If I took the time to compile such a
>condensate, would someone care to translate it?
Please, do it!!! English is not my mothertongue, but the second language
to me. Then comes Dutch as third language and German as fourth language.
In the case of German I have to use a dictionary far too often.
Consequently, for me to offer to do the translation for you is to help all
fellow leaners out of the frying pan into the fire ;-)
I considered myself to make a "condensate" of Prigogine's "From Being to
Becoming". The mathematics and physics in this book are so much and of
such an advanced level that I wonder if more than 10 fellow learners will
be able to digest all of it. Thus I see it as a personal challenge to tell
in words what the mathematics do and in metaphors what the physics do,
supplementing it all with rich annotations of Prigogine's own words
whenever they occur in text in the book and strike me personally as most
important. I see it also as a personal challenge not to mispresent what
Prigogine wants to tell, not to criticize even in the slightest what he
did not tell or ought to have told. I see it as a personal challenge not
to let the main messages of this book disappear in the much shorter
"condensate". Lastly, I see it as a personal challenge to tell what he is
telling and not what I am telling so that fellow learners can clearly spot
the differences between us two.
[Host's Note: At... Please do it!!! Please make a condensed re-telling of
Prigogine. ..Rick]
I am fully aware that what is a challenge to me may be foollish to fellow
learners and that many may find this "condensate" of his book not helpful.
But I know of some others who would have loved to study the book, but find
its mathematics and physics too intimidating. I am also aware that this
book has seemingly nothing to do with Senge's Learning Organisations. But
what this book actually does, is to tell about nature as a Learning
Organisation, using not any typical Sengian terminology. Hence the
challenge for fellow learners in the Team Learning will be to discover
these LO-messages by their own authentic learning.
There are some other books also of which I would like to create a
"condensate", for example Jan Smuts' "Holism and Evolution". This book is
one of the best to make a person aware that the change from an ordinary
organisation to a learning organisation is part of evolution. But I have
to begin somewhere and select the book of which its message is influencing
and will in the immediate future influence human thinking much, is not
most. I think the book which did it, is Prigogine's "Order out of Chaos"
with the philosopher Isabella Stengers as co-author. It appeared in 1979
in French under the title "La Nouvelle Alliance" (The New Alliance).
Although it never uses the term New Age, this book made more people than
any other book aware of the New Age in which there is no dialecticism
between chaos and order any more. The book "From Being to Becoming" lifts
out the "back-bone" (systems thinking ?) in "Order out of Chaos".
Obviously, I will need someone to correct the English grammer of this
"condensate". Would someone care to do that for me?
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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