Replying to LO26202 --
>From: "Jack Russell" <jack@jetpartnership.co.uk>
> Can we not remove those spectacles (just for a few minutes) and have some
> more balanced perspectives ...or dare I say it....some adverse
> observations and comments.
Jack,
It often occurs to me that our busy lives leave very little room for what
Juliette Schor called "caring labor" in *The Overworked American*.
Caring labor includes all of that unpaid work we do on behalf of our
families, our neighborhoods, our churches, our larger communities and so
on. Have you ever noted how much LO writing--including many of the posts
here--tends to be spiritual in nature? Science--or evoltionary Psych, in
case of LO theory--may seem to have usurped faith, but the human yearning
for spiritual fulfillment remains. So, now we have the corporate church.
Not an entirely unprecedented idea, either (think Benedictine monks ,
Luther, Calvin, the Protestant ethic, Protestantism itself), but
transforming a corporation into a corpus of believers seems quite a
different thing than beginning with some core of faith from which work
then flows. (I always think it telling that Senge uses the term
"reciprical covenant" to refer to the relationship between an LO and an
individual worker.)
Wouldn't be entirely out of line, I don't think, to see LO as one of a
number of what have called "designer religions" (see, for instance,
[Host's Note: The long URL will probably be chopped up by email
programs. If you can piece it all together, it does take you to the
intended article. ..Rick]
LO has a great appetite for the spiritual. Eastern mysticism, Native
American spirituality, New Age ideas--LO writings have cannibalized (a
strong word, but maybe it will satisfy some of your desire for critique,
here) them all, and many more.
Kathy
--"Kafkaz" <kafkaz@kwom.com>
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