Replying to LO27973 --
Dear Organlearners,
Alfred Rheeder <alfred@pvm.co.za> writes:
>The Golden Rule as stated could be a very dangerous
>tool should we regard it as a constant. Did we not
>make this mistake here in South Africa. We can
>become mental slaves trapped in a world of
>"constantness".....
Greetings dear Alfred,
I can sense you being between the frying pan and the fire. The frying pan
is your business which requires your attention. The fire is your urge to
communicate that we should keep liveness ("becoming-being") in our vision.
Yes, I personally think that the breaks were very much applied to our
liveness during the apartheid years. And we still have to live with the
legacy from it, trying to accelerate to make up for the loss in speed. For
example, in religion I was endelessly bombarded with the constancy of
"being". Thus it became very hard for me to learn that the Bible not only
tells about "being", but also much about "becoming" in a most harmonius
manner.
>I think we should also be very sensitive that any
>specific articulation of the "Golden rule" can only
>partly describe reality and will not be descriptive
>of the whole of reality with far reaching consequences
>on policies, decisions norms and behaviour. For e.g.
>
>Do unto others
>Do unto all others
>Do unto all others unlike me/us etc......
I wonder whether fellow learners have noticed how Alfred's mind is working
here. Let me try to articulate it. But he will have to tell us how much it
is the case. Since Daan has been for a long time in the world of
computers, I will use computer concepts to explain it.
When a computer application gets programmed, one of the fist steps is to
define the constants and the variables which will be used in the program.
I will use C to refer to the constants and X to refer to the variables. A
constant C has one and only one value. A variable X can have one out of of
as many values as necessary, but never two values simultaneously. Hence
the constants C represent the elementary "beings" of a program whereas the
variables X represent the elementary "becomings" of it. I will self call
these variables X and constants C together as the Elementary Organiser
(EO) X-C.
The rest of the program is nothing else than a linking of these "beings"
and "becomings", even importing and then linking other "beings" and
"becomings" of other programs to enrich it. Then the debugging of errors
needs to be done. A major part of this debugging is to find inconsistent
links between all the "beings" and "becomings" involved. The final result,
called an application, I myself will call a Complex Organiser (CO). Yes,
an application like MS-Word is a CO. We use the CO MS-Word to write
documents. We need such COs and that is why the software industry has
grown so astoundingly. But we should never forget the humble beginning of
all these software Complex Organisers (COs). They all began with an
Elementary Organiser (EO), namely the variable-constant pair X-C.
I think Alfred perceived (and Daan will have to tell us how much
it is the case), that Daan used the golden rule "Do unto others.... "
as a constant C. But Alfred transformed it into a variable X so
as to get an EO in his mind with which to work with. But see
how he search for the new "values" of this variable X which
initially as the constant C had only one value:
. Do unto others ....
He now uses wholeness ("unity-associativity") to increase this
value with "all" into the new value
. Do unto "all" others ....
He then uses otherness ("quality-variety") to increase the new
value even further with "unlike me" into
. Do unto all others "unlike me" ....
Allow me to introduce yet a new value with adding "at least" to
his last value by using the 7E spareness ("quantity-limit")
. Do unto all others unlike me "at least" ....
See how much you fellow learners can increase its value even
more. I think that you will find that only six of the 7Es can be
used. Why not the seventh one? Because the seventh one is
implicitly contained in the golden rule. Let me show how. The
full version of the golden rule is
"Do unto others as you want them to do unto you."
Now study
"Say unto others as you want them to do unto you."
Bang. Out fall the focus on the "becoming" of liveness.
I think that is why Alfred concluded with:
>Should we not continuously question the primary
>directive set be the ground rule or should we not
>question the unquestionable?
He questioned the golden rule as the primary directive, found out that it
was not an Elementary Organiser (EO) and then proceeded to make an EO out
of it.
Why did he do it? Alfred is a member of a family owned business with his
father as the employer. I do not know exactly how much employees they
have, but it is about five dozen employees. The most intrigueing fact is
that this business is extremely complex. If we would compile a Complex 100
list similar to the Fortune 100 list, I think their business will occur in
that list and perhaps close to the top.
Alfred like the rest of his family and some of the other employees have to
think very complex. He has found in the 7Es a powerful pattern to
complexify his own thinking so as to do his job better.
Hi, it just occured to me that it might seem that I am selling the 7Es.
They are not for sale because authentic learning cannot ever be sold and
still remain authentic learning. I am just trying to explain to Daan and
other fellow learners why Alfred did what he did.
It also occured to me that Alfred and his family might not like what I
have done. So I will first mail this reply to him so that they can make
sure they are satisfied with what I had done.
He just phoned and said its OK, but I could hear in his voice that perhaps
he does not like such lime light. Perhaps I am hearing only my own voice
because like Michael Faraday often said, I find that such lime light
distracts me extremely from my own focus on constructive creativity, to
"see" what perhaps nobody else had "seen" before of the immense "hidden
order" we have to deal with in complexity and learning.
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
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.