Dear Organlearners,
On Sat, 15 Nov 1997 Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@compuserve.com> writes in
LO15823 under the topic "Are Humans Resources" the following: (It is seems
that everybody considered it as part of his reply to Doc Holloway in
LO15779.)
> Also, the manipulative behavior exists
> throughout society, at all levels and within all people. I don't mean to
> sound defeatist about it, but it is woven into the fabric of society, and
> therefore, we have our work cut out for us to extract it. Part of the
> problem is that manipulation is a fairly simple extension of simply having
> any relationship. When does any interaction that influences become
> manipulation? I certainly don't know.
>
> All of this would be a worthy topic for me if anyone else is interested.
>
> I suggest changing the name of the topic to 'systemic roots of
> objectification' if that's not too esoteric. Any name will do...
Rol, I have selected a simpler name. Hopefully you will agree to it.
I will set the ball roling with one observation. What do we
understand linguistically about the word "manipulation".
My dictionaries say two main things:
1) A skillful use of the hands
2) A deceptive tampering with an action or a result.
[Latin: "manipulus"= handfull.]
Meaning 1) refers to artisans up to artists and meaning 2) refers to
conjurers up to sorcerers. Meaning 1) has positive connotations while
meaning 2) has negative connotations. I would like to summarise 1)
and 2) in one description which has a (hopefully) neutral
connotation.
3) A change of anything on purpose by a human.
I think that, in what you have written above, both meanings as
well as their summary by me have immense bearing. Let us now
discuss it. The ball is now moving to you for your manipulation.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>