Dear Organlearners,
Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@compuserve.com> writes:
> Begin with the notion that manipulation is neutral. Deception is not a
> component of manipulation. You said, "I am intrigued by the fact that the
> word manipulation traces bifurcating changes caused by humans on purpose."
>
> What do you mean by "bifurcating"?
A bifurcation is a forking event. Its like driving a car, approaching a
fork and then turning into one of the two legs of the fork. There are many
types of bifurcations possible in complexity studies, for example Hopf and
Turing bifurcations. But despite all these types, all bifurcations
concerns either a constructive development or a destructive development.
It is in this "srtuctive" sense that I wrote "bifurcating changes". In
other words, I could also have written "I am intrigued by the fact that
the word manipulation traces constructions or destructions caused by
humans on purpose".
Rol, for me the three words "manipulation", "bifurcation" and "ethic" are
intimately connected. The bifurcations of manipulations necessitate an
ethic for manipulators though their purposes. The sure way to create hell
is to manipulate without any ethic. Thus I frequently (which otherwise
seldom happens) get mad at the elucidation of purpose (mission, goals and
objectives) without any acount of the ethics involved.
> You also said, "The word culture has for me the meaning that it is the
> total of all humankind's creations, physically and mentally. Thus the word
> manipulation distinguish that part of our creation's (culture) which has
> to do with purpose."
>
> Yes, I agree. I often think of culture as 'tools". Culture is the set of
> mental models that we bring to our thinking, and therefore, to our views
> of the world.
I understand what you mean. Your "tools" form part of my "human
creations". However, we must remember that we humans do not merely create
to have tools. We often create for the bliss of creating, irrespective
whether the result will become a tool or not.
Think of procreation - bringing children into the world. To think of my
children as my "tools" almost got me into a fainting-fit. It is also
strange that my greatest struggle with them is for them never to think of
their mother or me as their "tools".
Culture is for me in its broadest sense the totality of all human
creations (the so called anthropological definition of it). The first
subdivision we then have is continental/island cultures, for example the
European culture, the African culture, the Asian culture, etc. Now, in
terms of the neutral meaning of the word manipulation (changes on
purpose), all such cultures are manipulative. Because of the different
paradigms involved, manipulations involving different cultures usually
bifurcate into conflicts and destructions rather than constructions.
Few people realise that apart from the continental/sland cultures, a
global culture is now also emerging, especially since the advent of
Internet. Since the beginning of global transport (first ships 500 years
ago and then planes 100 years ago) we did have a global pre-culture. But
it lacked an ethic and therefor could not be called a fully fledged
culture. Creating and elucidating the ethic of this global culture is of
primary importance.
I often think of this list/forum managed by Rick as a most important
contributor to the emergence of the global culture and its ethics when
comparing it to thousands of other activities on the Internet. We may be
few in numbers and wish to exert no control on others, but the quality of
the learning on this list will have far reaching consequences.
> Finally, you ask, "Can we and may we manipulate other people?"
>
> My personal answer is, we do, therefore we can and we may. If you are
> asking the moral or ethical question, my personal view is that if we are
> not to be hermits, then we must. It is inherent in any interaction, no
> matter how trivial or simple.
I agree with impatience. What is the ethic or morality involved?
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/>