Dear Organlearners,
"I V N S Raju" <IVNSR@anand.nddb.ernet.in>, while reflecting on India, its
accomplishments and its turmoils, asks:
> We have learnt several lessons in upholding the Democratic Values over a
> period of 50 years. We are now seeing the diplorable state of affairs of
> our political system wherein forces like curruption, criminalisation, and
> all other anti social elements are safely sheltered. I am struggling to
> understand how my Nation learns lessons from this. What constitutes its
> learning? How powerful its learning would be? I welcome members to think
> about it and respond.
First of all, I want to thank Raju (I hate using a surname) for bringing
this very important question to the attention of this forum. In another
recent thread "What is democracy" John Constantine made the profound
observation that "A democracy is the ultimate learning organisation".
Raju's question and John's observation are closely related.
But I also want to issue a warning before we delve deeper into Raju's
question. Of all LO's, the "nation" is the least developed. Bearing in
mind that the metanoia (loving harmony) of an LO characterises its
development, we have to guard against negative accusations and
demarcations. Let us not make the thread difficult for Rick to manage.
It struck me that Raju discusses the last 50 years of India's political
history. It corresponds closely to the almost 50 years of goverment based
on Apartheid in South Africa - a minority of white people who governed a
country of which the black people were far in the majority (4 out of 5).
During the last years of that reign, many people (black and white) were
convinced that, to use Raju's words,
"We are now seeing the deplorable state of affairs of our
political system wherein forces like curruption,
criminalisation, and all other anti social elements are
safely sheltered."
With the advent of the NSA (New South Africa) based on a new and model
constitution, many people believed that Raju's words would be something of
the past - at least for a couple of decades. However, after only three
years in the NSA, Raju's words haunts us with a greater intensity than
even during the last years of Apartheid. So many people (black and white)
began the NSA with so much good will. What went wrong?
I do not want to go deeply into this question. But I want to make one
observation. During the Apartheid years, those OUTSIDE of Apartheid (ANC,
PAC, UDF, SACP, etc) were blamed for what went wrong. The NSA began with
little blame. But as the new wrongs accumulate, so do the blames by the
present ANC-SACP government increase. They blame every wrong to those who
previously benefitted under Apartheid. Even pres Mandela, who usually
manages to keep a cool head, falls victim to this failing-blaming
phenomenum. They are merely creating a new kind of outsiders (outcasts).
Now why did I mention this aspect of blaming others for not being self
able to set the wrongs right? During my 25 years of experience as a
teacher and lecturer, having dealt with thousands of pupils and students,
I have observed that the less the learners succeed in self mastering, the
more they blame others for their failures! It happens with regularity,
almost as if some law is acting in the background, a law which I often
call the Law of Invoking Azazel (the scapegoat).
Just as an individual may invoke Azazel when personal mastery fails, an
organisation may also invoke Azazel when organisational leaning fails. I
have experienced it so many times on the level of organisations that I
almost have developed an allergic reaction to it - thus making it very
difficult to keep a cool head. The size of the organisation is no
guarantee that the organisation will not fall victim. In fact, I have
specifically described the political situation in South Africa to show
that an organisation even as big as a nation may invoke Azazel when its
organisational learning fails.
Not all individuals or organisations who fail to learn, invoke Azazel. I
have made another observation, namely that those who learn from their
failures, almost never invoke Azazel. But those who repeatedly fails to
learn, invokes Azazel with a remarkable regularity. I eventually
discovered that those who invoke Azazel are ignorant of self-organisation,
even on the tacit level of knowledge. In other words, if we want to know
how an individual or an organisation (even a nation) learns, we cannot
remain ignorant of self-organisation.
For this reason it is very important that we all should learn more about
self-organisation, the topic which made Ilya Prigogine famous and
sometimes even notorious. We have to realise that the work of the
Prigoginian school is not praised everywhere. Why? Because Progogine's
work concerns physical self-organisation in the material world.
Furthermore, Prigogine and co-workers concentrate on giving an account of
successful self-organisation. We also need to work on spiritual
self-organisation in the abstract world. We also need to study the
opposite of successful self-organisation, the destructive side of reality.
In other words, we need to study the full complexity of reality.
This is exactly where the seven essentialities of creativity become of
paramount importance. Let me formulate them as follows for the present
topic. We cannot master the full complexity of reality if we do not
1) balance our being (structure) with becoming (process)
2) accept the identity of each other to its minutest detail
3) clasping the hands of each other so as to exclude nobody
4) make contact on ever increasing levels of complexity
5) endeavour the full quantitative range of our experiences
6) honour the varieties and qualities which empower us
7) open up to understand all the paradigms of all people
I now want to add that a nation cannot learn if the nation avoids or
impair these seven esssentialities.
What worries me, is that some leading nations are beginning to avoid or
impair these essentialities on purpose. In other words, they do not learn
so much as a nation as they have previously done to gain their leading
position. Furthermore, while their learning as a nation increasingly
fails, they invoke Azazel more and more by blaming other nations for their
failures. It is a recipe for war.
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/>