John,
Thank you for your inquiry.
>Robb, what does it mean to you for someone to master one's person?
The context was education. Education teaches one to be self sufficient.
To know how to learn for oneself. To know how to think and to understand
how people in a profession think about that profession. This goes beyond
learning the technical tools of the profession.
in the book, Earth in Mind, David Orr divides being clever from being
intelligent, knowing how as different from knowing why.
> What results does it lead to?
Orr argues for knowing why and an appreciation of what technology leads
to. Rather than education teaching us how to use technology, a technology
that is often beyond our wisdom (like nuclear power), to also be educated
on the why, to think about the implications of our technology (like
depletion of our natural resources).
Thus, mastering one's own person leads to deeper appreciation for what we
are doing. Mastering is understanding why.
>What benefits does the world derive from someone
>who has been successful at mastering their person? How does one know that
>one has succeeded at mastering one's person? (I don't need a simplistic
>measure, I just want to be pointed to various kinds of evidence that would
>indicate such mastery.) And, because you used it in contrast, how do you
>contrast mastering one's person from mastering subject matter?
Why versus how to the last question.
Benefits to the world is that we have a more sustainable world and not one
of destroying what we have here. When I said that education makes people
self sufficient, "sufficiency" is an important concept. I live blocks
from Sand Hill Road the home of Venture Capital in Silicon Valley. What I
see are executives who rent Lear Jets for a casual trip to Los Angeles,
execs who have Jets for their toys. People who vastly squander resources
for their casual enjoyment. If they had a sense of what is sufficient for
their enjoyment and a sense of what they are taking from the common pool,
I think we would all benefit. These are the "captains of industry", think
about how they make decisions relevant to their corporations.
What we are seeing is the standard tragedy of the commons. Orr's point is
that our educational institutions should be addressing these issues. Our
corporate balance sheets should reflect the natural resources they use up.
Educational institutions can be measured by what they contribute or take
away from the global enviornment. Even the results of those that the
educational institution educates in terms of net benefit to the globe can
in theory be measured.
"how does one know that one has succeeded in mastering one's person?" We
should each of us think through whether we are personally helping the
globe or squandering resources in our actions. In my mind to succeed is
to contribute positively.
Thanks for asking
Robb Most
--"Robb Most" <bobmost@email.msn.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>