Leadership = Powerful Narratives LO21699

John Zavacki (jzavacki@greenapple.com)
Fri, 21 May 1999 20:55:20 -0400

Replying to LO21684 --

AT quotes, bends, twists, and overwhelms with his extraordinary use of his
second (third, fourth?) language:

> Is language not a strange thing? We shorten "multiple dimensions of
> intelligence" into "multiple intelligences" and nobody worries because
> "multiple intelligences" has not been used before, neither "multiple
> dimensions of intelligences".

At, as a University man, have you really researched ALL of the
Universities, in all of the worlds, all of their journals, and all of
their dissertations to prove theis " AT FACT"? Or have you once again
assumed we are none as astute as the desert rat?

I did, in fact, use the term "multiple intelligences" in 1968, in a case
study on an aphasic patient, to describe the difference between
psychological reality and the perceptions which labe it as something else.
The term occurs in many other places.(AT has, indeed, quoted some of these
authors, let us see if he can find them.)

> Intelligence is but one of the many things like character and
> knowledge which makes up a personality. Personality is that thing which
> distinguish the person in the human.

Please, explain the difference you make here. A person and a human are
cognates in my knowledge base. A persona, however, is a face of a person,
or a human.

> Unfortunately, the English language already has found usage
> for the phrase "many personalities". It is used to denigrate a person.
> For
> example: "He is someone with many personalities." Perhaps the phrase "He
> is someone
> with multiple personalities" works similarly. Furthermore, the phrase
> "multi-personality" is used as a term in psychology to refer
> to a person having a specific mental disorder. Consequently I will have
> to use the long name "Multiple Subject Dimensions of Personality" (MSDP)
> to express what I mean.

To use an ATism: MSDP=BS
There is no need for a new term here, AT. Mulitiple personalities can be
interepreted in a few ways. Many personalities is less ambiguous.
The first refers to a clinically diagnosable hermeneusis. The latter is
easily seen in the Jungian "personae". A person with many personalities has
cultivated them (as many of our consulting and managerial friends on this
list). They can be the "Wise Old Man", "The Jester", etc. when needed to
teach well.

The Multiple Personality (clinically speaking) is neither cutivated, nor
readily available on CONSCIOUS demand.

Much of AT's explication and exposition has here been snipped:
> During all those years I have also made friends with people who
> "specialised in more than one subject", or rather, who worked
> interdisciplinary in more than one subject. I have noticed how they
> effortlessly switched over from one "specialist dimension of
> personality"
> to another "specialist dimension of personality", depending on which
> specialist or what discipline they were talking. They were
> manifesting
> MSDP (Multiple Subject Dimensions of Personality).

Doesn't "inter-disciplinary" or even "intellectual" describe this well
enough?

Again, a snip of the last ten feet of AT's message, but I believe he was
talking about specialization. I work with the newly educated (my factory
hires youn engineers, uses them to see new ways of seeing in an Ohio
backwater town and let's them go to a higher paying job after they've made
their contribution, it creates a constant intellectual worm hole, but it
keeps the semi-permanent staff on their intellectual toes)

Sorry AT. You don't need to reinvent the wheel everytime you take control
of the keyboard.

-- 

"John Zavacki" <jzavacki@greenapple.com>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>