Archive for Carman de Voer

On Plato, Paul and Shakespeare

December 13, 2009 / / No comments

Paul was an orthodox Israelite Rabbi [Pharisee] who experienced paradigm shift due to a life-changing event. As I propose in my document The Secret Synagogue http://thesecretsynagogue.tripod.com/ Paul directed his discipline at teachers-Israelite men-who had been called out of Israelite society into schools [congregations].The School of Jesus was, in its inception, indigenous to Palestine but Paul extended its influence to Israelites living among the nations. Its mission was to promote their [Israelite] Messiah, Jesus [Christmas carols unwittingly acknowledge Jewish exclusivity: King of Israel, Little town of Bethlehem…]. I should emphasize that there is not a scintilla of scriptural evidence for the idea that Paul taught non-Israelites or Gentiles. In The Book of Acts Paul is always in synagogues-or wherever he can teach Israelites. Gentiles are not even on the radar, so to speak.

So, when Paul says that “women are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission” I believe he is speaking as a man of his times and from deep within a patriarchal culture. When he says women were not to speak, I take that literally. Speaking is speaking, and submission is submission. [I imagine the First Century Israelite culture as analogous to modern Hasidic Judaism]. The men Paul counsels have an urgent task to perform and he will brook no distractions. The Titanic [Judaism] was about to strike the iceberg [their God] and so lifeboat training was pressing. [Forgive the overworn analogy]

Now, modern readers may recoil at this interpretation because of its implications for “the Church.” To this I will say, there is no “Church.” There is no “Christianity” [there never was] and there is no Judaism. The apostolic letters do describe a messianic movement within First Century Judaism, but this movement was not a “new religion” per se. I would liken ancient Messianism our modern labor movements. Workers, attempting to organize, are not interested in establishing a new company but, rather in modifying existing relations with management and in securing benefits. Likewise the First Century Messianic movement was an innovation within Judaism-albeit one that claimed to be Judaism’s peak and precipice. The Messianists taught that God sent his son into the Jewish world [society] to save it [John 3:16 http://nasb.scripturetext.com/john/3.htm] but also that that Jewish world was passing away [1 John 2:15-17 http://nasb.scripturetext.com/1_john/2.htm].

Hence Paul’s words have no bearing on or application to the present. As I mentioned before, “Christianity” was a 2nd Century fiction concocted by men who evidently wanted to extend and increase power-to make it catholic [meaning universal]. My purpose in inserting Partnership into Paul’s words was to suggest that for Paul “spirit” connoted a paradigm shift. He was not speaking individualistically because his culture was collectivistic. Hence, while “spirit” meant a transformed consciousness [see Romans 12:2] it was still a group phenomenon.

Let’s discuss Partnership. I would compare and contrast Partnership and Messianism thus: a cruise ship and a battle ship. While conceptually they may share commonalities [a ship is a ship] they are also fundamentally different. For example, Eisler’s Partnership speaks about “putting a nation in order” by “first putting the family in order” by “first setting our hearts right.” Leadership and the State are bracketed out. First Century Messianism, by contrast, spoke directly to power and promoted conflict. Because it disturbed the Established Order Jesus likened it to “new wine in old wineskins.” John the Baptizer and Jesus Christ seemed to have been dissident intellectuals who challenged the dominant institution-and paid dearly.

Tragically, self-serving institutions, conservative commentaries, and traditional worldviews have blunted their radicalism. What was elevated music in antiquity is now heard as elevator music. But I digress. If a vocal leader with her heart “set right” were transferred to a dominator culture then conflict would inevitably ensue. But as I mentioned Lisa, the comparison between Partnership and Messianism is moot because the Messianic movement is a fait accompli. Partnership does not have to answer to Plato or Paul or Shakespeare. Their worlds have passed away and a new world full of new challenges stretches before us. Partnership has its work cut out for itself, does it not?

Bye for now,

Carman

Category: All Posts, Partnership, Philosophy, Spirituality /

Domination-Partnership Dichotomy (Exploring Parallels)

December 6, 2009 / / No comments

Hi Lisa,

Why am I not surprised that serving a greater good is [your] greatest form of satisfaction? Thank you too for your invigorating treatment of the holistic paradigm.

I would like to address and integrate some of your comments, beginning with, “I disagree with Paul’s dichotomization of flesh and spirit, but that view is very consistent with philosophical atomism.”

Paul’s dichotomization of “flesh” and “spirit” is, I believe, societal rather than somatic. That is, his focus is on “group attachment” and “group integrity.” In short, he is doing sociology, not psychology. Paul’s dichotomization of flesh and spirit seems very much like Riane Eisler’s dichotomization of domination and partnership. Eisler declares: “For all their unique peculiarities, most of our attempts at civilization have had one of two basic configurations the domination system or the partnership system.” She seems to be speaking about two basic ways of looking at the world and about the systems that express such worldview.

Similarly, Paul’s dichotomization of “flesh” and “spirit” seems analogous to “domination” and “partnership” as those mindsets impact the group. (I cannot overemphasize the group phenomenon). In Galatians, Paul is counseling leaders/teachers against sub-professional conduct that undermines group adhesion. Unless he can recall them to a larger vision, the leadership group will dissolve.

Put another way, Paul is a rabbinic leader speaking to a group of rabbis about convention learning versus transformation learning. Convention learners are attempting to reintroduce their [domination] thinking into the transformation [partnership] culture. Using the domination-partnership dichotomy I will attempt to paraphrase Paul’s counsel. Let’s imagine he is addressing a leadership school that promotes partnership:

13 For you have been called to partnership; only do not [use] your liberty as an opportunity for personal ambition, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the [holistic] law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this: “You shall love your neighbor [colleagues] as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! [I have actually seen pit bulls attempt this!]

16 I say then: Make progress in the partnership mindset, and you shall not enact the domination mindset. 17 For the domination mindset militates against the partnership mindset, and the partnership mindset is against the domination mindset; and these attitudes are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the partnership mindset, you are not bound by the domination culture.

19 Now the group-destroying behaviors characteristic of the domination mindset are evident, Sexual Deviance: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 Self-Idolatry and Narcissism: hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, casting your fellow teachers in the worst possible light, 21 envy, character assassination, drunkenness, drunken parties, and the like; of which I warn l you beforehand, just as I also warned you in time past, that those who practice such things will be expelled from the partnership program.

22 But partnership’s mindset yields the following orchard: group attachment, esprit de corps, member well-being, longsuffering toward one another, kindness toward one another, spontaneous goodness, group trust, 23 gentleness toward new members, self-control vis-à-vis recalcitrant members. Against such there is no legitimate prohibition. 24 And those [who are] partnership’s offspring have repudiated the domination mindset with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in partnership, let us also walk in transformed consciousness. 26 Let us not return to the domination culture by becoming conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Lisa, in your previous post you stated: “of course, one can apply a holistic perspective to leadership and organization with interesting implications.” I would find the application of your insights to a leadership group in crisis to be very instructive. Perhaps the group scenario above will suffice. If a partnership group were being infiltrated by dominator tendencies, how would you address the issue-especially if dissolution were imminent?

Bye for now!

Carman

The rain has relented and so my sun-starved eyes may be sated today.

Category: All Posts, Culture, Ethics, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Spirituality, Teams, Values, Vision /

Slavery is Freedom (Being Part of Something Larger)

November 28, 2009 / / No comments

Slavery is freedom. Alone-free-the human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal-Nineteen Eighty-Four

Hi Lisa,

I have been lost in Mary Shelley’s apocalyptic novel, “The Last Man.” It’s a rather grim story about a pestilence that scythes the human family like so much corn-as Shelley is wont to say. I’ve accompanied the final fifty surviving members of the human race to Switzerland where they vainly hope to escape the contagion. Shelley’s prose is very dense and thus my mental plod has been very slow. I’ve literally reached the point where Vancouver Library SWOT teams are crashing down my door demanding their book back. “But I’m only on page 5” I shout back. I’m so thankful that the book was not required reading in university or I most assuredly would have abandoned my studies and returned to carrying bricks for hyperactive bricklayers.

Between Shelley’s pale horse and our own [H1N1] I’ve been thinking about your comment:

“Based on my own experience in organizations and conversations with corporate managers and leaders, I think many contemporary leaders also share a need for meaning, purpose, self-actualization, personal growth, contribution, and despite their privileges, and also often experience themselves as constrained by the system in which they operate.”

I have no doubt that managers and leaders share a need for meaning, etc., and that they feel (or are made to feel) systemic constraints.”

While reviewing Malina and Pilch’s “Social Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul” I encountered some observations which I believe speak to the experience of managers and leaders. Their analysis focuses on Galatians 5:13-26:

13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not [use] liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!

16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told [you] in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those [who are] Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. NKJV

Malina and Pilch comment thus: “Israelite Jesus-group members, once under the law of Moses, are now free of those constraints. But this freedom is for a new slave service to fellow Jesus-group members, a service motivated by “love,” that is, group attachment and concern for group integrity. There really was no “freedom from” in the ancient world with out a “freedom for.” The God of Israel freed Israel from Egyptian slavery so that Israelites would be freed for the service of God in God’s land. Similarly, Jesus-group members freed from slave service to the Law were now free for slave-service to fellow Jesus-group members” p.215.

As I discuss in my monograph, “The Secret Synagogue,” what the above authors refer to as Jesus-groups were in reality Israelite rabbinical communities-leaders and managers. “Spirit” was a cipher for “perspective transformation.” I submit that while “meaning, purpose, self-actualization, personal growth, and contribution” were important to the messianic pedagogues, those characteristics and constraints did not negate their thralldom to one another and to their deities. Though we moderns describe group phenomena much differently the reality of thralldom remains largely unchanged.

I believe Nineteen Eighty-Four speaks to the need of mangers [push] and leaders [pull] to escape into something larger than themselves, whatever the relationship-a group, an organization: “Slavery is freedom. Alone-free-the human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal” p.277 I would substitute “administrative family” for Party.

Consequently, when we speak about the constraints managers and leaders are subject to are we not really talking about thralldom-no matter how psychologistic our descriptors?

What are your thoughts Lisa?

Bye for now,

Carman

A pattering rain and a melancholy wind assail the coast today. I’m off to locate the last man Lionel Verney and his remnant. I believe Orwell also described Winston Smith-Nineteen Eighty-Four-as the last man. Interesting, no?

Reference

Social-Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul. By Bruce J. Malina & John J. Pilch. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press.

Category: All Posts, Change, Leadership, Partnership, Psychology, Rewards, Spirituality, Teams /

The Tree of Thralldom [The Crown-Limbs, Branches and Leaves]

October 24, 2009 / / No comments

Hi Lisa,

I am preoccupied with your statement, “I think self-searching and transformation are foundational to our collective “recovery” and shift to a real ethic of Partnership.” I scour Morgan’s Metaphors of Organization to locate structures that support self-searching and transformation. The fruitage of my “inspired groping” is as follows.
Patterson observes that the thrall or slave was:
– “a dominated thing,
– an animated instrument,
-a body with natural movements, but without its own reason, -an existence entirely absorbed in another” [the Master].

Morgan’s Metaphors of Organization are replete with domination and thralldom:

Employee is absorbed in the aims of the Employer
Employee is a “dominated thing”
Employee is an “instrument”
Employee is without “reason”

Morgan’s Metaphors of Organization

*Machine [Managers (only) should think, managed should “do” as they’re told]
*Organism [Managers can manipulate the body]
*Brain [Managers should manipulate the mind]
*Culture [Managers can manipulate the mind to create social reality]
*Political System [Managers should control every interaction]
*Psychic Prison [Managers who understand the mind can manipulate the mind]
*Flux and Transformation [Managers can increase control by mastering new concepts]
*Instrument of Domination [Managers should dominate and exploit]

Until now, Lisa, I have proceeded on the premise that the Brain Metaphor held the most potential for self-searching and transformation. Dr. Tara Fenwick’s critical optic disturbs my position. Even within the Learning Organization I find ample evidence of thralldom (disposition to dominate; propensity to submit).

Though ostensibly egalitarian, the Learning Organization tends to be essentially authoritarian, according to Dr Fenwick. Within the Learning Organization the employee’s existence is entirely absorbed in the organization.

Fenwick observes that:
• Valuable knowledge is defined according to competencies that benefit the organization
• The dominant role of managers: the individual workers’ perspectives and agendas and visions appear not pertinent except insofar as these serve the organization
• A subordinate role is accorded to employees as undifferentiated learners-in-deficit
• “learning” is technical, instrumental
• employees’ minds are expected to remain colonized and loyal to the imperial presence of their employing organization. Critical scrutiny is deflected away from the power structures and the learning organization ideology itself, and focused on the individual.
• The voice of the learning organization sculptors is not self-critical. The agenda and vision of the leader or educational agent is bracketed out, obscuring the partiality and positionality of the voices calling for continuous learning and learning organizations.

“The organizational perspective is status-quo oriented and self-serving: it can’t conceive its own death or life after its death. Workers’ learning is to be innovative and critically reflective so long as the outcomes ensure the survival, indeed the prosperity, productivity and competitive advantage of, the employing organization.

Learning that threatens the existence of the organization, such as liberated workers finding ecological and communicatively nurturing ways to achieve their purposes that begin with dismantling the organization, are not possible from the organization’s perspective.”

“Meanwhile the focus is on changing the individuals to become the kinds of workers corporations demand. From the organization’s perspective the “continuously learning” individual is in perpetual deficit, harnessed to…the “powerful engines” of the economy and struggling to “keep up.” An ideology of “constant improvement” tends to create a competitive track where the racing dogs never reach the mechanical rabbit.”

(I thought you might enjoy the racing dogs metaphor!). My question, Lisa, is What kind of organizational structure-if any-would be conducive to self-searching and transformation?

Carman

Reference

Limits of the Learning Organization: A Critical Look

Tara J. Fenwick, Asst. Professor
Department of Educational Policy Studies
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA T6G 2G5
tara.fenwick@ualberta.ca

Category: All Posts /

Ideological Inversion and Self-Deception (Illuminating dominator dynamics)

October 17, 2009 / / 3 comments

“It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party”–Nineteen Eighty-Four”

Ideological Inversion and Ideological Self-Deception

Lisa, thank you for ‘making the darkness conscious’ by examining the root system of slavery. I especially love your powerful and prescient comment, “In considering how perspective – especially the perspectives of the powerful – shape social structures that reinforce beliefs, it is further reasonable to assume that women and slaves, whose rational facilities were assumed to naturally “lack authority,” would be denied the educational and leisure opportunities that would enable them to effectively counter these assertions – if indeed those in power would listen, given that women and slaves “naturally lack authority.”

Why prescient? Because you reference two dimensions of thralldom that I believe parallel our modern experience: 1) Parasitism and 2) Ideological inversion of reality. Your canine companions will especially relate to threat from parasites-like fleas!

Slavery, says Patterson, is a relation of domination, a relation of “parasitism.” Patterson has much to say about parasitism. I’ll now attempt to encapsulate his treatment. I believe parasitism is one of the most important issues you and I will explore.

PARASITISM
In parasitism:

-Dependence may or may not entail destruction of the host
-The host may be dependent on the parasite
-The parasitism may be only a minor nuisance

As a parasite, the slaveholder camouflaged his dependence, his parasitism, by 1) ideological inversion of reality, and 2) ideological self-deception. This former technique, says Patterson, camouflages a relation by defining it as the opposite of what it really is. Isn’t that profound? Ideological inversion of reality camouflages a relation by defining it as the opposite of what it really is.

Who was responsible for creating the ideological inversion of reality? The slaveholder class. Were almost all masters insincere? No. “They genuinely believed that they cared and provided for their slaves and that it was the slaves who had been raised to depend on others.”

“Southern slaveholders,” says Patterson, “were hardly exceptional in their ideological self-deception. The same inversion of reality was to be found among slaveholders everywhere:

“We use other people’s feet when we go out, we use other people’s eyes to recognize things, we use another person’s memory to greet people, we use someone else’s help to stay alive-the only things we keep for ourselves are our pleasures” Pliny the Elder, a slaveholder (quoted in Patterson).

I’ll now attempt to epitomize the relation of parasites and their hosts.

SLAVEHOLDER

The slaveholders (as parasites):
-defined the slave as dependent

-genuinely believed that they cared and provided for their slaves

-held that it was the slaves who had been raised to depend on them and others (this is ideological self-deception)

-believed (along with the community) that the slave existed only through the parasite holder, who was called the master

-fed on the slave to gain the very direct satisfactions of power over another, honor, enhancement, and authority

-rendered the slave the ideal human tool due to natal alienation and genealogical isolation (i.e., separated from family and kin).

“The slave, losing in the process all claim to autonomous power, was degraded and reduced to a state of liminality” (a marginal status) p.337. Parenthesis mine.

SLAVE
How did the slave resist her desocialization and forced service? By:

-striving for some measure of regularity and predictability in her social life

-yearning for dignity

-becoming acutely sensitive to the realities of community.

The slave’s zest for life and fellowship confounded the slaveholder class. The slave’s existential dignity of the slave belied the slaveholder’s denial of its existence.

Patterson sketches the covert antagonism between the classes thus:

SLAVEHOLDER

-“retaliated ideologically by stereotyping the slave as a lying, cowardly, lazy buffoon devoid of courage and manliness,

SLAVE
-retaliated existentially: by refusing to be among his fellow slaves the degraded creature he was made out to be,

-fed the parasite’s timocratic character with the pretence that she was what she was supposed to be. She served while concealing her soul and fooling the parasite. “play fool, to catch wise.”

MASKS

“All slaves, like oppressed peoples everywhere, wore masks in their relations with those who had parasitized them. Occasionally a slave, feeling he had nothing to lose, would remove the mask and make it clear to the slaveholder that he understood the parasitic nature of their interaction.”

PUNISHMENTS AND REWARDS

“However firm their belief in their ideological definition of the slave relation, slaveholders simply could not deny the stark fact that their slaves served under duress: a combination of punishments and rewards was essential.”

CAUSE

Slaveholders knew that incentives were better than punishments to promote efficient service.

EFFECT

“The well-looked-after slave redounded to the generosity and honor of the slaveholder.” The slave’s response “emphasized the slave’s apparent “dependence” and gave credence to the paternalism that the parasite craved.”

Patterson’s discussion of parasitism is provocative, is it not Lisa? As always, I look forward to your comments. Thank you for including the neglected dimensions (e.g., feminism).

Bye for now,

Carman

I hear the sea gulls squawking outside my kitchen window. I wonder what’s bothering them? It’s raining here today. I guess I better wear my Wellingtons (gum boots) on the sea wall. I could just write an ode to my boots. Though they cost less than $10, they’ve been a godsend. “Adventure in ideas.” I like the sound of that!

Category: All Posts, Culture, Diversity, Organization, Partnership, Power, Psychology, Rewards /

Organizational Culture

October 12, 2009 / / No comments

Carman,
Thank you for this contribution. It’s so relevant to our whole discussion, I’m also posting it up here in the main blog.

Best regards,
Lisa

Hello Denis and Lisa,

I’m not sure about the question but I believe you are asking about the odd language academics use to describe organizational culture. It’s so easy to feel overpowered by academic writing. Simply put, It has been said that “the water is the last thing the fish see.” If we imagine that organizations are fishbowls then the challenge of helping fish to comprehend their environment is obvious [if fish could think like we do!] We so often take words for granted. “Culture” is an example. So let’s go back to basics. What do we mean by “culture”?

Gareth Morgan’s excellent work “Images of Organization” [which I highly recommend] says that “culture” comes from the idea of “tilling and developing the land” (p.120) Morgan says the agricultural metaphor focuses our attention on “very specific aspects of social development.” What does he mean?

Does he mean that people are unique? Yes. Are you and I unique? Yes. But are we also alike in many respects? Yes. However, Morgan is talking specifically about “organizations.” So the metaphor of “culture” asks us to imagine that organizations are like countries and we are like anthropologists trying to understand the distinctive societies. Hence, an organization, like a country, will exhibit unique characteristics [I like to say that organizations are like fingerprints in that they both unique but exhibit commonalties].

Following are some elements of “culture”:

*Leadership: Who are in control?

*Structure-How have those in control arranged positions?

*Climate-How have those in control taught members to “feel” about one another?

*History-Who were originally in control? How did they and their successors shape the organization?

*Customs and rituals-What big meaningful events have been arranged by those in control?

*Language-How do those in control communicate with organizational members?

*Dress-How do those in control dress? How do they expect organizational members to dress?

*Beliefs-What things are accepted as true by those in control? How deeply are those beliefs held by those in control? How are those beliefs communicated to those with less control?

*Artifacts-How have those in control arranged buildings, furnishings and equipment?

*Values-What do those in control expect of those they control?

Culture is all about the creation of social reality. But power is key. Power is the ability to create or produce reality [organizations]. Here is an example from Morgan’s chapter on culture:

“We sit in the same seats, like cows always go to the same stall. It’s a real waste of time. It’s a situation where you can say just about anything and no one will refute it. People are very hesitant to speak up, afraid to say too much. They say what everyone else wants to hear” p.131.

*A modernist approach might begin by asking about the elements of culture-the big picture. For example, What elements of culture are useful in analyzing the above example? *A symbolic interpretivist approach might ask how members are making meaning within their experience. For example, How does the metaphor of the cow illustrate the member’s interaction? *A post-modernist perspective might ask about the member’s power and ability to make meaning and how the member’s perception impacts the organization [and yes, we can critique post-modernism].

My advice to those studying organizational theory is to pay attention to power and control. It’s all very well to talk about “shared” meaning and “rational” goals, for example. But in the final analysis members will say and do what they are expected to do-by those in power.

I hope this helps.

Bye for now!

Carman

Category: All Posts, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Power, Values /

Towards a theory of thralldom (from Carman de Voer)

October 4, 2009 / / No comments

Hi Lisa,

I love Sundays! Thank you for the references to Solzhenitsyn. It’s interesting that thralldom figures prominently in his text: “The whole raison d’etre of serfdom and the Archipelago is one and the same: these are the social structures for the ruthless enforced utilization of the free-of-cost work of millions of slaves” (Chapter 5). I’ve been bridging concepts we’ve discussed over the months and believe I see sufficient patterns to construct a comprehensive Theory of Thralldom.

Patterson describes the slave as dehumanized being who lives only through and for the master:

SLAVE

“The slave was a dominated thing, an animated instrument, a body with natural movements, but without its own reason, an existence entirely absorbed in another.”

MASTER

“The proprietor of this thing, the mover of this instrument, the soul and the reason of this body, the source of this life, was the master. The master was everything for him: his father and his god, which is to say, his authority and his duty…Thus, god, fatherland, family, existence, are all for the slave, identified with the same being; there was nothing which made for the social person, nothing which made for the moral person, that was not the same as his personality and his individuality”(Henri Wallon on the meaning of slavery in ancient Greece, Cited in Patterson).

Though Friere does not use the word “thrall” or “slave” in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he does use almost identical language to describe “the oppressed”: “For the oppressors, ‘human beings’ refers only to themselves; other people are “things” (p.39). Friere says that the “oppressor consciousness” tends to reduce everything-including people-to “objects at its disposal” (p.40) Science and technology, says Freire, “are used to reduced the oppressed to the status of things” (p.114). The educational system is their “enemy” (p.16) and management is an “arm of domination (p.50).

Patterson’s decription of slavery also illuminates Freire’s statements, such as “adhesion to the oppressor,” the “boss within,” subjects-objects, and Friere’s discussion of the difference between animals and humans (thank you for your reference to dogs!). I could never quite understand why he devoted so much analysis to the distinction. Animals, for example are “ahistorical,” “beings in themselves,” “cannot commit themselves,” are “not challenged by the configuration that confronts them,” and so on (pp.78-79). Obviously, animals and thralls are subhuman, objects, things. Now I see why Freire spoke about the “ontological vocation to be more fully human-“fully human” versus “anatomical fragments” and “automata” (things).

Middle class educators reading this blog might bristle at my suggestion that we humans exist within a web of thralldom. Freire predicted such reaction when he spoke about the middle class’s “fear of freedom” which “leads them to erect defense mechanisms and rationalizations which conceal the fundamental (i.e., the conditions of oppression) emphasize the fortuitous (i.e., let’s be “positive”) and deny concrete reality” (the misery of the oppressed) p.85. (parentheses mine). Freire was clear that praxis meant reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.

Freire’s indictment of global educational systems is understandable now given that the “educated individual is the adapted person, because she or he is a better fit for the world” (p.57). It now makes sense to me why Freire saw the need to develop a completely different “pedagogy”-a pedagogy of the oppressed, whose organs of sense perception have been switched off so long that they need educators’ help to reactivate those. I can now understand why Freire’s text appears in many graduate programs (I met “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” while enrolled in Athabasca University’s MDE Program).

I appreciate your allusion to perception Lisa. Patterson (quoting Weber) notes that slavery is built upon a power relation which has 3 facets: social, psychological and cultural. Perception, I believe, falls under the second category:

1) The use or threat of violence in the control of one person by another (Social)

2) The capacity to persuade another person to change the way he perceives his interests and his circumstances. (Psychological)

3) Authority: the means of transforming force into right, and obedience into duty (Cultural)

But how is slavery distinctive as a relation of domination? Perhaps we could discuss that later on.

Bye for now,

Carman

I would call my posts ‘messays’ because they represent mental chaos searching for coherence. Thank you for the ‘mutual flourishing’ you promote Lisa.

References:

Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Harvard University Press, 1982

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007.

Category: All Posts, Culture, Education, Organization, Partnership, Power, Psychology, Science, Values /

Dehumanization of Work

October 3, 2009 / / No comments

10/1/09  Hi Lisa,

Thank you so much for your gracious comments. It’s wonderful that our minds can interplay notwithstanding our constraints and commitments-you within an intellectual orchard, and me within a psychological sarcophagus.

 Lisa, you ask if I would like to see the discussion move up a little. I believe I would find it easier on the eye, if you don’t mind. I keep trying to post directly but the site simply won’t let me in. I will attempt again on the weekend. I also have a new e-mail address I’ll forward to you when time permits.

I’ve been doing a lot of demolition and re-construction on my Mythology of Organization. The wrecking ball has been my so-called ‘theory of thralldom.’

In closing, I thought you might enjoy a quote from Freire:

“People are fulfilled only to the extent they create their world, and create it with their transforming labor. If for a person to be in the world of work is to be totally dependent, insecure and totally threatened-if their work does not belong to them-the person cannot be fulfilled. Work that is not free ceases to be a fulfilling pursuit and becomes an effective means of dehumanization” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.126).

Bye for now,

Carman

Category: All Posts, Design, Partnership /

Bullying in Dominator Systems

October 3, 2009 / / No comments

Hi Lisa,  I am happy to hear that you have experienced Partnership relationships where thralldom was not an active force. I would like to include myself in that relationship. Succinctly, I would say that “partnership” is more probable where one is not subject to the will of another. Even slaves experienced a kind of partnership, according to Patterson, in that they ‘had strong social ties among themselves though their relationships not recognized as legitimate or binding.’

However, as you observe, it is not enough to highlight elements of domination in our existing models of organization; it is also incumbent upon us to ‘explore some psycho-social-spiritual bridges to Partnership ways of being.’

I think I may have located one such a “bridge.” However, rather than rush to ‘prescription,’ I would like to devote more time to ‘description.’ Using raw materials from Patterson’s analysis of slavery, and incorporating the straight-edge of your critique, I would like to continue constructing a Theory of Organizational Thralldom that can speak to some of the more trenchant and troubling issues of organizational behavior. I want to demonstrate that asymmetrical power relations, characterized by domination and submission, activate the principle and practice of thralldom.

Let’s illustrate one such issue: psychological abuse, colloquially called “bullying.” To bully is to intimidate through blustering, domineering, or threatening behavior: workers who were bullied into accepting a poor contract (http://www.thefreedictionary.com). Bullied Persons are routinely forced into submission through fear. Now, most texts I’ve consulted approach this ubiquitous phenomenon through the perspective of the powerless. They typically treat the abused worker to psychology-How to understand the abuser, What are the characteristics of the abuser? How to personally cope, and so on. Because the systemic relationship remains untouched-and unchallenged-power continues to be weighted in favor of the abuser.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) website observes: “On June 1, 2004, Quebec became the first North American jurisdiction to include protection against psychological harassment of employees in its Act respecting Labour Standards.

Bullying, known as psychological harassment is defined as:

“Any vexatious behaviour in the form of repeated and hostile or unwanted conduct, verbal comments, actions or gestures, that affect an employee’s dignity or psychological integrity and that results in a harmful work environment for the employee. A single serious incidence of such behaviour that has a lasting harmful effect on an employee may also constitute psychological harassment” (http://www.cupe.bc.ca/stopbullying).

Two things stand out in the above:

1) Quebec is the first “North American” jurisdiction to legislate against the practice, and

2) “Protection.” There’s that word again.

In his discussion of injustice Patterson quotes an American ex-slave who recounts: “the most barbarous thing I saw with these eyes-I lay on my bed and study about it now-I had a sister, my older sister, she was fooling with the clock and broke it, and my old master taken her and tied a rope around her neck-just enough to keep it from choking her-and tied her up in the back yard and whipped her I don’t know how long. There stood mother, there stood father, and there stood all the children and none could come to her rescue.”

I have personally witnessed the verbal equivalent of such physical abuse as colleagues stood by and did nothing to stop a psychological assault. Patterson rightly asks, How could persons be made to accept such natural injustice? Not simply the victim but more particularly, “those who stood by and accepted it.”

Patterson isolates two dimensions: 1) denying the slave’s humanity, his independent social existence 2) the master’s authority was derived from his control over symbolic instruments, which effectively persuaded both slave and others that the master was the only mediator between the living community to which he belonged and the living death that his slave experienced.

Perhaps we can expand on the above dimensions later? I trust that as we cast our mental seine wide we will capture some really big ideational fish.

Bye for now,

Carman

I love listening to the University of Wyoming classical station in the morning. Saturday mornings are especially exquisite. I wonder how many seals I’ll see on the seawall today. Hey, that alliteration sounds a lot like ‘the big black bug bled blue blood.’

Reference:

Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Harvard University Press, 1982

Category: All Posts, Culture, Partnership, Power, Trust, Values /

Freedom is Slavery

September 23, 2009 / / 5 comments

While the following may shock the sensibilities of some, I want to emphasize that I am doing sociology, not ideology. That is, I am not exalting one political system above another or indicting either management or labor. Rather, I am attempting to understand the themes of domination, exploitation, and dehumanization-recurring issues on this site. Hopefully, with your help as intellectual mid-wife, we can attempt to surface entrenched assumptions which I believe catalyze most human-to-human interaction.I learned something about the word “leadership”: “laeden” is to go upward and “schaeppen” is to create a thing of value. Evidently, the word “shop” derives from the suffix. We buy things of value in shops. However, like the Dutch word “boss,” “leader” essentially means “master.” You allude to leadership as a creative act in your question, “What steps can leaders take to create an environment of trust and safety to support open and constructive communication?” Both words connote the right to command and the duty to exact obedience.

For the past few weeks I’ve been attempting to give my vague notions about leadership more concretion-to surface and challenge my assumptions about leadership. The exercise is both fatiguing and exhilarating. I’ve also taken a deep mental plunge into Orlando Patterson’s book “Slavery and Social Death, A Comparative Study.” I am attempting to integrate Patterson’s insights into my own experience. The fruit of this synthesis is what I term

THEORY OF THRALLDOM
(Bondage, Slavery)

I DISTINGUISH:

-PRINCIPAL OF THRALLDOM
-PRACTICE OF THRALLDOM

As a principle, thralldom is the condition of being entirely subject to another’s will.

As a practice, thralldom is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others.

I submit that the principle of thralldom is the active force underlying virtually all relationships. It is the bedrock of all social interaction. Thralldom is complete control over someone who is subject to that one’s will. The controller is subject, the controlled is object. The controller is a person; the controlled is a non-person-a thing.
Thralldom has two dimensions about which you have spoken at length Lisa: 1) domination 2) dehumanization.
The Tree will illustrate how I see thralldom as a ubiquitous phenomenon:
Leaves and Fruit: labels, language, media, scholastic systems, products and services, which simultaneously obscure and express the reality of thralldom.

Branches: interpersonal and organizational expressions of thralldom (e.g., organization as machine, organism, instrument of domination, political system, psychic prison).

Trunk: thralldom [slavery] as social fact [reality]

Root System: propensity to dominate, legitimacy of the State and its military apparatus, ideology, tradition, forgotten history.

Thralldom is:

Mediated: by money
Modified: by the character of the organization
Mitigated: by labor relations and human rights legislation.

Based on the above, “freedom” would be the degree of “protection” within an experience of exploitation.

While the conditions of slavery vary from relationship to relationship the dimensions of domination and dehumanization remain constant.

For example:

• discipline: punishments and rewards
• subjection and submission: (inferior) status
• performance: duties performed under duress
• treatment: as objects, human tools, instruments
• perception: as commodities

If you like, I will expand on my research, which we can discuss and debate to our hearts content-time permitting of course.

Bye for now,

Carman (My new e-mail address is not yet established–please bear with)

Reference:

Leadership: http://www.learning org.com/98.04/0257.html

Category: All Posts, Ethics, Leadership / Tags:
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