Replying to LO24726 --
Dear Organlearners,
Phillip Capper <phillip.capper@webresearch.co.nz> writes:
>I would like AM de Lange to tell us some more about his
>reaction to the ALPA letter about the South African air crash..
Greetings Phillip,
When I read that letter, I felt "the goose flesh" forming. I was deeply
under the impression how I struggled to tell Judy and other fellow
learners how difficult it is for me to find the "authentic" personality
(Goethe, Einstein or whoever else) by putting back into one whole what
tradition has fragmented into named compartments so as to make rote
learning easier. Rote learning does not care much for wholeness. That
letter of ALPA did tell exactly the same thing, but under completely
different conditions. I have been gradually opening up the "cockpit flight
recording" of my own life.
Obviously, I may have been deliberately tampering with my own recording so
as to impress fellow learners with an authenticity where there is none.
Some people stress that this second "private analysis" of the Helderberg's
Cockpit Flight Recording (CFR) is done on just such a devious copy.
I may also deliberately stress the issue of autheticity in mentality so as
to give much credit to some only minor discoveries of mine. Some people
stress that the South African government was forced to use of public air
lines because of the cruel sanctions, thus making the deed not as bad as
it seems to be.
When I began to think about that letter, a deep sadness also rose within
me. We have/had(?) a rich history of "kamp vuur praatjies" (camp fire
dialogue). A diversity of people would meet somewhere in the outbacks for
some or other definite reason and set up a camp for a long weekend. In the
nights they will gather around a camp fire and each will treat the others
on CFRs of his/her life. The only way the autheticity of a life story -- a
"CRF" could be established, is by someone else saying -- "Yes, I remember,
I was with him/her when it happened". This tells me one of the deepest
roles a LO has to play -- establishing the authenticity of a member's
learning. (I am sad because people now gather far less for "kamp vuur
praatjies" than 25 years ago and even lesser than 50 years ago.)
Phillip, this points to what you are writing:
>The question of access to CVR tapes following accidents is a
>defining issue in thinking about learning and reflection as
>preventative processes.
You then point out a very important learning issue:
>Here in New Zealand there is currently a similar issue
>(although less politically charged). A domestic flight suffered
>a CFIT accident (controlled flight into terrain). Some passengers
>died, but the flight crew survived. Subsequently the police seized
>the CVR tapes and the pilot has been charged with manslaughter.
>The trial opens soon.
>
>The issues about this, and the South African, story, are:
>
>(1) If use of CVR tapes to ascertain flight crew culpability is
>permitted (that is, as part of a blaming exercise), what impact
>does this have on the use of the same tapes as data in a
>double loop learning exercise to derive learnings (that is, as an
>accountability device)?
Philllip, allow me to substitute your "accountability device" with
"enriching excercise". By doing this I can express my own thinking
clearer with respect to "blaming exercise" and "enriching excercise".
As I understand it, we have a complex learning problem here of
which the authenticity of learning is critical to its solution.
I think that "blaming exercises" are typical of rote learning whereas
"enriching excercises" are typical of authentic learning. Double loop
learning is one of the "enriching excercises". The authentic learner
reflects on the past learning once again so as to explore how that
original learning could be improved. This requires the ability to face
immature learning which in rote learning is called an error. To face
immature learning is normal -- a young kid does it dozens of times
in one day. But to face the same thing when it is nowadays judged
to be an error which has to be punished nominally, comes hell or
high water, requires much bravery.
I firmly believe that no amount of blaming can solve any problem.
For example, let us try to fix blame for the explosion of the atomic
bomb on Hiroshima. Let us pursue the notion of "multiple loop
blaming". Is it Oppenheimer because he managed the Manhatten
project? No, he merely put into practice what Einstein had predicted
theoretically with E = mc^2. Is it Einstein because he went to deep
into theory? No, he merely pointed out the theoretical consequences
of the Michelson-Morely experiment that the velocity of light is
independent of the observer. Is it MM because they wasted time
and money on an experiment with a negative outcome? No, they
merely tried to vindicate that light needs Fresnel's aether so as to
propagate itself. Is it because Fresnel was able to measure the
velocity of light by an ingenious experiment? No, he measured it
because of Fermat's comment that light take that route which is
covered by the shortest time.
See with this last comment on Fermat how "multiple loop blaming" has now
taken us back to the beginning of the Renaissance and still we are not an
infinitesimal closer to the solving of the problem. But see also how I
also have used wholeness to trace the web of authentic learning to show
that the blaming of rote learning will take us right into antiquity
without providing a solution. Likewise it will take us to eternity and
possibly hell without any solution.
Rote learning makes of every bifurcation at the edge of chaos a
trial whereas for authentic learning it is an adventure. Rote learning
makes the destructive immergences of bifurcations issues for blame
whereas for authentic learning it is an excercise so as to finally
emerge constructively. Rote learning uses immergences to claim
for compensations in worldly riches whereas authentic learning
finds joy in emergences opening up spiritual richness.
Phillip, that ALPA letter is deep and rich. In it I perceive a pleading
with humankind not to misuse the CFRs (a source for authentic learning) to
satisfy the covetings of rote learning. If it comes to that stage,
authentic learners will have to bar by law the misuse of such sources for
authentic learning for rote learnining covetings. This lawful barring is
already at work with respect to the so-called "friendly environment" laws.
I wish we will take extreme care even on this very list not to misuse the
"CRFs" of fellow learners so as to satisfy personal covetings. Whever I
see it happening in text, I can feel the pain of the authentic learner as
a result of such a misuse.
>(2) If we make use of advanced technologies for monitoring
>individual performance in aviation safety what counterbalancing
>processes can we use to ensure that latent, systemic and
>organisational causal factors are considered with equal rigour.
This a deep, deep question which I have been continually thinking on the
past thirty years. For the first some twenty years I did believe that we
merely have to make better use of technologies, for example, the nuclear
reactor rather than the nuclear bomb.
But it takes time to get so many experiences on the full spectrum of
reality that even immature beliefs can emerge into beliefs which sustain
caring love. Think of solving problems. Becoming aware of a problem
requires a certain level of conciousness, but solving the problem requires
a higher level of conciousness. It means that becoming aware of a problem
is not only part of its solution, but is primarily also part of the
problem. For example, if our awareness to the problem is immature, then we
cannot expect to solve that problem.
Dear Phillip, after some ten years more I now firmly believe that the
"counterbalancing processes" (to use your words) to ensure that "advanced
technologies for monitoring individual performance" are not misused, is
that "kind of creativity" which leads to "authentic learning". I have
taken great pains over several years to paint a rich picture of the "art
of deep creativity" in which a careful distinction has to be made between
constructive creativity and destructive creativity. In other words, your
"counterbalancing processes" WILL BE PROVIDED FOR by "constructive
creativity". I have capitalised some words to stress that my firm
conviction is not but an empty promise. However, I stress that nobody
should trust this promise, but should rather discover through own
experiences self whether this promise is not another "pie in the sky".
>To declare my own hand - in my view the evidence is clear. The
>more that aviation (or medical) misadventure investigations focus
>on the individual and blaming, the more safety promoting information
>will be concealed, and the more accidents there will be.
Phillip, thank you for becoming so brave as to declare your own hand.
You have provided me with a pretty way to say the following. (I want
to stress that what now follows is my own hand which nobody should
try to infer from your hand.)
The more rote learning gets canonized,
the more authentic learning will go underground
and the closer we will come to doomsday.
The day when authentic learning gets canonized,
there will be no days left over.
I do not want to stir any issue upon faith here. Yet I cannot help
to think what Paul wrote in 1 Thess 2 on the coming of the
"day of the Lord":
3~~ Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not
come unless the apostacy comes first, and the man of
lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
4~~ who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called
god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the
temple of God, displaying himself being God,
6~~ And you know what restrains him now, so that in his
time he may be revealed.
Let us consider it merely as the "double loop" learning of a person
with the historical name Paul of Tarsus.
Let us avoid Paul's "definition" of a "lawful person" because we will
have to walk through a minefield of Mental Models.
May I remind fellow learners that in another place Paul wrote that
each of his fellow believers is a temple of God. Christian theologists
have been argueing for almost two millenia now as to what Paul
was referring to in verse 6 because he did not identified this "he"
himself anywhere in his many writings. If some fellow learners want
to get an idea of the incredible diversity of suggested
identifications
of this "restraining principle", read some commentaries on Paul's
first letter to the Thessalonians. (A "commentary" is the term in
Christian theology for a "learned exposition" on any book of the
Bible. I am fond of reading them, but I am also weary when reading
them so as to avoid rote believing.)
I am also not going to identify this "restraining principle" of Paul,
but I think that some fellow learners will be able to use their
imagination. Perhaps Paul did not want anyone to articulate the
actual "he" because I think that Paul used a red herring in the
missing verse above:
5~~ Do you not remember that while I was still with, I was
telling you these things?
>[Host's Note: And... What can we draw from this for organizations
>and team other that airline flight crews? In the US, the NASA
>Safety Reporting System is a feedback of incident data to support
>learning. ..Rick]
Thank you Rick for allowing CFRs into the LO-dialogue. I think that
the word "safety" which you have used here, requires our deepest
attention. How do we make organisations safe? Can we make an
organisation safe by working for its emergence into a LO?
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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