Replying to LO27102 --
Dear Organlearners,
Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net> writes:
>Andrew:
>
>What you describe above is what I mean by
>"organization" -- that lifeless, legal, property-owning,
>tax-paying entity most often known by its alias: the
>corporation. So, to be more specific, corporations
>do not learn, people do.
Greetings dear Fred,
This is what I like about the LO-dialogue -- when learners begin to
discover that they think of different things when using the same terms.
Andrew seems to think of organisation as a number of individuals
systematically united to accomplish certain common goals. Fred seems to
think of organisation as all the assets and liabilities owned by those
united individuals. The third possibility is that the organisation is the
people as well as what they only own together and not individually. (See
how owneship has crept into the picture.) The fourth possibility is that
the organisation is the people as well as what they own together, giving
up on all what they own individually.
You fellow learners from the Western world will probably think that the
fourth possibility is actually absurd and thus discard it immediately.
Well, just to show you how complex our globe is, most peoples in the
African world consider the first three possibilities as absurd. They think
so not because of communistic indoctrination. Their thinking is deeply
ingrained in the African culture for the past couple of millennia. "Your
property is our property and my property is our property". That is why
communism and socialism took so easily control of the African peoples.
Perhaps you can now imagine why in Southern Africa property owned by
people from European descend are presently reclaimed by people from
African descend. For the former it is a crime against individual
ownership, but for the latter it is not because only collective ownership
is lawful. The former try to protect that property whereas the latter then
have to use violence to break the protection. Your news media frequently
cover these tragic events, but seldom, if ever, offer a careful
comprehension of why it happens. Allow me to offer my own comprehension.
Few would accept the following, but one of the main reasons by which the
white electorate of South Africa was convinced in 1948 to vote for the
ideology and policy of apartheid, was to keep the European "world
conception" and the African "world conception" from getting mixed up. (A
"world conception" consists out of a number of paradigms involving
ownership, authority, education, etc.) Well the mixing could not be
prevented. Furthermore, apartheid caused much more injustices and
suffering than those intended to be prevented. Thus apartheid had to be
given up because of the tragedy it caused.
Sadly, the tragedies did not diminish. One of the reasons is that the
apartheid of the past is made out as the culprit of every present tragedy
after the dismanteling of apartheid. The other reason is the conformation
of different "world conceptions". During apartheid the majority of
Africans had to conform to the "world conception" of the minority of
Europeans descendants. Now, after apartheid, the minority of Europeans
have to conform to the "world conception" of the majority of Africans.
This "victory" over European descendants makes African descendants bold to
try the same on Europe and the USA. It is for me clearly a recipe for
catastrophy.
The tragedy is not only the loss of lives in Southern Africa because of
different "world conceptions" operating. It is also the Western world
withdrawing it from Southern Africa, thinking that its expertise and
investment will go to waste. By not practising any more in Southern
Africa, the Western world becomes oblivious to these different "world
conceptions" operating. Thus they are ignorant as to why the same conflict
is brewing in many parts of their own cities. They articulate this
conflict with racism (which in minor part it is), but they fail to
comprehend that the major part of it is because of different paradigms for
ownership, authority, etc.
Will any one of these two worlds (Western and African) succeed in
convincing the other one of the absurdity of its ownership paradigm? Well
it seems to me that each side believe that the other side will be
convinced. However, I myself am sure that such a belief in both sides will
not bring freedom and peace to either side. The reason is that the
ownership paradigms of both are too simplistic. It is this simplicity
which causes anomalies to appear increasingly in both worlds. Conformism
and fundamentalism will bring only anhiliation.
My own suggestion towards a solution is for all parties to shift their
simplistic paradigms of ownership to a complex paradigm of ownership. As
for myself, I would recommend a paradigm based on deep creativity.
But let us get back to the different uses of the word "organisation".
I begin to see that we will need a word in the following order of
increasing complexity.
. organelle < organ < organism < XYZ
where XYZ is what Andrew has tacitly in mind and what Fred does
not want to admit in the term "organisation".
Allow me to be so bold as to suggest "synorganon" for the time being. The
Greek "syn-" means together. The "organon" was orginally a word used by
Aristotle to refer to a "body of rules". I will now use it in the sense of
"body of personalities", although it has in general the sense of "group of
like organisms". I will gladly accept any better suggestion.
So it seems to me what Andrew has in mind, is the "synorganon" of the
organisation. What Fred insists on, is that organisations have practically
little, if any "synorganon", to take learning from the individual to the
collective level.
One of the two main reasons why this topic "Communities of Practice" is so
alive, is that the word "community" carries with it the connotation of
"synorganon", persons working together(="syn-") as one body(="organon").
This "synorganon" is a vital part to every human organisation. In an
Ordinary Organisation this "synorganon" has no special standing. In a
Learning Organisation the cultivation or evolution of the "synorganon" is
the key to its success.
The other reason is the word "practice". As I have explained many
times, knowledge emerge from within, beginning with inner sensations,
then emerging to inner experience, then inner tacit knowing, then inner
formal knowing and finally inner wise knowing. So how will we afford
each other beneficial inner sensations in the first place? By doing (deeds)
since in liveness "becoming" precedes "being". Using a suggestion by
Winfried Dressler, where /_\="change", namely
. learning = /_\knowledge
the relationship between doing and practice is similar, namely
. doing = /_\practice
Andrew and Fred, I hope to get responses from you two on "synorganon".
As for the difference between the European and African paradigms of
ownership, please let us all avoid in our LO-dialogue the dialectics of "I
am right, you are wrong". Nevertheless, we cannot avoid speaking and
learning about these different paradigms because ownership, just like
"synorganon", is essential to any human organisation.
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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