democracy or constitutional state? LO27487

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Date: 11/01/01


Replying to LO27481 --

Dear Organlearners,

Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl> writes:

>I feel very unhappy, sad and somewhat anxious when
>leaders of organizations (how small or big they might
>be), punish, discriminate or otherwise act 'above'or
>outside the framework of rules and laws. That is why
>I prefer a constitutional organization above a democratic
>organization.
>
>Unfortunately, I see in these days that some leaders
>of large organizations don't act according to their own
>rules and laws. They take the law into their own hands.

Greetings dear Leo,

I have studied your essay closely. You have touched upon
several important issues, each deserving a dialogue. But I think
that you had a special one in mind during the entire essay
-- the Rule Of Law (ROL)

Many kinds of governements are possible: democratic, socialistic,
republic, monarchial, ..... Whatever the kind of government, once the ROL
vanished from that country, devastation within and without comes like the
winter comes after the summer.

It is the same with organisations, whether tiny in a village of some
region or massive in the global village. It does not matter how they
organise themselves, as soon as the ROL is vaporising, that organisation
is heading for disaster while taking many others along the same ride.

Why does ROL begin to vaporise? As soon as people forget that the ROL has
to live in their hearts! The ROL can never be printed on paper, chiseled
out in rock or cast upon a screen. That which appears on paper, rock or
screen may be a law, but it is never the ROL.

How can ROL live in our hearts? By having respect for it. This respect
grows by creating each day, asking after every creative step "Does this
step honour the ROL?" The ROL does not live in our minds because we cannot
tell it in words, try as much as we can. It lives in our hearts where we
can feel it. When the ROL lives in our hearts, we will feel what kind of
feelings our creations will arouse in our fellow humans. But when the ROL
has died in our hearts, the feelings of others will mean little to us.

The ROL act as the glue which keeps us together as humans in every
possible association. It is the "umlomo" which prevent us from becoming
inhumane.

>The question I struggle now with is the following:
>
>How do we see the structure in a learning organization
>in respect to democratic principles (protection to the
>weakest members) and in respect to constitutional
>principles (laws and rules)?

In a truely democratic organisation the weak, even when a small minority,
is given the opportunity to participate in that organisation's government
in such a manner that the weak definitely does not get weaker.

In a truely constitutional organisation even the most minor laws are
scrutinised regularly to prevent them from being misused and thus
contributing to injustice.

Most Ordinary Organisations (OOs) have a mixture of both the democratic
and the constitutional directives in their structure. When that OO becomes
a LO, perhaps a minor change in the mixing will eventually result to
function even better.

But what definitely will happen, is that each member of that LO will care
through learning for all other members from the strongest to the weakest.
They will know that function ("becoming") begs for structure ("being") and
vice versa that structure begs for function.

Although the mixing of the democratic and constitutional directives may
change little, the structure and function of the OO will change very much
when it emerged into a LO.

Perhaps you remember that three of my friends and I toured through many
countries in Southern Africa. (I think I reported on that tour on our
LO-dialogue.) My own goal was to observe as much as possible the actual
creativity of all the people in cities, towns and rural villages. I was
very fortunate to have seen two communities living like a LO, if not
actually. (I had not enough time to make sure because my three friends
pushed on since they had other goals. Furthermore, there was a language
barrier which made questioning difficult. I had to rely on my observations
of their actions.) Two things struck me immensely of those two communities
-- they were much more friendly and creative than other communities.

About two months ago I had been to a conference on church renewal. It was
organised by a church to which something exciting happened. They began to
care for each other and over some three years it grew from less than 10%
to over 80% of its members. As for what was said and handed out on paper
that day, I can claim that nobody in that church knew about Senge and his
Learning Organisation or De Geus and his Living Company. But it was
incredible how much they worked along the patterns proposed by both.

Two other things, apart from their friendliness and creativity, struck
that day -- the metanoia which they had and the ROL's aura which they
radiated.

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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