Replying to LO27687 --
Andrew, at the end of your thoughts on virtue and the corporate mind, you
wrote:
> Where is the virtue, who is the virtuous. Does it matter and do we care?
This question was just one of many you posed. I haven't followed the
emails at this site about this subject, except that I read yours because
it was yours.
You provoke these thoughts in me. Currently I am reading a book published
last year about China's current political and physical life. The profound
cultural currents in that vast, complex country date back, many of them,
over twenty-five hundred years. Strong, authoritarian central control. An
intelligentsia who, with some few notable exceptions, kowtowed to that
authority. What many in our hemisphere would call bribery or greasing the
wheels, rampant and expected. Major illiteracy in the countryside,
staggering health issues.
Since the revolution took control in '49, there have been several
incidents of state-supported euthanasia programmes. In the soulful West,
one such recent Chinese campaign caused such a stir that the programme's
name had to be changed to mollify somebody or other.
In pondering all this, I sometimes create a disconcerting future vision of
humankind facing questions which are mostly parlor discussions today. We
are the only species on the planet who go to such lengths to help the
weak, the poor, the downtrodden, the halt and the lame, the "unfortunate,"
those with disabilities. We have, we know, a "human" streak, a humanity,
which sets us apart.
It was you, dear Andrew, who recalled Heraclitus' words. The grumpy Greek
said that the soul is undiscovered, though forever explored to a depth
beyond report. And what if our exploration comes to naught? What if we
find the center, and it contains a void, like a black hole, pulling into
it al the 'virtue' which we have contemplated and acted upon these few
tens of thousands of years as homo sapiens sapiens? Will a day come when
because of population pressures, food and water shortages, energy
depletion and such, we become much like other animal groups where survival
is only for the fit? Will we cease to allow the birthing of genetically
"pre-processed" fetuses who are examined in utero, and who have defects
deemed faulty by society and/or state? Will the disabled slowly disappear
as racial profiling begins even before conception?
Will the Grand Inquisitor return, giving bread only to those people whom
the state/society deems passable? Will that great differentiator,
conscience, no longer have the same flavor it has today?
I hope that you can see, Andrew, where my ramblings insert themselves in
your own thinking so much better expressed than mine here. These remarks
here are a future search. Knowing that I won't live to see that day, I
still see that into our current wide river there flows a stream from some
watershed. Will that rill become a torrent, then become the river itself,
as a flood of problems ensnares our species (which, some say, has
overstayed its welcome, religion notwithstanding)? We are the only animals
on the planet who collect food into warehouses and then sell it to others.
Such pedigree! Such advanced thinking!
Well, enough. I send warm regards to Oxford, where surely every bit of
warmth is welcome this time of year.
Barry
-- Barry Mallis The Organizational Trainer 110 Arch St., #27 Keene, NH 03431-2167 USA voice: 603 352-5289 FAX: 603 357-2157 cell: 603 313-3636 email: theorgtrainer@earthlink.netLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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