Who leads an anarchy? LO29160

From: Jan Lelie (janlelie@wxs.nl)
Date: 09/10/02


Replying to LO29148 --

Dear At, Wayne and readers,

Besides regression - see another reply - to a dependency mode, groups have
at least two other responses to anarchy. That is except accepting that
some aspects of this world are beyond our control - shit happens - and are
only meant as learning opportunities - and learning hurts.

These are:
 - expecting a deus-ex-machina, a messiah figure, a Superman, an oracle,
sometimes even only one Word that will deliver the group from fear and
anxiety. In this case there is no leader but somebody who will "channel"
the feelings to this figure of hope and translate back the writing on the
wall. In this case the group might take on some actions for improvement
but most of the time these become rituals and ineffective.
 - fight-flight: project the feelings of persecutory anxiety unto another
group. This might be the fairly harmless idea of competition, another
institution, but it might become another group or race. This kind of
behaviour unites a group under strong leadership but it distorts its view
on reality and might create the very opponent it fears. The group starts
to fight what if frights - and its fright have become real. Things become
seriously wrong when the leadership itself is seen as the other group one
must fight: anarchy.

The personality of the leader we might be looking for will be a shadowy,
subliminal - not sublime - figure, a facilitator, moderator, a servant, a
teacher who will be able to contain the tensions in the group and use it
as a kind of free energy to catalyse the transformation of the group into
a team that accepts that some things are beyond its power to control. When
the situation is oversaturated - total anarchy - that might happen. He or
she might have a limb.

Kind regards, keep up the good work,

Jan Lelie

AM de Lange wrote:

>A leader whose head "hooked out". (It is a literal translation of what we
>say in Afrikaans "sy kop het uitgehaak".)
>
>Please study the following quotation carefully.
>
>"Being totally dedicated to the resolution, we are liable to be too
>impetuous. It is true that we have good intentions, that we are eager to
>see the realization of communism at an early date. But often our very
>eagerness has prevented us from making a sober analysis of subjective and
>objective conditions, and we have therefore acted in contradiction to the
>laws governing the development of the objective world." (28-8-1985)
[...snip by your host...]

-- 

Jan Lelie <janlelie@wxs.nl>

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