Replying to LO29158 --
Dear Organlearners,
Rick Parkany <rparkany@borg.com> writes:
>Here is the dictionary.com etymological notes:
> http://www.dictionary.com
>
>[New Latin anarchia, from Greek anarkhi, from anarkhos,
>without a ruler: an-, without; see a-1 + arkhos, ruler; see -arch.]
>
>As a political movement, anarchy was anything BUT a lack
>of governance, though it DID certainly eschew heirarchy.
>Syndicalism was its political residue, and in many ways,
>albeit transmogrified, resembles the innards of the Corporate
>State in which we are so inextricably embedded, though
>certainly coopted and stood on its head... ;-} rap.
Greetings dear Rick,
Thank you for this fine etymological viewpoint on the word anarchy.
I wanted to respond to Fred Nichols that his concept of anarchy is in line
with its etymology, but did not had time to do it.
Since English is not my mother tongue, i had to make sure once again in
the dictionaries what it means. It comes down to disorderly, lawless
behaviour in a society. Anarchism, on the under hand, is the viewpoint or
belief that all governments/authorities are wrong and unnecessary.
I know of communities who live orderly without having some individual(s)
among them acting as their ruler ("archos"). They as a whole make
themselves in a orderly manner the rules by which they live. This means
that the word anarchy does not describe them while the word anarchism does
describe them. Somehow i feel unhappy with these conflicting meanings of
anarchy and anarchism.
Anyway, i do hope we are exploring in this topic this anarchy="disorderly,
lawless behaviour" of a society or an organisation. What happens at this
very moment in Zimbabwe fits this description perfectly. Furthermore, this
anarchy is allowed, incited and even contributed to by the leaders of
Zimbabwe. The worst is that they even misuse the law to accomplish their
sinister purpose -- grabbing land and property over the maimed and dead
bodies of the owners and causing destitution for their workers.
This misuse of the law brings us to the Rule Of Law (ROL). These leaders
have absolutely no respect for the ROL. During the 20th century it
happened many times in many countries of the world. In each case the rest
of the world was incapable of restoring law and order in such a country
just as it is now the case with Zimbabwe. [The funny thing is that since
South Africa is one of the countries neigbouring Zimbabwe, they want South
Africa to head the restoring of law and order in Zimbabwe.]
Why this inca[acity to deal with anarchy? I think that the civilised world
is just not concerned enough about ROL. This is for me an omnious sign to
what lies ahead for all of us in the 21st century. The USA might be the
very next country to fall into anarchy. Impossible?
Let us do a little experiment with Google's advance search engine
< http://www.google.com/advanced_search >
Let us use in the second window
rule of law
I did it and got 552 000 hits! No, At de Lange, you are wrong.
Let us try again with in the first window
education
and in the second window
rule of law
I did it and got 241 000 hits! No, At de Lange, you are dead wrong.
A lot of people are concerned about the ROL.
Let us now try "learning" in the place of "education". I did it and got 65
000 hits! Aha, almost a 90% reduction of the original 552 000 hits. It is
a pity that Google's advance search engine does not allow two phrases to
be searched for. So we have to be satisfied with the second best by adding
"organisation" to the "learning" in the first window. We will now get all
files in which "learning" and "organisation" occur, but not necessarily
next to each other in the sense of "learning organisation". I did it and
got 10 800 hits!
Let us make sure of this figure trying again with in the first window
rule law
and in the second window
learning organisation
(Google will disregard the "of".) Unfortunately, this "rule law" does
not mean that they will occur next to each other as "rule of law".
I did it and got 729 hits! Aha, now we are getting somewhere with
this almost 99.9% reduction of the original 552 000 hits! OK, but
anybody who knows the ROL does not necessarily know the LO.
Is it too much that they know at least that the environment should
be conducive to learning.
So let us now go back to the first window
learning
and in the second window
rule of law
which gave 65 000 hits. Think of something which is essential to the
LO (as an environment conducive to learning) and add it to
"learning" in the first window. What about "wholeness"? I did it and
got 295 hits. Now we are into something. Let us add another one
of the 11 essences of a LO, say "openness". I did it and got 60 hits
which is a 99.99% reduction of the original 552 000 hits!
With in the first window
learning wholeness openness
and in the second window
rule of law
let us put in the third window
leader leaders ruler rulers
to find out how many of those 60 hits are concerned about the role
which leaders has to play in maintaining the ROL. I got 53 hits! In
other words, many of those 60 sites had also leadership in mind.
Since Google can manage only up to 10 key words, we will have
to remove one of the words in the bottom window if we want to add
a fourth word in the top window. Let us rather remove all four of
them to stay within that 60 hits given by in the first window
learning wholeness openness
and in the second window
rule of law
Let us now add in the first window "government" since governments
should not overstep the ROL. I did it and got 53 hits. Let us replace
"government" with "corporations" since international corporations gain
most by the anarchy in any country. I did it and got 21 hits. So it does
seem that many authors in these 60 sites know what is going on with
anarchy in any country.
One of the things which striked me most is that persons who
understand and embrace ROL also have an impeccable character.
So let see what we will get with in the first window
learning wholeness openness character
and in the second window
rule of law
I did it and got 46 hits! Let us now replace "character" with "religion"
since such persons also lead a pious life. I did it and got 39 hits!
Again it seems that many authors in these 60 sites know what is
going on with anarchy in any country.
But from where did the information in these 60 sites originated? Let us
see how good governments and corporations fare.
It is a pity that we cannot restrict our hits to all official goverment sites
of all countries. But with in the first window
learning wholeness openness
and in the second window
rule of law
and in the domain window (right bottom)
.gov
we can get to al least some of them in the USA. I did it and got only
1 hit out of 60 orignal hits. U-huh, what is going on here? Do i ask
too much from these governmental sites with keywords "learning
wholeness openness" when they mention "rule of law"? I do not think
so because the ROL can flourish only in an environment conducive
to learning.
It is a pity that we cannot restrict ourselves to the sites of those large
corporations financially capable of instigating, inciting and contributing
to the anarchy in a country by corrupting its leaders. (I do not include
nonprofit corporations like the Carnegie Corporation.) I wonder how many
of them have at least in their mission statement a clause which says they
will upheld the ROL in every country they operate. I wonder how many of
them will actually undertake that, when anyone has proven that they did
undermine the ROL in a country, they will donate half of their profits to
the destitute people living in that country.
I scrutinised the information given by Google on each of these 60 hits
(including the URL) and none of them seem to indicate that it comes from a
large corporation for profit. Do any of you fellow learners have
information on such a corporation which embraces the ROL?
I think leaders in our governments and large corporations for profit are
far too insensitive to the ROL as a powerful instrument to prevent a
country from falling into anarchy. Why? Because it is those people who
voted for such governments and dealt with such corporations who did not
made it clear to these leaders how important the ROL is to them. Why?
Because they trust these leaders far too much in maintaining law and
order. Why? Because they have not learned that people should not be
ignorant to the ROL.
Ultimately, i think that it is all those who do not embrace the ROL who
lead a society into anarchy. What do you fellow learners think?
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.