Replying to LO29705 --
I have to say yes and no to this one.
I think that LO as promoted by Senge is a valid, timely, historical and
practical replacement of bureaucracy. It is grounded in the needs of this
era.
However, it is certainly directly related to religious ideas. This is too
big and provocative and idea to do justice to now. But I believe the
entire paradigm we are now in is steeped in Eastern thought-not Christian.
Just look at Senge's book and where he got his ideas and you will see the
eastern influence. In the front of the book is some mandala and reference
to a dream or something he perceived in his yoga meditation, or some
such,,I forget exactly but it was a reference to eastern religion,
The paradigm of modern science was equally steeped in Christian thought.
Just start with Newton and his many comparisons of the nature of God to
space, and time etc.-in the scholium to the Principia....not to mention
Kepler , Galilelo,,,
But this is too large for now. And it's very complicated so don't jump to
many immediate conclusions from these brief statements.
But I leave you with this. The event that the world stops to celebrate
tomorrow night, has had more effect on the intellectual life (not to
mention spiritual and emotional and material life) than any other in
history. Those who disagree I would ask to hold your rebuttal until after
Christmas, out of respect for the day that the logos was "made flesh and
came to dwell among us."
Merry Christmas,
Jon
Merry Christmas,
Jon
In a message dated 12/22/2002 10:06:16 PM Eastern Standard Time,
janlelie@wxs.nl writes:
> Dear readers,
>
> in a column - in Dutch, i'm afraid,
> http://www.democracy-online.org/community/lerende_organisatie.htm
> Veerle Rooze publishes her essay on Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline. She
> motivates her writing as a consequence of the perceived enthousiasm
> with students for this book and its concepts. She tries to prove that
> the LO is a kind of religion - assuming that a relegion is a kind of
> form and quite independent of a content.
>
> The LO provides for:
> - identification with a group
> - support in times of insecurity
> - comfort when we're disappointed
> - goals and a vision (paradise) of the future
> - community feelings
> - elements for aquiring personal identity
> - goals and means for conquering guilt
>
> She notes that The Fifth Discipline contains all or most of the important
> Christian values (integrity, freedom, loyality, openness, forgiveness) but
> lacks a normative framework. Here she is not very clear. I get the
> impression that she says something like: LO promotes uninhibited learning,
> but one can learn to supress, to stifle people as easy as learning people
> to grow, to develop. Senge assumes that the latter will be the case and
> doesn't say anything of LO as means of suppression, physic prisons and the
> like. She notes - in my words - that the ideas of the LO have a narcotic
> effect on (MBA) students: the LO is the opium of the business community.
> She invites comments.
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