Replying to LO29705 --
Jan Lelie writes:
> 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.
I happened to be browsing some books on Buddhism today. A couple of them
argue that The Buddha's original dharma doesn't constitute a religion, but
that it was later interpreted and codified into one (but not by Gautama
himself, who refused to commit himself to a position on many religious
questions).
Not to identify Senge and Gautama, but I suppose it's possible that
something similar is going on in some minds.
> 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.
Can the conscientious practice of the 5Ds lead to the suppression and
stifling of people? Certainly, the 5Ds, the Buddha dharma, or the 7Es can
be twisted into a dogmatic form to help one to subjugate others, but the
distinction should be made clear between the original intent and the
subsequent co-optation.
> She invites comments.
If you'd like to pass on a translation, be my guest.
> What do you think? Are we the disciples of a new faith? Is LO great and
> Senge its prophet?
I'd be very surprised if Senge were at all comfortable with the mantle of
prophet.
As far as we being disciples: I've occasionally found it a bit strange
that there's not that much discussion (or chanting ;^) of the 5Ds per se
on this list. (Not that it's bad, just a bit different from my
preconceptions.)
Happy New Year to all,
--Don Dwiggins d.l.dwiggins@computer.org "The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find the man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to." Chuang Tzu
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