>I've been waiting for someone to comment on your posting and disappointed
>no one has.
Dear Ginger,
I suspect it is due to several reasons:
* I tend to attribute the responsibility for human problems to all of us
humans rather than lay it on one of the regular whipping boys. Besides
being politically incorrect it is uncomfortable for many of us to deal
with.
* I deviate from the accepted writing style. The audience I gain from
"punching up" is unfortunately balanced by those I loose from my "lack of
sophistication".
* Learning Organizations may not be the right forum for this type of
topic. Many of the LO issues are dissected and analyzed in great detail,
especially theoretical issues. I prefer to tie several principles together
and postulate a cause and effect relat ionship. For instance: My last post
was on "Self-Actualization under Capitalism" It started with a segue from
the philosophy of Abraham Maslow. With only a couple of exceptions, all
the subsequent comments in the thread dealt with Maslow, not with the "me
at" of the post.
>Now all that said, what can we do?
>How do you envision this can be reversed?
*Accurately identify the real problem (as opposed to the symptoms),
identify the root cause(s), analyze the facts bearing on it, develop
viable, acceptable and cost-effective solutions, and educate the public.
*The dynamics working against such a systematic solution are:
the public's failure to acknowledge our real problems,
misinterpreting symptoms as problems,
a lack of a unifying American culture,
prevalence of an isolationist brand of individualism,
mistrust among the various classes of Americans,
human nature which precludes action until a perceivable crisis looms, and
the fact that our relative affluence acts as a social anesthesia.
*For instance: We are entering our fourth decade of the educational
crisis. We have studied it to death and have identified good schools and
good techniques. We have thrown more money at the problem than it can
handle. Yet it is not solved. Why? Because t he country does not have the
will to implement the solutions. (Some say it is because we have grown to
hate the type of children we have raised and are getting even). Our lack
of national will coupled with the fact that America has self centered
follower s instead of leaders in almost all of its government, business,
educational and other "professional" leadership positions, sets the course
of the nation. That course is one leading to a future of deteriorating
quality of life followed by the same trend in standard of living. That is,
unless the population gets involved.
*What will get the population involved? This is the 64 trillion-dollar
question! Certainly the war in Vietnam mobilized the population against it
and eventually got us out of there. But this took years of heavy
publicity. Needless to say it takes a lot to gain public attention!
*The insidious nature of American problems are not the visible
catastrophes which routinely gain public focus. We must get the public to
acknowledge that our system and social crises are, at least, as important
as natural disasters. Incidentally it is onl y during floods, earthquakes,
etc that we see Americans exhibit a truly noble nature, en mass.
*In the past I always tried to end my articles with a proposed solution.
Then I came to realize that none of the comments about the articles ever
addressed my solutions. They all challenged whether that problem did, in
fact, exist. That's when I changed m y style to solely try to convince
people that we REALLY do have problems and that most of them can be traced
right back to us. POGO's "We have met the enemy and he is us" seems so
logical and acceptable. However, while the people pay lip service to the
co ncept they seem to feel that their particular group is exempt. It is
the same "logic" which leads us to criticize our legislators and then vote
them back into office year after year.
*That is a long-winded way of saying we are still working on getting the
attention of the public. Without successfully taking this first step we
can't continue on the journey.
*Back in 1993 a few like-minded citizens got together and formed "The
Tucson Institute". Our charter was to get to the root of our country's
problems and devise common sense solutions. Although we had grandiose
plans, public support has limited us to a m onthly forum and a quarterly
newsletter. However, we will be well prepared when enough people realize
that they must become involved in their own destiny. If you are
interested, "The Common Sense Forum" meets at 2:00 PM on the first
Saturday of the month in the large meeting room of the main library (101 N
Stone Ave). Our topic for Oct 4th is "Freedom of Speech and Hate
Rhetoric". On Nov 1st we will focus on the "Broken Justice System" and on
Dec 6th we will look at the "Affordability of Higher Education" .
Thanks for the opportunity to ventilate!
Jim
James P. Needham
--"James P. Needham" <jamesn@azstarnet.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>