Dear Organlearners,
Eugene Taurman <ilx@execpc.com> writes:
> Your write up is very much like Deming's point 'eliminate fear from the
> workplace'. One fear he knew about and wanted us to eliminate from our
> organizations was the fear of looking foolish. It is destructive and
> deprives managers who do not address it of all the information possible to
> run and improve the organization.
Greetings Gene,
Deming is corrrect when he realised that fear can be an extremely
destructive factor in any organisation. I have great respect for
Deming's insights. But I do not agree that we should eliminate fear
in order to prevent its possible destructive outcomes. Allow me to
explain it in terms of my own system thinking.
Fear is very important in the lives of humans. The study of phobia is
one of the main disciplines in psychology. More than 50 phobia have
already been described and characterised. Several theories have been
offered to explain them. Several treatments have been developed to
relieve people from excessive phobia. There are more than enough
comprehensive textbooks in psychology treating the subject of fear.
The fact remains, fear is part of human life.
In my system thinking humans are an integral part of God's Creation.
When I think about fear among humans, I must try to observe the
occurance of fear everywhere possible in the universe. Fear, as we
know it, do not occur in the plant kindom or among the invertebratae
of the animal kindom like bacteria or insects. Fear is something
which occur when living species have a central nervous system. Thus
living species like crabs, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals can
exhibit fear. To try and eliminate fear is to try and transform us
out of the animal kindom - something which is not possible because of
the way in which our bodies are made up.
Now why does fear occur among higher animals? It all has to do with
Prigogine's insight that living system are "dissipative self-
organising systems". The "dissipation" means that living systems
spread (disperse) energy. Prigogine discovered that they spread some
energy in order to concentrate some energy into what we perceive as
structures. Both the dissipation and concentration of energy are
characterised by an increase in entropy. This creation of entropy is
better known as the Second Law of Thermodynamic, or the law of
minimal entropy production.
Since its discovery and for more than a century until a couple of
decades ago, everybody believed that "entropy production" results in
only one thing -- chaos. Then Prigogine began to argue that in the
material (physical) world "entropy production" can drive a system to
the edge of chaos where a new order will occur at what he calls a
bifurcation point. The bifurcation means that the change in order can
either be an emergence to a higher order or an immergence to a lower
order. Since then the Prigoginian scool has been desperately trying
to discover the conditions which ensure that a bifurcation will
result in a emergence rather than an immergence. They have had so
little succes that Prigogine himself declared a few years ago that we
have reached the end of certitude.
Prigogine's insight is a gaint step forward in system thinking. But
the paradigmatic shift is so great that few seems to be able to make
it. I have taken one step further with my empirical discovery in
1982-83 that "entropy production" also happens in the abstract world
of mind. Then I became extremely sensitive to mental bifurcations.
Unlike Prigogine, I knew that I could use "entropy production" to
force my mind to such a bifurcation point that I will discover those
prerequistes which will ensure constructive emergences rather than
destructive immergences in my mind. I eventually discovered seven of
them. I call them the seven essentialities of creativity. If few
people seems to be able to make the Prigoginian paradigm shift, how
few of them will be able to make the next big shift, one which
bridges the deep abyss between the phsyical and spiritual world?
Anyway, we are now in a position to understand why fear are important
to the verebrate animals (which includes humankind). Fear is an
entropy producing force. It drives the nervous system close to the
edge of chaos. It is just like racing cars at the beginning of a
Grand Prix. The drivers step on the accelerator pedals (fear) to
increase the revs of the engines to a screaming pitch. Any engineer
can tell you about the immense "entropy production" happening
physically to these engines. But why do they do it? So that when the
light turns green and they release the clutch, the car will shoot
forward like a bullet.
But this is also what fear does in the mind - it revs the mind up to
a screaming pitch so that new thoughts will shot forward like
bullets. Unfortunately, when the mind release its clutch, no new
thoughts shoot forward. ie. emerge. Something breaks or the engine
lose power radically. The mental racing car becomes stranded. It is
exactly like our notion of a final judgement resulting in a
devastating reprisal. Why? Why? Because our minds have been tuned in
to destructive immergences rather constructive emergences! It is
impossible to try that tuning when the engine of our mind is
screaming at high revs with fear. The essentialities of creativity
are seven great tools to tune our mind to constructive creativity.
In my original contribution to the "deemster" problem (LO19154). I
have called all these various activities which should have rushed
forward by the Old English word "deman". I have explained the
etymology and meaning of the word "deman". I have also shown that its
incredibly rich meaning has immerged destructively to only one main
meaning, namely "deem" or jugdement. When all these "deman" fail to
shoot forward when the race begin, the only thing which we can
remember is our "deem" -- our failure -- our inability to become --
the consequence of following the paradigm of destructive creativity
and hurt.
I must admit that another explanation for etymology of "deman" can
also be given. It is to say than "deman" was originally "domian". The
word "dom" is the OE word for "doom" (to condemn to death or ruin).
Thus "dom" became doom while "domian" became first "deman" and then
deem. But this explanation follows the paradigm of destructive
creativity. It fails to explain why "deem" has meanings such as to
assume or to ponder.
We have to choose between the Jesus Paradigm JP (constructive
creativity and joy) or the Barrabas Paradigm BP (destructive
creativity and hurt). We cannot expect to understand the JP if we
adhere to the BP. Each paradigm leads to a self-fulfilling system,
i.e lead to a string of irreversible outcomes. It is sad that when
we read the Bible from the BP, even then we cannot understand the JP.
Adhering to the BP we judge God to be a wicked deity who want to
force us to follow the JP into heaven by stepping on our fear for
"doom" (judgement and death). Because we have judegd God, we cannot
have a dialogue with His according to his many invitations in the
Bible.
> Deming tried to tell us we can not be the best unless we communicate and
> fear is a big factor in reducing communication and therefore learning.
> Both the manager and the nonparticipant must step up and address this kind
> of fear. A manager can start by realizing that the fear is not totally
> induced by the organization but increased or reduced by the organization.
>
> When fear of looking foolish dominates the culture as it does in many
> large corporations and governments we have the opposite of learning.
>
> Sorry to redirect your comment but the parallel is so loud
Gene, I am very glad that you have brought up the issue of fear. Fear
is real. Fear is one of a number of emotions. The etymology of
emotion ("e"=out, "moveo"=move) explain exactly what they do. They
step up the "entropy production" in our mind so that it moves to the
edge of chaos so that some new though can come out (emerge). The
emotion anger will also do it. In other words, anger will just as
easily as fear drive us to the edge of chaos where either birth or
doom will happen.
Jesus also experienced emotions like fear or anger. But since He is
the paradigm of constructive creativity, these emotions did not lead
into destructive immergences, but most beautiful emergences. This is
what He wanted to teach us by setting the example.
What we have to do, is to learn from Him how to direct our emotions
like fear and anger into something constructive. This is the ultimate
level of authentic learning. For example, I have learned to direct my
emotions by the seven essentialities.
Gene, you are right. When our fear or anger results in destructive
creativity, for example, when we judge ourselves or others as fools,
we cannot learn authentically. What is left over is fallicious
learning We cannot have a dialogue or even any of the other four
sustainers of creativity, namely problem-solving, game-playing,
exemplar-studying or art-expressing.
I see it happening here in South Africa from day to day, from learned
people in the universities to illiterate people in the slums. They
have great fear and anger because of what is happening in our
country. They are extremely fast in dishing out judgements to whom
or what ever comes to mind. Thus the wheels of education are grinding
to a standstill. We will have to learn how to direct our emotions so
that the renaissance of our country rather than its doom will happen.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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