Something to say…

Win Wenger

I imagine each of us has something pretty special to say before it’s all over, but we never really get around to saying it. This time of sudden surprises we’re in, gives us opportunity to reflect and then to express what our particular life is all about, or what special observation we really most wish to pass on..

I fully intend to be around for many afternoons to come, but were I to die this afternoon, this is one thing I will want to have gotten said:

   * Hear one-another out. DRAW each other out. And when it’s your turn to be speaking, pay far more attention to what you are actually perceiving than to what you know. …And don’t repeat yourself much.  The universe is infinite: by attending your own perceptions, you are infinite. And so also that person you are drawing out. Even the least of us is a window on God, whatever your definition.

This is more than just a sentiment. It is more than just my belief that this marks the main path to a more fully human future.

You can read more on this thread here:
http://www.winwenger.com/feed1.htm and here
http://www.winwenger.com/part33.htm

Leader-Follower

Dee Hock

Leader presumes follower. Follower presumes choice. One who is coerced to the purposes, objectives, or preferences of another is not a follower in any true sense of the word, but an object of manipulation. Nor is the relationship materially altered if both parties accept dominance and coercion. True leading and following presume perpetual liberty of both leader and follower to sever the relationship and pursue another path. A true leader cannot be bound to lead. A true follower cannot be bound to follow. The moment they are bound, they are no longer leader or follower. The terms leader and follower imply the freedom and independent judgment of both. If the behavior of either is compelled, whether by force, economic necessity, or contractual arrangement, the relationship is altered to one of superior/subordinate, management/employee, master/servant, or owner/slave. All such relationships are materially different than leader-follower.

Induced behavior is the essence of leader-follower. Compelled behavior is the essence of all the others. Where behavior is compelled, there lies tyranny, however benign. Mere behavior is induced, there lies leadership, however powerful. Leadership does not imply constructive, ethical, open conduct. It is entirely possible to induce destructive, malign, devious behavior and to do so by corrupt means. Therefore, a clear, meaningful purpose and compelling ethical principles evoked from all participants should be the essence of every relationship, and every institution.

Read the full essay 

More Responses

Contributing Editor Arthur Noll writes in response to Dee Hock’s  Understanding the Industrial Age:

Mechanism, Chaos, and Creativity

Once again, I must disagree with Dee Hock.  However, I also agree with him on something, as we will get to later in this article.  But I want to start with the disagreement, it is more fundamental.  He feels that mechanism is an outdated view of the universe, which has lead to many of our problems.  I cannot agree with this.

Read the full article

Responses

Reader Steven Van Smith writes in response to Trust and True Community:

“With reference to Arthur Noll’s  comments on tolerance,  I find that tolerance is the unconditional intent toward any human being without reference to prejudice or predetermination. The continuation of tolerance depends on trust becoming mutually confirmed and community established by virtue on honorable and respectful behavior. If trust is broken by another’s inhumanity or injustice, then tolerance must yield to justice, discipline and subsequent removal from the community if trust is not re-established through the demonstrated reform of both being and behavior.  Osama bin Laden has become anathema to the community of mankind, and should be consigned to the world court for trial, and if he does not comply, then he should be cast out into the utter darkness where the void is as empty as his soul. No sound religion or philosophy advocates terror and murder for the sake of power, control, and oppression.”

Community Requires Shared Values

I find myself in agreement with the concerns of Arthur Noll and Steven Van Smith. As much as the best of humans would like a world where we all win, that cannot happen without dealing with those humans that cling to the values of animals. Adversity is the law of nature that applys to the animal kingdom. Might makes right. Survival of the adversarily fittest. This is the lose-win world we live in today.

In a Positive Future means and ends cannot be separated. You cannot kill innocents and accomplish anything good.

The core of community is shared values. Tolerance can be one of those values you choose to share. As a synergist, I am happy to tolerate different behaviors, lifestyles, opinions, religious practices, etc.. However when is comes to core beliefs, purpose, and principles these must be shared and held in common.

Thousands of years ago the synergic way was discovered intuitively by Jesus of Nazareth. He gave us the rules in his sermon on the mount:

“Love our enemies, do good to them that hate us, bless them that curse us, and pray for them that despitefully use us, I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgement. Go be reconciled with thy brother.”

Jesus of Nazareth may have been the first human to embrace synergy. His words seem to capture the very essence of synergic morality. Synergic morality is more than not hurting other, it requires helping other. Jesus was the first human to state the fundamental law of synergic relationship. It is known as the Golden Rule:

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law.”

What would you have others do to you? The best one word answer I can find for this question is help. “Help others as you would have them help you.”

Synergic Morality–helping

Andrew J. Galambos in his lectures describing “Moral Capitalism” often quoted the negative version of the Golden Rule:

“Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.”

What would you not have others do to you? Here the best one word answer is hurt. “Do not hurt others as you would have them not hurt you.”

This is where Galambos’ “Moral Capitalism” is incomplete. The negative version of the Golden Rule is just and right, but Synergic Morality requires more of us than simple not hurting. It requires more of us than simply ignoring others. It requires us to help others–to help each other.

Jesus of Nazareth understood this on the deepest of levels. He did not call for simply a prohibition against hurting others. He called on us to help each other.

Synergic Morality is more than the absence of hurting. It is the presence of helping.

Timothy Wilken

Trust and True Community

Arthur Noll

 In his essay Community Values, Dee Hock wrote:

“In a true community, unity of the singular “one” and the plural “one” extends beyond people and things. It applies as well to beliefs, purpose, and principles. Some we hold in common with all others in the community. Others we may hold in common with only some members of the community. Still others we may hold alone. In a true community, the values others hold that we do not share we nonetheless respect and tolerate, either because we realize that our beliefs will require respect and tolerance in return, or because we know those who hold different beliefs well enough to understand and respect the common humanity that underlies all difference.”  

Dee Hock would have us tolerate different beliefs and values, and yet call the result community.  I see this as a contradiction.  If I don’t hold the same beliefs, and have different values as a result, I will end up being a person the others cannot trust to act properly according to their values.  Yet trust is a vital part of community.  If the differences are minor, then they can be tolerated.  But beliefs and values get placed on serious life and death issues as well.  In such cases, the community will be torn apart by different beliefs and values. 

An extreme example is that Osama bin Laden and his followers do not have the same beliefs and values as the majority of the US.  Their beliefs and values end up saying that Americans should die. Obviously they cannot be part of the community here.  There would be no trust.  Yet among themselves, they have the same beliefs and values, they can have a community with each other.

If a core value is tolerance of everyone’s beliefs, that will please no one in the end.  Such a person is seen as the pandering politician, ready to say yes to everyone, so eager to please the person at hand that the one spoken to yesterday is forgotten.  Tolerance of many different beliefs leads to lies.  I can trust the extremely tolerant person only to be untrustworthy.  I don’t form community with such people.  I can’t form community with them.

In the US, many different groups with different beliefs co-exist.  Tolerance has been possible because there has been enough physical room and resources so that there was little competition.  All the different groups have had a core agreement to work according to certain basic rules. Other than that, one set of beliefs seemed to be no better than another.  Those who pay attention to issues of peace, said, look at that, tolerance is the way to peace.  But if the rules adopted come to fail, and there is not enough, it will quickly fall apart.  Differing belief systems are like a fault line, if there is no stress, it all seems like one solid thing.  As soon as there is enough stress, the division quickly becomes apparent.

Examples are easy to find.  Maps of the world have had to be changed quite frequently in the last few years.  For example in eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union,  the rules of centrally ruled markets failed, the people were under stress, not enough work, not enough money.  And quite suddenly, the fault lines appeared.  To think this would not happen in America sounds like wishful thinking.

If we want a solid community, we need agreement on basic beliefs.  Communities that are riddled with divisions of different belief systems will fail under stress.  The ultimate division happens when the belief is that people are independent of each other.  To go back to the analogy of fault lines, an interesting phenomena with earthquakes is that sometimes apparently solid land becomes like quicksand, or soft mud.  Buildings lose their foundation.  It has happened that buildings completely disappear, swallowed up by the quivering land. The stress of the earthquake separates all the particles of soil, like billions of tiny faults.  That would be the condition of a society with powerful beliefs of individual independence, under enough stress.  Things built in times of no stress would crumble,  foundation gone. 

We have actually seen this happen in small degree.  Riots have sometimes happened with societies that believe in individual independence, with people looting, setting fires, doing destructive acts, but not as a coordinated thing, just everyone doing what they want.  Always there is some stress that happens to set loose these actions, but they only happen because there is no real bond between people, they are like the individual grains of clay or sand, with no structural integrity.  Under enough stress, they separate out and do whatever seems good to each individual, and what was built together is torn apart in a flash.

Write me Arthur Noll. Or read more of my writings at:
http://www.synearth.net/harmony.html

Understanding The Industrial Age

In another essay, Dee Hock writes: “For nearly three centuries, we have worked with exceptional diligence to structure society in accordance with that perspective, believing that with ever more reductionist scientific knowledge, ever more specialization, ever more technology, ever more efficiency, ever more linear education, ever more rules and regulations, ever more hierarchal command and control, we could learn to engineer organizations in which we could pull a lever at one place and get a precise result at another and know with certainty which lever to pull for which result. Never mind that human beings must be made to behave like cogs and wheels in the process.

“For more than two centuries, we have been engineering those institutions and pulling the levers. Rarely, very rarely, have we gotten the expected results. What we have gotten is all too obvious: obscene maldistribution of wealth and power, a crumbling ecosphere, and collapsing societies.

“Just as the machine metaphor that arose from Newtonian science and Cartesian philosophy was the father of today’s organizational concepts, the Industrial Age was the mother. Together, they dominated the evolution of all institutions. The unique processes of the age of handcrafting were abandoned in favor of mechanistic, dominator organizations, which, in order to produce huge quantities of uniform goods, services, knowledge, and people, amassed resources, centralized authority, routinized practices, and enforced conformity. This created a class of managers and specialists expert at reducing variability and diversity to uniform, repetitive, assembly-line processes endlessly repeated with ever increasing efficiency. Thus, the Industrial Age became the age of managers.”

Read the full essay

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Review by Reason Wilken

A Gorilla’s Version of The Meaning of Life (And Why We Should Listen)

Imagine this scene: A man is sitting in the dimly lit office of his adopted professor. The professor is explaining, in great detail, the origin of man and the course of human evolution. To illustrate his points, the professor draws various maps of the so-called “Fertile Crescent” in the Middle East and references biblical stories with the ease of an Ivy League historian. His student listens intently as the professor makes complex inferences and analyses of where man has been and where he is going. The professor is a gorilla. What is wrong with this picture?

In a word, nothing. Though one might not expect much in the way of cultural insight from a gorilla, Ishmael is clearly different. He has apparently taken to educating himself during the long hours in his cage, and as a result has become well-versed in human civilization. His area of expertise is, fittingly enough, captivity. Exactly what the concept of captivity has to do with the course of human evolution is not immediately obvious, but it quickly becomes clear.

Read the full review

Daniel Quinn recommends…

“The article “Why Are We So Hated? Looking Beyond Osama Bin Laden” by William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service, September 12, 2001, provides a terrific global perspective of the September 11 attack. I highly recommend it.”

I read this article recommended by Daniel Quinn. I don’t think the author means to excuse the actions of the terrorists, but simply help us better understand Osama bin Laden’s motivation. With that reservation I too recommend it. … Timothy

Click here to read the recommended article 

My Opinion

Bill Ellis writes: “September 11 marks the end of the nation-state and the beginning of a fully globalized world.  As we all move through the rubble of WTC and the Pentagon, mourn for the lost lives, and celebrate the heroes, we are also cellebrating the beginning of a radically different World.

“Globalization has been slowly creeping up on us for a few decades.  The corporate world was the first to globalize.  Left alone in this new mode it developed an arrogance that eclipsed governance by the nation-state.  But a globalized civil society emerged to question corporate globalization.

“Unfortunately the voices of the protesters were muffled. The globalized corporate world was too dominant. So in parallel with this rise of a corporate globalization has been the festering hate of many left without voice in this new world.  Global terrorism rose to become the final arbiter of a new globalized society.”

Read the full Article

People On Their Own

Win Wenger writes: “The fact that declining civilizations fail to solve their problems, which Toynbee attributed to other causes, might very well be attributed instead to that very tendency to try to work through central arrangements.

“In rising civilizations, people on their own, at “grass roots” level, take on the problems and issues. People are enough in communication to imitate each other’s successes and avoid each other’s failures, but for the most part are working free of central direction, and usually aren’t the people who had been expected to be the source of the answer.

“It also seems intuitively correct that people who work with what they have, including themselves, on the problems, are more likely to find effective solutions than either the central authorities or all the masses of people standing around waiting for their direction or for resources which are controlled by someone else.”

Read the full article

Beyond Air Travel

As air travel comes to a screaming halt with the big time arrival of terrorism in the United States, maybe its time to give up commercial air travel. Our airlines are polluting our skys and using enormous amounts of the fossil fuels. We humans need to invent something better. Perhaps somebody has:

Daryl Oster writes: “Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) is a new kind of transportation system that requires less than two percent of the energy of current transportation methods. It is also much safer, and can be faster.”

“Anywhere there is a road; visualize two tubes below, or above the ground, one tube for each direction. Air is removed from the tubes, eliminating resistance. Aircraft-like passenger cabins (2 – 8 person capacity) travel in the tube on thin steel wheels or on nearly frictionless Maglev. Most of the energy used to accelerate a capsule is “recycled” as the capsule is stopped, by using conventional electrical motor/generator technology.”

“Because ETT is so efficient, transportation (at present speeds) could be cheap enough that advertisers would pay for travel if the public were willing to watch commercial videos en route. If not, the fares would be less than one fourth of present-day travel cost. Or travel much faster on the same budget; for example, to go from New York to Miami in about 25 minutes would cost less than flying with super saver airfares. Ultimately rates will decrease fast, as the initial cost of construction is paid off.”

Read the full article

Eliminating Terrorism

Bill Ellis writes: “A basic truism of all transitions is that we can never predict the future of any biological, physical or social system.  Like the weather,  small changes in the initial conditions, the flap of a butterfly wing, may  produce major changes in the future.  We can only prepare for options, and prepare the cells from which the future may be built.”

Read the full article

Responses to Dee Hock

Your can read the responses to yesterday’s essay on Community Values by Dee Hock here.

Heads Up!

Reuters News Service reports:

“The United States has warned its allies of a possible second round of attacks by the end of this week following the deadly recent strikes against New York and Washington, Jiji News Agency quoted Japanese government sources as saying.

“The next round of attacks, if really launched, would be on an even greater scale than those on September 11, which killed more than 6,000 people.”

Read the full Article

Nuke IRAQ?

David Winer writes: “Stratfor says that the US is preparing to attack Iraq, not Afghanistan, and I think that’s obvious. Make a list of mistakes that US has to undo. One of them was leaving Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq after the Gulf War. It would not surprise me if we dropped the first nukes since WWII on Iraq this week. I wonder why they’re not evacuating Baghdad right now. The purpose of such an attack would be two-fold. One, the linear one, it will immediately get rid of one of the sources of world terrorism, the easiest and least defended such target. Second, the curve ball, it will send a message to our so-called allies that the “with us or against us” position has teeth.” 

Thanks to Scripting News

Dee Hock on Community

“In a true community, unity of the singular “one” and the plural “one” extends beyond people and things. It applies as well to beliefs, purpose, and principles. Some we hold in common with all others in the community. Others we may hold in common with only some members of the community. Still others we may hold alone. In a true community, the values others hold that we do not share we nonetheless respect and tolerate, either because we realize that our beliefs will require respect and tolerance in return, or because we know those who hold different beliefs well enough to understand and respect the common humanity that underlies all difference. Without an abundance of nonmaterial values and an equal abundance of nonmonetary exchange of material value, no true community ever existed or ever will. Community is not about profit. It is about benefit. We confuse them at our peril. When we attempt to monetize all value, we methodically disconnect people and destroy community.”

Read the full Article

Synergy and Terror

Reason Wilken

As the initial shock from these terrible events of the past ten days begins to wear off, we are beginning to ask the question “What next?” The country is beginning to move past a stage of surreality and disbelief into one of inquisitiveness and resolve. “I can’t believe that this is happening!” is being replaced by “Who did this, where are they and what are we going to do about it?” in the minds of our people. It is a complicated dilemma, as we are definitely fighting a war but with whom we are unsure. Without delving into the details of foreign policy and possible international consequences to our eventual course of action, there are several issues to be considered.

My perspective is that of a new student of synergic science. Synergy means working together — operating together as in Co-Operation— laboring together as in Co-Laboration—acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be accomplished by individuals working separately. Synergists are committed to a world where I win, you win, others win and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win.

How do synergic (win-win) principles guide us (or not) in determining a due course of action in bringing these ambushers to justice and making our world safe?

The events in New York and Washington D.C. were clearly executed in an extremely adversary manner. Those responsible had a message or statement that they felt, for whatever reason, could only be communicated with violence. Instead of scheduling a conference with the American government to discuss points of conflict or protesting in the streets, the attackers chose instead to slam hijacked passenger aircrafts into their carefully selected targets. In addition, these individuals were so committed to their cause that they were willing to give up their own lives for it. Words such as “cowardly”, “evil” and “zealots” have been used to describe those that perpetrated these attacks. Perhaps “animalistic” and “subhuman” have their place on that list as well.

When one asks “What separates humans from other animals?”, qualities such as “the ability to think rationally”, “the ability to weigh risks and benefits of a course of action ” and “ a special empathetic connection and kinship with other members of the human race” might come to mind. In considering these points, it becomes evident that the terrorists who executed the attacks were behaving in a truly inhuman manner.

Although the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were well thought out and (sadly) well-executed, the actual motives for the bombings are less clear. It is suspected that religion may have played a role, and that the terrorists may have seen themselves as martyrs for a cause when they aimed those jets at their targets. To these individuals with their evangelical beliefs, the attacks were not only justifiable but necessary. Evidently, the massive number of casualties that would result was not too high a price to pay.

The absolute and utter disrespect that these terrorists had for human life (including their own) is nothing short of incredible. Their willingness to throw themselves and hundreds of innocents into a wall of fire to prove a point is beyond disgusting and beyond reproach. It is beyond inhuman.

Aside from the unforgettable pictures of the twin towers being hit by the aircrafts and subsequently collapsing, one of the most haunting images was that of the reaction in Palestine. All manner of people, including young children, were shouting with glee in the streets when they heard news of the attacks on America. They were jumping joyously for the destruction of two of this nation’s most famous landmarks, exalting in every injury and death of an American citizen. It is difficult to understand Palestine’s reaction to this tragedy, and it is even more difficult to accept. How can any American watch this “celebration” and not want to bomb the hell out of those who hold it? Not want to bring death and destruction and bloody fury to those who find so much fun in human suffering?

As we in America are forced to deal with this almost irrepressible anger that clenches our fists and brings tears to our eyes, what are we to do? Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of U.S. support for President Bush’s declarations that America will retaliate against those who perpetrated these attacks and “whip terrorism”. Indeed, it is hard to think of a synergic (win-win) solution to this dilemma. It is impossible to have a win-win situation by any stretch of the imagination, as America has lost so much that will never be recovered. In addition to the lives of all those killed on the planes, in the towers and in the Pentagon, America has lost some of her feelings of sanctity, security and innocence.

Synergic scientists realize and accept that there will be times and situations where loss is unavoidable. When this occurs synergic mechanism dictates that the group accept reality and focus on minimizing the loss. Hopefully, we Americans can work to minimize the loss for ourselves and all of humanity.

Judging from the philosophy and actions of the individuals who committed these acts, it is ludicrous to think that some kind of peace treaty can be reached with them. If America wants to prevent another attack, a friendly meeting with terrorist leaders is not the answer. The terrorists who carried out these acts are not rational, responsible human beings by any stretch of the imagination. Synergic relations among parties require that each party has a sincere desire to help and understand others. No matter how good the intentions are of one party to make peace and go forth in negotiations, it is useless if the other parties do not share the same goal. In fact, putting too much faith in untrustworthy individuals could prove very deadly. Like the unwise rabbit who ventures out of its hole in an attempt to bargain with the wolf, America could easily be struck again if no attempt is made to contain the reprehensible people who are responsible for these horrendous attacks.

In formulating an intelligent response to the terrorists, it is important for this nation to remain committed to a rational course of action and to not let anger cloud our judgement. While it is necessary to find and neutralize those responsible for the attacks on America, care must be taken to avoid the involvement of innocent citizens. How can America preach the importance of human life and then proceed to bomb civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever these terrorists hailed from? Even in this time of profound grief and anger, to do so would lower ourselves to the level of those kamakazi pilots.

The synergic scientists whose work I am studying believe that you should, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

What is it that most of us want others to do unto us? Synergic scientists answer this question as follows: Help others as you would wish them to help you.

If I was being angry and destructive, I would hope that others would help me by containing my dangerous behavior. I would hope they would prevent me from hurting others and myself. I think America must act with strength and resolve to contain the terrorists and eliminate their threat to all humanity.

If we wish to act as a synergists, America must put away its anger. We must realize that with crisis always comes opportunity. Opportunity to grow, to become stronger and more resilient. As we watched citizens from all over the country come together with surprising fervor to donate blood, help and supplies, it became very clear that America will get through this. Instead of allowing these attacks to weaken our morale as they were intended to do, this crisis has only proven the strength of our patriotic spirit and united our citizens. We will not be a nation whose inhabitants live among rubble and go about their daily lives in fear. America must remain resolutely united against terrorist attacks, so that tenants of high-rise buildings will never be required to keep a parachute handy under their desks just in case.

Feelings from the around the World

“Helsinki”

Perspective
The Earth Viewed from 4 Billion Miles

“Earth4bill”

Carl Sagan wrote the following in 1996:

“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

“The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

“Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

* * *

About the image take from Voyager satellite in 1990: This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed ‘Pale Blue Dot’, is a part of the first ever ‘portrait’ of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager’s great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters — violet, blue and green — and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification.

Thanks for the link to Scripting.Com