Is it Greed, or the Natural Fallout of Unrestrained Freedom?

Financial institutions are collapsing all around us; the stock markets around the world are plummeting, but, in the U.S., the Republican candidate for president continues to maintain that the underlying fundamentals are strong. So what's the problem? Greed, he says. We are threatened "because of the greed by some based in Wall Street." This is the position of unrelenting ideologues. Greed is what drives free markets; it is what produces wealth. When it is working well it is not called greed, it is called freedom, it is what comes when big bad government unshackles us. When unshackled freedom results in disaster - as it inevitably does - the ideologue never admits that freedom is the problem, that keeping the government off our backs is precisely what brought us to this point. Two pages from Seeing Systems should clear this matter up once and forever. "Amebocytes and Slugs: The Politics of Individuation and Integration," pp.187-188.

Russian mother and German Jewish father.

The story indicated that "he had a Russian mother and a German Jewish father." Notice that the mother is simply "Russian." I suspect that she is Christian Russian or Orthodox Russian, but evidently there's no need to identify her religion; as if her religion carries no useful information, whereas the tag "Jewish" does. For me this sheds light on dominance and otherness. If we dominants are Christian, then "Christian" becomes invisible; it is simply the way things are; whereas anything other than Christian stands out as something unusual, foreign, different, and possibly wrong, and as such deserving to be noticed as being explanatory in some way. I suspect that if we were not caught up in our dominance we would realize that "Christian" informs us as much as "Jewish." Chapter 60 in the second edition of Seeing Systems sheds much light on this matter of dominance and otherness.

If it's your own property, is it stealing?

Graduates of a Power Lab from the mid-70s may have some sympathy for O.J. Simpson - accused of stealing sports memorabilia. Simpson, one-time superstar athlete, claims he was only trying to retrieve his own belongings. Is it stealing to attempt to recover your own property? (Being masked and armed may weaken the case somewhat.) Here's the Power Lab story. Immigrants (Bottoms) in the Power Lab give up their luggage and personal belongings upon entering the society. It's not unusual that at some point a group of Immigrants set about retrieving their property. In this program a group did find the luggage and were in the process of reclaiming it when the Conference Center director intervened by calling the local police to report a theft. So here's the scene. The police arrive and they, the director, and the Immigrants are standing around the luggage. The director, pointing to the Immigrants, says: "These people stole this luggage!" A policeman asks: "Whose luggage is this." The Immigrants say that the luggage is theirs. A policeman asks the Director, "Is that true?" The director, after an awkward moment, indicates that yes, in a way, the luggage is theirs. Who knows what the police were thinking at that moment; what we do know is that, without a further word, they turned around, got back in their patrol car, and drove off. I suspect that O.J. Simpson's story will have a different ending.

Nelson Mandela's Lessons for Combating CCD

How to eliminate CCD, Connection/Commonality Deficit? In the presence of difference, we need to focus on commonality, the greater the difference the more compelling the need for commonality.  A few lessons from Nelson Mandela, as described in John Carlin's Playing the Enemy. (1) When in jail, Mandela learned the Afrikaner language so that he could talk to his jailers in their language. (2) Jailer/prisoner is a powerful difference, yet Mandela insisted on acting as equal to his jailers, expecting the same respect as he would give them. (3) When ANC leaders chose to replace the hated Afrikaner national anthem Die Stem (a martial tune celebrating  heroic events involving the crushing of black resistance) with Nkosi Sikele (a soulful expression of black people yearning to be free), Mandela disagreed and instead proposed that South Africa should have two national anthems played one after the other at all official ceremonies - Die Stem and Nkosi Sikele. (4) And then there is the radio show in which Mandela is taking calls from listeners. Eddy von Maltitz, a leader of one of the right-wing oppositional groups, is goaded by his followers to call in and unload on Mandela. Which he does for three uninterrupted minutes ending with the threat "This country will be embroiled in a bloodbath if you carry on walking with Communist thugs." How does Mandela respond? He ignores the difference and works to build commonality. "Well, Eddy," he says, "I regard you as a worthy South African and I have no doubt that if we were to sit down and exchange views I will come closer to you and you will come closer to me. Let's talk, Eddie." The response thoroughly discombobulated Eddy; he thanked Mandela and hung up. And this was the beginning of his transformation from confrontation to reconciliation.
Mandela's actions do not seem like "natural" ways of responding to the "other." Which should make us wonder about the virtues of "natural."

Difference in and of itself is not a problem; it only becomes a problem when it is not balanced by connection and commonality.