Let Me try this one more time. MIDDLES OF THE WORLD, INTEGRATE! YOU WILL COME TO LOVE YOUR WORK AND BE RESPECTED FOR IT.

     Last night I heard it on the radio - the “latest” news.[1] A recent Gallup poll shows that only 1 in 3 workers are engaged in their work, and the most “bummed out” of all are the poor Middle Managers, from front line supervisors all the way up.  One offered explanation: Middles have moved away from the hands-on work they knew how to do as workers and into this amorphous “management” business with people from all sides nagging, demanding, and complaining about them. The “latest” solution for these bummed out Middles: A more balanced work life, get away from work on weekends, unplug from emails, and such. (meditation and therapy might also be recommended.) I have a very different picture of the causes and treatment of “bummed out Middles.”

None of the above is news. Middle Managers have been bummed ever since hierarchy came upon the scene.

The solutions on offer (Have a peaceful weekend) assume that middle positions are inherently painful and incurable, and the best one can offer is palliative care.

For close to five decades, I have been demonstrating through writing and teaching how Middles can come to love their work, feel confident and effective in performing it, make significant contributions to the well-being of the organization, and be respected for the work they do.  In other words, be far from becoming bummed out Middles. I’m aware that for most people, including Middles, this seems like an unattainable pipe dream.  However, it is attainable and for all Middles.

The best I can do in this limited time and space is offer the essence of what I have learned about life in the middle. [2]

1. The cause. Middle is generally the most isolated organizational position. Workers have their teams, executive and boards have their groups. Middles tend to be isolates in the organization, and all their troubles – personal weakness, complaints from above and below, poor leadership, lack of respect – stem from that condition.

2 The solution. INTEGRATION. Middles need to integrate with their peers, regularly meeting together, breaking bread, sharing information (intelligence), supporting one another, coordinating their activities, diagnosing system issues, and more. The rhythm of Middle life is moving out – leading, managing, coaching the groups they are responsible for, then coming together – sharing, supporting, problem solving, etc. – then, moving out.

3. The payoffs. Should Middles follow this back and forth pattern of existence, they will feel less alone, be part of a valued middle peer group; by sharing information they will be more informed about the larger system; they will be able to share best practices (what is working), what’s not working); they will be less surpriseable and able to provide more consistent and informed leadership to those groups they are responsible for; and they are likely to feel competent and be seen as competent by others, while making significant contributions to the welfare of the organization.

For those who have been Middles (who hasn’t?) and those who suffer with what appear to be weak, incompetent, “bummed out” Middles, this knowledge offers the possibility of creating a much-needed revitalization of organizational relationship, effectiveness, and contribution. It might even produce greater engagement of those disengaged workers.

There are issues to be dealt with in order to create these powerful Middle Integrating teams, including the resistance of Middles to integrating with their peers. Which is subject for another show.

Last night's "news" makes clear how weak my megaphone has been. I still look forward to the days when Middle Integration is standard operation procedure for Middle peers, and I will no longer be tormented by latest "news" of bummed out Middles.

 

 

 

[1] NPR’s Marketplace, January 23, 2024.

[2] For more detailed analyses of the causes and remedies for Middle affliction see B. Oshry. In The Middle, 1994, which is an amalgam of papers on the subject going back to as early as 1972. For a human systems analysis, see B. Oshry. Context Context Context: How Our Blindness to Context Cripples Even the Smartest Organizations. Chapter 11, A Tale of Middle Systems. This is more demanding of the reader and more rewarding since it provides an alternate framework and language for understanding and navigating life in the organization.

Challenge the Oppressor, Integrate with the "Other."

 

Challenge the Oppressor, Integrate with the "Other." (From Part VII of Worldviews: The Oppressions They Create and Perpetuate)

            When I wrote Encounters with the “Other,” I sent it off to friends and associates, including one  whose work and judgement I highly respect. His reaction was akin to my reaction to The Emperor’s New Clothes. A fine piece of work…except for the end. Too simple.

            Maybe this colleague is right, maybe my aging brain has lost too many synapses to be able to handle complexity; or maybe my solutions don’t fit the image of the creator of the Power Lab (We’re expecting more from you, a system POWER slam bang transformative solution!); or maybe simple sounding solutions are deeply complex in their implementation. (For example: Instead of sucking responsibility up to yourself and away from others, be a Top who creates responsibility throughout the system. Brilliant, I’d love to do that. But where is the user manual?) Or maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe I’m half-right. I’ll work with that one.

            I've become deeply skeptical of changing deep-seated worldviews. It may be that I have set too high a bar. If, as I maintained at the outset, that White racism, for example, is a worldview in which the White racist reflexively experiences Black as different from and lesser than White or as a danger to them, then the absence of racism would be: When a Black enters a room, steps out of a car, approaches you on the street, you would not reflexively experience that person as some combination of different from you, lesser than you, or as a potential danger to you. Again, I’m talking about your reflexive reaction, not your thought-through, morally satisfying response.  

            Black would no longer be the exception to the normal but simply a part of the normal. And the same would apply to your reaction to finding out that someone is Jewish or queer, or an immigrant, or a transexual.  None of this would imply your seeing no difference, merely that that difference would be part of the normal. Of course, the person is Black or Jewish or queer or Brown or Asian, or speaking in an unfamiliar language or accent, except that the “junk” associated with these identifications would be gone. Simple. Now just do it.

            I don’t believe that we humans can make that shift to classes of people, but I do know we can do it one person at a time. The formula – another simple one - is: Challenge the Oppressor and Integrate with the "Other."

            Challenge the Oppressor. If you are a White person who is against the oppression of “others,” challenge the oppressors: march with the "others," speak out, write, join campaigns, donate, work to change the oppressive system, get involved in elections, find allies, build relationships, work against voter suppression, counter lies with truth, join or organize protests, work to change oppressive laws and practices, pay attention, take action, be a warrior in the struggle for justice. Yet we know that none of this happens without risk. And we know that the more powerful your actions, the more such actions challenge the deeply held beliefs of the oppressors, beliefs core to their identity. Your righteous actions will stir up righteous resistance. That is the continuing dance between freedom and oppression. You may win some battles; yet whatever the outcomes, know that engaging in the struggle, rather than observing it from your couch, brings its own rewards. That’s one half. But challenging the oppressor by itself creates a power difference between you and the other. You are doing something for them. There is an inequality in the relationship. To build a true and equal partnership, we need to move on to part two.

            Integrate with the "Other." The challenge is to find ways of developing a continuing relationship with "others." Not to do good, but merely to connect. Maybe it begins by joining settings or causes where you and "others" are likely to be. The goal is to eventually get to the place in which, with some regularity, you meet, you break bread together, tell stories, relax, get to know one another's histories, discuss the news. Maybe you get to meet and know one another’s friends, families.  Become a part of one another's social networks. Maybe work together on projects of common interest.Connect as equals on an ongoing basis.

            Many years ago, a colleague showed me a simple exercise. Maybe you know this one, maybe you’ve even used it yourself. He asked us to describe the characteristics of a lemon. As we shouted out our answers – yellow, oval shape, bumpy skin, citrusy smell, etc. – he wrote these on the board. There must have been 25 or so members in the group. He gave each of us our own lemon. Then we had a few minutes to get know our lemon. Then we all put our lemons in the middle of the floor and my colleague asked us to face away from the lemons as he mixed them all up. Then we turned and each of us sought our lemon, which turned out to be pretty easy for us to do. When my colleague asked us to explain how we recognized our lemon, it was interesting – more than interesting – that none of us used the list of the Characteristics of Lemons written on the board. We knew our lemon by certain bumps and coloring, a mark here a dent there, idiosyncrasies. Knowing the characteristics of “lemons” fails to inform us about our lemon any more than knowing the labels of our various identities. Just realizing how much the label doesn’t tell is an important first step in knowing the “other.”

            And this is what integrating can do for us, helping us get past our categories and their lists of characteristics to experience one another as we really are, our commonalities and our differences, along with our bumps and dents and other idiosyncrasies.

            Challenge the oppressor and integrate with the "other." It won’t change global worldviews unless we mobilize a worldwide force up to the challenge. Short of that, it will change your worldview. And that’s a start.

            Simple.

            Barry Oshry, March 5, 2022, my 90^th birthday

 

Politics: Power versus Love (It's not what you think)

Politics

I. Power versus Love

Politics

is the ongoing battle

between Power

and Love.

 

Power promises

freedom;

Love promises

equality and unity.

 

Power says:

Let us freely compete

and we will create

great wealth and

products and services

beyond one’s imagination.

 

Love says:

Let us join together

and create a world

in which all are equal

and all are unified

in the service of the whole.

 

Power says:

The ultimate value is

the freedom and uniqueness of the individual.

Love says:

The ultimate value

is the equality of members

and the unity of the whole.

 

Power says:

Down with equality and unity!

Where there is equality and unity

there can be no freedom and uniqueness of the individual.

 

Love says:

Down with freedom and uniqueness!

Where there is uniqueness and freedom

there can be no equality and unity.

 

II.The Bitter Fruits of Power and Love

Power says to Love:

Here are the bitter fruits of your unity:

the suppression of the individual,

the suppression of free speech,

the suppression of dissenters,

the suppression of innovation,

the suppression of entrepreneurism,

gulags, education centers, asylums, and assassinations for dissenters,

an anemic economy with poor quality products and services,

and dictators who determine the details of your life.

 

Love says to Power:

Here are the bitter fruits of your freedom:

a shallow society obsessed with money,

a shallow society obsessed with the accumulation of goods.

the planned obsolescence of products, waste,

grotesque inequality in wealth and power,

a permanent class of inherited (unearned) wealth,

a permanent underclass with few resources for growth,

greed, at the cost of

risky financial instruments,

poisoned rivers and oceans,

a deteriorating environment.

 

III. The End of Power and Love

Pure systems -

both Power and Love -

self-destruct.

 

Love says to Power:

Your demise will come from

an economic rebellion,

fired by the outrage of the Have-Nots

yearning for equality:

for Love.

 

Power says to Love:

Your demise will come from

a political revolution,

fired by the outrage of the suppressed

yearning for freedom:

for Power.

 

IV.The Struggle for Survival

Power systems,

(despite opposition from Power purists)

save themselves from the economic revolution of the Have-nots

by bringing some limited Love – equality - into the system:

increased taxes on the Haves,

increased wages for the Have-nots,

preferential treatment for the Have-nots,

increased benefits for the Have-nots:

supports for the Have-nots: healthcare, childcare, education.

 

Love systems,

(despite opposition from Love purists)

save themselves from the political revolution of the suppressed

by bringing some limited Power – freedom – into the system:

some limited freedom of movement and expression,

some limited entrepreneurial opportunities.

 

Power-plus-a-little-Love systems survive

with their fundamental principles intact:

freedom, the uniqueness of members,

and the value of competition.

However, such systems

have too much Love for the Power purist

and not enough Love for the Love purist.

So, internal tensions persist.

 

Love- plus-a-little-Power systems survive

with their fundamental principles intact:

the equality and unity of members

and the value of cooperation.

However, such systems

have too much Power for the Love purist

and not enough Power for the Power purist.

So, internal tensions persist.

And the politics of Power versus Love continues.

What Lies Beneath: Part I

This is the first of two videos I created as part of Dr. Mee-Yan Cheung Judge's Just in Case series. The request was to present the essence of my work along with what drives me to do that work. The title - What Lies Beneath - represents my attempt to cover both. My goal in these presentations is to bring about a cultural shift in how we make sense of our day to day interactions with one another, whether in the family, the organization, the community, or any of the many social systems of our lives. I draw a distinction between how our interactions are normally experienced and how they are viewed through a human systems framework. Using this framework, I demonstrate how, without awareness or choice, we regularly fall into scenarios that are unsatisfying, unproductive, and often destructive of our relationships and our systems. 

This framework also enables us - with awareness and choice along with determination and strategic thinking - to create satisfying, creative, and productive relationships in all the systems of our lives. 

This material is also covered in Barry Oshry, What Lies Beneath, Organization Development Journal, volume 38, number 3, 11-32. (Fall, 2020) My thanks to the editors.

Can the Dominant Culture Truly See the Other?

My original title for this piece was: Can We Truly See the Other? Recently, it struck me that I needed to be clear about who the WE is that I’m addressing. This is not a message primarily aimed at people of color, although there is likely to be much of interest in it for them.  The intended audience is the White dominant culture. There are powerful forces aimed at bringing about fundamental societal transformations in policing, housing, healthcare, employment, education, governance, and more. The pressure is on the dominant culture, and fundamental to the dominants’ response to these challenges is how we (I’m one of them) see the other. Throughout our history and continuing today certain images and perceptions of the other have supported discrimination and oppression. How do such images arise and how can they be changed? Both questions are the subject of this piece.

                       Can the Dominant Culture Truly See the Other?

1.

So now our dominant culture encounters the “other”.

The “other” may have immigrated to our culture.

Or we may have conquered them,

Or enslaved them.

Or they have may have once been invisible in our culture,

and now they have become prominent.

2.

Through our cultural lens

the cultural behavior of the “other” appears

strange

off

wrong

inappropriate.

Wrong language, dress, emotionality, skin color, rites and rituals, and so on.

3.

Since our cultural rules are experienced

as the way to live, to survive, to be,

the cultural behavior of the “other” is experienced

as upsetting of our culture,

as weakening it,

or coarsening it,

and, potentially, as threatening its survival.

And we react.

4.

Loose and Tight

Sometimes we react reflexively

to the cultural behavior of the “other”.

At times we go Loose.

We reflexively allow the behavior of the “others”,

not because we love the “others” or respect them or value their behavior,

but because our reflexive Looseness allows us to avoid the discomfort

of dealing with the complexity raised by theirresence.

At times we go Tight.

We reflexively reject the behavior of the “other”,

we judge it negatively, dismiss it, afford it no legitimate place in our culture.

Our reflexive dismissal again allows us to avoid the discomfort

of dealing with the complexity raised by the “other’s” presence.

5.

Loose and Tight appear to be in conflict with one another,

yet both arise out of the same condition:

discomfort in responding to the encounter with the “other”.

6.

Liberal and Conservative

Loose and Tight are knee-jerk responses to the “other”;

Liberal and Conservative are values-based responses.

The Liberal response is based on moral grounds.

It is offered as the right thing to do,

to bring in the poor, the displaced, the oppressed.

Liberals believe that the current culture

will be strengthened, spiritually if not economically,

by including the “others”;

and they believe that the “others” will be strengthened

by their inclusion.

The Conservative response is also based on moral grounds

- the primacy of preserving and protecting the existing culture.

Conservatives value the culture as it is,

and believe that including the “others”

will weaken, distort, pollute, and potentially destroy the culture,

while diminishing the value of their own position within the culture.

Liberals and Conservatives oppose one another.

The opposition is often intense

since each stands on firm moral grounds.

7.

The Pure.

Some of us are pure Liberal,

firm in our conviction that making room for the “other”

is clearly the right thing to do;

while others of us are pure Conservative,

equally firm in our conviction that preserving our culture

is the right thing to do.

The Conflicted.

Many of us experience ourselves as Liberal or Conservative… mostly,

yet at times find ourselves conflicted.

We experience ourselves primarily as Conservative,

yet at times, find ourselves welcoming and feeling generous toward the “other”.

Others of us experience ourselves primarily as Liberal,

yet at times find ourselves judging and rejecting the behavior of the “other”.

Tolerance and Purity Solutions

Sometimes,

out of Looseness or Liberalism,

the “other” is allowed to co-exist in the host culture,

in a tolerable state of tension,

with various restrictions and limitations,

amid forces for accepting the “other”

and forces for rejecting them,

between living peaceably with them

or oppressing them,

between occasional acts of violence

and subsequent reconciliations.

Such tolerable states of tension can last

for years, decades, and even centuries.

This is a culture’s tolerance solution to the encounter with the “other”.

Sometimes,

out of Tightness or Conservatism,

the forces to reject the “other”

overwhelm the forces to accept them.

The “other” is experienced as too different, foreign, dangerous.

The potential or continued existence of the “other” in the host culture

is seen as weakening, polluting, distorting, and threatening to destroy it.

The solution is to protect and preserve the culture by

confining, suppressing, exiling, or destroying the “other”.

This is a culture’s purity solution to the encounter with the “other”.

10.

And, at times,

Tolerance solutions

are overwhelmed by Purity solutions,

resulting in catastrophe for the “other”.

11

Dehumanizing the Oppressed and the Oppressor

Both the Purity and Tolerance Solutions

diminish the oppressed,

(at times, disastrously);

yet they also diminish the oppressors,

corrupting and de-humanizing them

as they hang their self-worth on the fragile thread

of the diminished worth of the “other”.

What else is possible?

 

Assimilation

1.

Sometimes the “other” finds acceptance

by adapting to and adopting the cultural rules of the dominant culture.

And sometimes the “others” achieve full assimilation

when they become indistinguishable from the dominants.

2.

Some “others” can never become indistinguishable,

or their progress to indistinguishability can be slowed

because of skin color, dress, religion, racial characteristics or sexual identity;

and still “others” have no interest in becoming indistinguishable.

3.

And sometimes what feels like assimilation

is simply a Tolerance solution;

and, given the right mix of circumstances –

diminished resources, threat of warfare,

all enflamed by demagoguery –

assimilation/Tolerance readily devolves into a Purity solution.

4.

And the final limitation of assimilation

is the grand assumption

that the dominant culture is the best of all cultures –

and that, therefore, assimilation is the obvious solution.

Why wouldn’t everyone want to be just like us?

Knowing/not Knowing the “Other”

1.

Substitute knowledge

We sincerely believe we know the “other”,

and that knowledge justifies our feelings and actions toward them.

But consider for a moment the possibility that we do not know them –

not really,

not the “others” generally (if there is such)

and certainly not this “other”

who stands before us.

And consider the possibility that,

in the absence of real knowledge,

our minds are open to

“substitute knowledge”

– our projections based on our own fears and desires –

(seeing them as thieves, liars, cheats, sexual menaces).

And consider the possibility that in the absence of real knowing,

our minds are open to “substitute knowledge”

as fed to us by demagogues –

enflaming us with images of the “other” –

their conspiracies, vile practices, inferiority,

all in contrast to our purity.

“Substitute knowledge” fills the void.

With it we now know the “other”,

and knowing what we know:

Who wouldn’t do what we do to such people?

Nothing else is possible

1.

So, maybe nothing else is possible.

Maybe we are at the mercy of our genetically transmitted

wariness of the “other”,

triggering us into fight or flight.

Loose and Tight

Liberal and Conservative

Tolerance and Purity

snap reactions,

snap judgments,

drawing us ever more closely into like-minded tribes,

reinforcing one another with our funds of substitute knowledge,

growing ever more different and separate from the “other”.

Circumstances will arrive,

as they are arriving now.

Wars, revolutions, environmental disasters.

Millions on the move,

different colors, religions, languages, politics;

the demagogues are at their microphones and twitter feeds,

the message is clear;

it’s an old one;

it’s been here throughout the ages.

Save our tribe!

Purity, purity, purity!

What else is possible?

What about laws?

Can laws stop oppression?

Laws

The Law

One way to end oppression

is to pass laws forbidding it,

or issue proclamations and emancipations

indicating that the “other”

is free and equal and welcome.

2.

Laws and proclamations can serve the “other”

when, in the midst of acts of oppression,

they can point to and draw on the laws and proclamations

for relief or justice.

3.

Yet laws and proclamations often fail 

to stop oppressors

who continue to see the “other”

as foreign, as a danger, as a pollutant

who needs to be controlled,

suppressed, exiled, or eliminated,

despite the law.

4.

Laws, proclamations, and emancipations

cannot change how we see the “other”;

they may control our behavior,

but they do not control our seeing.

Can anything change how we see the other?

Is it possible to really see the “other”?

 

Seeing the “Other” Through Power or Love

 

1.

What do we see when we see the “other”?

Do we see them as like us

or as different from us,

as connected to us

or as separate from us?

2.

Power seeing

is seeing difference

and separateness.

The “others” are different from us

and unconnected to us.

Love seeing

is seeing commonality

and connectedness.

The “others” are like us

and connected to us.

3.

Robustly seeing the “other”

It is possible, theoretically at least, for our experience of the “other”

to be grounded in both Power and Love;

where we experience our differences from the “other”

and our commonality with them,

our separateness from them

and our connectedness with them.

Robust seeing is a possibility,

yet it is a possibility too rarely realized,

and here may be why.

The Power reflex

Is it not true

that, when we encounter cultural behavior of the “other”

that is very different from our own –

dress, skin color, religion, language, emotionality, rites and rituals –

our reflex response – without awareness or choice –

is to experience our difference from the “others”

more than our commonality with them?

Our separateness from them

more than our connectedness with them?

This is not a question of what is right or wrong,

moral or immoral,

Liberal or Conservative.

It is a question about our reflex response

to the different cultural behavior of the “other”.

Power without Love

The reflex preference for Power,

when it happens,

can easily set off a process in which

Power gradually increases its predominance over Love,

eventually overcoming it

to the point at which Love is gone,

and there is no experience of commonality or connectedness

with the “other”.

And here is how that happens.

A vicious cycle: Separate and different

Separateness and difference

are the two components of Power,

with each reinforcing the other.

The more we maintain our separateness from the “other”,

the more this supports our experience of difference from them.

And experiencing our difference from them

reinforces our inclination to remain separate from them.

And round and round we go,

separateness enhancing difference

which reinforces separateness,

and downward to the experience of

Power without Love.

7.

Power without Love

When our experience is grounded in

Power without Love,

we lose all commonality and connectedness

with the “other”,

enabling us to do things to the “other”

we would never do to one another –

suppress them, enslave them, exile them,

and murder them.

Love to the rescue?

So, where is Love?

When our experience of the “other” is grounded in Love,

we experience our commonality with the “other”

and our connectedness with them.

If our experience of the “other” were grounded in Love,

the likelihood of bigotry, oppression, and rejection

would be greatly diminished,

if not eliminated.

It’s not so easy to oppress people

with whom we feel so much in common

and with whom we are jointly engaged.

So where is Love?

9.

You can’t get there from here… not easily

Once we are locked into the experience of Power without Love,

Love is not experienced as a possibility.

Good idea maybe, but not with these people!

Once we fall into Power without Love,

our experience of the “other” as irreconcilably foreign

feels solid, a reflection of reality.

This is who they really are.

All efforts to change are seen as foolish, pointless, dangerous.

Not with these people.

All of this happens without awareness or thought.

All of this is a consequence of our system blindness.

10.

System blindness, system sight

In our human interactions

we are constantly falling in and out of

patterns of relationship with others;

Power without Love is one such pattern.

Here is what we need to know:

The patterns we fall into shape how we experience ourselves and others.

When we are blind to systems,

we believe that our experience of the “other”

is a reflection of reality –

This is who they really are.

When we have system sight,

we understand that how we experience the “other”

is a consequence of the pattern we have fallen into.

Change the pattern and our experience of them will likely change.

When we are blind to systems,

we think that the realistic way to deal with our relationship with the “other”

is to dominate, oppress, suppress, exile, or destroy them.

Who wouldn’t do this to such people?

When we have system sight,

we think that the realistic way to deal with our relationship with the “other”

is to change the pattern of relationship we have fallen into.

In this case, this means infusing Love into “Power without Love”.

11.

Love as the disrupter

We have seen the self-reinforcing pattern of

Power without Love –

how being separate from the “other”

reinforces our experience of their being different from us;

and experiencing them as being different from us

reinforces our staying apart,

and round and round it goes.

Love needs to be the disrupter of this cycle.

Separateness needs to be counterbalanced with connectedness.

We need to connect with the “other”

in voluntary, ongoing and mutually meaningful ways –

building housing together,

taking meals together,

plowing fields together,

writing and producing plays together,

working on community projects together.

Endless possibilities of connecting in voluntary, ongoing and mutually meaningful ways.

The Love cycle: Part 1

For Love also has its cycle.

The two components of Love are

connectedness – partnering together in common enterprise –

and commonality – experiencing our fundamental similarity with the “other”.

Each component reinforces the other –

partnering – working together with the “other” –

increases the likelihood of experiencing our commonality;

and experiencing our commonality supports

further partnering,

and on it goes.

The Love cycle: Part 2

And there is another, critical, feature of the Love cycle.

Connecting with the “other” increases the possibility of our experiencing our commonality with the “other”.

And connecting with the “other” also enables us to experience the difference of the “other”

as that difference really is –

free of whatever myths, distortions, fantasies, fears, and projections arise as a consequence of our separateness.

Love supports Love and Power.

The possibility of a Love-and-Power cycle emerges

creating a wholeness to our experience of the “other”,

seeing them as the same as us in fundamental ways

and as different from us in fundamental ways,

freeing us to pursue our separate ways

and to join together in voluntary, ongoing and mutually meaningful ways.

Same and different,

separate and connected,

Relationships of Love and Power.

System blindness, system sight.

The Love and Power cycle is a human possibility,

one that enables us to live creatively with difference

without oppression in any of its forms.

Yet, when we are in the grip of system blindness,

the Love and Power cycle is inconceivable.

Not with these people.

 

So that is our continuing human challenge.

There is the truth about human relationships

and there is our willingness to accept the truth.

The truth is:

the patterns we fall into shape our experience;

change the pattern and our experience will change.

Disrupt the Power cycle with Love

and a new experience of the “other” will emerge.

That’s the truth.

Do you reject it out of hand?

Do you believe it?

Or are you willing to test it?

Connect with the “other” in voluntary, ongoing, and mutually meaning ways

Should Marginals Have Empathy for the Insider They Critique

My intention here is to further explore the relationship between Marginals - those who critique organizations and institutions (e.g.,for their sexism, racism, anti-Semitism )- and Insiders - members of these organizations and institutions who are the objects of those critiques. Four stories:

1. On the Inside. In 1960, I was invited to become a participant in National Training Laboratory’s first applied behavioral science intern program. There were seven of us in the program. All men. Over three weeks, we engaged in workshops led by a variety of senior staff members. Again, all men. To the best of my recollection, none of us, intern or staff, ever brought up the question: Why are there no women here? I doubt that the question even entered our consciousness. There was no larger principle at play insisting that this program needed to be all men, yet there it was. Someone from a marginal female perspective could rightly portray this as one more collective and collusive perpetuation of sexism, the systematic exclusion of women from a potentially productive development experience, one in which they could likely make significant contributions. As a member of the group, I was guilty of perpetuating a discriminatory system; I didn’t call attention to it, nor did I take any action to change it. I could plead I didn’t know. (A plea that goes nowhere when others use it to support their innocence.) So, why not just admit my guilt.  The question I am raising is: Do the Marginals understand or even empathize with my insider experience? Do they have any curiosity about how such obliviousness could exist? Should they? Is there any benefit to doing so? 

2. On the Margins. In the 1980’s I created and circulated a document entitled The Terrible Dance of Power. In this document, I was the Marginal critiquing systems past and present for the atrocities they perpetuated always in the name of some great and noble cause - manifest destiny, the Master Race, the One True Religion, the Way, etc. As new examples of oppression came up in the news, I would add them to the document and encourage people to share it particularly in areas in which the dance was under way. This went on for years, and I had no idea where the document went or what impact it was having. One day a young man from South Africa visited me. He told me what a profound experience it was for him to come across the document and find South Africa listed as one of the offenders. I was shocked that he was shocked. How could he, a white man, living in the oppressive conditions of South Africa’s apartheid, be oblivious to the world he was living in?

So, the question again: Should the marginals who saw and fought against apartheid understand and possibly empathize with the insiders who seemed oblivious to it and who, in their obliviousness, colluded in perpetuating the oppression?

3. On the Inside. The unrelenting string of murders of black men and women by police officers, the growing discrepancy in wealth between Blacks and Whites, the heightened vulnerability of Blacks to the novel coronavirus and other illnesses, the perpetuation of segregated housing, discriminatory employment practices, differential access to nutritious food, quality education and healthcare – all of this has led to an outpouring of books, articles, blogs, op-ed pieces, and workshops aimed at heightening awareness of systemic racism and its costs. It is primarily Blacks, on the margin, levelling detailed and withering criticism of White insiders. On the inside, some critiques feel like blanket personal attacks, particularly those maintaining that all Whites are racist. The very persistence of White privilege becomes evidence of White collusion. So, you are racist regardless of how much you’ve supported Black causes, how many of your own oppressed experiences you’ve suffered, how many marches you’ve joined, how much black literature you’ve read, how many Black friends and associates you have, how many interracial conferences and workshops you’ve participated in; deep down you are still enjoying – and not willing to give up – your White privilege. I appreciate the critique for the potential it has for creating a needed societal transformation; I understand the frustration and anger that propels the critique; yet I miss any understanding or empathy that might have accompanied it, any curiosity about our experience. And I understand that many marginals could be outraged at the suggestion that they should have any understanding or empathy for their oppressors. Why on Earth would we do that?

4. On the Outside. I am at a two-week conference for managers and executives. Most of us, staff and participants, are gathered for pre-dinner cocktails. I am part of a small group standing around with drinks in hand when something in our discussion triggers me into telling a joke, a Jewish joke which I present in dialect. We are all laughing except for one person who looks at me with an expression I can’t make out, except that it is clearly not friendly. It comes out in front of all of us that he hates Jews. I am shaken at this blatant face-to-face confrontation. Later, at the suggestion of others, this chap and I go off campus to talk things over. I don’t recall details of the conversation, my best guess is that much of the time was spent in my describing the impact that event had on me – my personal experiences with anti-Semitism, plus the larger devastating consequence anti-Semitism has had for world Jewry. It felt good getting this off my chest; I am in my marginal role with my passion, rage, experience, and knowledge laying it on this anti-Semite about the consequences of this sickness he carries. One thing I know I did not do in that conversation was be curious about his anti-Semitism, to try to understand it. What is his experience. How did he become anti-Semitic? Did he remember when he first experienced it? Was he brought up in an anti-Semitic environment? Was there a specific event that set it off? I had no curiosity about any of that. I and “my people” were the righteous victims of the evil he and his kind had unleashed. I pursued no such inquiry. We ended in the usual pattern. The blamed and the blameless.

So, if Blacks are outraged at the suggestion that they should have some understanding and empathy for their White oppressors, I can now imagine Jews being equally outraged at the thought that they should have some understanding and empathy for those who have attempted to wipe them off the face of the Earth.

Marginal/Insider systemic relationships.

This Marginal/Insider relationship becomes clearer if we are able to experience ourselves on both sides of the relationship, in some circumstances as the Marginal critiquing the system, and others as the Insider on the receiving end of the such critiques. It is a rare but illuminating experience. That was the case for the consultant mentioned in my last post who regularly experiences himself as the Marginal critiquing organizational systems, and in our exercise finding himself as the Insider, the Top in such a system. Causes of problems and their solutions are so much clearer to the Marginal, and much more complex and daunting to the Insider. As Marginals, we tend to feel no responsibility for the system’s failings; our job is to deliver the message, it’s the system’s job to accept the message and heal itself. As Insiders we wrestle with the message; our instinctive response is to resist it; we have many emotions: misunderstood, unfairly judged, embarrassed at having been caught, resistant to the message and resentful of the marginal messengers.

As marginals, we fall into seeing ourselves as the righteous, courageous deliverers of truth; as Insiders, we are alleged culprits struggling to deny or justify our failings.

I need to be clear. This matter of understanding and empathy for the oppressor is not about forgiveness or forgetting, nor about watering down the Marginal’s message which is critical to healing our imperfect organizations and the world. It is about maintaining contact with others’ humanity and our own. Humanity is not some glorified picture of our angelic selves, it is about the rougher reality of who we are with our inclinations toward hate as well as love, cruelty as well as kindness, ignorance as well as brilliance, superstition as well as rationality, blind followership as well as courageous personal stands.  

As a simple case, please point out my blindnesses and I will probably resist and resent, and then, I would hope, summon up the resolve to work with your message; just don’t position yourself as an unblemished angel and me as a fallen Satan. I know better and so do you.

Marginality: In Nationality, Religion, Profession, and Race

1.While reading Can We Truly See the Other, it struck one reader that she is two “others.” Born in America with Mexican heritage, the family then moved to Mexico; and she now lives and moves back and forth between the two cultures. In Mexico, she is seen as American, and in America she is seen as Mexican. Never fully one or the other. Always marginal. At first, marginality feels like a deficit, but is there also a positive side, a unique contribution marginality can make to both cultures?

2. We were doing an “identity” exercise as part of a residential When Cultures Meet Workshop. All participants would be working on their identities, and the staff pressured me to work on my White identity. I resisted. Others would be working on deep emotionally-charged identities – racial, sexual, aging. Whiteness wasn’t that for me. In the end, I did it for the team. And I got into it, although with a headache.

White identity: WE Whites created civilization; WE brought civilization to peoples across the world; WE created great and lasting literature, philosophies, music, scientific breakthroughs; WE created magnificent cities with awe-inspiring architecture; and more… (Please don’t tell me about all the other gifts WE brought – slavery, oppression, genocide, cultural extinction…That wasn’t my mandate.)

What was painful to me was this: I am a first generation American; my parent came to America as children from Russia, poor and speaking no English. As heritage goes, in Russia they were not known as White. They were Yids, kikes, vermin, and such. Definitely, not White. That was my deep emotionally charged identity.

3.Jewish Marginality. One of the many things Hitler had against the Jews was that they weren’t real Germans regardless of how long they lived in the country, the wars they fought on behalf of the country, or the contributions they made to the country. They were internationalists, citizens of the world, therefore either actually or potentially disloyal. He was partly right, but the point he missed was that as “citizens of the world” they were not full citizens anywhere. Wherever they lived, they were marginal.

That got me to wonder: What if marginality itself is an identity? Marginals are part of the culture, yet never fully inside it. Marginality brings to a culture some not always appreciated gifts. Marginals are potentially free of blind loyalty, groupthink, unquestioned patriotism. My country/organization right or wrong is not the Marginal’s motto. We may love and be proud of our country/organization, yet, in our marginality, we are freer of blind attachment and, as a consequence, we are more able to see and accept its faults as well as its virtues.

4. By now, I assume that some of you organizational specialists and consultants are beginning to recognize marginality as significant part of your identity. That is your gift (again not always appreciated) to the systems you serve. You help insiders see what their chauvinism and patriotism keep them from seeing. However, this gift can come in empathy-free packaging.

5. Marginals may see themselves as bearers of truth, as forces not for destroying systems – organizations, countries - but for helping them live up to their full potential. Some insiders may appreciate the gift, while others might see Marginals as disloyal, ever critical, not true patriots or team players, as disruptive forces, and as problems to be eliminated. And, with some accuracy, they may feel that Marginals don’t really understand or appreciate the inside experience. Our organization exercises (Top, Middle, Bottom, Customer interactions) are often humbling experiences for experienced consultants (Marginals) who become Top Executives or Middle Managers in the exercises only to find that what seemed so simple from the margins was considerably more complex on the inside. The humility that comes from living on the inside might well temper the righteousness of one’s evaluations from the margins.

6. And how does marginality relate to otherness- for example, to the Black and Brown experience? Isn’t marginality an additional layer to that experience, one that brings with it the unique marginal perspective - making visible what was invisible, the blatant aggressions and the not-so-obvious yet painful microaggressions that pass for business as usual on the inside. That perspective can make for painful, yet useful, listening. And there is a challenge (questionable, I suppose): Can that painful and useful gift from the margins come with understanding or even empathy for the inside experience?

How to See the Other

Connect in Voluntary, Ongoing, and Meaningful Ways

Last night (July 4, 2020), on television there was a performance of the West-Eastern Divan Chamber Orchestra. This is a powerful example of a project that brings together, in a voluntary, ongoing and mutually meaningful way, two groups who traditionally experience one another as the “other.”

The orchestra is a project inspired by Argentinean-Israeli musician Daniel Barenboim and the Late Palestinian professor Edward Said. It brings together young Israeli and Arab musicians from surrounding countries with a shared passion for music. The young musicians live together, eat together, and participate in an intensive workshop aimed at developing their musical skills.  Following the workshop, the orchestra gives concerts around the world. Several performances can be found on youtube.

Barenboim says this about the project:

“The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I'm not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I'm] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to – and, unfortunately, I am alone in this now that Edward (Said) died a few years ago (2003) –create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.”

Are there current or potential for projects bringing together young White and People of Color in (1) voluntary, (2) ongoing and (3) mutually meaningful ways?

The Importance of Seeing Difference

The goal of connecting with our Other in voluntary, ongoing, and mutually meaningful projects is not only to experience our commonality with the other but also our difference as that difference really is - free of whatever myths, distortions, fantasies, fears, and projections arise as a consequence of our separateness.

From Can We Truly See the Other? 

Can We Truly See the Other?

This piece was not written especially for these historic times,

yet I believe you will find it relevant.

Barry

1.

So now our culture encounters the “other”.

The “other” may have immigrated to our culture.

Or we may have conquered them,

Or enslaved them.

Or they have may have once been invisible in our culture,

and now they have become prominent.

2.

Through our cultural lens

the cultural behavior of the “other” appears

strange

off

wrong

inappropriate.

Wrong language, dress, emotionality, skin color, rites and rituals, and so on.

3.

Since our cultural rules are experienced

as the way to live, to survive, to be,

the cultural behavior of the “other” is experienced

as upsetting of our culture,

as weakening it,

or coarsening it,

and, potentially, as threatening its survival.

And we react.

Loose and Tight

Sometimes we react reflexively

to the cultural behavior of the “other”.

At times we go Loose.

We reflexively allow the behavior of the “others”,

not because we love the “others” or respect them or value their behavior,

but because our reflexive Looseness allows us to avoid the discomfort

of dealing with the complexity raised by theirresence.

At times we go Tight.

We reflexively reject the behavior of the “other”,

we judge it negatively, dismiss it, afford it no legitimate place in our culture.

Our reflexive dismissal again allows us to avoid the discomfort

of dealing with the complexity raised by the “other’s” presence.

5.

Loose and Tight appear to be in conflict with one another,

yet both arise out of the same condition:

discomfort in responding to the encounter with the “other”.

Liberal and Conservative

Loose and Tight are knee-jerk responses to the “other”;

Liberal and Conservative are values-based responses.

The Liberal response is based on moral grounds.

It is offered as the right thing to do,

to bring in the poor, the displaced, the oppressed.

Liberals believe that the current culture

will be strengthened, spiritually if not economically,

by including the “others”;

and they believe that the “others” will be strengthened

by their inclusion.

The Conservative response is also based on moral grounds

- the primacy of preserving and protecting the existing culture.

Conservatives value the culture as it is,

and believe that including the “others”

will weaken, distort, pollute, and potentially destroy the culture,

while diminishing the value of their own position within the culture.

Liberals and Conservatives oppose one another.

The opposition is often intense

since each stands on firm moral grounds.

The Pure.

Some of us are pure Liberal,

firm in our conviction that making room for the “other”

is clearly the right thing to do;

while others of us are pure Conservative,

equally firm in our conviction that preserving our culture

is the right thing to do.

The Conflicted.

Many of us experience ourselves as Liberal or Conservative… mostly,

yet at times find ourselves conflicted.

We experience ourselves primarily as Conservative,

yet at times, find ourselves welcoming and feeling generous toward the “other”.

Others of us experience ourselves primarily as Liberal,

yet at times find ourselves judging and rejecting the behavior of the “other”.

9.

Tolerance and Purity Solutions

Sometimes,

out of Looseness or Liberalism,

the “other” is allowed to co-exist in the host culture,

in a tolerable state of tension,

with various restrictions and limitations,

amid forces for accepting the “other”

and forces for rejecting them,

between living peaceably with them

or oppressing them,

between occasional acts of violence

and subsequent reconciliations.

Such tolerable states of tension can last

for years, decades, and even centuries.

This is a culture’s tolerance solution to the encounter with the “other”.

Sometimes,

out of Tightness or Conservatism,

the forces to reject the “other”

overwhelm the forces to accept them.

The “other” is experienced as too different, foreign, dangerous.

The potential or continued existence of the “other” in the host culture

is seen as weakening, polluting, distorting, and threatening to destroy it.

The solution is to protect and preserve the culture by

confining, suppressing, exiling, or destroying the “other”.

This is a culture’s purity solution to the encounter with the “other”.

10.

And, at times,

Tolerance solutions

are overwhelmed by Purity solutions,

resulting in catastrophe for the “other”.

11

Dehumanizing the Oppressed and the Oppressor

Both the Purity and Tolerance Solutions

diminish the oppressed,

(at times, disastrously);

yet they also diminish the oppressors,

corrupting and de-humanizing them

as they hang their self-worth on the fragile thread

of the diminished worth of the “other”.

What else is possible?

Assimilation

1.

Sometimes the “other” finds acceptance

by adapting to and adopting the cultural rules of the dominant culture.

And sometimes the “others” achieve full assimilation

when they become indistinguishable from the dominants.

2.

Some “others” can never become indistinguishable,

or their progress to indistinguishability can be slowed

because of skin color, dress, religion, racial characteristics or sexual identity;

and still “others” have no interest in becoming indistinguishable.

3.

And sometimes what feels like assimilation

is simply a Tolerance solution;

and, given the right mix of circumstances –

diminished resources, threat of warfare,

all enflamed by demagoguery –

assimilation/Tolerance readily devolves into a Purity solution.

4.

And the final limitation of assimilation

is the grand assumption

that the dominant culture is the best of all cultures –

and that, therefore, assimilation is the obvious solution.

Why wouldn’t everyone want to be just like us?

Knowing/not Knowing the “Other”

1.

Substitute knowledge

We sincerely believe we know the “other”,

and that knowledge justifies our feelings and actions toward them.

But consider for a moment the possibility that we do not know them –

not really,

not the “others” generally (if there is such)

and certainly not this “other”

who stands before us.

And consider the possibility that,

in the absence of real knowledge,

our minds are open to

“substitute knowledge”

– our projections based on our own fears and desires –

(seeing them as thieves, liars, cheats, sexual menaces).

And consider the possibility that in the absence of real knowing,

our minds are open to “substitute knowledge”

as fed to us by demagogues –

enflaming us with images of the “other” –

their conspiracies, vile practices, inferiority,

all in contrast to our purity.

“Substitute knowledge” fills the void.

With it we now know the “other”,

and knowing what we know:

Who wouldn’t do what we do to such people?

Nothing else is possible

1.

So, maybe nothing else is possible.

Maybe we are at the mercy of our genetically transmitted

wariness of the “other”,

triggering us into fight or flight.

Loose and Tight

Liberal and Conservative

Tolerance and Purity

snap reactions,

snap judgments,

drawing us ever more closely into like-minded tribes,

reinforcing one another with our funds of substitute knowledge,

growing ever more different and separate from the “other”.

Circumstances will arrive,

as they are arriving now.

Wars, revolutions, environmental disasters.

Millions on the move,

different colors, religions, languages, politics;

the demagogues are at their microphones and twitter feeds,

the message is clear;

it’s an old one;

it’s been here throughout the ages.

Save our tribe!

Purity, purity, purity!

What else is possible?

What about laws?

Can laws stop oppression?

Laws

The Law

One way to end oppression

is to pass laws forbidding it,

or issue proclamations and emancipations

indicating that the “other”

is free and equal and welcome.

2.

Laws and proclamations can serve the “other”

when, in the midst of acts of oppression,

they can point to and draw on the laws and proclamations

for relief or justice.

3.

Yet laws and proclamations often fail 

to stop oppressors

who continue to see the “other”

as foreign, as a danger, as a pollutant

who needs to be controlled,

suppressed, exiled, or eliminated,

despite the law.

4.

Laws, proclamations, and emancipations

cannot change how we see the “other”;

they may control our behavior,

but they do not control our seeing.

Can anything change how we see the other?

Is it possible to really see the “other”?

 

Seeing the “Other” Through Power or Love

 

1.

What do we see when we see the “other”?

Do we see them as like us

or as different from us,

as connected to us

or as separate from us?

2.

Power seeing

is seeing difference

and separateness.

The “others” are different from us

and unconnected to us.

Love seeing

is seeing commonality

and connectedness.

The “others” are like us

and connected to us.

3.

Robustly seeing the “other”

It is possible, theoretically at least, for our experience of the “other”

to be grounded in both Power and Love;

where we experience our differences from the “other”

and our commonality with them,

our separateness from them

and our connectedness with them.

Robust seeing is a possibility,

yet it is a possibility too rarely realized,

and here may be why.

The Power reflex

Is it not true

that, when we encounter cultural behavior of the “other”

that is very different from our own –

dress, skin color, religion, language, emotionality, rites and rituals –

our reflex response – without awareness or choice –

is to experience our difference from the “others”

more than our commonality with them?

Our separateness from them

more than our connectedness with them?

This is not a question of what is right or wrong,

moral or immoral,

Liberal or Conservative.

It is a question about our reflex response

to the different cultural behavior of the “other”.

Power without Love

The reflex preference for Power,

when it happens,

can easily set off a process in which

Power gradually increases its predominance over Love,

eventually overcoming it

to the point at which Love is gone,

and there is no experience of commonality or connectedness

with the “other”.

And here is how that happens.

A vicious cycle: Separate and different

Separateness and difference

are the two components of Power,

with each reinforcing the other.

The more we maintain our separateness from the “other”,

the more this supports our experience of difference from them.

And experiencing our difference from them

reinforces our inclination to remain separate from them.

And round and round we go,

separateness enhancing difference

which reinforces separateness,

and downward to the experience of

Power without Love.

7.

Power without Love

When our experience is grounded in

Power without Love,

we lose all commonality and connectedness

with the “other”,

enabling us to do things to the “other”

we would never do to one another –

suppress them, enslave them, exile them,

and murder them.

Love to the rescue?

So, where is Love?

When our experience of the “other” is grounded in Love,

we experience our commonality with the “other”

and our connectedness with them.

If our experience of the “other” were grounded in Love,

the likelihood of bigotry, oppression, and rejection

would be greatly diminished,

if not eliminated.

It’s not so easy to oppress people

with whom we feel so much in common

and with whom we are jointly engaged.

So where is Love?

You can’t get there from here… not easily

Once we are locked into the experience of Power without Love,

Love is not experienced as a possibility.

Good idea maybe, but not with these people!

Once we fall into Power without Love,

our experience of the “other” as irreconcilably foreign

feels solid, a reflection of reality.

This is who they really are.

All efforts to change are seen as foolish, pointless, dangerous.

Not with these people.

All of this happens without awareness or thought.

All of this is a consequence of our system blindness.

System blindness, system sight

In our human interactions

we are constantly falling in and out of

patterns of relationship with others;

Power without Love is one such pattern.

Here is what we need to know:

The patterns we fall into shape how we experience ourselves and others.

When we are blind to systems,

we believe that our experience of the “other”

is a reflection of reality –

This is who they really are.

When we have system sight,

we understand that how we experience the “other”

is a consequence of the pattern we have fallen into.

Change the pattern and our experience of them will likely change.

When we are blind to systems,

we think that the realistic way to deal with our relationship with the “other”

is to dominate, oppress, suppress, exile, or destroy them.

Who wouldn’t do this to such people?

When we have system sight,

we think that the realistic way to deal with our relationship with the “other”

is to change the pattern of relationship we have fallen into.

In this case, this means infusing Love into “Power without Love”.

Love as the disrupter

We have seen the self-reinforcing pattern of

Power without Love –

how being separate from the “other”

reinforces our experience of their being different from us;

and experiencing them as being different from us

reinforces our staying apart,

and round and round it goes.

Love needs to be the disrupter of this cycle.

Separateness needs to be counterbalanced with connectedness.

We need to connect with the “other”

in voluntary, ongoing and mutually meaningful ways –

building housing together,

taking meals together,

plowing fields together,

writing and producing plays together,

working on community projects together.

Endless possibilities of connecting in voluntary, ongoing and mutually meaningful ways.

The Love cycle: Part 1

For Love also has its cycle.

The two components of Love are

connectedness – partnering together in common enterprise –

and commonality – experiencing our fundamental similarity with the “other”.

Each component reinforces the other –

partnering – working together with the “other” –

increases the likelihood of experiencing our commonality;

and experiencing our commonality supports

further partnering,

and on it goes.

13.

The Love cycle: Part 2

And there is another, critical, feature of the Love cycle.

Connecting with the “other” increases the possibility of our experiencing our commonality with the “other”.

And connecting with the “other” also enables us to experience the difference of the “other”

as that difference really is –

free of whatever myths, distortions, fantasies, fears, and projections arise as a consequence of our separateness.

Love supports Love and Power.

The possibility of a Love-and-Power cycle emerges

creating a wholeness to our experience of the “other”,

seeing them as the same as us in fundamental ways

and as different from us in fundamental ways,

freeing us to pursue our separate ways

and to join together in voluntary, ongoing and mutually meaningful ways.

Same and different,

separate and connected,

Relationships of Love and Power.

System blindness, system sight.

The Love and Power cycle is a human possibility,

one that enables us to live creatively with difference

without oppression in any of its forms.

Yet, when we are in the grip of system blindness,

the Love and Power cycle is inconceivable.

Not with these people.

 

So that is our continuing human challenge.

There is the truth about human relationships

and there is our willingness to accept the truth.

The truth is:

the patterns we fall into shape our experience;

change the pattern and our experience will change.

Disrupt the Power cycle with Love

and a new experience of the “other” will emerge.

That’s the truth.

Do you reject it out of hand?

Do you believe it?

Or are you willing to test it?

Connect with the “other” in voluntary, ongoing, and mutually meaning ways

Aftermath: Gridlock

Aftermath: Gridlock

Power has defeated Love.

The game is over.

Commonality has been buried by difference.

Connectedness shredded to separateness.

Peace unto you, John Donne,

but we arenow islands unto ourselves,

irremediably different,

antiseptically separate.

Power has defeated Love.

The game is over.

Power, once unleashed, begets power.

Separateness feeds difference

and difference legitimates separateness.

So round and round it goes,

Power growing

Love diminishing.

 

The war is over.

All sides have won,

all sides have lost.

A shattered world revealed,

Power without Love.

difference

without commonality,

separateness

without connectedness,

while everywhere righteousness and bitterness abound.

Amid the rubble,

there is a whisper from Love:

“As Power begets Power

so also does Love beget Love.”

Connectedness, once risked, reveals difference andcommonality

and commonality, once revealed, tears down barriers to connectedness.

Risks will be taken

and from this war’s rubble will emerge

a world of Power

and Love.

Is it true?

Oh yes, it is true.

But is it believable?

Aha, now that’s a deeper question.

.

Making Dominance Visible

The Dominants are offended

when their culture is made visible,

when it becomes an option

rather than the way things are.

 

 

The Terrible Dance of Power: Now Playing Out in Myanmar

 

The Terrible Dance of Power:

Now Playing Out

in Myanmar

 

 

A Terrible Dance

There is a dance that takes place with great regularity,

a terrible dance—

a dance of death and destruction,

human beings killing one another –

always for great and noble causes.

We have danced this dance throughout our history.

We have danced the dance in years gone by:

in the great American West

with the crushing of the American Indian,

in Turkey

with the murder of the Armenians,

in Germany

with the slaughter of the Jews and Gypsies and homosexuals,

in Cambodia

with the annihilation of millions,

in India

with Hindus and Moslems massacring one another.

 

We have been dancing it of late

in Myanmar

in Mali,

in Iraq,

in Sudan,

in Somalia,

in Israel,

in Indonesia,

in Northern Ireland,

in Rwanda,

in the old Soviet Union,

in South Africa,

in Peru,

in Sri Lanka,

in the Philippines,

in El Salvador.

Death and destruction

for great and noble causes.

*

The Dance Begins

There is a system –

a single nation

or a collection of nations.

and in that system,

there are the High-Power people and the Low-Power people.

The High-Power people control the system’s resources:

its food, materials, technology, weapons, opportunities.

And there are the Low-Power people.

The High-Power people see themselves as the bearers of some higher mission:

A Clean and Beautiful Nation,

Manifest Destiny,

The Master Race,

The One True Religion,

The Way.

Standing in the way of this mission are the Low-Power people;

they are blocking the vision, defiling it.

The High-Power people see themselves as "We"— as special,

noble, righteous,

favored by history and by God.

And they see the Low-Power people as "Them"—

as insignificant

or dirty

or dangerous or evil.

Seeing "Them" this way,

the High-Power people can do to "Them" things they would never do to one another.

They establish rules or laws or customs that make things better for the "We"

and worse for the "Them."

They may stop the Low-Power people from practicing their ways,

speaking their language;

they may remove them from their territory or confiscate their property

or enslave them or exile them

or annihilate them.

They can do all of this without guilt or shame,

because the Low-Power people are "Them"—

lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

If the Low-Power people are eliminated, the dance is ended.

If not,

the dance goes on.

*

The Low-Power People Respond

The Low-Power people respond—

gently,

fearfully,

rationally,

even apologetically.

("'We don't want to make 'Them' angry.")

They cast ballots,

elect representatives,

debate,

demonstrate.

The High-Power People React

To the High-Power people,

the response of the Low-Power people is out of line—

a complaint,

a threat,

an insult to the dignity of the "We." ("Who are 'They' to complain?")

And the response of the High-Power people is harsh—

requests are ignored,

promises are made then broken;

they delay;

they ban demonstrations;

they pass new laws;

they intensify the oppression.

Enter the Radicals

A new force develops among the Low-Power people— a radical force.

The Radicals call for more drastic action—

not accommodation,

but fundamental change;

overthrow the power structure or separate from the nation.

The Radicals become a "We,"

and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The High-Power people are "Them,"

but so are the Moderates.

And you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Radicals can do all of this without guilt or shame

because they see the High-Power people as "Them,"

and they see the Moderates as "Them"—

as lesser, insignificant, dirty, dangerous, or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

 

Enter the Accommodators and the Extremists

In the High-Power group, there are the Liberal

who want to accommodate the Low-Power people—

redress their grievances,

right their wrongs.

But,

in response to the Radicals' actions,

a new force emerges among the High-Power people— an Extremist force.

Angered by the Radicals, threatened by "Them,"

the Extremists stand against any accommodation.

The Extremists become a "We," and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The Radicals are "Them";

the supporters of Radicals are "Them"; the Accommodators are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

 

The Extremists can do all of this without guilt or shame

because they see the Radicals and the moderates

as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Enter the Privileged Radicals

Among the High-Power people,

there emerges a Privileged Radical group—

the privileged sons and daughters of the High-Power people, who align themselves with the Low-Power Radical group.

The Privileged Radical people also stand for radical change—

fundamental change in the power structure,

redistribution of wealth, power, and privilege,

or separate homelands

or nations for the Low-Power people.

The Privileged Radicals see themselves and the Low-Power Radicals as a "We,"

and all who are not part of the "We" are "Them."

The High-Power Accommodators are "Them";

the Low-Power Moderates are "Them";

the High-Power Extremists are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can humiliate "Them,"

hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Privileged Radicals can do all of this without guilt or shame

because they see the others as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Change Partners

Sometimes the Low-Power people win; they overthrow the High-Power people

and they become the new High-Power people,

seeing themselves as the bearers of a new vision— a higher vision,

The New Society,

Manifest Destiny,

The New Man,

The Master Race,

The One True Religion,

The Way.

And standing in the way of this vision are the new Low-Power people— "Them."

And the terrible dance goes on:

"We" humiliate,

"We" hurt,

"We" kill,

"We" maim,

"We" bomb,

"We" hack,

"We" hang,

"We" mine, "

We" strangle,

"We" starve "Them."

Always justified in what "We" do,

"We" are the right and the righteous.

Who wouldn't do such things to "Them"?

The Dance Goes On

The Terrible Dance goes on

in MYANMAR,

in Iraq,

in Sudan,

in Nigeria,

in Israel,

in the Congo,

in Rwanda,

in South Africa,

in Peru,

in Guatemala,

in Northern Ireland,

in the Philippines.

THERE IS NO "WE," THERE IS NO "THEM," THERE IS ONLY YOU AND ME

AND ALL OF US.

WE ARE DIFFERENT,

YET, FUNDAMENTALLY, WE ARE THE SAME.

AND STILL THE DANCE CONTINUES.

“You blacks are not human…you are like monkeys… we can do anything we want to you”

Janjaweed speaking to Dajo tribeswoman in Darfur

 

"Between fanaticism and barbarism there is only one step."

Diderot

 

"Imagine asking people who they are and the only thing they can come up with is 'I'm a Croat' or 'I'm a Serb' or whatever. Imagine, these people were born that way and they haven't made any progress since."

Bosnian woman

“Are you sure it was God who gave you permission to kill women and children?”

The Terrible Dance of Power is the basest part of our human nature, to see others so different from ourselves that we are able to subjugate, oppress, and even annihilate them with no remorse.

Please feel free to copy this piece, circulate it, translate it, perform it, put music to it, and even dance to it in public places. Do whatever you can to create a dance we can live with.

Barry Oshry

Living (Badly) With Illusions: Killing Made Easy

          

            When the driver looked at those people jockeying for position around his truck, hoping to find work, what did he see before detonating the bomb that killed 56 of them and maimed others? When Dylann Roof studied the worshipers at the Emanuel AME Church before massacring nine of them, what did he see? When the Hutu and Tutsi massacred one another, when the Muslim Bosniaks were slaughtered by the Bosnian Serbs in Srebenica; when the Jews were shot over open ditches and herded into gas chambers; when the trucker plowed his truck into pedestrians on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice? Orlando? Charlie Hebdo? Club Reina? What is it people are seeing that makes it a reasonable act to murder them?

            Is there some light that our Power Lab experiences can shed? A key learning from those experiences is this: Our consciousness is shaped by the structures we fall into. (I maintain that in that simple awareness lies our hope for the future.) The Bottom experience in the Power Lab is distinctly different from the experiences of the others, the Tops and Middles. The Bottom experience regularly is one of Love internally and Power externally – a strong feeling of commonality and connectedness with members of their Bottom group – and an equally strong experience of difference and separateness from the others. In the Power Lab, that sense of difference and separateness has never led to Bottoms murdering Middles and Tops, yet the sense of otherness has been reflected in various aggressive actions.

            If we asked Bottoms about their feelings for themselves and others, they would assure us that these feelings were based on reality, that is, on substantive differences among the groups in the character or temperament of their members. We Bottoms were just a very special collection of people. Yet we know that this experience of Love internally and Power externally is an illusion of the Bottom space. In the worlds beyond the Power Lab, we’re not aware of having fallen into any experience; we might easily convince ourselves of the substantive merits of our killer group and the deserved inferiority of those we murder. In the Power Lab, though, that delusion is not possible since there people are assigned randomly to the three positions. With another shuffle of the deck, a very different set of substantive “realities” emerges.

             What drives these and other murderers today and throughout the ages? The common element is that they all experience themselves as Bottoms in the great Power Lab that is the world. They all experience themselves as being oppressed by others.  They are the victims of a war being waged against them. It’s a war against their religion, or their ethnicity, or their heritage, color, or way of life. There may, in fact, be no war, nothing more than life moving on and bringing change with it. Yet it is the perception of war that triggers the Bottom reflex response – Love internally, Power externally, which sets the stage for the justified battle of Good versus Evil. When one is in the grips of this illusion, it all makes sense, the bombings, the massacres.

            There are real issues to be faced and worked on: income inequality, racial conflicts, immigration, the consequences of globalization, changing demographics, environmental degradation, among them.  There are issues to be worked, but no war may be warranted.

            There is a learnable lesson to be gained. A difficult lesson, yet we can learn it.

            Our experiences of ourselves and others are not always reflections of reality – of who we and they really are. What we see is not all there is. Our experiences are the result of the pattern we have fallen into. Change the pattern and our experiences will also change.

            In the Power Lab, we run a second exercise in which all the Loving Bottoms now find themselves in Top, Middle, and Customer roles, and Love quickly gives way to Power in all its myriad forms. A humbling experience. And, I hope, instructive.

            So, teach our children science, technology, engineering, math, literature, and the arts. And teach them this.

Then and Now

Who can predict where distraction can lead you?

Yesterday it took me to Kupishock, Lithuania, and the emigration in 1894 of my parents and grandparents; from there I strayed ever backward to 18^th and 19^th century eastern Europe and into the middle of the conflict between the Misnagdim and the Hasidim. Who? I’ll tell you. But, first, I need to tell you what I was supposed to be working on: a presentation on the meeting of differing cultures. “Meeting” in this case being a euphemism for: clash, conflict, dominance, subjugation, destruction, annihilation. 

And so it was with the Misnagdim and Hasidim. There is this old joke about the rescue of a Jew who had been surviving for decades alone on a remote deserted island. Upon discovery, he was eager to show his liberators all that he had accomplished over the years: his lush garden with flowers and fresh vegetables, his sturdy cabin, and then, of course, the synagogue where he prayed. His liberators, impressed, noticed another structure, a little way off. “And what is that?” they asked. “Oh that,” he said dismissedly, “I built that too. It’s the synagogue I wouldn’t be caught dead in.”

In the 18^th century, the Hasidim were a rising sect in Judaism led by the charismatic Baal Shem Tov. The Hasidim were sort of the hippies of their time (I’m not sure they’d appreciate the comparison): Loosen up, don’t get stuck on ritual, put down your books, come sing and dance, be joyous, make your personal connection, get high with God.

The Hasidim were a threat to the traditionalist Misnagdim; the rituals, the rote reading of the Torah, these were at the heart of Judaism. And then there was the political threat. Judaism had been rocked by two debacles: the emergence and humiliating fall of two self-proclaimed Messiahs. Were the Hasidim one more sect who would bring more pogroms? The Misnagdim set about oppressing the Hasidim, burning their books (Jews burning Jews’ books!), prohibiting marriage and commerce, even writing to the Czar explaining that the Hasidim were spies who needed to be controlled, jailed, or destroyed.

What eventually cooled down this conflict was the arrival of the Maskilim, who represented a major threat to both. The Maskillim were the adapters, the secularizers, the Jewish enlightenment, the preference for German and Hebrew over Yiddish, for dressing like the Others, reading their books, writing their own works of substance, striving to become a part of and make their way in and contribution to the larger society.

Hutu/Tutsi, Christian/Muslim, Catholic/Protestant, MIsnagdim/Hasidim, Sunni/Shia, on and on. And it all started with a single cell.

Differentiation is beautiful to behold; differentiation without homogenization, not so beautiful.

*

So now it’s time to return to my presentation on the meeting of differing cultures. What small dent can I put into this stubbornly enduring edifice?

Our World Is Awash In Bottomness

Our world is awash in bottomness. Large segments of the populace are afraid and angry. Whether in the UK, the US, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, or France, the underlying fear is: The world I know – my livelihood, my culture - are under threat, and I am angry, furious, at those distant actors who have created this mess. I am unseen by them, uncared for by them, abused by them, and powerless to deal with them.

An ages-old biological response to bottomness is to coalesce, to find comfort, support, and power as part of a collection of like-minded people. Independent “I”s become a unified “WE”.  Our differences – which under other conditions might be significant - become submerged in the service of our unity. It is important for us to understand that coalescing is an adaptive response. Coming together makes it possible for us to deal with issues we are powerless to deal with alone. Coalescing is not the problem. Falling into distorted and destructive WE/THEM relationships is. That’s when things fall apart -- when our closeness to and commonality with one another are distorted as is our separateness and difference from the others, when WE experience ourselves as some variation of the good – the unfairly oppressed, the real people, the occupants of the high moral ground – and THEY are experienced as cold, heartless, self-serving, greedy. And, given that we experience one another this way, it follows that we can do to THEM things we would never do to one another. These “things we can do” come in variations ranging from petitioning, marching, voting, and resisting, to character assassination, death threats, murder, and revolution. History has demonstrated that when we are in the grips of WE versus THEM, terrible things are possible.

Demagogues flourish in WE/THEM conditions. They are drawn to them and once there, enflame them, constantly reminding us how good, special, wonderful, and righteous WE are, and how bad, evil, corrupt, and crooked THEY are. It’s an ages-old trick, and WE keep falling for it.

The point is this: there is an important difference between identifying and working on the real issues we are facing, and blindly falling into distorted and destructive WE/THEM relationships.

The Bubbles We Live In

I was reading Kurt Eichenwald’s Newsweek article - Right-Wing Extremists Are a Bigger Threat to America Than ISIS, and it felt like a reasonably objective and informative description of right wing extremists and their rise in the US – the racist groups (KKK, Skinhead, Neo-Nazis), the anti-government militias (in 2008, 42 militias; in 2016, 276!); the Christian Fundamentalists.  Then I scrolled down to the comments and the first one I saw was “What a load of bullshit the story is.” Whoa! It struck me, not for the first time, how we live in very different bubbles. So I took a tour of a bubble other than my own. It was an alternative universe – very well done, replete with informative blogs, chat rooms, radio interviews, news feeds. It was like the x-ray image of my world, same formats, same people, just fundamentally different world views.

If I were a member of one of these groups I would also feel victimized by all the changes we’ve been made to endure. We used to keep Blacks under control, now they’re everywhere – in the arts, government, business, a president, for god’s sake. And women? They used to know their own place, now they’re in our place. And Jews? Everyone knows they’re still running the world. Gays. Transsexuals! I’m supposed to be good with that! What we all want (by “we” I mean us folks in our bubble) is a return to the good old days of white Christian America.

This is far from simply a US issue. It is the issue we have failed to cope with and often with disastrous consequences. How to deal with the “Other.” The arrival of the other, the presence of the other, invariably creates turbulence, both for the Other and for us. Seen through our dominant lens, the Other is seen as wrong, off, maybe dangerous, potentially polluting of our system. We are uncomfortable; inept at dealing with this turbulence. Some of us go tight: Keep them out, suppress them, marginalize them, keep them down, or worse. Others of us go loose I(like Saying YES because you’re uncomfortable in saying NO.) Loose or Tight, fundamentally it’s all the same. One is the Purity solution, the other the Tolerance solution. Neither really deals with the other.

More to come

Republicans Blame Democrats for Trump…Outrageous? Yes, but Not Entirely

            Ever since this meme has been launched, my news feeds have been filled with nothing but attack and defense: You created Trump! No, you did! Let me give you my take; it’s like the rabbi in the old joke said, “You’re right…and you’re right.”

            Despite appearances and rhetoric, this issue is not political; it is systemic and universal. What we are experiencing is a playing out of a tension characteristic of all human systems - whether it’s our family, organizations, or, as in this case, our nation.

            Change and Stabilization. All human systems exist in the tension between the tendencies for change and those for stabilization. Healthy human systems survive by finding some equilibrium between the two (that may in fact be one definition of healthy); it’s the way systems keep themselves from either stabilizing to the extent of rigidifying into irrelevancy or changing to the point of losing their identity and wholeness.  So, for example, even as the movement for change predominates, enough stabilization arises to keep the system growing and together. As one force swings to an extreme, the other predictably rises in revolt. Polarized battles rage between changers (“All this change is healthy, needed, and justified; and you reactionaries are trying to suppress it!”) and the stabilizers (“You radicals have destroyed my country and I want it back.”)

            The Changers do create the Stabilizers. In the past decades, change has been on the upswing in the US at a phenomenal pace: the changing complexion of the country – more black, brown, and Asian; the ascendancy of people of color and women into positions of power, in the organization, the arts and political life; gay marriage; equal pay for women; secularization; changing role of men (feminization?); tolerance for Muslims and immigration in general; anti-gun; transsexual rights; the globalization of jobs. Donald Trump may have no solid position on any of these issues, but in the change/stabilization battle, none of that matters. That is not where his appeal lies. When he proudly states that he is not politically correct, that is music to the ears of the oppressed stabilizers. Political correctness is code for the whole change agenda – women, Blacks, immigrants, gun control, globalization, feminization. And when his message is: “Make America great again.” What else could that mean?

            The Stabilizers created the Changers. Of course, we have to go back a way to understand where did all this force for change come from? It erupted out of the suppression of change by the stabilizers: the long term oppression of Blacks, the suppression of women, the bigotry against immigrants, the criminalization of homosexuality. All of this emergence and growth arose out of a prolonged revolt against the forces for stabilization, for keeping things as they were. So this is an ongoing tension in all human systems; it is the system’s struggle to survive by changing and stabilizing.

            More to come...

Oh to Be Anthropologist of it All: #1

             Year after year in the Power Lab, I had the remarkable opportunity to stand aside of whole social systems and observe their lives unfold from beginning to end. In each lab, participants were immersed in the Society of New Hope, a three-class social system with sharp differences between the classes in wealth and power, involving quality and access to housing, food, money, work opportunities, justice. Some participants were members of the Elite who owned or controlled the bulk of the society’s resources; others were the Immigrants who entered the society with little more than the clothes they were wearing; and others were Managers who earned their benefits by managing the Institutions of the Elite. These were not role plays; conditions were created, people were put into place, and then the action began.

            Inside and Outside Stories. In each program two stories unfolded, the inside story and the outside one. The inside story was the story of people’s experiences: it was rich in emotions, confrontations, power plays, drama, beliefs, evaluations, and judgments of one another, good guys and bad guys with righteousness on all sides.

            If the inside story was hot, the outside one was cool. If the predominant experience on the inside was emotion, on the outside it was interest/curiosity. Isn’t it interesting what’s developing here. On the inside, each story was felt to be specific to these particular people and their specific circumstance; from the outside, each story seemed to be a variation of a regularly recurring pattern – There it is again: Elite falling into territorial issues, Immigrants coalescing, Middles disconnected. I wonder how this will play out this time. On the outside, you did not experience being on one side or the other, for some people and against others. They were all interesting.

            There is more to say about all of this, but I want to get to my main point.

            If you are like me, you are experiencing difficult times. Endless war in the Mideast, millions of homeless, bombings with death and destruction in cities across the world, hundreds of thousands of fleeing immigrants – keep them out, let them in; the US is experiencing a bizarre presidential campaign where the leading contender is a bombastic ex-reality show host. It is a worldwide, explosive power lab. The stakes are high; innocent people are being maimed and murdered. What’s missing is the anthropologist, off to the side, observing, not judging, taking notes, as the bombs go off all around.

            What story would the anthropologist see unfolding?

           

A Time To Humiliate

Were we supposed to have empathy and understanding for Adolph Hitler’s pain at his vision of a Reich for a thousand years being despoiled by Jews and gypsies and homosexuals? Poor Adolph, we feel your pain. What was called for, instead, was a worldwide outpouring of anger and humiliation. You rotten, evil, demented animals! You are ignorant beyond bounds. With your actions you are forfeiting your right to be included in the human race.  

And is this not now the case where we are learning of atrocities coming out of South Sudan, a country the US backed in its fight for independence, and has since supported to the tune of over a billion dollars. The New York Times reports unimaginable atrocities – young boys being castrated and left to die, eight year old girls raped, throats being cut, children herded to a hut that is then burned to the ground. The victims are the Nuer and the oppressors are the largely Dinka government army. That army the US has supported. Are we supposed to understand and have empathy for whatever pain these castrated and raped and burned Nuer have caused the Dinka?

Nicholas Kristof hopes President Obama will do something about this. That is a start; but I am struck by another editorial in the same paper (The Science of ‘Inside Out.’) The authors state: “Other studies find that it is anger…that moves social collectives to protest and remedy injustice.” It is a time for anger and humiliation to rain down on the perpetrators of these atrocities. Worldwide.

Targeted sanctions, hands-on diplomacy, peace-making efforts may all play a part; but that is government to government, Tops to Tops. The Dinka need to hear from all of us – people of the world. They must feel our international and collective anger, they must experience deep humiliation; they must recognize the need to stop if they are ever to reclaim their place in the human race. Until now that place has been forfeited.

It is a time to humiliate. Do something. Let them know how angry you are. Let the President and your congress know. Use your social networking skills.

The Power of Seeing Patterns

One outcome of the Power Lab is the tendency to see the systemic patterns in everyday life. "I never read a news story again the same way,” Michael Sales said of his Power Lab experience.Seeing patterns is power. The difference between master chess players and good ones is the greater number of patterns the master sees. And the same is true of organizational life. 

Reading Patrick Cockburn's review of Once Upon A Revolution by Thanassis Cabmanis in Sunday's New York Times Book Review, I saw the costs of years of Top/Bottom relationships in which Tops (the Egyptian army) regularly suck up responsibility to themselves and away from others, while Bottoms (the Egyptian people) regularly cede responsibility to Tops. The result: a gradual trained incapacity of all parties.   Cockburn is discussing the failure of Egypt's Arab Spring uprising. "Egyptians have paid a heavy price for their centuries-long tradition of authoritarian rule and the consequent political inexperience of its opponents at all levels."  Further in the review Cockburn writes, "Poverty combined with miserable health and education facilities ensured plenty of dry tinder for revolutionaries. But the very backwardness of Egypt limited their ability to ignite it." Egyptians had been trained into incapacity. So, when the moment came to create a new Egypt, none of the capacity to carry that through had been developed.Twitter was insufficient. Organizational change projects are vulnerable to the same fate. Years of Top down control can incapacitate Bottoms, such that when Bottom initiative is needed we find it has been trained away.  

And, as Bottoms are incapacitated, the burden on Tops mounts. Bottoms keeps looking to Tops for salvation, regardless of how weakened Tops have become. In Egypt, for example, all hope rest on an Army considered sacred, despite the Army's record of contributing to the country's desperate condition.

There is a pattern in serious need of change,.

 

Great visions with terrible endings

It was such a transformative experience – reading War Zones by Jon Lee Anderson and Scott Anderson. It was 1989. I had been asked by a professional organization to give a talk on system issues as they related to larger social concerns. This was a challenge since to that time my systems work had focused exclusively on organizational life. How fortunate to find the Andersons’ book just days before my presentation.

The Andersons described their experiences as correspondents in several of the world’s killing zones at the time – Northern Ireland, El Salvador, Uganda, Sri Lanka, and Israel. What struck me was the recurring pattern: How the killing always begins with some magnificent mission, a great and noble cause, and then… all hell lets loose.

The Andersons’ work triggered reflections on other noble missions: Hitler’s vision  of a Reich to last a thousand years, Mussolini’s dream of a new Roman Empire, The U.S. drive to fulfill its Manifest Destiny, the Japanese vision for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Apartheid in South Africa.  Always great and noble causes that inspired passionate followers along with unfortunate “others” – numbering in the millions – who stood in the way of the realization of these visions.

This led to my writing The Terrible Dance of Power. In all these “dances” of death and destruction, there is no sense that the system is blindly falling in an age-old pattern. In each case, the mission, along with the “others” who stand in its way, are felt to be unique and specific to these particular people and these specific circumstances.

My vision, as naïve as it may be, is to illuminate the pattern in a way that would cause both visionaries and their followers who are filled with passionate intensity to stop, and think, and say no, not this time. I know how this comes out and it’s not pretty.

I thought of this as I reflected on the latest visionary – Abu Bakr al Baghdadi – and his vision of a new and greater Caliphate, one that will restore former glory, and rectify wounds both ancient and current. The stage is set. The “dance” is on. All the elements are in place: the vision, the passionate followers, and the millions of “others” who need to be dominated or destroyed.

This may be the most important gift the Power Lab has given me: to see the patterns in our human interactions and, with that awareness, the ability to choose creative life-enhancing paths to follow.

So What Is Self-In-System Leadership?

We needed three volunteers to create a celebratory event for all of us, one that was to be informative, interactive, creative, and fun. Minutes have gone by with no volunteers. Then more minutes. There's been some nervous foot shuffling, doodling, staring at one's shoes or out the window, jokingly pointing to others as likely candidates. But no volunteers. And then the silence settled in with an air of permanence.  Finally a hand was raised. A volunteer. But this was the least likely volunteer. A senior military officer who over the past days had shown little interest or talent for "creative, fun, interactive" events. Yet there he was volunteering. And then another hand was raised. And then another. And we had our team.

So what is self-in-system leadership? Clearly, it's not about doing what is easy or natural or comfortably within our "skill set". It's not even about being your authentic self. System Power is about doing what the system needs to have done. It's about accepting your centrality to the success of the system; and it's about having the courage to act. That's our intention in the Power Lab: to help you develop your self-in-system leadership.

Oh my! It's happening without me. A dilemma of topness

It was one of those mornings – too many agendas to handle. Then the nightmare many of you may have experienced: I was working on two emails simultaneously, one very brief; the second, a more complex one I had been working on for an hour. I sent the first, but the second disappeared. Just gone, nowhere to be found. This was a critical message I had lost, central to the project. I wasn’t about to recreate it. The chaotic feeling I had was: the project was out of control and I was out of control. Then, in the midst of my morning meditation, two things hit me: one, I was feeling out of control, AND lots of very good things were happening…without my control. The problem was not that things weren’t happening; it was that they were happening without me. This was a delicious insight.

In the Organization Workshop we posit a stand for when we are Top: to be a Top who, rather than sucking up responsibility to ourselves and away from others, creates responsibility in others. A fundamental shift in how we experience and express our topness. And then the question we explore is: What is the personal challenge of living from that Top stand; what do we have to give up, let go of, in order to live from that stand? And what do you suppose is the most frequent response? Control. Ego and control. Self-importance and control. Always control. There was humor and relief in this insight. The data were the same, only the experience had shifted. Good things were happening…and they were happening without me. What more could you ask for?

 

The Worldwide Week of Partnership...Join In

It's mid-July, and activity is heating up for the next Worldwide Week of Partnership, October 18-24, 2015. Throughout the week Power+Systems trainers worldwide will be offering pro bono Organization Workshops and When Cultures Meet workshops to non-profit educational, charitable, service, and advocacy organizations in their local communities.

Since its launching two years ago Worldwide Week of Partnership workshops for non-profits have happened in Malden, Massachusetts and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Pietermaritzburg, South Africa; Denver, Colorado and Pune, India; and in many more in cities across the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and the Philippines.

 If you have a connection with a non-profit educational, charitable, or service organization in your local community and you think they’d benefit from a Worldwide Week of Partnership event, go to the web site and request an event. We have trainers worldwide who’d welcome the opportunity to work with you and your favorite non-profit to make this happen.        

Why I Am Intolerant of Tolerance.

 "Radical Buddhist Movement Tests a Multiethnic City's History of Tolerance." New York Times

I do not want to be tolerated.

I want to be valued for the unique contribution I make.

I do not want you to be kind to me.

I want you to be more robust because of me.

 

 Beneath the surface of tolerance

intolerance resides restlessly,

anxious to burst into fear, hate, and destruction.

 

No warm-up needed.

Lift the iron fist that has suppressed it

- whether in the Balkans or Myanmar -

and there it is,

ready to do its damage

as if it has never been away.

 

Buddhists as oppressors?

Loving, mindful, prayerful, peaceful, tolerant Buddhists.

Not possible,

yet there it is,

Buddhists with their “others” – Panthay, Rohingya –

foreign, foul, unclean, dangerous, corrupting.

Not the real people.

 

How vulnerable we are.

One articulate and demented hater

pierces the veil of tolerance,

pursuing the "purity" solution,

unleashing the mindless murderous intolerance in us all.

Yes, yes! Purify!

Suppress, exclude, destroy.

 

Were it not for our collusion,

these demented haters

would find their rightful places

on street corners and marketplaces,

clad in reeking rags,

ranting and raving,

alone in their mad impotence.

 

 

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When the tears flow, it’s time to worry: A Cautionary Tale for the Russian People

     Yesterday, Vladimir Putin made an impassioned speech before the Russian parliament. He was received with loud cheers, standing ovations, and even tears. Tears are what worry me, and should also worry the Russian people. There is a long and painful history of demagogues who have been skilled at tapping into passions and unleashing tears. We sob while professing our love for our leader, our country, our great and noble history, and our great and noble cause. We sob, and when the tears flow, blood soon follows. 

    Some years ago I wrote the following:

From The Universal Civics Course

    ‘When the leaders' grand visions turn to ashes—as they so often do—we kick the bums out, impeach them, send them into exile, hang them, or shoot them. And then we wait. We wait for the next leader whom we can again hold responsible for our lives and our systems. And on and on it goes.        

***

         ‘I propose that we develop a Universal Civics Course. Its purpose will be to enlighten all of us regarding our rights and duties as members/citizens.

         ‘In the course, we will explore the role not only of the leaders but also of the members in humankind's history of warfare, oppression, and genocide: How the members trusted too much. How they abandoned their own responsibility. How they were too lazy to work at citizenship. How they went for the bait when their leaders told them how special and noble and deserving they were in contrast to the others, in contrast to "Them." (That’s when the tears flow.) How they found easy targets for their frustrations.        

***

         ‘We will study case after case—from the past and the present—of this pattern of member complicity in evil. And then the first phase of the course will end.

          ‘Some years later, the Leader will call our Graduates out to war. "Our cause is noble," the Leader will say. "We want nothing for ourselves, only justice for others. "The enemy is the Devil, set on our destruction," he will say. "Our people are great. We have not started this war, nor do we want it. But our personal wishes must be set aside in the face of this great threat. To war, boys and girls, to war! Our cause is just!"

         ‘Our graduates will listen to the Leader. They will study the facts. They will dig deep—behind the propaganda. They will observe the Leader closely: They will see all the tricks he uses to arouse their emotions and dampen their minds. ("Notice that chill that runs up and down your spine. Isn't it great how he does that?") They have seen all of this before. They will study, observe, discuss, and when the leader speaks, they will listen hard.

         ‘Then they will look at one another; smiles will break out across their faces; there will be giggles, then laughter, then wave after wave of bent-over-double, helpless, uncontrollable laughter.

         ‘And then the difficult business of co-creation will begin, which is the final examination for the Universal Civics Course.’

From Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life, by Barry Oshry, 2007, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco

Hierarchy: Fascism or Robust System

When Richard Nixon went to China, he was impressed. The streets were spotless, the trams ran on time, there were no long-haired hippies protesting in front of the Imperial Palace. Given the contrast with the messiness he left behind in the U.S.A., this was one leader's dream of system heaven. Nixon was/is not the only leader for whom order and neatness and all marching in lock step is the longed-for utopian state. Fascism is one variation of hierarchy. Wisdom at the Top, obedience below (Adolph Hitler's words), was a formula for a smoothly running society. (see Mein Kamp)  No problem dealing with dissent, for "dissent" was not even listed in the glossary. And fascism offers a certain comfort for those below - to be relieved of having to deal with deep questions or troubling feelings. The message to below is clear: Be impeccable in following. From impeccable following, all personal fulfilment will emerge.

Alignment, though far less extreme, can have a similar fascistic appeal. Basically, it's vision from above and committed alignment all the way down. It is the duty of the Top to establish the inspiring vision and direction, and then, through various participatory processes (that's where democracy comes in), cascade the vision and its implementation throughout. 

Robust Systems represent another form of hierarchy. Here the locus for fundamental direction and change does not sit exclusively at the Top. Each part of the system, including the Top, has its unique leverage to shape the whole. The challenge is to recognize and have the wisdom and courage to utlize that unique leverage. It's hardly revolutionary, for example, to recognize the power of Customers to shape organizations; they do this by insisting on partnering with the organization, or withdrawing their business in favor of more satisfying products and services from other suppliers, or by demanding fundamental changes in products and services. There is nothing like imminent failure to get one's attention: change or wither away. Those nasty, pushy customers make a mess, that mess is their unique contribution. And "creative mess" is what gives Robust Systems its dynamism.

Elsewhere - and often - I have written about the creative mess Middles can effect in fundamentally shaping organizations. The first rule for Middles is to stop looking up and start looking to one another. If Middles were looking to another, and listening to one another, and combining the shared wisdom of that Middle space, they would see what only they can see...and capitalize on that vision.

Once Middles grow accustomed to meeting with one another, and fighting the forces - internal and external - that keep them apart, and sharing information from their various parts of the system, and using that shared "intelligence" to diagnose the system from their unique perspective, they are then able to explore such potentially transforming questions as: What's missing in this system? What can we do collectively that's never been done before? What is it that continually drags this system down and how can we eliminate/change/transform it?

I'm sure that parallel messes can emerge from the bottom of the hierarchy. To a fascist mentality, these messes look like destructive chaos. What distinguishes mess from chaos is the desire and commitment at all level for this system to succeed - not by looking up but by looking to one another and the immediate world around them. What do we see? What can we make happen. Always in the service of the system.

Fascism or Robust Systems: Symphony or Jazz?

Questions for discussion: How would you compare the experiences of symphonic versus jazz musicians? Which would you prefer to be a member of?

 

 

 

 

 

Seeing The Other

John Watters, Guest Contributor
 
I’ve just completed tutoring/facilitating  an accreditation programme in the UK for the Organisation Workshop. The dialogue with participants and with my co-facilitator, Marcia Hyatt, and the experience of a living inquiry over 5 days opened up more clearly a dimension of what is means to live and work in partnership.
 
My experience is that most of us, much of the time, certainly myself, experience the ‘stuff’ of life as about us.  There is a self-referencing aspect to the way we see and interpret the world. We easily get caught up in certain kinds of story where we are the ‘star of the show’: the hero, victim or  martyr. Partnership, at its most basic is being connected with others in relationships where we are jointly committed to some shared endeavour: work projects, organisations whose purpose we care about, families, communities... This implies, but is not always realised, that we actively put our attention onto the other as well as ourselves and to the relationship between us. We need to cultivate the capacity for shifting our attention onto the other and for seeing and hearing their stories, issues, concerns, needs, values, as well as our own.
 
In fact, as Barry Oshry, indicates we need two sets of ‘muscle’ (or capacity) to create robust human partnerships that endure:
 
Being a person who see others - who gets who they are and what is important to them, who gets behind them and moves them ahead in their world.
 
AND
 
Being a person who let others know who you are, what is important to you, who allows them to get behind you and move you ahead in your world.
 
I noticed from the week that I need and want to strengthen the former.
 
How about you?
 
Which ‘muscle’ of partnership do you need to strengthen?

Get Ready For Trouble

 

Make trouble for yourself. That’s the tip we give to Power Lab grads as they are preparing to return home. The challenge, however, lies not in making trouble, but in dealing with trouble when it shows up. And it will show up. To paraphrase Trotsky: You may not be interested in trouble, but trouble is interested in you.

 Paradoxically, trouble often shows up as the outgrowth of our most inspiring visions. The economist, Albert O. Hirschman pointed to the creativity that emerged as promising projects faced unforeseen crises (trouble) that threatened to doom them. The multi-million-dollar East Pakistan paper mill that had planned on producing paper from the vast available bamboo forests only to have the bamboo unexpectedly flower and die! Now what? The disaster turned into a huge success as a variety of creative solutions were developed in response to the crisis. Nietzche: “That which does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”

Projects often fail, Hirschman maintained, because planners would focus on eliminating challenge. He is skeptical, however, of our willingness to choose crises:

 “The only way we can bring our resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be.” Then – bang! – out of the blue comes trouble.

Hirschman’s work brought to mind Kanter’s Law: Everything looks like a failure in the middle. Kanter: “Everyone loves inspiring beginnings and happy endings; it is just the middles that involve hard work.”

 The Worldwide Week of Partnership is an inspirational vision. Hundreds of Organization Workshop trainers across the globe conducting free programs for educational, charitable, and service organizations in their local communities. Bringing awareness to the pain and loss stemming from failed partnerships and the promise of successful ones. That’s the inspiring beginning - routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity - and then comes the middle…

So what lessons to derive from this? Avoid inspiring visions; they’ll only lead to trouble? Or pursue your vision and expect and be prepared to deal with the inevitable trouble along the way.

My vision for the Power Lab: To prepare you to reach for greater contributions in your life, while strengthening you to deal with whatever trouble comes your way.