CCD (Connection Commonality Deficit) is murderous: Part I

At the conclusion of this week's internet interview with Wayne Hurlbert, Wayne asked me: "What's next for Barry Oshry? and my answer was CCD. Connection/Commonality Deficit (CCD) has  caused more deaths than all the plagues in all of human history.  It is the condition that underlies such colossal human catastrophes as ethnic cleansing and genocide. It is the condition that fueled the Crusades, the righteous wars of religion, the Armenian genocide, the murder of Jews and gypsies in the holocaust, the brutal Hutu/Tutsi savagery, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, and much more. CCD is the most deadly Dance of Blind Reflex, a process whereby groups of people reflexively become increasingly differentiated and disconnected from one another. Our countries, religions, neighborhoods, professions, gangs become our nests; we live in nest within nests within nests; we fall in love with our nests; we learn more about them and less about other nests; we become embedded in their histories; their past injuries and triumphs become our injuries and triumphs. We become greater, more noble, more powerful through membership in our nests. When infected by CCD, our nests lose their connection and commonality with other nests. Once in the grips of CCD, it is easy, almost natural for people in one nest to de-humanize and participate in or support disdain for, conflict with, domination over, and ultimately the annihilation of other nests. This is CCD in its most extreme and most destructive form. In its less extreme forms, it underlies such familiar processes as territoriality among top executives, tension among hospital specialties, non cooperation between consultants and trainers, lack of conversation between academic and non-academic approaches to organization change. This is what I love about  system concepts such as CCD: they hold for all levels of human systems.
In upcoming blogs, I'll share some recent encounters with CCD.