More on Empowerment - Moderation and Languages

Artur Ferreira da Silva artsilva at mail.eunet.pt
Sat Jun 1 06:28:43 PDT 2002


At 23:45 31-05-2002 +0100, Winfried Ursin wrote:

>I love this empowerment thread, especially the 'skipping spacer' (may be a
>good jobtitle?), as I am currently thinking what happens in organisations
>before they embrace new tools, language, attitudes,...

Hummm. That is the problem I have been considering all my professional
life. But in a certain moment I concluded that the problem could also be
stated in more general terms, namely:

>what happens in PEOPLE, organisations AND SOCIETY before they embrace new
>tools, language, attitudes,...

I think that one must understand the 3 levels to understand one of them, as
there are similarities (and other relations) between them.

The other point I concluded is that, in all three levels, to learn new
attitudes is to transform the old "reality" (one of Harrison's texts,
available in his site, is "Learning as Transformation"), and that implies
to (previously or simultaneously) UNLEARN the old mental models or
paradigms (or prejudices).

So my current line of research is - how to facilitate unlearning of what
one always took for granted? How to facilitate personal, organizational or
social metanoia? How to prepare the new generations to continuously
question and review their old "knowledge"?

Part of that works through seredentipity, puzzling situations, paradoxes
and, why not?, skipping space. (what once happened in the road of Damascus
can probably also be described has "skipping space", can't it?)

>  Another question for me is how could one go about creating global
> spaces, which allow the creation of new solutions. Could the internet
> play a role (and the tools created in the past and current) should we
> believe in synchronicity - or both, or more? For me this is the opposite
> of the neo-nationalism, currently on the raise in Europe.

I am not so sure if what is happening today in Europe is "nacionalism" - I
would rather say it is a combination of "regionalism" (infra-national,
often related with languages or dialects, as in Galicia, Catalonia, or
Corse) and super-nationalism (as in EU). Both things are questioning old
nations and frontiers. And I am not sure if it is only happening in Europe
as I found similar situations in Africa and maybe even in South America.

Yesterday began the Football (soccer) World Championship. France (the
current champion) played with its ex-colony Senegal (first time appearance
in the FWC) and lost 1-0. The event was commemorated in Dakar and... in
Paris (by the Senegalese's living there). Now, if one looks at the players
of each team, one finds very interesting things. In the French team only 2
or 3 have French origins (including one that is Basque), the majority have
African origins, some have Algerian origin (including the big "French" star
- Zidane) and one (Vieira) was born in Senegal, with Cape-Vertian origins,
and a Portuguese name. Of the 23 players France took to Korea, 22 play out
of France, namely in England, German and Italy. Of the 23 players Senegal
took to Korea, 21 play...in France. Who are the French's?

Two other football recent facts related with France. Recently France
played, in France, against the ex-colony Algeria - the match was ended
prematurely due to an invasion of the playfield done by the assistance,
where Algerians living in France were the great majority. In the final of
the French Cup where Bastia (from Corse) played, the French hymn has been
sniffled by Bastian supporters and French President, Chirac, leaved the
stadium and the match was delayed half an hour... Football and the "nation
question"...

[Back to FWC, next Wednesday big and strong USA will play against my small
USA neo-colony. See you there...]

>Re languages:
>
>I think I understand, what you are getting at. But is it language? Having
>spend some years in a Chinese environment I came to a point, where I had
>to question all my interpretation of the spoken language (which of course
>was English), then I had to throw away all my (western) interpretations of
>body-language. At that point I felt really at a loss how to communicate in
>a culture, which was so alien to me. Until I noticed that yes, I could
>still communicate and slowly started to trust my instincts. Now I pay much
>more attention to the small cultural differences like the effect of not
>shaking hands every time you meet in the anglosaxon world. It is still
>unsetteling to me central european after all this years! How much bigger
>are all the big differences? But in hart and spirit you still find
>like-minded people, with whom one can overcome all this.

Marvelous description, Winfried. Thank you very much for sharing your
experience. From your description I can understand that you have been able
to unlearn your initial model (and then you felt lost) and then to learn
how to cope with the situation.

And you are right it is not only language. But body-language is also a
"language", isn't it? And probably an even more profound language that the
one people "speak". And I wonder if "culture" is not a meta-language...

So you have "language" (cultural) sensibility, isn't it? Maybe you don't
speak Chinese but your body does ;-)

Anyhow, and back to what we normally call "languages", you are from central
Europe, so your native language is NOT English. But you speak English at a
working level, because that is your working language. (Indeed, how many
languages do you understand?). If you would only speak one language, would
you be able to understand Chinese culture as you do?

So my presuppositions are as follow:

1 - If one doesn't understand at least 2 languages (preferably, at least 3)
one will have very strong difficulties to understand different cultures,
even if one leaves there, as an expatriate, for a period.
[I know it is difficult to correct that after a certain age - but one can
"design" that as a feature of the education one defines for theirs children
or, through them, to their grand-children - and this, I believe, will also
open the space for peace and understanding.]

2- Whatever happened is what happened. Whatever will happen depends on many
factors, including of what one does (and that depends on the values one
practices - not on the values one claims). [Even if one doesn't intervene
and doesn't care about outcomes, that is a choice one made.]

Regards

Artur

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