Fw: OST as a conference track

Fri May 10 03:52:37 PDT 2002

Kenoli,

what you think/write about balance, creative tension and paradox of
chaos and order ...YES, that's it. I only model it on basis of other
words.

Describing it as paradox is describing it in terms of logics, because
only from the logical point of view (which does not permit
contradictions) it is paradox, if you describe it as creative tension
it seems to be quite 'normal', if I can accept the existence of
fundamental contradictions as normal, even basical for social life.

The problem with balance is, that it is very near to the concept of
"Equilibrium" (modeled in physics), which implies a statical
'situation' not a process. It is balance, but flowing, never in
equilibrium because the tension always will continue.

I am very sorry, that our occidental culture nearly forgot about the
fact, that, beginning with the pre-socratic philosophy (Heraclitos),
den Socrates (in Platons presentation), then Hegel and Marx, (even
Mao Tse Dong wrote a text "About Contradiction" which is still very
interesting) there is a tradition of non-logic thinking, defining
such basical contratiction as APORIES and the way to treat them, as
DIALECTICS.

Perhaps, because historical and dialectical materialism got hands on
the whole concept and spoke so much about dialectics, that it was
finally used to explain everything, but only within the political
discourse.

I am very often astonished, when I meet people from ex-'comunist'
countries, because they not only threw their old political convition
overboard, but also the whole idea of dialectics.

They destoyed/unlearnde a mental, which could be of great use in our
everyday life and in all professional context of consulting,
moderating, training... because it is dialectical thinking, which
permits to deal in a creative and peaceful way with tension.

Perhaps this seems to be a bit far from OS and FS, but not to me.

Useful mental models are no private property, no plants, which only
grow in marxist gardens.

If there is a basic understanding to identify aporetic situations and
dialectical ways of dealing with them, concepts like "holding
creative tension", "holding open space", "having positive impact on
selforganizing processes by not doing anything, but being" (WuWei)
are easy to understand (which not implies, that they are then
'automatically' easy to practice, of course).

Within a logical framework of thinking and perceiving, however,
there comes always the confusion about being paradox (which somehow
implies, that it should not be), these tentatives to treat it by
"Either...Or?" questions (separating, which is inseparable) and if
everything goes well, finally getting to the point, that you have to
accept the paradox (which is perhaps a process of emotional
learning).

What I basically mean is: it is fine to use oriental concepts like
YIN-YANG, WU-WEI and so on as mental approaches (and I do it a lot
myself) but it is quite difficult to combine them with all the other
existing occidental frameworks (mental, social, political) than using
our homegrown concepts, or trying to treat the paradoxes we meet
everywhere with logical concepts until you notice, that you have to
get rid of them, climb over them, leave them behind.

A comment about what you write about Chaos/Order/Selforganisation in
OS (and FS)

For me, OST defines the Minimum-Order/Structure  necessary to
a) permit a optimum of chaos
b) 'shooting out', or should I say "paradoxing out"?, some of the
most harmful basic logical convictions of "social well behaviour"
which inhibit people normaly to use chaotic situations in a creative,
self-organizing way (wich means, for example: not to exclude
potentials and potencialities in the room, just because they are 'in
contradiction' with others. In my opinion, that is the main function
of the principles.

And insofar it is "better" than FS in the sense of beeing more
advanced in reduction. I am shure, that you are right, that FS has
basically the same basic attitude, but it installs a level of Order,
which is not "minimal" and since it does not define the principles in
the simple, perfect, naive way as OS does (which really kicks the
crowd back to their already existing capacity to self-organize from
the beginning), it has to support this capacity step-by-step by using
a more complex order/structure and I think, that is, why you can do a
1,5 hour Open Space, but not a 1,5 hour FS.

Still, if the client system goes for Future Search, I will facilitate
acording to Weisbord/Janofs model, because it also works.

Space and Peace

There is a 'paradox' hidden behind these two concepts:
a) Whenever you can 'flee' from a situation, where foundamentally
contradicting (social) interests, there is no need to fight against
each other (the non-existence of break-out space seems to be one of
the deadly ingredients in the Israel/Palestine-conflict).
b) Whenever such contradicting interests confront each other, there
is space to 'learn peace', oping (another level of) space for holding
the contradictions in creative tension, flowing equilibrium
(balance)...

What I like so very much about OST, that it permits, promotes,
develops both sides of the contradiction and that is why OST (on
basis of a wider OS-framework) seems to be a basically dialectic
aproach to social fenomenons.

Whenever the contradiction is to intensive, to hot, or simply not
productive for a specific individuum (perhaps we should reframe this
concept also, beeing an individuum "unseperable" from its social
context), the law of two feet permits to flee. That is great,
because, if you can not flee and you are not a very mature person,
there is the automatical (logical) tendency to suppres the other side
of the contradiction.

On the other hand, the law permits to everybody to "go in", flocking
together the birds of different feathers, intensify the interaction
between the different poles.

But also birds of a feather can flock together, not working on
contradictions, but working in an objective-orientated way in a group
of people with similar positions. Well, contradictions always emerge
then, because we are all different.

Bernhard

P.S. re-reading my text I notice that I am wrong about "balance".
Balancing IS dynamic, riding a bicyle you never get rid of the
tendency to fall off to the right or to the left, you hold the
'tension' by moving on along a 'snake-line'.

-----
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----
Bernd Weber
Organization Development Consultant

"DEVELOP YOUR CAPACITIES - MATERIALIZE YOUR VISION"

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