Re (long): [OSLIST] Already-thereness, Empowerment and Such

Artur Ferreira da Silva artsilva at mail.eunet.pt
Tue Feb 18 04:21:18 PST 2003


Hello Harrison and all:

Let me first say that my agreement with you is probably so great as 90%.
But I need - at least for myself - to clarify where are the other 10% and
why are they there. And try to find some "convergence" or, if not possible,
respectfully acknowledge the "divergence", as good "anarchists" should
always be able to do.

I know that there are some people that don't agree with your new
"self-organizing" ideas. I suspect that they see a contradiction between
those ideas and a "guiding force" that controls everything, or something
like that. But I do agree that self-organizing concepts and an emergent
order do happen in OST. But for me too there is also a contradiction but in
a different place. Fortunately this last post of yours gave me a clue for
understanding where the "divergence" begins.


At 10:40 17-02-2003 -0500, Harrison Owen wrote:

>One of the great things about  OSLIST is the way conversations start at
>multiple points and then ebb and flow to form a common theme. Not unlike
>what happens in Open Space (because it is Open Space, I guess) this
>phenomenon appears to be but one more example of what we have been talking
>about. Emergent order.

Ok, until now - that is really one of the things I find amazing in OST in
general and as applied in this list.

>(...) Way back in the Dark Ages (Riding The Tiger, 1991) I found myself
>thinking and writing about what I called then, The InterActive Learning
>Organization (aka The Open Space Organization). By '94 the same idea
>appeared in glorious new nomenclature with the arrival of The Millennium
>Organization. Looking back over those efforts, I have to confess that it
>may have been the right idea, but definitely looked at in the wrong way.
>Both the InterActive Learning Organization and The Millennium Organization
>(same thing by a new name) seemed to be something we might "do" -- as in
>"creating the Open Space Organization." Lovely idea, but fatally flawed,
>or at the very least, a waste of effort. Why create something that already
>exists? The problem was, we just didn't know it.

Ok, now I understand... As I have already said,  I have always considered
(and I still do) "Riding the Tiger" has a masterpiece, only comparable with
"The Guide" and I never liked much "The Spirit" because if a Spirit (with a
capital) is "working the principles"  this is to too much close to the
concept of a God, that created and rules everything and I would like to see
a godless conception. (I have nothing against people that believe in God -
only against the use of His name (or an alias, like a capitalized Spirit)
"in vain" (to explain matters that should be explained by other concepts).

But then I have notticed that I am probably some 12 years younger than
Harrison - so maybe I am still "too young" (a very Chinese-like idea) to
understand the new developments of a mature Harrison. I suspect that I
agree more with the younger Harrison. But maybe in 12 years I will be able
to understand the new truth ;-)

Until than I would also prefer not to use words like "invitation" (who
invites?) or "givens" (who gives the givens? we create our "givens"...).
Interestingly, and as I see it, this is a consequence of the "empowerment"
story. If I empower you, you don't get the power. If some Spirit empowers
you, you have no power either.

So the point is, I don't believe that all organizations are "open (space)
organizations"; I think that the majority of them are pretty closed even
when they pretend to be open (armies, religion bodies, multinationals, some
small companies, many governments, namely colonial or neo-colonial, many
families, etc). We have to "facilitate" (or not) the emergence of "Open
Organizations" (and an Open Society). That is my responsibility as well as
yours. That is what we do with Open Space and some other tools and
concepts. We say that we "Open and hold the space". Why is it needed that
someone "opens" the space, except if it is previously closed, at least
partially?

It is not true, IMHO, that what we are in search of is the "intentional OS
Organization". The unintentional Open Organization is at least so good
(probably better) that the intentional one, as the "intentional" OSO is
probably killing self-organization - many ordinary organization kill
self-organization "unintentionally" - but we also can kill it
"intentionally", if you see what I mean.

>         So where do we go from here? I suggest starting with the basics.
> Really basic. It seems to me that certain fundamental forces pretty well
> account for our present existence. Gravity, for one, makes it possible to
> walk around on good old planet earth and do what we do. Perhaps we may
> chafe at the constraints, but truthfully there is not too much that we
> can do about it. The forces of self-organization provide a reasonable
> account for our progress from the moment of the Big Bang until this
> present instant. and please note, we didn't have to do a thing. It
> happened all by itself, or as Stuart Kaufmann would say -- Order for free.

There are two points I would like to comment. One is that, according to
Kaumann - and to a 4 point summary of his ideas that Harrrison wrote some
time ago - order happens for free, yes, but in a certain number of
preconditions - like enough diversity, multiple connections, etc. Those
conditions don't happen in every moment. Even if I believe that in a
certain moment of the history of earth the emergence of life occurred, I am
pretty sure that it doesn’t happen (except through reproduction) in the
conditions that we have now. So emergence and chaos are a very different
subject from gravity. Biology is much more complex than Physics.

But now we have to add the humans. And when we introduce the humans a lot
of interesting things happen, like the possibility to create
non-spontaneous structures and organizations. Human beings, with their
drive to understand and control, are the most powerful machines for
producing anti-self-organization. Indeed the most powerful weapons of
spiritual (no capital) mass destruction are every day created and recreated
by humans - and I would suggest your Bush's to look for them first at home


Please note that I am not trying to discuss or polemize. More for myself
than for any others (but knowing that some of you will read and comment and
that can further enlighten me) I felt compelled to try to articulate my
doubts.

And, of course, if someone plans to edit these discussions in a new "Non
Guide", I would like this minority view to be present there... For the sake
of anarchism, (em)powerment, unscholling and decolonization...

Best regards

Artur

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