"Bylo chudo" or New Paradigm slavery-- long

[Raffi Aftandelian]

Thank you, Harrison, for going to the trouble of giving a quick recap
of where we have gone in the past twenty years with organizations and
consciousness.

If there was a friendly, implied suggestion to consider something in
your message, I missed it. Other than perhaps read Kuhn and Wilber whom I have heard
of and some friendly OST'ers in BC (British Columbia) do nudge me
towards looking at them, which I will.

Is this vision of the "Open Sleep Organization" fanciful? We like to
ask at the end of an OS, what will happen on Mon.? And on Mon. that is
the vision that came to me. In all of my adolescent passion, I know I
can get (very) carried away. And one very kind OST'er lovingly
suggested offline that these are great ideas in the "Bylo Chudo" post, yet
there is a danger in dissipating creative energy in talking about them
so publicly. And that Mon. pointed me the way to go with OST.

I like to think back sometimes to what Ralph Copleman said when I first
began talking about my struggles with this OST work: either I'll think
it's garbage or I'll think of something better. I definitely don't
think it's garbage and it is very intriguing to watch people who have
participated in a 4 hour or daylong OST deliver a verdict on this
technology...and say (in so many words) that it's garbage. And then
there are those who are troubled and intrigued enough by OST to give
it another go...

I sometimes imagine that it must be very lonely for you, Harrison, to
be a visionary. To repeat the same thing day in and day out. And I
have thought that you may never get proper recognition for this work.
I doubt you'll get the Nobel Prize (nor do I think you are holding
your breath for it), even though your contribution to human knowledge
is indeed earth-shattering.

 Which makes me think about how all these Nobel Prizes (for peace, at
 least) are awarded for Extraordinary Mediocrity. For Brilliant Minds who did More of the Same.

Just one more thought on the evolution of consciousness-- do you
really think that consciousness exists? Isn't it just another
dream-state? I notice that I am *always* living in illusion. There
may be gradations of illusion, but illusion is all we got, perhaps
just like the illusion (read: prism) of Open Space.

One thing I hope to get a deeper understanding of in Halifax is what
self-organizing OST events look like. And what self-organizing
self-organization looks like.

And if our illusions are all we got, what then?

Warmly,
Raffi



Raffi Aftandelian wrote 20 июля 2005 г., 15:27:53:

> Raffi Wrote: Harrison, you in your delightful semi-impish spirit
> trickster raven kind of way said you were almost afraid to ask what
> I thought the next paradigm was. I think I explained what I thought
> the next paradigm was+and I didn't quite understand why that thread
> died. Is it because I'm talking out of something besides my mouth?
> Or that everyone already knows what the next paradigm is. Or that it
> is moot? Or that the paradigm of thinking in paradigms is well
> so+passe because it assumes a linear path of development?

> I don't know why the conversation on the  next paradigm" ended --
> it certainly has never ended with me. I suppose that if there is a
> single dominant theme in all of my work, it is not about Open Space,
> but rather precisely on that subject. Thomas Kuhn's notion of
> Paradigm and paradigm shift has been very useful for me (and
> obviously millions of others) in several ways. First he wrote
> clearly about the mechanisms and costs of fundamental shifts. As you
> may remember he is primarily a philosopher of Science -- but his
> work obviously applies in much broader realms. He showed us
> (reminded us) that human progress does not go in nice linear
> patterns, but in great, always painful, lurches. And the fact that
> he tied all this to the progress of Science was useful in that it
> helped us see that super-rationalistic science was also a part of
> the human endeavor. But as helpful as Kuhn has been it always seemed
> to me that he stopped short of genuine breakthrough. For me the
> notion of paradigm shift is really the whole business of the
> evolution of consciousness. Fortunately, many others have explored
> territory that Kuhn never (so far as I know) got into. On the
> contemporary scene, Ken Wilber has led the way for me. And the
> Spiral Dynamics folks have added some interesting details. But the
> story is a very old one going right back to The Great Chain of Being
> traditions, which spoke of the evolution of consciousness in terms
> of 7 levels or domains. The words vary, but the sense is Nothing,
> Body, Mind, Intellect, Soul, Spirit, Nothing. Since it is a little
> difficult to speak of "nothing" -- we are basically left with 5
> domains that we can get out words around. It occurred to me in the
> early 80's that although the focus was basically on the individual
> evolution of consciousness -- the general thinking would equally
> apply to organizations, which you might call the collective
> expression (manifestation) of Spirit or consciousness. To make the
> point and the connection I created what I called an organizational
> analogue to the development of individual consciousness, and the
> levels (domains) were denominated as follows: Reactive, Responsive,
> Proactive, Interactive, and Inspired. If you are interested in the
> details, I wrote it all up in my first book, "Spirit: Transformation
> and Development in organizations" which came out I think in 1985. 
> ═
> Then along came Open Space, which appeared in my eyes to be a
> funny thing we did on the way to the future. Its real value totally
> escaped me. Fortunately several others saw what I failed to notice
> -- this stuff was important. And once they got my attention, I
> noticed a very odd thing. It seemed to me that in Open Space people
> had the experience of moving through levels of consciousness. And
> more particularly, it seemed that they were shifting in and out of
> the dominant level, which I called Proactive, into the next level,
> which═I had called Interactive. For the majority, this was a
> momentary, although significant experience -- but at the end of the
> day it was back to the old familiar Proactive organizations. Some,
> however, did not seem to go back so easily -- and the Interactive
> level became their domain. This was a exhilarating and scary
> experience, to say the least. I am totally clear that Open Space did
> not (does not) cause such shifts -- but it does seem to provide an
> environment which═is conducive to this shifting. Anyhow it seemed to
> me that something rather new and exciting was occurring -- and that
> a radical new organizational lifeform was putting in an═appearance.
> Since we were heading towards the Millennium at that point,
> hyperbole got the best of me and I began to talk about The
> Millennium Organization. Even wrote a book about it with the same
> title. That book is now out of print, but I tried to tried to bring
> all my thinking to that point together in my═last book for
> Berrett-Koehler, which bears the title, "The Power of Spirit: How
> Organizations Transform." That one came out in 2000, which I thought
> was sort of appropriate.
> ═
> Anyhow, the story continues and becomes ever more exciting.
> Obviously not without ═many painful bumps and bruises -- and the
> final chapter has clearly not been written. 
> ═
> Harrison
> ═
> ═
> Harrison Owen
> 7808 River Falls Dr.
> Potomac, MD═ 20854
> USA
> 301-365-2093
> 207-763-3261 (summer)
> website www.openspaceworld.com
> ═
> ═
  
> ----- Original Message ----- 

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