Practice and Theory in Open Space (Confessions of a Theoretical Hit Man)

[Harrison Owen]

The several responses to my posting of the short piece I wrote for Raffi
raised some of the issues around Theory in Open Space. A friend once
remarked that the world could be divided between what he called "Theory
Folks" and "Practice Folks" - those who like to think about it, and those
who prefer to do it. I suspect that on this LIST, the Practice Folks are in
the vast majority. Doers and not thinkers!  Nothing the matter with that,
and on most days, Doing is my preference as well. But there is a place for
theory. It is also important to keep theory in its place.

For those who might care about such things, theory comes from the Greek,
theorein (to see). In short it is a way of looking at things. One might also
say it is a likely story. The first point to take from all of this that
there are many ways of looking at thing, and lots of stories. It is very
natural that we might ask - Yes, and which one is right? And that is our
first mistake if we mean which one is "true?" For the answer is: All and
none. Every way of looking at things has something to commend it, and no way
captures the whole. All theories are maps - arbitrary ways of helping us to
understand the territory we transverse. And different theories, like
different maps, are useful for different things. Also, like maps, theories
are never to be confused with the territory they describe.

The effectiveness of a particular theory is dependant upon two things.
First, its capacity to help us understand what is going on in the moment.
And second, the capacity to predict likely outcomes in the future. Really
good theory enables us to see things that we might ordinarily miss and
simultaneously prepare for what may be coming next.

Another earmark of a good theory is that it is the simplest possible
explanation of the experience of the moment, combined with the broadest
potential application (in a word, it enables us to link our current
experience to apparently dissimilar experiences in our world). If we
experience a theory as mind-bogglingly complicated that probably says much
more about the poor quality of the theory than our mental capacities. Good
theory is very simple. 

The last thing to know about theories is that they all come from some
particular conceptual base, which is usually some academic discipline, from
which they derive their language and general frame of reference. This might
be social science, behavioral science, physics or whatever. The language
used can often create problems for people in that they assume that there is
only "one way" to talk about something. When it really gets frustrating we
talk about "jargon." And jargon, by definition is bad. But every conceptual
base, or scientific discipline, has its own jargon, which is neither good
nor bad - it is just the way they talk about things.

Goodness, I do seem to go on - But really there is a point! And it has to do
with Open Space!! As I have tried to make sense out of my experience in Open
Space for the past 20 years there have basically been two conceptual bases
which I have found to be particularly useful. The general field of
Complexity Theory (by whatever name) has been particularly useful especially
in terms of the growing understanding of the process of self-organization.
The second base has been what I might call Consciousness Studies - which
concerns itself with the evolution of human consciousness, or one might say
Spirit. Personally I feel very comfortable in talking about (seeing) Open
Space as a Spirit filled arena - which tends to drive some of my more
materialistic ("scientific") friends batty. Or they may think I am batty
(nuts :-)). So for them I have no problem in switching over to
Self-Organization as the basis of conversation. Or maybe you can put it all
together - Spirit shows up when space is open to the process of
self-organization?

And now what ?

Harrison



 



Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
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