Imposed Structure, Self-Organisation, Ritual

Andrew Ballance andrew_ballance at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 23 05:45:56 PDT 2007


Hi again!

On the subject of my writing.. When it rains, it pours.. I didn't want to clutter the previous post with too much reflection and interpretation. [If you didn't read the previous post, you need to, or you might not know where this is coming from]

There appeared to be a polarity at play here, between order and chaos, or between
imposed structure and self-organisation, something that the chaordic
thinkers have probably already chanced upon. To paraphrase what some of
the participants said, "Why do we need Open Space? Surely we can just
decide to be free, and have whatever conversations matter, that's our
decision and responsibility, and if anyone needs some help doing that,
I'm here to help." This is an important point: Open Space is a
structure. To my mind, though, there is an important dimension to it:
it is a ritual structure. Rituals allow us to say or do things that
don't normally come out in everyday conversation, they set the tone and
say it's ok to express yourself now in a particular way.
There are two definitions of ritual that I find quite interesting in this context:
  - any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner
  - a
prescribed code of behavior regulating social conduct, as that
exemplified by the raising of one's hat or the shaking of hands in
greeting
It's clear to me that OS already is the first of these. That's great, because that's the way we get results, or rather that's the way in which we as facilitators regular social conduct for a period of time. But what about that word 'prescribed'? What do you think of that? What happens if it is prescribed? By whom? If it's not by anyone in particular, then that means OS is accepted practice. But as accepted (expected?) practice.. does that limit its effectiveness? Is that no longer a structure that generates energy, but one that feels like an imposition and so acts as a dampener?

OK, enough philosophising for one day. Not that I expect we can come to an answer to these questions, I'd be interested to hear what other people think about OS as ritual?

Andrew



*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20070423/e9e8174b/attachment-0015.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list