[OSList] Authority Distribution in Open Space

[Michael M Pannwitz via OSList]

Dear John Baxter,

sometimes the folks telling us on TV or such about the weather talk in a 
way as if the weather has a will. And feelings. And a strategy.
Well, this is just their way of talking about something that is 
difficult to describe.
In my way of looking at the world, they are describing manifestations of 
the selforganisationforce meddling with the weather... without having 
proper language for the manisfestations so they use psychological terms 
or the likes to make sense of it.

This holds for manifestations of the selforganisationforce observed in 
groups, organisations and systems composed of people.

One of the specific manifestations is the action of a battle with two 
groups of soldiers attacking each other. It looks as of there is one 
"will" in each group of soldiers. Everybody does the same, all fire at 
the same time, all advance or retreat in orderly fashion.
It seems, however, to be more likely that they show this "will" because 
all will of the kind we usually talk about has been drilled out of their 
minds and souls and bodies...yes, a little bit is left in each soldier, 
but "control", which is that which can reduce the acivity of the 
selforganisationforce to near zero (never completely), has been very 
powerful.

Cheers
mmp



On 22.10.2014 01:11, John Baxter via OSList wrote:
> Sure thing Harold
>
> Yes groups have an emergent wholeness, but that does not mean that they
> take on characteristics we understand in individuals.  We should be
> careful not to anthropomorphise (?) them.
>
> Groups definitely have aliveness, needs, strengths, weakenesses,
> robustness, identity... lots of things.  I can understand what these
> characteristics mean for a collective, as a system, and a collection of
> individuals.  To me they all make sense.
>
> I can't understand what "will" means for a group.  Nor do I see will in
> action.  Some similar things I do see... e.g. the individuals in a group
> give consent for a collective decision... but this isn't the same thing
> as will.  This is group behaviour emerging out of a collective of
> individuals, with individual wills, consenting to be identified with a
> certain position by virtue of membership (some more loosely bound than
> others, and all with their own interpretation of the contract).
> This is /not/ will, it is characteristically different.
>
> I am guilty myself of shorthanding, using individual psychological terms
> to describe group behaviour.  Sometimes it is pragmatic, but we
> shouldn't hold on too tight.
>
> Cheers
>
>
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000



Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 398 resident Open 
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-- 
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000



Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 398 resident Open 
Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 143 countries 
worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org