The Game of Becoming

Part 43 of Prisoners of the Real

Although history illustrates that one civilization may be buried beneath the foundations of another, this isn't always the case. Sometimes only the ashes remain. If human society is to be rescued and transformed, moving from the aggressively “rational” to the receptively Dionysian, many of our psychic road maps will have to be redrawn. Dionysian capacities are latent possibilities. But they may or may not become actualities.

One step toward the necessary change is honest reflection concerning our fundamental assumption about ourselves. The heart of the rational thesis is the belief that humans are essentially self-serving beasts. This belief has produced fear of our neighbors, and led to wall-building and extreme defensiveness. It has been safer, or so it has seemed, to turn control over to impersonal structures than to trust human nature. Gradually, each village, city, state and nation has come to look upon its neighbors as threats, "aliens," competitors who will either dominate or be controlled. Domination means defeat. And defeat, at the hands of the dehumanized beast called the enemy, normally means destruction.

Fear has given power to elite competitors who claim that control over others – in other words, victory – is the only route to independence and security. But in a hostile world, independence actually turns out to mean isolation. And the "rational" people who achieve the mastery they seek so diligently through self-discipline, ethical neutrality and mechanical effort find at the end that a beast confronts them still. The arrogant dragon has become themselves.

But this beast, who also whispers that everyone else is a brute, is no more than a nightmare image brought into the "real world" by our own minds. It is imagination run amok within a psyche that fears imagination and other natural impulses.

And yet...it can be changed. Reshaped by human will into a pleasing form.

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Trust and love aren't merely options that we can take when we have finished with hard-nosed business dealings in the "jungle.” They are demands of the self for warmth and aceptance and "irrational" emotions.

To this rational managers reply, "Of course, that may be so, but it is also important to be prepared for the unexpected. We have to watch out for those who have rejected their better angels. That's why we need a strong defense to ward off predators, and an aggressive offense to push 'em back." Some also argue that intuition, while acceptable in those not in positions of power, is no substitute for facts. And after all, they will add, it's no crime to guard your flanks, lock up at night, keep a weather eye out, or even to get ahead of the game. "You see," they claim, "the name of the game is winning."

But is it? Just as we teach our children about the value of competition we also tell them that it isn't winning but how you play the game that really matters. Perhaps our task then is simply to figure out what the game of living really means to us as individuals and as a group of potentially beautiful beasts.

There is a life's work for all of us.

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In the end, the purpose of the game isn't winning. It is playing well. In order to do that in any group experience, as most athletes know, you must work both against and with competitors. The most exhilarating moments aren't those in which you devastate an unwary opponent, but rather occur when the outcome remains in play. Then you feel a dynamic tension of united opposition, a cooperative exchange in which the elation of winning emerges from the excitement generated along the way.

Overcoming the fear that others will dominate us, let us down, steal affection like some finite commodity, and rob us of time, we must begin to build a new faith. Neither time nor love is finite. When our boundaries expand far enough beyond our physical borders, they can become infinite. Dragons need not be fire-breathing beasts. They can breathe life-sustaining warmth if they wish, if they are convinced that is their purpose.

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When Konrad Lorenz wrote On Aggression, many readers confused the word "aggression" with "violence," even though the ethologist emphasized that most animals actually avoid killing. He subsequently realized that in translating his title from German the connotation of the word "aggressivity" had been lost.

Lorenz' insight is that animals and humans do seek some sort of dominance, in the form of a drive that differentiates all of us as individuals. "If you lack personal aggressivity," he wrote, "you are not an individual. You have no pride in yourself and you are everyone else's man." The collective enthusiasm that, unfortunately, produces war is also the motivator for our most creative achievements. "Without the instinct of collective enthusiasm, a (human being) is an emotional cripple; he cannot get involved in anything."

The point is that aggressivity is actually a potential force for spontaneous invention, and doesn't necessarily imply hostility or evil. But when aggressivity lacks purpose, dominance can produce devastation. Purpose tells us where we are heading, and when we have arrived. Its absence leaves us roaming the planet, searching for victories we won't even recognize.

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The key to our purpose is intuition, more reliable as a guide than analysis alone has been. The Dionysian approach – spontaneous, lunar-centered, reflective rather than reactive – rests upon the naturally aggressive nature of any inspired idea that struggles to impose itself upon reality.

Intuitive processes demand intimate involvement with the subject of one's attention. You can't be a detached, disinterested observer and maintain the necessary intellectual sympathy. Centuries ago rational men resigned themselves to watching and reacting to what they observed. They called it the "practical" path. In contrast, the Dionsyian path is a "romantic" alternative, one that recognizes the value inherent in the infinite variability of individual acts.

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The Receptive brings completion to the Creative.
And feels the pulsing rhythms of matter in space
which is nature.
Creativity is the light power of consciousness;
thinking and seeing.
Receptivity is the dark power of what is inside;
unconscious and
Invisible. What I cannot see may feel threatening.
By yielding, the dark mystery is revealed.
My Creative spirit soars to Heaven and leads with
energetic ideas.
As I am Receptive and absorb them in practical and
Earth-bound work.
A doubled Earth signifies fixed lasting conditions
and mysterious
Powers within that have strength to bring Creativity
to birth and nourish it devotedly.

-- Adele Aldridge, I Ching Meditations

The image of harmony within duality is the root of many knowledge systems. The first two hexagrams of the I Ching illustrate the need for both aggressive creativity and intuitive receptivity. The hexagram on which the meditation above is based, the six broken lines known as K'un, The Receptive, says that although The Creative begets things – ideas, plans, machines – they are brought to life through the complimentary action of The Receptive, which helps us to act in conformity with our situation. This bespeaks an attitude of acceptance.

As Richard Wilhelm explained in his commentaries on the Chinese oracle, the "superior" person allows him or herself to be guided, learning from each situation what is demanded and then following this intimation from fate. This calls for both effort and planning. The Receptive is a planner who uses solitude to discover plans that grow from unique experiences.

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Both formal and intuitive knowledge are valuable in building humane institutions. As Bergson wrote, instinct and intelligence, manifested through voluntary and reflex actions, embody two views of a primordial, indivisible activity which can become both at once.

"As a rule," he explained, "they have been developed only in succession...one of them will be clung to first; with this one we shall move more or less forward, generally as far as possible; then, with what we have acquired in the course of this evolution, we shall come back to take up the one we left behind." Of course, cooperation would be preferable, with each one intervening when circumstances require. But the signs don't point in this direction. For several centuries we have relied on the rational, the predictable, the efficient, the material, the absolute. Therefore, it is likely that, as we fully realize the physical and psychic costs of this approach, we will turn – perhaps too much – to the intuitive, the spontaneous, the romantic, the spiritual, the relative.

Still, there is always hope. If we are wise the pendulum will not swing too far this time around from the cool, harsh light in which we now stand toward a fiery darkness. If we are wise the rational and Dionysian will not become antagonists again.

The two are, after all, complimentary opposites. They could fuse into a new synthesis of intuition and analysis and create a community of subjects, a flexible whole in which science and art merge, in which infinity is glimpsed in its temporary structure, and through which we humanize our machines rather than allowing mechanisms to destroy us.

In such a New World, we would replace static order with dynamic tension, re-energizing the dialectic of spirit and matter. In that world, Apollo and Dionysus unite to play the endless game of becoming.

Until then, let us dream.

***

Originally posted on June 3, 2010. To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

Cyber Threats: System Failures & Living in Denial

By Greg Guma

In August 2010, when Foreign Policy posted an article citing credible research and directly warned oil companies worldwide that their offshore oil rigs were highly vulnerable to hacking, few people took notice.

     “Computer commands can derail a train or cause a gas pipeline to burst,” warned former Bush administration counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke a few years later in Cyber War, his book on the topic. The reaction: mainly silence. Until recently, such scenarios seemed more like movie plots than foreign policy concerns, and the threat looked more domestic than foreign. 

     In early 2009, for instance, a 28-year-old contractor in California was charged in federal court with almost disabling an offshore rig. Prosecutors said the contractor, who was allegedly angry about not being hired full time, had hacked into the computerized network of an oil-rig off the coast, specifically the controls that detect leaks. He caused damage, but fortunately not a leak.

     After the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico the Christian Science Monitor reported that at least three US oil companies had been targets in a series of cyber attacks. The culprit was most likely someone or some group in China, and the incidents, largely un-reported for several years, had involved Marathon Oil, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. But the companies apparently didn’t realize how serious their problem was until the FBI alerted them.

     At the time, federal officials said that proprietary information – email passwords, messages, and information linked to executives – had been flowing out to computers overseas. Chinese government involvement could not be confirmed, but some data did end up on a computer in China. One oil company security staffer privately coined the term “China virus.”
     Still, the companies generally preferred not to comment, or even admit that the attacks had happened. But the Monitor persisted, interviewing insiders, officials and cyber attack experts, and ultimately confirmed the details. Their overall conclusion was that cyber-burglars, using spyware that is almost undetectable, pose a serious and potentially dangerous threat to private industry.
     According to Clarke, many nations conduct Internet espionage and sometimes even cyber attacks. China has been aggressive at times, but so have Russia and North Korea. Spying on defense agencies and diplomats has been one major focus; strategically important businesses and even national governments have also been targeted.

     In 2011, when I first published an article on the problem, Google claimed that it had evidence of at least 20 companies that had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, logic bombs were being infiltrated into the US electric power grid. If so, they could operate like time bombs. Now it looks likely that Russia was the actual culprit, or had the same idea.
     On oil rigs, the advent of robot-controlled platforms has made a cyber attack possible with a computer anywhere in the world. Control of a rig could be accomplished by hacking into the "integrated operations" that link onshore computer networks to offshore ones. Until 2018 few experts would speculate publicly that this may already have happened. But there has been confirmation of computer viruses causing personnel injuries and production losses on North Sea platforms for several years.
     One problem is that even though newer rigs have cutting-edge robotics technology, the software that controls their basic functions can still be old school. Many rely on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software, which was created in an era when "open source" was more important than security.
     "It's underappreciated how vulnerable some of these systems are," warned Jeff Vail, a former counterterrorism and intelligence analyst with the US Interior Department who talked with Greg Grant, author of the Foreign Policy article. "It is possible, if you really understood them, to cause catastrophic damage by causing safety systems to fail."
     The name of the article, by the way, was “The New Threat to Oil Supplies – Hackers.” It sounds a lot like “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US.”
     To be fair, the US government’s failure to address private-sector vulnerability to cyber attacks goes back decades. Until recently, however, Congress and various administrations hesitated to challenge the status quo. Given the vulnerability of crucial infrastructure and much of the private sector, surprisingly little was done to prepare for what sounds inevitable.
     The US Cyber Command has attempted to protect federal infrastructure, while various branches of the military have developed their own offensive capabilities. But not even the Department of Homeland Security is officially responsible for protecting the private sector.  Legal and privacy issues get in the way of having the government directly monitor the Internet or business operations for evidence of potential cyber attacks. As you might expect, many businesses are wary of the regulations that might accompany government help.
     Though cyber attacks have clearly happened, many leave no obvious trace. As Clarke explained, corporations tend to believe that the “millions of dollars they have spent on computer security systems means they have successfully protected their company’s secrets.” Unfortunately, they are wrong. Intrusion detection and prevention systems sometimes fail.
     As it stands, no single federal agency is responsible for defending the banking system, power grids and oil rigs from attacks. The prevailing logic is that businesses should handle their own security. Yet their experts readily admit that they wouldn’t know what to do if an attack came from another nation, and assume that defense in such a case would be the government’s job.That’s capitalist thinking for you, private interests but socialized costs.
     In 2011, a US Senate bill sponsored by Democrat Jay Rockefeller and Republican Olympia Snowe sought to change that, but became another victim of DC gridlock. It would have required the president to work with the private sector on a comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy, created a joint public-private advisory board, and led to a Senate-confirmed national security adviser position. Rockefeller said the goal was “unprecedented information sharing between government and the private sector.”
     James Fallows has argued that the US suffers from “a conspiracy of secrecy about the scale of cyber risk.” His point was that many companies simply won’t admit how easily they can be infiltrated. As a result, changes in the law, the regulatory environment, or personal habits that could increase safety are not seriously discussed.  
      But sooner or later, Fallows concluded, “the cyber equivalent of 9/11 will occur.” That prediction is bad enough. But then he adds, “if the real 9/11 is a model, we will understandably, but destructively, overreact.” 
      So we’ve also got that to look forward to.

Humanity at the Turning Point

Part 33 of Prisoners of the Real

For a century, humanity has been in the early stages of a great transformation, perhaps the greatest it has ever faced. As revealed in the dissolution of the "superpower" known as the Soviet Union, it is not merely a matter of one economic and social system prevailing over another. All systems are under severe stress. Alliances crumble, ethnic and religious upheavals shake the world, class and racial conflict flares across the US, the planet itself shudders under the threat of environmental Armageddon.

Martin Buber recognized the stakes when he wrote, "What is in question, therefore, is nothing less than man’s whole existence in the world."

During the various stages of human evolution, the central dynamic has consistently been the relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world. But over the last five hundred years the tempo of our crusade to assert power over nature has increased dramatically, and with devastating effect. As crises pile upon one another, we have slowly begun to see just how fragile our "triumph" has been. In quickly repressed moments of intuition we sense that the high road of progress is actually a high-speed ride along the narrow ledge of an abyss. What we desperately need is conscious, responsible knowledge, and flowing from it, truly heroic deeds.

But taking account of the journey ahead will not be enough. In order to act effectively we will need to acknowledge where the journey began. Human beings first emerged from nature by banding together –to protect themselves, hunt, gather food and work. Yet, from the very start, we faced each other as independent entities. A "social" world was created by beings both mutually dependent and fiercely independent. No group of animals had ever constructed such a society before.

Apes use tools, but don't "produce" them for one another. Insect societies have division of labor, but it governs them completely; they don't improvise, strike out independently, or develop one-to-one relationships. It is precisely this unique quality of humanity – the complex and dynamic tension between autonomy and unity – that has brought us to our turning point.

Communities form, reform and evolve on the basis of the twin principles of growing personal independence and collaboration. In every group, in one form or another, division of labor emerges, each person utilizing special capacities in a renewing, shifting association. This is the first step in the evolution of any human organization. The second is the development of relations between groups – in other words, some agreement to combine effort in the pursuit of an external objective. In doing both, we acknowledge differences in nature and function. No matter what the particular shape or customs of a human society, a balance between functional autonomy and mutual aid must be struck both within groups and in relations between them.

Power centers come and go – cities, states and bureaucracies that boldly guarantee order and security. Yet at the root, what counts is the organic and enduring human community in which we live and work, where we compete with and support one another. And within each community and group, asserting independence while simultaneously fulfilling responsibilities to fellow human beings, is the individual – autonomous and yet profoundly social.

How tragic, then, that these fundamental aspects of human development have been so distorted by centralistic and absolutist institutions. The problem isn't merely that the State has weakened and in many respects destroyed free associations – although it has also done that. The true tragedy is that the centralist impulse has become embedded in all forms of social interaction. It has changed the inherent structure of groups, the family, institutions, and societies, as well as the inner life of humanity. Modern industrial development has meanwhile accelerated society's subsumption within the State.

Struggles between States have become struggles between whole societies. And societies, perceiving threats both from outside and within their very nature, have often submitted further to centralized power as a result. The pattern has replayed itself in varied political systems, from the most brutally totalitarian to the proudest democratic.

As the importance of power, the interests of the State and the marketing of mass culture have saturated societies, the inner development of the individual has become confused and disfigured. The family, work group and community no longer provide a source of reassurance. Individuals cling increasingly to the great collectivities, abdicating individual freedom and responsibility. In the process, a key component in social life – mutual support between human beings – has been severely undermined. In many places and situations, autonomous relationships have become meaningless. As Buber put it, "The personal human being ceases to be the living member of a social body and becomes a cog in the 'collective' machine."

Just at the moment when, in some societies at least, there is finally time to improve community life, it has been hollowed into an empty shell.

Next: Narcissism & Grand Delusions

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

DONS OF TIME: Make the Jump, Buy the Book

"A fast-paced sci-fi thriller featuring 

time travel to Victorian England."

Sept. 27, 2013

Greg Guma’s latest novel stars Tonio Wolfe, who discovers that his company, TELPORT, can use “Remote Viewing” to open wormholes to the past. After his co-workers Danny and Angel let him use the technology to search for Jack the Ripper, Tonio travels to Victorian England and tracks the killer while falling in love with radical leader Annie Besant. Meanwhile, Tonio tries to keep the knowledge of Remote Viewing from his father, ruthless Serbian mob boss Shelley, who owns and wants to exploit TELPORT for commercial use. 

The novel tracks the growth of Tonio’s political consciousness, from apathetic Mafia scion to committed opponent of institutional injustice, thanks to the influence of Annie and Tonio’s college friend Harry, a member of Occupy Wall Street. The scenes in Victorian England have an impressive amount of historical detail and include conversations among historical figures such as the playwright George Bernard Shaw and populist leader Ignatius Donnelly. Many of the novel’s subplots knit together, with Tonio’s quest to discover the true identity of Jack the Ripper mirroring his relationship with his father and his discovery of repressed memories from childhood. 

While the novel raises questions about government surveillance, it disappointingly doesn’t follow up on the implications, with the government acting as a sort of deus ex machina to help Tonio. Still, fans of historical fiction and sci-fi should enjoy this novel. It’s not deep, but it’s well-researched and entertaining, and even readers familiar with the Victorian era will learn about some interesting characters along the way.

Well-constructed, action-flooded sci-fi set in a realistic historical world.

NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.COM

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From the mouths of Dons

Peter Lynch, DoD/DARCAP –  "Everything we know is open to revision."

Annie Besant – "What we need is a movement of love and self-sacrifice, inspiring us to give rather than take."

Athena Metsova Wolfe – "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

Helena Blavatrsky – "What writes history is the power of ideas. And every moment offers the potential to write something new."

Ignatius Donnelly – "There is a battle underway in the world, between intelligence and concentrated ignorance."

Danny Webster, TELPORT inventor, on obeying Time Commandments – "Things tend to get worse when you screw around with the past."

George Bernard Shaw to Tonio Wolfe – “Humanity has a dark side, a shadow self, an impulse toward destruction and evil."

Gianni Wolfe – ”God may not play dice with the universe, but if he won't roll somebody better step up.”

Truthsquad Collective – "We've done the digging; the next step is up to you. Nothing is inevitable."

Tonio Wolfe – “I don’t know all the details. I’m more like the canary in the coalmine or a chimp in some capsule shot into space.”

Find out their secrets and more....

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REMOTE VIEWING IS HERE...

"Wherever you look there you are"

The Process: Time, Participation, Enabling

Part 42 of Prisoners of the Real

Time: The Dionysian guide lives in the immediate, nonlinear and simultaneous present, where work is performed at the fitting or suitable time. In short, work is timely, and the clock is de-emphasized. Decisions about what is fitting, along with the duration of work, become matters of individual responsibility or collective dialogue.

You might say that time turns from a line into a point, manifested in the present-centeredness of experiences and the desire to remain receptive to patterns of activity. The Dionysian leader knows that any action, at any point, can bring another cluster of acts into existence. Conscious of this quantum probability, she sees individual events as integral parts of a patterned whole. At each moment all things are possible. As I type these words, it becomes a different computer screen. The relationship between the blank page and the page with words is not temporal. The two are separate entities within a patterned whole.

At every moment each of us can create a totally different world. Every action alters the pattern of the whole.

Participation: These comments stress the Dionysian leader's use of a wide variety of resources to reach collectively established goals. As a result, fluidity of personnel becomes crucial, both in terms of re-arranging relationships and allowing free movement into and out of the group.

We have reached a moment in world history in which the reality of impermanence often provokes a fanatic quest for things that don't change. Many institutions rigidify in the mistaken belief that internal stability can modulate fluctuations in the "outside world." Dionysians respond, on the other hand, by openly acknowledging the temporary nature of all structures and systems. In practice, this means matching knowledge and skills with specific purposes and objectives. Once these have been achieved or change radically, however, the system and its sub-groups also shift.

The matrix approach to organization is a way to enhance participation through frequent changes in personnel relations and the shared pool of information. In this approach participation depends on the congruence of individual and collective purposes, the specific knowledge and skills people bring to the group, each member's contact with outside groups and her or his integration into a sub-group. In short, people select one another as they find their purposes for coming together. They aren't asked to contribute specific amounts of time but rather to commit themselves to certain goals. Thus, one person may be part of more than one group.

Such a situation can be valuable to both groups, since interactions will tend to increase and relationships between purposes may be more fully understood. However, it must be said that this kind of "circuit-making" participation calls for small groups. In fact, most Dionysians believe that human beings function best in small societies where problems remain of a manageable size. That is not to say that these concepts are inapplicable to the enormous urban societies of our time. But the Dionysian thrust is clearly away from creation or maintenance of empires of any kind, based on the evidence of history that they inevitably promote violence and war.

Opposition to violence doesn't imply complete rejection of conflict. On the contrary, Dionysian guides may even lead their groups toward conflict, confident that group values can be clarified and realized through the dynamic tension of opposition. In the search for harmony, peace is not confused with liberation. Peace can be imposed through repression – in many organizations implemented through forms of "group-think" – rather than being promoted through expression. Liberation, on the other hand, is possible only when dissent and disagreement aren't just tolerated but also encouraged. Put another way, liberated participation calls for the unity of opposites.

Enabling: The Dionysian leader replaces control with guidance. She acts as an enabler who assists organizational peers to understand the whole, break free of boundaries, and create new realities for the group. The guide introduces variety and change, offering comfort and occasionally some needed direction to individual or group activity. Rather than reigning supreme as some post-industrial headman, the leader is the group's shaman and critic. Convinced that end-states are merely the product of images brought into the world of matter through group will the Dionysian leader concentrates more on the creation of conceptual frames of references and the designing of means than on refining images as actualities. She or he may participate in that work as a part of one or a number of sub-groups. Yet it is the image and not the leader that directs the group.

The nature of Dionysian collectives supports changes of role, and the managerial role is not exempt. At one point or another almost every group member serves as a manager. This change, like most others, will depend on history, current perceptions, and the nature of the specific tasks that lay ahead. The shifting of managerial roles will decrease the destructive conflicts that result from one person's constant assertion of authority and dominance. When a Dionysian leader has the opportunity to observe someone else in that role, she or he is able to compare the new manager's actions with her/his self-image. That experience will promote further growth and change.

The term "guide" is often used to describe spiritual leaders. "Guiding is an ancient and honorable role," Robert Masters and Jean Houston once noted in a study of consciousness-raising process, "and the guide re-emerges now, at a critical point in human history, to perform services never more urgently or more profoundly needed." The research of Masters and Houston outlined a variety of guidance methods, many of which can be applied by Dionysian leaders. As guides, for example, Dionysians ought to observe others closely and clearly communicate what they intend to say. They should remain alert to non-verbal communication, be able to receive and utilize gestures, facial expressions, and other non-verbal cues. The researchers have also warned, however, that guides can easily turn from enabling to "ego-tripping," and therefore suggest that other members of a group not repress their perceptions if or when this occurs. The changing of guides from time to time will also reduce this danger.

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The Dionysian leader is an idealist system-changer who uses an ability to move inside of what she sees in order to inspire others and herself. Posing challenges for choice, she widens the boundaries of experience, accepts the timeliness of activities, harmonizes the system with the environment by changing both, observes perceptions of others and promotes satisfaction toward the end of invention.

As an organizational guide, she is an antithesis to the dominance of routine-operational modes of management. The potential to move from rational to Dionysian management exists within all of us. As structural decay in rational collectives, from the nuclear family to the nation-state, leads to annihilation and regeneration, the Dionysian spirit is revived.

"When rationality is not possible," wrote William Thompson, "because the institution of reason...overloads the mind with data without meaning, the institution perishes in its own excremental productivity. Once the individual is without an institution, he (sic) can ascend to suprarational levels of imagination, intuition and creativity or descend to the levels of subrational panic." The promise of Dionysus is our freedom to choose the hopeful option.

Next: The Game of Becoming

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

The Process: Info & Communication

Part 41 of Prisoners of the Real

Information: The two phases of Dionysian process rest on the continual revealing of meaning through the sharing of qualitative information. Two types of information are sought: some relates to philosophical issues, some to practical affairs. The first is ends-oriented, the second oriented toward means, as the ideal choice becomes real.

The use of dialogue and testimony, general searches prior to directed inquiries, and associational techniques for brainstorming aim at expanding the group's tolerance for ambiguity. The inspired idea, which may come from the guide or any member of the group, initiates an interactive process during which each person follows a different path beyond the borders of current experience.

The idea, a synthesis of past observations and reflective "seeing," is a reference point to which everyone can relate as they develop their own meanings and strategies. Depending on a person's history and belief system, individual purpose-finding may move one either toward increased order or chaos, unity or individuation. The guide poses questions that enhance variations in viewpoint. Common information bases will be discovered along the way, leading to sub-group searches during the system-building phase.

In the diagram on the left, the vertical axis from chaos to order may also symbolize the point at which purpose is defined and accepted by the group. Boundaries are most permeable at this point, and the group is most aware of its internal similarities and differences, as well as its environment. As purpose-finding gives way to system-building, the scope of information admitted gradually narrows – first through individual searches, next through directed searches, and then through the designing and testing of programs. When a group of programs is synthesized and approved, the group has refocused the inspired idea and made it an operational reality.

At this point, two things occur. First, the idea and the new reality – the purpose and the program – are compared. Second, participants start to move toward firmer roles based on their experiences up to this point. Roles fall between the poles of generalization and specialization. Some people seek to vary their tasks, perhaps moving between sub-groups or acting as liaisons between them, or between the group and its environment. Others prefer to focus on one or a limited number of tasks, giving undivided attention to the skillful application of technique. As work proceeds, the "generalizers" and "specializers" move toward realization of the inspired idea, oriented either to the process or the product. The cycle is complete when some new idea emerges from the mingling of these orientations.

The information generated during purpose-finding is matched with both emerging processes and products. Information gathered during system-building is a common resources for both specializing and generalizing behaviors. The guide acts as a gateway, widening and narrowing the channels of information as the work continues.

Communication Styles: Interactions in a Dionysian system are most effective when they stress uniqueness, attraction, and intentionality. Images and languages developed for the specific moment in group life tend to increase inventiveness. At that point all communication is viewed as ultimately subjective. Nevertheless, it must help to highlight the peculiar nature of the current system – in other word, its uniqueness – as well as providing inducements that attract people to participate in various activities.

Interactions with a unique orientation include descriptive dialogue that indicates tone, feelings concerning the setting, or the physical appearance of the subject, and eyewitness accounts of particular events. The use of superlatives and adjectives is encouraged, but can occasionally be superfluous. On the other hand, comments may also be delivered in a staccato fashion, abrupt and using few words. In written form, this may involve phrases punctuated with periods and dashes.

Attraction can be enhanced in several ways. Information might be presented in a strictly chronological order that provides details but postpones conclusion. An emphasis on situation tends to incite cumulative interest. Forms of parody might also be tried, or a mixture of sayings, current expressions, poems or songs. With either approach, figurative devices are valuable – metaphors, similes and figures of speech. There is a danger that the discussion can become trite; the line between a sharp epigram and a cliché is, after all, somewhat hazy. This type of interaction can also be somewhat habituating.

A number of tools are available to make communication an accurate reflection of personal intentions. The epigram – a concise expression emphasizing tone or moral – has already been mentioned. First and second person address, particularly in written communication, indicates a personal commitment or identification with what has been written. Guides may also use devices to sustain interest, discussing subjects on a topical basis with indefinite details, putting personal conclusions aside until the end. Questions present problems of collective interest or matters likely to provoke debate. Although they can lead to sometimes unnecessary delays, they are perhaps the most valuable tools used by Dionysian leaders to open communication lines for ideational dialogue.

In addition to these approaches, the guide and others ought to note non-verbal responses and use them as background data – or even discussion topics. The point is to increase the socio-emotive responsiveness of group members as a means of making tasks both more fulfilling and more creative.

Next: Time, Participation & Enabling

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

Dionysian Process: Planning & Decisions

Part 40 of Prisoners of the Real

The promise of Dionysus lies in the recognition that the origins of mechanization are ultimately mystical. To understand this, we must return to humanity's desire to escape the limitations of matter, which has led to dependence on powerful equipment. For centuries matter has seemed a necessary tool for our escape from the constraints of the material world. But the movement is in two directions. As Henri Bergson once wrote, "Machinery will find its true vocation again, it will render services in proportion to its power, only if mankind, which it has bowed still lower to the earth, can succeed, through it, in standing erect and looking heavenward."

In truth, the tools that have extended our power far out of proportion with natural human size and strength have also accentuated the gap between humanity's distended body and its inner nature. But a return to intuitive process -- with technological assistance rather than dominance -- can reharmonize the relation between matter and spirit.

Planning: In Dionysian systems, planning is a process for the development of conceptual frameworks and group attitudes that increase commitments to a common value-image of the future. It facilitates synergistic, "ideal" choices by promoting both cohesion and spontaneity. Purpose-finding and system-building are essentially revitalized forms of goal and objective setting in an intentional rather than an operational mode.

A variety of technical devices can be used in such a process, among them forecasting and goal setting exercises, and cross-impact matrices. For example, the Delphi forecasting approach is based on the idea that end-states can be prioritized in a series of attempts that eventually produce a general consensus. One method begins with the generation of goal statements by each member of a group. Once all the alternatives have been listed, some goals are subsumed under others and tentative priorities are established.

First, each person ranks all the goals. Then the group's ranks are synthesized and adjusted to create a group rank-order. The process is repeated, and testimony is supplied for each top ranked choice. Use of Delphi has revealed that opinions tend to converge after several rounds. Goals are often reviewed on the basis of criteria such as importance, minimum magnitude for significance, inhibiting and enhancing factors, and projected times -- that is, earliest, optimal and latest -- for reaching the goal.

Although Delphi is a simple and direct way to generate and set goals, its linear method doesn't fully meet dionysian standards for synthesis. Very often goals that are ranked lower are considered expendable or beyond the group's boundaries. As a result, Delphi may sometimes lead to unnecessary limitation of group purpose at a point when boundaries ought to be expanding rather than contracting.

Through cross-impacting, which has greater potential for Dionysian planning, various purposes can be related to one another in order to assess the extent of positive and negative effects. A matrix is an associative tool, and can be used for both strategy development and exploration of philosophical questions. The former application matches the skills and competencies of participants with various purposes or short-term objectives to reveal appropriate sub-groups.

The planning process may begin with diffused activity -- association without much specialization -- but through the use of matrices, it will lead to a natural division of tasks. Within the sub-groups that are formed, people can then decide how tasks are to be allocated. When attention is paid early in the process to the development of collective consciousness, participants will be more willing to sacrifice self-interests as association leads to engagement with the subject of organization action.

The guide can also use elements of such techniques to create new tools for a specific situation. For example, a group meeting to plan for some new activity or to redefine purposes could be enhanced by gathering as many epigrammatic suggestions as possible. With these listed in an unnumbered order, the initial task for the group becomes the prioritizing or synthesizing of these items. Although the discussion may begin with a simple numbering of the statements, it will quickly lead to a focus on commonalities. The result will be a new agenda that provides a sequence of discussion natural to the full group.

Through these and other methods, the Dionysian leader aims to increase attentiveness to end-states that are consistent with individual perceptions and set permeable boundaries on the basis of common experience.

Decision-making: Making choices involves a clear recognition of assumptions and the altering of boundaries. Dionysian guides, as promoters of new ideas, often challenge organizational norms in order to free others to make the best choices. If the group is going to move from its initial image to an acceptance and understanding of its new reality, however, an explicit statement of purposes is also required.

Therefore, the rules of Dionysian choice are that leaders:

1. initiate new ideas and patterns through purpose-finding to smooth the change process, rather than allowing the demands of change to overtake the group, and

2. promote frequent procedural alterations to avoid the habituating effects of routine.

The assumption here is that organizational survival depends on the mutual adjustment of systems and the environment. As a result, some decisions may be attempts to intervene in the "outside world" rather than merely reacting to it. Above all, Dionysian leaders are intentional.

Next: Information & Communication

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

Dionysian Process: An Overview

Part 39 of Prisoners of the Real

Dionysian leadership is rooted in a purpose- rather than problem-oriented process, a mutable approach through which people promote ideas. The order of the steps depends on the group context at the point when the process begins – in other words, the current character of the place – and on the varying perceptions and beliefs of the group's current members. In short, it is a model of spontaneous and responsive sequence. The leader is a guide who creates a road map as the group determines what the job should be.

The following steps are part of two basic phases of organizational development: purpose-finding and system-building. Though they are particularly effective in newer groups, or those involved in a serious process of evaluation, they can also be used to help maintain normal systemic harmony.

Purpose-finding

* The Dionysian leader often begins with an inspired idea, some intuitive intellectual sympathy with the state of the group or environment. This mental leap points to a new purpose, a break in the continuity of thought that follows the beaten path. The development of heliocentric theory by Copernicus sprang from such an inspired notion, as did Newton's law of gravity, Darwin's concepts concerning species evolution, and Einstein's theory of relativity. Each of these scientists was at first unable to explain his ideas logically on the basis of recognized premises.

Einstein described his sensation at the time of his great leap: "It seemed to me that the earth had moved from under my feet and nowhere in sight was there any firm ground on which to build." In the process of defining group purpose, therefore, the starting point may simply be a hunch, a conceptual kernel that changes as it encounters other ideas.

* Purpose grows from collective and individual experiences of the past. It is a composite of present and prior commitments to images of the future. The Dionysian leader, therefore, looks at the history of his group's purpose, and shares the findings with others.

* Each person develops an "overall point of view" toward this vision of purpose and expresses. The most effective way is in the form of an epigram. After reflecting on these initial statements, group members note the personal associations they suggest, and share the viewpoints that emerge.

* Members discuss their statements, reflections and the associated images that have contributed to them. Everyone is free to testify concerning her or his past as it relates to the emerging purpose and current perceptions.

* Set-breaking activities such as role-playing and scenarios help to stretch the boundaries of past experience, establish new circuits and look at the varying individual perceptions that make up the collective purpose.

* New circuits and individual perceptions are publicly shared. The group looks at relationships that can be carried into action.

* Conflicting purposes are examined and discussed until everyone has testified to the extent that they wish. The conflicts may end either in the creation of a synthesis of the competing ideas, or in the willing sacrifice of an idea. The Dionysian guide maintains a balance of tensions but avoids the imposition of a synthesis on the group.

* Individuals select purposes to which they can commit themselves from among those remaining in the group's frame of reference. Purposes not selected are set aside. The group leader defines individual relationships – sub-groups – based on the choices that are made.

* The group affirms its current purpose, an intended image of the future it wishes to reach within a specific period of time, and an articulated statement – oral or written – which the guide presents for review. Once they have accepted it, this serves as their common goal.

System-building

* This phase turns "oughts" into actualities. Each member of the group seeks a broad range of information related to the purpose and means of achieving it. These are independent searches, and general in scope. Some searches may overlap, providing a common base for discussion and pointing the way to more directed searching. The goal is to generate a wide variety of ideas – although not every idea possible. Commonalities represent the germ of collective consciousness.

* Various purposes are cross-fertilized through dialogue, creating new strategies. Individuals bring both their data and the ideas that have grown from review to the group.

*  Temporary sub-groups are formed. They are based on common commitments and the attraction of participants to specific ideas and strategies. The guide solidifies these temporary linkages, which may differ from the groups that emerged during purpose-finding.

* The sub-groups develop specific programs. These are matched with search data and past experiences of the group and individuals. Their unique aspects are noted.

* The programs are used as scripts to imagine potential outcomes, changed once they are tested through actual or simulated experience.

* Sub-groups present these revised program strategies to the larger collective for approval. The plans are considered for their congruence to the group's articulated purpose. The general rule is that procedures remain subservient to purposes. But the experiences of the group may also lead them to alter the stated purpose.

* Individuals often find that their commitments to purposes change as they move closer to actualizing plans, or that estimates concerning capacities have been inaccurate. These perceptions of shifting form are brought to the group as soon as possible after they arise. The guide may either convene the whole organization, or one of its current sub-groups, or several members of more than one sub-group, to seek changes in task or purpose.

Throughout this process, the role of the Dionysian leader is realization of the collective ideal. In addition, she or he assists others in selecting the types of autonomous activity that are appropriate for individuals or sub-groups.

Dionysian systems are process-oriented and purposive. The leader and the groups deal which many components at once, attempting simultaneous action to maintain and improve the organization. If it seems necessary, maintenance activities may be suspended for short periods to reassess purpose or respond to new inspirations. This is especially helpful when the boundaries of rationality become a hindrance. The guide may also choose to initiate this process to jolt others out of their routines. In the end, however, all members can act as guides, organizational enablers who believe that leaders don't make change – everyone does.

Next: Planning & Decisions

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey

Evolutionary Cycles

Part 26 of Prisoners of the Real

Can spiritual regeneration begin as destructive rationality reaches its apex? If so, we’ve come to the end of a cycle that is consistent with the observations of science. 

In biological, psychological and social systems, the interactions between elements gradually decrease. The primary state of unity — call it an intuitive or subconscious collective phase — splits into independent causal chains. This "progressive segregation" is accompanied by an increase in complexity, and is followed closely by the mechanization of various functions.

But progressive mechanization results in a loss of the ability to regulate the system as a whole. Different processes continue irrespective on each other, leading to impoverishment and eventual deterioration of performance. At the same time centralization commences. The system becomes more indivisible, and is subordinated under dominant parts. In social systems, at first these are individuals — charismatic leaders, monarchs, presidents and so forth. Later they are structures.

As the next stage — democratization — begins, the arrangement of structures determines process so that certain results are achieved. Eventually, direction through the structure of mechanisms leads to degeneration – known as entropy, or to regeneration – the birth of a new intuitive collective.

1. In visual terms, the cycle begins with a circle, the symbol for a system, or in religious terms, "being without beginning or end." Within the system are a number of equipotential parts; for example, the human being in a state of nature prior to association through a social contract. In such a state of undifferentiated wholeness, the collective acts as one. Imagine a group of strangers who find themselves in an enclosed space. Before speaking, they are a group of equals, like newborns unaware of the separation between themselves.

2. But awareness of self within a situation results in segregation, differentiation of parts, and clustering into subordinate circles. In embryonic development, the organism passes from equipotentiality to a sum of regions that grow independently. In social systems, this is the tribal stage, the point at which permeable boundaries are established. Labor is divided, associations are formed, and specialization of functions emerges. It's still possible to survive outside of association, however, existing on the fringes or moving between groups.

3. Increased complexity eventually leads to both mechanization and subordination under dominant parts. The community becomes a city, then a State, and leaders emerge. For social systems this is a time of development, exploration and individuation. Boundaries harden and existence outside now segregated units becomes more difficult. Each group becomes unified and indivisible. At the global level, this is the era of nation-states, technological development, and rivalry between increasingly rigid systems. Those who choose to live outside the society of their birth are seen as eccentrics, hermits, or outsiders. Within each society, despite technological innovations providing the illusion of omniscience, individuals can see less and less of the whole.


4. The last stage begins with democratization, the embrace of dictators and an increased reliance on structures that have been put in place during the earlier stages. The need for certain products and outcomes is assumed, and the demands of structures require a decrease in equifinality as the basis for regulation. In other words, rules can rarely be broken, except by elites, since maintenance of the system requires general discipline and obedience. 

Democratization also diffuses dominant leadership values to the masses, who surrender the final remnants of sovereignty in return for individual and collective security. Structure becomes independent of human control, and is unknown as a whole.

As this period of progressive autonomy reaches its climax, mechanization leads to a further loss of ability to effectively regulate. In response, the structure expands its scope to include virtually all sub-units. It has become almost impossible to survive outside this fully rigidified system. Total systemic interdependence has turned participation into a requirement. This stage also emphasizes pragmatism and triage. Unnecessary parts — those that don't adequately contribute to the whole — are discarded. The "spaceship" becomes a lifeboat in which the main requirement is functionality within structural limits, usually defined in purely material terms.

At this stage in the evolution of human society, with inequality, social impoverishment, ecological damage, and violence reaching epic proportions, the structures built to hold back chaos have become suffocating and intolerable for the many. The Great Whale, the bureaucratic way of life, has swallowed almost everyone, and is in the process of making a hell of Earth.

On the other hand, it also is beginning to create space for the emergence of a form of intuitive consciousness, a return to whole behaviors. In other words, there is time for “rational” beings to become what they are not, moving from routines and specialist strategies to ideals and generalist plans. Arrogant dragons can turn into something other than a herd of rhinoceros if the creative in us gives way to the receptive.

Humanity confronts an existential choice: extinction or rebirth. Either way, we will ultimately return to the beginning. Considering that, arrogant dragons would be wise to repent.

Next: Reframing Reality

To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey