I had a great day in Brockville yesterday. I met some wonderful community people who genuinely want to make life in their region happier for the younger of us. I met teachers that still have passion and compassion for their students. I met young people who are asking the great questions and looking at their world with healthy hope and desire.
It was my pleasure to be there.
Please allow me a little ramble of thoughts stimulated by our time together.
The thing that seduces me into teaching is the flash of joy that young people exhibit from time to time when they are breaking through into new thoughts. As people, they are still in “discovery mode.” Although they have come a long way since infancy, there remain sophistications that adult living and adult responsibilities will eventually impose upon them but as yet they are free from. Until then there is an expectation that life will bring them all the things they dream. There is an acknowledgment that they don’t yet know it all - and that they want to.
They absorb information. It passes through a less refined machine that is not designed to keep them safe (as it becomes when we age) but designed to help them grow. Make no mistake they don’t just accept everything people say to them. There is nothing gullible about them. They simply have a great combination of openness and skepticism. They still use emotion in combination with intellect. Because they come to the circumstance with the expectation that they will learn, they consider before they assimilate or discard.
Hence I have always found it easy to teach the concepts of power to younger audiences. I love teaching the course at Fleming.
Adults on the other hand have well established views on power and its place in their lives. When I speak to adults I find I have to persuade rather then reveal.
It has been my experience both as a teacher of adults, and also as a learner now back in school, that we tend to receive information in a closed way. We have constructed an impenetrable wall that has doors. We will not let anything new in unless it completely fits the way they want to see the world. If so we will open the door and let it in.
There is no longer a sense of discovery or joy in our learning.
It is more like fear.
Maybe it’s just that feeling of power we know so well. We understand that new information impacts the choices we make and we have become very anxious about change and very reliant on habits. Habits in our daily lives because it is the only way to survive the day and complete everything that must be done. Habits in our relationships because they are comfortable even when they are unhappy. Habits in our thinking because to change our views hurts our self image.
When adults open themselves up to new ideas they think they have to decide right then and there if what they are being presented with is “true or false.”
If it is false it must be rejected out of hand for risk that it will pollute their world view. The filter we use to determine such veracity is one of emotion - whether or not it makes us uncomfortable. If it causes us to question too many things we hold as “true” it is simply too much work. If we have to reevaluate too many of our views, we will cling to what we already have and go about making the same mistakes and wondering why nothing changes.
On the other hand when we see something that looks like truth, we think we have to immediately find some way to embody it. We are compelled to make it real in our lives. For although we resist, we still yearn for truth. We want to live truth.
This all or nothing approach often leaves us out in the cold when it comes to understanding power. We cling to the myths of power because they make us comfortable.
The thought that our relationships are full of power is upsetting.
The thought that we use power everyday as a parent, friend, employee, or spouse challenges our moral judgment of ourselves.
The idea that power is a methodology based on the exploitation of another person’s need, and available to all people, flies in the face of our life-long rationalization that power is OK. In fact, maybe it’s even a worthwhile pursuit.
Teachers like me, are particularly upset when you remind us that our lives are all about authoritative power imposed on children and parents by our laws. It is the “necessary” socialization of an individual. It is the training required to fit in. Otherwise you don’t belong.
Sometimes we forget that it is all about love.
When we come to the education power dynamic with a predominant intention based in love…well…then it doesn’t feel like power does it?
Maybe it isn’t…
Is power a good or bad thing? Well a better question is, can we live without power?
A better question yet is what is the opposite of power?
Compassion – when a teacher comes to the table with compassion they are not using their ability to control and exploit the needs of a young person to attain some end. They are simply there to help address those needs without any desire to affect own personal needs.
We didn’t get to talk about this yesterday. Power always has two sides - two dynamics. One with the Subjects needs in play – and since we don’t use power unless we need something – a dynamic with the Actors needs in play. It’s is how kids seem to be able to turn the tables in places like grocery store isles.
Nonetheless I think power has to have two sides to be power. When you drop your side of the bipolar dynamic – it is no longer power. It is compassion.
I saw a lot of compassion yesterday. It made me feel wonderful about the city of Brockville.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Art of Getting Homework Done
I was reading the Art of War today.
It is so simple and yet with every group of people I speak to, they seem to miss it.
The one who would overcome the other does not force their way but uses the weaknesses of the other to succeed. It allows reality. It uses reality. It does not fight it.
My son has been having some difficulty at school.
He finds so much of what he has to do in class to be virtually pointless. He says, “It’s stupid. I don’t need to do it. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
I tell him he is fighting what is.
He thinks that by refusing to do it and then being very difficult about it – arguing, crying, ignoring, avoiding - he wins. His teacher gives up. His mother gives up. His father gives up and then he doesn’t have to do it.
He sees the battle as victorious but he loses sight of the war.
Last night I accepted Sun Tzu’s, Lao Tzu’s and Chang Tzu’s words.
I said, “Ok. Don’t do it. I guess you get to do grade three twice. They won’t let you out of grade three if you can’t do these things. I am finished fighting with you. I just want us both to be happy.”
I walked away and he began to work.
Water flows downhill and power is about needs.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War – Chapter VITranslated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes BY LIONEL GILES, M.A. Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum First Published in 1910
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in itsnatural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and tostrike at what is weak. [Like water, taking the line of least resistance.] 31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of theground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory inrelation to the foe whom he is facing.32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, soin warfare there are no constant conditions.33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to hisopponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) arenot always equally predominant; [That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominatealternately."]the four seasons make way for each other in turn. [Literally, "have no invariable seat."]There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waningand waxing.
It is so simple and yet with every group of people I speak to, they seem to miss it.
The one who would overcome the other does not force their way but uses the weaknesses of the other to succeed. It allows reality. It uses reality. It does not fight it.
My son has been having some difficulty at school.
He finds so much of what he has to do in class to be virtually pointless. He says, “It’s stupid. I don’t need to do it. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
I tell him he is fighting what is.
He thinks that by refusing to do it and then being very difficult about it – arguing, crying, ignoring, avoiding - he wins. His teacher gives up. His mother gives up. His father gives up and then he doesn’t have to do it.
He sees the battle as victorious but he loses sight of the war.
Last night I accepted Sun Tzu’s, Lao Tzu’s and Chang Tzu’s words.
I said, “Ok. Don’t do it. I guess you get to do grade three twice. They won’t let you out of grade three if you can’t do these things. I am finished fighting with you. I just want us both to be happy.”
I walked away and he began to work.
Water flows downhill and power is about needs.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War – Chapter VITranslated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes BY LIONEL GILES, M.A. Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum First Published in 1910
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in itsnatural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and tostrike at what is weak. [Like water, taking the line of least resistance.] 31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of theground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory inrelation to the foe whom he is facing.32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, soin warfare there are no constant conditions.33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to hisopponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) arenot always equally predominant; [That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominatealternately."]the four seasons make way for each other in turn. [Literally, "have no invariable seat."]There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waningand waxing.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Things the Tao taught me....
Everyday people seek power.
I don’t know why.
They want the ability to control others. They want the ability to ensure they get what they want. They like the feeling of dominating others - even if they are strangers.
They see it as control. They pursue the mastery of the world around them.
If they ever become good at power they learn that the best way to have it is to control their own self enough to be able to access the needs of others. It is in controlling their response to others needs and desires that they create power.
Eventually, power fails. It always has a limit. Power seekers run head-long into the limit and then, lying the ruin of their plans, they wonder why.
Why?
Because control is an illusion.
The only thing they really controlled was how they responded to the situation before them.
Mastery of the world comes not from an ever growing realm of control. It comes from the absolute ability to control the self.
Not only is that the place of true power, it is also the beginning of true freedom.
Later…
I don’t know why.
They want the ability to control others. They want the ability to ensure they get what they want. They like the feeling of dominating others - even if they are strangers.
They see it as control. They pursue the mastery of the world around them.
If they ever become good at power they learn that the best way to have it is to control their own self enough to be able to access the needs of others. It is in controlling their response to others needs and desires that they create power.
Eventually, power fails. It always has a limit. Power seekers run head-long into the limit and then, lying the ruin of their plans, they wonder why.
Why?
Because control is an illusion.
The only thing they really controlled was how they responded to the situation before them.
Mastery of the world comes not from an ever growing realm of control. It comes from the absolute ability to control the self.
Not only is that the place of true power, it is also the beginning of true freedom.
Later…
Monday, February 19, 2007
Fear
Like anger and excitement, I have suggested that fear is an emotional feeling of power. If you are feeling afraid then someone is using power over you.
Simply you have a need and someone has the ability to either help you with that need or inhibit your ability to satisfy that need. The need is the thing that has the fear in it. It is the thing that holds the power. It is not the ability that holds the power.
Historically and somewhat naturally we think that the power is in the ability to affect the need. But if the need is small enough then there is little power to trigger.
Identifying power with a thing, or ability to use a thing, is one of those misdirecting myths about power.
I get a regular newsletter from Denny Hatch - a direct marketing/PR writer and speaker. He gives examples of good or bad marketing and offers explanation and analysis.
Like so many newsletters and emails we get they are about promoting the interests of the sender. The idea is to show you how that vendor can solve your need, or has insight that you don’t have. It plays on your need and offers an ability to solve it.
That is what marketing is – deliberate attempts at power. The deliberate attempt to stimulate the motivating power in your needs by offering an ability and thus controlling or influencing a choice.
It’s a kind of poetic layering that Denny uses his often insightful analysis of others attempts at power as a platform to use his power and thus impact choice.
Add to that the layers of power you can find in the actual story. Using a recent newspaper article, he tells us about people who use fear in their marketing - because it works.
I know when these kinds of ads and PR techniques are used, regardless of customer response, the result always includes an element of mistrust.
Power destroys trust. When someone uses your fear to get you to do what they want you to do - although you may be willing to do it to alleviate your fear - in the end, you don’t really like the person who influenced you that way.
Yes it works. Power works from time to time. Big surprise…
But now I ask you – how do you feel about it?
Below is the copy of Denny’s newsletter from last week.
Enjoy the power analysis.
Moves to Vaccinate Girls for Cervical Cancer Draw FireAs Merck Lobbies States To Require Shots,Some Fret Over Side Effects, MoralsBills being drafted in some 20 U.S. states that would make a cervical-cancer vaccine mandatory for preteen girls are sparking a backlash among parents and consumer advocates.—John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2007
February 13, 2007:
Vol. 3, Issue No. 12
Fear: The Most Powerful Emotion on the Planet How to Put Fear to Work in Your Marketing Efforts
In 2005, Merck & Co.—the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate—was poised to get FDA approval for Gardasil, a supposedly foolproof vaccine against cervical cancer.In June 2006, the influential government Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), recommended that shots be given to all pre-teen girls starting as young as nine at the discretion of their doctors.Merck operatives and lobbyists blitzed state legislators with the news.
Their message of fear: Unless you make Gardasil a requirement for entrance into junior high and high schools, girls in your state could die of cervical cancer. So far, fearful lawmakers in 20 states are drafting bills that make the vaccine mandatory.If the bills become law, the three shots of vaccine—totaling $360 per child— will represent billions of dollars for Merck.
Fear works.Fear Begets Fear-1Many parents are fearful of their daughters being forcefully vaccinated. As John Carreyrou wrote in The Wall Street Journal:Tina Walker, the mother of an 11-year-old girl in Flower Mound, Texas, says she would prefer to wait until the vaccine has been on the market for several years before subjecting her child to it.
“We are the guinea pigs here,” she says.Tina Walker is spot-on. No one knows the long-term effects of this vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported that so far “82 adverse events” have occurred as a result of Gardasil injections.
How hungry is Merck for this business? One of its lobbyists in Texas is the former chief of staff for Governor Rick Perry and Merck’s political action committee donated $6,000 to Perry’s re-election campaign. This past week, Governor Perry issued an executive order mandating that every female child entering the sixth grade must be vaccinated with Gardasil starting in 2008.
Currently, Merck is being sued by 1,400 patients—and families of the deceased— for failing to reveal that the long-term use of its drug, Vioxx, could result in heart problems and death.
Presumably it is desperate for the Gardasil windfall in order to pay off the projected billions in Vioxx judgments.Fear Begets Fear-2Vaccines for chicken pox, polio and measles are widely accepted. No parent wants a child in school exposed to one of these highly contagious diseases.But cervical cancer? You do not contract it from a crowd or in a swimming pool. It is sexually transmitted.
A number of conservative organizations have come out against mandatory vaccination because they fear that it will encourage sexual promiscuity among girls and young women. It seems to me that the behavior of daughters is private family business and not any concern of busybody butt-in-skies across town or around the country. But then I have never had kids, so what do I know?
Interestingly, on February 5, Reuters reported on a Common Sense Media survey of 1,138 parents across the United States which concluded that 57 percent of parents were fearful of their kids being exposed to the media versus 45 percent that said they were more concerned about sex or alcohol abuse.This story will not receive widespread coverage because the media are fearful of publicity generated by parental criticism and the possibility of advertising boycotts.
In combing through 20 newspapers and Web sites a day, and downloading dozens of stories, I cannot help but notice widespread fear throughout our society. A sampling from just this past week:* Pinch Fears—and Fires—Morgan Stanley.
The New York Times publisher, Arthur (Pinch) Sulzberger, Jr. axed Morgan Stanley because of fear that the family money manager, Hassan Elmasry, will be successful in his campaign to change the corporate share structure in order to wrest tight control of the company from the Sulzberger family.*
Lisa Nowak Fears Colleen Shipman Would Steal Her ManIn one of the most bizarre—and sad—stories of the week, Astronaut Lisa Nowak packed a BB gun, pepper spray, plastic gloves, garbage bags, and donned a wig and diapers (so she would not have to take a bathroom break) to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando. Her objective was to confront Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman about her relationship with another astronaut. That an Annapolis graduate and former test pilot who had risen to the rank of captain did not come to her senses somewhere in the eighth or ninth hour of her drive and say to herself, “What in the hell am I doing!” is a testament to the power of fear.*
Oil Companies Fear Global Warming Report. The British Newspaper, The Guardian, reported that the American Enterprise Institute—a conservative Washington think tank funded by ExxonMobil—offered scientists and economists $10,000 each for articles that would undermine a major report on climate change issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.*
Queen Fears Backlash of Prince Charles “going green.” The Daily Mail reported that Her Majesty fears that the Prince of Wales is embarrassing other members of the royal family with his environmental stance and speech in New York that climate change was a “war” that must be won. “It is feared the knock-on effects of the criticism may restrict the royals’ ability to act as ambassadors abroad,” said The Daily Mail. “Some senior sources fear the situation may lead to splits in the royal family itself.” *
Voters Fear Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. “Mormon Candidate Braces for Religion as an Issue,” was the headline of a New York Times feature this past February 8. “Mr. Romney’s advisers acknowledged that popular misconceptions about Mormonism—as well as questions about whether Mormons are beholden to their church’s leaders on public policy—could give his opponents ammunition in the wide-open fight among Republicans to become the consensus candidate of social conservatives,” wrote Adam Nagourney and Laurie Goodstein.
One Industry Entirely Based on Fear: InsuranceAll insurance is purchased out of fear—fear of financial ruin. Health, homeowner, long-term care, automobile, flood, travel, liability—all are policies for which people pay dearly. And both insurers and insureds have one single, fervent hope: no claims.Yet insurance marketers have the most screwed-up vocabulary of any industry, because they do not understand the difference between features and benefits. For example, a 10-year term life insurance policy might offer the following “benefits:”* Provide a death benefit to the designated beneficiary of $1 million.*
Provide Accidental Death and Dismemberment benefit equal to the amount of Basic Group Life Insurance.* Offers an accelerated death benefit, which allows terminally ill employees the opportunity to collect all or part of their life insurance prior to death.* No physical exam is required.* Your acceptance is based on your answers to just three simple health questions.* Once enrolled, benefits are payable from the very first day coverage takes effect.* There is no waiting period before full benefits are available.* You can never be singled out for a rate increase.*
Etc., etc., etc.
In any other industry, these would be features. Only insurance marketers call them benefits.How would a direct marketer use fear to sell insurance?“Go for points of maximum anxiety,” counsels the great copywriter Bill Bonner who presides over the multimillion-dollar Agora Publishing.
In other words, get inside the heads of the people to whom you are writing, figure out what keeps them awake at three in the morning and feed on those fears. For example, chances are that they are wildly overextended financially and if anything happened to the breadwinner, the family would be evicted from their home and forced on to public assistance.The benefits of having a $1 million term life policy: You can sleep soundly knowing that if the unthinkable happened, the mortgage would be paid and your family will be taken care of. They will remember you with love for your foresight and for the protection you gave them rather than with contempt for putting them out on the street.The actual features of the policy are incidental to the sale.
Another Industry Based on Fear: Politics
Who can forget the gaffe that may have cost John Kerry the presidency when he said the following about the senate vote on the Iraq War, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” The Republicans replayed that line over and over again with lethal effect, scaring the voters into believing Kerry was a flip-flopper and therefore a danger. When Kerry refused to immediately dispute the Swift Boaters’ charges that his Vietnam medals were not earned, voters perceived that maybe those allegations were true and feared that Kerry was a liar and a coward that could not be trusted to support our troops in Iraq. The 2004 presidential election was won on voter fear of John Kerry.
Hillary Clinton is in for the same treatment—the result of the 20-second gaffe at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in Washington early in February—that I mentioned in last week’s edition of this e-zine.
Here is the fear-based, 30-second spot I would run were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama or Rudolph Giuliani:
[SIGN ACROSS TOP OF SCREEN THROUGHOUT THE 30-SECOND SPOT]Should Hillary Clinton Be President?
[ON SMALL TV SCREEN INSET, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TO DNC. USE THE JERKY, PRIMITIVE YouTube.com VERSION TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION IT WAS A HIDDEN CAMERA CAPTURING AN OFF-THE-RECORD SPEECH]The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund … [SOUND FADES TO SILENCE][ON SCREEN, WE SEE CLINTON CONTINUING TO SPEAK. NO SOUND]
[GIULIANI VOICE OVER]In June 2005, the Supreme Court said that the government could seize your home and turn it into condos in order to raise more tax money.Now Hillary Clinton wants to seize business profits. What will Hillary try to seize next? Your investments? Your savings? Your bank account? Your salary? This is more than scary. It’s un-American.I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.[LOGO]GIULIANI IN ‘08 In short, if you can scare the wits out of people and then offer salvation, you are on your way to a successful promotional effort.
Takeaway Points to Consider:
* “Probably well over half of our buying choices are based on emotion.”—Jack Maxson, freelancer*
“Go for points of maximum anxiety.”—Bill Bonner*
The seven key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery.* Of these, the most powerful is fear.*
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”—Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)*
“I am always living with fear.”—Placido Domingo (b. 1941)*
“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear—fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)*
“Fear makes us feel our humanity.”—Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)*
“When I was 10 years old, I lived with fear of the atom bomb. It would keep me awake nights and make me wake up screaming. We all carried that with us.”—Cass Elliot (1941-1974)*
“Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.”—Aristotle (384-322 BCE)*
“We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.”—Christiane Amanpour (b. 1958)
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition:
Merck’s Gardasil Press Releasehttp://tinyurl.com/yvd8pq
Bill Bonner’s Agora Publishinghttp://www.agora-inc.com
Simply you have a need and someone has the ability to either help you with that need or inhibit your ability to satisfy that need. The need is the thing that has the fear in it. It is the thing that holds the power. It is not the ability that holds the power.
Historically and somewhat naturally we think that the power is in the ability to affect the need. But if the need is small enough then there is little power to trigger.
Identifying power with a thing, or ability to use a thing, is one of those misdirecting myths about power.
I get a regular newsletter from Denny Hatch - a direct marketing/PR writer and speaker. He gives examples of good or bad marketing and offers explanation and analysis.
Like so many newsletters and emails we get they are about promoting the interests of the sender. The idea is to show you how that vendor can solve your need, or has insight that you don’t have. It plays on your need and offers an ability to solve it.
That is what marketing is – deliberate attempts at power. The deliberate attempt to stimulate the motivating power in your needs by offering an ability and thus controlling or influencing a choice.
It’s a kind of poetic layering that Denny uses his often insightful analysis of others attempts at power as a platform to use his power and thus impact choice.
Add to that the layers of power you can find in the actual story. Using a recent newspaper article, he tells us about people who use fear in their marketing - because it works.
I know when these kinds of ads and PR techniques are used, regardless of customer response, the result always includes an element of mistrust.
Power destroys trust. When someone uses your fear to get you to do what they want you to do - although you may be willing to do it to alleviate your fear - in the end, you don’t really like the person who influenced you that way.
Yes it works. Power works from time to time. Big surprise…
But now I ask you – how do you feel about it?
Below is the copy of Denny’s newsletter from last week.
Enjoy the power analysis.
Moves to Vaccinate Girls for Cervical Cancer Draw FireAs Merck Lobbies States To Require Shots,Some Fret Over Side Effects, MoralsBills being drafted in some 20 U.S. states that would make a cervical-cancer vaccine mandatory for preteen girls are sparking a backlash among parents and consumer advocates.—John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2007
February 13, 2007:
Vol. 3, Issue No. 12
Fear: The Most Powerful Emotion on the Planet How to Put Fear to Work in Your Marketing Efforts
In 2005, Merck & Co.—the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate—was poised to get FDA approval for Gardasil, a supposedly foolproof vaccine against cervical cancer.In June 2006, the influential government Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), recommended that shots be given to all pre-teen girls starting as young as nine at the discretion of their doctors.Merck operatives and lobbyists blitzed state legislators with the news.
Their message of fear: Unless you make Gardasil a requirement for entrance into junior high and high schools, girls in your state could die of cervical cancer. So far, fearful lawmakers in 20 states are drafting bills that make the vaccine mandatory.If the bills become law, the three shots of vaccine—totaling $360 per child— will represent billions of dollars for Merck.
Fear works.Fear Begets Fear-1Many parents are fearful of their daughters being forcefully vaccinated. As John Carreyrou wrote in The Wall Street Journal:Tina Walker, the mother of an 11-year-old girl in Flower Mound, Texas, says she would prefer to wait until the vaccine has been on the market for several years before subjecting her child to it.
“We are the guinea pigs here,” she says.Tina Walker is spot-on. No one knows the long-term effects of this vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported that so far “82 adverse events” have occurred as a result of Gardasil injections.
How hungry is Merck for this business? One of its lobbyists in Texas is the former chief of staff for Governor Rick Perry and Merck’s political action committee donated $6,000 to Perry’s re-election campaign. This past week, Governor Perry issued an executive order mandating that every female child entering the sixth grade must be vaccinated with Gardasil starting in 2008.
Currently, Merck is being sued by 1,400 patients—and families of the deceased— for failing to reveal that the long-term use of its drug, Vioxx, could result in heart problems and death.
Presumably it is desperate for the Gardasil windfall in order to pay off the projected billions in Vioxx judgments.Fear Begets Fear-2Vaccines for chicken pox, polio and measles are widely accepted. No parent wants a child in school exposed to one of these highly contagious diseases.But cervical cancer? You do not contract it from a crowd or in a swimming pool. It is sexually transmitted.
A number of conservative organizations have come out against mandatory vaccination because they fear that it will encourage sexual promiscuity among girls and young women. It seems to me that the behavior of daughters is private family business and not any concern of busybody butt-in-skies across town or around the country. But then I have never had kids, so what do I know?
Interestingly, on February 5, Reuters reported on a Common Sense Media survey of 1,138 parents across the United States which concluded that 57 percent of parents were fearful of their kids being exposed to the media versus 45 percent that said they were more concerned about sex or alcohol abuse.This story will not receive widespread coverage because the media are fearful of publicity generated by parental criticism and the possibility of advertising boycotts.
In combing through 20 newspapers and Web sites a day, and downloading dozens of stories, I cannot help but notice widespread fear throughout our society. A sampling from just this past week:* Pinch Fears—and Fires—Morgan Stanley.
The New York Times publisher, Arthur (Pinch) Sulzberger, Jr. axed Morgan Stanley because of fear that the family money manager, Hassan Elmasry, will be successful in his campaign to change the corporate share structure in order to wrest tight control of the company from the Sulzberger family.*
Lisa Nowak Fears Colleen Shipman Would Steal Her ManIn one of the most bizarre—and sad—stories of the week, Astronaut Lisa Nowak packed a BB gun, pepper spray, plastic gloves, garbage bags, and donned a wig and diapers (so she would not have to take a bathroom break) to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando. Her objective was to confront Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman about her relationship with another astronaut. That an Annapolis graduate and former test pilot who had risen to the rank of captain did not come to her senses somewhere in the eighth or ninth hour of her drive and say to herself, “What in the hell am I doing!” is a testament to the power of fear.*
Oil Companies Fear Global Warming Report. The British Newspaper, The Guardian, reported that the American Enterprise Institute—a conservative Washington think tank funded by ExxonMobil—offered scientists and economists $10,000 each for articles that would undermine a major report on climate change issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.*
Queen Fears Backlash of Prince Charles “going green.” The Daily Mail reported that Her Majesty fears that the Prince of Wales is embarrassing other members of the royal family with his environmental stance and speech in New York that climate change was a “war” that must be won. “It is feared the knock-on effects of the criticism may restrict the royals’ ability to act as ambassadors abroad,” said The Daily Mail. “Some senior sources fear the situation may lead to splits in the royal family itself.” *
Voters Fear Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. “Mormon Candidate Braces for Religion as an Issue,” was the headline of a New York Times feature this past February 8. “Mr. Romney’s advisers acknowledged that popular misconceptions about Mormonism—as well as questions about whether Mormons are beholden to their church’s leaders on public policy—could give his opponents ammunition in the wide-open fight among Republicans to become the consensus candidate of social conservatives,” wrote Adam Nagourney and Laurie Goodstein.
One Industry Entirely Based on Fear: InsuranceAll insurance is purchased out of fear—fear of financial ruin. Health, homeowner, long-term care, automobile, flood, travel, liability—all are policies for which people pay dearly. And both insurers and insureds have one single, fervent hope: no claims.Yet insurance marketers have the most screwed-up vocabulary of any industry, because they do not understand the difference between features and benefits. For example, a 10-year term life insurance policy might offer the following “benefits:”* Provide a death benefit to the designated beneficiary of $1 million.*
Provide Accidental Death and Dismemberment benefit equal to the amount of Basic Group Life Insurance.* Offers an accelerated death benefit, which allows terminally ill employees the opportunity to collect all or part of their life insurance prior to death.* No physical exam is required.* Your acceptance is based on your answers to just three simple health questions.* Once enrolled, benefits are payable from the very first day coverage takes effect.* There is no waiting period before full benefits are available.* You can never be singled out for a rate increase.*
Etc., etc., etc.
In any other industry, these would be features. Only insurance marketers call them benefits.How would a direct marketer use fear to sell insurance?“Go for points of maximum anxiety,” counsels the great copywriter Bill Bonner who presides over the multimillion-dollar Agora Publishing.
In other words, get inside the heads of the people to whom you are writing, figure out what keeps them awake at three in the morning and feed on those fears. For example, chances are that they are wildly overextended financially and if anything happened to the breadwinner, the family would be evicted from their home and forced on to public assistance.The benefits of having a $1 million term life policy: You can sleep soundly knowing that if the unthinkable happened, the mortgage would be paid and your family will be taken care of. They will remember you with love for your foresight and for the protection you gave them rather than with contempt for putting them out on the street.The actual features of the policy are incidental to the sale.
Another Industry Based on Fear: Politics
Who can forget the gaffe that may have cost John Kerry the presidency when he said the following about the senate vote on the Iraq War, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” The Republicans replayed that line over and over again with lethal effect, scaring the voters into believing Kerry was a flip-flopper and therefore a danger. When Kerry refused to immediately dispute the Swift Boaters’ charges that his Vietnam medals were not earned, voters perceived that maybe those allegations were true and feared that Kerry was a liar and a coward that could not be trusted to support our troops in Iraq. The 2004 presidential election was won on voter fear of John Kerry.
Hillary Clinton is in for the same treatment—the result of the 20-second gaffe at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in Washington early in February—that I mentioned in last week’s edition of this e-zine.
Here is the fear-based, 30-second spot I would run were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama or Rudolph Giuliani:
[SIGN ACROSS TOP OF SCREEN THROUGHOUT THE 30-SECOND SPOT]Should Hillary Clinton Be President?
[ON SMALL TV SCREEN INSET, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TO DNC. USE THE JERKY, PRIMITIVE YouTube.com VERSION TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION IT WAS A HIDDEN CAMERA CAPTURING AN OFF-THE-RECORD SPEECH]The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund … [SOUND FADES TO SILENCE][ON SCREEN, WE SEE CLINTON CONTINUING TO SPEAK. NO SOUND]
[GIULIANI VOICE OVER]In June 2005, the Supreme Court said that the government could seize your home and turn it into condos in order to raise more tax money.Now Hillary Clinton wants to seize business profits. What will Hillary try to seize next? Your investments? Your savings? Your bank account? Your salary? This is more than scary. It’s un-American.I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.[LOGO]GIULIANI IN ‘08 In short, if you can scare the wits out of people and then offer salvation, you are on your way to a successful promotional effort.
Takeaway Points to Consider:
* “Probably well over half of our buying choices are based on emotion.”—Jack Maxson, freelancer*
“Go for points of maximum anxiety.”—Bill Bonner*
The seven key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery.* Of these, the most powerful is fear.*
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”—Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)*
“I am always living with fear.”—Placido Domingo (b. 1941)*
“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear—fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)*
“Fear makes us feel our humanity.”—Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)*
“When I was 10 years old, I lived with fear of the atom bomb. It would keep me awake nights and make me wake up screaming. We all carried that with us.”—Cass Elliot (1941-1974)*
“Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.”—Aristotle (384-322 BCE)*
“We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.”—Christiane Amanpour (b. 1958)
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition:
Merck’s Gardasil Press Releasehttp://tinyurl.com/yvd8pq
Bill Bonner’s Agora Publishinghttp://www.agora-inc.com
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The dimensions of power
I was asked at the Brantford speak if it is possible that we use power unintentionally? And of so is it still power?
From a simply technical point of view the answer is simple – if you are using an ability that triggers someone’s need and it impacts a choice they are making - then that is power.
There is a great deal of discussion about this in the modern sociological world of power. In fact it seems to be the most popular topic with sociologists who study power.
A leader in the study of that question, Dr. Steven Lukes, has recently re-released his book - Power: A Radical View, Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. It is best described in a review by Sociologist Daniel Béland of the University of Calgary, as follows:
Using the post-war debate over "power elite" (Mills) and "pluralism" (Dahl) as a starting point, the 1974 essay — reprinted without major modifications — explores the three dimensions of power. Associated with the work of Robert Dahl, the first dimension is related to "the study of concrete, observable behavior" (17, emphasis in original). From this angle, what matters is the analysis of observable conflicts between organized interests over concrete political issues. The second dimension of power is underlined as the result of political scientists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz's critique of Dahl's pluralism. This critique points to the forces that prevent potentially controversial issues from generating "observable conflicts." Consequently, in order to grasp this second dimension of power, "it is crucially important to identify potential issues which nondecision-making prevents from being actual" (23). Beyond the analysis of observable conflicts, political analysis is about studying hidden forces that constrain the agenda. Thus, according to Lukes, power has a third dimension, which is ideological in nature: "Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial?"
I believe that there is no question that power is sometimes used so effectively that no one knows it is at work. This is commonly experienced everywhere from the classroom to the sports channel. However the real issue for my friend I think is whether or not this is actually power? Does there have to be a conflict? Does power have to be intentional?
I think the first question is how you define power. If power is about the results – like it is with most sociologists then whether or not you see a response determines whether or not there is power. I think all it shows is whether or not there is sufficient power to create a measurable phenomenon.
If however you define power by its method – the application of an ability to a need, then we see intention has nothing to do with it.
The study of power is ageless. However in a modern context we have had scientific rules to honor. Originally we saw power as a question of “power over” another and the idea of dominance. We study and measure the effects of power. Again all we were focused on was the “other” and their will using the subject only as a meter or measuring device. The implication was the need for the choice to be made against the will of another.
Then it was a question of “power to.” We asked if it was possible to define the questions so as to have impact on the answers. Again the target was conflict and the ability to control the outcome by controlling the question.
Finally Lukes asked if it was possible to have power that is not detected as power and hence define the reality within which the question is asked – not just the question itself.
But all of this study has an underlying assumption – the actor intends to influence the outcome. None of this study answers my friend’s question.
I see his point. He is a large man. He would get accused of bullying because he is big. He has a booming voice. He gets accused of bullying because he is loud. He is accused of using power when that is not his intention.
I think the second more important question is what is the role of intention within a power dynamic?
I have always made it clear that I believe that life is lived in a series of choices. Choice is the increment of living. We go from choice to choice, acting on those deliberate and often non-deliberate decisions. The whole purpose of power is to impact those choices. Certainly when choices are made without the consideration of the whole gambit of possibilities, then there is a “Lukes” type, or layer, of power which is at work and goes unrecognized and therefore unaddressed.
When we participate in that “system” of power I suppose we have no intention and the goal of the power dynamic propagates itself.
Using power without intending to use it is still power because it is essential to see it as a method of acting on the subject not as a characteristic of the actor.
I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
However I think the question of intention is still the most important question we can ask.
It seems that few of us live a deliberate life. We act on memory and habit and seldom question the nature of our lifestyle and its purposes. We are so good at power we don’t even have to try to use it. We just do.
The significant question isn’t whether or not it is still power if/when we are not intending to use it? The question is whether or not this is a true life if we are not deliberately living it?
When it comes to intention, power is just one of those things we do without intention.
Intention - that is a whole new ballgame. Power is about forming intention. It is about controlling intention. It is another dynamic that has to be recognized and overcome.
Choice never goes away - whether or not we make one.
From a simply technical point of view the answer is simple – if you are using an ability that triggers someone’s need and it impacts a choice they are making - then that is power.
There is a great deal of discussion about this in the modern sociological world of power. In fact it seems to be the most popular topic with sociologists who study power.
A leader in the study of that question, Dr. Steven Lukes, has recently re-released his book - Power: A Radical View, Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. It is best described in a review by Sociologist Daniel Béland of the University of Calgary, as follows:
Using the post-war debate over "power elite" (Mills) and "pluralism" (Dahl) as a starting point, the 1974 essay — reprinted without major modifications — explores the three dimensions of power. Associated with the work of Robert Dahl, the first dimension is related to "the study of concrete, observable behavior" (17, emphasis in original). From this angle, what matters is the analysis of observable conflicts between organized interests over concrete political issues. The second dimension of power is underlined as the result of political scientists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz's critique of Dahl's pluralism. This critique points to the forces that prevent potentially controversial issues from generating "observable conflicts." Consequently, in order to grasp this second dimension of power, "it is crucially important to identify potential issues which nondecision-making prevents from being actual" (23). Beyond the analysis of observable conflicts, political analysis is about studying hidden forces that constrain the agenda. Thus, according to Lukes, power has a third dimension, which is ideological in nature: "Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial?"
I believe that there is no question that power is sometimes used so effectively that no one knows it is at work. This is commonly experienced everywhere from the classroom to the sports channel. However the real issue for my friend I think is whether or not this is actually power? Does there have to be a conflict? Does power have to be intentional?
I think the first question is how you define power. If power is about the results – like it is with most sociologists then whether or not you see a response determines whether or not there is power. I think all it shows is whether or not there is sufficient power to create a measurable phenomenon.
If however you define power by its method – the application of an ability to a need, then we see intention has nothing to do with it.
The study of power is ageless. However in a modern context we have had scientific rules to honor. Originally we saw power as a question of “power over” another and the idea of dominance. We study and measure the effects of power. Again all we were focused on was the “other” and their will using the subject only as a meter or measuring device. The implication was the need for the choice to be made against the will of another.
Then it was a question of “power to.” We asked if it was possible to define the questions so as to have impact on the answers. Again the target was conflict and the ability to control the outcome by controlling the question.
Finally Lukes asked if it was possible to have power that is not detected as power and hence define the reality within which the question is asked – not just the question itself.
But all of this study has an underlying assumption – the actor intends to influence the outcome. None of this study answers my friend’s question.
I see his point. He is a large man. He would get accused of bullying because he is big. He has a booming voice. He gets accused of bullying because he is loud. He is accused of using power when that is not his intention.
I think the second more important question is what is the role of intention within a power dynamic?
I have always made it clear that I believe that life is lived in a series of choices. Choice is the increment of living. We go from choice to choice, acting on those deliberate and often non-deliberate decisions. The whole purpose of power is to impact those choices. Certainly when choices are made without the consideration of the whole gambit of possibilities, then there is a “Lukes” type, or layer, of power which is at work and goes unrecognized and therefore unaddressed.
When we participate in that “system” of power I suppose we have no intention and the goal of the power dynamic propagates itself.
Using power without intending to use it is still power because it is essential to see it as a method of acting on the subject not as a characteristic of the actor.
I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
However I think the question of intention is still the most important question we can ask.
It seems that few of us live a deliberate life. We act on memory and habit and seldom question the nature of our lifestyle and its purposes. We are so good at power we don’t even have to try to use it. We just do.
The significant question isn’t whether or not it is still power if/when we are not intending to use it? The question is whether or not this is a true life if we are not deliberately living it?
When it comes to intention, power is just one of those things we do without intention.
Intention - that is a whole new ballgame. Power is about forming intention. It is about controlling intention. It is another dynamic that has to be recognized and overcome.
Choice never goes away - whether or not we make one.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Brantford Speak
I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Brantford last Tuesday.
The idea was to connect the insights into power to the conduct of business. Truth be known, marketing is one of the things that has taught me a lot about power. As much as my practice of law has.
Power is about choice. That is its purpose – to impact choices. Business is about getting people to choose our product over the competition’s offerings. The connection is obvious.
Nonetheless I was pleasantly surprised to see the flashes of enlightenment on the faces in the group. It is a subtle and almost trite revelation that the source of power is need. Most people would pause and say “Yes, and so…?” However as much as it is seems a small leap of logic to connect power and need, when people finally recognize that little nexus, they automatically start thinking of the implications. Those implications lead them to a thousand questions.
The questions are what I enjoy the most when we chat afterward.
If you have questions or thoughts – post them here.
I am thankful for the opportunity to come out and speak. If you would like a speaker for your events, let me know. We can customize these ideas in countless ways because power exists in countless forms.
Thanks
The idea was to connect the insights into power to the conduct of business. Truth be known, marketing is one of the things that has taught me a lot about power. As much as my practice of law has.
Power is about choice. That is its purpose – to impact choices. Business is about getting people to choose our product over the competition’s offerings. The connection is obvious.
Nonetheless I was pleasantly surprised to see the flashes of enlightenment on the faces in the group. It is a subtle and almost trite revelation that the source of power is need. Most people would pause and say “Yes, and so…?” However as much as it is seems a small leap of logic to connect power and need, when people finally recognize that little nexus, they automatically start thinking of the implications. Those implications lead them to a thousand questions.
The questions are what I enjoy the most when we chat afterward.
If you have questions or thoughts – post them here.
I am thankful for the opportunity to come out and speak. If you would like a speaker for your events, let me know. We can customize these ideas in countless ways because power exists in countless forms.
Thanks
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Power and the self
Why people use power is a much more important question than you would expect on first consideration.
On the surface we have quick and easy answers.
People use power to get what they want.
And I suppose that may be sufficient for some - but not for me.
Why do we want? Why is it that we want what we want? What creates those particular desires and needs?
Why do we choose to use power rather than be independent? Why would we make exploiting others’ abilities our principle means of getting what we want? Aren’t there other ways?
Why is it that some just want power? Why do they make the pursuit of power a quest unto itself?
Using power is much more than a means to an end. It has become a singular goal for a vast part of humanity.
Why would someone want to have a political office? Why would someone want a position of authority? Why would someone want to have power over another?
Power itself – the ability to control, influence or seduce others is viewed as a destination rather than a path. We see it as a character trait rather than a behavior. We see it as something you can be, rather than something you can use.
People don’t just want what they want. They don’t just need what they need. People want power.
They don’t just want it to get what they want. Some days we just want to feel like nobody can tell us what to do. Some days we just want to show the world. Some days we just want to make others ask - or wait - or give in. Some days we just want to feel like we have power.
You might say that having power guarantees, or at least increases the chances, that one would always get what they want.
Thomas Hobbes said power takes us beyond our brutish and nasty existence. The reason we seek power is to rise above and we seek more power to secure the power that we have.
Think about that.
There may be some truth in his words. But it does not answer the question why. It only answers why the quest for power doesn’t seem to have limits. It implies that the pursuit of power requires a constant or continuous effort. In the great competition for power, people see it as a limited resource and must repeatedly reacquire it.
Power is about the idea of self. Some days we just want to feel like nobody can tell us what to do. Some days we just want to show the world. Some days we just want to make others ask or wait or give in. Some days we just want to feel like we have power.
We all are individuals who see themselves as discreet and unique. We want to think that as an individual we are at least as important as anyone else.
We build on our uniqueness. We pursue it. We build up a sense and feeling of a self. We actively make a distinction between ourselves and others.
Then we judge that self.
Who is better? Who is more important? Who is bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, prettier, sexier, or wiser – who is better?
Our desires feed this. If we have more of this, or better of that, then we are more of a person. We are a better self.
If I have a better car I must be better than others. If I have more expensive shoes than others then it must be because I am more deserving. If I am rich I am better. If I am the boss, it means I am better.
It makes us feel like we are more. We feel expanded. Enlarged. MORE.
We look to celebrities and authorities and aspire to their level. Always wanting to be more than just a person. More than just me. More than just another.
We take on hobbies, collections, obsessions. We invest and buy. Nothing really matches the feeling of buying something. The acquisition of that which we have yearned for makes us feel like we are somehow more deserving than we were just moments ago. We are more.
Having power makes us feel like we are more than others. And in being more we think we will be happier.
That is the quest. We all live it - every day - all day long. All we really want is that feeling of happiness.
Although it is fleeting – like the thrill of your first drive in your new BMW – for a few moments you feel like more. Then after it fades, we rush to find that feeling again. Because the feeling of power is gone we are afraid that we must have lost some of who we are. Somehow, someway, we must get it back.
We must feed the self.
We call it happiness but is that what it is?
Is our problem not that we aren’t powerful enough – or that we don’t have enough of everything – but that we have not yet understood what happiness is?
I believe that the pursuit of power is about the creation of the self.
We don’t understand the context in which we live as distinct human beings – we don’t recognize our interconnectedness. There is a complex integration of everything with everything. Everything and everyone is part of everything and everyone.
No more than one blade of grass can make up a lawn – we are only a part of humanity - we cannot be humanity. We can never be more than part of the whole. And that is completely OK. It is how it is supposed to be.
And just like that blade of grass we forget that a single blade of grass could never survive alone. Each blade needs the others. The grass needs the elements. Earth, water, wind, and the heat of the sun – take away any of these and the grass ceases to exist. The grass needs other plants and animals. The grass needs the cow to eat it. To digest it. The grass needs the cow to expel past grass to feed the present grass. Otherwise the grass will end. The grass is part of a wider more intertwined existence.
The grass does not delude itself in pretending it is a tree. It plays its absolutely necessary role in the scheme of things.
We want power because we want to be unique. We want to create a self that matters.
Power feeds our sense of self.
We want power because we forget that we already are as powerful as we would ever need to be.
On the surface we have quick and easy answers.
People use power to get what they want.
And I suppose that may be sufficient for some - but not for me.
Why do we want? Why is it that we want what we want? What creates those particular desires and needs?
Why do we choose to use power rather than be independent? Why would we make exploiting others’ abilities our principle means of getting what we want? Aren’t there other ways?
Why is it that some just want power? Why do they make the pursuit of power a quest unto itself?
Using power is much more than a means to an end. It has become a singular goal for a vast part of humanity.
Why would someone want to have a political office? Why would someone want a position of authority? Why would someone want to have power over another?
Power itself – the ability to control, influence or seduce others is viewed as a destination rather than a path. We see it as a character trait rather than a behavior. We see it as something you can be, rather than something you can use.
People don’t just want what they want. They don’t just need what they need. People want power.
They don’t just want it to get what they want. Some days we just want to feel like nobody can tell us what to do. Some days we just want to show the world. Some days we just want to make others ask - or wait - or give in. Some days we just want to feel like we have power.
You might say that having power guarantees, or at least increases the chances, that one would always get what they want.
Thomas Hobbes said power takes us beyond our brutish and nasty existence. The reason we seek power is to rise above and we seek more power to secure the power that we have.
Think about that.
There may be some truth in his words. But it does not answer the question why. It only answers why the quest for power doesn’t seem to have limits. It implies that the pursuit of power requires a constant or continuous effort. In the great competition for power, people see it as a limited resource and must repeatedly reacquire it.
Power is about the idea of self. Some days we just want to feel like nobody can tell us what to do. Some days we just want to show the world. Some days we just want to make others ask or wait or give in. Some days we just want to feel like we have power.
We all are individuals who see themselves as discreet and unique. We want to think that as an individual we are at least as important as anyone else.
We build on our uniqueness. We pursue it. We build up a sense and feeling of a self. We actively make a distinction between ourselves and others.
Then we judge that self.
Who is better? Who is more important? Who is bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, prettier, sexier, or wiser – who is better?
Our desires feed this. If we have more of this, or better of that, then we are more of a person. We are a better self.
If I have a better car I must be better than others. If I have more expensive shoes than others then it must be because I am more deserving. If I am rich I am better. If I am the boss, it means I am better.
It makes us feel like we are more. We feel expanded. Enlarged. MORE.
We look to celebrities and authorities and aspire to their level. Always wanting to be more than just a person. More than just me. More than just another.
We take on hobbies, collections, obsessions. We invest and buy. Nothing really matches the feeling of buying something. The acquisition of that which we have yearned for makes us feel like we are somehow more deserving than we were just moments ago. We are more.
Having power makes us feel like we are more than others. And in being more we think we will be happier.
That is the quest. We all live it - every day - all day long. All we really want is that feeling of happiness.
Although it is fleeting – like the thrill of your first drive in your new BMW – for a few moments you feel like more. Then after it fades, we rush to find that feeling again. Because the feeling of power is gone we are afraid that we must have lost some of who we are. Somehow, someway, we must get it back.
We must feed the self.
We call it happiness but is that what it is?
Is our problem not that we aren’t powerful enough – or that we don’t have enough of everything – but that we have not yet understood what happiness is?
I believe that the pursuit of power is about the creation of the self.
We don’t understand the context in which we live as distinct human beings – we don’t recognize our interconnectedness. There is a complex integration of everything with everything. Everything and everyone is part of everything and everyone.
No more than one blade of grass can make up a lawn – we are only a part of humanity - we cannot be humanity. We can never be more than part of the whole. And that is completely OK. It is how it is supposed to be.
And just like that blade of grass we forget that a single blade of grass could never survive alone. Each blade needs the others. The grass needs the elements. Earth, water, wind, and the heat of the sun – take away any of these and the grass ceases to exist. The grass needs other plants and animals. The grass needs the cow to eat it. To digest it. The grass needs the cow to expel past grass to feed the present grass. Otherwise the grass will end. The grass is part of a wider more intertwined existence.
The grass does not delude itself in pretending it is a tree. It plays its absolutely necessary role in the scheme of things.
We want power because we want to be unique. We want to create a self that matters.
Power feeds our sense of self.
We want power because we forget that we already are as powerful as we would ever need to be.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Hey Gunther
A long time ago Gunther asked about compassion.
I didn't answer him. I have been away. But on a Sunday morning and afternoon many thoughts came together and I offer this not as an answer so much as just a thought.
Gunther asked,
Is compassion really the opposite of power? Can't it be used for power? Compassion is a powerful thing that we can use as a mechanism to influence people. Then is compassion really the opposite of power?
There are those who are powerful because they use what others need to effect their choices.
There are those who appear powerful because they are what others want to be. They give of themselves in a way that creates admiration and a desire to emulate and therefore motivate behavior in a positive way. The difference is intention.
Can using compassion be a mechanism?–A means toward having power. Yes. But it is a question of intention and application not one of automatic power and choice manipulation. If someone needs compassion we can use it as a means of producing power.
Or we can just give it without a demand for a choice that serves us. If we offer compassion without any desire attached to it – it is simply compassion. If we offer affection, understanding and comfort only because we know we can use it to get what we desire – then the intention is not compassion. It is power. Compassion and power are intentions as much as they are phenomena. They are not just the result - they are the purpose. They are not just manifestations they are intentions.
Does that mean power has to be intentional to be power? No. But intending a result isn't always intending power. And if the result is not a compassionate thing, then it must be insome form Power. If the intended result may not be power but if it isn't based in a love of all for the good of ALL then it is power and needs were used to attain a result.
Power.
We use power to build up the self. It is the belief that we are unique and separate individuals who are in competition with all the other individuals in the quest to fulfill our desires. It is the belief that our life purpose is to fulfill desires and all others in the world are here to assist in that pursuit. Others are nothing more than tools for our use.
In truth we are all manifestations or expressions of the great consciousness that flows within and is the essence of all. We are all one. We are all expressions of life that are interconnected and interdependent and are ALL on the path back to that great source.
We are all walking the path. Everyone’s success in that journey is everyone else’s. We, as one great wave of life, are here - free to play within this world of expression.
But we are mislead by the distinctions between things. Those distinctions are creations of the mind and illusions. The distinctions between us are not real. We are al the same and all connected.
Each of us is so reliant on all the others. Each must – and does - support and provide for all the others. It is so obvious we miss it. Where does the matter that makes up our being come from? It comes from the rest of the earth and the living things within it. Soil, rain, worms, sun, animals, other humans. Fire, earth, water, air, chi. The cycle of water. The cycle of matter. The cycle of life. Flowing from one entity into the next. Changing from one form into another.
It is as obvious as our birth. One human being comes out of another. We are all connected and cannot exist without each other. Yet we are convinced that we are in competition and racing for the chance to control each other so we might have what we want.
There is nothing on the earth we can’t have. Each of us can have everything. This is a world of plenty and we are beasts of great ability and talent. Yet we are fixated not on what we want, but on what others want. Our success is not measured in having everything we want but in having more than others have.
We do not want to be great. We want to be better.
We don't want to be happy. We want to be happier.
We are fixated on the others. We want to control them and defeat them and to ultimately have so much more than they do.
This human desire to control others and be better than others is what has fascinated me for decades now. That is why I am so obsessed with power.
I don’t want to control others. My God, what kind of responsibility would that entail? I am afraid of even influencing others with my writing. What if I am wrong? What if all I do is show people how to go around and control each other? That's not why I am writing this stuff.
That’s why I am afraid of publishing these ideas. I am afraid of the responsibility attached to influencing people.
I simply want to help us all release from this painful pursuit of this false sense of self.
I am so completely shocked at people's need to to control other people.
That has been my focus. That is why I want to understand power and explain it. That is why I want all of us to be able to see through it and over come it. That is why I want to explain it so all could have it. Once we are all as power as each other, then there is nothing left but an acceptance that we must all survive or we must all die.
I don't want people to use compassion because it is powerful. I just want them to stop wanting to control others.
All that is left is compassion.
Yes little brother, compassion - like anything that some wants or needs - can be used as a mechanism of power. Anything can be a mechanism of power. It is all a question of intention.
I didn't answer him. I have been away. But on a Sunday morning and afternoon many thoughts came together and I offer this not as an answer so much as just a thought.
Gunther asked,
Is compassion really the opposite of power? Can't it be used for power? Compassion is a powerful thing that we can use as a mechanism to influence people. Then is compassion really the opposite of power?
There are those who are powerful because they use what others need to effect their choices.
There are those who appear powerful because they are what others want to be. They give of themselves in a way that creates admiration and a desire to emulate and therefore motivate behavior in a positive way. The difference is intention.
Can using compassion be a mechanism?–A means toward having power. Yes. But it is a question of intention and application not one of automatic power and choice manipulation. If someone needs compassion we can use it as a means of producing power.
Or we can just give it without a demand for a choice that serves us. If we offer compassion without any desire attached to it – it is simply compassion. If we offer affection, understanding and comfort only because we know we can use it to get what we desire – then the intention is not compassion. It is power. Compassion and power are intentions as much as they are phenomena. They are not just the result - they are the purpose. They are not just manifestations they are intentions.
Does that mean power has to be intentional to be power? No. But intending a result isn't always intending power. And if the result is not a compassionate thing, then it must be insome form Power. If the intended result may not be power but if it isn't based in a love of all for the good of ALL then it is power and needs were used to attain a result.
Power.
We use power to build up the self. It is the belief that we are unique and separate individuals who are in competition with all the other individuals in the quest to fulfill our desires. It is the belief that our life purpose is to fulfill desires and all others in the world are here to assist in that pursuit. Others are nothing more than tools for our use.
In truth we are all manifestations or expressions of the great consciousness that flows within and is the essence of all. We are all one. We are all expressions of life that are interconnected and interdependent and are ALL on the path back to that great source.
We are all walking the path. Everyone’s success in that journey is everyone else’s. We, as one great wave of life, are here - free to play within this world of expression.
But we are mislead by the distinctions between things. Those distinctions are creations of the mind and illusions. The distinctions between us are not real. We are al the same and all connected.
Each of us is so reliant on all the others. Each must – and does - support and provide for all the others. It is so obvious we miss it. Where does the matter that makes up our being come from? It comes from the rest of the earth and the living things within it. Soil, rain, worms, sun, animals, other humans. Fire, earth, water, air, chi. The cycle of water. The cycle of matter. The cycle of life. Flowing from one entity into the next. Changing from one form into another.
It is as obvious as our birth. One human being comes out of another. We are all connected and cannot exist without each other. Yet we are convinced that we are in competition and racing for the chance to control each other so we might have what we want.
There is nothing on the earth we can’t have. Each of us can have everything. This is a world of plenty and we are beasts of great ability and talent. Yet we are fixated not on what we want, but on what others want. Our success is not measured in having everything we want but in having more than others have.
We do not want to be great. We want to be better.
We don't want to be happy. We want to be happier.
We are fixated on the others. We want to control them and defeat them and to ultimately have so much more than they do.
This human desire to control others and be better than others is what has fascinated me for decades now. That is why I am so obsessed with power.
I don’t want to control others. My God, what kind of responsibility would that entail? I am afraid of even influencing others with my writing. What if I am wrong? What if all I do is show people how to go around and control each other? That's not why I am writing this stuff.
That’s why I am afraid of publishing these ideas. I am afraid of the responsibility attached to influencing people.
I simply want to help us all release from this painful pursuit of this false sense of self.
I am so completely shocked at people's need to to control other people.
That has been my focus. That is why I want to understand power and explain it. That is why I want all of us to be able to see through it and over come it. That is why I want to explain it so all could have it. Once we are all as power as each other, then there is nothing left but an acceptance that we must all survive or we must all die.
I don't want people to use compassion because it is powerful. I just want them to stop wanting to control others.
All that is left is compassion.
Yes little brother, compassion - like anything that some wants or needs - can be used as a mechanism of power. Anything can be a mechanism of power. It is all a question of intention.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Writing
I have begun the process of working with an editor.
Although I have, what I believe is, a working relationship with the English language, my status as a writer is still somewhat of a neophyte. I have written thousands of pages of material. Most of those pages were legal in nature.
Legal writing is almost mathematical in its structure. Although I believe there is an art in writing an effective, comprehensive and self-contained agreement, there is little artistic value in the words themselves. A client pays for the certainty of a lawyer’s writing but not the clarity. The average layperson does not understand the run-on, complex, multi-conditional sentences that make for good legal drafting. But the confusability factor alone gives appearance of good writing.
Certainly the law has had a significant formative impact on my lexicon and syntax. But before I was a lawyer I was a thinker. I was a guy who wanted to know the “why” – the “why” about everything. Of course that included the “why” about power.
Studying sociology and religion at university gave me more than ample opportunity to read and write. As much as I was able to read all the right things, I was prone to write in an overly stylistic and somewhat verbose manner.
As I struggled against the powers of authority – giving them my consent to use their ability to grade me to obtain from them my certification as an educated mind – I found that it was in my best interests to submit to the critique of a particular T.A. named Michel.
Michel was a divinity doctorial student in the heart of writing a thesis which was focused on the meaning and the historical socio-cultural implications of a small set of sentences in one of the Epistles of Paul.
Who would have thought that so much could be said about so little.
Nonetheless, given his task, I could find no better authority on the subject of communicating in writing.
After my third exasperating “B” from Michel I was left with two choices. Fight with him or submit to him.
So I asked him, “Why?”
He described my writing as full of ideas and logic but absent any discernible pattern of communication. Simply, he said that I wrote in circles using complex, hard-to-read sentences and repetitive language.
He encouraged me to simplify my language. He suggested that I avoid adjectives and adverbs and just say what I meant in one sentence – not six.
After two more papers, Michel told me I got it. I was rewarded with “A”s from that day on.
That lesson helped me with the ability to write legalistically. My law practice helped me hone that direct simple style. Those two experiences - those lessons in writing - made me a pretty good lawyer.
However, I am not sure either has helped me write for you.
Today my new-found ally in the world of words says that my sentences lack style. They are terse and uninteresting. So I turn to her for input to make my writing better.
Once again I submit to an authority – in this case an authority on writing and communication. I do so happily. I do so because I want to be a writer so bad that the desire over powers me.
Her ability to make me better is the mechanism that will make me pay her to listen to her criticisms.
Incredible power isn’t it?
Whether it is my T.A. Michel, my clients or my new found editor I submit to their power because more than anything else before, I want to write for you.
Power - is it good or bad?
I still can’t seem to answer that one.
Although I have, what I believe is, a working relationship with the English language, my status as a writer is still somewhat of a neophyte. I have written thousands of pages of material. Most of those pages were legal in nature.
Legal writing is almost mathematical in its structure. Although I believe there is an art in writing an effective, comprehensive and self-contained agreement, there is little artistic value in the words themselves. A client pays for the certainty of a lawyer’s writing but not the clarity. The average layperson does not understand the run-on, complex, multi-conditional sentences that make for good legal drafting. But the confusability factor alone gives appearance of good writing.
Certainly the law has had a significant formative impact on my lexicon and syntax. But before I was a lawyer I was a thinker. I was a guy who wanted to know the “why” – the “why” about everything. Of course that included the “why” about power.
Studying sociology and religion at university gave me more than ample opportunity to read and write. As much as I was able to read all the right things, I was prone to write in an overly stylistic and somewhat verbose manner.
As I struggled against the powers of authority – giving them my consent to use their ability to grade me to obtain from them my certification as an educated mind – I found that it was in my best interests to submit to the critique of a particular T.A. named Michel.
Michel was a divinity doctorial student in the heart of writing a thesis which was focused on the meaning and the historical socio-cultural implications of a small set of sentences in one of the Epistles of Paul.
Who would have thought that so much could be said about so little.
Nonetheless, given his task, I could find no better authority on the subject of communicating in writing.
After my third exasperating “B” from Michel I was left with two choices. Fight with him or submit to him.
So I asked him, “Why?”
He described my writing as full of ideas and logic but absent any discernible pattern of communication. Simply, he said that I wrote in circles using complex, hard-to-read sentences and repetitive language.
He encouraged me to simplify my language. He suggested that I avoid adjectives and adverbs and just say what I meant in one sentence – not six.
After two more papers, Michel told me I got it. I was rewarded with “A”s from that day on.
That lesson helped me with the ability to write legalistically. My law practice helped me hone that direct simple style. Those two experiences - those lessons in writing - made me a pretty good lawyer.
However, I am not sure either has helped me write for you.
Today my new-found ally in the world of words says that my sentences lack style. They are terse and uninteresting. So I turn to her for input to make my writing better.
Once again I submit to an authority – in this case an authority on writing and communication. I do so happily. I do so because I want to be a writer so bad that the desire over powers me.
Her ability to make me better is the mechanism that will make me pay her to listen to her criticisms.
Incredible power isn’t it?
Whether it is my T.A. Michel, my clients or my new found editor I submit to their power because more than anything else before, I want to write for you.
Power - is it good or bad?
I still can’t seem to answer that one.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Power as a means to an end...
I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what I want to do next with my life and career.
In that constant question I keep coming back to the same answer. It does not matter what I do. The real question/quest/battle/struggle is about how I do it.
I have always been a results oriented guy. Willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Believing in the result, I have always done what it takes.
I have always thought of my self as a pretty good strategist. I am good at evaluating the people and the conditions that surround a matter. Structuring the process so that we get the result we want. Using the circumstances and the needs of people to attain the goal. I have been good with power. I am usually successful. I am aware of the process of power and have shown some ability to use it.
I haven’t always found that to lead to happiness. Often getting what you want makes you unhappy. Desires are smoky things. They are never satisfied. They just shift and change.
Maybe it’s all this grey hair. I think, maybe, it is the scars on my heart.
My hair and my scars tell me today that the ends never justify the means. There are no situations that justify hurting people. There are no reasons to say it is ok to do the wrong thing.
If you can't accomplish something without hurting people then you have not spent enough time strategizing nor have you understood the role of patience.
And so it is much more important to act well each day than to accomplish something at all costs.
And that - as we all know - is one tough assignment.
When I think about all the things I could accomplish I keep coming back to the same goal. I just want to be a better person. I want to live the right life. I want to mediate EVERY day. I want to offer my knowledge to those who ask for it. I want to eat right and sleep well. I want to love tenderly and act justly.
And I believe that that is toughest struggle of all. The world's great and most important battles take place inside us. The ones with great impact are the ones going on inside of people who are living public lives. We don't see the important parts.
I was thinking about means and ends and process and results and was surfing the web looking for others’ thoughts. Each day, I like to post a “thought for the day” for my students on our program website at the college. We all struggle with motivation and direction. We struggle with what life brings us each day. We are all here walking the path. And that is what life is about. When I have things I am struggling with, I like to use the TFTD as a place to suggest to all of us different approaches and ways of thinking.
Looking for ideas on means and ends, I kept coming to were quotes and stories about war and peace.
Interesting.
It is probably the most enormous example of the conflict between means and ends.
I believe that every day George W. Bush asks himself if he was wrong - if he didn't just make a mess of things. However, as a leader, he is not allowed to ask those questions in public.
The real battle and struggle for truth and right is going on inside him every day.
So today, rather than use my power to bash him. Rather than use my ability to have you read my thoughts, against your need for information as you evaluate your world, to have that influence the way you may chose not to support him, I will use my ability for compassion.
Pray for the poor old bugger. Let’s pray that ideas and opportunities come forward that he and his people might find a way to turn this big mess into peace and prosperity. Let’s wish for peace for all those sad people in the world’s most ancient of societies.
That is peace and prosperity as they see it. Not as we see. In the way they want it. Not as we want it.
The end does not justify the means.
Remember that when you continue to ask yourself , “Is power a good thing or a bad thing?”
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
-- John F. Kennedy
"War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood-feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity...a daily crucifixion of Christ."
Muriel Lester
"Our chiefs are killed...The little children are freezing to death. My people... have no blankets, no food...My heart is sick and sad...I will fight no more forever."
Chief Joseph
"There was never a good war or a bad peace."
Benjamin Franklin
"War would end if the dead could return."
Stanley Baldwin
"If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another."
-- Winston Churchill
"I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war."
-- Cicero.
"War is cruelty and you cannot refine it."
Gen. William T. Sherman 1820-1891
"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime"
Ernest Hemingway
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it"
George Orwell
"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."
Duke Of Wellington 1759-1852
"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous"
-- George Bernard Shaw
"We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours."
Lord Baden-Powell
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
-- A.J. Muste.
"I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being."
Joan Baez
"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy."
Nietzsche
"At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events'; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second."
Leo Tolstoy War & Peace
"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."
-- Peace Pilgrim.
"The principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites - acquiescence and violence - while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not be physically aggressive toward his opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted. He avoids the nonresistance of the former and the violent resistance of the latter. With nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need to submit to any wrong, nor need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everybody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody’s' business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as "love." "Love" is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing tolife, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing. from To Have or to Be?
Erich Fromm
Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.
Mahatma Gandhi
In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war] to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.
Mahatma Gandhi
"The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.'"
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.
Maíread Maguire
In that constant question I keep coming back to the same answer. It does not matter what I do. The real question/quest/battle/struggle is about how I do it.
I have always been a results oriented guy. Willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Believing in the result, I have always done what it takes.
I have always thought of my self as a pretty good strategist. I am good at evaluating the people and the conditions that surround a matter. Structuring the process so that we get the result we want. Using the circumstances and the needs of people to attain the goal. I have been good with power. I am usually successful. I am aware of the process of power and have shown some ability to use it.
I haven’t always found that to lead to happiness. Often getting what you want makes you unhappy. Desires are smoky things. They are never satisfied. They just shift and change.
Maybe it’s all this grey hair. I think, maybe, it is the scars on my heart.
My hair and my scars tell me today that the ends never justify the means. There are no situations that justify hurting people. There are no reasons to say it is ok to do the wrong thing.
If you can't accomplish something without hurting people then you have not spent enough time strategizing nor have you understood the role of patience.
And so it is much more important to act well each day than to accomplish something at all costs.
And that - as we all know - is one tough assignment.
When I think about all the things I could accomplish I keep coming back to the same goal. I just want to be a better person. I want to live the right life. I want to mediate EVERY day. I want to offer my knowledge to those who ask for it. I want to eat right and sleep well. I want to love tenderly and act justly.
And I believe that that is toughest struggle of all. The world's great and most important battles take place inside us. The ones with great impact are the ones going on inside of people who are living public lives. We don't see the important parts.
I was thinking about means and ends and process and results and was surfing the web looking for others’ thoughts. Each day, I like to post a “thought for the day” for my students on our program website at the college. We all struggle with motivation and direction. We struggle with what life brings us each day. We are all here walking the path. And that is what life is about. When I have things I am struggling with, I like to use the TFTD as a place to suggest to all of us different approaches and ways of thinking.
Looking for ideas on means and ends, I kept coming to were quotes and stories about war and peace.
Interesting.
It is probably the most enormous example of the conflict between means and ends.
I believe that every day George W. Bush asks himself if he was wrong - if he didn't just make a mess of things. However, as a leader, he is not allowed to ask those questions in public.
The real battle and struggle for truth and right is going on inside him every day.
So today, rather than use my power to bash him. Rather than use my ability to have you read my thoughts, against your need for information as you evaluate your world, to have that influence the way you may chose not to support him, I will use my ability for compassion.
Pray for the poor old bugger. Let’s pray that ideas and opportunities come forward that he and his people might find a way to turn this big mess into peace and prosperity. Let’s wish for peace for all those sad people in the world’s most ancient of societies.
That is peace and prosperity as they see it. Not as we see. In the way they want it. Not as we want it.
The end does not justify the means.
Remember that when you continue to ask yourself , “Is power a good thing or a bad thing?”
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
-- John F. Kennedy
"War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood-feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity...a daily crucifixion of Christ."
Muriel Lester
"Our chiefs are killed...The little children are freezing to death. My people... have no blankets, no food...My heart is sick and sad...I will fight no more forever."
Chief Joseph
"There was never a good war or a bad peace."
Benjamin Franklin
"War would end if the dead could return."
Stanley Baldwin
"If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another."
-- Winston Churchill
"I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war."
-- Cicero.
"War is cruelty and you cannot refine it."
Gen. William T. Sherman 1820-1891
"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime"
Ernest Hemingway
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it"
George Orwell
"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."
Duke Of Wellington 1759-1852
"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous"
-- George Bernard Shaw
"We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours."
Lord Baden-Powell
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
-- A.J. Muste.
"I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being."
Joan Baez
"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy."
Nietzsche
"At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events'; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second."
Leo Tolstoy War & Peace
"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."
-- Peace Pilgrim.
"The principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites - acquiescence and violence - while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not be physically aggressive toward his opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted. He avoids the nonresistance of the former and the violent resistance of the latter. With nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need to submit to any wrong, nor need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everybody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody’s' business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as "love." "Love" is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing tolife, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing. from To Have or to Be?
Erich Fromm
Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.
Mahatma Gandhi
In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war] to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.
Mahatma Gandhi
"The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.'"
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.
Maíread Maguire
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Inspired
What a great event last night. So much more than just information flying around. You could feel the energy flowing all about the room. People finding people who could bring them something.
I wish I could write more now but I am off to a new class in my quest for an LLM.
No matter - I am re-inspired.
I promise to get some blogging and writing done over the next few weeks. I think it is time for that book on depowerment.
Thanks to all who were there. You inspired me much more than I could inspire you.
Later - I promise.
Thanks Jess:)
I wish I could write more now but I am off to a new class in my quest for an LLM.
No matter - I am re-inspired.
I promise to get some blogging and writing done over the next few weeks. I think it is time for that book on depowerment.
Thanks to all who were there. You inspired me much more than I could inspire you.
Later - I promise.
Thanks Jess:)
Monday, July 31, 2006
Struggling for compassion...
Hey
Here's what I have been working on...
Thinking about power brought me to some observations.
The opposite of power is compassion. The purpose of power is the creation of the self. The little self thinks that it is increased by having power over others. The expansion of the true self is to see the connection with all others, and to be connected to all others is the road to enlightenment.
The pursuit of compassion then is so much more than the pursuit of power. And since I think I have had and used a little power in my day, I can tell you that having power is a whole lot easier than having compassion.
I say that to train in power is to train in the understanding of human need and to learn how to use those needs of others to your benefit.
They (the masters of virtue and compassion) say that to train in compassion starts with the four preliminaries.
They sit on a card on my desk at home. I read them everyday. I don't think I have ever wanted to understand them more than I do today. So I offer them to you.
Feel free to post your thoughts.
Les
In your daily life try to ...
1 . Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life.
2. Be aware of the reality that life ends: death comes to everyone.
3. Recall that whatever you do whether virtuous or not has a result; what goes around comes around.
4. Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how good or bad you are, you will suffer. Obsessing about what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.
Pema Chodron
Tibetan Buddhist Monk and Writer.
Here's what I have been working on...
Thinking about power brought me to some observations.
The opposite of power is compassion. The purpose of power is the creation of the self. The little self thinks that it is increased by having power over others. The expansion of the true self is to see the connection with all others, and to be connected to all others is the road to enlightenment.
The pursuit of compassion then is so much more than the pursuit of power. And since I think I have had and used a little power in my day, I can tell you that having power is a whole lot easier than having compassion.
I say that to train in power is to train in the understanding of human need and to learn how to use those needs of others to your benefit.
They (the masters of virtue and compassion) say that to train in compassion starts with the four preliminaries.
They sit on a card on my desk at home. I read them everyday. I don't think I have ever wanted to understand them more than I do today. So I offer them to you.
Feel free to post your thoughts.
Les
In your daily life try to ...
1 . Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life.
2. Be aware of the reality that life ends: death comes to everyone.
3. Recall that whatever you do whether virtuous or not has a result; what goes around comes around.
4. Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how good or bad you are, you will suffer. Obsessing about what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.
Pema Chodron
Tibetan Buddhist Monk and Writer.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
More....
Sorry everyone....
I have been delinquent lately.
Caught up in power dynamics of all things...:) Very distracting from doing the things you want.
Have been focused on trying to implement strategies of compassion rather than power. However the strategies are hard to create. Everyone I talk to says - "Use power" - "Be tough." "Let 'em have it." But I know power and I know in the end it will only hurt me.
I am trying hard to find a way that I can actually use my awareness of their needs to help them. That uis the thing I should figure out and write a book about.
"How to exit power dynmaics with techniques of compassion."
I am coming to the conclusion that sometimes there is no willingness to accept compassion from someone you see as an enemy.
Like the Tao says - there is nothing worse than having an enemy. To have an enemy is to be an enemy.
They see me as an enemy. Don't think I can change that.
Now the question is - can I use power to create a stalemate or do I actually have to use power to the end of this dynamic. I already know it will never end.
Not sure what the lesson is.
Ahhhh - sorry just venting....
Anyway I haven't forgotten about you or this work so I will try to get back at it soon.
Thanks for your patience.
I have been delinquent lately.
Caught up in power dynamics of all things...:) Very distracting from doing the things you want.
Have been focused on trying to implement strategies of compassion rather than power. However the strategies are hard to create. Everyone I talk to says - "Use power" - "Be tough." "Let 'em have it." But I know power and I know in the end it will only hurt me.
I am trying hard to find a way that I can actually use my awareness of their needs to help them. That uis the thing I should figure out and write a book about.
"How to exit power dynmaics with techniques of compassion."
I am coming to the conclusion that sometimes there is no willingness to accept compassion from someone you see as an enemy.
Like the Tao says - there is nothing worse than having an enemy. To have an enemy is to be an enemy.
They see me as an enemy. Don't think I can change that.
Now the question is - can I use power to create a stalemate or do I actually have to use power to the end of this dynamic. I already know it will never end.
Not sure what the lesson is.
Ahhhh - sorry just venting....
Anyway I haven't forgotten about you or this work so I will try to get back at it soon.
Thanks for your patience.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Not done yet....
Well some might say it is finished. The students and professors are about to head back to the classrooms. No more picketing and confrontation at the gates. It is time to prep for class and proceed to graduation.
I am not finished though. I think there are a couple of post mortem-like dissections that still need to be done. I think there is a lot to be learned, and more importantly, a lot yet to do to manage the out come of this little power play.
When you look back at the process of the past three weeks what you see are two interwoven power dynamics being played as one. There is the first one in which the students have been refused the ability to have classes in an attempt to influence the Management of the colleges to agree to hire more full time faculty. Then there is the second one in which the faculty were kept out of their jobs by refusing to offer anything that would be accepted so that the Ontario Government - Mr Bentley and Mr. McGuinty – would agree to greater government funding to the college system as a whole.
The faculty association did not see that coming. They did not anticipate that the Management would see within the faculty strike the opportunity to use public backlash to create power on the two parties that cause them grief – the faculty and the government. They have played it well. They have played the “poor me.” They have positioned themselves in this as the passive victim. Caught between unreasonable faculty asking for the moon and a provincial funding system that has collapsed over ten years and left them unable to provide quality educations.
Management – like the union – could have played the press more aggressively. They could have played public opinion in a more effective way. Management could have spoken out publicly about the chronic under-funding of the system and that the money they had been allocated by the province was not enough after so many years of neglect. Rather than say that the “teachers” were asking for more than they deserved, they could have said that the faculty are right. The system needs this. However, our government won’t fund it.
They could have used power over the Province by putting the Minister and the Premier on the spot. They could have used their ability to impact the public’s opinion of the politicians as a power dynamic against them and tried to influence the Province’s choice to allocate more funding. This may have been especially effective given a pending budget announcement.
However to do that would have been to forget one important aspect of power…
Power destroys trust.
To understand why the Management did not play it out against the Province in a public forum we need to see the very close working relations that exist between the Colleges and the Ministry. Colleges are a form of government. They are distinguished one from another by the existence of a corporate structure and a corporate form of governance that keeps them distinct. But you cannot think that an institution that gets 70- 80% of its funding from one source does not have a closely knit relationship with that source. They work together on everything.
There is very little a college can do on its own. Most decisions of any importance must go through the Ministry both before and after they are made. One of a college president’s most pressing jobs is as a lobbyist. Both as a group and as individuals, the College Presidents attend to the Ministry lobbying and negotiating and building relationships with Deputy Ministers and Assistant Deputy Ministers.
Although the Minister may change every couple of years the senior bureaucrats remain the same. The last thing a College President wants to do is be at odds with the Minister or their deputies and personnel.
Just as the faculty are the ones who see students every day and are the ones who truly answer to the relationship, the College Management works with the Province everyday and they answer to that relationship.
So the faculty worked on their relations with the students as the strike progressed and Management did the same with the Province.
Faculty did it in the classroom before the strike, on the line as the strike continued and will be up to their chins in it next week.
One of the things my strike teammates noticed was how many of the students crossing the lines were mine. How many of them stayed to just to chat with me. How many of them took the time to read this blog. And I suppose most significantly was how we are still talking as friends.
You all know where my allegiance lies. I am not here to change the college system. I am not here to become a senior manager. I am not here to get somewhere else. I am here because I love teaching you. You know I am here because talking to you about stuff like power is rewarding to me. So you know I am no happier about being out on strike than you are.
You know how I feel about power, so you know I wouldn’t use it to get something from you.
Faculty will be working their relationships with students next week - calming concerns, revising course plans and making graduation and passing possible. In that effort will come a happy and successful end to this semester. It will save the relationships faculty have with their students. It is important because any one who knows about teaching knows that relationship is critical.
That’s the faculty side.
However Management did it in a crafty, power-based way.
It was accomplished by letting the faculty take the heat. By creating a public impression that faculty were asking for unreasonable things and were already being overpaid. Management built public support by suggesting that they had made worthwhile offers. Although those inside knew these to actually be lies, because the union was not anticipating a strike, the union was not prepared to respond to the press with truth.
The idea of without prejudice talks is that bargaining teams can speak frankly and find middle ground without compromising their position. The idea that we have closed door negotiation is to give us a chance to find compromise without having other people looking over our shoulder and second guessing us. The union was not prepared for the manipulation of media blackouts followed by spin doctoring by the Management. Management’s press releases were dangerously close to false. There was enough spun truth in them to prevent a black eye. However at all times the Union bargaining team was unwilling to make those accusations because of the power within them and future importance of trust in the negotiations.
The frustration showed however in the public allegation of bad faith bargaining, which only came when it was clear that no settlement or further talks were possible.
All the while Management worked quietly behind the scenes. They exploited the opportunities which arose when the Minister called them into his office and when the Premier said it was time to end the strike.
Did you see how the Management let the Province make the first move each time there was progress? The Minster called the parties into his office privately. It was then that the Management could say that there simply was not the money to give the faculty what they wanted. They could also let the Minister know that they thought, in fairness, that the faculty may have the right idea if we are to increase the quality of education.
They could let the Faculty go into the Minister’s office and do the ranting about how the Premier made these promises and all they are trying to do is get the college Management to implement what the Premier said he wanted and the Rae Report said we needed.
Then they played the all or nothing card again by saying, we can’t afford to give you these things so we have to do an “all-or-nothing” arbitration. We can’t saw it down the middle because if we agreed to that we would have to find the money to pay for it. All this work to get the province to agree to pay for it would be lost if they agreed to simple binding arbitration.
So they stonewalled. They stonewalled an untenable position. They stonewalled a dangerous position. They stonewalled a position that anyone would say is ridiculous if they were looking on with even a hint of reasonability.
But it worked.
They got Mr. McGuinty to make a public statement about the end of the strike and the return to classes Monday. But they held on until he followed that up with a quiet phone call telling them to accept binding arbitration.
Now this strike is his problem.
Now the outcome of the arbitration and its costs will be easily laid at the door step of the Ministry and the Premier. After all, the Management would never have agreed to those demands and the strike would have continued if not for the Minister and the Premier wanting the students back in class.
The Management conducted power as masters. They did not once embarrass the province. They kept the business between the Management and the Province behind closed doors. By protecting the public image of the government, they did not alienate the person they were actually working against.
Sometimes we use power on those who are working with us.
The Management had the ability to pass the buck and impact the public persona of the Minister and the Premier. They had the ability to hurt the way the public saw them. They did not use it. By refusing to use that ability to hurt the politicians, they helped them. They used their ability to influence the way the Province chose to solve this impasse.
They used their ability to embarrass the politicians by not using it. They let the students and the faculty and the public and the official opposition and the press direct their attention to the Minister and the Premier. They let the power pass over them and into another.
They created a strike and let all of the power in it pass over them and into the politicians. They did not let up until the politicians stepped up and took the heat.
Don’t think that the province didn’t recognize this and exploit it for their purposes also.
Did you see the slight of hand of the province announcing the increase in tuition at a time when the hatred of that move could be focused on the faculty not the government? Also it was delivered at a time when students were out of class. They were at home awaiting a resolution of the strike. Could you imagine the size of the protest that may have taken place had they made that announcement when students were at their respective colleges and able to organize a proper response?
What do you think would happen to a politician if they cave into to a request for more education spending at a time when they are one of the only two provinces to have a budget deficit? What would the right wing say to the public when that spending comes as a result of a strike?
So now the budget goes through. A little more money will flow down to the classrooms. It will come from arbitration and so it will not be a public announcement subject to criticism.
There are no stupid people here.
So let’s hope the faculty can learn from the great power artistry of the Management and exploit our ability to keep our allies close. Let’s give the students the best education we can over the next few weeks. Let’s draw the students groups closer and see how we can get them involved in the arbitration process. Let’s speak to the public about how we were on strike for the system not for our pockets. We were fighting for the quality of education. Let’s keep asking the public to write to Bentley and McGuinty demanding the money to make the classroom better. Let’s tell the parents not to worry. We will get their kids through successfully.
In the end we have the opportunity to be the hero that got the Goliath of the system to give in. We can thank the students for their sacrifice. They took one for the future of college students everywhere. Together with the students, we can be the heroes here if we want to take that position. But we will have to start using the media.
Let’s expose this whole thing and then use our compassion to make it better.
In the end Mr. McGuinty wants to fund education. In the end the management wants the Ontario college system to be the best in the country. In the end faculty want to be the best educators they can be. In the end the students want to learn and understand. In the end we all agree – we need more faculty to deliver a better college education.
Let’s use that for our mutual success.
I am not finished though. I think there are a couple of post mortem-like dissections that still need to be done. I think there is a lot to be learned, and more importantly, a lot yet to do to manage the out come of this little power play.
When you look back at the process of the past three weeks what you see are two interwoven power dynamics being played as one. There is the first one in which the students have been refused the ability to have classes in an attempt to influence the Management of the colleges to agree to hire more full time faculty. Then there is the second one in which the faculty were kept out of their jobs by refusing to offer anything that would be accepted so that the Ontario Government - Mr Bentley and Mr. McGuinty – would agree to greater government funding to the college system as a whole.
The faculty association did not see that coming. They did not anticipate that the Management would see within the faculty strike the opportunity to use public backlash to create power on the two parties that cause them grief – the faculty and the government. They have played it well. They have played the “poor me.” They have positioned themselves in this as the passive victim. Caught between unreasonable faculty asking for the moon and a provincial funding system that has collapsed over ten years and left them unable to provide quality educations.
Management – like the union – could have played the press more aggressively. They could have played public opinion in a more effective way. Management could have spoken out publicly about the chronic under-funding of the system and that the money they had been allocated by the province was not enough after so many years of neglect. Rather than say that the “teachers” were asking for more than they deserved, they could have said that the faculty are right. The system needs this. However, our government won’t fund it.
They could have used power over the Province by putting the Minister and the Premier on the spot. They could have used their ability to impact the public’s opinion of the politicians as a power dynamic against them and tried to influence the Province’s choice to allocate more funding. This may have been especially effective given a pending budget announcement.
However to do that would have been to forget one important aspect of power…
Power destroys trust.
To understand why the Management did not play it out against the Province in a public forum we need to see the very close working relations that exist between the Colleges and the Ministry. Colleges are a form of government. They are distinguished one from another by the existence of a corporate structure and a corporate form of governance that keeps them distinct. But you cannot think that an institution that gets 70- 80% of its funding from one source does not have a closely knit relationship with that source. They work together on everything.
There is very little a college can do on its own. Most decisions of any importance must go through the Ministry both before and after they are made. One of a college president’s most pressing jobs is as a lobbyist. Both as a group and as individuals, the College Presidents attend to the Ministry lobbying and negotiating and building relationships with Deputy Ministers and Assistant Deputy Ministers.
Although the Minister may change every couple of years the senior bureaucrats remain the same. The last thing a College President wants to do is be at odds with the Minister or their deputies and personnel.
Just as the faculty are the ones who see students every day and are the ones who truly answer to the relationship, the College Management works with the Province everyday and they answer to that relationship.
So the faculty worked on their relations with the students as the strike progressed and Management did the same with the Province.
Faculty did it in the classroom before the strike, on the line as the strike continued and will be up to their chins in it next week.
One of the things my strike teammates noticed was how many of the students crossing the lines were mine. How many of them stayed to just to chat with me. How many of them took the time to read this blog. And I suppose most significantly was how we are still talking as friends.
You all know where my allegiance lies. I am not here to change the college system. I am not here to become a senior manager. I am not here to get somewhere else. I am here because I love teaching you. You know I am here because talking to you about stuff like power is rewarding to me. So you know I am no happier about being out on strike than you are.
You know how I feel about power, so you know I wouldn’t use it to get something from you.
Faculty will be working their relationships with students next week - calming concerns, revising course plans and making graduation and passing possible. In that effort will come a happy and successful end to this semester. It will save the relationships faculty have with their students. It is important because any one who knows about teaching knows that relationship is critical.
That’s the faculty side.
However Management did it in a crafty, power-based way.
It was accomplished by letting the faculty take the heat. By creating a public impression that faculty were asking for unreasonable things and were already being overpaid. Management built public support by suggesting that they had made worthwhile offers. Although those inside knew these to actually be lies, because the union was not anticipating a strike, the union was not prepared to respond to the press with truth.
The idea of without prejudice talks is that bargaining teams can speak frankly and find middle ground without compromising their position. The idea that we have closed door negotiation is to give us a chance to find compromise without having other people looking over our shoulder and second guessing us. The union was not prepared for the manipulation of media blackouts followed by spin doctoring by the Management. Management’s press releases were dangerously close to false. There was enough spun truth in them to prevent a black eye. However at all times the Union bargaining team was unwilling to make those accusations because of the power within them and future importance of trust in the negotiations.
The frustration showed however in the public allegation of bad faith bargaining, which only came when it was clear that no settlement or further talks were possible.
All the while Management worked quietly behind the scenes. They exploited the opportunities which arose when the Minister called them into his office and when the Premier said it was time to end the strike.
Did you see how the Management let the Province make the first move each time there was progress? The Minster called the parties into his office privately. It was then that the Management could say that there simply was not the money to give the faculty what they wanted. They could also let the Minister know that they thought, in fairness, that the faculty may have the right idea if we are to increase the quality of education.
They could let the Faculty go into the Minister’s office and do the ranting about how the Premier made these promises and all they are trying to do is get the college Management to implement what the Premier said he wanted and the Rae Report said we needed.
Then they played the all or nothing card again by saying, we can’t afford to give you these things so we have to do an “all-or-nothing” arbitration. We can’t saw it down the middle because if we agreed to that we would have to find the money to pay for it. All this work to get the province to agree to pay for it would be lost if they agreed to simple binding arbitration.
So they stonewalled. They stonewalled an untenable position. They stonewalled a dangerous position. They stonewalled a position that anyone would say is ridiculous if they were looking on with even a hint of reasonability.
But it worked.
They got Mr. McGuinty to make a public statement about the end of the strike and the return to classes Monday. But they held on until he followed that up with a quiet phone call telling them to accept binding arbitration.
Now this strike is his problem.
Now the outcome of the arbitration and its costs will be easily laid at the door step of the Ministry and the Premier. After all, the Management would never have agreed to those demands and the strike would have continued if not for the Minister and the Premier wanting the students back in class.
The Management conducted power as masters. They did not once embarrass the province. They kept the business between the Management and the Province behind closed doors. By protecting the public image of the government, they did not alienate the person they were actually working against.
Sometimes we use power on those who are working with us.
The Management had the ability to pass the buck and impact the public persona of the Minister and the Premier. They had the ability to hurt the way the public saw them. They did not use it. By refusing to use that ability to hurt the politicians, they helped them. They used their ability to influence the way the Province chose to solve this impasse.
They used their ability to embarrass the politicians by not using it. They let the students and the faculty and the public and the official opposition and the press direct their attention to the Minister and the Premier. They let the power pass over them and into another.
They created a strike and let all of the power in it pass over them and into the politicians. They did not let up until the politicians stepped up and took the heat.
Don’t think that the province didn’t recognize this and exploit it for their purposes also.
Did you see the slight of hand of the province announcing the increase in tuition at a time when the hatred of that move could be focused on the faculty not the government? Also it was delivered at a time when students were out of class. They were at home awaiting a resolution of the strike. Could you imagine the size of the protest that may have taken place had they made that announcement when students were at their respective colleges and able to organize a proper response?
What do you think would happen to a politician if they cave into to a request for more education spending at a time when they are one of the only two provinces to have a budget deficit? What would the right wing say to the public when that spending comes as a result of a strike?
So now the budget goes through. A little more money will flow down to the classrooms. It will come from arbitration and so it will not be a public announcement subject to criticism.
There are no stupid people here.
So let’s hope the faculty can learn from the great power artistry of the Management and exploit our ability to keep our allies close. Let’s give the students the best education we can over the next few weeks. Let’s draw the students groups closer and see how we can get them involved in the arbitration process. Let’s speak to the public about how we were on strike for the system not for our pockets. We were fighting for the quality of education. Let’s keep asking the public to write to Bentley and McGuinty demanding the money to make the classroom better. Let’s tell the parents not to worry. We will get their kids through successfully.
In the end we have the opportunity to be the hero that got the Goliath of the system to give in. We can thank the students for their sacrifice. They took one for the future of college students everywhere. Together with the students, we can be the heroes here if we want to take that position. But we will have to start using the media.
Let’s expose this whole thing and then use our compassion to make it better.
In the end Mr. McGuinty wants to fund education. In the end the management wants the Ontario college system to be the best in the country. In the end faculty want to be the best educators they can be. In the end the students want to learn and understand. In the end we all agree – we need more faculty to deliver a better college education.
Let’s use that for our mutual success.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
A primer in power....
Still silence on the bargaining front. I hope you see it as I do. No news is good news.
As we get closer to a settlement we can be happier and lighter. So let's take a lighter look at power for today. After all Power can be fun too.
Here is a little power thread from our marketingatfleming.com website.
Mar 20 2006, 12:48 PM
Hey
Silly me
I don't know how to take a jpeg image and turn it into a power point background for a slide. I assume it is easy but I am not figuring it out....
You know, wash it out to a watermark and fit it completely in the slide so it serves as a background to a number of slides...
Who does?
You may want it for M PLans and Presentations later but I need it soon...
Talk to me...can you walk me through it?
Can you do it for me...?
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
Mar 20 2006, 04:02 PM
Open Power Point
Click 'Format' drop down menu
Click 'Background'
Click the drop down box
Select 'Fill Effects'
Select the 'Picture' Tab
Click 'Select Picture'
Find the picture
Select the picture
Click Insert
Click OKSelect
Apply to All
That will take a picture you have and make it the background for every slide in your presentation.
Hopefully that does what you were looking for it to do.As for watermark? Don't really know what you mean but you can probably photoshop it to look however you want then insert it.
Let me know if it works
--------------------
Calvin SJ - 2nd Year Marketing"Trying is the first step to failure"
Mar 20 2006, 05:41 PM
Beautiful!!!
Thanks.
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
Mar 21 2006, 08:14 AM
Knowledge is Power
--------------------
Calvin SJ - 2nd Year Marketing"Trying is the first step to failure"
Mar 21 2006, 08:20 AM
C'mon
You know better.
Knowledge is a mechanism of power.
There is no power without need.
Your knowledge only had power because I needed it.
Otherwise it was simply existing in your head.
Just like power does....
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
Mar 21 2006, 03:10 PM
haha
you know what I meant.
But what held more power?
the knowledge I had or the fact that you knew you could get it
Take that
--------------------
Calvin S-J - 2nd Year Marketing"Trying is the first step to failure"
Mar 21 2006, 05:57 PM
speaking of power......my DM group got their hands on a little mechanism of power...
however, I think we are keeping this one to ourselves....
It will be way more fun knowing that we have it without having to actually use it.
Cal you are going to LOVE and I mean L O V E this one!!
P.S I am really hating this strike.....missing the teachers like crazy and now feeling like a BIG NERD for saying that!!
marketing wut!!
P.P.S does having a mechanism of power but not using it still make it a mechanism of power? Or does the subject have to know about the mechanism?? really missing les right now
------------------------------
beckyr
Mar 22 2006, 09:33 AM
Becky Becky Becky...
Remember that mechanisms are not just things. They are the ability to use the thing to help or hinder the needs of the subject. Having the thing does not make it a power mechanism unless you have the ability to use it to affect another person's needs and therefore control, influence or seduce their choice.
For example...Let's say you have a photo of Calvin in ladies underwear.
Now having that photo is not power in itself. Though I am sure you feel the exciting power waiting within it. But that power does not come from the photo, it comes from Calvin's need to keep it private or make it public.
Maybe Cal gave it to you. Or maybe he posed for you. Maybe you posed for each other. Maybe he wants you to have it. Having it in your possession does not make it a power mechanism.
But let's say he doesn't want the guys on his hockey team to have it.
Now you have the ability to do things with it.
You could do something that hinders him. Post it here on the web for example. Publish it in the Peterborough Examiner. Make copies and bring it to power class. That ability would take the thing and turn it into a power mechanism.
I am sure Cal would feel the control and influence.
On the other hand maybe Cal is lonely and he wants you to do that - maybe he needs a date.
Well then, doing all those things are not a hindrance to him but a help.
So instead of threatening to post it on the web you tell him that you won't post it on the web unless he does, says or thinks something that you want him to do say or think. When you do that, now it is mechanism of power by helping his need.
It is that ability to use the thing in some way - a way that helps or hinders Cal - that creates power in it.
Of course using it does not have to happen. The ability may be potential - through threat or promise - offered on condition. So for example, instead of publishing it on this site you just threaten to publish it unless he does what you want. Still power.
Or let's say you create a whole new "The Real Cal" website and send him the link. Then you tell him that you will share the link with everyone in the class unless....degrees of use...do you see it?
Degrees and potential are other ways to use mechanisms. A mechanism is not just a thing - it is the ability to use the thing to help or hinder the requirements desires or attachments of someone who you want to make a choice that matters to you.
Things are just things. That's why so many of us are tricked into thinking that once we have obtained things we will have power. Then when we get them we are just as powerless as before.
Or we may have power but we find that we are not happy about it. We are lonely.
Remember that having power over Cal creates a BiPolar reality that means he has power over you. You are only using it as a mechanism because you want something from him. For example you tease him into thinking that you will post it on the web because you want his attention. Maybe you want him to spend time with you because you think he looks so darn good in ladies underwear.
Well when he recognizes that you are only using power over him to get his attention he can turn it around. After all your need is his source of power. And you would not use power on him unless he had some ability that you needed.
So he might say, "If you publish that picture I will not let you come over to my house and photograph me in the other fifteen outfits I have."
Or he might say, "If you don't publish that picture of me I won't be your friend any more."
Then comes the real problem. Using power always destroys trust. All you have to do is threaten to use power over Cal and you will lose his trust - at least in the matters of ladies lingerie - forever. He will never pose for you again.
Hec, he may even use those photos he showed me of you.
So there you go - an explanation of power mechanisms and the use of power. A little lesson to get you through the strike. Did you notice though that I used compassion instead of power?
I could have used power over you because you told me that you missed me and that you wanted to have something explained to you. You showed me your need and I could have used it.
I could have said that I would not explain these power ideas with you unless you showed me those photos of Cal and you together in each other's underwear. But I didn't. Instead I used compassion and said, "She needs and answer. I have the ability to answer. Together we have a happier life if I show her compassion. Cause just like power destroys trust - compassion creates it. Compassion creates happy relationships. Power destroys them."
See how compassionate I am?
Now do you see what compassion you could have? You could just show me the photos because I really want to see them.
Later,
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
As we get closer to a settlement we can be happier and lighter. So let's take a lighter look at power for today. After all Power can be fun too.
Here is a little power thread from our marketingatfleming.com website.
Mar 20 2006, 12:48 PM
Hey
Silly me
I don't know how to take a jpeg image and turn it into a power point background for a slide. I assume it is easy but I am not figuring it out....
You know, wash it out to a watermark and fit it completely in the slide so it serves as a background to a number of slides...
Who does?
You may want it for M PLans and Presentations later but I need it soon...
Talk to me...can you walk me through it?
Can you do it for me...?
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
Mar 20 2006, 04:02 PM
Open Power Point
Click 'Format' drop down menu
Click 'Background'
Click the drop down box
Select 'Fill Effects'
Select the 'Picture' Tab
Click 'Select Picture'
Find the picture
Select the picture
Click Insert
Click OKSelect
Apply to All
That will take a picture you have and make it the background for every slide in your presentation.
Hopefully that does what you were looking for it to do.As for watermark? Don't really know what you mean but you can probably photoshop it to look however you want then insert it.
Let me know if it works
--------------------
Calvin SJ - 2nd Year Marketing"Trying is the first step to failure"
Mar 20 2006, 05:41 PM
Beautiful!!!
Thanks.
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
Mar 21 2006, 08:14 AM
Knowledge is Power
--------------------
Calvin SJ - 2nd Year Marketing"Trying is the first step to failure"
Mar 21 2006, 08:20 AM
C'mon
You know better.
Knowledge is a mechanism of power.
There is no power without need.
Your knowledge only had power because I needed it.
Otherwise it was simply existing in your head.
Just like power does....
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
Mar 21 2006, 03:10 PM
haha
you know what I meant.
But what held more power?
the knowledge I had or the fact that you knew you could get it
Take that
--------------------
Calvin S-J - 2nd Year Marketing"Trying is the first step to failure"
Mar 21 2006, 05:57 PM
speaking of power......my DM group got their hands on a little mechanism of power...
however, I think we are keeping this one to ourselves....
It will be way more fun knowing that we have it without having to actually use it.
Cal you are going to LOVE and I mean L O V E this one!!
P.S I am really hating this strike.....missing the teachers like crazy and now feeling like a BIG NERD for saying that!!
marketing wut!!
P.P.S does having a mechanism of power but not using it still make it a mechanism of power? Or does the subject have to know about the mechanism?? really missing les right now
------------------------------
beckyr
Mar 22 2006, 09:33 AM
Becky Becky Becky...
Remember that mechanisms are not just things. They are the ability to use the thing to help or hinder the needs of the subject. Having the thing does not make it a power mechanism unless you have the ability to use it to affect another person's needs and therefore control, influence or seduce their choice.
For example...Let's say you have a photo of Calvin in ladies underwear.
Now having that photo is not power in itself. Though I am sure you feel the exciting power waiting within it. But that power does not come from the photo, it comes from Calvin's need to keep it private or make it public.
Maybe Cal gave it to you. Or maybe he posed for you. Maybe you posed for each other. Maybe he wants you to have it. Having it in your possession does not make it a power mechanism.
But let's say he doesn't want the guys on his hockey team to have it.
Now you have the ability to do things with it.
You could do something that hinders him. Post it here on the web for example. Publish it in the Peterborough Examiner. Make copies and bring it to power class. That ability would take the thing and turn it into a power mechanism.
I am sure Cal would feel the control and influence.
On the other hand maybe Cal is lonely and he wants you to do that - maybe he needs a date.
Well then, doing all those things are not a hindrance to him but a help.
So instead of threatening to post it on the web you tell him that you won't post it on the web unless he does, says or thinks something that you want him to do say or think. When you do that, now it is mechanism of power by helping his need.
It is that ability to use the thing in some way - a way that helps or hinders Cal - that creates power in it.
Of course using it does not have to happen. The ability may be potential - through threat or promise - offered on condition. So for example, instead of publishing it on this site you just threaten to publish it unless he does what you want. Still power.
Or let's say you create a whole new "The Real Cal" website and send him the link. Then you tell him that you will share the link with everyone in the class unless....degrees of use...do you see it?
Degrees and potential are other ways to use mechanisms. A mechanism is not just a thing - it is the ability to use the thing to help or hinder the requirements desires or attachments of someone who you want to make a choice that matters to you.
Things are just things. That's why so many of us are tricked into thinking that once we have obtained things we will have power. Then when we get them we are just as powerless as before.
Or we may have power but we find that we are not happy about it. We are lonely.
Remember that having power over Cal creates a BiPolar reality that means he has power over you. You are only using it as a mechanism because you want something from him. For example you tease him into thinking that you will post it on the web because you want his attention. Maybe you want him to spend time with you because you think he looks so darn good in ladies underwear.
Well when he recognizes that you are only using power over him to get his attention he can turn it around. After all your need is his source of power. And you would not use power on him unless he had some ability that you needed.
So he might say, "If you publish that picture I will not let you come over to my house and photograph me in the other fifteen outfits I have."
Or he might say, "If you don't publish that picture of me I won't be your friend any more."
Then comes the real problem. Using power always destroys trust. All you have to do is threaten to use power over Cal and you will lose his trust - at least in the matters of ladies lingerie - forever. He will never pose for you again.
Hec, he may even use those photos he showed me of you.
So there you go - an explanation of power mechanisms and the use of power. A little lesson to get you through the strike. Did you notice though that I used compassion instead of power?
I could have used power over you because you told me that you missed me and that you wanted to have something explained to you. You showed me your need and I could have used it.
I could have said that I would not explain these power ideas with you unless you showed me those photos of Cal and you together in each other's underwear. But I didn't. Instead I used compassion and said, "She needs and answer. I have the ability to answer. Together we have a happier life if I show her compassion. Cause just like power destroys trust - compassion creates it. Compassion creates happy relationships. Power destroys them."
See how compassionate I am?
Now do you see what compassion you could have? You could just show me the photos because I really want to see them.
Later,
Les
--------------------
Do you ever wonder where people's power comes from?
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Information about information
Well as they begin to discuss the settlement of this strike it is interesting how they use information to control the process. Information, and the power it triggers, continues to be our focus in this power dynamic.
Yes they are using the mechanism of information to help find mutually acceptable solutions. But they are using it in a new way.
Last week it was about sharing and witholding information. It was about framing and characterizing information. It was about true information and false information.
Now we have a news blackout. No one is allowed to know what is going on and what they are saying.
Last week we did our laundry in public because last week public opinion was what we were about. If the public sided with Faculty then the Management knew they had to compromise. If the public sided with Management then the Faculty had to rethink their position. If the public put pressure on the Ontario Government and the Premier then it was going to be the government that had to kick in some more moeney to solve this thing.
Last week we needed the public to show what they felt and thought so we provoked them with information that was shared and partially inaccurate. Inaccurate in the sense that it was biased and incomplete. It was one sided.
We used the public's need for information to impact their choice of who they would side with. To do it we used the sharing of biased information. Partial truth. Partial untruth. Some of it and not all of it.
This week, having accomplished our goal for last week - the management got the government to make the first move - we now want the public to stay out of it so we might accomplish this weeks goal - settlement.
So this week there is no information going on. None. We wait silently. We want to know. We check the news and the web but find out nothing other than they are talking. This is, in itself, good news. But it is not much news. We want more.
This week they use the withholding of the truth.
There are two axis to this Information Power Mechanism Matrix. Information that is shared or withheld. Information that is true or false. Of course there are numerous degrees in between. But those are the two critical dimensions of information as a power mechanism - Veracity and Publication.
Are you learning about the power in information? Are you seeing the depth and breadth of your need for information? Are you seeing how the need coupled with the ability to manipulate the two dimensions creates power and controls the choices you make?
They say that law and sausage are the same. You don't want to see how they are made. I suppose it is the same for strike settlement.
The use of information got us here. But we do not want to know what they are saying now. It will only make us mad to find out how easy it will be to settle this. And when we are mad that's when we know we had power used on us.
They do not want you to know that.
Yes they are using the mechanism of information to help find mutually acceptable solutions. But they are using it in a new way.
Last week it was about sharing and witholding information. It was about framing and characterizing information. It was about true information and false information.
Now we have a news blackout. No one is allowed to know what is going on and what they are saying.
Last week we did our laundry in public because last week public opinion was what we were about. If the public sided with Faculty then the Management knew they had to compromise. If the public sided with Management then the Faculty had to rethink their position. If the public put pressure on the Ontario Government and the Premier then it was going to be the government that had to kick in some more moeney to solve this thing.
Last week we needed the public to show what they felt and thought so we provoked them with information that was shared and partially inaccurate. Inaccurate in the sense that it was biased and incomplete. It was one sided.
We used the public's need for information to impact their choice of who they would side with. To do it we used the sharing of biased information. Partial truth. Partial untruth. Some of it and not all of it.
This week, having accomplished our goal for last week - the management got the government to make the first move - we now want the public to stay out of it so we might accomplish this weeks goal - settlement.
So this week there is no information going on. None. We wait silently. We want to know. We check the news and the web but find out nothing other than they are talking. This is, in itself, good news. But it is not much news. We want more.
This week they use the withholding of the truth.
There are two axis to this Information Power Mechanism Matrix. Information that is shared or withheld. Information that is true or false. Of course there are numerous degrees in between. But those are the two critical dimensions of information as a power mechanism - Veracity and Publication.
Are you learning about the power in information? Are you seeing the depth and breadth of your need for information? Are you seeing how the need coupled with the ability to manipulate the two dimensions creates power and controls the choices you make?
They say that law and sausage are the same. You don't want to see how they are made. I suppose it is the same for strike settlement.
The use of information got us here. But we do not want to know what they are saying now. It will only make us mad to find out how easy it will be to settle this. And when we are mad that's when we know we had power used on us.
They do not want you to know that.
Monday, March 20, 2006
There is always choice...
I got an email at onhavingpower.com from Chris.
Just thought I would tell you how much I am enjoying your blog. I've had quite a lot of time to burn and your blog has kept me sane through this strike. Now I have a question that has been bugging me. Assuming that the strike does end in the very near future and we head back to class what are the professors going to do to regain "control" of the classroom. I have talked to a few fellow students (who are not in your power class) and they seem to believe what management says. If this happens I predict a lot of tension in the classroom and concerning assignments. Many students have a hard time tying their shoes in the morning let alone realize that management has been playing both the students and professors. Hopefully you can share your insight to this :)
Well I think it is fair to anticipate animosity in the classroom.
When we get back – which I hope is next week – the first thing we will have to address is how we will cover all the necessary material to complete the requirements of courses and programs.
We will have lost of three weeks and will likely be adding one or two weeks onto the end of the semester.
Some will complain because they will have no place to live. Leases will have run out or plans will have been made earlier. For most this will not be an issue because most leases will run to the end of April and we will be finished before that.
Some will complain that will have lost a week of learning. In all necessary cases we will get the material covered. Classes will be more intense and in some cases they may schedule an extra class.
As a result some will complain that the work load is harder than they can manage and they are being treated unfairly. Some will complain that their grades are not as high as they should be. Some will complain that they will have to miss work at their part-time job so they can keep up with the work load. Some will complain that the extended duration of the semester hurts their ability to make money this summer.
Some complaints have an air of legitimacy and will be taken into account when the courses are revised, the grades are calculated and the diplomas are awarded. Other complaints are just people looking to complain.
Some will complain that they didn’t know when the strike would end so they did not do any home work. Now they are behind even more.
Right….
Some will complain that the revised due dates and exam dates put them at a disadvantage because they couldn’t plan ahead for them.
Ya… as if….
Some will complain that their education is tainted because of the strike.
Tell me do you remember the last post secondary strike? No? Well that’s my point.
Some will just complain. They will complain no matter what the solution is.
But in the end Chris, you are right. There will be some undertone of animosity. Grumbling and whining. Frustration and criticism. Fear and anger.
Anger and fear. The emotions of power.
Because their needs have been used to accomplish someone else’s ends they are angry and afraid. These are the emotions that remind us that power is in play. The students will complain because they feel powerless and they will express it. Not in a useful form. Complaining doesn’t usually help. It is an over attention to the problem. The focus needs to be on the solution.
But the complaints will come as a reaction to the power they are feeling. Others control their future.
I expect that the faculty will be just as angry and afraid. Where will they find the time to get all the necessary material and lessons covered? They will have to redesign half of every course they are teaching. They will have to make whole new plans and negotiate with students to get the buy-in necessary to pull it off.
They will do most of that work without pay - weekends and evenings. Some are doing it right now.
We can do a power analysis. The Needs are obvious.
The students need to finish their year without increased cost or effort. The faculty need to deliver that education within a shortened time and with fewer resources.
The realm of circumstance puts a limit on the time and availability of people.
The abilities are obvious. The students have the ability to work with the faculty and increase their school efforts to accomplish this or they have the ability to resist and complain. They can refuse to do what is necessary and the faculty will be unhappy.
The faculty can work hard on their own time, revise their courses, lay out a plan and compromise on non-essential matters making the next few weeks tolerable – even enjoyable – like before. Or they can refuse to do the extra work. They can insist that the course remain the same and that the students just have to do the work and suffer through.
Both the students and the faculty have a choice.
They can use power and exploit the needs of the other. Or they can use compassion and accommodate the needs of the other.
They can examine the needs of the other and, rather than use those needs to get something that they want, they can use the awareness of the needs to generously help and support the other.
Chris, it is my intention to work on my compassion. I will be coming into the classroom saying that we are together in a tough situation. We need to focus our efforts together to make it work. To get an education and still have some fun doing it.
I will do my best not to respond to their power with my power. I will try because power never ends and power destroys trust.
Look at the mess we are in due to the use of power to date. You only ask your question because you no longer trust anyone. That loss of trust is the direct result of the present use of power.
Power and compassion are both about needs and abilities.
It seems that we can learn a lot about power from the strike. But we can also learn a lot about the opposite of power - Compassion.
Just thought I would tell you how much I am enjoying your blog. I've had quite a lot of time to burn and your blog has kept me sane through this strike. Now I have a question that has been bugging me. Assuming that the strike does end in the very near future and we head back to class what are the professors going to do to regain "control" of the classroom. I have talked to a few fellow students (who are not in your power class) and they seem to believe what management says. If this happens I predict a lot of tension in the classroom and concerning assignments. Many students have a hard time tying their shoes in the morning let alone realize that management has been playing both the students and professors. Hopefully you can share your insight to this :)
Well I think it is fair to anticipate animosity in the classroom.
When we get back – which I hope is next week – the first thing we will have to address is how we will cover all the necessary material to complete the requirements of courses and programs.
We will have lost of three weeks and will likely be adding one or two weeks onto the end of the semester.
Some will complain because they will have no place to live. Leases will have run out or plans will have been made earlier. For most this will not be an issue because most leases will run to the end of April and we will be finished before that.
Some will complain that will have lost a week of learning. In all necessary cases we will get the material covered. Classes will be more intense and in some cases they may schedule an extra class.
As a result some will complain that the work load is harder than they can manage and they are being treated unfairly. Some will complain that their grades are not as high as they should be. Some will complain that they will have to miss work at their part-time job so they can keep up with the work load. Some will complain that the extended duration of the semester hurts their ability to make money this summer.
Some complaints have an air of legitimacy and will be taken into account when the courses are revised, the grades are calculated and the diplomas are awarded. Other complaints are just people looking to complain.
Some will complain that they didn’t know when the strike would end so they did not do any home work. Now they are behind even more.
Right….
Some will complain that the revised due dates and exam dates put them at a disadvantage because they couldn’t plan ahead for them.
Ya… as if….
Some will complain that their education is tainted because of the strike.
Tell me do you remember the last post secondary strike? No? Well that’s my point.
Some will just complain. They will complain no matter what the solution is.
But in the end Chris, you are right. There will be some undertone of animosity. Grumbling and whining. Frustration and criticism. Fear and anger.
Anger and fear. The emotions of power.
Because their needs have been used to accomplish someone else’s ends they are angry and afraid. These are the emotions that remind us that power is in play. The students will complain because they feel powerless and they will express it. Not in a useful form. Complaining doesn’t usually help. It is an over attention to the problem. The focus needs to be on the solution.
But the complaints will come as a reaction to the power they are feeling. Others control their future.
I expect that the faculty will be just as angry and afraid. Where will they find the time to get all the necessary material and lessons covered? They will have to redesign half of every course they are teaching. They will have to make whole new plans and negotiate with students to get the buy-in necessary to pull it off.
They will do most of that work without pay - weekends and evenings. Some are doing it right now.
We can do a power analysis. The Needs are obvious.
The students need to finish their year without increased cost or effort. The faculty need to deliver that education within a shortened time and with fewer resources.
The realm of circumstance puts a limit on the time and availability of people.
The abilities are obvious. The students have the ability to work with the faculty and increase their school efforts to accomplish this or they have the ability to resist and complain. They can refuse to do what is necessary and the faculty will be unhappy.
The faculty can work hard on their own time, revise their courses, lay out a plan and compromise on non-essential matters making the next few weeks tolerable – even enjoyable – like before. Or they can refuse to do the extra work. They can insist that the course remain the same and that the students just have to do the work and suffer through.
Both the students and the faculty have a choice.
They can use power and exploit the needs of the other. Or they can use compassion and accommodate the needs of the other.
They can examine the needs of the other and, rather than use those needs to get something that they want, they can use the awareness of the needs to generously help and support the other.
Chris, it is my intention to work on my compassion. I will be coming into the classroom saying that we are together in a tough situation. We need to focus our efforts together to make it work. To get an education and still have some fun doing it.
I will do my best not to respond to their power with my power. I will try because power never ends and power destroys trust.
Look at the mess we are in due to the use of power to date. You only ask your question because you no longer trust anyone. That loss of trust is the direct result of the present use of power.
Power and compassion are both about needs and abilities.
It seems that we can learn a lot about power from the strike. But we can also learn a lot about the opposite of power - Compassion.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Tell Me More....
I am wondering if you see the depth and breadth of our need for information.
We are a thinking beast. We like to think. We believe in thought. As Weber said – we have a never ending quest toward rationality. We believe in logic and fundamental principles like freedom and fairness.
We have values and we use our thinking ability to bring them to life.
If we borrow from Maslow we might say that we in the western world have very few Physiological or Security needs unmet. We have the food, shelter and security in abundance.
Although we cannot pretend that everyone in our North American society has what they need – and we need to address this poverty for many reasons – we can say that millions of people in that society have no real worry about their physical well being.
I will address the impact of the western poor another time so go with me on this for now….
Maslow would say that as our lower level needs are met, we are subsequently focused on our Belonging and Self Esteem needs. These are the next two significant categories in the Humanist’s Hierarchy of Needs.
This is the one of the most painful things about our way of life. It causes me concern. There is not much that keeps me awake at night. But when I think of the way my children and my students are controlled by their need to belong, I get truly afraid of the power they experience.
To belong is everything. There is nothing more important. There are in groups and out groups. We define and divide each other into groups based on the way we look. Based on the way we eat. Based on color. Based on religion. Based on the music we listen to. Based on the clothes we wear. Based on our hobbies. Based on our skills and abilities. We will divide each other and ourselves in any way we are even a little different.
We divide. We divide and the ones who are best at dividing and paying attention to how we are divided are the young.
It was long enough ago that it does not pain me anymore, but I remember the groups in high school. I remember the jocks and the brainers. The disco-ers and the rockers. The cool kids and the nerds.
I remember when Bruce killed himself.
Belonging is everything.
To belong requires a vast set of knowledge. It is information that defines makes us one of those who belong in the many groups and divisions. It is information, coming in many forms and from many places that serves the purpose of division. Our need to belong is essential and we need information to decide where we belong and how we see our selves.
That information gets measured against our values and our principles. Those principles and values are also the basis for division and segregation. We use the information filtered through the sieve of our beliefs, to determine right and wrong, in and out, us and them.
We are so fixated on the need to belong that we thirst for any information whatsoever. We take in anything we can get. We will take it from media but we will take it from conversations. Rumors. Gossip. Any kind of information is taken because we have such a need for it. We are making big decisions – like who belongs and who doesn’t – so we must have some information to use.
We need it. We need it so badly that we lose sight of the power in that need. We often forget to use that rationality we are so good at to decide if information is reliable or possibly false. We need information and we need to belong.
So we pay for information. Whether it is your cable TV bill for the news networks and MTV or it is a magazine or newspaper, we pay out big bucks to have the information we need.
Since the beginning of the strike I have listened to more public radio than ever before. I have paid more attention to the news networks than ever before. I am learning about their biases and their perspectives. I am seeing how the society we live in perceives the college system. The government and of course how they perceive professors.
Inherent in the need to belong is the requirement to divide. Inherent in living those divisions is the need for information. These needs are becoming complicated.
The need to belong is compounded by the need for information. Once we have the information – whether it is true or false – then the need to decide which group we belong to kicks in. Then those needs begin to complete because how we divide each other in the groups of right wrong and in out for this strike will not be how we divide the in out and good bad of being back in a classroom.
Today you may need to label the faculty as bad. You need to belong to a group that sees unions as problematic and faculty as spoiled and wrong.
But in two weeks the strike will be over and you will need those faculty to give you the final lessons in your diploma and you will need them to be willing to teach and guide you to the completion of the semester.
Where you belong today is not where you want to belong later.
And where you think you belong in either case depends on the information you receive and how you filter it through your values.
The breadth and depth of your need for information is almost incomprehensible.
But in that need lies the power to control you. And those with the ability to share or withhold information know that.
Why do you think the Minster of education publicly called the parties to meet with him but them held those meeting behind closed doors? He did it because he needs to control your opinion of him. For it is your opinion of him that allows him to have the job. There is always another election to be won.
Information needs, belonging, self esteem – power. No wonder the students are feeling controlled and played with. No wonder the faculty are feeling controlled and played with. No wonder the Management and Minister are scrambling to keep information under control.
The information about this strike is some of the most important informational needs we have had in quite some time.
I have never been a union guy. I accept the history of this industrial society and that the rise of the labor union movement was important and good. I see its role and its value. I see our civilization as bettered by its existence and on going presence. Not because we have people being exploited so much any more – though that still exists – but because it provides a place for people to belong. We need that so badly. And we still have that white collar – blue collar division.
I would never had an education or an opportunity but for the fact that my father was part of a union. We got health care and benefits. Without his pension I would be caring for him today. As a plumber my father got a better-than-average wage to support his wife and six kids. I was of the labor class. I could have easily stayed there. But the improvement in my family’s lifestyle as a result of the benefits of being unionized labor gave me the ability to see the American dream and that I could do anything. As one of the first on either side of my family to get an education past high school, I saw hope. I was poor and I was known as one of the poor kids in high school and in university, but I was able to see my self as able to belong to that group and was therefore able to push ahead and succeed.
My Dad’s union was important to him and to our family. But I have never been a union guy.
But when a strike happens…well it is clear what group we belong to.
So what does it mean to be a striker? What does it mean to be Management? What does it mean to be the innocent victim of a work stoppage? And who should we side with? What group do we belong in? What group do we support and see as right? Which group do we see as wrong? Which group do we feel sorry for? Which group do we need to be sympathetic with to protect our own future. The strike will end, will I still want to be in the same group then?
We need answers to those questions because we are compelled to divide. We need to belong. We need to belong to the group of people who know what is right and what is wrong. We need to be one of the people who really know.
We need answers to these questions because we need to have self esteem. We want to be right. We want to have the self esteem that comes from being the one who is smart enough to understand and the one who is capable of being right.
So much need. So much need that can only be satisfied with information.
So much power.
I know that through this ramble I have digressed into many new areas. I have jumped around a bit. I have left things incomplete. As such have left you with a great many questions and unresolved thoughts.
Where does he stand on strikes and unions?
What about the meeting they had yesterday?
What does Les know that I don’t?
Tell me more about this Maslow guy…?
What is all this about the poor in North America?
What about this painful experience of youth and belonging…?
Who is Bruce? What happened?
Information you need to resolve your need to satisfy other needs. I have left you with needs. You will be back to see what I write tomorrow. Power….?
See what I mean….?
We are a thinking beast. We like to think. We believe in thought. As Weber said – we have a never ending quest toward rationality. We believe in logic and fundamental principles like freedom and fairness.
We have values and we use our thinking ability to bring them to life.
If we borrow from Maslow we might say that we in the western world have very few Physiological or Security needs unmet. We have the food, shelter and security in abundance.
Although we cannot pretend that everyone in our North American society has what they need – and we need to address this poverty for many reasons – we can say that millions of people in that society have no real worry about their physical well being.
I will address the impact of the western poor another time so go with me on this for now….
Maslow would say that as our lower level needs are met, we are subsequently focused on our Belonging and Self Esteem needs. These are the next two significant categories in the Humanist’s Hierarchy of Needs.
This is the one of the most painful things about our way of life. It causes me concern. There is not much that keeps me awake at night. But when I think of the way my children and my students are controlled by their need to belong, I get truly afraid of the power they experience.
To belong is everything. There is nothing more important. There are in groups and out groups. We define and divide each other into groups based on the way we look. Based on the way we eat. Based on color. Based on religion. Based on the music we listen to. Based on the clothes we wear. Based on our hobbies. Based on our skills and abilities. We will divide each other and ourselves in any way we are even a little different.
We divide. We divide and the ones who are best at dividing and paying attention to how we are divided are the young.
It was long enough ago that it does not pain me anymore, but I remember the groups in high school. I remember the jocks and the brainers. The disco-ers and the rockers. The cool kids and the nerds.
I remember when Bruce killed himself.
Belonging is everything.
To belong requires a vast set of knowledge. It is information that defines makes us one of those who belong in the many groups and divisions. It is information, coming in many forms and from many places that serves the purpose of division. Our need to belong is essential and we need information to decide where we belong and how we see our selves.
That information gets measured against our values and our principles. Those principles and values are also the basis for division and segregation. We use the information filtered through the sieve of our beliefs, to determine right and wrong, in and out, us and them.
We are so fixated on the need to belong that we thirst for any information whatsoever. We take in anything we can get. We will take it from media but we will take it from conversations. Rumors. Gossip. Any kind of information is taken because we have such a need for it. We are making big decisions – like who belongs and who doesn’t – so we must have some information to use.
We need it. We need it so badly that we lose sight of the power in that need. We often forget to use that rationality we are so good at to decide if information is reliable or possibly false. We need information and we need to belong.
So we pay for information. Whether it is your cable TV bill for the news networks and MTV or it is a magazine or newspaper, we pay out big bucks to have the information we need.
Since the beginning of the strike I have listened to more public radio than ever before. I have paid more attention to the news networks than ever before. I am learning about their biases and their perspectives. I am seeing how the society we live in perceives the college system. The government and of course how they perceive professors.
Inherent in the need to belong is the requirement to divide. Inherent in living those divisions is the need for information. These needs are becoming complicated.
The need to belong is compounded by the need for information. Once we have the information – whether it is true or false – then the need to decide which group we belong to kicks in. Then those needs begin to complete because how we divide each other in the groups of right wrong and in out for this strike will not be how we divide the in out and good bad of being back in a classroom.
Today you may need to label the faculty as bad. You need to belong to a group that sees unions as problematic and faculty as spoiled and wrong.
But in two weeks the strike will be over and you will need those faculty to give you the final lessons in your diploma and you will need them to be willing to teach and guide you to the completion of the semester.
Where you belong today is not where you want to belong later.
And where you think you belong in either case depends on the information you receive and how you filter it through your values.
The breadth and depth of your need for information is almost incomprehensible.
But in that need lies the power to control you. And those with the ability to share or withhold information know that.
Why do you think the Minster of education publicly called the parties to meet with him but them held those meeting behind closed doors? He did it because he needs to control your opinion of him. For it is your opinion of him that allows him to have the job. There is always another election to be won.
Information needs, belonging, self esteem – power. No wonder the students are feeling controlled and played with. No wonder the faculty are feeling controlled and played with. No wonder the Management and Minister are scrambling to keep information under control.
The information about this strike is some of the most important informational needs we have had in quite some time.
I have never been a union guy. I accept the history of this industrial society and that the rise of the labor union movement was important and good. I see its role and its value. I see our civilization as bettered by its existence and on going presence. Not because we have people being exploited so much any more – though that still exists – but because it provides a place for people to belong. We need that so badly. And we still have that white collar – blue collar division.
I would never had an education or an opportunity but for the fact that my father was part of a union. We got health care and benefits. Without his pension I would be caring for him today. As a plumber my father got a better-than-average wage to support his wife and six kids. I was of the labor class. I could have easily stayed there. But the improvement in my family’s lifestyle as a result of the benefits of being unionized labor gave me the ability to see the American dream and that I could do anything. As one of the first on either side of my family to get an education past high school, I saw hope. I was poor and I was known as one of the poor kids in high school and in university, but I was able to see my self as able to belong to that group and was therefore able to push ahead and succeed.
My Dad’s union was important to him and to our family. But I have never been a union guy.
But when a strike happens…well it is clear what group we belong to.
So what does it mean to be a striker? What does it mean to be Management? What does it mean to be the innocent victim of a work stoppage? And who should we side with? What group do we belong in? What group do we support and see as right? Which group do we see as wrong? Which group do we feel sorry for? Which group do we need to be sympathetic with to protect our own future. The strike will end, will I still want to be in the same group then?
We need answers to those questions because we are compelled to divide. We need to belong. We need to belong to the group of people who know what is right and what is wrong. We need to be one of the people who really know.
We need answers to these questions because we need to have self esteem. We want to be right. We want to have the self esteem that comes from being the one who is smart enough to understand and the one who is capable of being right.
So much need. So much need that can only be satisfied with information.
So much power.
I know that through this ramble I have digressed into many new areas. I have jumped around a bit. I have left things incomplete. As such have left you with a great many questions and unresolved thoughts.
Where does he stand on strikes and unions?
What about the meeting they had yesterday?
What does Les know that I don’t?
Tell me more about this Maslow guy…?
What is all this about the poor in North America?
What about this painful experience of youth and belonging…?
Who is Bruce? What happened?
Information you need to resolve your need to satisfy other needs. I have left you with needs. You will be back to see what I write tomorrow. Power….?
See what I mean….?
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