My Facebook status today: In a Masters' degree (social psychology) I learned that all institutions are inherently degenerative (RKMerton); the evil in institutions is greater than the sum of the evil of the individuals within them (RNiebuhr). So how do pre-institutional ...'people movements' stay focussed/healthy? Not by institutional control, but by listening to prophets (mavericks who are outside institutions, mostly). One response: Yet the thing which distinguishes the classical prophet is that they spoke from within the cult. And we only find the classical prophets at a time when the monarchy (institutions) was in place. This is an area of great interest to me and I often wonder how it may be translated to our context. My response: Where does John the Baptist fit into your paradigm? He got persecuted by both the secular and religious authorities... Yes, some of the OT prophets were more in (First Isaiah) than out (Amos) eh? More responses: Perhaps rather than degenerative they are like mini nation states (H.Richard Niebuhr: The Structure of Nations) comprising of the complex forces that reflect the rises and falls within life itself. It's fascinating to notice the way "organisations," are inherently self focussed, self promoting, controlling, and mostly not open to organic responses ... Read Moreand growth. Maybe in the end they are an aberration of life itself. However, I have found the writings of Richard Barrett to be useful here: Liberating the Corporate Soul - Building a Visionary Organization, Building a Values-Driven Organization. Barrett's life with the World Bank is a fascinating one. John McFarlane the previous CEO of the ANZ in Australia once wrote:"Our responsibility as leaders therefore is to enhance, harness and direct the capacity and energy of our people towards virtuos and valuable ends.. Long term success has to have a solid foundation built on principles and values that act as centre of gravity. "LEADERSHIP." *** When I did my Masters In ABorigibal Studies the Thesis bit re POST MODERNISM..."Post modernism purports to Smash down the walls of inequality through the inclusion of OTHERS". My agrument against this was its crap because the 'inclusion' is merely TOKEN in our society. Institutions become law unto themselves..i think a HEALTHY way to try find ... Read Moreballance is keep getting into the REAL WORLD talking to real people about Real life events that REALLY Affect our lives.. instead of sitting on our bums trying to intelectualise things because things in THEORY are quite doifferent than in Practice & REALITY. .. & dont throw out COMMON SENSE because humans r by nature egocentrical self centred beings & know to delude ourselves (my operational definition = delusion is a FALSE FIXED THOUGHT). Everything IS relative... but PERSPECTIVE can be optional. If we EXAMINE Ourselves & our Motives.. thats a good start We r all instututionalised by SOCIETY in some way or another *** Sounds like a more complicated version of the sporting teams' mantra: "you're only as strong as your weakest player" Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher Justice for Dawn Rowan - http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/
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