Month: April 2010

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“Who Shall Survive?” Can we survive? Maybe.

War and climate change crisis are on my mind. I am cynical and despairing most of the time with respect to these issues, but I want to share thoughts that give me some hope! Maybe they will inspire you and us as a community.

How a small group can impact a large community!

Small groups, well facilitated have a level of insights to truth that is quite unlike what is common in community meetings or in parliaments and so on. Whatever mode of facilitation is used in a group, however the group is seated, whatever methods are used, small groups can access human depth. Often this is for personal development or training. There is always an important step that happens before a group meets. The group’s statement of purpose and scope is created. Who can attend the group. What its bounds of privacy are. What are the expected outcomes? This aspect of group design is vital!

The importance of the broad frame, and how innovative we can be in its creation came home to me through my interested in Wisdom Councils. These were developed by Jim Rough, who uses a method called Dynamic Facilitation. The purpose and frame of these groups is radically different from groups I am used to. The inner working of the group is familiar, but its context is profoundly different. He adds or emphasises some important dimensions that may not have been developed in the Morenian sphere of influence.

1. Microcosm and macrocosm

1. A group can be designed to be a microcosm of a larger community. Random selection from the larger group may be one way to achieve this. Note this is not representation, people are in small groups in their own right, authentically themselves. A small group, working for a longer time, in depth is working for the whole community. Not because the community has chosen them, or even know about them, but because of the principle of isomorphism between the part and the whole.

The small group carries the diversity of the whole within it. Resolutions in the small group are likely to be acceptable to the whole.

2. Purpose related to larger organisation.

The purpose of the group may be to present wisdom or insights to the larger community. The group may have a topic, in the pure Wisdom Council the topics arise from the group, when the group has a specific topic “Creative Insight Council” or CIC is used. Just how to relate the group to the larger community is part of the design of the group, and it would be clear in the purpose statement.

3. Planning the group in its context

Preparation of the larger community and its connection to the group is part of the design. Jim Rough has advocated that a Wisdom council be enshrined in the constitution, as a voice for “We the People”, and they can also be on a much smaller scale. A group could be formed by randomly selecting 12 willing participants from an organisation of 200 people. The group could have a specific topic for example: “How to best use available assets.” How to promote such an event, fund it, and host it is all part of the preparation and plan.

4. Presentation of the findings.

This needs to be clear from the start, so that privacy concerns are addressed and not breached. What is the plan for publication of groups breakthrough statements, if there are any? Follow up meetings where the group presents its insights? Web presence, during and after the event, is there a blog? Who can post? Twitter? Media involvement? Video, podcasts and movies?

Through my sociometric * eye it occurs to me that the whole of Jim’s work fits within the sociometric frame work. I am exited to think that all these matters are highly sociometric, and the Wisdom Council and CIC approach could well be a way in which the original sociometry as a form of scientific social investigation of working with society at large can be furthered. The ability to do create such a group for a larger whole needs to be part of a sociometrists ability.

The key understanding I have from this reflection on the relationship between Wisdom Councils and the groups we are used to in psychodramatic circles is that we can consciously identify the larger organisation as a group that is being served by a small intensive microcosm of itself. It is a group within a group. The small group’s work is to the larger community, as is the work of a protagonist in the small group. Isomorphy within systems is leveraged to work at great depth with groups that would otherwise have no voice.

Members of a wisdom council work authentically on their own concerns, they are not representatives, they need only present their own thoughts and feelings and act only in accordance with the dictates of their own heart. Systemic resonance between wholes and parts are already part of the sociometric systemic understandings we have and heightening that awareness and finding ways to make use of that would be a great step. Fits well with the theme of “Who Shall Survive?”

I am interested in how you see this as a form of sociometric work. Have you had experiences that bear on these ideas? How might we take this further in the community and in our own organisation?

Notes
*
From the ANZPA Training and Standards Manual:

Sociometrist
A sociometrist intervenes in social systems and organisations from a basis of research data provided by informal or formal sociometric surveys of groups. The interventions are usually directly related to organisational structure. The sociometrist makes use of abilities in research, negotiation, consultation and strategic planning, to relate to group structures in clinical, educational, community, industrial, commercial, political, economic, religious and international affairs. The purpose is to facilitate group task effectiveness and membership satisfaction.

Related Links:
Moreno’s “Who Shall Survive?”
Sociometry on Wikipedia
Wisdom Councils
Dynamic Facilitation
Diana Jones’ Sociometry page
Anne Hale’s Sociometry site

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Bad!

Obama ‘Even Worse’ Than Bush On Secret Wiretapping Case, Says S.F. Lawyer – San Francisco News – The Snitch:

Politics Obama ‘Even Worse’ Than Bush On Secret Wiretapping Case, Says S.F. Lawyer By Peter Jamison, Thursday, Apr. 1 2010 @ 11:22AM Comments (19) Categories: Law & Order phonedial.jpg Is ‘Mr. Change’ listening? ?San Francisco attorney Jon Eisenberg thinks he’s learned a thing or two about Barack Obama over the past 15 months. Eisenberg, who won a landmark decision against the government in Northern California’s U.S. District Court Wednesday on a wiretapping case, says that when it comes to violating civil liberties in the name of national security, the present occupant of the White House is just as bad as — or “even worse” than — his predecessor. “The Obama Administration stepped right into the shoes of the Bush Administration, on national security generally and on this case in particular,” Eisenberg said, referring to the lawsuit brought by his clients, an Oregon branch of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers. The plaintiffs argued successfully before federal Judge Vaughn Walker that their conversations were illegally wiretapped under the Bush Administration’s secret surveillance program. Just as significant as the ruling, however, may be what the case demonstrates about the Obama Justice Department’s approach to surveillance of suspected terrorists. Eisenberg told SF Weekly that government lawyers working for Obama had been “more strident” than those working for Bush, refusing to let him see important federal documents related to the case even after he was approved for a top-secret security clearance. “Even though I have the security clearance, I don’t have the ‘need to know,’ so I can’t see anything,” Eisenberg said. “This is Obama. Obama! Mr. Transparency! Mr. Change! It’s exactly what Bush would have done.” The federal government has not announced whether it intends to appeal the decision in favor of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and lawyers Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor. It had argued that the “state secrets” privilege was more important than potential violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires that a judge issue warrants for wiretaps.

Cyberspace isn’t a place – Irish Judge � The Register:

Cyberspace isn’t a place – Irish Judge * Alert * Print Creators’ rights are human rights, says Court By Andrew Orlowski � Get more from this author Posted in Law, 19th April 2010 14:56 GMT Free whitepaper � Taking control of your data demons: Dealing with unstructured content An Irish Judge has upheld the right of a creator to protect his creations as a fundamental human right. In a scathing and occasionally lyrical ruling, Judge Peter Charleton also pointed out the internet is merely one communication tool of many, and not “an amorphous extraterrestrial body with an entitlement to norms that run counter to the fundamental principles of human rights”. It’s the strongest refutation of the idea most famously expressed at Davos by John Perry Barlow, in A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, which warned: “You have no sovereignty where we gather.” Charleton said, “the right to be identified with and to reasonably exploit one�s own original creative endeavour I regard as a human right,” pointing out that this has existed in Irish Law since before even the days of The Grateful Dead – it’s credited to Saint Colmcille (521-597). The High Court in Dublin was reviewing the settlement in last year’s EMI vs Eircom case. The defendant had referred to Eircom as Eire’s Data Protection Commissioner. Charleton rejected the argument, ruling that: “Copyright is a universal entitlement to be identified with and to sell, and therefore to enjoy, the fruits of creative work… Were copyright not to exist, then the efforts of an artist could be both stolen and passed off as the talent of another.” After singing the praises of the internet Charleton notes that it is, “thickly populated by fraudsters, pornographers of the worst kind and cranks. “Among younger people, so much has the habit grown up of downloading copyright material from the internet that a claim of entitlement seems to have arisen to have what is not theirs for free.” Everyone won from this, he noted, “except for the creators of original copyright material who are utterly disregarded.” Interestingly, Charleton rejects the idea of copyright infringement as a ‘crime’ – it’s a mere civil offence, in this case a breach of contract. Copyright infringement doesn’t include a “mental element” involved in arson or murder, he notes. So the ruling rejects two key arguments made by critics of the UK’s Digital Economy Act – that internet access is a ‘fundamental human right’, and that copyright enforcement infringes privacy. The ruling gives the go ahead light for a ‘three strikes’ policy in Ireland – one rather speedier than anything discussed here, and which will be thrashed out in the months ahead (see A user’s timetable to the Digital Economy Act). After 28 days and two letters, the ISP may serve a 14-day disconnection notice during which time the user may appeal or promise to stop for good. You can read the ruling here. �

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Psyche and cyberspace

I am adding a quite a few political posts of late. I put them in the World category. But I think I’ll stop posting them, and focus on psyche and cyberspace.

I see the fate of the world as a psychological phenomena. The cyberspace aspect is vital as well, so my “World” posts are not really off topic. I am deeply concerned, angry, and scared about the fate of the world. However there are a bunch of left-wing bloggers and websites that do all of this really well. Maybe I’ll put a bunch of those in the sidebar. Promote them more.

We are heading for disaster with war, climate and nuclear weaponry. If the world is like the Titanic, then we need to avoid that iceberg, grab the wheel, or slow down, or strengthen the ship in some way.

What I know best is psyche and cyberspace. In those fields there may be some answers. I think I have been posting in vain to vent anger, to point to the Emperors new clothes, to say we are on the eve of destruction. But I will sticl with the way in which psychological work is needed.

Crazy? It might sound that way because we are in an Orwellian world, where words mean their opposite. Or they mean nothing at all.

Psyche always was a complex idea. Think of Marx’s idea of class consciousness.

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12 September 2021
Did not post this in 2010, but put it up today. I’ve added the tag: About – about me about the world and about this weblog.

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