Fundamentals of Noetic

Capital

By Clement Blakeslee, B.A., M.A., M.Sc.Retired public affairs broadcaster, political journalist, human resources consultant, native affairs advocate, social science academic, and environmental advocate

Buddha graphic by Wilfredor / CC BY-SA 3.

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PREFACE

During the last 500 years, Western European culture has witnessed some

dramatic transformations in the economic order and in all other social institutions. In

only half of a millennium, Western Europe transformed itself from a medieval feudal

economic social system to the advanced societies associated with the post-industrial

era.

The factors propelling European change for the last 500 years are complex and

numerous. However, one of the most fundamental changes during this period has been

several stages of transformation in the concept of capital. The attribution of value and

the belief system surrounding the fundamental generators of value shaped the idea of

capital as well as guided the transformation from one belief system to another. The

medieval concept of value was very different from the mercantile concept which

replaced it. Although capitalism emerged out of mercantilism, the concept of value

did not change greatly until this century when an utterly new notion of capital

appeared--namely, human capital.

The medieval world view saw land and labour as the fundamental generators of

wealth and therefore the basic expression of value or capital. Medieval principalities

were very simple economic systems. Although money was used to support military

campaigns and to pay for exotic commodities, for the most part the medieval

economy was supported by the labour of the peasant and the produce his labour

brought forth from the land. The wealth of the lord was as much an expression of the

number of peasants working the land as the amount of land he had for working.

Medieval Christianity frowned on money lending and other forms of manipulation of

monetary capital for profit.

From the middle 1300s when plagues eradicated two-thirds of Western

Europe’s population until the early 1500s when maritime rivalries began far-flung

empires, Europe transformed itself from medieval to modern political and economic

systems. Some of the factors driving this transformation were: (1) labour crisis due to

decimation of population; (2) the collapse of Byzantium in 1453; (3) the invention

and spread of the printing press in the mid-1400s; (4) the rise of Ottoman Turkey and

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the blockade of the caravan routes; (5) the influence of the Basques, Vikings, Italians

and Portuguese in launching the maritime age; (6) the rise of Protestantism and its

social impacts in the early 1500s; and (7) the use of slavery in building overseas

plantation economies.

The cash economies created by overseas empires supported by plantations did

two things. It generated enormous amounts of cash for European merchants and

military adventurers, and it transferred European medieval society from the European

homeland to the overseas empires. Labour at home was seen more and more as a cost

to be avoided in preference for overseas activities which generated cash. Early in this

process, shops and factories began manufacturing trade goods for overseas markets

but also for home markets.

Thus, the transformation in the view of capital from land and labour to cash

and factories moved Europe from medieval life to industrial life. The industrial notion

of wealth was the creation or acquiring of factories and all that served factories for the

purpose of amassing cash. European thought formalized the new view of capital in the

concept of capitalism as defined by a string of British scholars from Adam Smith to

John Stuart Mill.

This thinking dominated Western thought until a variety of philosophers,

economists and other scientists began developing the idea of human capital. World

War II saw the destruction of the conventional industrialized society and the

transformation of Western Europe and North America to the post-industrial societies

which see ultimate value in the human mind and its creative qualities. The modern

view of human capital ascribed ultimate value to the skills, talents and capacities of

individual minds and their cooperative synergism.

Although our accounting systems have not caught up with this fundamental

change in the concept of value, the pressure is mounting for it to do so. The decade of

the ’90s will be the decade of consolidating the concept of human capital by clearly

understanding where ultimate value lies.

Previous understandings of capital ascribed value to external objects. Even the

labour of peasants was viewed more as a disciplined effort of domestic animals than a

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feature of human dignity and integrity. Peasants were not valued for their artisanship

or their intelligence; rather, they were valued for the crops they produced and for

other forms of sweat labour. The use of slave labour in overseas empires was a device

for transferring European serfdom to overseas possessions. As the peasant lost his

value at home, the slave gained his value overseas, thus allowing European society to

completely change its focus of capital to buildings, factories, ships and the raw

material to feed the system. In both the mercantile period and the capitalist period, the

point of all this was to generate profits by accumulating cash, preferably gold coin.

The new view of capital internalizes value by recognizing that the creative,

cooperative efforts of individuals are the generators of all material wealth--cash or

otherwise. Productive equipment in factories, non-renewable and renewable

resources, agricultural and urban land and money itself are derived forms of capital

and therefore secondary as expressions of value to the skills, talents and capacities of

the human mind.

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CHAPTER 1

MODELS OF SOCIAL INVESTMENT

Nearly anyone can declare that he or she is a futurist, then after the declaration

attempt to read the tea leaves for the human quest. Some futurists obviously enjoy a

very high level of credibility, while many others fail to acquire such acceptability.

In the U.S. there are three futurists of a rather cautious nature. Their version of

future analysis avoids dealing with radical paradigm shifts. Their view of society is

probably a fair reflection of mainstream middle-class America.

Phillip Schlechty is an educator who is attempting to design educational

programs in keeping with anticipated trends. He does not see major structural

revisions in North America, and he does not see the school as an arena for generating

such revisions. His line of thinking is more of a method for enriching human

resources and using human resources in a more efficient and effective fashion.

Because he is a relatively cautious analyst, I would suspect that he enjoys a

reasonably high level of credibility.

When Schlechty’s work in education is paralleled with Tom Peters’s analysis

for business (particularly in the book Thriving on Chaos), and John Naisbitt’s work in

social policy (Megatrends 2000), there emerges an intellectual continuity and a policy

of a highly congruent nature. These three do not wish to destroy the old paradigm,

they just want to change the direction vis-à-vis the use of human resources and vis-à-

vis organizational vitality. They are greatly concerned with the dissipation of societal

vigour through destructive conflict in both the public and private sectors. If there is a

theme that pervades such work, it is the critical need to generate a cultural focus and

to facilitate harmony in every dimension of life.

I find it difficult to fault such thinking, but I do regard this approach as

extremely cautious. Certainly Fritjof Capra is a far more radical futurist in nearly

every respect. In all of his books, including The Turning Point, he makes every effort

to argue for a thoroughly new paradigm in physics, in the social sciences, in

environmental concerns, as well as economic and political pursuits. He is not so much

a Marxist thinker as he is a New Age thinker--in my mind there is a very considerable

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difference. The term ‘New Age’ does carry with it some flaky baggage, Shirley

MacLaine style. However, alternative designations have their own problems. The

more commonly used alternatives are the post-industrialist era, the post-modern

generation, the information age, the New Thought Movement, and the Human

Potential Movement. Capra is most closely affiliated with the Human Potential

Movement, which is in part a product of the Esalen Institute. Of all these terms I

prefer ‘New Age,’ recognizing that for some people there is an image problem.

Some of the scholars I feel particularly comfortable with in regards to their

view of the future represent a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds. Helen

Henderson in her book, Politics of the Solar Age, Jane Jacobs in Cities and the Wealth

of Nations, Robert Reich (1984) in The Next American Frontier and Lester Thurow

(1985) in The Zero-Sum Solution are new paradigm economists with a deep interest in

the issues surrounding human potential. They all bring a refreshing view to the inter-

relationship among basic social institutions for the enrichment of human capital. The

skills, talents and capacities of the base population are as important to the social order

as the leadership capacities of the social elite. Enrichment of society through

education is a powerful theme for these four economists.

The New Age line of thought, or the human potential literature, constitutes a

new paradigm quite different from the old capitalist paradigm or even the traditional

paradigm associated with analytic philosophy, behavioural psychology, operational

sociology and even traditional theology. The style of science explicated by theoretical

physicists such as David Bohm, Geoffrey Chew and Fridjof Capra mesh very well

methodologically, ontologically and epistemologically with a whole spectrum of

disciplines responding to this totally revolutionary world view. Not only economists

responded to this profoundly new style such as the four I mentioned above but also

historians, theologians, psychiatrists, oncologists and an incredible diversity of like-

minded people who are reshaping our understanding of ourselves, of nature and of the

spiritual dimension.

The late theologian, Alan Watts, who was on faculty at Berkeley for many

years, did much to bridge these interdisciplinary concerns through this New Age

paradigm. In one of his last works in 1972 he provided a brilliantly simple analysis of

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this new way of thinking. The work is called The Book. He has profoundly influenced

psychologists such as Ken Wilber, psychiatrists such Roger Walsh and many other

brilliant proponents of the New Age methodology.

In short, what is the essence of the New Age paradigm? Perhaps it is easier to

say what it is not. Certainly, it is non-mechanistic, non-reductionist, non-materialistic,

and certainly non-traditional in just about every sense. The Vedic scriptures of India,

the Taoist scriptures of China and the Zen Buddhism of today’s Japan have

challenged and often replaced traditional Western paradigms. The Oriental influence

on Alan Watts, Ken Wilber, Fridjof Capra and a whole galaxy of like-minded scholars

is simply quite profound.

Another important feature of this New Age paradigm is an abandonment of the

patriarchal, power-focused, authoritarian world view. The feminist movement seems

to fit well into this new paradigm, as do the various green movements. Concomitant

with this is a philosophical stance that decries the excessive disparity between the

base population and the elite population of various modern societies. There is a new

political imperative embedded in New Age thinking. This leads to social policy which

will have a profound effect on the conjugal institutions of health and education and

even the marketplace itself. The reason I say the conjugal institutions of health and

education is simply because these two arenas of social investment are reciprocally

enmeshed with each other in a way that can generate an incredible synergism.

Those interested in the concept of human capital, as I am, recognize the near

miraculous impact which can be had through universal effective health and education

programs. Of course, where the greatest effect is found is in the bottom half of

society, since this stratum is in greatest need of investment and will show the greatest

dividends from this investment. As New Age economists, educators, psychologists

and anthropologists all recognize, human capital constitutes the necessary and

essential capital for any economic and political system. Limitations of financial

capital, natural resources and even land base can be miraculously overcome by an

intelligently focused human capital enrichment program. If we understand the synergy

between health and education, and if we understand how to invest in them effectively,

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then the very essence of society can be changed in less than a generation as many

Western and Oriental societies have already demonstrated.

This reality has worked so well for Japan that Hazel Henderson argues in her

book, Politics of the Solar Age, that society currently controls or manages one dollar

out of every four in the global economy. Since Japan is only 125 million people on an

extremely small land base with virtually no resources, this figure is all the more

startling. Japan’s per capita GNP is matched only by the per capita GNP of Sweden.

These two populations are among the healthiest, most highly educated and the most

economically productive that the world has to offer. They have done it by intelligent

investment in the bottom half of their population through intelligently designed health

and education programs.

France did not develop this strategy until well after World War II. However,

since they have done so they have had an economic miracle which has seen them

outstrip Britain by a full 50% margin. France has now caught up with the United

States in terms of the affluence of their population, and regarding the bottom half of

the population they have outstripped the United States. Out of the ruins of World War

II, Germany has experienced the same economic miracle for the very same reason.

Societies in the Orient which are mimicking Japan have likewise experienced

the same economic miracle. The two most dramatic examples, because they started

before other minidragons, are Singapore and Hong Kong. Currently, their per capita

GNP is well ahead of Britain’s and closing fast on Japan. Korea and Taiwan started

much later than Hong Kong and Singapore, but they certainly have seen an

unbelievable improvement in their base population. They have outstripped Indonesia

and the Philippines by ten-fold in per capita GNP.

Although the Americans seem to find it difficult to mobilize the political will

for improving the lot of the bottom half of the society, they had best take heed from

the worldwide examples and learn from them. Canada now has a choice between

following the example of American social policy or looking to Northwest Europe for

more appropriate strategies. The Americans currently are in crisis, and Canada does

not need to follow their disastrous examples.

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There is no doubt that the health and education institutions of Canada are more

vital and more vigorous than their counterparts in the United States. Yet, if we follow

inappropriate strategies borrowed from the Americans, we could lose the advantages

which we currently possess vis-à-vis the Americans.

We must pay close attention to the bottom half of our population, both in

health and education, and we must invest intelligently in the human capital of this

base population. There are many ways Canada can achieve the per capita GNP and

the prosperous and stable social context of Sweden or The Netherlands. Whether we

have the creativity to invest in ourselves for optimal value, remains to be seen.

The world of today offers four basic models of socioeconomic and political

organization. Nearly every society on the globe today is a living manifestation of one

or another of these four models. In the real world, of course, the real thing is usually a

co-mingling of more than one model. However, I find it relatively easy to understand

social systems by relating them to one or another of these models.

1. The most ancient of these models is the feudal/military model. This tends to

be characteristic of rural, relatively non-industrialized societies. However, some

societies well along the path to industrialization have maintained the feudal/military

concept of social organization. Until recently, Spain, Portugal and Greece are relevant

examples. Today’s Argentina, Brazil and Philippines are examples. In such societies,

wealth is concentrated in a tiny elite of 1 or 2 percent of the population. The peasant

population and urban proletariat are systematically bled to the point that their lot is

ruinous poverty. Although such societies have the capacity to industrialize, the results

of industrialization are not shared by the massive “base population.”

2. The next model can be characterized as the Adam Smith model. This social

philosophy is a modernized version of the feudal/military model. Since 1776 when

Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, this book has provided a biblical reference for the

new urban middle class made possible by the military conquests around the world by

European nations. As Max Weber pointed out in his book several generations ago,

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, there was a synergy between the

philosophy of Adam Smith and the religious values of the Protestants. Thus the

industrial urbanizing elements of Britain and other societies have a philosophy

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relevant to the imperial, commercial and industrial trends from the 18th century to the

20th century. This point of view saw the middle class as the legitimate creators of

wealth and the appropriate possessors of property. It saw the existing feudal

governments of the day as the enemy, and the peasants and factory workers as a

labour resource in conjunction with land, minerals and factories. It is not too

surprising that this model saw the rapid enrichment of the middle class at the expense

of the “base population” and overseas subjects.

3. Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto in 1848 and his massive work,

Capital, during the 1860s. This radical model was an impassioned reaction to the

grinding misery of the European “base population.” The societies adopting the Karl

Marx model attempted to destroy the concept of private property and the institution of

religion. The focal values of the Karl Marx model regard these two institutions as

anathema to society devoted to equity and justice for the entire population. It goes

without saying that the Karl Marx model is enjoying discreditably around the world.

Even China, after 43 years of building the Karl Marx model, is now backing away

from it as an economic focus.

4. The model which enjoys the highest level of credibility in today’s world I

have dubbed the Otto Von Bismarck model. As Chancellor of Unified Germany, he

created a polity that took clear shape during the 1860s and endures today as the

organizing principle of Germany, France, Holland, Japan, Singapore and many other

societies. This model sees government as the guiding instrument of society in

conjunction with the industrial and commercial corporations. Private property is

understood to have limits in its use and concentration. A healthy society must

adequately allocate through one mechanism or another resources and services for the

“base population.” The health system is deemed to be a way to ensure the health of

the entire population and not just the affluent segment of the population. Health

services are understood to be an essential component of a healthy society in every

dimension. Likewise, education is seen as the generator of talents, skills and

capacities of the entire population. This view of human capital has seen many

societies explode out of feudalism into the modern industrial age.

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In Britain there is a married couple who have worked as a scholarly team in

regard to the ‘conjugal’ nature of the health and education institutions. In Wynn and

Wynn’s book, Prevention of Handicap and the Health of Women, they explore this

issue with incredible clarity. Although British social policy has generally ignored

scholars like the Wynns, the Bismarck model as practised in Northwest Europe

manifests in a practical political fashion ideas outlined in their book. As the Wynns

point out, if Britain fails to learn from France, Germany and Scandinavia then they

will condemn themselves to being a marginal society in Europe. In the dozen or so

years since they wrote the book, Britain has indeed lost even more ground vis-à-vis

the continent.

The social policy implications for the ‘conjugal’ institutions in Canada are

becoming clearer and clearer. We must question the very structural foundations of the

health and educational institutions, especially as instruments for enriching the human

capital of our base population.

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CHAPTER 2HUMAN CAPITAL / BASIC CULTURAL WEALTH

Introduction

This chapter focuses on the human mind as human capital. This focus will

include:

a look at human consciousness as it has evolved to today;

its perceived economic value and mental potential in today’s organizations;

the role of education--conventional and alternative--in the development of human

capital; and

human capital in the contemporary workplace.

Evolution of Human Consciousness

Any work of this sort must look into the future. Although futurism is a risky

game, we must be able to anticipate what humankind may create for itself 5, 10, 20

years in the future, or longer. Some trends are obvious; others are likely hidden from

us. However, it is possible to write scenarios that examine some of the more probable

courses of development. The future, however, is the future, and there are no

guarantees.

One of the ways of looking into the future is by exploring the past. The growth

of human consciousness over the last 100,000 years and longer is a truly exciting

exploration and this growth has proven to be of great practical use. Not only has the

human mind developed greater technical skills from the Ice Age to the current age;

even more importantly, the human mind has explored its inherent capacity to study

itself, to change itself, and to purposefully raise levels of consciousness. The last

100,000 years and more have witnessed the human spirit at work. This spirit has

increasingly brought forth technical ability and mental awareness to provide ever-

greater degrees of personal freedom and personal control. The next 100 years will

most assuredly provide a test for the lessons learned throughout the previous 100,000

years. The genius of humankind is a double-edged sword: one side destructive,

corrupting and disinvesting; the other side creative, and investing through positive

understanding of human potential. Centuries ago it was clearly understood by those in

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the slave trade that human beings represented capital of enormous value. The

bitterness of emancipation demonstrated clearly the strength of the understanding that

human beings were, in the simplest and most direct form, capital (Hobhouse, 1990).

Modern industrial societies have generally lost sight of the recognition that

human talent and human intellect, as well as human sweat, represents wealth. One of

the clearest thinkers about this matter was the historian Oscar Handlin (1973). Even

though North America was blessed with natural resources, and colonial powers

poured financial capital into the New World, real investment was in importing human

skills and human intellect, through immigration.

Since World War II, modern research and personal development programs

have grown with vigour. Many streams of philosophy, psychology, medicine,

organizational management, training strategies and personal growth strategies have

combined to provide a new world view concerning human resources and the

fundamentals of worth and value. Modern managers and professionals understand that

the human mind possesses the capacity for self-analysis, self-teaching and self-

correction. The human mind is now regarded as a vast storehouse of unused

resources. A cliché in literature suggests that most people fail to use 90-95% of their

mental resources. However, through simple and effective programs of self-

investment and self-training, humans can learn to expand their available mental

resource for problem-solving, growth and an expanded knowledge base. Such

personal investment generates capital growth in the most fundamental and essential

form.

One of the great contributions made by current thinkers and writers concerns a

better understanding of the human mind, subconscious as well as conscious, and even

the trans-personal nature of mind. Because the human mind has the capacity to be

self-aware, self-teaching and self-correcting, culture is built in a cumulative fashion

through the generations. Of course, accumulated science and technology are the most

obvious expressions of intergenerational accumulation of cultural resources.

However, we can look at knowledge and creativity in a broader context with a clearer

understanding of the generative quality of individual human minds and the synergistic

potential in cooperative effort.

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Economic Perceptions of Human Capital

The human mind creates culture; culture expresses and defines value.

Therefore, the organizational culture of any company or government department is the

collective creation of its members and their predecessors, as a sharing of individual

minds, for constructive and creative purposes, or, alternately, for attitudes which

diminish and devalue. The ultimate value and worth which lies within the human

mind and the accompanying useful array of human talents, can be mobilized and

husbanded effectively and creatively; or all of it can be squandered.

As the human mind learns to study itself, it also learns to invest in itself

through growth-oriented self-change. If the human mind is the primary and only form

of true capital, then the economic implications of human resource development

become not only clear, but also quite liberating. By a positive program of individual

investment in mental resources, each person can create an avenue of personal growth

and freedom from the enslaving bonds caused by external controls. In short, personal

growth can lead to personal freedom, as well as to profoundly enhanced economic

worth.

As the economic value of the human mind becomes clearer and better

understood, organizations are increasingly realizing that they must give as much

central attention to talent inventories as they do to concrete capital inventory. In our

North American economic system, there is often a prevailing distinction that suggests

human resources are soft, ill-defined and unreliable as compared to financial

resources, deemed to be hard, precise and reliable. This work views this as a false

distinction, seeing the perception of money based on the notion that value can be

externalized from the human mind, then shifted and anchored in material objects or

currency. This false distinction motivates policymakers to view employees as

primarily an expense item; thus, managers fail to understand the capital value

represented by the mental resources of employees through their aggregated talents.

Traditionally machines and equipment tended to be seen as assets, with employees

tending to be seen as liabilities. There is a real danger in our technological age that the

continuing effort to replace people with machines may lead to a reckless abandonment

of human capital and, with it, the expensive loss of some rare skills.

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Value does not lie outside the human mind, even though the mind may

attribute value to such things as a tar sands plant or a pocket full of coins. Although

often prevalent, this work sees all such value as arbitrary, therefore changeable,

dependent upon collective agreement through the dynamics of culture. This work sees

human talents as expressions of mental resources; therefore, they constitute the true

form of capital. We can quantify talent; we can measure it carefully; we can identify

strengths and weaknesses, as well as the synergy of reciprocal talents. Just as

chemicals can express a reciprocal synergy, which magnify their group effect, so it is

with human talents. When human talents are properly identified and mobilized

synergistically, the magnifying effect is significant. This process has two aspects: the

creative function and the integrating function. It is important to recognize that these

two functions are not inherently incompatible (Blakeslee, 1988a).

We must get away from the idea that an employee only brings to the company

or organization the talent called upon in the job description. A company limiting its

attention to narrow perception of its employees often denies itself a vast array of

human capital, which could enrich the company beyond measure. No company or

organization is so rich that it can afford to deny itself human resources vastly greater

than the array of job descriptions.

In The Next American Frontier, Robert Reich (1984) believes strongly that the

next frontier is nothing more nor less than a focusing of our attention on human

capital and a consistent and wise strategy for enhancing this form of wealth. Arguing

that the most competitive industrial societies are those which truly respect the concept

of human capital and consistently pursue the enrichment of human capital, Reich

believes that North America during the last half-century has failed to understand the

wealth that human capital represents; therefore, for a half-century, North America has

failed to husband this crucial resource. In the broadest national and corporate terms,

our society tends to squander human capital, treating it as though it were merely an

expense, except for the small percentage of humans which occupy senior executive

levels. Even at those levels, we in North America can be inconsistent and wasteful.

Education and Human Capital

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There is a change in the way education is viewed in North America. Rather

than university being a rite of passage for the professions, to be accomplished

between high school and career, today’s society perceives it very differently.

Education, like product development, is a never-ending process which should be seen

as a systematic investment in each and every individual’s human capital. Increasingly

we understand enhancing human capital at an individual level through programs of

continuing education and various programs for personal development. Economic

reversals seem to sharpen this focus at the individual level, since it is a practical

strategy for competing in the job market. However, a proactive strategy for utilizing

human capital requires continuing personal development at all times, especially when

the economy is buoyant.

The ‘Great Books’ program developed by the University of Chicago in the

1930s carefully built a curriculum revering the creative quality of today’s mind, by

winnowing the accumulated knowledge of yesterday’s great writers. Robert Hutchins

and Mortimer Adler, who co-created the program, were convinced that knowledge

was power and that individual students could vastly expand both their knowledge and

creative potential by focusing on less than 80 great books written during the preceding

2500 years. Their perception was that the human mind could accumulate through the

generations a wide range of knowledge other than science and technology. They saw

that ethical awareness could be enlarged, social tolerance could be expanded, political

understanding could be increased, along with many other enriching dimensions of

mental growth. The University of Chicago was careful to avoid reducing the program

to an elitist exercise of literary catechism. They were concerned about the nature of

North American education as a failure to appreciate the human mind in all elements of

the population. They thought the University of Chicago could lead the way in

building an educational philosophy that would celebrate the resources of all citizens

throughout North America (Adler & Gardner, 1994).

Over 70 years later, we are still lamenting the failure of the educational system

in firing the creative capacity of young students and competently guiding them in the

acquisition of knowledge. This failure is costly, not only to the individual who fails in

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a personal sense, but is also extremely costly to North America’s economic order, as

innumerable books and articles point out (Laxer, 1998; Swift, 1999; Willinsky, 1998).

We endlessly compare our educational system to that of Japan or West

Germany, and we don’t like what we see. The problem is not so much with the top

25% of young students; rather, it is with the bottom 50%. The bottom 50% is

condemned, for the most part, to occupational instability, frequent unemployment,

work that remunerates poorly, and often to living circumstances that are as tenuous as

their work itself.

This bottom 50% of our social system is treated wastefully by our failing to

understand that there are mental resources left unused, undeveloped and unrespected

by our educational system and by our marketplace. It should be acknowledged here

that progressive business leaders and educators are recognizing this problem and are

trying to do something about it. If we systematically waste half of our population,

then we cripple ourselves in the international marketplace--already all too evident. We

also cripple ourselves socially and politically through widespread alienation and even

overt hostility to all of our major institutions. Nearly half of our population fails to

vote, even in major federal elections. Traditional religious institutions have lost an

enormous amount of popular support. This trend is reflected throughout other major

structures of society.

If we socialize a large proportion of our fellow citizens in self-perception of

failure or personal worthlessness, then we fail to invest purposefully and positively in

all of those individual minds. So it should come as no surprise that if we fail to invest

appropriately and effectively, then we fail to get any return on investment. In fact,

instead of getting a social return, what tends to happen is that we get enlarged cost

factors in a variety of social and health programs. A culture of failure easily develops

into a culture of illness; a culture of illness becomes a serious personal and social

liability, costly to everybody.

Many societies have understood the connection between the culture of illness

and the disinvestment in human capital that damages the marketplace (Wynn &

Wynn, 1979). Bismarkian Germany, well over 150 years ago, understood the

connection between a vibrant economy and a competent population (Taylor, 1955).

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The economic and scientific miracle of German society that predated World War I

was more than frightening to all of its competitors. And of course, out of the ashes of

World War II, Japan had its own economic miracle resulting from their own careful

investment in human capital with all the resulting benefits.

The four mini-dragons of Asia--South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and

Singapore likewise experienced the same growth for the same reasons. On the other

hand, the Philippines’ failure to grow illustrates the plight of a number of other Third

World countries who have failed to grow because of failure to understand human

capital in any terms other than sweat. Fifty years ago, Finland clearly understood this

problem and in one generation moved their economy from a Third World profile to a

successful modern profile. A decade later, France came to the same realization and

likewise developed a systematic effort toward capital investment in the vulnerable

segments of their population. It is no accident that France has had an economic

miracle parallel to their new social effort. This lesson is not just a recent one.

Implied so far, but not clearly distinguished, are two forms of human capital:

(i) sweat capital--simple physical labour. Modern technology is rapidly

diminishing the importance of human labour. Also, physical power is little more than

an alternative to animal power derived from horses, yaks or even draft dogs.

(ii) mental capital--the resources of the mind.

Those societies that restrict the view of human capital to that of mere labour reduce

the view of human beings to being commensurate with donkey power. Much of the

Third World is severely crippled by this tragically incomplete view of human worth

(De Soto, 2000; Mazrui, 1986; Salvucci, 1996). Thus, country after country in the

Third World is condemned to economic stagnation, social instability and financial

mismanagement.

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Education as Adult Lifestyle

The learning society is growing because it must . . . When life was simpler, one generation could pass along to the next generation what it needed to know . . . tomorrow was simply a repeat of yesterday. Now, however, the world changes faster than the generations, and individuals must live in several different worlds during their lifetimes. (Cross, 1981, p. 272)

One distinction our culture has historically made is between education and

work. In education we have arranged our institutions so that education is that which is

done in schools and colleges. Work is that which is done in plants and offices. This

leads to a further distinction: Education is for young people and work is for mature

people.

While it is true that companies are increasingly providing staff development

services, it is also true that school boards and colleges are offering adult education

programs. Historic traditions and distinctions are still dominant, however, and our

support for adult education is still weak and erratic.

It is sad to observe that a significant part of our adult population is relatively

incompetent in written and spoken language skills. Even sadder, all too many

professional people read very little and are less than enthusiastic about continuing

education. Many adult education course offerings consist of little more than

recreation. It is also evident that universities reach out to the community with

reluctance and hesitancy; therefore, they do not seriously engage the adult population

in a focused, ongoing educational regime. Although the situation varies greatly across

North America from one institution to another, and from one locale to another, the

North American scene could certainly be improved. Typically, if individuals in our

society wish to acquire graduate degrees, they must quit their jobs and return to the

dependent, adolescent role associated with undergraduate life.

These traditions are kept alive by a false sense of standards; also by a total

misunderstanding of human capital, and how to invest effectively in human capital.

Those who function as professionals in human resources have an obligation to

promote, in both private and public sectors, a healthier understanding of human

capital and a commitment to invest in human capital and human resources through

continuing education that is convenient, effective and growth-oriented. We must

20

invest in the work force as a deliberate and focused strategy, leading to personal

growth for every employee. There is simply no alternative to continuous personal

growth through formal educational programs, and through work experience which

recognizes personal growth (Blakeslee, 1988b).

In spite of the reluctance of traditional universities, a vigorous industry has

grown up during the last generation through private universities that serve adult

workers while they remain on the job. These universities--even though they are not

subsidized--have achieved this spectacular growth by recognizing this clear need in

the adult population and effectively meeting that need. Some public universities are

beginning to move in this direction with a greater sense of priority; yet in the United

States, as in Canada, they tend to suffer from bureaucratic ossification and a blunted

sense of purpose (Ghosh & Ray, 1991).

Today’s competitive environment simply demands that we enrich the mind

throughout the work years and afterwards by investing in personal growth through

purposeful educational programs.

Alternative Educational Programs

‘Student as employee, and employee as student’ is rapidly becoming the theme

of today’s workplace. Career flexibility and career development are increasingly

entwined with educational enrichment as an ongoing and inseparable relationship. For

over a generation the concept has been around of a university without walls. Both

Britain and the United States have had a limited number of publicly supported

educational institutions which actively promote off-campus services (McGeveran,

2001). However, this concept has only recently become widely acknowledged in the

Western world. Some private universities are actively promoting programs in the

workplace and other off-campus learning environments. Some of these programs are

extremely high quality even though they are non-traditional.

The internet system is now changing, and will probably continue to change, the

technology of education and the availability of information as well as formal courses.

As a result, interest in education is beginning to cut across all demographic and

21

regional categories. In fact, a recent survey confirms that Canadians are increasingly

turning to the internet for education.

According to the survey, 26% of Canadians have searched the internet for online courses, 8% have taken an online course and 7 percent have taken an in-person course that includes a significant online component . . . . Among those who studied online, the great majority, or 90%, said they would recommend studying online. They said they liked online courses because they saved a significant amount of time, the courses improved their employment possibilities, and the internet provided them with a means to take courses they wouldn’t otherwise have sought. (Kapica, 2002, p. 1)

The survey concluded that education is making significant inroads into the way

Canadians use the internet.

Educational institutions need to take advantage of this opportunity by exploring this area more closely in order to determine the types of courses potential participants are interested in taking online. . . . Besides being an effective medium for the actual delivery of online educational content, the internet is a significant marketing tool for institutions who are offering traditional in-person educational courses. (Kapica, 2002, p. 1)

The advantages of online education are further evidenced by these

considerations:

- It is no longer necessary to quit work or to take a prolonged leave in order to

further a university program. This means the cost of the education can be

drastically reduced because there is no need to lose income for two or three years.

- There is no need to absorb the expenses commensurate with residential settings.

- The structure of online education means that institutional staff costs and capital

costs are greatly diminished by more rational planning and utilization of facilities.

An individual can acquire solid and competent academic recognition for academically

valuable job experience. Through a variety of testing services and practicum

arrangements, it is possible to get substantial academic recognition for job-related

experience.

Modern communication and transportation greatly facilitate individualized

instruction and off-campus services. Weekend seminars can draw instructors from

across the continent with great efficiency, thereby making most locales accessible to

22

some of the best brains in a given field of study. Modern telecommunication,

facsimile transmission and the internet expand the information base beyond belief.

Many graduate programs provide short, on-campus experiences during the summer,

which can be integrated with a holiday schedule. This allows an annual gathering of

the students, which provides the bonus of a certain amount of traditional university

environment.

Through night courses, correspondence courses, teleconference courses and

websites, students can avail themselves of a more individualized, if less systematic,

approach to ongoing educational development. Although this approach involves a

significant proportion of the adult American population, a certain ‘ad hoc’--even

random characteristic tends to accompany this approach. Sometimes the interests do

not rise much above the hobby level. If all one wants is to further a hobby, this issue

should be clear both to the providers of the service and the students--although some

hobbies can actually have considerable academic value and can lead to new career

opportunities.

Human Capital in the Contemporary Workplace

The social and technical impact in the workplace imposed by advances in

communication technology constitutes one of the most important foci of changes in

the marketplace as well as the workplace. Innumerable books have been written about

changes in the North American marketplace. Of course, these changes in the

marketplace will have profound effects on the nature of the workforce, with corollary

changes in the technical and social environment of work.

Technical advancements in telecommunications have reshaped the way we

communicate from building to building or from city to city. As cell phones become

miniaturized, they have become as much a part of personal paraphernalia as the

ballpoint pen. Electronic publishing, along with advances in photocopying and

facsimile transmission of information, have further revolutionized the style and

impact of communication. Each office has the capacity to generate information as a

self-contained electronic information system. Furthermore, the capacity of an office to

receive, process and use information has been magnified considerably. There has also

been a shift from blue-collar to white-collar employment. Automation on the shop

23

floor is radically changing the nature of the factory and its human requirements.

Obviously there is a point beyond which this change cannot proceed. Even with

robotic energy, there will always be some requirement for human power to manage,

organize, or perform dirty, unpleasant and manual labour. The percentage of blue-

collar labour will probably not shrink to less than 10-20%. Although women on

average are still paid less than the male population, there is no doubt that the female

population is moving overwhelmingly into white-collar areas in the service industry

and in office work. Women are now close to 50% of the workforce and will probably

remain at this level for the foreseeable future (Reed, 1998). Doubtless the salary

differential between men and women will lessen, but how it happens is up for intense

argumentation in both business and government.

The average age of the workforce is rapidly rising, giving us a very different

population pyramid than during the baby boom. Twenty-five percent of the population

will soon be in the retirement category (Statistics Canada, 2002). This shift will mean

a rapid decrease in the availability of cheap, youthful and inexperienced workers.

Table 1 presents a comprehensive summary of these statistics.

TABLE 1SHIFTS IN POPULATION SIZE OF VARIOUS AGE GROUPS

COHORTYEAR OF

BIRTHAGE IN

2001

AVG. NO. OF BIRTHS PER

YEAR SIZE

Pre-WW1 Before 1914 88+ 201,000 Relatively small

WW1 1914-1919 82-87 244,000 Relatively small

1920s 1920-1929 72-81 249,000 Relatively large

Depression 1930-1939 62-71 236,000 Relatively small

WW2 1940-1945 56-61 280,000 Relatively large

Baby boom 1946-1965 36-55 426,000 Very large

Children of the boomers 1980-1995 6-21 382,000 Relatively large

Children of the baby bust cohorts 1996 on 0-5 344,000 Relatively small

(Statistics Canada, 2002)

24

Another serious challenge concerns the educational profile of the population.

Half the workforce will be technically competent and fully acclimatized to the

communication demands of the coming white-collar world (Statistics Canada, 2002).

However, the other half of the workforce will represent serious impairment in

communication skills as well as the technical and personal aptitudes characteristic of

the white-collar world. To change this situation requires a profound re-examination of

the causes of this condition and strategies required for dramatically changing it.

The modern marketplace demands effective communication and unfettered

creativity. If we truly believe in these things, then it is essential to teach people how to

maximize their mental resources. Both large governments and multinational

companies constitute the primary targets for change. The bloated and the ossified

must be decentralized, streamlined and simplified--or else they run the risk of

bankruptcy or disintegration. Tom Peters (1988) argues, as do others, that small is

beautiful and flexibility an imperative.

Fortune 500 has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs through automation and

offshore manufacturing. North America is rapidly becoming a marketplace of service

companies, involving perhaps as much as three out of four in the workforce. Along

with the flattening of management structures goes a decentralization of research and

development, marketing strategies and product modification (Thurow, 1980). The

marketplace is becoming an elaborate array of small, specialized niches responsive to

small, flexible companies (note the explosion of small beer companies with unique

products filling a specialized niche all over North America). More creative product

development and higher-quality products are essential to the new style. It is just as

imperative for people to change as it is for companies to change.

Healthy leadership is important through a clear understanding of mentoring;

yet leadership is not enough. Each individual must take responsibility and control of

his/her own personal investment program as a positive contribution to him/herself

and, therefore, to the organization. A healthy personal investment program will most

assuredly build a healthy organization. Leadership can coach, urge and facilitate, but

it cannot take control or responsibility for the personal investments of each individual.

Ultimately that lies with each and every person.

25

CHAPTER 3

COMMUNICATION AND CREATIVITY

Introduction

In Tom Peters’s (1988) Thriving on Chaos, he sounds an alarm bell that would

shatter the ears of the deaf. It is his opinion, as well as many other New Age thinkers,

that the North American marketplace is currently experiencing--and will continue to

experience--an unbelievable transformation.

Both large governments and multinational corporations constitute the primary

targets for change. The bloated and the ossified must be decentralized, streamlined

and simplified or else they run the risk of bankruptcy or disintegration. Peters does

believe, as many do, that small is beautiful and that flexible is an absolute imperative.

In recent years, the Fortune 500 has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs

through automation and offshore manufacturing. North America is rapidly becoming

a marketplace of service companies, involving perhaps as much as three out of four in

the workforce. Along with the flattening of management structures goes a

decentralization of research and development, marketing strategies and product

modification. The marketplace is becoming an elaborate array of small, specialized

niches responsive to small, flexible companies. (Note the explosion of small beer

companies with unique products filling a specialized niche all over North America.)

More creative product development and higher quality products are essential to the

new style. It is just as imperative for people to change as it is for companies to

change.

In Vincent Nolan’s (1987) Innovative Management Skills, he deals with three

crucial subjects: communication, problem solving and team building. As a New Age

thinker, he understands problem solving and communication as brilliantly as anyone I

have read. I am persuaded that effective communication and truly creative problem

solving are skills that everybody needs in the new marketplace. Although we give lip

service to unfettered creativity and lucid communication, I am of the opinion that a

wide variety of subliminal cultural streams sabotage both communication and

26

creativity. Nolan makes a very strong case for most corporate climates being quite

hostile to innovation even though they talk about valuing it. It perhaps is a truism to

say that the more layers of management an organization possesses, the greater is the

likelihood of amplifying error in the process of communicating.

We talk endlessly about listening being crucial to communication, yet how

many fast-trackers really know how to do that? For communication to be accurate, it

must be open and yet how often do hidden agendas completely derail open or honest

communication? Those who are familiar with New Age literature are probably aware

of the potential negative impact of subconscious strategies and hang-ups on both

communication and creativity.

Conscious assertions regarding the merits of innovative talents and vital

communication are not enough. Everybody needs to learn how to access subconscious

resources and reprogram subconscious fear and anger if the individual is to contribute

to the organization at a level closer to his true potential. Since organizational culture is

built by the participation of those individuals involved in the organization for a long

time, it becomes obvious how important it is to make better use of the true potentials

of all managers and employees.

The mind resources available to everyone through a better understanding of

transpersonal consciousness as well as the inner consciousness are simply beyond

measure. Programs now abound for teaching people how to avail themselves of these

resources and, just as important, how to unload all of the debilitating, limiting and

diverting strategies that nearly everyone has picked up during a lifetime of experience.

For over a quarter century, Herbert Benson, MD, along with a number of

Harvard colleagues, has explored the powers of the human mind from a medical

perspective through careful quantification of physical experiences, either of a

destructive nature or of a healing capacity. In Your Maximum Mind (Benson, 1987),

he provides a clear focus to the considerable amount of research done at Harvard over

the last generation. Innumerable other universities are following similar research

pursuits with parallel results.

27

Put very simply, the mind and body possess two modes of response: the stress

response and the relaxation response. Prolonged exposure to the stress response is

inhibiting to the mind and debilitating to the body in very measurable terms, whereas

the relaxation response expands the mind and heals the body in easily quantifiable

terms. In short, stress is not only the enemy of the individual--in its totality among

many individuals it becomes the enemy of the organization. Furthermore, if

communication is to flow openly and honestly as well as reciprocally it must be by

virtue of individual minds being free of the counterproductive forces of stress.

The modern marketplace demands effective communication and unfettered

creativity. If we truly believe in these things, then it is essential to teach people how to

maximize their mental resources.

Innovation: Creativity or Crisis

Innovation — “The introduction of something new: A new idea, method or

device” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary).

With this definition of innovation in mind, it is obvious that innovation is

commensurate with change. The change may be massive or minimal; it may be

structural or procedural; it may be in equipment or materials; or it may be in

manpower configurations of management or the front line. Yet something important

must be said about change. Although the marketplace is constantly experiencing

change, the consequences can be negative and destructive as well as creative and

developmental. Change can elicit the emotion of fear as well as the expectation of

benefits. Change can be manifested amid aggression and confrontation, or it can be a

cooperative expression of quality control and productive output.

Ideological compulsions can drive the pursuit of change so that management

fails to distinguish between the destructive and the beneficial. If management

denigrates human capital and debases its value, then change may be pursued without

regard for the talents of the workforce or the human potential of the frontline. If this

mistake is made, then an enormous amount of productive capacity can be crippled and

vast reserves of financial capital can be dissipated.

28

Two companies typify the difference between innovation as a creative process

and innovation as a state of crisis. Eastern Airlines, under the guidance of Frank

Lorenzo, constituted a pristine case of blind change resulting in crisis and eventual

dissolution. In contrast, Chrysler Corporation, under the guidance of Lee Iacocca,

clearly demonstrates an organization which innovates creatively and effectively.

Frank Lorenzo began his dubious career by managing Texas Air, derisively

known as Teeter-Totter Air. Through clever strategies understood by accountants,

lawyers and bankers pursuing the goals of takeover, Frank Lorenzo was able to

acquire Continental Airlines. Through bankruptcy manipulations and other

exploitative tactics, he bashed the workforce into submission to gain leverage in the

deregulated marketplace. Few analysts saw any benefit to the public, any benefit to

the employees or any benefit to productivity. It was simply takeover for takeover’s

sake and the financial milking of the company. With this lesson firmly lodged in Mr.

Lorenzo’s mind, he then acquired Eastern Airlines. He subsequently began selling off

pieces of the airline, demanding massive salary cuts from frontline employees and

otherwise behaving as a raider. In 1991, Eastern declared bankruptcy, as did its sister

company, Continental, a few years earlier.

These acquisitions certainly precipitated change by a so-called innovative

response to the deregulated airline industry. Obviously, this form of innovation relies

on aggression, confrontation and crisis. In the case of Eastern Airlines, the stakes

were 30,000 jobs, 20% of the flying public and the solvency of the junk bonds for

such maneuvers. As a ruthless corporate raider and union buster, Frank Lorenzo was

named as “one of Time Magazine’s 10 Worst Bosses of the Century”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines). Such entrepreneurial skills do not

benefit the marketplace and do not serve the reputation of capitalism in a positive

manner.

Fortunately, Chrysler Corporation tells a very different story. The earlier

management of Chrysler, dominated by bankers and accountants, had virtually

destroyed the company. However, when Lee Iacocca brought the new management

team to Chrysler, the changes were startling, dramatic and effective. For years, Lee

Iacocca and many of his close colleagues had regarded their careers at Ford as a

29

stifling of creativity and a blockage of innovation. When he and associates gained

control of Chrysler, their innovative talents became obvious almost instantly. Quality

control was attacked with passion and purpose, and the results were profound. New

product lines were established which filled obvious niches in the marketplace. Plant

efficiency was dramatically improved without reducing the workforce to Third World

wage rates. Chrysler demonstrated that you could enjoy North American wage rates

and remain competitive with offshore automobile companies.

Chrysler invested appropriately in its human capital as well as its physical

plant. The benefits to the employees and to the marketplace are a matter of record.

Dutch and German companies understand this principle and so do Japanese

companies. Fortunately, an increasing number of North American companies like

Chrysler understand these principles. The dramatic turnaround at Harley-Davidson is

another case in point. The revitalization of Remington Electronics is another.

Tom Peters’s (1988) Thriving on Chaos also provides a very long list of case

histories of companies who have begun to understand how to better invest in human

capital and how to benefit from that investment. Peters also makes a point well worth

pondering. He argues that Japan and Germany and other hot competitors invest in

engineering talents and technical skills to a far greater degree than North America. He

also points out that we over-invest in lawyers and accountants, which may be useful

for takeover gambits but add little to the productive spirit of the marketplace. Peters

suggests that if we invest in human capital, then we need to focus on engineering,

science and technology. The current emphasis on MBAs and lawyers is, to his mind,

counterproductive. The contrast between Eastern Airlines and Chrysler Corporation

certainly supports Tom Peters’s contention.

Working, Learning and Growing

Our culture has historically made some distinctions which are no longer very

useful. First, we have arranged our institutions so that education is that which is done

in schools and work is that which is done in plants and offices. This leads to another

distinction: Education is for young people and work is for mature people.

30

It is true that increasingly companies are providing staff development services,

and it is also true that school boards and colleges are offering adult education

programs. But the historic traditions and distinctions are still dominant, and our

support for adult education is still weak and erratic.

It is sad to observe that roughly half of our adult population is relatively

incompetent in written and spoken language skills. Even sadder, all too many

professional people read very little and are less than enthusiastic about continuing

education. Too much of the adult education offerings are fluff courses being little

more than recreation. It also is most evident that universities in Canada reach out to

the community with reluctance and hesitancy and therefore they do not seriously

engage the adult population in a focused, ongoing educational regime. Typically in

Canada, if you wish to acquire graduate degrees you must quit your job and return to

the dependent, adolescent role associated with undergraduate life.

These traditions are kept alive by a false sense of standards and by a total

misunderstanding of human capital and how to invest effectively in human resources.

Those of us who function as professionals in human resources have an obligation to

promote in both the private and public sectors a more healthy understanding of human

capital and a commitment to invest in human resources through continuing education

that is convenient, effective and growth-oriented. We must invest in the workforce as

a deliberate and focused strategy leading to personal growth for every member of the

workforce. There simply is no alternative to continuous personal growth through

formal education programs and through work experience which recognizes personal

growth.

A vigorous industry has grown up in the United States through the private

industry context that serves adult workers while they remain on the job. These

universities have had spectacular growth, even though they are not subsidized, by

recognizing the clear need in the adult population and effectively meeting that need.

Some public universities are beginning to move in this direction with a greater sense

of priority, yet in the United States as in Canada they tend to suffer from bureaucratic

ossification and a blunted sense of purpose.

31

Nevertheless, American businesses are increasingly searching for a more

effective relationship between the classroom and the marketplace. American business

spends over $200 billion a year on in-house educational programs (this is

considerably more than Canada’s annual national budget). Private American

universities seem to understand this issue and are willing to energetically bridge the

gap.

Increasingly, Canadians are recognizing the value of this new spirit and are

therefore bringing the American programs to Canada. This is causing reactions from

Canadian universities which tend to be more self-serving than public-spirited. If

Canadians want to avoid American intrusions, it will be necessary to create our own

educational programs which serve our adult population with high-grade meat rather

than recreational fluff.

We who are in human resources must energetically tend to our own

educational needs and constantly invest in our own personal growth through an

ongoing educational program. Although many people currently do this on their own, I

believe it would be valuable for human resources organizations to focus on this issue

and to promote it relentlessly, especially for their own members, but also for the

business environment at large. Human resources people are constantly called upon to

serve as mentors and teachers. In my view it is very difficult to be a quality mentor or

teacher without, at the same time, being an enthusiastic student. Formal, structured,

educational programs do provide focus and encouragement for personal growth, but

many informal devices can also play a vital role, such as a clear and disciplined

reading program.

Today’s competitive environment simply demands that we enrich the mind

throughout the work years and even afterward by investing in personal growth

through purposeful educational programs.

Problem Solving and the Role of Metaphor

There is a false distinction that has plagued Western culture for centuries, if not

for millennia, dealing with the dichotomy between that which is metaphoric and that

which is literal. In our common-sense traditions, we are sure that some words and

32

some ideas represent reality in a literal meaning in that there is no doubt about the

connection between the object and the idea. Ordinary language philosophy has

provided a 20th-century academic justification for this point of view.

The corollary to this idea is that some words and some ideas represent reality

only as a metaphor. That is, the connection between the object and the idea is an

indirect, symbolic connection. The color black in China has a very different symbolic

significance than the same color has in Canada. The maple leaf in Canada possesses a

very different symbolic charge than it would have in China. There are those who

would see some passages in the Bible as a careful recounting of point-by-point events

while others would regard the same passages as an allegorical lesson. Disputes over

biblical interpretation can give real poignancy to the distinction between literal and

metaphoric accounts. However, the world of mathematics can provide a more

objective look at this distinction. Algebraic formulas are not, and cannot be, a literal

representation of the environment. These systems are culturally agreed-upon systems

of symbols that are by their nature arbitrary and conventional and, therefore, utterly

without literal representation.

If symbols lack a widespread conventional understanding, then they seem

esoteric or, if you will, metaphoric. If an individual is highly innovative, then by

definition this person is introducing symbolic references which have not established a

high level of group acceptance and understanding. The issue here is not a distinction

between the literalness of ideas and the metaphoric nature of ideas, but rather the

nature of acceptance of symbolic reference points. The argument boils down to this

point: The human mind operates in terms of symbols–new and old. The symbolic

content of the mind is, therefore, a metaphoric representation of external objects and

events. Therefore, mind is metaphor and there is no distinction between literal

representation and metaphoric representation. There may be distinctions at the

symbolic level between the simple and the complex, the generally accepted and

innovative, the routine and the bizarre, and many other such distinctions. Yet all

remains metaphor. This point becomes important in the way training is done in any

organization, or certainly in the implications for organizational development.

33

Often in training the technique of role play is used. The technique has been

used for countless years with widespread acceptance. However, there is a danger in

the technique in that it can become cliché-ridden and extremely predictable. On the

other hand, if improvisational dramatic techniques are introduced, by its nature

innovation occurs and the process becomes less predictable. The process of

improvisation seems to some as metaphoric or allegorical when, in fact, the real issue

is that it is innovative. Innovation gives freshness to a process because the individuals

involved must engage in establishing commonality of meaning and agreement

regarding symbols. The innovative process of improvisation theatre elevates role play

to a symbolically richer process. Many would argue that the symbolically richer

process provides a more creative climate for learning which can result in more

effective training.

The same point can be made regarding the process of brainstorming. Hanging

charts on the wall and allowing people to make lists on those charts often is highly

conventional and extremely predictable. Regardless of the situation, the same old

words and the same old lists can occur over and over and over. The predictability of

the process drastically diminishes the effectiveness of time spent doing it. Utility is

lost in predictability. However, if the group is encouraged to consciously and

deliberately engage in a synectic approach, then predictability is exchanged for

innovation. That is, the persons involved are encouraged to use metaphor in the

process, which means that the connection between symbols and events becomes more

removed. The freshness of the symbolic content necessitates a mental process of

reaching for understanding and groping for mutuality that may emerge. This

deliberate use of metaphor breaks the process of literal-mindedness and

conventionality. If trainers accept the idea that mind is metaphor and they consciously

use the metaphoric potential of group action, then innovation can occur. Utility is

enhanced at the expense of predictability.

There are some hazards in deliberately and purposefully using innovative

techniques for purposes of organizational development or even of training. Many

people are afraid of exposure or afraid of rejection. Such people believe they can

protect themselves from these fears by routine, predictable behaviour. Consequently,

34

the demand for innovation precipitates exposure and leaves the issue of acceptance

more than a little open. Those who govern their lives by fear do feel precarious in the

midst of innovative process. However, if an organization governs its internal

dynamics through the shared fear of its members, then that organization runs the risk

of sterility and complacency.

Skill Inventory as an Organization Innovation

During the last generation, much managerial energy has been spent in the

improvement of inventory systems. Sloppy inventory management has been the

downfall of many companies which otherwise function well in the marketplace.

Modern computers certainly make it easier to maintain exact reading on

inventories and appropriate balances of supplies and materials. Oil companies can

provide daily checks on several important functions of each and every well in the

company’s system. Manufacturing companies are now able to keep a flow of

materials without having enormous backup supplies in the warehouses. Smart

management and smart computers have made inventory control a much simpler and a

much more efficient process.

Unfortunately, North American organizations have not given equal attention to

developing inventories relevant to the skills, talents and capacities of their roster of

employees, both frontline and management. A company’s human resources,

represented by the skills, talents and capacities of their total complement of

employees, constitute greater assets than goods or cash. Michael Silva, Tom Peters,

Peter Drucker, Robert Reich, Lester Thorow, William Ouchi and John Naisbett are

some of the modern thinkers offering persuasive arguments regarding people as assets

rather than seeing them as mere costs.

It is as important to know and appreciate the skills and talents of frontline

workers as it is to know the total capacities of senior management. The Germans,

Dutch, Swedes and Japanese have, for decades, understood the importance of human

beings as company assets. Furthermore, it is as important to invest in the mental

resources of each and every employee as it is to invest in the plant and equipment.

When Chrysler lost sight of this reality, it faced bankruptcy. However, Lee Iococca

35

and his team dramatically returned this corporation to the healthy column. They

realized that the company required management which understood their human

resources as much or more than the financial resources.

Tom Peters’s (1988) book, Thriving on Chaos, catalogues a long list of North

American companies who have redirected their thinking in terms of human assets. As

he and many other management experts recognize, there are a number of North

American companies who have followed this principle for decades. Warren Buffett’s

investment genius (he is the all-time success story in the investment field) clearly

understands that a company’s assets are people as much as products.

It is safe to say, however, that few companies have developed clear, concise

inventory systems for their human resources. Personnel forms are full of irrelevant

information, useless information or, worse still, mischievous information. Typically,

questions are asked for which there is no clear, useful purpose. All too often,

personnel forms gather dust unless the employee is going to be fired or laid off. The

decision-making for promotions or for severance is often little better than whimsical.

No truth can be clearer than, “No information should be gathered if it is not going to

be intelligently used.” The corollary to this truth is, “Be sure that each item in the

human inventory provides beneficial knowledge.”

When building a skill and talent inventory, the human resources department

should keep several principles in mind:

(1) Although skill inventories can be meshed with performance evaluations,

punitive intent must be kept out of the instrument.

(2) Trust must exist for all those included in the inventory toward those who

manage the inventory.

(3) Ethical management of skill inventories must appear to be true as well as being

true in fact.

(4) If an inventory is to be useful, it must be used daily, weekly or at most

monthly.

(5) The object of the inventory is to mesh job requirements with individual skills--

an easy accomplishment if irrelevancies are kept out of the way.

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(6) It is crucial to understand that skills developed off the job can be extremely

valuable for work assignments.

(7) It is important to recognize that specific work assignments and individual

personalities are much more multidimensional than is customarily recognized.

(8) The social and personal investment in each adult human being is gigantic, and

the inventory should capitalize on such previous investments.

(9) The inventory should be meshed with in-house training and outside education

which should be an ongoing program for all individuals.

(10) The inventory must be as objective, appropriate and valuable as the effort

given to the company’s financial documents.

If the company’s skill and talent inventory is developed with these principles in mind,

organizational effectiveness and strategic innovation can be enhanced in a spectacular

manner. The mentoring and leadership capacity of management can become much

more purposeful and valuable in both short- and long-term contexts. The front-line

atmosphere can acquire a much more humanitarian culture toward assisting

employees’ ownership of their work assignment.

It is time that all organizations--government, corporations and private

agencies--learn from those companies who respect their human resources. Effective

and useful inventories necessarily enrich reciprocal respect within an organization by

making teamwork more vigorous and more collaborative.

Issues in Today’s Complex Organization

A generation ago, Robert Ardrey wrote The Territorial Imperative (1966) and

African Genesis (1961) among other things. His central theme in these books was

very simple: Throughout human evolution and the parallel evolution of our close

cousins, group life has always been dominate by the drive for status and the equal

drive to protect turf. He saw these two drives largely as the main business of males; of

course, the main business of females was reproduction. In today’s highly urbane and

civilized life, Ardrey believed that these two drives dominated life in the complex

organization as much as they did a million years ago on the East African plain. Those

who are inclined to a more chauvinistic view of the world tend to find Ardrey’s

arguments attractive. However, in the world of anthropology as well as in the business

37

of organizational development, there are vocal thinkers who strongly disagree with

Ardrey.

Richard Leakey, one of my favourite anthropologists, views human origins as a

collaborative and cooperative effort with the emphasis on egalitarian spirit between

the sexes and status arrangements being relatively undifferentiated. These two world

views have clashed since before the days of Hobbs and Locke.

A German thinker of enormous weight regarding the study of complex

organization was Max Weber. A hundred years ago he established the modern science

of organizational analysis and the various behavioural themes that are most likely in

complex organization. Peter Blaugh subsequently updated Weber and placed the

analysis in a North American context. Then in the 1980s, Brian Spikes became a

particularly clear spokesman for changing the traditional view of organizational

dynamics. Since Weber, the trend has been away from authoritarian, autocratic, rigid,

highly stratified organizational structure to fluid, relatively flat, highly flexible

organizations. The emphasis is away from leaders who dictate toward leaders who

mentor.

One of the most traditional issues that hangs on tenaciously is the

psychological and structural split between line management and those providing staff

functions. A lot of organizational energy is consumed by the not-so-subtle conflict

over status and turf that tends to haunt line and staff cleavages. Those with a New

Thought orientation see such energy expenditures as debilitating, diverting and

inhibitory. Those with a traditional point of view regard such conflict as inevitable,

natural and productive. In this regard I am definitely not a traditionalist.

Creativity is not enhanced by conflict, and productivity is not enhanced by

personal struggle even if it’s polite. The North American passion for perks of status

and well-defined turf is, in my mind, a cultural aberration which we inherited from

Great Britain. However, new cultural influences are sweeping North America which

support a world view totally different from its traditional organizational structures. In

setting up an automobile plant in Quebec, the Koreans taught a dramatically different

lesson about status and turf. They delicately blended all components of leadership into

a very flat organization, with lateral barriers minimized or eliminated. In short, in

38

their plant the ‘egg crate’ approach to management has been stripped, along with

assigned parking spaces, private washrooms and all the other badges of turf and

status.

One obvious concept we need to look at in North America is that an office may

be occupied simultaneously by more than one person, and that within the office

people can be brought together because of their varied talents rather than because of

their rigid similarities. In short, staff can be blended with line without raising the

traditional reference points of conflict, namely status and turf. A generation ago, Peter

Blaugh thought that the flow of communication in a complex organization must flow

as freely upward as downward. For this to happen, barriers of status and turf must be

minimized. Creativity is crippled if communication is crippled. If the upward flow of

communication is blocked, then there is serious crippling. It is equally obvious that

the lateral flow of communication must be open and free. Psychological and structural

divisions between staff and line certainly cripple lateral communication.

Traditional organization was built on a rigid military model. The New Age

organizational model is a flat, flexible and creative one.

Multiculturalism and Human Capital

First, let’s look at the concept of human capital. As I understand this idea,

human capital means the sum total of an individual’s capacities, talents and skills

present in the mind of the individual and exchangeable with other individuals.

Consequently, the culture of any organization constitutes the pooling of all of the

mental capacities, talents and skills of those who constitute membership in the

organization. Therefore, human capital is both a concept applicable to a given

individual or a specific group. Skills are abilities generated by careful training and

applicable to specific performance requirements whether it be operating a lathe or

playing a violin. I see talents as a higher order of mental resources referring to

particularly conspicuous abilities of an individual which may well be inborn. In

musical terms, Itzhak Perlman has talent whereas a barn dance fiddler has skill. The

more difficult concept to identify is that of capacities. It seems to me the human mind

possesses some fundamental inherent functions from which all things are derived.

There, elemental capacities of mind concern such things as communication, emotional

39

states, intuition and a great many other basic functions. As a result, human resources

are manifestations of the human mind at work through its accumulated capacities,

talents and skills. When people work cooperatively and collectively, these resources

can be multiplied synergistically, meaning that the contribution of the many

individuals are multiplied rather than merely added.

In a pluralistic society such as Canada or the United States, the concept of

multiculturalism is essential to healthy relationships among the various racial,

religious and ethnic elements that constitute a pluralistic society. Even though the

Americans have historically espoused a process of fusion of these various elements in

the motif of the melting pot, that society has, in recent years, accepted a much more

pluralistic model. In Canada, the view toward the diverse elements of society has been

a model typified by the concept of a mosaic. The idea of a mosaic makes an effort to

honour the cultural and social differences characterizing each element of the mosaic.

Thus the idea of multiculturalism possesses a peculiarly Canadian flavour. It has not

been easy to honour the idea of multiculturalism because people have often been

fearful of cultural and social differences. Yet in the last couple of decades, the

Government of Canada and more recently the Government of Alberta have given

greater reality to the concept of multiculturalism through official government policy.

The key to honouring human capital in a multicultural environment is

communication. All human enterprises are manifestations of communication whether

it be at the family level, the company level or the community. Unfortunately, human

communication has two opposite capacities. When communication is healthy,

generative, open and supportive, the social benefits are enormous. However, human

communication can be negative, destructive, dishonest and poisonous. The social

costs generated can be horrendous. Both the idea of human capital and the idea of

multiculturalism can only survive in a healthy state if communication is kept positive

and generative rather than negative and destructive.

In short, the issue becomes a matter of investment. Positive communication

facilitates enriched investment by generating social value. Disinvestment is a

by-product of negative communication by inducing social costs. If different social

elements possess skills, talents and capacities particular to their own group, then each

40

ethnic group can contribute an enrichment to the human capital stock. Just as team

building in modern organizations often relies on a number of individuals with

divergent abilities that can greatly enrich the team, so it can also be applied to

communities and corporations. A variety of cultural groups can synergistically greatly

magnify or multiply the capacities, talents and skills available to the organization.

Investment in human capital can be enriched by encouraging each cultural

element to add their particular genius to the total pool of skills, talents and capacities.

To do this it is absolutely essential to be able to identify the skills and talents of each

individual in a very sensitive manner. It is possible to develop inventories of skills

and talents in a manner that honours cultural differences rather than trying to avoid

them. In building such inventories, communication must be kept open and honest and

utterly free of hidden hostilities or punitive judgements. No organization can afford to

be ignorant of the full range of skills of any individual, nor can they afford to be

ignorant of the cultural riches of any particular ethnic group.

Through a healthy multicultural policy, human capital can be enriched for the

company or for the community. It is necessary to recognize both the hazards of

negative investments as well as the practical payoffs of positive investments.

41

CHAPTER 4TRADITIONAL VS. NEW AGE ORGANIZATIONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

Introduction

When looking at today’s organizations from a New Age perspective, the

assumption is made that all formal organizations share a high level of functional and

structural characteristics regardless of the institutional setting in which they appear.

Government agencies, business enterprises and educational services are similar

creatures by the mere fact of being formal organizations. Obviously, a steel plant is

different from an elementary school, a government health service is different from a

high school. Nonetheless, these differences can give rise to notions that these various

formal organizations share little in common. After recognizing these differences, it is

important and necessary to look at formal organizations as a category of human

creations which can be related to one another in a meaningful and fruitful way.

During the 5000 years since mankind has invented and elaborated on formal

organizations, the principles governing such organizations have endured through time

and have had parallel expressions in a wide range of cultural settings.

Traditional formal organizations were invented to manage the complex affairs

of early urban life. The differentiation of labour, the stratified class structure, the

formalized institutions of religion and government, and the very extensive and

complicated requirements of an established military led to the necessity of formal

organizations. I see human associations in essentially two manifestations:

(1) Informal organizations are essentially emotionally rich, personally intimate and

relatively enduring associations. Of course, such things leap to mind as the

nuclear family, extended families, friendship associations, intimate work

groups and collaborative efforts of artists and craftsmen. In primitive and

peasant societies, these organizations operate without written codes and rules

and without formal outside instruments of dispute resolution and community

management.

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(2) Formal associations tend to express rules and codes which are written and which

do substitute the more personal methods of directing group effort. Formal

organizations can be relatively small, involving only a handful of people, but

often they are very large associations of many thousands. Formal organizations

attempt to regulate and control status and role relationships and rules of

leadership in a non-personal and non-intimate fashion. The industrial

revolution and the urban explosion commensurate with it have vastly

elaborated the size, the complexity and the number of formal organizations.

Formal organizations, having operated for centuries based on traditional models,

are now rapidly changing to adapt to this new social model, often referred to as the

Information Age, the Post-Industrial Age, or the New Age. Many people prefer the term

‘New Age’ because it implies cultural changes in areas of life other than the

marketplace. The term itself suggests cultural emphases of a philosophical, religious and

psychological frame of reference. Furthermore, even medicine, anthropology, sociology

and physics are being revolutionized both epistemologically and methodologically.

One of the most brilliant analysts of this tradition has been Fritjof Capra in

several of his works, from The Tao of Physics (1975), The Turning Point (1982),

Uncommon Wisdom (1988), and The Web of Life (1996). Another brilliant analyst

concerned with this shift in consciousness is Ken Wilber in books such as Up from

Eden (1981). In the religious realm, Ernest Holmes had an enormous impact through a

long life of teaching and writing. His book, The Science of Mind (1938) typifies his

life’s work.

Experts in organizational development have given a practical spin to some of

this thinking. Such articulate spokesmen include Brian Spikes, Tom Peters and Peter

Drucker. Generally, this group of New Age management experts express a conviction

that the world as we find it since World War II and into this next century is so

fundamentally different from the traditional industrial urban model that our very

survival requires a fundamental mutation in the nature of formal organizations and in

the principles by which we manage them. Three schemata will attempt to give some

shape to the nature of the New Age perception of formal organizations and their

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requirements: Managing an Innovative System, Personal and Organizational

Alternatives, and New Age and the Traditional Organizational Characteristics.

Managing an Innovative System

The health and vitality of any organization relies on a management team that

knows how to manage an innovative system in a rapidly changing social environment.

Team building for management groups is universally necessary in today’s

organization.

Six major qualities must be strongly present for a management team to be

effective and innovative. They are:

(1) Communication – open and honest,

(2) Reciprocal help – dependable and reliable,

(3) Respectful relationships – integrity and dignity of each,

(4) Generating group image – awareness of clients and colleagues,

(5) Shared purpose – team cohesion, and

(6) Planning – priorities and strategies.

The six functions mentioned above presuppose a rapidly changing human

environment. It presupposes that innovation constitutes a necessity for organizations

to deal with. This model also presupposes that traditional, rigid, authoritarian and

highly stratified organizations are out of place in the human requirements of today.

Although Max Weber did a brilliant job of analyzing the classic aspects of the

traditional organization, his view of bureaucracy is no longer relevant to today’s

organizations if the New Age analysts are correct. The six items above are intended as

a functional hierarchy. That is, the #1 requirement of an organization is effective

communication which is open and honest. No longer can communication from the top

down only; no longer can communication be used manipulatively and dishonestly if

the organization is to cope in today’s climate. If communication is multidimensional

and if hidden agendas are kept out of the communication process, then the second step

in the functional hierarchy can have a reasonable chance for success.

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The second item, reciprocal help, indicates teamwork and mutual support

which creates a functional synergy. If the task teams have a strong sense of

collaborative responsibility and a web of reciprocal inputs to the group effort, then

this functional level can provide the support for the third item in the hierarchy.

Without going through a description of all six levels, suffice it to say that

planning is the ultimate functional requirement. Through planning, innovation is

encouraged and directed. For planning to be effective, it must be recursive. Feedback

from all stakeholders must focus the planning process day by day. Planning is not

restricted to the front office but rather should be incorporated into the daily activities

of each and every task team.

One of the reasons that planning often becomes ineffective and even

unacceptably time-consuming is because an organization attempts to plan without

dealing with the first five functions in the hierarchy. Planning can be efficient and

effective if the other five functions are in a healthy state of operation. Not only is it

the pulse of innovation, but is also the servant of organizational requirements.

Planning can be the barometer by which the recursive inputs of an organization can be

focused and managed.

Personal and Organizational Alternatives

In the table presented below, there are 10 polarities of requirements within an

organization which focus on organizational needs (left-hand column) and individual

needs (right-hand column). These 10 polarities can be weighed one against the other

in terms of the weight given to one column at the expense of the other. When using a

percentage, it can be determined where an organization should be and, in fact, where

it is in actual operation. The New Age organization would emphasize the items in the

right-hand column at the expense of those in the left-hand column. Particular

organizations may vary in the weight given to the right-hand column. However, no

organization could abandon the left-hand column altogether. Whether the weight in

the left-hand column should be 10% or 30% depends on the size and complexity of

the organization among other things.

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PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL ALTERNATIVES     

Standard Procedure Individual JudgementCentral Management Frontline ManagementVertical Relationships Lateral RelationshipsManagement Ownership Job OwnershipAuthority InitiativeEfficiency EffectivenessSet Time Discretionary TimeFixed Environment Flexible Environment“Boss” Oriented Rewards Self-Oriented RewardsTraining MentoringJob Description Skill Inventory

New Age and Traditional Organizational Characteristics

This third and final schemata again presents two columns of reciprocal

functions, with the traditional organization typified in the left-hand column and the

New Age organization typified in the right-hand column. In a sense, this can be viewed

as a good list/bad list setup. The optimal idea, therefore, is to replace functions in the

left-hand column by those in the right-hand column to the greatest degree possible.

NEW AGE AND TRADITIONALORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

Traditional New AgeLabour as liabilities Employees as assetsConfrontational management style Open and receptive management styleNarrow and rigid definition of tasks Fluid and optimal employee groupingExternal controls (authoritarian, critical and restrictive styles)

Internal controls (quality circles and self-regulating units)

Authoritarian organizational chart (many levels of middle management supervision)

Flat organizational chart (emphasis on flexible and innovative grouping)

Organizational culture as conflict and manipulation

Organizational culture as collaborative and collegial

Fear of change Commitment to innovationThe technological imperative The human capital imperativeEmployee as subordinate to machine Employee as superordinate to machineMan as expendable part Man as an asset to be developed

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These 10 polarities certainly do not exhaust functional aspects of formal

organizations; however, they can be extremely useful when making presentations re:

organizational development.

A Canadian management consultant, Brian Spikes (1987) has written a book,

BOSS is a Four-Letter Word, which distinguishes two profoundly different styles of

management. One style, which he calls the Boss Style, operates on the traditional

autocratic, vertical and functionally rigid style of an organization characteristic of the

classical industrial period before World War II. The other style he identifies deals

with the idea of leadership in a more modern sense. This style of leadership is seen as

responsive to the public being served, to the concerns of the frontline units and to

anticipate problems before they happen. This requires a sense of mentoring, of

empowerment of subordinance and a facilitator of innovation. Although Spikes’s

book is aimed primarily at the private sector, it could be equally applicable to

governmental agencies.

A quote from Spikes’s (1987) book sums up his view of the progressive leader:

“To create an environment for maximum self-motivation, leaders pay special attention to four major items:

1. Non-verbal factors in their daily relationships with employees. Why? Because actions speak louder than words, or What you are speaks so loud, I cannot hear what you say.

2. Leaders provide feedback on how people are doing so that they can regulate and monitor their own performance.

3. Leaders provide generous amounts of information about the job they are doing.

4. Leaders make sure that people know what is expected of them before they start doing a job. Any job.”

An organization’s human resources, represented by the skills, talents and

capacities of its total complement of employees, constitute greater assets than goods

or cash. Michael Silva, Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Robert Reich, Lester Thorow,

William Ouchi and John Naisbitt are some of the modern thinkers offering persuasive

arguments regarding people as assets rather than seeing them as mere cost. It is

important for an organization to think about its people in terms of a talent inventory.

North American organizations have done little to develop talent inventories, but the

47

Germans, Dutch, Swedes and Japanese have, for decades, understood the importance

of human beings as organizational assets.

Again, the point of such efforts is the healthy, positive use of human resources

to minimize conflict and the waste of individual talents. The creative capacity of the

human mind is truly remarkable, and formal organizations could do so much to foster

this creativity and build a healthier organizational culture generally.

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CHAPTER 5BALANCING SOCIAL ELEMENTS

Introduction

This chapter includes many ground elements of a blueprint for a Fifth Societal

Model. It is an effort to balance social practices and social elements for humanity to

escape the hazards of previous mistakes. The work of the four scholars discussed

below has been chosen in the belief that they provide an innovative approach toward

balancing major elements of society. These elements are presented through these

authors’ work, providing a synergistic web of social policy imperatives relevant to the

post-industrial era and the very survival of humankind. The four scholars are in

concurrence about

i. the necessity for decentralizing society, in most aspects of social institutions

and societal functions; and

ii. the concentration of power and property in the hands of a minute segment of

society propelling the existing four models of society.

This chapter begins by introducing three age-old questions, the answers to

which will provide balance and integration for a society and its various institutional

components. The four scholars presented in this section, taken as a totality, provide an

intellectual package, exploring these three questions and offering clear, poignant

answers.

Question 1: “How do we relate to the Divine?” What is the nature of the

divine order and how do human beings relate meaningfully to the spiritual dimension

of life and the divine order of the universe? This theological problem cannot be

ignored, denied or avoided. Of course not all theological systems are composed of

elements easily transferred from one system to another, yet each theological system

must have internal integrity and continuity which provide ultimate meaning and

direction for human existence.

Question 2: “How do we relate to nature?” This question concerns

humanity’s relationships with nature, including all dimensions of the environment.

Urbanized, post-industrial life tends to separate human beings from contact with, and

a sense of, the interwoven web of nature. This state of psychological separation can

lead to such misguided policies and practices that human life itself becomes

threatened. Our technological and scientific success in previous centuries has tended

49

to blind commercial and governmental leadership towards environmental mistakes of

the past and our disregard of nature itself.

Question 3: “How do we relate to each other?” This question is simply,

“What are the moral/ethical imperatives of one human being relating to another or

one societal element relating to another?” The great sages as far back as Confucius,

Buddha, and Isaiah have admonished their fellows about this question and the

answers offered. Often these answers are given with a sense of urgency, because

societal survival may rest on the need to eliminate unjust and unfair practices which

can contaminate any society. History is littered with societies which failed to ask and

answer this vital question in a way that provided moral/ethical integrity and balance.

Collapse of great empires and destruction of polities can often be understood by

examining the internal corruption and decay of the moral/ethical core of a society.

Four Scholars’ Work, Presented in Order

Three of the four scholars whose insights will be examined are women. This

may be no mere coincidence, and may have some connection to their non-patriarchal,

non-lineal, non-mechanistic, non-reductionistic, and non-traditional approach to social

inquiry and social policy. These four do not appear to regard themselves as an

integrated cadre who consciously relate to each other. They may or may not be aware

of each other’s work. However, elements of a fifth societal model emerge when their

work is arranged in the order below. They are:

1. Fritjof Capra: The Tao of Physics (1983) and The Turning Point (1982). Capra’s

value lies in fusing insights from his own field of physics with wide-ranging

societal insights. Capra’s analytic paradigm, in both physics and societal ethos, is

contemporary and post-positivist.

2. Hazel Henderson: Creating Alternative Futures (1978) and The Politics of the

Solar Age (1988). The question most central to this work concerns humanity’s

relation to nature. Although interested in the moral/ethical order, the principal

value of Henderson’s work is her clear understanding of the relationship between

society and nature. She examines the marketplace and government in terms of

social policy which will either sustain the environment or destroy it. She attacks

traditional economists and their dogmas masquerading as science. She argues that

economics and the social sciences must release their tight grip on ideologically

driven nostrums for social policy.

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3. Ursula Franklin: The Real World of Technology (1990). A retired professor of

physics, Franklin is primarily concerned with the way in which science and

technology have been used in the marketplace and the way in which the

marketplace drags society to the brink of environmental calamity. Concerned with

the moral/ethical dimensions of society, as well as with humanity’s relationship to

nature, Franklin has relevant and insightful understanding of the social sciences,

most especially economics. She clearly understands that the physical sciences and

the human sciences require different methodological approaches, resulting in

differing epistemological and ontological principles. Maintaining a proper

relationship between technological systems and vital social institutions is one of

her concerns, as well as the moral/ethical needs of society and the requirements of

nature, meaning that technology must be subservient to social policy.

4. Charlene Spretnak: States of Grace (1993). Spretnak addresses the third great

question: Humanity’s relation to the divine order. She relates humankind’s

spiritual quest to the moral/ethical core of any society and the way in which it

becomes translated into social policy, be it economic or environmental.

Fritjof Capra. Capra (1982), in The Turning Point, views the waning decades

of this century as a generation of crisis for the entire planet. Capra argues that the

crisis is multidimensional and potentially terminal for humankind. In the first chapter

of this book he introduces several major paradigms for examining the human

condition. He certainly sees the current climate of Western culture as overwhelmingly

sensate. Another paradigm is the Taoist concept of yin and yang. Again he sees

Western culture overwhelmingly dominated by the yang ethos or, if you will, the

hyper-masculine. He also introduces the Marxian dialectic and its focus on struggle

and conflict as a social dynamic.

Capra (1982) views the solution to crises facing society as being a shift from

the patriarchal focus to a more humane and egalitarian set of social relationships. One

dimension of the crisis is an imperative shifting of all human societies toward a

greater respect for nature and a diminution of exploitative economic and technological

strategies. A further dimension of the intellectual and scientific crises involves most

major disciplines, most especially economics, but also includes psychology, medicine,

and other disciplines important to human survival. He believes these crises aspects are

forcing humankind toward a new grand strategy or set of master ideas, a social

paradigm which addresses the very crisis state we are in, and a healthy solution.

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In Chapters 2 and 3, Capra (1982) deals with the development of science and

the philosophy of science from 1500 to the current time. These chapters follow the

shift in Western cultural ethos and academic contributions through massive shifts in

worldview. From 1500 to 1700, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes,

Newton, and others moved Western thought from a medieval, organic, grand vision to

a clockwork, mechanistic, rationalistic and empirical worldview.

Capra (1982) argues in Chapter 2 that Bacon represented a current of scientific

thought that was highly empirical and inductive as a central methodology. Descartes

represented another stream of thought which was mathematical, deductive and highly

mechanistic as a central methodology. Capra argues that Newton’s contribution was a

unification of these two streams of thought in a methodology which became known as

Newtonian mechanics. It was based on a broad system of philosophy--some parts

explicit, some implicit. This system seemed to satisfy most of the scientists and

intellectuals in Western Europe from the 1600s until the 20th century.

In Chapter 3, Capra (1982) discusses the great scientific achievements during the

18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Where Capra differs from other historical treatments of

Western intellectual development is his adherence to the idea that the Newtonian

worldview is no longer adequate for scientific inquiry, and may be erroneous as a

methodology for social sciences. He draws on other physicists such as Chew and

Bohm to support his philosophical stance. In the years since Capra wrote The Turning

Point, Stephen Hawking, along with John Gribbon and other cosmologists, have

redirected science down a totally new road divergent from Newtonian mechanics.

Capra’s central point is that classical economics, as systematized by Adam Smith in

1776, has served the commercial, industrial and financial class very well, but it has

not at all well served nature, the base population, or even the lower ranks of the

middle class. Capra’s historical analyses cover three centuries of intellectual

development vis-à-vis the marketplace. Although Capra has a considerable interest in

the humanitarian dimensions of Marxist thought, he argues that both communist and

capitalist societies have become obsessed with a narrow notion of growth, and an

irresponsible hostility to environmental issues. He further argues that the United

States possesses an inefficient economy in spite of massive profits, because it is fed

by exploiting the Third World, as well as the domestic American base population. He

focuses on the massive multinational corporations as an aberrant human enterprise. To

Capra, size alone can become pathological among human institutions, because of their

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adherence to growth as a first concern. To Capra, healthy human institutions need to

be small, flexible and local (with a few exceptions for truly national and international

functions). This idea is very much in keeping with Ursula Franklin’s (1990) notion of

“earthworm social action.” Like Franklin, Capra (1982) talks a great deal about the

question, “Whose benefits; whose costs?” (Franklin, 1990, p. 124). Capra (1982)

follows up on a question asked by Ursula Franklin about Capra’s own ironic

observation that foreign aid is a process which takes money from the poor people of a

rich society and gives it to the rich people of a poor society.

Capra (1982) believes that we apply utterly improper methodology to

economic inquiry. Whether economists are monetarists, econometricians, or

institutional analysts, for over 300 years they have designed their models in tune with

Newtonian mechanics and with the mechanistic, reductionistic and segmented

conceptualizations derived from Cartesian thought. Capra passionately argues that

classical economics has become intellectually bankrupt by virtue of clinging to this

classical model-building analytic process. He quotes more traditional economists such

as Milton Friedman, who ruefully acknowledged that the discipline of economics had

oversold itself. As Capra sees it, economics must abandon its narrow perspective on

Newtonian mechanics by developing a more organic systems style of modelling. This

would require the inclusion of ecology, public health, political science, psychology

and sociology. According to Capra, the Newtonian model has either limited utility in

the social sciences or no use at all!

He treats the mind/matter issue in keeping with Oriental thought as expressed

in Zen Buddhism and Taoism, as well as in some branches of Hinduism. In a certain

sense this discussion reflects his subsequent book, The Tao of Physics (Capra, 1983).

However, while dealing with the mind/matter issue, Capra reviews a number of

thinkers in anthropology, psychology, theology, biology, physics and physical

chemistry. His ontological and epistemological construct views mind and matter as

co-extensive, and thereby co-manifested in all phenomena.

Another set of terms Capra explores is life/non-life. The Gaia hypothesis

developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margolis (Lovelock, 2000) is dealt with

extensively as one scientific approach for grappling with vast systems which we have

historically treated as either living or non-living. Again, like the mind/matter issue,

the Gaia hypothesis views all phenomena as expressing the quality of life, in some

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fashion or another. The idea of self-regulation is dealt with as one aspect of the entire

earth and its many sub-systems.

Capra (1983) also sees biological evolution and even the existence of

individual organisms as being guided by two complementary functions:

i. the adaptive function guided by genetic drift, genetic selection and mutation;

and

ii. the creative function guided by self-regulation and mentation.

Capra heavily criticizes social philosophy and biological methodology, which distorts

Darwinist thought by exaggerating the adaptive function to the exclusion of the

creative function. Another problem with social Darwinism is that this view of life

generates a methodology driven by a notion of struggle, conflict, domination and

competition. Capra argues persuasively that cooperation and symbiosis are even more

important to life than competition.

Capra’s (1983) organic systems concept views phenomena as a set of

relationships and reciprocal functions, rather than as an array of segmented structures

with clear boundaries. The systems approach is a way of seeing phenomena without

focusing on boundaries, and without reducing phenomena to ever-smaller

components. He does raise the matter of micro-systems and macro-systems as

distinguishable from one another, but reciprocally related in an elaborate web of

relationships. This causal framework is a two-way street; thus, micro-systems and

macro-systems influence each other reciprocally. This holistic systems scientific view

can be applied, according to Capra, to most areas of inquiry, without the distortions or

limitations of classical methodology. Capra does not regard the Newtonian model as

wrong; he simply regards the holistic systems approach as being more intellectually

advanced and providing a much wider application.

The threads of thought woven throughout this book come together in Chapter

12, while focusing on economic issues and environmental concerns. The sense of

crisis permeating the entire book once again becomes the theme of this chapter.

Humanity faces an imminent crisis due to brutalizing the environment and wasting

human resources. This chapter argues that if humanity chooses the right grand

strategy, with due regard to the health of society and the health of the environment,

then the imminent crisis could be averted. However, if the trends of the last few

centuries are allowed to continue unrestricted, then human survival is at stake.

54

Capra (1982, 1983) draws heavily on two economists for focusing this chapter:

Hazel Henderson (1978, 1988), our second featured author in this chapter, and

Kenneth Boulding (1981). The thrust of the arguments concerns such matters as

entropy, appropriate use of human labour, a concern for regenerative and self-

correcting systems, and a plea for using renewable energy to the greatest degree

possible. Large bureaucratic systems, Capra argues, are inefficient and dissipative of

human and natural energy. This entropy state is the driving engine of imminent crisis

for the planet.

Capra (1982, 1983) also raises concerns regarding de-urbanizing society. By

this, he does not mean returning to a rural or feudal past, but rather to an imaginative

future of smaller communities on a more human scale, in which the

production/consumption cycle would become more localized and labour-intensive.

This new social trend would avoid the dissipation of energy through global

bureaucratic networks of production, distribution and marketing. De-urbanizing

society does not mean a village-based xenophobia, but rather a way for people to

relate to each other politically, economically and socially, with minimal costs to

human health and social viability. A term Capra coins for this new survival strategy

for humankind is “think globally; act locally.”

A key element in these arguments concerns the inefficiency and environmental

hazards surrounding the nuclear industry, whether for electric power or for war.

Capra’s credentials as an atomic physicist provide a sharp bite to his concerns

regarding nuclear energy. Environmental hazards from the petroleum industry and

other fossil fuels also threaten the globe climactically and ecologically. Reliance on

fossil fuels in a competitive drive for dominance contributes heavily to the problem of

entropy.

Capra (1982, 1983) does weave threads of optimism throughout his books as

counterweights to the sense of crisis emphasized in the discussion immediately above.

He sees the holistic health movement (which has flowered at least in North America

since he wrote) as a vital redirection of traditional views in the organic systems

direction. He sees the feminist movement and its strategies as sympathetic to an

organic systems approach to social analysis. The human potential movement and its

parallel academic expressions, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, are

of similar effect. And the ecological movement has provided focus to political debate

over economic and industrial strategy, as well as over social policy itself.

55

Hazel Henderson. A well-known social policy activist who has held a range of

positions in U.S. and international organizations concerned with social policy, and

particularly with the environmental implications of social policy, Hazel Henderson

(1978, 1988) believes that our plundering of the environment threatens societal

survival for post-industrial societies, as well as for the Third World. Henderson’s

grasp of the institutional dynamics of government and the marketplace is both original

and well-informed. Much of her work attacks traditional economics. Part of the

paradigm shift she imagines would necessitate fundamental revision of the Adam

Smith paradigm and the social policy constellations derived from that paradigm.

Even though Capra (1982, 1983) and Henderson (1978, 1988) are anchored in

different academic disciplines, there is much in their analyses that is quite compatible.

Capra is certainly aware of this compatibility, clearly acknowledged in his book

Uncommon Wisdom (Capra, 1988). This book provides extended discussion of

Henderson and her role in creating a new societal model for the salvation of

humankind. Capra believes that Henderson’s perception of the misuse of technology

and the instruments of the marketplace are essential to an understanding of today’s

crises.

… Henderson criticizes the fragmentation in current economic thinking, the absence of values, and their failure to take into account our dependence on the natural world. … she extends her critique to modern technology and advocates a profound reorientation of our economic and technological systems, based on the use of renewable resources and the attention to human scale. … The reason for the impasse in economics, according to Henderson, lies in the fact that it is rooted in a system of thought that is now outdated and in need of radical revision. Henderson shows in great detail how today’s economists speak in “heroic abstractions,” monitor the wrong variables, and use obsolete conceptual models to map a vanished reality. The key point of her critique is the striking inability of most economists to adopt an ecological perspective. The economy, she explains, is merely one aspect of a whole ecological and social fabric. (Capra, 1988, pp. 233-234)  

… Henderson makes it clear that economic and institutional growths are inextricably linked to technological growth. She points out that the masculine consciousness that dominates our culture has found its fulfillment in a certain “macho” technology--a technology bent on manipulation and control rather than cooperation, self-assertive rather than integrative, suitable for central management rather than regional and local application by individuals and small groups. As a

56

result . . . most technologies today have become profoundly anti-ecological, unhealthy, and inhuman. (Capra, 1988, p. 237)

The rest of the discussion regarding Henderson’s ideas will be drawn primarily

from her work, The Politics of the Solar Age (1978). However, she presented her

concerns over a looming societal crisis succinctly in a later work, Creating

Alternative Futures (1988). “Whether we designate them as ‘energy crises,’

‘environmental crises,’ ‘urban crises,’ or ‘population crises,’ we should recognize the

extent to which they are all rooted in the larger crisis of our inadequate, narrow

perception of reality” (Henderson, 1988, p. 134).

An important theme in Henderson’s (1978) work concerns the 500 or so

massive multinational corporations. Henderson, like a great many other scholars, is

alarmed at the political clout possessed by these massive corporations through their

control of the marketplace, whether domestic or international. Quite simply, they use

their economic power as a lever to manipulate political power.

Corporate power is encountered daily by millions of citizens who attempt to fight polluted air, oil-smeared beaches, plagues of non-returnable cans and bottles, supersonic transports, rampant freeways, deceptive advertising, racial discrimination in employment, exploitation of natural resources, mushrooming shopping centers, and housing developments, as well as huge military appropriations. In all such battles, sooner or later, they come up against some corporate Goliath, and find their slings unavailing. Newly radicalized, they learn that the 500 largest corporations not only control more than two-thirds of the country’s manufacturing assets but also influence elections by carefully channelled campaign contributions that avoid legal restrictions. (Henderson, 1978, p. 48)

In the next quote, Henderson draws on a St. Louis economist, Elmer G.

Doernhoefer. Henderson quotes material from Doernhoefer, drawn from a memo to

Congress. She uses this material to demonstrate her concern regarding the

concentration of wealth in the United States in the top 1% of the population--the

concentration is even more dramatic when the top 10% of the population is

considered. (It should be mentioned, however, that various scholars do treat this

concentration in somewhat different fashion. The resulting description of this

concentration may vary in particulars, but the picture remains very much the same.)

“The situation stems from the fact that fully 25 % of personal income in the US consists of dividends, interest, and rentals,” and he cites studies by the Wharton

57

School of the University of Pennsylvania, that “1% of US families with the largest income accounted for 47% of all dividend income and 52% of the market value of stock owned by all families, and that 10% of the families with the largest income accounted for 71% of the dividend income and 74% of the market value of stocks.” (Henderson, 1988, pp. 58-59)

Another view important to Henderson’s work concerns the misuse of analytic

models, and a resulting perversion of social policy, not only in conception but also in

implementation.

The heroic macroeconomics conceptualizers in Washington miss important trends and huge geographical differences in the real functioning of the economy as well as the larger society. For example, they do not measure the growth of the countereconomy, because they cannot conceive of its existence. Similarly a “national level of unemployment” of, say, 6 percent conceals enormous geographical and group differences, so that a “national,” buckshot approach, such as an across-the-board tax cut, will miss most of its targets and simply increase general demand and inflation. (Henderson, 1988, p. 61)

This last quote from Henderson reveals her perceptions regarding the

professional and managerial functionaries supporting mega-corporations and mega-

governments. The following point is an important one, because if Henderson has ‘got

it right,’ it has implications for the communications media and the material they

communicate.

Perhaps the most dangerous expression of the old, either/or thinking is the growing sense of despair and loss of confidence of leaders who see that they are losing control of that part of the system they created and the dreams of technological glory slipping from their grasp. They rigidify their grasp on the wildly gyrating “controls” and redouble their efforts, not seeing that it is only they who are falling from their collapsing hierarchies. They cannot see what is growing in their societies: the cooperative, localized countereconomy, our safety net and bridge to the dawning solar age. (Henderson, 1988, p. 64)

Hazel Henderson is not alone in viewing current trends in the human quest as

possessing some pathological dimensions. Although she doesn’t use the term ‘social

pathology,’ what she describes in terms of misuse of technology, socially dangerous

concentration of power and wealth, and plundering of the environment is close to a

straightforward discussion of social pathology. If the globe is to have a workable fifth

58

model, such social pathology must be recognized for what it is, and dealt with as such.

However, before the pathology can be identified, and before social policy can be

formulated to correct this pathology, it is essential that relevant analytic models be

used as holistic analytic tools, recognizing the complexity of reciprocal, causal

relationships. The environment must be included in such models, both in short-term

and long-term aspects.

Hazel Henderson (1978, 1988), like Ursula Franklin (1990), our third author,

reveals some optimistic faith in the hidden, alternative economy. Both Henderson and

Franklin believe that this hidden economy is more important to the gross domestic

product than is recognized by conventional economic models. Whether in such vital

social functions as business, education, governance, etc., this hidden community-

based social order constitutes the greatest hope for societal renewal, as well as

reconnection of people with nature.

Ironically, several components of the post-industrial technological system may

assist the process of decentralizing the concentration of power and property, in

providing neighbourhoods and communities with collective capacity to take greater

control of their day-to-day existence. The vast array of satellites which now facilitate

multimedia communication, involving computers, telephones, and other such devices

is enabling communities and individuals to bypass conventional communications

media. For many concerned about the role of communications media as agents of the

power elite, a technological system which bypasses these conventional structures

offers revitalizing possibilities.

Ursula Franklin. Professor emerita of physics at the University of Toronto,

Ursula Franklin’s interest as a research physicist has focused throughout her

professional life on metallurgy. One of her particular interests concerns Bronze Age

casting technology, and its social context in ancient societies. Her book considered

here goes well beyond technology to examine societal dynamics and the place of

technology in the vital functions of society.

It is my conviction that nothing short of a global reformation of major social forces and of the social contract can end this historical period of profound and violent transformations, and give a manner of security to the world and to its citizens. Such a development will require the redefinition of rights and responsibilities, and the setting of limits to power and control. There have to be completely different criteria for what is permissible and what is not. Central to any new order that can shape and direct technology and human destiny will be a

59

renewed emphasis on the concept of justice. The viability of technology, like democracy, depends in the end on the practice of justice and on the enforcement of limits to power. (Franklin, 1990, p. 14)

Franklin presents a very clear and compact argument about technology in society in

its several dimensions. She makes a helpful distinction, seeing technology

characterized by two very different manifestations socially, intellectually, and

technically. The terms Franklin uses for this distinction are:

- the production model, essentially a factory model, whether done in a factory or

in some other context such as a high school or university.

- the growth model, whose essence understands the individual craftsman,

artisan, artist as central to the production process, and in control of the process,

more or less, from beginning to end.

The production model emphasises the idea of maximum output and minimum input. It

also contains the idea of standardized production, facilitated by division of labour

segmenting the production process into discrete steps, with specific individuals

assigned each step in the process. This notion of technology has been an emergent by-

product of the Industrial Revolution and the machine age concomitant with it. With

the explosion of the use of chemical energy and electrical energy to drive machines,

the human worker moved to the periphery of the process and literally became adjunct

to the machine. Although mass production is facilitated in this manner, massive

human cost happens, spiritually separating the individual from the production process,

because of the centrality of the machine and the segmentation of the production

process.

The growth model view of technology has been a feature of human society for

millennia. It was the dominant model before the Industrial Revolution (even though

Franklin [1990] identifies some cases in classical Rome and ancient China when some

use was made of the production model). In the growth model the emphasis is on the

skills, talents and capacities of the individual person making the item--even trading it.

A specialist in ancient bronze casting, Franklin draws on this production method for

many examples. Although bronze casting in the Shang dynasty over 1200 BC was

done in a manner which can be called a production model, the ancient Peruvians and

west Asians exercised this technology in a manner which can be called a growth

model.

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A metaphor useful to understanding the growth model is the image of a

horticulturalist tending the garden throughout the entire cycle of nature’s

reproduction. The process is a web of relationships between gardener, plants being

tended and all of the natural forces and relationships relevant to the gardening

process. In this model there is a reciprocal dance among all the active agents, with the

person central to this web and mindful of the considerable extensiveness of this web

of reciprocity. Franklin (1990) obviously believes that such a model is more mindful

of nature and environmental requirements as a set of reciprocities than is the

production model. In fact, the hazard of the production model is the mindlessness of

its relationship to the environment and the accompanying web of reciprocities.

Franklin (1990) does not have blind faith in science and technology. She does

trust means of knowing other than math, ematics, logic, and experiment. She values

the intuitive, experiential, reflective, and spiritual dimensions of individuals and their

immediate social circles.

Today’s scientific constructs have become the model of describing reality rather than one of the ways of describing life around us. As a consequence there has been a very marked decrease in the reliance of people on their own experience and their own senses. The human senses of sight and sound, of smell and taste and touch, are superb instruments. All the senses, including the so aptly named “common sense,” are perfective and it’s a great pity that we have so little trust in them. (p. 39)

Another important insight is offered in the following quote.

The fact citizens are more and more stringently controlled and managed is often considered as normal and fundamentally beyond questioning, as a necessary feature of technological societies. Technology has been the catalyst for dramatic changes, in the locus of power. Traditional notions about the role and task of government, for instance, or about what is private and what is public, are in the light of these changes more often akin to fairy tales than to factual accounts of possible relationships of power and accountability. (Franklin, 1990, pp. 55-56)

Franklin (1990) is concerned with the explosion of prescriptive technology and the

production model as the ethos of Western society during the last century. Her

discussion of the sewing machine is an example. The sewing machine was initially

seen as a useful household device for women to use for family production (a holistic

view of technology--a growth model). The sewing machine was intended to liberate

women from the drudgery of hand sewing for family use. The notion of the sewing

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machine was as a device for every household and therefore a mass production product

in itself. The machine would be produced as an expression of prescriptive technology,

clearly within the production model. However, an irony of the sewing machine was

that entrepreneurs saw the possibility of using it within a factory environment for

improving the process of commercially making garments. Thus, in the sweat shops of

New York, Chicago, Montreal and Winnipeg, women were enslaved to the sewing

machine in the commercial production of clothing. The device intended to liberate

women certainly contributed to that liberation, but it also became the means for

enslaving women in a dehumanized factory environment. In one context, the sewing

machine facilitated a holistic growth model of technology; in the other context, it

became a central feature of prescriptive technology in a production model of

technology.

This, along with other important inventions mentioned by Franklin, reveals a

deep irony. What may start out as a device for enriching life and liberating the

consumer may, through the process of time and factory application, become the very

opposite. She also draws parallels in the prepared food arena, frozen and otherwise.

Cars can liberate but they can also enslave. In the same way, arguments swirl around

the home computer and computerized network as either an expression of liberation or

as one of enslavement.

Franklin (1990) is deeply concerned with the matter of the interplay between

humanitarian concerns and technical solutions. She poses the pre-eminent questions to

be asked of technology:

Should one not ask of any public project or loan whether it: (1) promotes justice; (2) restores reciprocity; (3) confers divisible or indivisible benefits; (4) favors people over machines; (5) whether its strategy maximizes gain or minimizes disaster; (6) whether conservation is favored over waste; and (7) whether the reversible is favored over the irreversible? (Franklin, 1990, p. 126)

Franklin focuses over and over again on matters of justice, fairness, reciprocity and

the overall integrity of persons and society. It is her opinion that narrow technological

efficiency need not be, and frequently is not, the guiding concern for a manufacturing

process or a technical innovation. She cites examples from ancient Peru in regard to

bronze casting to illustrate that other social, political and cultural concerns can limit

or guide technology as subservient to other master ideas. Furthermore, Franklin

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argues that in the post-industrial global context, technology must be the servant of

humanitarian and humanistic values, if the integrity of human society is to be

promoted or sustained. She links the broader cultural concerns of humanitarian nature

as being intrinsically related to honouring nature as a guiding feature in the

relationship web for the maintenance of life.

In Franklin’s (1990) view, technology can intrude into the web of reciprocity in

a way which segments, separates and subverts the quality and dignity of life.

However, the good news is that technology can be harnessed for human benefit in a

way which liberates and enriches life. To accomplish this end, the relationship

between the industrial/commercial arena and political institutions must be profoundly

changed. Political instrumentalities can no longer be passive instruments of business

to further their narrow and exploitative commercial and technical interests.

Charlene Spretnak. A highly visible activist in matters of social policy,

Charlene Spretnak’s activity in the ecological movement has resulted in several other

works besides the one discussed in this section. In addition to her environmental

interests, Spretnak has a central concern with both feminism and spirituality. States of

Grace (Spretnak, 1993) weaves these things together in a balanced and insightful

manner. Like many scholars, Spretnak views the patriarchal system, which evolved

integrally with the feudal/military societies spanning the last five millennia, as

responsible for the inequities and devastation characteristic of today’s world. Like the

other two women in this chapter, Spretnak is deeply troubled by the disparity in

property and power between top social elements and base populations. She is also

concerned about the economic and physical predation of women, not only in the U.S.,

but around the world.

In spite of these things, Spretnak (1993) does not come across as bitter or

defeated. On the contrary, she sees great hope in the eco-consciousness of women and

the crumbling structures of patriarchal society. Another element of her optimism

emerges from her spiritual perspective. She believes that the salvation of the planet

rests in large measure on a heightened consciousness of spiritual awareness and a

coming together of spiritual traditions from a wide range of cultures.

Although raised in the Catholic tradition, Spretnak’s (1993) interests go

beyond parochial Christianity. Her work dealing with Oriental thought is insightful

and illuminating. Moreover, she has a thorough appreciation for Aboriginal religions,

as expressed in North American Shamanism. Spretnak’s spiritual awareness draws on

63

theologically sophisticated world religions, as well as folk religions lacking formal

organization. The book title, States of Grace, appears to capture the depth and scope

of Spretnak’s work, not only in terms of spiritual consciousness, but also regarding

the intertwining issues of the marketplace and the environment.

The following few quotes capture the optimism emerging from Spretnak’s

(1993) perspective:

The three groupings of the Eightfold Noble Path (morality, meditation, wisdom) are viewed by Sulak Sivaraksa, a Thai who is chairman of the Asian Cultural Forum on Development, as vehicles of self-knowledge that can lead to what Paulo Freire calls “conscientization” in Latin America, an awakening and awareness of the dynamics of one’s socioeconomic situation. Sivaraksa sees the “awakening into awareness” in a spiritual sense as well as a materialist one, emphasizing that only wisdom can avoid the hatred, greed, and delusion served by partial knowledge. (pp. 59-60)

There is a connection between spiritual awareness and eco-consciousness:

Truth is pluralistic in that it is relational and intersubjective--but humans are not the only subjects in the universe. Indeed, the universe itself is a grand subject. When we cultivate sensitivity toward other forms of being, we begin to recognize the value, requirements, and movement toward satisfaction that are located in plants, animals, communal structures, events, and place. In such a condition of receptive awareness, the truth we grasp has greater depth than that arrived at through a denial of engagement (Spretnak, 1993, p. 212).

Spretnak (1993) reveals clear awareness of the scientific implications, as

theological perspective merges with post-rationalist science:

The new attention to process in recent decades is an expression of the spiritual awakening of postmodernity. Indeed, the father of general systems theory, the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, was inspired by the creation-centered mystic Nicholas of Cusa, and numerous scientists working in postmodern directions of theory and experimentation grapple with issue of being and becoming that have long been central to the wisdom traditions. (p. 215)

Another dimension of her more hopeful outlook is clearly revealed in the following

quote:

In the work now required of us, both the immediate and the long-term, a seeming flood of pressing needs demands attention--recognizing our kinship with the Earth

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community and acting to protect it, nurturing and protecting that which cannot be commodified, and replacing politics of denial with a renewal of coherence based on wisdom and compassion. (Spretnak, 1993, p. 231)

Charlene Spretnak does not use her engagement with spiritual matters as a

mechanism for blissful denial of the world’s wide array of ugly manifestations, be

they environmental or pathological social institutions. Although the previous quotes

reveal her fundamental optimism, the following demonstrates Spretnak’s awareness of

humanity’s capacity for harm:

The perception that life in the Unites States is becoming increasingly violent is no mere paranoid delusion. The number of violent criminal acts per hundred thousand citizens annually has nearly quadrupled from 1960 to 1988. Rates of rape and assault have climbed sharply in recent years. Every fourteen seconds a woman is battered somewhere in our country. Child abuse, including sexual assault, is coming to light in vast numbers in all socioeconomic classes. Drug-related murders terrorize many urban neighborhoods. (Spretnak, 1993, p. 73)

A more global perspective is focussed on the exploitation of women:

A study of Third-World women, which was not intended to focus on “battering” by men, repeatedly found it to be a common thread among women’s experiences in a variety of patriarchal cultures. Moreover, the female body is not only abused but exploited: women worldwide contribute two-thirds of the work hours, earn one-tenth of the income, and own one one-hundredth of the property. Patriarchy is real. (Spretnak, 1993, p. 117)

Spretnak (1993) goes on to acknowledge the disparity between rich and poor in

American society. Her arguments reveal a social policy perspective, seeing such

disparities as insufferable in a humane, civilized and healthy society:

In our own country, attention to structural injustice can hardly overlook the fact that the richest 1 percent of American families own more than 40 percent of the net worth owned by all American families. The top 20 percent of American households hold nearly 90 percent of the net financial assets. The poorest 50 percent of all American families combined, many of whom are single mothers and their children, own roughly three cents of every dollar’s worth of all the wealth in the country. (p. 168)

65

With Spretnak’s work, the elements for the Fifth Societal Model come together

with consistency and balance among the four scholars. Only decades ago, the

inclusion of a spiritual component for new integrated societal model would have

enjoyed little academic acceptance. A wide range of disciplines, however--from

physics to ecology--are now sensitive to the intertwining nature of post-positivist

scientific theory and spiritual insights.

Spretnak’s (1993) work is a great single discussion of the intertwining realities:

societal, environmental and spiritual. Moral and ethical dimensions of social policy

are enriched by a non-parochial spiritual perspective. Purpose, value and meaning

expressed in social institutions are humanely and humanistically enriched by an

accepting and inclusive spiritual consciousness. Charlene Spretnak’s optimism seems

to spring from a clear understanding of this issue. Only time will tell whether her

optimism is sound or misplaced. This work chooses to accept her optimism as a viable

alternative to moral/ethical paralysis and political despair.

No one of these four works in itself covers all the elements needed for a Fifth

Societal Model. However, when they are arranged in the order presented here,

elements to form a clear and coherent framework for a fifth model emerge in organic

fashion out of their totality.

66

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York: Doubleday/Anchor.

Willinsky, J. (1998). Learning to divide the world: Education at empire’s end.

Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Wynn, A., & Wynn, M. (1979). Prevention of handicap and the health of women.

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APPENDIX A

UNDERSTANDING HUMAN CAPITAL

This appendix has been prepared for the reader to better understand human

capital and how it relates to organizational settings and/or governmental programs. It

is dedicated to the post-industrial awareness and the fundamental restructuring of our

society as expressed by a totally reorganized marketplace, a new perception of

government and more responsible social values.

Selected Inservices

Inservices designed as follows would examine the newest concepts regarding

human capital and the application of these ideas to any and all organizational settings

and/or governmental programs.

1. FIVE FORMS OF CAPITAL

In this module, capital is seen from the standpoint of human cultural evolution.

Particular attention is given to the most primary form of capital; that is, the resources

of the human mind and the cultural value derived from this most basic resource.

2. THE HUMAN MIND AS HUMAN CAPITAL

Students would be exposed to the most advanced thinking during the last 50+

years, not only in the literature business but also the more exciting developments in

philosophy, psychology and anthropology.

3. THE SOCIAL POTENTIAL OF HUMAN CAPITAL

If human capital is poorly managed through waste or underinvestment, the

social unit suffers from a crippled potential. From the smallest organization to society

at large, the social potential is best realized through wise human resource

management.

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4. MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES AND PERSONAL GROWTH

In any organization, personal growth when carefully nurtured is an effective

form of investment in human capital. Personal growth can be facilitated within the

organization by a wide range of sound and progressive practices.

5. THE SEVEN STATES OF BEING AND MENTAL RESOURCES

When individuals learn to shift the aura of expectation from a negative strategy

to a positive focus, personal growth can be vastly accentuated. If the aura of

expectation can carefully nurture the seven positive states of mind, human capital

flourishes.

6. MENTORING: A CREATIVE PROCESS

Leadership can be manifested by manipulation, aggression and confrontation

(the ‘Big Mac’ School of Management) or expressed as a process of investing in

employees through personal growth and through a healthy and positive organizational

culture.

7. THE FOUR-LINK CHAIN OF CAUSATION

A chain of causation can either be a negative process or a positive one. If

positive consequences are sought, one must learn how to choose and facilitate the

chain of causation which leads to a positive consequence.

8. THE FOUR-STEP FORMULA FOR REWIRING THE SUBCONSCIOUS

As most people realize, the subconscious mind can be in conflict with the

conscious mind, creating a great deal of stress. There is a simple formula for getting

in touch with the subconscious mind and reprogramming those areas which are

particularly troublesome.

9. BLOCKS TO FULFILLMENT: THE FIVE ADDICTIVE STRATEGIES

Addictions are formed in childhood as a result of the powerless condition of

children attempting to gain some form of control. Any one of five addictive strategies

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may emerge which are carried into adulthood as self-sabotaging and self-defeating

strategies which are adhered to in a compulsive and therefore involuntary fashion.

10. THE FIVE POLARITIES OF MIND

Emotions are the most basic and primitive form of mind/body interface. They

can be seen as five sets of emotions, each of which is characterized by either a

positive or a negative manifestation.

11. TECHNIQUES FOR RELEASING NEGATIVES AND AFFIRMING

POSITIVES

Once the five emotional states are identified, it is possible to learn simple

techniques for releasing these negative emotional states and replacing them by

affirming the opposite positive emotional states.

12. HUMAN CAPITAL AND THE SELF-GENERATING RESOURCES OF THE

MIND

When the human mind is cleared of the crippling clutter of addictive strategies

and negative emotional states, the mind is free to express its most powerful and

fundamental qualities of self-awareness, self-teaching and self-correcting. When self-

correcting is based on effective techniques of self-teaching and realistic self-appraisal,

the human potential is free to flourish.

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APPENDIX B

HUMAN RESOURCES AWARENESS INDEX

Rating: 5 = Strongly Agree, 4 = Agree, 3 = Uncertain,

2 = Disagree, 1 = Strongly Disagree

_____ 1. Human resources represent the primary capital in the North American

marketplace.

_____ 2. The modern organization should make every effort to catalogue the

talent profiles of employees and use the talent profile for career

planning.

_____ 3. Women constitute a wasted capital resource due to widespread

underutilization.

_____ 4. The competitive position of modern organizations would be

strengthened by systematically implementing the principle of equal

pay for equal work.

_____ 5. The modern progressive organization wisely invests in promoting

employee self-esteem and employee creativity.

_____ 6. The competitive strength of an organization is enhanced by long-term

resource planning and development.

_____ 7. The New Age in the business world is committed to human capital as

North America’s new frontier.

_____ 8. Today’s progressive organization should use employee assistance

programs and other strategies to counteract the negative effect of drug

and chemical abuse on productivity.

_____ 9. Today’s marketplace suffers heavy costs due to executive and

employee burnout.

_____ 10. Today’s organizations lose competitive advantage due to unnecessary

conflict within the organizations.

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_____ 11. Well-designed in-house programs will substantially increase the

physical and mental performance of both executives and employees.

_____ 12. Personal and professional excellence constitutes a new wave view

with substantial competitive value.

_____ 13. The creation of personal and professional excellence is now

approached as a natural science and therefore is objectively real.

_____ 14. The creation of organizational excellence does strengthen

organizational culture and therefore marketplace performance.

_____ 15. Strengthening organizational excellence facilitates the pursuit of

individual excellence.

_____ 16. Zest in the professional role is greatly strengthened by the daily use of

personal affirmations and positive imaging.

_____ 17. Joy in work is a birthright, and it is possible for work to be joyful.

_____ 18. An organization’s competitive position is definitely strengthened by

joyful, cooperative employees and executives.

_____ 19. It is now accepted that stress sabotages performance and ambition as a

major factor in the marketplace.

_____ 20. It is now understood that modern techniques of mind training can

reduce or eliminate stress from both professional and personal lives.

After totalling your score, evaluate yourself as follows:

96 - 100 Enhanced Awareness

91 - 95 Highly Aware

86 - 90 Moderately Aware

81 - 85 A Problem in Awareness

76 - 80 Needs Awareness Enhanced

71 - 75 Needs Immediate Help

Below 70 Awareness Crisis

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APPENDIX C

STRESS-DEX

This appendix has been developed in order to better identify emotional and

behavioural factors which suggest the presence of stress. The scoring system has a

maximum count of 100 which, of course, would indicate total flameout. Although this

instrument is NOT intended to be a clinical tool for diagnostic work, it can certainly

assist in the areas of self-identification and self-instruction.

You may find that you score yourself on each item at a lower level that your

mate or colleagues would do. In this matter, like many others, it is tempting to fudge

the issue in order to con ourselves just a little bit.

Rating: 5 = Very Much, 4 = Moderately, 3 = Somewhat,

2 = A Little, 1 = Not At All

List of Symptoms

_____ 1. I have frequent headaches for no known organic reason.

_____ 2. I am bothered by disturbances in my sleep.

_____ 3. I chronically suffer from cold hands and feet.

_____ 4. I frequently feel that my interpersonal relationships suffer from tension.

_____ 5. My digestive system sometimes feels like a knotted chord.

_____ 6. I feel vexed by lapses in memory and concentration.

_____ 7. My heart often beats very fast.

_____ 8. I feel jittery in my body.

_____ 9. I worry too much.

_____ 10. I get diarrhea.

_____ 11. I imagine terrifying scenes.

_____ 12. I pace nervously.

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_____ 13. I become immobilized.

_____ 14. I can’t make up my mind soon enough.

_____ 15. I perspire excessively.

_____ 16. I breathe in short, shallow breaths.

_____ 17. I grind my teeth at night.

_____ 18. I am frequently angry or irritable.

_____ 19. I often feel fatigued for no apparent reason.

_____ 20. I feel guilty when I take time out to relax.

If you scored over 40, you very likely should be taking remedial action such as a

training program to relieve the underlying causes of your stress.

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