Useful Resources for Mindful Living

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 advocateBuddha graphic by Wilfredor / CC BY-SA 3.0

Part 1: The Five Fundamental Realms of Reality..........................................................................4The Code of Humanity.......................................................................................................................18Charter for Compassion....................................................................................................................19Socrates’ Cafe (Part 1).......................................................................................................................20Socrates’ Cafe (Part 2).......................................................................................................................25

Part 2: Basic Overview...........................................................................................................................37You and Your Emotions...............................................................................................................38

Introduction.................................................................................................................................38Two Opposite Mind/Body Responses..............................................................................39

Blocks to Fulfillment..................................................................................................................... 45Introduction.................................................................................................................................45

Capacities of Your Mind...............................................................................................................57Introduction.................................................................................................................................57The Three Dimensions of Mind...........................................................................................57Affirmations................................................................................................................................. 61The Aura of Expectation.........................................................................................................63

Human Capital/Basic Cultural Wealth..................................................................................67Introduction.................................................................................................................................67Evolution of Human Consciousness..................................................................................67Economic Perceptions of Human Capital........................................................................69Education and Human Capital.............................................................................................71Education as Adult Lifestyle.................................................................................................73Human Capital in the Contemporary Workplace........................................................76

Balancing Social Elements..........................................................................................................78Introduction.................................................................................................................................78Four Scholars’ Work, Presented in Order.......................................................................79

Part 3: Provocative Perspectives.......................................................................................................96Mind/Culture: Seven Ways of Looking at the World...........................................................97East Meets West: A Noetic Enrichment...................................................................................111Communication and Creativity...................................................................................................113

Introduction................................................................................................................................... 113Innovation: Creativity or Crisis.............................................................................................115Working, Learning and Growing...........................................................................................117Problem Solving and the Role of Metaphor.....................................................................118Skill Inventory as an Organization Innovation...............................................................120Issues in Today’s Complex Organizations.........................................................................122Multiculturalism and Human Capital..................................................................................123

Models of Social Investment........................................................................................................126

Part 4: Vital Works................................................................................................................................132Taming the Tiger Within................................................................................................................133Emotional Freedom.......................................................................................................................... 136Emotional Intelligence.....................................................................................................................138

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Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope............................................................................141Leading with Kindness.....................................................................................................................143The Power of Ethical Management............................................................................................146Total Leadership................................................................................................................................ 147Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence....................................................................................149Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work....................................................151Primal Leadership............................................................................................................................. 154Who Will Cry When You Die? Life Lessons from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari....161

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Part 1: The Five Fundamental Realms of Reality

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Five Fundamental Realms of RealityReferences

Cosmos

1. The Book of the Cosmos: Imagining the Universe from Heraclitus to Hawking by Dennis Richard Danielson (Da Capo Press, 2001)

Overview: What is the cosmos? How did it come into being? How are we related to it, and what is our place in it? The Book of the Cosmos assembles for the first time in one volume the great minds of the Western world who have considered these questions from biblical times to the present. It is a book of many authors —Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo are here, of course, in all their genius, but so are Edgar Allan Poe, Annie Jump Cannon (a "human computer" and lyrical classifier of stars), and Sir Martin Rees, who proposes an "ensemble of universes" of which ours happens to be among the most interesting. In these pages the universe is made and unmade in a variety of configurations; it spins along on superstrings, teems with intelligent life, and could end without warning. The Book of the Cosmos provides a thrilling read to set the heart racing and the mind soaring.

2. The First Stargazers: An Introduction to the Origins of Astronomy by James Cornell (The Athlone Press, May 1, 1981)

3. The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy by Michael Hoskin (Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Overview: Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences, and one, which has repeatedly led to fundamental changes in our view of the world. This book covers the history of our study of the cosmos from prehistory to a survey of modern astronomy and astrophysics. It does not attempt to cover everything, but deliberately concentrates on the important themes and topics, including stellar astronomy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the source of many important concepts in modern astronomy—and the Copernican revolution, which led to the challenge of ancient authorities in many areas other than astronomy. This is an essential text for students of the history of science and for students of astronomy who require a historical background to their studies.

4. The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness by K. C. Cole (Harcourt Trade Publishers, 2001)

Overview: Once again, acclaimed science writer K. C. Cole brings the arcane and academic down to the level of armchair scientists in The Hole in the Universe, an entertaining and edifying search for nothing at all. Open the newspaper on any given day and you will read of a newly discovered planet, star, and so on. Yet scientists and mathematicians have spent generations searching the far reaches of the universe for that one elusive state—nothingness. Although this may sound like a simple task, every time the absolute void appears within reach, something new is discovered in its place: a black hole, an undulating string, an additional dimension of space or time—even another universe. A fascinating and literary tour de force, The Hole in the Universe is a virtual romp into the unknown that you never knew wasn't there.

5. The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms by Marcus Chown (Oxford University Press, 2001)

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Overview: "Every breath you take contains atoms forged in the blistering furnaces deep inside stars. Every flower you pick contains atoms blasted into space by stellar explosions that blazed brighter than a billion suns." Thus begins The Magic Furnace, an eloquent, extraordinary account of how scientists unravelled the mystery of atoms, and helped to explain the dawn of life itself.

The historic search for atoms and their stellar origins is truly one of the greatest detective stories of science. In effect, it offers two epics intertwined: the birth of atoms in the Big Bang and the evolution of stars and how they work. Neither could be told without the other, for the stars contain the key to unlocking the secret of atoms, and the atoms the solution to the secret of the stars. Marcus Chown leads readers through the major theories and experiments that propelled the search for atomic understanding, with engaging characterizations of the major atomic thinkers—from Democritus in ancient Greece to Binning and Rohrer in twentieth-century New York. He clarifies the science, explaining with enthusiasm the sequence of breakthroughs that proved the existence of atoms as the "alphabet of nature" and the discovery of subatomic particles and atomic energy potential. From there, he engagingly chronicles the leaps of insight that eventually revealed the elements, the universe, our world, and ourselves to be a product of two ultimate furnaces: the explosion of the Big Bang and the interior of stars such as supernovae and red giants.

Chown successfully makes these massive concepts accessible for students, professionals, and science enthusiasts. His story sheds light on all of us, for in essence, we are all stardust.

6. The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life by P. C. W. Davies (Simon & Schuster, 2000)

Overview: How and where did life begin? Is it a chemical fluke, unique to Earth, or the product of intriguingly bio-friendly laws governing the entire universe? In his latest far-reaching book, The Fifth Miracle, internationally acclaimed physicist and writer Paul Davies confronts one of science's great outstanding mysteries—the origin of life.

Davies shows how new research hints that the crucible of life lay deep within Earth's hot crust, and not in a "warm little pond," as first suggested by Charles Darwin. Bizarre microbes discovered dwelling in the underworld and around submarine volcanic vents are thought to be living fossils. This discovery has transformed scientists' expectations for life on Mars and elsewhere in the universe. Davies stresses the key role that the bombardment of the planets by giant comets and asteroids has played in the origin and evolution of life, arguing that these "deep impacts" delivered the raw material for biology, but also kept life confined to its subterranean haven for millions of years. Recently, scientists have uncovered tantalizing clues that life may have existed and may still exist—elsewhere in the universe.

The Fifth Miracle recounts the discovery in Antarctica of a meteorite from Mars (ALH84001) that may contain traces of life. Three and a half billion years ago, Mars resembled Earth. It was warm and wet and could have supported primitive organisms. Davies believes that the red planet may still harbour microbes in thermally heated rocks deep below the Martian permafrost. He goes on to describe a still more startling scenario: If life once existed on Mars, might it have originated there and traveled to Earth inside meteorites blasted into space by cosmic impacts? Conversely, did life spread from Earth to Mars? Could microbes have journeyed even farther afield inside comets?

Davies builds on the latest scientific discoveries and theories to address the larger question: What, exactly, is life? Davies shows that the living call is an information-processing system that uses a sophisticated mathematical code, and he argues that the secret of life lies not with exotic chemistry but with the emergence of information-based complexity. He then goes on to ask: Is life the inevitable by-product of physical laws, as many scientists maintain, or an almost miraculous accident? Are we alone in the universe, or will life emerge on all Earthlike planets? And if there is life elsewhere in the universe, is it preordained to evolve toward greater complexity and

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intelligence?

On the answers to these deep questions hinges the ultimate purpose of mankind—who we are and what our place might be in the unfolding drama of the cosmos.

7. The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things by Hannah Holmes (John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2003)

Overview: Some see dust as dull and useless stuff. But in the hands of author Hannah Holmes, it becomes a dazzling and mysterious force; Dust, we discover, built the planet we walk upon. And it tinkers with the weather and spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of it rise annually into the air—the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing with volcanic ash, sea salt, leaf fragments, scales from butterfly wings, shreds of T-shirts, and fireplace soot. Eventually, though, all this dust must settle. The story of restless dust begins among exploding stars, then treks through the dinosaur beds of the Gobi Desert, drills into Antarctic glaciers, filters living dusts from the wind, and probes the dark underbelly of the living-room couch. Along the way, Holmes introduces a delightful cast of characters—the scientists who study dust. Some investigate its dark side: how it killed off dinosaurs and how its industrial descendants are killing us today. Others sample the shower of Saharan dust that nourishes Caribbean jungles, or venture into the microscopic jungle of the bedroom carpet. Like The Secret Life of Dust, however, all of them unveil the mayhem and magic wrought by little things.

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Geosphere

1. Earth: The Biography by Iain Steward, John Lynch (National Geographic Society, 2008)

Overview: After four and a half billion years, our planet is approaching old age—the perfect time to look back on an extraordinary life. In Earth: The Biography, renowned science writers Iain Steward and John Lynch use groundbreaking imagery and the latest scientific discoveries to tell the epic story of Earth’s birth, life stages, and distant future demise.

Each chapter examines one of the five essential forces—meteor impacts, plate tectonics, the ocean, the atmosphere, and ice—that drive and shape our planet and determine its destiny. New imaging techniques and spectacular graphics combine to reveal hitherto hidden information about these forces, depicting them in action today as they keep the Earth alive and going back in time to show how cataclysmic events played roles in the planet’s development. More than 200 full-color photographs and illustrations present the familiar in a striking new light, while the authors’ straightforward style brings an engaging clarity to advanced scientific concepts.

The National Geographic Channel television series to which Earth: The Biography is the companion volume is expected to reach a viewership of 100 million people. A timely publication as our planet adapts to a warming climate, this accessible, authoritative, and richly visual exploration is a valuable home reference for every family.

2. Earth: An Intimate History by Richard A. Fortey (Vintage Books, reprint edition, 2005)

Overview: In Earth, the acclaimed author of Trilobite! and Life takes us on a grand tour of the earth’s physical past, showing how the history of plate tectonics is etched in the landscape around us.

Beginning with Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in Roman times helped spark the science of geology, and ending in a lab in the West of England where mathematical models and lab experiments replace direct observation, Richard Fortey tells us what the present says about ancient geologic processes. He shows how plate tectonics came to rule the geophysical landscape and how the evidence is written in the hills and in the stones. And in the process, he takes us on a wonderful journey around the globe to visit some of the most fascinating and intriguing spots on the planet.

3. Gaia: a new look at life on earth by James Lovelock (Oxford University Press, 3rd Edition, reissued, 2000)

Overview: In this classic work that continues to inspire its many readers, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the earth's living matter—air, ocean, and land surfaces—forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.

Since Gaia was first published, many of Jim Lovelock's predictions have come true, and his theory has become a hotly argued topic in scientific circles. Here, in a new Preface, Lovelock outlines his present state of the debate.

4. The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins, Yan Wong (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, reprint edition, 2005)

Overview: With unparalleled wit, clarity, and intelligence, Richard Dawkins, one of the world's

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most renowned evolutionary biologists, has introduced countless readers to the wonders of science in works such as The Selfish Gene. Now, in The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and a riveting read.

5. Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science by Curtis Ebbesmeyer, Eric Scigliano (HarperCollins, 2009)

Overview: Pioneering oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer unravels the mystery of marine currents, uncovers the astonishing story of flotsam, and changes the world's view of trash, the ocean, and our global environment. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is no ordinary scientist. He's been a consulting oceanographer for multinational firms and a lead scientist on international research expeditions, but he's never held a conventional academic appointment. He seized the world's imagination as no other scientist could when he and his worldwide network of beachcomber volunteers traced the ocean's currents using thousands of sneakers and plastic bath toys spilled from storm-tossed freighters. Now, for the first time, Ebbesmeyer tells the story of his lifelong struggle to solve the sea's mysteries while sharing his most surprising discoveries. He recounts how flotsam has changed the course of history-leading Viking mariners to safe harbours, Columbus to the New World, and Japan to open up to the West—and how it may even have made the origin of life possible. He chases icebergs and floating islands; investigates ocean mysteries from ghost ships to a spate of washed-up severed feet on Canadian beaches; and explores the enormous floating "garbage patches" and waste-heaped "junk beaches" that collect the flotsam and jetsam of industrial society. Finally, Ebbesmeyer reveals the rhythmic and harmonic order in the vast oceanic currents called gyres—"the heartbeat of the world "—and the threats that global warming and disintegrating plastic waste pose to the seas . . . and to us.

6. The end of evolution: dinosaurs, mass extinction and biodiversity by Peter Ward (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995)

Overview: A controversial account of the complex issues surrounding the three mass extinctions found in the geological record. The author concludes that the most recent extinction which began at the end of the last Ice Age is directly caused by humans.

7. The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery (Grove Press, reprint edition, 2006)

Overview: An international best seller embraced and endorsed by policy makers, scientists, writers and energy industry executives from around the world, Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers contributed in bringing the topic of global warming to national prominence. For the first time, a scientist provided an accessible and comprehensive account of the history, current status, and future impact of climate change, writing what reviewers have acclaimed everywhere as the definitive book on global warming.

With one out of every five living things on this planet committed to extinction by the levels of greenhouse gases that will accumulate in the next few decades, we are reaching a global climatic tipping point. The Weather Makers is both an urgent warning and a call to arms, outlining the history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next century, and what we can do to prevent a cataclysmic future. Originally somewhat of a global warming sceptic, Tim Flannery spent several years researching the topic and offers a connect-the- dots approach for a reading public who has received patchy or misleading information on the subject. Pulling on his expertise as a scientist to discuss climate change from a historical perspective, Flannery also explains how

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climate change is interconnected across the planet. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.

Biosphere

1. The cooperative gene: how Mendel's demon explains the evolution of complex beings by Mark Ridley (Free Press, 2001)

Overview: Why isn't all life pond-scum? Why are there multimillion-celled, long-lived monsters like us, built from tens of thousands of cooperating genes? Mark Ridley presents a new explanation of how complex large life forms like ourselves came to exist, showing that the answer to the greatest mystery of evolution for modern science is not the selfish gene; it is the cooperative gene. In this thought-provoking book, Ridley breaks down how two major biological hurdles had to be overcome in order to allow living complexity to evolve: the proliferation of genes and gene-selfishness. Because complex life has more genes than simple life, the increase in gene numbers poses a particular problem for complex beings. The more genes, the more chance for copying error; it is far easier to make a mistake copying the Bible than it is copying an advertising slogan. To add to the difficulty, Darwin's concept of natural selection encourages genes that look out for themselves, selfish genes that could easily evolve to sabotage the development of complex life forms. By retracing the history of life on our planet—from the initial wobbly, replicating molecules, through microbes, worms, and flies, and on to humans—Ridley reveals how life evolved as a series of steps to manage error and to coerce genes to cooperate within each body. Like a benign and unseen hand—what Ridley calls "Mendel's Demon"—the combination of these strategies enacts Austrian monk Gregor Mendel's fundamental laws of inheritance. This demon offers startling new perspectives on issues from curing AIDS, the origins of sex and gender, and cloning, to the genetics of angels. Indeed, if we are ever to understand the biology of other planets, we will need more than Darwin; we will need to understand how Mendel's Demon made the cooperative gene into the fundamental element of life. What does the cooperative gene tell us about our future? With genetic technology burgeoning around the world, we must ask whether life will evolve to be even more complex than we already are. Human beings, Ridley concludes, may be near the limit of the possible, at least for earthly genetic mechanisms. But in the future, new genetic and reproductive biosystems could allow our descendants to increase their gene numbers and therefore their complexity. This process, he speculates, could lead to the evolution of life forms far stranger and more interesting than anything humanly discovered or imagined so far. Written with uncommon energy, force, and clarity, The Cooperative Gene is essential reading for anyone wishing to see behind the headlines of our genetic age. It is an eye-opening invitation to the biotech adventure humanity has already embarked upon.

2. Dr. Tatiana’s sex advice to all creation by Olivia Judson (Metropolitan Books, 2002)

Overview: A sex guide for all living things and a hilarious natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation.

Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation is a unique guidebook to sex. It reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable and who should commit bestiality with whom. It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters —such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.

Entertaining, funny, and marvelously illuminating, the book comprises letters from all creatures worried about their bizarre sex lives to the wise Dr. Tatiana, the only sex columnist in creation with a prodigious knowledge of evolutionary biology. Fusing natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blending wit and rigor, she is able to reassure her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal—so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin's theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all. Applying human standards to

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the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both.

3. The Female Animal by Irene Elia (H. Holt, 1988)

Overview: Examines the sexual lives and behavioural traits of the female of all species, arguing that the embryo of most mammals is pre-programmed female that individuation for mothering purposes among females is a relatively recent development, and that selection for mothering traits is linked to intelligence.

4. The Presence of the Past by Rupert Sheldrake (Harpercollins (P), reprint edition, 1989)

Overview: This book develops the revolutionary theory that behaviour and social systems are not only governed by immutable and mechanistic laws, which is the traditional viewpoint, but also by habits transmitted by nature’s inherent memory. Rupert Sheldrake also wrote A New Science of Life.

5. The Design of Animal Communication by Marc D. Hauser, Mark Konishi (MIT Press, reprint edition, 2003)

Overview: When animals, including humans, communicate, they convey information and express their perceptions of the world. Because different organisms are able to produce and perceive different signals, the animal world contains a diversity of communication systems. Based on the approach laid out in the 1950s by Nobel laureate Nikolaas Tinbergen, this book looks at animal communication from the four perspectives of mechanisms, ontogeny, function, and phylogeny.

6. On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee (Times Books, 2004)

Overview: From the inventor of the PalmPilot comes a new and compelling theory of intelligence, brain function, and the future of intelligent machines.

Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself.

Hawkins develops a powerful theory of how the human brain works, explaining why computers are not intelligent and how, based on this new theory, we can finally build intelligent machines.

The brain is not a computer, but a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness.

In an engaging style that will captivate audiences from the merely curious to the professional scientist, Hawkins shows how a clear understanding of how the brain works will make it possible for us to build intelligent machines, in silicon, that will exceed our human ability in surprising ways.

Written with acclaimed science writer Sandra Blakeslee, On Intelligence promises to completely transfigure the possibilities of the technology age. It is a landmark book in its scope and clarity.

7. Nature via nurture: genes, experience, and what makes us human by Matt Ridley (HarperCollins, 2003)

Overview: Following his highly praised and bestselling book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley has written a brilliant and profound book about the roots of human behaviour. Nature via Nurture explores the complex and endlessly intriguing question of

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what makes us who we are.

In February 2001 it was announced that the human genome contains not 100,000 genes, as originally postulated, but only 30,000. This startling revision led some scientists to conclude that there are simply not enough human genes to account for all the different ways people behave: we must be made by nurture, not nature. Yet again biology was to be stretched on the Procrustean bed of the nature-nurture debate. Matt Ridley argues that the emerging truth is far more interesting than this myth. Nurture depends on genes, too, and genes need nurture. Genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues, and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will.

Published fifty years after the discovery of the double helix of DNA, Nature via Nurture chronicles a revolution in our understanding of genes. Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free- willed and motivated by instinct and culture. Nature via Nurture is an enthralling, up-to-the-minute account of how genes build brains to absorb experience.

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Noosphere

1. The prehistory of the mind: the cognitive origins of art, religion and science by Steven J. Mithen (Thames and Hudson, 1999)

Overview: On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions.

2. The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (HarperCollins, 1975)

Overview: Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was one of the most distinguished thinkers and scientists of our time. He fits into no familiar category for he was at once a biologist and a paleontologist of world renown, and also a Jesuit priest. He applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science.

The Phenomenon of Man, the first of his writings to appear in America, Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. When published in France it was the best-selling nonfiction book of the year.

3. Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way by Mary Catherine Bateson (HarperCollins Publishers, 1994)

Overview: The author of Composing a Life provides a thought-provoking study of the art of learning that explains how a continuation of the learning process throughout a lifetime adds pleasure and understanding to human life and helps ensure the future.

4. A passion for wisdom: a very brief history of philosophy by Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M. Higgins (Oxford University Press US, 1998)

Overview: Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Here, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit.

The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs of the east and west and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, they highlight major philosophers, from Plato and the Buddha to William James and Simone de Beauvoir, and explore major categories, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. Among many memorable observations, we're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment that life is "nasty, brutish, and short" and Hegel's description of Napoleon as "world history on horseback." Engaging, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years.

5. The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb (W. W. Norton & Company, reprint edition, 2002)

Overview: In this landmark new study of Western thought, Gottlieb approaches philosophy through its primary sources, questions many pieces of conventional wisdom, and explains his findings with clarity. From the pre-Socratic philosophers, Plato, and Aristotle to Renaissance visionaries like Erasmus, “philosophy” emerges here as a phenomenon unconfined by any one principle.

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6. Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution by Lisa Jardine (Nan A. Talese, 1999)

Overview: The author of the critically acclaimed Worldly Goods presents a thoughtful reassessment of the Renaissance in terms of its influence on the history of science, relating the era's imaginative, artistic endeavours to the creative inspiration behind the scientific discoveries of the period.

7. Exuberance: The Passion for Life by Kay R. Jamison (A.A. Knopf, 2004)

Overview: The author of the bestselling An Unquiet Mind—and internationally renowned authority on mood disorders—now gives us something wonderfully different: an exploration of exuberance and how it fuels our most important creative and scientific achievements.

John Muir’s lifelong passion to save America’s wild places, Wilson Bentley’s legendary obsession to record for posterity the beauty of individual snowflakes, the boundless scientific curiosity behind Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA, sea lions that surf and porcupines that dance—Kay Redfield Jamison shows how these and many more examples both human and animal define the nature of exuberance, and how this exuberance relates to intellectual searching, risk-taking, creativity, and survival itself. She examines the hereditary predisposition to exuberance; the role of the brain chemical dopamine; the connection between positive moods and psychological resilience; and the differences between exuberance and mania. She delves into some of the phenomena of exuberance—the contagiousness of laughter, the giddiness of new love, the intoxicating effects of music and of religious ecstasy—while also addressing the dangerous desire to simulate exuberance by using drugs or alcohol. In a fascinating and intimate coda to the rest of the book, renowned scientists, writers, and politicians share their thoughts on the forms and role of exuberance in their own lives.

Original, inspiring, authoritative, Exuberance brims with the very energy and passion that it celebrates.

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Diosphere

1. Shamanism: an expanded view of reality by Shirley J. Nicholson (Quest Books, 2nd

Edition, 1987)

Overview: Essays discuss ancient cultures, magic, modern shamanism, healing, dreams, ESP, prayer pipes,mysticism, alchemy, and the future of shamanism.

2. The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong (Random House of Canada, 2007)

Overview: From one of the world’s leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God, The Battle for God and The Spiral Staircase, comes a major new work: a chronicle of one of the most important intellectual revolutions in world history and its relevance to our own time. In one astonishing, short period—the ninth century BCE—the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity into the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Historians call this the Axial Age because of its central importance to humanity’s spiritual development. Now, Karen Armstrong traces the rise and development of this transformative moment in history, examining the brilliant contributions to these traditions made by such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Ezekiel. Armstrong makes clear that despite some differences of emphasis, there was remarkable consensus among these religions and philosophies: each insisted on the primacy of compassion over hatred and violence. She illuminates what this “family” resemblance reveals about the religious impulse and quest of humankind. And she goes beyond spiritual archaeology, delving into the ways in which these Axial Age beliefs can present an instructive and thought-provoking challenge to the ways we think about and practice religion today. A revelation of humankind’s early shared imperatives, yearnings and inspired solutions—as salutary as it is fascinating.

3. Huston Smith: Essays on World Religion by Huston Smith, M. Darrol Bryant (Paragon House, 1995)

Overview: In this challenging and provocative collection of 19 essays on comparative philosophy, religion and culture, one of the foremost thinkers of our time provides his most insightful and important reflections on the state of humans' spiritual life.

4. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age by Charlene Spretnak (HarperOne, 1991)

Overview: Shares the views of the Buddha on the nature of mind, native American spirituality on our relationship with nature, Goddess spirituality on the sacredness of the body, and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on social justice.

5. Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing by Rosemary Radford Ruether (HarperSanFrancisco, reprint edition, 1994)

Overview: Internationally acclaimed author and teacher Rosemary Radford Ruether presents a sweeping eco-feminist theology that illuminates a path toward "earth-healing"--a whole relationship between men and women, communities and nations.6. The greening of faith: God, the environment, and the good life by John Edward Carroll, Paul T. Brockelman, Mary Westfall (UPNE, 1997)

Overview: No one argues that continuing depredation of our environment threatens our planet

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and our existence on it, but conflict arises in finding a solution to the problem. Suggesting that the panacea offered by science and technology is too narrow, 15 philosophers, theologians, and environmentalists argue for a response to ecology that recognizes the tools of science but includes a more spiritual approach-one with a more humanistic, holistic view based on inherent reverence toward the natural world. Writers whose orientations range from Buddhism to evangelical Christianity to Catholicism to Native American beliefs explore ways to achieve this paradigm shift and suggest that "the environment is not only a spiritual issue, but the spiritual issue of our time."

7. Belonging to the universe: explorations on the frontiers of science and spirituality by Fritjof Capra, David Steindl-Rast, Thomas Matus

Overview: In this remarkable work, bestselling author Capra and Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk renown for making fresh sense of Christian faith, share insights into how science and religion seek to make us at home in the universe. A remarkably compatible view of the universe.

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The Code of HumanityI choose to communicate truth.

I choose the reality of life.

I choose to heal, not hurt.

I choose education over ignorance.

I choose the power of peace.

I choose to love God (or Good) and see God (or Good) in all humanity.

I choose to seek the soul in all things.I choose to link to the world of inspiration.

I choose the principle of sharing.

I choose to become a co-creator in life and live it more abundantly.

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--From creativegroup.org

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Charter for CompassionThe principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect. 

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion--to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate--to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures--to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity--to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

--From charterforcompassion.org

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Socrates’ Cafe: Refinement of Ethics, Expansion of Insight, Enrichment of Wisdom (Part 1)

Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy by Christopher Phillips (W. W. Norton & Company, 2002)

Description: A modern-day Socrates takes to the road to bring philosophy back to the people. Journalist-turned-philosopher Christopher Phillips is on a mission: to revive the love of questions that Socrates once inspired in ancient Athens. With great charisma and optimism, he travels around the country, gathering people to participate in Socrates cafes in bookstores, senior centers, elementary schools and universities, and prisons. In this accessible, lively account, Phillips recalls what led him to start his itinerant program and recreates some of the most invigorating sessions. Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles praises the "morally energetic and introspective exchanges with children and adults from all walks of life," which come to reveal sometimes surprising, often profound reflections on the meaning of love, friendship, work, growing old, and other large questions of life. Phillips also draws from his own academic background to introduce us to the thought of philosophers through the ages. Socrates Cafe is an engaging blend of philosophy and storytelling.

A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy by Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M. Higgins (Oxford University Press US, 1998)

Description: Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Here, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit.

The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs of the east and west and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of

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the present. Along the way, they highlight major philosophers, from Plato and the Buddha to William James and Simone de Beauvoir, and explore major categories, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. Among many memorable observations, we're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment that life is "nasty, brutish, and short" and Hegel's description of Napoleon as "world history on horseback." Engaging, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years.

Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America by Arianna Huffington (Random Houseof Canada, 2003)

Description: Who filled the trough? Who set the table at the banquet of greed? How has it been possible for corporate pigs to gorge themselves on grossly inflated pay packages and heaping helpings of stock options while the average American struggles to make do with their leftovers?

Provocative political commentator Arianna Huffington yanks back the curtain on the unholy alliance of CEOs, politicians, lobbyists, and Wall Street bankers who have shown a brutal disregard for those in the office cubicles and on the factory floors. As she puts it:

“The economic game is not supposed to be rigged like some shady ring toss on a carnival midway.” Yet it has been, allowing corporate crooks to bilk the public out of trillions of dollars, magically making our pensions and 401(k)s disappear and walking away with astronomical payouts and absurdly lavish perks-for-life.

The media have put their fingers on pieces of the sordid puzzle, but Pigs at the Trough presents the whole ugly picture of what’s really going on for the first time—a blistering, wickedly witty portrait of exactly how and why the worst and the greediest are running American business and government into the ground.

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Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski, Adelphia’s John Rigas, and the Three Horsemen of the Enron Apocalypse—Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andrew Fastow—are not just a few bad apples. They are manifestations of a megatrend in corporate leadership—the rise of a callous and avaricious mind-set that is wildly out of whack with the core values of the average American. WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, AOL, Xerox, Merrill Lynch, and the other scandals are only the tip of the tip of the corruption iceberg.

Making the case that our public watchdogs have become little more than obedient lapdogs, unwilling to bite the corporate hand that feeds them, Arianna Huffington turns the spotlight on the tough reforms we must demand from Washington. We need, she argues, to go way beyond the lame Corporate Responsibility Act if we are to stop the voracious corporate predators from eating away at the very foundations of our democracy.

Devastatingly funny and powerfully indicting, Pigs at the Trough is a rousing call to arms and a must-read for all those who are outraged by the scandalous state of corporate America.

Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs (Random House of Canada, 2005)

Description: A dark age is a culture's dead end. In North America, for example, we live in a virtual graveyard of lost and destroyed aboriginal cultures. In this powerful and provocative book, renowned author Jane Jacobs argues convincingly that we face the coming of our own dark age.

Throughout history, there have been many more dark ages than the one that occurred between the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Renaissance. Ten thousand years ago, our ancestors went from hunter-gatherers to farmers and, along the way, lost almost all memory of what existed before. Now we stand at another monumental crossroads, as agrarianism gives way to a technology-based future. How do we make this shift without losing the culture we hold dear—and without falling behind other nations that successfully master the transition?

First we must concede that things are awry. Jacobs identifies five central

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pillars of our society that show serious signs of decay: community and family; higher education; science and technology; governmental representation; and self-regulation of the learned professions. These are the elements we depend on to stand firm—but Jacobs maintains that they are in the process of becoming irrelevant. If that happens, we will no longer recognize ourselves.

The good news is that the downward movement can be reversed. Japan avoided cultural defeat by retaining a strong hold on history and preservation during war, besiegement, and occupation. Ireland nearly lost all native language during the devastations of famine and colonialism, but managed to renew its culture through the steadfast determination of its citizens. Jacobs assures us that the same can happen here—if only we recognize the signs of decline in time.

Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacob's career but one of the most important works of our time. It is a warning that, if heeded, could save our very way of life.

Zeno and the Tortoise: How to Think Like a Philosopher by Nicholas Fearn (Grove Press, 2002)

Description: For those who don't know the difference between Lucretius's spear and Hume's fork, Zeno and the Tortoise explains not just who each philosopher was and what he thought, but exactly how he came to think in the way he did. Nicholas Fearn presents philosophy as a collection of tools—the tricks of a trade that, in the end, might just be all tricks, each to be fruitfully applied to a variety of everyday predicaments. In a witty and engaging style that incorporates everything from Sting to cell phones to Bill Gates, Fearn demystifies the ways of thought that have shaped and inspired humanity—among many others, the Socratic method, Descartes's use of doubt, Bentham's theory of utilitarianism, Rousseau's social contract, and, of course, the concept of common sense. Along the way, there are fascinating biographical snippets about the philosophers themselves: the story of Thales falling down a well while studying the stars,

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and of Socrates being told by a face-reader that his was the face of a monster who was capable of any crime. Written in twenty-five short chapters, each readable during the journey to work, Zeno and the Tortoise is the ideal course in intellectual self-defense. Acute, often irreverent, but always authoritative, this is a unique introduction to the ideas that have shaped us all.

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Socrates’ Cafe: Refinement of Ethics, Expansion of Insight, Enrichment of Wisdom (Part 2)

Infinite Life: Seven Virtues for Living Well by Robert Thurman (Souvenir Press Limited, 2006)

Description: In Infinite Life, Columbia University professor and bestselling author Robert Thurman invites us to examine our assumptions about living and dying and to take into account the possibility that not only are our lives not meaningless, they have tremendous impact. He asks us to consider that instead of having one shot to get it right for either oblivion or eternity, we might indeed have an infinite past and future. And if that is the case, if we are evolving over infinite time, then every action in our lives has infinite consequences for ourselves and others. Therefore, we must take responsibility in the present for our actions and their effects—we must live our immortality now. But balanced against that tremendous responsibility is the opportunity for a life of infinite joy, infinite connection with other beings, and infinite power to do good.

There is no escaping the facts that our thoughts create actions and that our actions affect others around us in ways we cannot see or predict. The ripples of every impulse last long after we are gone. Following the ancient teachings of the Buddha, Infinite Life introduces seven Buddhist virtues for carefully reconstructing body and mind in order to reduce the negative consequences and cultivate the positive in our lives. Thurman shows us how to let go of our rigid sense of "self" and experience full satisfaction with ourselves, others, and our world. He invites us to take responsibility for our actions and their consequences while reveling in the knowledge that our lives are truly infinite. Infinite Life is the ultimate guidebook to understanding our place in the universe and realizing how we can personally succeed while helping others.

A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and

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Islam by Karen Armstrong (Random House of Canada, 1994)

Description: Why does God exist? How have the three dominant monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—shaped and altered the conception of God? How have these religions influenced each other? In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present.

The epic story begins with the Jews' gradual transformation of pagan idol worship in Babylon into true monotheism—a concept previously unknown in the world. Christianity and Islam both rose on the foundation of this revolutionary idea, but these religions refashioned "the one God" to suit the social and political needs of their followers. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic.

Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontiers of Science and Spirituality by Fritjof Capra, David Steindl-Rast, Thomas Matus (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992)

Description: In this remarkable work, bestselling author Capra and Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk renown for making fresh sense of Christian faith, share insights into how science and religion seek to make us at home in the universe. A remarkably compatible view of the universe.

The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Harper Colophon, 1975)

Description: Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was one of the most distinguished thinkers and scientists of our time. He fits into no familiar category for he was at once a biologist and a paleontologist of world renown, and also a Jesuit priest. He applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his

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great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science.

The Phenomenon of Man, the first of his writings to appear in America, Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. When published in France it was the best-selling nonfiction book of the year.

The World We Want: Virtue, Vice, and the Good Citizen by Mark Kingwell (Viking Books, 2000)

Description: More and more, as the globe turns into a billboard for corporate propagation, the nature of citizenship is becoming skewed. For the cellphone-brandishing inhabitants of a world carved up into markets and territories determined by production and consumption, transcending the traditional boundaries of nation-states, what does it mean to be a citizen?

In The World We Want, Mark Kingwell explores the idea of citizenship in the current post-national context, arguing that old ideas of civic belonging, historically tied to blood, belief, and law, need to be reconceived. What happens to political responsibility in an age of fractured identities, global monoculture, and crumbling civic nationalism? How do we make sense of a situation where the uniform spread of cola, television, and market rationalism is accompanied by resurgent ethnic hatreds?

Kingwell traces the idea of citizenship from its roots in ancient Greece to the contemporary realities of consumerism and cultural banality. It is these voices from the past that provide the much needed context for the conflicts and confusions of the present day.

It is obvious that we cannot simply adopt past models of citizenship that are heavily based on exclusion and nationalism, but Kingwell argues that it is too early to give up on citizenship altogether. We need a new model of citizenship, he writes, one based on participation as opposed to bloodline,

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constitution, or religion—one that will give voice and structure to our longing to be part of something larger than we are.

Adventures of Ideas by Alfred North Whitehead (Free Press, 1967)

Description: The title of this book, Adventure of Ideas, bears two meanings, both applicable to the subject-matter. One meaning is the effect of certain ideas in promoting the slow drift of mankind towards civilization. This is the Adventure of Ideas in the history of mankind. The other meaning is the author's adventure in framing a speculative scheme of ideas, which shall be explanatory of the historical adventure.

The book is in fact a study of the concept of civilization, and an endeavour to understand how it is that civilized beings arise. One point, emphasized throughout, is the importance of Adventure for the promotion and preservation of civilization.

Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault, Colin Gordon (Random House of Canada, 1980)

Description: Michel Foucault has become famous for a series of books that have permanently altered our understanding of many institutions of Western society. He analyzed mental institutions in the remarkable Madness and Civilization; hospitals in The Birth of the Clinic; prisons in Discipline and Punish; and schools and families in The History of Sexuality. But the general reader as well as the specialist is apt to miss the consistent purposes that lay behind these difficult individual studies, thus losing sight of the broad social vision and political aims that unified them.

Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent—and terrifying—portrait of society that he was patiently compiling.

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For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives."

Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time—and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.

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Part 2: Basic Overview

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You and Your Emotions

IntroductionThere is more to the individual person than a physical body. There are energy fields, subtle and extremely complex, which are important parts of the whole person. These energy fields can be experienced in a variety of ways, one of which is as certain feelings. These feelings, although associated with the physical body, are actually forms of energy and are thus not limited to the body. As fields of energy they are also outside the body.

By becoming more sensitive to these energies and by becoming aware of what they actually feel like enables the individual to become more sensitive to similar feelings in others. However, being sensitive to the feelings in others does not mean merely to see sadness in another person’s face, for example, and thus deduce that s/he is unhappy. Rather, in the apparently empty space between two people the feeling energies of each are being transferred and thus experienced by the other. The result is that the first person feels the unhappiness of the other.

It is important to understand this process for a number of reasons. In the first place, you must understand and recognize that you are not always feeling your own feelings. When in the company of an angry person, you may begin to feel angry yourself for no apparent reason. What is happened is that you are feeling the other person’s anger through the transfer of the energies between you. However, the consciousness with which you experience that anger is the same as the consciousness with which you would experience your own, self-generated anger. Therefore, it may become difficult to distinguish just whose anger it is--yours or that of the person you are with.

Furthermore, if you spend time with an angry person and begin to feel his/her anger, the feelings that are generated may bring to mind things about which you could get angry. The result, of course, is that both of you are now angry. Fortunately, this process happens with pleasant feelings as well. Spending time with a happy person elicits a feeling of happiness in you as his/her energies are transferred across the space between you.

Too often, however, your everyday encounters are with people whose feelings are negative; who are experiencing undercurrents of vague fear, anger, worry, hostility. Their feelings may be confused, jumbled or chaotic, causing you to experience confusion, anxiety and unrest. You are then likely to believe these are your own feelings rather than merely feelings you have picked up from someone else. As a result you tend to lose your own sense of identity and authority and start to believe that you are a helpless victim of negative feelings in general.

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Being less sensitive to others’ feelings may seem to be the solution to this problem. However, this simply deadens you to what is actually going on. Instead, it is imperative that you become more sensitive to the feelings that are being created through your relationship with others and constantly monitor your own reactions.

In this way you are then able to distinguish whether your negative feelings are a legitimate report of your own inner condition--a signal that something needs attention, or whether they are the result of the energy transfer of feelings from the person you are with. If you are experiencing someone else’s negativity, you are then able to use this knowledge to restore your own sense of balance. At the same time, you are now in a much better position to contribute to the other person’s well-being by transferring your own positive feelings across the energy field between you, allowing him/her to experience your sense of a clear and conscious balance.

Two Opposite Mind/Body Responses

For a generation now a Harvard team, headed by Herbert Bensen, M.D., has been working on the issue of mind/body relationships and the basic responses they generate. Bensen’s book, The Maximum Mind, summarizes the research done at Harvard in a clear and brilliant manner. He, like a growing army of medical researchers, does regard the mind as dominant in mind/body relationships. Therefore, in one way or another the mind ultimately controls whether a given person is expressing a stress response or a relaxation response. If mind and body collaborate in one or the other of these two basic responses, they can be clearly measured in terms of physiological processes and in terms of a variety of neurological events.

Some of my most admired physicians who have contributed enormously to improving the human condition are Gerald Jampolsky in San Francisco, Bernie Segal in Hartford, Carl Simonton in Dallas and Herbert Benson in Boston. Hundreds of clinics, a large number of medical schools and an army of individual physicians are expanding on the work begun so brilliantly by Hans Selye in Montreal. A world-class psychiatric centre in Topeka, Kansas (Menninger) has made a vast contribution to this field also during the last generation.

If the mind mobilizes a stress response, then the body physiologically expresses the stress response. If the stress response surges for coping with a life-threatening situation, then the price the body pays is minimal and the response is appropriate.

However, if the stress response becomes chronic and if its trigger is frequently occurring or vaguely generalized, then the body pays a price, which escalates incrementally over weeks, months or years. A chronic stress response can literally destroy the body bit-by-bit, year-by-year, until the damage may be life-limiting or life threatening. A great many physicians now believe that a chronic manifestation of the stress response may play a very large role in generating various forms of

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cancer, digestive tract diseases, serious circulatory problems, skeletal pathologies and a host of other debilitating medical issues. However serious the price may be that the body pays, it is also the case that relationships suffer dearly in every dimension of life.

If the mind generates the opposite response, namely the relaxation response, quite a different story unfolds. If a person can contrive to manifest the relaxation response as a dominant experience, then the body regenerates itself. The relaxation response is a healing response, and its power is just as significant as the stress response even though the effect is opposite. My experience with individual clients has demonstrated over the years many unbelievable stories of self-managed regeneration in both physical and mental terms. The relaxation response releases incalculable capacities for constructive and regenerative purposes.

The basic mind/body interface can be seen as a variety of emotional states. These emotional states are either negative or positive and are reciprocals of each other. If the emotional state being experienced is essentially negative, then the positive emotions are crowded out. Happily, the opposite is also true. These emotional states constitute the primordial soup out of which mental and physical events emerge. I see the situation as a four- link chain of causation, which helps me to understand the process much more clearly. The first link is the basic emotional state. Second, thought patterns emerge out of the emotional state. Third, patterns of behaviour are derived from thought. Fourth, consequences are manifestations of the behaviour. In short, consequences can be traced back through the four links of causation to the basic emotional state. If the basic emotional state is a stress response, then the four-link chain of causation will be a negative chain resulting in negative consequences. If the basic emotional state is a relaxation response, then the four-link chain of causation will be a positive one and the consequences are therefore positive.

These basic emotions not only have a mind/body expression, they also have an internal and external expression. The internal and external manifestations are just as important to comprehend because of their impact on the external environment as well as the internal environment. Just as the mind is dominant over the body, the inner manifestation is dominant over the outer manifestation. What you are inside you necessarily radiates outside even though you may believe that your talent for dissembling is flawless. Nobody dissembles with any significant degree of effectiveness. Usually the only one fooled in the process is the dissembler, and those around are not kidded even though they may pretend to be. Thus one’s inner emotional state radiates to the outer world in spite of it all. The four-link chain emerges from basic inner emotions to external consequences by way of either a positive chain or a negative chain of causation (see Table 1).

Table 1 looks at the relaxation response versus the stress response through five sets of emotional polarities. These emotional polarities make sense to me simply because they have emerged out of many years of working with individual clients as well as groups of students. I have tested this scheme involving the five sets of

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emotional polarities in a wide range of settings with people of many divergent backgrounds. My experience is that it has generally made sense to them.

Table 1Five Emotional PolaritiesStress Response Relaxation ResponseAnger Self-AwarenessFear JoyGuilt TranquilityResentment AffectionSelf-Doubt Self-Esteem

There are two ways of looking at this table: first as the five sets of emotional polarities as reciprocal but opposing emotional states, second as two columns of emotional states under each basic response.

First, if you look at the left-hand column, you readily see an aggregate of five negative emotions, which, in their totality, are a formula for misery. Anger, fear, guilt, resentment and self-doubt can appear each in varying levels of severity or in a variety of combinations. Probably few people are smitten with all five negative emotions to such a high level that they totally crowd out any of the positive emotions. Yet, my experience leads me to believe that all too many of us manifest these negative emotions at levels, which are significantly limiting to our physical well-being and to our relationships.

It is even more unfortunate that these negative states can be deeply programmed at the subconscious level where the mischief potential is enormous because we tend to deal with them through the conscious devices of denial and avoidance. By doing this, any person experiencing these negative emotions at the subconscious level is, by the very nature of things, enslaved by them. This slavery precipitates the compulsive behaviours that a person fails to understand, the self-sabotaging strategies an individual engages in and a host of self-limiting barriers that all too many people generate.

Anybody can come up with a list of negative emotions that may be longer than my five or shorter. However, in my experience I find that I can deal with most issues concerning the stress response through exploring one or another of these five negative emotions whether they are consciously manifested or buried at the subconscious level. Obviously, if their manifestation is conscious, it is usually much easier to deal with them. However, if they are subconscious, their problem takes on a very different dimension. Through denial and avoidance an individual can seriously sabotage his/her own efforts of self-awareness, self-teaching or self-correcting.

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To successfully deal with the stress response it is certainly necessary to draw on the mind’s innate capacity for self-awareness, self-teaching and self-correcting. This is the same mental resource drawn on for the creative process. My experience leads me to believe that the two most dangerous negative emotions by far are anger and fear. In North America we tolerate high levels of aggressive, hostile behaviour. Our incredibly high level of domestic violence provides an alarming verification of this point. In the public arena hostile, aggressive behaviour is also extremely pervasive. The police, the courts and the legal system are clogged with the results of hostile, aggressive behaviour, which goes beyond the bounds of social and legal tolerance.

Most anger fails to reach the level of aggressive behaviour, which results in official intervention. For many people the anger remains relatively buried with its behavioural expression being more devious, indirect and non-specific. This sub rosa anger is extremely destructive to the body, crippling to relationships and debilitating to talent. This form of anger unnecessarily feeds arguments that are pointless, antagonisms that are groundless and barriers that are irrelevant. Anger is contagious even if it is subconscious, just as any emotion is contagious. Thus willy-nilly subconscious expression of anger radiates to the external world with poisonous effects.

At this point you may say to yourself that I am trying to push you into being a Pollyanna, spreading saccharine in your wake. This most assuredly is not the direction of my argument. Many people who exude a saccharine overlay are merely trying to cover up for deep and pervasive anger. The laugh of an angry person has a hard edge with a hollow ring. The laugh of a joyful person radiates warmth and delight. If you are in touch with yourself, you can tell the difference instantly. Fear is as debilitating as anger. Many of the same points made about anger can be made about fear. Indeed, these two emotions are actually the flip side of each other.

Through these two emotions the animal kingdom, as with mankind, has developed the “fight or flight” response as a survival mechanism. We have all seen animals which initiate an engagement with angry aggression only to turn tail and run. We have all seen animals who have run for it but when cornered turn on their attacker with ferocious savagery. Thus, fear and anger are, indeed, the flip side of each other. All of us have been in situations where a difficult meeting reveals certain individuals switching from fearful behaviour to angry behaviour, and vice versa.

Fear, like anger, can become deeply pervasive and generalized. Also, it can be buried at the subconscious level as well as being a conscious emotion. Some common fears I run across are fear of the future, fear of the past, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of exposure and a galaxy of other fearful ghosts. These fears can come in elaborate combinations or they can be focused on a particular overwhelming circumstance. Male culture tends to be characterized by denial of fear and elaborate avoidance behaviour around this denial. On the other hand, female

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culture tends to deny anger and likewise engages in elaborate avoidance behaviour around this denial.

Fear certainly gives rise to a panoply of compulsive behaviour patterns which the conscious mind finds either aggravating or downright embarrassing. These subconscious compulsions emerging out of fear create incredible tensions with conscious, rational thought. Thus stress is born. All too many people see stress primarily as externally induced by way of a lousy marriage or a rotten job. My experience leads me to believe that stress is magnified vastly by internal tensions and contradictions between compulsivity and reason, between subconscious and conscious events, between negative and positive emotions.

I’ll quickly touch on the three other negative emotions that are less serious than anger and fear but do poison both individual and group environments. Guilt, resentment and self-doubt add interesting variations on the theme to the stress response. All of us experience these inner negative dynamics, yet they are not intractable or beyond resolution. It is true that some people can be crippled by self-doubt or guilt or even resentment, but these are extreme situations. Generally, people are merely diminished or limited by these ghostly negative emotions, which are making their contribution to the basic shape of the stress response.

Anyone who is made to feel guilty is diminished by the guilt, resulting in a self-perception of being flawed merchandise. Since nobody enjoys this experience, there is a subconscious tendency to convert heavy-duty guilt into a variety of fears or pervasive anger. Western culture has used guilt as a behaviour-control strategy. Consequently, many parents emerge with black belts and guilt-tripping, and just as unfortunately many teachers and others in authority guilt-trip. This behaviour-control strategy is extremely counterproductive and self-defeating. You may be able to induce guilt in others by shaming them, yet they likely will find a way to retaliate by continuing the behaviour, which drew the shaming in the first place. As a result the behaviour persists, overlaid with the misery of guilt. There are far better ways to create cooperative human behaviour than by producing the stress response.

Another troublesome negative emotion is resentment. Generally, people resent other persons to whom they are closely related or involved with in prolonged association. In short, you resent those you know best. It’s hardly worth resenting strangers or emotionally neutral objects. It lies at the level of aggravation and annoyance. The tendency is to resent someone over a particular item of behaviour or mannerism. Being irritated by someone’s warts and foibles is a diverting pastime but it can become very serious and very destructive. I have been told by friends, in all seriousness, that toilet paper is loaded on the spindle only one way to do it right.

Unfortunately, other members of the family insist on doing it wrong. Out of such nonsense serious conflicts gradually emerge, overwhelming the positive and the delightful elements of a relationship. If resentment is fed generously enough, it can be converted into pervasive anger with all the destructive consequences. If a

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relationship is worth preserving, it is worth identifying the resentments and releasing them before they fester. This is as true at work as it is at home. The last negative emotion is self-doubt. The ‘impostor phenomenon’ draws its juice from self-doubt with all the inherent, self-limiting implications. Through self-doubt a person projects him/herself into the future with negative anticipations. Therefore, self-doubt provides the framework for writing a negative script and then acting on the script.

Self-doubt is definitely pervasive, and it is not difficult to aggravate this negative emotion. Male chauvinism not only fosters self-doubt among women, but it also feeds the self-doubt of the male chauvinist. No one wins.

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Blocks to Fulfillment

Introduction

“An addiction is an emotion-backed demand or desire for something you tell yourself you must have to be happy. Addictions, or addictive demands, can be on yourself, other people, objects or situations. You can always tell when you have an addiction because:

1. It creates tension in your body. 2. It makes you experience separating emotions, such as resentment, anger,

fear, jealousy, worry, anxiety and boredom. Look into your own experience and notice how the above emotions make you feel separate from yourself and others. Separating emotions are contrasted with unifying emotions, which give you experiences of acceptance, love, joy, happiness, peace and purpose in life.

3. Your mind is insistently telling you that things must be different in order for you to enjoy your life here and now.

4. Your mind makes you think there is something important to win or lose in this situation-- that your happiness depends on the soap opera.

5. You feel that you have a ‘problem’ in your life--instead of experiencing life as an enjoyable ‘game’ to be played.” (Reprinted from How to Enjoy Your Life in Spite of It All by Ken Keyes, Jr., Copyright 1980 by Living Love Publications)

This quote neatly summarizes a point of view toward addictions, which I have found to have enormous explanatory power and practical application. Ken Keyes has contributed, as much as anyone has done, to the understanding of addictions. Another important contribution has been made by John Bradshaw in a television series broadcast by PBS. The series is entitled Bradshaw on the Family. These two men and other people look at addictions from a New Age point of view focusing on the emotional dimensions of the various compulsivities which drive addictive strategies.

Ken Keyes focuses on three addictive strategies of life, which I have adapted and extended as a result of my own teaching and experience with individual clients. In this chapter I will explore the five addictive strategies as blocks to fulfillment and as major themes of the chronic stress response (see Table 2).

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I

will explore these five addictive strategies of life to better understand the disinvestment consequences of them along with some insight for unhooking from these strategies. More than you may realize these addictive strategies can become major organizing themes of behaviour in a wide variety of situations but always they will have negative consequences. The negative emotions discussed in Chapter 1 provide the primordial soup out of which these addictive strategies emerge. As systems of behaviour they can therefore be traced back to emotional states. It would be handy to remember the four-link chain of causation discussed in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

Table 2

Five Addictive Strategies of Life

1

1. The Power AddictionThe compulsion to dominate others even though it may be counterproductive.

2

2. The Dependency AddictionA compulsive need to cling to one or more people even if it is self-sabotaging.

3

3. The Conflict AddictionPrecipitating win/lose situations even when there is no need for it.

4

4. The Security AddictionA focused or pervasive drive to eliminate risk even though you may aggravate it.

5

5. The Substance AddictionA periodic or pervasive dependency on one or more chemicals, foods, drugs, etc.

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The Power Addiction

As Ken Keyes, John Bradshaw and others see it, this addiction and others are energized by states of compulsivity, which block judicious choice, normal prudence, a sense of discretion and a healthy free will. When you look at a power addiction with these things in mind, it is most likely that several friends or acquaintances pop into mind. All of us know people who have a need to dominate other people in a way, which lacks charm or sensitivity. It may be that such a person will target his/her efforts primarily on one or more family members, or it may be that the target or targets are primarily outside the family. This addiction, like all others, can be triggered by specific situations or particular individuals. Furthermore, the addiction may be episodic rather than continuously present. This addiction and the others can be anywhere from trifling to overwhelming.

The compulsivities, which drive addictions, by their very nature, have self-sabotaging consequences. The self-sabotaging consequences are there simply because of the absence of discretion, prudence, restraint, etc. The drive to dominate another person may so completely discomfort that person that s/he rebels or retreats completely from the relationship. Such a loss obviously sabotages the quest for domination.It is impossible to escape in normal social situations’ power dimensions of relationships. This is obviously true at work, dealing with officialdom such as the police, and even in organized recreational settings. However, it is just as important to recognize the power relationships that exist between parents and children and other dimensions of the kinship systems. Even though power is pervasive, it need not be unjust, unreasonable, irrational or capricious. Ordinarily power is used with a sense of propriety and appropriateness to say nothing of prudence.

When power is manifested addictively, then it becomes capricious and irrational. The compulsivities driving the power addiction generate stress in the perpetrator as well as stress in the recipient. The compulsive capriciousness poisons the relationship and diminishes both the recipient and the perpetrator.Recently I had a client who came to me because she wanted to quit smoking. During the training process I worked with her in regard to a number of dimensions of her life. She was a tough 45 year old who complained bitterly about the alienation of her children and hostility to her on the part of her employees.

It soon became evident to me, and somewhat later to her, that she had more than one addiction. Smoking was definitely a health problem and constituted a deeply fixed addiction. But the power addiction that she radiated toward family and colleagues had built within her an enormous reservoir of stress and vague apprehensions. The stress generated by her power addiction was complicating her efforts to detach herself from the nicotine addiction.

Her conscious struggle with her smoking amplified the stress and seriously aggravated the anger and power-tripping directed toward other people. It gradually became clear to her that she was in a bind of major proportions, which had been protected over the years by an elaborate network of denial and avoidance.

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Gradually in my relationship with her the overwhelming question shifted from “Why was she compelled to smoke?” to “Why was she compelled to dominate family and colleagues?” Her power addiction resulted in an intense sense of loneliness and isolation as well as chronic and pervasive apprehensions. She decided herself that if she could unhook from her desperate need to dominate, she could then much more effectively tackle the problem of smoking.

I followed this strategy with her and taught her the necessary techniques to accomplish the first job. She used them successfully and began a process of profound changes in her style of relating to those around her. After this victory was achieved, it indeed was a straightforward matter to teach her how to unhook from smoking.She discovered that her power addiction was traceable to her childhood. In her family environment the parents were both weak and vacillating. They demonstrated affection erratically and ineffectually. Very early in her childhood my client developed the need to control the flow of affection and control its predictability. Over time the problem with affection emerged as a drive to dominate.

As what happens in these circumstances, the pattern became fixed at the subconscious level. As she matured it remained fixed, and through adulthood this childhood problem took shape as an organizing principle of behaviour, namely her power addiction.As she developed her understanding of this deep-seated subconscious emotional hang- up, she was able to reprogram her subconscious fixation to a new program which allowed for relationships relatively free of the drive to dominate.

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The Dependency Addiction

The dependency addiction is just another strategy which is generally anchored in childhood. Again, the childhood problem concerns the matter of affection. It is a truism to state that the most crucial issue in childhood is the matter of affection. Of course, nourishment and safety are critical to survival, but so is affection.

If one or the other parent is erratic or unreliable in demonstrating unqualified affection, then the child has a problem. If parents bargain with affection or if they are prone to be neglectful or even abusive, the child has a problem which escalates in severity.The dependency addiction can emerge as a pattern of behaviour which tries to solve problems precipitated by the erratic flow of affection or the withdrawal of affection.An important thing to remember is that children are powerless. In particular, infancy is a totally dependent condition actively shaped by the outside world. At this stage the need for reliable affection is fundamental and utterly essential.

Through the behavioural tactics of the dependency addiction, the child can attempt to manipulate the outside world by trying to get control over the flow of affection. This is done through a compulsive need to cling. The clinging becomes more frenetic and more insistent through time as an effort to assuage fear in regard to the possibility that affection will not be forthcoming.

Thus the subconscious program is set and the person grows up desperately clinging to those identified as sources of affection. The fear of rejection drives this compulsion in a relentless and desperate fashion.

When thinking of the dependency addiction, it is tempting to see it as a problem characteristic of women and half-grown children. Nevertheless, I have worked with senior male executives who have manifested this problem, particularly in the domestic arena. A few years ago a vice-president of a major oil company came to me for some training in preventing stress. Indeed, he was extremely stressed with many of the classic manifestations of a highly stressed life.

Although he functioned competently in his role as vice-president, he was, at age 50, very close to burnout. He was beginning to see himself as inadequate and vulnerable to some of the younger senior staff. While exploring various dimensions of his life, I discovered a revealing and crucial fact of behaviour, although the information did come with very grudging reluctance.

When work ended on Friday afternoon, he went directly home and went to bed. He stayed there until Monday morning and then with difficulty he tore himself from the bedroom to go to the office. Throughout his weekend he demanded that his wife pamper him in every conceivable way. She brought him meals in bed and even allowed the family poodle to stay in bed with him for comfort.

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It turned out that his current wife had married him only recently, and she was number five. When I began working with him, she let it be known that he was very close to needing number six wife because she found his clinging suffocating and intolerable. He had obviously used the same strategy in earlier marriages, resulting in the disaster of divorce.My client was an extremely bright man and responded very quickly to the training regime. As he developed insight into his clinging behaviour, he was able to use the training tools to unhook from his childlike dependency. As this behaviour pattern abated, the stress level began a dramatic decline. As the stress level declined and the offensive behaviour diminished, his wife became a good deal more affectionate.

As the domestic situation rapidly improved, there was a clear and dramatic effect on his situation at the office. His self-esteem flowered considerably along with a dramatically renewed sense of joy in his work. His work behaviour improved so much that after only 6 months he received a substantial promotion. Whereas before he began the training regime he was desperately fearful of a demotion.

It may have occurred to you already that the dependency addiction is as much a need to control as is the power addiction. That is true. Indeed, these two addictions are the flip side of each other. It is also quite true that a given individual can manifest both strategies, depending on the circumstances or the persons involved.

Many of us have married friends who engage in an elaborate dance of playing the power/dependency game. In one situation the husband plays a power-tripping role and his wife clings in an infantile manner. Change the situation and the couple may reverse the power/dependency relationship. The effort consumed in this game can be so enormous that it leaves little time or energy for more constructive pursuits.

The dependency addiction generates just as much stress as does the power addiction. Most assuredly dependency debilitates a relationship and diminishes the recipient and the perpetrator alike. The self-consequences of this addiction can easily result in the loss of the very person that the addiction is trying to control. Thus the addiction accomplishes the very opposite of that which the addiction is all about--the ultimate self-sabotaging consequence.

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The Conflict Addiction

The cultural ethos of our society provides a social milieu which tends to disguise and to cover up the pervasive conflict addiction. For millennia Western society has shaped its literature, its politics and its social relationships through institutionally sanctioned modes of conflict. A cliché of today provides a sample. A few generations ago the phrase ‘rule of thumb’ was much more than a cliché. In English common law, rule of thumb meant that you could beat your wife with a weapon so long as the weapon was not thicker than a man’s thumb. Many activists engaged in the animal protection movement of last century often observed that the new animal protection laws were more solicitous of horses and dogs than any legal recourse available to children. Only within the last generation has there been a serious effort to legally protect children against excessive parental violence.

However, the conflict addiction most often is not expressed in violent attack. In this era we are becoming far less tolerant of violence, even in such places as prisons. Although the media still foster violence as a problem-solving strategy, our legislative and legal systems are definitely waging a major effort to discourage this form of conflict.

Mostly conflict is demonstrated through disputation, competitive practices and other forms of abrasive relationships. Conflict can be manifested in indirect and disguised behaviour. Even though the conflict may be disguised and indirect, its effects are in no way limited. The counterproductive, negative and stressful consequences are just as present when conflict is socially controlled and socially sanctioned.

The essence of the conflict addiction lies in the compulsivity behind it. The driving need to foster win/lose situations removes the element of restraint, of judicious choice and of prudence from the behavioural context. The compulsivity brings about the self-sabotaging dimension of the conflict addiction. If a person enters into conflict without prudence, s/he is as likely to lose the contest as s/he is to win it.

Because conflict is so widely sanctioned, it becomes difficult to finger the addictive persons. This failure to identify the situation leads to a failure to correct the situation. Worse still, our view of ambition and success is fed significantly by the notion of relentless competition, struggle and conflict.

You may suspect that the alternative to the conflict addiction is wimpiness or the doormat syndrome. In no way am I suggesting such a thing. Some conflict is unavoidable. But much conflict is avoidable, and organizations would be healthier if we used successful techniques for avoiding conflict or effectively resolving it when it occurs.

The roots of the conflict addiction are much the same as they are for power and dependency. This addiction is just another childhood strategy for resolving the problem of affection. The powerlessness of childhood tends to promote the self-destructive strategies very early in the game when affection is withheld or erratic. I am sure all of us have had experience with children who have extraordinary talents for creating a tumult among the adults. Even though the tumult may result in punishment, the fact is the child obtains

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attention even if affection is lacking. Thus the self-destructive pattern of conflict is born and maintained.

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The Security Addiction

Union contracts, retirement plans and insurance policies all seek to assure a future as free as possible from risk. These efforts are prudent and reasonable and certainly necessary in our complex economic life. It is very natural and understandable that people should seek a variety of devices for reducing risk by making the future as secure as possible. Indeed, one of the main functions of a society is to promote and provide a sense of security for its members. In this regard North America is much more successful than a great many societies around the world. Yet it is a never-ending quest of both government and business to avoid unnecessary risk and all obvious hazards of life.

Unfortunately, mankind has not learned how to cancel all risk. Risk is part of the human condition even though our institutions may considerably reduce major hazards. Capitalism is based on the concept of risk, and indeed life itself is an unfolding tapestry of unforeseen risks.

The security addiction reveals a compulsion to deny risk. This strategy projects the individual into the future with the driving need to prevent risk. It is the denial of risk that is at the heart of this addictive strategy. The behaviour emerging out of the security addiction can be quite bizarre. Compulsive hoarding is one manifestation. I remember a businessman I knew casually who would walk blocks to get a free photocopy. Everyone has a favourite story about a miserly acquaintance whose behaviour provided considerable amusement.

Miserly behaviour can become so irksome to intimates that the behaviour destabilizes intimate relationships--thereby introducing a new form of risk. The same compulsion can lead to the need to make the big score and thus provide a safe future. This may lead to the self-sabotaging strategy of big stakes gambling and imprudent stock investments. In this manner millionaires can be made and unmade with astonishing frequency. I have heard acquaintances boast about making millions, losing them and making them again. When listening to such stories, I am prompted to think, “Isn’t once enough?” Part of the skill of making millions includes the skill of stabilizing the achievement. However, the security addiction can lead such a person to believe that any achievement is not enough, and the compulsion drives that person to take great risks in acquiring more. The irony is the millions can be lost that way.

The self-sabotaging consequence of the security addiction is the tendency to provoke risk. The compulsivity blocks prudence, and therefore an individual may achieve the opposite consequence to the presumed target of the addiction. As a result, stress is magnified, relationships suffer and life is diminished.

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The Sensation Addiction

There is little need to discuss this dimension of addictions since there is such a vast literature on the subject. Addiction to food, to chemicals, to pharmaceuticals and to other substances is dealt with by the electronic and print media relentlessly. However, we are schizophrenic about various addictions to substances of many kinds. At the same time the media promotes awareness of addictions, they also foster addictions. The golden era of Hollywood certainly fostered smoking as a sophisticated practice.

One of the most insidious substance addictions concerns sugar. Western society is truly addicted to sugar and has been for more than a century. A splendid book on the subject, Seeds of Change, was written by an English journalist named Henry Hobhouse. As an example, 300 years ago the average European consumed approximately one pound of sugar per year. Today the average consumption is 150 pounds per year.

Hypoglycemia and diabetes appear to be biochemical consequences of excessive sugar consumption. The behavioural consequences for children and adults can be extraordinary. Many people yo-yo between apprehensive and depressive moods to exaggerate frenzies. Recent research in North American prisons suggests that a great deal of pointless conflict and violence is fostered by sugar consumption which may be as high as 7 or 8 pounds per person per week among these populations. When experimental diets have been introduced, removing sugar from the diet, behaviour within the prisons improves enormously. Many school boards across North America have had the same experience with student populations.

Generally, the addiction to sugar and caffeine is taken lightly. However, Dr. Janice K. Phelps, a Seattle physician, argues differently in her book, The Hidden Addiction: How to Get Free. She argues, with some potency, that alcohol and drug dependency constitute a secondary stage of addiction from an earlier sugar and caffeine dependency. Whether this is true or not, Western society does have a very serious sugar problem. The biochemical aspects of addiction provide a general focus of research and therapy in regard to addictions. However, I believe that the emotional dimension provides the driving energy for this addictive strategy just as with the four previous ones.

During my early adulthood I was a very heavy smoker. Before I quit a couple of decades ago, I reached a habit level of about three packs a day. During the 20 years I was an active smoker, I quit several times, sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for a few months and twice for over a year. My return to smoking was nearly always precipitated by a self-destructive, defeatist and depressive emotional state. I clearly remember the state of mind precipitating the return to smoking. The simple phrase, “Who gives a damn?!” neatly summarizes the emotional climate.

Nearly everyone struggles with a sensation addiction in regard to one substance or another. As a matter of fact, it is reported that some joggers become addicted to the oxygen high from jogging. There are those who become addicted to the adrenalin high of daredevil sports. All too many deaths and serious disabilities derive from this behaviour.

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Suffice it to say that the sensation addiction is pervasive and serious, even though we know a great deal about it. Unhooking from this addiction is as much a mind problem as it is a body problem. The social and personal stresses precipitated by this addiction are obvious to all of us. However, these stresses can be reduced by the same techniques of emotionally unhooking as with the other four addictive strategies.

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Capacities of Your Mind

Introduction

In the early years of my career as a conventional social scientist, I struggled with the understanding of human culture and its relationship to human mind. During the 50s, 60s and 70s, I was exposed to every school of thought imaginable. Early in my career I was heavily influenced by Freud and his view of the subconscious mind. In more recent years I have been influenced by psychologists such as Stanley Krippner, James Fadiman and Frances Vaughan and the concept of mind as a transpersonal reality as well as an individual reality.

Although Freud’s influence is rapidly dwindling, much of the popular view of the subconscious mind is a legacy of Freudian thought. The popular view of the subconscious mind is characterized by the metaphor of the dirty basement--a dark place full of junk from the past, much of which is at best fearful or more likely obscene. During training exercises to teach clients and students how to use techniques to mobilize the power of the subconscious mind, I typically must deal with this popular perception of the subconscious mind as being a fearful and unpleasant reality. Much of Western religious belief has given theological support to this unflattering view.

The Three Dimensions of Mind

The New Age view of the subconscious mind is very different from the traditional view. It is important to note that the New Age view adds a crucial third, dimension, that of the transpersonal mind (see Table 3). This school of thought recognizes that most human behaviour, meaning internal, physiological events as well as social behaviour, is governed by subconscious wiring. According to the current cliché, 90-95% of all behaviour is governed more by subconscious wiring than by conscious deliberation

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Table 3The Dimensions of Mind

1. Subconscious Mind: “Inner Awareness”a) The controller of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous

systemsb) The archives of total experiencec) The automated stage centre

2. Conscious Mind: “Outer Awareness”a) The referee of ethical standardsb) The filter for unfamiliar experiencesc) The voluntary messenger centred) The guide for skill developmente) The manager of voluntary action

3. Group Mind: “Transpersonal Awareness”a) The source of intuitive insightsb) The focus for creative thinkingc) The realm of archetypal ideasd) The source of psi phenomena

The subconscious mind is simply a total record of all experience within an individual’s lifetime. Some contributions to the subconscious mind are processed through an individual’s consciousness, but a great deal of experience simply bypasses the conscious state. The subconscious mind is neither good nor bad, logical or illogical, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. It simply is total experience. Some experiences become hardwired into habits, rituals, automatic responses, or unfortunately, cravings. Some of the hard-wired patterns are extremely helpful to the individual, giving the job of managing a wide range of necessary activities to the subconscious mind so that the conscious mind is not paralyzed by an overload of choices. This aspect of the subconscious mind is absolutely essential and extremely valuable to the human animal as a facet of survival.

The job of the conscious mind is to process matters involving ethics, problems requiring logic, experiences which are unfamiliar, and techniques for developing skills. Therefore, the conscious mind becomes the arbiter, the analyzer, the negotiator, the communicator. If the conscious mind and the subconscious mind are in congruence, and they generally are, then behaviour is consistent and the inner state is free of turbulence. However, if these two facets of the mind are not in congruence, then the personality is disrupted by self-sabotaging and self- defeating inner struggles.

If the subconscious mind is hardwired for negative behaviour or disadvantageous behaviour, then conscious processes are thwarted, diminished or seriously crippled.

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As an archive, the subconscious mind constitutes a storehouse of images, memories, feelings and experiences, some of which are wonderful and some of which are a bit ugly. However, it simply is not necessary to focus on the ugly and thereby ignore the beautiful and the wonderful dimensions of subconscious reality. The conscious mind can be taught to gradually access subconscious material for constructive purposes. Moreover, the conscious mind can be taught to release that which is negative. This does not mean repressing or denying the negative; it means releasing it. And this is a very important distinction.The process of releasing negatives and affirming positives is a simple process relying on step-by-step training over a period of time. Some preliminary discussion of this point was made in Chapter 2.

The training process is aimed at reducing the energy devoted to negative emotions and raising the energy devoted to positive emotions. In this process the trainee does not repress, deny or forget unpleasantness or negative emotions; he simply removes the energy from them. The energy thus saved can be more profitably invested through affirmations to the constructive and positive elements of mind.

This training sequence switches emotional orientation from the stress response to the relaxation response. As the trainee mobilizes the relaxation response, his/her abilities are enriched in a profound way through this redirection of energy. The investment enables each person to build skills more easily, to focus on talents without sabotage and to expand innate capacities without diverting struggle. As each individual masters the technique of mobilizing the relaxation response, s/he enables him/herself to draw on the third dimension of mind, group mind, in a more direct and focused manner.

Group mind in Western tradition is as suspect as subconscious mind. However, during the last decade in both Europe and North America there has been a dramatic and profound change in academic circles and among scientists in their perceptions and research regarding group mind. More and more we accept the idea that our personality does not end with the skin. As discussed in Chapter 1, your mental energy extends well beyond the limitations of your body. By virtue of this extension individual minds relate not just to each other but with each other through transpersonal awareness. This inner relationship among individuals becomes the essence of group mind and the capacity for transpersonal awareness.

By releasing the negative blocks in the inner self it is possible to expand the connections with transpersonal awareness. Creativity, intuition, flashes of insight, appreciation of others become a new enriched dimension of mind which vastly increases availability of ideas and receptiveness to innovation.To the degree that an individual is able to mobilize the relaxation response, s/he opens her/himself to group mind and the personal advantages inherent in transpersonal awareness.

The synergism of individual contributions to group efforts is magnified to an almost limitless degree by unfettered transpersonal functions of mind.

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Before talking about the seven states of being which comprise the last section of this chapter (see Table 4), I need to make a couple of connections. The seven states of being are the essential elements of group mind which offer a focus to life and the value, purpose and meaning necessary for group relationships. The simplest way to focus on the seven states of being is through affirmations. If you recall, this subject was briefly dealt with in Chapter 2. Now, a more thorough discussion of affirmations will help you understand the means by

which the seven states of being are made more clearly manifests in life.

Affirmations

First and foremost, affirmations are a positive statement about some aspect of your physical, emotional or mental being. They can also be positive statements about situations, about other people or about aspects of work performance or even of performance in sports.

Table 4The Seven States of Being

BeautyThis state expands the awareness and acceptance of the miraculous and wondrousdimensions in life. Indeed, beauty is in all things, including oneself.

JoyThrough joy the individual mobilizes laughter and an engagement with life that is full of zestand pervasive pleasure.

AffectionThe inner focus of affection is as essential as its outer manifestation replete with caringgenerosity, non-judgemental acceptance and a connecting sense of kindness.

CreativityThe state of creativity requires openness and receptiveness achieved through the creation ofpeaceful and harmonious emotions.

KnowledgeThe affirmation of knowledge is the awareness that the universe is overflowing with thebuilding blocks of life, and affirming knowledge focuses the mind on this availability.

HealthPhysical health needs affirming as an abundant and perfect state of being, as with all sevenstates. The aura of expectation is thereby focused in a constructive fashion.

Material AbundanceWealth is a greater concept than money. Material abundance recognizes the plenitudeoffered by the universe and the availability of this plenitude to everyone.

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Elizabeth Manley, a silver medalist in ice skating at the 1988 Winter Olympics, described her use of affirmations in clear detail in many of the interviews given to journalists. It may be fair to say that the sports world has been a major leader in the use of affirmations to enhance performance.

Even if reality falls short of your affirmation of perfection, this is no reason to qualify your affirmation with negative references. Affirmations are meant as a device for changing the aura of expectation, rather than as a way to delude yourself. When affirmations are stated as achieved perfection, you build the anticipation of moving toward that perfection, careful step by careful step. The aura of expectation provides the goal orientation, even though the affirmation itself is presented to yourself as though you have already achieved the goal. If you qualify the affirmation with acknowledged limits, shortcomings, difficulties or other limiting conditions, you sabotage the aura of expectation and your clear focus on that expectation. Consequently, each affirmation must be stated as a condition or state of perfect being in regard to the particular matter being dealt with.

Another principle to be remembered concerns the time reference of affirmations. They must always be presented in the present tense; never qualified by past shortcomings or future difficulties. Again, the aura of expectation is important in regard to time frame. The aura of expectation is irrelevant to the past since the past is dead and gone and therefore cannot be changed. It follows, then, that connecting the aura of expectation to past events is a major self- sabotaging error. Likewise, if the reference for the aura of expectation is placed in the future, you have thereby removed it from your grasp because the future is the future and it is ever receding. To hang the aura of expectation on future references is just as much a self- sabotaging error as on past references. Therefore, the affirmation must be stated in the here- and-now of the individual’s experience. This practice connects the aura of expectation to the rewiring process of the subconscious mind in a direct, relevant and effective manner.

Affirmations are not only useful in rewiring negative, subconscious connections, but just as importantly the aura of expectation created by the affirmations focuses the mind on transpersonal awareness. The seven states of being are integrated into the mental state through disciplined use of affirmations when correctly expressed.The message in this section is very clear: there is a right way to do affirmations and there are plenty of wrong ways. Thus, it is necessary to make sure that you carefully follow the principles of constructing affirmations for your own use.

The power of each affirmation is greatly enhanced if you repeat them to yourself during a meditative state. By slowing the body and mind down through meditation, all dimensions of mind are much more receptive to the impact of the affirmation. Moreover, the meditation itself trains the body and mind to experience the relaxation response, and by experiencing this state there becomes a growing acceptance of it as well as a desire to achieve it throughout the day.

It is possible to focus attention on each affirmation by writing it out and placing it where it will be seen on a regular basis. The posting of affirmations is certainly useful, yet it should

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be understood that this approach is not as effective as stating the affirmation to yourself in a totally relaxed state--provided by meditation or other techniques.

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The Aura of ExpectationA few more words are required regarding the aura of expectation. This concept, the aura of expectation, is essential to the understanding of affirmations and how they work. Superficially, the idea of the aura of expectation appears to be in some ways self-contradictory. However, if you follow the argument carefully, you will probably recognize that this concept possesses enormous power in writing your personal scripts for your own life.

An everyday example will make this concept regarding the aura of expectation quite clear. Imagine a young person receiving for a springtime birthday a full outfit for trout fishing. The fly rod, the waders, the hat, the net all create an instant image of the accomplished fly fisherman deftly making each perfect cast. This is what the youngster has in mind at the moment he begins his frustrating career as a fly fisherman. This youngster, being bright and alert, will start the process by acquiring some books and magazines on the subject. Next, he will seek out some friends who are already well into trout fishing. Then the day comes when they go out to a carefully chosen stream for the big initiation. The equipment is carefully donned, the fly rod prepared and the first cast is made. Horror of horrors, the line arcs out over the water and then swings back over his left shoulder and hooks firmly in the back of his hat. So much for the perfect cast! The second cast reveals the line disappearing altogether and captures a willow 10 yards behind. Something has got to change if the perfect cast is ever going to occur.

The difference between the notion of the perfect cast and the slightly tragic initiation reveals a vast gulf. The idea of a perfect cast is the aura of expectation. Reality is the hooked willow. If the young trout fisherman says to himself, “I know what the perfect cast is but I will never achieve it,” chances are the waders and the rod will be relegated to the attic and that will be the end of his fishing career. However, he may say to himself, “I know what the perfect cast is and I am perfectly capable of making it.” Now he has made the right affirmation to enable him to launch a successful fishing career.

His idea of the perfect cast is not lodged in his mind to delude himself but rather it is there as an aura of expectation which he can affirm for himself day by day and accomplishment by accomplishment. If he qualifies his aura of expectation by focusing on his first halting casts, he will corrupt the area of expectation by writing a script crippled by qualifications. If his affirmations remain clear and without qualification, then his script focuses on excellence and success and the aura of expectation is thereby pristine.

Moreover, his aura of expectation is a current concept, not a future concept. If he places it in the future, then the target is ever receding and ever receding. Therefore, he affirms his goal as an aura of expectation in the here-and-now, devoid of time reference and absent of judgmental criticisms. Again, this is not to delude himself but rather it is an effective method of getting all of the junk out of the way so that skills and talent and capacity can be realized.

Another example may add further light. An elderly gentleman, 101 years old, goes off to his physician complaining of a very sore knee. The physician examines his elderly patient and

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after careful diagnosis the doctor proclaims gravely that there is nothing medicine can do for the sore knee. George, the elderly gentleman, greets the diagnosis with utter scepticism. The doctor assures George that he must expect such untreatable ailments to occur because, after all, George is 101 years old. Then a sudden flash occurs to George and he says, “My left knee is 101 years old, too, and it’s just fine.”

The doctor and George clearly reveal two opposite ideas about health. The aura of expectation of the physician is that if a person is 101 years old, then physical breakdown is to be passively accepted. George’s aura of expectation is that even though he is 101 years old, he might as well be healthy and therefore he regards the defective right knee as an aberration to be dealt with by remedial action. Given the two auras of expectation, George and the physician write two opposite scripts regarding the problem knee.

Now you can apply the idea of affirmations and the aura of expectation to the seven states of being as presented in Table 4. Again, these seven states of being are beauty, joy, affection, creativity, knowledge, health and material abundance. A hard-nosed manager or professional in the fast track may look at these seven concepts as wimpy. However, my rejoinder is, in no way are they wimpy; instead, these auras of expectation focus on excellence in life that write scripts free of crippling and corrupting junk. Through affirmations, the auras of expectation are given focus and clarity. This enables the auras of expectation to provide purpose, value and meaning for each individual. A further consequence generates behaviour that expresses dignity, integrity and continuity. The effect on personal and professional life is an ongoing expression of excellence.

The simple and effective techniques described in this chapter and the next two chapters are meant to be applied in daily life. If affirmations are used to build an aura of expectation for each one of the seven states of being, then excellence is made manifest. It is a training process and it does take time, just as is true for fly fishing. The training process, set in motion by affirmations, pushes debilitating junk aside. Although the junk remains present, you do not need to qualify your affirmations by intruding it on the scene. The fly fisherman does not preoccupy himself with the willows on the bank; instead he focuses on the trout in the pool.

If you build an aura of expectation around the seven states of being, you automatically focus your energy in the most efficient fashion on your inherent skills, talents and capacities. Just as automatically, your individual investment in your own human capital is likewise made manifest.

Now the time has come to quickly look at each of the seven states of being as an expression of excellence. Of course, it is possible to devise your own list which might identify any number of such states of being. In my own experience I have found these seven adequate and particularly relevant.

As identified in Table 4, the first state of being is the concept of beauty. Of course, this is not a cheesecake notion of beauty, but rather an appreciation of the miraculous and wondrous qualities of life. Obviously, the marketplace, the neighbourhood and democratic

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government offer a wide variety of warts, blemishes and assorted ugliness. If you wish, you can expend your energy focusing on the ugliness and thereby poisoning your inner space. The alternative is to devote your energy to appreciation of the wondrous and miraculous aspects of life and thereby enrich your inner space. Focusing on beauty is not a process of self-delusion, repression and denial; rather, it is merely making a choice about how your energy is to be spent. If you affirm beauty, you build an aura of expectation which allows for script writing in harmony with the aura of expectation.

The second state of being is that of joy. The essence of joy is laughter and a sense of connection with life. This sense of connection expresses a relish of life and a zest for life. As Warren Buffet, the Omaha billionaire investor has often said, he likes people around him who feel like dancing when they get to the office. Since Warren Buffet’s aphorisms are repeated around the world with great mirth, it is obvious that this billionaire understands laughter as the essence of joy. One of my favourite sayings concerns his views of whiz-kid MBAs as compared to seasoned, successful managers. “I don’t hire young MBAs because in my experience you can’t teach a new dog old tricks.” This quote comes from an interview on the television program, Adam Smith’s Money World.

Affection is the third item in the seven states of being. Affection focuses on kindness, generosity and non-judgmental acceptance. Your first reaction may be to say that affection so defined would be crippling to ambition and destructive to competition. However, if each individual would approach himself with affection, the critical mass of such individuals, through the connections of group mind, would radiate affection as a quality of social life. This becomes the main means to eliminate internal friction caused by “we” and “they” thinking. By reducing adversarial relationships within the group, creativity and innovation are left unfettered, and the energy of the group is not negatively diverted by internal friction.

If the first three items in the list are systematically affirmed, then the fourth important state of being becomes much easier. Focusing on creativity is infinitely easier if you can first affirm as states of being in your life beauty, joy and affection. When the negative junk is pushed aside, then creativity can flower as a natural condition.Affirming the seven states of being is definitely a cumulative process. That is why I put knowledge as number five. Being open and receptive to information, learning easily, retrieving effectively all make use of knowledge in a more dynamic and efficient way. The four previous states of being open the individual to learning skills and the units of information in a very powerful way. The capacity of the human mind to gather information and to analyze data is nearly limitless. As wonderful as the computer is, the human mind is infinitely more miraculous in its capacity for acquiring and comprehending a wide array of knowledge. To do it effectively you don’t have to be a genius, but you do need to push the negative junk out of the way.

Health is the sixth item on the list. I see this state of being as a holistic concept involving mental, emotional and physical dimensions of self. Of course, the aura of expectation begins as a mental presence which then becomes expressed in emotional and physical states of being. Everyone is aware that the North American marketplace suffers dearly from

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absenteeism, avoidable illness and physical debilitation. To invest in health as an aura of expectation once again contributes not only to the well-being of the individual but in direct financial ways it contributes to society. Avoidable health problems cost American companies hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year. Eleven percent of our GNP is committed to medical services, and yet avoidable health problems debilitate the North American economy. When the U.S. is ranked by well-accepted health measures in comparison to other developed countries, instead of being number one it is approximately number sixteen.

If the first six states of being are affirmed with discipline, then the seventh and last state of being falls into focus with some ease. The concept of material abundance is much broader than bank account numbers. Material abundance starts as a state of mind, accepting the availability of material things for individual use. This point of view is contrary to placing your sense of worth and value in external material objects, such as a mink coat or a Mercedes. This state of being begins as an internal acceptance and appreciation of material things as being available for use. This is not a concept of enslaving oneself to external items of property, but a concept to liberate oneself from property as a reference point for internal value. When you are free from hang-ups about property, it is much easier to appreciate the abundance of material goods and the easy use of them as a joyful dimension of life. Money and property are useful and they can offer a deal of pleasure as long as you approach them in a liberated mental state. This state of being becomes a capstone to the six previous states of being and their accumulated effect through their auras of expectation.

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Human Capital/Basic Cultural Wealth

IntroductionThis 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 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; some 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 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

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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 to 95 percent 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.

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, 1988).

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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 (1983) 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.

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Education and Human CapitalThere 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 1930’s 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 2,500 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 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 percent of young students; rather, it is with the bottom 50 percent. The bottom 50 percent 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 percent 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

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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). Bismarckian Germany, well over 150 years ago, understood the connection between a vibrant economy and a competent population (Taylor, 1955). 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:

1. 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.

2. 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: 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. 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 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, 1988).

In spite of 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

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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 regional categories. In fact, a recent survey confirms that Canadians are increasingly turning to the Internet for education.

According to the survey, 26 per cent of Canadians have searched the Internet for on-line courses, 8 per cent have taken an on-line course and 7 per cent have taken an in-person course that includes a significant on-line component . . . . Among those who studied on-line, the great majority, or 90 per cent, said they would recommend studying on-line. They said they liked on-line 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 on-line. . . . Besides being an effective medium for the actual delivery of on-line 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 on-line 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

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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 on-line 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 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.

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Human Capital in the Contemporary WorkplaceThe 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 cellular 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 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 to 20 percent. 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 percent 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 5 presents a comprehensive summary of these statistics.

Table 5Shifts in Population Size of Various Age Groups

Cohort Year of BirthAge in 2001

Avg. 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

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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)

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, and 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.

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Balancing Social Elements

Introduction

This piece 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

the necessity for decentralizing society, in most aspects of social institutions and societal functions.

the concentration of power and property in the hands of a minute segment of society propelling the existing four models of society.

This piece begins by introducing three age-old questions. Answers to these three questions 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. To begin this process, this piece begins to move backwards and forwards simultaneously, so to speak:

backwards, to once again ask the three questions; forwards, to attempt to address these three questions in the context of modern

society.

The three questions:

Question one: “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 two: “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 to blind commercial and governmental leadership towards environmental mistakes of the past and our disregard of nature itself.

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Question three: “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:

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.

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.

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

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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.

Charlene Spretnak:States of Grace (1993) addresses the third great question: humanity’s relation to the divine order. Spretnak 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.

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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.

In Chapters Two and Three, 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 Two 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 1600’s until the 20th century. Capra’s treatment of the change in European culture, particularly scientific and philosophical aspects of culture, parallels the interpretation offered by Arnold Pacey discussed above.

In Chapter Three, 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 in his adherence to the idea that the

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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 3 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 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 even 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

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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 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:

1. the adaptive function guided by genetic drift, genetic selection, and mutation,2. 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 co-operation 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 Twelve, 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.

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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 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.

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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 (1978, 1988) 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 result . . . most technologies today have become profoundly anti-ecological, unhealthy, and inhuman. (Capra, 1988, p. 237)

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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 channeled 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 one percent of the population--the concentration is even more dramatic when the top ten percent 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 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.

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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 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.

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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.

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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 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 emphasizes 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.

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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 B.C. 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.

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 mathematics, 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)

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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 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.

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Furthermore, Franklin 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 honoring 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 that 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 that 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.

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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 three 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 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:

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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 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 demonstrate 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 socio-economic classes. Drug-related murders terrorize many urban neighborhoods. (Spretnak, 1993, p. 73)

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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)

With Spretnak’s work, the elements for the Fifth Societal Model come together with consistency and balance among the four scholars. Only a decade 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.

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Part 3: Provocative Perspectives

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Mind/Culture: Seven Ways of Looking at the World

The following pages have been drawn from a previous manuscript. These seven themes explore the heart of my view regarding the noosphere.

1. Evolutionary perspective

Evolution is described as “an unfolding, opening out or working out; process of development, formation or growth” (Friend & Guralnik, 1957, p. 504). The human quest is embedded in the unfolding of evolution. Not only is the past of humanity best understood as a vast web of evolutionary processes, the future of humanity will be in keeping with evolutionary principles, through innumerable cultural elements defined and guided by the human mind, and its creativity. A small sample of works is included below, to illustrate this thematic element. Although these works represent a coherent point of view, it is not necessarily the dominant, conventional point of view. To clarify, the dominant viewpoint is that evolutionary process is the unfolding of random events, thereby a developmental sequence of accidents. Intention or purpose in evolution is referred to as ‘teleology,’ and is rejected by the dominant viewpoint. One reason the anti-teleological school may hold for rejecting purposeful direction in evolution may be that a teleological explanation is an intellectual disguise for religion per se.

Lively intellectual debate is currently waging regarding the relationship (if any) of spiritual matters to scientific analysis. This debate is not new, but the character of the debate is new. Over 50 years ago Teilhard de Chardin (Catholic theologian and respected paleontologist) provided a modern shape to the argument in his highly contentious book, The Phenomenon of Man (1951). Teilhard de Chardin’s work is one of the 10 selected samples setting the intellectual climate for this work, particularly as it applies to the human mind and the evolution of culture.

(a) John Gribbon (1981), Genesis: The Origins of Man and the Universe. As a cosmologist, Gribbon attempts to embed human evolution as a feature of the universe as a whole.(b) Sir Fred Hoyle (1999), Astronomical Origins of Life: Steps Towards Panspermia. Life as we know it may have evolved uniquely on earth or it is argued by Fred Hoyle and others that life forms are an integral aspect of the universe at large; terrestrial life is not a unique exception.(c) James Lovelock (2000), Gaia. This work postulates that the troposphere, even the earth as a whole, is a self-managing, self-regulating evolutionary system involving a teleological point of view.(d) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1951). The Phenomenon of Man. The teleology embedded in this work is overt. In addition to the evolution of the geosphere and

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biosphere, there is that which he terms the noosphere. The noosphere is the realm of the human mind and the culture it produces.(e) Irene Elia (1988), The Female Animal. This work looks at evolution through a female paradigm as a counterbalance to the male paradigm. Elia’s effort is to chart life generally, and culture specifically, through understanding of the biosphere and roots of culture in the biosphere.(f) Richard Leaky (1977), Origins. This author sees contemporary, highly developed human societies as an overtly traceable manifestation of human culture at the most elemental stage.(g) Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1994), Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years. Barber sees cultural evolution as a teleological unfolding of basic female roles throughout ancient societies and into the societies of today.(h) James Frazer (1981; originally published 1890), The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore. The teleology in this work is primarily concerned with the magical, spiritual, and formal religious expression of human culture, as well as the centrality of such expression in the human quest throughout human society.(i) Daniel Quinn (1999), Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure. This work focuses on the techno-economic engine of development, which informs and shapes society as a whole and the elaborate web of relationships among the societal elements.(j) David Herbert and Colin Thomas (1997), Cities in Space, City as Place. The evolution of the human mind and its created culture has resulted in urbanization and the unbelievable implications for the human quest. A grand strategy for survival is tied to city life as it has been in the past, as it is now, and as it will be through the coming generations.

2. Non-cumulative ideas and cumulative ideas.

Cumulative means “accumulated, increasing in effect, size, and quantity, etc. by successive additions” (Friend & Guralnik, 1959, p. 359). Cumulative can be applied to such areas as techno-economic systems--systems accumulating skills, which lead to more elaborate ways of survival, from one century to another, or one generation to another. A simple example of this might be the cumulative process of building on the experience of planting using a digging stick, to inventing a plough, to moving from a horse to a tractor, to the myriad harvesting inventions and innovations pulled by the tractor or by more sophisticated engines.

Non-cumulative, NOT accumulated, not increasing in effect, size, and quantity, etc. by successive additions, is illustrated in such societal traits as social ethics and standards.

To illustrate this thematic element this will use the work of British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead. Two of Whitehead’s books relevant to this section of the chapter are Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (Whitehead, 1990) and Adventures of Ideas (Whitehead, 1972). Emerging from his argument is a useful paradigm, with

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implications for the way we understand ideas, and the means by which ideas are at work in the human mind, and ultimately, in the social order (Whitehead, 1972). Although Whitehead (1972, 1990) does not use in any overt way the terms cumulative and non-cumulative, his paradigm can be conceptualized as a notion of ideas, to which the terms ‘non-cumulative’ and ‘cumulative’ can be applied. Whitehead discusses the difference between science and art, truth and beauty, and the way in which societies have developed through time from simple to complex social orders. Besides approximating nature ever more closely, his historical development of scientific insights and principles also allows the human mind to intrude on nature, allowing for human control. Although he does not talk about technology as such, his view of science and the layering of knowledge through time provide for the growth and expansion of technological control. In the 10,000 years of human history from ice age to space age, humanity has learned to intrude on nature through technology, by a controlled understanding of the principles derived from science. In Chapters 2 and 5, Whitehead (1972) develops the notion of ideas in two rather different ways. On the one hand, ideas are discussed in terms of the intimate, barely conscious, emotionally rich, and commonly held perceptions. The cultural ethos of this idea matrix shapes and propels the dogmas, sentiments, morals, and ethical imperatives of a given society by way of an historical continuity of great depth and longevity. In a parallel argument he discusses ideas as the governing agents of social institutions and societies as expressions of deliberate, purposeful, and highly conscious policy webs. In this sense, ideas become part of the governance of society and the effort to guide the direction of society through more formal social instrumentalities.

To turn to the realm of non-cumulative ideas, they tend to provide normative, aesthetic, and spiritual symbols which shape the governance of society, without implication of a cumulative process in the sense of science and technology. Non-cumulative ideas can be seen to provide the glue that holds society together for society’s very survival. Whitehead (1972, 1990) uses the terms ‘art’ and ‘beauty’ in a greatly expanded form--far beyond the connotation of these two terms used in common parlance. For him, the spiritual, the aesthetic, and the normative are every bit as important as science, yet quite different from science. Whitehead’s work has also provided some useful conceptual tools vis-à-vis such notions as symbols and ideas. As illustrated through Whitehead’s work, cumulative and non-cumulative ideas will be a recurring thematic element throughout this work.

N.B. A few further comments about Whitehead. Even though the edition of the book, Symbolism used for this work was published in 1990, Whitehead’s lectures contained in the book were delivered in 1927. Whitehead, it would appear, clearly anticipated the current intellectual climate pertaining to such matters as the nature of ideas and hence of symbols and the interplay of the human mind with the self and with the environment.

These lectures clearly delineate a recursive conception of this web of causative relationships along with an elaborate array of intertwining influences. A

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mathematical term, recursion means to use the problem itself as party of its own solution. A simple illustration of this might be sending a one-line memo, asking staff to shorten memos. Whitehead (1972, 1990) does not use the term ‘recursion,’ yet it seems to be a most appropriate term for capturing the sense of his model of causation and the interplay between the emic reality and etic reality. This concept of recursion will recur from time to time throughout this work.For the purposes of this work, ‘emic reality,’ ‘etic reality,’ and ‘reality tunnel’ will be defined as follows (Wilson, 1986):

EMIC REALITY: the unified field made up of thoughts, feelings and apparent sense impressions that organizes our inchoate experience into meaningful patterns; the paradigm or model that people create by talking to each other, or by communicating in any symbolism; the culture of a time and place, the semantic environment. Every emic reality has its own structure, which imposes structure upon raw experience.

ETIC REALITY: the hypothetical actuality that has not been filtered through the emic reality of a human nervous system or linguistic grid.

REALITY TUNNEL: an emic reality established by a system of coding, or a structure of metaphors, and transmitted by language, are, mathematics or other symbolism. (p. ii)

3. Gemeinschaft and gesellschaft

This thematic element has its roots in Ferdinand Tönnies’ (1957) work, Community and Society [Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft] (originally published in 1887), delineating a pair of concepts particularly useful in the understanding of cultural evolution from the ice age to the urban age. In German language general usage, gemeinschaft means community, whereas gesellschaft denotes company or corporation. For use in this particular work, these two elements are distinguished as follows: Gemeinschaft is an association of individuals having sentiments, tastes and attitudes in common; fellowship. It is a society or group characterized chiefly by a strong sense of common identity, close personal relationships, and an attachment to traditional and sentimental concerns. Gesellschaft is an association of individuals around the pursuit of a common goal, for example, an entertainment or business goal; or for intellectual or cultural purposes. Gesellschaft is a society or group characterized chiefly by formal organization, impersonal relations, the absence of generally held or binding norms, and detachment from traditional and sentimental concerns.

Over the last 10,000 years, the style of human relationships has shifted from a social order almost completely dominated by gemeinschaft interchange, to today’s urbanized/mechanized societies, largely dominated by gesellschaft relationships. Members of gemeinschaft social groupings give and receive obligations and responsibilities without overt statements about reciprocity. Their social entities

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include kinship grouping, intimate local groupings, communities of common interest, and relationship defined by implicit sentiment. Gesellschaft social organizations, on the other hand, manifest a more formal style of relationship, contractual, and relatively impersonal. Corporate, governmental, educational, and other bureaucracies are largely defined and sustained by a gesellschaft-style of interaction and mutual commitment.

During the last century, social scientists have employed the terms gemeinschaft and gesellschaft to examine two specific social aspects: styles of organization and quality of interactive behaviour. These two aspects of societal elements are enacted very differently when viewed in informal and formal structures.Five thousand years ago, formal government, commerce, professional military, and stratified religious organizations constituted a relatively small percentage of the total societal population, essentially concentrated in larger population centres. In today’s society, however, such formal social elements are the very essence of city and urban life, which occupy a huge percentage of today’s total population. The view of this work is that the modern city and the nation-state are made possible, in large part, by the invention of gesellschaft-style organizations. Although the informal gemeinschaft organizations are not absent from today’s societies, they are no longer the dominant mechanisms for shaping and defining everyday life. Later in this work, the argument will be made that a grand strategy for survival requires serious attention toward rearranging social elements, such that there is an approximate balance between a gemeinschaft-style of social elements and a gesellschaft-style of social elements.

4. Guardian syndrome and Commercial syndrome

Since the city-state was invented 5,000 years ago, the central requirements of society have generated the need for two substantially different cultural systems to coexist side by side. Jane Jacobs (1992), in her book, Systems of Survival, calls these two systems the commercial syndrome and the guardian syndrome. The biological term ‘syndrome’ means “a number of symptoms occurring together and characterizing a specific disease” (Friend & Guralnik, 1957, p. 1479). It is interesting that Jacobs chose this name, rather than such possible alternative names as mindset, paradigm, worldview, or other comparable terms.

Jacobs (1992) sees these two syndromes, guardian and commercial, as essential and necessary types of cultural ethos of society, yet mutually incompatible as behavioural systems. Under each syndrome Jacobs lists 15 sub-functions, arranged in pairs between the two syndromes. This is most assuredly NOT a good list/bad list. Rather these two sets of 15 functions are both essential for managing the total society and its sub-parts. Each organizational element of society must commit itself to one syndrome or the other, but not to both. Jacobs argues that if both become co-mingled in a single organization, the resulting hybrid is a social monster. Jacobs regards this elaborate web of social functions as deriving their legitimacy from a sub-structure of moral/ethical requirements. Jacobs believes that both

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organizations and society also tend to get into dysfunctional difficulty when they fail to honour moral/ethical requirements.

At this point it would be well to present Jane Jacobs’s syndromes in her own words (Jacobs, 1992, pp. 22-23):

THE TWO MORAL SYNDROMES

Commercial Syndrome

Guardian Syndrome

Shun force Shun tradingCome to voluntary agreements

Exert prowess

Be honest Be obedient and disciplinedCollaborate easily with strangers and aliens

Adhere to tradition

Compete Respect hierarchyRespect contracts Be loyalUse initiative and enterprise

Take vengeance

Be open to inventiveness and novelty

Deceive for the sake of the task

Be efficient Make rich use of leisurePromote comfort and convenience

Be ostentatious

Dissent for the sake of the task

Dispense largesse

Invest for productive purposes

Be exclusive

Be industrious Show fortitudeBe thrifty Be fatalisticBe optimistic Treasure honour

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Jacobs (1992) sees as the essence of human society the human trait of modifying nature by making things and trading things. It should be mentioned, though, that trading can be subverted by ‘taking’ rather than trading, as is the case in raiding by tribes or the colonizing situation of ‘taking’ resources for the benefit of the colonizer country.

The many organizational elements of society must contribute in an effective way to the marketplace, since social survival itself depends on a healthy marketplace. The more elaborate the society, the more elaborate the organizational elements that interrelate for the purpose of commerce. According to Jacobs (1992), a society that treats the total fabric of commerce in an equitable, honest, and flexible fashion will enjoy social good health and a better long-term position vis-à-vis its societal neighbours.

The guardian syndrome is more than the management of military and government, although these are guardian functions. The objective of the guardian function is to maintain the continuity, territorial integrity, and political stability of the society. The guardian function is not more important than the commercial function, nor is it less important. A healthy society must respect this function and sustain it with a sense of equality and justice. If the guardian syndrome should subvert its moral/ethical requirements, the resulting social dysfunction could threaten the existence of that society in any long-term perspective.

This work will draw on Jane Jacobs’s ideas to identify how education fits in the dynamics of the post-industrial society.

5. Education as an institutional bridge

From elders to parents to children, a society flows through time, renewing and reshaping itself. Every society must provide for a web of processes which introduce each new generation into the adult context, with all of its complexities. As a social formal institution, education provides such a mechanism. Education must draw on the gemeinschaft lifeblood of a society by adding skills, talents, and capacities that will serve each new generation in the process of becoming competent and capable adults. The hazard faced by education in complex, secularized societies is the conversion of educative processes from a gemeinschaft cultural ethos to a gesellschaft cultural ethos. If education is seen as a formal organizational instrument, then, by definition, it belongs to the realm of gesellschaft-style relationships. However, it bridges the gemeinschaft-style relationships characteristic of the family and related social entities. Therefore, the challenge for educational institutions in advanced societies is to maintain the intimate, emotionally rich, and personal educative experience, while preparing for the skills and knowledge requirements of sophisticated science and technology, as well as for the complexities of adult life.

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In her 1994 book, Peripheral Visions, anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson argues that the educative process in simpler, more traditional societies tends to reflect tradition for sustaining social cohesion in a fundamentally gemeinschaft type of cultural ethos. In complex, secularized societies, cultural tradition and social cohesion suffer at the hands of complex, impersonal forces that tend to force the educative process into a style which is more instrumental, depersonalized, fragmented, and more devoid of moral/ethical imperatives. Bateson (1994) explores such issues through her formal and informal studies of four very different societies: Israel, Iran, Philippines, and U.S.A. Primarily concerned with the child-rearing and educative processes of society, Bateson’s book is quite explicit regarding child rearing and education as a quintessential gemeinschaft style of social relationships and the underlying normative order. The family, the neighbourhood, and the immediate community are collaboratively engaged in formal and informal efforts to provide continuity in introducing the new generation into society, through a web of traditional practices, as well as through close adherence to emotionally rich folkways and mores. If the total society is to survive, its subcomponents of family, neighbourhood, and community must coherently renew themselves generation by generation. If infants and children are to be integrated into society with purpose, value, and meaning, then child rearing and education must enrich, define, and guide the existential connection of each cohort of children with the essential cultural ethos of their society.

Bateson (1994) offers a counterpoint to the observations made above. When addressing the problems of complex, secularized societies, she sees the child-rearing and educative processes in a far more complicated context:

The quality of improvisation characterizes more and more lives today, lived in uncertainty, full of the inklings of alternatives. In a rapidly changing and interdependent world, single models are less likely to be viable and plans more likely to go awry. The effort to combine multiple models risks the disasters of conflict and runaway misunderstanding, but the effort to adhere blindly to some traditional model for a life risks disaster not only for the person who follows it but for the entire system in which he or she is embedded, indeed for all the other living systems with which that life is linked. (p. 8)

Bateson (1994) also offers a powerful insight regarding the power structure of a society vis-à-vis threats to learning and subversion of knowledge, clearly noting that abusive power can do far more damage than to pervert learning. Such aberrant power can threaten the very survival of a society.We reach for knowledge as an instrument of power, as an instrument of delight, yet the preoccupation with power ultimately serves ignorance. The political scientist Karl Deutsch defined power as “the ability not to have to learn,” which is exemplified by the failure of empathy in a Marie Antoinette or the rejection of computer literacy by an executive. Ironically, in our society both the strongest, those

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who have already succeeded, and the weakest, those who feel destined for failure, defend themselves against new learning. (p. 75)

In the last three chapters, Bateson (1994) explores some fundamental problems of early education. She argues that in North America formal education and even parental instruction tend to discount or ignore the powerful learning experiences which happen at almost a subliminal level, and which concern an almost endless stream of implicit connections made while learning language or even learning behavioural styles. She argues that instead of honouring the implicit and nearly subliminal, we focus on explicit, particularized, disconnected, and decontextualized aspects of instruction. In perceiving education as amassing units of fact disconnected from context, the more subtle and creative mental processes are devalued or ignored.

Education is also instrumental in bridging several crucial societal elements. Later in this work a good deal more will be said about education as an institution. It should be emphasized that the educative process is, to a more or less formal degree, an ongoing involvement through the lifecycle. Furthermore, it can be argued that the institution of education, when coupled with the institution of health, provides a compound vehicle for investing in the vigour and well-being of society. The relationship between these two institutions can be seen as a conjugal one; that is, to be truly effective and truly enriching to society, education and health must be married seamlessly. This conjugal relationship will be explored to a greater degree later in this work.

6. Investment in human capital

The skills, talents, and capacities of the human population constitute the truly fundamental wealth of a society or any of its sub-elements. This is known as human capital. Ideas are to human capital what money is to financial capital. The renewal of ideas intergenerationally has the potential for accumulating through time as cumulative ideas. For example, ideas which pertain to tools and technical skills can be sequentially improved upon, thus gradually expanding human control in a broader societal and environmental context. Logic, mathematics, experimental science, and theoretical analysis are examples of some of the more academic expressions of creative ideas lying within the human mind. This work will use the concept of a ‘master idea,’ since master ideas can and do provide the creative and cumulative cultural vitality of human organizations, at both macro and micro levels of activity.

Although the term ‘master idea’ has at its core something of the notion of weltanschauungen, translated roughly as ‘worldview’ or cultural ethos, this work will explore a slightly different focus of master idea, as outlined by the following two scholars. Both Arnold Pacey (1992) in The Maze of Ingenuity and Theodore Roszak (1986) in The Cult of Information explore this term, each in his own way. Although

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they both use for their analysis the words ‘master idea,’ the meaning ascribed to the term by each of them is different in both emphasis and scope.

The concept of master idea possesses an inchoate understanding of an explicate order emerging out of an implicate order. This emergence might metaphorically be compared to the sex gametes of an elephant upon fertilization giving rise ultimately to a five-ton adult. In short, DNA is the implicate order and the adult elephant is the explicative order. Pacey (1992) used the concept of ‘master idea’ to analyze the techno-economic explosion of Western Europe from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Age. In Pacey’s perception, the formative essence of the master ideas involved in this revolution were focused in the practices and beliefs of the Cistercian monasteries, socially potent during the late Middle Ages. This time in history brought Christian theology and classic philosophy together in a way that allowed an innovative explosion from 1100 to 1300. By 1600 the divine and mystical dimension was greatly eroded, leaving the universe as a machine to be understood as a mechanic would understand a machine. The emergent master ideas and grand strategies of western and northern European societies rushed forward during the 1500’s, and by the middle 1600’s truly anticipated the great European revolution, which not only swept Europe, but ultimately radiated around the world. Although the refugee scholars of Byzantium and the Renaissance scholars of Italy and Spain had launched this process, by the middle 1500’s important innovators in Bohemia, Germany, Holland, Sweden, and England gave the process new direction and new energy. The master idea behind the scientific and technological revolution of the 17th century, therefore, was an extension of a much earlier idea that the universe was a vast, elaborate machine.

A century ago Max Weber wrote the famous book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1930). Although Weber did not use the term ‘master idea’ as such, his delineation of the Protestant ethic constitutes a master idea, as Pacey (1992) would describe it. Furthermore, in Weber’s treatment the Protestant ethic constitutes the implicate order out of which emerges the explicate order which Weber calls ‘the spirit of capitalism.’ Whether implicitly or explicitly, this paradigm, or similar ones, have been a lively part of Western scholarship for several generations.

In Theodore Roszak’s (1986) treatment of the ‘master idea’ concept, the focus shifts from the broad historical and societal perspective offered by Pacey (1992) to a focus of greatly reduced scope. In chapter five of The Cult of Information, Roszak (1986) launches a sophisticated criticism of traditional empiricism and its pervasive articles of faith that facts speak for themselves and ideas are by-products of data. He sees information and data as decoration to the pursuit of ideas. He even makes the argument that too much information can subvert the thoughtful process of education by sabotaging a clear understanding of ideas. Roszak (1986) understands the job of education to be an inquiry into ideas and thoughtful reflection about these elemental constituents of culture. In his analysis, the individual and personal

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educative process is much more central. He sees the master idea as a mental filter which selects, shapes, accepts, rejects, or develops incoming information.Wilson (1986) uses the term ‘reality tunnel.’ To extend this comparison, master ideas are the core elements in one’s emic reality, which mediates the understanding of the etic reality. According to both Wilson (1986) and Roszak (1986), the human mind cannot escape its own filtering processes. Even though the term ‘reality tunnel’ as used by Wilson and ‘master idea’ as used by Roszak may seem to elicit different imagery, the difference is more about imagery rather than about any substantive difference. The image to be drawn from ‘reality tunnel’ may appear to some as a metaphor of constriction and limitation, as well as one of directional focus, whereas ‘master idea’ may elicit a metaphoric image of directing energy and therefore an energized focus. These two concepts are substantively contiguous. In both cases the focus is on the personal, the contemporary, and the way in which the mind filters input, by virtue of previous convictions, values, and experiences. These ideas hark back to some of those expressed earlier by Mary Catherine Bateson (1994).

7. Adaptive weltanschauungen

Joseph Campbell (Campbell, 1988) explores three big questions:1. What is our relationship to the divine order?2. What is our relationship to the natural order?3. What is our relationship to each other?

He used folklore as a device to answer these three questions haunting the human condition. Although widely regarded as a folklorist, Joseph Campbell’s (1949, 1988, 1999) body of work went far beyond the charting of folklore. His life work gave powerful demonstration that the mythic themes emerging out of a vast body of folklore provide universal insights into these questions, regardless of the complexity of the society or the particularities of social institutions.

In his book, The Power of Myth, Campbell (1988) explores mythology as a generative and creative force in human life. The cultural ethos of a society and generative energy propelling the society have always been defined, shaped, and energized by powerful mythic themes and the heroes who personified those themes. Campbell’s considerable body of work focused on myth, and the notion of hero as the organizing principle for all societies, pre-literate, feudal, industrial, or informational.

These mythic themes attempt to bring the theological, ideological, and technological aspects of society into a cultural ethos which will provide meaning and direction.The following five quotes have a voice of intimacy and informality. This is because Campbell’s work is a personal and informal companion piece to a TV series of interviews with Bill Moyers. This voice enriches the very insights provided by the excerpts. Although not an adequate exploration of Joseph Campbell’s contributions, these statements do reveal a mind which regards inquiry as a dance with the

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mysterious. There is not a hint of positivist thinking in Campbell’s work, yet his scholarship is rigorous and his insights are profound.

The first quote provides a powerful, existential insight, with enormous implications for marketplace and academy alike.

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonates within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. (Campbell, 1988, p. 3)

It would seem impossible to live or study without confronting the mysterious or the dark dimensions of doubt. Campbell recognizes this most human condition and again offers an existential insight which strikes a chord of hope and illumination.One thing that comes out of myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message to transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light. (Campbell, 1988, p. 37)

In the following quote, Campbell’s famous notion of bliss possesses some powerful implications for humanistic research as well as for life outside the academy.

If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time. (Campbell, 1988, p. 91)

The fourth excerpt offers a sharp insight into the second great question for mankind mentioned above: “What is our relationship to nature?” Today’s ecological crisis offers a dark backdrop to this eloquent insight.

Myths of the Great Goddess teach compassion for all living beings. There you come to appreciate the real sanctity of the earth itself, because it is the body of the Goddess. (Campbell, 1988, p. 165)

Whether pursuing humanistic research or a monastic calling, mystery confronts us over and over again. In humanistic research we have the option of regarding mystery as an enemy to overcome, or as a dimension of the mind which can inspire and enrich. The next statement provides sharp focus on this matter.Anyone who has had an experience of mystery knows that there is a dimension of the universe that is not that which is available to his senses. There is a pertinent saying in one of the Upanishads: “When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain you pause and exclaim, ‘Ah,’ you are participating in divinity.” (Campbell, 1988, p. 207)

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One of Campbell’s most famous books, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Campbell, 1949), discusses Campbell’s thoughts about mythology--as modern scholars tend to perceive it. This brief excerpt captures the direction of argument throughout the book.

Mythology has been interpreted by the modern intellect as a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world of nature (Frazer); as a production of poetical fantasy from prehistoric times, misunderstood by succeeding ages (Muller); as a repository of allegorical instruction, to shape the individual to his group (Durkheim); as a group dream, symptomatic of archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche (Jung); as the traditional vehicle of man’s profoundest metaphysical insights (Coomaraswamy); and as God’s Revelation to His children (the Church). Mythology is all of these. The various judgments are determined by the viewpoints of the judges. For when scrutinized in terms not of what it is but of how it functions, of how it has served mankind in the past, of how it may serve today, mythology shows itself to be as amenable as life itself to the obsessions and requirements of the individual, the race, the age. (Campbell, 1949, p. 382)

In the last section of the book, entitled ‘The Hero Today,’ Campbell (1949) concludes his discussion with a note of deep pessimism, as well as a speculative note of optimism. In many ways this section pulls the threads of the entire book together, illuminating the rest of the work and propelling the reader toward a further examination of myth and its place in society, whether ancient or modern.

In agrarian and pre-agrarian societies which spanned the globe before the modern era, the mythic themes generated by religious practices and beliefs, the normative themes of aesthetic expression (poetry, drama, etc.), and the celebratory rituals which brought to life the ancestors and heroes of the society gave to the polity purpose, value, and meaning for life, both individual and collective. For such societies, mythic themes provided the psychic energy for coping with the vagaries of the environment and the threats presented by external societies. In short, the mythic themes provided the specific cultural ethos for a specific society to cope with the challenges which threatened the very survival of the society. If the symbols and rituals shaped and directed by the mythic themes worked as survival strategies, then the society could anticipate an integrated continuance of its selfhood into the foreseeable future. If, however, the mythic themes failed to provide a cultural ethos supporting survival, then obviously the society faced disaster either environmentally or militarily. Indeed, many polities throughout human existence have failed the test of imminent threats to survival.

For the past 500 years the rapidly spreading techno/economic revolution with its supporting scientific disciplines has uprooted myth and religion in a profoundly disruptive fashion. Consequently, societies of the 20th and 21st centuries face problems of survival in a very different emotional/mythic weltanschauungen (worldview).

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The explosion of science, as Campbell (1988) sees it, has shattered the mythic themes and dogmatic principles, once so useful to coherence of society and to meaningfulness of life. Out of this emotional/mythic rubble must come new mythic themes congruent with the 21st century and the insights which science offers. According to Campbell, the mental health of any society still requires an appreciation of mystery and a psychic connection with the cosmos, providing a vibrant sense of purpose, value, and meaning at both individual and societal levels.

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East Meets West: A Noetic Enrichment

Perhaps it would be just as well for me to lay out some of the intellectual influences in which I operate vis-a-vis ethical and philosophical considerations. Some of the philosophers and scientists who have influenced me are mainstream academic figures. Others are more relevant to Oriental traditions even though they may live in Western societies. During the last generation there has been a fusion of Eastern and Western thought which has greatly changed academic thinking in many of the world’s best universities. Alan Watts and J.C. Pearce are a couple of the international figures who work hard to relate Eastern and Western philosophy. Fretjof Capra in The Tao of Physics was only one of the many scientists who regard Eastern spiritualism and Western science as a mutual enrichment.

The great sweep of Western philosophical tradition from the early Greeks to modern logical positivists represents a very complex intertwining of mystical thought with mathematical principles. Since the early Greek logic has played a dominant role in spiritual pursuits as well as empirical ones. The mathematical systems of Descartes and Newton were inextricably enmeshed in their understanding of the divine presence. Thus, various forms of logic and mathematics have historically dominated academic thought in theology and philosophy. Even the quintessential personality of St. Thomas Aquinas was dependent upon logic as his tool of analysis.

Whether studying the nature of the human condition, the imperatives of the ethical systems or the grand design of God, all were arranged as though they were pursuing a scientific problem. During the eighteenth century the secular forces of science began drawing it away from more traditional philosophical and theological pursuits. Dave Hume, Adam Smith, Emmanuel Kant, the French philosophers such as Voltaire and Rousseau are only a tiny sample of the secular divergents from religious inquiry.

Such secular scholars looked at the problem of ethics and the nature of the human condition from a very different perspective. Ideas involving the social contract in one or another manifestation became the justification for ethical principles. Another frame of reference was human nature as a reference point for understanding ethics without God as an orchestrator. Many social sciences and biological sciences relevant to and understanding of human nature evolved out off this secular philosophical debate. August Compte and Jeremy Bentham in the early nineteenth century founded schools of science or pseudo-science, depending on your point of view. They saw the social order quite clearly without reference to divine forces. Thus for them social relationships and ethical principles were a secular matter embedded in their perceptions of human nature.

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Thus the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a great divergence between science and traditional theology/philosophy. Not until the decades following World War II did spiritual inquiry and scientific pursuit begin to flow back together. Once again human nature was seen from a more mystical point of view with spiritual concerns being central to understanding human nature and the ethical imperatives derived from that nature. It should be observed that traditional religion as in Christian orthodoxy plays a much smaller part in the new fusion of science and religion. Oriental contributions from Buddhism, Taoism and the more mystical aspects of Hinduism provide a very large contribution to this new stream of intellectual inquiry.

Therefore, when I am asked to answer a problem of an ethical nature I do so from the standpoint of the growing ranks of New Age academics, both philosophers and scientists. The works of Confucius impress me because they so carefully entwine personal rights and personal duties with public obligations enmeshed in a network of reciprocity and balancing forces at all levels of society. The object of Confucianism is as long term perspective with a deep sense of history concerning the survival of the social order by means of encouraging and facilitating the highest possible level of social harmony. This point of view understands harmony to be a delicate balance of innumerable forces playing themselves out at the national level, the provincial level, the community and or clan level, and the personal level. The object was to balance public harmony and social survival with individual needs and personal pursuits. Chinese political and social thinkers never regarded individualism as the quintessential coinage of their understanding of the human condition. The individual was part of the public body and in no way antagonistic to the public body.

It seems to me that Western philosophic traditions have had a very meager understanding of society and the sense of public that the Chinese have so carefully developed. A brilliant three-volume work, entitled The History of Private Life speaks to this state of affairs rather eloquently. From classic Greece through Rome and into the Middle Ages, Western society never really dealt effectively with the problem of publicness and the understanding of the requirements of publicness being of equal or greater importance than to the understanding of privateness. Property, ethics, government and even religion were preoccupied with the sanctity of the individual to the expense of the public polity.

The world views of Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill and endless others in that intellectual tradition regard the state as the enemy because it is a public instrument. Their sense of privateness involves property and every other dimension of human activity. This intellectual backdrop I believe cripples the ability of Western societies to work out ethical systems of a public nature. Instead, we rely on the reference point of the individual.

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Communication and Creativity

Introduction

In Tom Peters’s Thriving on Chaos (1988), 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 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

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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.

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.

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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.

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

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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 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.

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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.

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.

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

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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 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

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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.

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

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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, 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 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.

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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.

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.

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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 Organizations

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 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.

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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 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 states, intuition and a great many other basic functions. As a result, human

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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 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

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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.

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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 synergy 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. There are greatly concerned with the dissipation of societal vigour through destructive conflict in both the public and private sector. 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 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.

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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 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 worldview. 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

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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, 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

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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.

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.

I.

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.”

II.

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 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

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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.

III.

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.

IV.

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.

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 practiced 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

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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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Part 4: Vital Works

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Taming the Tiger WithinBy Thich Nhat Hanh

Summary, from the coverAcclaimed scholar, peace activist, and Buddhist master revered by people of all faiths, Thich Nhat Hanh has inspired millions worldwide with his insight into the human heart and mind. Now he focuses his profound spiritual wisdom on the basic human emotions we all struggle with every day.

Distilled from the pages of his many bestselling works, Taming the Tiger Within is a handbook of meditations, analogies, and reflections the offer pragmatic techniques for diffusing anger, converting fear, and cultivating love in every arena of life—a wise and exquisite guide for bringing harmony and healing to our lives and relationships.

Review, from Publishers WeeklyVietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh has authored three national bestsellers that deal with negative emotions: Anger, Going Home and No Death, No Fear. Here he distills some of the best quotations from those three books, offering advice on how to conquer rage, jealousy, fear and the desire for revenge. Often the thoughts are just a sentence long, and rarely more than three; the book is designed to be savored over time through deep reflection. Some of Hanh's suggestions are practical (such as walking to diffuse anger or writing a love letter to a cherished individual), while others will require more rumination. One key to reducing anger, for example, is to practice ""deep looking"" and recognize that all beings are interconnected; the angry person is inextricably intertwined with the one she imagines is her enemy. Though spare, even Spartan, this book holds seeds of profound wisdom. However, more serious readers will want to delve into the three classics that this book draws upon, since they are already accessible, brief and easy to understand.

Review from SpiritualityAndPractice.com, by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Buddhist monk, scholar, peace activist, and spiritual teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is the author of more than 100 books. In this collection of meditations and reflections, he offers advice on dealing with the difficult emotions that serve as roadblocks to peace and happiness. These quotations are drawn from his books No Death, No Fear; Anger; and Going Home. This volume is divided into sections on recognition, care of anger, mindfulness of others, fear and time, finding refuge and [then] knowing freedom, and the love that springs from insight. Here is a sampler of quotations from Hanh's teachings:

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On Anger 

Whenever anger comes up, take out a mirror and look at yourself. When you are angry, you are not very beautiful, you are not presentable. Hundreds of muscles on your face become very tense. Your face looks like a bomb ready to explode.

On Punishment 

Punishing the other person is self-punishment. That is true in every circumstance.

On Compassion 

Compassion is a beautiful flower born of understanding. When you get angry with someone, practice breathing in and out mindfully. Look deeply into the situation to see the true nature of your own and the other person's suffering, and you will be liberated.

On Fear 

No fear is the ultimate joy. When you have the insight of no fear, you are free.

Biography from plumvillage.org, Thich Nhat Hanh’s practice centre

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered throughout the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace.His key teaching is that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live happily in the present moment—the only way to truly develop peace, both in one’s self and in the world.

Thich Nhat Hanh has published over 100 titles on meditation, mindfulness and Engaged Buddhism, as well as poems, children’s stories, and commentaries on ancient Buddhist texts. He has sold over three million books in America alone, some of the best-known include Peace Is Every Step, The Miracle of Mindfulness, The Art of Power, True Love and Anger.

Thich Nhat Hanh has been a pioneer in bringing Buddhism to the West, founding six monasteries and dozens of practice centers in America and Europe, as well as over 1,000 local mindfulness practice communities, known as ‘sanghas’.

He has built a thriving community of over 600 monks and nuns worldwide, who, together with his tens of thousands of lay students, apply his teachings on

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mindfulness, peace-making and community-building in schools, workplaces, businesses – and even prisons – throughout the world.

Thich Nhat Hanh, now in his 88th year, is a gentle, humble monk – the man Martin Luther King called “An Apostle of peace and nonviolence.” The media has called him “The Father of Mindfulness,” “The Other Dalai Lama” and “The Zen Master Who Fills Stadiums.”

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Emotional FreedomBy Judith Orloff

Summary, from DrJudithOrloff.com

“I wrote Emotional Freedom to inspire an inner peace movement. As Gandhi said, "We must be the change." The more inner peace we feel as individuals, the more we can create in the world. In service to this goal, my book teaches you how to overcome fear and not absorb the negativity and stress in the world--as well as how to combat draining people from a centered, loving place. My book will show you how to stay brave, positive, and intuitive during stressful periods so you can experience all the joy you deserve.”

Emotional Freedom is a road map to move from feelings of being stressed out, discouraged, or overwhelmed to feelings of calm, inspiration and serenity.

Or even if you are in a good emotional place but want to feel even better, Emotional Freedom is for you!

Picture yourself in a traffic jam but feeling utterly calm. Or not letting anyone else’s bad mood frustrate you. Imagine being peaceful instead of worrying. Or enjoying nurturing relationships and a warm sense of belonging as a replacement for loneliness. This is what it feels like when you’ve achieved emotional freedom.

The Emotional Freedom program will help you:

Identify your emotional type and understand your core strengths

Understand the unique toll emotions can have on your physical and spiritual health-and reprogram your biological and emotional responses to stress

Protect yourself from emotional vampires and stop taking on the stress and negativity of others

Transform negativity into courage, patience, connection, inner calm, hope, self-esteem, and compassion

Do you feel as if you're held hostage by your own unpredictable emotions or those of the people around you? Do you feel exhausted and emotionally drained by demands on you and your time? Are you ready for a change but aren't sure how to begin? New York Times bestselling author Dr. Judith Orloff will help you gain happiness, serenity, and mastery over the negativity that pervades daily life. Complete emotional freedom starts today.

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Review, from My-booksreview.blogspot.com

If you are one of those people who has your buttons pushed more than you'd care to....this book is for you. If you thought you'd handled your "stuff" because you've talked about it for years, yet - it's still there.....this book is for you. If you're tired of dealing with it...this book is for you. The tail no longer needs to wag the dog.

Dr. Judith Orloff helps us understand how important it is to deal with all of our emotions. No need to ignore them or label them good or bad - just a need to acknowledge them and use them as tools of incredible transformation. Tools that will awaken our intuitive powers if only we pay attention.

Because she shares her own journey so willingly, you'll realize how common our deepest fears and worries are. And, you'll benefit from the numerous practices throughout the book that will help you listen to yourself, feel what's really going on, and open your heart.

Learn how to make the shift...and, let your transformation begin.

Review, from Publishers Weekly

Orloff offers a superbly written series of psychological strategies for maximizing positive emotions and minimizing toxic ones. A practicing psychiatrist, the author straddles the worlds of mainstream medicine and alternative healing; she regards emotions as a training ground for the soul, and views every victory over fear, anxiety, and resentment as a way to develop your spiritual muscles. As the self is the foundation for emotional freedom, the author discusses how readers can find their emotional type—intellectual, empathic, rock or gusher—and suggests how to find balance. Her tips include avoiding emotional vampires or consulting dreams, which she divides into three types: psychological (where fears and neuroses express themselves), predictive and guidance.

The second half of the book tackles the most difficult life challenges: depression, loneliness, anxiety, frustration, rejection, grief, envy and bitterness. Orloff addresses each fully and frankly, using anecdotes from her own life and practice—the death of her mother, her own crippling envy. This insightful and positive book will assist anyone who is suffering in mapping a path out of pain. 

Biography, from the jacket

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Judith Orloff, MD, is a psychiatrist in private practice and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA. She is the author of Positive Energy, Second Sight, and The Ecstacy of Surrender.

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Emotional IntelligenceBy Daniel Goleman

Summary, from danielgoleman.info

New York Times science writer [Daniel] Goleman argues that our emotions play a much greater role in thought, decision making and individual success than is commonly acknowledged. He defines ‘emotional intelligence’--a trait not measured by IQ tests--as a set of skills, including control of one’s impulses, self-motivation, empathy and social competence in interpersonal relationships. Although his highly accessible survey of research into cognitive and emotional development may not convince readers that this grab bag of faculties comprise a clearly recognizable, well-defined aptitude, his report is nevertheless an intriguing and practical guide to emotional mastery. In marriage, emotional intelligence means listening well and being able to calm down. In the workplace, it manifests when bosses give subordinates constructive feedback regarding their performance. Goleman also looks at pilot programs in schools from New York City to Oakland, Calif., where kids are taught conflict resolution, impulse control and social skills.

Review, from the New York Times, by Eugene Kennedy

Perhaps presaging the naive confidence of the Gail Sheehy era, Zelda Fitzgerald claimed to be a real American because she believed you could learn to play the piano by mail. Such optimism about remaking the self, based on everything from the New Testament to the New Age, may explain the booming condition of the nation's bookstores; there is nothing more American, except perhaps buying into Ponzi schemes and donning lodge costumes, than treating life as a multipart but curable illness.

Daniel Goleman may then be accused of doing something unpatriotic, or at least countercultural, in Emotional Intelligence: he refuses to oversimplify our emotional lives or to provide painless ways to manage them. Respecting the complex unity of personality, he asks what accounts for "the disintegration of civility and safety" in our daily lives, and, more to the point: "What can we change that will help our children fare better in life?" His answer: turn to the schools to teach "self-control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself" -- in other words, the abilities he calls "emotional intelligence."

Goleman builds his argument deliberately, beginning with a masterly overview of recent research in psychology and neuroscience. Having reported on such matters

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for The New York Times for the last decade, he is a teacher at ease with his subject. Without distracting himself, he glances up from his notes to make lively connections between the wealth of new understandings and the riches of older wisdom about our affective lives.

Mr. Goleman realizes that humans prefer to think of their personalities as plated with the gold of rationality rather than what they regard as the base metal of the emotions. At another level, they know better. We all gritted our teeth, for example, when Lyndon Johnson crinkled his eyes and quoted Isaiah: "Come now, let us reason together." We knew that he was about to abandon reason and to apply a tight-as-a-tourniquet emotional hold on others until, choking and red-faced, they agreed with him.

Poorly understood and badly monitored emotions are, Mr. Goleman suggests, a national problem, interfering with every aspect of our intimate and public lives. In a supposedly therapeutic age, people chant the mantras "I hear a lot of anger" or "I feel your pain," but they will not be comforted. Recognizing our highly combustible national bad mood, Mr. Goleman identifies his governing insight with that of Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics: "Anyone can become angry -- that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way -- this is not easy."

Goleman believes we can cultivate emotional intelligence, and improve not only the I.Q.'s but the general life performances of the many children who now suffer because of our society's unbalanced emphasis on the intellectual at the expense of the affective dimension of personality. In his final section, he offers a plan for schooling to restore our badly neglected "emotional literacy." Proposing far greater attention to classes in "social development," "life skills" and "social and emotional learning," he singles out the Self Science curriculum, which began at the Nueva Learning Center, a small private school in San Francisco. To skeptics who, he acknowledges, will "understandably" ask whether emotional intelligence can be taught in a less privileged setting, he offers a visit to the Augusta Lewis Troup Middle School in New Haven. And for overburdened teachers who may resist adding another class, he suggests working "lessons on feelings and relationships" in with "other topics already taught."

Some readers will consider the concept of "emotional intelligence" as little different from traditional understandings of emotional adulthood and observe that Mr. Goleman scants powerful formative influences like mature religious faith. Others may argue that his vision of a school-based cure for a problem that begins at home adds unrealistic burdens to already stumbling systems. Nonetheless, Mr. Goleman, with an economy of style that serves his reformer's convictions well, integrates a vast amount of material on issues whose intricacy and problematic character he reveals in an original and persuasive way.

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Biography, from danielgoleman.info

Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. As a science journalist Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half, with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 40 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Apart from his books on emotional intelligence, Goleman has written books on  topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency, meditation, social and emotional learning, ecoliteracy and the ecological crisis.

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Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by HopeBy Joan D. Chittister

Summary, from the publisher’s website, Eerdmans.com

Everyone goes through times of pain and sorrow, depression and darkness, stress and suffering. It is in the necessary struggles of life, however, that we stretch our souls and gain new insights enabling us to go on.

Building on the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with God and on the story of her own battle with life-changing disappointment, Sister Joan Chittister deftly explores the landscape of suffering and hope, considering along the way such wide-ranging topics as consumerism, technology, grief, the role of women in the Catholic Church, and the events of September 11, 2001. We struggle, she says, against change, isolation, darkness, fear, powerlessness, vulnerability, exhaustion, and scarring; and while these struggles sometimes seem insurmountable, we can emerge from them with the gifts of conversion, detachment, faith, courage, surrender, limitations, endurance, transformation, and (perhaps most important) hope. Each of these struggles and gifts is discussed in a chapter of its own.

Meant to help readers cope with their own suffering and disappointment, Scarred by Struggle, is, in Chittister's words, "an anatomy of struggle and an account of the way hope grows in us, despite our moments of darkness, regardless of our regular bouts of depression. It is an invitation to look again at the struggles of life in order that we might remember how to recognize new life in our souls the next time our hearts turn again to clay."

Neither a self-help manual nor a book offering pat answers, but supremely practical and relevant, Scarred by Struggle will richly reward those readers seeking solace in the empathic, wise, and accessible meditations of a fellow struggler.

Review, from Publishers Weekly

Chittister, a Catholic Benedictine nun who once dreamed of being a fiction writer, takes a major disappointment from her life and transforms it into a series of absorbing universal lessons in this book that is both contemplative and expository. The author and lecturer tells how in the interest of "humility" she was instructed as a young nun to withdraw her application from a prestigious creative writing program and spend her summer as a camp cook. Although Chittister writes today as if she were still reeling from this disappointment's devastating blow, it is clear that in her struggle she found another way to express herself through writing. She ultimately discovered that she was still a writer, even though she was not free to

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write in the way she had hoped. Chittister uses the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with God to further illustrate the struggle that she says is part of every life, pointing out how such encounters can lead to growth and new direction. But even as she writes of the "gifts" of struggle, she is candid about its dark side and lasting impact. After all, she notes, Jacob got up limping from his night of wrestling with God. It is clear from Chittister's reflections that she has navigated the territory of which she writes. Her message should appeal to a diverse audience of readers who want more than platitudes and pat answers to life's challenges.

Review, from SpiritualityandPractice.com

Joan Chittister, bestselling author, internationally known speaker, and the executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality, begins this sturdy work with a confession:

"This is the book I didn't want to write. It is certainly the book I did not intend to write. My original plan was that I would write a book about hope. It is, after all, a particularly unpredictable and often difficult period in human existence. It seemed to me that hope is the central virtue in life, certainly needed and so easy to explain. But it didn't work. Everywhere I looked, hope existed — but only as some kind of green shoot in the mist of struggle. It was a theological concept, not a spiritual practice. Hope, I began to realize, was not a state of life. It was at best a gift of life. . . . The more I struggled with the idea of hope, the more I began to realize that it is almost impossible to write a real book about hope without looking at the nature of struggle. Where in pain does hope lie? And how do we cultivate it? And what does it mean to the development of the spiritual life and the attainment of emotional wholeness?"

Chittister names some of the struggles that have tested her resilience — losing a parent at an early age and coping with teenage polio. In succeeding chapters she reveals how we all are challenged by change, isolation, darkness, fear, powerlessness, vulnerability, and exhaustion.

But, like Jacob, we can gain new insights and meaning from these struggles, especially from the ones that scar us.

We liked Chittister's refusal to downplay the omnipresence of fear and futility in the culture at the present moment. As she puts it: "The great secret of life is how to survive struggle without succumbing to it, how to bear struggle without being defeated by it, how to come out of the struggle better than when we found ourselves in the midst of it."

The gifts that can emerge from the ashes are conversion, faith, courage, surrender, limitations, endurance, and transformation. We were delighted to see her

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commentary on the important gift in the Christian tradition of "holy indifference," which is similar to the Buddhist practice of equanimity. In the closing chapter, Chittister rings the bell of hope and it sounds much more jubilant given all that we've heard before it. She concludes: "Struggle is the gift of new life in disguise... There is beauty in the dark valleys of life. It is called hope."

Biography, from Eerdmans.com

Joan Chittister is executive director of Benetvision: A Resource and Research Center for Contemporary Spirituality, Erie, PA. She is also a contributor to The Huffington Post blog. Her many books include God's Tender Mercy and The Story of Ruth (with John August Swanson). Her website is www.joanchittister.org.

Leading with KindnessBy William F. Baker and Michael O’Malley

Summary, from the Leading with Kindness website, wliw.org/leadingwithkindness

A new way of managing is emerging. Some of the world’s most successful companies are realizing that the better they treat their employees, the more productive they get. College opportunities, flexible schedules, advanced health care plans or transparency between ranks are only a few examples of a new phenomenon known as leading with kindness.

Businessmen and professors William F. Baker and Michael O’Malley have travelled across the country seeking the kindest companies and leaders. They found that the better employees were treated, the most successful companies were. The rule applied both to big companies like Google and small family businesses where kindness is part of the owner’s culture. Now they have put all their experiences into Leading with Kindness.

Baker’s and O’Malley’s quest for kindness has also inspired a documentary that will take PBS WLIW’s viewers into some of the better companies to work for. The documentary, which will be aired this fall, includes portraits of Google, where an internal rule says no employee should be more than 150 feet away from food.

It also portrays Pitney Bowes, a multinational mailing company that pays college to some of its employees. The documentary visits clothing manufacturer Eileen Fisher, where meetings usually start with a 3-minute relax exercise and Mitchell’s, a family-owned clothing retailer with the motto “hug your people.”

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Review, from the Graziadio Business Review, by John Oppenheim

When I first started reading Leading with Kindness, I wanted to run out and buy it for about 10 executives I have known, whose style can best be described as “Attila the Hun.” They represent the antithesis of kindness. After I got about halfway through this book, it became clear to me that those individuals would be turned off by the title and as a result it would not be an effective solution.

Nonetheless, this is an excellent primer for young executives-to-be. The book begins by discussing how “kind” leaders operate, that is, executives who understand that people are individuals and should be treated as such. The authors cull their examples from large companies, but all of the lessons can be applied anywhere, in any kind of organization. In the foreword, the authors use the reality television show The Apprentice as an example of what is wrong with a lot of American businesses in terms of the way they treat their employees and customers.

There are only six chapters, but they capture the essence of what a young executive-to-be needs to know about human relations in order to run a company in today’s environment. The chapter on expectations is excellent and covers such topics as clarity, values, focus, goals, and consequences. These are not new concepts, but how they are considered is important. These are ingredients that people do not necessarily think about when the pressure is on.

Leading with Kindness devotes an entire chapter to a discussion of why “The Truth Matters.” In light of the recent meltdowns and finger-pointing, it is a good read for those who wonder how such events could have occurred. This chapter is not only about telling the truth; it focuses on the fact that kind leaders are also good at listening to the truth. Many executives who have not learned this valuable lesson are blindsided when their empires collapse.

In summary, this book is a powerful vehicle for driving home the reality that the long-term viability of an organization might just rely on leaders who understand what being kind really means.

Biography, from the Leading with Kindness website

William F. Baker is President Emeritus of New York City’s channel Thirteen/WNET, where he has served as CEO and President for 20 years. He is also Executive in Residence at Columbia University Business School and Professor at Fordham University. Baker received his Ph.D. in Communications and Organizational Behavior.

Michael O’Malley is a psychologist who has over 20 years of consulting experience with Fortune’s 500 companies. He is the author of “Creating Commitment: How to Attract and Retain Talented Employees” and “Are You Paid What You’re Worth?.”

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O’Malley is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University Business School and the Executive Editor for Business, Economics, and Law at Yale University Press.

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The Power of Ethical ManagementBy Kenneth Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale

Summary, from kenblanchard.com

Ethics in business is the most urgent problem facing America today. Now two of the best-selling authors of our time, Blanchard and Peale join forces to meet this crisis head-on in this vitally important book. The Power of Ethical Management proves you don't have to cheat to win. It shows today's managers how to bring integrity back to the workplace. It gives hard-hitting, practical, ethical strategies that build profits, productivity, and long-term success.

From a straightforward three-step Ethics Check that helps you evaluate any action or decision, to the "Five P's" of ethical behavior that will clarify your purpose and your goals, The Power of Ethical Management gives you an immensely useful set of tools. These can be put to work right away to enhance the performance of your business and to enrich the quality of your life. The Power of Ethical Management is no theoretical treatise; Blanchard and Peale speak from their own enormous and unique experience. They reveal the nuts and bolts, practical strategies for ethical decisions that will show you why integrity pays.

Review, from Publishers Weekly

Addressing moral dilemmas in a time of influence peddling, insider trading and city-hall scandals, Blanchard (author of The One Minute Manager) and Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking) offer guidance in the form of a parable: a sales manager being pressed for results interviews a hot job candidate who promises that, if hired, he will disclose trade secrets of his former employer, a competitor. The sales manager agonizes over the ethics of the situation and seeks counsel with friends as well as a consultant who gradually puts things right with the help of an "ethics check" and "five principles of ethical power." The manager goes on to discover how company honesty and good feeling can be developed, with ensuing business success and profitability. The authors have produced a quick, inspirational read, with encouragement for those whose principles are at risk in business.

Biography, from HarperCollins.com

Ken Blanchard, PhD, is one of the most influential leadership experts in the world. He has co-authored 60 books, including Raving Fans and Gung Ho! (with Sheldon Bowles). His groundbreaking works have been translated into over 40 languages and their combined sales total more than 21 million copies. In 2005 he was inducted

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into Amazon's Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 bestselling authors of all time. The recipient of numerous leadership awards and honors, he is cofounder with his wife, Margie, of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, a leading international training and consulting firm.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale was one of America's most influential spiritual leaders, from the publication of The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952 until his death in 1993. A personal adviser to Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, he also inspired millions with more than forty books, as well as radio and television broadcasts.

Total LeadershipBy Stewa D. Friedman

Summary, excerpted from TotalLeadership.com

Total Leadership provides a blueprint for how to become a more successful and satisfied leader in all dimensions of life: work, home, community, and self ([consisting of] mind, body, and spirit). This proven, step-by-step “four-way wins” approach shows how to produce sustainable, meaningful change that benefits all life domains by:

Being real—acting with authenticity by clarifying what’s important … Being whole—acting with integrity by respecting the whole person … Being innovative—acting with creativity by experimenting with new solutions.

Based on research and real-world application in a variety of settings, this approach is rooted in sound principles and has been proven effective with thousands of people. Participants report increases in satisfaction across the board: an average of 20% in their work lives, 28% in their home lives, 31% in their community lives, and 39% with their physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual well-being. Similarly, participants report that their performance at work, at home, in their communities, and within themselves has improved by 9, 15, 12, and 25 percent, respectively.

These powerful results occur even as they spend less time on work and more on the other parts of life—they’re working smarter and enjoying the benefits of more intelligent choices for bringing the different elements into a coherent whole, creating mutual value among them. Total Leadership is not [about] an abstract theory--practicing this method results in demonstrable improvements in performance and satisfaction.

Review, from the Graziadio Business Review

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Total Leadership is adapted from Stewart D. Friedman’s popular class at the Wharton School of Business [at the University of Pennsylvania] on building leadership skills in order to integrate work with the rest of life. Following a short, predictable exercise in identifying your core values, the book offers a framework for developing a plan to improve your life across four areas: work, home, community, and self.

Friedman’s method involves evaluating how you spend your time in each of the four areas, comparing that to your core values, and developing exercises that he calls “experiments” to create “four-way wins.” Four-way wins, as the name implies, are those activities or behaviors that result in improvements in all areas of your life simultaneously, as opposed to activities that improve one area at the expense of another. The main theme of the book is that balance is best achieved through integration rather than compartmentalization of work, home, community, and self.

Total Leadership is not meant to be read in one sitting; it is a workbook, of sorts, meant to be used methodically from start to finish over several months. The assessments and exercises are designed to provide the foundation for making meaningful change through the nine types of experiments described in the book. The author asserts that followers of his methods report an improvement in both satisfaction and performance in all areas and offers numerous examples of individuals who applied these techniques and are reaping the benefits of their work.

Total Leadership advises that each person should:

Be real: Act with authenticity to clarify what’s important; Be whole: Act with integrity by respecting the whole person); and Be innovative: Act with creativity to find new solutions.

For those who take the time to complete each step, Friedman promises greater clarity of purpose, more accomplishment at work, and more connectedness to people and causes that most matter.

Biography, from TotalLeadership.com

Stew Friedman is the founder and CEO of Total Leadership [Inc.]. He is an innovator in both the leadership development and work/life fields. A faculty member at the Wharton School [at the University of Pennsylvania] since 1984, in 1991 he founded both the Wharton Leadership Programs and the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project. He created the Total Leadership program in the late ’90s while he was a senior executive at Ford Motors, where he was responsible for leadership development worldwide.

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Focus: The Hidden Driver of ExcellenceBy Daniel Goleman

Summary, from the publisher’s site, HarperCollins.com

In Focus, Psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, author of the #1 international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, offers a groundbreaking look at today’s scarcest resource and the secret to high performance and fulfillment: attention.

Combining cutting-edge research with practical findings, Focus delves into the science of attention in all its varieties, presenting a long overdue discussion of this little-noticed and under-rated mental asset. In an era of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to survive in a complex world.

Goleman boils down attention research into a threesome: inner, other, and outer focus. Drawing on rich case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and business, he shows why high-achievers need all three kinds of focus, and explains how those who rely on Smart Practices—mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and recovery, positive emotions and connections, and mental “prosthetics” that help them improve habits, add new skills, and sustain greatness—excel while others do not.

Review, from the Financial Times

Please concentrate. Your ability to focus productively is being undermined by the daily bombardment of emails, text messages and audio-visual stimulation. This threat demands our attention, Daniel Goleman writes, because focus is the secret of success.A psychologist, former science journalist at The New York Times and author of bestselling book Emotional Intelligence, Goleman appears to have the measure of his readers. In Focus, he cleverly employs short chapters littered with case studies to engage professionals swimming against a tide of electronic correspondence.

Goleman’s premise is that our ability to block out the mass of digital distractions is diminished by the “cognitive exhaustion” they cause. Without finding ways to be focused, we cannot help but be distracted.

Mindlessness – when your thoughts are always wandering – is potentially “the single biggest waster of attention in the workplace”, he says. Developing its opposite – the increasingly popular trait of mindfulness – by training the brain to pay

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complete attention to the current moment is crucial. Mindfulness allows us to concentrate on what is important, and not be distracted by the noise around us.Involuntary – or “bottom-up” – neural processes cause the mind to drift and, in particular, to be distracted by visual stimuli. To counter this habit, we need to apply intentional “top-down” focus, which “offers the mind a lever to manage our brain”.

This battle between top and bottom processes matters because our capacity to apply full attention – “neural lock-in” – is a great mental asset.

High achievers, Goleman writes, master three types of focus: inner, other and outer, which he calls “triple-focus”. “Inner” focus describes self-awareness; “other” relates to empathy; and “outer” focus refers to awareness of our environment.But do not despair if you cannot imagine how to break your compulsion to check emails every few minutes.

Focus, Goleman writes, can be developed: “Think of attention as a mental muscle that we can strengthen by a workout.”

To develop greater cognitive control, we can exercise our minds through methods such as “single- pointed concentration”, including meditation.“Smart practice”, as Goleman calls it, must also include rest and positivity. Thinking positively stimulates openness to new ideas and objectives.

For business leaders, the need for mindfulness is particularly acute, the writer says: “Leadership itself hinges on effectively capturing and directing the collective attention.” This involves focusing on developments outside the organization, as well as attracting and directing the attention of people inside and outside the organization.

In illustration, Goleman contrasts the success of Apple’s late chief executive Steve Jobs with the leadership of BlackBerry, its struggling rival. Upon his return to Apple in 1997, Jobs streamlined its strategy to focus on just four products, each designed for specific markets. This, Goleman writes, depended on a vigilant attention to what consumers were looking for to chart Apple’s course. By contrast, BlackBerry failed to respond early enough to the iPhone era and its domination of the corporate phone market crumbled.

Goleman, however, questions the purpose of achieving true focus without worthy objectives that extend beyond our own personal ends.He concludes by considering how our cognitive bias towards present concerns means we “lack the sufficient bandwidth” to recognize existential threats – specifically the one posed by climate change. After all, in 2009 he followed up Emotional Intelligence with Ecological Intelligence.

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This lofty epilogue partly betrays the book’s own focus. Nevertheless, Goleman has provided a highly readable manifesto for turning our smartphones off once in a while.

Biography, from danielgoleman.info

Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. As a science journalist Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half, with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 40 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Apart from his books on emotional intelligence, Goleman has written books on topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency, meditation, social and emotional learning, ecoliteracy and the ecological crisis.

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and WorkBy Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Summary, from HeathBrothers.com

Research in psychology has revealed that our decisions are disrupted by an array of biases and irrationalities: We’re overconfident. We seek out information that supports us and downplay information that doesn’t. We get distracted by short-term emotions. When it comes to making choices, it seems, our brains are flawed instruments. Unfortunately, merely being aware of these shortcomings doesn’t fix the problem, any more than knowing that we are nearsighted helps us to see. The real question is: How can we do better?

In Decisive, the Heaths, based on an exhaustive study of the decision-making literature, introduce a four-step process designed to counteract these biases. Decisive takes readers on an unforgettable journey, from a rock star’s ingenious decision-making trick to a CEO’s disastrous acquisition, to a single question that can often resolve thorny personal decisions.

Along the way, we learn the answers to critical questions like these: How can we stop the cycle of agonizing over our decisions? How can we make group decisions without destructive politics? And how can we ensure that we don’t overlook precious opportunities to change our course?

Decisive offers fresh strategies and practical tools enabling us to make better choices. Because the right decision, at the right moment, can make all the difference.

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Review, appearing in the March 26th, 2013 edition of the Globe and Mail

You may have heard about the increasing number of organizations experimenting with doing a “premortem” – imagining that the decision the managers are about to take will turn into a fiasco and that, later, they will have to dissect the reasons for the dismal outcome.

Such an exercise illuminates issues you might be ignoring or missing in your excitement with the prospective course of action. But a premortem is basically a negative outlook, only part of the picture.

So in their new book, Decisive, Chip Heath and Dan Heath ask you to imagine instead a “preparade” – a celebration of the fabulous success arising from your decision.One challenge of preparing for success is ensuring you don’t face disastrous complications when you try to keep pace with your success. Minnetonka Corp., the maker of Softsoap, for example, was well-prepared for the blockbuster success of that product because the company had assured plentiful access to supplies of dispensers for the liquid soap.

Chip Heath is a professor of business at Stanford University and his brother, Dan, is a senior fellow at Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship. The two collaborated previously on two excellent books, Made to Stick, and Switch. They have an ability to take the latest research, weave it together with entrancing stories, and present a simple framework to help you in your work.They manage that again here, with some excellent tips for improving your decisions, and a neat four-stage conceptual formula:

1. Widen your options

A big problem in making decisions is “narrow framing,” leaping on the first decent idea that surfaces or viewing a problem in simple binary terms – yes or no. The authors point to a study by business professor Paul Nutt who, after analyzing 168 corporate decisions, found that in only 29 per cent of the cases was more than one option considered.

That tracked closely with a study by Carnegie Mellon professor Baruch Fischhoff, who found that, among teenagers, 30 per cent of the time the decision made (to go to a party, to break up with a boyfriend) was a simple yes-or-no, rather than considering other options. “Most organizations seem to be using the same decision process as hormone-crazed teenager,” the brothers say.

One antidote is to assume that none of your options would work and then, when those vanish, see what you can come up with. Also, set up several teams to consider several options at once.

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2. Realitytest your options

A second villain of decision-making is the tendency to simply confirm your biases with your analysis, using self-serving information. To combat this, you must get outside your head and collect information you can trust. Here the brothers share a technique favored by Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management: For each option, consider what would have to be true for it to be the right choice. This clarifies thinking, and separates people from their biases as they analyze factors more carefully.

3. Get some distance before you decide

A third factor in bad decision-making is when emotions lead us astray. The solution is to try to distance yourself from the decision. For example, the authors suggest that when you’re struggling with several appealing options, ask yourself what you would tell your best friend to do in the situation. The options will be the same, but your perspective may change dramatically.

The authors also share a technique from business writer Suzy Welch, dubbed 10/10/10: Consider how you might feel about the decision you are intending to take 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now, and 10 years from now.

4. Prepare to be wrong

Often we’re overconfident about how things will unfold, so we need to stretch our sense of what the future might bring. One recommendation is to “bookmark the future,” as an investment analyst does by imagining the best and worst possible outcomes from a monetary choice. The premortem and preparade are also useful strategies to prepare for an uncertain future.

Books about decision-making are common these days. But the Heath brothers have a winner with their outline of the four villains of decision-making and their many practical solutions, informed not only by behavioral economics studies but also examples of successful and unsuccessful decision makers.

Biography, from the jacket

Chip Heath is a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Dan Heath is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs. At CASE, he founded the Change Academy, a program designed to boost the impact of social sector leaders. The Heath brothers are the authors of the bestsellers Switch and Made to Stick.

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Primal LeadershipBy Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee

Summary, from the cover

This is the book that established “emotional intelligence” in the business lexicon—and made it a necessary skill for leaders.

Managers and professionals across the globe have embraced Primal Leadership, affirming the importance of emotionally intelligent leadership. Its influence has also reached well beyond the business world: the book and its ideas are now used routinely in universities, business and medical schools, and professional training programs, and by a growing legion of professional coaches.

This refreshed edition, with a new preface by the authors, vividly illustrates the power—and the necessity—of leadership that is self-aware, empathic, motivating, and collaborative in a world that is ever more economically volatile and technologically complex. It is even timelier now than when it was originally published.

From bestselling authors Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, this groundbreaking book remains a must-read for anyone who leads or aspires to lead.

[This summary refers to the 10th anniversary edition, published 2013]

Review, from the Summer 2008 issue of the Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

Daniel Goleman’s 1995 best-seller, Emotional Intelligence (2006), gave life to a conversation that challenges the long-held idea that emotions are best kept out of the workplace. Intelligence (IQ) that supports attitudes of cold analysis and production above people’s feelings has long held sway in the modern leadership environment. His work challenges the primacy of IQ by raising aware- ness of the value of emotional intelligence as an essential ingredient in effective leadership and in the success of our organizations. Managing relationships, therefore, plays a vital role in sustaining the human platform that supports productivity and profit. “When people feel good, they work at their best” (Goleman et al., 2002, p. 14).

Goleman partners with Richard Boyatzis (Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western University) and Annie McKee (University of Pennsylvania) to address the application of emotional intelligence principles to the behavior of leaders in our institutions and organizations. They coin the phrase “primal leadership” to identify

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the foundational principle of this application—”that the fundamental task of leaders . . . is to prime good feelings in those they lead. . . .At its root, then, the primal job of leadership is emotional” (p. ix). Passion and enthusiasm, long held to be essential elements in the leadership process, are products of attuned emotions emanating from people at every level of the organization (p. xiii) and not just a necessary element for those at the top levels of an organization. Primal leadership applies holistically to the organization as a body and reflects the emotional maturity and balance of the organization as a whole rather than that of the individual in isolation from the community.

The authors’ intentional use of “attunement” as opposed to the more traditional organizational concept of alignment emphasizes the non-linear nature of applied emotional intelligence. Whereas alignment seeks clarity of common purpose, goals, and objectives as a means of keeping a team or organization focused, attunement aims at maintaining the quality of relational health among those who comprise the team or group.

Goleman et al. treat leadership as a function of the group as opposed to that of the individual. The skills of the individual leader contribute to the process of leadership, which is done primarily via the emotions (p. 3). The “emotional task of the leader is primal” (p. 5) and positions the leader as the emotional guide for the group and establishes the emotional climate of the group. The group “spirit” is thus led to a state of resonance that brings out the very best of each member of the group. In this state of resonance the leadership contribution of each member becomes a force in the over- all effectiveness of the organization. The authors assert that a state of dissonance (pp. 6, 19) results when people are driven by negative emotions emanating from command and control behaviors that leverage fear, embarrassment, or other coercive measures as a means of motivating people.

Emotional intelligence is presented as a dynamic condition in a leader or organization and may be learned by addressing associated emotional competencies. These competencies are listed under four categories associated with two general domains (p. 39):

1. Personal Competence

a. Self-awareness is supported by the ability to read one’s emotions and recognize their impact. It involves accurate self-assessment that allows cognizance of one’s strengths and limits, as well as self-confidence.

b. Self-management draws from competencies of emotional self-control, transparency, adapt ability, achievement, initiative, and optimism.

2. Social Competence

a. Social awareness is supported by empathy, organizational awareness that enables

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the leader to discern the relationships and politics of the organization, and service that meets the needs of those connected to the organization.

b. Relationship management requires developed skills in inspirational leadership to motivate, influence that allows for persuasion, developing others through feedback and guidance, change catalyst, conflict management, building bonds that cultivate and maintain relation- ships, and teamwork and collaboration that support cooperation and team building.

It is suggested that effective leaders will possess at least one competence from each of the four fundamental areas of emotional intelligence.

Primal Leadership consistently explains the behavior that supports emotional intelligence inthe context of our neuroanatomy. “Gifted leadership occurs where heart and head—feeling and thought—meet. These are the two wings that allow a leader to soar” (p. 26). Goleman et al. explore the interconnections between the parts of the brain that control thought and those that manage emotion or feelings. They challenge the traditional attitude of our business culture that gives preference to intellect over emotion on the basis that our emotions are more powerful than our intellect. Valued business attitudes such as enthusiasm, commitment, and independent initiative arise from the deep learning managed by the emotional center of the brain. Though techniques associated with these qualities can be intentionally applied, deep learning does not reach that level with- out addressing the emotions and can make the difference between a worker who compliantly goes through the motions or passionately commits to the common purpose of the organization.

Emotional intelligence is presented as being demonstrated through six styles of leadership— visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding. The last two, the authors say, “although useful in some very specific situations, should be applied with caution” (p. 53). These are presented not as static styles practiced as a hallmark of the individual leader but rather as a repertoire of choices that the emotionally intelligent leader may draw on as the leadership context requires. The unique elements and relevant contextual applications of each of these particular styles are well defined for the reader seeking a better understanding of versatility in leadership. This may prove especially helpful for the developing leader who practices the pacesetter or command styles, those that conform to the linear models that deny the value of emotion having a rightful place in the context of organizational leadership.

“Old leaders can learn new tricks” (p. 96). This reveals the authors’ underlying assertion that leadership skills can be learned. It challenges the notion that “leaders are born” (nature) and posits that leaders can be made through intentional learning (nurture). Old behaviors can be changed and emotional intelligence can be acquired. Self-awareness is a critical component of this change process, as is candid assessment by others around a leader. Research referenced reveals that most

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leaders overestimate the effectiveness of their leadership; as a rule subordinates rate leaders’ skills and behaviors below what the leader perceives of self. Awareness of this tendency is a necessary enabling of the process of learning and change that leads to more effective leadership contribution.

The learning necessary to effect change in old leadership behaviors is referred to as “limbic learning” (p. 102), in contrast to learning centered in the neocortex, which processes and stores information. Limbic learning connects with the emotions and needs a context of practice and repetition. Building emotional intelligence requires an underlying motivation born of sincere desire; concerted effort must occur in an environment where practice of the skills takes precedence over cognitive learning of information. This approach produces sustained learning that is less likely to be forgotten than training that takes place at a traditional workshop or seminar. It is primarily self- directed and happens in the non-linear context of the tumult and possibilities of our relationships.

The journey to developing leadership competency in the arena of emotional intelligence requires the forming of a vision of self that is consistent with principles that support the model. Goleman et al. refer to the creation of a mental model of an ideal self (p. 118) that is congruent with one’s values and dreams. The ideal self is contrasted with the ought self that reflects what others feel or think one should be. Coming to grips with the ideal self is the foundation of the personal visioning process necessary for the deep change required for the development of emotional intelligence. Without it the passion to lead toward a common goal will be lacking. This ideal self is ever-changing due to the dynamic nature of learning development in relationship with others, and as such becomes a lifelong journey. It is the ever-unfolding terminals—where one is as a leader and where one wishes to be. The gap in between provides the setting for learning and growth.

It is common for organizations to focus primarily on the issues and processes within thegap of what a worker is and what one might become. Performance reviews and evaluations can ignore what a person might become by concentrating on what the present seems to indicate that person to be. The gap should not be the primary focus, since it over-emphasizes the competency areas that need work rather than emphasizing people’s abilities. “But that means the capabilities that people value, enjoy, and are most proud of get lost in the process” (p. 137). The time element involved in limbic learning begs us to look differently at assessment and evaluation of those we lead. When applied to leadership, the elements of emotional intelligence employ an expansive transformational view of the members who support the mission of the organization or community.

The book orders steps to learning in Five Discoveries as follows:

1. The ideal self—where change begins. This step asserts that “connecting with one’s dreams releases one’s passion, energy, and excitement about life” (p. 115).

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2. The real self, or are you a boiling frog? This step reveals the need to remain steadfastly aware of one’s vision and the real self to avoid the imperceptible slide into acceptance andapathy regarding practices and policies of organizations.

3. A learning agenda. This step emphasizes the need to build improvement plans around the vision of the real self rather than the ought self or those ideals established by another person. Goals must be owned by the person setting them if they are to be congruent with thereal self.

4. Reconfiguring the brain. This step requires dependence upon implicit learning that takes place tacitly in the course of life and relationships. This sort of learning must be predicated by “three things: Bring bad habits into awareness, consciously practice a better way, and rehearse that new behavior at every opportunity until it becomes automatic” (p. 156).

5. The power of relationships. This step stresses the importance of the people who help one in the journey through the gap that leads to the envisioned ideal self. This discovery recognizes that established relationships will often resist the change necessary for oneto reach the ideal self goal. Positive groups and encouraging individuals who relate with candor and trust provide necessary help in the process of positive change.

The learning process necessarily begins with change in the individual, but Goleman et al. insist that concentrating on individual change is inadequate to accomplish change toward creating emotionally intelligent organizations. In order to bring about such change in an organization or team, it is necessary to focus on the norms and culture reflected in these groups. This begins with “an understanding of the emotional reality and norms of the team and the culture of the organization” (p. 173), and leads to an ideal vision of the group or organization. It also assumes that the individuals within the group will share a common vision with that of the hopeful organization. The book cites the work of James Surowiecki (2005), relating to the intelligence of crowds being greater than that of individuals. Goleman et al. insist that this is true only when the group exhibits emotional intelligence. Group emotional intelligence occurs when resonance marks the state of the group. Unwise use of command or pacesetting leadership styles by the group leader can neutralize the emotional intelligence of the group or even on a greater scale, that of a large organization.

Collective emotional intelligence is what sets top-performing teams and organizations apart from average. Such organizations demonstrate “the same capabilities as emotionally intelligent individuals: self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management” (p. 177).

In order to reach such a positive state, leaders must be willing to actively question the emotional reality and the cultural norms that underlie the behavior of the

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organizations they serve. Primal Leadership presents the paradox of changing organizations from the bottom up by insisting that the principles of the model must first be embraced at the top level of the organization (p. 219). This requires leaders to “focus on people” (p. 221) and the foundational bonds that support a healthy working relationship in good times and bad. Top leaders must demonstrate what the ideal vision looks like as well as ensuring that organizational structures, job design, relationship norms, and systems and performance expectations are consistent with the vision. “Creating organizations that are emotionally intelligent is ultimately the leader’s responsibility” (p. 222).

Primal Leadership recognizes the established maxim that by nature organizations resist change. Routine and status quo provide a context wherein people carry out their professional jobs in established systems that produce minimal resistance and stress. The development of a new leadership style challenges this comfortable context and requires learning that leads to fundamental change. Goleman et al. project the necessity of making leadership development a strategic priority that emanates from the core of the enterprise. The culture of the organization must be changed. “You can’t ignore culture, and you can’t hope to change it one leader at a time” (p. 232).

Change must be part of a process as opposed to being the goal of a program. A process addresses change and attunement perpetually. There is no terminal point when the process is complete. It addresses the organization holistically by attending to change at three primary levels with a multifaceted process: “the individuals in the organization, the teams in which they work, and the organization’s culture” (p. 234). This approach applies an intellectual understanding of emotional intelligence to organizations by implementing an action-based strategy that leverages the passion and dreams of its members, thus creating sustainable change.

Social, political, economic, and technological changes in our society require a renewed emphasis on the application of emotional intelligence in organizations. People can no longer be viewed as interchangeable parts within our organizations. The functional focus of leadership that marked the industrial period must give way to a focus that attends to the emotional and personal dimensions of our work communities. “Leadership excellence is being redefined in interpersonal terms” (p. 248).

This book should be read by those desiring a deeper understanding of the application of emotional intelligence concepts to life and leadership. The principles set forth within its pages forceful- ly challenge long-held beliefs about management and leadership as a process that has been driven primarily by analysis and control leading to efficiency. We are compelled to consider the human qualities that influence the effectiveness of our work communities and organizations that enrich society. The passion and enthusiasm that moves people forward in organizations is tied to the human spirit that cannot be managed or controlled without suffering loss to both. Primal Leadership begins to fill in the blanks in our understanding of what it

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takes to optimize the emotional and relational forces that drive commitment beyond the possibilities of managed compliance.

The emergence of authentic relationships and community as a primary driving force in the post-modern world makes it necessary for all who would lead intelligently and effectively in the present context to understand this important dynamic. Goleman et al (2002) help us to under- stand why emotional and relational resonance matters—the workforce necessary to a society built around technology no longer responds to the command and control methods of the industrial era. Beyond this pragmatic reason we rediscover the dignity of the basic building block of our organizations—the human person. Emotional intelligence applied is the practice of recognizing the need of each to be treated as valuable and deserving of dignity.

After having read multiple scores of books on leadership and management, I would recommend Primal Leadership as a must read.

Biography, from the cover

Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist and Co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University.

Richard Boyatzis is Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and an expert in the field of emotional intelligence.

Annie McKee serves on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and consults to business and organization leaders worldwide, and an advisor to leaders around the globe.

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Who Will Cry When You Die? Life Lessons from the Monk Who Sold His FerrariBy Robin Sharma

Summary, from Amazon.com

Would you like to replace that empty feeling inside you with a deep sense of peace, passion, and purpose? Are you hoping that your life will not only be successful but significant? Are you ready to have the very best within you shine through and create a rich legacy in the process? If so, this potent little book, with its powerful life lessons and its gentle but profound wisdom, is exactly what you need to rise to your next level of living.

Offering 101 simple solutions to life's most frustrating challenges, author and life leadership guru Robin Sharma will show you exactly how to recreate your life so that you feel strikingly happy, beautifully fulfilled, and deeply peaceful. A truly remarkable book that readers will treasure for a lifetime.

Review, from ActionableBooks.com

Who Will Cry When You Die looks at life from a unique perspective. So many of us get caught up in what’s happened, what’s happening, or what might happen in the immediate future. Who Will Cry is a gentle reminder to look forward, to the end of your life, and imagine what you will want the “whole package” of your life to look like. It encourages us to ask not only “What did I accomplish?” but also “What impact did I make?”, and “What am I leaving behind?”

Biography, from RobinSharma.com

Robin Sharma is one of the world’s premier thinkers on leadership, personal growth and life management. The author of the national bestseller The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari sold 40,000 copies in US. Robin Sharma is in constant demand internationally as a keynote speaker by organizations seeking to develop the highest potential of their people for extraordinary results. Clients include Microsoft, FedEx, NASA, General Motors and IBM, and BP.

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