In this episode, we explore the one core cause behind so many problems in this world of ours… Autocracy. Oligarchy. Kleptocracy. Kakistocracy. Dictatorship, too. The list goes on and on - way too many of these societal-disasters, in way too many forms…
Great article. I love the simplicity and essential truth of this. I am struggling to resist pitching in with the 'answer'.
I will (ok I've failed) say a couple of things. I believe that to avoid hypocrisy we need to start with ourselves. I have been drawn for some time to to the idea of 'being responsible' for ourselves. What does this mean in practice? Probably not blaming others, systemic xyz, history, skin colour, gender for your woes. This is not to say that people are not traumatised on a daily basis because of who they are, where they come from, their job etc.
But we can only change when we take responsibility for how we react. And recognising that we are triggered.
And the second part of this is doing our own work to grow or evolve so that we are constantly becoming more responsible in this sense. My aim is evolving towards personal responsibility and not blaming. I don't think it is helpful to expect we can become fully responsible.
The ultimate responsibility is understanding your nature and striving to reach your potential.
Massive teacherly tone here instead of gentle curiosity. I hope you will forgive me. I am at least aware of it. I'm not sure that is what you would call taking responsibility!
These are great comments, Alex - many thanks for this!
On hypocrisy and looking first at ourselves, you'll note that that's explicitly stated near the end of the article. It's listed as the _second_ of the tasks rather than the first, because before we can challenge ourselves, we first need to learn how to recognise what we need to challenge ourselves _about_. (Otherwise we'll just be beating ourselves for no understood reason, which _really_ doesn't help: there's too much of that already...)
On responsibility, I often reframe it as 'response-ability' - the ability to choose appropriate responses. One of the more obvious characteristics of a two-year-old is that they have very limited 'response-ability' by comparison with a fully-functional adult - and that's exactly what we would/should expect, for an actual two-year-old. One of the more serious dangers for a paediarchy is that response-ability first becomes depleted (people copying the paediarch's behaviour), and then often actively suppressed (because actual competence might make the the paediarch look bad by comparison), causing a spiralling depletion of competence and response-ability - a 'dumbing-down' - across the entire cultural context.
"I don't think it is helpful to expect we can become fully responsible" - strong agree on this. Again, this is why I prefer that reframing as 'response-ability' - it's not about some spurious and often blame-ridden demand for 'perfection', but about our _ability_ to respond to a context, and how we can improve it. That's how all competence-development works, after all. (Oh, yes, and the demand that _others_ must always be perfect, so that _we_ don't have to be perfect, and that we can also blame them when they're not, is merely yet another example of paediarchy...)
"The ultimate responsibility is understanding your nature and striving to reach your potential" - again, very strong agree on this. And, again, note how the reframing as 'response-ability' helps in this: it reframes this as _literally_ about enhancing and improving our 'ability to respond', both in ourselves, and with others too. Themes such as (self)-observation, sensemaking, (self)-critical-thinking and so on are also going to be essential in this, of course - kind of like an 'OODA+ethics+AAR' and suchlike, again working both at the level of the individual _and_ the collective. Plus _practical_ applications of all of this, such as in the 'Auftragstaktik / Fingerspitzengefühl' action-learning loop ( http://weblog.tetradian.com/2015/07/30/auftragstaktik-and-fingerspitzengefuhl/ ) and so on. Otherwise known as any decent education - but which is _very_ much 'politically-incorrect' etc in any paediarchy, of course.
My apologies, there's plenty more that I could add, but I've rambled on way too long already! Basic summary would be "yes, agreed on all your points", and "yes, these are some of the ways we can tackle them in real-world practice" - I hope that's a useful start, anyway?
Final thought though, the saying that explains the difference between men and boys - is the price of their toys, could be applicable in this discussion.
Yeah, very good example. (Women's / girls' equivalent, though? - maybe how children and even other adults are treated as dress-up dolls? :also-wry-grin ...)
(Need to remember that much of this will often apply to us too: it's so much of a pandemic that it affects pretty much everyone by now... that's what makes it so hard...)
Great article. I love the simplicity and essential truth of this. I am struggling to resist pitching in with the 'answer'.
I will (ok I've failed) say a couple of things. I believe that to avoid hypocrisy we need to start with ourselves. I have been drawn for some time to to the idea of 'being responsible' for ourselves. What does this mean in practice? Probably not blaming others, systemic xyz, history, skin colour, gender for your woes. This is not to say that people are not traumatised on a daily basis because of who they are, where they come from, their job etc.
But we can only change when we take responsibility for how we react. And recognising that we are triggered.
And the second part of this is doing our own work to grow or evolve so that we are constantly becoming more responsible in this sense. My aim is evolving towards personal responsibility and not blaming. I don't think it is helpful to expect we can become fully responsible.
The ultimate responsibility is understanding your nature and striving to reach your potential.
Massive teacherly tone here instead of gentle curiosity. I hope you will forgive me. I am at least aware of it. I'm not sure that is what you would call taking responsibility!
These are great comments, Alex - many thanks for this!
On hypocrisy and looking first at ourselves, you'll note that that's explicitly stated near the end of the article. It's listed as the _second_ of the tasks rather than the first, because before we can challenge ourselves, we first need to learn how to recognise what we need to challenge ourselves _about_. (Otherwise we'll just be beating ourselves for no understood reason, which _really_ doesn't help: there's too much of that already...)
On responsibility, I often reframe it as 'response-ability' - the ability to choose appropriate responses. One of the more obvious characteristics of a two-year-old is that they have very limited 'response-ability' by comparison with a fully-functional adult - and that's exactly what we would/should expect, for an actual two-year-old. One of the more serious dangers for a paediarchy is that response-ability first becomes depleted (people copying the paediarch's behaviour), and then often actively suppressed (because actual competence might make the the paediarch look bad by comparison), causing a spiralling depletion of competence and response-ability - a 'dumbing-down' - across the entire cultural context.
"I don't think it is helpful to expect we can become fully responsible" - strong agree on this. Again, this is why I prefer that reframing as 'response-ability' - it's not about some spurious and often blame-ridden demand for 'perfection', but about our _ability_ to respond to a context, and how we can improve it. That's how all competence-development works, after all. (Oh, yes, and the demand that _others_ must always be perfect, so that _we_ don't have to be perfect, and that we can also blame them when they're not, is merely yet another example of paediarchy...)
"The ultimate responsibility is understanding your nature and striving to reach your potential" - again, very strong agree on this. And, again, note how the reframing as 'response-ability' helps in this: it reframes this as _literally_ about enhancing and improving our 'ability to respond', both in ourselves, and with others too. Themes such as (self)-observation, sensemaking, (self)-critical-thinking and so on are also going to be essential in this, of course - kind of like an 'OODA+ethics+AAR' and suchlike, again working both at the level of the individual _and_ the collective. Plus _practical_ applications of all of this, such as in the 'Auftragstaktik / Fingerspitzengefühl' action-learning loop ( http://weblog.tetradian.com/2015/07/30/auftragstaktik-and-fingerspitzengefuhl/ ) and so on. Otherwise known as any decent education - but which is _very_ much 'politically-incorrect' etc in any paediarchy, of course.
My apologies, there's plenty more that I could add, but I've rambled on way too long already! Basic summary would be "yes, agreed on all your points", and "yes, these are some of the ways we can tackle them in real-world practice" - I hope that's a useful start, anyway?
Final thought though, the saying that explains the difference between men and boys - is the price of their toys, could be applicable in this discussion.
Yeah, very good example. (Women's / girls' equivalent, though? - maybe how children and even other adults are treated as dress-up dolls? :also-wry-grin ...)
Maybe if we use reverse psychology, and increase paediarchy levels they will all take their toys and all go home. Well we can live in hope anyway.
:wry-grin: indeed... :-)
(Need to remember that much of this will often apply to us too: it's so much of a pandemic that it affects pretty much everyone by now... that's what makes it so hard...)
That is why i am now packing up my toys and heading home.