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AnthonyJudge_img1.gif Anthony Judge
Creating a context
Group Potential
5 Laws of Human Stupidity
Laetus in praesens.
Joyfully in the Present
Participant role Reminders

1. We are less rewarded for our involvement in a meeting when we assume that our role has been more central to its processes than when we are able to question its value to other participants.

2. We degrade and pollute the meeting environment more when we assume that any negative impacts of our initiatives on other participants are of little consequence than when we have doubts concerning the ability of the meeting to deal with them.
3. We exhibit a greater degree of ignorance in a meeting when we assume the adequacy of the knowledge we demonstrate than when we question its validity from the perspectives of other participants.
4. Our contributions are less nourishing and enlivening to other participants when we assume that they are naturally fruitful than when we question their fruitfulness to others.
5. We contribute more to the mismanagement of a meeting when we assume that our favoured procedures are the most useful to other participants than when we have doubts concerning their efficacy for others.
6. We are less productive in a meeting when we assume we are responding productively to other contributions than when we have doubts concerning the contribution of our efforts to the productivity of other initiatives.
7. We are more threatening to other participants when we assume that our role is not experienced as intimidating and discriminating by some than when we question how others may be threatened by our actions in the meeting.
8. We bring more malaise to a meeting when we assume that we are paragons of well-being than when we have doubts concerning our degree of health in the eyes of others.
9. We are more exploitative in a meeting when we assume that our initiatives do not impoverish the experience of other participants than when we question this possibility.
10. We make more inappropriate contributions to a meeting when we assume that they are naturally appropriate than when we have doubts concerning their degree of appropriateness to other participants.
11. The representation of reality that we endeavour to communicate to other participants is experienced as more incoherent when we assume that it offers unique integrative advantages than when we question whether this may be the case for others.
12. We are more effective in turning cultural and religious celebrations into meaningless rituals when we assume that they are not experienced as such by some than when we question why this may indeed be the case.
Creating a context
Much dialogue consists of presentations of competing perspectives which are in effect complementary and need to be understood together in a broader and more subtle framework that they together sustain. But when the focus is on any one such perspective, the existence and nature of that broader framework can only be brought into the dialogue by opposing some other perspective. Other than for the discussion of particulars which invite ready consensus, this does not make for an especially satisfactory dialogue process.

The following guidelines endeavour to clarify a pattern of constraints through which more meaningful and fruitful dialogue may prove possible.
Beyond unimaginative tinkering, paradigm hops and risk aversion
Unless the imagination is stretched, it is questionable whether the matter is worth consideration at this time.
Beyond single-factor dependency

It is less than helpful to reduce complex challenges and opportunities to a single problem requiring a single solution following from a single theory based on a single set of values to be acted upon by a single set of organizations -- possibly orchestrated by a single leader claiming special insight.
Beyond the one-plan strategy
Beyond ?if only they would...?
Beyond follow-me leadership
Beyond personality cults and star performances
Beyond awaiting the Messiah, Armageddon or extraterrestrials
Beyond dogma and proselytism
Whilst there is a place for articulation of patterns of truth, their coherence should not be used to disguise the existence of alternative patterns deriving from other perspectives or cultures. Efforts to disseminate any one pattern should take account of the learnings from earlier initiatives and their reception. Without doubt concerning the limitations of any position or initiative, there is no opening for dialogue and learning.
Beyond promulgation of sets of principles and values for universal acceptance
Beyond wisdom keeping and wisdom pandering
Beyond self-righteousness and competition for the moral high ground
Beyond definitional game-playing
Misinformation and disinformation are increasingly used to disguise the degree of inaction or the inappropriateness of any action. There is a tendency to legitimate this by token consultation or spurious research, as well as to block criticism by various forms of denial.
Beyond tokenism
Beyond hypocrisy
Beyond denial
Beyond representation of the unconsulted
Beyond spurious monitoring and explanation
Beyond creative non-decision-making in crisis situations
Beyond duality and polarity
Extreme arguments are advanced to counterbalance other extreme positions when the way forward is likely to be associated with some pattern of relationship between both -- whose comprehension is hindered by the dynamics of polarized dialogue
Beyond individual vs. collective development
Beyond technology vs. culture
Beyond headless hearts vs. heartless heads
Beyond gender politics
Beyond positivism vs. negativism
There is a case for and against optimistic enthusiasm, just as there is a case for and against concern for constraints and obstacles; both have their place and both need to be challenged in any given context. The appreciation of ?what is? needs to be contrasted with an appreciation of ?what is not?. There is a place for the via negativa as much as for the via positiva.
Beyond hope-mongering vs. doom-mongering
Beyond havingness vs. neediness
Beyond global vs. local
Whilst universals can be usefully striven for, local perspectives should not be demeaned through that process. But equally the local needs to relate to a global framework of appropriate richness. How both are to be reconciled structurally and operationally is a challenge of a higher order which naive approaches to ?unity in diversity? cannot effectively encompass through expressions like ?holism?.
Beyond global articulation vs local concreteness
Beyond universalism vs. heterogeneity
Beyond global ethics vs. situational ethics
Beyond agreement vs. disagreement
Agreement should not be sought at any price. Nor should the possibility of working with the structural features of disagreement be delayed by naive anticipation of consensus -- especially when lives are at stake.
Beyond consensus vs. difference
Beyond tolerance vs. discrimination
Beyond conflict vs. peace, reconciliation and appeasement
Beyond present vs. future
Commitments to future action should not be used as a means of avoiding immediate action; but equally action in the present should be undertaken in response to a richer future pattern. Underlying the increasing gap between the ?haves? and the ?have nots? lies a more fundamental gap. Of a more insidious nature, it is that between the ease of making commitments (personal security, food, health, etc) and the challenges to their fulfilment -- before it is too late for the person or group to whom the promise was made.
Beyond time games
Beyond short-termism vs. long-termism
Beyond promises and pledges
Beyond declarations, manifestos and resolutions
But beyond the above constraints, taken separately or together, lies one which is even more fundamental. Each of the constraints can be usefully seen like keys on a musical instrument -- suggesting that each could be used separately or together. It is how they are taken into account (through acceptance or in the breach) that is of greatest importance. It is how they are played off against each other in some dialogic melody that provides the carrier for subtler meaning. Beyond seriousness vs humour, there is a playful sense in which none of them should be taken "seriously" -- as "rules" they are there to be broken, but doing so should be fun. It is only through the most partial polarized positions that the music can be made. But the music of dialogue only flows if this is done with a light and fleeting touch. Persistent use of any single polar position is essentially monotonous.
Group Potential
...and dysfunction

Qualities: Each person is much appreciated by the others for their personal qualities and skills --  although each has very strong reservations about the limitations and blindspots associated with these skills Interpersonal skills: Each person favours, and uses very skilfully, a different interpersonal style -- which others appreciate in many situations but find totally inappropriate in others

Conflict avoidance: Each person has particular skills for avoiding overt conflict or engaging in ways they do not personally favour -- effectively undermining consensus on collective action or discussion of these issues

Vision: Each person has particularly valuable insights into the way forward and a vision of a desirable future -- but is effectively blind or indifferent to the insight and vision of others

Articulation: Each person has unusual skills in articulating the way forward and its associated opportunities -- but has limited capacity to appreciate the articulation of others, notably because of failure by their proponents to acknowledge the limitations of such alternative articulations

Management challenge: Each person has valuable insight into the opportunities and constraints of the collective working environment -- but assumes this is sufficiently comprehensive to ensure the sustainability of that environment, effectively denying the relevance of other insights

Working style: Each person has a significantly different understanding and preference for working style -- and is either insensitive to, or suspicious of, the style favoured by others

Use of others: Each person has an idea of how the skills of the others should be most effectively used -- and creates resistance and resentment when endeavouring to manoeuvre them into a mode they find inappropriate

Acknowledgement: Each person acknowledges some qualities and contributions of others to them and to third parties -- but fails to recognize the contributions for which the others would value being acknowledged

Learning: Each person perceives themselves to be willing to learn from the collective working challenge and from the group situation -- but fails to recognize what others would value that they learn to ensure the sustainability of the collective intiative

Attentiveness: Each person perceives themselves as very attentive to the views of others, which they assume that they have adequately understood -- except that on vital matters such understanding is perceived by the other as an irritatingly incomplete caricature of that for which they stand

Enthusiasms: Each person is nourished and motivated by particular and somewhat unconventional enthusiasms -- which the behaviour of others tends to erode and undermine

Difficult decisions: Each person is reasonably courageous, if not skilled, in taking difficult decisions -- but each also has well used skills for channelling conflicting perspectives and demands for uncomfortable behaviours into unconscious mechanisms which undermine their efforts to achieve their own goals.

Consistent with the above pattern, a statement such as this is both part of the solution
-- as well as exacerbating part of the problem
5 Laws of Human Stupidity
"How can I change the world?"
"Reform yourself, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in it."
-Thomas Carlyle
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
"Human affairs are admittedly in a deplorable state. This, however, is no novelty. As far back as we can see, human affairs have always been in a deplorable state... After Darwin we know that we share our origin with the lower members of the animal kingdom, and worms as well as elephants have to bear their daily share of trials, predicaments, and ordeals. Human beings, however, are privileged in so far as they have to bear an extra load - an extra dose of tribulations originated daily by a group of people within the human race itself. This... is an unorganised unchartered group which has no chief, no president, no bylaws and yet manages to operate in perfect unison, as if guided by an invisible hand, in such a way that the activity of each member powerfully contributes to strenghten and amplify the effectiveness of the activity of all other members. The nature, character and behaviour of the members of this group are the subject of the following pages" (page 5)

Cipolla's Five Basic Laws are:
1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people infallibly turns out to be a costly mistake.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

The author demonstrates that stupidity is an indiscriminate privilege of all human groups, irrespective of race, class, creed or level of education (including Nobel laureates). It is uniformly distributed according to a constant proportion. He notes: .. The underdeveloped of the Third World will probably take solace at the Second Basic Law as they can find in it the proof that after all the developed are not so developed".
Unfortunately, Cipolla fails to consider how the world would function without "stupid people". For without the problems they create, there would be nothing for the "non-stupid" people to do. Every action requires an equal and opposite reaction!
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