Positive change for the good

Three times recently colleagues have talked to me about bringing about ‘positive change’. Whilst I know what it is they are talking about, it has also left me perplexed.

One colleague asked me to read something he had written in which he claimed that managers in not-for-profits are likely to bring about better results for their client group because they are motivated by the good. They manage, he said, in the ‘empowerment mode’ by which I think he meant that managers in not-for-profit are motivated to empower others. In another workshop a very senior academic colleague announced that he was not interested in working in ways that had moderate outcomes: the world is in such a state that he was only interested in bringing about large scale positive change. Yet another colleague was trying to focus the people she was working with towards bringing about positive change.

Of course I know what they are talking about: aspirations to improve the human condition are an important motivating factor for people who work in not-for-profits and beyond. If we didn’t think we were doing good, why would we turn up for work in the morning and strive for social change? The trouble is although we have good intentions, this is not the same as achieving good by and with others. Sometimes this idealisation of the good can take on a very metaphysical hue which may catch us up and cover over the effects that our work is having, both positive and negative, for those we work with. How can we possibly know in advance that what we are doing is going to bring about the good?

Take the seductively transcendental overtones of Appreciative Enquiry (AI), which is a method grounded in the belief that to enquire into the good is to achieve the good:

“The metaphysical dimension of appreciative inquiry is important not so much as a way of finding answers but is important insofar as it heightens the living experience of awe and wonder which leads us to the wellspring of new questions–much like a wide-eyed explorer without final destination. …The normative question of what kind of social-organizational order is best, most dignified, and just, will never go away, nor will the pragmatic question of how to move closer to the ideal.” Cooperrider

Cooperrider’s claim that the the quest for a just social order is undending and that finding answers is less important, is interesting given his most recent book: AI - A Positive Revolution in Change which tends towards the suggestion that using AI will bring about a more effective, adaptable and positive organisation. The quest may be unending, but AI does provide answers after all. The theory  is steeped in humanistic psychology and teleology. It dwells in idealism: if we can be good we will bring about good. So we are immediately into metaphysics, the search for wholeness and completeness, if you like, being at one with the Godhead. You can see how appealing this might be to people who are motivated to do good, particularly if they are also religious.

If we are motivated to bring about ‘positive change’ then we may also consider it a duty that we leave ourselves open to the paradoxical possibility that no matter how well intentioned we are our actions may bring about negative outcomes. Inherently action is  neither good nor bad, but contextual and contingent, and also subject to the interweaving actions of other, perhaps well-intentioned actors. How can we predict what this interweaving of intentions might bring about? In the territory of paradox the potentiality for positive and negative, good and bad, arise at the same time. Seriously to work with paradox, then, one would not necessarily start with the good expecting to find the good: one would act with the best intention and still pay close attention to whether things turn out as we would have liked.

And is being good and using techniques which tend to the good the surest way of achieving all of this? When belief threatens to overwhelm awareness I think we have every reason to be very sceptical.

Buyers Remorse

I don’t normally write about American domestic politics, but I wrote this back in January and needed a place to put it.  So, here you go:

We all know the feeling.  Whether it’s a new car, a home, a computer or a TV, you agonize over the decision for weeks, weighing all the relevant factors, balancing the costs and benefits and convincing yourself that only the right one will do and that anything else will be a disaster.  And then, in a moment of steely determination fueled by soaring anticipation, you make your choice and slap down your credit card (or sign your mortgage) and beam proudly like a new parent.

        For a few days, or maybe even a few weeks, the golden relationship with your newest possession goes well.  You marvel at the clarity of the plasma screen, pontificate knowingly about the importance of torque or wax lyrical on the virtues of a proper garden.  For a while, life is beautiful and all is right in the world. 

And then, it happens.  You wake up one morning, beset by the sinking realization that things are not automatically and irrevocably better.  Somehow, the best decision you’ve ever made, the one you strained and sweated over, the one you just knew was going to make a difference, doesn’t seem to have done much of anything at all.  It’s not that you made the wrong decision; it’s simply that it your choice, for all your effort and anticipation, doesn’t seem to matter.  Your job is still a never-ending stream of drudgery, your co-workers banal and annoying.  The weather is still shit, most of the time, which matter less because you don’t magically have any new vacation days with which to enjoy it.  Your spouse is still numbingly shrill or shockingly dull (and truth be told, just a little too fond of dessert).  Your kids, don’t even start thinking about the kids……

Sound familiar?  Of course it does.  We’ve all done it, made one of those important commercial choices which appear to contain within themselves the seeds of happiness, success, contentment, bliss, only to belatedly discover that while, sure, we have a nice, shiny new toy, it’s only the cherry on a dogshit sundae.  Everything we were implicitly hoping would be swept away by that one magical decision, all the other troubles which we determinedly pushed out of the frontal lobe, the better to listen to salesman’s pitch, are still with us, clamoring all the more to be dealt with after their temporary exile.  Welcome to post-election America, 2008.

I should clarify that I am not opposed to an Obama presidency.  I did not vote for John McCain and, although I refuse to countenance much of the rabid criticism of the last eight years, I am also not a fan of much of what George Bush has managed or intended.  What I am opposed to is the atmosphere of ill-considered optimism (dare I say, messianic fervor?) that surrounds his elevation to leader of the free world.  From London to Cape Town, Mumbai to Madrid, the world appears to believe that Obama’s electoral victory somehow fundamentally alters the nature of American, and by extension world, politics.  This, despite however much it might be desired, will not happen.

The Obamamania that has swept the world in the last six months is as much a reaction to disillusionment with the Bush Administration as it is a reflection of Obama’s character or ideals.  This is a natural result of a campaign based upon the vacuous notion of Change.  Everyone, citizens of the U.S. and the world alike, seem willing, even eager, to imbue Obama with their own hopes and desires.  One need only look at the conflicting identities donned interchangeably by the President-elect to see that his path forward will be fraught with difficulty and disappointment.  To white Americans, he is post-racial, a President who can finally lay to rest uncomfortable allegations of racism and discrimination and demonstrate the ideal at the heart of the American reality.  To black Americans, he is also a harbinger of a new era in U.S. politics.  However, he is one who heralds not the end of racial identity in politics, but the long-sought reversal of the traditional racial divisions, providing compensation for decades of underrepresentation and marginalization.  Both groups voted for Obama in large numbers because of the color of his skin, but with differing underlying rationales that are mutually incompatible.

To the traditional Democractic base of blue-collar union workers, Obama speaks stirringly about the need to protect American jobs and reinvigorate American industry, all the while maintaining an implicit social contract with the common worker.  To the white-collar middle-class, he insists upon economic policies which will return them to a post-meltdown era of prosperity and stability, with access to cheap foreign goods and a competitive educational system.  He says nothing about the impossibility of balancing the demands of unions (especially the powerful teachers unions) against the requirements of globalized capital and labor markets.

If recent policy decisions and proposals and the firestorm of criticism and dissent they have produced are any indication, the balancing act that will be required for the next four years may be more than even this president can handle.  Better men have been broken by less.  Unfortunately, there’s a nearly ironclad no-return policy on politicians, especially presidential ones.

CNN-Lou Dobbs- Obama Backing North American Union Agenda

.it's just perfect!

They have been married for two years. He loves literature and often posts his work on the net, but nobody ever reads them. He is also into photography and he handles their wedding photos. He loves her very much. Likewise with her. She has a quick temper and always bullies him. He is a gentleman and always gives in to her.

Today, she’s being willful again.

Her: “Why can’t you be the photographer for my friend’s wedding? She promised she’d pay.”

Him: “I don’t have time that day.”

Her: “Humph!”

Him: “Huh?”

Her: “Don’t have time? Write less of those novels, and you will have all the time you need.”

Him: “I… someone will definitely recognize my work some day.”

Her: “Humph! I don’t care, you’ll have to do it for her!”

Him: “No.”

Her: “Just this once?”

Him: “No.”

Negotiation’s broken. So, she gave the final warning: “Give me a Yes within three days, or else…”

First day, she “withheld” the kitchen, bathroom, computer, refrigerator, television, hi-fi… Except the double bed, to show her “benevolence”.

Of course, she has to sleep on it too. He didn’t mind, as he still has some cash in his pockets.

Second day, she conducted a raid and removed everything from his pockets and warned, “Seek any external help, and you bear the consequences.”

He’s nervous now. That night, on the bed, he begs for mercy, hoping that she’ll end this state. She doesn’t give a damn. No way am I giving in, whatever he says. Until he agrees.

Third day, night. On the bed. He’s lying on the bed, looking to one side. She’s lying on the bed, looking to the other side.

Him: “We need to talk.”

Her: “Unless it’s about the wedding, forget it.”

Him: “It’s something very important.”

She remains silent.

Him:”Let’s get a divorce.”

She did not believe her ears.

Him: “I got to know a girl.”

She’s totally angry, and wanted to hit him. But she held it down, wanting to let him finish. But her eyes already felt wet. He took a photo out from his chest. Probably from his undershirt pocket, that’s the only place she didn’t go through yesterday. How careless.

Him: “She’s a nice girl.”

Her tears fell.

Him: “She has a good personality too.”

She’s heartbroken because he puts a photo of some other girl close to his heart.

Him: “She says that she’ll support me fully in my pursue for literature after we got married.”

She’s very jealous because she said the same thing in the past.

Him: “She loves me truly.”

She wishes to sit up and scream at him “Don’t I?”

Him: “So, I think she won’t force me to do something that I don’t want to do.”

She’s thinking, but the rage won’t subside.

Him: “Want to take a look at the photo I took for her?”

Her: “…!”

He brings the photo before her eyes. She’s in a total rage, hits his hand away and leaves a burning slap on his face.

He sighs. She cries.

He puts the photo back to his pocket. She pulls her hand back under the blanket.

He turns off the light, and sleeps. She turns on the light, and sits up. He’s asleep. She lost sleep. She regrets treating him the way she treated him.

She cried again, and thought about a lot of things. She wants to wake him up. She wants to have a intimate talk with him. She doesn’t want to push him anymore. She stares at his chest. She wants to see how the girl looks.

She slips the photo out. She wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh.

It’s a nicely taken photo. A photo he took for her. She bends down, and kissed him on his cheek.

He smiled. He was just pretending to be asleep.

“You learn to love, not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”

Brooke/Dean - Pictures of You

Facebook

In my last post, I wrote about how I think a content-centric Twitter-esque Facebook is a bad idea. I stick by this now that the layout has finally shown itself. The “what’s on your mind” box seems to discourage speaking in third person and tends toward Twitter-style micro-blogging. Bloggers, writers, journalists, and people whose career (or hobbies, like myself) centers around words and the manipulation thereof may welcome the new change, but it is not something the general public appreciates or, frankly, should have. The average Facebook user should not be allowed to divulge their stupid thoughts that easily. We saw how well that turned out with Xanga and Myspace blog posts.

With this in mind, however, it’s completely stupid to assume that Facebook gives two shits about what their users think about the direction they decide to take their website and its services. With the status posts being so central to the new home page layout, I can clearly see the dozens of people who vehemently declare their undying hatred for the new layout. This is all well and good; everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, when you go around to all of Mr. Zuckerberg’s groups, walls or any place you can post and type in all caps about how you “HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK SO MUCH CHANGE IT BACK PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!11″ then it starts to get a little old. Nobody freaking cares. They’re not going to change it back. How does it feel to know the internet hates you?

Especially annoying are the protest groups. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool when someone uses Facebook to draw attention to a legitimate cause, but when the entirety of the cause is in an angrily worded Facebook group, you need to relax and get a life. Why don’t you try voting for the next president by texting “PRESIDENT” to 25252? See how well that works out. We all know that the internet is SERIOUS BUSINESS, after all.

The point is, the new Facebook layout is a bad idea for the general user. I like it, but I don’t think the public at large wants, needs, or should have free rein over creativity and easy publishing on such an extremely public forum. That’s what changes the game: just how extraordinarily freaking public it all is. You can easily ignore someone on Youtube, or not visit a blog of an idiot who thinks the world cares, but Facebook is social by definition. With the increasingly stalkerish wall feed, we should periodically remind ourselves: nobody really cares.

4th July - NEW WORLD ORDER Revolution. Governmental Freedom!