I accept Ron's slap on the wrist for my style of response in the
matter of the question of "the value of learning". My only defence
is that I've dealt with the question many times in a corporate
setting and seldom find the question authentic in that context.
What I mean by an "authentic question" is one in which the asker is
committed to learning, to discovering an answer, to being a part of
the kind of dialogue - including experiment, observation and
measurement - that it would take. A question that is looking for the
answer as "inescapable proof without requirement to provide effort"
is the result and what I call inauthentic.
I would also say that I did not intend to say that the person asking
the question on this list was inauthentic in the matter. I was
meaning to point at the above (common) corporate condition.
> Finally, Michael says that "...the question, at this level, is trivial
> because it's so easily demonstrated if there is a committed audience for
> the results." That "if" is hardly a throw-away, regardless of how it may
> want to hide in the skirts of that sentence. Whose committed audience?
> Where is it? Who's in it? Committed to what? How do we know?
Exactly the questions I wanted to raise. I was not "hiding" the if
in the sentence. Nor do I consider that "if" nor the commitment
issue a trivial matter.
To respond to the last question raised, "How do we know (that they
are committed)?" I have a very direct response. Commitment is a
speech act. Commitment is not a descriptive word when interpreted in
this way (see Davis or Searle or Flores). People are committed when
they say they are. It is the public declaration of commitment that
provides the means for what I'd call authentic conversations in such
matters. That is, all ensuing communication - whether spoken or in
action - are fairly subject to the tests of "out here" and are
openings for further conversations - _not judgements_.
To avoid being accused of hiding and trivial throw away lines. I am
very aware that the last is not trivial. The heart of the matter
isn't the statement of commitment. Its what we do with the following
actions and speaking. Its how the community treats such speech acts.
> More questions, I guess. Which I'd just as soon pursue in order to keep
> myself honest while attempting to rescue organizational learning -- a
> notion of profound importance to me -- from the danger of drowning in a
> kind of bromidic self-righteousness.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk