On Wed, 13 Sep 1995, replying to LO2729, John D. Smith wrote:
> If we are going to appeal to biological models to think about creative
> processes in an organization, such as the following satement by Peter von
> Stackelberg (several others have been offered in this thread of LO):
>
> >Crossover (a genetic algorithm's version of sexual reproduction) is a key
> >mechanism. The fusion of genetic structures in which the length of the
> >genetic description increases is another mechanism.
>
> THEN, it seems to me that we have to accept _suppression_ as a creative or
> at least an evolutionary technique. Certainly we've all heard about how
> long strings of DNA are suppressed; how, presumably, suppression of a
> string of DNA is "positive"; how suppression can "preserve" a string of
> DNA that could be expressed in a later generation...
>
> Aren't we all too LIBERAL to accept organizational suppression as
> positive?
Ha! I like the question. I don't have an answer for it. But it has the
spark. Some popular scientific paradigms turn out to have these picquant
corollaries... .
It raises numerous issues. Back in the fifties, one stock plot for
science fiction stories was "hero persecuted by huge and powerful
organization is finally hunted down and welcomed into it because it needs
rebels like him."
T.S. Eliot said "after such knowledge, what forgiveness?" Suppose that
the biological metaphor won and the liberals lost: is it possible to run a
large company on such principles -- the repressed DNA etc. -- without
falling into autocracy?
--
Regards
Jim Michmerhuizen jamzen@world.std.com
web residence at http://world.std.com/~jamzen/
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. . . . . . . . . . Actions speak louder than words . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . but not as clearly . . . . . . . . . .