| December 20, 2000 | 04 00067 61 00122002 |
OHS DKR Project
unrev-II@egroups.com
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
| Subject: | Values and Competence Compete for Priority |
Dear Paul,
Here is a lazy response to a truly extraordinary effort in your letter on November 19, 2000, drawing attention to critical values, as one component that is balanced by competency in the core binary force of existence. Not sure I know what that means, but it sounds good to start off. Others today have made compelling points exploring your ideas.
Your explanation on affirmation of human values and proposing a politics of meeting human needs relates to values, the "what" question of existence. I believe this is beyond the scope of the project, though it is important to constantly address values, as seen by the tradition of going to church once a week. The binary pair in values is life or death, out of which, for humans, evolves the notion of community, and by extension communication, which you exhibit with great flair and effect.
In the US a tradition has evolved to sustain community through a representative government that stands for election. This regular process addresses, to be sure imperfectly, your concern about values, e.g., environment, human needs, crime, markets, taxes, and so on. However, it is well to recall that within the realm of humanity variability in genetics and experience, there is no single prescription for values and desires, beyond life and death, but there are two primary perspectives, masculine and feminine, which generally play out as emphasizing process or need. In a democracy where men and women both exercise the franchise, these two perspectives compete for ascendancy. Within that competition, there are honest competitors, who recognize their prescriptions could be wrong, and there are those who merely seek power for its own sake.
The US strives to provide a formula, or process, where power is diffused, so that no single person or group can hold all the power under the rule that none of us are smart enough to wield that responsibility. Thus, a continual fight over values is carried out through a balance of power doctrine. This results in the proverbial pendulum swinging back and forth between emphasis on process and emphasis on need, as the dominate policy guidance, where moderation prevents over compensating.
So, in sum, on the issue of values, we beat out brains out every day all across the land wrestling with this critical question.
An example is environmental policy that seeks to address values of eco-balance and bio-diversity. This leads to a concern that building a power plant will destroy the environment because a snail darter may become extinct, and have a cascading effect on existence. A lot of us lack sensitivity to the environment, and lack consideration for others less fortunate, with the result that we use too much power, by, for example leaving the PC on overnight, so we can an early start the next day to complete a treatise on solving world hunger, or just because we are lazy and insensitive, and so now there is a power shortage. There is not enough power to run the PC and keep the lights on, so we have to abandon these opulent power consumption practices, and use environmentally appropriate renewable power, like walking and writing our ideas with pen and paper, except these also take power, so we are led to use more personable communication methods like dialog. Doubtless one can argue that being for the environment can lead to stronger communication. That's good, and doing good is God like, i.e., its a religion, and we don't have to go to church.
However, without power to run the PC, it is harder to get the word out about being environmentally sensitive, so possibly a balance of values needs to be struck. Maybe we need to build the power plant, and try to get by without a snail darter.
People make their arguments, and we vote on values when we elect folks to the government. It is not perfect, but with strong advocacy evident in your presentation today, there is a better chance the right choices will emerge, than if your views were not available due to a power outage that shut down the PC.
Competence, on the other hand is neutral to values, as you point out, except what ever value we adopt, it helps to be able to implement, or achieve it. Thus, education is a way of increasing competence to understand the environment and human needs, and to formulate effective arrangements for accomplishing those values. We send the kids to school because long experience has shown that learning alphabet technology and other skills, makes it easier to achieve our values, i.e., tasks that sustain life.
The DKR project and Communication Metrics seek to buttress the competence component of the binary force comprised of values and competence. If we believe in education, then continual learning might be a logical extension, particularly, since continual learning occurs whether we do anything proactive to enhance it or not. The only real question is whether we stand pat and just let things happen, or take proactive action to lift the capacity to think, remember and communicate.
The nexus between values and competence is your second point about complexity, which inhibits accomplishment of values, except to the extent competence can be raised. That is the rationale for moving from IT to KM, at least it seems so at this time.
Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net