Dear all, please forgive me for filling your inboxes with incomplete postings. I'll  get hold of our tech support genius tomorrow and try to get this fixed. Once again, my deep apologies.
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From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Salyers, Sara M [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 5:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?

Dear alan (R),
If there are two kinds of leader denoted by the same word:

1 chief, head, principal; commander, captain; superior, headman; chairman, chairwoman, chairperson, chair; (managing) director, CEO, manager, superintendent, supervisor, overseer, administrator, employer, master, mistress; president, premier, governor; ruler, monarch, king, queen, sovereign, emperor; informal boss, skipper, number one, numero uno, honcho, sachem, padrone.
2 pioneer, front runner, world leader, world-beater, innovator, trailblazer, groundbreaker, trendsetter, torchbearer, pathfinder.

Naturally there are (at least) two kinds of servant denoted by the same word:

1 attendant, retainer; domestic (worker), (hired) help, cleaner; lackey, flunky, minion; maid, housemaid, footman, page (boy), valet, butler, manservant; housekeeper, steward; drudge, menial, slave, water boy; archaic scullion.
2 a servant of the people: helper, supporter, follower.

Next:

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." (Wittgenstein)

Our world, Alan, (those of us with the history of the British Empire in psyche), includes a forelock tugging, upstairs/downstairs, colonizing, patronizing culture in which assumptions about the superiority of the ruling class 'leading' the serving class still colour the society we grew up in. These are assumptions which some of us react to in the way that hyper-allergenic reacts to peanuts. We choke. We are liable to be unwilling to accept a paradigm whose definition, because it is imprecise or 'dual', would unarguably allow the inclusion of the same elitist values (1.superior/master - 1. lackey, flunky, minion) to which we are allergic. But I think we have to agree that this 1/1 definition is not what is *intended* by the term Servant Leader. And what we reject is not substance nor spirit nor intent but language. I should add that you have already professed yourself aligned to a way of being that could be described as  a pathfinder/helper and that this can also be expressed in accurate synonyms as Servant (type 2)/Leader type)2. Why do others not reject the language in favor of less 'open' terms?

Our American colleagues, for instance, have a very different psyche. True or false they have been raised on the idea that, in America, 'all men are created equal.' (Racism isn't the same as 'classism'; I believe, our fellow researchers would recognize racism in a heartbeat and would reject any linguistic terms that opened the door for a racist interpretation. But it isn't easy for non-Brits to recognize colonialism and 'classism' or any terms that might open the door to them - when they have not yet experienced the ascendancy of the ruling elite as something which teaches them to know their God-ordered place (below) in the pecking order. For some, this class thing is quaint European history. For others, it's a (true) horror story. Thus your emphatic rejection of the term Servant Leader, will possibly hurt and bewilder those for whom its context falls outside the limits of *their* world. We cannot know what it means to be unacquainted with the horror we feel and I humbly suggest that they do cannot understand the visceral rejection you express of this linguistic ambiguity. ?
(Right, deep breath, and jump...) *Love*

Sara


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From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alan Rayner (BU) [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?

PS  I woke this morning with the full recognition that I have never regarded
myself, or wanted to regard myself as either 'servant' or 'leader'. All I
have ever hoped for is to 'assist' - to help others [and be helped] along
their way, with love, care and respect. I'd rather be acknowledged anyday as
a 'Great Help' than as a Great Leader or Great Servant!

So let's have assistantship, not leadership or serfdom. Assistantship
enables complementation and synergy, without imposing unbearable demands and
expectations on individuals. It obviates the notion of power hierarchy. It
enables each to express their mind from where they are, without fragile
pride or prejudice. It allows admission of fallibility and vulnerability
without fear of recrimination. It allows each to acknowledge their need for
others' help. It enables each to let the other know when they see them in
danger, without fear of giving offence. It calls for the sick or injured to
be cared for, even as their individual life may be slipping away.

Being a Great Help is correspondingly not about sycophancy or pretence of
perfection in one or other. It can require discernment, courage and
care-full consideration, especially in a world replete with defensive Pride
and Prejudice. Wouldn't it be great if 'Prime Ministers' literally meant
'Prime Helpers', not 'Prime Executives'!

For better or worse, that is what I have always endeavoured to be, in spite
of and because of my self-doubts. Especially recently.

Warmest

Alan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Rayner (BU)" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Practitioner-Researcher" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?


> Dear Sara and dear Cupane,
>
> The messages that you have both sent in, along with Kathy's, are, to my
> eyes, rich with a depth of understanding, feeling and humility that I find
> delightful and warming to encounter.
>
> Please find attached the paper I wrote in preparation for my keynote
> presentation at ALARA in Melbourne next month. I hope you will find some
> kind of response to your questions in there, and pointers to more. It can
> also be found at www.bestthinking.com (Just search for Alan Rayner, and
> you
> will find five of my essays)
>
> I have also pasted below, part of a paper entitled 'Space Cannot Be Cut:
> Why
> Self Identity Naturally Includes Neighbourhood', which is currently under
> review. You might find it resonant.
>
> I have not cut away from this list. It's just that I now think it best to
> 'respond only when invited to do so'. In some cases it may be better to do
> this on an individual basis than to the full list.
>
> Warmest
>
> Alan
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Adverse Abstraction: Self-Dislocation from Natural Neighbourhood
> Notions of adversarial 'competition' and coercive 'co-operation', which
> respectively underlie individualistic 'capitalism' and collectivistic
> 'socialism', are predicated upon an abstract logical assumption. This is
> that individual or group entities can be defined independently from their
> spatial context and correspondingly that their 'future' can be fully
> defined
> by present or 'initial conditions'. It gives rise to the familiar idea
> that
> undesirable present 'means' can justify desirable future 'ends'.
>
>
>
> Human beings may be cognitively and psychologically predisposed to make
> this
> assumption through a combination of our inter-related capacities for
> categorization, sociality, abstract thought, tool and language use and
> awareness of mortality (Rayner and Jarvilehto, 2008; Rayner 2010b; cf.
> Elstrup 2009, 2010). On the other hand, the imagination that comes
> alongside
> these capacities offers the creative potential to escape the restrictions
> imposed by abstract objectivity through what is actually the more
> comprehensive worldview of natural inclusionality (Rayner 2010a; see
> below).
>
>
>
> As terrestrial, omnivorous, bipedal primates unable to digest cellulose
> but
> equipped with binocular vision and opposable thumbs that enable us to
> catch
> and grasp, we are predisposed to view the geometry of our natural
> neighbourhood in an overly definitive way. We see the world in terms of
> what
> it can do for us and to us as detached observers or abstracted '
> exhabitants',
> not how we are inextricably involved in it as natural inhabitants. We see
> 'boundaries' as the limits of definable 'objects' and 'space' as
> 'nothing' -
> a gap or absence outside and between these objects (Rayner, 2004).
>
>
>
> This perception of boundaries as discontinuities inescapably renders the
> comprehension of continuity problematic (Smith, 1997). If two adjacent
> locations in space and/or time are distinguished by a boundary, which one
> does the boundary belong to? If it belongs to both of them, how can the
> mutual exclusivity of two-value logic be satisfied, and where do both
> cease
> to be both and become either one or the other? If it belongs to neither,
> then where does one location end and the other begin and what really comes
> between them? In the case of a curved boundary, does it belong to whatever
> lies within it or to whatever lies without it? If two distinct locations
> are
> both contained within a larger location, are they mutually exclusive or
> co-existent? Upon such dilemmas rests the whole gamut of alternative
> propositional (either/or) and dialectical/transcendental logics (both/and
> in
> mutual opposition) that have been in conflict for millennia and continue
> to
> be so (e.g. see Valsiner, 2009). So too do the 'holons' - as 'Janus-faced'
> entities combining individual and collective aspects, and 'holarchies' -
> as
> nested arrays of holons, of Koestler (1976) in his 'Open Hierarchical
> Systems Theory' (Rayner et al., 1984; Wilber, 1996).
>
>
>
> That it is nonetheless possible to avoid this perception is, however,
> evident from the indigenous cultures that sustain a much stronger sense of
> inclusion in Nature, aided by the preservation of oral, aural and nomadic
> traditions (e.g. Cairns and Harney, 2004; Taylor, 2005). For example,
> notice
> the similarity between the following quotes from Bill Yidumduma Harney
> (BYH), a fully-initiated Elder of the  Wardaman people of Northern
> Territory, Australia (see Cairns and Harney, 2004) and a 'natural
> inclusional poem', 'The Hole in the Mole', by myself (AR) (see also
> Rayner,
> 2010a).
>
>
>
> BYH: 'You might recognise some of the land, changing all the time. Then,
> like imagination to us, with spiritual link-up from the stars, and all the
> other stuff from the top to the bottom, they sort of guide you all the
> way.
> They start like be still in the valley, you've got it in your mind, links
> the air to you, up to the stars, guide you direct to it straight across
> country...all these stars pulling everything together, moving around, all
> come together'.
>
>
>
> AR: 'The Hole in the Mole'
>
> 'I AM the hole; That lives in a mole; That induces the mole;To dig the
> hole;
> That moves the mole; Through the earth; That forms a hill; That becomes a
> mountain; That reaches to sky; That pools in stars; And brings the rain;
> That the mountain collects; Into streams and rivers; That moisten the
> earth;
> That grows the grass; That freshens the air; That condenses to rain; That
> carries the water; That brings the mole; To Life'
>
>
>
>
>
> Moreover, according to Walker (2003), "Cross-cultural views of the self
> define individuality in terms of boundaries, locus of control and
> inclusiveness versus exclusiveness, or that which is intrinsic versus that
> which is extrinsic to the self (Heelas and Lock, 1981, Sampson, 1988).
> Cultures that emphasize firm boundaries and high personal control tend to
> view the self as exclusionary or 'self contained'. Fluid boundary, strong
> field control cultures, view the self as "ensembled," meaning that the
> self
> is inclusive of other individuals. While 'self contained' individualism is
> indigenous to the United States and to the European countries from which
> its
> dominant ethnic groups draw their roots, 'ensembled' individualism is far
> more prevalent as a percentage of all known cultures (Sampson, 2000).
> Ensembled individualism is also indigenous to Aboriginal, Native American,
> Senoi and other cultures that are widely known to use dreams for social
> purposes."
>
>
>
> The perception of completely definable objects separated by intervals of
> space as 'gaps of nothingness' sets the scene for the hard line logic of
> abstract rationality to become established in the foundations of our
> mathematical, scientific, theological, linguistic, governmental and
> economic
> endeavours. It also profoundly affects our perceptions of 'self' and
> 'self-interest'. The Aristotelian axiom that 'one thing is not another
> thing, and, specifically, that 'one self cannot be another self' leads to
> what C.S. Lewis (1942) called 'the philosophy of Hell', in which 'to be
> means to be in competition'.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Salyers, Sara M" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 7:54 PM
> Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
>
>
> Part of your poem is covered up by a nasty PDF notice but I got most of
> it.
> I don't k now how to tell you how much I love this.
>
> How can I teach you without knowing who you think you are?
> How can we create a better world without sharing the meaning of 'better'?
> How can we describe to each of us who we think we are?
> How can we accept discovering that we are wrong?
> I think we are just Awareness/Emptiness What do you think?
> A. Cupane
> Nov. 2006
>
> I think so too. Thank you.
> Sara
> ________________________________________
> From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Cupane cupane [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 2:35 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
>
> Dear all
>
> I think is just one of the questions that we should always make. Do you
> mind
> to read my poem and tell if what you are doing is good idea for you?
>
>
> Cupane
> Perth-Australia
> Phone: 61 - 8 - 92663792
> Fax: 61 - 8 - 92662503
> Maputo-Mozambique
> Mobile: 258 - 82 - 288 1750
> http://www.geocities.com/acupane
> (under construction)
>
>