INTRODUCTION

The media in America give little attention to stories about corrupt global corporate leaders who function in the global arena, yet seem to have as their primary commitment one focused mainly on small-scale perspectives such as the bottom line for their corporation. Examples are Enron, Halliburton, and the Oil Barons. Yet, there have been leaders who balanced their levels of commitment to broad, global perspectives with narrow perspectives to benefit people at all levels of perspective-taking. President Franklin Roosevelt's team who generated the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and WPA (Works Progress Administration) to provide jobs during the economic recession and high unemployment of the 1930's is one good and successful example. Governmental leaders created many projects that helped at a range of levels to build roads that were the arteries for distribution and integration. We now have the internet that is like a vast system of communication links that interconnect many components of the larger systems.

I estimate that that about a quarter to an eighth of Americans analyze news reports from fairly broad perspectives and three quarters to seven eighths seem to do so from narrow perspectives. The latter are true believers of either a religious belief system and/or a political/economic ideology, and many of them are biased by narrow commitments. See Section P in Reference 1, below. It describes eight levels of increasingly broader perspectives.

I believe that there are limits to the levels of perspectives that most people rely upon when analyzing world events. It seems to be much easier to take sides like one does with sport teams and identify with one team. The writings in Reference 2 below support the view that there are limits to the number of commitments to a range of narrow and wide perspectives that people can manage without undue stress. That is also the problem with many Muslims and so-called Christians who come from patriarchal-tribal or small town backgrounds.

To broaden the perspectives of a population is a very difficult task that can take generations. Expanding perspectives for all the adults in a population often occurs in stages with stress and conflict occurring between those who change and those who have not yet changed. See Section D in Reference 3 below for an example of changing perspectives over three generations. Sharing experiences with people who function with perspectives at higher levels and stories about how such people overcome problems help broaden perspectives. Sections N and O in Reference 3 describe the role of stories.

MANAGING IDENTITIES AMIDST TOO MANY RELATIONSHIPS

Consider how we manage our personal identities. Our identities are based on where we came from - Nebraska, California or Alabama, our ethnic background, the college we went to, the ball team we support, the church we attend, and our occupation. Some of these identity components are already broader than those in rural tribal communities, wherein sons learn their trade from their father and follow his career path.

Scott Peck in The Different Drum described how "authentic communities" can be formed wherein each person knows about the different personality traits of other community members and accepts the others as they are. The authentic community is a very supportive community - a mutual aid society if you will.

Today's authentic communities are larger and more flexible than the old tribal communities, which were led by a patriarchal leader and his followers. Page xi in Ken Gergen's book: The Saturated Self points out that our "Small and enduring communities, with a limited cast of significant others, are being replaced by a vast and ever-expanding array of relationships." I see post-modernism as a point of view wherein people are aware of this trend and another term for this trend might be Post-Tribal mentality.

Gergen writes that the expanding number and diversity of our relationships and the communities to which we feel committed, are moving us " toward a state of saturation". This makes managing our identities much more difficult. This problem is one that many immigrant youths face today in Europe and America. Examples of problems in Identity Management are presented in Section L of Chapter 3 in my book, soon to be published, entitledCountering Polarization.

Ken Gergen wrote that beliefs in what is true and good "depend on a reliable and homogeneous group of supporters, who define what is reliably "there," plain and simple." "With social saturation, the coherent circles of accord are demolished, and all beliefs thrown into question by one's exposure to multiple points of view." Truth or what we believed to be true becomes relative to the perspectives of one's authentic community or communities. True believers, fundamentalists, and the like, get overwhelmed by the relativity of truth and build Berlin Walls and Iron curtains around the perspectives of their own group. They believe that these views are right and others are wrong. This makes identity management easier for them. BUT, it makes it more difficult to listen to others who have different perspectives and to agree on compromises that are so essential in a working democracy.

BALANCING COMMITMENTS TO PAROCHIAL AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

A key to promoting a good society is for people functioning at broad and narrow perspectival levels to learn how to balance their commitments based upon these perspectives. Institutions have to be developed and monitored to help citizens maintain balance, while reducing to a minimum the stifling of motivations that promote the general welfare.

We need to make a list of other examples that can help people mired in narrow commitments (often identified as selfishness) to expand their levels of commitments without weakening the functionality of small-scale systems. Child-care and elder-care organizations and federal subsidies for such services are examples of institutions that can help people who lack the time, skills and/or energy to provide the services themselves.. Examples abound, but we lack clear stories that present them and explore how balance was maintained by helping people arrange their commitments fairly; that is by not dropping one level of commitment to profit at a smaller level. Those who function globally with narrow self-oriented commitments often display how corruption functions and we must learn how to monitor corruption and reduce it. Those responsibilities are, in part carried out by large-scale systems of justice.

We should not put corrupt actors in jail, but send them to schools where they can better learn to monitor maintaining balance that is fair to all the levels of commitment in which they are involved.

One of the greatest temptations that misguides humankind is when business managers create demand for their products by relying on the kinds of advertising that ties their product to self-oriented status presentation rather than utility for balanced functioning. In other words, consumerism is dysfunctional when it causes consumers to become involved in competing against others in the area of status display and/or conspicuous consumption. This kind of activity should be balanced by involvement in socially constructive activities that help self and others broaden perspectives and get involved in commitments to larger communities and global concerns.

The foregoing outlines a conceptual framework for getting government and small-scale enterprise to be more effective in balancing commitments. There are successful examples that illustrate the foregoing in ways that all can understand. I have included a number of them in the next section.

EXAMPLES THAT ILLUSTRATE ATTEMPTS TO MAINTAIN BALANCE

Environmental protection activities and systems of approval for reducing destructive impacts of large construction projects is a good example of integrating the different levels. Bribery weakens the effectiveness of such systems when monitors overlook violation of restrictions.

Specialized medical centers, epidemiological centers, and wellness centers are other examples that supply large-scale system functioning that is integrated with family-scale commitments. The Pure Food and Drug Administration is another example, if monitoring is not corrupted by drug company interests.

In the area of religion, there is a need to integrate the Creator or Process-of-Creative-Evolution aspect of God with the Internalized-Role-Model-and-Teacher aspect. Organized religions have tried to do this by canonizing sacred writings over a thousand years ago. For sacred writings to be effective in this postmodern era, we need stories that relate the basic universal values common to the main religious faiths to present day situations and contexts.

The following paragraph was taken from Chapter 2 in my book, Peace Is Possible.

What religious organizations need to do for peace is to focus on topics that are appropriate for church study groups and public education. Some examples are:

1) in the areas of education; improving skills for critical thinking, and providing experiences and stories that will help people broaden their perspectives, and be more tolerant of people from diverse ethnic, and religious backgrounds.

2) Reinterpretation and reform of religious writing, doctrines and bible stories for the purpose of providing hope to overcome adversities and decrease chances for retreat, regression, and violent reactions to changing times. C. S. Lewis provided good examples in his stories for children, such as the Narnia series mentioned in Section J of Chapter 1 and Section N of Chapter 3 in my book, Countering Polarization.

3)Respected leaders need to speak out when they see abuse of people's rights at home and abroad. In Yugoslavia for example, leaders spoke out when the other ethnic group committed violence, but did not speak out with the same vehemence when members of their own group committed violence against the others. In some cases they might have feared for their lives.

Religious leaders can play the prophetic role by updating interpretations of scriptural support for maintaining balance between doing what some call God's work here on Earth at the universal level - the process-of-creation aspect of the Divine on the one hand and on other hand following the personal values modeled by the personal-internalized aspect of the Divine. Reference 4 calls upon religious leaders to join in these efforts.

I have just read Lawrence E. Harrison's book (Reference 5 below.) which was recommended by Tom Friedman in an article in the Denver Post of 11-30-06. This book builds upon research conducted by the Culture Matters Research Project administered by the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Some 60 professionals from around the world were involved in research and writing about how cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes interact with economic, political, religious, educational, and other institutions to advance and/or retard the evolution of human societies toward a good quality of life for all. This book complements my book Countering Polarization. I recommend his book highly. It is well written and summarizes much research from around the world that I have not included in books.

My book Countering Polarization is available now from Xlibris' bookstore at: Countering Polarization, the Colorado State University Bookstore, and the Boulder Book Store. The book is now also available from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

REFERENCES

2. Ken Gergen's The Saturated Self (Chapters 1 & 3) and Gerald Edelman's Wider Than The Sky - The Phenomenal Gift Of Consciousness (at the bottom of page 61),

4. The Prophetic Call edited by Hugh Sanborn.

5.The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It from Itself by Lawrence E. Harrison is a new book by Harrison, published in May 2006 and is highly recommended for those who wish to understand the failure of American Policies in the Middle East.

© Copyright: by Charles Notess, 2006-07. "Fair use" encouraged.

See other postings by Charles Notess at: Postings.