The last year of the first decade of the twenty-first century arrived without much fanfare at my house – I don’t think I watched coverage of the dropping of the ball at Times Square – but it did bring with it news that the unemployment rate in the United States was still over ten percent. I have been mulling over this because the commentators seem to think that the future of this rate could have serious implications for the presidency of President Obama.
I was finalizing my ideas for a blog that would link this situation with the broader concerns for world peace when the radio announcer intruded into my thoughts with news of the devastating earthquake that brought disaster to already impoverished Haiti. This was not the way I had hoped to end the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the more I thought about these three ideas the more I saw a link among them, and the lessons we can learn from our reaction to tragedy.
No one was elated by news of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Port-au-Prince. The immediate reaction was automatic. Everyone who received news of this catastrophe wanted to help. Not everyone could help but everyone wanted to help. More importantly, we were moved because they were humans, not because they were Haitian or in Haiti.
This reaction occurs every time a natural disaster takes place somewhere on the globe. It can teach us a great lesson in our search for peace and tranquility because it illustrates the idea that humanity is an organism, not an organization. Our immediate reaction to tragedy is no different from what happens within each of us when something goes wrong in our bodies.
Several years ago I slipped on ice outside my home the day before I left on an overseas trip. The pain that shot through my body told me that I had done some serious damage to my leg. When I returned to the US one week later X-rays revealed a fracture in my left leg near my ankle. The physician prescribed a removable cast. Over the next few weeks the body continued a self-healing process that had commenced the very moment the fracture occurred when I slipped on the ice. I did not realize it at the time but at that moment my leg became the most important part of my body, not just a broken leg.
Instructions went out from by body’s DNA for the immune system to begin the process of healing by growing new bone over the fracture. All the needed channels were in place to efficiently deliver to my fractured leg everything it needed in order to heal. The process continued uninterrupted until sufficient bone had been grown and then as suddenly as it began it stopped. My leg was healed.
None of this may seem relevant until we remind ourselves that the human race is an organism.
After the initial reaction that we experience when we get news of disaster or tragedy our actions do not follow the pattern we see in the way that the body deals with attacks on its health, even though both our actions and the actions of our cells are under the control of DNA. As we have seen in the Haiti experience, many do not follow through on their initial reaction to tragedy, resorting to various degrees of negativity. It is almost as if it is a liability among humans to have the ability to think and contemplate.
Why are humans unable to do what every other organism does so naturally? Ironically, the explanation lies in the very agency that has enabled humans to make such great strides through the centuries. It is here that the challenge of the unemployment rate becomes significant.
How does one reduce the unemployment rate in a country? You may think that the answer lies in creating new jobs. In fact, the answer actually lies in the unemployed finding jobs.
Anyone who have been in the job market knows that in order to gain employment one must be able to convince those hiring that he/she can meet the need s of the organization doing the hiring. Our education system is designed to prepare us to meet the needs of particular organizations. This is why we have to select majors in college.
What this reveals is the fact that humans do not now exist to ensure the survival of the species but the survival of organizations. It is not that they do not desire the survival of the species. The assumption is that the future of the species resides in the future of the organization. The results of this type of education and thinking are obvious and predictable.
A systems level discussion on Organizational Leadership and World Peace written by:
© Darius A. Lecointe, Ph.D., J.D., M.A. Join in the discussion here or through dalecointe@gmail.com
7 comments:
Our education system is designed to prepare us to meet the needs of particular organizations. This is why we have to select majors in college.
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This is why the universities are given financial support by major corporations.Its the way the system works, it has nothing to do with survival of the species.
It becomes obvious, therefore, that our current education system runs counter to the purpose for which it is supposed to exist.
The key for all three areas is not only how and where we level our focus when something goes wrong, but also how we relate to all three areas before any disaster or collapse happens.
As you stated, when the bone in your leg was fractured in your ice escapade, your body's system was prepared for such an eventuality and sent the proper resources to address the issue. Before the break to the bone, your leg was already an integral part of the smooth operation of your physical system so there was no competition for the use of your physical resources between your skull and your leg bone.
For the disaster in Haiti, the repair system that should be in place is not able to flow freely in this time of devastating need because long before the 7.0 earthquake the world at large saw little need to address the various issues that kept that nation's infrastructure and people in an unhealthy state. It was easier to keep focus and resources hoarded within our own borders, only applying band aids and aspirin from time to time. Now, as a desperately sad result, scores are dying needlessly.
With unemployment, instead of defining and reinforcing the natural talents of our human resources, the focus has been more on changing their roles, their purpose, to match what the predominant organizations need. This creates an artificial and necessarily unbalanced system that has no hope of addressing the needs of the total social system. Artificial systems can limp along and keep the body alive for a time, but they can never replace the design of the natural system.
You said it well. That last sentence summarizes it properly. The human race is a natural system. Because of it's unique nature we have tended to think of it as an artificial or synthetic system
More and more are we seeing the tendency within countries, governments, companies, the whole world to building bigger. Businesses, companies, buildings as we see these as symbols of our success or progress. Even as I say it i know someone will say i am not realistic, but this is not about realism it is more about what our world, communities need. Communities such as Haiti, the Sudan and so many other parts of the world. As your comment highlighted, the infrastructure. There is an intense need in the world for looking again for the basics, the simple things that would make it possible for the wide spread basic needs of humanity to be addressed. As the previous comment states the educational institutions, employers systems of work even focus of parents and children is towards positions of study and life career choices that is of maximum financial benefit. What about giving back, to mother earth, nature our communities. Can we see that will go some way to reducing the human cost. But not only that, how about satisfied individuals, greater communities, reduced human cost. Should we not consider making it a bit less about me and more about us.
What really gets me is that there are those like Pat Robinson that say that Haiti is being punished by God. Really? God hates Haitians?
While I am encouraged by the response to this disaster, I am still wondering why, only now, have our eyes been turned to Haiti. Are these people not part of our species? Why have we neglected them, and left them to be the poorest country in this hemisphere? I am truly happy that WE want to give and if we cant give, we want to help. My wish now is, that we do not keep them and other countries like them, on the periphery of our collective consciousness.
Chris, in a society in which exotic solutions have more traction than simple ones it may not cause a seismic shift to note that we have ignored the poorer nations of the world because the idea that the human race is one organism is not an intrinsic part of our collective consciousness. Until we cross this hurdle we will continue to be less than optimally human, notwithstanding our scientific and technological accomplishments.
Just think of how the body operates. Every cell needs oxygen that the blood carries. The heart could keep the blood to itself but there is nothing to be gained by keeping it from the cells in the soles of your feet.
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