Learning Beyond the Paradigm LO4138

Michael McMaster (Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 7 Dec 1995 11:36:35 +0000

Replying to LO4037 --

How do you will the blind to see? I suppose the way that "will"
anything to happen. That is to say, as far as I know, will doesn't
do anything.

I'd suggest a bit of talking to start, a lot of listening, and then a
change in your talking. Continue until done.

When are you done? When at least one of you has changed their
language sufficiently (and sufficiently deeply) so that there is a
new possibility, a new organisation of thought and a new
relationship.

I understand that the biology of perception is to pursue that which
appears to match one's generated outputs and to treat the rest as
noise. What is required, then is to get into the world of the
"blind" and experience it from over there and then begin to have that
inform your listening, thinking and speaking.

Personally, I am not in the miracle business - just transformation.
Hence will is not important nor do I take on the "blind". Except my
own blindness.

I don't consider myself or this list to be "escapees" who have been
saved in the department of "seeing". "Blindness" is rampant. We
have situational blindness and our categories - including "the
learning organisation" and system dynamics - are the blindness.

I mention again the "noise" conversation. What we call blindness in
another we might be mistaking for a condition generated by our
mistaking the noise we are generating for meaningful statements.

One of our major sources of blindness is our own righteousness in our
own enlightenment. I don't know about you but it took a lot of
people with a lot of creative effort and a lot of persistence to
engage me in a pathway that led away from the accepted paradigm. And
now, even as a teacher in that very broad domain, I still find myself
looking like the old-fashioned kind of guy I was. I was bad enough,
my memory is good enough and I'm caught out often enough to retain
some compassion for those who can't see the light yet.

One of my absent mentors was Milton Erickson whose collected works I
recommend to anyone who considers an important part of their work to
be dealing with people. I'm reminding of his approach to hypnosis.
He said, "There are no people that can't be hypnotised. There are,
unfortunately, still people that I can't hypnotise. I'll continue to
work on myself." (That's a paraphrase.)

--
Michael McMaster
Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk