[Ailist] Appreciation vs. Cynicism

[Kevin Kervick]

Something has been troubling for me about Appreciative Inquiry as I learned 
about the method this year in an organizational dynamics class and as I have 
been following the threads here for the past several months and as a 
practitioner of positive psychology.  This will be a bit reductionistic for 
the sake or argument.

1.  In your examples below you offer a critique of a conservative point of 
view and a reification of a liberal point of view.  As I have followed 
discussions like this in multiple forums I find that folks often purport the 
liberal view as the good and the conservative as the bad.  Would you have 
been able to substitute say, Thomas Jefferson, or Harry Truman, or Ronald 
Reagan for Martin Luther King in your example?  Putting this more 
succinctly, Is Appreciative Inquiry necessarily a politically liberal 
philosophy and methodology?

This is important in organizational consulting as in the Michelle Obama 
example we organizational consultants may indeed be more liberal than our 
clients (think Steve Jobs).  Does this create asynchconous consulting? 
Especially if we are not aware of our bias?  Is this a potential reason that 
some "harder" clients may see us as too soft (I think we are dealing with 
the masculine and feminine Jungian archetypes here)?  Would Steve Jobs tell 
us to go take a hike?

I'm not talking about how people vote but how they think, feel, and 
experience the world generally.

You wrote:

>I also agree that as a change agent I need to respect and deeply connect 
>with
> what is valuable in the community that I seek to help to change.  What I 
> find
> really interesting as I write this is the simple impact of telling story.
> As I wrote about what I feel ashamed of I got angry and felt hopeless in 
> the face
> of what I perceive as an overwhelming evil and I could agree totally with 
> Mrs
> Obama, in fact I could go on a tirade and make her seem like a wimp. 
> Because
> when you are in that negative emotional rut, as Barbara Frederickson's 
> research
> would show, it is absolute and you can't see beyond that rut.

Can you deeply identify with someone that believes the Iraq was was just and 
necessary?  You are ashamed and you believe it is overwhelming evil.  Are 
you able to connect with what is valuable in a community with which you 
vehemently disagree?

Can Ms. Obama represent people with whom she seems to be so at odds?

I suppose this is a familiar critique but an important one.

Putting my cards on the table, I consider myself a post-progressive person 
that seeks truth, real truth, a critical realist in search of honest 
dialogue apart from the bland pablum that often passes for dialogue.  I 
believe in well-differentiated authentic relating in the service of peace. 
At 47 I've lived enough life to know that there is no life left to waste. 
Thanks for the dialogue.

I also identify with the writer that said she craved a deeper dialogue apart 
from the shopping, and selling that dominates most of these listservs.  Much 
is at stake in the world.

Kevin


> Hi Kevin
>
> I would agree with you if you are looking at those statements alone.  The 
> easiest
> way to be wrong is to make absolute any position and then speak it as 
> though it
> were certainty. Anyone can pick a hole in those kinds of positions.  Since
> language is an abstraction or statement about something nothing spoken can
> ever be reality.  It is always a statement about some part of reality. 
> What gets
> crazy is the way we make absolute our partial understandings. For example 
> part
> of me is radically ashamed of the United States and my part in the war in 
> Iraq
> the destruction of civil liberties, the disregard of the Geneva convention 
> which
> my Dad fought for in WWII (the consequences of his having fought which I 
> have
> suffered from in my life) and I can go on and on.  On the other hand there 
> is part
> of me that is proud of people like Martin Luther King Jr. and those who 
> shared
> his passion for justice, the great desire for freedom in this country, the
> constitution, and in our AI community people like David Cooperrider and
> business as an agent of World Benefit, and Marge Schiller and her work in 
> our
> schools or Mac O'Dell and his work in Nepal and Africa and the many other 
> neat
> people I have met who are doing their part to make this a better world. 
> What
> gets really stupid is when I take an internal vote and say 51% of me is 
> ashamed
> and therefore I am totally ashamed of the US.
>
> I also agree that as a change agent I need to respect and deeply connect 
> with
> what is valuable in the community that I seek to help to change.  What I 
> find
> really interesting as I write this is the simple impact of telling story.
> As I wrote about what I feel ashamed of I got angry and felt hopeless in 
> the face
> of what I perceive as an overwhelming evil and I could agree totally with 
> Mrs
> Obama, in fact I could go on a tirade and make her seem like a wimp. 
> Because
> when you are in that negative emotional rut, as Barbara Frederickson's 
> research
> would show, it is absolute and you can't see beyond that rut.
>
> On the other hand as I thought of Martin Luther King Jr. and those who not 
> only
> dreamed of a new world but actually did something to make that new world I
> find my heart warmed and tears come to my eyes and I am awed by the people 
> I
> know and I find hope and I find determination to join with those who dream 
> of a
> new day. In this place of awe I do not deny what is wrong nor glory only 
> in what
> is right, nor argue with people I don't agree with, nor seeks 
> justification of any
> past or present state, but is open to the future and a desire to join with 
> other
> like minded people who are interested in what is good, what is really 
> good, and
> not only good for me, but good for you, and good for all those in the 
> countries
> represented on this listserve and good for all those that they know.
>
> Rob
>
>
>
> On 8 Mar 2008 at 15:49, Kevin Kervick wrote:
>
>>
>> Hello Rob:
>>
>> I like what you are saying here but to be an appreciative citizen
>> one has to
>> start with respect for the country less the Pygmalian effect biases
>> the
>> outcome.
>> In Ms. Obama's comments I notice no such respect, especially since
>> her point
>> of view does not jive with the evidence.
>>
>> > To create that world we focus on those life giving realities in
>> our past
>> > and dream
>> > of ways to do more of it to create that future.
>>
>> Also are there not also living realities in the present worth
>> building from?
>> Ms. Obama's comments suggest that she does not see any.
>>
>> Kevin
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>
>
>