[Ailist] Changing Military Perspective

Harry Bury HBury at bw.edu
Mon Jun 29 23:01:17 MDT 2009 

Dear Lionel,

You are beautiful! I am not familiar with critical masses of bikes nor do I understand the concept in relationship to what I wrote.

Unfortunately I am not familiar with Robert Owens Industrial Revolution either. Please for give my ignorance.

I am familiar with the notion that the way the Brits and the French treated the Germans after World War One contributed to the rise
of Hitler. At least, the politicians learned from that experience and the Marshall Plan had a much better result in terms of Germany after
World War Two.

 What if we assumed that Hitler was not a megalomaniac criminal as you say, but simply a person who held different values from you and I. What if we assumed that he thought he was doing good for Germany and the world by ridding the world of Jews, Gypsies, Communists, the Handicapped, Catholics etc because he judged them as evil based on the way he was socialized. Hence, it made perfect sense to him to get rid of them for the good of mankind as it did to Harry Thruman to drop not one but two atomic bombs on Japan. In Thruman's mind, I assume, he did it for the best of reasons. We all rationalize and unfortunately judge others(Attribution Theory) according to the way we were socialized UNLESS we assume we are all one and then we stop assuming the worst in people and start assuming they have their reasons for their behavior and begin to seek to appreciate(AI) and understand them rather than condemn them which then gives us the justification to destroy or at least punish them.

I perceived this in your visit to Thailand and your comments regarding the sex workers. If we assumed we are all one, then we would not condemn these dear people, but truly seek to understand their thinking and feeling in terms of the circumstances in which they live and to which their limited experience has
exposed them.

I agree with you, I wish they were different (because according to your's and my values their lives cannot be meaningful and fulfilling, but they do not know any different) as I wish politicians and soldiers were different. But I believe AI teaches us that judging and condemning these and other folks has never worked throughout the existence of the world and may prove to be the final destruction of the earth. So, why not seek to discover another way, dream of a world in which enough of us assume differently so as to design a world and implement the design so that a world in which we do not judge and condemn one another, but appreciate and seek to understand one another becomes the norm? I assume it is a practice that deserves a chance of working. We can always go back to seeing the worst in each other rather than the best as AI suggests. Am I making any sense at all? Or as David Cooperwriter states am I simply being a Pollyanna and unrealistic as other AI practioners are accused of being.

I assume I am simply following out David's AI theory to its meta-systems conclusions. Have I missed something in seeking to understand AI?

Harry J. Bury
Chair, Doctoral Program in Business Administration (DBA)
Graduate School of Commerce, Burapha University
Silom, Bangkok 10500 Thailand
AND
Professor Emeritus
Baldwin Wallace College
Berea, OH  44017 USA
440-826-2395 Office
440-336-2801 Mobile
Explore Dr. Bury's website http://homepages.bw.edu/~hbury
________________________________________
From: Lionel Boxer [lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:01 PM
To: Harry Bury; ailist at lists.business.utah.edu; cheri at mobileteamchallenge.com
Subject: RE: [Ailist] Changing Military Perspective

I am a fan of Critical Mass (the world wide last friday of the month bicycle ride that creates conjestion).  The Critical Mass lasts for about an hour.  In some cities it has been made illegal and police arest the "Massers".  Last Friday I saw / heard the Massers ride by my house in South Melbourne.  I recognised the noise and realised that it must be the last Friday of the month, but my neighbours thought it was just a bunch of lunatics coming home from a pub or on their way from one pub to the next.

I am a great fan of Robert Owen's Industrial Revolution era New Lanark in Scotland.  I visited the site in 2000 for my PhD research.  While Robert Owen was sincere, every other society that attempted to copy his approach failed dismally.  I think Owen's original pursuit worked because Robert Owen was a benevolent autocrat and was able to keep his people in line.  That is, it appears that he told his employees/citizens, if you want the benefits of living in my community you do not have the right to abuse the priviledge.  Most utopians misunderstand this.

Similarly, Chamberlain misunderstood Hitler.  He thought that he was dealing with a rational and benevolent chap, whereas he was dealing with a megalomaniac criminal.

It is interesting to spend time with former Hitler Youths from the Nazi era.  They remain convinced that "Hitler was a good man - he just made a few mistakes".  Perhaps for them Hitler was a good man, but not for the societies he destroyed and the people he displaced.

As my daughter once said of her favourite Barbie Princess DVD, "daddy, I want to live there".  "Me too", I replied " - I want to live there too", but we adults realise that there are bad people who need to be dealt with and that there is not always a happy ending and that some politicians are motivated by their determination to achieve personal gain from their public policy, even if that is achieved by sending their citizens to their doom.

I suppose we could try to understand the people who are terrorising the west and realise that they want us to start praying to God.  That would be a fine idea if we all started praying to God as opposed to engaging in the drunkenness and fornication that causes them to hate the Western World so much. Our women would also need to learn their places, keep their mouths shut and start wearing black robes with hoodes.  Of course, our choice of religion would need to comply with those who are terrorising us.  We would also need to significantly curtail our consumption of natural resources - even more than governments are challenging us with at present.  I have recently experienced some of the more tolerant nations that might harbour those who terrorise us and realised that even the more tolerant places require me to curtail the passions I have learned in the West.  That is fine with me - I believe in God and am prepared to make the changes necessary.  I dream about that with passion.

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
Graduate School of Business
my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory"
now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
>>> Harry Bury <HBury at bw.edu> 30/06/09 12:41 PM >>>
Dear Lionel,

I like the way you think. Once you make your original assumptions, your logic is impeccable which
I guess  means I agree with you.

But lets play the what if game. What if we(a critical mass of us) assumed that sovereignity was not the name of the game,
but unity was because we assume (discover) we are all one and there are no enemies, but all brothers and sisters anxious to love
and be loved. Once we as a critical mass assumed this worldview, we began to act as if it were the actual reality and we
began to treat people that way. We would then work toward and achieve a one world government, sovereignity making no sense, and in
which gun manufactures ceased to exist because there was no need for guns and no need for soldiers only peace-keepers
with skills in dissolving disputes through non-violent techneques when misperceptions by chance arose.

What would we do in the meantime as we began to assume the above(dream in AI terms)? Our assumptions would lead to behaviors (design) which
would slowly move us away from the need of your soldiers because in identifying with the so-called enemy(since we are
all one), we would automatically seek to understand their motivation for behaving in a manner that appears inappropriate,
even destructive to us, and move to cooperate with them (destiny) to enable them to get their needs met without resorting to violence.

It all begins with changing a few fundamental unconscious assumptions such as assuming we are all one rather than assuming we are
all separate. Both are unprovable. We assumed with the early Greeks that a thing could both be and not be at the same time and in the
same place and the new physics showed it could. We assumed matter was solid, because to the naked eye it seemed that way, and now it appears it is
mostly energy and empty space and who knows what it will become in the 22nd century. So, yes it appears we are all separate
 to our physical eye as matter seems solid, but what if we were actually one or what if a critical mass of humanity acted as if we were
all one? Then apparently we would stop competing with each other and start cooperating with each other. Kind of nice, don't you assume?
And if we perceived something,anything differently, we would not condemn the other, but seek to understand him or her as the other
would do in our regard. What do you assume, Lionel?

Your Friend,
Harry J. Bury
Chair, Doctoral Program in Business Administration (DBA)
Graduate School of Commerce, Burapha University
Silom, Bangkok 10500 Thailand
AND
Professor Emeritus
Baldwin Wallace College
Berea, OH  44017 USA
440-826-2395 Office
440-336-2801 Mobile
Explore Dr. Bury's website http://homepages.bw.edu/~hbury
________________________________________
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu [ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Lionel Boxer [lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 6:39 PM
To: cheri.torres at gmail.com; ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: Re: [Ailist] Changing Military Perspective

I disagree and I do not think I am labelling groups of people as being bad.  Rather, I am suggesting that it is behaviour of politicians and business people; those who define policy and take advantage of that policy that needs to be addressed.  Behaviour of some not a collective group.  Politicians decide to go to war and they also define the enemy.  Soldiers are deployed to deal with the commitment made by politicians.  It is not a matter of blame.  Rather, it is cause and effect.

To have a viable defence capability it is necessary to have soldiers who are trained to do a certain job.  Their deployment as a miltiary force is a last resort and should not be entered into lightly.  If the military ceases doing the job of the military then it ceases to be the military.  More seriously though, the nation that denudes itself of a defence capability leaves itself vulnerable to bandits, nations and other hostile elements who/that choose to attack its sovereignty.

Wishful thinking is not going to make bad people disappear.  Consider Chamberlain's determination to not have approproate defence capability in the pre WWII United Kingdom and the way Hitler took advantage of the opportunity created by that negligence.

Positive change is certainly required.  Politicians need to understand appropriate escalation of force and the damage that can be caused by a military force.  Business people need to realise that they do not have the right to profit from war.  Soldiers and the army running amok is a symptom (effect) of their inappropriate deployment (cause) by those who make the decision to deploy them (generals do not make that sort of decision.  Rather, they craft the strategies and employ others to employ tactices to take the soldiers to do the politicians' business).

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
Graduate School of Business
my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory"
now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
>>> Cheri Torres <cheri.torres at gmail.com> 29/06/09 11:19 PM >>>
It is a timeless tradition to find fault with those in power...or to find
fault with anyone not agreeing with us or seeing through our eyes. What I
appreciate about AI is that it encourages us to stop the fault-finding and
finger pointing and invite diverse stories of success into the dialogue. To
look for positive deviance and spotlight it. I love it when a story emerges
that truly invites us to change the paradigm, which I think the military is
doing. In my opinion, it is a HUGE shift to begin putting energy, effort and
military power on "what we want to happen" instead of on "eliminating what
we don't want to happen."  What could be more AI!
Perhaps we can make more room for those in power to change by uplifting
significant positive change and action and applauding those who support such
change.  This is really the power of AI--to find these stories and fan them.
 Tell more and more of them. Somewhere there is a tipping point.  I think we
are likely to reach that point more rapidly if we shine the light on people
in power who are engaged in positive action rather than continuing to label
large groups of people as 'bad'.

Cheri

On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 6:31 PM, Lionel Boxer <lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au>wrote:

> Politicians and businesspeople have always started war.  In the distant
> past the policiticans tended to be kings and they tended to lead their
> soldiers into battle.  These days they have no involvement beyond deciding
> to deploy troops.
>
> Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
> Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
> Graduate School of Business
> my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory"
> now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
> >>> <Capela2 at aol.com> 29/06/09 7:18 AM >>>
> As a father whose son is scheduled to be deployed next week to Afghanistan
> I found the conversation interesting. I think the army is making a
> concerted  effort to reduce the chance of killing innocent lives which is
> good.
> Unfortunately when you are confronted with making a decision whether to
> shoot
> or  not to save your life it can be difficult at times. The other problem
> is
> this  war is more difficult when the enemy has no difficulty using
> innocents
> to  protect themselves.
>
> Which goes to the other point if you talk to a soldier he or she would
> probably say war is a last resort unfortunately politicians are often the
> ones
> making the decisions not fighting the battle.
>
> Stan Capela
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--
Cheri B. Torres, Ph.D.

Asheville, NC
828-225-5088

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