I think there is merit to Joan's position, although I think the
details are seriously flawed.
On 20 Jul 96 at 12:21, jpomo@gate.net wrote:
> One explanation which makes some sense is that we developed most of
> our behavior before being able to understand values, if we ever
> really do.
I would amend this to bring it in line with developmental psychology. To
deal with values requires a maturation process that allows people to
operate on abstractions, or in Piaget's terms at the formal operations
level. I believe there is some evidence to indicate that a good percent of
adults never reach this stage. That impacts on the ability for moral
reasoning.
> We have no behavior when born and develop most of it by
> copying from others.
Unless one takes a very limited view of behaviour, this is incorrect.
Neonates "behave". They act on the environment. Secondly, in children and
infants learning is not only through copying others.
> Often, a particular behavior is a combination
> of what we took from several other people. Since the behavior we are
> copying probably does not meet normally acceptable value standards,
> there is little chance that our copy will do so.
Interestingly, young children act as if they have values. One of the
primary ones is immediate gratification. Still, that's not the kind of
value that Joan is talking about here. I hope Joan will clarify the
meaning of NORMALLY ACCEPTABLE VALUE STANDARDS, though without becoming
normative and specifically value-centric.
> By the time we understand our own values, our behaviors have become
> habits over which we have little control, habits carried out by our
> subconcious brain rather than by our much slower concious brain.
> Besides, we don't normally judge ourselves against our behavior,
> rather by our values and they are all good.
That latter is an interesting conjecture. I would be interested in hearing
on what this conjecture is based.
> We know that we are good
> because our values are good. We do not believe that we are our
> behavior.
Again, an interesting conjecture. I would like to know on what that might
be based, too.
> As I see it, this is just one of the many hazards of growing up.
> Unfortunately, few of us are taught about this hazard and thus we
> don't realize that we have many behaviors to fix or at least adjust.
I think most people realize that they have behaviours to fix; smoking,
lack of exercise, eating, interpersonal lapses, anger management, lack of
skilled behaviour, etc. We aren't good at fixing them, but we know about
them. (At least I do).
I suspect that a central theme of adult development is working to bring
our beliefs about ourselves, and our behaviour into alignment, and to
learn how to see ourselves less defensively, and to accept our
discontinuities, since acceptance and non-defensiveness would seem to be
the keys to personal learning. I suspect that the same process applies to
organizations.
Robert Bacal, CEO, Institute For Cooperative Communication
dbt359@freenet.mb.ca, Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
(204 888-9290.
--"Robert Bacal" <dbt359@freenet.mb.ca>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>