Safe learning environments LO12446

ray evans harrell (mcore@soho.ios.com)
Sun, 09 Feb 1997 12:32:18 -0800

Replying to LO12417 --

FVoehl@aol.com wrote:

> What practical things can managers, leaders and trainers do to ensure the
> spiritual safety of people in organizations?

Frank,

This is a great discussion. Often people who are having cultural problems
of this nature feel unwilling to assert themselves if they have a
situation arise.

An example is in the Chinese New Year in New York City. The Italian
Catholic Mayor has been cutting down on crime but starting with the little
infractions like "windshield cleaners" and people running onto the field
at the world series. (This attitude, it seems to me, has to do with a
cultural attitude towards the use of power, not shared by the previous
mayor who was African-American. Some will call this stereotyping, but I
prefer to call it "not rising above the conventional styles" of their
cultures).

Included in this are the private fireworks on the fourth of July put on by
a prominent Mafia family, which the mayor stopped this year as a "breach
of law endangering the public" (of course it is much more). He then went
on to include the traditional fireworks in Chinatown which are spiritual
and have been used since the invention of gunpowder, (using the same law)
for at least a millennium in China and for as long as the Chinese have
been in America. The fireworks are, metaphorically, to "scare away
demons" from the demonstration, but, personally, they represent the
personal cleaning of each individual's persona from bad feelings and old
grudges. I wonder what "bad feelings and old grudges" the police will
have to deal with as a result of this spiritual insensitivity for "public
safety" on the part of the mayor.

Of course, he said he consulted the community, but given the history of
consultations, one has to ask if the community he consulted were converted
Chinese. Of course, the traditionals will not complain but will simply
shake their heads and worry about the coming year. The police, used to
community activism, don't believe in a quiet community in relation to any
situation they don't like; however, a raucous community around the issue
of trying not to be raucous is, perhaps, a little too subtle for the
people that we ask to be violent for our protection. Perhaps, they (the
Police) need our wisdom and protection in this since they will have to
deal with the results on the street.

Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York
mcore@soho.ios.com

-- 

ray evans harrell <mcore@soho.ios.com>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>