"In the Name of Free Speech", by Miguel Cornejo
13-Apr-04
Knowledgeboard/ H-SIG Home Page
The Role of Free Thought and Manners in KM In the Name of Free Speech:
Miguel CORNEJO
macuarium@mac.com
As a social endeavour, knowledge management is affected by one of the least commented (and most important) components of a culture: the respect accorded to differing views and to the dignity of people.
Each society and each distinct group has its own combination, and some are so characteristic that they have become the fodder for archetypes and topics. Europeans are seen as more circumspect than Americans, Far Eastern people as more respectful to authority, ecologists don't tolerate criticism to their tenets, ... and so on. In most cases, these are over-simplifications.
But they show that the attitude to what views are tolerated and how they may be expressed varies widely between groups, and less so within them.
In a learning environment, these differences are more important when there is more interaction among the participants. One-way communication isn't much affected by these considerations. But many-to-many, such as in a community of practice, puts the matter in centre stage.
The ability to express and deal with irreverent and differing views is key to any innovation-minded effort. On the other side, the level of civility is a direct contributor to collaboration.
Innovation and social capital
On the one side, there are solid arguments to support that social capital (the level of inter-connectedness, respect and mutual attachment in a group) inhibits criticism of the views and declarations of other group members. The more two people know and respect each other, the more difficult it will become for one of them to destroy a theory or proposal by the other.
Furthermore, social capital creates levels. The more social capital formed, the more structured and hierarchic a group becomes, with members of one layer not challenging the views of superiors. And the older and more formal it gets, the likelier it is to sprout some "sacred cows" whose views are incontrovertible.
Thus social capital breeds intellectual immobilism, as innovation needs to be vetted by peers, superiors and sacred cows before it has a chance to be taken seriously by the community, and even then consensus views will get priority.
Of course, this doesn't mean that all well-connected groups will tend to ossify. Just that, if left unchecked, they tend to reproduce the same problems that limit innovation in academic institutions or companies at large. So KM, and CoPs in particular, have a job in limiting the formation of rigid structures and an excess of respect (equivalent to systematic submission) towards the views of others within the CoP. No-one's views should be sacred on the grounds of who owns them, and no ill-will should be allowed to form when a "junior" member challenges them. Ideas should be judged on merit alone, and freethinking appreciated as the ferment of innovation.
But that's neither easy to manage, nor easy to see.
Collaboration and respect
On the other side, that freedom is not enough. Innovation is usually a social process (driven by interactions between different people and views), and learning even more so. Both need the lubricant of the appropriate civility: the level of respect to views and values that safeguards the dignity of all the people involved.
People whose views are disparaged will feel affronted. People whose qualifications are doubted will feel abused. People who aren't listened to, or allowed to participate, will feel sidelined. People who see views adopted on grounds different than merit, will feel ignored. Just imagine the feelings of people discriminated for political reasons.
That would not matter from a KM point of view, if it didn't mean that all those people are very likely to stop participating in the common endeavour. They won't collaborate if they don't feel respected.
This raises a complex problem: where is the limit between acceptable criticism and aggressive disparaging? What respect is due to a senior professional, even when puncturing an argumentation? How much respect should be accorded to such people as the managers or partners of a KM initiative, if any? What is good manners in a particular environment, and what is verbal assault?
And once set, how should those criteria be enforced? Can a community member be excluded from participation for bad behaviour... even if in his other role he is a senior company official?
Settling this according to the culture and goals of the people involved in the initiative seems to be critical, and yet apparently has drawn very little attention.
The correct cliques
Just as groups can repress the challenges to established ideas and community wisdom, they can also enforce a social hierarchy. This is done by consecrating (or damning) a set of ideas, or the primacy of some people, through the pressure of an active clique of "politically correct" people.
This pressure translates into messages expressing what is correct and what isn't, censoring "incorrect" behaviour and praising "correct" actions, and ostracising irritant people. The more presential the relationships, the harder the pressure.
These cliques thrive in the approbation of the managers and owners of initiatives, and will usually back them. But since they build their power on the status quo, it is hard to expect them to foment either the (complete) intellectual openness or the (egalitarian) social respect to all that are crucial to an innovative and collaborative environment.
Still, these "correct cliques" tend to appear and to exercise the power of the political correctness. Without active curbing, they become the first symptom of ossification.
And we should bear in mind that unchecked, the «correct clique» can eventually become 90% of most groups, and stifle the 10% ready to think outside the box.
Censorship for freedom
There are many possible conclusions. There may be a lot of exceptions to these ideas, also. But I'd just like to point out a small paradox that leads to the biggest danger in a KM initiative: that protecting free thought, protecting mutual respect, is so difficult that it needs active management and the exercise of power.
In other words, managers need to be able to shut people down to enable others to speak up. They need to force respect in order to allow critical dissection of views. They need the power of censors in order to protect free speech.
Miguel CORNEJO
macuarium@mac.com
Knowledgeboard/ H-SIG Home Page
Details
- Author:
- Jacques SOUILLOT
- Publisher:
- KnowledgeBoard
- Date:
- 13-Apr-04
- Categories:
- Human and Social, Human Side of KM
- Sections:
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Contradicting forces?
What could be at stake, to a certain extent, is the viability of human groups, of communities, of teams. Too much submissiveness leads to total sclerosis, too much disagreeing and conflicting means disaggregation of the community.
The reality of life shows us that it is in the interplay of those opposing forces that the balance can be found. There is a way between totalitarianism and chaos! Then it cannot be a straight way, ...and the pendulum goes from one side to the other, reshaping everything permanently, ad infinitum.
Also there are small outlets which play the role of safety valves: where the excess of this or the excess of that can be expressed, experienced --and observed!
The palette of life has to be accepted in its entirety. What if your favorite colour is blue, and all of sudden everything around you is blue? One colour gets its value because it belongs to a whole set. What is important is the way you distinguish it from the other ones, how you mix them together, in which proportions, and what for...
Verbal vs written
Sorry Raniera,
When I wrote "what if the person cannot write?" I should explain a bit more.
In cyberspace one needs to write. In most cases anyway. Therefore what if the person cannot write, or not good in expressing oneselves in written words ... ? he/she is at a disadvantage. But this same person could be an excellent speaker. And of course reserve is true.
Writting and speaking are two different skills. Even though it might be the same person.
What I find interesting is, if we look at MOST who are good at playing politics, one of their skills is how to influence people by speech or words. Depends on what space that person is in. And of course we know presidents, kings and queens have spin-doctors to write their speeches. Sometime we become confuse 'who's words' were they coming out from the mouth of the leaders?? (I can go into another directions about leaders, but I neither have the time at this moment nor this is the right thread).
Just a day ago I ran into real-life 'freedom of speech' problems at KB. My posting was removed because it was termed 'inflammatory'. Perhaps it was. But then on who's judgement? What is even more important, the disruptions of communications. Good or bad.
See, if it was verbal, NOBODY could have remove 'my speech', therefore we will never know what impact 'my speech' would have had on this one occassion. And we were not allow to see how things would develop if there was freedom of speech. Perhaps someone is going to say to me now: we put 'your speech' back in. BUT it is too late. The momentum is gone. We no longer able to turn the clock back.
And that I think is one of the big differences between physical space and cyber space.
Cindy
fruit salad for me, please
Hi,
I agree that space is different from cyberspace, like oranges and apples. And a person’s behavior is (or may be) therefore different when moving in the two types of space. People don’t need to fight in Cyberspace, they can simply “disappear” and join another community whenever they want. We cannot do that in Space. In Space, sometimes we just have to BE there, cannot go elsewhere, and that’s why we learn to fight and coabitation. Sometimes it’s a choice either fight or find a peaceful agreement. Sometimes we are forced into one or the other moves. In any case, we need to know both behaviors to be able to chose (with all the limits we may have in this choice). On the contrary, we don’t need to learn how to fight in cyberspace, because we always have the possibility to move away to another “room”. Or we could adopt an aggressive behavior we normally don’t have in Space: I mean, some people could learn how to fight in Cyberspace, that is less risky than Space, before doing it in Space (consider flame wars in chats and forums and also video-games and simulations). Of course all of this influences our behaviors in whatever context we are. Personally, I noticed changes in my behavior and way of approaching people in Space after I became an Internet user. I wonder how the changes may be for people who start moving in Cyberspace at the same time they start walking in Space. Will these people notice the difference between oranges and apples, as we do now? Or will they see it as a fruit salad with no distinctions?
Wot u mean “cannot and do not write”? Because s/he doesn’t know how to do it? Or because s/he has some disability? Or because s/he doesn’t have an access to cyberspace?
In any case, when s/he has no apples s/he will grow up eating only oranges.
Ran
What is Power?
Hello Jacques, Raniera,
Presently I am trying to understand Power Distance (PD) as researched by Hofstede. And I am trying to understand how to apply PD to eLearning (cyberspace). I am at the beginning of my research, therefore no answers yet.
But, comparing physical space and cyberspace would be like organge and apple, don't you agree? I mean if we think Japan and Italy or China and India are too crowded, we are looking at physically. But not cyberspace. Therefore, can a real person that shove people around with his/her physical power and 'move' people away, would that mean this person can do the same online?
Can we assume the behaviour of a person is the same on and off-line? I doubted.
What if this person cannot and do not write?
Cindy
Is freedom anarchy?
In fact, Raniera, it could well be that most of the human deeds which have very little (intellectual) substance and /or moral values -attached to them or inbuilt- look like second rate products or even pollutants. Enterprises which hardly make any sense to the great majority will then tend to lose any kind of impetus they might have had in the past, even recent past.
The overwhelming basic need for all is: a sense of purpose. So why associate with people, companies, NGOs, or whatever other type of human community, if they clearly and stubbornly profile themselves as empty, meaningless -and sometimes untrustworthy or even aggressive- we may wonder?
Then it could explain that people with a lesser drive for violence prefer avoiding the representatives of "foolishness", they prefer quietness and peace to engaging into sterile and destructive and exhausting fencing and arguing. Alas the consequence of this attitude is simply that the bullies are just in the usual position of getting rid of all that is worth living and fighting for. And they do manage to destroy a lot, even people's morale. No wonder Miguel in the above article asks for systems of regulations and moderations in any type of KM project, or innovation project.
A question of space?
Hi people,
I'm thinking of Jacques comment on cyberspace allowing people to avoid those they do not like, simply moving to another space/room.
Is this freedom?
I read something about African Anarchies. Apparently it seems that many Africa peoples behaved this way, just moving on to another place, when a stranger arrived whom they didn't like (or pushing the stranger to leave). These societies were defined anarchies by Western people, who couldn't imagine a society with no authority to rule and no hierarchy. But actually these societes were far from being disorganized and they did have rules and leaders and politics. Freedom was considered of the maximum importance. And power was based on how many people one could "move" (not on how much space one controlled).
I imagined the situation being very similar to cyberspace now.
This "political organization" of society was possible in Africa for the morphology of that continent, I guess. I can't imagine it in a land like Japan, for example, or Italy, too: too many people here.
That's my first impression, but I'm not sure. Too little information about those societies to compare them to others.
Ran
Trying again to see if the picture appears…
a question of space?
Hi people,
I'm thinking of Jacques comment on cyberspace allowing people to avoid those they do not like, simply moving to another space/room.
Is this freedom?
I read something about African Anarchies. Apparently it seems that many Africa peoples behaved this way, just moving on to another place, when a stranger arrived whom they didn't like (or pushing the stranger to leave). These societies were defined anarchies by Western people, who couldn't imagine a society with no authority to rule and no hierarchy. But actually these societes were far from being disorganized and they did have rules and leaders and politics. Freedom was considered of the maximum importance. And power was based on how many people one could "move" (not on how much space one controlled).
I imagined the situation being very similar to cyberspace now.
This "political organization" of society was possible in Africa for the morphology of that continent, I guess. I can't imagine it in a land like Japan, for example, or Italy, too: too many people here.
That's my first impression, but I'm not sure. Too little information about those societies to compare them to others.
Ran
When you can leave, and when you can't
Hi all,
thanks for your comments, and sorry for not answering these days :-).
Just wanted to point out a small thing. Sometimes there is no option out of that kind of problems.
Even nowadays, and even in cyberspace, resources are limited and people's attention too. In closed environments like corporations that is even more so.
In other words: if a freethinker does no feel encouraged to speak up and is not listened to, within a normal organization, he/she may not be able to leave. For one thing, maybe he/she works there, and changing jobs is not that simple. For another, when you do feel a special interest for an initiative, a project, a group, a family or a company... or a country, you can't just vote with your feet and turn your back on your ideals and attachments.
Else we would have a perfect marketplace for freethinkers, and we don't :-).
Raniera: the problem with slow thinking is that most of the thinking (anywhere, from anyone) is slow. Institutions (see Weber) are proverbial for holding on to practices, and we people are made up of habits. It may be a matter of being able to allow and make the most of the occasional burst of difference and speed :-).
Ciara: I agree completely. Without that respect and openness, it is very hard to learn (at all) from other people.
Cindy: this links with the "scarcity" problem above.
Jacques: about "voting with our feet", see above too :-). With the rest, I agree.
Best regards,
Miguel
"avoiding" and "improving"
With the spreading and consecration of "social software" it is expected people feel quite free to express themselves and connect with a multitude of partners, interlocutors, chatters. And if a group does not please them, if they do not like the subjects dealt with or the biases they are conveying, they can go somewhere else and meet other people they think are closer to them, and with whom they originally have more in common.
To some it appears as a manifestation of "freedom". It is today customary to say "vote with your two feet". And what if I am on a subject I am interested in and I want to debate some of it aspects in a controversial manner? through discussion?
Political parties exist as communities but they do not make it a rule to stay where they are and avoid non-members. Politicians want to meet people who do not agree with them and they want to convince them. The level and the intensity of interaction can be remarkable, in some TV debating programmes especially.
This does not mean of course that nonsensical talk must pervade honest and authentic exchanges. Falsified pieces of information combined in distorted and mixed up bits of knowledge cannot prevail. So yes we need referees, yes we need analysts, yes we need some assessment to take place other than the rating of "site-meters" or the like.
Yes Miguel, yes Cindy, we need to see our freedom rights backed up by common sense.
Why not?
There are many occassions/situations where an individual or a group of people is/are so dominating that 'Free speech' is no longer possible for the rest of the team. What is wrong then with 'shutting down' this particular person/group to 'allow opening up space' for other to speak?
If 'Space' is the intention?
Most time the problem is with management, the leaders whom we perceived the authority to do something, but unable or unwilling to take any actions. Therefore eventully nobody would be willing to 'speak' because there is no 'free space' to do so. That is the other way of looking at "free speech'. You have the freedom to speak. BUT are forced to keep your mouth shut because your thoughts, your ideas, your dreams are being 'shut down'.
The only option sometime is to 'shut down' the domininating group/individual to allow the rest the chance to be heard.
Cindy
Criticism as a source of knowledge
I believe that one of the most important hindrances to respecting other people’s views are stereotypes, since they condition our opinions about others. However, they are usually helpful when it comes to situations where people from different nationalities and origins meet. At the beginning of such relationships, stereotypes can be seen as a sort of guideline that help us communicating with each other, since it would be almost impossible for us to know all the different characteristics and aspects of every different culture in order to avoid an uncomfortable situation. But this initial ideas tend to disappear the closer you get to know the other person. And that’s when the process of respecting the other persons opinions usually begins. I don’t think that “the more two people know and respect each other, the more difficult it will become for one of them to destroy a theory or proposal by the other”. This depends on each person and of course it also depends on the relationship between them. The extent of confidence between them and the capacity for being criticized play both a very important role when it comes to giving one’s opinion on the other’s ideas. Of course, it will be hard for people who feel discriminated against to collaborate if they don't feel respected, but I do think that in a learning or working environment it is very important not to take every comment personal; it is sometimes a matter of being more open-minded and considering the other’s opinions as a source of knowledge that can enrich our tasks and lives.
freethinking and groupthinking
Hi people of the earth,
I like freethinking. It requires a lot of respect for others and a lot of "civilization".
From the story above, it sounds like large organizations are bound to groupthink, to maintain status quo and hierarchy. They can't innovate and learn, they're paralized.
I read here in another forum "slow movers are doomed".
Ran
Some clever thoughts!
Perhaps my favorite sentence in this text of yours Miguel:
"Ideas should be judged on merit alone, and freethinking appreciated as the ferment of innovation."
It should lead us to take some time to ponder upon it! Thinking, I agree with you, precedes talking! But it is so obvious that some of us tend to forget about it and make it (thinking) look obsolete!
KM without thinking would be an aberration, would it not?
Bumbble "bee"ing from com-pac to EU Knowledgeboard
Hi Miguel, Jaques, Cindy, Raniera, Ciara and all interested parties,
A little while ago, I came across a definition of the "bumblebees" of CoPs who go around polienating from community to community.
Here is a cross posting for the sake of satisfying my personal need to complete the blossoming between the two CoPs of the EU Knowledgeboard and com-prac. The polienating was started today, May 8, 06, when com-pac received an invitation from one who is also member here on the EU Knowledgeboard. That discussion on com-prac is called "[cp]abuse" and was started Ap 27, 2006. It can be seen at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/com-prac/message/6457
This morning's invitation reads as follow:
"Cornejo Castro, Miguel" wrote:
... Going back to the early question, I knew I'd written something
about
the matter :-).
It's here http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=666 for
anybody interested.
Best regards,
Miguel
I carried on with:
Miguel,
I went to read your piece of 2004 on the EU Knowledgeboard along with all the comments and I followed closely this "abuse" discussion here at com-pac.
As we read the two, we can notice that the same thoughts are being expressed on both threads. To me this confirms that intelligence is not free to roam far from one another's life experience, if it is going to remain intelligent. The freedom of speech needs to be framed in the speech of freedom where respect can cultivate closeness and with whom the destination of intelligence is maintained by love and truth, allowing for the time and for the space to move everyone and anyone to either grow along or to come along until ready to speak up again.
Our topic is abuse and this, usually appears after being used and confused in a process with no recourse to love and truth for reconciliation to take a hold of all involved. So in cyber space, when one is abusive, the wisdom of being personal until clarity is reached will cause the underlying problem to either show itself or it will take the participant away from participation.
Eventually, it will become necessary for any cyber community who can
serve such transparency to quickly speard such service, so as to become the first line of security minded poeple who we are needed, because
their job will be to go on search and rescue missions of such possible social land mines.
If their mission fails, then we will see other securuty forces appear on such scenes. Schools and institutional workplaces have already been working that way for a long time.
The discarding of undesirables instead of the search and rescue mission I speak of, keeps alive the individual hurry for advancement at work and of the sheer ignorance of human behavior to competing instead of completing. Cycles between conflicts are keeping in power the safety of intelligence that cannot commit to learn from its own mistakes, for the sake of keeping the status quo intact. The enemy is the unlimited
competition that we are kept into by each, our own basic survival nature.
Solution? The experience of being taken from that one nature to another and this is said to be: "The Spirit of life in Christ-Jesus has set me
free from the law of missing the target(sin) and of spiritual death."
All improvements to the old nature are simple reshuffling of the same driving energies that can only go on promoting one into the power to move people and to conquer space with more of the same basic instincts.
CONCLUSION
Renewal or perpetuation of the limiting coktail of ignorance and indifference, struggling behind the masks of civility...until it blows up again...
...all blessings be with us all...
Benoit Couture
--------------------------------------
In order to clarify that I do not speak "religiousily", I invite us to consider "The Faculty of Living" as the expression to focus all faculties so that practica, technica and academia find common ground to abide in unity of completion from the current divisions of competition.
Links on the EU Knowledgeboard to other conversations that are pointing toward The Faculty of Living:
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/discuss.cgi?thread_id=14
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2708
The questions I raise at the following workshop: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=2675
Why I insist on my questions in the previous workshop: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/discuss.cgi?thread_id=17