[From Dag Forssell (2000.09.24.1950 PST)]
I found a large number of posts relating to Friendships, apologies
when I again started reading digests Friday afternoon. More have
arrived since. With this post, I shall attempt to address what I
see as issues left outstanding, hoping to make a positive
contribution to the future of PCT and CSG. Perhaps just to sort out
my own thoughts. After this, I expect to return to my work organizing
PCT reference materials.
> Kenny Kitzke (2000.09.21)
> BTW, you stated you would be preparing something on respect for
> others re PCT. Have you done that?
For a long time, as Bill and Mary Powers have felt more and more
estranged from Ed Ford, who will not attend CSG meetings any more,
and who inexplicably will not link to CSG on his web site, and Tom
Bourbon, who has spelled out his misgivings in personal contacts
with Bill, I have felt what I imagine it is like to be a child of
divorcing parents, who deep down love each other, but who cannot
get along due to an accumulation of real and perceived wrongs.
I has been my privilege to be on good terms and close to both
parents. I feel the pain on both sides. I feel pain myself. I love
both sets of parents dearly.
I had every intention of starting an effort to get my parents back
together by writing a paper on a PCT interpretation of respect,
when the current thread started with wonderful rapprochement
between Bill and Tom, where Bill clearly acknowledged the error of
his ways. Sad to say, I was not surprised when this immediately was
followed by sabotage by my incorrigible sibling Rick. Whatever Rick
is controlling for, I can't see how it possibly can be his love of
PCT, because he sure is counter-productive.
As you can tell from my post "From Dag 991031" I have been thinking
about the difficulties on CSGnet for some years. In that post, I
suggested that respect had something to do with disturbances to
systems level perceptions:
> Seems to me that the issue of "squabbling" is one of respect and
> self-respect. The line is crossed when people make false
> statements about others, revealing that they themselves lack
> systems concepts that constrain them from saying whatever nasty
> thoughts come to mind.
Today, I might rephrase that to say " when people disturb the self-
concept of others in ways they cannot effectively counter, "
As Tom responded:
> Marc, I certainly understand your feeling of despair. A lot has
> been lost, when one person after another encountered Rick's
> deliberate disturbances to their systems-level perceptions, and
> then walked away from CSG.
When Hugh Gibbons presented at CSG in Boston last July, he reviewed
his way of teaching legal concepts. From my notes:
enforcement willing
ancillary acquiescence
action (A)
BRAIN MINDS WILLS (B) RISK DUTIES RIGHT LAW ENFORCEMENT
feed
back intentional contract
undertakings
As I recall, the sequence BRAIN MINDS WILLS suggests that one
should be alive to have a mind and will.
WILL begets actions, and when you take action, there is always some
RISK involved. Some of the RISK is ancillary - unpredictable
unintended consequences - and some of it is expected or intentional
- predictable unintended consequences.
When someone else is involved, you enter into a contract,
explicitly or implicitly, which defines DUTIES. DUTIES establish
RIGHTS and when you violate them, you law enforcement comes into
play.
(I am not certain of some details of the above, and have not taken
the time to review the video, but this is not critical here).
Hugh illustrated what he meant by walking over to Rick, feigning a
punch to the nose. He said that this action would instantly violate
Rick's rights, we would all recognize this regardless of culture,
and Rick could then take Hugh to court.
The thing that struck me as highly relevant in all this, is the
idea of willing acquiescence. When, as a veteran of CSGnet, you
post suggestions for improvement of PCT to include reference
signals planted by God or whatever, Kenny, you willingly acquiesce
to an exchange of opinions. If you post statements that can be
taken as bigoted or outrageous in one way or another, you cannot
complain to the courts if you receive outraged replies. If you
state a simple question, I don't see that you have acquiesced to
being ridiculed.
For me, this means that the next time I get in front of a group of
engineers, with the stated agenda of teaching the basics of PCT,
these individuals have not willingly acquiesced to have me question
their existing beliefs, religious, social, or otherwise not based
on any kind of evidence or reasonable interpretation. So when a
seminar participant asks what PCT has to say about this or that
religious belief, my answer will have to be that "I don't know, you
have to figure that out for yourself." When they ask how PCT
compares to flavor number 39 of contemporary psychology or
sociology or anthropology, my answer will have to be that "I don't
know, you have to figure that out for yourself." I will be well
advised to refrain from any comment whatsoever, or hint of opinion
(if I have one) through my demeanor.
In the early years of CSGnet, religion was discussed with Ed's full
participation. Everyone was sincere in their comments and no-one
was offended. As time went on, and I can't pinpoint this without
reading the entire record - something I have no intention of
spending my time on at this point - Rick developed a habit of
ridiculing the Pope, the catholic church and Ed, all at the same
time. Rick would do this out of the blue at regular intervals over
several years. I know I am not alone to have protested this practice.
Two things were wrong with this:
A) Ed had not willingly acquiesced to be ridiculed by Rick, over
and over again.
B) Ed had no means of counter-acting these disturbances to his
self-concept. These disturbances overwhelmed Ed. What could he say
to counter them?
I have no PCT comment to offer regarding item A). Hugh would
probably suggest that almost all people around the globe in all
cultures feel this way, but I will label it common sense or
courtesy.
Item B) to me relates directly to the simple concept of PCT.
Overwhelming disturbances cause loss of control. The only rational
course of action is to remove oneself from the cause of such
disturbances. Most PCT analyses of social phenomena cannot be much
more detailed or sophisticated than that.
> And, if you have, or when you do, please explain how loathing
> others fits in with your concept of respect.
There are nine meanings of respect listed in Webster's. When I
think of Rick and the sad state of CSGnet and CSG and my parents, I
experience great conflict and anger. I dream of punching him in the
nose, or as Isaac put it, kick him in the balls. For me to think
this way is not disrespectful of Rick as long as I keep it to
myself, (though I certainly don't respect him.) I am disrespectful
when I do my best to disturb his concept of self in an attempt to
induce some reorganization I think would be helpful in the long
run. Of course, as Bill notes, this naturally creates resistance.
So to me, as I grapple with this here and now, launching a
disturbance against another person's self-concept that the person
cannot counteract is disrespectful. Launching a disturbance that
the person can counter-act is part and parcel of ordinary
conversation across a wide range of intensity, and is not
disrespectful.
Ed signed off from CSGnet many years ago in despair.
When the coercion "debate" started, neither Ed nor Tom were on
CSGnet. They did not willingly acquiesce or otherwise participate
in any discussion whatsoever, except for a strong protest by Tom
prior to and at the 1998 CSG meeting. At the meeting, Tom spelled
out how this "debate" was unscientific and inappropriate.
···
---------------------
A few days ago, (2000.09.19.1850) I said:
> Seems to me that discussions on CSGnet are full of unstated
> beliefs, not based on PCT, on both sides of any discussion.
> The coercion "debate" illustrates this in spades, I think.
> For instance there is the (well it is stated, but needs to be
> challenged) belief that theoreticians can and should sit
> in judgement of social applications of PCT.
At all the CSG meetings I can remember, it has been said that these
meetings are where practitioners can come and present their
programs so the theoreticians can evaluate the program and offer
suggestions for improvements, or words to that effect.
I think there is a fundamental problem with this attitude that may
be a root cause of many of the problems of CSGnet and CSG meetings.
Since the theory is very basic, consisting essentially of the basic
notion that living organisms are control systems, and lacking any
firm definition of the upper levels, except for the notion that we
control perceptions of various complexity, there is not much
theoreticians can say unless they are intimately involved in the
application, i.e. participate in it.
I do think that Bill deserves the satisfaction of a measure of
participation in applications of his life's work. After all, it is
wonderfully revolutionary in its simplicity, and will make a huge
difference when it is more widely adopted. But Bill's status as a
theoretician extraordinaire does not necessarily mean that he is
qualified to pass judgement on a particular application. Bill's
wonderful posts (2000.09.15.0647 MDT) and (2000.09.16.0254 MDT)
speak to this.
Seems to me that the role of the theoreticians is to develop the
theory, teach the theory, create models and tutorials to illustrate
it, and (Bill, don't forget) write instructions on how to model so
more people can join in the "proof of concept" research.
Applications can and should be developed by people who have learned
the theory, thus becoming theoreticians themselves (many
practitioners have) and proceed to apply it to their setting.
I think it would be very useful and satisfying to have
practitioners come to CSG meetings to present how they _teach PCT_,
not how they practice whatever therapy, RTP or otherwise. Now the
theoretician can provide supportive critique and counsel.
PCT should be the foundation of applications. PCT comes first. CSG
meetings can and will be productive if participants focus on ways
of teaching, illustrating, modeling and researching PCT, not
present miscellaneous other personal points of view.
As practitioners share how they teach PCT, it will be reasonable to
expect them to report what parts of the PCT literature they
actually have read, and what simulations and tutorials they
actually have studied.
I believe such an approach would create camaraderie and sharing of
ideas. You avoid uninformed critique of applications as well as
presentations that are completely irrelevant to the development or
teaching of PCT.
---------------------
Bill Powers (2000.09.20.0257)
> I completely agree with you and Linda. I just re-read the post
> and find absolutely nothing in it that is offensive,
Bill, just as with the "choice" word, context matters. Neither Rick
nor you are innocent victims in all this.
It will soon be three years since Rick and you started questioning
the choice word, steadfastly refusing to consider its context, when
"defenders of RTP" suggested just that, and without a discussion
partner representing RTP. (Just to be clear, I do not represent RTP).
At the very time when you acknowledge that your persistent
attention to this little detail may have been inappropriate,
Energizer Bunny Rick takes that as his cue to come charging at
full speed, and you don't find anything at all wrong with it?
I have a better idea:
There are other applications of PCT that Rick and you can take a
look at.
When I objected to the sale of Glasser-inspired books at the 1999
CSG MOL conference, Shelley Brierley told me personally that her
program _Circle of Strength_ is based on PCT. You (Bill) told me
that Diane Gossen's _Restitution_ employs PCT concepts. Perry
Good's program _Overall direction_ is a third candidate for Rick's
loving attention. (As an aside and for the record, I owe Shelley an
apology for being difficult at that time. As a PCT theoretician, as
I have reasoned just above, I have no business passing judgement on
any of the applications represented by the literature Shelley
presented. As I have stated in prior posts, applications will sort
themselves out in coming decades as more and more people read the
core literature).
Just like Ed Ford and Tom Bourbon were not, these people are not on
CSGnet (actually, I am not sure of that, but that is not the point
here), but friends and associates of theirs are, so they are sure
to be alerted and would be sure to respond. What Rick calls "data"
is readily available � books and videos can be ordered. So the
overall situation with these programs is fully equivalent to where
you were with regard to RTP three years ago. If they don't answer,
or if they or their "defenders" object, you can just escalate the
rhetoric to make your points more compelling or crystal clear.
I am not serious suggesting this. I think this scenario stinks just as
much as the coercion "debate," and would be just as damaging to all
involved.
--------------------
Rick Marken (2000.09.19.1030)
> I will change what I
> think is correct based on modeling, data and reasoned
> arguments based on that modeling and data.
Rick Marken (2000.09.20.1040)
> All I can (and want to) do is PCT research, modeling and
> application of the model to real behavior,�
Rick, if you are serious about this, it will solve many problems.
No more off the cuff opinions. No more political statements. 95% of
your postings will vanish from CSGnet. Stick to your convictions!
====================
Best, Dag
Dag Forssell
dag@forssell.com, www.forssell.com
23903 Via Flamenco, Valencia CA 91355-2808 USA
Tel: +1 661 254 1195 Fax: +1 661 254 7956
