[From Rick Marken (930827.1000)]
I can't seem to get my post about modelling organizations to post
to the net. So I'll test my connection from this address with a
quick reply to Hal. In his post about the "university as a control
system" Hal fails to point out the most ardent controller in the
piece -- Hal. Hal's controlling is "ardent" because it is specifically
aimed at controlling other control systems. As Hal says:
I have been
actively involved in various attempts to modify university policy over the
years,
Implementable university policies are embodied in the brains of
university employees -- as reference signals (goals). So to "modify
university policy" really means to "modify the goals of other people".
Doing this without consideration of the fact that these goals exist
in the context of a hierarchy of goals (within EACH individual)
maintained to preserve individual survival is (as Hal notes) a
sure-fire recipe for conflict. But it is not conflict between a
person (like Hal) and an impersonal control system -- "the university".
It is a conflict between people; it is good old fashioned interpersonal
conflict.
This is another reason (the first reason, which has to do with model-
ling, will apparently not post to the net) why I don't like the idea
of reifying organizations (like universities) as control systems. It
is a way of depersonalizing personal conflict. So it's OK to fight
against "the university" becuase the university is a big, ugly control
system in its own right -- it's not really individual people that you
are fighting against. This is how wars are justified too; we're not
fighting individual people -- just a big, bad control system called
Germany or Iraq.
The idea that an organization is a control system is a religious belief --
pure and simple -- and like most religious beliefs it is the basis for
much evil. Fortunately, the belief in the "organization as control system"
can be tested (and rejected) scientifically. But that doesn't mean that
the belief will go away -- even in those who see the evidence. Control
systems keep information OUT, remember.
Ah well.
Best
Rick