Contributions of global systems of ethics to sustainable civilization [Donald de Raadt, ISSS 1998 Plenary Session, July 22/98]

These notes are a rough transcription, prepared as each individual presenter and/or commentator spoke at the ISSS 1998 conference. Gaps and errors have likely occurred. For more accurate citations, please consult the original presenters. These notes have been contributed to the ISSS by David Ing, of the IBM Advanced Business Institute (sabi@systemicbusiness.org).

Second Donald de Raadt, past-president ISSS, professor Lulea, Sweden

• Book on display.

Ethics as a function as an educator, informing leaders and managers, as well as system designers.

• What they manage and design is ethics.

1. As a prophet, the universe is not governed by static laws, but by dynamic, personal gods.
• After the reformation, most people believed in a dynamic, personal, god.
• Labellius(?) Haave(?)
2. Prophets considered life the important part of understanding (not logic)
• Emphasis personal -- human ethics.
3. Humanity -- what we are -- can only be seen in the vision of God.
• No other way to answer what is man?
4. Humanity although brilliant, is a failure.
• Hard to address amongst the affluent.
• Science has developed in the context of affluence.
• At the end of the middle ages, in Paris, the College of Montague, with two colleges, street was Avenue of the Dogs, renamed to the Avenue of Excrement by students, as it was an animal toilet, with prostitutes, etc.
• University built an overhead bridge, so that academics wouldn't have to cross street.
• Then academics could focus on what is relevant, e.g. whether God could be incarnate in a cucumber.
• Meanwhile the people below were left below.
• German theologian says: God states what is relevant, and the people in the street are the relevant people.

• Framework: God's management of man (sala?) is multi-modal -- unity with variety
• Reflects God's wisdom, because prophets believe wisdom and command were together.
• 17 modes -- explained in a tutorial tomorrow.
• Ethics, justice, faith, and how we operationalize and manage life.
• Talk about man and women, and how we relate to each other.

• Some modalities are more universal than others, e.g. numerical.
• The universe is inspired by love -- it shaped the university, and is the substance of ethics.

• Ethics and love must have the element of sacrifice.
• Students say beauty in ideas, but hard to implement in the corporate world.
• Ethics makes demands on life.

• Written by St. Paul.
• Ethics is patience. Ethics is kind. .... Ethics always perseveres. Ethics never fails.

• Professional ethics -- doing our job properly, or information ethics -- data as accurate.
• Not ethics -- just justice, doing our job right.
• Ethics means staying at the university late, without pay, to help students.
• Ethics are necessary for a human system to work.
• Mumford: Work according to rules.
• e.g. trams must work, from reliance of conductors, ticket-takers, -- according to love, beyond just duty.

• Ethical love remains, regardless of notions.
• May love the dog, but if we have to walk it every day, psychic love may disappear, but will continue to walk the dog.
• Ethical love is true in long marriages, where we stay true to the promise.

• Ballet: Inspired by the love of beauty and art.
• Dancers sacrifice: rehearsals, strain on the body
• They do this for the love of the art.
• Ethical love connects to the aesthetics, becomes operationalized as a performance, which then becomes a social system as an activity and vocation of a dancer enters the social relationship.
• Male and female dancers:
• Within the social structure (as an image of God) splits into two roles.
• Male role as leading, characterized by strength.
• Female role as nurturing, characterized by tenderness.
• Deep relationship: benefit to people who receive (i.e. view the dance).
• Sharing the importance of mother dying.
• Modern organizations exclude tenderness: e.g. hospital, ballet or school
• Should ensure that social institutions should find tenderness and strength
• Strength is hard: it's the responsibility of man to protect the environment, so that tenderness can flourish.
• Today, we have a low regard for femininity, which is essential to society.
• Rembrandt, Michaelangelo were men, who produced work, but we are alive today due to the tenderness of women in history.
• Hitler could never have been a woman, because it's contrary to a woman's thinking.
• It is inherent to man to be able to create great works, or be destructive.

• Management is a feminine task: preserve and encourage a system.

• Tree will be special and individual, but need to be able to pass on characteristics.
• We must be as seeds in every social institution.
• Treat every older woman as our mother, every younger woman as a sister.
• Sacrifice must be essence of this seed: the seed dies to let the tree grow.