sociodynamic law?
Ann Hale
annehale at swva.net
Thu Nov 2 17:49:11 CST 2006
The sociodynamic effect as it is related to choice-making for individuals: many choices are directed toward a very few people, and the few remaining choices are spread over a large number of people. For example: many people have to read emails from a very few people, and a large number of people have to wade through it all to read something from the few remaining people still tuning in who have not sent messages to "unsubscribe".
Or, one country uses a very large portion of the earth's resources, and the remaining resources have to be spread out over a large number of countries and populations.
To turn this around, Moreno advocated "consciousness raising" by having groups become aware of their choice-making and the overall impact on the survival of all people who need connection. AND, to make changes in these patterns using our own sociometric position and choices.
----- Original Message -----
From: Adam Blatner
To: BARNETT WEISS
Cc: list at grouptalkweb.org
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 9:17 AM
Subject: sociodynamic law?
Ah, Bud, I'm sorry I've developed that reputation as a pedant.
I don't have much to object to.
I'd like to understand more about what the sociodynamic effect really is, how as a principle it can be used in therapy, directing sociodramas, etc. On the surface, it seems to me like an over-generalization that seems more true in some situations than others; yet I'm open to expanding my learning here.
Anyway, this edge of my ignorance is in no way aimed at your witnessing to ideas that have moved you.
I acknowledge that different folks will construct different symbol systems, philosophies; indeed, I think this process is inevitable. A person may have a honeymoon with any writer, philosopher, group of ideas, but in time, as individuality emerges, some need to adjust, expand, re-frame, re-word, integrate other ideas, etc., tends to emerge, because we all are highly complex beings and so any single formula--the funny life-is-a-fountain joke you allude to--may well not work.
Perhaps my responses tend to be to people making generalizations that are supposed to apply to everyone in all situations... That's where I want to qualify things a bit...
Good wishes, adam
----- Original Message -----
From: BARNETT WEISS
To: Adam Blatner ; list at grouptalkweb.org ; Ed Schreiber
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 7:30 AM
Subject: Long reply to Frankl and sociodynamic challenges
Dear Adam and Ed:
I have allowed this discussion to percolate for a bit and decided to enter in at least for the moment.
I am a bit wary here since I am sure that you Adam will pick apart what I am about to say in your usual challenging manner which will lead to my having to go even deeper or remain feelng guilty for not having done so.
With that risk in mind and the acknowledged courage that it takes to face the probable requested tasks devolving from my entry into the field, I here set forth.
As to Fankl's body of work and his life's example for me, he has been very very important to me personally helping me through the worst depression in my young life in his finding meaning in his experience. Those facts in the history of the world such as the concnetration camps and it's survivors someof whom went on to find and create like Frankl, meaning in the midst of that horror, the Maafa- middle passsage, slavery and it's descendents and their ancestors incredible strength in surviving remaining mot only sane but again finding meaning that supports life somehow dispite post traumatic slave syndrome about which no one has written more powerfully in my estimation than Dr. Joy Degruy-Leary < www.posttraumaticslavesyndrome.com >, the untold numbers out numbering all of the genocides in history of those lost of the indigenous people of the continent on which we live done by Europeans and their descendants, etc etc etc and again the incredible wisdom of those among their survivors and their descendants who have become the gurus for many seeking meaning in life. All have basically answered the call for meaning in life similar to Camus's poweful exploration in The Rebel ( again a text that brought me through my darkest hours) that there is no meaning in life, it is the finding purpose in the midst of this non meaning which brings meaning to life. The purpose is about service and for the Indigenous people by and large, that service is done in the light of the path that involves contact with and reverence for their Ancestors, even healing their Ancestors who have gone astray at times through certain rituals so that the Ancestors may continue to provide assistance in the course of life in this realm. A long lived wonderful model for me from England, George Bernard Shaw wrote it as well as it can be said for my money from his wonderful play Man and Superman:
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations."
So to return to the question, For me, Fankl and others like those I mention above are pointing the way for those of us who ask the question about finding the meaning in life which yields to finding our purpose.
There is the old joke about the man who has nearly untold wealth who becomes obsessed with finding the meaning in life and when he has spent his last bit of money, he finally comes to the one person he is sure will have the answer as opposed to all those others who have dissappointed him. He gets to a cave far up in the Himalayas where the oldest and considered the most wise of the Buddhist saints is about to expire. He asks the wheezened up old man the question about what is the meanining in life and the man answers with great labor in his dying breaths: " Life is a river flowing through all existence, and you cannot put your foot into the same stream twice." The desperate seeker repeats the phrase with an inflection that clearly indicates his doubt and the old sage with his last expiring breath querries: "You mean it isn't?"
Virgina Satir, who saw more people and families in her workshops especially in her open family day workshops than probably any other reputable psychotherapist ever said that she found less than 5 percent of all parents were what she called fully people building parents whose children were not prone to regular pathological communication of one kind or another. She was about demonstrating these pathological ways of communicating and liberated a lot of folks in those wonderful all day open workshops which usually contained well over 100 persons. She also did some with Dr. Dorris Twitchell Allen who created the Crib Scene and lived to be 100 http://www.cisv.ca/dorisallen.htm
What I am referrning to here regarding Satir's experiential non scientifically validated findings is that most of us are living in denial of the way in which we pass on our wounds to the next generation which spawns more and more pain and some very powerful liberations offering wisdom in the process towards that path of creating meaning in life.
Nuff said about the Frankl piece at least for the time being for me.
Now on to Moreno's contribution toward healing the world and getting beyond passing on to the next generation all the ills so powerfully catalogued in Jenkin's writngs to which I assume Ed, you are pointing.
Moreno was challenging us all to create psychodrama theaters everywhere, sociodramas everywhere ( I think Boal has promulgated this as well as anyone) Theaters like Roy Heart's in France which continues to challenge people's limits far after his untimely death in a car accident in 1975) and so many others.
It is through the performances in these venues that people can be made more aware of the sociodynamic effect and how it solidly continues to point toward less and less being done by more. THe opening up of it's use in the classrooms where students can experience probably for the first time real democracy when they are fortunate enough to have a teacher who understands the use of sociometry and has the support of their administration in using it properly.
THere are schools like the Sudburry Valley School in Framingham where such tools would be welcomed easily and for those who are nearby, it is easy to contact them. Going to the schools as those tutored by Tom Treadwell have undoubtedly gone, like myself going to teachers where I work and seeing if they are open to working with me doing some simple sociometric work which they end up wanting to learn more about.
For me this is the couse that will change things. I really think that it is this committment to doing both the psycodramatic and sociodramatic work along with teaching and utilizing wherever possible active sociometric methods that can have the effect of turning around the inevitable solidification otherwise of the sociodynamic effect.
Finally, it is my "belief" that the tools available to us from the has spin offs from Bert Hellinger's creation like that of John Payne and others of his integrity blended with the best of the tools we have inherited directly from Dr. Moreno and Zerka and all the wonderfully creative and hard working folks who have moved their work forward can also assist us powerfully in healing what the indigenous wisdom providers speak of as the most important healing venue, that of the Ancestors directly from the present dysfunction felt by those who are willing to come forward to find clarity and direction for their own healing in the here and now.
So there's my 50 cents for the moment. Blessings, Bud
Adam Blatner <adam at blatner.com> wrote:
Hi Ed, of course you're right, and just this afternoon I had some new insights about how
much people need meaning--so Frankl is right, too.
How about this, instead of "must" maybe I would say that people do construct meaning
systems for themselves, even if it is unconscious, or it involves participation in the
implicit meaning systems of affiliated groups. And people will also affiliate, or generate
interesting reasons and complexes in avoiding such connections.
Now, you mention the capacity of psychodrama and sociodrama to
> address, if not heal, the wounds of oppression, and the sociodynamic law of the movement
> of resource from the many to the few? How specifically would you propose these be
> applied or what is the remedy?
Asking how we can justify mass folly won't do it. I mean, I could answer: Individualism,
freedom, trusting the open market, our dominion over the earth, the needs of people over
animals, etc. The rationalizations for maintaining the status quo are elaborate. I agree
with you and not with those who answer, but the point is that there are lots of
justifications.
So political, economic, and social activism often requires a mixture of wisdom
and action that isn't easy to balance.
What I don't get yet is an image in my mind of how sociatry, sociometry, etc.
would actually be used to change things.
Well, maybe I do-- did you know I recently published a paper proposing the use of
sociodrama as a core element of the college curriculum?
As for sociometry-- I'd certainly be open to your giving me some ideas. Warmly,
Adam
> Hi Adam,
>
> Thanks, as always, for the challenge you present to define, explain, refine my comments
> about Frankl and also about the relationship between Moreno's sociatry and oppression
> (beyond the most obvious relationship of the capacity of psychodrama and sociodrama to
> address, if not heal, the wounds of oppression).
>
> The issue with Frankl is that he points to an internal compass, for being human, alive
> and
> able to intregrate horrific trauma to meaning that is life supportive. Much of the work
> I've read,
> particularly Judith Herman's work on trauma, addresses the need, after telling the whole
> story,
> to find meaning. Frankl the same, with his experiences in the Nazi Death Camps. It is
> the capacity
> to find positive, hopeful, meaning as we are called to respond to life itself.
>
> For me, this was the case and remains so - as I've come to terms with my own living with
> HIV
> now for 19 almost 20 years.
>
> At the time I was first diagnosed I was offered "3-6 months to live". And for many that
> was the case.
> My response, after the initial shock of it all, was to find meaning for dying, or
> possibly dying. This is
> so often the case with cancer patients too.
>
> It is this will-to-meaning that Frankl address as an element of the human experience
> that makes us
> human, in my opinion.
>
> I've been through this of late too - as I have been mentored and studied in the really
> horric condition
> of the world's over consumption of the ecology of the earth. How many of us hear about
> this, but
> turn to the stasis of our lives, believing it's not real, that global cliamte change
> will not impact the lives
> of all of us and the generations to follow?
>
> The horror is complex and deep. It has everything to do with the exploitation of poor
> people around the globe
> so we can continue to live our own lives with the goods, foods, toys, cars, computers,
> objects that make our
> life of privledge just that. This is one element of the nature of oppression.
>
> As to your question about how Moreno and oppression fit: Moreno called for a
> sociometric revolution.
> We each have to come to terms with what he meant. For me, it means addressing the fact
> that the sociodynamic
> effect is just that: an operational process within civilization that in its base and
> essence moves resources to
> the few at the expense of the many.
>
> I am not a marxist, nor a capitalist: I am an environmental sociatrist - looking at
> these forces Moreno described
> and looking at the from the vantage point of how at the base of it all, we are
> destroying the biosphere, the earth,
> the ecology to pull resources from that - to us - at the expense of life itself.
>
> How can we justify 158 species per day becoming extinct, for our way of living?
> Can we?
>
> How can we justify the fact that 150 milliion (yes, that is million) children are living
> in a state of slavery to produce
> the goods we desire?
>
> How can we justify year after year that some of us have health insurance, some do not?
>
> The movement of resource from the many to the few is the nature of oppression,
> sociometric in nature, sociatric
> in implication.
>
> Ed
>
>
> --
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>
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