Monday 28 June 2021

Pistis reclaims personal matters (weekending June 26th 2021)


 ‽istis reclaims personal matters (weekending June 26th 2021)

This week ends with news breaking in the UK of the doings of a Cabinet Minister that may indeed do for the Health Secretary what a pandemic and its handling could not necessarily do: bring an expression of ‘full confidence’ (or similar, oh so potentially loaded euphemism) from the Prime Minister?

With the mantra of the apparent current answer to the public/private morality equation being worked out in TV and radio studios across the country by colleagues (‘it is a private matter’, ‘not my job to comment on their private life’, etc.) and the sound of silence, perhaps, as stones are not cast first or thrown in glass houses…  ‽istis does wonder, and may even be so bold as to ask, whether the personal and the professional, the private and the public can be so easily ‘consciously uncoupled’?[i]

Leaving the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to spend more or less time with whomsoever he chooses and with or without the red boxes, can it really be that how anyone is in part of one’s life, or how one is with those to whom someone has responsibilities and duties (never mind expressions of commitment, love and intimacy) cannot be linked to how one is in other parts of our lives…?   that matters of faithfulness, integrity, honour and empathy might not cut across our connected roles and relationships?

And so, recognising that we may all live in one very large glass house, ‽istis wonders how different the world might be if perhaps, possibly, maybe all people (including you and me) were seen in the round - public and private, personal and professional? How would reappraisals, curations, judgements and histories develop in the light of a potentially changing consensus[ii] of morality and norms (and their personal, social, cultural and legal expressions)?  

And as for another potential story behind the story (a Minister’s office, a camera, some footage and a national newspaper), well that is probably for another day…  

© Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  


[ii] Leaving the discussion of how ‘consensus’ may be generated or maintained in any time or place – for another blog wondering…

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Sunday 20 June 2021

Pistis reclaims competence (weekending June 19th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims competence (weekending June 19th 2021)

As Trump/Biden comparisons are perhaps made across the global stage (G7, NATO, Geneva); as the penalty-shooting record of Europe’s footballers is reviewed; as the track record of at least one ennobled potential applicant for the top NHS England admin[i] job is scrutinised publicly; as ‘WhatsApp’[ii] messages to and from the UK Prime Minister and a one-time chief adviser (with language that may reveal something about professional ethics and values and not a little personal vulgaris, inlepidus or rudis) enter the public domain and maybe raise questions both about the appointed ones and the appointee… 

…‽istis ponders competence and learning theory - and wonders about insight; awareness; the appraisal by others; evidence; development processes and capacity for change; about progression, regression, digression or transgression.[iii]

Four stages and combinations of ‘in/competence’ and ‘un/consciousness’ are proposed in a model whose origins are a little uncertain[iv]:

                                                Unconscious incompetence

                        Unconscious competence        Conscious incompetence

                                                Conscious competence

 Often depicted as a cyclical, dynamic process (add arrow or quadrant graphics of choice), the expositions and applications seem to be extensive and relevant for many settings: from driving, to Governing, to nursing, to engineering, to playing football/penalty-shooting or penalty-saving, to managing a pandemic, etc, etc.

Should you care to, just look up ‘competence cycle’ or similar in any search engine[v], for example).

But this week ‽istis wonders:

‽ whether ignorance of one’s ineffectiveness, failure, inability can ever be blissful unless perhaps one has no responsibilities and one’s actions, thoughts or feelings impact on no-one else? Explanations may abound but may never excuse? Unconscious incompetence…  how difficult it may be to avoid naming those people that come to mind and, by very definition, how impossible might it be to name oneself…?

‽ how uncomfortable might those moments of self- or other-revelation be? When the view in the mirror reveals a naked Emperor, when the scales fall from the eyes, when criticism is recognised and accepted, when the evidence of failings or failure and the impact (and one’s own role and responsibility) can no longer be denied? Conscious incompetence… and ‽istis thinks of those painful moments; good for the moral fibre? humiliating and humbling? perhaps points of learning? possibly a springboard for better (or maybe resignation or despair)…?  

‽ practice and praxis: over and over again; striving for perfection or at least getting it right sufficiently unto the day, the job, the task. Conscious competence…  aware of what works and why; able to explain and share and teach and keep learning…?

‽ just getting it right; perhaps no longer knowing how; practice or just natural ability seems to have made perfect or near enough…  but no time for laurel-resting lest the cycle goes round again with time and the moving on of the world, of needs, of demands; perhaps, possibly, maybe there lurks the hazard of a fresh, prefixing ‘in-‘ being added to the competence…?    

Competence and consciousness…  and this week (leaving aside for another week reflections on another possible dynamic and balance: competence v confidence) ‽istis thinks: where am I? how would I know? and what might be the consequences?    

© Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  


[i] v clinical?

[ii] Other social media platforms are available

[iii] Though some of this may have to wait for future blog entries…

[iv] But https://www.businessballs.com/self-awareness/conscious-competence-learning-model/ cites perhaps the earliest reference as: 'Teaching for Learning' by Martin M Broadwell, dated 20 February 1969, in The Gospel Guardian, an American Christian periodical published from the 1950s-1970s.

[v] …the competence and effectiveness of which is remarkable, but its consciousness perhaps hidden within algorithms beyond the wit of most of us


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Saturday 12 June 2021

Pistis reclaims protest (weekending June 12th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims protest (weekending June 12th 2021)

This week, as noisy, colourful, creative, angry, humorous, disagreeing, committed, shambolic, stately, formal, rumpled scenes unfold in St Ives and Carbis Bay – and that’s just from within the G7+ delegations?!…; as a statue to Emily Wilding Davison is unveiled in Epsom near the racecourse where she was fatally injured [i], ‽istis ponders the value of ‘protest’…

‽ the voice that may challenge the ‘group think’ (leaving just 11 who are angered?[ii])

‽ the lone figure in front of a tank[iii]

‽ the voice of a young person speaking to the world about theft, about the future, about responsibility, about the very stuff of life itself[iv]

‽ the hundreds of thousands marching to try to stop a war[v]

‽ the image of the death of a 26-year-old screaming through her eyes[vi]

‽ the wild(ing) gesture in front of Royalty, in front of cameras[vii]

‽ the activists in a state in a system[viii]

‽ and on, and on, and on…

So ‽istis wonders at what point does protest have to become protest; can someone protest too much (methinks?); how and when could or should someone decide, take a position, find certainty, hold a conviction, defy convention, risk all, actually know what is ‘the right thing to do', make a judgement about siding with the judgement of future ‘history’…?

And, as ‽istis ponders, perhaps the deckchairs are simply being re-arranged; possibly the fiddling is simply accompanying the burning (of Rome and elsewhere); maybe the indecision is in itself something of a decision…?

Perhaps, possibly, maybe in a world where and while there are still forests, trees and witnesses - if I object but no-one has seen or heard it, then have I really objected at all? and can there be a hope that things might be any different…?

© Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  


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Saturday 5 June 2021

Pistis reclaims the Summit (weekending June 5th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims the Summit (only 7 places available on this particular expedition) (weekending June 5th 2021)

This week, ‽istis has been pondering: the G7 Summit; change; the climate; possible lessons from a pandemic; problem-loci and solution-foci; and, inevitably perhaps, inequality and power. So, if, ‘Apparently it really is the little things in life that make us happy, according to research…’[i] , then this week has been something of a ‘septimana horribilis’ even though some of the thinking about ‘big things’ has been done sitting leisurely in glorious sunshine (which may somehow be part and symbol of the problem…?).

The G7 Summit approaches and we are told that:

‘Prime Minister Boris Johnson will use the UK’s G7 Presidency to unite leading democracies to help the world fight, and then build back better from coronavirus and create a greener, more prosperous future.’[ii]

And ‽istis can’t help but wonder if ‘greener’ and ‘more prosperous’ are compatible? How might ‘prosperous’ be defined? Wealth of money, riches, property, goods, the capacity to buy services or wealth of wellbeing? Wealth (both kinds) for all - or primarily for those who already have and those who may be reluctant to give up, including giving up on that potential fig leaf notion, perhaps conscience-salving theory of trickle-down benefits?

Levelling up…? The playing-field still looks pretty uneven…

So, how is it envisioned that the UK Presidency of the G7 will fight and build back better; what are the policy priorities that will bring this about? The official G7 2021 website offers the following:

·        leading the global recovery from coronavirus while strengthening our resilience against future pandemics

·        promoting our future prosperity by championing free and fair trade

·        tackling climate change and preserving the planet’s biodiversity

·        championing our shared values[iii]

More ‘big things’ to ponder here…

‽ What if the shared values have been more part of the problem than the solution?

‽ What if people and companies and countries don’t really want free and fair trade because scribbled (sometimes double-entered) in the margins of every balance-sheet is the mantra that profit comes through the maximisation of revenue and the minimisation of costs…  words that barely hint at the potential for exploitation of either or both consumer and producer

‽ What if tackling climate change and preserving the planet’s bio-diversity  is a bullet point highlight that does not easily follow the promoting of future prosperity if that is then defined primarily in terms of material wealth for the top 7 ‘developed’ countries in a reified view of ‘history’ that ends in a world of ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations, rather than ending in analysis informed by other ‘histories’ and a view of the world divided (if we have to further buttress a binary view) into: ‘under-developed’ and ‘over-developed’, the one at the cost of the ‘other’…?

‽ What if the leading democracies do not really want to help the whole of the world to fight, and then build back better? for it may cost just too much – not least in terms of donorships, support and, ultimately, the very votes that keep the current leaders in power?

The queues on the A30 through Cornwall to the Penwith peninsula begin to mount, the planes and helicopters land, the emissions increase, some of the local businesses benefit others just cut their losses and close for the week, and the rest of the world waits for more crumbs (no doubt, mind, of the finest Cornish produce[iv]) to fall from the top table?        

© Pistis                                                                                                                        

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders  


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‽istis ponders volunteering, expertise and tapping (weekending April 27th 2024)

  ‽istis ponders volunteering, expertise and knowing where and how to tap (weekending April 27 th  2024) Various themes this weekending; m...