Me – First used a computer in *1983. I’m not enamored of what the machine has delivered.
Rahner – Theologian specializing in short, compact statements to summarize major categories of orthodox theology
Quote From Paul Tillich’s conception of the existential task of man [sic].
Deep consciousness – what Carl Jung referred to as the collective unconscious, coined by many, taught to me by Dr. Robert Moore of the Chicago Theological Seminary.
Technology – I’m referring primarily to the computer and its use as a teaching tool.
Prolegomenon – meaning the word before the word; the starting assumption to a philosophy or frame of reference.
Leadership, Being, Technology, a Teacher’s Rahner
Absence is strangely, yet intimately related to its human complement – presence; and with its transcendent opposite – availability.
Presence is intimately connected with its human complement – leadership; and with its transcendent fulfillment – mastery.
Egocentrism in leadership arises from insecurity and is therefore vulnerable, while its transcendent complement – vulnerability – appears weak but is paradoxically masterful in authentic leadership and conscious availability.
Continuous availability is not leadership; it is insecurity driven by the need to look busy, by a grasp for control, and by its fear of being the targeted envy.
Focused presence, without egocentrism, is masterful leadership in its selected availability, in its lack of ego, in its dismissal of envy – all of which is authentic leadership.
Mastery of the self – the first step to leadership – occurs through a process of overcoming ego and personal vulnerabilities and by embodying a vulnerable, yet masterful presence, true presence.
With each step in self-mastery, one is less concerned with availability and less vulnerable to criticism, but increasingly masterful in his/her selected presence. With each step in self-mastery, one learns that leadership, true presence, and personal fulfillment are essentially non egocentric.
Technology’s incestuous epistemology assumes mastery through presence and continuous availability, but the assumption is non-contextual and faulty in its technocentricity; therefore, technology cannot assume generative or egoless leadership and is neither authentic nor masterful
Technology’s prolegomenon assumes leadership and forward thinking, but this is naive, for its structure and component base are rigidly bound to rules, while its logic is proscripted, uncritical, predictable, amoral and rigid.
Techology (and technocrats), while operating under the impression that its prolegomenon is formed in hard headed mastery, are most vulnerable. Technology’s corporate rigidity, moral neutrality, uncritical acceptance, bound logic, and its continuous and ultimately vulnerable availability are no match for the human story and its frailities.
The teaching profession now has a love affair with technology, assuming it to be the magic bullet of success. But technology is not relationship oriented; technology is not masterful in its continuous availability; technology is not generative in its posture of invincibility because it is at the mercy of ego and availability as the primary tools employed in its drive to mastery.
Human deep consciousness knows the power of presence, the strength and mentorship of self-mastery, the generativity of selected absence, the vulnerability of ego and its deceit, the importance of contextualization and the power of fluent leadership.
Deep consciousness cannot uncritically accept a tool capable of providing a solution to ancestral human problems, it can only recognize and bow to the balm of a masterful presence.
The power of ego, the façade of non-vulnerability, and hyper attentiveness to impression management as a strategy for mastery in leadership, allows for manipulation of an uncritical public; one lacking a functional ethical compass.
The technological center does not hold, nor has the periphery evolved to become the new center.
Technology accentuates this vacuum, for it can lead to a misappropriation of resources and quietly become the secret of leaderships’ manipulation.
This leadership does not operate from sinister motives, but from the illusion of technological promise linked to perceived solution and success. It is an easy bait to swallow.
Classrooms at my college setting are equipped with technological features which then begets the name “smart” rooms.
NOTE:
We have lots of information.
Who are we?
Any organization
QUESTION: What will we do with ever more information?
ANSWER: build “smarter” rooms.
Proposed solutions and successes – from classroom curriculum, experimental engineering, data management and eugenic experimentation – are divorced from relationship, but built on the mythology of data mastery. This is a shallow base from which to build a prolegomenon for a substantive or masterful human race.
The courage to affirm our “being in the face of non-being,” is the task of leadership and humanity today. We do so by building relationship, jettisoning artificial criteria, demonstrating how to critically think and modeling how to refrain from striking out in retribution in the midst of great disappointment. Witness the incivility in our day, piling up in Blogs, Facebook postings, or anonymous commentary in many Web environs.
The metal detector at the front door may prevent someone from bringing their gun to school or work, but safeguarding technology at the front door cannot address the person in his/her vulnerability.
That metal door guard cannot provide a container, or even a hint of one, for emotional crisis, cannot help redirect anger or dismay, and cannot provide a vulnerable space that is a paradoxically safe space. Cannot invent masterful leadership that is authentic in its absence and presence.
Technology cannot contain, respond, lead, or help organically master the crisis; a real person in real leadership can. Our world cries out for such persons.
You can be one of those persons: leading in presence, but also in absence, masterful in vulnerability, wise in conscious availability as both vulnerable and masterful of self and by extension, others.
* It was an Apple IIe
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