Maslow, Bowen & Hegel Walk Into Cafe: Tasting the Higher Self (v1)
Posted: November 14, 2024 Filed under: AI-Powered Essays | Tags: debate, hegel, identity, maslow, philosophy, self, systems, therapy, truth 1 CommentCreate a humorous dialogue where Bowen, Maslow, and Hegel sort through the nuances of the relationship between Self-Transcendence and Self-Differentiation.
ChatGPT Prompt
Start with Maslow eating a scone and sketching his pyramid on a napkin. Have Bowen enter and get enmeshed in an argument, which wakes Hegel at the next table who irritably intervenes
Scene: A cozy, dimly lit café on a stormy night. Maslow sits at a small table by the window, nibbling thoughtfully on a scone as he sketches his iconic pyramid on a napkin. Thunder rumbles as the door opens, and Bowen steps in, brushing off rain. He spots Maslow and, intrigued by the half-finished pyramid, walks over.
Maslow:
glancing up, grinning through a mouthful of scone
Bowen! Just the man I needed. I’m refining my hierarchy here, and you should see what I’m adding at the top. gesturing to the faint sketch of “Self-Transcendence” atop the pyramid It’s the summit, the true peak of human motivation.
Bowen:
scoffing
The summit? Maslow, you’re always so eager to climb past the fundamentals. What about boundaries, self-definition? If people go chasing transcendence without first knowing who they are, they’re bound to get lost. gestures to the lower layers of the pyramid These are survival needs, but survival isn’t enough. It’s about self-differentiation.
Read the rest of this entry »The Friedman School: Self-Differentiating Leaders for a Meta-Modern World
Posted: November 7, 2024 Filed under: AI-Powered Essays, education | Tags: business, politics, resilience, systems, training, transformation, values 1 Comment[Yes, this is a ChatGPT-powered fantasy. But seriously: why isn’t anyone doing this? — Ernie P.]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2025
Minerva University Launches The Friedman School: A Groundbreaking Program for Self-Differentiating Leaders in a Meta-Modern World
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Minerva University today announced the launch of The Friedman School, a pioneering leadership program designed to develop self-differentiating leaders equipped to navigate, integrate, and lead in the complex, interconnected meta-modern world. Named in honor of Edwin Friedman, the influential thinker on self-differentiation and systems-based leadership, The Friedman School aims to empower a new generation of leaders with the resilience, empathy, and adaptability needed to address today’s global challenges.
Read the rest of this entry »Ultimate Harmony
Posted: August 16, 2020 Filed under: Governance Reform | Tags: culture, economics, education, health, philosophy, politics, psychology, reform, religion, systems, transformation Leave a commentThe ultimate purpose and measure of mental, emotional, and spiritual health is a Harmonious Self, where each Part relates constructively to the Other.
The ultimate purpose and measure of political, economic, and cultural health is a similarly Harmonious Society.
The ultimate purpose and measure of parenting, education and religion is our ability to become Harmonious Selves who co-construct more Harmonious Societies. Read the rest of this entry »
THS-4H: Systemic Virtue
Posted: July 2, 2020 Filed under: Governance Reform | Tags: systems, transformation Leave a commentAmerica is facing a long-overdue reckoning with issues related to racism and inequity. Again. In fact, this seems to happen every fifty years or so:
- The American Revolution
- Jacksonian Democracy
- The American Civil War
- Women’s Suffrage
- Civil Rights
- #BlackLivesMatter
While there has certainly been progress, I have this ugly suspicion that the way we solved each crisis led directly to the next one. While numerous individual benefited from each of those reforms, there is a nagging sense that whole populations are still as disenfranchised as ever.
Can we do better? I believe so — but it won’t be easy. We remain trapped by the codependency between 18th-century ideologies, currently represented by capitalist conservatism and Marxist liberalism. We need a breakthrough vision of what a good society could be in order to guide our efforts in a more constructive direction.
Below is my first draft of such a vision, building on my earlier THS-IPA: A Game-Theoretic Model of Transformation. I welcome your feedback!
Read the rest of this entry »Six Ways to Out-Think the Future
Posted: April 30, 2020 Filed under: education | Tags: design, education, models, systems, thinking, truth Leave a commentPre-paying the “Crisis Mode Cost”
To prepare for times of danger, uncertainty, or extraordinary opportunity, we must cultivate these six habits of mind in order to win the future (#WTF) by bridging the gap between Snow’s two cultures.
Mnemonic: CriSys MoDe CoSt
Read the rest of this entry »Introducing the Generalized Kegan Maturity Model (GKMM)
Posted: March 19, 2020 Filed under: Governance Reform | Tags: development, maturity, systems 1 CommentMy whole understanding of discipleship, transformation, and myself was completely transformed by learning about Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development. It gave me a unified framework for thinking about personal, spiritual, and relational growth.
The core premise is that a) we define our identity by distinguishing what we “are” from what we “have”, and b) maturing is redefining something we “were” into something we merely “have.”
However, as I have been applying the theory to my self, parenting, and coaching practice, I realized that I might be able to extend it to be both simpler and more comprehensive. In particular, by marrying it with General Systems Theory (plus a dash of General Relativity, with a hint of Internal Family Systems), I find it useful for analyzing not just human, but also natural and computational systems!
Read the rest of this entry »
Radical Centrism 