Present ethics-ch.6.v.3

Chapter 6 Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community

Step 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions:“Social Qualities”

Social qualities result from our social potentialities and institutional dimensions coming together in an institutional context to mediate domain contributions aimed at the creation of

institutional realities.

December 2010 © Abraham Chiasson 1

Chapter 6 Growing an Ecology of Mind and CommunityStep 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional Dimensions:“Social Qualities”


CoreSocial

Potentialities

SocialQualities

CoreInstitutionalDimensions

Overall –

Social qualities are the result of our social potentialities (forces) and our institutional dimensions coming together in an institutional context.

Social qualities provide ‘direction’ - a specific social energy -, to the mediation of our institutional (individual and societal) domain contributions.


Core social potentialities –

Core social potentialities focus on our ability as ‘social beings’ of living and growing together. As examples,

Our potential for sharing a sense of accountability and destiny relative to growing our ‘collective’ sense of vision and hope and,

Provide the basis for ethical relationships e.g., for our ethical aspirations / core values, ethical principles and norms, and relationship commitments and qualities.




Social Potentialities

Empathy /Belonging

Capacity /

Contribution

Connection /Synergy

Accountability /Destiny

Social potentialities… the core set of ‘relationship’ potentialities – forces - that drive and characterize our relationship qualities.


Core social potentialities…

Social potentialities exist in relation to each other and, as a whole, drive and characterize human relationships and, in which specific relationship ‘social’ qualities find their meaning and relevance.

As an example,

Ethical ‘relationship qualities’ such as fairness, loyalty, and honesty… find their relevance – as social qualities - inasmuch as they contribute to growing our core social potentialities e.g., to belonging, contribution or synergy.



Core social potentialities…

In an institutional (individual and societal) context, social potentialities provide:

The ‘social’ energy - at the source of ‘institutional’ direction and meaning – and,

Their institutional (organizational) actors with opportunities for growing their own core social potentialities such as for contribution and synergy and, for effective institutional ‘ethical’ relationships.



Core institutional dimensions…

Engage and foster the expression of our core social potentialities e.g., for empathy, belonging and accountability...and, ultimately, are driven by such social potentialities (forces).

Permit our social potentialities to be connected to social purposes, creating a relational institutional framework, ever growing in complexity and sophistication.

Institutions via their institutional dimensions are in a co-creative relationship with our core social potentialities by providing, more specifically by being, myriad channels for their enactment and development.




Institutional Dimensions

Family /

Community

‘Professional’ / Production

Civil Society / State

Nation / Planet

Institutional dimensions… the core set of institutionalcharacteristics that give social ‘meaning’ to our relationship commitments.



Each ‘core institutional dimension’ either as an institutional characteristic – having the characteristics of the state as to the social potentialities to be enacted – or, as a set of institutions e.g., our myriad state institutions,

Exists only in synergy – the layers of the circle in the graphic - with all other core institutional dimensions or other landscape institutions e.g.,

‘State’ institutions ‘make sense’ only in the context of our ‘production’ or ‘civil society’ institutions.




Examples,

‘State’ institutions exist because there is a nation to be ‘protected’ and production institutions to be ‘coordinated’ – a synergy to be created between the two –

Core institutional dimensions are present to some degree in all

institutions e.g., family institutions share some of the characteristics of the state – need to create a synergy of family related contributions.




Ethics e.g., specific ‘relationship commitments’ - find their relevance and meaning via their contribution to specific institutional dimensions. As examples,

‘Relationship commitments’ aimed at competitiveness find relevance and meaning in the world of institutions (or institutional dimension) devoted to the production of goods and services.

‘Relationship commitments’ devoted to creating – harmony, connection, synergy – will be enacted primarily in civil society or state institutions (or related institutional dimensions of other institutions).



Core social potentialities Core institutional dimensions

Core social potentialities and core institutional dimensions have evolved together –

In line with human consciousness and its 'perceived' challenges e.g., related to the myriad emotions, perceptions, and related feelings of frustration and opportunity with the process of living; and,

Each one growing the other - towards the development of ‘satisfying and effective’ social qualities (and, as we will see later, ‘social goods’): those that make it possible for us to grow our core human potentialities.


Chapter 6Growing an Ecology of Mind and CommunityStep 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional Dimensions:“Social Qualities”



Empathy /Belonging

Capacity /

Contribution

Connection /Synergy

Accountability /Destiny

Institutional Dimensions

Family /

Community

‘Professional’ / Production

Civil Society / State

Nation / Planet

In summary, evolving social potentialities and institutional dimensions have been in synergy to bring about social qualities.

Social Qualities

Chapter 6 Growing an Ecology of Mind and CommunityStep 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions:“Social Qualities”

Core social dimensions Core institutional dimensions

The following are examples: social potentiality / institutional dimension and their contribution to ‘social qualities’.

Empathy – Family

The existence and growth of institutions - the ‘family’, the state or society -, will be conditional upon their ability to express and elicit a rational and emotional connection with current and potential members - their ability to express and elicit empathy – via their related social qualities e.g., openness to individual differences re needs and aspirations, along with an ability to grow such a sense of empathy via ‘family’ as an institutional dimension.



Core social dimensions Core institutional dimensions

Connection and synergy - Civil society and the state

Civil society institutions provide via their social qualities e.g., conviviality and purposefulness, the basis for individuals / institutions to transcend their immediate interests by fostering more socially relevant contributions i.e., broader ‘connections’.

State institutions are driven by perceptions of ‘societal’ accountability and destiny, and the resultant need for ‘societal’ synergy in all individual / institutional actions e.g., state institutions usually focus on fairness, legitimacy, and the rule of law as social qualities.



‘Social qualities and Ethical dynamics’

Social Potentialities / Institutional Dimensions + Institutional Domain Contributions = “Social Qualities”

Social potentialities and institutional dimensions come to life via our ‘institutional’ domain contributions.

Social qualities result from the institutional mediation (via individual / institutional ethics) of domain contributions.

Resulting social qualities may be in synergy or not, with our ‘ethical aspirations’ or ‘overall institutional core values’.



Social Potentialities / Institutional Dimensions + Institutional Domain Contributions = “Social Qualities”


InstitutionalMediation

‘Ethics’

SocialQualities(Values)

DomainContribution

InstitutionalDimensions

SocialPotentialities


Social qualities and Ethical dynamics…

Understanding social qualities and ethical dynamics is ‘also’ understanding how social qualities are in synergy with the following realities. (more on this re social goods in Chapter 7)

Core human potentialities or forces;

Cognitive (social) structures and potentialities;

Socio-political structures (domains, institutions...);

The dynamics of authority and power or socio-political dynamics;

The dynamics of ‘living systems’; and,

The realities and dynamics of our social functions: stewardship, governance, and management.




Human potentialities or forces – examples...

Social qualities (as in the case of ethics) are driven by our human

potentialities or forces – those forces that compel us to become ‘all that we are capable of becoming’.

Our quest for growing e.g., a sense of self and personal identity, via

our institutional engagements will be dependent on those social qualities resulting from the ethical dynamics driving our domain contributions.




Cognitive (social) structures and potentialities -

Ethical dynamics are rooted in our cognitive potentialities for faith, beliefs and domain contribution values in the world of our cognitive (social) structures.

Social qualities such as ‘understanding and solidarity’ related to our social potentialities for empathy and belonging underlie the ‘quality’ of the ‘faith, beliefs and contribution values’ driving our cognitive (social) structures as in the case of the self or our domain of contributions.




Cognitive (social) structures and potentialities - Our collective human psyche –

Our mind – the reality and sum of our thoughts and feelings – exists inasmuch as it is connected to and nourished by the realities and dynamics of our overall human universe - our human civilization or collective human psyche. Therefore,

Social qualities e.g., re. social potentialities for accountability and destiny - solidarity and compassion -, can best be understood from the perspective of the ethics that have shaped our human and social realities as a whole - our collective human psyche -.




Socio-political structures –

Domains, institutions and socio-political landscapes are driven and have authority and power - ‘legitimacy and efficacy’ - on the basis of their social qualities (and, as we will see in Chapter 7, social goods).

Socio-political structures grow their social qualities via their overall ethical aspirations (more so, ethics as a whole) e.g., in the case of the state for fairness, justice and peace and, vice versa, grow their ethical aspirations via the social qualities which they effectively bring about.




The dynamics of authority and power or socio-political dynamics -

Social qualities e.g., ‘competence, fairness, and legitimacy’, (re. social potentialities for contribution and synergy) will be affected by the ‘ethical’ realities of authority and power framing - social potentialities / institutional dimensions -. As an example,

Is authority aimed at growing competence – making one capable of an increasingly more relevant contribution as an ethical aspiration - or keeping it in check?

Does power promote fairness and a broad sense of legitimacy for the contribution of all or does it privilege the contribution of only a few?




The dynamics of ‘living systems’ –

Social qualities such as ‘loyalty and interdependence’ will be dependent on the ethical dynamics affecting the ‘living system’. Do they:

Provide for a sense of congruency in the enactment of such social qualities i.e., in the process cognition;

Help such social qualities grow – become more effective in bringing about relevant realities – autopoiesis;

Help them create meaning and learning via structural coupling -; and,

Help them contribute to growing a more pregnant world for all as drivers of ‘dissipative structures’ -?


Chapter 6 Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community Step 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions:“Social Qualities”


Social functions: stewardship, governance, and management –

Social functions create via their embedded ethical realities, the ‘necessary’ relational conditions – social potentialities / institutional dimensions - for the creation of an ‘effective’ synergy of social qualities and social goods.

E.g., governance policies and practices framing our institutional engagements / domain contributions provide for the ‘effective’ meshing of our social qualities and social goods.

In turn, social qualities and social goods validate the ethical realities driving our social functions and, are its raison d’être.



Social qualities and Ethical dynamics… Stewardship, Governance, and Management


SocialQualities

SynergySocial Goods

Ethics

Stewardship / Governance / Management

Chapter 6 Growing an Ecology of Mind and Community Step 1: Social Potentialities – Institutional dimensions:“Social Qualities”

In summary,

Understanding ‘Social Qualities’ is the first step towards understanding what bonds us together (for better or worse), and what gives us the potential for growing a synergy of mind and community, ‘becoming all that we are capable of becoming’ – individually and collectively -.

In practice, human potentialities and their related cognitive (social) structures and potentialities, socio-political structures and socio-political dynamics, have been in synergy with our social potentialities and institutional dimensions / institutional framework - via social qualities (and social goods) on the basis our ethical dynamics.



Social qualities and Ethical dynamics… Summary


Human Potentialities

Social Qualities(Social Goods)


Cognitive(Social)

Structures &Potentialities

Socio-Political

Structures

Socio-Political

Dynamics

InstitutionalDimensions

/InstitutionalFramework

Ethics

Stewardship / Governance / Management

Government & Nonprofit

Present ethics-ch.6.v.3