|
|
 |
 Recipes
for managing uncertainty
Drawing on previous work about civil society, academic and author,
Eva Cox
presented her ideas about working towards a 'better' society. Cox
explored issues of uncertainty, community and ways of creating a
better society: "a society better than the current one".
She asks "How do we manage uncertainty?" and addressed
her paper to those in the audience and the community who wanted
to take responsibility for making ours a better society.
It's necessary to look at peoples' behaviours in various collectivities
and look at what makes organisations and communities behave well.
Why is it that some places that we work and live in encourage openness
and inclusion and a level of social comfort while others make us
feel that we don't want to be there? Cox asserted that there seems
to be two ways of being part of collective and communal life. One
is the part that says you have to be like us and the other accepts
differences because there is similarity in the broadest sense. Cox
asks 'why is it that some communities, some organisations, some
firms can behave really well and others badly?' She considers that
it may have something to do with the culture of organisations, the
culture of community in the broad sense of culture that encourage
us to make the right decisions. What remains necessary within any
organisation is the dissenting voices, people who question the decisions,
people who want to know more about why things are being done in
particular ways are heard. This is the protection that exists in
communities for ensuring we don't do the wrong things.
The difference between right and wrong
Cox addresses these questions in more detail, addressing conceptions
of the better society and ideas about good and bad behaviour emerging
from collectivities.
File: cox_1.mp3 Duration: 26:17 Size: 2MB
Making a better society
What are the components of a better society? Cox considered the
words - skills, commitments and values - we have to work with to
build a better society.
- Trust. We've lost it. There is a huge lack of trust
in the political system. There's a difference between scepticism
and debilitating cynicism. We run the danger of getting into the
second if we don't think about how we can make politics better,
if we don't improve the system we have got because it is flawed.
- Altruism slipped off the agenda because economists could
not find a use for it.
- Civility. In other words levels of manners and politeness.
Learning to deal with people civilly.
- Empathy. Stand in someone else's shoes, being able to
understand where other people are coming from
- Transparency. It demands honourable organisations and
politicians - tell us why you are making these decisions, tell
us the basis of it, why you are spending, where you are spending.
- Sociability. The ability to learn to be a social person.
Maybe we do need to teach people how to deal with other people,
how to make friends, how to listen, to talk to people. We just
assume people can this automatically but then you look around
and see that people can't.
- Consistency. It's useful, particularly when you are
dealing with institutions to know why people are doing things
and to do it the same way. Otherwise you can't predict much.
- Venues. Ways of doing things. Places where you can have
conversations, dialogues, meetings, debates. Spaces that we share.
Where being alongside people we don't know listening to people
like me blather on, actually gives one a sense of communality
with someone you don't know and maybe the capacity to see that
you might have lots of things in common with other people. Sharing
spaces, particularly public spaces is very important. Sharing
experiences.
Dissenting voices
Here Cox identifies more tools for building a better society.
File: cox_2.mp3 Duration: 13:30 Size: 1MB
|
