#327 – Dick Bernard: Part 3. The Canyon of 60 Abandon, and More Ways to Communicate Less

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In November, 1998, I was very actively contemplating retirement, and I attended a conference of the National Education Association (NEA) in the Houston area.
We were at a nice resort hotel, but the weather was – to put it mildly – awful. By the time we left we were shuttled around in large trucks due to flooding on the resort grounds.
Despite the memorable weather, what was truly memorable for me happened at the conference, where a presenter I’d never heard of, Michael Meade, gave a workshop entitled “The Canyon of 60 Abandon”. To the accompaniment of his own powerful drumming, he told the story of a society where the old were retired at age 60, then banished to a far distant Canyon, no more to be part of the society.
One family violated the rules, and hid their elder under the porch. In his myth, Meade said the King called for a competition, with a large prize going to the winner. The family with the hidden elder utilized the elders accumulated wisdom, solved the puzzle and won the prize.
In 1998 I was, truly, wondering what if anything lay beyond the long career I was finishing. Fourteen months later I did retire, and found out. And today, eleven years later, I am still finding out.
There is, indeed, a “Canyon of 60 Abandon”, but out in that Canyon, I have learned, there are huge numbers of incredibly talented people whose wisdom seems largely to go unused because…. Well, I don’t know the specifics of why. This deserves conversation.
Then there is the very matter of conversation.
Conversation between elder and younger (which seems to be defined as who is “working” or of employable age, versus who is not) is more complicated now than it has ever been. For a long time, I’ve been observing that there are “more ways to communicate less“. First evidence of that comes in a September, 2002, item I wrote for public school administrators and school public relations people.
In February, 2004, for the same audience, I enumerated some communications methods I’d seen discussed in 1991; along with an updated personal list of newer communications mediums as I knew media in 2004.
Unknown to me in 2004, because they were either just beginning or unknown to anyone, were communication methods very much in vogue today: Facebook (beginning Feb. 2004, regular messages restricted to about 420 characters); YouTube (2005, 10 minutes maximum. I use YouTube earlier in this column); and Twitter (2006, messages restricted to 144 characters). For someone from my generation, accustomed to letters to the editor (perhaps 200 word maximum) or newspaper columns (probably 600 words – this entry is almost exactly 600 words), to even communicate with someone from my children and grandchildrens generation can be dicey even if you live close by and can visit in person, which is seldom the case these days.
We have to figure out how to not only talk to each other, but how to listen, and to truly value each other.
In Michael Meade’s mythical society, the throwaway elders represented a big cost to that society; in today’s remaining society, the very real “Canyon” between youngers and the others has to be reduced.
We also need to sort out how we make societal decisions these days which seem premised solely on the Power Bargaining model: he or she who has the strongest ‘whatever’ wins, and the rest lose.
It is not much of a recipe for the long term success of our society and, indeed, world. In a world of winners over losers, everybody loses.
I close with a recent and current Facebook entry of an upcoming event. I plan to attend, and to buy the book as well.
Related posts Feb. 6, Feb. 7, and Feb. 10.

#326 – Dick Bernard: Part 2. Thoughts about the Power and Peril of Bottlenecks and Pyramids

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One of the recent Presidents of the U.S., who was born 100 years ago on February 6, is having his memory celebrated…by people who were his mentors and advisors. In their words, they are elevating the man to far larger than life status. Perhaps they can enshrine the idea that he was more awesome than he really was?
A short time before, news was that the most recently deceased Catholic Pope is being promoted to be on the fast track to Sainthood…by people who agree with his belief system. Does this internal promotion by his promoters make him a more saintly figure? (I happen to be Catholic, but not in agreement with the fast track notion which cheapens the whole idea of sainthood.)
Both the President and the Pope were at the top of their respective leadership pyramids (some would call them hierarchies) and are simply two of infinite numbers of persons, past and present, who claim some authority by virtue of being at the top of the Power heap.
I’ve thought a lot about hierarchies over a period of many years, and for a lot of those years, the metaphors of a Wine Bottle and Pyramids very often come to mind. (See below. Rough illustration drawn by me a few days ago – I am not an artist.)
Wine Bottle and Pyramids
First, the Pyramid:
Our society is dominated by power pyramids. It is almost a natural occurrence of humanity. Where three gather in one place, one probably becomes the de facto or actual leader. There are endless variations on the same theme. I’ve been part of many pyramids; in leadership in some of them from time to time. Even in retirement I am at various levels in various organizations. To a limited extent, hierarchies serve a necessary and even useful function to maintain some semblance of order where there could be chaos and anarchy.
But there comes a point when pyramids become self-defeating and even destructive. There are endless examples, seldom acknowledged by the person and his/her retinue at the top. Failure is assessed in later and more objective history of what happened and why.
As stated, I have been involved in one way or another in a number of organizations and alliances, all headed by some leader or other. Some of them are quite large and important, with a fairly large base (population) beneath the “summit” (President, or whomever). Once in awhile I was the leader of such a group.
Over many years I have come to notice that within clusters of Pyramids – for instance, groups which have some kind of general community of interest, but represent different constituencies – the assorted leaders on the hill or mountain tops have some specific understanding of each other, including a common vocabulary and, often, playbook (think people like lobbyists and lawmakers). Sometimes they even communicate pretty well leader to leader (the horizontal arrow on the above illustration.) But they remain separate (and less powerful) because they cannot agree on a common vision. They compete with each other.
But, even worse, between them and their loyal supporters and advisers, and their less loyal ‘base’, is an non-penetrable fog bank or cloud, such that they do not relate to their base, nor does their base relate to them. Hard as they might think they are trying – and the leaders are the only ones who can control this – the people that give them their power are essentially invisible and can seem almost irrelevant except as tools to get reelected or reappointed.
Being a retired person, I spend most of my life in this seemingly irrelevant category – a guy below the fog bank, unimportant. It is not a good place to be. And it is even less a good place for leaders to have someone like me who feels dis-empowered.
Enter the Wine Bottle (it could be a bottle including anything, but the shape of the Wine Bottle fits my metaphor best.)
I have noticed often over the years, in many settings and in many, many ways, that people who have climbed to the peak of their respective pyramid can create a bottleneck which can keep their base isolated from outside information, and thus unable to communicate back and forth with persons outside the systems, most especially people who could be helpful to the organization. A place like North Korea might be the most visible example of this bottleneck effect, but the effect prevails anywhere where a leader fears empowerment of the very base which gives him (rarely, her) power.
Inevitably, in each and every case, these isolated pyramidal systems collapse upon themselves, too often to be replaced by new pyramids whose leaders seem to think that they can control outcomes simply by being in control of their small niche.
Leaders should learn that there is a huge amount of richness in the base that is all of us.
One wonders why there are not more visionary leaders who recognize this richness – often the richness of diversity – and use the richness to build a stronger and more enduring and useful system, and in the process make more secure their own feeling of power, built on respect.
One wonders….
Related posts Feb. 6 , Feb. 8, and Feb. 10.

#325 – Dick Bernard: Part 1. Waiting for the Superbowl

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Saturday we went over to watch our 6th grade grandson play basketball in the local athletic league. The league is like leagues in most towns of any size: if you show up, you play. There are eight five minute segments, and if there are ten boys on a side, five of them play every other quarter. That way, every one gets time on the court. When the quarter starts they line up more or less by height. The aim is to practice, a step above play.
This day Ryan’s team won their second game in a row…after five consecutive losses. They celebrated their first win “like we won the championship” he said, all excited.
My guess is that this year is the last non-competitive year for kids Ryan’s age. Now the competition begins: first to make the team, then to win. You win, or you’re a loser.
*
In a few hours the U.S. will come to a functional halt as Green Bay and Pittsburgh square off for the Super Bowl at Cowboys Stadium Arlington TX. It is Super Bowl XLV – one of the few remaining uses for Roman numerals.
Along with the football will be the Super Bowl of TV ads. If there could be a religious tie-in, Super Bowl Sunday would vie with Christmas.
But everything later today will focus on winners, and not only the team that won, but on those few who get a seat in the stands or the Star Level boxes. Best as I know, there’s no ‘knot-hole gang’ at the Super Bowl.
The rest of us can, and many of us will, watch the spectacle at home, hopefully consuming the advertised foods and drinks of the day.
And then the day will end. One team from one town will wear the crown for one year. And the absurdity of it all will settle in…until next year. Odds are, this years winner won’t repeat next year. In 44 years so far, only on eight occasions has a team had successive Super Bowl championships. Two have been to the Super Bowl on eight occasions; only 16 cities have had representatives in the Super Bowl. There are no dynasties.
This particular year follows a year when my Minnesota Vikings almost made it to the Big Game, defeated in the semi-finals by the eventual champion New Orleans Saints. A year later and the Vikings were a disaster; coach fired before the end of the season, Brett Favre back to Mississippi to the farm. The ultimate indignity was the collapse of the roof of the Metrodome under the weight of heavy snow.
The indignity of the season didn’t derail the owners lobbying for a new Minnesota stadium – the 5th in recent years by my count for assorted pro franchises here – and, I suppose, a dreamed for new beginning for the Vikings. They’ll probably get it. The old metrodome, so functional for so many years, will continue for monster trucks and the like.
Meanwhile, the Superbowl has yet to be played, and the NFL owners are threatening to lock-out the players if an appropriate contract deal cannot be reached.
*
The game of winning and losing…mostly losing…has been refined to a high art in this country. Those in Cowboys Stadium today are clearly among the “winners”. They represent a tiny, tiny slice of America, but yet they are to represent the American dream of victory.
Of those twenty sixth graders I watched play basketball yesterday, perhaps one might end up on the varsity at the local high school by the time he’s a senior. The others will be doing whatever they will be doing.
In our country, competition is sacred. And it is killing us, slowly but surely.
I’ll probably be watching the game today, but mostly my vision will be on the absurdities of the spectacle both on the field and in the stands and the sky boxes….
UPDATE: 9:30 p.m. Sunday evening.
Green Bay 31, Pittsburgh 25. It was Green Bay’s 4th Super Bowl win, including the first two in 1967 and 1968. At the end of the game, tonight, does it have any enduring meaning at all? Is our society any better, short or long term, for having experienced the Super Bowl?
Note from Bob Barkley, after reading the original post: “One of the most important books (to me anyway) I ever read was “The Case Against Competition” by Alfie Kohn.”
Related Posts Feb. 7, Feb 8, and Feb.10.

#324 – Dick Bernard: Watching the Voronezh Ballet at Northrop Auditorium

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UPDATE February 5, 2011: Twin City Daily Planet review of the Ballet here; Minneapolis Star Tribune review here.
I was a very reluctant stand-in Thursday night, when we went to see the Ballet at the Northrop Auditorium at the University of Minnesota.
My wife had purchased tickets to the Voronezh State Ballet Theatre performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at Northrop Auditorium, and I had no interest in attending. Her friend down the street planned to go, but was ill. An octogenarian friend across the street and his friend made up the foursome.
I came home delighted I had gone.

It would be foolish for me to proclaim any knowledge of ballet, what was good, what wasn’t.
Judging by the audience reaction from what seemed to be a full house at the immense Northrop, we were treated to first class ballet by a first class company. I’ll leave the performance details to someone else.
Ballet was not part of my growing up experience, in tiny towns in North Dakota. I am sure that someone out there ‘did’ ballet, but not within my own circles or experience. Me? It was hard enough to learn to Square Dance in 4H. I learned the waltz steps in my bedroom, and really struggled with polka, etc….
In those years, the 1940s and most of the 1950s, cultural communication was primarily through radio, and television was too primitive for large stage performances to broadcast well. So I don’t recall ever seeing the awesome precision and skill of a ballet company.
I do recall that one or the other or both of my parents liked to tune in the live performances of the Metropolitan Opera in New York during those days. Song was a medium one could listen to.
Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the music for the ballet, was probably available on phonograph records, if one had such an interest.
I watched the performers in the 50 or so member company attentively, and applauded in synch with others who knew better than I when to express appreciation.
Someone said that old music, like Swan Lake, is losing its appeal to youth, and that programs like ballet are less common now than previously. I have no evidence about this. I did see a large number of young people, and it was not necessarily an audience that was only Russian or white European in ethnic makeup. There was a good variety of persons in the audience.
While Swan Lake has an unhappy ending, the ballet was a very happy experience for me.
During the first intermission, my wife and our octogenarian neighbor were discussing ballet, and she mentioned that during her high school years at St. Joseph Academy in St. Paul, that at least once a year the students would be treated to a performance by the local Andahazy Ballet Company – a familiar fixture in this area for many years. Don, our neighbor, said that in his younger years, which would have coincided with my wife’s high school years, he was a member of the Andahazy Ballet. Possibly, he had been a performer in one of those performances my wife had witnessed.
I began the evening with no enthusiasm at all for attending the Ballet; after the nearly three hour performance, I left happy and energized.
Thanks to everyone that got me involved in the evening.