{"id":29699,"date":"2022-11-29T17:01:03","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T01:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29699"},"modified":"2022-11-29T17:01:03","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T01:01:03","slug":"only-fools-rush-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/only-fools-rush-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Fools Rush In"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The phrase \u201cspeaking truth to power\u201d originated from a pamphlet,\u00a0Speak Truth to Power: a Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence<\/em>, published by the\u00a0American Friends Service Committee<\/a> in 1955. The pamphlet promoted love over hate, and preferred peace to the rising tensions of the Cold War.[1]<\/a> James O\u2019Toole adapts this phrases and ethos for organizational leadership in his essay Speaking Truth to Power: A White Paper<\/em>. As I write this, protests continue throughout China after a fire killed more than 10 people who were confined in their homes due to the authoritarian government\u2019s mandated zero-tolerance Covid restrictions. Since the fire white sheets of paper became a symbol of defiance, and in one case, a group of university students in Beijing wrote a math equation devised by Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann, whose surname in Chinese sounds like \u201cfree man.\u201d[2]<\/a> This symbol is an image of mourning, of government suppression, and creative, even humorous critique of a regime that crushes dissent.<\/p>\n

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Referring to organizational life, O\u2019Toole writes, \u201ccompanies get into moral and competitive hot water when their leaders are unwilling to test their operating premises about such subjects as [\u2026] [their] nature [\u2026] [their] purpose, [\u2026] and [their] responsibilities.\u201d[3]<\/a> The same applies to countries, political movements, and religious organizations. When leaders become insulated from critique, O\u2019Toole proposes the archetype of the fool as medicine for such a system. In an episode of the podcast This Jungian Life<\/em> titled the archetype of the fool is defined as that which \u201c{\u2026] punctures the posturing of others\u2019 personas and egos, bests his \u201cbetters,\u201d and transgresses social boundaries and conventional morality. The fools flaunts and taunts us with shadow, making truths about cultural norms and human complexity both pointed and palatable.\u201d[4]<\/a> O\u2019Toole elevates Shakespeare who imaged this archetypal force through his works. It is the fool who is to \u201cchallenge by jest and conundrum, all that is sacred and all that the savants have proved to be true and immutable.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

O\u2019Toole emphasizes this point in his reflections of lessons learned in his time work with FedEx. From day-one, FedEx had a culture of \u201cconstructive dissent\u201d where lower and mid-level leaders could openly critique decisions made by top-level leadership. It was a culture that, according to O\u2019Toole, allowed FedEx to adapt and grow throughout decades global change.<\/p>\n

This interplay between the egoic attitude of organizational leadership and the archetype of the fool is paralleled by what Jungian analyst and author Edward Edinger called the Ego-Self axis (see below image):<\/p>\n

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This image is a distilled representation of the developmental process from birth, where there is no distinction between ego and self (left side), all the way to individuation, where the ego and Self are differentiated yet in relationship (right side). The archetype and role of the fool allows the egoic leader or institution to remain in relationship with its broader and more expansive unconscious and\/or shadowed side. Without it, group think becomes tacitly synonymous with reality, truth, and God\u2019s will. The archetype of the fool, we may say, is the very axis, access point, and canal from with the ego has access to the Self. It is the necessary tether and spacer between ego and Self.<\/p>\n

Finally, when speaking truth to power it is important to understand where power originates. Power is not simply concentrated in a person but an ideology, that is an organization of preferred ideas and beliefs. Ideologies are structured, ridged, and codified into the human psyche, and they must be upheld at all costs. In contrast, myths are an organization of symbols that give expression to the total human experience of a given culture or period.[6]<\/a> Joseph Campbell offers four functions of myth, the last of which is that \u201cmyths carry us through the various stages and crises of life, and into integrity.\u201d Ideologies can become inflated and assume oneness with Self, or become alienated and lose touch with Self. However, myths provide the symbols that allow us to access the personal and collective shadow, which ultimately, though often painful, is the birthplace of new life. It is this sort of integrity with O\u2019Toole proposes is needed to maintain the generative tension of loyalty and truth-telling.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> James O’Toole, \u201cSpeak Truth to Power,\u201d American Friends Service Committee, December 2, 2010, https:\/\/www.afsc.org\/document\/speak-truth-to-power.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cMemes, Puns and Blank Sheets of Paper: China\u2019s Creative Acts of Protest\u201d, November 28, 2022, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/11\/28\/world\/asia\/china-protests-blank-sheets.html<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> James O’Toole, Santa Clara University, \u201cSpeaking Truth to Power: A White Paper,\u201d accessed November 29, 2022, https:\/\/www.scu.edu\/ethics\/focus-areas\/business-ethics\/resources\/speaking-truth-to-power-a-white-paper\/.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Episode 157 – The Archetype of the Fool<\/em>, 2021, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=U2HiiYLd4Lk.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> O’Toole, \u201cSpeaking Truth to Power.\u201d<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor<\/em>, ed. Eugene Kennedy (New World Library, 2013). 2.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> O’Toole, \u201cSpeaking Truth to Power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phrase \u201cspeaking truth to power\u201d originated from a pamphlet,\u00a0Speak Truth to Power: a Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence, published by the\u00a0American Friends Service Committee in 1955. The pamphlet promoted love over hate, and preferred peace to the rising tensions of the Cold War.[1] James O\u2019Toole adapts this phrases and ethos for organizational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2460],"class_list":["post-29699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-otoole","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29703,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29699\/revisions\/29703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}