When I was heavy in the throes of teaching English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) I read in the literature not infrequently complaints that the profession was too ingrained and didn't try to learn more from other related fields. You must understand, though, that ESL/EFL was in a lot of ways in the forefront of language teaching, but still that didn't mean it couldn't learn
something from other fields, like the literature on teaching Spanish, for example (they do have their own societies and journals, after all).
Now, with me, however, that isn't the kind of thing you need to worry about because I really,
really, REALLY like learning by pulling things from different fields or sub-fields and trying to make connections of one sort or another between them. For example, Adult Education, as a field is greatly influenced by the field of psychology. But did you know that there are branches of adult education that are arguably more influenced by sociology? That's true, it really is; I'm not making it up. Anyway, that's all to say that you're getting a bird's eye view of how I might do that with all these different kinds of fields and specialties that I delve into here to various degrees. Which brings me back to peace studies...
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In the context of where I am in this blog, as pertains to my life, the thing that I want to pull from peace studies now (although there certainly are other things I
could say about it), is how it might relate to the Vienna mission. I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't exactly what you expected me to say, although you might not have been sure at all anyway as to where I might be going with this.
I'm going to use my very small library of peace and nonviolence books here. [And I might also note that I found my copy of "In the Company of Women"!!]
This first section is from the edited book:
Katz, Neil H., & Lawyer, John W. (1992). Communication and conflict - management skills: strategies for individual and systems change. In Fahey, Joseph J., & Armstrong, Richard. (Eds.).
A Peace Reader: Essential Readings on War, Justice, Non-Violence and World Order, rev. ed. New York: Paulist Press, p. 258-266.
"
In our work we define communication as an exchange of meaning between persons that allows each to influence the other's experience. Communication takes place at both conscious and unconscious levels. Conflict management is the process of becoming aware of a conflict, diagnosing its nature, and employing an appropriate problem-solving method to enable the persons involved to get their own needs met without infringing on the rights of others (that is, to simultaneously achieve their personal goals and enhance their relationships). As constructive techniques are engaged to manage conflict, feelings of self-confidence, competence, self-worth, and power increase, thereby enhancing the overall capacity of the system to respond to conflict in positive ways." (p. 260)
Needless to say, I did not think this process was possible at all in Vienna and no one was going to or ever did attempt to help me or intervene for me, because the system there was not set up that way. I was a lone individual against this monolithic entity (the mission). Right off the bat we have a problem with this text when it defines communication as "an exchange of meaning between persons that allow each to influence the other's experience." There was no way in a million years that I was ever,
ever going influence anyone at the mission, period. So that ended conflict management right there before it even started. I hope the mission leadership reads this.
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"
We believe that positive change can occur in a system when a significant number of its members are functioning at a level of development that enables them to make decisions based on an internal set of moral (other-regarding) principles rather than looking outside themselves for guidance and direction. This presupposes that the people in the system are largely engaged in the pursuit of their personal needs to be themselves, direct their own lives, and express creative insight. It also presupposes that their physical needs for safety and security as well as their needs for acceptance, affirmation, approval, and achievement are largely met. When people are developmentally able to make decisions independently, they can choose to meet not only their own needs but the needs of the system which includes other people as well." (p. 260)
If I were teaching a class and we'd just been presented with this information I might turn to the class and say something like this:
"Now class, based on what you know about the Vienna mission and what this text says, do you think this describes that organization? And tell us why you think that way?"
So you are my class of students. What do you think? If this were a recording I might be tempted to insert a 10 minute pause for people to think, but it's not so I'll just go on with my comments.
I actually have read through this entire book (all of almost 500 pages worth), but it has been a while, so as I was reading this paragraph the first time and I got to the first part that says that a prerequisite to working out this positive change is that members "are functioning at a level of development...." I immediately thought, well, we have a house full of seminarians, how much more developed can you get? Then I read on and I started thinking to myself, "Uh-oh, we have a problem here... a mega problem..." How can an organization packed to the gills with seminarians not fit this description? What on earth happened to them that they don't fit it? Did they come to Vienna that way? Or did the mission make them that way?
Even if I was treated very different from everyone else, that doesn't explain how everyone down to the last child (really, even children) worked in concert to shun and ostracize me at the end? Didn't anyone ask themselves any questions about what was going on? C'mon! SEMINARIANS, THEOLOGIANS, PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND MORAL ISSUES. What in heaven's name was going on that they
not developed in the way this text describes. And I didn't even have a Th.M. (oh, and I was just a secretary, too).
This is disgusting, really, and to me it smacks very much like a cult type setting, if the mission had that much control over people to be able to turn all those theologians into [this text's definition of] undeveloped people.
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"
Achieving this level of development requires that the system's members acquire such values as assertion, empathy, mutual accountability, flexibility, honesty, expressiveness, and initiation. Brian Hall and Helen Thompson, in their book Leadership Through Values (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), have defined values as priorities we choose and act upon that creatively enhance our own lives and the lives of those around us. Our lives are, in fact, motivated by values." (p. 260).
The system's members didn't value those things because the mission didn't value them, which is because the mission leadership didn't want it to. Which brings me to the question, "Who is the leadership behind all this? What's really going on behind the scenes to tear down values that I think I could find biblical support pretty easily for?
This chapter goes on to describe more about skills needed for conflict management to occur, but we've already established here that we don't even have the most basic foundation for conflict resolution to occur, so I don't see any reason to go any father with it.
***
Next, I will turn to another book in my small peace literature library:
Augsburger, David W. (1992).
Conflict Mediation across Cultures: Pathways and Patterns. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press.
"
Conflict exists in this tension between same
and other
: Conflict arises from the competition of same
and other
; conflict erupts as those who are same
seek to control the other
(and reduce its otherness), subordinate the other (and exploit its otherness), destroy the other (and annihilate its otherness), and exclude the other (escape from the threat of otherness)." (p. 16)
In the context of my blog, I'm talking about the mission being the "same" and me being the "other", but it should be noted that this book deals with cross-cultural conflict mediation and I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that the mission would be more of a "cross-cultural" experience than my living in Austria to work at the mission. But it was; there's no doubt about that (which is contrary to what the mission would have everyone believe).
So what of these possible relations between "same" and "other" might apply to my experience of the mission? I'll take them in order:
- Tension between same and other. There was definitely tension between me and the mission and the problem was that I was different and wouldn't become like them (via socialization / total submission).
- Competition of same and other. I'm not a competitive person, which I think I've mentioned here at least once before, and I never meant to even appear competitive. I never even wanted them to be like me. I just wanted the mission to let me fulfill the work I promised to do but to also be able to use other skills and interests, especially ministry related ones.
- Same seeks to control the other (and reduce its otherness). The mission most definitely wanted to control me, which is why I couldn't assimilate. If their demands had been reasonable and communication channels had really been open (i.e., wouldn't be used just to find another avenue to get to me)
- Same seeks to subordinate the other (and exploit its otherness). I think the subordinate issue comes in by way of super-imposing secretarial persona on practically my whole existence while I was with them and also by virtue of being female and thus female stereotypical demands put on me.
- Same seeks to destroy the other (and annihilate its otherness). These two phrases strike me differently. I think the mission wanted to "annihilate [my] otherness" the whole time I was there, but in looking back I guess it did feel like an effort to "destroy" me, maybe starting with the degradation type socialization at the beginning. Degradation is intended, after all, to destroy one's hold on the old so that the organization can replace it with their values and norms.
- Same seeks to exclude the other (escape from the threat of otherness). This was especially true the last few months I was with the mission as they pretty much ostracized me.
In these ways, the mission acted very violently to me, in virtually all of these ways, and throughout the whole time I was with the mission. Even when I might have been having fun the mission was still wanting to rid me of my "otherness."
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"
This conflict (or compatibility) of values between the individual and the society is a complex, dynamic process. Every individual group, community, society, and embracing culture holds a set of values that are ranked, prized, and obeyed. Each person's world of values exists within these surrounding value fields. All persons order their own value commitments with reference to the values of their group, which in turn is located within the value structures of the community. But each person ranks even commonly held values with different degrees of importance, so each is at the same time culturally similar to other members of the group and culturally unique." (p. 26)
So we understand that my values and how I ranked, prized and obeyed them different greatly from the mission's (which in itself seems strange since they were mostly White American middle-class Evangelical Christians like me). But the sentence that begins "All persons order..." is of considerable concern to me. If my value system was so different from the mission's, w
hat kind of a community was their value structure situated in? It didn't just happen out of a void, right? So what is that "community" or "communities" the mission was located in that led to them being of the nature they were? Maybe it would be easiest to rule out some possibilities, know that an effort of that nature could go on for a very long time if taken to its end. But I promise I won't take it that far; I'll just try to rule out some of the more suspect and obvious ones.
- American culture: Up to that point I hadn't live in a lot of different parts of the country, but I had lived in Seattle and the midwest, and I had also done a fair amount of traveling around the country and went to school with other students from around the country, and I can't say I had ever before seen anything at all resembling what I experienced and witnessed in Vienna.
- Evangelical Christian culture: Before arriving in Vienna I had been raised in an Evangelical Christian family and church and had gone to church camp with kids from around the country. I had also gone to Bible school with Evangelical Christians from around the world, let alone just around the country. Then I went on deputation and visited churches (and a Christian nursing home, 2 camps, and also a Christian school) from all southern British Columbia to Grants Pass, Oregon, out east to Denver southern Indiana, northern Ohio, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, etc. I had also developed Christian friends in Australia and East Berlin, and went to a Baptist church in England while volunteering there, and I never ever saw anything at all like the culture I witnessed in the Vienna mission.
- White American culture: I'm pretty white as white can be, being of the following ethnic heritages: English, Pennsylvania Dutch, Ukrainian and Italian. My light blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes also make it easy to identify me as being white. As such, I've lived my whole life pretty much amongst white culture and never found any propensity for the kinds of things I saw in Vienna.
- Middle-class American culture: I was also raised in a middle-class family and went to school my whole life pretty much with middle-class children and young adults. Even television images of middle-class Americans leave me clueless as to where the Vienna mission might have gotten its culture cues from.
- Evangelical Christian missions: My experience with missions is somewhat less than those other areas, but nothing in either my interactions with missionaries nor my study of missions (missiology) has given me any indication that this might have been a great source for the mission's value system.
Those were the obvious ones that seemed like maybe helped the mission become like it was. So then you're stuck with the sort of less obvious ones, like maybe the Yoruba of Nigeria (no offense to the Yoruba) However, even that doesn't fit, if you believe someone from the
University of Texas Center for African and African American Studies, who says:
Yoruba values are best seen in respect for elders and constituted authorities, honesty, integrity, diligence and a profound religious belief system, then that cultural framework doesn't fit either.
So maybe we shouldn't go quite that far afield. The most likely "reference cultures" for the Vienna mission were most likely something along the lines of the following: other Eastern European missions, military, espionage. If it were only other Eastern European missions - with all those 15 missions coming together like that - then maybe this was something that they just sort of developed themselves along the way to function in the Communist country contexts. However, the military and/or espionage "value fields" could have had an indirect influence by these mission trying to learn from them, or it could even have somewhere along the line involved some more direct influence, by way of, say, taking money from the CIA for short wave radio work or having U.S. military chaplains staff the whole h.r. department, for example. Since I had never studied those entities before (military or espionage agencies) I didn't really know anything about them when I arrived in Vienna. I did know about Communism, though, and I hate to think that the mission might have taken cues from them, but in some respects there were distinct resemblances. It could have been a case of opposites attracting or something, but I highly doubt they would have consciously, at least, tried to mimic Communism. So any resemblance, in this case, would just have been coincidental.
***
"
Shaming behavior, as a means of either conflict suppression or escalation, may be a complex series of social cues - the maintaining of less of face - or a climactic public event." (p. 81)
In my experience with the mission, shaming was a means of conflict suppression, and was mostly the "complex series of social cues," but towards the end it was edging pretty close to a "climactic public event."
***
This next text is a chapter from an edited book:
Goss-Mayr, Hildegard. (n.d.). Active nonviolence. In de Coninck, Therese,
Essays on Nonviolence.United States: The Fellowship of Reconciliation, p. 21-27.
"
There are three possibilities to react against injustice:1. Once you have become aware of an injustice, you can remain passive...2. The second is the traditional way of reacting against injustice, the way that has been taken in history in general, that is to react against injustice, aggression, and other forms of evil with the same means; we could say to oppose the institutional forms of violence with counterviolence in an effort to overcome existing injustices...3. Perhaps the third way of reacting against an injustice could be explained through a very simple example. I have two children. If, for instance, my boy, who is ten and by nature violent, has done something wrong and if I use the same aggressive means as he does, we shall just hurt each other... On the contrary, if one really wanted to solve the problem, a teacher or parent would explain to young people why their way their way of acting is wrong and help them to direct their forces toward positive tasks. That is to say, to dialogue, you begin to use certain methods and techniques in order to solve the conflict. In this process neither of us is diminished; on the contrary (in the case of my son), he advances and I begin to understand him better and to learn about what he has to contribute. This force is the force of intelligence but also the force of truth, of love and justice that has been brought into play in this effort at solving a problem. This is the type of strength that is at the core of nonviolent action." (p. 22-23)
It's quite possible that you have heard something like this before, maybe put a little differently, but essentially the same as what this author is saying. But the point, of course, is to apply this to the Vienna mission and my experiences with it.
You could make the mission and its leadership the one reacting to me, but I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find that I'd done them an injustice. In fact, I never complained, I always did my work well, I did not gossip nor was I divisive. Such things could possibly have been seen as an injustice done to them, but I did not do these things and the mission never said or otherwise indicated that they thought I had done them either. What I did do, of course, was offend the sensibilities of the mission culture (such as by not "totally submitting"). I'm not going to go there, but if you think their culture was just and right enough to warrant calling their reaction to my offending it, as a response to "injustice" I give you the freedom to do that.
But I'm going to talk about it from the opposite side of the relationship, that I was the one that was offended by what I witnessed and I was also treated in an unjust manner. So what could I do? Basically I did remain passive (until now, I guess, if you call this breaking from my passivity). I definitely did not respond in kind to them, and I've struggled over the years with this issue in writing my autobiography - that I didn't want to write it just out of anger or to come across that way either. I always did want my autobiography to be a constructive rather than destructive force. At the same time, though, I'm not going to lie about those years which were really pretty horrible for me and should have been the start of a long career. I do hope that this blog comes across for the most part in the third way.
So basically you have my value system and the mission's value system. Apart from that you have the fact that they were my "employer" if you will, and I worked for them. But I think it comes down more to which value system is more just (or biblical) and also how we treated each other. It could be said, I think that I treated them well in every way except I wouldn't submit totally to them. But they treated me very badly and didn't provide realistic opportunity for me to be heard - I was too afraid to even let anyone know what I was thinking.
The other thing I'd like to take from this text is the relationship the mission had with the countries it worked in. In a sense you could see that relationship as adversarial, at least the Communist countries would have seen it that way, even if the mission didn't (or wouldn't admit to it). However little things like that East-West economic comparison sheet we were given and discussed in Candidate's Course (with my sending mission) indicated some possible adversarial attitudes from the political standpoint from the mission as well. In this relationship, however, I regret to tell you, but I think the mission looked to me like it used the second reaction type, in that it had taken on a guise that looked a lot like a Communist country in the level of attitude control and what means it was willing to use to make a person come in line. I had my own private
forced collectivization experience, if you will... at the hands of the mission.
***
And here's a lot of why I think the mission took on the form it did... because it wasn't willing to do this:
"
This is something we must bear in mind: The moment we attack an injustice, we must be prepared and willing to accept the sacrifices and the suffering that necessarily will result from our attack. For those whose conscience is attacked will react with violence; this violence can become a real symbol of the cross for some of those engaged in nonviolent action." (p. 24)
I've actually addressed this kind of thing using the Bible, but I think it doesn't hurt to say it again in a different way. Missionaries have always faced a wide variety of causes of suffering, but some are still willing to pay the price and go anyway. Here are some examples of how missionaries have suffered in the past (my copy of
From Jerusalem to Iryan Jaya is in a box somewhere, rats):
facing headhunters
disease
political unrest
natural disaster
etc.
[4/9/11 comments: I found my copy From Jerusalem to Iryan Jaya and here are some examples of how missionaries have suffered in the past. (I'm summarizing from the text unless noted otherwise.)
Tucker, Ruth A. (1983).
From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.
The Adoniram Judsons (p. 121-131): The Judsons worked in Burma in the 1800s. Burma was a difficult country to work in both because cultivating believers was difficult there and it was also difficult because of the political situation. The Judsons did change their tactics some when the regime became antagonistic to missionary work, but the Judsons were resourceful and were able to work around this without being deceitful. However, Adoniram was put in a death prison, accused of being a spy, when war broke out between England and Burma. While visiting him in prison one time his wife Nancy and their baby girl became sick, and they were sick on and off for some time until they both died while Adoniram was helping translate negotiations between the British and Burmese after the end of the war. He then went into a deep depression before recovering and going on to have a continued fruitful ministry.
George Grenfell (p. 155-156): According to this text, statistically only one in four missionaries remained alive at the end of first 4 years of missionary service in the Congo because of disease and cannibalism. But Grenfell's trials were more political. The Belgian government, in their colonial interests, confiscated all his maps and notes, as well as his steamboat. When the Congo Free State was formed he worked for a while with the new government, until he learned of "atrocities committed against the Congolese (in an effort to extract rubber)" (p. 156) and he protested this treatment, which resulted in him having new troubles with the government, which he eventually left their employ but "the government refused to grant him new sites for mission stations" (p. 156). But despite all these problems he had a fruitful ministry with a growing church.
Betty and John Stam (p. 421-423): These two young missionaries served in China in the 1930s, when the country was at unrest in the lead up to the Chinese Revolution. CIM, their sending mission, continued its missionary presence in the country, although it pulled workers from locations deemed particularly dangerous. But CIM did
not resort to deceit during this time. The Stams, knowing what they were getting into, chose this mission field anyway, and shortly after they finished language school and went to where they were going to be ministering they were taken hostage by Communist soldiers, and were later publicly ridiculed and then executed, although their baby daughter survived. John Stam, only a few years prior had presented the class speech at his Bible school graduation, and this is part of what he said: "Let us remind ourselves that the Great Commission was never qualified by clauses calling for advance only if funds were plentiful and no hardship or self-denial involved [sic]. On the contrary, we are told to expect tribulation and even persecution, but with it victory in Christ." (p. 422)
End of 4/9/11 comments. Fox's Book of Martyrs would be another good resource, and I know I have a copy somewhere...
Oh, look, it's on line!]
If I find my book I'll use some specific examples, but I'm spending a lot of time on this post anyway, so that will have to do for now. The point is that missionaries that went to work with a headhunting tribe didn't prepare themselves by using headhunter-like methods of protection did they? Or did missionaries go into malaria-infested areas protected by one of the
bubbles? Is that enough? If I say that taking on Communist-(or closed country-) like ways of being and doing things is like taking on headhunter-like methods of protection, will you understand what I mean? As far as I'm concerned it's like the mission was talking Christ but living some warped form of military-espionage-Communist induced
yech. There really is a point where actions do speak louder than words. All I know is the treatment I got in Vienna was most decidedly the most
unChristian thing I've ever experienced.
***
And I'm going to end this very long peace/conflict management preamble... with a quote from Jacques Ellul :
Ellul, Jacques. 1986.
The Subversion of Chritianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans.
This is from the beginning of chapter 8: "The Heart of the Problem."
"
As Kierkegaard says, nothing displeases us or revolts us more than New Testament Christianity when it is properly proclaimed. It can neither win millions of Christians nor bring revenues and earthly profits. Confusion results. If people are to agree, what is proclaimed to them must be to their taste and must seduce them. Here is the difficulty: it is not at all that of showing that official Christianity is not the Christianity of the New Testament, but that of showing that New Testament Christianity and what it implies to be a Christian are profoundly disagreeable to us." (p. 154)
One more quote, from Jesus' prayer in John 17:
13“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ***
That ends the peace/conflict preamble and the rest of this post is the regular textual discussion. It's the last article in the socialization file, but there's a fair amount to discuss in it.
There's one more topic I want to discuss, like the above "preamble," before I start back in on the chronology.
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We're returning to one of the first authors in this file in the next text (which is also the last one before I return to the chronology of my biography) is a journal article:
Van Maanen, John, & Schein, Edgar H. (1979). Toward a theory of organizational socialization.
Research in Organizational Behavior, 1, 209-267.
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These first quotes are from the introduction of the main section "Organizational Socialization."
"
In particular, the question of how it is that only certain patterns of thought and action are passed from one generation of organization members to the next has been neglected. Since such a process of socialization necessarily involves the transmission of information and values, it is fundamentally a cultural matter." (p. 210)
I just wanted to make sure you understand that there is a cultural adjustment going on in entering a new job... separate from any possible other relocation cultural adjustments.
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