261. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 9 (Zaleznik, pt. 3)

I got the stationery for sending out notices and thank yous ordered and the CD of the memorial service for mom burned for mom's sister. Then I came home and took a nap.

***

"Deviant behavior arises when the individual fails to internalize the group norms. He does not believe, for example, that the norms are moral, fair, or just, such as the case of the worker of Protestant, rural background who disapproves of the practice of restriction of output found so generally among urban workers of Catholic religious background (White, 1955; Zaleznik, Christensen, & Roethlisberger, 1958). To uphold his convictions he forgoes group rewards. Or, another way of putting the matter, the guilt he would experience as a result of conformity acts as a cost to offset the rewards from group membership." (p. 594).

This clearly describes much of how I felt about the Vienna mission that kept me from conforming at a great cost to myself, which I don't think a lot of people would have been willing to pay. That is, considering the great cost of my nonconformity, there would have to have been a very great conviction to disallow me from relieving myself of that cost and conforming to the groups norms. One issue here is that when I took the stand at the beginning I had no idea, really, what cost I would have to pay for holding my ground. The other is, even if I had given in, there is no guarantee that I would have been rewarded with a career to my liking, because there was still the issue of my dad and how his work might have gotten in the way of me doing what I really wanted to do. If I had given in I might have been rewarded with a life of being a secretary, for example. I don't remember this being of any significance, however, as to whether or not I could go along with the mission and accept its norms and values. That is, even if they could have promised me work roughly fitting what I saw as my interests and gifts, it still wouldn't have been worth giving in to the things I disagreed with.

***

"Deviant behavior also contains its own rewards in the sense that the deviant may experience satisfaction in 'showing up,' or acting superior to, members of a group for whom he feels scorn and disapproval. Group members, on the other hand, seek to exact conformity by imposing punishments for deviant behavior. The effect is to increase the costs of behaving in violation of group norms. The acts of increasing costs explain why Schachter (1953) found in his experimental studies of conformity and deviation that a large proportion of interactions are directed toward the deviant in attempts to 'bring him into line.' But beyond a certain point, the attempts at direct punishment to coerce the deviant become costly to the group members, who may then seek to isolate the deviant or otherwise cast him out of the group." (p. 594).

It should be remembered that this text does not seem to be taking into account leadership or management influences and interventions, which might be separate issues to what is described here, but nonetheless there were some official responses to me, such as in moving me around so much.

Regarding the first issue in this text, about the deviant feeling satisfaction, I think early on I felt a certain amount of this, especially on the issue of involvement with Austrians. I thought the mission was too insular and should have been more all-inclusive in its ministry outreach, not limiting itself just to the "official" ministry it had to Eastern Europe. So in this regard, I think I did scorn them and continued to do so as long as I could hold out against them to continue my own efforts. It didn't take too long, however, to realize that this insularity was probably intentional as a security precaution; but, again, I didn't agree with them that they needed to be as insular as they were. I thought of this as a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water in rejecting virtually all types of Austrian ministry for security's sake. However, I did understand that having any such ministry would have been difficult for those, for example, who traveled to Eastern Europe a lot, just because of time constraints and the need to also spend time with family.

The rest of the text does describe pretty well, I think how the mission related to me, ending up by trying to isolate me and otherwise encourage my departure at the end of my two-year commitment. They started this process in earnest after my parents left, but after dad left but mom stayed on to teach health at the new English language Christian school they were already beginning to treat me this way.

***

The text goes on to describe "the superior-subordinate relationship," which would, in my case, be my relationship with my boss who I was secretary for (at least who I was supposed to be secretary for and was so maybe 2/5 of the time I was with the mission.

"The superordinate exercises control through the rewards he is able to provide in his behavior. He may secure reward-providing tasks for the subordinate as a result of his position in the larger social structure. He may teach the subordinate and in the process help the subordinate to enhance his competence and ultimate achievement. The superordinate may also act in ways that protect or buffer the subordinate from undue risks and too early exposure to tasks beyond the subordinate's level of experience and competence. Another way of describing the protective behavior is to point to the costs of exercising responsibility and to suggest that at times the superordinate seeks to limit these costs for his subordinates. The superordinate also provides rewards through seeking advancement for his subordinates. The subordinate, insofar as he experiences these and other rewards, reciprocates through task accomplishment, respect, and esteem for the supervisor." (p. 594-595)

I might as well be describing the moon here because this absolutely does most emphatically NOT describe my relationship with my boss! I don't remember him ever teaching me anything and he never, as far as I know, ever did anything to protect me or seek my advancement. In fact I'm not sure what he might have done at all in relation to me except give me letters to type. It was through my mentor-secretary (the director's secretary) - not through my boss - that I learned I should befriend his family and wife. The only things that could at all have been considered rewards were taking part in the English teaching in Bratislava and the one women's ministry trip. I'm not sure how those opportunities came about though, or whether my boss payed any roll in those things or not. In any case, at the time I didn't think about him as having any part in it.

On my part, I didn't really have that much esteem for my boss, although I don't think I ever disrespected him or that anyone else would have thought that I didn't particularly esteem him. Maybe the buggy eyes and crotch scratching made him lose esteem in my eyes.

***

"A successful superior-subordinate relationship results from an optimization of profit for each individual through the relationship. When one individual's rewards result from costs experienced by the other, the relationship is ripe for conflict.

Conflict in the relationship also results from inappropriate behavior." (p. 595)

There was no way the relationship between my boss and I, as it was set up, could have resulted in "optimization of profit for each individual through the relationship." That is, if the position had to involve spending inordinate attention on his wife and family and required me to leave off Austrian ministry while at the same time not replacing it with other people-contact ministry, then I could not have been satisfied with it no matter how good my relationship with my boss could have been. Since I wasn't committed to being a secretary and I was ambivalent about my boss it probably could not have been optimally profitable for my boss either.

Remember that conflict in the mission was virtually unpermissable, so any conflict would have been stifled, which isn't the same as saying there wasn't any conflict. It would likely have been more difficult to identify, however. That being said, I think there was conflict between my boss and I, but I can't speak with any certainty from his side of things. From my end, though, his behavior in our one-on-one meetings in his office (see above) turned me off and although he didn't appear to be involved in how the mission treated me I couldn't help but expect that he was nonetheless party to the decisions as to how the mission should deal with me. So after the mission sent me home during my 5th month with it there was little chance that I could have been realistically reunited with my boss, although it appears that the two wives that apparently got similar treatment managed to return to Vienna having succumbed and they probably accepted full blame for having been sent home, which meant that they made the requisite change to suit the mission. I, on the other hand, didn't see the problem so much in me as in the mission and I never could change my view on this. I saw the mission as having single-handedly pushed me past my limits, and saw them as being wrong in how they treated me. And if there is any doubt about this, I now have 30+ years after my Vienna years to prove that nothing else has ever led me to that point.

***

That's all for this subject and next time we'll move on to another section of this book chapter.

260. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 8 (Zaleznik, pt. 2)

I'm taking my lunch break now. Amazingly enough, the eggplant and celery I had in the fridge before going to Seattle are still in quite good shape. I have to figure out what to do with almost a quart of sour milk though; I don't like throwing out food if it can be avoided.

I decided to skip the rest of the sub-section I was discussion last time. I'll pick up on the "Exchange" sub-section of the same section as before: "Structural Theories of Interpersonal Behavior."

***

"Deviant behavior exists when the individual acts in such a way as to indicate an intent to flout group norms or a failure to internalize the standards of behavior." (p. 593)

In my case I clearly was an example of "failure to internalize the standards of behavior," but in the Vienna mission the thing was you weren't really sure what the "standards of behavior" were until you began to internalize what you did know (or think you knew) of them, which would, I think, lead to more understanding of the norms and/or others revealing more of the norms. So, in effect, I failed to internalize the standards of behavior I thought I understood, mainly because I didn't like/agree with enough of what seemed to be the group's norms. I didn't like/agree with them for several reasons, including: 1) my understanding of the situation in Eastern Europe made me think that the mission took the security precautions farther than needed to work in that environment; 2) the security precautions the mission did seem to take looked like it entailed unscriptural aspects; and 3) they conflicted with my personal ministry interests (i.e., I wanted more personal ministry involvement than seemed to be allowed for me).

To a certain extent I think it could be said that I flouted the group norms, but to a large extent I wasn't always sure exactly what those norms were to flout, in which case my deviance would be more closely related to failure to internalize group norms rather than flouting them, because internalizing them would have led to greater understanding of the norms. In other words, I didn't know the norms to be able to flout them because I hadn't internalized them or the ones I was aware of.

In addition, some norms which, taken on their own, I might not otherwise have had an issue with, I did in the Vienna mission context because I saw the norms as a composite unit rather than as discrete elements from which I could pick and choose. So I extended my leeriness about specific elements of the mission to encompass the whole of the mission.

***

"Both conformity and deviation, when viewed as aspects of exchange, involve rewards, costs, and profit to the individual... The costs of conformity are implied in the rewards the individual forgoes in achieving interpersonal rewards. Instead of working hard on a task to realize the rewards of intrinsic job satisfaction, for example, the individual participates in group activities or interacts in ways not relevant to the task to achieve group-oriented rewards." (p. 593)

This is an interesting take on my relationship with the mission. What did (or do) I perceive to have been the possible rewards and costs of conformity? Since I didn't conform very well, my answer to this is somewhat speculative.

Ideally, the possible rewards might have been more extensive ministry in Eastern Europe. I think that is the primary thing for me that would have been a reward I would have valued. On the other hand, the costs might have been foregoing a lot of personal (i.e., people contact) ministry, limiting myself to the mission's narrow ministry interests (i.e., biblical instruction), taking on values and participating in actions that went against my conscious and/or which I thought were unbiblical.

I'm not sure what the chances might have been of my getting to have more people ministry, because there are several possible things arguing against that, including the fact that I was to be the secretary of the person who is now the head of the whole organization. So it's possible I might have ended out just following him around as his secretary all these years, perhaps with occasional ministry trips into closed countries. Also, there's the issue of my dad and the possibility that that might have precluded me having an intensive behind the iron curtain people ministry with the mission.

Looked at in this light, it doesn't seem surprising that I had trouble conforming to the mission's apparent demands of me. (I say "apparent" because they seemed to me to be the mission's demands, but the mission might say otherwise.)

***

"In group situations, an individual may seek to improve his social standing, which is another way of saying that he seeks to increase his reward-cost-profit outcome, but in doing so he may find that the behavior emitted toward increased conformity results in an immediate increase in costs and an unchanging level of reward. If the individual perceives few alternative channels for reward in his life setting, he may continue to reduce immediate profit in the hopes of achieving increased profits at some future time. This pattern is seen as vying for group rewards through heightened conformist behavior." (p. 594)

I could have taken this stance vis a vis the Vienna mission, and undoubtedly there were some there who had done this kind of thing. The thing that kept me from doing this, however, was, I think, primarily my Christian idealist values system. That is, the norms of the mission conflicted too greatly with my own to allow me to change. The fact that I thought that many of their demands were unnecessary, the possibility that there was extra-Christian involvement (e.g., via the military chaplains), and that some of the things seemed outright unbiblical all argued against my compliance with the mission. Nevertheless, I did "perceive few alternative channels for reward in [my] life setting" and this is at least part of the reason why I had so much stress and dissonance about my relationship with the mission. The other thing would be everything I had put into that being my career.

***

I have to break off here, but I think there is more about deviance that might be worth looking into in this article, so we'll continue with this thought in my next post. I've got to go run some errands now.

211. Socialization File, Pt. 93 (Roberts, pt. 10)

Since I left Vienna one of the areas I've learned the most about is education, since I have an M.A. in adult education and 60 credits towards a doctorate in the same (I didn't like my options once I realized what they probably would be after completing those studies, so I dropped out). I initially chose the Master's degree subject because the program in which I studies allowed for studying both women's ministry/religious education and English as a Second/Foriegn Language instruction. I'm bringing this up to talk a bit about philosophy of education.

There's a huge range of what adult education is like around the world, but in the USA (but not only in the USA) there is a tendency for education to have a socialization role, in that it is designed to help learners to fit into a specific, pre-existing context, such as a business or society at large. In this approach to adult education the learner learns to adapt to the way things are and function well within that established social configuration and normative setting. This assumes a conservative approach to teaching in which the only change is in the individual.

The Vienna mission's approach to socialization was like this, as are most work place socialization processes. To understand the philosophy of the teaching ministry of the mission, I think it is helpful to compare it to other career training programs. Usually, part of the objective of such programs socialize students into the field they are studying for. They aren't particularly taught to change the field, but rather become a part of it, much as other kinds of socialization. That isn't to deny, however, that once in the field the students might need to have garnered knowledge and skills which might help them with problem solving and perhaps even a certain amount of effecting change, such as policies and procedures of a workplace or department as pertain to the individual's job and sphere of expertise. These kinds of skills are expected to be able to fulfill the position effectively. In this way, the student of a career position is socialized into their field, although that might include some limited ability to affect change.

However, there are other options and other paradigms and for teaching, several of which are well-developed and in great use in various institutional settings and societal cultures. Here are a couple of which I'm reasonably familiar.

Folk education , in brief, empowers the individuals and groups via collective discussions, learning and problem solving to effect gradual change in their lives and environment around them.

Popular education, again in brief, empower groups to understand societal constraints on their lives and to wield changes that improve their existence.

Many theoreticians believe that whether you take the more traditional conservative education perspective, the perspective more akin to folk education or a critical education stance, the decision you make in this regard determines what kind of political impact you expect or want the education to have. The conservative approach vies for and supports the status-quo, the folk education vies for limited localized and possibly segmented change, while the popular education perspective aims, in the long haul, at broader and more extensive social structure change. The point here is that even a choice for the conservative approach is a political choice.

As far as the mission's teaching ministry was concerned, it was not intended to, as far as I ever knew, have any other impact other than spiritual, so any potential impact would be intended to be limited to that sphere. But even if you consider limiting impact to the spiritual realm, I think you'd have to say that the teaching was conservative in nature, although in praxis aspects of subject matter taught (but not theology, for example), there could have been some folk education-type influence on the teaching.

[4/9/11 comments: The mission did intend its teaching ministry to have a more far-flung influence, however, which could have nudged it towards "folk education". However, in (classic) folk education, information is not just handed down from one generation to the next (as in "serial" socialization), but to a certain extent the group also creates its own knowledge by studying its particular issues (i.e., not just abstractly) and tries to come up with context-specific solutions. The mission might have included elements of this in its teaching of ministry skills (the applied elements of the teaching content) but I think it's much less likely that it would have done this with its more basic/fundamental theological content.]

But this is actually still conservative education, anyway. Consider, for example teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language. I want my students to not only be able to ask yes/no questions, use the present perfect, or understand bus schedules in class; I want them to take this and apply it to their everyday lives outside of class. This means they have to be able to use the knowledge learned in class in such as way as to mix and match what they learned appropriately to come up with English language utterances (or understandings, as in the case of the receptive language skills of listening and reading). Moreover, if I'm teaching in the typical ESL program in the USA, I want these students to use these skills to be able to successfully function in the USA (using English). This involves some creativity, but the students are intended to use their skills and knowledge (that they've gained in class) in a conservative manner. That is, the student changes, but the society doesn't. (This isn't to say the student has to assimilate; there are other ways to change, such as adapting.)

If, however, the mission wanted more than this, so that the student might not only use what is taught by the mission, its instructors and its textbooks creatively but also use it to change their surroundings in some way, then we're moving more towards a classic "folk education" position.

And if the mission wanted to effect something akin to Freire's conscientization, in which the students of the mission actually change their frame of reference for understanding their situation to the end that they will go out and attempt to instigate systemic change in their surroundings, the mission would be using something closer to "popular education."

I think that the mission was closer to the classic "folk education" in its teaching ministry, and if there was anything closer to "popular education" involved it either wasn't intentional (on the part of the mission) and/or would have been an implicit (rather than explicit) secondary or tertiary objective of the ministry. I wouldn't rule this out, because of the other things I know about the mission. I'm speaking here of what was or might have been in 1987 to 1989 when I was with the mission. I can't speak at all for the present or what happened after I left. Also, note that I specify "classic" folk education, because a lot of what is called folk education today is significantly different from how Grundtvig originally meant it to be. I'm not making a judgment here on the change, however; I'm just noting that there has been a change and that this needs to be clarified in order that we're all dealing with the same understanding of the term.]

But as far as socialization to the mission was concerned, the mission seemed to use a strictly conservative approach, because the mission was not open to change and did not have any change mechanisms, grievance structures, etc. in place. (And if any of these were in place, it was to the same extent that the right to study German and to have time off when supporters came to town were in place and effective.) So the socialization was purely and simply conservative in nature and the new recruit was expected to accept it as such. If the new recruit had any questions or disagreements with how the mission did things or why they did them, I think the only two ways one could have dealt with such issues were either to resolve them by somehow learning to accept the mission's ways and reasoning, or to leave. So for 2 years, basically, I lived in the limbo between those 2 and had an existence with the mission consisting largely of a sequence of negative reinfocements, punishments, and extinguishing, punctuated by an occasional positive reinforcement. At least that's one over-simplistic way one could view my 2 years with the mission.

The other interesting thing about education and learning is that it involves a lot of aspects. For example, I did my M.A. thesis doing classroom observations, semi-structured interviews of English instructors and teacher training professors, analysis of syllabi, textbooks and exams (all of the preceding were done in Irkutsk, Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk), as well as literature review (both in Russia and the U.S.). My classroom observations involved two kinds of guides: one regarding how much time was spent on different kinds of activities and the other involving more descriptive aspects of what was happening. I also took notes about desk formation and posters on the walls, for example. In other words, there's a lot more to teaching than just lecturing, for example. Taking my research as an example, if an instructor said that the communicative aspects of the language were the most important, but tested only on sentence structure and verb formation, for example, in the end it would appear that grammar might in fact be more important than communicative skills. This is just a very simple example, and I'm not saying it happened, but it's the kind of thing I was looking for to try to find out what was happening in these Siberian institutions of higher education against a specific teaching paradigm. When I get to that part of my chronology I'll post parts of my notes and things, I'm sure.

So if I was going to do this kind of analysis of, say, my first five months with the mission, using everything that might have been included in my socialization, what would I come up with? What would I determine was really happening and to what end? Socialization is an educational process, after all. There's a lot I could do with this, I hope you understand, and I might well come back to it. If only today I had all those now missing cues, data and original sources... now that would be interesting!

***

I saw the ENT doctor this afternoon and he's ordered a swallowing study, which is now scheduled for the 19th.

But now back to the text...

***

I'm skipping a lot and picking up in the chapter section "Distinguishing Countercultures and Subcultures."

"As in any act of deviance (see Chapter 5), the prevailing culture may act to stop counterculture activity, initially devoting a great deal of attention to the deviant in an attempt to get him back into the fold. If this does not work, it frequently attempts to wall the deviant off, building a protective wall around the original culture, essentially isolating the deviant by other means." (p. 137)

These things are not easy for me to distinguish when looking at my time in Vienna. That is, it is clear that the last few months were of the kind where I was "walled off," etc. And early on, after it was determined that I wasn't falling right in their lap like a helpless fledgling lost in a strange world or something, I was subject to what seemed to me to be a rather intensive effort to try to get me back on track, namely, to submit totally and completely, which, of course I never did. But the time in the middle between these two more clearly demarcated treatments that more or less serve as book ends to my Vienna mission experience, it was not always so clear to me what was going on, and I got a lot of mixed signals (they seemed mixed to me), but they might have been likewise unsure about me too. That is, there were points when pretty much everything seemed like a punishment or negative reinforcement, and there were times (in the middle) when I got a mixed hodgepodge of positive and negative feedback. Nevertheless, I think most of the time I was with the mission I was subject to one or the other of these treatments. Since so much of my time was spent like this and I seemed to be the only one with this much trouble, I did wonder, though, if there was anything I could have ever done to please them, and if not, then probably my dad's work was a mediating factor. I'm not sure now, and I wasn't sure then about this, but it wasn't like I ever expected anyone would admit to this kind of thing if it was true, so then I was stuck just trying to put together the pieces I knew (or later, could remember).

The time in Vienna took on even more importance than it might have if leaving the mission had been the end of my troubles, but it wasn't end of them (which you'll see eventually, if you haven't picked up yet in little bits and pieces I've dropped along the way). So then, in looking back over my life, I had to put the Vienna years in the context of what also came afterwards, which might have raised more questions than it answered.

***

This citation is in the "Organizational Socialization" section of the chapter.

"Because socialization is an ongoing process, it has a feedback loop. As newcomers are socialized, the socializer monitors the degree to which they fit the organization. Where fit is good, they are given more socialization. Where fit is too minimal - where the newcomer shows potential signs of deviance or at least nonacceptance of the corporate culture - the newcomer is either eliminated or given less of the secret information. Businesses want 'team players.'" (p. 138)

This pretty well sums up my time with the Vienna mission, I guess. The most interesting part of the paragraph, though is the part about giving "less of the secret information." I want to talk about this a bit here.

It should be pretty clear by now that security issues were of vital importance, and I have also mentioned some about the division of knowledge and the applicability of the "need to know" approach to knowledge (only having access to knowledge you need for your job, nothing more). Knowledge was one of the key things (along with, say, people, for example) all the security efforts were meant to protect, so it would be almost natural for them to withhold organizational knowledge from anyone they didn't completely trust. And this they did. But this paragraph doesn't really go far enough in my case, because towards the end of my time in Vienna I was also subject to (I believe) disinformation and/or misinformation efforts to, I imagine, make sure I didn't leave with any reliable information (like what I've been writing about on this blog, for example) or be so confused as to not know if the knowledge I had was reliable or not.

***

I need to stop here to do some other things, but we'll continue with some other discussions about socialization from this text next time.

139. Socialization File, Pt. 22 (Dubin, pt. 19)

Sometimes I think I'll never catch up on things, I mean get to where I was before I got sick with the neck problem (and related issues). I still get tired pretty easily, so I don't get as much done as I'd like, but at least I'm getting something done and I think I'm gradually making a little headway. I stopped off at Home Depot on my way home this morning and picked up a few more little projects that'll need to be added to my to do list; before they were just on my shopping list, so they've switched lists.

I was just at the G.I. doctor's and we agreed to wait and see how things pan out vis a vis the healing from possible permanent nerve damage. (There might not be any permanent nerve damage, but I guess you don't know until the healing seems to have stopped.)

***

Last night just before I fell asleep a thought related to the Capitalist/Communist economic comparison sheet from candidate's course hit me. It struck me that the comparison was tantamount to saying that we're bigger sinners in the West, since everyone knows that "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (I Tim. 6:10). When you really think about it, that's a rather strange proposition to present in a mission candidate's course. The logic goes something like this:

Capitalism is better than Communism because Capitalist countries make more money, [hence they are bigger sinners because this demonstrates their greater love of money].

Now it seems a bit strange for a mission to be advocating sin. And I'm not even addressing whether or not this is the best way to present a very brief cultural overview of the Soviet Union; that is, I can think of a lot more relevant information to use.

However, this isn't the only way the logic could run. Here's another example:

The Soviet Union needs the gospel because they aren't as big of sinners as we are [by virtue of the demonstration of our love of money in amassing so much of it].

Ooops! Does that seem a little backwards or what? But here's another option:

In the spirit of Paul's sermon at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17), to effectively reach the Soviets with the gospel, it is imperative that we understand their culture, and specifically we need to keep in mind that they don't have a strong enough love of money, as demonstrated by these statistics [on the handout] which clearly show their shortcoming in this regard. We must make them bigger sinners like ourselves.

This might sound ludicrous, if it weren't for the fact that we (a lot of Western mission work) actually think like this (without the reference to I Tim. 6:10, which was my addition), and it taints the work that they do. Did I tell you I mostly avoided Weterners altogether, including missionaries, while I was living deep in the bowels of Siberia?

And as to my use of Capitalism in the above discussion... I used it because Communism is at its heart an economic theory, so Capitalism (not Democracy) would be its Western counterpart. Also, I'm not a Communist, as I've said before, but I'm not very convinced that Capitalism is much (if at all) better. Just don't ask me what I think might be the best economic system, because I'm not sure, although I've read a bit about it. Basically, though, I think it's best to just not let money have power over you (i.e., beware the love of money pitfall.) Also, I could add that there are other ways to show love of money besides amassing it.

***

The last socialization method is "cooptation", now that I look over this short section, it doesn't seem very relevant. So I'm going to just skip over it.

With that we've just finished the "Methods of Socialization" sub-chapter and are moving to a new one: "Inefficacious Socialization."

***

"On one hand, individuals who are not integrated successfully into the organization are often stigmatized as socialization failures." (p. 107)

Towards the end of my time in Vienna I felt like this in that I was shunned socially, but I think there were things [mostly symbolic, rather than of any substance] done to mitigate this a bit too. I think it's safe to say that I was the only one who got this treatment, at least during the time I was there. My departure was not on very warm terms from either side (me and the mission).

***

"On the other hand, the socialization process is often deemed unsuccessful if it produces the overcomforming member." (p. 107)

It's hard for me to imagine this being an issue with the Vienna mission. The text goes on to describe this in terms of "institutional automation" or adhering ritualistically. If this were to happen they would, I think, view the individual as not having been yet properly socialized, rather than oversocialized. That is, the thought processes that might lead to "institutional automation" or adhering ritualistically to group norms would only be indications of still having a wrong attitude, for example, and thus be an indication that you weren't really socialized yet. The attitude was very important in Vienna, and this is a demonstration of that. You couldn't oversocialize in that context; you could only be socialized or not. I think this also shows some of why one could feel a comparison between their socialization and brainwashing.

***

A little later Van Maanen talks about the sequence of socialization.

It starts with "a new member's acceptance of role-behaviors which are 'pivotal' to the organization's mission. ==>

Then moves on to "induce or make salient certain 'relevant' role-behaviors. ==>

And finally ends with inducing "certain 'peripheral' role behaviors." (p. 108)

This makes sense, although it undoubtedly is oversimplified, leaving out looping back or consecutive processes.

If we apply this formula to the Vienna mission, the "pivotal" behaviors would most likely be mostly security related (all the various formal and informal steps they took to protect themselves from - ultimately - the Communists). Second would be the work role and possibly learning more about organizational relations and interactions. Lastly would be things like additional work skills, learning the organizational traditions, etc.

This is how I'd break it down, but I'm not terribly committed to my approach here. I never espoused the mission's "pivotal" behaviors in their entirety (that is, my espousal was only selective or partial at best).

***

"[Schein] notes that three basic responses can characterize socialization outcomes. The first is 'rebellion.' This outcome refers to a new member's rejection of all organizational demands. Hence, either the individual convinces the organization to alter its role demands or the person leaves the organizational setting (either he quits or is dismissed). The second type of response involves the new member's acceptance of the pivotal demands, but also involves the neophyte's rejection of most relevant and peripheral role-behaviors. This type of response is labelled by Schein, 'creative individualism.' This type of response is labelled by Schein, 'creative individualism.' The third response is called 'conformity.' This type of outcome involves the new member's acceptance of all role demands - pivotal, relevant and peripheral. Since all organizations, in the long run, require innovation and change, the results of conformity as a socialization outcome tend to be suboptimal, causing stagnation." (p. 109; bold script is mine)

This text is very helpful in trying to understand the Vienna situation in general and my experience in particular. I think that the only response that was acceptable to the mission was conformity; anything less than that was incomplete socialization and would indicate not having even past the first big socialization hurdle. Conformity was the only indication (using these options) of socialization of the individual.

In this set up, the Vienna mission's expectations were that you pretty much went right to conformity, and the sooner the better. Rebellion was a non-issue. Creative individuality probably had some place AFTER you had conformed, and new the bounds allowed for creative individuality. Under these circumstances, and only these circumstances, creative individuality could benefit the organization by way of problem solving and advancing the work in one way or another. It's like the went straight for the jugular, no pussy footing around.

I think this was universal, although "conformity" would be played out in different ways according to the person's position in the organization. If I had to place myself on this continuum, I'd on the rebellion end, although they probably saw me closer to creative individualism most of the time I was there. If they'd seen me more in the rebellion end my experiences with them would probably have been even worse (or shorter or both).

[4/7/2011 comment: In looking at this again, it seems to me that there should be a fourth option, which would more aptly describe my response and that is: rejection of pivotal demands, but acceptance of many of the 'most relevant and peripheral role-behaviors.' I'm not sure what to call this, though. Subterfuge?]

***

"[O]rganizational socialization processes which do not have sufficient flexibility to tolerate deviant cases are likely to produce conformity or rebellion as modal response categories." (p. 109)

I think the Vienna mission took a zero tolerance stance regarding security lapses which resulted in them not having flexibility to tolerate rebellion. Another contributing factor was the complexity of the mission's context, such as being composed of 15 contributing missions - all with their own organizational culture, and working in multiple countries with each with somewhat unique issues. At least that's how their rationale would go as to why they were inflexible in the ways discussed here.

***

I think I'm going to end here and it'll probably take 2 or 3 more posts to finish this subchapter. Since the subchapter isn't broken up some of my stopping points could be a bit arbitrary.

93. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 17 (Radine, pt. 11)

I still can't find the MIA articles.

I enjoyed a walk earlier in the day than usual today because it was overcast and cooler, although my Weather Bug reading says it's currently 89.5F.

***

Chapter 7: Military Prisons and Rehabilitation

***

"Unlike inmates in the [United States Disciplinary Barracks(USDB)], soldiers who pass through the [Correctional Training Facility (CTF)] are fully expected to return to active duty, and the CTF are fully expected to reintegrate them into the rest of the Army. It does this (and maintains social control internally) by manipulating the convicted GI's self-image and his 'definition of the situation.' CTF principles may well be an anticipation of future trends in Army corrections." (p. 221)

I felt like I was experiencing some of this for the 6 months I was in the States (including time spent working at the U.S. office). I guess I was eventually deemed "reformed" enough (take that as you wish) to return to my original post, at least for a while. I never did fully conform, though, and I think they knew that, although they didn't know what I was thinking, because I never gave them any opportunity to know. But I was intentional about that too.

There are some other things I could say here, but it would be difficult without going into the narration of what exactly happened, so I'll just have to hold off and hope that I remember my train of thinking.

***

"A legal clerk, whose responsibility it was to interview stockade prisoners prior to their trials gave me his impression of stockade conditions at a large midwesern Army post:

... Once you come in, you're assigned to a barracks and you go to the barracks on the first night and that's invariably when the beating takes place... [and if] the guy says anything at all they put him in the box ["administrative segregation"] and continue to beat him, [and leave] him in the box for a couple of days... Then that subdues him... and they let him out of the box. By then they're pretty well beaten into the system... You can't get these guys who were beaten in pre-trial to testify to anything because they know they're going to be convicted and that they're going to go back." (p. 225; brackets in the original in this case)

That's a lot how I felt. Being sent to a mental hospital was like getting beat up and tossed down the stairs (this is in the original text) and scared out of my pants. The text tells about a guy with a cast on who comes to his trial and he's asked how he got the cast, to which he answers that he fell down the stairs. Then he's asked if he was beat up and he denies it. Then he's asked if anyone pushed him and he denies that too. This is how you learn to lie. This is how you learn to say "I work for an international publishing company." I know, I know, it's a partial truth. But another part of the truth is that the publishing end is NOT in Vienna. The closest thing Vienna has to the publishing end is (or was) people involved in the writing of the textbooks - authors, if you will. Just for clarification purposes I would like to explain here that authors are not the same as publishers. I know this can be confusing to certain people who've been taught to say otherwise, but I think you'll find that Webster's and Collegiate and Oxford and whatever English language dictionary source you choose will bear this out.

And yes, I was pushed down the stairs (figuratively, I mean).

***

Oh, here's a good one.

"In 1954, according to the provost marshal general of the Army, each new prisoner at the USDB was given an indoctrination session concerning the purpose of the prison and an orientation interview by the commandant or one of his representatives, where he would be assured that 'he is part of an institution where the entire staff from the top officer down through the enlisted ranks has a warm interest in her personal problems and needs and his future welfare.' Later on he would be given what GIs call an 'attitude check' to see how well he had responded to the 'warm' concern. He was also interviewed by a social worker who elicited information on previous problems with school authorities, pastors, relatives, and employers, which was then worked up into a report of the psychiatry and neurology division... Thus, the main functions of psychiatrists and social workers were in screening and classifying. Psychiatrists kept a close watch on each soldier-prisoner to determine when he had 'improved' himself sufficiently to be released before his full term had been completed. A chaplain was involved in this setting, although only in an advisory capacity to the classification board. He was to ascertain the influence of religion in the prisoner's life... Rehabilitation in 1954, then, was officially a combination of some indoctrination, vocational training programs, and several 'open doors' back to duty or out to civilian life... From the recent prison experiences of Dr. Howard Levy, the basic principles of the USDB seem relatively unchanged." (p. 227-228)

The author goes on to describe some modernizations (as of the late 70's), but I'm going to stop here for now.

The attitude check is something that was informally in place in Vienna. I don't think I ever had a problem with that - like I said, I wasn't a complainer or anything. I think my taking everything in stride might have made me more of an enigma and it would have been easier for them to deal with me if I had complained or raised a fuss.

I am not sure whether I thought about this so explicitly, but I think I felt that I didn't understand enough of what was going on to make a fuss; I was still trying to figure out the rules. So I left there not really ever understanding them. But since I didn't understand them I didn't know what kind of response I'd get anyway if I, for example, complained too much about not having enough work to do. Most of the time I was in Vienna I felt like my time and the money of my supporters was wasted because even though I did my best, including outside efforts, I was just doing grunt work which a lot of the time didn't really need to be done. But there was something else going on, I think, and these things were intentional, so I just smiled and did my job the best I could. I was friendly and sociable and took initiative in social activities several times. So I passed the attitude check.

That having been said, though, I'm not sure what kind of a change they might have expected or wanted from sending me home. I probably was somewhat subdued by that experience, but I certainly wasn't overcome by it. The last six months or so I think it was starting to get to me more so I was starting to cave in to pressures, such as attending the English speaking church (instead of the Austrian one I was going to), even though it wasn't really what I wanted. But that was about a year after I was sent back to the States, so it wasn't a direct consequence to that action they took against me (that's how I perceived it and still do).

***

"Psychology (and psychiatry) in the last few decades has taken the place of religion in maintaining mass discipline. Like religion, it operates by trying to convince the individual that it is trying to help him and has his interests at heart, all the while fairly self-consciously going about its role in creating and maintaining social order. Psychology not only provides techniques of control, such as various types of therapy and consultative assistance to those in authority, but it also parallels religion in providing an ideology. This ideology is one of 'cooperation,' 'communication,' 'normalcy,' and a distinct view of reality. In addition, psychology has a normative function, creating in individuals a sense of guilt, such as the anxiety that comes from feeling that one is not normal or socially acceptable. Instead of being sinful, today one is 'sick.' Like religion, psychology ministers to the guilt and anxiety that it was instrumental in creating." (p. 230)

This sounds a lot like Vienna: We care a lot about you and want you to succeed here, this is what you need to be able to succeed. I think the head of h.r., a military chaplain, even said something like this. Of course, under the circumstances I wasn't sure that I believed him, but that seemed to be what they wanted me to believe, and in this I don't think I was alone. It's just that I got worse treatment than others, so maybe he had to come out and say that before breaking the news, with the journal article on culture shock that they thought I was having culture shock and should go home for treatment. If taken at face value, this kind of approach cold be disarming, I think. I think I signed the papers to go not really believing it was actually going to happen. Maybe I was in shock or denial that this could be happening. And the thing was I was only having problems because of the mission, not in my Austrian activities and functioning. I'll go more in to this in the chronological narration though.

The army ideology of cooperation, communication, etc., has a counterpart in the Vienna mission, that's not exactly the same. I have a whole file on organizational behavior that touches on this too.

***

"... Another correctional therapist said that the character and behavior disorder (a category that includes most soldiers who get in trouble with the Army) must 'be made to see that there is something wrong with him and not with society.'" (p. 231)

I really feel like a fish swimming upstream here. I have a strong enough sense of who I am and my values that I'm able to get by and stick by what I believe even if I'm the only one. This might not be as bad as what the Nazis did, but Bonhoeffer is a good role model for me in standing up to what I believe is wrong. I don't always do it right, but I do the best I can in whatever given situation I'm in.

A textbook of mine from an apologetics class in Bible school has gotten a lot of use throughout the years: it describes various logical fallacies.

Here's a description of "Appeal to the People" a/k/a argumentum ad populum:

"As Immanuel Kant said, 'seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few and number not voices, but weigh them.

As C.S. Lewis was fond of saying, counting noses may be a great method of running a government (even there it has limitations), but it is no necessary criterion for truth. Another name for ad populum could be 'Misuse of Democracy.' If the majority thinks something is true, it must be true. If the majority is doing something, it should be done. The majority is reading this book, therefore it must be a good book. Non sequitor!

Nietzche quipped that 'public opinion is nothing but private laziness.' Ad populum is a lazy way of thinking, a device to bypass independent reasoning. Let the people do your thinking for you. Just drift along with the popular current." (Hoover, A. J. (1982). Poking Holes in Faulty Logic: Don't You Believe It! Chicago: Moody Press).

You will note that in my chronology Bible school came before Vienna, so I had that text with me in Vienna too and had long since studied it for class. Just because you're different doesn't make you wrong or bad.

***

"Since World War II, psychiatrists have been expanding their role in corrections. They have had a greater hand in designing corrections programs, and their participation as therapists rather than screening agents has increased somewhat. But this increased involvement has not come without costs to psychiatry. Psychiatrists have increasingly been compromising their techniques of therapy with military techniques of control.

In particular, the practice of therapy becomes much more oriented to social control of the individual by the small group or team, which is characteristic of military organization in general. I have suggested that the offenders who must see therapists do not view themselves as ill... This new role for therapists, that of forcefully attempting to transform soldiers' minds, results in a shift in the therapists' role." (p. 238-239)

My knee jerk reaction to these texts at this point in time is: Does Guantanamo and water-boarding ring a bell? How about those mental health workers involved?

Okay, that's another subject, but the Guantanamo situation didn't get where it was in a vacuum, and what this text describes sounds like it's the kind of setting that could eventually lead to the Guantanamo participation of psychologists.

Although military chaplains aren't mentioned in this text, it seems that they must at the very least be aware of this kind of thing going on in a field not so completely detached from their own. How would this be affecting them? Is it possible that the military chaplains in Vienna understood this reformative use of psychiatry? I'm not sure I want to go farther with this or not... There's a part of me that says do it, and another part that is more hesitant, but I'll just lay it out since I've been trying to be open and not have to deal with this horrible secrecy stuff that I just have grown to hate. Is it possible that the military chaplains / human resource staff at the Vienna mission intended this (mental "transformation," "personality changes") to be the end result of my going to the states for counseling?

***

"Some of these young men may be able to lead fuller, more developed lives with the benefit of some kind of therapy. But the value of personal freedom, it seems to me, requires that these people should have the choice of whether they want to undergo such personality changes. The only real alternative they have to undergoing therapy is being sent to a harsher prison." (p. 239)

In Vienna they would call this kind of thing "spiritual growth", which has a decidedly chaplain-y ring to it. I hate to say this, but over the years, including some things even after Vienna, I have come to approach pastoral leading more critically.

***

I'll just put this here for further documentation, but I've already commented on the substance of it:

"The most important function of the interview, which each prisoner went through when he arrived at the stockade, was to lay the groundwork for the rest of the program... The prisoner was shown that lack of social conformity had been of little value to him." (p. 242)

***

In another Army correctional facility the soldier-prisoners basically have to go through a repeat of basic training, perhaps with closer supervision. This process is intended to be "useful in helping to restore the offenders to duty (but this time with an acceptable attitude)." (p. 242)

Attitude was really important in Vienna too, mostly expressed indirectly, and this was part of what made my experience there feel like brain washing.

***

"The chaplain branch of the [Army's Correctional Training Facility (CTF)] appears to be quite active, offering a series of day-long retreats, formal instruction in 'Life Issues Series' classes, and group counseling sessions that stress 'freedom of expression on appropriate issues' and understanding the rights of others... In a manner consistent with my earlier commentary about psychology supplanting religion, the chaplains brought two California psychologists to the facility to present a series of lectures and conferences on gestalt psychology and transactional analysis to selected CTF cadremen." (p. 245)

I know there had to be a stronger connection between the chaplains and psychiatry! So here we have it. I wonder if either of the chaplains in Vienna had ever worked at this particular Army prison. Also, however, I don't think the chaplain/HR director in Vienna was working alone, so it's not completely fair to just single him/them (I didn't have much contact with the other one), when probably other leaders of the mission were involved in that decision. How exactly that transpired (the decision to send me back to the States) is something that we may never know.

***

"What is the best explanation for deviance? I have suggested that some correctional psychiatrists and social workers argue that deviance resides in the sick individual. Yet, oddly, psychiatry does not come into the military setting with a notion of what the diseases are that it should be curing. Psychiatry's definition of the individual as ill is based on the Army's response to that person's behavior." (p. 246).

If I may, I would like to insert a quotation from another source (I'm finding all these things in search of the 2 MIA articles):

"Security professionals must strive to be extra vigilant about their own ethics. It is too easy to say, 'everyone is doing it' and look the other way from such behavior or even join in... The bottom line is this: If your professional code of ethics conflicts with company policy and management's behavioral standards, you may have to stop being a part of the management team and uphold your professional ethics... you will be expected to make ethical decisions that may conflict with administration or corporate policy. Making these decisions won't be easy, but it is the only way to live up to - and with - your professional ethics." (Simonsen, Clifford E. (1992). what value to ethics have in the corporate world? Security Management, 36(9), 224-226)

What we have here is a clear case of the Army co-opting (not the rank and file soldiers but) professionals. How could they not have a pre-existing definition of such a basic part of their work?

Be this as it may, I submit that whether or not I was considered ill in Vienna was purely and simply seen as a matter of how I related to the mission, similar to how the Army viewed it in their soldiers.

Maybe we should send a few security professionals to Vienna (or the Army) to teach ethics to certain professionals there. Just don't send send any evangelical protestants to Vienna, please; they won't be at all objective.

***

"The result of allowing the military to define psychiatrists' problems is that the therapists dutifully adapt their definitions of syndromes to match the criminal act. Specifically, in terms of labeling the deviant, one finds circular, ex post facto clinical terms of personality and character disorders. A passive-aggressive personality is really someone who resists in a covert way. A disorder of the 'immature' category is a soldier who impulsively reacts against domination.

There are other explanations for the character of deviance. Some sociologists have asserted that there is nothing inherently deviant about any act, either in terms of individual pathology or societal needs. Deviance is something that is created 'by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.' Thus, persons in the social system take actions that define or confer on certain behavior the label as deviant. If the definition of deviance is located in the reaction rather than in the act or the actor, then there is little necessarily in common in terms of clinical characteristics among individuals who perform the same deviant behavior.

Looking at deviance as residing in the labelers might result in psychiatrists' examining their own preconceptions and affiliations. But this analysis is avoided as a consequence of focusing exclusively on the characteristics of the deviants themselves." (p. 246-247)

I like this discussion about deviance. I don't know if you follow it or not, but it's basically saying that a norm-setting group decides if someone is not following their norms and the person who is not following their norms is deviating in relation to their norms.

One thing that this does is makes deviation a very relative "truth": It only has meaning in reference to something normative. For example, lying in some cultures might be perfectly acceptable, but in other cultures it's not and the act of lying would be considered deviant in reference to their norms, but not to the norms of the other culture. So deviance is not a static thing in and of itself. It only has meaning in relationship to a particular set of norms.

On a certain level I was "deviant" in Vienna in not fully and completely 100% submitting to their norms. It felt like that's what was required to succeed there, and, like I said earlier it felt like brainwashing.

***

"Deviance is something that is created 'by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by making the rules whose infraction constitute deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders... Thus, persons in the social system take actions that define or confer on certain behavior the label of deviant...

As I have emphasized, the self-image can be manipulated. One continues on as a soldier or an offender mostly on the basis of pressures of the small group and other reference persons. So managing the definition of the situation becomes very important for the rationalized co-optive style of corrections." (p. 247-248).

The Army sets the rules and makes the definitions, take it or leave it. Not a very forgiving (or democratic) approach to things, but you almost expect that in the Army (not that that makes it right).

But should this also be so in missions? In some ways, such as the theology, you might expect this to be reasonable. But should it be as totalitarian as an Army correctional facility? I don't think so, but the mission leaders might take issue with this either by asserting that they do have the right to do this, or by denying that they do it (the totalitarian aspects I mean).

I think this kind of thing could be true in the Army too, although I don't really know that, but sometimes I wondered how much of the social pressures were intended and sort of masterminded in a top-down way (like my feeling like I was being pitted against another gal for a certain position towards the end). Was this just sort of common office politics, or was it intentional. There were enough things going on that I wasn't always sure, and still am not. Since there was such a high level of secrecy, I think it's possible that some of these things were intentional, for whatever reason. I mention this in this context because that would also be part of the mission leadership controlling things and defining the issues and norms. I think that once you control the knowledge base you can do a lot with that by withholding something or strategically revealing something else, and in that context I don't think it would have been beneath them to have used disinformation (intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately).

***

It's late again, and I've got to start getting ready for bed. We finished this chapter and it's also the end of the book.

Good night.

~ Meg