180. Socialization File, Pt. 63 (Kalervo, pt. 2)

After discussing my various Greek tragedy-type character flaws, I decided that it might be helpful to hash out the significance of "character flaws" in the context of my life specifically. I will be somewhat hampered in this discussion because of all the things you don't know yet, but I think I can at least get the general idea across regarding potential issues I see regarding the identification of my character flaws.

The main issue here is the significance a person might put on character flaws in general or my specific character flaws as pertains to a particular context; and this can be viewed as continuum between these two extremes of specificity. Here are some possible issues:

1) Is the flaw a flaw in and of itself, or is it a flaw only in comparison to some norm, standard or expected?

2) Does the designation of "flaw" carry a good/bad determination with it, or just a right/wrong implication? (For example, it is generally good to look both ways before crossing a busy street, but it's not necessarily virtuous to do so).

3) If a flaw seems to be related to certain experiences, what is that relationship? Is it causal? Is it correlational? And if it is either one of these, to what extent or how strong is that relationship? For example, if we decide there is a relationship between my naivety and my experiences with the Vienna mission, what is that relationship? Did the naivety cause the experiences? Was it one of several causes of my experiences? Or was it not a cause at all and only related to my experiences by way of some type of correlation?

Some of these questions could only be answered in regards to specific experiences, but I think they are very important. If my flaws (any one of them, some of them, or all of them) caused certain experiences, and was the main or only cause of the experience, then it's my experiences are virtually all my fault. I think you'd have a hard time rationalizing that, however, even just based on what I've already shared here in this blog. My belief that generally the fact that I had these flaws were contributing factors to my experiences; they may have been necessary, but not adequate causes.

However, if hubris or pride is he cause of my problems, then it is my fault and I was wrong in being so set on mission work in Eastern Europe (which I think would be the flaw most like "hubris") despite all apparent odds against my reaching that goal. But another aspect common in Greek tragedy is that of the response of a force greater than the individual, as in this quote from Merriam-Webster:

" b : a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that elicits pity or terror"

So then you have, in very general terms, me vs. something much larger than myself. If that "something much larger than myself" is God, then that brings up a whole slew of other issues, because the Bible has a whole lot to say about suffering and why it happens. But if the "something larger than myself" was some human institution (that may or may not have been acting in accordance with God's will, just as I also might or might not have been), that opens a different set of possibilities regarding causation, blame and the like.

***

I got back from a doctor's appointment and starting physical therapy at a new place. The neurologist is ordering a nerve conduction test for my legs, and the physical therapy is focusing only on my neck. They really seem to have a good regimen for my neck, but that means I'll now have to do the fibromyalgia exercising on my own.

***

Back to the Kalervo (the text):

"If you are frustrated and have an aggressive attitude to the people of the host country, they will sense this hostility and in many cases respond in either a hostile manner or try to avoid you. In other words, their response moves from a preliminary phase of ingratiation to aggressive ridicule and on to avoidance." (p. 180)

I never experienced this in Vienna or Siberia. I can't think of a single instance that describes an interaction like this. In Siberia there were a few times when I was angry at particular people, but other Russians agreed with me in those cases and it regarded specific people in specific situations, not anything I generalized about everyone. For example, I was very angry with the head of the program that had invited me to teach English there in the first place when he maneuvered me into a compromising situation; I raised a scene but after that he dropped it and let me be. That was one of the situations where I got angry in Siberia.

***

"People have a way of accepting their culture as both the best and the only way of doing things. This is perfectly normal and understandable. To this attitude we give the name ethnocentrism, a belief that not only the culture but the race and nation form the center of the world. Individuals identify themselves with their own group and its ways to the extent that any critical comment is taken as an affront to the individual as well as to the group." (p. 181)

There are certain things I need to thank my education for, and this is one of them. In my European Studies undergraduate degree studies we learned about the people and culture in a way that respected them. A lot of language programs, for example, might focus on literature and grammar-translation approaches to language learning, but we got a balance of both worlds, and the experiential exposure, whether through Russian "cadre" (spiritual focus groups that met once a week on campus, each dealing with a different topic), through the annual language retreat (where English was not allowed), or through the quarter abroad, made a strong impression on me. If anything, I might have gone a bit overboard to sort of idealize European cultures (at least the ones I was most familiar with).

And in Siberia, where I taught English as a foreign language, I was careful not to use materials that were overly ethnocentric or otherwise give the impression that I thought American culture was the best or better than Russian, because, as I'm apt to say from time to time, I'm an equal opportunity critiquer. I could go on and one about this, but I'll stop for now before I get too far ahead of myself.

***

"What can you do to get over culture shock as quickly as possible? The answer is get to know the people of the host country. But this you cannot do with any success without knowing the language, for language is the principal symbol system of communication." (p. 182)

I did mention that I knew some German already when I arrived in Vienna and Russian before I arrived in the USSR (several months before the putsch), didn't I?

And I did mention that part of the problem in Vienna was that the mission didn't like that I was putting too much effort and attention into Austrian activities and relationships, didn't I? And that I avoided Westerners for the most part when I lived in Siberia?

***

This topic is important because I'm labeled as having culture shock by the mission and they use this diagnosis as a basis for how they treated me at one crucial crossroads during my time with them.

Also, just for the record here are definitions of "culture shock" and "reality shock":

"Reality shock occurs when a new employee's expectations, established prior to joining an organisation, differ significantly from what is experienced upon entering the organisation." (From Dean, Roger A. (1983). Reality shock: the link between socialisation and organisational commitment. Journal of Management Development, 2(3), 55.)

Culture Shock: "a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation" (from the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary)

I just wanted to make this clear in case there was any confusion, because this distinction was apparently poorly understood by the highly educated leadership of the Vienna mission, so I thought maybe it's best to be very explicit about things to avoid potential misunderstandings. Of course, it's very possible that my readers might be more astute in this regard than them.

***

I've reached the end of this article. I'm sort of on a roll, but I think I'll go ahead and post it and then start a new post while I do my even stimulator session.

179. Socialization File, Pt. 62 (Allen & Meyer, pt. 1/Kalervo, pt. 1)

The other fatal flaw I had applied specifically to mission work in Eastern Europe. That is, I had put in so much work and gone through so much sacrifice (living out of a suitcase at times, or living on $10/week for food), and I had done about everything I could to prepare myself and was so sure of God's call to this work, that I wasn't going to take "no" for an answer. To tell me it couldn't be done would have fallen on deaf ears and my response would have been akin to Jesus' response to Peter's objection of the possibility of Jesus dying and resurrecting, namely, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" (Matt. 16:23).

I don't know that I felt this about anything else in my life, which would put me at great risk of being a megalomaniac. But I suppose that this one area of my life - regarding missions to Eastern Europe (and specifically the USSR) - could have elements of that condition. It's not like I thought I could just barge through the border guards with a bus load of Bibles or something, though. I wasn't that far gone! Still, I wasn't going to give up, I wasn't going to let discouragements get the better of me.

So this is my other Greek tragedy-style character flaw. I may think of others, but if I do I'll let you know. For now, though, these are enough. Of course, there are other elements of Greek tragedies too, but I'm not sure I'm ready yet to discuss them - it seems premature.

***

After writing the above I thought more about it and in the past 4 years there have been a couple times when I've really had to scramble to get competent medical care, which shows tenacity and resourcefulness in situations where there's a lot at stake and I had no one to help me, but I think the ministry drive was not just quantitatively different (i.e., more tenacity and resourcefulness) from these situations, but qualitatively so as well (i.e., something different altogether). Nevertheless, the comparison with these health situations might provide a little insight into the ministry aspiration and my character.

***

I should be able to get through this next article fairly quickly too. It is:

Allen, Natalie J., & Meyer, John P. (1990). Organizational socialization tactics: a longitudinal analysis of links to newcomers' commitment and role orientation. Academy of Management Journal, 33(40), 847-858.

***

"In Jones's study, commitment and role orientation were negatively correlated (r=-.28, p<.01) and the socialization measures correlated in opposite directions with commitment and role orientation. An organization trying to design a socialization strategy that maximizes both commitment and innovation may find these results somewhat disconcerting. Newcomers who develop a strong commitment to the organization may not be sufficiently committed." (p. 850)


Allen and Meyer go on to provide limits to this finding, including that a causal relationship was not proven between commitment and role orientation, for example. Vis a vis my relationship with the Vienna mission, I just want to say that I think commitment would be hands down the preferable of these two value orientation. It's not that innovation would not have been important at all, but that if one or the other had to be sacrificed it would have had to have been innovation. However, if a person exhibited absolutely no innovation in his/her work I expect that would have been problematic, but an extremely high level of commitment (in my opinion) was demanded, whereas a relatively low level of innovation would have been reasonably acceptable. Some positions (such as formal leadership positions) probably would have required more innovation than others, however. Innovation would also have only been acceptable within rather narrow parameters.

***

These next quotes come in the section of the article in which the authors discuss the significance of the findings of their study.

"Thus, it is not clear whether the link between investiture and commitment, for example, is due to something inherent in investiture or simple to the fact that investiture bears out the expectation of business school graduates. In future research, it would be useful to determine whether employees expecting divestiture (e.g., military recruits) become more committed when their expectations are confirmed or when, contrary to expectations, they experience investiture." (p. 856)

To refresh our memories, investiture is when the organization confirms a new recruit's identity, and divestiture is when it disconfirms it (i.e., via debasement). I don't remember ever getting any indication that debasement (divestiture) was something I should expect in beginning my full-time missionary work, nor that this was something new missionaries should usually expect. On the other hand, it seems a lot more plausible to expect a general orientation period to both the context/culture of the ministry and the ministry itself and working with the other missionaries in the field. These are not the same thing: divestiture is something purposeful and planned specifically to make you have troubles adjusting (via disconfirmation), whereas the "general orientation" is not and would probably involve more of an effort to ease the newcomer's transition to the work rather than making it more difficult (as in divestiture). In contrast to this, however, in the Vienna mission - at least in my situation for sure (and this was explicitly defined for me by the director of H.R. in the Vienna mission (to which I was on loan, not my sending mission) - divestiture was clearly used as a means of socialization, although "culture shock" from adjusting to living in Austria was given as the reason for any adjustment problems that might have stemmed from divestiture. In this manner, it was clear that the mission intended to deny any use of divestiture as a socialization tactic, using culture shock as a diversionary explanation for any possible divestiture-related fall-out. For new workers who in fact did have problems adjusting to life in Vienna there could have been enough truth in such a bait-and-switch tactic that it might have seemed a plausible explanation even to the new missionary him/herself. But even, as in my case, where I don't think I had such problems with the surrounding culture (and can give evidence to this), the mission did all it could to make it difficult for me to prove anything other than its own explanation of what I might have been experiencing, for example, it demanded the insertion of certain information in one of my prayer letters.

I don't know if my experiences in Vienna would have ended out otherwise than they did if I'd known beforehand that divestiture tactics were to be expected for work with that particular mission or with missions to Eastern Europe and/or "closed countries" in general. I think, though, that if the mission's use of divestiture was its usual way of welcoming newcomers and those newcomers didn't have sufficient background to recognize certain experiences as being intentional, and/or to question the morality of a specific socialization tactic, and/or to disagree with the apparent goals of the socialization tactic, and/or to be concerned about what organizational values might be undergirding the use of the tactic, then the individual probably would have just abdicated (intentionally or otherwise) personal responsibility for determining right or wrong regarding their early experiences with the mission. Once they'd done this they had taken the first step in giving the mission the authority it wanted in their lives. I think this is another helpful way to look at socialization in the Vienna mission.

***

That's all for this text. The next one is...

Oberg, Kalervo. (1960). Culture shock: adjustment to new cultural environments. Practical Anthropology, 7, 177-182.

Here is the abstract, which I'm quoting just to set the stage:

"Culture shock tends to be an occupational disease of people who have been suddenly transplanted abroad. Like most ailments, it has its own symptoms, cause, and cure. Many missionaries have suffered from it. Some never recovered, and left their field. Some live in a constant state of such shock. Many recovery beautifully. As will be clear from the implications of Dr. Oberg's article, the state of culture shock in which a Christian lives will have great bearing on his temperament and witness." (p. 177).

Think of this as a taste of things to come... I have another file dedicated just to culture shock, which we'll get to later.

***

"Some of the symptoms of culture shock are: excessive washing of the hands; excessive concern over drinking water, food, dishes, and bedding; fear of physical contact with attendants or servants; the absent-minded, far-away stare (sometimes called 'the tropical stare'); a feeling of helplessness and a desire for dependence on long-term residents of one's own nationality; fits of anger over delays and other minor frustrations; delay and outright refusal to learn the language of the host language of the host country; excessive fear of being cheated, robbed, or injured; great concern over minor pains and irruptions of the skin; and finally, that terrible longing to be back home, to be able to have a good cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie, to walk into the corner drugstore, to visit one's relatives, and, in general, to talk to people who really make sense." (p. 178)

Granted Austria isn't exactly "the tropics" (which I assume means living in a tribal jungle setting or the like), but I don't think I exhibited any of these things in Vienna. However, I did get angry with the mission, although it was an internal anger that they probably didn't ever guess at, and if I wanted to talk to people who made sense I'd talk with the Austrians, not the missionaries (whom I had trouble figuring out). This was also largely the case when I lived in Siberia, when I all but avoided Westerners. And I didn't have any longing to be back home; in contrast, it was the mission who wanted me back home.

Regarding helplessness and a desire for dependence, this can not possibly be the case because I was the one who found a German conversation class (I don't know that anyone else at the mission ever took any classes at the Volkhochschule) and got along fine in my Austrian church, for example. So helplessness and a desire for dependence is about as opposite as you can get to how I felt, even early on. But we'll get to this later.

***

"Although not common, there are individuals who cannot live in foreign countries." (p. 178)

I'm not one of them. I submit that living in Siberia is a lot different from living in the USA then living in Austria would have been, and I did reasonably well there for 6 1/2 years without the benefit of any missionaries or mission organizations to make my life miserable.

***

Next, the author goes through the four stages of culture shock / adjustment to a new culture.

"During the first few weeks most individuals are fascinated by the new. They stay in hotels and associate with nationals who speak the foreign language and are polite and gracious to foreigners. This honeymoon stage may last from a few days or weeks to six months depending on circumstances..." (p. 178)

It should be remembered that I had already spend about 2 1/2 months in Vienna just a couple years earlier and, by the time I moved to Vienna had already spent some 8 months in Europe (1981, 1983), both with a group and also on my own, in a variety of contexts.

In arriving in Vienna to work with the mission there in 1987 I think the mission intended to monopolize my time, but I went out of my way to look for opportunities to have contacts with the Austrians and I was treated just like anyone else in these contexts (i.e., not given any special treatment because of being a foreigner). It's possible I did have a bit of an idealized view of Austrian culture, but I can think of aspects of my thinking about the country that be moderating influences; in other words, I could have idealized the culture a bit, but not all that much.

In his introduction to the second stage, the author calls the first stage a "Cook's tour type of mentality", and I didn't have a tourist view of the culture and I did not limit my relations to the culture to purely touristic ones.

***

"But this Cook's tour type of mentality does not last if the foreign visitor remains abroad and has seriously to cope with real conditions of life. It is then that the second stage begins, characterized by a hostile and aggressive attitude towards the host country. This hostility evidently grows out of the genuine difficulty which the visitor experiences in the process of adjustment. There is maid trouble, school trouble, language trouble, house, trouble, transportation trouble, shopping trouble, and the fact that people in the host country are largely indifferent to all these troubles... You become aggressive, you band together with your fellow countrymen and criticize the host country, its ways, and it's people.... You take refuge in the colony of your countrymen and your countrymen and its cocktail circuit which often becomes the fountain-head of emotionally charged labels known as stereotypes." (p. 178)

Do I need to say that I didn't do this either? To say that I banded together with my "fellow countrymen" is exactly the complete opposite of what I did and experienced. It was all I could do to try to extricate myself from the stranglehold of the mission and its confined, like an ingrown toenail. Even when I lived in Russia I disparaged the expatriate community for this kind of insulation. Believe me, this is one subject I could rant on and on about. Oh, I hate thee insulation, let me count the ways.

That's not to say that I never had any cross-cultural problems, but I can't think of any in Austria (except the mission culture) and the ones in Siberia were political, I believe, and were directly related to my having been invited there by, unbeknownst to me beforehand, the Komsomols (young Communist league) under very suspicious circumstances following 6 months of very suspicious contacts with Soviet citizens and representatives in the USA. So these were special instances of problems in highly politicized and narrow bands of experiences.

***

"This second stage of culture shock is in a sense a crisis in the disease. If you overcome it, you stay; if not, you leave before you reach the stage of a nervous breakdown." (p. 179)

Since I've already shown (if not in a lot of detail yet - you'll have to wait for the chronological posts) that my only problem was with the mission and its "culture", then it seems that any evidence of culture shock and/or "nervous breakdown" would most likely be culture shock vis a vis that culture, not vis a vis the Austrian culture. And I hope my readers are astute enough to recognize by now that there was a strong possibility that any problems I might have had with the mission culture was intentionally engineered.

It's possible that these could have served to strengthen the constitution of the individual in preparation for work in inhospitable (to missionaries at least) countries. But I think that it is more likely that, as I've discussed many times already, these mission-induced stressors were intended to instill a mission-defined proper attitude in the new missionary. And if you didn't respond properly to these stressors you could develop a mission-induced breakdown. It just depended on what the individual missionary's breaking point was.

I think the response options to these stressors might have been as followed:

1. The individual gives in some time sufficiently before the nervous breakdown point to avert any serious service-affecting consequences.

2. The individuals doesn't give in in time and the escalation of mission response to this persistent failure to give in to the stressors results in mission-mandated intervention by health professionals.

3. Appropriate response to health professional intervention will probably lead to reinstatement with the mission.

4. Lack of appropriate response to health professional intervention will most likely lead to dismissal from the mission on health grounds.

5. If after reinstatement with the mission (after health intervention) the individual continues to exhibit signs of noncooperation, the individual could either be seen as potential risk (although without intention of harming the mission) or as a real risk (with probably intention of harming the mission) and steps would be taken, according to the situation, to minimize the potential risk.

I think I went through stage 5 as a "potential risk" - not a "real risk." If at any point I'd been viewed as real risk I probably would have undergone even harsher treatment and I doubt I would have been allowed to serve out my 2 year commitment.

***

"If the visitor succeeds in getting some knowledge of the language and begins to get around by himself, he is beginning to open the way into the new cultural environment. The visitor still has difficulties but he takes a 'this is my cross and I have to bear it' attitude. Usually in this stage the visitor takes a superior attitude to people of the host country." (p. 179)

If anything, I might have started at this stage when I landed at the Flughafen Wien (Viennese airport). But I didn't have a superior attitude to Austrians, which is why I was able to begin to make acquaintances with Austrians, including a woman from my Austrian church and my landlady.

Vis a vis the mission culture, however, I never reached this stage.

***

"[In] the fourth stage your adjustment is about as complete as it can be. The visitor now accepts the customs of the country as just another way of living. You operate within the new milieu without a feeling of anxiety although there are moments of strain... With complete adjustment you not only accept the foods, drinks, habits, and customs, but actually begin to enjoy them." (p. 179)

... Or maybe I arrived in Vienna at this stage of acculturation... but not vis a vis the mission. My adjustment to the Vienna mission culture never came close to this, especially regarding the deeper aspects of the culture, like values and attitudes.

***

I'm going to end here, but I should be able to finish up this article next time. This topic is really important in relation to what happens to me in Vienna vis a vis my relationship with the mission.

177. Socialization File, Pt. 60 (Buchanan, pt. 3)

When I said I was naive (in the last post), I didn't mean to imply that I wasn't equally naive about everything. I think it's pretty safe to say that I was very naive about anything military-related. Part of that was because I just wasn't interested in those things. So when I eventually developed somewhat of an interest in historical things, neither military nor political history were among the areas of history I was interested in. Rather, I was interested in social history, the history of how people lived and their cultures, and also the history of ideas. Even so, although I have done some reading over the years on various historical issues and times, I wouldn't say it's been an overriding interest of mine, even in the social history and history of ideas realms.

So this lack of knowledge and interest in anything military provided the appropriate void needed to support and intensify my naivety in anything military-related that might have had an effect on my life. I still am not interested in this subject, except as it might affect me, and greatly resent that military-related concerns (i.e., via my relationship to my dad) might have had any effect on my life. That response, of course, is also naive. I think that I'm a citizen of the USA and have the same rights as anyone in this country and I never took on a position (like being employed by the CIA) that might have resulted in an abdication of certain rights by virtue of the demands of my job description. No, if there was any abdication of my rights it was done by dad by virtue of his job. (Although I don't think he ever wanted or intended me to be affected that way; it's just that I picked a profession that probably resulted in this happening to me.)

So I was and am very naive regarding military and national security issues (although somewhat less now than I used to be). I don't think I was as naive regarding mission work in Warsaw Pact countries, but there was a certain amount of naivety. Regarding the missions working in that part of the world I was fairly naive in my thinking that they were more pristine and godly (i.e., biblically based) than they actually were. I didn't think that they had become so corrupted by the milieu in which they worked; but I think I was very wrong about this. On the other hand, I don't think I was so naive about the actual mission field itself, meaning that I think I had a reasonably accurate grasp of the risks and concerns of Christian work there and what it was like for the Christians living in these countries. Of course, I didn't take into account possible interference because of dad's work, however. But I still think I'm right that the mission in Vienna went too far in becoming obsessed with security issues to the point of taking on a nature that seemed quite unchristianlike.

So I had selective naivety about military things, my rights, dad's work, and East European mission organizations. It's when I was forced to face head-on the naivety of my thinking (via traumatic personal experiences), that I underwent serious soul searching and reconsideration of some of my values and outlook on life. I have also often been naive regarding relations with men, meaning I have sometimes been too quick to believe men or otherwise not show as much discretion as I should have.

***

Returning to my adult education background, perhaps Jack Mezirow's learning cycle fits how my values and beliefs changed during these "head-on" crisis events in my life. Here is a list of the progression he theorizes adults go through in learning:

"1. A disorienting dilemma
2. Self-examination
3. Critical assessment and a sense of alienation
4. Relating discontent to the experiences of others
5. Exploring options for new ways of acting
6. Building confidence in new ways of behaving
7. Planning a course of action
8. Acquiring knowledge in order to implement plans
9. Experimenting with new roles
10. Reintegration into society"

(This is list is taken from Jarvis, P. (1995). Adult & Continuing Education: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, p. 94-95.)

The steps that would have been difficult for me in many of these situations were numbers 4 and 10. Number 4 was difficult because there usually wasn't anyone readily available for me to connect with in this way (i.e., my experiences seemed to be somewhat unique). And number 10 was difficult in that I tended to end out with learning that didn't fit easily into society, and the more of these kinds of results I had the more difficult it because to reintegrate into society. What I mean is that I might go through one of these crisis learning cycles and end out with conclusions that weren't necessarily popular. Then I'd go through another of these cycles and end out with another less popular conclusion, and so in this way the circle of people I thought I could relate to shrunk with each of these cycles. But other than numbers 4 and 10 this is a pretty good model for the soul searching and meaning seeking I went through at various intersections of my life.

Also, it might be helpful to mention that how I went through this process illustrates how I am basically an idealist by way of philosophical orientation. I think that this quote (from The Catholic Encyclopdia) from St. Augustine, pretty well fits how I see things too:

"In this sense St. Augustine developed the Platonic teaching, and in his philosophy is idealism in the genuine meaning of the term. From him comes the definition of ideas which Christian philosophy has since retained: "Ideas are certain original forms of things, their archetypes, permanent and incommunicable, which are contained in the Divine intelligence. And though they neither begin to be nor cease, yet upon them are patterned the manifold things of the world that come into being and pass away. Upon these ideas only the rational soul can fix its gaze, endowed as it is with the faculty which is its peculiar excellence, i.e. mind and reason [mente ac ratione], a power, as it were, of intellectual vision; and for such intuition that soul only is qualified which is pure and holy, i.e., whose eye is normal, clear, and well adjusted to the things which it would fain behold" (De diversis quaest., Q. xlvi, in P.L., XL, 30)"

In addition, I believe that the Bible is the clearest and most direct way God reveals these "ideas", although Scripture says that they can also be seen in creation (nature) and in His people (Christians). [The latter source, it should be said however, is be tainted by willful disobedience to God, since Christians can still sin.]

Because of this mindset, it may have been my experiences that led to the crises, but it was generally Scripture, rather than the world around me, that played the leading role in how I resolved the crisis. It would be misleading to say that it played as overriding a role in this process as it should have for an ideological purist. But I think it's safe to say that this Augustinian idealism describes how I view life in general. Perhaps this philosophical perspective might have even been another Greek tragedy-style character flaw, as it would have prevented me, for example, from letting the mission have the extensive authority in my life that it seemed to want (and that it presumably got from everyone else).

I think I'd been made aware of this philosophical bent in an undergraduate philosophy class, but it was not until a graduate course in philosophy of adult education that I began to think more about the implications of this perspective and also learned that it was not a common stance any more. I think I was the only one in the class who was self-identified as an idealist and the professor reinforced that by stating that few considered themselves idealists now (that was 1990).

***

Returning to the text under discussion... Buchanan now starts to explain the study itself. Out of 500 questionnaires sent out to employees of 3 large corporations and 5 large U.S. federal agencies, 279 were returned. The respondents were divided into the 3 groups in the introduction: 1st year managers, 2nd through 4th year managers, and 5th year and beyond managers. Questions were developed to reflect the commitment factors predicted to be the most important for each group.

The experience measures consisted of 13 scales, each with 4 or 5 items in them (Cronbach's alpha is provided, but I'm omitting it for the sake of brevity (!):

"(1) Role clarity... Has the organization made it clear to me what I am expected to do?

(2) Peer group cohesion... Are the people with whom I work friendly and close-knit or aloof and distant?

(3) Group attitudes toward organization... Do the people I work with express mostly positive or mostly negative attitudes toward the organization?

(4) Expectations realization... Have I found what I expected to find since coming to work for this organization?

(5) Reality shock... Am I disappointed as a result of the contrast between what I expected and what I found?

(6) First-year job challenge... Was the work I was given to do during my first year challenging and interesting or routine and dull?

(7) Loyalty conflicts... Has the organization tried to influence me to adopt values or practices I find personally repugnant?

(8) Personal importance... Is it generally accepted by those who matter that my work is important to the organization?

(9) Self-image reinforcement... Do people accept me for what I am here? Do I feel free to be myself?

(10) Fear of failure... How often am I reminded that my job and chances for promotion depend on how well I perform?

(11) Organizational commitment norms... Are managers like myself expected to be personally committed to the organization?

(12) Work commitment norms... Are managers like myself expected to have a strong personal commitment to the work they do?

(13) Organizational dependability... Has the organization always done the things it said it would do for me?" (p. 539-540)

I've dealt already with a lot of these, but I'll just briefly state my answer to each of these 13 experience scale questions.

1. Role clarity. My role was not clear at all in Vienna. That is, even at times when the work itself was laid out clearly, I knew I was being watched not so much for my work but other (mostly unspoken things) that were expected of me.

2. Peer group cohesion. That would have to be the secretaries. There weren't a lot of secretaries and we were a bit of a motley bunch in many ways. Two were professional executive secretaries (from pre-mission days), one came fresh out of high school, and then there was me. Before this I'd been referring to the secretaries (as a reference group) all lumped together, but this question does bring out a different kink in that aspect of my experience. One of the secretaries (my boss's boss's secretary) was the most far along in the socialization process, the other professional secretary is the one from Alaska and she had arrived on the scene just a few months before me and, I think, took a while to really become fully socialized and integrated, or so it seemed to me. My boss's boss's secretary seemed to be the main go-to person as far as role models and taking responsibility for guiding me along as a secretary was concerned.

3. Group attitudes toward organization. Everyone had an extremely positive attitude, almost to a fault, about the organization, which goes along with what I mean about dissent not being tolerated and almost a sort of a brainwashed feeling about it. The secretary from Alaska, during her struggles to adapt wasn't like that, until she became socialized into the mission.

4. Expectations realization. No, I had not found what I had expected to find before coming to Vienna. At this point I'm not going to say any more about this; I've already said a lot about it elsewhere, and more details will come out in the chronology.

5. Reality shock. If I need to answer this, then this must be about the first post you've read in this blog. I was supremely, excessively and mindbogglingly disappointed as a result of the contrast between what I expected and what I found when I arrived in Vienna.

6. First-year job challenge. My work was routine and dull.

7. Loyalty conflicts. Yes, it did, except the wording of the question does not adequately reflect the forcefulness used in the organization's attempts to get me to to adopt values and practices I found repugnant. Repugnant is a good word, however.

8. Personal importance. This is another useful question that might bring out something a bit new. The mission leaders, to a fault, including in a post card to me some 6 months after I'd left the mission told me not infrequently how my work was so important to the mission. But for the most part I wasn't doing diddly squat! I mean, how important can it be to the mission, for example, that I'm spending a couple months reading software manuals that I didn't need to read because I couldn't have taken a class to learn the software before I got there even, and at least they could give me something else that looked more remotely useful. I might have been a secretary, but I wasn't stupid. The divide between what I was doing at any given time and the contrived flattery could have put the Grand Canyon to shame.

9. Self-image reinforcement. No and no! The Vienna mission seemed to not know me, or if they did I couldn't tell, and probably no one else could either. And I didn't feel free to be myself because the mission was dead set on its image of me becoming reality and that seemed to be nonnegotiable. I felt pretty much like there wasn't much that the mission liked about me because it was so set on changing practically everything about me. At least that's how I felt. This probably contributed to my difficult time the year after I left Vienna.

10. Fear of failure. This is all wrong. My experience in Vienna was that, after about 5 months there, my job was tenuous and contingent, but the contingency was most adamantly NOT having anything to do with "how well I perform." Rather, it was more contingent to something akin to an "attitude adjustment", meaning (as far as I'm concerned) selling my soul to them. It eventually felt like mind control, like they wanted to know why I did thus and so and what I was thinking when I did such and such, and until they got a grasp on my mental processes they weren't going to be happy. That might sound overdone, but that really is how I felt, and I hope I can pull together enough details of my time in Vienna to help you understand. (I mean presenting the details when I get to the chronology.)

11. Organizational commitment norms. Everybody, manager or not, was expected to be committed to the Vienna mission above pretty much anything else while with the mission.

12. Work commitment norms. Because of the nature of the work, I don't think this was an issue. Everyone felt the importance of the work, which they would have spent all of deputation conveying to others before even arriving in Vienna.

13. Organizational dependability. The mission didn't do what it said it would because I didn't end out, really ever, working as the secretary of the assistant director. That is, the few months that I was technically in the position I only nominally played the role of what someone would usually think such a position would entail. I did a lot of filler stuff, mostly. That's not to say I didn't do anything meaningful at all, but it was the exception rather than the rule.

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Next time I'll respond to some aspects of the results of this study.

175. Socialization File, Pt. 58 (Buchanan, pt. 1)

Part of the definition of "Greek tragedy" involves, usually some kind of flaw(s) in the protagonist's character. Unfortunately for me, I have multiple such flaws that might lend themselves well to a Greek tragedy type life, given the right circumstances, of course. So it's time to start presenting little snippets of my character, at least how I see myself. And since this is an autobiography how I see myself is pertinent content matter.

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One thing about myself is, I think, I never have learned how to defend myself very well, although sometimes I do okay at it.

Growing up I don't remember situations where I particularly had to defend myself too much. I didn't have a sister and my brothers were too busy defending each other (against others) or fighting with each other to get in my way at all. And I didn't really have any enemies that I can recall. I did get the usual teasing when I got braces in 6th grade, but I was fortunate to have them on young enough that I wasn't super image conscious yet, so it didn't affect me that much.

My brothers did learn do defend themselves physically, and were given some assistance with this by dad, so that they could deal with teasers and other boys who wanted to pick fights.

Heck, I wasn't even very competitive... I remember in casual games of volleyball, such as with the church youth group, thinking how silly it was for someone to get all bent out of shape about whether a ball was in or out of bounds, especially since it was just a game for fun. Needless to say, however, the world isn't always a friendly place and if someone isn't competitive and doesn't really know how to defend herself, it can end out being downright... well, tragic (as in Greek tragedy).

I also don't have much of a temper, although I think in recent years I may have become less forgiving and quicker to get irritated. But I did somehow learn that if I was going to get angry, I should have all my ducks in a row and just lay everything out on the line. One example of this happened the summer after I graduated from high school.

I had been working at KMart (a discount department store chain) part-time during my senior year of school, but was able to work there full-time in the summer between high school and my freshman year of college. I worked in the back of the store in the garden shop, hardware and building supplies. But for that summer while I was full-time I was given two small departments (I was the only worker in them): pictures and pets. Pictures is pretty self-explanatory but pets did not include live animals, just supplies for them. It was my responsibility to make sure the shelves were well stocked and neat, that the end displays and sale signs were changed according to schedule, and ordering stock. I was also the person that got called to help customers with questions about anything in these department if I was on shift at the time.

But since this wasn't enough to keep me busy full-time I also helped out a lot in the other departments I'd worked in before, and my departments were right next to them, so it was convenient too. Being summer you can imagine that garden shop, hardware and building supplies were all very busy. Randy, the garden shop manager had repeatedly asked me to help him when it was unreasonable for me to leave my department, but I tried to accommodate him as much as possible. Randy was probably 10 or 20 years my senior in age and also had much more experience than me at the store.

But one day we were both in the back room where the ordering books were (this was before widespread use of computers) and the only person there was the marketing manager, the second in command for the whole store. While there Randy asked again for me to go help him in garden shop. I don't remember exactly what I had to do, but I responded to him in a calm but firm voice detailing all the times he'd asked me and how I'd bent over backward to accommodate him but I couldn't let my department suffer. When I was done neither he nor the marketing manager said anything and that was the end of that, because it was clear that I was right.

I tell you this to demonstrate how there might be a precedent that I don't demonstrate anger until I have a lot of evidence and can lay it all on the line. But maybe this incident also demonstrates my sense of time and place, because this was away from where customers, for example, could have heard what was going on. And here I was a little 18 year old upstart pipsqueak telling a major department head off in front of second most senior manager of the fairly large store!

Maybe I feel like I'm doing that a little now regarding the Vienna mission. When I get past the Vienna years, though, it'll be a whole different scenario. But sometimes as I write these text discussions like maybe it's overkill, but I do think that I'm still coming up with new insights, so as long as I feel that there's useful insights coming out of it, I'll keep going. I'm not responding to all the articles in this file though, because I don't think they all offer anything new.

Another example of standing up for what I believed in was when I made the appointment with the director of a very influential Eastern European mission (for whom I was working part-time) to discuss some concerns I had with him. I felt my concerns were well enough founded (both from my having developed deeply held general convictions and also from what I had learned specifically about the mission itself) that I could request such a meeting. The situation was a lot different in Vienna though, and I never really considered doing anything like this there.

Anyway, back to my character flaw, I don't know if things would have turned out differently in Vienna if I'd had better confrontation skills or skills in defending and standing up for myself, but at certain points in the chronology it may have been wiser to not go along with the mission, so this would have been a kind of fatal flaw (in the Greek tragedy sense) on my part. But standing up for myself would undoubtedly have meant leaving the mission, which would have been difficult for me too.

(The two above examples of standing up for myself stick out as being unusual in my life, but they do show that given the right circumstances I could do it. I think after my Vienna experiences it became even harder for me to effectively stand up for myself, because of how I'd changed through them.)

***

This next journal article is as follows:

Buchanan, II, Bruce. (1974, Dec.). Building organizational commitment: the socialization of managers in work organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 19(4), 533-546.

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After giving examples of the range of views regarding what "commitment" is the author lays out his use of the term for the purposes of this study:

"The concept employed in this study resembles those surveyed. Commitment is viewed as a partisan, affective attachment to the goals and values of an organization, to one's role in relation to goals and values, and to the organization for its own sake, apart from its purely instrumental worth. Methodologically, commitment consists of three components, each of which is measured with an independent series of questionnaire items... These are (a) identification - adoption as one's own the goals and values of the organization, (b) involvement - psychological immersion or absorption in the activities of one's work role, and (c) loyalty - a feeling of affection for and attachment to the organization." (p. 533)

I had problems with the mission's values, but I hadn't foreseen that before coming, so when it began to seem clear that there was this difference it served to put a distance between me and the mission; that is I became distanced from the mission (not the other way around) as a result of this realization.

I think I had an affective enough attachment to my role as a secretary in the organization, but not to the extent, as I've said before, that it defined my every step. It's possible that forcing that enlarged nature of the secretarial role on me might have weakened my otherwise reasonably positive attachment to the role as a position in the organization.

There was never a problem, I don't think, with my valuing the mission instrumentally - for the work it did and for the opportunity to work with it. But if I ever did value it for its own sake, my experiences in Vienna after I arrived pretty well killed that attitude.

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"Kantor (1968) argued that different aspects of commitment are elicited by different behavioral requirements imposed on community members. Thus, continuance commitment, defined as member dedication to system survival, was stimulated by requiring personal investments and sacrifices of members, such that it was costly and difficult for them to leave. Cohesion commitment, defined as member attachment to the social relationships which comprise the community, was secured by such techniques as verbal public renunciation of previous social ties and engaging in ceremonies which enhanced the sense of group cohesion and belonging. Control commitment, conceived as attachment to norms which shape behavior in desired directions, was encouraged by requiring members to publicly disavow previous norms and to reformulate their self-conceptions in terms of system values." (p. 534)

I think that continuance commitment was fundamental in the Vienna mission in as much as security concerns were so pervasive. (Although, as they became second nature I think people got used to them and maybe even became less conscious of them except in particular contexts.) This type of commitment was mandated for everyone, I think. If you didn't have it you'd have problems working there.

It's hard for me to say that cohesion commitment might have been any less important than continuance commitment, because, to a large extent, it was the cohesion commitment that provided the means of mutual accountability among workers (and family members) regarding their continuance commitment. Also, any lack of cohesion amongst members could become a potential security risk.

If you didn't have control commitment in the Vienna mission, I don't know how you'd know how to act in various situations. And if the mission suspected that, as in my case, you weren't buying into the group norms, you wouldn't have been properly socialized, for one thing. It was unacceptable to the mission to have workers who did not have full buy-in to the organization's values, or at the very least trusted the mission completely to go along with them. Eventually it became clear (to me at least) that I did neither (trust them nor buy in to their values).

[4/8/11 comment: By the end of my time with the mission I had no continuance commitment (because I thought that the mission in many ways might be doing more harm than good because of its modus operandi), no cohesion commitment (because I didn't want to become a part of the in-group because of the values differences), and no control commitment (because I thought the group needed more accountability which would mean more exposure of how it really operated which thinking was diametrically opposed to what control commitment would mean in that context).]

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"Influence susceptibility stages, however, are skewed toward the early career years in keeping with the focus of this study on the inculcation of commitment, as contrasted with its maintenance at labor career stages. It is during the early career years that susceptibility to influence is greatest and attitudes toward the organization will be shaped." (p. 535)

I'm not sure how the mission viewed vis a vis my experience or lack of it. Them setting me up so totally as a secretary would argue for them not taking into account a lot of my education and experiences. It's possible they did have more of a knowledge of my background then they let on to having, but they mustn't have known that I had more or less passed the vulnerable early years stage in regards to theological issues and also East European missions. I think they probably assumed two types of new recruits, in this regard: those who had experience in East European missions and had already been socialized and accepted East European mission values and norms (although there was some variation between missions) or were new to this area of work and therefore very impressionable. As usual, I didn't fit either of these bills, because I wasn't green, but I also hadn't accepted the norms and values of mission to that part of the world. In other words, I disagreed with them (although I didn't know that before arriving there) and also knew enough to be dangerous.

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This next section is called "The First Year."

"Hall and Nougaim (1968) contended that the primary concern of those at this career stage is safety: getting established with and accepted by the organization." (p. 535)

It feels strange to say this, but this does not fit how I felt in Vienna in the first year. I did want to get established with the organization, so that's no problem. But I never thought that safety (job security?) would be an issue, although it didn't take all that long to realize my position in the organization was not a given. And being accepted by the organization was also not a major concern for me. I didn't have any concerns that I couldn't do the work and I was certainly amicable and interested in getting involved in the life of the mission and took initiative to instigate outings, social meetings and the like. But I don't think I ever was concerned about being accepted by the organization; that wasn't high on my radar. The over-riding that sort of eclipsed all of these other new recruit concerns was the shock of finding the values differences and the things I was witnessing and experiencing. So that ended out overshadowing any other concerns I might have had about my relationship with the mission.

***

I'm skipping several issues one might expect to experience one's first year on the job, and going right to the last one:

"A final category of experiences is likely to be specially important to first-year managers. The category might be termed loyalty conflicts. Its significance stems from the fact that many recruits are torn between learning and surrender to the new environment on the one hand and suspicion and mistrust of it on the other. Thus, an early concern of many will be to sense whether the organization is trying to dominate them, and subvert their individuality through substitution of organizational for personal values... To the extent that recruits feel threatened or compromised, commitment will probably be undermined." (p. 536)

Needless to say I felt very threatened (by possible and real negative repercussions) and compromised (in as much as my values were at variance with the mission's). And I think that this is a pretty good succinct summary of how my commitment to the mission came to be undermined.

I think the Vienna mission normally didn't have to worry too much about "suspicion and mistrust of it" because of the high regard missionary work has in the Evangelical Christian church setting. I do find it a little strange that none of the new theologians seemed to have a problem with the mission values, but I've discussed this elsewhere, so I won't belabor it again here.

I'm a bit ambivalent about the sentence about feeling like the organization is "trying to dominate them, and subvert their individuality through a substitution of organizational for personal values." On one hand, it's comforting to know that this sense is somewhat normal. But on the other hand, I don't think the Buchanan was particularly thinking of Evangelical Christian total institutions located thousands of miles away from members' homes. In that (the Vienna mission) context these words taken on a whole new meaning and impetus. In other words, the mission not only could seem to do these things, but very likely could actually do them to a rather large extent. Maybe one reason it was more feasible for me to try to withstand "challenges to, or attempts to change, ego-related attitudes" was because I was comfortable enough in the Austrian world that the mission didn't have me cornered. Eventually, though, if this helped empower me to avoid succumbing, eventually, I think, it backfired. But since a big part of why I was getting out into the Austrian world was because of my discontent at being limited to secretarial work, it wasn't a ploy, and so did play an important role in my life while in Vienna and I couldn't have stopped such activities without great damage to my self-identity. Towards the end of my time with the mission I did, as I've already said, begin to curtail these outside activities but doing so was both a result of not being able to withstand the pressure any more and also fed into my crumbling self-image.

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I'm going to end there. I didn't notice the time and that it's already 1:00 a.m.!