140. Socialization File, Pt. 23 (Dubin, pt. 20)

In following up with my last discussion about economics, I would say that I consider that realm to be an area Satan has probably played an inordinate role as "god of this world" (II Cor. 4:4). I'm looking forward to living under a better rulership (i.e., heaven).

Also, if I were to lead the mission candidate's course part on the USSR (this was 1985), and I wanted to bring out something more than the topic template that had been used for all the countries and wanted to say something about politics, economics or ideology I would not (as you might guess) have used the economics comparison approach, which I think was out of place (although it was an exception to an otherwise good course, but using it revealed some of their ideology, which I think I've already pointedly dealt with), but would rather have used something along one of these lines:

a. treatment of believers in the country, such as, for example, citing use/misuse of laws, punishments of believers, limitations on religious practice, etc.

and/or

b. since Leninist Communism as an ideology was pushed so ardently in the USSR (as well as the other Warsaw Pact countries), I might have made a comparison of Christian and Communist belief systems.

These are both approaches that would have, to me at least, seemed more relevant for mission work. However, I would also have tried to stay away from emotion-laden phraseology in my presentation. It's not like we were preparing to be medieval crusaders, after all. Our work was spiritual, and it was the souls of people we were concerned about. At least, that's what my perspective was (and still is). This might not have matched their interests, in which case, maybe the economics comparison handout was an accurate representation of the kind of thinking they thought missionaries needed.

By the way, what I said above about this handout sticking out as a sore thumb in an otherwise reasonably good candidate's course supports my belief that missions somehow lose all their theology of missions bearings when it comes to (former) East Bloc countries (I saw this in the 1990s too in Russia). Why is it that everything I learned in Bible school about missions theory does not apply in these countries? I submit that this handout is indicative of why/how that happens.

I've derided enough Communist ideological jibberish in my day, but, believe me, the West has its share of it too. And just as that Communist emotion-laden literature rests on a theoretical basis, so does its Western counterpart. Is it not possible to move past political sloganeering? Or maybe what I'm asking for is, shall we say, "beyond the capacity of" theologians and pastors to master.

I like having my own soap box. And, being unemployed and on disability, I set my own work-related norms.

***

Back to our text...

"...[D]eviancy is not a property inherent in a particular activity, rather it is an external property conferred upon certain behavior by members of the organization who come into contact with it. In a sense, behaviors which are labelled deviant define the contours of the organization." (p. 110)

As members of God's creation, He has the right to determine what is acceptable or not. But His ordinances are absolute because His authority is absolute. We little humans set relative norms for our various groupings (family, club, nation, business, etc.).

When God says to steal is sin, it's sin period, end of conversation. And since His jurisdiction is all of creation, no matter where we go it's still a sin.

But when a business, for example, says being late for work is an offense, it's only relative. That is, it only applies to that business. Another business might consider being an offense if you didn't make the time up and being late didn't affect the work getting done.

This is basically what this text is saying. So let's apply this to my experience in Vienna. In normal life, and I think under God's authority also, I can write letters as I see fit (so long as I don't sin, like lie or something, in the letter). But in Vienna, the leadership had me (and supposedly everyone else there too) submit their prayer letters for approval before they could be sent out to your mailing list. Then they told me my mailing list was too long and I should decrease the number of people getting my letters. These are not God's commandments, nor those of a particular country, for that matter, but the rules set by a particular organization, and disobedience of the rules would have been deviance. There's a lot more I could (and eventually will) say about these true life examples.

But it would be nice if things were that simple. Deviancy is not always blatantly spelled out, either written in employee handbooks or spoken by voices of authority, but may also be unspoken, informal rules of the game, if you will. The Vienna mission was rife with these.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Informal Organization:

"The informal organization is the interlocking social structure that governs how people work together in practice. It is the aggregate of behaviors, interactions, norms, personal and professional connections through which work gets done and relationships are built among people who share a common organizational affiliation or cluster of affiliations. It consists of a dynamic set of personal relationships, social networks, communities of common interest, and emotional sources of motivation. The informal organization evolves organically and spontaneously in response to changes in the work environment, the flux of people through its porous boundaries, and the complex social dynamics of its members.

Tended effectively, the informal organization complements the more explicit structures, plans, and processes of the formal organization: it can accelerate and enhance responses to unanticipated events, foster innovation, enable people to solve problems that require collaboration across boundaries, and create footpaths showing where the formal organization may someday need to pave a way."

Related terms are informal communication, informal norms, informal power, etc. These things all take place in the sort of underworld of an organization, and is the nemeses of new employees everywhere. But some places of employment make this aspect of the organization a virtual work of art that far outshadows the formal frame that encases it. The Vienna mission was one of those types of organization. They seemed to have it down to a science; at least that's how it appeared to me. Or maybe I'm just too dense, which explains why in a full 2 years I couldn't crack the code. Well, maybe I was afraid to crack it, didn't completely want to crack it, and/or was thinking it needed breaking more than cracking. (That said, I never, at least intentionally or that I know of, did anything to harm the mission. But I do think the organization would have benefited greatly from some breaking, but coming from some source more in a position to effectively do that than I was.)

I think it is safe to say that I was deviant in as much as I never really took the step that would have led to mutual trust, by way of accepting them as my unquestioned authority in all things at all mission-related. But I was also deviant by the fact that the reason I didn't take that step was that I couldn't agree with their ways/norms/tactics.

But that statement belies the complexity, I think, of the situation. These mission-defined deviancies that "formed the contours of the organization" were, in practice often difficult to pinpoint. Sometimes it felt like my thinking was deviant, other times it was how I spent my free time, or still another time it was that I didn't go sobbing into my bosses office at the end of my ropes begging for sage advice on what to do, or the fact that I didn't hang around more with my reference group (the other secretaries). All of these things and more could be seen as deviancies. But it wasn't just a matter of figuring out the implicit rules, but also knowing when and how they applied or didn't. And above all (in my opinion), attitude was the defining factor of deviancy.

***

"It is probably correct to say that few persons find their organizationally defined mold suitable in all respects, and for many, such a mold is appropriately comparable to a strait jacket." (p. 110)

My sentiments exactly. Is this really what missions is all about?

***

"Another problem arises when a new member's socialization into the organization is carried on without reference to his other role requirements outside the organization. Since an individual always has difficulty satisfying all demands place upon his various memberships, role strain is likely to develop (Goode, 1960). The individual's response may be an attempt to manipulate the situation to some acceptable level of strain or to set limits upon the degree to which he will allow the organization to penetrate his life-space. Both of these response[s] influence the outcomes of the socialization process. Hence, success of the process depends in part upon the sensitivity exhibited by the organization to the new member's other obligations. If the organization is extremely insensitive, the new member is likely to assume peripheral role-behaviors calculated to minimize role strain and may force the individual to adopt an extreme location on the response continuum (rebellion or overconformity). For example, these considerations are inherent in the local-cosmopolitan issue discussed in a preceding section. If the organization attempts to force the new member into adopting the local orientation, it may lose his participation, or result in an overconforming member who no longer will contribute innovative suggestions developed from a cosmopolitan orientation. Some organizations - particularly the more coercive total institutions - attempt to overcome role strain by providing a new member with only one relevant role and setting - each one defined by the organization." (p. 111)

Is it stating the obvious to say that this is a mouth full? Might as well dive in head first...

To begin with we need to come to a common understanding that the Vienna mission was, in my experience, among "the more coercive total institution" and I my response was the only available extreme available, which is to way "rebellion". (Another way to look at the extreme conformity option could be that conformity, in the sense used in this text, was an act of rebellion in the Vienna mission context.

Here's how I understood the mission's desire of how I should organize my life and relationships.
- At work 9-5 (or something like that)
- Share an apartment with the other secretary on deputation who called me from Alaska when I was in Colorado
- Develop an endearing relationship with my boss' wife
- Befriend children of my boss
- Attend the English-speaking church where some half of the staff attended
- Spend inordinate quantities of my free time befriending and socializing with the secretarial set
- Indicate no or little interest in ministry in Austria itself
- Appear helpless upon arrival in einem neuen und unbekannten Land
- Limit my personal contacts outside of Austria

etc., etc.

This was all pretty much the "informal" organization, and it wasn't written down, although a few things were expressed explicitly verbally. In fact, I find it a bit odd that for an organization who feared the Soviet Union it seemed to take on similar characteristics in some ways. One way is their view of the law. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the rule of law in the early Soviet Union:

In 1917, the Soviet authorities formally repealed all Tsarist legislation and established a socialist legal system. This system abolished Western legal concepts including the rule of law, the civil liberties, the protection of law and guarantees of property.^[2][3] According to Western legal theory, "it is the individual who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the government", whereas Soviet law claimed the opposite.^[4] Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, but as any action which could threaten the Soviet state.

If you are interested in this topic, here's the lengthy transcript of a panel discussion on this topic sponsored by the New York Bar Association.

The point is, that laws in Russia had only tangential importance, and were used, misused or ignored by authority to best serve their perceived interests. The same could be said for the Vienna mission regarding how it treated its own workers, at least in my experience. Heck, my living in Siberia was better in many ways than their exiling me to Dallas. At least people sent to Siberia against their will under Communism probably knew what article of the law was the basis for their being exiled, even if the law was grossly misapplied to the person being punished.

On the other hand, my offense appeared to be not even written anywhere, but in the heads of those who planned and executed it. Their reasoning undoubtedly had roots in the general informal normative structure to which I was ever only nominally privy.

It has been said that if 15 people (the first Soviet Council of People's Commissars) could change the world via Communism, than surely we (missionaries) can do at least the same! Well, in this case even the numbers match up! (15 commissars = 15 missions) Matching modus uperandi is a bonus. We're waiting for the change the world part though.

The analogy, of course, has limits, but while I was in Vienna I was aware (as I think I've said in previous posts) of a comparison between my experience there and how Communist regimes treated believers. This comparison, maybe could use some flushing out, though. In any case, the rule of law comparison seems reasonably accurate. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, as they say.

Returning to our text... at the beginning of this (quite lengthy) paragraph, it says that "Another problem arises when a new member's socialization into the organization is carried on without reference to his other role requirements outside the organization."

I can hear the mission's response to the suggestion that I might want outside roles: "What outside roles? Who said anything about outside roles? You'll have outside roles when we say you can and no sooner." (This is hypothetical, but expresses my impression of how things worked there and their expectations of me.)

Without outside roles there was not problem... unless I deviated.

The next sentence (I'm repeating these so you don't have to go look for them again in the earlier quote):

"Since an individual always has difficulty satisfying all demands place upon his various memberships, role strain is likely to develop..."

I hope it's clear that there would be no role strain if I had no outside roles. However, there was another kind of strain: that of accepting the apparent (to me) limitations. Maybe this was then more of an identity stress, because I didn't see myself locked in as a secretary, while it seemed that formal role had pegged me into a whole lifestyle centered around it.

Skipping a bit because of things I've already addressed:

"If the organization is extremely insensitive, the new member is likely to assume peripheral role-behaviors calculated to minimize role strain and may force the individual to adopt an extreme location on the response continuum (rebellion or overconformity)."

I've already dealt with parts of this, but not everything. The organization was insensitive to the point of all but denying me outside roles (at least until I was properly socialized). To me that's extremely extreme insensitivity.

My intention would not have been calculated to minimize role strain, as this text suggests, but rather to minimize self identity-stress, since the organization and I had very different ideas of who I was and what roles might be appropriate based, at least in part, on this perceived identity.

Next section... "If the organization attempts to force the new member into adopting the local orientation, it may lose his participation, or result in an overconforming member who no longer will contribute innovative suggestions developed from a cosmopolitan orientation." (p. 111)

Local orientation, to refresh your memory is contrasted with cosmopolitan orientation in that the former focuses attention on the workplace, whereas the latter implies attachments to a profession at large. I don't think the mission realized my professional orientation, although I'm not sure how that could have been overlooked, especially to the extent it seemed to be, because they would have known about my background, that of all my earlier mission attachments and even working in a couple of centers of knowledge regarding ministry to this part of the world. But however it happened, it apparently did, or at least, it sure felt like it to me. I figure if they had realized that "cosmopolitan orientation" on my part, they wouldn't have been so bent on stuffing me into a box that didn't fit. Unless, of course, they didn't want or like that part of me. Or they wanted to debase me. Or...?

And finally: "Some organizations - particularly the more coercive total institutions - attempt to overcome role strain by providing a new member with only one relevant role and setting - each one defined solely by the organization."

Bingo! But sometimes when you try to fix one problem you create another, like identity strain and rebellion.

***

We're not done with this section, but we are done with the page, so I'm going to end on this note. We have 2 1/2 pages left of the section.

Good night.

~ Meg

75. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 2 (Faris, pt. 1)

It's so hard for me to get to be early, but I really need to figure out a way to do so, because it often means I just don't get enough sleep.

***

Faris, John H. (1976) The impact of basic combat training: the role of the drill sergeant. In Goldman, N. L. & Segal D. R. (Egs.) The Social Psychology of Military Service. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, p. 13-24.

***

This chapter section is called "Socialization in Basic Training." I mentioned in an earlier post how boot camp, as a model, isn't an exact fit for my experience in Vienna because there wasn't a cohort group where everyone begins at the same time. Nevertheless, there might be some aspects that make it similar enough that it could be a helpful comparison, at least to a certain extent.

"There are several features of basic training which make it extraordinary and which have persisted through the years and appear in much the same form from one post to another.

First, there is at least initially a disparagement of civilian status, which takes the form of degradation and humiliation on both the group and individual levels...

Second, basic training is characterized by extreme isolation from civilian society on the one hand and an almost complete lack of privacy from other trainees on the other...

Third, much of the evaluation of performance in basic training is done at the group level rather than on the individual level. This collective evaluation (or 'group punishment' - which neglects positive reinforcement on a unit basis) violates the trainee's sense of justice...

Fourth, basic combat training includes an emphasis on masculinity and aggressiveness...

Finally, basic training is designed to place the trainee under various forms of stress, both physical and psychological...

The above characteristics would seem to make basic combat training a highly negative experience, and certainly they are often perceived as negative by the trainees. How, then, can we account for the finding that most trainees respond positively both to the institution which has provided them with this experience and to the drill sergeants who in most cases are the direct perpetrators of these negative experiences?" (p. 14-16)

First I'll take the "features of basic training" one by one.

The first feature does sort of fit my Vienna experience, although not in as obvious and clear-cut a way as in basic training, for sure. My impression is that the initialization socialization process of the mission in Vienna was to serve, at least in part, to make the newcomer more reliant on the mission body than on outside sources. I don't know if you're familiar with the idea of "closed" and "open" systems or not, but these refer basically to how permeable the boundaries are of a social entity (family, business, club, etc.) are. I think the Vienna mission was supposed to be a "closed" system with pretty strictly guarded boarders to maintain the high level of trust and security they felt they needed. Boundaries were only opened selectively according to how specific instances were seen to be beneficial to the group, and breaches were considered (potential) security breaches. I'm talking mostly in the realm of "indirect" relations here, which means that what I'm saying here could denied using explicit communications (or lack thereof) as a basis for such a denial. But in practice I'm certain I'm right.

The second point can clearly be directly applied to my experience in Vienna, which I believe applied to everyone, not just "trainees". It even applied to a large extent to family members of the team, so that relations of family members with other staff was about as important as relations between staff members alone. For example, I was encouraged to befriend children of my boss as a part of that process, and even the formation of the new English-speaking Christian school in the city, could be helpful in this process, making it easier to keep the missionary kids (M.K.s) in the fold. After all, family problems (e.g., problems with children) could affect the whole group and be a potential security risk. And missionary kids had to learn how to deal with questions about what their dad did, just like we staffers had to learn what to say when asked about these kinds of things. Singles baving roommates would have also fallen under this second point.

I don't think the third point is relevant to my situation.

The fourth point isn't a very good fit either, but if you switch out "masculinity and aggressiveness" to something like ability to control his family and staff (to protect security, maintain group cohesion and satisfaction, etc.), then it's not a bad fit. My impression is that good leaders in the Vienna mission setting exuded a sort of spiritual manner while also being able to be firm and making it clear that they were in control, in charge.

The last feature is a good fit, although I don't know that there was physical stress. There definitely was psychological and social stress, although, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I didn't witness many people going through this process to make a generalization about how uniformly this was experienced/practiced. But I think it was the norm for newcomers to go through this kind of stress in one way or another (maybe tailored to each person's perceived characteristics). Some people who had worked in this line of work with other groups may have only had minimal stress in learning how this specific mission operated.

The last part of the quote about how trainees experience basic training is interesting too. I think that people with the Vienna mission who made it through this process would have afterward said it was a personally beneficial growing process (especially a spiritual growing process, but also perhaps, for example, an emotional, professional or social one as the case may be). My limited impression is that maybe not everyone thought about it like this while experiencing the initial orientation.

Others might scoff at this comparison, for sure, but I never expected the totalitarian aspects of the mission in Vienna, although my 1983 short-term overseas mission trip perhaps should have alerted me to this possibility/probability. But if there were others like me who weren't expecting this aspect of mission life, I think there could be something to learn by comparing the orientation process of the Vienna mission with the Stockholm syndrome, which says, in short, that people get emotionally attached to their captors (see here for a fuller description). Of course, it would be very difficult to argue that we were "captives" in the way a hostage, for example, could, but inasmuch as the psychological aspects of the mission were contrary to the will of the inductees and the possibility of "escape" was limited, there could be some grounds for making a comparison / learning something from the Stockholm syndrome literature. Certainly, there was an intentional effort to develop bonds with the leadership, as well as to other team members, in Vienna.

***

This next section is titled "Characteristics of the Drill Sergeant's Role."

"(1) The drill sergeant as role model... If the trainee accepts the values of the military (and most do, at least temporarily and provisionally), there is no more appropriate or accessible standard for the inlisted man to aspire to than the drill sergeant...

(2) The drill sergeant as father figure... Drill sergeants often take a very paternalistic orientation toward trainees... helping with learning a skill or counseling a soldier with problems...

(3) The drill sergeant as dedicated and caring... Drill sergeants frequently go out of their way to help a trainee with a problem...

(4) The drill sergeant's situational role shifts. The drill sergeant's orientation in the formal situation of the parade field or company-level training is markedly different from what it is in relatively less formal platoon trainings, meetings inside the barracks, and individual counseling...

(5) The drill sergeant's role-shifts over time. As trainees begin to leave behind their civilian attachments, develop their own solidarity, master the soldier's skills, and adopt the values of the military, the drill sergeant comes to treat them, not as equals, but as worthy of eventual acceptance into the status of soldiers." (p. 16-18)

In the Vienna situation this would be, for example the relationship of the secretary to her boss, the department head to those under him, etc. So in some cases, as with the secretary and her boss, the relationship is mainly one-to-one, with little sergeant-to-platoon equivalent. That being said, however, there are a few nuggets to chew on here...

The "boss" in the Vienna is pretty clearly, to me at least, a role model, although in the secretary-boss relationship, because of the gender differences and the gender role constraints of the theological bearing of the mission, it's not as if the secretary could ever hope to follow in her boss's footsteps. Still, there is a kind of spiritual mentor-mentee relationship involved wherein the trainee in Vienna aspires to learn spiritual lessons from her boss (and perhaps also her boss's wife). I found this aspect of the relationships in Vienna to be contrived and manipulative, with specific organizational ends serving as the basis. In this manner, the boss-employee relationship in Vienna was not unlike that of the drill sergeant as role model for his enlistees.

I think the father figure aspect could have been a part of some boss-employee relationships in Vienna, but I don't think I experienced it.

The drill sergeant as "dedicated and caring" was definitely a part of the relationship between me and my boss. I felt like it was, to a large measure, sincere, but that in the Vienna mission context where was also an element of this being a part of easing the inductee into the organization and coming to accept their culture and way of doing things. In this regard, I felt that there was a somewhat manipulative element to it. It was like this was meant, at lest in part, to (in conjunction with other mission efforts) to help disarm the newcomer and help make her comfortable with being vulnerable and seeing the organization (as represented by the boss figure) as benevolent and concerned for the trainee's best interests and welfare.

As far as the situational role shifts were concerned, there was a bit of this, but not like the extreme that it would be in boot camp, so I'm not going to address this here. I think the extent that this existed in Vienna, as I remember it now, was nothing out of the ordinary.

This last, the fifth, characteristic of the sergeant, regarding role-shifts over time, was clearly, in my mind, at work in Vienna. However, I never got to the point where I was treated "as worthy of... acceptance into the status of..." missionary. In fact, I left Vienna with my self-esteem crushed. A lot of this was not expressed directly though, or in ways to imply (with various levels of directness) a concern for me.

***

The next few pages actually describe in more detail the sergeant's role shift over time and social psychological aspects of this shift. Much of the discussion describes the use of humor as an example of this. The last paragraph of this discussions sums it up this way:

"The skillful use of humor as a socialization mechanism is an important factor in effecting the transformation from a cohesive group with oppositional tendencies to an accommodation with and adoption of the values of the institution, while retaining the distinctions between the status of the private recruit and the veteran NCO. It is a form of seduction." (p. 21)

Actually, in a completely different context, in the last few years I'd been trying to put my fingers on something I felt like was going on in my family, that the use of humor in my family is highly influenced by gender, and my father was actually a major user of this tool, although my mom played/plays (now that dad's dead it's vis a vis my brothers, however) the "fool" role very willingly, and seems to actually enjoy it. Power to her; I hate it and find it very demeaning and derogatory. Often these kinds of things are spoken affectionately, which makes them hard to counter without seeming to be "a bitch" if you will. Mom's aversion to technology and her incredible dependence on others to take care of her has multiple implications, but one of them is that the powerful, rescuing male is confirms and the damsel in distress is feminized (this is where an actress would be instructed to bat her eyes and maybe giggle girlishly).

I shouldn't be so critical, but I really have been thinking that women (in my family but I think in other context too) are often not taken seriously and this is one tool of maintaining male dominance, even if this is often enacted at the unconscious level. I suspect that this is a common method of one group asserting its hegemony over another, but I haven't seriously researched it. How does one deal with this kind of thing to be taken seriously? Can it only happen when you finally obtain the upper hand by one means or another so then the other party is almost forced to concede, at least in part, but maybe only on the surface, and given half a chance they would gladly retake their former position of dominance? How does one break this cycle? Taken in context, though (such as in my family), things are even more complex as there are other issues at play as well.

But getting back to the Vienna situation... I think I tried to get at this earlier regarding paternalistic behaviors, but it's said very succinctly here that this use of humor is "a form of seduction". I definitely felt like that and was not inclined to let my guard when confronted with behaviors (not necessarily just the use of humor, which I think this author just uses as an example anyway for role changes) I considered smacking of this kind of thing. It's maybe what I'd expect in a KGB agent trying to seduce me to cooperate, for example. The thing is, or at least one issue, that it never was completely clear exactly what you were being seduced into; what the end result was supposed to be and what the conditions were that you were supposed to accept. You were just supposed to submit pretty much on faith that your best interests were intended. At least that's how I felt, and the way I was jostled around in my 2 years with the mission seem to corroborate that my doubts that held me back weren't completely unfounded.

***

There is one final characteristic of the drill sergeant that is named in this text, but I don't think it is relevant and that's all I want to say about this article.

Good bye for now...

~ Meg