Placidity: the real spiritual infrastructure for leadership
Frits van Engeldorp, Rotterdam School of Management
In this article sense making of human beings between mystics and stoics is subject of our research. The main conclusion of this investigation is: placidity is a very important presupposition for acting in favour of social welfare and humanity .It is not limited to oral or verbal criticism and critics as in many writings on critical sciences including and writings by so called critical management scientists Only real social reforms can be done by people who do not do in their own interest and are non participator involved in participatory activities. As usual my argumentation starts with the old Greeks and Romans, mystical thinking in medieval Christianity and the permanently ideological refutations against stoic acting will be analyzed.
The end of history or beliefs in things like economic laws are based on comparing these laws in a so called quasi analogical thinking with physical laws lead to embracing your destiny in life or resigning yourself to your fate in and after life.
Mostly fatalism is identified with not western, no –European ways of thinking.
But renouncing the world and fating our lot has also in western thoughts a very old tradition, as every thing else it starts with the old Greeks. Democritos understands by resigning of life a symmetric harmonious human behaviour which includes not overdoing acts of life .This will help in a better living of human beings together. It implies doing you’re your duty above all. It does not imply doing transient things is there a difference between renouncement in pre Christian and in a Christian perspective? It is very clear that is different from being lucky or happy; it is different from satisfying false needs or getting success in life.
Let us start with the big thinker Plato who had a big influence on Christian theology.
The famous exit out of the cave is the road in the direction of the sun: a model for human mobility and human qualitative development. You may compare it with the small ladder to the Christian heaven: the ladder stand on the surface of the earth, her top met the heaven and angel flew up and down the ladder. Reality it self does not exist, only ideas. Men are separated from those ideas, which you only can understand by means of philosophical knowledge. But in a transcendental way of thinking one may postulate only when human beings lost their individuality and does not want to fulfil human needs he will according to Christian thoughts go in to God .The basis of this Christian mystical thinking lies probably in the mythology of Greek mystery cults. At the end of the road of Greek mystical thinking lies in seeing divinity as the highest form of human happiness. Plato himself theory means a prae look in to the best way to the soul and therefore the highest possible way to get happy. It is an individual performance in which being and thinking overlap each other
In the Christian mystic (Eckhart) is divinity in the human being himself present. .Mystic is more then being rational, learning and education people have to use to get united with divinity. People have to separate even from rationality etc to rise into union mystica. The internal spiritual flame leads back to his origin in real mystical human beings.
Plato and Aristotle distinguish three ways of living. Striving for pleasure, practical political acting, and contemplative acting: vita active and vita contemplative.
Aristotle concludes change has no beginning and no end, it is endless. Knowledge is based on an extraction of endless changes and postulates a separation from the continuing chaos of change and asks for a tranquillity during the thought processes so it looks like serenity, but is rational driven and will-directed. This process is based on 5 diagnostical virtues as a part of the soul a part of logos-techne; practical knowledge , episteme; verifying knowledge; phronesis, the just way to life, sophia, the philosophical knowledge and nous the combination of theoretical and practical knowledge .Virtue is to draw the line en behaving and thinking in the middle of courage, showing moderations, arrogance, conceitedness, sense of honour, gentleness , fairness, hospitality and individuality Only a life based on those moderate virtues lead to a moral justified life It is not a resigned life, but a life with conditions for placidity. The person who is affected by emotions can never become happy. The rest of the lake has to be compared with the rest of the soul (Cicero according to Epicurus).The Gods do not know emotions therefore they do not influence life on earth Happiness is the absence of sufferings it is in mensa sana corpora, combined with life satisfaction it gives placidity. You have to realise the body and the soul are not immortal. Those above mentioned virtues are completely different from Christian virtues which are external oriented, the so called 7 works of mercy. Feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, dress the naked ones, take care off the ill ones, visit the prisoners, hostel the foreigners, bury the dead.
Rest, peacefulness means internal rest, no thoughts, every thing is empty and can not be shuttered by intervention by the Gods is the way of living Epicurus sees as an ideal for living. Seneca, who builds on the Greeks seeks happiness in the victory on suffering from the physical nature of God and the peacefulness of the soul and does not deny the existence of living and dying. Plutarchus adds to this one has to live in the middle between extremes But this is depending on human nature and not on depending on environmental variables. Human thinking includes consciousness and placidity. There are two types of thinking inner and other directed. In concentrating one self on the presence and present one has to realise in the sense of Einstein differences between past, here and now and future are illusions. Comparing mystical thinking with the discoveries of relativity laws and black holes in the universe Voigt concludes: the reality of science and the reality of mystic is not the same. In mystics the realty we think is real is not the real reality. This last reality is the absolute, or first realty which is most important in human life In physics Einstein according to Fischer is till the end the searcher who tries to discover the hidden thoughts of God in creating the world c .q. universe The feeling to discover unity in different phenomena to be observed is God., not to be compared with a personal God. This personal attitude against nature may be called modesty, but you have to realize modesty is completely different from the 7 works of Christian mercy.
At first glance it seems that that external orientation to other persons is the beginning of a critical attitude to the existing society in stead of the individual orientation in mystical thinking. Christianity in this case resembles again the role of the ideology of the suppressed Roman slaves as it started. In contradiction to this ideology of the suppressed it would deserve a complete study on the way Christianity defends in the last two thousand years the privileged and rich .in stead of defending the poor. Only for the poor ones seems to be the kingdom of heaven was always turned in the rich ones in intellectual rich which were in the old days mostly also in material sense the rich ones. This goes without saying. But in this essay I do not want to write a summary of Christian beliefs. Although mysticism is inner oriented I do see renouncement as another way of criticising society instead as an ideology to defend individualism. One has to realize in times of societal fear the fear itself controls human beings till the utmost. Is religion an answer to those fears or is it an escape from reality? Renouncement it self can be seen as the beginning of detachment to society and a way to nihilate fear and protecting oneself from utopian thing of a here after or a here and now ?.In some religions it is forbidden to make a figurative image of God and in that sense it to a stoic person also forbidden to make fixed projections of the future because such projections of the future are senseless and even reinterpreted pictures of the past in the light of the present are misleading as a guide for behaviour .This type of relativity makes persons indifferent to the fear for societal developments. It is a private way of saying every ideology in promising better futures here and now or in a here and after here ends at my door. Religion or Christian mystics promises after practising several physical or spiritual steps a personal meeting with a personal God. In the Jewish religion there is no God; one has still to wait for the coming of the Messiah and after that the resurrection will take place. In Buddhism the end stage will be an identification with the emptiness as a part of the omnipresence of pantheistic divinity. In Hinduism this is more or less the same; it resembles, more or less Buddhism. But in Christianity and Islam there is a after here called heaven(s) and phases like and hell.
Many secular utopian idealistic systems on a future heaven on earth with ideal human beings and perfect organizations are rooted in those religions .Not only that management gurus can be compared with prophets even the terminology is borrowed from religious thinking ,Terms like mission servant leadership, charismatic leadership, holy books or convictions are borrowed from Christian institutions or organizations. Holdings and business units are a part of the belief system in such a thing as corporate governance by pleas for subsidiarity or subordination to the head quarters or the demarcation between private and public partnership resembling sovereignty in your own circles in stead of speaking on centralization or decentralization as very old problems with which every church organization know and struggled from the beginning of her existence. Whether it is a (semi)planned or free market society the problems between centralization and decentralization remains the same. Let us return to the detached, mostly ascetic, stoic personality. If we look at social or political movements in the beginning of her existence we mostly those types of persons are acting as leaders and for the followers this is a sign of charisma; they are doing it without becoming rich or popular by the social elites. In the communication and media age of the 21st century persons who are not charismatic can be made acting charismatic and according to Riesman the other directed personality is an ideal person in making him or her to GPSD leadership type. Globalization goes hand in hand with commercialization and people have become one dimensional men The question arises is there in this era still room for detached people or has everybody become a prosumer working for capitalism? Or is detachment the beginning of social critic? Or are there up till now unknown detached people who are the new leaders of new social /political movements? There are clearly new leaders who do not belong to the old elites and in that sense detached from the existing societies, but do they show signs of placidity or are spiritual renounced from reality? It is very clear that the last type of leaders can not be found in most , even new religious movements. Most new religious movements nowadays uses marketing techniques and behave like commercial organizations. Scientific communities resembles in their publish or perish rat race on sales managers who strive for selling records. They are detached from society because they live and think in an ivory tower out of fear for their social position as any civil servant. But renouncing does not mean not socially or societal involved Do we know those earthly saints? Sure you can not find them amongst the civil servants called university academics paid by the state or paid by commerce and industry. It is Mannheims search for fee floating intellectuals who do not any longer exist. But the Havels, Charles de Gaules, the Mandelas and Ghandis still pop up from time to time in history. Detached from career wishes, stoic, but still external oriented notwithstanding danger for their own life and persons with their own vocation Mostly, they do not have the slightest blur or no one at all on their reputation or only get stained after losing power or blamed after their death. But even on mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer one could find blurs after their death. We do not speak about so called critical intellectuals who always deliver critic on society but do not make their hands dirty in any concrete incidents, Real critic does mean involved and detached together and doing the right things in the right time in safe protecting human rights. Precondition is people have to be detached and involved at the same moment and not be swayed by the issues of the day .The ideal social critic who thinks critically and act as a leader is detached and involved at the same moment eq Mandela,Marcus Aurelius The person who is detached and not involved is as a leader the Machevellian type of leader eq Stalin or Bismarck etc. The non detached and involved leader ; the charismatic leader varies from Havel and .Mother Teresa till Napoleon or Hitler. The non detached , not involved leader is functional leadership mostly exercised by managers, A real leader in my sense has to be detached and involved at the same moment ; being a real stoic and not driven away by emotions or denying emotions The essence of leadership is emotionless recognizing the value of ones own and other ones emotions .
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