Third Millennium Transcultural Management And Leadership - Volume II

CONTENTS/INHALT

Volume II

FOREWORD

VORWORT

24 DIE GROSSEN KULTUR-REVOLUTIONEN: RÜCKBLICK UND AUSBLICK

25 THE CULTURAL LABOUR OF MANKIND

26 CULTURE THERAPY

27 THE THIRD MILLENNIUM GLOBAL CIVILISATION FORMULA - INTEGRATING THE RELATIVE AND THE ABSOLUTE

28 KULTUR UND BEWUSSTSEIN – DIE BEDINGTHEIT DER INTERKULTU- RELLEN KOMPETENZ DURCH DIE PSYCHOLOGISCHE ENTWICKLUNG

29 THE MAGIC OF THE ONE: THE ONE AS THE REGULATOR OF UNITY
AND DIVERSITY

30 SUMMUM UNUM – THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE

31 RESPECTING FOREIGNERS

32 DIVERSITY AND COMMON GROUND

33 CULTURAL AWAKENING AND WOLRD PEACE

34 THE TOTAL CULTURAL SOLUTION

35 DIE GLOBALE ALLIANZ DES DRITTEN MILLENNIUMS – EIN ENTWURF

36 DIE DEUTSCHE IDENTITÄT: GEDANKEN ZUR IDENTITÄTSFRAGE
MEINES VATERLANDES

37 EINE KULTURELLE EINHEITSFELDTHEORIE – EINE KULTURPHILOSO- PHISCHE BETRACHTUNG

38 DIE DÄMMERUNG EINES NEUEN INTERKULTURELLEN PARADIGMAS –
EIN ENTWURF

39 MEDITATION AS MEDIATION THROUGH THE CULTURE OF TRUTH

40 INNER CULTURE - INTER CULTURE - OUTER CULTURE

41 BUILDING THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

42 DIE MENSCHEIT AM SCHEIDEWEG DER ZIVILISATIONEN –
DAS WAHRE PROBLEM UND DIE WAHRE LÖSUNG

43 DER BRÜLLENDE LÖWE – DAS DRITTE JAHRTAUSEND UND DIE SUCHE NACH DER MENSCHLICHEN IDENTITÄT –
THIRD MILLENNIUM GLOBAL IDENTITY STRUGGLE

44 DIE WEIHNACHTSKULTURELLE EPIPHANIE

45 DAS SUPRARATIONALE INTERKULTURELLE MANAGEMENT

46 REFORMATION UND KULTURELLE DEKONSTRUKTON

47 TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT DICTIONARY – ENGLISH-GERMAN

FOREWORD

The following collected essays on third millennium transcultural management and leadership, in two volumes, start where conventional intercultural research often ends. Here the term “transcultural” is not used synonymously with the term “intercultural” as some culture scholars employ it. They often tend to equate “intercultural” to “transcultural”, whether they refer to competence, intelligence, management or communication. Science and philosophy of east and west allow us to contextualize the intercultural paradigm in a wider scientific and human context; this holistic perception of the intercultural is translated as transcultural or noetic. Consciousness research, concepts of neurophysiology, microbiology and physics, in particular the quantum paradigm as well as the epistemologies across cultures, civilizations and eras contribute to a more complete, sustainable and effective understanding of the cultural challenge of our era.

Actually, I am writing these introductory lines in the very wake of the nine-eleven commemoration day. There is no more need to burn or destroy neither books, nor assets nor humans, if the world evolves to an in-depth understanding of the cultural dimension of its existence. The benefits of this enhanced approach in the domains of global management and geopolitics and beyond follow naturally. Such is the purpose of this lone research which pioneers new terrain and integrates a cluster of approaches ranging from religion to hard science. “Language is unsuitable to translate the totality of thought and intuition” as Sully Prudhomme states, particularly if one is not a native speaker and in line with Michel de Montaigne who states that “his business is not orthography and punctuation”, I ask the reader to forgive the linguistic shortcomings, as the quest for a solution to the human challenge is paramount. As I proof-read my essays I further realize that a number of mistakes have been produced by the computer, its software and their handling. Software, that of computers as well as that of the mind, requires a superordinate control function!

The essays are, as a rule, except for the last ones, arranged in the reverse chronological order in which they were written in English or German - whose dialectic and synergy are by themselves potential factors of cultural growth for the committed reader - over the past two years. They were not planned to be edited in this collected format. Therefore there is a lot of repetition of the master model and its legend, while the diversity of their original formats has been maintained. I invite the reader to understand it as a thread that runs through the many diverse essays while it provides a holistic structure which integrates the intercultural and transcultural optics. It should rather be viewed as the key that the reader should always have at hand and keep in mind in order to unlock the doors of enhanced cultural perception.

Based on the quantum metaphor, the intercultural and the transcultural perspectives may be considered as complementary, mutually enhancing vistas of culture and based on the neurophysiologic approach the transcultural approach can be said to instruct and integrate the intercultural approach. There is neither antagonism nor competition with traditional intercultural research and practice. The transcultural approach integrates and also transcends the intercultural approach.

The core of my thought was already present towards the end of the seventies, before Hofstede published his major research in 1880 and even longer before the culture and management experts Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars published their research. So, I simply had to reap what has been maturing over time and what waited to be formulated. Many encounters with personalities from the entire planet have been contributing to my thought while I was living and studying in a number of countries. I have been trying to make due reference to them whenever possible.

I introduced “culture” as an analytic variable in a computer-supported research seminar on civil war in an advanced programme in international politics at the Sorbonne before 1980. Research evidence from transdisciplinary team research which involved all participants of a D.E.A. advanced programme in international politics over one year and which covered the analysis of all civil wars since the WW II highlighted the importance of this variable long before it became a highly prized global managerial resource. It was clearly present and active in the rankings of the motives conducive to civil conflicts and it has been present in the academic discourse before the last two decades of the 20th century. Today, thanks to empirical intercultural research by the contemporary authors mentioned above, we dispose of additional statistical evidence for its relevance in diverse spheres of life, although their research may be limited by and to the business world. This statistical research is yet another optic (vision) of the cultural reality which many of my papers contextualize in a wider holistic optic. These mutually enhancing and synergizing optics are the beauty and richness of what I call metaphorically a quantum cultural optic. The emergent “transcultural paradigm” complements the „intercultural paradigm“ as for example Newtonian physics have been advanced by quantum physics. While the quantum paradigm has enabled outer space conquest, the transcultural paradigm can enable the conquest of inner space and the interconnected inner-outer culture space continuum.

An enhanced understanding of culture that provides more capabilities as quantum mechanics enable revolutionary technology such is the object of the multifaceted exploration of the following essays. I personally could identify – without laboratory validation as yet – the corollary of quantum technology in quantum culture; in the science-based dawn of a transcultural paradigm. The true transcultural approach is a quantum cultural science through which the lead paradigm can manifest in socio-cultural matters with similarly revolutionary effectiveness.

VORWORT

Dieses Werk in zwei Bänden enthält Schriften zum Thema transkulturelles Management und Leadership des dritten Millenniums. Die Begriffe „interkulturell“ und „transkulturell“ werden häufig ohne Unterscheidung verwendet. Basierend auf Prinzipien der Quantenphysik, der Neurophysiologie, der Biologie, sowie den Erkenntnistheorien verschiedener Zeiten, Zivilisationen und Breiten wird hier eine transkulturelle Ebene konstruiert und modelliert, die die interkulturelle neu kontextualisiert, integriert und transzendiert.

Die Schriften sind in der umgekehrten Reihenfolge ihrer Entstehung angeordnet. Da sie nicht als Sammelband gedacht waren, wird das Hauptmodell mit dessen Beschreibung, das die Integration des interkulturellen Ansatzes durch einen übergeordneten transkulturellen visualisiert und ein erkenntnistheoretisches Leitmotiv bildet, öfters wiederholt.

Das Grundgerüst meines Ansatzes stand bereits vor den maßgeblichen interkulturellen Publikationen der empirischen interkulturellen Forschung. Beide zusammen führen zu einem „quantenoptischen“ komplementären Kulturverständnis, mit dem man den kulturellen Herausforderungen unserer Ära effektiver begegnen kann.

Der interkulturelle und der emergente transkulturelle Ansatz zusammen gestatten ein umfassenderes Verständnis und das nachhaltigere Management der kulturellen Belange in der Weltpolitik und der Weltwirtschaft.

24 DIE GROSSEN KULTUR-REVOLUTIONEN:

RÜCKBLICK UND AUSBLICK

Während der vergangenen fünfhundert Jahre hat unsere Welt unter anderen fünf bedeutsame Revolutionen durchlaufen, die bis heute nachwirken und zwar folgende:

Reformation

Marxismus

Nationalismus

Gegenkulturrevolution

Kulturrevolution

Wahrscheinlich wäre der Begriff Regression in vieler Hinsicht angebrachter, wenn man das Unheil bedenkt, das diese fünf Ideologien angerichtet haben und dies auch heute noch weltweit tun. Die Ideen die durch sie in die Welt gesetzt wurden, leben weltweit fort und verursachen, gleich einem Virus, weltweiten Schaden bei all den Menschen und Kulturen, die situationsbedingt anfällig dafür sind. Ein Organismus ist für ein Virus anfällig, wenn er nicht genügend Abwehrkräfte hat. Die Abwehrkräfte bestehen hier, vergleichbar mit einer prophylaktischen Impfung oder in einer digitalen Systemumgebung, einer aktualisierten Antivirussoftware, die die neuesten Mutationen und Entwicklungen des Virus erkennt und Antikörper und Schutzmechanismen dagegen bereitstellen kann, in einer geistigen Disposition, die die mentalen Mechanismen entlarvt und davor schützen kann, daß man in ihren Sog mit den oft irreversiblen Konsequenzen gezogen wird.

Alle haben große Menschenopfer gefordert gleich einem heidnischen Gott, der einen unersättlichen Hunger nach Menschenopfer hat. In der Tat, der Gott ist hier kein persönlicher oder ein übernatürliches Prinzip, das es zu besänftigen gilt, aber doch ein abstraktes mentales Prinzip, das verabsolutiert, also nicht vergöttlicht, sondern vergötzt wird. Somit sind sie alle Formen des Götzentums und insofern eine heidnische Regression. Das klingt schmerzhaft in den Ohren von Menschen, die all ihre Hoffnung auf diese Götzen gesetzt haben und häufig und millionenfach mit ihrem Leben dafür bezahlt haben.

Sie haben allein im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert vielleicht ebensoviele Menschenleben gefordert, wie das vereinte Deutschland Einwohner hat. Sie basierten auf dem Prinzip des Götzentums und waren dialektische Pendelgegenbewegungen zum Status Quo im Bereich des Religion, der Politik und der Kultur: enormer Kollateralschaden eines Götzentums, das auf mentalen Mechanismen beruhte und nicht durch den Überlebenskampf mit einer unbeherrschbaren Naturgewalt höher Ordnung bedingt war, sondern eher auf der ebenso unbeherrschbaren und noch verheerenderen Naturgewalt des Mentalen des Menschen gründete. Heidnisch, weil die Götzen nicht externalisiert, sondern internalisiert, aber den denselben Absolutheitsanspruch hatten und keine anderen Götzen neben sich duldeten.

Der Mensch hat einen strukturellen und funktionellen Bedarf nach geistiger und seelischer Integration in einem Einheitsprinz, äußerlich, wie innerlich. Er verabsolutiert das äußere, um seine innere Integration und Einheitserfordernis, seine Widerspruchsfreiheit, deren permanente Spannung er nicht ertragen würde, zu realisieren.

Es erhebt sich die Frage, wie der Mensch die alles überragende Bedingung der inneren Konsistenz und Widerspruchsfreiheit, die seine geistig, psychosomatische Einheit gewährleistetet auf einem Weg erreichen kann, die nicht dialektischer Natur ist und keine Pendelbewegung von konkurrierenden Kräften initialisiert, die alle ihre Ideologien verabsolutieren wollen, in der Hoffnung die strukturell, funktionelle Integration ihres gesamten Wesens dadurch zu erlangen. Diese wird sehr oft höher bewertet als der Wert des Lebens selbst. Doch auf dem Weg der Reaktion und Gegenreaktion gibt es nur Relatives. Und solange das Absolute im Relativen zu finden gehofft wird, schwingt das Pendel von Reaktion und Gegenreaktion weiter und weiter durch die Jahrhunderte, durch ganze Zeitalter, ja selbst durch die gesamte bekannte Menschheitsgeschichte.

Wie kann dieses Pendel der dialektischen Götzenverabsolutisierung, das seinen gesetzmäßigen retrospektiv verifizierbaren und vorhersehbaren Tribut fordert, ins Lot gebracht und das Prinzip der dialektischen Reaktion und Gegenreaktion, die einen endlosen Kreislauf bilden, gesteuert und beherrscht werden? Das ist die Frage, die sich unter dem Strich, als Bilanz der Erkenntnis aus der Analyse und Betrachtung der verschiedenen Revolutionen ergibt, die aber alle dem einen und demselben Prinzip gehorchen, also einer Gesetzmäßigkeit? Es handelt sich nicht um eine äußere Gesetzmäßigkeit, sondern um eine Gesetzmäßigkeit des menschlichen Geistes mit dramatischen Folgen in der äußeren Welt. Die tatsächliche Ursache der Revolutionen liegt nicht im Äußeren, dort liegen nur die auslößenden Motive, sondern in den mentalen Prozessen als Reaktion auf die vermeintlichen Ursachen.

Wie kann der Mensch sein Bedürfnis stillen und somit die Erfordernis einer Gesamtintegration bei gleichzeitiger Beherrschung der Dialektik verwirklichen? Das wäre eine konstruktive metarevolutionäre Frage:

Es ist eine Frage der Steuerung der vermeintlichen revolutionären Prozesse, dergestalt, daß der dialektische Kreislauf der endlosen Reaktion und Gegenreaktion aufgehoben und die innere Einheit und Widerspruchsfreiheit gewährleist wird und somit kein weiterer pseudorevolutionärer Bedarf mehr besteht. Dies erfordert eine Betrachtung des menschlichen Geistes, um die den Mechanismen zugrundeliegenden Prinzipien zu erforschen, zu erkennen und zu steuern.

Die Pendelbewegungen, die durch die Reformation, den Marxismus und den Nationalismus und den heutigen religiös-kulturellen „Kulturalismus“ ausgelöst wurden, pflanzen sich gleich Wellen auf dem Meer des Geistes und der Menschheitsgeschichte endlos fort, verursachen sogar geistige „Tsunamis“, wenn das geologische Fundament zusätzlich erschüttert wird und noch tiefere strukturelle Schichten des Menschen als die ideologischen bewegt werden. Dann kann es zu verheerenden Verwüstungen und Kriegen kommen.

Das Auftreten von Tsunamis im Zeitalter der Phase des Kulturalismus (Kulturkampf und religiöser Fundamentalismus), der kulturell und religiös bedingten Konflikte, ist eine interessante Parallele. Beide sind fundamental. Der Tsunami ist durch das Fundament des Meeres bedingt und erfährt dadurch eine Potenzierung. Der kulturell-religiöse Fundamentalismus ist deshalb fundamental, weil er eine extreme Form einer Ideologie ist, die gleichermaßen verheerende Konsequenzen hat und deren Wirkungs- und Ausbreitungsgrad unüberschaubar ist und gleich den Tsunamis ganze Teile der Erde verwüsten kann, besonders jene, deren Lage sehr exponiert und daher gefährdet ist, das heißt, keinerlei höher gelegene für die Flutwelle unerreichbare Erhebungen hat. Ebenso erfordert der Schutz gegen den sogenannten Fundamentalismus eine höhere geistige Positionierung, die für den fundamentalen kulturell-religiösen Fanatismus unanfällig macht; eine höhere geistige Verankerung. Und das gilt auch für die anderen Formen der revolutionären, verabsolutierenden Götzenverehrung von Ideologien sozialer, politischer, kultureller und religiöser Art. Demnach wäre die Frage dahingehend umzuformulieren, wie sich der Mensch eine geistige Plattform errichten und sich im Meer der endlosen dialektischen Prozesse so verankern kann, daß der nicht von den Wellen erfaßt und mitgerissen werden kann, denn diese haben kein Ende. Sie transzendieren den Menschen um zahllose Generationen, pflanzen sich in die Endlosigkeit fort, wodoch der Mensch als Krone der Schöpfung so ausgestattet ist, daß er alles, einschließlich sich selbst, beherrschen könnte und sollte.

Die Dialektik ist endlos, der Mensch dagegen ist endlich. Seine eigene materielle Endlichkeit sollte ihm schon angesichts des ihn überdauernden Meeresgetöses zur Vorsicht mahnen. Gleich einer Welle wird er in der Flut verschwinden. Doch das Spiel der Wellen und Ideologien wird nie enden, sondern nimmt nur stets neue Formen an.

Die ideologischen Dialektiken reihen sich in eine endlose Kette von Dialektiken mit zahllosen vermeintlichen Perlen größerer oder kleinerer Umbrüche und Paradigmenwechsel bis hin zu den historischen Revolutionen ein. Das Prinzip der Perlenkette besteht in einer Kette, die schicksalhaft um des Menschen Hals gelegt, einer Schlinge, in der er gefangen ist und die ihn bisweilen zu ersticken droht. Von dieser Umschlingung scheint es kein Entrinnen zu geben. Das ist die condition humaine. Die zentrale Frage ist daher, ob es eine Möglichkeit gibt, den Hals aus der Schlinge zu ziehen und die vermeintliche, aus gefälschten Perlen bestehende Perlenkette, die ja eine Schlinge ist, abzulegen und sie in der Schmuckschatulle der Evolutionsgeschichte abzulegen. Kann die Endlosschleife durchbrochen werden, das Programm des menschlichen Geistes, der in einer dialektischen Endlosschleife gefangen ist, unterbrochen werden? Der Mensch versucht, diese Schlinge nach Kräften, soweit möglich, als ein makabres Schmuckwerk zu interpretieren. Doch selbst eine goldene Kette bleibt, wenn Sie ohne Unterlaß um den Hals gelegt ist und getragen werden muß, ein zweischneidiges Schwert, ein Damoklesschwert, das ständig determinierend über dem Schicksal hängt. Auch ein goldener Käfig ist und bleibt ein Gefängnis, wenn man darin verweilen muß. Er hört nur auf, ein Gefängnis zu sein, wenn man ihn sebstbestimmt betreten und verlassen kann.

Die angestoßenen Gedanken und Ideen, die sich als Ideologien vielfältiger Prägung verdichten, diffundieren in der Zeit und im Raum ad infinitum. Vielleicht kann man der Problematik etwas habhafter werden, wenn man, wie es in der indischen Psychologie der Fall ist, das Mentale nicht als immateriell, sondern vielmehr als materiell betrachtet. Materie ihrerseits kann man wiederum, so wissen wir vermittels des Komplementaritätsprinzips von Niels Bohr (1909) entweder als Teilchen und als Energie betrachten. Betrachtet man sie als Energie so wird verständlicher, daß die als Ideologien verdichteten Gedanken und Ideen gleich Wellen, Zellen oder Photonen unendlich diffundieren können. Gleich einem Zahlenstrahl, beginnend mit der Zahl eins, setzt er sich endlos fort sobald die Dualisierung begonnen hat.

Auf der mentalen Ebene herrscht das Prinzip der Dualität und der Dialektik. Die mentale Welle stößt zahllose weitere Wellen an und kann im Mentalbereich des Ozeans kein Ende finden, denn Wellen sind seine ureigene Natur, sowie es die Natur der Sonne ist, aufgrund ihrer gewaltigen Energie Licht auszustrahlen. Niemand außer dem Schöpfer dieser Naturkräfte kann ihnen gebieten, das nicht zu tun, was ihre ureigene Natur ist. Ebensowenig ist es möglich, im geistigen Bereich dem Mentalen zu gebieten, sich anders zu verhalten, als es durch seine Natur vorgegeben ist. Obschon die Variationen im Bereich des Ozeans des Mentalen myriadenfache Formen und Gestalten annehmen können, bleiben all diese Variationen doch gewissermaßen im horizontalen Bereich der Zeit, im Bereich der imperativen Dialektik, in dem eine Welle die andere auslöst und so fort. Das Optimum das hier zu erhoffen ist, sind Optimierungen aufgrund der Multiplizierung der Alternativen und Synergien aus diesen. Damit könnte man sich zufrieden geben, doch auch diese Optima erzeugen ihrerseits wiederum das endlose Spiel der Wellen auf dem Ozean des menschlichen Geistes. Man bleibt weiter in der Endlosschleife, wenn auch vielleicht auf einer etwas höheren Ebene intellektueller Sophistikation. Etwas extrem formuliert könnte man es als ein Flugzeug in der Warteschleife für die Landung über einer goldenen, traumhaften Stadt einer anderen Welt betrachten. Vom Flugzeug aus kann man die Silhouetten und Attraktionen zum Greifen nah wahrnehmen, aber es gibt keine Landeerlaubnis auf jenem Flughafen; wiederum eine Endloswarteschleife ohne Möglichkeit der Landung an dem Ort, der die Wirklichkeit in einem anderen Licht erscheinen läßt und in dem ganz andere Gesetze und Regeln herrschen als die bekannten. Woher soll man aber die Landecodes und Koordinaten für jenen unbekannten Hafen bekommen? Bislang hat man sich in einem andern Bewußtseinsraum bewegt, dessen Spezifikationen relativ bekannt sind.

Es ist erforderlich, den Hafen und Ankerplatz einer ganz anderen Geisteskultur zu erreichen, das Spiel der Wellen der Ideen und Ideologien oder das den Wellen auf dem Ozean des Mentalen zugrundeliegende energetische Prinzip zu erkennen. Bei all diesen Metaphern, die die Dialektik des Mentalbereichs beschreiben, gilt es, sich von der horizontalen Ebene in die vertikale zu erheben, um ein bestimmendes Prinzip zu identifizieren. Im Bereich des Ozeans sind es die kosmischen Kräfte, die den Wellengang determinieren. Im Bereich der mentalen Wellen ist es das Prinzip der Dualität und Dialektik, die die endlose Ausbreitung der Wellen erzeugt, die wir als Natur des Ozeans des Mentalen, wie auch des physischen erkannt haben.

Mit einem anderen Metaphernsatz weiter fortfahrend gilt es, zu dem Punkt zu gelangen, wo das Pendel, das sich endlos fortbewegt und nicht zur Ruhe kommen kann, weil es die Natur eines funktionierenden Pendels ist, gleich der dialektischen Welt der Ideen und Ideologien zu schwingen, aufgehängt und fix und unbewegt verankert ist; von der sich endlos bewegenden Peripherie des sich drehenden Rades zur unbewegten Nabe zu gelangen, um das mentale Schicksalsrad von der Unsteuerbarkeit in die Steuerbarkeit zu überführen; oder, in der Wellenmetapher, geistig zu jenem Punkt zu gelangen, woher die Gezeiten und die Wellen ihre elektromagnetische, dialektisch wirkende Kraft beziehen. Dieser Ort, den wir über die verschiedenen Metaphern suchen, hat die Eigenschaft, daß er jeweils eine Rückführung, numerisch betrachtet, der 2 der Dualität in die 1 der Einheit it. Dort ist die Dualität und Dialektik potentiell, noch nicht aktualisiert. Dies wäre zunächst ein Rettungsanker vor der Unerbittlichkeit der Dialektik, in dem Aktion und Reaktion stabilisiert sind, der Ort der Konvergenz von Zeit und Zeitlosigkeit und der Dämmerung, die einen Übergang zwischen Tag und Nacht bildet, einen Angelpunkt der beide Zustände umfasst. Doch auch dieser ist nicht von Dauer, obwohl man ihn geistig auszudehnen vermag und sich nicht in die beiden zwangsläufigen Zustände der Pendelbewegung des Tages und der Nacht involvieren lassen muß.

Bislang haben die Gesellschaften, entsprechend ihren kulturellen Wertepräferenzen, die dialektischen Widersprüche bald autoritärer oder demokratisch-kooperativer gelöst. In Einklang damit haben sie ihre politischen Systeme gewählt. Entsprechend diesen grundsätzlichen gesellschaftlichen Optionen tranchieren die institutionellen Umgebungen der Gesellschaft im Einklang mit den vorherrschenden Wertsystemen die Artefakte der mentalen Dialektik. Auch bei Umwälzungen geht der Determinismus des wertebedingten dialektischen Problemlösens weitgehend unabhängig von der Systemveränderung weiter. Dasselbe Rad, dasselbe Pendel, dieselben Wellen bewegen sich fort, weil ein und dasselbe Mentale mit den einen und denselben dialektischen Gesetzmäßigkeiten in allen Kreationen und Geschöpfen seines Geistes fortwirkt. Gerade darin besteht die Unerbittlichkeit des Mentalen, daß es als Geschöpf der Zeit nicht über die „Gezeiten“ der Dualität hinauszugehen vermag. Statt sich linear höherzuentwickeln dreht sich der Mensch im Kreis, bestenfalls ansatzweise in einer Aufwärtsspirale, aufgrund der Einsicht in die endlose Repetition der Phänomene. Doch auch Hegel stellte bereits fest, dass wir aus der Geschichte lernen, dass wir nichts aus ihr lernen; eben deshalb weil die Gesetze des Mentalen konstant bleiben und sich auf dieser Ebene gar nichts Fundamentales ändern kann, kein fundamentaler Lerneffekt erzielt werden kann.

Die Einsicht in die Weglosigkeit, in die Ausweglosigkeit der mentalen condition humaine kann zu einer Suspendierung der dialektischen Intensität führen, von der Positionierung aus dem Bereich der extremen Pendelausschläge hin zur stabileren Verankerung des Pendels, bzw. hin zur Nabe des Rades, das zwar Teil und Kern des Rades ist, aber im übrigen stabil bleibt und nicht der unerbittlichen Bewegung der Peripherie unterworfen ist.

Wie kann man den endlos strahlend blauen Himmel weit über der Düsternis der Irrungen und Wirrungen des menschlichen Gemüts mit seinen emotional verstärkten selbstsuchenden Abgründen wiedererlangen; das verlorene Paradies gewissermaßen wiedergewinnen? Kulturell diverse säkulare und religiöse Weltanschauungen haben ihre Lösungen über die Zeitalter hinweg angeboten. Selbst die Wissenschaft versucht es in brillanten Konstrukten und Konstruktionen, die Philosophie in brillanten Synthesen; man befindet sich auf der Jagd nach dem, was die Welt im Inneren zusammenhält, dessen, durch dessen Wissen alles gewußt werden kann. Doch je mehr man etwas gewinnen will, das Geheimnis des Lebens hinter dem Leben, desto mehr riskiert man es zu verlieren. Die Bibel sagt: Wer das Leben gewinnen will, wird es verlieren, wahrscheinlich weil die Prämisse der Suche falsch ist und nicht zum Ziel führen kann. Im Bereich der Dualität und Relativität des Ichs ist das Eine, Absolute schlichtweg nicht beheimatet und nicht lokalisierbar. Je mehr man es dorthin verbannen möchte, desto mehr flieht es.

Asiatische Philosophien haben Lösungen angeboten: Die indische Kultur, deren höchste Priorität die Wahrheitssuche ist, hat das Konzept des Bewußtseins-Zeugen entwickelt, um die Bewußtheit des Bewußtseins jenseits des gängigen Bewußtseins zu beschreiben, welches jenseits des Gemüts liegt; das reine Bewußtsein. Der Daoismus sucht das höchste Einheitsprinzip, das alle Dualität transzendiert pragmatisch im Nicht-Tun, das jedes Tun, welches seinerseits die Verkettung und Verstrickung in der individuellen und kollektiven mental-emotionalen Dialektik in Gang setzt, transzendiert. Die Religion, insbesondere die christliche monotheistische, erkennt die mystische Einheit und das Erlösungswerk der Liebe des Schöpfers, die Gnade, als den Weg der zur Einheit jenseits aller Dualität zurückführt. Dieses Erlösungswerk wurde auf Geheiß des Vaters und Schöpfer durch die Hingabe seines einzigen Sohnes für das Geschöpf und die Schöpfung erwirkt. Ein kosmisches Erlösungswerk, das die gesamte Schöpfung und den Schöpfer versöhnt, die Welt des sichtbaren relativen, dialektisch dualen in der Welt des Unsichtbaren, absoluten Einen mystisch erlöst. Dieser dadurch ermöglichte neue Himmel und die neue Erde erlöst alle menschlichen Unzulänglichkeiten, auch die mentalen, dialektischen Labyrinthe der Wege und Irrwege des rein menschlichen Geistes im Geist des einen Gottes, der den eigentlichen Schlüssel zur Schöpfung jenseits aller menschlichen Erkenntnisse und Konstruktionen besitzt, und der Geist Gottes offenbart jene Geheimnisse aber nur wem er will.

Will man etwas Geschaffenes verstehen, so sollte man den Weg zum Schöpfer des Geschaffenen suchen und ihn respektvoll über sein Werk befragen, statt seine eigenen Spekulationen dem Werk aufzuprägen und es falsch zu interpretieren. Der Mensch hat sich in der Reformation, dem Marxismus, dem Nationalismus und Hitlerismus, der Gegenkulturrevolution, sowie der den Kreislauf subsumierenden heutigen Kultur- und Religionsrevolution, die eine neue Schleife des fünfphasigen religiös-politisch-national-sozial-kulturellen Kreislaufes einleitet, progressiv vom Zentrum der Schöpfung, gleich einem seine Autonomie suchenden Adoleszenten in der Entwicklungskrise, zu lösen versucht und ist dadurch den ideologischen Irrwegen fern von seiner angestammten geistigen Heimat, der der mystischen Verbindung mit dem Vaterhaus, dem Vater, anheimgefallen.

Heute, in der dämmernden Erkenntnis der Irrwege in Bezug auf die geistige Heimat des Menschen in der Einheit mit Schöpfung und Schöpfer, kehrt er nach Jahrhunderten der Ernüchterung durch die unfruchtbaren Dialektiken des menschlichen Geistes wieder zum Ausgangspunkt zurück und er sucht die Rückverbindung und Reintegration mit dem, was er intuitiv, erfahrungs- und erkenntnismäßig als seine eigentliche Heimat wahrnimmt. Deshalb haben wir gegenwärtig ein weltweites Wiedererwachen des kulturellen, das in hohem Maße mit einem religiösen Widererwachen gekoppelt ist. Es ist das Pendant der Phase 1 der fünf Revolutionen und koinzidiert seit dem zweiten Vatikanum mit dem Auftrag der Ökumene, einer Umkehrung des vor beinahe fünfhundert Jahren ausgelösten Konfliktes, eine Reintegration und Rückführung der Dialektik in die Einheit. Wenn diese Replizierung des Zyklus auf einer höheren Ebene der Spiralwindung erfolgen kann, kann diese religiöse zyklische Phase eine echte Re-Integration, Wieder-Einswerdung bewirken, und alle reformatorischen und revolutionären Dialektiken des menschlichen Geistes wieder in die eine wahre Heimat des menschlichen Geistes, jenseits der Dialektiken zurückführen und gewissermaßen die Wiedergewinnung des verlorenen Paradieses bedeuten. Wenn der Mensch mit dem Schöpfer und der Schöpfung im Sinne der allumfassenden mystischen Einheit jenseits der dialektischen mentalen Konstrukte seiner eigenen begrenzten Welt kooperiert und wenn er auf einer nun erweiterten Ebene höherer Erkenntnis auf der höheren Spiralwindung des Evolutionsprinzips der Doppelhelix (der DNA) nicht mehr in die Verkettung und Verstrickungen der Dualität des Gemütes zurückfällt und diese von seiner nun teuer erworbenen höheren Ebene der Erkenntnis der Einheit alles Seienden jenseits der rein mentalen Erkenntnis und Erkenntnisfähigkeit leiten und steuern kann, dann ist die Tür des Vaterhauses geöffnet, deren Durchschreitung zur wahren Heimat zurückführt, zur einen Quelle, zum einen Ursprung, zur einen Wahrheit. Und wo ist dann der Stachel des Gemütes, der Dualität, wenn die Einheit im Vaterhaus vollzogen ist, wenn das Ziel einer Herde und eines Hirten erreicht ist?

Die kulturell-religiöse revolutionshistorische Phase, die heute eine neue Spiralwindung der Revolutionen einleitet, ist eine integrative, in der die vorangehenden gipfeln und enthalten sind, da sie mit der Einheit der gesamten Schöpfung und dem Schöpfer, die alles sichtbare und unsichtbare umfasst, einhergeht, wenn sie auf der ihr gebührenden Ebene betrachtet wird. Die Dialektik der Religionen ist ein gefährlicher Weg, der erneute Dialektiken und Destruktionen auslösen kann und dies tut. Die nun mögliche höhere Ebene der Erkenntnis erfordert die damit verbundene Erkenntnis der essentiellen Einheit, die die destruktiven Dialektiken des reduktiven Einheitsbegriffs und der Absolutheit der Fragmente, die sich als das Absolute betrachten, aufhebt; zumindest in einer Form, die die friedliche Koexistenz ermöglicht, da das Mentale und die mentalen Prozesse, die in der Zeit entstanden sind, eventuell Zeit für eine weitere Integration im Hinblick auf die „ein Hirt, eine Herde“ - Perspektive benötigen, obschon das Bewusstsein schon viel weiter fortgeschritten sein kann.

Auch die dialektischen Spaltungen des Marxismus und des Nationalismus sind in dieser Phase in einer Integration begriffen. Die ideologische Bipolarisierung der Welt endete mit dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion; die national-faschistischen Spaltungen in den Nachwehen des Weltkrieges und dem Aufbau supranationaler und weltumspannender Konzepte und Konstrukte, die Wirrungen der Gegenkulturrevolution werden Schritt für Schritt als Irrwege entlarvt, da sie eine totale Loslösung vom Absoluten und von den guten Traditionen mit sich brachten: eine geschichtslose und zukunftslose Perspektive der Sackgasse des gutgemeinten Aufbäumens der Jugend der Welt gegen die dialektischen Destruktionspotenziale des Menschen; eine totale Negation als endgültiger Befreiungsschlag, aber fehlgeschlagen und als Erkenntnisgewinn in der Geschichte der Menschheit verbucht werden kann und sich somit letztendlich doch als fruchtbar erweisen kann.

Die kulturell, religiöse Revolution ist also einerseits eine Phase im revolutionären Kreislauf, in der aufgrund ihrer umfassenden Natur aber insbesondere alle Phasen präsent sind. Die Reintegration der anderen revolutionären Dialektiken führt mit ihr zu einer übergeordneten allumfassenden Integration mit der Einheit der Schöpfung insgesamt:

Die sanktionierte Ökumene ist die Reintegration der Dialektik der Reformation,

das Ende der Bipolarisierung der Welt ist die Reintegration der Spaltung des Marxismus,

die supranationale Integration ist die Reintegration der Spaltung des Nationalismus,

und die globale Zivilisation ist die Reintegration der kulturellen Ethnozentrismen;

die kulturell-religiöse Revolution, die im Verlauf ist, kann, sofern sie erfolgreich ist, zur Reintegration mit dem Absoluten und der Einheit von Schöpfer und Geschöpf, der Einheit der Menschheitsfamilie unter der Ägide des Schöpfer und Vaters aller jenseits aller Dialektik führen: die eine wahre Revolution.

Doch nur der Ratschluss des Höchsten, in dessen Hand die Zeit, der Mensch und das Mentale, ja selbst das reine Bewusstsein sind, wird über die weiteren Bemühungen des Menschen befinden und sie sanktionieren. Der Mensch hat sein eigenes Schicksal in der Form der Revolutionen selbstbestimmend in die Hand nehmen wollen. Das sollte nun im Lichte der Erkenntnis der Verläufe dieser Prozesse in einem weiteren Blickwinkel betrachtet werden.

- Und dennoch, mit der Erkenntnis wahrhaftiger Religion hätte er es in der Hand gehabt, das Rad des dialektischen Schicksals zumindest in der Unerbittlichkeit seiner Revolutionen (Umdrehungen) mäßigen zu können. Die Vergebung und die Feindesliebe unterbrechen so manchen wenig tugendhaften, sich selbst dialektisch perpetuierenden Kreislauf, der sich über Generationen, beispielsweise zwischen Nationen, Kulturen und Religionen erstreckt. Die edelsten christlichen Kardinaltugenden, in deren Kenntnis wir seit nunmehr zweitausend Jahren sind, leisten die Befreiung von den Schlingen des zeitlichen, mentalen, dialektischen Psychosozialen, die die Menschen in wenig tugendhaften Kreisläufen aneinanderfesseln und mit der Zeit unentwirrbarer werden, da sie als Selbstläufer der Rationalität unzugänglich werden. Somit eskalieren Erbfeindschaften über Generationen hinweg in absehbarer Regelmäßigkeit zyklisch in Krieg. Die drei deutsch-französischen Kriege zwischen 1870 und dem Ende des zweiten Weltkrieges beispielsweise sprechen dafür. Heißt Freundschaft und echte politische Partnerschaft nicht auch Vergebung der Fehltritte des ehemaligen Feindes, nicht weiter auf der Kriegsbeute nach dem Motto „der Gewinner nimmt alles, der Verlierer geht leer aus“ beharren und praktische Vergebung durch Rückgabe der Kriegsbeute, um somit ein für alle Male das Schicksalsrad, das ein unerbittliches Generationen umspannendes Langzeitgedächtnis hat, zum Stillstand zu bringen, denn die Vergebung und die Nächstenliebe sind göttliche Tugenden und Christus ist durchaus in der Lage, das Rad des Schicksalsrad anzuhalten, denn:

SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS

CHRISTUS DER SÄMAN HÄLT DAS RAD DES SCHICKSLAS AN

Man darf dieses Verhalten im christlichen Geist postulieren, insbesondere wenn ehemalige Kontrahenten seit weit über tausend Jahren dieselbe christliche Ethik und Lehre auf ihre Banner geschrieben haben, auch wenn man sich dadurch der Schmach der Stigmatisierung als Revanchist aussetzt. Die höhere Wahrheit wird langfristig obsiegen. Die Wahrheit befreit, wenn ihr Tag gekommen ist. Und der kommt, wenn er kommen muss, wenn die Zeit reif ist.

Dies würde auch den Stress abbauen, der sich wiederum in einem Feedbackkreislauf fortpflanzt, der durch die Diskrepanz der geopolitischen Weltkarten und der mental über Genrationen gespeicherten Weltkarten entsteht und unterhalten wird. -

Besteht die wahre Revolution in der Nichtdialektik der Integration der Teile in einem Bewusstsein? Hat die Integration der rein mental-emotional basierten revolutionären Dialektik der ZWEI des zweiten Jahrtausends mit der Dämmerung der DREI (des dritten Jahrtausends) als numerischem Integrator der Dualität der ZWEI des zweiten Jahrtausends nicht bereits begonnen und weist auf deren Transzendenz in einem möglichen neuen universelleren Bewusstsein hin, das die Religion von Anfang an als Erlösung aus der konstitutiven Dualität des Menschen auf ihre Banner geschrieben hat? Musste sich das Mentale, durchaus mit seiner Ambivalenz, aber nicht zuvor zu seiner vollen Blüte entfalten, damit die edelste Frucht des menschlichen Geistes reifen kann? Jene Frucht, auf die hin die Schöpfung angelegt ist: das Bewusstseins der einen Schöpfung, der Einheit. Der Geist der Trinität ermöglicht diese allumfassende Integration. Daher kommt der Religion in dieser Phase wieder eine allumfassende, entscheidende Bedeutung zu. Die Dreifaltigkeit fasst die Integration und Transzendenz widerspruchsfrei und sublim zusammen: die Vermittlung zwischen den Welten, sowie die Transzendenz; Erlösung durch Christus und Rückführung durch den Geist der Wahrheit zur Einheit des Vaters als einem Hirten und einer Herde auf einer Erde. Diese drei Aspekte sind das übergeordnete Programm der Menschheitsgeschichte. Wer könnte die Grundkonstanten der Schöpfung ändern! Keine Revolution, die sich außerhalb dieser Bestimmung vollzieht, ist von Bestand. Deshalb ergibt sich der Auftrag der Relativierung aller menschlichen Belange durch ihre Kompatibilität mit dem Schöpfungspragramm, das allumfassend ist. Andere Kulturen, Zeiten und Breiten haben diese intuitive Erkenntnis durch Abstimmung mit den metaphysischen Entitäten, Prinzipen und Zyklen des kosmischen Ganzen gesucht, bisweilen bis in die Detailentscheidungen hinein.

Wenn ein Zen-Adept sich Hals über Kopf in das Meer des Zen stürzt, ein wahrer Mystiker, gleich welcher Religion, die höchsten Bereiche der Erkenntnis erlangt, ein Christ das Antlitz Christi erfährt, der Yogi im Samadhi die Befreiung erlangt, dann haben diese Wege über das Labyrinth der Weges des Mentalen hinweg gewissermaßen direkt zum Ziel geführt.

Die mühsamen Wege wahrer Erkenntnissuche konvergieren zum Gipfel der Erkenntnis hin. Gleich einem Himalaya der Erkenntnis erscheinen die verschiedenen Routen der Wege der Erkenntnis zunächst nicht einsehbar von ihren jeweiligen Warten, sondern getrennt und unvereinbar. Erst wenn man aufsteigt dämmert das eine Ziel der verschiedenen Wege. In dem Maße, wie man sich dem Ziel nähert, lösen sich ihre Widersprüche auf. Die Einheit als erlösenden Prinzips der mannigfachen Diversität und Dualität ist daher weniger eine Frage des Weges, sondern vielmehr des Fortschritts auf dem Wege der Erkenntnis der Einheit. Und die geistig-psychisch-körperliche Einheit ist interdependent und Teil der allumfassenden Einheit. In dieser Einheit offenbart sich das Leben in Fülle, das Herz und der Geist des strahlend blauen Himmels, die wahre Freiheit und Befreiung, die Einheit in Gott und höchste Erkenntnis, allumfassende Caritas und Veritas, einem jeden nach seinen kulturellen und persönlichen Erfordernissen. Wahrheit-Bewusstsein-Glückseligkeit haben es südasiatische Erleuchtete genannt. Der eine Geist kann viele Formen annehmen; wichtig ist, dass es der wahre Geist der Einheit und nicht der der Spaltung ist. All das ist das Geschenk das jenseits der Dialektik des Mentalen bereitet ist und auf jene wartet, die den geringen Preis des relativen, dualistischen, relativen, rein mentalen Bewusstseins in die Waagschale legen. Doch dieses Opfer wird veredelt in der Erkenntnis der Einheit zurückgegeben.

Im grenzenlosen Ozean des Göttlichen sind dies untrennbare Wellen vom All-Bewusstsein und entsprechen einer höheren, über das relative des Mentalen hinausführende Spiralwindung der Evolutionsspirale.

Nun möchte ich die Ebenen der dialektischen und der nichtdialektischen Realitätserkenntnis in einem Einheitsmodell unter kulturellem Blickwinkel zusammenfassen. (siehe folgende Seite) Das Modell hat eine Domstruktur und wurde unter der Bezeichnung Transkultureller Management Profiler von mir zunächst für Zwecke des globalen kulturgrenzüberschreitenden Managements entwickelt.

Der transkulturelle Profiler ist ein Integrations- und Steuerungsinstrument der gesamten psychologischen Architektur globaler Managementakteure zur

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Optimierung der interkulturellen und transkulturellen Managementprozesse, insbesondere globaler Manager metanationaler Organisationen, die Komplexität multidimensional managen müssen. Dem Optimum sind im Bereich des Zeitgebundenen, Relativen der Kulturen die Grenzen der Dialektik des Mentalbereichs, zu dem die mentale kulturelle Software oder Programmierung gehört, gesetzt. Anpassung und Synergie stellen ein Optimum in diesem Bereich dar, das aber unter Miteinbeziehung der transkulturellen Ebene in Bezug auf Nachhaltigkeit, Effizienz und Konfliktfreiheit weiter optimiert werden kann.

Neurophysiologie und Philosophie des Ostens und des Westens stellen die Kategorie eines das Mentale transzendierenden Bewußtseins bereit, das alle denkbaren psychologischen Parameter, die sowohl die kulturelle Ausprägung der Revolutionen, als auch die diversen kulturellen Werte und Verhaltensmuster im Bereich des globalen Managements und der globalen Kommunikation determinieren.

Was die kulturkontingente Umsetzung von Ideologien anbelangt, so erkennt man beispielsweise, daß die sozialanthropologisch kollektivistischen Kulturen des Ostens (z. B. Rußland und China) den politischen Kollektivismus des Marxismus positiv rezipiert haben, daß aber auch nur ein Hauch davon in sehr individualistischen Kulturen wie den angelsächsischen, den USA beispielsweise, eine sprichwörtliche Hexenjagd zur Folge hat. Ebenso wie die autoritären Kulturen dieser Völker (des Ostens) dem Marxismus eine sehr zentraldirigistische, autoritäre Prägung gegeben haben, hat der ausgeprägte Individualismus und viel geringere Autoritarismus der angelsächsischen Kulturen eine sehr liberale Form des Finanzkapitalismus geprägt. Das autoritäre kollektivistische System hat abgewirtschaftet, weil es den dem Kollektivismus und Kommunitarismus entgegengesetzten, aber komplementären individualistischen Pol der Selbstbestimmung nicht integrieren konnte, denn Werte sind ganzheitliche Kontinua und repräsentieren Dilemmata, die in der Form der Integration ihrer Pole auf längere Sicht gelöst werden müssen, um die Viabilität der Gesellschaften nicht durch Ein-Prinzip Imperialismus zu schwächen und seiner Ressourcen zu berauben. Die Finanzkrise der ersten Dekade des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, die beinahe das Weltfinanzsystem aus den Angeln gehoben hätte, wurde durch Exzesse am individualistischen Pol des Individualismus-Kommunitarismus Wertekontinuums verursacht, bei gleichzeitig geringer zentraler autoritärer Abstimmung oder Koordination des Gesamtfinanzsystems. Globale Krisen wie das Ende der ideologischen Bipolarisierung der Welt, sowie die Bedrohung des globalen Finanzsystems und somit der Weltwirtschaft werden vom kulturellen Missmanagement der Systeme mitbestimmt. Man könnte systematisch alle Kulturparameter einen nach dem anderen durchgehen und zeigen, wie die kulturellen Wertepräferenzen die Ausgestaltung revolutionärer Ideologien über den Determinismus der Dialektik des Mentalen hinaus, determiniert haben.

Betrachtet man das skizzenhafte Dommodell, das die kulturspezifische psychologische Architektur eines globalen Akteurs symbolisiert, so erkennt man rein äußerlich schematisch vom Domdesign her zwei Hauptkomponenten, und zwar die Kuppelkonstruktion mit der Laterne, sowie die darunter befindlichen Räume des Domes mit seinem Fundament. Von Eckstein bis Schlußstein bildet er eine nach oben konvergierende Einheit, die in der Konvergenz der Kuppelbögen ersichtlich ist. Richtet man den Blick auf die zwölf mal zwölf dimensionalen Ebenen, eine Zahl der Quadratur der Ganzheit und Architektur aller Schwingungen der kulturellen Psyche in allen möglichen Registern, denn eine Oktave beseht aus zwölf Halbtonschritten, so ergeben die 12 Oktaven der psychologischen Architektur ein Gesamtbild der interkulturellen psychologischen Variationsmöglichkeiten. Blickt man in die Struktur hinein, so erkennt man die multidimensionale kulturelle Dialektik, sowie den Übergang zu der antennenhaften Spitze der Einheitsdimensionen.

Das Psychogramm eines interkulturellen Akteurs bleibt suboptimal, solange nicht die die kulturelle Dialektik unterordnende und integrierende Ebene der Einheit, die ich in Anlehnung an die Forschungsarbeit von Dr. Thérèse Brosse und die altgriechische Philosophie als noetisch oder transkulturell bezeichnet habe, ins Spiel kommt. Kann sie aktiviert werden, so werden interkulturelle mentale Dialektiken aus ihrer Dialektik erlöst und in ihre Einheit zurückgeführt. Interkulturell und mental-dialektisch bedingte Antagonismen können somit gelöst werden. Die Lösung besteht im Perspektivewechsel des interkulturellen Akteurs. Was auf der dualistischen Ebene ein Dilemma erzeugte, hört im Lichte des noetischen, transkulturellen, einen Bewußtseins auf, eines zu sein.

Die nachhaltigste und konfliktfreiste und befreiende Revolution ist daher die, die von der alles integrierenden noetischen oder transkulturellen Ebene ausgeht. Wie die Laterne auf der Kuppel des Doms kann sie bei entsprechender Stärke die gesamte interkulturelle Architektur des Interkulturellen ausleuchten, alle Register und Tonarten der 12 Oktaven-Architektur harmonisieren.

Die Validierung dieser Dimension kann nicht konventionell vermittelt werden, um sie nicht auf den Mentalbereich zu reduzieren, wo wiederum die Geister der Dialektik greifen würden. Eine Sensibilisierung und logische Heranführung ist hilfreich, doch im wesentlichen liegt die anvisierte, die mentale und kulturelle Dialektik integrierende Dimension im Bereich der persönlichen Entwicklung, der Erfahrung und des inneren Wachstums.

Somit bedürfte es einer kritischen Masse bewusster Menschen, die die Relativität der mentalen, kulturellen und revolutionären Prozesse in einer übergeordneten Erkenntnis erlösen kann, um einen universellen Bewusstseinswandel anzubahnen, durch den eine friedliche, revolutionsfreie globale Zivilisation bedingt.

THE CULTURAL LABOUR OF MANKIND

The labouring of cultures, nations and religions are but symptoms of the whole of creation gravitating towards unity. The wars of diversity are but a reshuffling and reconfiguration of the totality. We look into the direction of the diverse components. Yet, it actually is about the total which integrates. The singularities of diversity are bound for a singular unity.

The integration of the universe of universes will reveal the mystery of life. What cannot be found in the parts will make sense when the whole becomes evident. It is impossible to understand an organ independently from the biological system it is part of. Similarly, the mystery behind creation will only become evident when its wholeness becomes evident.

The agent which can enable and impede this perception is the mind which focuses on and clings to components of the whole, because it finds security and stability in them and the price of this perceived security is that it misses the totality, which appears as far too vague to provide the security one seeks. And yet the small securities are all time-bound. The only real security lies in the totality of the whole because it transcends individual time.

Man thinks that if he gives up the small scale individual security, he loses his life altogether. Therefore he refuses a wider reference frame, be it supranational or global, cosmic or the perspective of the whole of creation. And yet, whether one adheres to a creationist of evolutionist view of the world, the whole is an integrated, interdependent system, whether it has evolved sequentially or whether it has been created in one seven-day act of creation by a Creator.

Whatever world view one may have, the totality wants to express itself through each member of it as it carries the information of the totality in it. The member or component of the totality can inhibit this through clinging to what he/she perceives superficially as his/her wholeness, which is a fragment. The totality of life is one and it wants to express itself wholly in each part. Otherwise disequilibria may occur. This applies to individual and to social entities alike.

The individual and collective selves tends to focus on what they perceive as their interest and to cut themselves off from the life of the totality of the whole. This creates deficits in individual and social entities, which leads to compensatory behaviour to recover what their pursuit of a supposed security has inhibited. Therefore all the dialectics of diversity are but compensatory processes of the negation of the One. For only in the One life flourishes freely. The disconnection form the One means inhibiting life.

All life is relationship, relationship with life, which is One. Death is separation form life at the maximum. Relationship or separation within an organism and with life as such determine an organism’s vital viability. When the breath of life does not reach parts of the organism it suffers. And when a part suffers the whole organism suffers. Cut off from the blood flow, which is life, the organ suffers as well as the organism as a whole. All medical systems try to restore, according to the philosophies of their respective medical schools, the relationship between the parts of the organism as a whole. All political, social and other systems try to reconfigure the relationships of the parts of those systems as whole. Philosophy, science and religion seek to understand and reconnect to the whole, to their concept of the whole. Through the quest of wholeness he restores his own wholeness. This wholeness means life. And the inexistence of wholeness is a step towards death, as full life exists only in the Oneness man intuitively searches.

Man seeks to achieve his wholeness by clinging to parts which are actually the denial of true wholeness. But he cannot find any fulfillment and peace in pursuing them in the parts of the whole and the One. Only in the latter life pulses freely and fully.

The totality of creation reveals that which enables it, as the organ cannot explain life, but only the organism as a whole. Life is indivisible. The indivisibility of life constitutes the individual; organically, psychologically and spiritually, structurally and functionally. The wholeness and indivisibility of the individual and the wholeness and indivisibility of creation are not in contradiction, they rather fulfill the law of the one, of the indivisibility of life at their respective scales. If the individual however loses out of sight that his indivisibility and his life are total replications of the totality, a separation from the oneness of life may occur which may impair his indivisibility and vitality, because his life and that of life of the whole of creation are part of the same life. Seeking life at the expense of the whole is a contradiction in term and leads to problems because all life is one. There is, so it seems, no getting around it. The relationship between individual wholeness and the indivisibility of life and that of creation is mysterious, but it can be understood.

It is not epistemologically incorrect to draw on millennia old scriptures. There are a number of metaphorical statements which obviously refer to a personalized mystical union of life, such as John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear rich fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.” And in 1 Corinthians 12 which, on account of its immeasurable value, I would like to quote from the English Bible entirely:

“Spiritual Gifts:

12:1 Now concerning [1] spiritual gifts, [2] brothers, [3] I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

One Body with Many Members

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves [4] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, [5] yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.”

Life is in unity, union and relationship. The mystery of relationship within an organism and between organisms creates life. Living this relationship is love beyond emotion. Therefore one can realize the unity of life through understanding and love of others and in particular through love of God who embodies the oneness and indivisibility of life as a whole. So, there are different routes to Life which is One. It is the only way, because besides life there is no life, but death. And it is the Truth, because all other truths are not the highest Truth and do not lead to Life. Life is the ultimate Truth, the only Way, and therefore Truth as such. Millennia old religions have understood this. In Christ or the incarnation of Life as such, which is Logos or Verb and which has created everything, the Way, Truth, Life and Love are supremely subsumed. They are aspects of GOD. The seven terms: Christ, Logos, Way, Truth, Life, Love and GOD are one and the same: Verbum!

Good science and philosophy are an approximation to it from diverse angles. However, the relativity of the perceptual positions tends to disclose merely aspects of it. To capture the whole, the relativity of perceptual capabilities, sensory and instrumental, seems too limited. Even the best of science as the Uncertainty Principle and the Principle of Complementarity (by Heisenberg and Bohr respectively) in physics confirm this conditioned perception of matter and energy. This leads to an antagonism between science which, except at its noblest level, is mainly concerned with the parts and religion which is mainly concerned with the whole. Logically they should be understood as synergistic and inform about all aspects of the totality which alone unveils the enigma of life.

Only when the oneness and indivisibility of life and the actual integration in it have been realized the insight is implicit. Life recognizes life itself: beyond the relativity of senses, instruments and theories. In the meantime it is a matter of trust, faith and hope. When life recognizes itself in all life it becomes an experiential fact.

This has ethical implications. Then the ethical criterion par excellence is to what extent any thought, word or deed is in line with the sevenfold principle referred to above. And this ethics is a matter of pragmatism and life: of survival. Any wisdom, enlightenment, true knowledge and intelligence is in reference to it. Relative knowledge and true knowledge are often at dead angles to each other. And that is the problem of human affairs. Relative knowledge creates duality and conflict until it is connected to true knowledge, the knowledge of life itself which is one by definition. Only there, in true knowledge, the diversities of relative knowledge converge and find peace. The dialectics of relative knowledge are milestones on the roadmap towards true knowledge, which resides in the indivisibility of the one life without a second. Therefore one should have no other God besides that one who is life itself, because there is no other. There is no life besides life. Only the negation of it. The dialectics of diversity are launching pads and building blocks on the route towards the goal of life itself. They culminate in ever higher forms of understanding until the goal of all encompassing integration of life as a whole is reached. This process may be referred to as the laboring of creation from which one solidary human family could emerge. It involves the pain of the dialectics of the incomplete perception of the oneness of life. The diverse optics want to be redeemed and born as a superordinate optic of what underpins them: the one life itself.

Duality is the name of the route towards the unity of life. Duality can only be redeemed by and in unity, the one life itself. Creation is on the road to this noble goal. It may be called labouring because it is the process of one superordinate truth evolving and being born form duality, as the life of an embryo evolves from a dual principle in order to be born as a life, which is one.

All seeking of truth is a seeking of life, true life, the only truth, the only way, because all others are not within life and lead to death. Seeking in one’s heart, in Holy Scriptures, in knowledge, holy mountains, rivers and secluded caves as a hermit, in the viriditas (greening and growing power of nature), etc. may lead to the one truth of indivisible life. All hat lives is part of it, its vitality and intelligence pervade and reflect it. Therefore all the routes of life may lead to it. One is it oneself. Recognizing life in oneself means integrating with the oneness of life, which is the goal of seeking. It is union beyond thought, sensory and emotional experience. It is a state sufficing itself and whole for its own sake. It means, metaphorically speaking, catching a glimpse of God: not with the specific five senses but rather with that which nourishes them all, which is life itself. It is an encounter between life and life, of the mirror image with that which is mirrored. This recognition, the merger of the mirror image with the mirrored is the encounter with the unity of life, the experience of its oneness and indivisibility. Any person can be a mirror for an encounter with life, a merger with and a realization of it. As there is only one indivisible life which pervades all it can be encountered in as many directions as one finds water in an ocean –everywhere and endlessly. Some mirrors may reflect it better than others, particularly those who have realized more of it, such as saints – today is All Saints Day. As the finest flowers in the garden of creation they have reached the destination of the path towards the wholeness of life, love and truth. Therefore they are considered holy. They have merged with the ocean of love and live from whence they emerged. In that sense they are example to be emulated by those on the road, individuals and societies, irrespective of their diverse backgrounds, for this road is one, it is the road of life.

The awareness of being part of the mystical union of the oneness of all life is a revelation. There is no antagonism in it. And where there is no antagonism, there is no duality but unity. It is fulfillment which doesn’t seek in any direction, because it has found. When the seeker and the sought unite, there is peace. In the meantime man errs in the game of duality, where he may win and lose, experience joy and pain. As individuals want to anchor themselves in a stable harbour of unity and peace, so want human societies stabilize themselves in a harbour of peace. But in order to get there they have to traverse the ocean of the mind with the tribulations of its duality and dialectics. When this ocean has been traversed, also societies which are composed of individuals, no matter whether they be individualist or collectivist, will have found a similar mystical union with all-pervasive life: oneness; and true oneness includes all nations, religions etc. Inter-personal and inter-national unity result from the two quests and their completion. The completion of this way is the rationale of life, of the right way itself; the search for truth. Man will find no peace until he returns to the source of live and love from whence he came. This is the only real harbour, the only lasting security and happiness. The more he sticks to the path towards it the closer he is to the goal. Suffering only arises as a separation from the way of life itself. Societies and individuals can choose their destiny by following the path of life. All other paths are meanders.

The path of life rather than cultural and national security is the harbour. Therefore the path of live is a more important category than culture; they do not exclude each other as long cultures and nations remain on the road of and to life, which has not always been the case and caused great suffering to humanity as a whole throughout history. In that humanity is solidary. If one culture deviates, all others will be affected. Similarly, a culture which mirrors the creator’s intention of reunion well, can take a lead role for the cultures of the world, none other, because it would mislead them. The power of radiation of a culture may therefore not coincide with its worldly power. But here again, worldly and spiritual power are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Life and the light of the oneness of life and love are a supreme category, whose absoluteness eludes and transcends all other categories. The question which remains therefore is how much an entity can reflect of it and how much it can therefore radiate in turn to inspire others. As there is no Chinese, English or German sun, and as it shines over all, just or unjust, so does the light of God, of the life and all encompassing love. A creed which assumes that its light alone is the absolute light of absolute life and love is therefore on the wrong path. It does not reflect well and radiates even worse. Great mystics have captured this reality – whatever their background. I would like to quote a prayer for humanity by an Indian mystic (Darshan Singh):

We are but drops of the same fountain

of divine beauty;

We are but waves

Of the great river of love.

We are diverse blossoms

In the Garden of the Lord,

Who have gathered

In the same valley of Light.

We who dwell on this earth

belong to one humanity;

There is but one God,

And we are his children.

Let us march forth

To overcome the storms of strife;

Let us march forth

to light the lamp of Universal Love.

Let the lotus of renewed aspirations

blossom in our hearts,

And let those long divided

Embrace one another

Let me pursue in a more sober tone: Whether we view the world from a systems analysis standpoint, from the biological systems standpoint, from the religious standpoint or from the poet’s standpoint, all seems to indicate that there is a logic of life enabling integration within and between subsystems of a whole. In naturally evolved systems over eons such as the cosmic system, for example, where clusters of galaxies, as one can learn from European Space Agency sources, collide, merge and integrate to build up hierarchically; biological systems, human and others, also have self-regulating capabilities.

In the human domain and particularly in western societies the advent of the age of reason and rationalism has brought technological advancement but in many ways social regression visible in the most atrocious wars of all times. This is due to lopsided development of the mental, specific, voluntary, rational and divisive side of man as opposed to the other human capabilities, which are not exclusive and rational but rather integrative. The question is never one of an either or, whether rational and specific or that which complements it and for which we have not even developed a terminology as far as our Western cultures are concerned. It rather is a matter of integration of what is complementary. But other cultures polarized by Western technological civilization want to follow the same path of external success at the expense of the integrative forces within and outside of man. Man is our main concern here, because as the image of God he is the crown of creation and as such he must live up to this responsibility and display responsibility for his own nature as well as the natural environment which has been entrusted to him. Physiologically he owns the structures and functions of integration and of disintegration.

Rationalism, science, and nationalism which have evolved over the past centuries have promoted specification and differentiation which are a requisite for science and technology. This scientific spirit has become the paradigm which has been a determinant for social behaviours. Here, however, it produces a focus on the parts at the expense of the whole, ethnocentrism and nationalism at the price of intercultural and universal understanding. The scientific paradigm has divided the world. It needs a corrective which reassembles the parts to unveil more of the mystery of life in order to thereby trigger conducts in line with it.

Presently, only a thorough scientific understanding of complex environments and religion provide the integrative momentum. The lopsided divisive approaches which emphasize the atomization of the world and ignore its interconnectedness - which only as a whole accounts for and epitomizes life and is life - reflect only one side of the human endowment, physiologically as well as mentally. In the human anatomy the voluntary systems have their extrapyramidal system and non-voluntary corollary to enable a harmonious whole. State-of-the-art research states that the pyramidal and the extrapyramidal systems are actually synergistic. This is meant to be an example for integration in the human biological system not a neurophysiologic enquiry, which we have to leave to the scientists who, hopefully, are no victims of a lopsided scientific spirit but who can also assemble the parts and discover, beyond synergy, live as a whole behind and beyond the parts.

The question actually is whether man can re-accomplish his own integration. When he is integrated himself outer integration will follow, because he reproduces his own evolution in his artifacts and the design of his environment. A higher level of integration within himself results in a higher level of integration of the world.

So, first and foremost, man needs to restore the forces of differentiation and integration, the specific atomic and the diffusely interrelated within himself, symbolically speaking, the mind and the heart. The balance has been lost due to a lopsided development of the intellect. What stands in the way is that the extraordinary development of the mind and of reason has also developed the ego, the individual and the collective egos alike. Assets in their specific technical domains mind and rationalism have become forces which are antagonistic to the forces of integration which are required in our age for global diversity management. The focus of consciousness and evolution has, for centuries, been on the evolution of the neocortex. Now this new development needs harmonious reintegration in man’s architecture as a whole to restore his integrity at a higher level of development.

Evolution, as suggested by the double helix of the DNA which is the template of life in the biological sciences, seems to spiral by emphasizing one, then the interconnected complementary orientation. In brain physiology terminology one could argue that the development of the higher cortical functions of the neocortex, which speeded up material development, now need to be complemented by such structures as the extrapyramidal system which is more integrative and harmonizing of the whole.

The human mind must recognize this and follow the programme of life itself: a programme of evolution, self-regulation and balance. The work of continuous integration of complementary forces is the work of mankind, the work of life itself. Rationalism, reason and intellect are absolutely necessary in their domain. As they tend to be divisive, fragmenting and focusing on the fragments they fragment the environment. In a planetary society fragmentation, national, cultural, religious or individual is counterproductive. The centrifugal forces of fragmentation and the centripetal forces of integration need to be rebalanced at a higher level of the helix, which is a double helix, where the two strands symbolize complementary processes. Otherwise the helix, to maintain the metaphor of the template of life, would get out of orbit and with it the integrity of the human biological system would be in danger.

If the biological balance can be restored, the psychological balance can be restored. Man as a whole will produce a holistic integrated environment which can integrate mankind at a planetary scale. Only in whole integrated systems life finds optimum conditions to perform its integrative functions.

The key question of the epoch seems to amount to the restoration of man’s wholeness. Life is whole and indivisible. Components of the whole have limited vital capability. Only in their interdependence they can enjoy the privilege of life. At the organic biological and the social level the same principle applies. Natural systems autoregulate their interdependence and enable life. Man can even build up barriers to life enabling interdependent structures by separating things which form organic interdependent wholes and thereby impede life itself which imperatively requires whole systems, integrative of their members, to function optimally.

The individuals who constitute the social organism need to be interrelated in such a way that they do not impede each others' functioning and thereby the functioning of the whole. From this understanding solidarity can arise and the notion of an interdependent human organism of a human family which highlights a high level of synergy with regard to differentiation and integration and thereby enables the optimum integrative labour of life, instead of resisting it.

The extraordinary asset represented by the human mind and reason is a double-edged sword. Only when it is developed to its fullest it becomes aware of its double-edged nature and can make the ethical decision to conduct itself in a way which is in line with life itself. Such understanding and conduct provide the optimum conditions for life to flourish at the individual and collective level, because it allows it to do its natural integrative work. This is the path of life, for it can only come into being in whole systems. The divisive intellect can travel to other stars and universes physically and intellectually but it can oppose similarly strong forces to the wholeness and interdependence of life and thereby hamper its vital viability. Harnessing, controlling and reintegrating this power are a requisite of life.

André Malraux stated that the 21st century would be religious or it would not be. This seems to apply, if one considers that religion provides the integrative corrective of the divisive, disintegrating rational culture of the mind which enabled the technological and scientific advancement of the modern age on the one hand, but has, on the other hand, also promoted man’s ability to create equally powerful fragments around the individual and social egos which are antagonistic to the requirements of life itself in the sense that it requires interdependent, harmoniously tuned wholes to be what it is, i. e. life itself, without which nothing, not even the individual and collective self-asserting rationalist culture’s egos can be. In a way, as naughty children at times want to grab all, they want it all for themselves: life, sex, power, money. Their notion of wholeness is limited to the confines of their self-interest. By seeking life only for themselves they lose it. Because life requires true wholes and not fragments that presumptuously set themselves up as wholes to flourish optimally.

The perception of one Creator, one creation, one way, one life and one truth is all-encompassing wholeness, integration and absence of division and allows the smooth labour of life at whatever level. Individual, cultural and religious misconceptions which seek only themselves - there is a healthy measure to it - obstruct their own, others’ and the whole’s vital viability. Life will provide a corrective of its own. Learning, insight and acceptance, which follow, lead to a return to the path of life and love which accomplishes the labour of mankind, because there is no alternative.

In the Western tradition the approach to the path of life consists of positive precepts based on ethical codes of conducts which in turn are based on the Christian Decalogue: do this and refrain from doing that! A classical Chinese tradition assumes that not doing does everything. It does not mean doing nothing but not interfering with the path of life which is supposed to have its own regulatory intelligence in the interest of life. The Indian notion of the consciousness witness is another variety of a negative approach in the sense that it tries to anchor itself in pure awareness and does not engage in the game of the mind. It is in line with the “neti”, the tradition which denies everything to find the real, real life.

The negative and positive approaches are mirrored in some practical methods for the reintegration of the human body and mind, the normalization of the terrain and the restoration of its wholeness. In the Western tradition, one prescribes this or that substance or measure to restore the wholeness of the organism and with it the best conditions for life. In the East there is a tradition of intervening only subtly or not at all and to allow life to do its own regulatory work to restore optimum conditions for life’s integrating, sustaining and harmonizing work. Some of this is actually based on the activation of the afore-mentioned extrapyramidal system which can have a normalizing effect on the terrain of the entire organism. – Seemingly there are culturally diverse approaches to the tuning of the human system to the path of wholeness and life. And if it replicates itself at the social level mankind’s integrative labor is facilitated. Man has the ability to foster and to impede the labour of evolution. The diverse cultural approaches may be inspirational as long as they promote the wholeness of life, whose restoration at the individual and social level is the labour of mankind as a whole. It is the royal path to a world encompassing human family and a sustainable global civilization with one Creator and the wholeness of the gift of creation; pursuing the path of life above all other motives is the correct answer to the gift of life itself and this path is based on interdependent organic wholeness at the diverse levels of existence with the one Creator as the Head.

I would like to continue on a somewhat spiritual note, because the root meaning of religion is to bind back to the Creator, to life absolute. No discourse on life and its wholeness can possibly bypass the Creator of Life, Life as such, whether it be deemed analytically correct or not, for this is only a culture-relative matter, whereas life transcends cultures.

One can translate the biblical metaphors of the vine and the branches and of the body and the limbs culturally in a most constructive way: It might by a step towards cultural wisdom, beyond cultural awareness, knowledge and skills to apply the parables - which I would like to call into memory, because the mind likes to function in reference to pictorial information - to humanity with its many cultures in the following way, which illustrates the intercultural and the transcultural paradigm as I understand it and as I have modeled it in the Transcultural Profiler below. We make this allowance to the mind and cater for its needs through images and pictures, while we are aware of its positive and negative potentialities as creator and destroyer of life, as life enhancing and true life inhibiting.

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The Transcultural Profiler (see representation above) symbolizes the global transcultural manager’s psychological structure. Transcultural Profiler Level D1 Cosmics is Life Absolute. In human Consciousness it assumes Level D2, noetic or transcultural awareness, consciousness or intelligence which is translated to the relative world of culture by Level D3, operationalization, depending on the players’ ethical profile, Level D4 as well as Level D5, their evolution status. Levels D6 and the subjacent levels represent the intercultural interactants' profiles with regard to a number of intercultural and managerial parameters. The DOME TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL is grounded in more universal parameters and connects the corner stone and the cap stone. The corner stone is the planetary interface, the cap stone is the cosmic interface. The levels – level D1 through level D12 - constitute a circle and indeed an evolutionary spiral which spirals higher as the top levels are approached. In each new winding of the spiral the intercultural parameters of the players are enhanced until they merge in life itself which transcends the entire edifice. That is the road to wholeness, to life! The planetary bottom and the cosmic top form a circle. It is a micro-macrocosmic model.

A way to move ahead on this spiral of evolution towards the higher levels of the profiler might be to consider, in line with John and Corinthians, all of humanity as an organism, a differentiated and integrated organism of mankind:

The vine and the branches metaphor refers to the mystical union between Christ and those who believe in him. If the branches (believers) remain connected to the vine (Christ) and if the Vine (Christ) remains connected to the branches (believers) rich fruit will be brought forth. Apart from the vine the branches can do nothing. The branches can be read as cultures or individuals… the vine as Life itself (Jesus Christ in the Christian interpretation). When cultures or individuals want to function apart from the vine or that which provides life, they can do nothing. Not the diverse branches but rather their connection to Life as such is the criterion. In other word, diversity becomes a secondary issue, the primary question being whether they partake, whatever their forms, shapes and colours, of Life itself and depending on that they will bear much fruit or suffer barrenness for themselves and for the whole of humanity they are part of. Cultures (the branches) are but ramifications of the vine (the wholeness of life) or of the tree of life itself. The vine or tree of life is a mystical union of humanity in Christ or life itself.

This leads to the body and the limbs metaphor: The former vine parable highlights the connection to live, while the body and limbs parables also highlights the interdependence of the various limbs of the body as a whole. As you may expect, the various limbs, in the cultural reading of this archetypical parable represent the various cultures of the organism of humanity. They are all solidary because with their diverse endowments they enable the life of the organism as a whole. This confirms what we call cultural relativity in the sense that no culture or no organ is superior or inferior to another. The unique functional differentiation is imperative to enable and ensure the life of the body as a whole. They are jointly and solidarily accountable for the life of the body as a whole. Ergo: all cultures have their special attributes which are required for a well performing humanity as a whole. An organ which tries or retain the blood stream or the nourishment of and for the body would disturb the entire body. Similarly, an ethnocentric and parochial mindset which is completely self-centered and self-assertive is detrimental to the entire body and its members and because it is itself part of that body it would by the same token harm itself. So, any non-solidary conduct within the human organism, biological or social at whatever scale, is bound to backfire if not in the shorter then certainly in the longer-term.

Another parable refers to Christ as being the Head and to the believers as the limbs of the body. Can that be interpreted as all information and knowledge with regard to the culturally diverse humanity being a thought in the “mind” of the Creator of life which through the Verb materialized as humanity with its diversity, and that any effective human individual and cultural action must be conducted in this awareness in order to be sustainable and effective? All cultural DNA of the whole of humanity is united there and from this angle of vision all cultures can be integrated, because they are integrated already as a thought in the “mind” of the Creator. It is up to the cultural players to rediscover this common root of life with all its diversity (see Level D1 Cosmics of the Transcultural Profiler) and thereby their essential oneness at a more spiritual level.

In this perspective culture makes sense and cultural diversity and solidarity as well. And it receives a divine consecration. It is sacred! And it should not be profaned! It is there to produce the noblest fruit of the organism of humanity, of the tree of life.

Technically, a high level of cultural differentiation, through which any culture can contribute its unique resources and gifts, combined with an equally high level of cultural integration would constitute an optimum matrix and model of and for a global civilization. The differentiation-integration principle can be applied domestically, internationally and globally. It protects and consecrates the uniqueness of any individual and culture in the interest of the whole and fosters human solidarity. Any culture and individual becomes accountable for its conduct because it affects other members of the body and the body of human kind as a whole. This physiological model of global culture as one might call it lays the foundation for a pragmatic and intelligible intercultural and transcultural ethical system: a code of cultural conduct for the third millennium, which is accessible and pragmatic alike. And it can be taught at any age with simple natural terminology that draws on a most natural metaphor as that of the human body. As such it involves reason and feelings. And what is required is the mind as well as the symbolical heart for overall balance and integration.

Cooperating with this principle is a positive contribution to the cultural labour of mankind. Inter- as well as transcultural solidarity follow naturally. It implies intercultural as well as transcultural cooperation.

26 CULTURE THERAPY

What this essay is not about: it is neither about ethnopsychiatry nor specifically about transcultural medicine as the term therapy in the context of culture might suggest to people familiar with health care or migration environments. Transcultural medicine has become a popular theme in the health care sector, because one has understood that health measures across cultures require culture-specific approaches because notions such as life, death, health, diseases and their causes have culture-specific interpretations and the bodies and psyches of patients require differing approaches in line with the cultural background of the patients.

Recently there was a major congress on transcultural medicine in the German city of Mannheim, where thousands of medical doctors attended. This points to the relevance of the issue in multicultural societies, societies with a great percentage of migrants; up to 50% among the youngest generation in some German urban environments to be specific. The changing demographic conditions require the institutional environments’ adaptation to cultural imperatives in this as well as other areas which in turn requires an enhanced mental and cultural horizon by professionals; an enhanced culture consciousness.

Culture therapy suggests a wider and more fundamental inquiry such as, for example, how one can take care of the cultural dimension of man in such a way that culture-based conflicts are prevented and cured. The Transcultural Profiler below is a diagnostic instrument which suggests not only the idea of cultural assessment and diagnostic, but also that of therapy. It is a multi-purpose instrument for managerial and general diagnostic of individuals and societies with global management organisational environments in between.

A therapy might be indicated when the balance of a system has been jeopardized or is at risk of irreversible destabilization. Balance in the sense of the integrity of a living system ensures its self-regulating capacity and hardly needs therapeutic intervention. The cultural self-regulating capabilities of human society as a whole have been profoundly disturbed. Global strategists have envisaged military warfare to prevent irreversible culturally-based destabilization of the world. Culturally based conflict combined with the nuclear capabilities conjures up apocalyptic scenarios.

The Greek root word of therapy is therapeia which means care or cure. The Transcultural Profiler or Diagnoser contains all possible cultural parameters and their relationships can indicate whether a system, as a rule the noetic-psychosomatic architecture, man’s wholeness culturally speaking, is in balance. The diagnoser-profiler can also be used to reestablish the balance. Therefore it is a cultural diagnostic and therapeutic instrument for individuals, organisations and institutions.

The highest levels of the psychological architecture of the Profiler can provide a cultural panacea, a universal cultural hygiene and ecology concerned with the management of the entire cultural, psychological architecture due to the integrative function of the highest levels of mind and consciousness, while the lower levels of the architecture can provide more limited intercultural solutions or therapies. The combination of approaches constitutes a holistic, integrative approach to culture and its dialectical challenges: a holistic culture therapy. I would like to illustrate the hierarchical architecture of the Transcultural Profiler in the following representation. The highest levels D1 cosmics and D2 the noetic or transcultural level, translated be D3 operationalization into the mental, socio-cultural worlds of global management, have a naturally regulating effect on the multilevel architecture of the 12 X 12 dimensional hierarchical structure. When intercultural perspectives and measures do not yield the desired results the transcultural perspective can be helpful.

THE DOME 12 D TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL

THE TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER

12 OCTAVES TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL

A PROTOTYPE

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Culture is a structural and functional part of the individual. Man is said to be a biological and a cultural being. The two are interdependent. If he ails in one domain the other may be affected. That confirms the initially referred to importance of transcultural medicine.

If an individual is not allowed to incarnate and live his constitutional cultural components which make up his integral personal cultural identity he is culturally alienated which may cause psychological and physical dysfunctionalities. He may be forced to disassociate parts of his naturally evolved components which are part of his natural structures and functions or to adopt others which he experiences difficulties to integrate structurally and functionally. Whether he experiences a deficit, the inability to live his natural structures and functions or whether he has to integrate incompatible structures and functions, both scenarios cause imbalances and stress and disturb the natural balance and integrity of the individual, which may in turn impact the integrity of his cultural reference group, because culture is a social phenomenon.

Structures and functions refer to the psychosomatic being. Culture as collective mental programming or software of the mind affects the somatic being due to the psycho-somatic interdependence. Cultural disequilibria being part of the mental or psychological level of a person affect the somatic person, the equilibrium of a person as a whole.

When the disturbances remain in the domain of slight disturbances of comfort zones, the culturally accustomed optimum, resulting disequilibria can be integrated and adapted to. As a rule they remain peripheral and do not affect the deeper layers of the person. When the disturbances due to cultural pressures, however, penetrate the deeper layers of the person they may cause more serious disturbances of culturally evolved natural structures and functions. The natural cultural profile can be approximated by levels D6 and D7, respectively the individual and societal culture profiles of the Transcultural Profiler-

A cultural interfacing which penetrates the deeper physical levels affects in turn psychological structures and functions. The struggle to reestablish normal structures and functions creates additional stress. The psychosomatic interaction reinforces the stress of coping with the alienated state, the endeavour to return to a state of personal cultural integrity and normalcy.

The process could be intuitively modeled as a two-way culture-mind-brain-body-brain-mind circuit which describes how cultural inputs can affect the entire person, negatively or positively. As inappropriate food intake negatively impacts the body, so do inappropriate cultural inputs trigger a destabilizing cycle of the person as a whole due to the interdependence of mind and body. As long as the inputs are stimulants as maybe a fresh shower, they are reversible and can be considered mildly stimulating challenges which can be beneficial. On leaving the shower one recovers the state of normalcy with a heightened sense of comfort due to the preceding stimulating experience. If the input cannot be integrated at will by the individual a state of discomfort arises. In a way he is forced to remain under a cold shower which then loses its refreshing quality when it is prolonged and may even assume the form of a threat to a person’s psychosomatic health. This may occur through inputs at many cultural levels, societal, individual and also organisational, while the latter rarely penetrate to the depth as the former.

The difficulties to cope with the stress from inappropriate inputs to cultural normalcy cause the pain of the cultural interfacing where the totality of the psychosomatic structure along with its normal functions are under a state of siege. Lotta e fuga, fight or flight is the natural response. One is relieved if one can leave the cultural and personal context which causes the stress of the siege. Then the alien and ailment causing inputs end. With it, depending on the length and intensity of exposure, the pendulum progressively swings back to normal. One consciously and unconsciously tries to search the accustomed cultural inputs which normalize the cycle and as a consequence reestablish structural and functional normalcy.

If one cannot avoid the alien inputs one has to develop strategies for coping with them such as affirming one’s identity, which may trigger a competition of cultural self-assertion by the diverse cultural interactants involved in a multicultural context. One may negotiate a culture of compromise, fight for one’s acceptance through information and communication and certainly strive to adapt in the longer term, if short-term adaptation appears to involve too much personal change. Cultural power struggles may exacerbate a situation and escalate into culture conflict if levels D4 Ethics and D5 Evolution are underdeveloped. If the communicators cannot find a common ground at the intercultural level with its uncertain claims the ability to access the transcultural level can be helpful. But such ability would probably have prevented the conflict.

Due to the mind-body interconnection and the circular positive and negative reinforcement of the state of cultural well-being the exposure to inputs as close to normal as possible stabilizes the person culturally and with it the person as a whole. That is where mutual cultural adaptation is useful, which wants to provide the accustomed inputs to the foreign culture member so as to allow him to remain in his accustomed mode of cultural comfort. Cultural therapy in the etymological sense of care and cure would therefore consist in providing the cultural stimuli or inputs the organism as a whole can cope with similarly to food intake that can be assimilated instead of producing discomfort. In that sense a competent interculturalist is a cultural therapist, because he takes care of the stabilizing/destabilizing comfort/discomfort promoting cultural stimuli. In the health and business sector the choice of the culturally appropriate stimuli is a matter of professional ethos and interest. For the rest it is a matter of social intelligence and altruism. In order to provide the appropriate stimuli there has to be a certain level of knowledge of the other cultural communicators’ cultural profile, the individual and societal, in order to avoid the imposition of alien cultural inputs. The same can be mutually expected by sensitive communicators. Much of it is a natural endowment of a civilized person with a sense of style and propriety.

The interculturalist can be more professional, because he has a greater awareness of the specific components of individual and societal culture profiles which he should account for in his intercultural communication. Although, one can never have enough contextual and background knowledge of a person. Therefore, a general ability of empathy, mindfulness, allocentrism and responsiveness are additionally required to account for that which cannot be forecast from cultural value models and biographic data of the representative of other cultures.

The individual as the smallest cultural unit and due to the unique degree of freedom he enjoys among all creatures can only inadequately be understood and accounted for by models such as the aggregate models of culture alone. Therefore a general ethical approach is required to account for the unaccountable. Also situational requirements may differ from occasion to occasion. So, deterministic and specific models are not differentiated enough to account for the specific cultural situation of an individual to be responded to effectively. Models and reference systems remain rough approximations to ever changing live and humans and situations. Nobody can capture the sea in a bucket. Models are no more than buckets of water. In some more complex situations it might be better to pour back the buckets we take from it and declare it as knowledge and try to study the cycles of waves and the element water as a whole. In other words we need to understand man and culture not only at a specific level which is neither specific nor general enough to account for a human being in general nor for his cultural dimension in particular. After all we should not, neither explicitly nor implicitly reduce – above all not deterministically – humans in general and as cultural creatures in particular to the contents of the bucket our mind can hold and at the same time ignore the totality, the vastness and the ever changing and timeless nature of the sea. And when one has understood more about the sea one has to look still further to the cosmic interconnection to fully understand the dynamics of its interconnected nature. All these images are meant to signal that we have to look beyond our understanding of man in general and of cultural man in particular - through the lens and perspective of a priory models of him, which are worthwhile yet limited and limiting, however differentiated they may be.

What I suggest is to use deterministic and indeterministic, specific cultural knowledge if trustworthy research data are available and to contextualize them in man’s nature as a whole. Additionally, the mind as the owner of the mental software also needs to be understood. The understanding of the mind is like understanding the changeless and yet ever changing sea. And in order to understand the mind one has to look to its interconnection with human consciousness as such. The bucket we have taken from the sea of knowledge needs to be enhanced by the knowledge of the sea and the knowledge of the sea should be completed by the cosmic interconnection which more fully explains its dynamics. At the cultural analysis level the bucket corresponds, for example, to the aggregate models of culture, the sea corresponds to the mind and the cosmic interconnection corresponds to consciousness. The three account for a comprehensive analysis, diagnostic and therapeutic approach to human issues in general and to cultural issues in particular. The bucket can be misleading, even if it is the biggest container of a knowledgeable culture specialist. Even the mass of water of a mighty stream may still be misleading because the solution is not within the domain of the quantitative but rather in a qualitative leap, a quantum leap to a different level of perception of culture and the mind which contains and runs the cultural mental software according to the laws of the mind and the brain. The tangible bucket gives a false impression and self-assurance about man and cultural man as being something external, instrumental and determinable in analogy to mechanical environments. This reduction can become a conditioning and self-fulfilling process in turn.

The relativization of cultural models should not be replaced by anarchy and anything goes but by the understanding of the mind. We have been saying that the cultural instruments are neither differentiated enough nor universal enough to account for the wholeness of real intercultural scenarios. The specific inputs into the cycle we have identified rarely cover the complete needs. There will always be deficits because of the incomplete perception of the human reality in general and the cultural reality in particular. All measure are bound to be incomplete. And to use the Zen patriarch’s terms: All measures are non-measure, what relationship do they have with my intuition. This is not an absolutist, perfectionist stance of the author, not the quest for the absolute, for it has been investigated for centuries and millennia. Social science cannot ignore it. In particular intercultural approaches cannot discredit it as being culturally (politically) incorrect because such approaches cannot be found as pebbles on local shores. What does the Chinese Zen monk of the ninth century mean? He refers to a dimension which cannot be captured by the mind alone which to him is a reality; a reality in which neither time nor space nor mental mechanisms exist but pure intuition and consciousness. Where is then that which we consider culture, which is contained in the mind that in turn results from conditioning in time? And without time where is space which underpins cultural contexts. It is not nihilism, but rather, as a Zen koan (Example: the instruction: Clap with one hand!) poses a challenge to trodden paths of thinking and conditioned responses to a situation. Due to the sheer impossibility to answer one may suspend thinking. Out of this void something new may emerge. On seeing that the exclusive intercultural-mental approaches to cultural issues do often not yield the desired results one stops approaching them at the mental level alone. The understanding of the limitation expands the mind as the Zen koan tends to draw on resources hitherto unknown to handle the challenge. Similarly, the mind on seeing its limited ability to handle its own cultural content and product explores new resources and has to expand beyond the known. Having understood the sea of the mind so far one studies its cosmic interconnection, where its dynamics and the energy which cause the tide are hidden. Similarly, consciousness behind the mind provides the fuel to the mind. To understand the sea, one has to understand the tide. To understand the tide one has to understand the energy behind it. Its cause is in the cosmic dimension. Similarly, the cause and source of the mental-cultural dynamics also are in a remote dimension, in consciousness. Therefore the Zen monk doubts all measures which are part of the mental dimension. He talks from the causal level of the mind with its measures, cultural and others. To truly control culture one has to access the dimension of consciousness where the mind with its strong cultural component receives its dynamic. If it cannot be fully managed at the level of its actual dynamics it can more fully be controlled at the level of the cause of its dynamics. The mental answer to the koan has remained in suspense. Consciousness as a more comprehensive plane for answering the question may have been discovered and that was the intention of the koan. Similarly, the cultural koan, the mentally unmanageable cultural challenge may trigger something unknown and lead to the discovery of consciousness as a superordinate dimension for its conceptualization, contextualization and control resulting in its sustainable management.

To use therapeutic terms, here the cultural panacea – if such thing exists due to the imperfection of man – for cultural issues may reside. Culture is embedded in the mind, the mind in consciousness. Consciousness is a remote control dimension. It is transcendent of and immanent in the mind. Due to its all- encompassing nature it is the cultural script as well as the pen and the medium on which it is written. By focusing on the medium on which all cultural scripts are written and which existed before the scripts evolved, the scripts subside. The pristine blank sheet of consciousness is still there together with the transcended cultural script. The cultural waves on the ocean of the mind subside as soon as the attention is on the pristine sheet of white paper, on which all cultural scripts are written. This since a priori existing white paper has been there before. On directing and riveting the attention to it culture is literally transcended. On shifting the attention from the pristine white page to the scripts, cultures are deployed in the time-space of the mind. With a shift of attention one can therefore move in and out of the sphere of culture and transcend it at will, if the ego does not cling to it once the new insight has dawned. With this ending of culture the beginning of a vaster life of consciousness dawns which transcends cultural limitations and includes cultures. It amounts to culture being reborn and cleansed from its antagonistic nature.

If we return for a moment to the cycle of culture and assume that the input in the process is the awareness of consciousness behind culture, the entire circle is transcended. The mind-body interaction becomes more controllable. As a pilot who has identified bad weather conditions with likely turbulences on his radar, bypasses the critical zone on another route or altitude, so consciousness deals with culture at a level where its turbulences are inexistent. Through the withdrawal of attention to itself the script on the sheet is disenabled. What is left is the pristine sheet, pristine pure consciousness. That is the cultural panacea, the ultimate cure, because it s not only a cure for a particular cultural scenario involving culture X, Y or Z but of culture as a mental phenomenon, and therefore of all cultural woes in whatever combination, shape or form. “With my intuition, what rapport”. With pure consciousness, what rapport do the cultural worlds have? They are in a state of potentiality. And therefore any cultural issues and conflicts are simply inexistent, for they are only actualized in and by the mind. So, the true cultural therapy resides in the ability to not only operate within culture but also in the ability to transcend it and with it all cultural problems of the world. Then cultural challenges can be approached in a radically new way.

In that sense cultural challenges truly appear as a launching pad for human evolution, a paradigm shift from the cultural-mental to the universal-conscious(ness) level. Man is at the threshold of a fundamental evolutionary challenge and reorientation. With increasing cultural challenges and their magnification by concomitant survival challenges mankind is in danger of cannibalizing itself unless it evolves to a higher level of integration of culture that can usher in world peace. The roadmap towards peace involves an alignment of all energies at the level of consciousness as an integrator of worldwide cultural liabilities and challenges and a single-minded bundling of human potentialities in the interest of survival and evolution.

If after the ideological era, the cultural age can be followed by an age of consciousness, the exclusive, divisive by an inclusive, uniting era, survival and integrity of the human family is ensured. The earlier the shift towards the unifying and integrating medium is accomplished the less humanity will suffer in the process of the dawn of a new, postcultural civilization which cures its liabilities. The shift from the mental to the consciousness level is the cultural panacea which has been there throughout the ages. The global cultural challenge as a hitherto insoluble koan can trigger the enhanced resource which provides the answer. So it seems. And there are as many avenues to this metacultural dimension as there are cultures and individuals, as it is in opposition to nothing and envelopes everything. It can be accessed from any of the myriads of cultural conditionings. It sets them all free. All cultures will return home to their true abode and recognize it as their common homeland, from which they separated and became estranged from each other in the course of time. Now is the time for all cultures to meet again in their common home, the source from whence they originated and diversified and to recognize their true identity which in consciousness is one and the same. They will retain their cultural diversity but see it in the light of their common identity in consciousness. And when a cultural issue arises they can always solve it through their superordinate and essential identity. The diversification and diversity now appears as a functional differentiation in the relative time and space. Essentially they remain one. They have never ceased to be one at their core.

What is the problem of looking at an issue from more than one angle, a dead angle, a narrow angle and a wide angle? None except the dead angle denies the existence of the object of perception. One simply derives different information from the same by changing the optic. The specific information which differentiates humans as well as the information which welds them together as a human family is equally legitimate and needed. Nobody has ever seen a coin with one side. Ignoring one side does not deny the existence of that coin, but it is evidence of an incomplete perception.

More practically, in our days, the implementation of the European Monetary System has tangibly materialized in a European currency with coins that carry on one side the European motive and a national motive on the reverse side which together reflect two perspectives of one and the same European idea. The nation states and Europe are interdependent and indissociable facts: without nations, European integration makes no sense and without the supranational Europe the integrator of the nations is not realized. Only the two perspectives account for nearly half a century of efforts in view of European integration. They reflect the new European reality more completely. Yet, this perception is only a milestone on the road towards an even wider angle of perception of the European reality which is in turn embedded in the history of the world as a whole. One could argue that in order to become a full 3D image of the cultural reality of the world, there needs to be a planetary reference on the third dimension of the coin which is its outer rim. Presently, due to the absence of more advanced cultural, economic and monetary integration of the world beyond regional integration, there is a vague tooth wheel-like engraving on the outer rims of the European currency coins which suggests movement and foreshadows evolution to a world monetary system. The next milestone, one might speculate, could be symbolized by the insignia of the World Bank on the third dimension of the EURO coins, in addition to those of the national and European central banks on either side of them. This wider optic would revalue the henceforth global currency, because three central banks would be backing it. Global monetary crises would be more controllable.

The two or three optics of one and the same monetary reality is conditioned by the cultural perspectives of the European member state cultures. The political will which was required for its implementation by European Governments was conditioned by their national cultural conditioning and legacy. Britain’s long imperial history and London’s privileged position as a world financial capital still condition their political executives, so that they are not yet inclined to adopt the wider European cultural angle of vision in monetary matters and fully join the EURO zone.

There are European citizens who mainly perceive the national side of the EURO coins, others may pay more attention to the European side, but only the two sides together constitute the more complete reality with its entire cultural and historical information. The perspective of a world monetary system would require a prior expansion of the perspectives of players to encompass the planet as a whole. Similarly, we can look at the world only in terms of our own cultural map; alternatively we can perceive the world with a European cultural map or with a global cultural map. One does not deny but confirm and complement the other. They are not mutually exclusive. The wider horizon can add additional monetary stability and the comfort of global usability, a global standard and monetary language spoken worldwide. When the national is an inadequate solution, the European provides more options and capabilities and the world monetary standard might become the superordinate world monetary medium with the maximum reach, stability and global comfort. Here we do not want to discuss the political and bureaucratic feasibility involved in a global monetary standard and system, as we want to use it as a metaphor for cultural evolution of the horizons and perceptions of the same reality by diverse players.

The national and the European system can still be destabilized. A global financial crisis has challenged the national and regional players to expand their cultural horizon in monetary matters so as to cover world monetary affairs as a whole. What is feasible in monetary matters can be expanded to all other affairs. One can adopt a geopolitical horizon in all other affairs as well, not only when one is forced to do so as in the case of financial or ecological challenges which threaten the totality of the system of the earth with its entire humanity consisting of myriad cultures and smaller cultural entities.

The European currency symbolism is of practical relevance. Whenever, as far as the EU is concerned, someone holds Euro coins in the hands which most people still do quite frequently, it can serve as a reminder that there are several possible cultural and mental or consciousness horizons in which we can operate while we are engaged in fairly ritual business practices beginning with shopping. All cultural programmes are contained in the round coins symbolizing oneness and unity in general. All perspectives from the local, regional to the global and universal are conveyed by them and can be leveraged according to need. We can literally grasp these somewhat abstract categories by physically holding the coins in our hands. And the sense of touch is supposed to be a very powerful sense. One can navigate critical cultural issues and sensitivities by moving upward on the symbolic (the tooth wheel-shaped rim of the coin) ladder of culture and consciousness suggested by the third dimension of each coin, if necessary to the highest level of oneness of consciousness and humanity. Each level can provide differently scaled inner spaces of mind and consciousness to meet the outer challenges accordingly.

When man is challenged he can expand his perceptual capabilities beyond cultural conditioning because the universal motive of survival can be stronger then cultural conditioning. In strategic military and business affairs, where survival, security and comfort are involved man has expanded his horizon to encompass the whole of the world including outer space.

Can one transfer the sectoral expansion of perception to the perception of the cultural reality of the world which celebrates the unique beauty and singularity of diversity and at the same time perceives it as a human family. A family means similar genetic information in uniquely diverse combinations. The perception of difference is always explained by the same DNA which made it possible.

Can the one consciousness that enables the diversity of mental programs be accessed? Can the interdependence of consciousness and mind be perceived; the ramification of one source in myriads of diverse manifestations? This amounts to the perception of the complete human reality and the completeness of the perception provides greater resources and comfort for everybody.

It is easy to socialize human beings to a perception of the complete human reality by refraining from a conditioning to a lopsided, restricted reality, which has caused never ending conflicts in human history. The expansion from a national to a European cultural horizon materialized in over two generations of freedom from war. MERCOSUR and NAFTA as well as other expansions of the cultural horizons have or can have similar benefits. Regional integration due to the expansion of mental cultural horizons can further expand. Stepwise integration of the world depends on the preliminary expansion of mental cultural horizons.

For long cultural conditioning and the human cultural reality as a whole were at dead angles to each other. This can be and has been changed by supranational efforts. Interculturalists must follow and adopt a supranational, supracultural and transcultural approach which thinks from the start in terms of vaster geo-cultural entities and world culture. Yet the supranational efforts have been undermined by the cultural emancipation and multipolarization of the world as a consequence of the end of the ideological bipolarization of the world.

The bond of consciousness and solidarity of the human family provides the matrix for the supracultural global society. It excludes and denies nothing. It is simply an enhanced perception of the world with greater possibilities for the benefit of the players. The shift can be natural and learned or forced and dramatic to prevent the worst.

From cultural specifics and therapies and sectoral efforts I have been trying to lead towards an integrated perception of the whole which is the only prevention of culture conflict and sustainable therapy for world affairs, cultural and others. This shift of attention to expand the human horizon to the integrative and binding power of human consciousness with regard to the members of the human kind is the true cure for man’s condition, cultural and beyond.

In the light of the cosmic dimension, the vastness of the universe with millions of galaxies with millions of stars, human minds can be motivated to expand at least to the confines of the world and to adopt a truly all-encompassing global consciousness, perspective and mindset as a step towards an even vaster cosmic consciousness, because this creation is one: the Creator, the creation and man. The perception of the world as a precious gift in the ocean of the universe with its myriads of diverse resources should inspire gratefulness for the whole rather than antagonism between parts of the whole. With the Ccreator rather than the created as the center of the universe human consciousness should even stretch to its very Creator and become, beyond global and cosmic consciousness, God(Creator) consciousness. This is the ultimate unsurpassable and effective cultural therapy and panacea.

27 THE THIRD MILLENNIUM GLOBAL CIVILISATION FORMULA.
INTEGRATING THE RELATIVE AND THE ABSOLUTE

The sea of live is in perpetual change and movement. There never is a standstill. Man tries to find a quiet point, a harbour, in the vastness of the ocean. The more he tries the more waves he creates which in turn increase the turbulences he seeks to escape. This is so because it is the nature of the ocean to be in movement and perpetual change.

Culture is a means whereby man hopes to create a form of stability on the sea of life. Yet, the more he affirms his culture in order to increase his psychological security, the more cultural waves he creates which unsettle the desired stability, because the cultural waves he creates through the affirmation of his own culture sets in motion cycles of waves of culture. They may become powerful waves which can threaten life in the entire field of the ocean as well as on land: the culture clashes and wars.

This means that the solution to cultural problems is unattainable through cultural means alone. It is their very nature to set in motion the waves of culture. They can only be stopped if he sees that that by which he tries to solve the cultural challenge actually tends to create the problem. If the problem cannot be solved sustainably at its own level, the solution must come from somewhere else, if there is any solution at all.

This is so, because culture is part of the mind and the very nature of the mind is to trigger waves which in turn create cycles of waves. The waves sometimes become tidal waves and destructive.

Similarly, the cultural identification sets in motion cycles of competitive identifications, self-perpetuating and never ending dualistic loops which, depending on their intensity, may escalate into major conflict unless the waves created by cultural identification and affirmation can subside. Once the cycles of waves are set in motion they assume a dynamic of their own beyond human control. That is how conflicts surge cyclically and somtimes get out of hand once cycles have been set in motion through the over-affirmation of one or more cultural players. They can set in motion the entire see of life. Ironically, the search for stability on the ocean of life, which has a natural dynamic of its own, leads to the very opposite, to major turbulences.

If that which one seeks turns into its opposite by virtue of its very search one has to look into another direction to find that which one seeks; seeking to achieve it in a non-counterproductive way. If the goal becomes elusive the more one tries to attain it one has to examine whether and why the search does not yield the expected result.

The answer is based on the dualistic nature of the mind which contains culture. Any mouvement creates pendulum-like a similarly strong reaction. The resulting instability is greater than the initial instability which one thought to further stabilize and consolidate. So, one might have been better off, if one had not started to set in motion the cultural game of action and reaction. This would have required the insight into the consequences of cultural self-affirmation, which in turn requires the understanding of the cycle of events an attitude or act such as cultural over-affirmation may trigger.

If whatever one undertakes at the cultural level, which is the mental level, because the latter contains the former, can only inadequately lead to the desired stability one hopes to find in cultural self-affirmation - beyond the maintenance of imperative personal integrity -, if one sees that all action creates more problems one stops action and examines the situation:

First there was the intention of consolidation through cultural affirmation.

The action produced counterproductive results.

The observation of the cause and effect cycle explained the situation.

One drew the consequence to stop all action of that kind due to its counterproductive results.

Now one starts to seek in different directions to attain the goal on other routes.

All routes seem to tend to produce similarly counterproductive results.

One stops all action.

The situation improves.

One further examines why that is the way things are.

One concludes that all mental activities are dualistic and dialectical, also all cultural measures which are part of the mental realm and therefore follow the dialectical logic of the mind.

The cultural path or the mental approaches are no longer considered as offering any perspective of reaching a sustainable consolidation neither for oneself nor for others.

Therefore one distances oneself from the cultural and the mental logic. On the ocean of life, culture and the mind itself are the actual cause of instability.

Here one stops searching on the horizontal plane.

Now one enquires into the vertical plane by penetrating to the very depth of the matter.

If one penetrates deeper into culture and the mind towards the ocean bed one can find a stability which, however, is not necessarily permanent because nature knows no absolute stability in the long-term. The tectonic, hydraulic and atmospheric conditions do also impact the deeper layers of the ocean. So, wherever I turn within the known there is no sustainable solution to my search of a definitive harbour of peace and stability. There seems to be neither a solution within cultural measures nor within the reach of the mind as a whole. All solutions display experiential evidence of incomplete solutions. “All measures are non-measures…”, Zen partriarch Eno of the 9th century might comment.

Now one also stops the inquiry into the deepest recesses of the mind because they cannot offer the complete solution to my question of how to achieve sustainable identity and stability.

On further investigation of the vertical plane I realize that the more I let go of the mental and cultural search, the freer I feel from the weight of culture and the mind. On letting go the cultural and mental mooring I approach a degree of serenity and freedom which eluded me in my cultural-mental inquiry.

Progressively, a horizon of another shore dawns, I have never known before. As it takes shapeless shape, formless form, I follow the beacon of that shadowless light.

I resolve to dissolve my attachment to the shore of the known of the mind and set my compass on the beacon of the unknown shore. The relative, dualistic, changeable and insecure of this side vanishes as I absolve myself and loosen the ties of this shore of the incompleteness of the mind to approach the complete of the absoluteness of the other shore. As I position myself there the previous has no more impact on me. I feel free from it. Its relativity is at a distance. I perceive it as incomplete.

I have solved the dilemma by absolving myself from the limitation and incompleteness of the relative and by adopting the vantage point of the complete and absolute. The anchoring in this optic is fulfilling, complete: absolute. I try to anchor myself in this optic.

I am free from the constraints of culture and the waves it stirs. On this shore it has no sway on me. This freedom from culture is a state of freedom and liberty t foreshadowing a potential civilization of freedom. The waves of culture are no more. And this ushers in peace and serenity. Along with the waves of culture the waves of the mind have subsided. The ocean is still. The cultural and mental pursuits are still. In this stillness that which I hoped to find in vain through cultural means abounds.

To be systematic, the roadmap of rescue from the turbulences of the psycho-social, organisational and institutional environments of the ocean of life requires its complete understanding: The mental-cultural diversity clashes appear from horizon to horizon, horizontally. In order to understand it more completely one has to inquire vertically into its very depth and into the height. There the horizon widens so that two shores delineate themselves with their beacons. One is the beacon of the mind which by itself remains on the horizontal plane.

Suffering, learning and insight are the milestones of the roadmap towards the other shore. Its beacon illumes my search. On reaching it the entire field unfolds and I can see the totality of the sea of life in its true perspective. And it appears as follows:

One shore’s beacon illumines and leads to the other shore’s beacon illumines

The mental The spiritual

The cultural The universal

The temporal The atemporal

The relative The absolute

Motion Stillness

And I realize that without the two there is no ocean, no ocean of life. So, the two, the cultural and the universal, the mental and the metamental, time and atemporality, movement and stillness, dualism and peace are indissociable and part and parcel of life.

The light of the beacon of the left shore, however, throws a powerful shadow in whatever direction one turns, the beacon of the right shore is pure, shadowless light. The struggle in the domain of the left shore and the part of the ocean it directs is due to the dualistic nature of this light whose nature it is to produce a shadow. Its nature is to produce dualism and its dialectical struggle. But the integration of the shadow doesn’t either lead out of the realm of this beacon's light. The other shore’s beacon's pure light instructs an intelligence which transcends the left shore’s light and intelligence. It produces neither shadow, nor duality nor the resulting dialectical struggles.

The light of the right shore’s beacon’s intelligence outshines that of the left shore’s beacon’s, while the left shore’s beacon cannot outshine nor darken the right shore’s beacon’s intelligence.

On seeing and understanding the entire field of the ocean of life, man can, by positioning himself mentally, determine what shapes and forms the ocean takes. If he adopts the left hand side perspective he produces the left hand qualities on the ocean of life, if he adopts the right hand perspective it results in the right hand column (see table above) attributes of the ocean. The mental stance determines the state of the sea of life. The behaviour of the sea has its origin in the intelligence provided by one or the other beacon’s light: the mind’s or that of the spirit or encomapassing consciousness.

On perceiving the totality of the picture one notes that one has been searching in the domain of the mind what lies in the domain of the spirit; stillness in the world of turbulence; the absolute in the relative. And such search is bound to remain unfruirful.

The expansion of the reference frame from the relative cultural and turbulent to the absolute, universal and peaceful allows accessing the resources of the totality: here the dialectics of the accustomed shore are complementary and distill the best of the alternative, diverse cultural approaches, while their antagonisms can be controlled through the awareness of the absolute in the management of the relative.

The quality of man’s mind and consciousness decides along with the actual needs where man positions himself on the continuum from the cultural towards the absolute universal. It is questionable whether this continuum can be said to be a dilemma because the absolute and the relative highlight a certain discontinuity a qualitative change which is a change not within but beyond the continuum onto higher plane. One could also argue that it is one and the same light of consciousness which shines more brightly at the absolute level and dimly at the relative level, because man’s ego produces an obstacle (a combination of avarice, individual and collective ego beyond a healthy measure which create dualism and antagonism) and therefore casts a shadow. Or rather, man’s Ego casts the shadow. Shadowless light casts no shadow, unless in the sense of a shadow of comfort and protection. The magnitude of the shadow depends on the size of its cultural and personal ego.

When his awareness dawns that he is himself the author of the dualism and dialectics as a consequence of the shadow his personal and cultural ego produce he can gain the insight that he can himself remove the shadow with its antagonistic features and reflect the totality of the shadowless absolute. The key again lies in his mind and consciousness. The totality of the light of the absolute is always there. Man’s ego erects a barrier against the full light of the absolute. When he stops doing so he is on the other shore.

The two shores are, at the level of consciousness, present in man. He has access to both at any time and can therefore partake in both them. The art of accessing the absolute and universal rather consists in not doing what impedes it than in using methods, resources and processes to reach the other shore. The two shores of the ocean of life are potentialities in the human spirit that can choose the relative or the absolute perspective. The absolute perspective is reached by not adopting the relative. What is left is the absolute. This puts the relative perspective in a new light in the sense that its antagonisms are resolved by the absolute perspective.

The superior performance in the management of the relative through the light of the absolute will induce him to want to permanently transfer his main focus from the relative to the more absolute and anchor himself there rather than in the sphere of the relative and cultural where he was anchored preciously; simply because it is more sustainable, less turbulent, more efficient etc. It makes the totality of man’s resources available which actually allow integrating the shadows of duality.

Once the awareness - through suffering, questioning, searching, analyzing and through grace - has dawned that the world of relativity is contained in a vaster, absolute world and that the latter has a redeeming impact on the relative, the question arises how it can be accessed and its benefits leveraged while existing in the relative. The two worlds exist within one and the same consciousness. It is therefore about freeing the vaster consciousness so as to naturally integrate the more limited; enhancing human wholeness, structures and functions; overall integration. Once the instruments of awareness are tuned so as to operate in both dimensions, the relative and the universal, they no longer need to produce the cultural and personal shadow which are due to an obstruction of the vaster; the shadow is man-made, through unawareness of the whole which is shadowless light and as has been said at the beginning, man tends to reinforce the shadow by his attempts to resolve it and this creates vicious spirals of man’s interacting shadows. Individual and cultural diversity produce no shadow when they are not disconnected from the universal; they are mere difference aimed at benefitting the whole. When they are disconnected from the whole, the universal and absolute, differences appear as antagonisms and pose the challenge of their integration which causes the diversity struggles and cultural conlict.

Technically it is about the awareness and the convergence of two worlds, whereby one has a lead function for the other. In leveraging the one with the lead function and enhanced capabilities the other can be successfully integrated and managed. The key to all this is in man, in the human spirit, whose wholeness has to be recovered as it has been fragmented by multiple interests in multiple ways. The wholeness of consciousness reestablishes man’s wholeness. This wholeness does not function in fragments of culture and ego and can therefore view things in the light of the absolute or wholeness. Action in the light of the whole is complete. A complete action which does not antagonize the whole causes neither reaction nor shadow nor conflict.

We have started with the ocean of life metaphor, its two shores and lights and capabilities which are but one and contained in the human spirit and consciousness. Perception and action from the stance of the absolute is different form perception from the perspective of the relative; the former tends to produces no shadow of antagonism, while the latter tends not to produce the shadow of antagonism. As man acts form the background of the relative alone he will promote and antagonize other relativities. Perceiving and acting in the light of the whole and universal does not trigger the dialectics of the relative.

In the Christian religion Christ mediates between the absolute and the relative, He redeems man form the vicissitudes and dialectics of the relative. What I have called viewing things in the light of the whole has to be called viewing things in the light of Him who incarnates the Absolute. If man in the relative follows his example and commandments his thoughts and actions need not produce any shadow, because then they are tuned a priori to the shadowless light and integrity of the absolute; they are in tune with the law of the absolute. Here the mediator through his salvation work has mediated the absolute and the relative; He has redeemed the relative. All one needs to do is to faithfully follow His example. In the previous approach, the mind and consciousness analysis-based approach is far more demanding and complex. Man has to work it out alone and the anchoring is never permanent, whereas the spiritual anchoring can by more permanent if he resolves again and again to remain anchored in the personalized absolute of Christ. Diverse cultures may attribute the absolute in diverse ways, but in monotheism we assume that there is no second option, but only one with regard to the absolute, personalized or impersonal.

Whatever approach to the absolute may be chosen, personal God or impersonal consciousness analysis-based, man is conditioned to be motivated by the personal and collective ego together with avarice. They tend to cloud the light of the absolute. Therefore discernment, resolution and ethical determination are indispensable to remain anchored in the absolute once it has been recognized.

True religion is the mediation between the absolute and the relative, the reconnection of the relative to the absolute in such a way that existence in the relative is made whole and holy and potentially shadowless to foreshadow the absolute of the divine. It is up to man to accept this grace and to act accordingly. It is up to his free will to decide whether he accepts the redemption from the dialectics of duality, of conflict and the world of shadows of the relative. It is always easier to follow a perfect personal example and anchor oneself in it than to anchor oneself in impersonal principles.

The paradigm shift which conditions weal and woe of the third millennium consists in changing perception towards the perspective of the absolute so as to mitigate and pacify the myriad interfacing diversities of the relative world in the light of the whole which can remove the shadow of conflict. If that can be achieved the future can be peaceful.

Finally, I would like to present the Holistic Transcultural Management Model and explain how the absolute can be operationalized in a global management environment:

The transcultural management model or transcultural profiler is on the next page, followed by the part of the legend which is required in this context. Complete information on this profiler can be found in the writing Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management or Interkulturelles Management – Intercultural Management by the author of this study.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

12D Transcultural Management Model/Profiler

Review of the Transcultural Profiler

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection. The biological and mental roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Operationalization. The One (absolute) steps onto the stage of the human mind. It is the interfacing of the absolute awareness with the concrete reality. It remains the absolute engaging the relative world of diversity. As operationalized Oneness it engages with diversity while it remains what it essentially is, i.e. Oneness which precedes the diversification into the other levels of the infrastructure.

This 12 x 12 dimensional transcultural profiler is a model of the totality of the psychological architecture involved in managing across cultures: The relative world of management is covered by dimensions D 4 through D 12. The world of the absolute it covered by dimensions D1 and D2. At level D3 of the profiler the absolute engages in the word of relativity. It is operationalized. The absolute as a superordinate category reigns supremely and can remain in its own world of absoluteness. That may befit the saints, yogis and holy men who can remain in a state of pure consciousness, ecstasy or Samadhi, those who are mukta, i.e. free while alive. If someone needs to fulfill his duties as an international manager and wants to leverage man’s highest resources, those of the absolute, because they are the only ones to be able to sustainably manage global diversity for instance, the absolute needs to step out of the glory of its infinity and independence and to engage in the finite, relative world. In a way, it has been operationalized, but the international manager who perceives the range of his options and those of his colleagues and business partners in the light of the absolute, will take his decisions in the light of the absolute. At the level of the absolute they tend to produce no or less shadow, they do not set in motion the dialectical cycles of cultural waves for example. Faced with myriad forms of diversity he perceives the one behind the diverse appearances. And in that one there is no or less antagonism. As humans we all have ages of conditioning and a human nature which sometimes wants to have its own way. Therefore it is appropriate to be less categorical. In that sense “no or less” should be understood. Any ideological, fanatical conception of the absolute is in the domain of the relative which wants to instrumentalize the absolute and is therefore part of the shadow.

Although one talks of the category of absoluteness, human nature requires compassion and tolerance. The absolute, rather than being intransigent and hardened probably tends more to love which itself is an aspect of the absolute.

Finally, after the consciousness-analytical approach, the religious approach and the managerial approach, I would like to add a fourth approach of the convergence of the absolute and the relative; a triad in which in particular the East-West cultural interfacing can be solved. To introduce it I would like to proceed in three steps:

- a quotation by Rudyard Kipling from my writing on Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management
- my Sino-Western Culture and Cosmology Model – and its Integration
- explanation

In the following I would like to attempt to find and answer to how the cultural distance between East and West can be bridged. Rudyard Kipling in his days said:

'Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's Great Judgement Seat;'

These are the lines which are usually quoted. However, an Indian Maharajah and former Indian Ambassador to Washington D.C. I spoke to a few years ago correctly added the following lines, which are

'But there is neither East nor West, Border, not Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

Though they come from the end of the Earth'

and he interpreted the two “strong men” as”

When two strong „minds“ meet

Sino-Western Culture and Cosmology – and their Integration are modeled on the following page.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten DAO: CHI RO:

THE WAY I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND LIFE

SINO-WESTERN CULTURE AND COSMOLOGY MODEL

Source: Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management by G. Deißler

Rudyard Kipling’s famous verse assumes that, except for the bravest and strongest of men, there can be no true intercultural encounter between East and West. The above referred to former Indian ambassador to Washington, who as an Indian Maharaja, is culturally at home in the East and in the West, pointed out that “strong men” refers to “strong minds”. The strong mind is precisely that which can move in the worlds of the two dimensions, that of the relative and that of the absolute. Then nothing stands in the way of a heart to heart, mutually enriching and understanding encounter. Here the example of China is considered which is perceived as being culturally even more distant from the West than India, which has been colonized by the West and therefore highlights a range of similarities with the West, above all the English language.

The model of models of Chinese Culture and Cosmology is the Heaven-Man-Earth triad. The model of models of Christian Civilisation similarly is the triad Heaven-Christ-Earth. Both imply the encounter of heaven and earth, their reconciliation which can be translated as the interfacing of the relative and the absolute. This trinitarian cosmology in both civilizations provides a platform for an understanding and a reencounter of both civilizations highlighted in the axis which connects the convergence points of the relative and the absolute in both models which culminate beyond all previous expectations to the contrary in a quintessential center (cross with concentric circles) which even unites both civilizations: the East-West cultural and cosmological integration.

The Western Christian perspective, in any case can, in spite of R. Kipling’s reserve, mediate the East-West reencounter, as this side naturally draws on the absolute with its naturally integrative features. To what extent it can be reciprocated will depend on the other side’s evolution from cultural-mental relativity towards the all-encompassing universal and absolute. It reminds us of the two shores metaphor with their respective relative and absolute light and capabilities.

Finally, we may conclude that intercultural issues are determined by the following formula, formulated as a question: To what extent can (culturally) diverse people integrate the the poles of the continumm of the socio-cultural, mental relative and the absolute, universal?

If the absolute or universal can be leveraged anything can be integrated, because everything is contained in it. It is everything, at diverse levels of manifestation. And as all men are, irrespective of their cultural diversity, more or less consciously, sons and daughters of that absolute, although they may live in the relative, there are as many avenues to it.

28 KULTUR UND BEWUSSTSEIN –
DIE BEDINGTHEIT DER INTERKULTURELLEN KOMPETENZ DURCH DIE PSYCHOLOGISCHE ENTWICKLUNG

Das Ziel dieser Erörterung besteht darin, Bewußtheit für die Wechselwirkung von Bewußtsein und Kultur herzustellen. Präziser ausgedrückt handelt es sich um die Bedingtheit der interkulturellen Kompetenz durch die Bewußt-seinsentwicklung. Diese bedingt die interkulturelle Entwicklung, die ihrerseits die interkulturelle Kompetenz bedingt. Man kann also eine Hierarchie dieser drei Aspekte erkennen, die so gegliedert ist:

1. Die Bewußtseinsentwicklung
2. Die interkulturelle Entwicklung prägt
3. Die interkulturelle Kompetenz

Inwieweit die Ontogenese, d.h. die Individualentwicklung des Menschen eine Rekapitulierung der Stammesgeschichte des Menschen verkörpert, das heißt, daß das Kind alle Erfahrungen der Gattung Mensch nachvollzieht, von seinem Eintritt in den Zustand des Wilden bis zur derzeitigen Zivilisation, ist eine psychologische Theorie, die Stanley Hall zu Beginn des letzen Jahrhunderts aufgestellt hat und die Befürworter und Gegner gefunden hat. C. G. Jung verweist in diesem Zusammenhang auf Nietzsche, demzufolge wir „im Schlaf und im Traum das gesamte frühere Menschentum durchmachen“ und fügt hinzu, daß die Annahme, derzufolge auch in der Psychologie die Phylogenese der Ontogenese entspräche, gerechtfertigt sei.

Die französische Kardiologin und Forscherin Dr. Thérèse Brosse hat in Zusammenhang mit ihrer fünfzig Jahre umspannenden Erforschung des Menschen in ihrem Werk „Das Bewußtsein-Energie. Die Struktur des Menschen und des Universums. Seine wissenschaftliche, soziale und spirituelle Bedeutung“ die psychologischen Entwicklungsstufen von der Kindheit bis zum Erwachsenenalter in den folgenden sechs Stufen oder Ebenen zusammengefaßt, auf die in dieser Schrift häufig unter dem Begriff der Bewußtseinsentwicklung Bezug genommen wird. Werden diese Stufen nicht sukzessive integriert, so können Blockaden entstehen. Der Übergang zu einer globalen Zivilisation erfordert insbesondere die Meisterung der fünften Stufe.

1. Die sensorische Ebene
2. Die aktive Ebene
3. Die affektive Ebene
4. Die intellektuell-analytische Ebene
5. Die intellektuell-synthetische Ebene
6. Die universelle Ebene (jenseits des Ego und der Synthese)

DIE PSYCHOLOGISCHEN ENTWICKLUNGSSTUFEN DES KINDES, JUGENDLICHEN UND ERWACHSENEN

Quelle: Die psychologischen Entwicklungsstufen des Kindes, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen. Dr. Thérèse Brosse, La „Conscience-Energie“. Structure de l’Homme et de L’Univers. Ses implications scientifiques, sociales et spirituelles. Editions PRÉSENCE 1984, Frankreich. Deutsche Übersetzung unter dem Titel „Das Bewußtsein-Energie. Die Struktur des Menschen und des Universums. Seine wissenschaftliche, spirituelle und soziale Bedeutung“ von dem Autor dieser Erörterung.

Der amerikanische interkulturelle Forscher Milton Bennett hat seinerseits dieStufen der interkulturellen Entwicklung in folgendem, ebenfalls sechsstufigen Interkulturellen Entwicklungsmodell (auf Amerikanisch: Intercultural Development Model, kurz IDM) mit drei ethnozentrischen und drei diesen folgenden ethnorelativen interkulturellen Entwicklungsphasen zusammen-gefaßt:

Stufe 1 (Verneinung): Man kann überhaupt keine kulturellen Unterschiede erkennen.

Stufe 2 (Defensive Einstellung): Fremdkulturelles wird negativ bewertet.

Stufe 3 (Minimisierung): Man erkennt Unterschiede in der objektiven Kultur im

Bereich der Sitten und Gebräuche an, betrachtet aber die Grundwerte aller Menschen als gleich.

Stufe 4 (Akzeptanz): Man erkennt und würdigt kulturelle Unterschiede.

Stufe 5 (Adaptation): Man entwickelt die Fähigkeit des kybernetischen Denkens, das heißt, die Fähigkeit, die kulturelle Überschneidungssituation von der Warte aller beteiligten Kulturen, bzw. deren Repräsentanten zu betrachten zu können. Man sollte aber nicht alle Mitglieder einer Gesellschafts- oder Nationalkultur in einen Topf werfen. Auch wenn man Hofstedes Dimensionen und deren Indexwerte für die Beschreibung von Kulturen und deren Vergleich verwendet, ist es ratsam, entsprechend neuerer kultureller Forschung, diese Werte zu präzisieren, indem man eine Aufteilung in sogenannte kulturell Normale, Marginale und Hypernormale vornimmt, entsprechend dem Grad, in dem die kulturellen Wertepräferenzen durch die Vertreter der Kultur zum Ausdruck kommen. Darüber hinaus hat auch noch jeder Einzelnen sein singuläres kulturelles Profil. Die Gaußsche Normalverteilung bringt das anschaulich zum Ausdruck.

Stufe 6 (Integration): Hier wird der kulturelle Perspektivenwechsel zur zweiten Natur und zu einem Kreativitätsfaktor durch die Nutzung der verschiedenen verfügbaren kulturellen Alternativen und Optionen, die man in seine Sichtweise miteinbezieht.

INTERCULTURAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL (IDM)

INTERKULTURELLES ENTWICKLUNGSMODELL

Quelle: Milton Bennett, zitiert aus Transcultural Management - Transkulturelles Management und Interkulturelles Management v. G. Deißler, 2009

Diese beiden Entwicklungsmodelle, das erstere sechsstufige psychologische Entwicklungsmodell des Menschen zusammen mit dem ebenfalls sechsstufigen letzteren interkulturellen Entwicklungsmodell des Menschen bilden die Ebene D5 des 12 mal 12-dimensionalen transkulturellen Management Profilers, den ich in der Folge im englischen Original präsentieren möchte.

Zuvor aber noch eine Feststellung zur Wechselwirkung zwischen den 6 psychologischen Entwicklungsstufen und den 6 interkulturellen Entwicklungsstufen. Diese sind interdependent. Wechselwirkungenbestehen in beiden Richtungen. Da die psychologischen Entwicklungsstufen aber grundsätzlicherer Natur sind, bedingen diese in besonderem Maße die interkulturellen Entwicklungsstufen, die ihrerseits die interkulturelle und schließlich die transkulturelle Kompetenz bedingen. Zusammen bilden diese 12 Entwicklungsdimensionen die Ebene D5 des insgesamt 12 mal 12-dimensionalen Profilers.

Die Ebene D5 des Transkulturellen Profilers hat außerdem eine wichtige Schnittstellenfunktion zwischen der konventionellen interkulturellen und der transkulturellen Kulturkonzeption. Sie verleiht der vierten ethischen Dimension D4 Schubkraft und zusammen ermöglichen sie die nicht-dualistische Bewußtseinsebene, die den eigentlichen Schlüssel zur Transkulturalität bildet. Doch da unsere Denkweise in dieser Richtung, vor allem, aber nicht nur im Westen weniger in der Sozialisierung gefördert wird, ist unser diesbezügliches Denken und die damit verbundene Sprache noch nicht genügend entwickelt. Dennoch ist der Mensch kulturunabhängig in dieser Richtung potentiell ausgestattet. Deshalb stellt die Verwendung von Sprache transzendierenden Metaphern und Symbolen, wie der des Dommodells oder des Mandalamodells oder sogar das Apollo Modells, das ich der oben zitierten Schrift Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management verwende, eine praxisbezogene Erleichterung des Zugangs zu einem Bereich dar, der insbesondere im Westen als immateriell in der Psychologie des asiatischen Subkontinents eher als materiell betrachtet wird. Dennoch bleibt das Ziel nicht die Mystifizierung, sondern vielmehr die möglichst wissenschaftliche Herangehensweise an Kultur unter dem speziellen Blickwinkel der Bewußtseinsforschung, die wiederum einer transdisziplinären Herangehensweise bedarf. Transdisziplinarität und Transkulturalität werden der transnationalen planetaren Realität gerechter. Sie fördern eine neue Wissenschaft vom Menschen, in der die kulturelle Dimension der gegenwärtigen Epoche in einem neuen Licht erscheint, das die vielfältigen kulturellen Belange erhellen und die damit einhergehenden Entscheidungen erleuchten kann.

Vielleicht sollte man darauf hinweisen, daß die Einheit des Bewußtseins, die wir hier analytisch sezieren, die ja die Voraussetzung für eine ganzheitliche Wahrnehmung des Kulturellen ist, ein wichtiger Schlüssel zu einem ganzheitlichen Kulturverständnis ist. Denn das rein analytische Bewußtsein fragmentiert die ganzheitliche Realität so sehr, ist so dualistisch und dialektisch, daß sie unter Umständen den Zugang zu einem über die mentalsynthetischepsychologische Entwicklungsstufe hinausgehenden geistigen Bereich torpedieren kann. Die intellektuelle Sophistikation kann zwar für wissenschaftliche Begriffe brillant sein, doch ohne die Erfahrung, die sich in der gelebten Ganzheit vollzieht, erlahmt sie jedoch auf halbem Weg zur intendierten noetischen, transkulturellen Kulturkonzeption. Es handelt sich um einen qualitativ neuen Ansatz, auf den es Raum und Zeit, Kultur und Zivilisationen übergreifende Hinweise gibt, die niemandes Monopol, sondern ein menschliches Kulturerbe sind. Aus dem Mosaik der Kulturen und Zivilisationen und mit Hilfe der etablierten Wissenschaften kann man versuchen, das kulturbedingt fehlende sprachliche und konzeptionelle Instrumentarium zu schärfen um den Übergang von einer bekannten zu einem weniger bekannten und populären Ansatz zu ebnen, der bislang sozusagen nur einigen Hermetikern vorbehalten war, der aber nichts desto trotz im Licht der kulturellen Bedingungen unserer Zeit eine Perspektive eröffnet, die der Exploration durchaus würdig ist.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Präsentation des DOME-12D-Transcultural Management Profilers

Legende der transkulturellen Profiler Ebenen D1 bis D5

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection. The biological and mental roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Operationalization. The One steps onto the stage of the human mind. It is the interfacing of the absolute awareness with the concrete reality. It remains the absolute engaging the relative world of diversity. As operationalized Oneness it engages with diversity while it remains what it essentially is, i.e. Oneness which precedes the diversification into the other levels of the infrastructure.

D4

Ethics: Altruistic-allocentric, sustainable approach that thinks and acts in terms of each players long-term interests.

D5

Evolution: Phylogenetic development stages 1-6/Intercultural Development stages 7-12

1 sensory level: human developmental stage of perception
2 active level: human developmental stage of action
3 affective level: human developmental stage of affection
4 analytic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the intellect
5 synthetic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the Ego and the social group
6 universal level: human developmental stage that goes beyond Ego and synthesis
7 stage 1 denial: unable to identify cultural differences
8 stage 2 defence: recognition of cultural differences but tendency to evaluate other cultures negatively to one’s own
9 stage 3 minimization: recognition of superficial differences (objective culture) such as customs and habits, while holding the view that all cultures are essentially the same
10 stage 4 acceptance: Recognition and appreciation of cultural differences in behavior and values; considering them as logical and coherent solutions in different contexts.
11 stage 5 adaptation: development of communication skills that facilitate intercultural communication; cybernetic thinking
12 stage 6 integration: internalization of a bicultural or multicultural perspective; intercultural facilitator. (section based on Milton Bennett and Dr. Thérèse Brosse).

Quelle: « Transcultural Management - Transculturelles Management » und « Interkulturelles Management - Intercultural Management », Gebhard Deißler, 2009.

Die klassische interkulturelle Forschung verwendet die empirischen interkulturellen Forschungsdaten tendenziell deterministisch. Hier werden die kulturellen Verhaltensmuster als ein Stereotyp betrachtet, das heißt, daß man davon ausgeht, daß alle Mitglieder einer Kulturgruppe zu denselben Werten und Verhaltensweisen hin tendieren. Das bezieht sich insbesondere auf die Forschung Hofstedes und Trompenaars und Hampden-Turners, obwohl Hofstede selbst einräumt, daß es sich um eine kulturelle Vorprogrammierung handle, wobei ein Kulturmitglied noch eine Marge für die Entscheidung habe, wie er mit dieser angenommenen kulturellen Programmierung umgeht.

Das führt zum weiterführenden Ansatz, der mit den interkulturellen Forschern Brannen und Salk verbunden ist und der Kultur nicht als Stereotyp, sondern als Prototyp betrachtet, was eine Differenzierung der Aggregat Kulturmodelle mit sich bringt. Der Unterschied zwischen der Kulturauffassung als Stereotyp und der als Prototyp besteht darin, daß das stereotype Kulturverständnis von der Gleichheit des Wertesystems und der Verhaltensmuster der Mitglieder einer Kulturgruppe ausgeht, während das prototypische Kulturverständnis davon ausgeht, daß die verschiedenen Mitglieder einer Kulturgruppe - einer nationalen in der Regel - ihre kulturellen Wertepräferenzen in verschiedenen Graden zum Ausdruck bringen. Demnach unterscheiden sie innerhalb einer und derselben nationalen Kulturgruppe zum einen kulturell Normale, die die mutmaßlichen kulturellen Präferenzen einer Kulturgruppe durchschnittlich zum Ausdruck bringen, andererseits Hypernormale, die die kulturellen Präferenzen einer nationalen Kulturgruppe überdurchschnittlich zum Ausdruck bringen, sowie Marginale, die die nationalkulturellen Präferenzen unterdurchschnittlich zum Ausdruck bringen.

Man könnte weiter differenzieren und annehmen, daß jede kulturelle Interaktion von der spezifischen Subjekt-Objekt (z. B. Führer und Geführte) Beziehung abhängt. Beide haben einen Entscheidungsspielraum wie sie sich in einer gegebenen Situation verhalten und wie sie mit ihrer kulturellen Programmierung umgehen.

-Im Transkulturellen Profiler wird das national- oder gesellschaftskulturelle Profil der Pofilerebene D7 durch das individualkulturelle Profil der Profilerebene D6 präzisiert. In einem globalen Managementumfeld, insbesondere, kommen die gesamten dimensionalen Register zum Tragen. Und die noetisch/transkulturelle Ebene ist die allen übergeordnete Steuerungs- und Integrationsebene: Das ist das Spezifikum des Transkulturellen Profilers und erfordert unter anderem die Einbeziehung der Bewußtseinsforschung.-

Vergleicht man die Modelle und Ansätze, so stellt am fest, daß die interkulturellen Annahmen seitens der interkulturellen Forscher immer weniger deterministisch und immer probabilistischer und interpretativer werden. - Doch während die Multifaktoriertheit unüberschaulicher wird und die Prognostizierbarkeit schwindet, kommt eine integrierte gesamtkulturelle Kultursteuerungssystematik wie die des Transkulturellen Profilers gerade recht. - Die individuelle Freiheit, das Verständnis der Kultur als Prototyp und der jeweilige Gesamtkontext veranlassen die Forscher dazu, von einem instrumentellen Bewußtsein, in dem eine bestimmte Handlung bestimmte Verhaltensfolgen erzeugt, abzurücken. Kultur wird, wie im Falle Brannen und Salks als Gegenstand der Verhandlung betrachtet. Bei ihnen dienen die Aggregatmodelle lediglich als konzeptuelle Verankerung, welche Form aber beispielsweise die Entstehung einer neuen Kultur in einer internationalen/interkulturellen strategischen Allianz, wie in dem von ihnen untersuchten deutsch-japanischen Joint-Venture annimmt, läßt sich in einem derart komplexen Organisationsumfeld nicht mehr vorhersagen und bleibt ein Gegenstand der Verhandlung und Aushandlung.

Mit Hilfe der oben dargestellten drei Modelle, insbesondere dem von mir entwickelten Transkulturellen Profiler, der Interkulturalität unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Bewußtseinsforschung in einen weiteren Rahmen einbettet, habe ich versucht, den Schritt von der Interkulturalität zur Transkulturalität im Sinne einer den Aggregatmodellen übergeordneten integrierenden Ebene zu machen. In Anlehnung an die Bewußtseinsforschung, die Neurophysiologie und die Weltanschauungen, die weltlichen wie auch die geistigen, kann man davon ausgehen, daß diese Ebene in der Lage ist, den gesamten mentalen Speicher mit all seinen diversen kulturellen Programmen besser zu steuern. Dies gestattet die Integration der diversen interkulturellen Modelle und Managemententscheidungen. Sie werden durch eine übergeordnete Dimension verständlicher, beherrschbarer und nachhaltiger. Besonders die Ebenen D4 und D5 des Transkulturellen Profilers haben eine Scharnierfunktion in dieser psychologischen Architektur. Die Ebene D4 der Ethik resultiert zum Teil aus der Ebene D5 der Evolution. Die Scharnierfunktion dieser Ebenen kommt insbesondere dadurch zum Ausdruck, daß man, wenn man die Tür progressiv öffnen kann, die von diesen Angeln oder Scharnieren getragen wird, einen gänzlich neuen Bewußtseinsraum mit optimierter kultureller, interkultureller und insbesondere transkultureller Performance betreten kann. Die wissenschaftlichen, psychologischen, philosophischen und religiösen Weltanschauungen mehrerer Kulturen und Epochen weisen in diese Richtung.

Es handelt sich um die Öffnung jener Tür, die die Überschreitung der Schwelle vom interkulturellen zum transkulturellen Raum gestattet. Unter Beibehaltung der Raummetapher kann man sagen, daß es sich im wesentlichen um einen erweiterten inneren Raum, natürlich einen Bewußtseinsraum handelt, der imstande ist, den erweiterten äußeren Raum, den nunmehr planetaren, supranationalen Raum, nachhaltiger zu managen, da der innere und der äußere Raum ein Kontinuum bilden und zwar in dem Sinne, daß die Erweiterung des inneren Bezugsrahmens die Erweiterung des äußeren Bezugsrahmens ermöglicht. Der innere und der äußere Raum sind ein interdependentes Kontinuum. Veränderungen in dem einen bedingen Veränderungen im anderen. Die Konfrontation mit den transnationalen und metanationalen Managementherausforderungen in Wirtschaft und Politik zwingt zur Erweiterung des inneren Referenzrahmen des Bewußtseins. Und die Erweiterung des inneren Bezugsrahmens gestattet ihrerseits das nachhaltigere Management des planetar erweiterten Bezugsrahmens. Man kann sogar von der Annahme ausgehen, daß der innere und der äußere Raum zwei Aspekte desselben einen Raums sind.

Solange die Bewußtseinsentwicklung auf die Entwicklung der Gruppenidentität, das heißt unter Bezugnahme auf Dr. Thérèse Brosses phylogenetischem Entwicklungsmodell, demzufolge die Individualentwicklung die Menschheitsentwicklung rekapituliert, auf die mental-synthetische Ebene, i.e. auf den institutionellen, organisationellen und nationalen Bewußtseinsraum beschränkt bleibt, verharrt es tendenziell in der ethnozentrischen Phase der interkulturellen Entwicklung. Es hat geringe kulturelle Eigen- oder Fremdbewußtheit, da das Bewußtsein entwicklungsbedingt gewissermaßen in einer mental-synthetischen Phase der Gruppenbildung und Gruppenidentifi-kation ist, die der Mensch stammes- und individualgeschichtlich durchläuft. Je nach Sozialisierung und individueller Biographie kann die Bewußt-seinsentwicklung hier enden, doch sie kann durchaus über die Phase der Entwicklung des kollektiven Egos hinausgehen und die Tür zu einer universelleren Phase jenseits der mental-synthetischen Bewußtseinsentwicklung (Ebene 6 der psychologischen Entwicklungsstufen) öffnen, um den weiteren Raum eines universelleren Bewußtseins zu betreten und somit einem weiteren äußeren Raum erfolgreich zu begegnen.

In diesem Raum, mit einer erweiterten kulturellen Eigen- und Fremdbewußtheit wird die ethnorelative Phase der interkulturellen Entwicklung, die aus den Stufen Akzeptanz, Anpassung und Integration besteht (siehe IDM), ermöglicht. Nun kann der interkulturelle Theoretiker und Praktiker sich im gesamten interkulturellen Raum innen wie außen bewegen.

Die Tür zu jenem Raum, der nicht nur einen erweiterten Raum, sondern den Raum einer weiteren Ebene der psychologischen Architektur eröffnet, gilt es aber noch zu erschließen. Hier gibt es keine Kompartimentierungen mehr, keine Mauern und Wände, die interkulturell be- und ausgrenzen. Hier gibt es nur noch ein Feld, ein Einheitsfeld. Wird dieser gesamte Bewußtseinsraum erschlossen, so bewegt man sich in einem metakulturellen Raum. Das entspricht insbesondere der noetischen oder transkulturellen Ebenen D2 des zwölfstufigen Transkulturellen Profilers. Von hier aus werden die darunter befindlichen 10 Ebenen steuerbarer. Nimmt die universelle Bewußtseinsentwicklungsebene Gestalt an, so betritt man einen Bewußtseinsraum, der weit genug ist, um allen Formen des Gruppenbewußtseins Raum zu gewähren. Umgekehrt ist dies nicht möglich, ebensowenig, wie ein kleines Wassergefäß nicht den Inhalt eines größeren fassen kann, wohl aber das größere den Inhalt vieler kleinerer Gefäße. Da es sich um einen Raum handelt, der sich dem mentalsynthetischen Bewußtseinsraum (Stufe 5 der psychologischen Entwicklungsstufen) weitgehend zu entziehen scheint, verwendet man lieber Bilder und Metaphern zur Verdeutlichung des Gemeinten. Hat man die noetische oder transkulturelle Ebene des Profilers, der eine psychologische Architektur symbolisiert, erreicht, kann man aber dennoch in darunter befindlichen multikulturellen Räumen agieren und zwar viel erfolgreicher, da der weitere Bewußtseinsraum des transkulturellen Bewußtseins die multikulturellen einschließt, aber nicht umgekehrt. Der eine große Raum der noetischen Ebene D2, sowie der kosmischen Ebene D1, operationalisiert durch die Ebene D3 umfangen die gesamte darunter befindliche Architektur. Bildlich gesprochen ist es so, als stünde man auf der höchsten Plattform eines Hochhauses oder Wolkenkratzers und könnte die gesamten darunter liegenden Ebenen mit ihren globalen Konzernzentralen und ihren diversen globalen Akteuren mit ihren verschiedenen geistigen Räumen einsehen. Das mag materiell und technisch aufwendig sein. Geistig steht dem aber weniger im Wege. Man befindet sich auf einer übergeordneten eigenen Ebene, die die diversen anderen Ebenen erkenntnismäßig durchschaut.

Die dritte Ebene der Operationalisierung - D3 des Transkulturellen Profilers - ist das Eintreten der noetischen metakulturellen Bewußtseinsebene in die darunter befindlichen relativen, kompartimentierten Bewußtseinsräume der dort befindlichen kulturellen Repräsentanten und zwar unter Beibehaltung der Erkenntnisfähigkeit aus dem höher gelegenen noetischen transkulturellen Raum und somit der Fähigkeit der Dialektik der Inter- und Multikulturalität die Optik der Einheit entgegenzusetzen, die nicht-dualistisch und nicht-dialektisch ist sonder integrativ.

Die noetische/transkulturelle Ebene D 2 befaßt sich mit dem gesamten Speicher als solchem, während die interkulturelle Ebene sich vorrangig mit den diversen Inhalten des Speichers, den verschiedenen kulturellen Programmen befaßt. Versteht man die Natur des Speichers, sowie seine Inhalte, das heißt, wie die Programme entstehen und wie der Speicher aufgebaut ist und funktioniert, so erwirbt man eine Perspektive, die sowohl darin als auch darüber steht; eine Kompetenz, die kulturelle Programme aktivieren und steuern und deaktivieren kann und somit Kultur insgesamt beherrschbar macht. Es handelt sich um eine Subordination und Integrationsebene der gesamten hierarchischen Bewußtseinsarchitektur. Im Transkulturellen Managementmodell versinnbild-licht die Kuppelkonstruktion mit der schematisch angedeuteten Laterne die Integration, Konvergenz und Konsolidierung der materiellen wie symbolischen psychologischen Gesamtarchitektur des Dom-Modells. Über die Statik hinaus ist die Dynamik der Architektur des inneren Raums, insbesondere die Entwicklung darin, eher im Bereich der Evolution, Introspektion und Erfahrung angesiedelt.

Die messtechnische Erfassung dieser inneren Räume, das heißt der verschiedenen Entwicklungsstufen des Bewusstseins im Labor ist nicht systematisch und umfassend erfolgt. Jedoch hat die Kardiologin und Forscherin Dr. Thérèse Brosse bereits vor Jahrzenten in ihren durch die französische Regierung ermöglichten Forschungsmissionen den verschiedenen phylogenetischen Entwicklungsstufen elektroenzephalographische Muster und eine Wellensystematik zuordnen können.

Ich führe zur Verdeutlichung einige Forschungsdaten der Pariser Forscherin aus meiner Schrift Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management im englischen Originaltext an, den ich bereits in den 90er Jahren geschrieben habe.

Dr. Thérèse Brosse establishes, moreover, an experimentally supported correlation between each of these psychological states and EEG patterns: The Delta wave corresponds to the vegetative functions of the new-born, the Theta wave corresponds to the sensory level; the Alpha to the affective level, Beta to the analytic, mental level. Thus we may formulate the following correlations, keeping in mind that further experimentation is to be conducted.

Wave Level

Delta vegetative functions

Theta sensory

Alpha affective

Beta analytic

synthetic

laboratory research data not available universal

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES AND EEG PATTERNS

Source: La Conscience-Energie, Dr. Thérèse Brosse, op. cit.

Es bedürfte einer Forschungsinitiative, die an diese bereits länger zurückliegende Forschung anknüpft, mit dem Ziel, experimentell wissenschaftlich basierte Methoden auch für die interkulturelle und transkulturelle Forschung einzusetzen, um die, wissenschaftlich betrachtet, in mancher Hinsicht unscharfe Welt der Erforschung des Interkulturellen zu schärfen und zu systematisieren, um es besser zu fundieren und gezielter für die interkulturelle Entwicklung zu nutzen, ohne es jedoch als wissenschaftlich basierte Konditionierung zu mißbrauchen.

Wie weit ein interkultureller Forscher oder transnationaler Manager sich vom Interkulturellen zum Transkulturellen, nennen wir es von der kulturell dualistischen Ebene zur transkulturellen nichtdualistischen, der höheren Ebene des transkulturellen Managementmodells bewegen kann, hängt vor allem von dem Fortschritt auf den Ebenen der Ethik und der Evolution, D4 und D5 des Pofilers ab, sowie von der Annäherung an die universelle Stufe im phylogenetischen Entwicklungsmodell und vom Fortschritt auf den Stufen der ethnorelativen Phase des interkulturellen Entwicklungsmodells.

Die Bewußtseinsevolution mit den in den drei Modellen erwähnten maßgeblichen Übergangsbereichen gibt Auskunft über die interkulturellen und transkulturellen Tendenzen und Potentiale. Der gesamte Profiler, in dem die verschiedenen Modelle vereinigt sind, ist ein interkulturelles und transkulturelles Diagnoseinstrument, dessen Gesamterörterung hier nur begrenzt möglich ist. Eine Bewußtseinsentwicklungsdiagnostik gestattet jedoch, aufgrund relativ leicht interpretierbarer, signifikanter Signale, festzustellen, auf welcher Ebene der Bewußtseinsentwicklung, bzw. psychologischen Entwicklungsstufe sich ein Individuum befindet. Entsprechend wird er/sie sich verhalten, sei es im inter- oder auch intrakulturellen Bereich, denn die Bewußtseinsevolution ist eine fundamentalere Kategorie als die kulturelle Entwicklung.

Man könnte daher argumentieren, daß die Prognosetauglichkeit der Aggregatkulturmodelle durch eine Bewußtseinsentwicklungsdiagnostik oder psychologische Entwicklungsdiagnostik in der Gestalt der psychologischen Entwicklungsstufen vorteilhaft ergänzt werden kann, denn das „Bewußtsein steht über dem psychosozialen und allen Institutionen“ und bedingt seinerseits die kulturellen Werte und Verhaltensmuster.

29 THE MAGIC OF THE ONE:
THE ONE AS THE REGULATOR OF UNITY AND DIVERSITY

Diversity is a design principle of the world. It has been captured in the Mandelbrot set: an equation in which a changing number and a fixed number provide a result which is fed into the changing number slot and iterated. The graphic representation of the equation displays a spiraling dynamic which produces patterns that are continuous, repetitive and self-replicating as well as chaotic. Many biological and natural systems display this fractal feature. The mathematical principle behind it is always one and the same: one principle leads to infinite variations. The endless kaleidoscope of variations is held together by one principle. One could say that the very law behind diversity is Oneness which integrates a continuum consisting of universalist and particularist tendencies, of unity and diversity.

To be as diverse as the world is, there needs to be a unifying principle behind it, a centripetal agent that holds together the centrifugal forces. They need to be in balance. And the stronger the centrifugal forces, the stronger the centripetal forces will have to be to maintain the balance. In Ancient China it has already been recognized and formulated as the yin-yang principle, where the centrifugal or yin forces need to be and actually are polarized by the centripetal yang forces and vice versa. Together they constitute Dao, the one and highest principle. Here we have another principle of Oneness, that of Dao or the Way which depending on its two aspects or arms to make it more concrete, i.e. the interplay of yin and yang forces, leads to an endless transformation and changes of forms.

Both the Mandelbrot principle and Dao are unitary. In each case one principle with two arms, metaphorically speaking, is the one way of nature, framed in diverse cultural terms, which causes the myriads of diversity of the visible world that puzzle the observer and which he finds hard to reconcile at the level of the forms because they display similarities as well as dissimilarities among each other. The only way to reconcile them when their reconciliation at the dialectical level does not yield the desired result is to return to the level of the unitary principle or Oneness which produces the diverse forms. The method may be likened to the exploration of the root cause of symptoms or a of a syndrome. - The solution may consist in the return to the oneness of the principle which engendered the diverse variations which are at odds which each other. If that was feasible, one would hold the key to the reconciliation and integration of the myriad forms of diversity. - Research in the laboratory of the human mind, however, is more of an explorative undertaking than research in a natural science laboratory with specifics, protocols and replicable procedures. It’s a lonesome pioneering effort of the exploration of new terrain which is not yet systematized and therefore, as any pioneering work, may result in more questions than conclusive answers. Yet, questions in the right direction are the requisite for the right answers. Nobody can pretend to own the wisdom of Salomon. A humble approach to overarching questions of such magnitude and relevance as cultural diversity questions have at the threshold of the third millennium is therefore required.

We can take the referred to physiological metaphor literally and bring it very close to us: the two arms of the body are naturally integrated by the brain. If properly synchronized and coordinated by the integrating principle behind, which is the brain, they can synergize to produce a world of myriad forms and artifacts. If they are not integrated by the “oneness principle” which governs the two arms they might not be able to boil and egg. Disconnected from the integrative oneness principle which governs the “dialectic” of the two arms, they can become destructive rather than creative.

Variations have occurred in time and are difficult to reverse. They seem to be irreversible. To make them reversible, time in which the variations have occurred would also have to be reversible. And this does not seem to be the case in the material world. Although, the question of time, whether it is an a priori or whether it is manufactured by human consciousness as well as the question of its reversibility are a matter of debate among scientists.

The question that arises is therefore whether time, in which the many variations and diversifications have occurred can be “reversed in the mind”, in other words, whether the material diversification can be reversed or transcended at the mental or consciousness level. Then one could achieve their unification by a detour.

The problem of ending psychological time has been discussed by enlightened minds like J. Krishnamurti in his talks with leading scientists of the transdisciplinary scientific community for fifty years across the globe. It is also thematized by various religions as the master key in view of liberation as such.

There are the physicists’ approaches to time beginning with geniuses like Einstein, Ilya Prigogine and others that seem to be non-conclusive and there are the enlightened intellectual approaches which use it as a lever to solve the riddle of existence and in view of a consciousness revolution. There also are the religious approaches to time which hope to find liberation in its mastery. And finally the modern samurai of the “budo tradition” at a more sophisticated level declare that in their very concrete experience neither time nor space exist. This applies to Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, the creator of aikido. The physicist’s, the philosopher’s, the spiritualist’s and the samurai’s approaches to time highlight its relevance when one enquires into the deeper layers of existence. But, although time cannot be ignored, it is not the major focus of this exploration. It seems to be clear that fully understanding time and transcending psychological time and therefore the mind (which largely seems to be a product of time) in order to reach unconditioned awareness can be an approach to the One and its transformatory magic. Here we want to follow a more conventional Western cultural tradition:

Based on the unity-diversity, centrifugal-centripetal balance there should also be one principle that holds together the totality of the diverse creation. From a monotheistic standpoint the underlying unitary principle of the dialectic of the unity-diversity continuum of creation and its integrative polarization is the Creator. Therefore the totality of the diverse creation can be explained by the superordinate logic of oneness of the all-encompassing Creator. In other words the correct understanding of monotheism which presides over the centrifugal and the centripetal forces of creation, those of diversification and integration, of diversity and unity which together are aspects of the one principle behind creation should enable a path to the integration of the diversity of the manifested forms. And what stands behind the principle as well as the manifestation is the creator of both, the principle and its activity. This is the biggest One and true magic of the one imaginable.

If one accepts that man is made in the image of God, as a replication of his Creator, he contains the oneness principle as well as the unity-diversity principle and therefore the ability to naturally balance centrifugal forces of diversity and centripetal forces of unity and also the integration of the two forces in an absolute ONE, which simply is and by virtue of its being what it is, constitutes the master key to all diversity resolution dilemmas. It appears as a gift of the wisdom of the Creator that has been bestowed on him a priori for dilemma resolution in the periphery of his being. As a gift it brings the obligation of its operationalization with it. The Bible is full of metaphors that go beyond the assumption of a oneness principle behind diversity, dualistic principles and dialectics. One can even detect a total BIG ONE of the oneness of the totality of what is, has ever been and will ever be. As the religious aspects of diversity challenges threaten the whole of mankind today as a sword of Damocles, religious intelligence and sensitivity should no longer be banned from academia as unfashionable or unscientific.

There is increasing evidence that religious and even pseudo-religious determination can outlast a coalition of mighty armies. And, after all, the academic world of the 21st century hinges on centuries of monastic tradition. Should this evidence and the roots of academic culture be ignored? - Misperception of oneness, all-encompassing oneness which means acceptance, love and solidarity with the human family as a whole, without excluding those who manifest oneness in diverse forms, should be corrected so as to honour the principle of oneness beyond diversity. The root of the fundamentalist problem consists in the misperception of the oneness principle by diminished particularist standards: a deficitary notion of oneness. Love of God, of oneself and of one’s neighbour are oneness in action. They are one, indivisible and all-encompassing.

Due to the possibility of expanding awareness so as to encompass the totality and based on the monotheistic Christian assumption of man being made in the image of God, the integrity of the total seems to be an a priori fact and actual determinant of human nature as a whole. Due to his/her lack of awareness or oblivion of this a priori fact which underpins his/her existence antagonistic diversity issues can arise. Therefore, although evolution seems to be materially irreversible, memory of the origin can effect the magic of integration. It is the magic of the one. It is so self-evident that man forgets it. This forgetfulness underlies the struggle of the diverse forms. Through the reminiscence of his/her Creator man can in a way reverse and transcend time at the level of consciousness and always return to the totality and oneness without giving up an inch of his singular individual uniqueness, evolutionary “acquis” and modern sophistication. Through his aware memory he has access to the one which is always present in a latent form together with the diversifying and integrating forces. It is so close to him that it eludes him. But when it slips outside the horizon of his awareness he puts it at an unreachable distance which makes it unavailable as a natural integrative function of diversity.

With the premise of man being made in the image of God he can not only reconcile unity and diversity but he can completely transcend this dialectic as he partakes - based on the premise of him being a replication of his Creator - not only in the dialectical but also in the oneness principle behind it. It is truly marvellous how man can - in consciousness - transform anything he encounters from duality into underlying unity without a hue of dissolution. While maintaining the outer status quo and not giving up anything of his uniqueness he can fully integrate diversity by virtue of consciousness, awareness or reminiscence of his true nature. It appears that in spirit or consciousness man can reverse time while remaining in his personal time-space.

Unity and diversity together constitute the continuum of totality. In order to integrate it a mediator is required that contains the two. Although diversity can be polarized by unity it is no sustainable solution to the diversity challenge, because unity and diversity interact dialectically. The true diversity solution only resides in the transcendence of this continuum which is the transcendence of time, the psychological reversal of time. It is not a simple reconciliation in dilemma theory terms, because the synergy formula of the two poles will probably remain in the domain of duality, whereas the true transcendence of the dualistic plane can only be achieved by the non-dualistic dimension or plane of oneness itself. However, the clearance of the dualistic unity-diversity plane, its integration can be a stepping stone towards the higher non-dualistic plane of oneness, where the true, irreversible, unconditioned essential One resides that is no longer subject to the dance of alliances of the dualistic plane with its ephemeral reference criteria for human solidarity: There is a difference in quality between the two levels. The dualistic plane is cultural and reversible, whereas the non-dualistic dimension is essential and irreversible. If man can think it and if true spirituality has been teaching about this absolute plane for eons and enjoins moral codes of behaviour for its realization one may assume that it actually exists and that it is not a projection of an ideal state as a response to the actual state of the affairs of the world.

Whether it can be achieved also depends on man’s development on levels D4 Ethics and D5 Evolution of the transcultural management model or profiler below. It also depends on a shift of priorities in human potential enhancement from idiocentric to allocentric finalities which expand the reference criterion for human solidarity to encompass more of the whole. And obviously, as has been pointed out, it can be derived from a number of world views, first and foremost those which merit the attribute religious as well as scientific and philosophical analysis. The enhanced reality can be discovered through grace, revelation, analysis or ethical effort, sensitization and awareness and last but not least also through learning. And that is where our age of information and communication and the age of knowledge which are both built on learning have to play a role. As such it becomes an issue of a sustainable universal socialization, locally, regionally and globally and moves from the esoteric into the exoteric domain of politics which, in the long-term, is a major beneficiary of a socialization in the light of a geopolitical oneness principle, because it may well be the panacea of choice for domestic, intercultural and international conflict: the path of peace and the fulfillment of human cravings since time immemorial, probably unfulfilled because various contextual factors and conditioning kept him on the plane of duality and dialectics. But with human affairs gravitating towards wholeness and integration in every respect man could also realize the corollary of his whole potentiality, the awareness of natural, unconditional essential oneness as a complement and a solution to frequently unnatural, conditioned, peripheral diversity conceptions. Is such a perspective not the corner stone of a blueprint for the future of the world at this critical threshold of changing eras in many ways?

For monotheistic believers the agent that allows the transcendence of duality is the Creator: a personal solution. Non-believers in a personal God need an impersonal third agent to integrate the dialectics of diversity and unity. Without a mediator man has to do the work alone. As such the mediator truly is a divine grace! Consciousness techniques to transcend duality are practiced by other world views. To what extent they are effective can be measured by whether they remain on the dualistic plane of change or can go beyond it. The transcendence of duality transcends the game of unity and diversity. It is anchored in the One and not subject to changes as a consequence of the interplay between unity and diversity. The two react to each other. There is a tension between the two. The anchoring in the One transcends this dialectic tension.

A religious mind or one that is fully aware of the consciousness dimension is required to solve the mystery of unity and diversity through the Magic of the One. It seems that all integrative oneness can be reached through mediation: mediation by the Creator for monotheistic or through the type of consciousness that presides over the interplay of the two tendencies of the mind which functions on a continuum of unity and diversity and depending on where man puts his emphasis, effort and conscious attention he will perceive through the filter provided by that point of the unity-diversity continuum. Yet this plane remains dialectical and needs redemption by the non-dialectical oneness plane. So it seems. The transition towards that plane conditions the irreversibility of integration of the dualistic plane.

The horizontal axis which maps the continuum of unity-diversity cannot redeem itself - except temporarily - as a law of duality presides over this plane. The dialectic can however be stabilized by introducing a second, vertical axis. The two axes together form a cross. The intersection between the horizontal diversity-unity continuum and the vertical oneness axis provides the integration interface for all three: unity-diversity and oneness. This interface allows the management of all aspects that make up the world. It sums up all potentialities. And it provides the summum of simplicity and anchoring in otherwise vast and unmanageable complexity. This intersection is another approximation to the magic of the One.

However, language itself may sometimes constitute a barrier to the approximation of that still point. It can lead towards it, but it can also lead away from it. It functions dialectically and by doing so tends to keep the one who uses it within the perimeter of its dialectics which one needs to leave behind in order to approach that “magic point”. Stilling the mind and linguistic activity, inner and outer, are part of this stillness. The unity-diversity turbulences of mental origin cannot arise on the ocean of quietness. The ocean can be understood as a metaphor encompassing the two qualities of essential oneness as well as the potential dialectics of the waves of diversity and unity. All three are always present in it. It is a nature metaphor of the trinity metaphor. The Holy Trinity might therefore also be read as the highest principle – the highest magic that symbolizes the Creator with the totality of Creation and the redemption of the latter through the mediation of the Son in the Holy Spirit: A cosmic unity-diversity integration principle to be used as a divine template and panacea for successful resolution of diversity integration at the microcosmic, human scale. This eschatological unity diversity-mystery of the divine trinity could be seen as the rationale of the the human unity-diversity enigma. Understanding the diversity principle behind diversity makes it decodable and and soluble. - As in the previous approaches to the magic of the all-integrating and unifying one there are three entities involved: a principle of principles, the One, which integrates the dialectics of the other principle: a non-dialectical principle that presides over a seemingly dialectical principle. Here Oneness assumes diverse forms in order to unite and unify. - Attempts at the level of a dialectical principle can only produce other forms of dialectics, whereas integration via a non-dialectical principle terminates dialectics and duality. This is the only sustainable integration of dialectic diversity mechanisms.

It can be the redemption not only from the dialectics of the human condition which displays the game of duality in myriad forms, but also from other conditions. The sheer inability to transcend this condition is part of the human condition. But thinkers about the human condition (la condition humaine) should also have inquired as to whether the condition is an irreversible human condition or rather a human conditioning which, through repetition and reinforcement at the individual and at the social level, is accepted as a condition. It is accepted as the condition, even though it is partly due to conditioning and therefore partly reversible. It has been reinforced over time so as to make any questioning of it appear like a lack of common sense, of realism and pragmatism. Responding with the opposite conditioning would cause the human mind to remain at the very same level of duality and dialectical thinking. Therefore the only truly pragmatic question is whether the quality of the approach can be changed in such a way that dialectics and its endless replication in new forms can be transcended. If the human condition results largely form conditioning it can be changed by understanding and ending the conditioning which is not conducive to individual and social health – and which produces the overall bad condition, the plight of the planet.

If we understand that the cause for the human condition largely resides in human conditioning it would be common sense to refrain from further conditioning. But when all forms of conditioning, ideological, social, cultural, etc. are stopped man experiences a total void, an emptiness of sense which might frighten him. He needs something in exchange and a good exchange would be to turn his attention to totality and to oneness. It is a good deal that exchanges something infinitely vast for a small fragment of it. That should make sense, even to modern materialistic mindsets. If one can redirect attention towards the non-dialectical principle a new awareness of the whole may dawn which thinks in integrative rather than divisive terms. What follows are new ethics, values and bahaviours.

On the assumption that a non-dialectical principle can perform the magic of the one, that is to solve the dilemmas arising on the diversity-unity continuum I have designed a transcultural management model which resolves the dialectics of an intercultural management environment in a superordinate oneness principle, which is not ideology-specific and which can be accessed from various world views and cultural backgrounds. As is the case with pyramids or dome structures, the top can be accessed via many paths and angles of vision. The same applies to this model. In South America or in the Middle East on might choose a pyramid structure to symbolize the convergence in a unifying principle, in Nomad environments maybe a simple tent, in the East a mandala etc. Our model of choice in the Christian world is that of a DOME structure which morphologically and symbolically carries the message of the resolution of the game of diversity and multiplicity in a harmonious hierarchical architecture which integrates the edifice from the top. It is a model that aspires at the representation of oneness with all its diverse manifestations.

Part of the rationale of this 12x12 dimensional model (see following pages) is that in a global village not only business and technology are globalized and increase the degree of globalization steadily but also the diversity challenge has concomitantly assumed various forms of globalization. A sustainable solution to one of these major issues of our days has not been found. The present reflection is part of an inquiry into an approach that matches the issue. It is a vital question for humanity as a whole, as the cold civil wars and international diversity conflicts tend to assume increasingly hot and military shapes and forms. Any healthy system which has the will to survive responds with all its resources to maintain its integrity and to ensure its survival. Traditional diversity management approaches have neither at the domestic nor at the international level engineered the solutions the world needs at this stage of transition to a world civilization. Evidence of it has accumulated over the past years in all hemispheres. So, it is legitimate and even imperative to draw on man’s noblest virtues and highest resources and to explore whether and how it is possible to preserve and further evolve that which has been entrusted to man which is the whole of the earth with himself as its crown and not to jeopardize and squander it, above all the existence of man himself. And the solution must be at the level of the challenge to be effective. Astronomically expensive military expenses to meet the challenge alone are not at the level of the threat. At best they are the stick of a carrot and stick policy. But where’s the carrot in this approach which man is willing to perceive and follow? A problem of the mind and consciousness produced and maintained by ongoing conditioning should also be met at its own level of consciousness. And in the global age of communication one wonders why global I&C resources are not more systematically used to facilitate global change pacifically.

So it is also necessary to meet a problem of the mind at the level of the mind and consciousness. The resources for this purpose are there. So are the institutions in the form of IOs and NGOs etc. Obviously the awareness has to dawn at the level of the policy and decision makers. The latter are accountable in this context. Those who do not seek alternative, enhanced ways up to the requirements need to justify why they do not try or are unable to respond more effectively at a non-violent level, not those need to justify themselves who see that it is necessary to daringly draw on man’s noblest endowment which is there and lies dormant.

Yet, the time has come to wake up, to stand up and respond to hottening up, globally scaled wars. It has been known to strategists for millennia, from Sun Tzu to Mao Zedong right to the Hindukush in our days, for example, where the biggest armies cannot fully pacify a region, that effective conflict resolution, particularly cultural diversity conflict resolution cannot be achieved by the use of the stick alone. That’s where the model of transcultural management comes in which can inspire an approach which is not only applicable to global business management but to any management where first and foremost the conflict is in the human mind and consciousness. And there are few conflicts to which this does not apply.

In cultural diversity and religious diversity conflicts the battlefield is the human mind and waging the war of the mind and consciousness on the material battlefield is of limited use. The battlefield of the mind needs to use a more sophisticated infrastructure, softer weapons which are all pervasive in their reach. Classical weapons do not penetrate the depth of the human mind and heart. They harden them and produce contrary effects to those pursued in the mind of strategists.

Some argue that a critical mass has to change in order to bring about global change. But if we assume that the individual is the world himself because all these conflicts have their origin first and foremost in the human mind, the individual himself has the obligation to become aware and change, for then the world changes. Then the hot and hard weapons and wars will belong to the past of human history.

The transcultural profiler which is a systematic approach to transcultural management and conflict resolution that draws on man’s highest psychological potentialities is a soft weapon which can contribute to conflict resolution through the carrot rather than the stick. I would like to represent it once more for more clarity. The following picture shows a perfect DOME design, whereas the subsequent model merely insinuates this perfection. The religious motive in its perfection bridges and integrates the various approaches to diversity-based conflict resolution, the religious and the more profane which all make their unique contribution.

THE DOME-12D-Transcultural Management Model/Profiler

1. THE IDEAL DOME ARCHITECTURE

Michelangelos unwiederholbares Kuppeldesign des Petersdoms illustriert die Struktur und die Dynamik des Übergangs von der Vielfalt der Kuppelbögen in die Einheit der Laterne und darüber hinaus. Dasselbe Prinzip kommt im Prototyp des nachfolgenden globalen Management Modells zu Ausdruck.

Michelangelo’s design of the Saint Peter’s cupola is a physical architecture metaphor for the transitions within and the convergence of unity and diversity in man’s overall psychological architecture, more specifically in a global diversity management context.

2. THE APPLICATION OF THE IDEAL PHYSICAL ARCHITECTURE AS A METAPHOR OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE

illustration not visible in this excerpt

source: 798px_Peterskirken_om_natten

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

DOME-12D-Transcultural Management Profile Legend

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection, the biological, mental and spiritual roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Ethics: Altruistic-allocentric, sustainable approach that thinks and acts in terms of each players long-term interests.

D4

Evolution: Phylogenetic development stages 1-6/Intercultural Development stages 7-12

1 sensory level: human developmental stage of perception
2 active level: human developmental stage of action
3 affective level: human developmental stage of affection
4 analytic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the intellect
5 synthetic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the Ego and the social group
6 universal level: human developmental stage that goes beyond Ego and synthesis
7 stage 1 denial: unable to identify cultural differences
8 stage 2 defence: recognition of cultural differences but tendency to evaluate other cultures negatively to one’s own
9 stage 3 minimization: recognition of superficial differences (objective culture) such as customs and habits, while holding the view that all cultures are essentially the same
10 stage 4 acceptance: Recognition and appreciation of cultural differences in behavior and values; considering them as logical and coherent solutions in different contexts.
11 stage 5 adaptation: development of communication skills that facilitate intercultural communication; cybernetic thinking
12 stage 6 integration: internalization of a bicultural or multicultural perspective; intercultural facilitator. (section based on Milton Bennett and Dr. Thérèse Brosse).

D5

ICP The Individual culture profile: Individualization of one's mental software by these variables

1 family
2 religion
3 education
4 language
5 profession
6 class
7 gender
8 race
9 generation
10 neighbours
11 friends
12 region.

D6

NCP National Culture Profile: Acquired through primary, secondary and tertiary socialization

1 Power distance: indicates the extent to which a society accepts the unequal distribution of power in institutions and organization
2 Uncertainty avoidance: refers to a society's discomfort with uncertainty, preferring predictability and stability
3 Individualism/collectivism: reflects the extent to which people prefer to take care of themselves and their immediate families, remaining emotionally independent from groups, organizations and other collectives.
4 Masculinity/femininity: reveals the bias towards either masculine values of assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism, or towards feminine values of nurturing and the quality of life and relationships
5 Long-term orientation: refers to the extent to which past, present or future oriented attitudes, thought patterns, bahaviours and values are preferred' (Hofstede 5D- model, source: Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw, Transnational Management 2003)
6 Universalism-particularism: seeks to discover one's prime allegiance to rules and rule-bound classifications or to the exceptional, unique circumstances and relationships
7 Individualism-communitarianism: measures the extent to which managers see the individual employee and shareholder as paramount, their development, enrichment and fulfillment; or to what extent the corporation, customers and the wider community should be the beneficiaries of all personal allegiances
8 Specific-diffuse: measures the tendency to analyze, reduce and break down the field of experience or to synthesize, augment, and construct patterns of experience
9 Neutral versus affective: this concern the legitimacy to show emotions while at work
10 Inner-directed - outer-directed: concerns the 'locus of control.' Is it inside each of us, or outside in our environments to which we must adapt?
11 Achieved-ascribed status: refers to whether status is conferred to people on the basis of what they have achieved or because of what they are
12 Sequential-synchronous time: has to do with whether one sees time as passing in a sequence or coming round again and again' (THT 7D-model, source: Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Managing People Across Cultures 2005).

D7

Communication styles profile

1 High context-low context: Is information in the explicit code or is it implicit in the person?
2 Controlled-free information flow: must be informed versus are already informed
3 Monochronic-polychronic: one thing at a time versus many things at a time
4 Private space-public space: privacy and territoriality versus open space, supportive of networking
5 Concise-elaborate: not talkative versus loquacious
6 Context-centered – person-centered: relevance of speaker and role relations between the parties versus relevance of speaker and the bridging of the communication gap
7 Direct-indirect: cooperativeness. Say briefly and clearly what is true, relevant and needed versus indirectness and circumlocutions
8 Affective-neutral: appropriateness versus inappropriateness of expressing emotions in a professional context
9 Abstract-concrete: refers to how concrete one can be in communicating one's ideas?
10 Private-public information space: how healthy is it to give access to personal information in building business contacts?
11 Linear-circular: how linear can you be in conveying your point?
12 Intellectual-relational: the intellectual style can confront ideas but deals with relationships delicately, whereas the relational style deals with relational issues directly, and ideas more indirectly. (Based on Hall and Hall and E. Ewington, TCO London and Univ. of Cambridge).

D8

Corporate Management Profile: further conditions the national and individual culture profile

1 Specialist job: different functional environments condition different perceptions and attitudes
2 Level of hierarchy: attitudes and bahaviours differ on the board compared to the shop floor
3 Training: the professional ethos of an engineer and a business manager differ
4 Orgnizational culture: either Hofstede's UAI-PDI matrix based classification of implicit organization models as tribe/family, pyramid, machine and market: Alternatively THT's classification as Guided Missile, Eiffel Tower, Family and Incubator organizational patterns based on the dimensions equality-hierarchy and person-task
5 Operating field: depending on the availability of resources and supplies companies may be more or less centralized and controlled
6 Scale of operations: big companies tend to be more formalized than smaller ones
7 Institutional environment: In different societies ownership is either personal or by impersonal, shifting shareholders (1-7 are based on Hickson and Pugh, International Management 2001)
8 Leadership style: exploitative autocratic, benevolent autocratic, participative, democratic (Hodgetts and Luthan, International Management) alternatively, situational-contingent leadership: directing, influencing, collaborating, delegating based on the task-relationship orientation matrix (Hersey, Blanchard, Situational Leadership)
9 Management style: factual, intuitive, analytic, and normative
10 Motivation: based on Hofstede's UAI-MAS matrix this typology exists: Achievement of self or group and esteem, achievement and belongingness, security and esteem, and security and belongingness
11 Stages of corporate development: N. Adler's multinational, global, international, transnational stages, alt. Ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric
12 Cultural distance: CAGE analysis: cultural, administrative, geographic, economic distance.

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