The Dilemma in My Endeavours

My endeavour is a journey into the unknown. It succeeds to the degree that I pilot it well. Nobody can make my endeavour succeed for me. However, although my endeavour is up to me, I am not alone. One or more people may be essential, and many others may play minor parts. My endeavour might just affect my family or it may impact widely. Others who might be expected to be indifferent may assist my efforts from higher motives or selfish interests, or they may object and block me.

I have to recognize and deal with that social context. The presence of this context generates the core inescapable dilemma, or dynamic duality, that applies at every moment and at every level of an endeavour. It is: autonomy v constraint.

Autonomy v Constraint

Autonomy: To be sure, all endeavours flow from «my Will». There is definitely something within me that presses for action. I experience myself as free to choose within my personal limits (e.g. resources, capabilities). So my autonomy is intrinsic to any endeavour that I call «mine». The existence of personal limits does not affect the reality of «my» autonomy. However, existential limits, like being a slave who is a chattel of another, would remove my autonomy.

Constraints: I and my endeavour are in a social setting, in certain close relationships, in a physical environment, part of a culture, at a moment in history. Such socio-physical realities represent an undeniable constraint. These limitations are alien to me in the sense that I did not choose them, even if I may have brought some into being by my past choices. However they arose, I have to cope with milieu constraints because they are intrinsic to my endeavours and I am inextricably involved with them.

The dynamic duality, autonomous v constrained, can be experienced and described in a wide variety of ways:

Autonomous	Constrained
Personal	Social
Chosen	Accepted
Sovereign	Dependent
Unconditioned	Conditioned
Spontaneous	Controlled
Natural	Required
Internal	External
Desired	Coerced
Emergent	Prerequisite
Self	Context
Capabilities	Circumstances

Both poles are relevant to any endeavour, and over-emphasis on one pole will surely cause difficulties and distortions. Using this duality, each Root Level must now be examined in turn to convert its function into a state represented by a Centre.

If this Root Hierarchy follows the general pattern, then we will find that:

• At some Levels the poles are discrete and require separate Centres: typically at L3 (i.e. change), L5 (i.e. communication) and L6 (i.e. purpose). For these bipolar Levels, we would need to determine which Centre is dominant.

&

• At the remaining Levels—L1 (i.e. action), L2 (i.e. inquiry), L4 (i.e. experience), and L7 (i.e. willingness)—we would expect that both poles will naturally and spontaneously fuse or synthesize within the Centre. These Centres are said to be balanced.

Formulae

The autonomous Centres will be identified with a subscript A.
The constrained Centres will be identified with a subscript C.
The balanced Centres will be identified with a subscript B.

In diagrams, by convention, the dominant Centre in a bipolar Level is placed on the right side; and balanced Centres are placed centrally.

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• Now apply the autonomous v constrained duality to each Root Level.

Originally posted : 13-Aug-2011