The panel of speakers was of the highest order. It was
refreshing to listen to well researched speakers as opposed to gobbledygook based
on Google search from people who tap into their friend’s emotions as a reliable
source of information.
‘’One of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites (…) Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.’’ So said Martin Luther King Jr. in August 1967.
*
Professor Frans B.M. De
Waal, PH.D. (Prof. of Psychology in Emory University, USA; Director of
Living Links Centre at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Emory
University, USA; Distinguished Professor, University of Utrecht, The
Netherlands; Biologist & Primatologist) who has been studying chimpanzees for
many decades started the dialogue talking about chimp politics.In chimp politics, power emerges through body language in the same way it emerges in humans. From an ethological perspective, there are no differences between the body language of primates and humans.
Prof. De Waal defines empathy as the ability to understand
and share the feelings of another being.
In a short film, we see a female chimp bite a baby chimp.
The baby screams and cries of pain until the alpha chimp comes to console it. Consolation
is an act of empathy. Further studies have shown that in chimps and human
alike, the level of empathy is lower in orphans than individuals who have been
mother-reared.
From a power & care viewpoint, alpha males are a
protector of the weak. They will stop two babies fighting; if not, their
mothers will start fighting. Subsequently, alpha males are also the first
provider of consolation making them peace-makers-in-chief and consolers-in-chief.
The neuroscience in rodents and primates is similar to the neuro-science in
humans hence this is also true in humans.
In another experiment, two alpha males live together. In
moments of crisis, we observe that both males resolve conflict quicker when
they are mutually dependent on food. So mutual dependency increases prevention
of conflict and war. On that very point of the dialogue, Prof De Waal mentioned
NATO. After the 2nd world war, the EU (NATO was created by the EU) was
created out of mutual-dependency initially between France and Germany to
prevent a 3rd WW happening. This is a profound basic understanding which
the UK has failed to understand. After this explanation, the audience applauded
somehow in pity, agreement and disbelief
 |
| Body language anyone! |
*
Professor EM. Sarah
Blaffer HRDY (Prof. emerita, university of California-Davis, USA; Anthropologist)
carried on the dialogue from an evolutionary anthropological perspective.
When a baby chimp is born, its mother holds it tight and
always close to her for the first 6 months of its life. With human birth
however, the scenario is different. A human baby will be handled from birth by
an array of different people as well as by the mother. The mid-wife, the father
of the child, the siblings, other members of the family and friends will all be
given the opportunity to hold and interfere with the baby. This has to do with
the trust the mother has for other caretakers. The chimp female has none whilst
the woman has some, in some cases a lot. From an evolutionary view point,
children who have been subjected to most care by different caretakers by the
age of 1 will have an increased likelihood of survival beyond the age of 3. And just
as a side note, it takes 13 million calories to raise a child until he/she can
produce as much as he/she can take.
Furthermore, having a multitude of caregivers in childhood
is correlated with an enhanced capacity to take into account multiple
perspectives later on in adulthood. Multiple perspectives increase cognitive
development. Over generations these children will be favoured by Darwin’s
evolutionary concepts.
In terms of brain sizes, 2 million years ago, the brain of a
chimp was 450cc. Later on, the Homo Erectus’s brain grew to 900cc. The Homo Sapiens’s
brain of today measures 1,500 cc. From a survival and evolutionary perspective,
relying on mothers and women are of upmost importance.
But fathers are also sensitive to childcare. Caring fathers
show psychological changes in their behaviours. From an endocrinological
perspective, changes in hormone production occur also. In caring fathers, the
level of prolactin (hormone best known, usually in women, for producing milk)
increases, testosterone level decreases and the level of oxytocin (social
bonding hormone, usually associated with sexual reproduction, childbirth &
breast feeding) increases.
A change in hormones also occurs when allo-parenting (eg.
Grand-parenting).
In this dialogue, Prof. Blaffer, showed that women have
immense power in the way we ultimately care from one to another, that major changes
in hormone production occur whilst caring for one another, that care is a major
contributor to the growth in human brains and last but not least that testosterone
can also play a role in the display of greater caring behaviour. Powerful
stuff!
 |
Prof. Blaffer lives in California where she and her husband combine
habitat restoration and growing walnuts.
|
*
Prof. Johan
Rockstrom (Executive Director, Stockholm Resillience (Resilience) Center;
Prof. in Environmental Science, Stockholm University, Sweden) is an
internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues.
First and foremost, Prof. Rockstrom started his dialogue by
saying that His Holiness’s call for power and care has a strong scientific
support.
We have wrongly based our assumption that we are a small
world living on a big planet. We have entered the age of anthropocene.
Anthropocene denotes the current geological age viewed as the period during
which human activity has become the dominant influence on the environment and
this denotation is built on facts:
-Up to 1990, we saw no major
changes to our environment. Since then we see massive changes occurring under
our eyes. i won’t enumerate them here because we all know them. But next time
you hear someone say that global warming is a fantasy just fall on them like a ton
of bricks!
-Exponential rise in killing
living organism (vegetation & sentient beings)
-Great
acceleration of species extinction
-We have reached a 3 degree
Celcius variation in the ambient temperature. Despite the Climate Change
Convention of Paris advocating a 2C variation, scientific studies show that an
harmonious stable planet depends on no more than a 1C variation
His Holiness’s message has long been speaking of respect for
our environment. One small change in the way each of us go about using natural resources
may make a small difference at the end of the day but a difference none the
less. But a daily small difference for the rest of our lives would make a huge
difference. Moreover, we will teach others by our good action and a snowball effect
will touch the 7 billon of us on this planet to practise power and care.
*
Professor Dr
Alexandra M. Freund (Prof. of Psychology, University of Zurich,
Switzerland) spoke from a motivational psychological perspective explaining
that humans are equipped with different ‘motives’ that influence our behaviour
and interaction with others. It is necessary to apply power to create these
motives.
When we think of people of power, we often think of negative
power (Hitler) but less often of people of positive power (Gandhi). Let’s look
at what happens when we assign power to people.
The dark/negative sides of power are: less attention are
paid to others, decreased consideration of other’s perspectives, increase in
objectivisation of others and using others as a mean to achieve one’s goal, increased
corruption, decreased willingness to help others, decreased trust &
increased cynicism and decreased desire for inter-personal harmony.
The bright/positive sides of power are: less stress,
increased social resilience after exclusion, increased ability to infer others’
thoughts and feelings, increase in social network, increased subjective
well-being, decreased loneliness, fosters authenticity and therefore increases happiness.
And finally, power can increase altruism and care for others.
Prof. Freund went on to say that part of our problem is if
we see ourselves as powerless and insignificant we will give up on the idea of
caring, altruism and compassion.
 |
| Nelson Mandela |
 |
| Mahatma Gandhi |
*
The dialogue carried on with Professor DR Markus Heinrichs (Dept of Psychology, Laboratory for
Biological and Personality Psychology, Freiburg Brain Imaging Center,
University of Freiburg, Germany) ‘s perspective on the biology of care and
social hormones.
The hormones most associated with care and power are
oxytocin and testosterone respectively.
The production of oxytocin in babies starts in the baby’s
brain. It then passes into the baby’s blood stream allowing milk extraction.
Oxytocin increases eye contact, trust, control of stress and social
interaction. Further research also suggests that oxytocin fosters altruism only
towards in-group members. Hence parents who can produce higher level of
oxytocin increase their ability to care for their own children.
Cortisol is the hormone associated with stress. Let’s look
at different scenarios triggering the production of cortisol in men and women. The
following is hilarious! And in my case, it has brought a new level of
understanding to the reasons why i tend to leave my husband at home where i
know stress will be part of an event i am going to.
The bar chart below shows what happens to the cortisol's production when men and women enter a room for a test.
Scenario 1 - When alone & under stress, a man produces more cortisol than a woman.
Scenario 2 - Each individual is allowed to bring a person of the opposite sex with them in the room for support. For both they stress less therefore the cortisol is less. The cortisol for the man is still higher than for the woman.
Scenario 3 - Each individual is allowed to bring their spouses!!!!!!!(assuming heterosexual couple)
The graph above is called the 'touch effect' where the cortisol level is monitored when a woman is under stress.
The red line shows the cortisol distribution when a woman is under stress and she is alone.
The grey line shows the cortisol distribution when the woman is supported by her husband in a verbal manner! Oooops
The blue line shows the cortisol distribution when the woman is supported by her husband. But this time the husband gives a neck massage and he is quiet!
I laugh then and i am still laughing out loud now!!!!
*
Professor DR Tania
Singer (Director, Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute
for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Leipzig, Germany) talked about data
based on the concept of plasticity.
Recent findings in neuroscience have suggested that altruism
and compassion can be developed through brain plasticity (malleability is
another word to explain) and increase pro-social behaviour.
To state the obvious, training practices change the way we
think. To live a life without training the grey matter does not increase
compassion. Becoming wiser by the pure fact of growing older does not happen.
All of us who own horses and who are seriously active in understanding them
know that time on an untrained horse gives you just the same green horse just
older.
*
Prof. Richard C.
Schwartz, PH.D. (Developer of the Internal Family Systems Model, Teaching
Associate, Department of Psychiatry, Harward (Harvard) Medical School, USA)
explains that each of us strive for power, have a tendency to think of
ourselves first, to get others to do what we want and to accumulate money and
material things to feel proud and safe. We also have a tendency to care for
others and to even put their interests ahead of our own urging us to be
collaborative, helpful and well liked. Both impulses are valued assets when
they are balanced.
From a psychological perspective, power and care can come
closer to each other. The person we care for is not totally powerless as they can
refuse help. In the same way the alpha member needs to care for others in order
to keep his position. Consequently, separating power and care would be
artificial.
It is also safe to say that the relationship between those
two impulses does not follow a simple distribution.
*
In this following session, we heard the perspective of power
& care from the spiritual and religious tradition.
Matthieu Ricard,
PH.D. (Buddhist monk, photographer, humanitarian and author) spoke
about Buddhism.
The essence of Buddhism is the relation between wisdom and
compassion. Once those two are solidly established, we can start thinking of
power.
Bodhicitta is the attainment of enlightenment to help all
sentient beings. Power is used as a tool never for greed, never for revenge or
for jealousy but for wisdom and compassion. Non-violence is never seen as a
sign of weakness. Non-violence towards other human beings, animals and the
environment is a sign of power. This is not to say that we must be passive in
front of conflict such as war, genocide, attack etc. Of course we do something!
We extinguish the spark earlier as oppose to the inferno later. In
Buddhism there are NO EXCUSES for the use of violence to kill. None!
 |
| Matthieu Ricard |
*
Rabbi Awraham
Soetendorp (Founder and President, Jacob Soetendrop Institute for Human
Values, The Netherlands) spoke with so much poetry it left me and the 2,000
other people, given the ovation of the audience at the end, speechless. Below are
just a few of the words Rabbi Awraham delivered:
‘‘Your Holiness, my brother, my long-time friend…we
desperately need each other to achieve a common goal…you are so right in
pointing in the unity for the harmony…in my life, inter relations between tradition
have saved my life…he who saves one human being saves the whole world
regardless of religion, colour, race, sexual inclination…we are all temporary
residents on this earth …we must be more powerful always driven by care.’’
 |
| Rabbi Awraham Soetendrop |
*
It was the turn of equally humbled and impressive Brother Thierry-Marie Coureau, O.P. (Dean
of the Theologicum – Falculty (Faculty) of Theology and Religious Studies,
Institut Catholique de Paris, France; A former Engineer and financial officer,
he joined the Dominican Order in 1990. He presented his thesis on the study of
the three Bhanavakrama of Kamalashila in 2004. Before teaching at the current
institute he spent one year travelling in Buddhist regions to learn Buddhism)
to talk about power & care.
Very pragmatically he said that we do not need any new ideas
for the world because we have them all already. We need to implement them.
When, as a Father, we gain authority, people give us power. Caring is listening
to others. Today, the world needs listening not to be spoken to. Some people
need to be listened to. We also decide to love and not to wait for reciprocity
because once you love there is nothing else. It is done!
 |
| Brother Thierry-Marie Coureau |
*
In this next session of the conference, we heard from
Economists, advisers to governments, Monetary Fund Developers in third world
countries, artists & another Novel Peace Prize winner in addition to His
Holiness.
Prof. Dennis Snower,
PH.D. (President, Kiel Institude for The World Economy, Germany; Prof. of
Economics, Uni of Kiel in Germany) started his presentation on Economics, power
& care.
In the 13th century, the study of economics started
as a pursuit for happiness.
Prof. Snower took a radical turn in his economist
motivations and his views are not yet part of mainstream economic models.
The standard or mainstream vision which still dominates is
called homo-economicus. It is a self-serving model where people make hard wired
choices. Although since 1990 1 billion people worldwide have escaped from extreme
poverty, new economic problems have emerged. Inequalities are increasing in
industrialized countries and the problem of of wealth gap is worsening. It is
coming to light that failures have been driven by indifference and more often
than not economists do not tell us enough about how to deal with anger, fear
and animosity. Those negative feelings do arm the economic equilibrium. It is
only relatively recently, and prompted by the financial crisis of the past
years, that alternative models have started to be taken seriously.
He called this new model ‘caring economics’. It involves
notions of sustainability, cooperation, care and varied human motivational
systems. The motivations of this model are varied and interconnected. The three
motivations are care, self-interest and power.
People’s motivations will influence how they contribute to
the common pot. Experimenting with people’s feelings before an act of financial
donation will determine how much people will donate. A variety of capacities such
as care, reason and synergy will make us more cooperative. Feeling good about
oneself will prompt more generosity.
Conflicts will be brought upon us by competition due to scarce resources
and gains from status and by animosity-driven status such as exceptionalism,
dualism, victimhood and dehumanization.
Prof. Snower concluded by saying that nationalism is a real
threat to the economy. It gave us 2 world wars.
*
Theo Sowa (CEO,
African Woman’s Development Fund, Ghana) gave her view based on many decades
working with women and children in war-stricken countries. She gave pragmatic
examples and was eye opening to say the least.
Ms Sowa emphasised the fact that somehow there is a
distorted message in the world as far as the direction of investment is
concerned. Often the power of women is directed to the feminine top drawer of
power although the power is right here down on the ground. Woman’s labour is
highly discounted primarily in the care sector. Ms Sowa talked about the fight
against AIDS in African countries which has been largely kept under control by
these women going about prevention silently, in their everyday lives. When it
comes to AIDS we often hear about the huge amount of funds being deployed to
find cures and new medicines (which are not available to poor countries as they
are too expensive anyway) not so much about the care these women deploy to
educate, prevent etc.
Ms Sowa talked about the importance of women in order to get
things done. And i believe her, for sure!
She concluded her dialogue with some staggering figures.
They conducted research looking at how much money do third world women and men
need per year in order to be more productive. A woman would need an increase of
$10 per year and for the same role a man would need $110 per year!
*
Then came the turn of Jody Williams. To be totally honest i was a little taken aback by her
familiarity towards His Holiness at first (during and after still). She seemed a little bothered by the heat as
well and whilst waiting for her turn to speak, she took off her shoes, did not
bother to drink her water from the glass, went straight for the bottle. Anyway,
she looked totally unhinged but hey! Who i am to say. Ms Williams is a Novel Peace
Prize winner, the founder and director of Peace Jam, an organisation present in
39 countries working with young people, as well as being a peace laureate for
land mines campaign.
Ms Williams said that listening means hearing what people
have to say and do something about it. For all to make change we have to
recognise that we have power. ‘We have more than human right’, she said, ‘we
have human responsibility’. And she also said that unlike The Dalai Lama, she
does hate some people!
 |
IN 2004, Jody Williams was named by Forbes Magazine as
one of the 100 most powerful women in the world.
|
His Holiness added
that with Buddhism, reason is a driving factor. The media has also a
responsibility to take in the way they report current affairs. Writers are
people after all and they should be concerned by being truthful. Vile stories
sell newspapers is not an excuse for skipping on responsibilities towards
others.
His Holiness
spoke about the education system being too concerned about external values and
not enough about inner values such as love and compassion and at the service of
communities and the world. Education must be more principled.
To all about women, His
Holiness gave the following message. In order to promote women, women need
more confidence because as we know it there is a lot of potential in women.
Tell your friends he said.
*
Olafur Eliason (Critically
worldwide acclaimed German artist) spoke about being together without having to
agree on everything. Art as a way to communicate and empower helping people to
feel connected. If you have never heard of Eliason, google him. He is very impressive
indeed. This is a link where he is dialoguing at the Power & Care. https://vimeo.com/182514185
*
Dr Scilla Elworthy (Founder,
Oxford Research Group, UK; Founder, Peace Direct, UK; Cofounder, Rising Women,
Rising World, USA; Councillor, World Fture Council) developed effective
dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics,
work which included a series of dialogues between Chinese, Russian and western nuclear
scientists and military, for which she has been three times nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize. She has been adviser to Peter Gabriel, Archibishop Desmond Tutu
and Sir Richard Brandon in setting up ‘The Elders’.
Dr Elworthy is involved in writing a business plan for
peace. A business plan for war would cost $13 trillion. A business plan for
peace would only cost $1.3 trillion.
She is also involved in practical things such as building
one peace house per country in each country as done by Nelson Mandela when he
came out of jail. The cost per house is $2m.
She wrap up her dialogue by saying that people need to make
it impossible for politicians not to act.
*
Last but not least was the turn of the brilliant Frederic Laloux ( Adviser in new organizational systems, Belgium)
to talk about new models for organizations and horizontal structures as
alternatives to classical hierarchical power-dominated structures. His research
in the field of emerging organizational models, published in his book ‘Reinventing
Organizations’ has been described as ground-breaking by some of the most
respected scholars in the field of human development and management.
People are increasingly disillusioned with places they work
in. Professionals leave their work because the places they work in are hurting
their souls. This is true in the sectors of education, health care, industry,
retail, IT, energy and media.
There has been a shift from classical hierarchical power-driven
systems to self-organizing systems. Frederic talked about 12 current large companies
which have adopted a self-organizing system. They are extremely successful in
terms of profit, productivity and staff retention.
He gave, in a lot of details, the example of a company from
The Netherlands specialising in home care. In the 80’s this company which
delivered homecare was very concerned about economies of scale and started quantifying
procedures. Everything was monitored. It would take 3 minutes for a nurse to
take blood, 30 mins for a nurse to bath a patient, and so on. For those nurses
no reaching targets, more training was applied. It became so dehumanised that
patients were suffering and the nurses ended leaving because of the stress. 4
years ago, the company had 4 nurses working. It now has 14,000 nurses and a
tiny headquarter of 25 persons. The new self-organizing system which is in place
has turned around the company into a very efficient and caring company.
Frederic Laloux has made a documentary on self-organizing
systems. Fascinating stuff for all.
 |
| Frederic Laloux is a former Partner with McKinsey & Co. Speaks 5 languages fluently. |
*
Prof. Sir Paul
Collier (Prof. of Economics and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government,
Universty of Oxford, UK), Prof. DR Tania
Singer ( Director, Department of Social Neuro-science Max Planck Institude
for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany), Pauline Tangiora, J.P, Q.S.O., Q.S.M. (Maori elder from the
Rongomaiwahine Tribe, New Zealand, justice of the Peace) and Alaa Murabit, M.D. (Founder, the Voice
of Libyan Women, Lybia; Adviser, UN Security Council; Resolution 1325 Global Study;
Advisor UN Women Global Civil, Society Advisory Group) also dialogued on the subject
of power and care.
This Mind & Life conference was very interesting and so refreshing.
It also gave some understanding particularly in this point in time where so much is getting
on around the world. i would encourage anyone going to one of them one day. In the meantime look on Vimeo or YouTube for extracts of the dialogue. Some are available in their entirety and free of charge. No excuses not to be more powerful & caring.
