Today's Exercise: Question Dogma
Dogma can be found anywhere there are groups. It is the established pattern of ideas and belief that becomes "the way it is" for the organization. It is a statement asserted as truth, but is actually a point of view. Dogma is actually quite useful to an organization because it establishes a structure of thinking that often defines the group itself. Dogma often contains considerable understanding and logic that has been reduced down to a set of operating principles that are imposed upon a group in order to shape the behavior of its members. It is a tool that lies at the heart of most organizations that attempt to coordinate human effort in a single direction when organization members have varying degrees of understanding and skill. The organization creates a "doctrine" or method around which it expects members to shape behavior whether they understand the doctrine or not. This is an organizational necessity in most groups. Dogma is a time honored way to encapsulate insights that originate with experienced leaders of an organization so as to pass them on to necessary, but less experienced, members in order to cause cooperation and collaboration. You could say that dogma is pre-fabricated thinking. The problem for those who are not part of the design of the dogma is that there can be many complex reasons for why a certain method is preferable over another, but this understanding may not be expressed in the doctrines that make up the dogma. Hence, members of lesser understanding are asked to simply follow or obey the doctrine without understanding. For the designer of dogma, it represents the reduction of wisdom to a method. For the follower of a dogma, it is pretty much superstition. The purpose of this exercise is not to abandon dogma, but to question what was the designer of the dogma trying to achieve. We are looking to unconceal the actual thinking behind the method so that we can relate to the method as real thinking. To do this exercise, you can select any dogmatic doctrine from religion, society, business or other sources. The dogmatic doctrine has to express "how it is done", meaning that it has to have a sense of righteousness to it. It has to be spoken in a group with the expectation that it is the "law" of the organization or a rule that is not to be broken or questioned thereby giving it the weight of a behavioral mandate.
The truth is that dogma is merely the established tenets of an organization that is set out for those of lesser experience. And yet it is precisely these less-knowledgeable minds that have the greatest trouble with established methodology. This is a problem that plagues every human organization. The more complex an organization is, the more it needs to reduce its operational principles to dogmatic doctrine so that those who cannot comprehend the complexity of the organization can still support the group. The Taoists have a saying: "altars are for the weak, but is all the more reason for a strong man to have one." For masters of an organization, dogma serves a different purpose beyond method. It serves to keep leaders focused on core values of the group. As you do this exercise, you want to notice your own relationship to dogma. The higher the comprehension you have for the complexities of an organization, the more likely you are to accept established dogma. Take a look at your own relationship to the dogma you have selected for this exercise? What does it say about your skillfulness in the method that the dogma is trying to advance? Karmic Benefits:
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