Quotes and Excerpts - Management

Excerpts from books, articles and reviews:

Positivism and mass psychology

Notice the similarities between the following excerpts and the new global management system. Today's networks of churches and church trainers are conforming to this worldwide management system -- and aiding the human resource development envisioned by elite leaders throughout the last century.

See The Intelligent Student's Guide to the New World Order

Warren's P.E.A.C.E. Plan and UN Goals - Part 2: Equipping Leaders to 'Lead like Jesus'?

   Spirit-led and Purpose-Driven - Part 3: Small Groups and the Dialectic Process

Systems Thinking


 

Positivism: "For Comte positivism was... a belief that true knowledge is based on thinking about the physical and social world as systems of causal relationships.... Positivism is closely related to the development of a science of society [sociology]....
     "...the ultimate perfection of the Positive system would be to represent all phenomena as particular aspects of a single general fact....
     "...we could divide the theorists into Kantian Positivists (Saint Simon, Comte,
Engels, Marx etc) and Empiricist Positivists."

 

 

Course of Positive Philosophy: "[Auguste] Comte thought that scientific sociology alone could provide the basis for a new form of social integration by providing ‘an exact and complete representation of the relations naturally existing.... Comte represents a classic attempt at a unitary evolutionary synthesis of humanity based on the view that society is an organism. This is a positive science that ultimately becomes a morality and religion with sociology at its apex as the ‘universal science’....

     "He held strongly to the idea of an organic totality where the whole is more than its parts and thus thought beyond the category of the individual in terms of social being, humanity in general. ...

     "Organic solidarity follows mechanical solidarity where in likeness to one another actors in a social system have relatively fixed forms of interaction.... Solidarity systems of the more complex organic type involve deeper ties between social agents."

Comte, the high priest of social science: "Positivism is often described as 'organic'. ... Like the early evolutionists, it assumed that evolution was a process of continuing improvement....

     "A NEW MORAL ORDER In his later years, Comte's faith in science as the means to improving man's way of life went far beyond even the optimism of the late nineteenth century. The belief was that positive knowledge would allow prediction; prediction would allow enactment of policies good for all of society. Positivist knowledge would give sociologists and scientists authority to overcome conflict and prescribe conditions for a healthy society. They should control things for the good of all - a new breed of philosopher kings.

     "What Comte sought to do was develop a new secular religion, a basis for a new moral order, with intellectuals like himself as high priests....

     "A NEW RELIGION. ... 'For 20 centuries, the West has been seeking a universal religion, no more able to abandon it than to establish it... The final religion demands as a necessary basis of human order, the entire subordination of man to Humanity.'

     "The new positivist order, to quote some of Comte's favorite formulae, would have -

           1. 'Love as its Principle,

           2. Order as its Basis, and

           3. Progress at its Aim'.

     "Mankind's previous egoism would be replaced by altruism, by the command, Live for Others. Individual men would be filled with love for their fellows. Their priestly leaders would use their scientific knowledge of man's past and present to lead mankind on a lawfully determined path into a predictable [vision] future."

Marx and Positivism (by David Hookes. "This is the summary of a talk given at the International Socialist Forum): "Comte held that the time would come when human society itself would be studied by such positive methods. Such a positive science he called 'sociology' or sometimes 'social physics.' He argues that the development of society corresponds to the three stages.

  1. First, a theological social outlook upheld by priestly learning and authority.
  2. This is followed by the era of metaphysical criticism of traditional doctrines, when they are replaced by such unverifiable doctrines as belief in natural rights and the sovereignty of the people. ...
  3. This era would be replaced by a stable society where agreement [consensus] is established on the basis of incontrovertible positive social knowledge. A new form of authority would then reside in a new spiritual power consisting of men of science whose knowledge would enable humanity to achieve a peaceful unity of thought and action. ...

     "After the revolution, and long before Stalin got control of the bureaucratic apparatus created by Lenin and Trotsky, there were crude examples of positivist methods. For instance workers were put into a special apparatus to attempt to improve their productivity. Then there is Trotsky’s talk about remaking humanity 'as in a mortar and pestle'...  There is also Lenin’s simplistic mechanistic positivism in his celebrated equation: "Soviets + Electricity = Socialism".

     "Ball’s paper clearly shows the connection between the Soviet use of psychiatric methods against dissidents and a positivist philosophical outlook. ...

     "Of course it is critically important for capital to have its cadres of scientific and technical experts, its social engineers, and administrative bureaucratic elites. It is essential that these social layers are kept loyal and uncritically carry out their allotted tasks of creating the means of engaging in economic and, if necessary, military competition. Such elites are also essential for creating the means of repression and oppression of the vast bulk of humanity, those who earn their living through labour, be they workers or peasants. Such elites are the 'organic intelligentsia' of the ruling class described by the Italian Marxist, Gramsci.....

     "My proposal is to fight for the setting up of 'Community Development Parks' especially as part of the implementation of a Workers International Plan for Development. The potential of the new technologies for implementing such a plan is obvious."


"...the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things..."  2 Timothy 4:2-5

 

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