I appreciate the point you’re making in your second paragraph. I think that the structures you’re pointing at are something that we’re on the same page about.
Most of my energies are focused on the creation and development of contexts where post-blame/post-fault (essentially what you called “the spirit of HWA”) is something that everyone is committed to, and I think that within such a context, “HWA” is actually helpful for consensus-building, as it gets the judgments out of the way so that the details can be explored together, and the parties can figure out what happened, why, and what to do next, and what collective story to tell about it—a story that doesn’t have to invoke the guilt vs innocence dichotomy at all!
But you’re making a great point about how HWA (like pretty much any tool) can also be used coercively, to shut down people whose perspectives need to be heard in order for the group to function effectively.
HWA may be good for friendships, but I’m not sure it’s good on larger scales of human interactions.
I think it’s harder for (eg) business relationships than friendships, but all the more important because of it. But yeah, in order for it to facilitate the sharing of stories, you need the post-blame mindset, not just one little verbal tool. And you need that to be built into the context, not just something that’s incidentally & inconsistently present.
This is similar in a lot of ways to how rationality is fundamentally a way of thinking not a collection of tools. If you aren’t truly truth-seeking, then you can use all of your rationality tools for rationalization. If you’re not seeking to get out of coercive dynamics, then you can use HWA for obfuscation.
(I want to note that a lot of the terms I’m using here (particularly “coercive”) are sort of jargon on some levels; they have quite specific meanings to me that may not be apparent. I shall write more posts to explain these; in the meantime I figured it would make sense to write some sort of response here.)
I appreciate the point you’re making in your second paragraph. I think that the structures you’re pointing at are something that we’re on the same page about.
Most of my energies are focused on the creation and development of contexts where post-blame/post-fault (essentially what you called “the spirit of HWA”) is something that everyone is committed to, and I think that within such a context, “HWA” is actually helpful for consensus-building, as it gets the judgments out of the way so that the details can be explored together, and the parties can figure out what happened, why, and what to do next, and what collective story to tell about it—a story that doesn’t have to invoke the guilt vs innocence dichotomy at all!
But you’re making a great point about how HWA (like pretty much any tool) can also be used coercively, to shut down people whose perspectives need to be heard in order for the group to function effectively.
I think it’s harder for (eg) business relationships than friendships, but all the more important because of it. But yeah, in order for it to facilitate the sharing of stories, you need the post-blame mindset, not just one little verbal tool. And you need that to be built into the context, not just something that’s incidentally & inconsistently present.
This is similar in a lot of ways to how rationality is fundamentally a way of thinking not a collection of tools. If you aren’t truly truth-seeking, then you can use all of your rationality tools for rationalization. If you’re not seeking to get out of coercive dynamics, then you can use HWA for obfuscation.
(I want to note that a lot of the terms I’m using here (particularly “coercive”) are sort of jargon on some levels; they have quite specific meanings to me that may not be apparent. I shall write more posts to explain these; in the meantime I figured it would make sense to write some sort of response here.)