Structural violence and freedom

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.

We live in an increasingly simulated world where the classical dichotomies or binary oppositions and diversities seem to lose social, cultural and political relevance. The more we advocate pluralism and diversity the less we are becoming pluralist.

The processes of co-creation of knowledge and imagination are replaced by a surreal worldview that depends more on technology than the creative capacity of a person. Knowledge is transmitted into information that codifies the semantics into a convoluted system of unreal images as if knowledge shapes human intellect.

This makes knowledge production an industry which strives to outcompete classical polemics, hermeneutics, ideology and grand narratives with a multitude of views without any epistemic order. This has also diluted the centrality of power into a multitude of forces that make it hard to exercise control over mind and body.

Technology, therefore, is not an instrument of subjugation, surveillance and control only by a powerful class but has also challenged the monopoly of the keepers of knowledge and hegemony. From this perspective, technology has tremendous liberating potential for the disadvantaged and underprivileged. Power strives to reassert by reducing human agency of liberation into a measurable and manageable resource.

This new epistemology becomes an instrument of soft control and belittles the transformative potential of human agency. Epistemic violence ensues a set of principles upon which the modern organisation is founded, dissent becomes irrelevant and is coerced into discipline without the use of physical force. This structural violence is more lethal than the physical one because it strives to kill the imagination of freedom and free will, and trivialises human agency.

The modern corporate organisation has reduced the creative being – the human – to a resource to be acquired for certain work. Alienated individuals, as workers, have a fragmented world with no big ideals beyond the worries of bread and butter. With this fragmentation the possibility of human liberation and will to freedom also dies away. Intrinsic to this alienation is the corporate greed necessitated by competition for accumulation.

The modern organisation uses the term ‘human resource’ for people and hence reduces them to dissociated objects dedicated to delivering predefined tasks. The binding principles and values that give meaning to relationships within organisations are crucial dimensions that the modern organisation loses sight of.

The conventions of a value-based Human Resource (HR) system cannot be evolved as a functional specialty in isolation to overall organisational system. It is therefore vital, first, to look into the institutional practices, strategies of control and mission of an organisation to understand its value system. The transfer of these organisational values down to functional components – including HR – is, therefore, a secondary important question. In broader terms, modern institutions are complex and operate in an increasingly interconnected, uncertain, ambiguous and volatile environment.

This new reality provides the context where the value systems of institutions evolve in conjunction with emerging disenchantment with this new reality. This disenchantment becomes more pronounced when institutions: a) fail to deliver on their promises, and b) fail to formulate value-led systems for the employees and client they claim to serve.

In general, values are a set of binding principles, lasting beliefs or ideals as the foundation of engagement for human agency to perform a set of actions within a given context.

Organisations, businesses and systems evolve, develop and operate in specific contexts and therefore it is not wise to make generalisations about the value system. But there have always been some time-tested universal principles behind the success of institutions. The principles of inclusion, transparency, accountability and effective participation, for instance, help create effective institutions that transform the lives of people. These values cannot be nurtured, upheld and promoted without the vision and commitment of people working in the organisations.

As Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show in their famous work, ‘Why Nations Fail’, it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or the lack of it). They argue that: “Economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Otherwise how to explain why some nations remain mired in poverty while others prosper, though they start their journey on the same trajectory under a similar external environment. Nations that developed value-based institutional systems were able to prosper.

Value-based systems, therefore, are entirely focused on people – the people we serve and the people we serve with. One may go as far as to say that the term ‘human resource’ is a cardboard notion that does not encapsulate the true essence of people in our organisations. The people we work with are not mere resources; they are creative beings and our success or failure depends on them. And for this purpose, their potential value is unlimited. One may, therefore, use the term ‘human agency’ rather than objectifying people as resources – which deplete, erode or are replenished as material goods.

Human agency has tremendous potential as individuals, groups or workers in an organisation with the creativity, self-confidence, aspirations and ability to transform the system to pave the way for human wellbeing, happiness and dignity.

In an increasingly clichéd, jargonised and fragmented world it is not an easy task to develop a critical mass of committed people with a passion for collective change. Our postmodern institutions inadvertently give birth to a critical mass of the disgruntled and disillusioned who invoke human agency to challenge our world of simulated realities. This disillusioned critical mass has tremendous transformative potential to reshape the world around us because it operates in a space of epistemic incoherence and diffusion of power. This critical mass, being organically linked to the mainstream institutions, wields more power than alternative and disconnected voices.

We can call it creative destruction’ in the Schumpeterian sense where institutions must reposition themselves to stay relevant to new realities. The birth pangs of the new may be horrifying but it is the only way for change to happen. Change management must be guided by values that people own, and take pride in being part of it across the hierarchy of workers. Let me share with you a story that impresses me every time I read it.

During a visit to Cape Canaveral in the mid-1960s, President Kennedy was touring the facility when he met a man in overalls. He asked the man: “What do you do here?” to which the man replied, “Earning a living”. Later on President Kennedy met another man in overalls and asked him what he did. The reply this time: “I’m clearing away the garbage”. Finally, the president met another man in overalls enthusiastically sweeping the floor and asked him what he did. With a big smile on his face the man replied, “I’m helping to put a man on the Moon Mr President”. This story provides the crux of consciousness, vision, passion and commitment that must drive the work we do.

It is not for the development sector only but also for the business world that we need to devise a roadmap for developing new leadership with the ability to live and breathe values. We must also pledge today to invest in human agency in promoting values that are grounded in the welfare of those at the bottom of the pyramid. Sustaining national competitiveness through inclusive business approaches may help evolve businesses that are seen by the majority as socially responsible rather than profit maximising.

Can we achieve all this? The answer lies in the ability and courage of that organically linked critical mass, the disruptive technologies and a set of unifying principles to regain the paradise of grand ideals that we have lost today.

Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com