Chapter 4 : A GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION
"FROM OUTER SPACE"
It is possible to summarize the two laws of optimal participation,
related to intensity and quality of involvement -- together with possible
suboptimal situations -- through a diagram resembling a well-known
object from outer space. It is the planet Saturn. Inspiration for the
representation came to me from a good photograph of the planet given to
me by my youngest son, an amateur astronomer. The second part of the
inspiration is the coincidental fact that the first case of a large United
States corporation moving in the direction of optimality through workers'
participation was the Saturn automobile plant of General Motors.
But the main reason for using this representation is that it is
descriptive of the difference between a unidimensional world of intensity
in which we are for the most part living and a better world which also
recognizes the existence of different and distinct dimensions -- of distinct
nature or quality -- which cannot be reduced or converted into a single
common denominator. Figure 1 below shows such an image.
FIGURE 1
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There is a good deal of explanatory as well as symbolic value in
the above graphic representation. First of all, note that the entire space/set
of possibilities is defined by the oval surface of the outer ring, with the
least desirable or most non-optimal solutions on the periphery. Superior
and increasingly efficient or optimal solutions are found as we progress
towards the center. The usual interpretation is that optimality or
desirability is measured by a vertical dimension in the form of a bellshaped mount above the oval, with optimality found at the highest point.
But our situation is not the conventional one; as if there were not the bellshaped surface measuring the degree of optimality.
Instead there is a discontinuity passing from the flat -- zerothickness -- rings to the three-dimensional space of the main body of the
planet representing the multi-dimensional character of several distinct
types or qualities of involvement. Some of the most significant ones are
noted on the upper hemisphere of the planet itself. They range from
involvements of spiritual nature, of love and affection, of risk, parental
involvement, vital involvement, direct involvement, indirect involvement
and finally non- or zero involvement in various domains of human and
social existence.
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