Motive: 2. The fracture of family

Women discover new maturity, instincts, attitudes and roles at every stage of their life span. However, in popular stereotypical beliefs, they are social caregivers; they also are custodians of the family’s cultural traditions. More recent financial predictions deem women, especially those from the underprivileged sections, as making significant contributions to world economics. And increasingly today, they are embroiled in disintegrating relationships that result in fractured families.

Change that is a constant of life is unsettling for the equilibrium of social units. It impacts their structural stability. It forces individuals and groups to reassess concepts and relationships. However, thought and action processes that need to suit the new environment often resist change. Conservative views of marriage and the family structure still hold in many societies, although divorce rates are on the rise.

The broken home is generally the result of ‘distractions’ from family responsibilities. Several studies indicate that economic affluence may be contributing to the distractions being followed through. Among them, extramarital encounters and substance abuse are frequent. While there is stereotypical suspicion of women stepping outside the home even for employment, it appears men more often utilize social status and resources to get away with feeding their habits, and to attract and initiate casual encounters.

Reporting on a study on preferences of males of different nationalities, Preidt writes in Businessweek:

Men are much more likely to seek and have casual sex than women, and are far less choosy about the looks of their sex partners.

Tabloids are rife with celebrity indiscretions; the tastes of the older age groups extending to age groups very much younger, taking advantage perhaps, of the breakup phenomenon. Yet cheating on the family may be rationalized as a biological need unconnected with love and affection – that boys will always be boys. In India, for instance, with dissolution of the marital union, the husband may garner more social sympathy than the wife. Especially if she has an independent work-life, her care-giving roles are questioned. Consequently, she is burdened with sole responsibility of children, and forced to precariously balance diverse priorities of work-life and home-life as best she can.

With the emerging trend of individuals de-linking their ‘freedoms’ from familial attachments, the traditional ideas of marriage and family become obsolete.  However, with centuries of conditioned learning behind them, women have clung to the past practices to define their identity and guide actions. The point is fractitious conflicts and unexpected upheavals take toll not only on the structure of family, but also on the development of its remaining members. The woman now at its head suffers the fatiguing effects of overwork and low self-esteem. The maturity, instincts, attitudes and roles the new generation adopts also shows lasting effects of the trauma.  

The absence of a father in the family impacts the children physically and psychologically. There are clear repercussions on them in terms of maturity, researchers Deardorff et al report. Girls attain puberty much sooner and the signs of early change, like with the voice, are also perceived in boys.

Quoting findings from the study on sexual development, Kathleen Doheny writes that girls of the “higher-income groups” are the most effected by the change:

Early maturation in girls is linked with emotional and substance use problems and earlier sexual activity. These girls also face a higher risk for breast cancer and other reproductive cancers later in life…

The study implies that the sheltered, affluent lives they have got used to make the girls less adaptable to adversity. These young women are more likely to be exposed to, and affected by environmental “toxins” – for example, the hormone-disrupting chemicals found in cosmetics. News reports show that attention to sex and substance abuse has driven further down the teenage pole. While “pill-popping” with prescription medication is a fun pastime at middle school levels, nubile girls may be lured into sexual abuse or take to prostitution willingly to keep up the rich lifestyle.

Although safety of children is a major concern, it appears that the parental understanding of possible risk is faulty. Parents may be stereotypical in visualizing influences on their children, hence slip up in risk assessment and in child protection. People bombarded daily with “worst-case scenarios” around the world over Internet and numerous television channels lose their sense of proportion, and awareness of dangers at home.

Lisa Belkin writes:

For instance, the five things most likely to cause injury to children up to age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are: car accidents, homicide (usually at the hands of someone they know), child abuse, suicide or drowning. And what are the five things that parents are most worried about (according to surveys by the Mayo Clinic)? Kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers and drugs.

Women heading the fractured family are at more of a disadvantage here because they themselves are under stress. Besides, they are sensitive to tacit social disapproval, and isolate themselves from social interactions. In anxiety and fear furthermore, they tend to become autocratic in demanding achievements of their children. The unconscious motive often is to prove their substance to the group at large; thence regain ‘lost’ social recognitions. 

Pressures on the children are manifold. They must cope with the breakup trauma, the dismal family environment, the standards of academics, and the intensity of interactions with peers and others, all at the same time. Teachers and parents blame their failures on distractions when, in truth, the children are preoccupied with preserving their own sanity in a cruel world. Some choose suicide as the only way to redemption.

The mother in the fractured family strives to win against the odds set by the man’s world. It might make more sense for them to eschew social competition and focus on innovations to help themselves get on their feet. Since the 'broken home' is an emerging phenomenon around the world, its knowledge base is also growing. Information on new research and new methods to cope are on the ’Net. Women need to break their isolation and seek new support systems to shore up courage to face the challenges. An awareness of their built-in adaptability to change would gain them the self-reliance to build their children a secure and happy home.

References for this post:

1. Doheny, Kathleen “Absent Father Might Mean Earlier Puberty for Higher-Income Girls” businessweek.com. Bloomberg Businessweek. HealthDay. September 27. 2010. 
2. Discepolo, John and Komo Staff “Pill popping sends 9 Bremerton kids to hospital” seattlepi.com. Seattlepi. Hearst newspapers. September 22, 2010. 
3. Belkin, Lisa “Keeping Kids Safe From the Wrong Dangers” nytimes.com The New York Times. September 18, 2010. 
4. Preidt, Robert “When It Comes to Casual Sex, Men Aren't So Picky” businessweek.com. Bloomberg Businessweek. HealthDay. August 17, 2009. 

Next…

Fear: 6. Avoiding emotional reasoning

Sex sells. In advertisements for everyday commodities, even innuendoes draw attention. Across the board, companies manufacturing cars, electronics, dvds of music and interactive games, clothing, perfume, bags, ad infinitum rely on its overtones for product sales.

The intent of the associations is to ensure brand association. In the global marketplace, consumer memory and attention span is short, while the competitors’ list grows almost by the minute. It makes business sense then to spend resources on advertisements rather than product quality. However, the product pushing tactics increasingly stretch the imagination about the actual connection between product and message advertised. In the competitive need to boost the bottomline, ‘artistic creativity’ justifies flirting with sexuality.

The imagery, says Jane Tallim, tends to contain or imply

• violence
• superiority and domination
• dismemberment (fragmenting and sexualizing body parts)
• playfulness and exaggeration
• coy behaviour
• approval seeking
• emaciation
• drug addict
• fetishism

Through print, billboards, radio, television and Internet, risqué themes bombard aural and visual senses. For mundane fruit juice, for instance, the luscious mango ingredients shown in a clipping are staged to resemble female breasts. The point is the product itself may be forgotten, but the subtle messages root in consumer memory. Through multinational outlets, identical themes spread globally. That they may actually condone deviant lifestyles is overlooked or simply ignored. 

As a result, “porn is becoming more mainstream”, and accessible from anywhere in the world. With focus on sexuality, they weave fantasies about the unequal status of women and men in society, degrading the former or even as wives, rendering them "invisible". The value of intimacy and commitment in interpersonal relationships is attenuated. Lust replaces love as the goal to be pursued. 

Author Gail Dines points out

In pornography nobody makes love. They all make hate. The man makes hate to the woman’s body … It [Internet]  made it more accessible, affordable, and anonymous. You’re seeing a massive rise in use, and the users are getting younger and younger. In order to keep the consumer base going, the pornographers have to keep upping the ante… more violent, body-punishing, or abusive…

Furthermore, interactive games have opened up simulated learning on very large scale. The virtual world forms a new social outlet sometimes with multiple players engaging at the same time. Video games formats progress through different levels, wherein the tally of points is the entry pass. At each level the degree of difficulty of ‘tasks’ increases. Players tend to become hooked to pushing up their individual scores, delving deeper into the game.

Although cartoons are generally considered youthful entertainment, their effects are not all harmless.  Players, drawn by the sense of power derived from the exploits of the character played, are led into repetitive behaviour - that is, an addiction to the play, which becomes more rewarding than human interactions. The addiction continually demands a fix - stimulation of the pleasure/reward centres of the brain through actions repeated over and over again.

Interacting with screens in self-imposed isolation, for example, with animated cartoon characters living in an animated environment, players have opportunity to interact with a ten-year-old schoolgirl superhero and seven sisters ranging in age from three to nineteen. A hikari.org report outlines an episode developed by the company, Gamewizz Interactive, for commercial distribution:

[Superhero] Poemy and the sisters are forced to take on some evil aliens who have come to earth bent on exploiting all women for sex.  The story culminates in Poemy freeing the sisters from the clutches of the aliens, and bringing an end to their 'evil' scheme. 

Scenes included in the 87-minute episode are deliberately exploitive and titillatory - the reason being simply "the animators' own "perversion" and "sexual desperation"" with regard to sex and violence on children.

The games require no emotional involvement. With freedom of uninhibited action and the lack of social accountability in virtual reality, moral/ethical centering can become fluid. The aggressively sexual thinking portrayed in ads and games is industrializing perceptions of human relationships. Others in the life space may be perceived as similar to fantasy characters rather than as unique thinking-feeling beings with differing points of view.

Interpersonal conflict of emotions is discomforting, especially for the masculine gender now socializing in fantasy. The consumer clientele, getting younger by the day, would prefer to avoid the unpredictable reasoning of live human interactions. My space, rather than sharing space becomes more important in everyday life. Between narcissism and social interest, the pleasures of self-absorption become habit.

Life then imitates the ‘art’. Chasing the fantasy power of sex, the Coles, Woods and Rooneys, amongst hosts of other celebrity men in politics, showbiz, sports or corporate industry have successfully destroyed their marriages and fractured their families. Having resources is associated with the right to sexualize and dominate others.

Using new technology to stream violent personal exploits to a voyeuristic community online, is another new brand of enjoyment for many men. Keeping family values is then less important to breaking 'traditional' bounds for individual satisfaction. In tune with the themes advertised, even minors are drawn towards the infamy of sexual depravity and sociopathy. 

Influenced by the prevailing environment, common social perceptions assume pleasure-seeking, devoid of emotional attachments, as key in gender relationships. In this business-driven age, natural affection and love, brotherly, romantic, and unconditional, appear redundant. The corporate industry has the choice: they can realize social citizenship in running ethical campaigns, or else accept responsibility for disintegrating the fabric of society only to fill their coffers.


References for this post:

1. Avard, Christian. “Gail Dines: How “Pornland” destroys intimacy and hijacks sexuality” pulsemedia.org. Pulse. 29 June 2010.
2. Deguerin Miller, Carlin. “Jonathan Hock Pleads Guilty to Live-Streaming Sexual Assault of Girlfriend”. cbsnews.com. Crimesider. 48 Hours Mystery. CBS News. September 3, 2010.
3. Martinez, Edecio. “Joseph Thomas Hansen Wanted to Be "World's Most Infamous Sociopath," Say Police”. cbsnews.com. Crimesider. 48 Hours Mystery. CBS News. September 3, 2010.
4. Milinovich, Gia.“The lady vanishes: Invisible Wife Syndrome” guardian.co.uk. The Guardian. Saturday 28 August 2010.
5. Nathan, Sara.“Revealed: The second 'prostitute who had a threesome with Wayne Rooney'”. dailymail.co.uk. DailyMail Online. 8 September 2010.
6. “Reasons for Decision”. hikari.org. November 2004.
7. Tallim, Jane. “Sexualized Images in Advertising”. media-awareness.ca. Media Awareness Network. May 2003.
8. Wakabayashi, Daisuke. “Only in Japan, Real Men Go to a Hotel With Virtual Girlfriends”. wsj.com. Asia. WSJ. August 31, 2010.

Fear: 5. The disorganized gender

Disorganization is traditionally associated with the feminine gender. In result, their social positioning has been a roller-coaster ride up and down the social totem pole.

For millennia, womanhood had been perceived mythical. In ancient civilizations, the female form was worshipped for her procreative ability, as the living image of magical Nature.  However, after the discovery of the seed transferred the creative source to the male element, her importance perished. Man rose from secondary to dominant element, with Eve recast as the temptress, enticing Adam. 

Socially women then became liability, to cloister, protect and rescue within the community, and the booty to capture from the enemy and defile. In many regions of the world even today, groups continue to prey on their fear, weakness and vulnerability.

Plato’s rationalism attributed “disease-like” emotions to animals and women. Despite periodic attempts to emancipate from connotations, female stereotypes have resisted change. Truth is the emotional mind may actually make them tick.  Female hormones alter mental functioning along with the development and maturation of the body. Prolactin, for instance, that causes milk formation in lactating mothers, also generates maternal feelings – perhaps Nature’s unique way of ensuring propagation. Periodic change is a constant in the lives of women. Every stage in life from childhood to senescence biorhythmically produces a new person.

Modern scientific findings have located two thinking pathways in brain circuitry – the slow, rational, unemotional pathway generally favoured by men, and through emotions, the intuitive route associated with women that swiftly tunes into the here-and-now. Because of their inherent adaptability, women may be more adept at reinventing themselves. Words like ‘fickle’ to describe the female psyche, demonstrate the inability of society to understand or keep up with change.

And yet, society bestows on motherhood the role of custodian and perpetuator of family culture and traditions. Its smallest unit, the family, is the learning ground for beliefs of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and norms of organized living. Generation to generation, they become customs or traditions of how things are or have always been. Mothers socialize children into the culture appropriate for survival through daily activities.

The ability to think, communicate and act in particular ways gains membership in the family and ultimately in society. The traditional gender identification and learning ensure male leadership. As representatives of the Earth Mother, women are expected to subserve and bear all adversity with fortitude, including debasement, violence and rape for the 'good' of others, especially males. In traditional India, sacrifice is a big part of this care-giving role. Hutson indicates that feminine passivity and rape fantasies may become a devious method of control. 

On the other hand, in the feminine perspective, education earlier sought for betterment of future family, is now conjoined with employment for women's economic independence and self-actualizing. Ah yes, this forward movement of the women’s groups has been coming for some time, especially in Asia where women in greater numbers are changing certain perspectives; now also asserting their rights to the holders of traditional orthodoxy.

An article published on the Strategy+Business website predicts that by 2020, women previously stunted, under-leveraged, or suppressed around the world (e.g., Asia and Africa), would be “emerging participants in the global marketplace”. Many women in many parts of the world are contributing to this unique grouping. Choices, even of their life partners, are distancing from those of their mothers. The phenomenal success of Twilight, X-men, etc., storylines among girls and women demonstrates that “mortal men no longer cut it!” Women are learning to be in control of their clothing, their movements, their preferences and their lives.

Multiculturalism is now reality, increasing the overlap and interplay of differing contexts. These challenge ethical values, personally, professionally and culturally. ‘Sameness’ is no longer a given within racial boundaries; ‘differences’ between them is also less typical than before.  Furthermore, in an increasingly business-driven world, the organization’s socio-cultural context/dynamics greatly impacts individual motivation and action. Social demographic diversity pressures review of the common standards of acceptable/unacceptable behaviours to enable populations to live together in harmony.

The assumption is that the influence of the “third billion” fraction of players will drive the advancement of the whole representative group. However, another emerging trend is that the nuclear social unit, derived from the traditional joint family structure, is now giving way to fractured families – generally, working mothers with children. Despite their economic upsurge, the woman’s perspective is overlooked and child upbringing clearly remains her individual responsibility.

Traditional conditioning and self-actualizing needs collide, and bereft of security, reassurance and social support, ‘empowered’ women undergo emotional distress and trauma that adversely affect their thinking and decision-making capabilities at home and at work. Many women suffer role and identity crises because, despite globalisation, the gender context is slow to change and male leadership remains the norm. Concomitantly, stress-related health issues of women are on the rise: autoimmune, cancer, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, gynaecological, and mental health.

Men comfortable with the social hierarchy are unlikely to want change. Feminine romantic fantasy has been cast in stereotypical moulds – the ‘glass slipper’, the ‘prince charming’, the ‘nobility of care-giving’, the ‘goodness of sacrifice’, and so on, that perpetrate the traditional verbal/nonverbal processes confirming female subservience through new generations. 

Women around the world approach motherhood in similar ways - with focus on protecting and nurturing their children. However, those impacted by unexpected losses, are shocked into new reality. Their gender upbringing centred on belongingness within family and social structure, is shattered. Forced by circumstances into previously unknown environments,  maternal instincts stimulate their intrinsic changeability, driving the survival of the fledgling family outside mainstream, despite the trauma.

Women need to themselves break the generational social learning. They now have opportunity to overcome conditioned fears. Mothers heading fractured families, thus freed of cloistering chains, may discover  “unique”  and  “progressive”  potentialities. Finding within the self the confidence to think and behave creatively, they can strive for equality, conceptualizing new implicit theories to work by. Strength derives from having coped with being sheared off the grid. Astuteness developed from overcoming their emotionally seared experiences would positively contribute to the social evolution of this disorganized section of society.   

References for this post:

1. Aquirre, DeAnne & Sabbagh, Karim. “The Third Billion” strategy-business.com. Organizations & People. Strategy+Business. May 10, 2010.
2. Hansen, Bitsy. “Mommy Wars: Real Issue or Media Myth?” hunch.com. Hunch. March 4, 2010.
3. Hutson, Matthew. “Why Do Women Have Erotic Rape Fantasies?” psychologytoday.com. Blogs Psyched! The science of psych. Psychology Today. May 28, 2008.
4. Mohammed Wajihuddin. “Burning burqas and bras? Nah. Enter the Islamic feminist” indiatimes.com. The Times of India. 10 July 2010.
5. Simmons, Amy. “Vampire romance: mortal men no longer cut it” abc.net.au. ABC News. August 12, 2009.
6. “Stress Related Diseases” bazallo.com. Women’s Health Blog. May 08, 2009.

Next…reasoning

Fear: 4. The spectre of healthcare

The modern version of the Hippocratic oath that the medical industry presumes to swear by also states that:

…I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick…I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm…

People in India have been only mildly curious at the tussle over healthcare plans in USA, or criticisms of healthcare creditors in UK. We understand that the organized nature of their society encourages a preoccupation with the physical and expensive medical treatment not always necessary.  

And anyway, all this happens only on the other side of the globe. The Indian public tends to give hospitals a wide berth. In a country of over a billion people with no universally institutionalized social security, the awareness about medical facilities is fear-based. People hope to get by with indigenous therapies of herbs and spells, ayurveda, yoga, homeopathy, and self-prescribed medications obtained over the counter.

The general hospitals in the country are heavily government subsidized, with the noble intent of reaching the masses. However, general bureaucratic negligence has led instead to general lack of responsibility, funds, technology, accommodation or caring to make them death traps, literally the last resort for the desperately ill.

Private institutions have come up to address this major issue of immediate healthcare. Big business houses have invested heavily in creating hospitals with a difference. Indeed they have raised the existing standards of sanitation and hygiene, technology and nursing care. Smaller nursing homes owned or supported by reputed medical practitioners have also mushroomed to drive home the point that they are alternative tiers for the same brand of healthcare at more economical prices.

However, being business after all, this medical service does not come cheap for the ordinary consumer. By itself the private healthcare industry is socially divisive. Access is restricted to members of the corporate world or individuals who are blessed with the affordability. For the remaining majority, intervention that should be associated with positive emotions of imminent physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, more often arouse abject fears of soon being out of pocket.

Privately owned insurance companies, quick to identify the financial need, corner the market as relief-givers. Their ‘health shield’ card opens hospital doors on the third-party network. Buy our health policy and forget hospitalization cost concerns, they seem to say. My investment brokers strongly encourage signing up for the general health insurance scheme. The utilitarian equation is reasonable to the rational mind. Intuitively, however, the feeling remained that the oasis promised could be a mirage.

Anyway, several years of inactivity on my policy raised my cover amount as bonus was added on. I finally decided on a long overdue health check. The specialist identified a common ailment that required surgery, and recommended a relatively painless procedure with modern technological. The hospital management welcomed my insurance cover.  Prior to surgery a battery of investigative tests was prescribed showing off the thoroughness of their caring.

I was somewhat uneasy with the accumulating costs, and my faith in the service providers needed bolstering! I revisited the Policy to calculate entitlement. The expenses they pledged to cover included:

1. Room, Boarding Expenses as provided by the Hospital/Nursing Home subject to a limit of 1.5% of the Sum Insured per day and for Intensive Care Unit 3% of the Sum Insured per day.
2. Nursing Expenses incurred during In-Patient hospitalization.
3. Surgeon, Anaesthetist, Medical Practitioner, Consultants & Specialist Fees are subject to a limit of 40% of the Sum Insured.
4. Anaesthesia, Blood, Oxygen, Operation Theatre Charges, Medicines and Drugs, Diagnostic Materials and X-ray, Dialysis, Chemotherapy Radiotherapy, Donors medical expenses towards Organ transplant, Cost of Pacemaker, Artificial Limbs, Cost of Organs.
5. Pre-Hospitalisation and Post-Hospitalisation expenses when the claim for hospitalization is admitted under the policy.
6. Hospital Cash Allowance, a lump sum of 2% of the Sum insured per claim, in case of continuous hospitalization for a period of more than 15 days.
7. Ambulance charges in an emergency, subject to a limit of Rs.1000/- per claim.

It sounds aboveboard. The company appears to be impressively altruistic in intent, and my suspicions unfounded. I asked the hospital for their estimate, just to be sure. Strangely they passed me on desk to desk, and eventually came up with a ‘verbal’ amount of 60K+. That was well within the insured amount of (now) 220K, so I opted for the intervention and the ‘cashless’ procedure, whereby the insurance provider picks up the tab. After forwarding the application, the hospital casually informed me that the amount actually quoted to the insurance provider was twice that estimated earlier – that is, 120K+. Reason? Junior executives apparently had erred in calculation, “sorry for that…”

I had the distinctly sick feeling of being low-balled. My suspicions reared up once more against what seemed a business tactic to constrain higher payments for the same service. The initial insurance amount sanctioned was 20K. What about the approximately 90 percent balances? My persistent inquiries were met with vague replies. Alarm bells rang in my mind that I might well be left holding the bag!

I re-revisited the Policy to read between the lines. Hidden in the fine print of item 8 of the terms and conditions is the reality check: common disease, illness, medical condition or injury like cataract, haemorrhoids, sinusitis, benign prostatic, hypertrophy, hernia, joint replacement, cancer, renal failure, appendicitis, gall bladder stones, gynae disorders and so on, are subject to pre-determined limits irrespective of the actual medical procedure. [What’s left, I wonder, and notice cosmetic surgery is not on this limits list!]

The company simply pays a first (and final) amount set arbitrarily to between 10-40 percent of the total billing, depending on the assumed gravity of the disease. In my case, effectively that 20K sanctioned initially was the total cover amount payable. Items 1-7 mentioned above are then broken up as 2K for room and board, 8K for the surgery and so on, although the surgeon assures me that these prices are archaic. The remaining amount of 100K is my problem; payback I suppose, for being on the common ailments list!

Now why? The insurance companies have latched on that all private medical institutions, tiered first, second or third, inflate expenses. The story is the same anywhere in the world today, especially when there is insurance cover and a third party network to hide within. The justification proffered is that the insurance companies generally delay payments by months, and they too need to survive. Television channel CNN recently revealed the extent of the billing scam in USA. The hospital they investigated billed a toothbrush at 1000 USD, and a single cotton swab at 43 USD. In India, among other things, a new technological instrument costing 20K in retail may be billed 80K for the patient.

Although comparatively lower key, the nursing homes in India also push the envelope, following practice of the leaders in the field.  I notice, for instance, that the amenities requiring daily changes, like sheets, towels and clothing are largely non-existent, worn-out and tattered material being served up instead. Patients here have to make do with faulty lights and plumbing even in the ‘exclusive’ single occupancy cabins. The check-in/out timings are rigid, so even a few minutes before or after the deadlines become additional in-patient days to be paid in full. Another common practice is to repeat pathological tests unnecessarily – e.g., in a biopsy test, three slides being used means three times the price for the same test result. 

Realization dawns that through the third-party network, we in India are as affected by the spectre of healthcare as are people in the West. Whether or not there is a nexus between the insurance companies and the private hospital managements, their common focus is keeping their businesses in the black, and patient welfare is definitely not priority. In tune with the present vampire craze, feeding off human resources becomes the norm in the modern healthcare business process. 

In the absence of adequate monitoring by watchdog agencies in India, profiteering from illness proceeds unchecked. Because the economic burden is simply passed on to the client, patients and their relatives have cruel choices to make when, despite the medical insurance, the health costs of their loved ones could financially skin them alive, and the cheaper alternative of public hospitals is also unthinkable. Notwithstanding Hippocrates, the general public is today as afraid to live, as they are to die. 

References for this post:

1. “Cashless mediclaim facility to be restored today” deccanherald.com. Deccan Herald. Aug 19, 2010 
2. “Definition of Hippocratic Oath” medterms.com. MedicineNet.com. MedicineNet Inc.  7/13/2002 
3. “Health Shield Online Policy” royalsundaram.in. Royal Sundaram General Insurance. Chennai, India. 

Next...gender

Fear: 3. The organizational entity

Social psychologist Kurt Lewin postulated that behaviour is a function of environment and person. Now, environment is all pervasive, external and internal as well. It surrounds the person, but also exists inside of them. That would mean that influences arising in the environment outside and within the individual psyche would affect their choices. 

Survival of the individual depends on the decision-making capability. And decisions often have to be made between alternatives that seem to be in opposition. Lewin, who was born in 1890 in Germany and had to flee to America to escape the holocaust, held that in any environment, opposing forces were constantly at work. The driving forces push towards action in a certain direction, and the restraining forces prevent the action from taking place.  

An organization functions in ways similar to an organism. It grows, develops and dies like any other living being. It has aspirations and fears that mould its actions. It also has an identity that grows out of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the organizational process. Driving and restraining forces arise in the conscious, everyday macro-world outside the organization, where interactions are with customers and outside agencies. 

 The organization’s internal environment constitutes the organizational unconscious, the customs, legends and best practices held sacrosanct, as well as interpersonal interactions between departments and people within the system. Besides this, individual member of the organization brings to the workplace the principles and values of their socialized upbringing. The micro-level driving and restraining variables add to the strength of the larger forces influencing organizational functioning. In the article “Sense of Fear” The Diva quotes Lewin to say that:

An issue is held in balance by the interaction of two opposing sets of forces - those seeking to promote change (driving forces) and those attempting to maintain the status quo (restraining forces.)

Industrialist, sociologist, economist and philosopher, Vilfredo Pareto, was born in Italy in 1848, about four decades before Lewin. He too witnessed political exile, which may have contributed to his dynamic equilibrium theory of society that change in any one unit necessarily precipitates change in other units as well as the total system. Also, change in the external environment diffuses into each micro-unit of the social organization.

Although better known today for the pareto charts and other statistical contributions to economics, Pareto also postulated a theory to explain “non-logical” human predispositions. He identified two distinctive “residues” in people - that is, their basic drives or innate impulses that motivate action. The sources of individual goal-seeking behaviour are their instincts and sentiments.

Deriving from the Machiavelli’s classification, the residues have been named:

• Foxes – “innovators” - the creative, entrepreneurial tendency to break new ground
• Lions – “consolidators” - the powerful, bureaucratic tendency to consolidate position

‘Foxes’ and ‘lions’ have characteristic patterns of behaviour, and their relationship is of reciprocal dependence. Essentially, they are opposing impulses, encouraging change, or resisting it. Any individual has the capacity of identifying with either the fox-type or the lion-type behaviours throughout their life span, or alternating between them at different times in its course.

The fox and lion characterizations are a useful concept in the formation and development of organizations. The “fox” is the entrepreneurial spirit that has the capacity to imagine and create outside the existing structure. In this beginning, people drawn to the venture are all in touch with their innovative fox-like qualities.

Zetterberg explains:

At startup, the founder spearheads movement, leads a small band of people ... Individuals ... join up with the desire to do better or accomplish more. There is little sense in maintaining formalities so though there is hard work and unusual hours, there is a climate of camaraderie, enthusiasm, task commitments and job satisfaction. At this early stage the future seems full of promise; creative excellence is both encouraged and needed for organizational design – and here the fox psyche thrives. 

However, their “compulsive, effervescent” natures makes foxes poor organizers, because they are always go-getters. New ideas and environments attract them, and the need for integrity and patience to manage the growing pains of the system is discomforting. Beneath their innovativeness is the inherent fear of settling down and submitting to rules and regulations.

The innovators make novel things and interpretations, put their money in stocks, sell fall out shelters, start new ventures, and negotiate deals.

For the organizational system’s structure to take shape, a different character type is needed. The lion has this necessary ability to lead and manage groups. Zetterberg explains that the lion character prefers:

… to hang on to what he has. In today’s society, the consolidators want old-age pensions, life insurance, fallout shelters, job security, tough divorce laws, closed shops; they put their money in savings banks or government bonds, and they are quick to call the police. 

As the number of lions taking up organizational membership increases to about 20 percent of the total strength, the structure building around them becomes visible.

The growing organisation requires structures and procedures to provide it with a stable body, to keep the energy and dynamism from dissipating. Once the lions put in appearance, the system begins to take concrete shape and become operationally viable.

Although foxes may still have leadership, the lions are indispensable to for preservation of space and increasing structure. Further increases in the lion complement changes the organizational size, focus and general attitudes to authority in business. Lions believe in control, and their fears are of disorder and spatial displacement. 

Extreme fox-like behaviour is disruptive, causing chaos that destabilizes the system and breaks it apart.  Extreme lion-like behaviour means hierarchical control, and rigid adherence to past practices/traditions that resist change, strangulating innovations. Foxes and lions are wary of one another’s influences.  The increasing numbers of one raises the awareness of vulnerability in the other.

These two forces set up the cycle of change. As the creative energies reach a peak, the organization has to stabilize or else crumble to excessive change. The lions work to hold the system together and give it a proper shape. In the process of the lion group achieving prominence, the cycle begins a downward turn to attenuate the impact of the foxes.

The lion complement reaching about 80 percent forces out the foxes. They leave for new ventures in new pastures, while the organizational ethos assumes a traditional, bureaucratic hierarchy. When consolidation attains maximum effectiveness, the system needs new life. The cycle of change then turns again, towards an exciting new era of foxes. Foxes and lions clearly have little in common, and their interfaces are fraught with conflict, struggle for power and control over resources.

 But each has an organizational role that is crucial:  problem solving by the foxes, and systemic stability by the lions. In theory, the 80:20-ratio triggers change over the lifetime, shifting between the equally important drives of creativity and consolidation. Using Lewin terms, the foxes are the driving forces while the lions are restraining forces. Their dynamic equilibrium determines the health of the organization and its longevity.

Obviously they each require the appropriate space and ambience to flourish or else become inimical to the other. It is necessary to understand the power of these drives/forces and utilize them optimally to initiate and manage change in one’s own life and that of the organization. An interdependent balance gives direction and momentum to action, ensuring survival of the fittest.

References for this post:

1. “Sense of Fear” twmacademy.com The Diva column. TWM Academy. Powered by The Working Manager Ltd. 
2. Zetterberg, Hans L. “Elites: Vilfredo Pareto” European Proponents of Sociology Prior To World War I. Chapter 3 zetterberg.org. Stockholm, Sweden 1993. 

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