Description

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Encounters with the "Other" ends with a 'catalogue of catastrophes' starting with the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya of Myanmar, back through the Holdomor and the Holocaust to the Armenian genocide.

This is a reminder, if any were needed, that contemporary societies have not lost their taste for identifying and labelling the 'others' in their midst and slaughtering them. Indeed populist governments positively rely on the cohesion that can be found in bringing a group of people together in the face of an external threat.

In Encounters with the "Other" Barry Oshry uses the lenses of 'loose and tight', liberal and conservative', 'pure and conflicted', 'tolerance and purity' to highlight the range of reflexive responses we can have to 'others in our midst' especially when we are under the stress of poverty, lack of housing or shortage of jobs.

He then shows how these responses can be characterised as seeing through Power or Love (seeing in terms of our differences from the other or in terms of what we have in common with the other).

Finally he suggests how the intolerant 'Power cycle' can be interrupted and tempered by the more inclusive 'Love cycle'.

About the Author

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Barry Oshry is a pioneer in the field of human systems thinking. His life’ s work has been to empower individuals and organizations by transforming system-blindness into system-sight. The educational programs he has developed include The Power Lab, the Organization Workshop on Creating Partnership, and the When Cultures Meet Workshop. In 2013 he launched The Worldwide Week of Partnership, during which Power+Systems trainers across the globe conduct pro bono partnership events for educational, charitable, advocacy, and service organizations in their local communities.