When the "Institute of Social Research" came to the United states in the early 30 with their dream of global peace they brought with them a form of Marxism most Americans were unaware of. Even today few realize the effect this form of Marxism has on our daily lives. This group of men with their synthesis of Marx and Freud were not the only dialectic and praxis thinking social engineers to come from Europe.

    Kurt Lewin, who, along with Wilhelm Reich, edited the Frankfurt School's journal while in Berlin, the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung came to the States in 1933. With his force field analysis, group dynamic, "unfreezing, moving, refreezing" methodology he was instrumental in developing group meetings as a laboratory for change. Teaching in Iowa, Massachusetts, and Michigan, he eventually helped set up the first National Training Laboratory (a Marxist training camp) in Bethel Maine in 1947. During his period of research and development in America, he was able to develop a method of application of Marxism which is used in literally every facet of our society. J. L. Moreno, the father of role-playing, was likewise instrumental in bringing Marxism into every policy setting institution today.

    What all these men had in common was the merging of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. How they differed from traditional Marxists wasn't only in their use of Freud, but in their method of application known as praxis. The facilitated meeting with its agenda to move a diverse group of people into a consensus over social (material) issues was the key procedure to bring about change in each individual in the group decision environment (soviet). By this method they were able to manipulate people into shifting their paradigm from a right/wrong (antithesis,) didactic way of thinking to a tolerance based (lets agree to disagree,) dialectic way of thinking known as "group think."

    By this shift of thought, individual sovereignty ceases. Human Relations in Curriculum Change is regarded as THE manual for social change. Edited by Kenneth Benne, with his doctoral dissertation earned under John Dewey, this is the book of books on the procedure of Marxist indoctrination for global change. Its ultimate goal is to undermine and destroy the traditional family-private business patriarch way of thinking; to attain a world without God. They call this process the scientific method. These men are indeed scientists, mad scientist, for a fool has said in his heart there is no God.  

Dean Gotcher
 

(1) How well is this group as a group progressing towards some production or action goal it has set for itself?

(2) How well is this group fitting its immediate goals into the broader framework of our democratic society?

(3) How well is this group utilizing the potentialities of its members to contribute towards its work goals?

(4) How well is this group "growing" its members, how well is it helping them become even better contributors, to assume a ‘vider variety of essential group roles, than their present potentialities allow them? The assumption being made is that

 1. Does every member make contributions to the discussion?

 2. Is every member Intensely involved in the discussion at all stages?

 3. Does the discussion move toward common agreements in terms of the solution of the problem being discussed? Do all members of the group understand and accept as important the problem being discussed?

 4. Is the discussion oriented toward decision and action at all times?

 5. Does the group accept and understand the conflicts encountered and move toward their resolution?

 6. Does the group recognize its need for information? Does it know how to go about getting such information?

 7. Does the group use resource persons or resource material as an aid to its own thinking, not as giving the final action-solution of its problem?

 8. Is the group unduly dependent upon its leader or on some of its members? Does the group use its leadership as an aid to common solutions, not as a source of final solutions?

 9. Is the leader accepted as a member of the group, with special functions to perform?

10. Is there an atmosphere of friendly cooperation in the group at all times particularly when conflicts of Ideas and points of view are encountered?

11. Does the group resent attempts at domination by its leader, one of its members, a clique of its members or by a visiting expert?

12. Is there a feeling of progress toward common goals?

13. Is the group "realistic" in its choice of problems and in setting its goals?

14. Does the discussion move readily toward decision when decision is required?

15. Does the group find it possible to dispense with the creaking machinery of parliamentary procedure?

1. The engineering of change and the meeting of pressures on a group or organization toward change must be collaborative.

2. The engineering of change must be educational for the participants.

3. The engineering of change must be experimental.

4. The engineering of change must be task-oriented, that is, controlled by the requirements of the problem confronted and its effective solution, rather than oriented to the maintenance or extension of the prestige or power of those who originate contributions.

5. The principle of change must be antii;ii1)ulualiP tic, jd provide for the e.qf.abli.qh,ncnt of appropriate areas of privacy and for the development of persons as creative units of influence in our society.
 

Excerpts from:
Human Relations in Curriculum Change

edited by Kenneth Benne

(To more clearly understand the agenda of the following work by Kenneth Benne et. al. replace the word democratic with Marxist.)

"Our purpose is to deepen and broaden our understanding of democratic deliberation and its demands upon each of us who seriously and genuinely wishes to see this method survive and grow in managing the relations of men today."

"The administrator cannot function as a 'democratic leader' in the matter of policy formulation unless the teachers change with him by learning the role of democratic participants. Students will have to make, similar changes in student roles if their teacher is to effect stable changes in his own behavior in terms of democratic control in the classroom."

"What they must have is a method of social engineering whose operating procedures incorporate both democratic ideas and values and the knowledge and skills relevant to initiating and controlling the change process. Part IV of the book identifies five basic democratic norms and translates them into operational elements of a social engineering methodology."

"The change of a group atmosphere from autocracy or laissez faire to democracy through a democratic leader amounts to a re-education of the followers toward ‘democratic follower- ship.'"

"Without the members of the group being able and ready to take over those responsibilities which are essential for followership in a democracy, the democratic leader will be helpless."

"Changing a group atmosphere from autocracy toward democracy through a democratic leadership, therefore, means that the autocratic followers must shift toward a genuine acceptance of the role of democratic followers."

"Sometimes people must rather forcefully be made to see what democratic responsibility toward the group as a whole means."

"No elaborate set of procedural rules should be adopted by the group to begin with, Democratic leaders should always be aware that rules set early before the group understands the limitations which these rules apply to the discussion, even though set by formally democratic means, may serve autocratic ends later in the discussion."

"Democratic leaders cannot be trained autocratically; it is, on the other hand, of utmost importance that the trainer of democratic leaders establish and hold his position of leadership."

"As teachers work to build mature groups, self-objective about their group needs and ways of working, they are also working to build democratic leaders."

"Believers in democratic leadership have an entirely different conception of authority from that held by those who pin their faith on an elite. With the believers in an elite, authority is something one begins with; with the believers in democracy it is something one ends with. With the elite group, authority resides in persons by virtue of positions they hold; the view of the democratic group is that authority is distilled anew as persons in different capacities learn to work together and as responsibility of various kinds is placed on different shoulders. The democratic theory is that, in the last analysis, authority resides in the group, although It is delegated as occasion demands. The recognized leaders of the group are thus relieved of the necessity for 'maintaining' and demonstrating their authority. Such persons can cease their struggles for jurisdiction and power and concentrate instead on offering a maximum of service. This should have a beneficial effect upon the human relations round about them." 

"...democratic leadership and its success depends on—nay exactly is—an on-going process of education inherent in the situation."

"... persons should become capable of alternately exercising leadership and serving under the leadership of an ‘other.' Only thus will individuals develop their utmost power and become truly socialized."

"Establishing democracy in a group implies an active education. The democratic follower has to learn to play a role which implies, among other points, a fair share of responsibility toward the group and a sensitivity to other people's feeling.... "

"We can and should 'grow' democratic leaders."

"the formulation of a 'good' group, in a democratic society ... how its goals relate to the broader social framework of goals within which it operates. ...a good group is one which is conscious of its democratic responsibility."

"... the one criterion which may distinguish the democratically- oriented group from one operating within an authoritarian social framework. A wise dictator would probably want groups to achieve their 'work' goals as efficiently and rapidly as possible. He may see that full utilization of member-potential results in more effective group production and so advocate it. But it would defeat his own purposes to promote the kind of group interaction that helps persons become secure, independently functioning personalities, persons whose willingness to cooperate with others, to be socially inter dependent, arises from their recognition and acceptance of themselves as adequate, inter dependent, mature personalities. On the contrary, it would seem to be essential for the continuance of an authoritarian group or society to foster the kind of group process that promotes the individual's continuing emotional and intellectual dependence on the leader."

"Any proposed change not based on what people think the problems are will have rough sledding. Furthermore, the essence of democratic change lies in the need for all concerned to share in diagnosis of the problem and decision as to the direction and kind of change, as well as in carrying out the change. Such a process tends to involve people in desiring, rather than resisting, change."

" (1) This supervisor knows that in a democratic work group social control of the individual can usually come best from within the group itself; (2) he knows that every personal contact with a worker must be thought of in terms of its possible group implications."

"Democratic leadership is a long-time process."

"Democratic deliberation' puts a high premium upon the full participation of all persons concerned in a given action in determining the purposes and plans which are to guide it. The norms of 'democratic ethics', therefore, define the ideal conditions of participation by persons and groups in shaping the controlling policies of a social system."

"To deny rights to 'democratic' leadership in influencing the course of current educational change is, in effect, to sell out control of required changes to non-democratic leadership."

"the translation of the norms of 'democratic' ethics into principles of procedure in the engineering of deliberate changes in human conduct and interrelationships. if 'democratic' change is to occur in the school, these norms must be observed by educational leadership at all times, and the norms must also be communicated and taught to those participating along with effective methods and techniques for inducing changes in persons, groups, and social systems."

"The method of democratic deliberation is the best way which men have devised to attain common action in and through conflicting outlooks and purposes. Our purpose is to deepen and broaden our understanding of this method and its demands upon each of us who seriously and genuinely wishes to see this method survive and grow in managing the relations of men today. It will help us better to understand this method of social deliberation and control if we see it first over against alternative methods which now operate among us and which are finding eager advocates among groups and nations of men as more adequate and efficient than democratic method in meeting the crucial problems of social change in our time."

"When democratic persons and groups do compromise (and they will have to do so often), they should recognize that the compromise offers no abiding solution to the conflict and that further efforts to grow a common outlook through discussion, study, and deliberation—a common outlook which incorporates harmoniously the valid goals of opposing parties—should be continued."

"To suppress deviation and maintain the established pattern merely because it is established is to fail to uncover that deficiency and to meet it through remaking the pattern. In a democratic process deviation is welcomed as a possible source of improvement in common ways of thinking and acting. The exceptional viewpoint is studied and discussed with a view toward incorporating whatever stands the test of study and discussion into a revised common view. Conflict of views is seen as a creative opportunity for common improvement in a democratic group and not as a condition to be abolished and an occasion to coerce persons through social pressure to conform to the viewpoint of either of the parties to the conflict. Conflict, of course, does not lead automatically to improvement. But conflict controlled and directed by disciplined and appropriate methods of deliberation is regarded by the democrat as the source of all our major social gains."

"... democratic leadership seeks progressively to transfer leadership from a basis of group dependence on the leadership of a person or small group to the common intelligence and will of the whole group."

"Democratic method attempts to achieve an intelligent and uncoerced consensus.—the ideal method of social control is democratic co-operation."

"Our criticisms of the other ways of attaining common action have been based on our interpretation of democratic cooperation as, in general, the ideal way and one which we should seek to cultivate and extend."

"... democratic co-operation as a means of attaining common action. It is the purpose of this book to explore the method of democratic deliberation, ..."

"The ideal of democratic deliberation is an intelligent and uncoerced consensus concerning what should be done. This consensus will attempt to incorporate the valid insights and values of all parties in the conflict. The validity of these various insights and values is to be tested by the common study, deliberation, and discussion of the group and ultimately by the consequences of the common plan as it works out in action and as these consequences are evaluated by the common judgment of the group. It cannot be stressed too emphatically that the ideal goal of democratic co-operation is a consensus in the group concerning what should be done—a consensus based on and sustained by the deliberation of the group in the planning, execution, and evaluation of the common action of the group. No other method of social control depends so crucially on the deliberation of the whole group concerned in resolving the conflicts which for the time impede and prevent community of action. And, as a corollary, no other method of social control depends so centrally for its effective working-out upon the habituation and responsible discipline of all of its members in conscious methods of deliberation and discussion."

"... democratic co-operation will demand methods appropriate to all the types of conflict which arise in the course of group life to thwart and impede the common action of the group."

"deliberate, democratic methods will not work in making many policies under present conditions. This conclusion we cannot accept.... It is the faith of the democrat that no conflict can best be resolved unless all relevant and available human experience and insight is brought to bear on its resolution. No conflict is fully resolved until all have come, through deliberation, to accept the resolution as their own. The best common action on this view must involve the minds and purposes of those engaged in it as well as their bodily efforts. The methods of democratic co-operation are thus oriented, as we have stressed before, to the utilization of all available human resources—resources of purpose, experience, and insight in the planning, the execution, and the evaluation of common action. It is this full utilization of human resources in the guidance of common action that justifies the democrat's faith that democratic co-operation leads to policies and programs which are more relevant to existing conditions, more sensitive to all human values, more generally satisfying to the men concerned, and more enduring than policies and programs based on any other made of social co-operation."

"This way of looking at contemporary change seems also to imply that democratic ideology will find effective application in shaping contemporary culture only as it comes to operate in the processes by which planned social changes are formulated and effected and by which the necessary re-education of persons and groups to the behavior and relationships required by such planning is accomplished."

"Persons are, therefore, to be taken as ends in the sense that all the ways of a society, its institutions, its practices and its faiths, are to be judged ultimately by their services to the development of each member-person."

"... social policy is ... represent an induction from the unique insights and experiences of every person concerned with that policy."

"... the principle of participation by all persons affected by a social policy, as equals, in the processes by which such policy is formulated and reconstructed has been approved as a (if not the) central norm of democratic operation."

"... the central meaning of 'democracy', in operational terms, is to be found in a methodology by which the ways, the policies, the norms of an institution, the school for example, are to be reconstructed when its traditional ways have fallen into dispute, when the society is confronted by alternative and conflicting views as to the proper direction of social effort, when the institution faces, defines and moves to solve its confronting problems. The democratic norms acquire operational meaning when they are interpreted as requirements of a methodology for resolving social and inter-personal conflicts in such a way that an adequate, mutually satisfactory, and socially wise resolution is effected. In a social setting where social conflicts tend to take a collective form, where change is inherent in the situation, where planning has become a social necessity, the norms of democracy will acquire directive power and clear meaning only as they are seen to be required elements in a methodology of planned social change, of social engineering."

"There is no inherent contradiction between a democratic ideology and the training of persons and groups committed to and skilled in the stimulation and development of planned change in social patterns and in human relationships."

"In fact, the effective maintenance and extension of democratic values in industrial society seem to require the services of such practitioners. Educators or other change agents must, however, he trained in ways of stimulating and guiding change which incorporate the democratic norms as basic elements of their operating methodology. The valid test of the democratic character of any engineering operation lies in the degree to which the methodology employed in them conforms to these norms. It follows also that the best guarantee of the ethical operation of social engineers is that their basic training be focused in a methodology of planned change which unites the norms of democratic operation, relevant understandings of change processes and social structures, and skills in stimulating, inducing and stabilizing changes in persons and groups."

"... the need for collaboration across lines of divergent action interests in a given situation requiring change, individuals and groups must be helped to see that the task is to discover and construct a common interest out of the conflicting interests which they bring to the interpretation of the situation and to the direction of changes in it."

"... collaboration required is across lines of 'theory' and 'practice'."

"Neither of these modes of collaboration, between persons and groups with different interests in change and between 'theorists' and 'practitioners', comes 'naturally' to people."

"Every change operation must, in this sense, be conceived as an educational enterprise. It is important that this educational requirement of democratic engineering be interpreted dynamically instead of statically."

"... to see all social arrangements as subject to modification and alteration ..."

"... an 'experimental' attitude toward all social arrangements."

"... all who collaborate must be trained toward an experimental attitude and a 'research' approach toward social problems."

"... all educational practitioners, children and laymen participating in educational change become experimental in their attitude toward relationship problems faced and 'research-minded' in their search for and evaluation of solutions ..."

"... democratic change must be anti-authoritarian."

"Democratic persons must become skilled in inhibiting their tendencies to defend and promote ideas which are in need of objective evaluation and reformulation. It is important that persons achieve sensitivity in assessing the sources of influence upon themselves and to differentiate between dependence upon status figures and dependence upon fact-oriented and task-oriented influences."

"To the democratic planner 'dogmas' are seen methodologically as 'intellectual' attempts to save some privileged position from open collective criticism and modification. How to convert the perception of favored principles by those who hold them from dogmas to 'hypotheses' remains a central problem for democratic social engineers."

"The 'collective' character of our more pressing problems of change has been suggested and the necessity for 'collective' solutions affirmed." "... a democratic methodology must be anti-individualistic."

"In the liberal revolt against social restraints upon economic enterprise imposed by medieval culture and later against 'mercantilist' restraints, a rationale for individual rights was sought in a conception of the 'natural' as over against the 'social' grounding of such rights. Individuals, naturally equipped with mind and conscience independent of social experience, were set over against a contractual and artificial system of social relationships and conventions. What was in fact an alternative social ideal was thus projected into a theory of the nature of human nature. Scientific studies of human nature have indicated that this rationalization of liberal ideology involved a false psychology and anthropology. Individual personalities are now seen to be products of social experience. Individuation and socialization, far from being capable of intelligible opposition, are generally regarded as alternative aspects of the same process of growth into the ways of a social culture. The norms and standards by which a person thinks and judges are learned in the processes by which he is acculturated. Human rights and duties are grounded in the institutions and ideologies of a culture, not in a nature independent of man's social relationships. If human rights are to be guaranteed, they must be guaranteed by appropriate social, political, and economic controls of human behavior, not by opposition to these."

"If the realization of this value is blocked by certain social arrangements, as undoubtedly it often is today, the task is to change these social arrangements. And such change today requires collective planning and action not reliance upon 'providential' processes of natural or historical selection which have ceased to be providential under conditions of advancing industrialization or upon blind resistance to all collective action as inherently opposed to individuality."

"The methodological correlate of individualism which democratic ideology leads us to oppose is the elevation of unchecked private, individual judgment as an ultimate arbiter in the control of human conduct."

"But the determination of the proper boundaries of these areas must, in an interdependent society, be based on a collective judgment. The rights of private judgment can be defensibly defined and enforced on a democratic basis only by processes of collaborative planning. They cannot be guaranteed by dogmas concerning the nature of man."

"The methodology of planned change which is consistent with democratic ideology must elevate informed and experimental collective judgment over unchecked private judgment. A methodology of training for participation in planned change must emphasize the development of skills necessary for creating common public judgments out of the disciplined conflict of 'private' points of view. It must develop persons who see non-influenceability of private convictions in joint deliberations as a vice rather than a virtue. It is in this sense that democratic planning for change must be anti-individualistic."

"Groups and organizations should be helped to define and redefine those areas of life in which common values and standards are necessary and where efforts to build common out of contrasting beliefs and practices are required. In the same process, areas of life where divergence in standard and belief is not alone to be tolerated but encouraged and supported need to be well-defined. To stress the essential character of certain universals in group life is in no way to contradict the need for special and unique developments where threats to common welfare are not involved. The democratic social engineer seeks to establish and support this essential distinction in the groups or organizations with whom he work ."

"... planned change requires leadership by persons equipped with the understandings, skills and techniques of the social engineer."

"The first task of believers in democratic ethics is, therefore, the theoretical job of translating democratic values into methodological norms for the control of processes of planned change. The second task is the practical one of devising ways, in training teachers or others as social engineers, to develop the skills and techniques for effective stimulation and induction of change in persons and groups and the social-psychological knowledge required for accurate diagnosis of change-situations in integral relation to developing commitments to the norms of democratic methodology."

"Those who set out to stimulate changes in the school program require discipline in the diagnosis of the changes that are possible within the social system of the school and the overlapping social systems of school and community."

"... inclusive discipline lies in a methodology of problem-solving."

"... the methodology of problem-solving for curriculum change is a methodology of practical deliberation."

''... solutions must incorporate, judgments of value, judgments of 'what we ought to do', as well as judgments of fact and judgments of effective means to employ."

"... to build common agreement concerning the values we should strive for in our schools as well as common agreement as to what 'facts' we can depend on ..."

"These cases are often the most difficult to cope with because the principles are so deeply embedded in characters, in the moral structure of the community. All judgments of practice in some degree, particularly as they involve practical generalization, involve therewith the characters of the judgers and of their communities. Such deep-seated lifenorms do not change easily."

" . . . decision, policy, practical generalization, the latter meaning broad principles of social-moral action or general norms of private and public conduct. The making, or remaking, of all these forms of judgment is the function of practical intelligence. The soundness of any one of them depends upon the soundness of the others."

"One type of practical problem which often calls for resolution is that in which the general principles or deep seated life norms are clear and unshaken. So long as the members of the group have thus a stable, common mind about what is desired or desirable, the solving of the problem is relatively simple. It consists in finding ways and means of achieving what is commonly desired. Often, in such cases, we call in the technical expert on how to do what we all want done."

"The practical task of intelligence in this kind of case—for Pearl Harbors do not often come—is to rediscover the basic character of the community, its common ideals, beliefs, and goals. Once this has been done, the case becomes one of the first type described above."

"One type of practical problem which often calls for resolution is that in which the general principles or deep seated life norms are clear and unshaken. So long as the members of the group have thus a stable, common mind about what is desired or desirable, the solving of the problem is relatively simple. It consists in finding ways and means of achieving what is commonly desired. Often, in such cases, we call in the technical expert on how to do what we all want done."

"A third type of problem is that in which there is deep cleavage in orientation, where ideals, attitudes, and goals are in basic conflict. Here the problem is more difficult and usually requires more time for solution. The need is for a restructuring of the community itself. This means often the profound reshaping of characters. Probably our people have this kind of problem today more acutely than at any other time in their history. We need community of understanding and belief and purpose where such does not now exist and where its absence is increasingly disastrous."

"Hope for a better world depends upon how successfully people find common grounds when there are needed."

"These three phases are: (1) the formulation of purpose—forming a desired end, a desired state of affairs, a preferred and chosen goal; (2) the description of existing conditions—getting the facts, defining relationships, noting possibilities; and (3) the formation of a plan of action—steps which promise best to transform existing conditions into conditions that are desired."

"A clear purpose, for instance, can come often only through the fusion and interpenetration of outlooks. This is a creative act loaded with possibilities for releasing new energies and achieving new heights of human satisfaction."

"For the third phase, we are almost as badly equipped as for the first. It involves the fusion of fact and desire, of present and future, of existing means and projected ends."

"And plans of action not based on accurate understanding of conditions and not directed by considered purpose are only leaps into the dark."

"... when differing points of view and conflicting interests and purposes move with their mutual tensions toward a fusion of goal and into a concerted plan of action."

"Disraeli's observation ... a practical man is one who tends to repeat the errors of his forefathers."

"Common actions need to be based on common persuasions."

"The first phase of practical judgment: clarification of common purpose—the projection of a desired state of affairs. The notion of should carries a universal reference "

"The characters and orientations of judgers become objectified in the first phase of judgment."

"The second phase of practical judgment: the survey and assessment of the existing state of affairs."

"The third phase of practical judgment: the fusion of the ideal and existent in a program of action."

"Conceptions of limits and possibilities are put to the test through the interpenetration of phases."

"Testing our conceptions of 'necessity.' 'necessities' must undergo the challenge of competing desires before being too early accounted 'necessities.' 'Necessities' can be changed, in fact must be changed, in a community where conflicts among the imperatives of different groups are present, if commonly acceptable policies and programs are eventually to prevail."

"Testing our notions of the desirable."

"The interpenetration of the functions of the three phases is thus one of the chief sources to which we must look for the elements in a discipline of practical judgment."

"... the total judgment shapes up in a common course of action and a common acceptance of the actions as possible, necessary, desirable, and efficient. . ."

"... changing human relations; for, inevitably, it must consider not only what 'is' and what 'can be' but also, what 'ought to be'. A problem-solving method of such breadth is necessary to give educational leadership the criteria for locating and defining needed changes, for planning the means to execute them, for weighing the adequacy of proposed solutions, and for evaluating the consequences after acting upon these proposals."

Source: Human Relations in Curriculum Change edited by Kenneth Benne