Boundary pushing by sport, religion and governance

Comprehension of Numbers Challenging Global Civilization (Part #10)

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• the nature of a boundary -- and the manner whereby it excludes challenging otherness
• how to extend the boundary -- against the resistance of otherness
• how to encompass everything in an unbounded framework -- subsuming potential alternative frameworks

Such issues have been dramatically highlighted at the time of writing through militarily-supported action in Ukraine (Crimea), Turkey (Kurdistan), Iraq (Sunni/Shiite). Afghanistan (Taliban). Extensive media coverage has been given to the challenge of migrants to European borders (Hannah Roberts, 600,000 migrants are lined up along North African coast and ready to enter Europe this summer warns Italy. Mail Online, 4 April 2014).

In systemic and symbolic terms these preoccupations are also central to sexual relationships -- as with the manner whereby points are made within the bounded context, potentially characterized by emptiness and pointlessness (Way Round Cognitive Ground Zero and Pointlessness? Embodying the geometry of fundamental cognitive dynamics, 2012).

Boundaries of a more tangible nature are of course defined by numbers and the geometry to which they give rise. Intangible boundaries, recognized through patterns, are also defined by numbers. The fundamental challenge -- for a much-challenged civilization, faced with collapsing patterns of connectivity -- is how to rethink the nature of boundaries.

A specific concern is how to transcend the binary manner by which boundaries are currently characterized -- the sense of inside/outside, internal/external, and "us and them", as separately discussed (Transcending Simplistic Binary Contractual Relationships, 2012; Radical Cognitive Mirroring of Globalization: dynamically inning the unquestioningly outed, 2014; Us and Them: Relating to Challenging Others, 2009).

In a discussion of What Keeps Boundaries Fixed and Formidable (David L. Dotlich, et al., Head, Heart and Guts: how the world's best companies develop complete leaders, 2010), the authors note that: it is more than human nature that prevents otherwise smart, savvy people from reframing boundaries. While we are all resistant to change to a certain extent, boundary change comes with its own additional set of hurdles. They distinguish (pp. 70-72):

• Incentive system hurdle: Most organizational incentive systems reward behaviors that have proven successful in the past... Part of the problem is that the ability to see boundaries in new ways is difficult to measure... In addition, even if leadership endorses boundary-reframing behaviors, a lag time exists between this endorsement and the restructuring of an incentive system.
  
• Corporate culture hurdle: Some cultures have norms and values that mitigate against boundary reframing... Sometimes the influence of culture is not as overt as in the previous instance, operating instead at a subconscious level....
  
• Arrogance hurdle: Some organizations have such a superior attitude that they don't believe new relationships vertically, horizontally, or any which way will benefit them.... Enron is perhaps the recent example of an arrogant culture that could not deal with its own flaws and ignored the warning signs from the environment.
• The Overwhelmed Hurdle:: The leader is under so much pressure to perform that he is unwilling to do anything new or different that might detract from that performance.

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