致全球華文讀者的一封信
作者：亞當．卡漢 Adam Kahane
《力與愛》這本書我花了多年的時間才書寫完成，我將過去試圖促進社會變革過程中的成功與失敗經驗分享給讀者。「Berrett-Koehler」公司在2010年出版英文版之後，六年間各國語言的翻譯也陸續推出──德文、法文、葡萄牙文、西班牙文、義大利文、土耳其文、泰文、 韓文、日文、中文，以及印度、南非的英文版。
我也花了數月時間，在全球各地針對《力與愛》發表超過百次以上的談話，如學習型組織、組織發展學會、創客中心、大學系列講座、各類專業團體……等；透過各領域的對話與各國不同領域人士的親身互動下，讓我更清楚看見力與愛在這充滿變化的動態關係中的精髓。
我認為力與愛貼切地形容出一個社會實境的基本結構。若是我們瞭解所有社會的型態，無論是個人、團體、社區、組織、社會都是子整體 (holon) ──本身為整體，卻也是更大整體裡的一部分。比方說，我是個體裡的整體，同時是我的家庭的一部分。而我的家庭是我們的社區的一份子……以此類推。所有的社會體本身就是一個整體，也是其他整體的一部分。
書中所定義的「權力」是依循美國神學家保羅．田力克 (Paul Tillich) 的觀點，為「驅動自我實現的動力」，而愛則是「將分離的區塊結合起來的動力」。用整體的概念來說，「力」是所有整體想要自我實現、表達整體性的動力；「愛」則是每個整體想要與其他整體結合、表達自己是其一部分的動力。這個定義也讓我們看出，若是只想要單一的力或愛來推動社會變革是毫無意義；就如同只想單靠吐氣或吸氣來呼吸。本書的核心觀點──就是想要促進有生成力的社會變革，就必須同時運用力與愛。
我有點好奇亞洲的讀者，對於我採取田力克基督教的哲思所架構出的觀點，到底會有什麼樣的理解。我帶著這樣的覺察到了亞洲，面對在日本、韓國、泰國、新加坡、香港的演講後問答時段，都會特別注意大家的回應。在這些不同國家，我意識到驅動著整體和分開的個體這兩股動力之間一直存在的張力，在這裡是特別明顯。我回想起，東京有位參與者，從他異於傳統的穿著看起來外觀上似乎想要表達自我、自我實現 (他個人的整體)，但他的發言充滿著焦慮，因為他五歲的兒子有天從學校回家對他說：「爸爸，如果我不學會和大家打成一片 (也就是成為這個社會的整體的一部分，表達我是這整體的一部分)，那麼我就會死掉。」處在不同文化中，我切身感受到整體與個體之間的拉距。我在曼谷與新加坡的許多對話場合，主要也都是著重在如何從個人的權力與自由，以及國家的和諧與團結之中找到平衡。
我在書中，也採用以物理和數學的角度透過精確的邏輯推理來闡釋「力與愛」，希望能夠多提供一種創新思考──這如此重要且普及常見，卻在許多不同且令人混亂的方式中，讓大家能夠更意識到「力與愛」的存在。部份讀者可能會認為我的想法是誤導的比喻，就像是將交派的任務與關係拿來做比較；或是父母與兒女互動之間的比喻。我曾聽到最受用的說法是──將力與愛比喻成「陽剛與溫柔」或是太極的「陰與陽」。
即便是各式各樣的說法，我都尊重接納 ，因為這代表著「力與愛」猶如有機體，會隨著基於在不同文化的光譜中顯現出各種真實面貌。這份豐富的內涵更是體現出──「力與愛」有著全世界社會實境的基本特質，這是我親身走訪全世界五十多國，經過二十多年在面對各種複雜議題時不論是大或小的社會變革與社會運動中，反芻過後的第一手觀察、實踐與反思。
《力與愛》出版至今我更堅信一件事──凡是有心想要瞭解、推動社會變革的人士或社群、組織與國家，都會需要這股「力與愛」的力量；它不僅交織著全球的在地智慧，同時也融滲著在地的困境與生機。
我深感榮幸這本書能夠在台灣問世，我也特別感謝朝邦文教基金會引進版權且願意投入心力將這本書介紹給中文的讀者；期待您們也帶著「力與愛」開創屬於自己的社會變革之路！
2016朝邦新書「對話」分享會「力與愛」從個人反思到社會實踐，邀您一起改變
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A Theory and Practice of Social Change:Preface to the Chinese edition of Power & Love
Author: Adam Kahane, Saint-Sauveur, Canada
I wrote this book over several years by reflecting on my own experiences, successful and unsuccessful, of trying to effect social change. Berrett-Koehler published the English edition in 2010, with several translations appearing soon thereafter, and in the months that followed I gave over 100 talks about this work to audiences around the world. Through these in-person interactions with many thoughtful people, I came to see more clearly the essence of the dynamics of power and love.
I now think of power and love as describing a fundamental structure of social reality. We can see this if we understand that all social entities—individuals, groups, communities, organizations, societies, etc.—are holons: entities that are both wholes in themselves and also parts of larger wholes. For example, I am a whole in myself and also part of my family, my family is a whole in itself and part of our community, and so on. All social entities are characterized both by wholeness and partness.
In this book I define power, following Protestant theologian Paul Tillich, as “the drive of everything living to realize itself,” and love as “the drive towards the unity of the separated.” Using the language of holons, power is the drive of every holon to realize itself and so expresses that holon’s wholeness. Love, by contrast, is the drive of every holon to unite with others and so expresses its partness. These simple definitions show why it is nonsensical to try to effect social change by working only with power or only with love; it would be like trying to breath only by exhaling or only by inhaling. The primary argument of this book is that the only way to effect generative social change is by employing both power and love.
I was curious to see how this argument, framed in Tillich’s Christian definitions, would be understood in Asia, and so I paid particular attention during the question and answer sessions that followed my talks in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong. I observed that the permanent tensions between the drives to wholeness and partness was widely and keenly felt. On participant in a session in Tokyo, a man who by his unconventional attire appeared to be intent on his own self-expression and self-realization (his wholeness), spoke of his anguish at his five-year-old son having come home from school saying, “Daddy, if I don’t learn how to read the air [i.e., to fit into the social whole, to express my partness], then I will be dead.” And many conversations in both Bangkok and Singapore revolved around the challenge of reconciling the rights and freedoms of individuals with the harmony and unity of the nation.
In this book I employ precise, even mathematical, definitions of power and love. I am trying to rehabilitate these important, common words which have come to be used in so many different and confusing ways. Some readers of the book have suggested what I think are misleading analogies, such as to task vs. relationship or to the interactions between parents and children. The most useful analogies I have heard are power and love being like masculine and feminine or like yang and yin.
Power and love refer, therefore, to fundamental and universal aspects of social reality. The five years of experience I have had since the publication of the first edition of this book has increased my confidence that people interested in understanding and effecting social change need to grasp and work with these phenomena. I am therefore deeply grateful to the CP Yen Foundation for making this book available to Chinese readers.
朝邦文教基金會 