|
|
| Accountants |
"The black and
white figures in a profit and loss account … might be discriminated even
by a well-conditioned rat." [G. Vickers, The Art of Judgment (Chapman &
Hall, 1965) Harper & Row ed, p 154] |
Ambition
Gratification |
"A man who loves
power - which is a specific relationship between a man and his milieu -
both seeks power and exercises power. If he finds himself
in a position in which his opportunities for exercising power are inadequate
to what he feels to be his capacity, he will probably seek (consciously
or unconsciously) a position of greater power. … But [for such people]
even before and still more after their attainment of their goal, the primary
explanation of their activities is not the pursuit but the exercise
of power. As they go through their daily work, chairing a difficult
meeting, conducting a complex negotiation, they enjoy - amongst other things
- maintaining that relationship with their milieu which is the exercise
of power." [G. Vickers, The Art of Judgment (Chapman & Hall,
1965) Harper & Row ed, p 32]
Vickers is arguing
here that rational behaviour should be described in terms of the maintenance
of (ongoing) norms rather than the achievement of (instant) goals. |
| Change |
"Stability, even
more than change, demands to be explained, aspired to and regulated. Form
may be preserved through change but change may also disrupt form. In particular,
linear change is bound in time to be self-limiting or self-reversing and
may even destroy the form which it has defined." [G.Vickers, Human Systems
are different (London, Harper & Row, 1983) p xx]
"There are situations
in which the most tentative mention of a change makes the status quo
untenable." [G. Vickers, The Art of Judgment (Chapman & Hall, 1965)
Harper & Row ed, p 85] |
| Environment Ecology
Strategy System |
"An animal must
learn to digest the food it can find or to find the food it can digest."
[G. Vickers, The Art of Judgment (Chapman & Hall, 1965) Harper &
Row ed, p 26] |
| Growth versus protection
strategies |
"The system in
jeopardy sheds first the relations least essential to its survival. As
an organism in danger of death from cold restricts its surface blood vessels
and risks peripheral frostbite to preserve its working temperature at more
vital levels within, so businesses facing insolvency and nations facing
invasion discard all but the simplest of their governing relations without
hesitation or debate. An understanding of this protective strategy, however,
will not suffice to explain what will happen when achievement is expanding
in relation to current standards. What new, more exacting standards will
structure the new possibilities? Expanding strategy needs its own explanation.
An executive who is outstanding at salving undertakings in danger of dissolution,
a statesman supreme at leading a country under dire threat, is not necessarily
so successful at exploiting success. Certainly his performance in an expanding
strategy cannot be predicted from his achievement in a protective one."
[G. Vickers, The Art of Judgment (Chapman & Hall, 1965) Harper &
Row ed, p 31] |
| Judges |
"No
doubt even judges might sometimes behave in every respect like rats; but
rats never behave in every respect like judges." [G. Vickers, The Art of
Judgment (Chapman & Hall, 1965) Harper & Row ed, p 19] |
| Knowledge `Power |
"‘Knowledge is
power’ is a misleading slogan. Knowledge may well be important to the maintenance
of power, but that does not mean that the knowledgeable are powerful."
[David Lyon, The Information Society (Cambridge, Polity Press/Basil Blackwell,
1988) p 62]
"Facile equating
of power with control has still to be dethroned in the popular and the
political mind, even though scientists are now well accustomed to think
of regulation as limited by the adequacy not of energy but of information."
[G. Vickers, The Art of Judgment (Chapman & Hall, 1965) Harper &
Row ed, p 82] |
| Wisdom |
"Even the dogs
may eat of the crumbs which fall from the rich man’s table; and in these
days, when the rich in knowledge eat such specialized food at such separate
tables, only the dogs have a chance of a balanced diet." [G. Vickers, The
Art of Judgment (Chapman & Hall, 1965) Harper & Row ed, p 11] |
|
|
|
| Geoffrey Vickers, Value systems and social process |
|
Out of Print--Limited Availability |
| Geoffrey Vickers, Responsibility Its Sources and Limits
(Paperback - June 1980) |
|
Out of Print--Limited Availability |
| Geoffrey Vickers, The Art of Judgment : A Study of Policy
Making (Paperback - December 1995) |
|
 |
| Geoffrey Vickers et al, Policymaking, Communication,
and Social Learning (Hardcover - July 1987) |
|
|
| Geoffrey Vickers, Freedom in a rocking boat: changing
values in an unstable society |
|
Out of Print--Limited Availability |
| Geoffrey Vickers, The Vickers Papers (Paperback - December
1984) |
|
Out of Print--Limited Availability |
| Geoffrey Vickers, Making Institutions Work (Textbook
Binding - January 1973) |
|
Out of Print--Limited Availability |
| Geoffrey Vickers, Human Systems Are Different (Paperback
- December 1984) |
|
Out of Print--Limited Availability |
| Geoffrey Vickers (Editor), et al, Rethinking Public Policy-Making
: Questioning Assumptions, Challenging Beliefs : Essays in Honour of Sir
Geoffrey Vickers on His Centenary (Hardcover - September 1995) |
|
Out of Print--Limited Availability |
| Jeanne Vickers, Rethinking the Future : The
Correspondence Between Geoffrey Vickers and Adolph Lowe (Hardcover - June
1991) |
|
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