IDEAS AND ACTIONS - JUSTIFICATION AND HYPOCRISY AS ALTERNATIVES TO CONTROL

Popular hierarchical models of organizations and societies contain two assumptions about the relation between the ideas of constituencies and leaders on the one hand and organizational and societal actions on the other: that ideas and actions are consistent, and that ideas control actions. In this article some practical difficulties in achieving consistency and control are discussed. Consistency is difficult to achieve when what can be done cannot be said and vice versa, and control is difficult to combine with consistency when ideas change more rapidly than action. The difficulty of achieving consistency and control can be partially overcome by combining ideas and actions in two other ways. One combination involves justification, and the other hypocrisy.