In Memoriam: Glenn Paige
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 6 Feb 2017
Kinhide Mushakoji – TRANSCEND Media Service
Prof. Glenn D. Paige
29 Jan 2017 – I wish also to add to others who knew well Glenn my own tribute to him, as an old friend of his (old also biologically since I am also born in 1929). I met him first in 1961 when I was a Rockefeller Fellow at the Center of International Studies in Princeton. I was since the 1950s interested in decision-making analysis and wished to meet with Glenn who was one of the most important reasons to decide to spend two years in Princeton.
Since then I followed his foot-steps in leadership studies and non-killing social sciences one conversation with Glenn which is still unforgettable for me, because I was then deeply involved in behavioral sciences, which I contributed to spread in Japan after coming back from Princeton in 1963. We were talking about decision-making theory as part of behavioral sciences approach to international politics, and I cannot forget Glenn’s prophetic remark on behavioral sciences and decision-making theory.
Glenn said that the scientific wave of interest in both approaches were temporary and were bound to be replaced by other paradigms. Then he said, “When the end of behavioral sciences would come, what will remain valid and creative are the concerns of these approaches to study human factors in all social phenomena. This will never lose importance under any paradigm-shift of the future.”
Looking back from the contemporary 21st century, his interest in human leadership of the 1970s was already a new paradigm which may, now, become very important with the emergence of the new President of the United States of America. Non-killing, as an attempt to build a critical approach to killing is, also, most important now. I am trying to become a late-hour disciple of Glenn after having been one fellow-traveler, to use an old Cold War expression. I will probably be more active in trying a critical analysis of killing than to propagate the good news of non-killing.
As an old Japanese trained to kill myself for the glory of the Emperor, even when the Emperor invades other countries and kill their inhabitants, killing by the States and by the non-state actors called humanitarian intervention in the former and terrorism only in the latter case is where a critical non-killing approach becomes indispensable.
As a repentant potential killer (of myself and of others), Glenn may allow my joining his disciples as a potential terrorist believer in non-killing, since this is a typical case where I may become an object of my personal reflective research on this bad human factor of “killing”, which we cannot ignore if we want to build a new world of non-killing.
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Kinhide Mushakoji is a professor by special appointment to the Centre for Asia Pacific Partnership, Osaka University of Economics and Law, former vice rector for programme, UN University, and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 6 Feb 2017.
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