In 1925 the South African author and naturalist Eugene Marais wrote a series of articles setting out his observation that a white ant termitary was a single living creature. In "The Soul of the White Ant" Marais creates a very powerful analogy. Many years before his time he had identified principles that would eventually be discovered by the scientific world; from pheremones to species adaptation.
He makes a very cogent argument. The queen can be likened to the 'brain', the individual termintes form specialised "organs" and the mud of the termitary itself forms the "skin" of the creature. He describes the complex defense mechanisms and the siren call of the termitary itself.
This started a thought process which I would like to persue in some of these articles. Are biological analogies in human organisations simply useful points of departure or something more fundamental? Pushing Marais' line of thinking, I would describe "organisational culture" as the skin - with very different properties, "purpose or vision" as the call of the termitary (pheremones), and each member of the organisation as a single "termite", grouping into specialised "organs" to see to the needs of the "organisation".
If this analogy holds and we can start to identify organisations as "composite living creatures" what then of genes, genetics, evolution and even sex?
1 comment:
Good words.
Post a Comment