William Fennie on the “Zonta flaw”

William Fennie, H.W., M.

Subject : Scheduling and priorities
Concluding paragraph of email dated December 1, 2023

“The question is always : What are we [The Prosperos] doing together ? In our case, being together is working within a certain system – and we must always remember that a system that is not open to changes is a closed, dead, system. Our system necessarily involves certain lines of authority, and it’s vital not to get distracted into fantasies of authoritarianism. That is the Zonta flaw.”

2 thoughts on “William Fennie on the “Zonta flaw””

  1. A system that is not open to evolving changes and needs is a death call in any organization.

  2. William Fennie wrote “[W]e must always remember that a system that is not open to changes is a closed, dead, system. Our system necessarily involves certain lines of authority, and it’s vital not to get distracted into fantasies of authoritarianism.”
    This is a very self-serving and authoritarian-minded statement. The problem of how The Prosperos is to change to meet the challenges of a world that did not exist when the Charter was written has been with the organization since before Thane passed in 1986.
    So far, the leadership of The Prosperos, starting with the succession of Deans who have kicked the can down the road—or worse, cloaked themselves in Thane’s legacy as if that was the answer–have been in denial that the organization was indeed dying.
    In this “reminder,” we have a Dean who is criticizing Mike Zonta, who was very publicly agitating for change in how the Dean was elected, and of course it was Fennie who was elected, and wanted to open up the shrouded authority of the Dean and the Executive Council. Fennie’s statement is characteristic of authoritarian systems: don’t debate or publicly engage with your critics. Instead, call them deluded, and urge everyone else not to get distracted by them.
    And I guess we can depend on Will Fennie to keep us all informed as to what is a fantasy and what is real. Just the opposite of, “We will teach you how to think and not what to think.”

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