G'day all,
Some of our compatriots here at home in the U.S. don't have a home any more thanks to Katrina, which at various times was a category 1-5 hurricane and at this moment downgraded to a tropical storm. It landed in Florida, then crossed the Gulf of Mexico to hit Louisiana and Mississippi. There's been loss of life and the most material damage ever caused by a storm in the U.S. in recent times (since insurance companies have been tracking the cost of damages). We're talking about a significant death toll and costs in the billions (U.S.D.). This was one serious storm! So for everyone sake down there south of NJ I wish you the best in the recovery from Katrina and prayers go out to all those who have been hurt or have lost someone in the last few days.
These kinds of events imprint themselves on people, vitually absolutely on those immediately impacted and often on those at the next level out from there as well - family, friends, co-workers, rescue teams ... however it's also possible that such events imprint themselves on a much larger audience as the tsunami in Southeast Asia did to the world recently. These events are what become our personal and cultural histories.
These histories become the "ground" that we perceive the world in relation to.
This is a significant, I'd even say "essential," factor in the construction of social realities. It's this simple, when you look at a cut out of a white circle dropped on a sheet of white paper you may or may not even see it, if you do the image will be one of very low contrast - low "signal to noise" ratio, where the circle is the signal and the sheet of paper is the noise. In other words it will be hard to see clearly. This is the effect of the ground being virtually indistinguishable from the figure, so we perceive the figure in the way we do, which in this example is indistinctly.
Now move that white circle to a sheet of dark paper - black, dark green, dark blue ... and it jumps off the page - what you see is "WHITE CIRCLE" and the ground, while present becomes highly secondary. However put that white circle on a sheet of highly contrasting paper ... red or orange ... and you'll see a "WHITE CIRCLE ON A RED SHEET OF PAPER" - both "read" in your perceptual evaluation. Put it on a much lower, but "brightly" colored paper ... yellow ... and the signal to noise ratio drop percipitously AND you'll still "read" the white circle but this time you'll likely read the yellow sheet of paper first, seeing "YELLOW PAPER WITH WHITE CIRCLE."
This is the essence of the "Figure/Ground" equation:
The personal and shared histories we have become in every case the ground of our perception - unless we learn to specifically operate differently. However, regardless of this kind of specialized training the histories will be included in the ground of our experience.
In the case of those in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi who've just felt directly the wrath of Katrina this will always be included in the ground of their experience. When ever the wind blows or the rains fall they will recall these past days ... those most personally affected will recall most profoundly ... and all will think "Is she coming back?"
Yet this is how it is for each of us ... each or our perceptions, each act of intentionality are enacted on the ground of personal experience. And, as I've said, unless one has "specialized" training and/or learning this ground will largely if not wholly be comprised of personal and shared histories.
So what is the option, what is the alternative to this historical orientation and 'ground'? The option is the "teleological orientation." This simply means to include the intention as it's projected forward through time to the future in the ground of one's personal experience. Literally including what hasn't happened as though it has ... just not yet. This will most surely shift the ground of your personal experience deeply.
The other unavoidable aspect of the 'ground' of personal experience is the shared experience we have of and with others. This is the basis for what I've been calling "Social Ontology" - this shared experience. The shared experience, or the inter-subjective position is the fundamental ground of our experience as I've been saying. We make sense of the world through this sharing, through what we've learned something "is."
It doesn't fundamentally matter if the something is a storm like Katrina or the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia ... or any other event in our lives, we know what it "is" in part by what others think it "is" and tell us it "is." In this way the "is-ness" of things comes about for us. Yet to change this "is-ness" requires that we become "Masters of Reality" - learning how to shift our positions like the shapeshifter changes form.
This blog as always is committed to the continual exploration of this process of constructing our realities ... and offering the promise of freedom to those who are both interested and willing to become the Masters of their own realities ...
Best regards for today,
Joseph
Tuesday, August 30
Monday, August 29
Designing a Country ...
Hello again ... from deepest, darkest Princeton (it’s not really true, the sun is shinning and it’s a beautiful day ... but it is deep and dark in other ways),
I was reading an article about King Mswati III of Swaziland getting ready to take a new wife (Number 13) from among 50,000 dancing virgins clad only in short skirts and doing their best to attract his attention ... G-d only knows how that will turn out! But, it got me to thinking about different strokes for different folks as the basis for the societies we live in. Someone from the “Democratic West” might think that this is a primitive affair, the last absolute monarch of Africa setting up an audition to select his newest virgin bride in a land where abject poverty is the norm and the HIV epidemic in the country is among the world’s very worst. It could be perceived as an example of the inability of this country and it’s ruler to move into “modern times” and adjust to the “modern world.” This would not necessarily be an incorrect assessment, except that it’s probably far more about the ability to remain out of the “modern world” and to keep things “traditional” in terms of how this serves the monarch, than any inability to make the changes that would bring Swaziland into parallel with a more modern Western style democracy.
Yet the people of Swaziland think this is a good thing to a large extent. They back the king and his rule. One women is quoted as saying, “The King takes a wife whenever he wants and that’s the way it is. This is our culture and we will never change.” The king just also lifted a ban on having sex with virgins, an attempt to curb the high rate of HIV, that he himself put in place five years before. This of course occurs on his whim, without any oversight or concurrence of a congress, or parliament, or legislative body of any kind having any kind of a say. Yet 50,000 young girls, most probably between fifteen and twenty years of age, will be dancing hoping to be selected by the King to be another of his wives. Today (Monday 29August2005) will be the day the King selects, probably by the time you’re reading this it’s over, yet the ramifications of this act will ripple for decades through that society. This is the act of social construction.
What’s interesting to me is the part of the quote that goes, “... and that’s the way it is.” As though it’s “True” ... i.e.: that’s the way it is. Yet it only is and can be that way when people agree with it being that way. It may be amazing to think that someone living today in Swaziland - in abject poverty while the King lives a lavish, opulent and conspicuous lifestyle as he does, largely at the expense of his people - is in agreement with things being this way ... it’s the only way they can be so. Not that there would be no consequences, but rather that they’ve agreed to the consequences they currently face. This is an implicit agreement between all rulers and their subjects – even when the rulers are elected. The “trick” as I’ve pointed out before is that clever rulers make enough people comfortable enough NOT TO WANT TO ROCK THE BOAT. They rather think they’re safe and secure in a leaky boat than risk swimming.
Yet what’s even more fascinating is what’s happening in Iraq at the same time. This is a country attempting to re-design itself after years of oppression, abuse and tyranny, but all they can think about are their individual fractionated desires. Every fraction in Iraq has it’s own desires and intentions, without much regard for anything or anyone else. Ultimately, the Sunnis (the minority from which the Baath party emerged and ruled under Saddam Hussein) want things to be pretty much as they were, with themselves in control but without having to answer to Saddam. The Shias who are the majority faction who suffered with little opportunity to address the imbalance in power under Saddam want to divide the country and make a “Federal” state with regions having autonomous control – with themselves of course holding the richest oil fields in the country for themselves. The Kurds in the north also want to have a “Federal” state and on this point are in agreement with the Shias, however where they’d disagree is with the seeming Shia desire to have Iraq become an “Islamic” state as well.
So there you go, people thinking there “different” when it’s just a function of what they call themselves ... and the ability of their leaders to convince them that they are in fact “different” ... “unique” ... which gives them a people they can rule.
I don’t see much of a “difference” here from Swaziland from the rulers point of view.
It’s astounding to me that we “think” we’re advanced “modern” people when what we continuously display is our willing tendency to stand on nationalistic positions about “who we are” - as though this is really an ontological position, a position of deep, fundamental identity and existence. Ultimately the inability to think of the world as a whole is demanding that we continue to keep it fragmented. A great American leader once said, “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” Well it seems to me we’re well into freefall. And we’ve created it ... our own “freefall” to destruction!
How? By agreement of course. We agree to continue to keep separate from one another based upon ... race, religion, creed, nationality ... however, we have no idea how to proceed along these lines and keep ourselves alive ... or for that matter the world we live on. We do this as we agree to “diversity.”
The tolerance of “others” in the name of “diversity” is the most damning thing that modern thinkers have done to the human race, and very probably the planet.
By virtue of “accepting’ others and being “tolerant” of others in the name of “diversity” we keep them ... the “others” separate. They are NOT us, we are NOT them ... we are NOT THE SAME! If we were why would we need to be accepting, tolerant or have a willingness to support diversity. No one in the same biological family has such concerns or considerations. They may or may not like one another, but they don’t have a false construct like diversity to consider – in most ways they recognize they are the same – and what makes them different is personal ... what they individually think, do and profess. This does require diversity, although it may require acceptance and tolerance, it’s just not based in them being fundamentally different other than as they “choose” to be.
However “diversity” teaches another game ... people are “different” beyond their choice, they can’t “help but to be different.” SO therefore we have to accept and tolerate their differences because it’s somehow become the “right” thing to do (used to be the left only, but that has changed as the political winds shifted). Instead what about we become diversity blind, we just assume people are just like us, except they have unique individual behaviors and thoughts. Then of course we have to give up being “special’ ... but I think that’s for another posting some time.
I’d like to remind those in Iraq and around the world watching this ratification process in Iraq of the impassioned pleas of both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin at the ratification of the U.S. Constitution that although in ways they vehemently disagreed with one another and thought the document was imperfect they could only pray that their colleagues and peers would nonetheless get on with ratifying it ... as it may have been the most perfect document they could have come up with at the time despite their differences ... and that a document deemed perfect by one would most surely be deemed imperfect by the other. I especially liked Ben Franklin’s approach, to ask the members of the ratification committee to consider their own infallibility a little less perfect then they might have otherwise thought it was.
The world we know and live in is made up of imperfect agreements pointing towards an unrealizable ideal. It is only when we lose sight of the agreement and presume it’s absolute “Reality” that the world itself can become less than the perfect and join us in our manufactured imperfections.
Best regards,
Joseph
I was reading an article about King Mswati III of Swaziland getting ready to take a new wife (Number 13) from among 50,000 dancing virgins clad only in short skirts and doing their best to attract his attention ... G-d only knows how that will turn out! But, it got me to thinking about different strokes for different folks as the basis for the societies we live in. Someone from the “Democratic West” might think that this is a primitive affair, the last absolute monarch of Africa setting up an audition to select his newest virgin bride in a land where abject poverty is the norm and the HIV epidemic in the country is among the world’s very worst. It could be perceived as an example of the inability of this country and it’s ruler to move into “modern times” and adjust to the “modern world.” This would not necessarily be an incorrect assessment, except that it’s probably far more about the ability to remain out of the “modern world” and to keep things “traditional” in terms of how this serves the monarch, than any inability to make the changes that would bring Swaziland into parallel with a more modern Western style democracy.
Yet the people of Swaziland think this is a good thing to a large extent. They back the king and his rule. One women is quoted as saying, “The King takes a wife whenever he wants and that’s the way it is. This is our culture and we will never change.” The king just also lifted a ban on having sex with virgins, an attempt to curb the high rate of HIV, that he himself put in place five years before. This of course occurs on his whim, without any oversight or concurrence of a congress, or parliament, or legislative body of any kind having any kind of a say. Yet 50,000 young girls, most probably between fifteen and twenty years of age, will be dancing hoping to be selected by the King to be another of his wives. Today (Monday 29August2005) will be the day the King selects, probably by the time you’re reading this it’s over, yet the ramifications of this act will ripple for decades through that society. This is the act of social construction.
What’s interesting to me is the part of the quote that goes, “... and that’s the way it is.” As though it’s “True” ... i.e.: that’s the way it is. Yet it only is and can be that way when people agree with it being that way. It may be amazing to think that someone living today in Swaziland - in abject poverty while the King lives a lavish, opulent and conspicuous lifestyle as he does, largely at the expense of his people - is in agreement with things being this way ... it’s the only way they can be so. Not that there would be no consequences, but rather that they’ve agreed to the consequences they currently face. This is an implicit agreement between all rulers and their subjects – even when the rulers are elected. The “trick” as I’ve pointed out before is that clever rulers make enough people comfortable enough NOT TO WANT TO ROCK THE BOAT. They rather think they’re safe and secure in a leaky boat than risk swimming.
Yet what’s even more fascinating is what’s happening in Iraq at the same time. This is a country attempting to re-design itself after years of oppression, abuse and tyranny, but all they can think about are their individual fractionated desires. Every fraction in Iraq has it’s own desires and intentions, without much regard for anything or anyone else. Ultimately, the Sunnis (the minority from which the Baath party emerged and ruled under Saddam Hussein) want things to be pretty much as they were, with themselves in control but without having to answer to Saddam. The Shias who are the majority faction who suffered with little opportunity to address the imbalance in power under Saddam want to divide the country and make a “Federal” state with regions having autonomous control – with themselves of course holding the richest oil fields in the country for themselves. The Kurds in the north also want to have a “Federal” state and on this point are in agreement with the Shias, however where they’d disagree is with the seeming Shia desire to have Iraq become an “Islamic” state as well.
So there you go, people thinking there “different” when it’s just a function of what they call themselves ... and the ability of their leaders to convince them that they are in fact “different” ... “unique” ... which gives them a people they can rule.
I don’t see much of a “difference” here from Swaziland from the rulers point of view.
It’s astounding to me that we “think” we’re advanced “modern” people when what we continuously display is our willing tendency to stand on nationalistic positions about “who we are” - as though this is really an ontological position, a position of deep, fundamental identity and existence. Ultimately the inability to think of the world as a whole is demanding that we continue to keep it fragmented. A great American leader once said, “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” Well it seems to me we’re well into freefall. And we’ve created it ... our own “freefall” to destruction!
How? By agreement of course. We agree to continue to keep separate from one another based upon ... race, religion, creed, nationality ... however, we have no idea how to proceed along these lines and keep ourselves alive ... or for that matter the world we live on. We do this as we agree to “diversity.”
The tolerance of “others” in the name of “diversity” is the most damning thing that modern thinkers have done to the human race, and very probably the planet.
By virtue of “accepting’ others and being “tolerant” of others in the name of “diversity” we keep them ... the “others” separate. They are NOT us, we are NOT them ... we are NOT THE SAME! If we were why would we need to be accepting, tolerant or have a willingness to support diversity. No one in the same biological family has such concerns or considerations. They may or may not like one another, but they don’t have a false construct like diversity to consider – in most ways they recognize they are the same – and what makes them different is personal ... what they individually think, do and profess. This does require diversity, although it may require acceptance and tolerance, it’s just not based in them being fundamentally different other than as they “choose” to be.
However “diversity” teaches another game ... people are “different” beyond their choice, they can’t “help but to be different.” SO therefore we have to accept and tolerate their differences because it’s somehow become the “right” thing to do (used to be the left only, but that has changed as the political winds shifted). Instead what about we become diversity blind, we just assume people are just like us, except they have unique individual behaviors and thoughts. Then of course we have to give up being “special’ ... but I think that’s for another posting some time.
I’d like to remind those in Iraq and around the world watching this ratification process in Iraq of the impassioned pleas of both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin at the ratification of the U.S. Constitution that although in ways they vehemently disagreed with one another and thought the document was imperfect they could only pray that their colleagues and peers would nonetheless get on with ratifying it ... as it may have been the most perfect document they could have come up with at the time despite their differences ... and that a document deemed perfect by one would most surely be deemed imperfect by the other. I especially liked Ben Franklin’s approach, to ask the members of the ratification committee to consider their own infallibility a little less perfect then they might have otherwise thought it was.
The world we know and live in is made up of imperfect agreements pointing towards an unrealizable ideal. It is only when we lose sight of the agreement and presume it’s absolute “Reality” that the world itself can become less than the perfect and join us in our manufactured imperfections.
Best regards,
Joseph
Saturday, August 27
Designing a Life
Hello all,
I hope my hiatus from writing has thrown anyone off kilter or out of contact ... this week has been mucho hectic ... much more chaotic than I’d thought it would be. My wife often tells me that I’m overly optimistic about how long things tend to take (erring on the side of under) ... and this was a classic case of proving her correct (although she needs little confirmation about this one ... living with a confirmed optimist requires such adjustments). We had a crew in that helped with packing (four guys two days) and then another crew to move us from one set of apartments (yes we had two – one to live in and one to work in) to another single apartment (nine guys, three trucks ... BIG TRUCKS!). Although our new apartment is bigger than either of the other two it’s still proving to be a challenge to fit in what we must and get rid of the rest. I’m also a confirmed pack-rat – you can just never tell when you’ll need something again ... especially if it’s a book. SO there have been mountains of boxes, and now after almost a week there’s only a few foothills left. If anyone’s looking for some deals on used books I’m your man!
So ultimately things are getting back to “normal” ... which of course is hardly “NORMAL.” However, I am back at the keyboard and looking a life with a new view (out the office window in our new place here in Princeton to be specific). What’s been interesting has been getting to know how familiar I’d become in ten years in Ridgewood. Living there became “normal” us (from my perspective), it was simply where my family and I “were from whenever I thought about my “place” in the world. I know the streets there, the stores, the shops and restaurants ... all the local features for miles around. I know the ways in and out, the traffic patterns ... even many of the people I can expect to see or meet at different times in different places during the day. Ridgewood became my base during the time I lived there. I knew how to organize myself and my life based on the environment and the features present in it.
This, of course, gave me a sense of security and comfort. It’s harder to throw me on my ‘home turf’ and now although I’m in my new ‘home’ it’s still not home base for me yet. I think this transition to a sense of “normal familiarity” will take some time. It will be interesting to learn where my ‘local joints’ turn up and what appeals to me in this new place we’re in. I’ve already found some things I like about the place itself that were part of the original appeal to move here. I’ve found some others that I thought would be more appealing then they are now that I’m here. And yet other things have begun to show up that I hadn’t even thought about or known about before we’d moved that are showing up to be part of the appeal of being here. All and all I’d say we’re beginning to settle in already (or at least I am).
This seems to be the way of things, we become familiar and we forget that we were even NOT familiar with the way things are now. The only time this becomes different is when we’re old enough to long for the “good old days” that never were – except in the memory of the the now nostalgic person longing for those days of yore (should be days of lore if you ask me). However the danger in familiarity is in throwing it towards the future, hoping that what will be will resemble what was – and then compounding the danger posed by assuming that what is is what was. I think we’re living through a strong period of this kind of thinking right now. Although we seem to be on the cusp of change, a massive change in the societal and cultural firmament we find ourselves embedded within. We are mostly comfortable and we really don’t want anything to disrupt that comfort, so we seek to appease the gods of comforts.
I was watching a National Geographic Channel special program on 9/11 last night and I won’t bore you with old news except to share the quote that they chose to end the show with”
“The difference between us is that we love death. The U.S. loves life.” - Osama Bin Laden
This of course is a chilling reality that Bin Laden seeks to bring to the attention of the “West” - that mythical place that exists only in the imagination of some. However, what he’s gotten so right is the social ontology of the people of the “West” the cultural premise we’ve come to live by. Our focus in the “Modern Western World,” which places like China and Singapore have begun to join with great urgency, is on the material aspects of the here and now. There is little concern for what was and little more for what will be. The “loss” of G-d as a fundamental feature in the cognitive plane of the average “Modern Western” thinker causes us here to love life more than death. Yet when the relationship with G-d in reference to securing a meaningful place in the hereafter becomes predominant as an escape from the reality of the present then death becomes the lover and life the executioner. This is where we find ourselves to a great extent today ... facing the demons of our familiarity and comfort.
I’ve seen this war in Iraq positioned as a “war for (or over) oil.” I think not, yet I do find the relationship we have with oil interesting (I’ll come back to that). What we have is a rather a singular approach to the consideration of what is meaningful opposed by a radically different consideration of what is meaningful. These cultures are opposed even in their relationships with time and space, the fundamental fabric of “reality” and social construction. When and where must be agreed upon before much other social interaction can occur. The question of “Where are we?” and “When is it?” reside ubiquitously in the background of virtually all interaction. “Are we here or there, is it now or then ... these questions ring in the background of social interaction and define us. So where we now find ourselves is in the drawing of lines of relationship to the ideals of the society and culture we want to spawn, and yet we are building much of it based in a past we’ve become overly familiar with today.
“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.” - Sir Winston Churchill
So what is our relationship with our past, what expectations do we hold about “How the world ‘should’ be?” These are forming the basis of the lines of division I refer to above. However I think those who are old enough to hold the power and those old enough to really be considering what this means have no idea about what’s coming, who’s coming up the ranks from behind. I think a new vision is about to manifest on the planet and it will be in response to the vision that created the planet as we know it today. The seeming paradox of shrinkage and expansion will collapse into a singularity, where the large will become the small and only by being large enough will it be possible to sustain the smallness that’s desired.
Now for instance in the “modern” developed world we are much more “road’ dependant than “oil” dependent. Oil can and will be replaced by other fuels, but cars will for the foreseeable future still need roads to ride on The idea that we are “entitled” to free, accessible and uninterrupted travel on such roads is for most people in our society and culture “normal.” It is the way it is ... and SHOULD BE! Yet the world as we know it is a product of post WWII thinking, the desire for free, accessible and uninterrupted movement of the military if and as necessary was the impetus for building the roads we now enjoy. Our highways are the lifelines of military supply logistics should we have ever needed them. Yet the unintended result was an unsustainable movement away from the centers of production to the edges ... dependent upon these highways we all now take for granted. SO much so do we take these roads for granted we’re willing to give up our relationship to nature to have them.
This also then begins to raise for me the questions of what else will I put up with to have what I want. What am I willing to say or do because I think it’s the way the world actually is? I’ve supported the idea of challenging the structures that allowed 9/11 to come to pass, while acknowledging that those who are now “fighting” this war (not the soldiers who actually fight and die, but the ones who pass the laws and give the commands to get them there) are in actuality cleaning up their own mistakes of the last 50 odd years. The past two American administrations being in my opinion especially guilty of setting up this scenario (Bush 1 and Clinton 1). Now Bush 2 is doing the only thing that makes any sense to do ... and that’s to reset the field and the rules we’re going to be playing by as we go. Yet he’s getting grief for it as though there’s some better solution that someone’s proposed.
“It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.” - Sir Winston Churchill
Now what everyone wants is to just go back to the illusion of comfort they perceived existed before in some way. The selectivity of the memory is to sort for what is desired to be remember, unless we’re forced to do otherwise. SO the machine begins spewing propaganda to insure we’ll “remember’ correctly and project just as correctly along the lines the spewer wants us to be taking. This is the most fundamental of large governmental efforts at social construction. The efforts that use language and communication to ensure we’ll remember what we’re supposed to ... and thereby “see” the world today framed in these memories.
Now do not get me wrong I do not think this is a one side or the other situation. It’s an element of all mass movements, of which government is the largest sanctioned mass movement of all. Propaganda is necessary to keep people together and living side-by-side beyond a tribal size of probably 250-300 individuals in daily contact. We have to be told and endlessly reinforced about who we are, where this is and when it’s all happening. And to do this it requires the creation of “other’ as well. A clearly defined “other’ who’s very presence will prevent “our” way of life from continuing. Just take a look at Osama’s rants (you though I was going to say Bush, didn’t you?).
SO what do most people want ... for it all to just go away. To go back to the ‘good old days of lore.” They hope that they can bury their heads in the sand and let it become someone else’s problem. Look at how well received Clinton’s strategy of international non-involvement went down – some of the most prosperous years in recent times for America and her allies, and the worst for everyone else – Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Bosnia ... then 9/11 (yes I’m making a connection between all this). Now we in knee-deep and there is no way back, there are no ‘good old days’ to go back to ... regardless of what the 55 year old hippies become yuppies become soon to be retirees worried about their pensions and way of life want to believe. The movement of the sixties that was about retreat to preserve what you’ve got, while proclaiming it’s out of the respect for the diversity of others falls short when you continue to consume four to ten times the world’s resources as your next most successful neighbors, and thousands of times more than you furthest.
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” - Sir Winston Churchill
This is where we are, maybe we should never have gotten here, but who’s to blame? Who do you point at when you find yourself saying the world is corrupt, or evil, or not what it should be? Do you point outside yourself without looking within, or do you first remove the plank from your own eye so to see more clearly?
“One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.” - Sir Winston Churchill
What do we do next, where do we turn? (Do you see the implicit pattern of time and space yet?) This is the question that I am desperately attempting to raise with these posts here on this blog. But to do it from raising the awareness of what it takes to keep us stuck where we are and what might be possible once we’ve loosed ourselves from the position we’ve built ourselves into. Yet this would require a major shift in the level of recognition of the “average” individual with regard to the contribution they make to the construction of reality as we know it, as well as the skills to remove themselves from the agreements that have possessed them.
When we turn ourselves over to the “wisdom” of government without assuming the responsibility to be active participating citizens of that government then we have given up all hope.
“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.” - Sir Winston Churchill
It seems to me that the key in building the future we want is to become the voice of the future as the Lorax became the speaker for the trees. This wave on radical new thinking that is rising up behind us, the embodiment of youthful zeal and promise still needs shaping. In every age there is a voice to be heard, but the voice that will shape it and the voice it will become remain in the hands of those present to foster or forget ... and in so doing leave it to those who would wrest this zeal and promise for their own ends and means. When we do this we have indeed given up and failed our children all, leaving them voiceless as so many in the world today find themselves – yet we can choose the higher call.
“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.” - Sir Winston Churchill
That’s enough for today ... but you can expect more to come ... of course!
Joseph Riggio
Princeton, NJ
And for good measure ...
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” - Sir Winston Churchill
I hope my hiatus from writing has thrown anyone off kilter or out of contact ... this week has been mucho hectic ... much more chaotic than I’d thought it would be. My wife often tells me that I’m overly optimistic about how long things tend to take (erring on the side of under) ... and this was a classic case of proving her correct (although she needs little confirmation about this one ... living with a confirmed optimist requires such adjustments). We had a crew in that helped with packing (four guys two days) and then another crew to move us from one set of apartments (yes we had two – one to live in and one to work in) to another single apartment (nine guys, three trucks ... BIG TRUCKS!). Although our new apartment is bigger than either of the other two it’s still proving to be a challenge to fit in what we must and get rid of the rest. I’m also a confirmed pack-rat – you can just never tell when you’ll need something again ... especially if it’s a book. SO there have been mountains of boxes, and now after almost a week there’s only a few foothills left. If anyone’s looking for some deals on used books I’m your man!
So ultimately things are getting back to “normal” ... which of course is hardly “NORMAL.” However, I am back at the keyboard and looking a life with a new view (out the office window in our new place here in Princeton to be specific). What’s been interesting has been getting to know how familiar I’d become in ten years in Ridgewood. Living there became “normal” us (from my perspective), it was simply where my family and I “were from whenever I thought about my “place” in the world. I know the streets there, the stores, the shops and restaurants ... all the local features for miles around. I know the ways in and out, the traffic patterns ... even many of the people I can expect to see or meet at different times in different places during the day. Ridgewood became my base during the time I lived there. I knew how to organize myself and my life based on the environment and the features present in it.
This, of course, gave me a sense of security and comfort. It’s harder to throw me on my ‘home turf’ and now although I’m in my new ‘home’ it’s still not home base for me yet. I think this transition to a sense of “normal familiarity” will take some time. It will be interesting to learn where my ‘local joints’ turn up and what appeals to me in this new place we’re in. I’ve already found some things I like about the place itself that were part of the original appeal to move here. I’ve found some others that I thought would be more appealing then they are now that I’m here. And yet other things have begun to show up that I hadn’t even thought about or known about before we’d moved that are showing up to be part of the appeal of being here. All and all I’d say we’re beginning to settle in already (or at least I am).
This seems to be the way of things, we become familiar and we forget that we were even NOT familiar with the way things are now. The only time this becomes different is when we’re old enough to long for the “good old days” that never were – except in the memory of the the now nostalgic person longing for those days of yore (should be days of lore if you ask me). However the danger in familiarity is in throwing it towards the future, hoping that what will be will resemble what was – and then compounding the danger posed by assuming that what is is what was. I think we’re living through a strong period of this kind of thinking right now. Although we seem to be on the cusp of change, a massive change in the societal and cultural firmament we find ourselves embedded within. We are mostly comfortable and we really don’t want anything to disrupt that comfort, so we seek to appease the gods of comforts.
I was watching a National Geographic Channel special program on 9/11 last night and I won’t bore you with old news except to share the quote that they chose to end the show with”
“The difference between us is that we love death. The U.S. loves life.” - Osama Bin Laden
This of course is a chilling reality that Bin Laden seeks to bring to the attention of the “West” - that mythical place that exists only in the imagination of some. However, what he’s gotten so right is the social ontology of the people of the “West” the cultural premise we’ve come to live by. Our focus in the “Modern Western World,” which places like China and Singapore have begun to join with great urgency, is on the material aspects of the here and now. There is little concern for what was and little more for what will be. The “loss” of G-d as a fundamental feature in the cognitive plane of the average “Modern Western” thinker causes us here to love life more than death. Yet when the relationship with G-d in reference to securing a meaningful place in the hereafter becomes predominant as an escape from the reality of the present then death becomes the lover and life the executioner. This is where we find ourselves to a great extent today ... facing the demons of our familiarity and comfort.
I’ve seen this war in Iraq positioned as a “war for (or over) oil.” I think not, yet I do find the relationship we have with oil interesting (I’ll come back to that). What we have is a rather a singular approach to the consideration of what is meaningful opposed by a radically different consideration of what is meaningful. These cultures are opposed even in their relationships with time and space, the fundamental fabric of “reality” and social construction. When and where must be agreed upon before much other social interaction can occur. The question of “Where are we?” and “When is it?” reside ubiquitously in the background of virtually all interaction. “Are we here or there, is it now or then ... these questions ring in the background of social interaction and define us. So where we now find ourselves is in the drawing of lines of relationship to the ideals of the society and culture we want to spawn, and yet we are building much of it based in a past we’ve become overly familiar with today.
“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.” - Sir Winston Churchill
So what is our relationship with our past, what expectations do we hold about “How the world ‘should’ be?” These are forming the basis of the lines of division I refer to above. However I think those who are old enough to hold the power and those old enough to really be considering what this means have no idea about what’s coming, who’s coming up the ranks from behind. I think a new vision is about to manifest on the planet and it will be in response to the vision that created the planet as we know it today. The seeming paradox of shrinkage and expansion will collapse into a singularity, where the large will become the small and only by being large enough will it be possible to sustain the smallness that’s desired.
Now for instance in the “modern” developed world we are much more “road’ dependant than “oil” dependent. Oil can and will be replaced by other fuels, but cars will for the foreseeable future still need roads to ride on The idea that we are “entitled” to free, accessible and uninterrupted travel on such roads is for most people in our society and culture “normal.” It is the way it is ... and SHOULD BE! Yet the world as we know it is a product of post WWII thinking, the desire for free, accessible and uninterrupted movement of the military if and as necessary was the impetus for building the roads we now enjoy. Our highways are the lifelines of military supply logistics should we have ever needed them. Yet the unintended result was an unsustainable movement away from the centers of production to the edges ... dependent upon these highways we all now take for granted. SO much so do we take these roads for granted we’re willing to give up our relationship to nature to have them.
This also then begins to raise for me the questions of what else will I put up with to have what I want. What am I willing to say or do because I think it’s the way the world actually is? I’ve supported the idea of challenging the structures that allowed 9/11 to come to pass, while acknowledging that those who are now “fighting” this war (not the soldiers who actually fight and die, but the ones who pass the laws and give the commands to get them there) are in actuality cleaning up their own mistakes of the last 50 odd years. The past two American administrations being in my opinion especially guilty of setting up this scenario (Bush 1 and Clinton 1). Now Bush 2 is doing the only thing that makes any sense to do ... and that’s to reset the field and the rules we’re going to be playing by as we go. Yet he’s getting grief for it as though there’s some better solution that someone’s proposed.
“It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.” - Sir Winston Churchill
Now what everyone wants is to just go back to the illusion of comfort they perceived existed before in some way. The selectivity of the memory is to sort for what is desired to be remember, unless we’re forced to do otherwise. SO the machine begins spewing propaganda to insure we’ll “remember’ correctly and project just as correctly along the lines the spewer wants us to be taking. This is the most fundamental of large governmental efforts at social construction. The efforts that use language and communication to ensure we’ll remember what we’re supposed to ... and thereby “see” the world today framed in these memories.
Now do not get me wrong I do not think this is a one side or the other situation. It’s an element of all mass movements, of which government is the largest sanctioned mass movement of all. Propaganda is necessary to keep people together and living side-by-side beyond a tribal size of probably 250-300 individuals in daily contact. We have to be told and endlessly reinforced about who we are, where this is and when it’s all happening. And to do this it requires the creation of “other’ as well. A clearly defined “other’ who’s very presence will prevent “our” way of life from continuing. Just take a look at Osama’s rants (you though I was going to say Bush, didn’t you?).
SO what do most people want ... for it all to just go away. To go back to the ‘good old days of lore.” They hope that they can bury their heads in the sand and let it become someone else’s problem. Look at how well received Clinton’s strategy of international non-involvement went down – some of the most prosperous years in recent times for America and her allies, and the worst for everyone else – Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Bosnia ... then 9/11 (yes I’m making a connection between all this). Now we in knee-deep and there is no way back, there are no ‘good old days’ to go back to ... regardless of what the 55 year old hippies become yuppies become soon to be retirees worried about their pensions and way of life want to believe. The movement of the sixties that was about retreat to preserve what you’ve got, while proclaiming it’s out of the respect for the diversity of others falls short when you continue to consume four to ten times the world’s resources as your next most successful neighbors, and thousands of times more than you furthest.
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” - Sir Winston Churchill
This is where we are, maybe we should never have gotten here, but who’s to blame? Who do you point at when you find yourself saying the world is corrupt, or evil, or not what it should be? Do you point outside yourself without looking within, or do you first remove the plank from your own eye so to see more clearly?
“One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.” - Sir Winston Churchill
What do we do next, where do we turn? (Do you see the implicit pattern of time and space yet?) This is the question that I am desperately attempting to raise with these posts here on this blog. But to do it from raising the awareness of what it takes to keep us stuck where we are and what might be possible once we’ve loosed ourselves from the position we’ve built ourselves into. Yet this would require a major shift in the level of recognition of the “average” individual with regard to the contribution they make to the construction of reality as we know it, as well as the skills to remove themselves from the agreements that have possessed them.
When we turn ourselves over to the “wisdom” of government without assuming the responsibility to be active participating citizens of that government then we have given up all hope.
“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.” - Sir Winston Churchill
It seems to me that the key in building the future we want is to become the voice of the future as the Lorax became the speaker for the trees. This wave on radical new thinking that is rising up behind us, the embodiment of youthful zeal and promise still needs shaping. In every age there is a voice to be heard, but the voice that will shape it and the voice it will become remain in the hands of those present to foster or forget ... and in so doing leave it to those who would wrest this zeal and promise for their own ends and means. When we do this we have indeed given up and failed our children all, leaving them voiceless as so many in the world today find themselves – yet we can choose the higher call.
“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.” - Sir Winston Churchill
That’s enough for today ... but you can expect more to come ... of course!
Joseph Riggio
Princeton, NJ
And for good measure ...
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” - Sir Winston Churchill
Friday, August 26
Absence from the scene
Howdy folks,
I do apologize for going missing this past week ... I got a little blindsided. We moved house from Ridgewood to Princeton and it was a bit of chaos for the past four days. The boxes were over our heads from Monday until today ... and my computers just got hooked up the internet yesterday so that I could check into my mail ... stacks of it!!!
I haven’t been able to get my blogs up or my audiocasts this week – however I will be doing a special edition of the MythoSelf AudioCast tomorrow ... and I will be posting a blog entry on BlogNostra over the weekend ... and fortunately I’ll be able to stay on schedule with the new “Exquisite Performance” AudioCast at http://www.exquisiteperformance.blogspot.com over the weekend as well.
So we’ll be in-touch again as of this weekend and next week will find us up to date and running with the program as usual. I’m looking forward to it with you all.
Best regards,
Joseph
I do apologize for going missing this past week ... I got a little blindsided. We moved house from Ridgewood to Princeton and it was a bit of chaos for the past four days. The boxes were over our heads from Monday until today ... and my computers just got hooked up the internet yesterday so that I could check into my mail ... stacks of it!!!
I haven’t been able to get my blogs up or my audiocasts this week – however I will be doing a special edition of the MythoSelf AudioCast tomorrow ... and I will be posting a blog entry on BlogNostra over the weekend ... and fortunately I’ll be able to stay on schedule with the new “Exquisite Performance” AudioCast at http://www.exquisiteperformance.blogspot.com over the weekend as well.
So we’ll be in-touch again as of this weekend and next week will find us up to date and running with the program as usual. I’m looking forward to it with you all.
Best regards,
Joseph
Monday, August 22
The Power of Presence
Hello all,
I’m expecting today to be an intense one in NJ – first of all we’ve been watching the weather do its best to reach 100 – degrees and humidity (percentage – for those of you in “dry” climates) - kind of typical NJ late summer weather, yet somehow even after forty plus years of “expecting” it is catches me my surprise every time. “It can’t be this hot and humid, can it ... what are we in Singapore?” The answer is “No, you’re in New Jersey, of course.” ... well quoting that great philosophy Homer Simpson ... Duh! So anyway we’re also moving today and I’ll have the pleasure of NOT carrying boxes and furniture – just having my entire life upturned for about the next week. That’s Monday and here we go ...
Last week I left off with a discursion into the Catholic Church and Eric Hoffer ... leading up to a few brief comments on “Power and Language” ... that of course was after we opened the discussion of the ongoing Middle East conflict ... all in the service of illuminating the power and impact of the social construction of reality. I also promised that I’d begin moving forward towards specifics like “languaging” and specifically the power of “declaration” in languaging. Before I continue I want to make sure I’ve clarified one small point ... it’s “declaration” that makes agreements vital, i.e.: brings them to life, gives them life and keeps them alive.
There are many, many examples of this power of declaration from “social” life that indicate their power over agreements, some of which I’ve mentioned in previous postings. I’d love to go a bit deeper with regard to how these declarations get all stirred up into consciousness, the generative force of the mind that creates these declarations – especially the ones that haven’t been previously declared before, but that’s for another time. This time’s for the discussion of what it looks like when you’re in the presence of the power of declaration.
What most likely got me going on this path of wonder and curiosity into power and language ... and the relationship between the two started before I knew I was being fished into the game. It’s usually the way of things, when we are so young as to be totally open and malleable the world shows up and begins to shape us. This occurs so pervasively that we assume forevermore that this is ‘just the way it is’ - the world and everything in it. “Our” patterns are really not - “our” patterns at all, but a conglomeration of the dominant patterns that we’ve been exposed to over time. For most people this actually becomes the way it is – it becomes “the world” as they know it ... in total. There is no “other” option, no “other” consideration, no “other” possibility – and “like this” they are swept along like so much flotsam in the current of life. So often, as with flotsam, this is the product of some form of wreckage.
The way this most shows up is in the form of “sensitivities” the “triggers” of one’s life. The tonalities that we are so often subject to when we hear them used ... both positively and negatively impacting us apart from the content they surround. The expressions, gestures and postures people assume in interacting with us ... stirring up both familiar and long forgotten reflex responses ... again both positively and negatively. The movement, I personally love this one, the way a person literally moves themselves through the world ... overwhelming us with interpretations of the individual we perceive inside that movement. Yet who thinks of this in their daily conversations, the way a word is emphasized and inflected, reinforced with an expression, a gesture, the posture of the person speaking it to us ... at us, or especially their movement ... who I ask you again would pay attention and track the impact of such things ... imagine the way they move themselves overriding the content of their message ... who, WHO WOULD THINK SUCH A THING!
Yet no one is immune to these devices of communication in the construction of one of the most essential aspects of social reality – the construction of the personage of the individual who’s communicating ... who is the messenger?
This becomes essential information in determining what the message is, what meaning it has in your life ... how it will shape, influence and impact your life ... who is the messenger? Should I ... will I ... do I ... trust them? Is their word good? Are they believable? Can I trust myself to act on this information? These questions all require asking and answering in regard to the millions and millions of bits of information that assault the average person, in the average modern society every day ... and yet virtually every response and behavior that follows hangs more perfectly on the assumptions about the messenger than any other factor in the message. Let’s take a page adapted from McLuhan ... “The Messenger is the Message”
When you get that – that the messenger becomes the message ... “IS THE MESSAGE,” you are onto something.
This simple idea, the messenger is the message, is the background for so much of what we “believe” to be True. The world we live in is shaped by what be believe to be True more than any impact of what may actually be True. In fact our beliefs about what is True so overshadow all else that we can’t see what may be there pointing at the Truth. And nothing is more powerfully pervasive than our beliefs about others ... especially “those who have the answers or the power.”
Now of course you’re excused, especially if you’ve gone to school. You were taught extensively before the age of reason to believe what you were told from sources of authority, from the expert at the front of the room. Then you were conditioned to recognize the signals of authority and expertise so that you would respond appropriately when they were run by you. You would freeze all critical consideration and go directly to knee-jerk response - “Yes, that makes sense ... I agree.” Or you go to the “other” knee-jerk response, “No, that’s not what I think, I don’t agree with that.” Either way the conditioned response kicks in – just as it’s been programmed to do so under the right conditions. Every major leader of any kind ... benevolent, despotic, evil, psychopathic ... depends upon this conditioning and knows more about it’s fundamental “rules” than you do ... unless of course you’ve taken the counter-training program and become one of “them”
Now before I go on I’d like you to consider this ...
What’s your reaction to the paragraph in blue above (for those of you who might not be seeing this in color – the two paragraphs back beginning with the words: “Now of course you’re excused ...”)? First just check what was your immediate response coming off that paragraph? Did you agree with it, or disagree with it – what was your mind doing with the content of it? Now think anyone “saying” this to you instead of writing it would see that response in you immediately and could then begin to use it to shape what came next from them to you. (Just a bit of info for the computer to digest.) Now for kicks go back and read it again ... this time phrase by phrase – not even sentences at a time, but literally phrase by phrase – and notice what your response it to each phrase. Notice that each of these phrases is a declaration. They force you to either believe them or dismiss them to continue in a logically connected manner with the reading of the next. This is designed to pull you into the narrative, the story, the description of what’s being “told” to you. Then the reading it again with an emphasis on the languaging of what’s written what do you notice? Do you notice the “emotive” quality of the phrasing? The word choices? How they demand that again you agree or disagree with what’s being written this time below the cognitive level but instead at the emotional level – how it makes you feel (about yourself mostly ... and then in turn about those who “did” this to you ... educated you). These are just two levels of consideration beneath the surface ... and that ‘s just a beginning, we could go much, much deeper – and if I had you in person I would, but for now you’ve enough to get the point as a beginning.
Now, add into all that someone who knows how to generate the markers of conviction, certainty and command. This “messenger” with such a message would surely be able to “sell it’ to the vast majority of listeners. Yet this message is largely innocuous compared to the kind of messages that shape social reality on the larger scale, e.g.: politics. And, many of these folks are being trained both overtly and covertly in the design of messaging to the masses. For now remember this – they believe you’re just one of the endless stream of human flotsam they have to sell their message to so they can run the show their way and take all the goodies home themselves. Now don’t get me wrong, they’re willing to share the goodies with those who catch them in the act – they have no choice but to do so, but they also know there won’t be too many they have to share with and there’s plenty to go around at this level.
The “trick” is to become one of them – at least at the level of knowledge and skills – and then decide how you will use your new found power. Ultimately it’s all you can do ... “choose.”
Well that’s a lot for one day ... and I’ll come to an end in this way: If I had to share only one thing about thinking with my children I’d teach them the ubiquitous invisible power of social conditioning and construction on their choices ... and then I’d teach them how to decide for themselves. This is an education either delivered discreetly or one that must be taken up deliberately if one wants to possess it, unfortunately very, very few of us have had parents with the knowledge, skills, experience AND foresight to build this into our education along with all the other “stuff” we were told we had to learn. Yet like Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert’s “Dune” we could all use a bit of “mentat” training ... and it’s never too late.
Hoping that for some of you this will be a wake up call ... or your alarm if you prefer ...
As always ... more to come,
Joseph – from NJ
I’m expecting today to be an intense one in NJ – first of all we’ve been watching the weather do its best to reach 100 – degrees and humidity (percentage – for those of you in “dry” climates) - kind of typical NJ late summer weather, yet somehow even after forty plus years of “expecting” it is catches me my surprise every time. “It can’t be this hot and humid, can it ... what are we in Singapore?” The answer is “No, you’re in New Jersey, of course.” ... well quoting that great philosophy Homer Simpson ... Duh! So anyway we’re also moving today and I’ll have the pleasure of NOT carrying boxes and furniture – just having my entire life upturned for about the next week. That’s Monday and here we go ...
Last week I left off with a discursion into the Catholic Church and Eric Hoffer ... leading up to a few brief comments on “Power and Language” ... that of course was after we opened the discussion of the ongoing Middle East conflict ... all in the service of illuminating the power and impact of the social construction of reality. I also promised that I’d begin moving forward towards specifics like “languaging” and specifically the power of “declaration” in languaging. Before I continue I want to make sure I’ve clarified one small point ... it’s “declaration” that makes agreements vital, i.e.: brings them to life, gives them life and keeps them alive.
There are many, many examples of this power of declaration from “social” life that indicate their power over agreements, some of which I’ve mentioned in previous postings. I’d love to go a bit deeper with regard to how these declarations get all stirred up into consciousness, the generative force of the mind that creates these declarations – especially the ones that haven’t been previously declared before, but that’s for another time. This time’s for the discussion of what it looks like when you’re in the presence of the power of declaration.
What most likely got me going on this path of wonder and curiosity into power and language ... and the relationship between the two started before I knew I was being fished into the game. It’s usually the way of things, when we are so young as to be totally open and malleable the world shows up and begins to shape us. This occurs so pervasively that we assume forevermore that this is ‘just the way it is’ - the world and everything in it. “Our” patterns are really not - “our” patterns at all, but a conglomeration of the dominant patterns that we’ve been exposed to over time. For most people this actually becomes the way it is – it becomes “the world” as they know it ... in total. There is no “other” option, no “other” consideration, no “other” possibility – and “like this” they are swept along like so much flotsam in the current of life. So often, as with flotsam, this is the product of some form of wreckage.
The way this most shows up is in the form of “sensitivities” the “triggers” of one’s life. The tonalities that we are so often subject to when we hear them used ... both positively and negatively impacting us apart from the content they surround. The expressions, gestures and postures people assume in interacting with us ... stirring up both familiar and long forgotten reflex responses ... again both positively and negatively. The movement, I personally love this one, the way a person literally moves themselves through the world ... overwhelming us with interpretations of the individual we perceive inside that movement. Yet who thinks of this in their daily conversations, the way a word is emphasized and inflected, reinforced with an expression, a gesture, the posture of the person speaking it to us ... at us, or especially their movement ... who I ask you again would pay attention and track the impact of such things ... imagine the way they move themselves overriding the content of their message ... who, WHO WOULD THINK SUCH A THING!
Yet no one is immune to these devices of communication in the construction of one of the most essential aspects of social reality – the construction of the personage of the individual who’s communicating ... who is the messenger?
This becomes essential information in determining what the message is, what meaning it has in your life ... how it will shape, influence and impact your life ... who is the messenger? Should I ... will I ... do I ... trust them? Is their word good? Are they believable? Can I trust myself to act on this information? These questions all require asking and answering in regard to the millions and millions of bits of information that assault the average person, in the average modern society every day ... and yet virtually every response and behavior that follows hangs more perfectly on the assumptions about the messenger than any other factor in the message. Let’s take a page adapted from McLuhan ... “The Messenger is the Message”
When you get that – that the messenger becomes the message ... “IS THE MESSAGE,” you are onto something.
This simple idea, the messenger is the message, is the background for so much of what we “believe” to be True. The world we live in is shaped by what be believe to be True more than any impact of what may actually be True. In fact our beliefs about what is True so overshadow all else that we can’t see what may be there pointing at the Truth. And nothing is more powerfully pervasive than our beliefs about others ... especially “those who have the answers or the power.”
Now of course you’re excused, especially if you’ve gone to school. You were taught extensively before the age of reason to believe what you were told from sources of authority, from the expert at the front of the room. Then you were conditioned to recognize the signals of authority and expertise so that you would respond appropriately when they were run by you. You would freeze all critical consideration and go directly to knee-jerk response - “Yes, that makes sense ... I agree.” Or you go to the “other” knee-jerk response, “No, that’s not what I think, I don’t agree with that.” Either way the conditioned response kicks in – just as it’s been programmed to do so under the right conditions. Every major leader of any kind ... benevolent, despotic, evil, psychopathic ... depends upon this conditioning and knows more about it’s fundamental “rules” than you do ... unless of course you’ve taken the counter-training program and become one of “them”
Now before I go on I’d like you to consider this ...
What’s your reaction to the paragraph in blue above (for those of you who might not be seeing this in color – the two paragraphs back beginning with the words: “Now of course you’re excused ...”)? First just check what was your immediate response coming off that paragraph? Did you agree with it, or disagree with it – what was your mind doing with the content of it? Now think anyone “saying” this to you instead of writing it would see that response in you immediately and could then begin to use it to shape what came next from them to you. (Just a bit of info for the computer to digest.) Now for kicks go back and read it again ... this time phrase by phrase – not even sentences at a time, but literally phrase by phrase – and notice what your response it to each phrase. Notice that each of these phrases is a declaration. They force you to either believe them or dismiss them to continue in a logically connected manner with the reading of the next. This is designed to pull you into the narrative, the story, the description of what’s being “told” to you. Then the reading it again with an emphasis on the languaging of what’s written what do you notice? Do you notice the “emotive” quality of the phrasing? The word choices? How they demand that again you agree or disagree with what’s being written this time below the cognitive level but instead at the emotional level – how it makes you feel (about yourself mostly ... and then in turn about those who “did” this to you ... educated you). These are just two levels of consideration beneath the surface ... and that ‘s just a beginning, we could go much, much deeper – and if I had you in person I would, but for now you’ve enough to get the point as a beginning.
Now, add into all that someone who knows how to generate the markers of conviction, certainty and command. This “messenger” with such a message would surely be able to “sell it’ to the vast majority of listeners. Yet this message is largely innocuous compared to the kind of messages that shape social reality on the larger scale, e.g.: politics. And, many of these folks are being trained both overtly and covertly in the design of messaging to the masses. For now remember this – they believe you’re just one of the endless stream of human flotsam they have to sell their message to so they can run the show their way and take all the goodies home themselves. Now don’t get me wrong, they’re willing to share the goodies with those who catch them in the act – they have no choice but to do so, but they also know there won’t be too many they have to share with and there’s plenty to go around at this level.
The “trick” is to become one of them – at least at the level of knowledge and skills – and then decide how you will use your new found power. Ultimately it’s all you can do ... “choose.”
Well that’s a lot for one day ... and I’ll come to an end in this way: If I had to share only one thing about thinking with my children I’d teach them the ubiquitous invisible power of social conditioning and construction on their choices ... and then I’d teach them how to decide for themselves. This is an education either delivered discreetly or one that must be taken up deliberately if one wants to possess it, unfortunately very, very few of us have had parents with the knowledge, skills, experience AND foresight to build this into our education along with all the other “stuff” we were told we had to learn. Yet like Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert’s “Dune” we could all use a bit of “mentat” training ... and it’s never too late.
Hoping that for some of you this will be a wake up call ... or your alarm if you prefer ...
As always ... more to come,
Joseph – from NJ
Friday, August 19
The Confusion of Reality
Mornin’ All You All,
The days are getting cooler, or at least it’s cooled off a bit ... here in New Jersey. I’m preparing for my move down south (and west) and the packers are packing as I’m sitting here writing ... so it will in fact be happening. That makes it damned hard to get all the things done that are a’looming on the horizon of my attention and calling to me. But I’ve have decided to remain faithful and write my blog anyway, a kind of sequential monogamy with the keyboard ... for now.
It’s been an interesting week around the world as well, in yesterday’s blog I shared some of my thoughts on the “reality” of the Israeli move out of Gaza – I know I open more questions than suggested any kind of answers. Then today I see that the pope has decided to go to a synagogue in Germany as part of his trip there. And, of course he’s been “installed” now as the new pope of the Catholic Church – the Holy Roman Catholic Church – birthplace of my own religious indoctrination. You’ll want to check out BBC’s sidebar on the “Symbols of Power” associated with the new pope, use this link:
Benedict XVI is installed as Pope: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4477769.stm
This is exactly what I’m takin’bout! The symbols of power, little has changed in the installation process of a pope in the Catholic Church in centuries, it’s one of the world’s oldest rituals, including the symbols of power I reference from the BBC article on-line above. These are the products of social ontology, of a reality coming into being as a result of “declaration” - someone declaring something to be true and as a result that which has been declared becoming the agreed upon reality. This reality goes beyond just the surface structure of agreement, beyond the “speech act” to a real investment into constructed reality. The Pope now has “powers” that go beyond those available to him just days ago, and much, much further than what was available to him months ago – simply by the power of this declaration ... and it’s attendant agreements. What this Pope now says becomes law for millions of Catholics around the world, and while some will not be paying much attention to this, others will treat it as Divine Law. This will be especially true for many, many ordained priests and nuns who serve in the Catholic Church. The word of this man will be seen by many, many of these people as now having the power of G-d invested in what he says. This is an amazing transmogrification, from person to priest to personage of G-d.
Now whether you are a true believer or not, you can agree that the power of the mass agreement and the movement of the masses created by such declarations, especially when they are shared by as many as will participate in this one around the installation of a new Pope in the Catholic Church. This is the basis for fanaticism and a reason to fear the masses ... or be thrilled with the prospect of the power to shift the course of history. The question is what you believe those who hold such power of declaration will do with this power.
I’ve received some questions and have had some raise concerns about what I’m writing here with regard to the very idea of a “social ontology.” What these questions and concerns share in common is a fear that this idea I’m presenting (as though I’ve created it or that I’m promoting it) is not something we should be toying with ... and the fact that I’m being so lucid about it and around it should give rise to the same questions and concerns about about me as the author of such thoughts. In other words, this “social ontology” stuff is scary because it suggests that people are not running their own minds and others may have influence, even significant influence, over what they think and therefore act upon. Well ... DUH!!!
Allow me a quote: “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race of his holy cause.” Now THAT’S SCARY!
How about one more for the road: “It is the true believer’s ability to shut his eyes and stop his ears to facts which in his own mind deserve never to be seen nor heard which is the source of his unequalled fortitude and consistency.” How’s that for SCARY?!!?!?
These are not my quotes, nor are they new ideas, they are those of the twentieth century social philosopher Eric Hoffer. His work is a treatise on social ontology, the creation of reality and the structure of mass thinking and beliefs. Yet people in general don’t read this stuff and even when they do they tend to think - “Oh, he’s talking about them.” You know “them” the ‘other people’ the one’s ‘over there’ not me. This is exactly what those who understand the power of social ontology depend on, that those they are speaking to, delivering information to, influencing and persuading will think that it’s not them. Then the result will be that before they’ve heard anything they will have become the “them” - a unified thought-field moving in unison to a drummer beating out a march to be followed without question.
One more from Hoffer: “Fear and Freedom are mutually exclusive.”
Now what Hoffer describes is a great, easy introduction to the thinking of mass movement, beliefs and the structure of social ontology – his books are most less than two hundred pages each and mostly filled with one or two line aphorisms. Yet he doesn’t go into how these structures perpetrate the minds of these “true believers” in regard to the technology used by the perpetrators. Specifically, I mean how they get the points across and into what becomes “common knowledge.” This is a fantastic point to begin from again.
The essential building blocks of the social form of reality, what it’s constructed from exists almost wholly in language. Now anyone considering this may say to me, “But Joseph there’s more to reality than words – there the reality of the actions themselves.” I would of course agree that this Reality exists as well, the actions themselves – but how do we know what these actions mean to us, how do we decide to make sense of these actions? I’m proposing that the words we attach to these actions, the “descriptions” of the acts become the reality we perceive ... in spite of the Reality. This is the unique power of declaration.
Declaration is the straightest and simplest path from Reality to reality. In the statement of “what is” it becomes so – ESPECIALLY WHEN THE PERSON SO SPEAKING IS INVESTED WITH THE POWER OF THE CROWD OR MASS. This is embedded in the history of humanity. A declaration can begin a war or put one to end – when it is spoken by those who represent the masses who are committed to the power invested in them.
Yet the confusion that has begun to swirl in the minds of some people who’ve reached out to me directly and indirectly suggest that I must be up to something by sharing these consideration with you via this blog. That I am somehow manipulating their thinking because I am laying out the structure of social ontology so directly and openly. It demonstrates to them that I must be somehow a capable player in this domain of influence, persuasion and the general construction of opinion – maybe even theirs. They are wise to think this, as it is largely true that those who understand this structure will be likely to be most adept at using it as well. And the most effective way to use it is to point to it directly while using it indirectly – this is one of the great “tricks of the trade,” so to speak. Yet the training has been, “Don’t let people confuse you with that silly talk that you don’t run your own mind ... listen while I tell you what to think!” Then this training goes on to create the doubt about learning about such things as the structure and nature of influence and persuasion, even coercion.
This is the “man behind the curtain” effect. That the one talking must be a false god. That regardless of what’s being said it can’t be important if it disturbs what you already believe to be true. And of course the best way not to disturb what you believe to be true is to use it to link to what you don’t yet believe and will become true for you once it is so linked. This is the essential structure of reality creation. And, one of it’s most powerful tools is the use of declaration.
I’ll be running a training program in Florida in September, called, “Power and Language” about this very stuff. And it’s interesting because this is the first (and maybe the last) time I’ll be running it. I usually only teach this stuff in the way I will be, laying out the form and structure of the relationship between “Power” and “Language” with private clients who are already in leadership positions. I usually do that because these clients are already open to the message, i.e.: they already “get it” ... because they already do it to some extent and what they are looking for is a refinement in their ability to do it better – ie.: get even more an effect when they employ the devices of power through they use of their language and communication. I don’t have to convince them ... they’re already true believers (of course they also pay me handsome sums of money to be laying this out for them as well ;~>).
What’s powerful about this material is that when I present it to those who are most subject to the influence and persuasion being used “on” them they are the most resistant to receiving the information about it. This is the “test” program where I’ll put it all out there and find out how much those who attend are willing to take, then I’ll scale it back, rename it and put it out in a form that the ‘average’ program participant is ready for and willing to take. This will of course relieve them of the confusion of their constraints.
So I hope I’ve eased your mind and now put it back on track with regard to the intention I have in revealing this information to a somewhat unwilling, un-ready and resistant public ...
Best regards – go in peace,
Joseph
P.S. - If you are interested in and for information about the “Power and Language” program please write to me directly off-line, i.e.: not on this blog, at mail:jsriggio@josephriggio.com. This program will be extremely limited due to the constraints of the room where I’ll be presenting so please only contact me if you are interested in attending and just require the logistics and details, I am not interested in “selling” anyone into this session so please don’t expect me to respond personally to questions about what it is beyond providing the program details and the registration information – thank you.
The days are getting cooler, or at least it’s cooled off a bit ... here in New Jersey. I’m preparing for my move down south (and west) and the packers are packing as I’m sitting here writing ... so it will in fact be happening. That makes it damned hard to get all the things done that are a’looming on the horizon of my attention and calling to me. But I’ve have decided to remain faithful and write my blog anyway, a kind of sequential monogamy with the keyboard ... for now.
It’s been an interesting week around the world as well, in yesterday’s blog I shared some of my thoughts on the “reality” of the Israeli move out of Gaza – I know I open more questions than suggested any kind of answers. Then today I see that the pope has decided to go to a synagogue in Germany as part of his trip there. And, of course he’s been “installed” now as the new pope of the Catholic Church – the Holy Roman Catholic Church – birthplace of my own religious indoctrination. You’ll want to check out BBC’s sidebar on the “Symbols of Power” associated with the new pope, use this link:
Benedict XVI is installed as Pope: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4477769.stm
This is exactly what I’m takin’bout! The symbols of power, little has changed in the installation process of a pope in the Catholic Church in centuries, it’s one of the world’s oldest rituals, including the symbols of power I reference from the BBC article on-line above. These are the products of social ontology, of a reality coming into being as a result of “declaration” - someone declaring something to be true and as a result that which has been declared becoming the agreed upon reality. This reality goes beyond just the surface structure of agreement, beyond the “speech act” to a real investment into constructed reality. The Pope now has “powers” that go beyond those available to him just days ago, and much, much further than what was available to him months ago – simply by the power of this declaration ... and it’s attendant agreements. What this Pope now says becomes law for millions of Catholics around the world, and while some will not be paying much attention to this, others will treat it as Divine Law. This will be especially true for many, many ordained priests and nuns who serve in the Catholic Church. The word of this man will be seen by many, many of these people as now having the power of G-d invested in what he says. This is an amazing transmogrification, from person to priest to personage of G-d.
Now whether you are a true believer or not, you can agree that the power of the mass agreement and the movement of the masses created by such declarations, especially when they are shared by as many as will participate in this one around the installation of a new Pope in the Catholic Church. This is the basis for fanaticism and a reason to fear the masses ... or be thrilled with the prospect of the power to shift the course of history. The question is what you believe those who hold such power of declaration will do with this power.
I’ve received some questions and have had some raise concerns about what I’m writing here with regard to the very idea of a “social ontology.” What these questions and concerns share in common is a fear that this idea I’m presenting (as though I’ve created it or that I’m promoting it) is not something we should be toying with ... and the fact that I’m being so lucid about it and around it should give rise to the same questions and concerns about about me as the author of such thoughts. In other words, this “social ontology” stuff is scary because it suggests that people are not running their own minds and others may have influence, even significant influence, over what they think and therefore act upon. Well ... DUH!!!
Allow me a quote: “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race of his holy cause.” Now THAT’S SCARY!
How about one more for the road: “It is the true believer’s ability to shut his eyes and stop his ears to facts which in his own mind deserve never to be seen nor heard which is the source of his unequalled fortitude and consistency.” How’s that for SCARY?!!?!?
These are not my quotes, nor are they new ideas, they are those of the twentieth century social philosopher Eric Hoffer. His work is a treatise on social ontology, the creation of reality and the structure of mass thinking and beliefs. Yet people in general don’t read this stuff and even when they do they tend to think - “Oh, he’s talking about them.” You know “them” the ‘other people’ the one’s ‘over there’ not me. This is exactly what those who understand the power of social ontology depend on, that those they are speaking to, delivering information to, influencing and persuading will think that it’s not them. Then the result will be that before they’ve heard anything they will have become the “them” - a unified thought-field moving in unison to a drummer beating out a march to be followed without question.
One more from Hoffer: “Fear and Freedom are mutually exclusive.”
Now what Hoffer describes is a great, easy introduction to the thinking of mass movement, beliefs and the structure of social ontology – his books are most less than two hundred pages each and mostly filled with one or two line aphorisms. Yet he doesn’t go into how these structures perpetrate the minds of these “true believers” in regard to the technology used by the perpetrators. Specifically, I mean how they get the points across and into what becomes “common knowledge.” This is a fantastic point to begin from again.
The essential building blocks of the social form of reality, what it’s constructed from exists almost wholly in language. Now anyone considering this may say to me, “But Joseph there’s more to reality than words – there the reality of the actions themselves.” I would of course agree that this Reality exists as well, the actions themselves – but how do we know what these actions mean to us, how do we decide to make sense of these actions? I’m proposing that the words we attach to these actions, the “descriptions” of the acts become the reality we perceive ... in spite of the Reality. This is the unique power of declaration.
Declaration is the straightest and simplest path from Reality to reality. In the statement of “what is” it becomes so – ESPECIALLY WHEN THE PERSON SO SPEAKING IS INVESTED WITH THE POWER OF THE CROWD OR MASS. This is embedded in the history of humanity. A declaration can begin a war or put one to end – when it is spoken by those who represent the masses who are committed to the power invested in them.
Yet the confusion that has begun to swirl in the minds of some people who’ve reached out to me directly and indirectly suggest that I must be up to something by sharing these consideration with you via this blog. That I am somehow manipulating their thinking because I am laying out the structure of social ontology so directly and openly. It demonstrates to them that I must be somehow a capable player in this domain of influence, persuasion and the general construction of opinion – maybe even theirs. They are wise to think this, as it is largely true that those who understand this structure will be likely to be most adept at using it as well. And the most effective way to use it is to point to it directly while using it indirectly – this is one of the great “tricks of the trade,” so to speak. Yet the training has been, “Don’t let people confuse you with that silly talk that you don’t run your own mind ... listen while I tell you what to think!” Then this training goes on to create the doubt about learning about such things as the structure and nature of influence and persuasion, even coercion.
This is the “man behind the curtain” effect. That the one talking must be a false god. That regardless of what’s being said it can’t be important if it disturbs what you already believe to be true. And of course the best way not to disturb what you believe to be true is to use it to link to what you don’t yet believe and will become true for you once it is so linked. This is the essential structure of reality creation. And, one of it’s most powerful tools is the use of declaration.
I’ll be running a training program in Florida in September, called, “Power and Language” about this very stuff. And it’s interesting because this is the first (and maybe the last) time I’ll be running it. I usually only teach this stuff in the way I will be, laying out the form and structure of the relationship between “Power” and “Language” with private clients who are already in leadership positions. I usually do that because these clients are already open to the message, i.e.: they already “get it” ... because they already do it to some extent and what they are looking for is a refinement in their ability to do it better – ie.: get even more an effect when they employ the devices of power through they use of their language and communication. I don’t have to convince them ... they’re already true believers (of course they also pay me handsome sums of money to be laying this out for them as well ;~>).
What’s powerful about this material is that when I present it to those who are most subject to the influence and persuasion being used “on” them they are the most resistant to receiving the information about it. This is the “test” program where I’ll put it all out there and find out how much those who attend are willing to take, then I’ll scale it back, rename it and put it out in a form that the ‘average’ program participant is ready for and willing to take. This will of course relieve them of the confusion of their constraints.
So I hope I’ve eased your mind and now put it back on track with regard to the intention I have in revealing this information to a somewhat unwilling, un-ready and resistant public ...
Best regards – go in peace,
Joseph
P.S. - If you are interested in and for information about the “Power and Language” program please write to me directly off-line, i.e.: not on this blog, at mail:jsriggio@josephriggio.com. This program will be extremely limited due to the constraints of the room where I’ll be presenting so please only contact me if you are interested in attending and just require the logistics and details, I am not interested in “selling” anyone into this session so please don’t expect me to respond personally to questions about what it is beyond providing the program details and the registration information – thank you.
Thursday, August 18
Never meeting in the Middle
G'day mates,
Here I am in the West looking East - and at the same time those in the East look West. It seems this is the nature of things all over the globe. Today's news is no different.
What do you all think of the Israeli withdrawl from Gaza? Should they, would you, if you were them - any of them what would you be hoping for next, could you - would you - should you trust your neighbors - friends - allies - enemies? These are the perennial quesitons we get to see enacted by looking to the Middle, neither West nor East as they are traditionally thought about in geopolitical terms the Middle East has a long, long history of being a bed of controversy and conflict. What is it about this land that breeds such intense relations between people?
On the world stage the Middle East has been referred to as "the cradle of civilization" as well as a "hot-bed of conflict" usually in the same report. This is a perfect laboratory for the study of social ontology, be it historical or immediate. For instance one of my fascinations has been Alexander the Great and his crusades into Persia to the borders of India. A review of the "Alexandrias" spread about the Middle East give proof to his influence in the region. Yet what was it that called to him in his endless, restless desire to conquer to go south and east from Greece (Macedonia to be more precise)? Why not north and west? To some extent it is the simplest of things - what we now call the Middle East was the richest area in the world that surrounded him.
It was the richest in terms of material wealth, but also in terms of learning, civilization, education, politics, government. He became "civilized" as he conquered and occupied the Middle East. This is the quality that drew him forth from his homeland to die in the midst of his adopted countryland. The desire to be "civilized" in a way that was unknown or possible in his birthplace was beckoning to him from the vastness of the Middle East - Persia, Egypt ... and there he became a god!
So now what do the players in the Middle East most desire? Do they wish to play god or placate their gods? What do they see when they look into the eyes of others who call their god by a different name? Do they see the god in themselvees reflected or the devil in disguise? These are the stories that are played out on the stage of social ontology ... the creation of the reality that doesn't exist.
There are no Israelis as there are no Palestinians - except by agreement to call these people such and for them to call themselves such. And the drive to be this and not that is so strong, so prevalant in the way of things human that many will die for the right to be called this and not that. It's interesting to me that these things can and do occur - and have since the dawn of humantime. That people born into a structure, something called a culture, defined by "family" and "clan" then "tribe" and "people" forming "country" and "culture' begin to differentiate themselves so much so by agreement that the agreement becomes "real" to them as though it's "Real" for them.
This is just the example of course and I've already agreed not to go metaphysical on you. So I'm not proposing not opposing the idea that G-d may have in fact chosen these people and named them - or that one set of people are those of G-d and the other is not. Yet at the geopolitical level this is not necessary to the discussion. The Jews to their credit have never proposed to be people of peace - which of course unto itself may not be a thing to be credited for being. But, the lunacy of any people of the world claiming to be from a "peaceful people" when there's so much evidence to the contrary is amazing.
What may be true is that at a moment in time it becomes fashionable to agree not to do harm unto others. Taking that from being a fashionable thing to "say" and making it the thing that you "do" is another thing entirely. Yet what's at the base of this thing is the movement from one to the other. From the declaration to the action.
So I've opened some ideas for your consideration and I'd love some feedback. Where I'd like to go from here will be to discuss the different forms of going from thought to action and thought in action, as opposed to inaction. And I'll suggest at the outset that a component of power is the language that is used to form the impetus to action that precedes it.
Best regards and hopes for peace - for a change,
Joseph
Here I am in the West looking East - and at the same time those in the East look West. It seems this is the nature of things all over the globe. Today's news is no different.
What do you all think of the Israeli withdrawl from Gaza? Should they, would you, if you were them - any of them what would you be hoping for next, could you - would you - should you trust your neighbors - friends - allies - enemies? These are the perennial quesitons we get to see enacted by looking to the Middle, neither West nor East as they are traditionally thought about in geopolitical terms the Middle East has a long, long history of being a bed of controversy and conflict. What is it about this land that breeds such intense relations between people?
On the world stage the Middle East has been referred to as "the cradle of civilization" as well as a "hot-bed of conflict" usually in the same report. This is a perfect laboratory for the study of social ontology, be it historical or immediate. For instance one of my fascinations has been Alexander the Great and his crusades into Persia to the borders of India. A review of the "Alexandrias" spread about the Middle East give proof to his influence in the region. Yet what was it that called to him in his endless, restless desire to conquer to go south and east from Greece (Macedonia to be more precise)? Why not north and west? To some extent it is the simplest of things - what we now call the Middle East was the richest area in the world that surrounded him.
It was the richest in terms of material wealth, but also in terms of learning, civilization, education, politics, government. He became "civilized" as he conquered and occupied the Middle East. This is the quality that drew him forth from his homeland to die in the midst of his adopted countryland. The desire to be "civilized" in a way that was unknown or possible in his birthplace was beckoning to him from the vastness of the Middle East - Persia, Egypt ... and there he became a god!
So now what do the players in the Middle East most desire? Do they wish to play god or placate their gods? What do they see when they look into the eyes of others who call their god by a different name? Do they see the god in themselvees reflected or the devil in disguise? These are the stories that are played out on the stage of social ontology ... the creation of the reality that doesn't exist.
There are no Israelis as there are no Palestinians - except by agreement to call these people such and for them to call themselves such. And the drive to be this and not that is so strong, so prevalant in the way of things human that many will die for the right to be called this and not that. It's interesting to me that these things can and do occur - and have since the dawn of humantime. That people born into a structure, something called a culture, defined by "family" and "clan" then "tribe" and "people" forming "country" and "culture' begin to differentiate themselves so much so by agreement that the agreement becomes "real" to them as though it's "Real" for them.
This is just the example of course and I've already agreed not to go metaphysical on you. So I'm not proposing not opposing the idea that G-d may have in fact chosen these people and named them - or that one set of people are those of G-d and the other is not. Yet at the geopolitical level this is not necessary to the discussion. The Jews to their credit have never proposed to be people of peace - which of course unto itself may not be a thing to be credited for being. But, the lunacy of any people of the world claiming to be from a "peaceful people" when there's so much evidence to the contrary is amazing.
What may be true is that at a moment in time it becomes fashionable to agree not to do harm unto others. Taking that from being a fashionable thing to "say" and making it the thing that you "do" is another thing entirely. Yet what's at the base of this thing is the movement from one to the other. From the declaration to the action.
So I've opened some ideas for your consideration and I'd love some feedback. Where I'd like to go from here will be to discuss the different forms of going from thought to action and thought in action, as opposed to inaction. And I'll suggest at the outset that a component of power is the language that is used to form the impetus to action that precedes it.
Best regards and hopes for peace - for a change,
Joseph
Wednesday, August 17
The Incredible Lightness of Revelation ...
Good Morning from a Cool and Sunny NJ,
Busy days here in NJ ... at least for Moi. Sorry about the “missing blog” yesterday (for those of you keeping up on a daily basis). I’ve been moving myself from a Ridgewood location to a Princeton location and yesterday was a moving day. Had a bit of help from two of the boys ... Louis and Joshua ... THANKS AGAIN GUYS! ... and we humped it all day long. The new place has a good set of stairs getting in and carry some of the stuff up them was interesting. I do not envy the movers who will be doing the main work for us ... Whew! ... will they be earning their money on this one! So here we are another day closer to becoming “Princetonites” ... should be interesting.
Anyway back to the “real” work ...
A bit of a tangent for you all today ... not away from topic, but tangential nonetheless. I want to offer you a kind of book review. The book is Irvin Yalom’s “Love’s Executioner: and Other Tales of Psychotherapy. I’d never read Yalom, having never studied psychology or psychotherapy in any school I didn’t even know that this guy was one of the guru’s of therapy. He’s a Professor in Standford’s graduate psychology program (very chic) and a M.D./Psychiatrist who’s very into “talk therapy.” He’s of the humanist school, ala Carl Rodgers and a big group therapy aficionado and wise man, having written “the book” on Group Therapy many years ago now. So that’s a little background for you.
I got this book when someone who I hold in both a great deal of admiration and respect said to me,”Of course you’ve read Yalom’s “Love’s Executioner” in a conversation we were having about client work one day. I said “No” and was taken back a bit by the absoluteness of the comment that I must have read this book and this author. Coming from this person it was both a rebuke and a recommendation of sorts. Both unintentional, as they absolutely assumed I’d read it and were simply referencing this fact from their point of view. It was interesting for me as I am a voracious consumer of information ... so off I go to http://www.amazon.com to buy my book ... which turns into books ... about five by this Yalom guy ... “Love’s Executioner” (which I’m through) ... “The Gift of Therapy” (which I’ve begun and won’t finish) ... “The Schopenhauer Cure” and “When Nietzsche Wept” (both of which are novels that I haven’t begun and intend to soon – I’m a sucker for cheap philosophy lessons). So here I am with my box of Yalom that arrives from Amazon.com and I get to work ... I’ll only share my opinions and critique of “Love’s Executioner” here.
For those of you with little time I’ll get right to it – Yalom’s a great writer, probably a good researcher and a lousy therapist – all by my sole opinion and the evidence of one a a third books of reading by the guy, and his bibliography. The book is engaging, there are moments of brilliance that emerge in his work with patients (trust me these are patient folks ...) and even some interesting aspect of reading Yalom’s revelations which account for the greatest part of the book. Simply put this is as another reviewer on Amazon’s website put it, “an intellectual masturbatory confessional.” This guy (Yalom) is on with himself. He is one of the most self-important characters I’ve ever come across in my reading. He has the typical “Graves Six” penchant for revelation, hedonism and the projection of caring about and in this case even for others. The reality is more like he’s all about making sure he’s okay with what’s going on at every moment in his story. His patient’s therapy is his chance to get paid for doing his own personal development. Two pieces of evidence for me, One his long diatribe on how “countertransference” is for the psychotherapist what “balance’ is for the ballet dancer. His take on countertransference is the psychotherapist’s inability to get out their own way in the therapy and their need to work on this – in Yalom’s case at least at the expense (literally) of the patient. Two is his constant internal revelations about how he’s experiencing the patient’s therapy, about his sense of pleasure or ease or satisfaction in doing therapy with this particular patient or another. This guy is off with himself!!! What a hedonistic fool ... in the classical sense of fool.
However, there is a redeeming quality to this book and a reason to read it in my opinion. It is an excellent example of why more “traditional” forms of psychotherapy (the “fifty minute” hour type spread over twenty of so years ...) has fallen off and it's not the "fault" of HMOs and PPOs despite what these professionals want to claim and their endless lament that the world's not fair (to them or to their patients - of course without their patients how would they entertain themselves and know they are okay in the world?) especially in the face of competition from “newer” human development technology. It is also, again in my opinion, an excellent primer in some of what NOT TO DO in helping others. What’s described is how Yalom so often takes months of his patient’s time getting to meaningful work with them, often taking months just to build a suitable level of rapport to do the work the patient requires and desires ... what they are paying him for specifically. He so often describes taking this time because he doesn’t want to hurt the patient’s feelings or have them think badly of him ... WHAT A CLOSSAL S—T!!! This guy’s supposed to be a professional therapist, not only that but one of the best of the best ... and his concern is that he’s too incompetent to get his result without hurting his patient’s feelings or that they might not think well of him. What’s worse is that this guy teaches and supervises other student therapists. The most egregious display of incompetence you can learn from here is how easy it could be for those so inclined to make this work of helping others into a form of working on themselves ... and endlessly so. I am of the opinion that although the healer is also human, and that this humanness is a powerful force in being of help to others, that the work done with others is NOT THE PLACE for doing one’s own work ... whatever that might be. Finally, after making sure he’s okay, having fun and his patient’s think well of him he begins the actual work with them often only getting to the “remedy” in the last few weeks of months of preparatory therapy. What I know from both professional experience and education is that this kind of transformational work can be accomplished often in the first session with a client. However, I must also say again that I am not a psychotherapist, not trained in psychotherapy ... and maybe this is ultimately what I learned most from Yalom is that I don’t need to be one nor do I want to be one if this is the result I could expect ... kind of like the purple cow of professions.
In the end there are other examples of "doing therapy" in literature that are much better examples of what can be accomplished by a highly trained individual who less concerned about what he's thinking and what his "patients" think of him than in moving their patients/clients lives forward. Just do a search under brief therapy or solution-oriented therapy and you'll get a list of suggestions there to begin. If your penchant is for "deep" therapy, which you believe requires months or years to get to there are also those therapists doing that kind of work without the need to hold the patient/client in place as a kind of manikin for themselves and their own work. I'd recommend "The Case of Nora" by Moshe Feldenkris as a great piece of therapy literature as an example of the kind of work that is possible with a client in the hands and mind of a master therapist.
In regard to “our” conversation about social ontology this is a good dive into the social ontology of one of the helping professionals putting himself out there in his work. This has value to those of you following this thread, not necessarily as a primer on therapy of any kind, but more about how an individual mind experiences phenomenologically what has no counterpart in Reality ... thus generating their own reality in the presence of other. You’ll also be entertained or perhaps frightened by Yalom’s revelations about how his own social development has shaped and clouds his perceptions of the world. This is macabre stuff at times. His revelations for instance about his mother are classical Freudian feasts. In any case ... I both recommend this book and simultaneously heartily suggest you put off reading it to the very last minute ... then you’ll have accumulated enough wisdom not to believe any of it.
From NJ ...
Joseph
Busy days here in NJ ... at least for Moi. Sorry about the “missing blog” yesterday (for those of you keeping up on a daily basis). I’ve been moving myself from a Ridgewood location to a Princeton location and yesterday was a moving day. Had a bit of help from two of the boys ... Louis and Joshua ... THANKS AGAIN GUYS! ... and we humped it all day long. The new place has a good set of stairs getting in and carry some of the stuff up them was interesting. I do not envy the movers who will be doing the main work for us ... Whew! ... will they be earning their money on this one! So here we are another day closer to becoming “Princetonites” ... should be interesting.
Anyway back to the “real” work ...
A bit of a tangent for you all today ... not away from topic, but tangential nonetheless. I want to offer you a kind of book review. The book is Irvin Yalom’s “Love’s Executioner: and Other Tales of Psychotherapy. I’d never read Yalom, having never studied psychology or psychotherapy in any school I didn’t even know that this guy was one of the guru’s of therapy. He’s a Professor in Standford’s graduate psychology program (very chic) and a M.D./Psychiatrist who’s very into “talk therapy.” He’s of the humanist school, ala Carl Rodgers and a big group therapy aficionado and wise man, having written “the book” on Group Therapy many years ago now. So that’s a little background for you.
I got this book when someone who I hold in both a great deal of admiration and respect said to me,”Of course you’ve read Yalom’s “Love’s Executioner” in a conversation we were having about client work one day. I said “No” and was taken back a bit by the absoluteness of the comment that I must have read this book and this author. Coming from this person it was both a rebuke and a recommendation of sorts. Both unintentional, as they absolutely assumed I’d read it and were simply referencing this fact from their point of view. It was interesting for me as I am a voracious consumer of information ... so off I go to http://www.amazon.com to buy my book ... which turns into books ... about five by this Yalom guy ... “Love’s Executioner” (which I’m through) ... “The Gift of Therapy” (which I’ve begun and won’t finish) ... “The Schopenhauer Cure” and “When Nietzsche Wept” (both of which are novels that I haven’t begun and intend to soon – I’m a sucker for cheap philosophy lessons). So here I am with my box of Yalom that arrives from Amazon.com and I get to work ... I’ll only share my opinions and critique of “Love’s Executioner” here.
For those of you with little time I’ll get right to it – Yalom’s a great writer, probably a good researcher and a lousy therapist – all by my sole opinion and the evidence of one a a third books of reading by the guy, and his bibliography. The book is engaging, there are moments of brilliance that emerge in his work with patients (trust me these are patient folks ...) and even some interesting aspect of reading Yalom’s revelations which account for the greatest part of the book. Simply put this is as another reviewer on Amazon’s website put it, “an intellectual masturbatory confessional.” This guy (Yalom) is on with himself. He is one of the most self-important characters I’ve ever come across in my reading. He has the typical “Graves Six” penchant for revelation, hedonism and the projection of caring about and in this case even for others. The reality is more like he’s all about making sure he’s okay with what’s going on at every moment in his story. His patient’s therapy is his chance to get paid for doing his own personal development. Two pieces of evidence for me, One his long diatribe on how “countertransference” is for the psychotherapist what “balance’ is for the ballet dancer. His take on countertransference is the psychotherapist’s inability to get out their own way in the therapy and their need to work on this – in Yalom’s case at least at the expense (literally) of the patient. Two is his constant internal revelations about how he’s experiencing the patient’s therapy, about his sense of pleasure or ease or satisfaction in doing therapy with this particular patient or another. This guy is off with himself!!! What a hedonistic fool ... in the classical sense of fool.
However, there is a redeeming quality to this book and a reason to read it in my opinion. It is an excellent example of why more “traditional” forms of psychotherapy (the “fifty minute” hour type spread over twenty of so years ...) has fallen off and it's not the "fault" of HMOs and PPOs despite what these professionals want to claim and their endless lament that the world's not fair (to them or to their patients - of course without their patients how would they entertain themselves and know they are okay in the world?) especially in the face of competition from “newer” human development technology. It is also, again in my opinion, an excellent primer in some of what NOT TO DO in helping others. What’s described is how Yalom so often takes months of his patient’s time getting to meaningful work with them, often taking months just to build a suitable level of rapport to do the work the patient requires and desires ... what they are paying him for specifically. He so often describes taking this time because he doesn’t want to hurt the patient’s feelings or have them think badly of him ... WHAT A CLOSSAL S—T!!! This guy’s supposed to be a professional therapist, not only that but one of the best of the best ... and his concern is that he’s too incompetent to get his result without hurting his patient’s feelings or that they might not think well of him. What’s worse is that this guy teaches and supervises other student therapists. The most egregious display of incompetence you can learn from here is how easy it could be for those so inclined to make this work of helping others into a form of working on themselves ... and endlessly so. I am of the opinion that although the healer is also human, and that this humanness is a powerful force in being of help to others, that the work done with others is NOT THE PLACE for doing one’s own work ... whatever that might be. Finally, after making sure he’s okay, having fun and his patient’s think well of him he begins the actual work with them often only getting to the “remedy” in the last few weeks of months of preparatory therapy. What I know from both professional experience and education is that this kind of transformational work can be accomplished often in the first session with a client. However, I must also say again that I am not a psychotherapist, not trained in psychotherapy ... and maybe this is ultimately what I learned most from Yalom is that I don’t need to be one nor do I want to be one if this is the result I could expect ... kind of like the purple cow of professions.
In the end there are other examples of "doing therapy" in literature that are much better examples of what can be accomplished by a highly trained individual who less concerned about what he's thinking and what his "patients" think of him than in moving their patients/clients lives forward. Just do a search under brief therapy or solution-oriented therapy and you'll get a list of suggestions there to begin. If your penchant is for "deep" therapy, which you believe requires months or years to get to there are also those therapists doing that kind of work without the need to hold the patient/client in place as a kind of manikin for themselves and their own work. I'd recommend "The Case of Nora" by Moshe Feldenkris as a great piece of therapy literature as an example of the kind of work that is possible with a client in the hands and mind of a master therapist.
In regard to “our” conversation about social ontology this is a good dive into the social ontology of one of the helping professionals putting himself out there in his work. This has value to those of you following this thread, not necessarily as a primer on therapy of any kind, but more about how an individual mind experiences phenomenologically what has no counterpart in Reality ... thus generating their own reality in the presence of other. You’ll also be entertained or perhaps frightened by Yalom’s revelations about how his own social development has shaped and clouds his perceptions of the world. This is macabre stuff at times. His revelations for instance about his mother are classical Freudian feasts. In any case ... I both recommend this book and simultaneously heartily suggest you put off reading it to the very last minute ... then you’ll have accumulated enough wisdom not to believe any of it.
From NJ ...
Joseph
Monday, August 15
Where is "Reality?" (see photos)
Hello all,
Welcome back after the weekend off `;->
While you’ve been playing, sunning, sleeping ... whatever ... the world’s been happening. Israel moved forward on removing people from Gaza (with some protest by the Israelis as expected), Iran has pull one nuclear enrichment site “off the table” while offering to discuss yet another with Europe, right here in NJ Phil Mickelson leads in the PGA Championship when the round had to be halted due to some terrific storms, Fidel Castro turned 79 in Cuba amid celebrations of his birthday, overall the world seems to be changing ... whether slowly or quickly is a function of how you’re counting more than time ... take a look at the photos of the effects of global warming from today’s link ...
Discussions about “Reality” are typically the province of metaphysicians (this BTW is a word I love ... meta – physicians, imagine the doorbell rings and Sophie answers it calling back into the house, “Grandma, your metaphysician is here for your in-home check-up from the agency.” Would that be cool or what?!?!?! Well in a way this is a metaphysical check-up for you, a consideration of how your metaphysical condition is doing.) However, what I want to get to has to do with another branch of philosophers, although some might say that the work they do too is in the domain of the metaphysical. I ask for your indulgence in the brief history discourse below, before I get on with our discussion of social ontology more directly.
Another branch of philosophy, called “Phenomenology” addresses itself with the study or perception and internal experience. As simply as possible what Phenomenographers, beginning with Edmund Husserl in the early 1900’s, address is the way “ideas” or “thoughts” or “perceptions” arise in as conscious experience for the individual experiencing them without any theory or empirical evidence required – the testimony of the individual is the only evidence that the phenomenographer requires. When idea of addressing only the contents of the mind Husserl referred to as “phenomenological reduction” and the process by which everything else was excluded “bracketing.”
In essence what phenomenographers are saying amounts to them ignoring questions of existence, not denying them just ignoring them, as the mind can attend to non-existent objects as well as those that ‘might’ exist. What phenomenographers attend to that they consider beyond the reach of questions of existence (my phrasing) are questions of description, including those regarding intentionality. When the focus of attention revolves around questions and descriptions of intentionality Husserl defined this as “Transcendental Phenomenography.” However something interesting for Husserl as he was following the path of Transcendental Phenomenology and that led to the development of what he called, “Genetic Phenomenology,” or the study of meaning as it gets build up from experience (through-time). This begins to suggest a “social ontology” to me as the basis for inter-personal experience and of course ultimately the only experience of the individual.
This path will lead directly to Heidegger (,Martin) who was both Husserl’s colleague and critic. His search was for the experience of “everyday things.” He described in his monumental work “Being and Time” (1927 German, 1962 Trans. English) the “structure of everydayness” or what he called “being-in-the-world” and based it in interconnections between systems of objects (equipment/stuff/things), social roles and purposes – and he indicates the impossibility of separating these from one another. In essence Heidegger points to a structure of individual experience based in interconnectedness ... a “social ontology.” Now it begins to get really interesting for me as I continue my search ...
“To the things themselves.” - E. Husserl
For Heidegger (one of my favorites BTW and one whom I base a significant of my own work upon) a reduction to “one’s own private experience” is impossible. In his model, an individual “is” their role. For him this idea becomes “human action,” especially as it relates to intentionality. A wonderful concept of Heidegger’s has to do with his idea that “meaning” becomes irrelevant when considered in this way, as an individual does not need to consider meaning to act – the object already has meaning and this alone has the power to generate action in relation to it without the need to process the meaning as a special province of the mind. Heidegger may be the most “pure” experientialist of all philosophers.
Then there are the French ... Sartre trying to make Phenomenology, Existentialism – and arguing with Merleau-Ponty (another brilliant phenomenographer who based his thinking about perception in the body and the actions enacted with and through the body ... well worth a read through). This of course leads to the construction of a Existential Phenomenology (which to my mind is “Genetic Phenomenology” all grow’d up and having left “pure” bracketing of existence behind – in other words, there might indeed be something out there).
So we could go further with the history lesson ... and instead we’ll go on for a bit ...
By now you know the argument I’m making revolves around “inter-subjectivity” and the process of inter-subject experience – in fact my argument states that “all experience ultimately must be considered to be inter-subjective, i.e.: subjective experience can only exist as a sub-set of inter-subjective experience – “contained by/within inter-subjective experience.” This is NOT an argument for or even about intersubjectivity, instead intersubjectivity within this argument remains a priori. The distinction being that “intersubjectivity” refers to the idea of interaction between individuals and the consideration of that interaction, while “inter-subjective” experience refers to the idea of the phenomenology of the individual being based solely upon the platform or foundation of experience based in the interactions had with others and the consideration regarding those interactions.
This is a very fine point for some, and essential for me and the argument I am presenting. I am stating that the individual can indeed have a subjective phenomenology and even further that phenomenology, or their experience of their experience, is always subjective. I am also simultaneously stating that that phenomenology is based in and upon their inter-personal experience as the basis of their “reality.” That their “reality” is constructed from the experience of their interactions with others and that these interactions were essentially present from the first cognitive moment of the individual – that there is no reality without other present “in fact” or “in consideration.”
I understand the repetitiousness of the presentation of my argument, yet I also understand the value of this repetition in building the solidity of the argument. Piece by piece I’m layering the argument and welding the layers into a laminate I hope to be stronger than any layer could possibly be standing alone. The structure of this laminate will provide a foundation for moving into and through the world that ultimately sustains the individual in this movement. Then further by “getting” or “understanding” the construction of laminate of my argument you will also build a familiarity with the structure of the laminate of reality, and the durability of it as well. Once you’ve incorporated this learning it will become more available to you when you are presented with arguments that attempt to use or infiltrate the laminate of your reality in any way in the future. In addition you begin in this way to become the “master laminator” of your own reality and the construction of it.
The “glue” in this laminate is social interaction made viscous through communication. This refers us back to the comments made last week when I developed the patterns surrounding the construction and use of language in communication. What I intend to continue with this week are the delineations of communication and languaging as they relate to the construction of the laminate of reality, as well as developing some comments regarding the content of the laminate form as well, i.e.: objects.
So what’re we doing??? This week we’re building the foundations for an interpersonal dynamic model, one that I’m proposing forms the basis of the “reality” you experience as well as being the model used in building your reality with AND for you. “Getting” the structure, form and application of this model will set you free ... (or so we hope, eh?)!
Best regards ... until the ‘morrow,
Joseph
.
PS – I know some of you may be asking yourselves ... “What’s any of this got to do with Joseph’s opening paragraph of “World Politics, Current Events and News Headlines?” However, that is my whole point ... more to come, I promise.
Click Here To See Today's Link...
Welcome back after the weekend off `;->
While you’ve been playing, sunning, sleeping ... whatever ... the world’s been happening. Israel moved forward on removing people from Gaza (with some protest by the Israelis as expected), Iran has pull one nuclear enrichment site “off the table” while offering to discuss yet another with Europe, right here in NJ Phil Mickelson leads in the PGA Championship when the round had to be halted due to some terrific storms, Fidel Castro turned 79 in Cuba amid celebrations of his birthday, overall the world seems to be changing ... whether slowly or quickly is a function of how you’re counting more than time ... take a look at the photos of the effects of global warming from today’s link ...
Discussions about “Reality” are typically the province of metaphysicians (this BTW is a word I love ... meta – physicians, imagine the doorbell rings and Sophie answers it calling back into the house, “Grandma, your metaphysician is here for your in-home check-up from the agency.” Would that be cool or what?!?!?! Well in a way this is a metaphysical check-up for you, a consideration of how your metaphysical condition is doing.) However, what I want to get to has to do with another branch of philosophers, although some might say that the work they do too is in the domain of the metaphysical. I ask for your indulgence in the brief history discourse below, before I get on with our discussion of social ontology more directly.
Another branch of philosophy, called “Phenomenology” addresses itself with the study or perception and internal experience. As simply as possible what Phenomenographers, beginning with Edmund Husserl in the early 1900’s, address is the way “ideas” or “thoughts” or “perceptions” arise in as conscious experience for the individual experiencing them without any theory or empirical evidence required – the testimony of the individual is the only evidence that the phenomenographer requires. When idea of addressing only the contents of the mind Husserl referred to as “phenomenological reduction” and the process by which everything else was excluded “bracketing.”
In essence what phenomenographers are saying amounts to them ignoring questions of existence, not denying them just ignoring them, as the mind can attend to non-existent objects as well as those that ‘might’ exist. What phenomenographers attend to that they consider beyond the reach of questions of existence (my phrasing) are questions of description, including those regarding intentionality. When the focus of attention revolves around questions and descriptions of intentionality Husserl defined this as “Transcendental Phenomenography.” However something interesting for Husserl as he was following the path of Transcendental Phenomenology and that led to the development of what he called, “Genetic Phenomenology,” or the study of meaning as it gets build up from experience (through-time). This begins to suggest a “social ontology” to me as the basis for inter-personal experience and of course ultimately the only experience of the individual.
This path will lead directly to Heidegger (,Martin) who was both Husserl’s colleague and critic. His search was for the experience of “everyday things.” He described in his monumental work “Being and Time” (1927 German, 1962 Trans. English) the “structure of everydayness” or what he called “being-in-the-world” and based it in interconnections between systems of objects (equipment/stuff/things), social roles and purposes – and he indicates the impossibility of separating these from one another. In essence Heidegger points to a structure of individual experience based in interconnectedness ... a “social ontology.” Now it begins to get really interesting for me as I continue my search ...
“To the things themselves.” - E. Husserl
For Heidegger (one of my favorites BTW and one whom I base a significant of my own work upon) a reduction to “one’s own private experience” is impossible. In his model, an individual “is” their role. For him this idea becomes “human action,” especially as it relates to intentionality. A wonderful concept of Heidegger’s has to do with his idea that “meaning” becomes irrelevant when considered in this way, as an individual does not need to consider meaning to act – the object already has meaning and this alone has the power to generate action in relation to it without the need to process the meaning as a special province of the mind. Heidegger may be the most “pure” experientialist of all philosophers.
Then there are the French ... Sartre trying to make Phenomenology, Existentialism – and arguing with Merleau-Ponty (another brilliant phenomenographer who based his thinking about perception in the body and the actions enacted with and through the body ... well worth a read through). This of course leads to the construction of a Existential Phenomenology (which to my mind is “Genetic Phenomenology” all grow’d up and having left “pure” bracketing of existence behind – in other words, there might indeed be something out there).
So we could go further with the history lesson ... and instead we’ll go on for a bit ...
By now you know the argument I’m making revolves around “inter-subjectivity” and the process of inter-subject experience – in fact my argument states that “all experience ultimately must be considered to be inter-subjective, i.e.: subjective experience can only exist as a sub-set of inter-subjective experience – “contained by/within inter-subjective experience.” This is NOT an argument for or even about intersubjectivity, instead intersubjectivity within this argument remains a priori. The distinction being that “intersubjectivity” refers to the idea of interaction between individuals and the consideration of that interaction, while “inter-subjective” experience refers to the idea of the phenomenology of the individual being based solely upon the platform or foundation of experience based in the interactions had with others and the consideration regarding those interactions.
This is a very fine point for some, and essential for me and the argument I am presenting. I am stating that the individual can indeed have a subjective phenomenology and even further that phenomenology, or their experience of their experience, is always subjective. I am also simultaneously stating that that phenomenology is based in and upon their inter-personal experience as the basis of their “reality.” That their “reality” is constructed from the experience of their interactions with others and that these interactions were essentially present from the first cognitive moment of the individual – that there is no reality without other present “in fact” or “in consideration.”
I understand the repetitiousness of the presentation of my argument, yet I also understand the value of this repetition in building the solidity of the argument. Piece by piece I’m layering the argument and welding the layers into a laminate I hope to be stronger than any layer could possibly be standing alone. The structure of this laminate will provide a foundation for moving into and through the world that ultimately sustains the individual in this movement. Then further by “getting” or “understanding” the construction of laminate of my argument you will also build a familiarity with the structure of the laminate of reality, and the durability of it as well. Once you’ve incorporated this learning it will become more available to you when you are presented with arguments that attempt to use or infiltrate the laminate of your reality in any way in the future. In addition you begin in this way to become the “master laminator” of your own reality and the construction of it.
The “glue” in this laminate is social interaction made viscous through communication. This refers us back to the comments made last week when I developed the patterns surrounding the construction and use of language in communication. What I intend to continue with this week are the delineations of communication and languaging as they relate to the construction of the laminate of reality, as well as developing some comments regarding the content of the laminate form as well, i.e.: objects.
So what’re we doing??? This week we’re building the foundations for an interpersonal dynamic model, one that I’m proposing forms the basis of the “reality” you experience as well as being the model used in building your reality with AND for you. “Getting” the structure, form and application of this model will set you free ... (or so we hope, eh?)!
Best regards ... until the ‘morrow,
Joseph
.
PS – I know some of you may be asking yourselves ... “What’s any of this got to do with Joseph’s opening paragraph of “World Politics, Current Events and News Headlines?” However, that is my whole point ... more to come, I promise.
Click Here To See Today's Link...
Friday, August 12
Re: SV: [mythoself-tm] My comments on Social Ontology
[NOTE: Response on mythoself-tm@yahoogroups.com in response to the Social Ontology blog at www.blognostra.blogspot.com – simultaneously posted in both forums. - JSR]
Robert,
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more;
I must admit I don’t “get it” ... a lot of words and little point. You the “master” of “simplicity” taking so many words to say so little. I appreciate that Najma loved it so it of course may just be me, but with absolute honesty I don’t get it ... at least in relation to Social Ontology ... or even the ordinary construction of logical connections.
First, as always with you, I accept that this is ultimately a trance-lation from Swedish into Swenglish ... (pronounced either ‘swing-lish’ or ‘sweng-lish’ if you prefer, for those who want to know). I also accept that Najma may speak Swenglish better than I, and that may make a difference. Yet, the connection to Social Ontology, even with these exceptions escapes me.
I want to “get it” ... I really do ... I read and re-read what I perceive to be your rambling statements ... some of which I really liked ... individually ... and still I must make great leaps of faith to make them connect ... faith I have in droves ... faith in this connections that are at best so tenuous ... I don’t lack ... I simply refuse to expend.
But, maybe, just maybe there is one ‘saving grace’ ... the “bridge is just a bridge” part ... maybe there you could have pulled it out of the fire of ill-formedness and illogic ... you didn’t but ...
Let me get to my more immediate point ... (and then one more beyond that if you’ll allow me ... of course I’ll be writing it, but only you can choose or not to read it) ... (BTW is it helpful for me to segregate my comments aside by placing them aside in brackets ... in this case indicated by parenthesis) ... (I expect if you choose to reply you may go line by line, or paragraph by paragraph and delineate your response in that way ... so I want to set it up so that you might use my structure of presentation to make an adequate analysis and rebuttal ... let me know if this works for you.) ...
My immediate point is that what you write about in your “Comments on Social Ontology” have little to do with Social Ontology. I do recognize that you are disturbed when I elucidate a point with what you consider to be extravagant language, when you believe I could use simple words that would suffice just as well. In part (have spent considerable time in Denmark) this may be an issue of speaking a language based in Old Norse and using lots of “imports” ... like German, English and French words ... where words are not presently available in the native tongue. Svenska (Swedish for those of us speaking English) is a language that originated in Northern Germany and was imported into Sweden becoming what is sometimes called Old Norse before continuing its evolution into modern Swedish. Discounting “new” compound words that are actually words created to express an idea by combining two or more simple words – similar to the German tradition of compounding words – the language is “vocabulary poor” compared to a language like English, English being one of the worlds richest languages in terms of vocabulary.
Now being “poor” in terms of vocabulary (or “rich” as the case may be) has it pros and cons (as do most things with alternates, or options attached to them – i.e.: a “this/that” framework or framing structure ... the essential basis of choice and the decision-making process that follows from it). [Do you notice the cognitive linking and logical chaining? ... Do you perceive it’s enhanced by the choice to use bracketing to segment out distinct tangential but separate ideas? ... Do you notice that even though I’ve wandered greatly in my response to you, somehow the ideas seem to flow and remain connected? ... Have you been able to track how exactly, with precision and specificity I manage this “trick” of presentation? ... just curious ...]
Nothing can come of nothing.
- William Shakespeare
So back to Swenglish ... the pro proposition of a “vocabulary poor” language is that you must use the limited vocabulary to express even the most complex ideas ... and sometimes the words themselves don’t actually exist to do this ... SO THE CONCEPT MUST BE MADE BY INFERENCE ... i.e.: the listener/reader must generate the meaning from the words expressed for themselves. This is an interesting form that generates a specific cognitive approach. The sender and the receiver in the communication “assume” active participation, that the “message” won’t be contained completely in the content of the “expression” of the message, but in the “interpretation” of the message. This particular cognitive structuring regarding communication creates a kind of “short-hand” in communication and leads to a preference for directness, simplicity and brevity. For an insight into the expression of this cognitive structure look at the design ethos of Scandinavia (hear I reference the swath of land ranging from Norway in the west and Finland in the east, all at a latitude north of Germany for all intents and purposes). The Scandinavian design ethos is also one of simplicity, purity that emphasizes clean lines, little decorative extravagance and very direct (some would not hesitate to say “elegant” - myself included) solutions. What you may find “missing” is the “playfulness” and “joy” found in more “extravagant” design – which lead us to ...
The con proposition in a “vocabulary poor” language (Swedish compared to English in this particular case) is that somethings are in fact inferred and not expressed. The speaker/writer “intends” a message BUT it is up to the listener/reader to extract it. It is ultimately imprecise in terms of expressing more abstract considerations. Compare the art of Scandinavia pre-WWII with the art now being generated when a large majority of Scandinavians are learning to speak a second language (most typically German or English) and expanding the range of their vocabulary richness. If you want what I’d consider to be the most obvious representation of the Scandinavian ethos that arises from the cognitive structure I’m pointing to follow the “humor.” In most of Scandinavia humor is based in sarcasm. This is itself based in cynicism and irony which of course would work well within the structures I’ve indicated are most present in the cognitive structure driven by a “vocabulary poor” language. By example I give you the comparison between Existentialist philosophers Kierkegaard and Sartre (French being a much more “vocabulary rich” language in comparison to Swedish). It leads to a particular kind of purity in thought, but with little extravagance ... what someone raised in a “vocabulary rich” language and the associated cognitive structure might perceive as morose.
Those of you familiar with Edmund Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf and their propositions regarding the influence of language (specifically the specifically the “native” and “crib” languages of an individual) will understand the significance that the native language of a speaker may have on their cognitive structure and the preferences associated with it (the theory that Sapir and Whorf developed is known as the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” by linguists and cognitive scientists). I am a “believer” in the premise of their propositions regarding the influence of language on the development AND APPLICATION of the cognitive structure of an individual. For those of you who want and/or prefer it more simply ... the language you use (as a native speaker) will directly influence the way in which you think. In fact this idea would more accurately along begin to represent what I’m driving at then all of what you’ve written Robert. To say it succinctly and directly I’ll actually put it to Edmund Sapir in his own words:
"Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation." (Sapir, 1958 [1929], p. 69)
This is the whole point of what I’m driving at ... it’s called Social Ontology ... and the creation of a social reality, while what you write about is almost virtually all about a subjective reality (vs. the the inter-subjective position I write about). You are an individualist while I myself more and more find myself becoming a collectivist with a strong individualist consideration. Your entire post is about how an “individual” perceives the world apart from others and then acts upon this perception for all intent and purpose ignoring the impact and influence they have both upon and most importantly from others. That in fact a bridge is only a bridge because we say so ... other wise it’s just a structure spanning some gap made of something. When does a fallen tree become a “bridge” or is the answer never? This is my point is unpacking the structure of the structure of how we get to thinking what we think. The fact that the Universe may be infinite is only significant in relation to something else ... attached to the cognitive consideration of how space and our relationship with impacts and interacts with our decision-making process for arguments sake. Yet you present this a a poetic “Truth” ... when what I am striving for and emphasizing in my work around Social Reality is the presentation of the distinctions between “Truth” (upper-case “T” to indicate some ultimate, inviolate, metaphysical Truth) vs. “truth” (lower-case “t” to indicate something believed to be so by an individual or group based on some empirical evidence they agree to share). The same applies to the distinctions I’m making regarding “Reality” and “reality.”
So while I don’t object to your writing I object to you referring to it as “Comments on Social Reality” and by inference associating that back to what I’ve written about ... and the inclusive inferences in what you’ve written about that writing.
The ultimate expression of what I’d like to see is that you express what you are expressing in a way that is intelligible to those who are reading it with regard to the subject you suggest it is in reference to, in this case Social Ontology. And to use your own criteria of “simplicity” as the measure of worth and validity to do so with the extensive suggestion of inference. Do so directly. Say what you mean and want others to “get” from what you are offering. Do this if only within the overall structure of what you say otherwise. BUT ... DAMN IT ... DO IT!!!
I understand as well as any “staking out a position” ... and I understand as well as any staking out that position by standing on the shoulders of giants who’ve come before. I’ve stated well and full that my work, the entire body of my work rests on the enormous foundation of the work I learned with Roye Fraser and most especially his work called the Generative Imprint™ and the Function Mode™ models. Stating anything less would be at the least crude/rude and at the most plagiarism (the most deadly of sins amongst academics and scholars ...). However, it is also essential to note that my work resides on a foundation supported and enhanced by the work of Grinder and Bandler called Neurolinguistic Programming or NLP – and my position in regard to these developers is one of ultimate respect, even when I am in disagreement with them. Their work “allows” for my work to exist in the way that it does. Could I have reproduced this work independently ... possibly ... would I have, unlikely. So to dismantle this work without regard for how it finds its way so deeply into my own is not just disrespectful but duplicitous and deceitful in the extreme ... as would be the disregard, dis-acknowledgement or dismantling of the work of so, so many others ... including but in no way limited to Joseph Campbell, Sigmund Freud, Edward Hall, Clare Graves, Konrad Lorenz, John Searle ... and on and on and on ...
Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
- William Shakespeare
So let’s move on, shall we ... towards an end to this particular rebuttal and reframe. The comments you make have little to nothing to do with Social Ontology and in fact are more poetry than exposition (when the perfect word is available it would be sacrilegious not to glory in its use ...don’t you think). The comments you make if they are explanatory or pragmatic in any way are more about the nature of individual perception and expression, or as Bandler and Grinder exposed us to about thirty years ago – subjective experience. This is so much more the domain of phenomenology (as I have clearly expressed on my blog at: http://blognostra.blogspot.com in the earlier postings positioning my take on Social Ontology) then on anything resembling the inquiry I am making into inter-subjective experience (under the rubric, Social Ontology). Further I am taking a particular tack as I move on towards the inclusion and impact of language and specifically communication in the structure and form of Social Ontology as it relates to the construction of social reality.
What I am intending to unpack and make explicit (I personally much prefer the languaging of David Bohm here, “unfolding”) is the nature of the impact and influence of the social constructs of reality on the individual – who often perceive themselves as having their “own” experience when I propose they are most clearly not.
What I am proposing is that the individual, regardless of whom they may be, is having a social experience – even when they are alone. That all of the experience of the “individual” is in fact a social experience and it is perceived individually. So to unfold that point further ... the individual has a social experience through an individual perception, or an inter-subjective experience that is perceived subjectively. This is a defining point in my argument (argument as in philosophical argument or proposition put forth in discourse).
The significance I am further bringing to this argument is one of application, that the inter-subjective experience of the individual is the basis of the reality they experience act upon (as well as from). That the inter-subjective experience is the basis of all action and behavior and that this action and behavior is premised in the inter-subjective frame that they reside within. Then further that this frame is constructed in part, albeit in large part, by the structuring of the shared communication of those who participate in it; and in some unique and specific cases most especially by their shared agreements.
[Now a quick aside – how are your comments in any way related to that discussion and argument? ... Back to our main program ...]
These agreements are largely, if not wholly (Don’cha ya’ just love that ambiguity?) contained in language. This gives rise to the latest direction I’ve taken which is to point towards the impact and influence others who “get” this level of Social Ontology and the structuring of social reality can have on those who don’t “get” that this is the basis of their reality and decision-making process. This is called alternately propaganda, persuasion and influence to name the most prevalent forms of the application. When it’s applied in a mass communication medium it can and does shift the basis of culture and the collective decision-making process engaged in by the individuals who populate that culture (and/or society). This is the realm of Politics (upper-case “P” vs. lower-case “p” which would alternatively apply to the interactions among individuals at a level below that of the “society-at-large” or in the modern sense “Government”).
So my intention is to “set my people free” ... what’s yours???
Not wine ... men intoxicate themselves; Not vice ... men entice themselves.
- William Shakespeare
Best regards ... until we meat again,
Joseph Riggio
Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf™ Process
http://www.mythoself.com
“Kick ass, take names” - Matt Furey (http://www.mattfurey.com)
On 12/8/05 05:43, "Robert" <robert@svensknlp.nu> wrote:
Robert,
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more;
I must admit I don’t “get it” ... a lot of words and little point. You the “master” of “simplicity” taking so many words to say so little. I appreciate that Najma loved it so it of course may just be me, but with absolute honesty I don’t get it ... at least in relation to Social Ontology ... or even the ordinary construction of logical connections.
First, as always with you, I accept that this is ultimately a trance-lation from Swedish into Swenglish ... (pronounced either ‘swing-lish’ or ‘sweng-lish’ if you prefer, for those who want to know). I also accept that Najma may speak Swenglish better than I, and that may make a difference. Yet, the connection to Social Ontology, even with these exceptions escapes me.
I want to “get it” ... I really do ... I read and re-read what I perceive to be your rambling statements ... some of which I really liked ... individually ... and still I must make great leaps of faith to make them connect ... faith I have in droves ... faith in this connections that are at best so tenuous ... I don’t lack ... I simply refuse to expend.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
- William Shakespeare
But, maybe, just maybe there is one ‘saving grace’ ... the “bridge is just a bridge” part ... maybe there you could have pulled it out of the fire of ill-formedness and illogic ... you didn’t but ...
Let me get to my more immediate point ... (and then one more beyond that if you’ll allow me ... of course I’ll be writing it, but only you can choose or not to read it) ... (BTW is it helpful for me to segregate my comments aside by placing them aside in brackets ... in this case indicated by parenthesis) ... (I expect if you choose to reply you may go line by line, or paragraph by paragraph and delineate your response in that way ... so I want to set it up so that you might use my structure of presentation to make an adequate analysis and rebuttal ... let me know if this works for you.) ...
My immediate point is that what you write about in your “Comments on Social Ontology” have little to do with Social Ontology. I do recognize that you are disturbed when I elucidate a point with what you consider to be extravagant language, when you believe I could use simple words that would suffice just as well. In part (have spent considerable time in Denmark) this may be an issue of speaking a language based in Old Norse and using lots of “imports” ... like German, English and French words ... where words are not presently available in the native tongue. Svenska (Swedish for those of us speaking English) is a language that originated in Northern Germany and was imported into Sweden becoming what is sometimes called Old Norse before continuing its evolution into modern Swedish. Discounting “new” compound words that are actually words created to express an idea by combining two or more simple words – similar to the German tradition of compounding words – the language is “vocabulary poor” compared to a language like English, English being one of the worlds richest languages in terms of vocabulary.
Now being “poor” in terms of vocabulary (or “rich” as the case may be) has it pros and cons (as do most things with alternates, or options attached to them – i.e.: a “this/that” framework or framing structure ... the essential basis of choice and the decision-making process that follows from it). [Do you notice the cognitive linking and logical chaining? ... Do you perceive it’s enhanced by the choice to use bracketing to segment out distinct tangential but separate ideas? ... Do you notice that even though I’ve wandered greatly in my response to you, somehow the ideas seem to flow and remain connected? ... Have you been able to track how exactly, with precision and specificity I manage this “trick” of presentation? ... just curious ...]
Nothing can come of nothing.
- William Shakespeare
So back to Swenglish ... the pro proposition of a “vocabulary poor” language is that you must use the limited vocabulary to express even the most complex ideas ... and sometimes the words themselves don’t actually exist to do this ... SO THE CONCEPT MUST BE MADE BY INFERENCE ... i.e.: the listener/reader must generate the meaning from the words expressed for themselves. This is an interesting form that generates a specific cognitive approach. The sender and the receiver in the communication “assume” active participation, that the “message” won’t be contained completely in the content of the “expression” of the message, but in the “interpretation” of the message. This particular cognitive structuring regarding communication creates a kind of “short-hand” in communication and leads to a preference for directness, simplicity and brevity. For an insight into the expression of this cognitive structure look at the design ethos of Scandinavia (hear I reference the swath of land ranging from Norway in the west and Finland in the east, all at a latitude north of Germany for all intents and purposes). The Scandinavian design ethos is also one of simplicity, purity that emphasizes clean lines, little decorative extravagance and very direct (some would not hesitate to say “elegant” - myself included) solutions. What you may find “missing” is the “playfulness” and “joy” found in more “extravagant” design – which lead us to ...
The con proposition in a “vocabulary poor” language (Swedish compared to English in this particular case) is that somethings are in fact inferred and not expressed. The speaker/writer “intends” a message BUT it is up to the listener/reader to extract it. It is ultimately imprecise in terms of expressing more abstract considerations. Compare the art of Scandinavia pre-WWII with the art now being generated when a large majority of Scandinavians are learning to speak a second language (most typically German or English) and expanding the range of their vocabulary richness. If you want what I’d consider to be the most obvious representation of the Scandinavian ethos that arises from the cognitive structure I’m pointing to follow the “humor.” In most of Scandinavia humor is based in sarcasm. This is itself based in cynicism and irony which of course would work well within the structures I’ve indicated are most present in the cognitive structure driven by a “vocabulary poor” language. By example I give you the comparison between Existentialist philosophers Kierkegaard and Sartre (French being a much more “vocabulary rich” language in comparison to Swedish). It leads to a particular kind of purity in thought, but with little extravagance ... what someone raised in a “vocabulary rich” language and the associated cognitive structure might perceive as morose.
Those of you familiar with Edmund Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf and their propositions regarding the influence of language (specifically the specifically the “native” and “crib” languages of an individual) will understand the significance that the native language of a speaker may have on their cognitive structure and the preferences associated with it (the theory that Sapir and Whorf developed is known as the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” by linguists and cognitive scientists). I am a “believer” in the premise of their propositions regarding the influence of language on the development AND APPLICATION of the cognitive structure of an individual. For those of you who want and/or prefer it more simply ... the language you use (as a native speaker) will directly influence the way in which you think. In fact this idea would more accurately along begin to represent what I’m driving at then all of what you’ve written Robert. To say it succinctly and directly I’ll actually put it to Edmund Sapir in his own words:
"Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation." (Sapir, 1958 [1929], p. 69)
This is the whole point of what I’m driving at ... it’s called Social Ontology ... and the creation of a social reality, while what you write about is almost virtually all about a subjective reality (vs. the the inter-subjective position I write about). You are an individualist while I myself more and more find myself becoming a collectivist with a strong individualist consideration. Your entire post is about how an “individual” perceives the world apart from others and then acts upon this perception for all intent and purpose ignoring the impact and influence they have both upon and most importantly from others. That in fact a bridge is only a bridge because we say so ... other wise it’s just a structure spanning some gap made of something. When does a fallen tree become a “bridge” or is the answer never? This is my point is unpacking the structure of the structure of how we get to thinking what we think. The fact that the Universe may be infinite is only significant in relation to something else ... attached to the cognitive consideration of how space and our relationship with impacts and interacts with our decision-making process for arguments sake. Yet you present this a a poetic “Truth” ... when what I am striving for and emphasizing in my work around Social Reality is the presentation of the distinctions between “Truth” (upper-case “T” to indicate some ultimate, inviolate, metaphysical Truth) vs. “truth” (lower-case “t” to indicate something believed to be so by an individual or group based on some empirical evidence they agree to share). The same applies to the distinctions I’m making regarding “Reality” and “reality.”
So while I don’t object to your writing I object to you referring to it as “Comments on Social Reality” and by inference associating that back to what I’ve written about ... and the inclusive inferences in what you’ve written about that writing.
The ultimate expression of what I’d like to see is that you express what you are expressing in a way that is intelligible to those who are reading it with regard to the subject you suggest it is in reference to, in this case Social Ontology. And to use your own criteria of “simplicity” as the measure of worth and validity to do so with the extensive suggestion of inference. Do so directly. Say what you mean and want others to “get” from what you are offering. Do this if only within the overall structure of what you say otherwise. BUT ... DAMN IT ... DO IT!!!
I understand as well as any “staking out a position” ... and I understand as well as any staking out that position by standing on the shoulders of giants who’ve come before. I’ve stated well and full that my work, the entire body of my work rests on the enormous foundation of the work I learned with Roye Fraser and most especially his work called the Generative Imprint™ and the Function Mode™ models. Stating anything less would be at the least crude/rude and at the most plagiarism (the most deadly of sins amongst academics and scholars ...). However, it is also essential to note that my work resides on a foundation supported and enhanced by the work of Grinder and Bandler called Neurolinguistic Programming or NLP – and my position in regard to these developers is one of ultimate respect, even when I am in disagreement with them. Their work “allows” for my work to exist in the way that it does. Could I have reproduced this work independently ... possibly ... would I have, unlikely. So to dismantle this work without regard for how it finds its way so deeply into my own is not just disrespectful but duplicitous and deceitful in the extreme ... as would be the disregard, dis-acknowledgement or dismantling of the work of so, so many others ... including but in no way limited to Joseph Campbell, Sigmund Freud, Edward Hall, Clare Graves, Konrad Lorenz, John Searle ... and on and on and on ...
Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
- William Shakespeare
So let’s move on, shall we ... towards an end to this particular rebuttal and reframe. The comments you make have little to nothing to do with Social Ontology and in fact are more poetry than exposition (when the perfect word is available it would be sacrilegious not to glory in its use ...don’t you think). The comments you make if they are explanatory or pragmatic in any way are more about the nature of individual perception and expression, or as Bandler and Grinder exposed us to about thirty years ago – subjective experience. This is so much more the domain of phenomenology (as I have clearly expressed on my blog at: http://blognostra.blogspot.com in the earlier postings positioning my take on Social Ontology) then on anything resembling the inquiry I am making into inter-subjective experience (under the rubric, Social Ontology). Further I am taking a particular tack as I move on towards the inclusion and impact of language and specifically communication in the structure and form of Social Ontology as it relates to the construction of social reality.
What I am intending to unpack and make explicit (I personally much prefer the languaging of David Bohm here, “unfolding”) is the nature of the impact and influence of the social constructs of reality on the individual – who often perceive themselves as having their “own” experience when I propose they are most clearly not.
What I am proposing is that the individual, regardless of whom they may be, is having a social experience – even when they are alone. That all of the experience of the “individual” is in fact a social experience and it is perceived individually. So to unfold that point further ... the individual has a social experience through an individual perception, or an inter-subjective experience that is perceived subjectively. This is a defining point in my argument (argument as in philosophical argument or proposition put forth in discourse).
The significance I am further bringing to this argument is one of application, that the inter-subjective experience of the individual is the basis of the reality they experience act upon (as well as from). That the inter-subjective experience is the basis of all action and behavior and that this action and behavior is premised in the inter-subjective frame that they reside within. Then further that this frame is constructed in part, albeit in large part, by the structuring of the shared communication of those who participate in it; and in some unique and specific cases most especially by their shared agreements.
[Now a quick aside – how are your comments in any way related to that discussion and argument? ... Back to our main program ...]
These agreements are largely, if not wholly (Don’cha ya’ just love that ambiguity?) contained in language. This gives rise to the latest direction I’ve taken which is to point towards the impact and influence others who “get” this level of Social Ontology and the structuring of social reality can have on those who don’t “get” that this is the basis of their reality and decision-making process. This is called alternately propaganda, persuasion and influence to name the most prevalent forms of the application. When it’s applied in a mass communication medium it can and does shift the basis of culture and the collective decision-making process engaged in by the individuals who populate that culture (and/or society). This is the realm of Politics (upper-case “P” vs. lower-case “p” which would alternatively apply to the interactions among individuals at a level below that of the “society-at-large” or in the modern sense “Government”).
So my intention is to “set my people free” ... what’s yours???
Not wine ... men intoxicate themselves; Not vice ... men entice themselves.
- William Shakespeare
Best regards ... until we meat again,
Joseph Riggio
Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf™ Process
http://www.mythoself.com
“Kick ass, take names” - Matt Furey (http://www.mattfurey.com)
On 12/8/05 05:43, "Robert" <robert@svensknlp.nu> wrote:
Reality, ongoing and working with and without constructing or not within any boundary.
It’s just made up, right in your mind anyway, right?
I was reminded about Milton Erickson in his ways he pursued I guess so many altered states and tested along his journey ways to shift between.
What he found or what he did with that skill and knowledge isn’t for me to say since I never met him.
There are some nice passages in the books about him some about reality and what it is and how to expand on that.
I was reminded earlier this week, that people are often very judgemental about new things, either it be a particular methodology or a particular view or whatever they judge it’s never about exploring new avenues.
The beach is filled with sand, each sand particle is in itself made up by even smaller stuff and in that smaller stuff there is even smaller stuff and then “again” you know and you guessed even smaller stuff!
If I didn’t know better, I bet it would end up empty?
And you guessed right, it does!
It becomes so empty in fact it’s so large it is called space. In relation to that space the sand particle seems large even as a universe some say. Which btw is infinite, that’s how large and small the universe is, it is contained in one single word, infinite, and that if you ask me is pretty neat.
Instead of using complex math describing the universe, we simply accept it is, infinite.
Then some people tries to describe the universe, and many get mad doing so since the universe is so big, remember I did say “infinite” and those scientist cant contain the whole universe in their heads at all. It gets to big, since the brain isn’t infinite but the imagination absolutely is.
Reality is such subtle thing, I worked with realties my whole life, my own and others, its many ways to slice an apple, the description started with NLP gave humanity a way to cut down the apples and oranges to a more down to earth examples where the descriptions could be better describing the reality ongoing and in NLP they named it “a model”.
They found out, its turtles all the way down, and then again another turtle all the way down, an infinite way to say, how big is the universe really?
Infinite of course!
If there is one thing that is clear, sound and felt as it is the one thing, maybe it isn’t and then again maybe it is not that, maybe I should look elsewhere?
Epistemology, the study of how we map cognitively the minds processes and adjusted with the NLP applications by mapping that with the NLP models have brought us truly Jedi Mind powers where we can sway and opinion with just a gesture and a smile and a word…as easy anchored and fired away.
Then a few Jedi’s said, this isn’t the way, we want power, and more of it.
They are known as powerful wizards and never explain what they do and wink and say, come here and become one of power since it is all unconscious ruled and controlled.
They even use waste powers as hypnosis in ways people never before have seen.
Then there was this voice in the crowd, what about just explaining what is going on, take away all the mystery and just plainly explain what it is?
The first night an attempt on his life was made. That power he wielded shined so brightly and was feared by the power wielders as the mightiest power of all and they all missed it.
Truth is what it is, reality for some and a misconception for others, but again, into the unknown we cast our self, and I just never really got it, how can it be unknown if we know it is unknown?
It is as so many argue it is in relation to what is known, the boundary, a string of ideas where your mind just knows this is this, and nothing else it can be, unless you learn NLP or such systems to create a diversion so your mind can hide contemplating that a bridge is a bridge and then it isn’t a bridge but stones and then even other materials in that and then…even more.
Then a few wise men said, just accept it, it is a bridge, then move on to the other side.
The other side?
Yea, while your thinking about the bridge and its reality, this side is crashing down into the sea…so..move it..
Fear is a great ruler of men.
Take away fear and the bridge even if it collapses only offers us the chance of swimming or learning to swim.
Which some would argue and rightly so that seems a tad late to do so.
I saw Dr Phil doing his “get real” workshops where he scare people and even before they end up in the workshop since they are confronting the fears about things like the bridges that collapses even before they do?
That’s the beauty of our minds we can in advance know what things are to be before we even are doing the activity at all!
Doing that into the level of a model where your model is as accurate as the reality it’s applied to is a rare ability, some might argue it is about then creating the reality in your head and I think they are right.
Is the model the reality it is applied to or is the model just a description of what is currently believed to be reality?
It seems it will be a tiny difference, subtle but that level of interaction between our senses and the thing out there as described very well using the epistemology and any further attempt to explain such difference will be just further models about what is infinite.
Then when we can just plainly sit down, eat an apple and look at the waves bathing us into the serenity of life.
Take a sand particle, identify with it in such a way it’s a whole reality of the universe being infinite, and that is just a model about the universe and how you as an observer affects it.
Consciousness allow us great things, what are you going to do today?
Let’s move along, the bridge is closing down.
Where do you want to go?
If there is no fear, life then unfolds, rightly so some would argue.
Infinite
Your best
/Robert
www.riggiomodel.biz <http://www.riggiomodel.biz/>
Kicking asses anywhere and bruising egos all over the world and still sitting there enjoying life.
(Also known as a green small guy by some)
Hey, somehow Lucas got his ideas, why not small green guys from outer space?
Space, a 5 year mission to explore.
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