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[Extract from minutes of this meeting: MeeTing03]
BenjaminGeer had attempted to begin the intro by pointing out the current global crisis of democracy, and explaining why something better than liberal representative democracy is needed.
RichardMalter felt strongly that our core arguments should be about what we want to create, rather than about what is wrong with existing systems.
Basically, regarding Western understanding and descriptions of things, the languages we have are atomic: they split the world into discrete 'parts', that are then reassembled by the Western mind to form a machine-like whole; but what cannot be escaped from in this process is the underlying idea/mental construct/paradigm that: the world is made up of parts, that are linked. The saying [by?] that "the world is made up of stories not atoms" is a brilliant summing up of this. The 'West', as Zizek writes in his book, On Belief, started with the Greeks; and the Greeks formulated (or at least effectively propogated) the atomic view of the universe. This has developed to (where where named and/or recognized): the mechanistic paradigm. (The traditional Oriental view is the opposite. The world is made up of processes.) Capitalism could be said to be the sociopolitical aspect of the mechanistic paradigm. There are other things that have added to and accumulated to this paradigm in more modern times, and the underlying problem today runs very deep, as D H Lawrence wrote, the system is in us - ie it is an expression of something in us: a human emptiness that has given rise to a superficial grasping for something 'material' in place of it, very roughly put. But still this underlying paradigm is, at least from an objective conceptual intellectual point of view, the underlying in-forming framework. (I think that the great poet William Blake really deeply grasped the significance and power of the destructiveness on human confidence, of this 'dead world machine paradigm'. Which is why also, we must have 'Trust First' as an organizational and general choice of process: confidence in life, which includes other people, is expressed in trust). I think all of the above is the argument for the necessity of positive terms, that is to say, always formulate and express ourselves positively about positive things. How is the above the argument for that? The underlying problem is that something is missing. An absence of a positive framework to live by rather than the mechanistic paradigm that dominates and rules life in just about every field of human activity. An emptiness in the human pysche, maybe as simple as expressed by the words cynicism and discouragement. Iit is an error of method to put our attention chiefly on trying to negate the thing - mechanistic paradigm, capitalism - however big and encompassing - that has arisen as a kind of out-of-balance 'counterpart' to an unfilled void. What we need to do, to have a long term re-balancing effect, is to fill the void. Which is basically what we are doing I think in the scope of the project. That means to further, create, develop, a positive paradigm, framework, as well as basic organizational structures for ourselves, that have validity to us in their own right. That means definitely not in 'reflection' to the "out-of-balance counterpart". That means we do things from a basis of free human activity, rather from a 'chained' state of being that we will have whenever we are trying to 'get away from' the thing we dislike. Otherwise we will never be free. If everything we do is measured by the thing we are trying to 'get away from', that thing will always be there as a standard. It may seem a useful way to keep track of what we are doing in order to stay away from the thing we don't like, but actually it is the chaining of our otherwise free activity to a comparison with the thing we are trying to 'get away from'. In this way, the thing we are trying to 'get away from' never really goes away, it is in the background lurking, and we entrench it each time we compare our activity to it. D H Lawrence wrote about all this, that, that is why "the shout of freedom is just another rattling of chains". That is how, for example, "non-hierarchical" is the shout of the shackled. To be free means to be free, not to declare it all the time in reference to chains. You could sum all this up perhaps by saying that creation is not something done in reference to non-creation. A baby is not born instead of not being born. Two people become friends not because they decided not to not become friends. The wind blows not because the air is still. Henri Bergson, in his book, Creative Evolution, goes to great length to explain how we play this mental 'trick' on ourselves, thinking that we have got rid of something by saying "not believe in", "non-", etc; when actually the idea is there in our minds just as it was before, only it has a superficial 'X' through it. we are strengthening We need to use positive terms to describe positive [positing] ideas, means, implementations. A possible response to this, is that if you are for ecology, for example, then you are necessarily against anti-ecological practices, so you must be 'against' something. But the critical thing is the order--meaning the orientation and 'character' of one's spirit, or said differently, how you act in the world--from what premises, pyschology, pysche. That first you are a free creative human being. That may mean that you choose not to go along with the capitalism of life and wish and act to 'make it go away'. But to firstly and primarily remain a free creative human being you must remain firstly and primarily free and creative. To be that you must not be chained. Therefore, don't resist, rebel, oppose, subvert, undermine, overturn. . . . Create.
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For Positive Terms and Ideas
Basically, regarding Western understanding and descriptions of things, the languages we have are atomic: they split the world into discrete 'parts', that are then reassembled by the Western mind to form a machine-like whole; but what cannot be escaped from in this process is the underlying idea/mental construct/paradigm that: the world is made up of parts, that are linked. The saying [by?] that "the world is made up of stories not atoms" is a brilliant summing up of this. The 'West', as Zizek writes in his book, On Belief, started with the Greeks; and the Greeks formulated (or at least effectively propogated) the atomic view of the universe. This has developed to (where where named and/or recognized): the mechanistic paradigm. (The traditional Oriental view is the opposite. The world is made up of processes.) Capitalism could be said to be the sociopolitical aspect of the mechanistic paradigm. There are other things that have added to and accumulated to this paradigm in more modern times, and the underlying problem today runs very deep, as D H Lawrence wrote, the system is in us - ie it is an expression of something in us: a human emptiness that has given rise to a superficial grasping for something 'material' in place of it, very roughly put. But still this underlying paradigm is, at least from an objective conceptual intellectual point of view, the underlying in-forming framework. (I think that the great poet William Blake really deeply grasped the significance and power of the destructiveness on human confidence, of this 'dead world machine paradigm'. Which is why also, we must have 'Trust First' as an organizational and general choice of process: confidence in life, which includes other people, is expressed in trust). I think all of the above is the argument for the necessity of positive terms, that is to say, always formulate and express ourselves positively about positive things. How is the above the argument for that? The underlying problem is that something is missing. An absence of a positive framework to live by rather than the mechanistic paradigm that dominates and rules life in just about every field of human activity. An emptiness in the human pysche, maybe as simple as expressed by the words cynicism and discouragement. Iit is an error of method to put our attention chiefly on trying to negate the thing - mechanistic paradigm, capitalism - however big and encompassing - that has arisen as a kind of out-of-balance 'counterpart' to an unfilled void. What we need to do, to have a long term re-balancing effect, is to fill the void. Which is basically what we are doing I think in the scope of the project. That means to further, create, develop, a positive paradigm, framework, as well as basic organizational structures for ourselves, that have validity to us in their own right. That means definitely not in 'reflection' to the "out-of-balance counterpart". That means we do things from a basis of free human activity, rather from a 'chained' state of being that we will have whenever we are trying to 'get away from' the thing we dislike. Otherwise we will never be free. If everything we do is measured by the thing we are trying to 'get away from', that thing will always be there as a standard. It may seem a useful way to keep track of what we are doing in order to stay away from the thing we don't like, but actually it is the chaining of our otherwise free activity to a comparison with the thing we are trying to 'get away from'. In this way, the thing we are trying to 'get away from' never really goes away, it is in the background lurking, and we entrench it each time we compare our activity to it. D H Lawrence wrote about all this, that, that is why "the shout of freedom is just another rattling of chains". That is how, for example, "non-hierarchical" is the shout of the shackled. To be free means to be free, not to declare it all the time in reference to chains. You could sum all this up perhaps by saying that creation is not something done in reference to non-creation. A baby is not born instead of not being born. Two people become friends not because they decided not to not become friends. The wind blows not because the air is still. Henri Bergson, in his book, Creative Evolution, goes to great length to explain how we play this mental 'trick' on ourselves, thinking that we have got rid of something by saying "not believe in", "non-", etc; when actually the idea is there in our minds just as it was before, only it has a superficial 'X' through it. we are strengthening We need to use positive terms to describe positive [positing] ideas, means, implementations. A possible response to this, is that if you are for ecology, for example, then you are necessarily against anti-ecological practices, so you must be 'against' something. But the critical thing is the order--meaning the orientation and 'character' of one's spirit, or said differently, how you act in the world--from what premises, pyschology, pysche. That first you are a free creative human being. That may mean that you choose not to go along with the capitalism of life and wish and act to 'make it go away'. But to firstly and primarily remain a free creative human being you must remain firstly and primarily free and creative. To be that you must not be chained. Therefore, don't resist, rebel, oppose, subvert, undermine, overturn. . . . Create.
"I must create a system Or be enslav'd to another man's. I do not reason and compare, My business is to create!" William Blake.So positive terms about positive, positing, creative ideas.
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Revisions: | r1.4 | > | r1.3 | > | r1.2 | Total page history | Backlinks