"I'm sorry to say it, but under the influence of postmodernism some very smart people can fall into some incredibly sloppy thinking, and I want to give two examples. The first comes from a front-page article in last Tuesday's New York Times (10/22/96) about the conflict between archaeologists and some Native American creationists. I don't want to address here the ethical and legal aspects of this controversy -- who should control the use of 10,000-year-old human remains -- but only the epistemic issue. There are at least two competing views on where Native American populations come from. The scientific consensus, based on extensive archaeological evidence, is that humans first entered the Americas from Asia about 10-20,000 years ago, crossing the Bering Strait. Many Native American creation accounts hold, on the other hand, that native peoples have always lived in the Americas, ever since their ancestors emerged onto the surface of the earth from a subterranean world of spirits. And the Times article observed that many archaeologists, "pulled between their scientific temperaments and their appreciation for native culture, ... have been driven close to a postmodern relativism in which science is just one more belief system." For example, Roger Anyon, a British archaeologist who has worked for the Zuni people, was quoted as saying that "Science is just one of many ways of knowing the world. ... [The Zunis' world view is] just as valid as the archeological viewpoint of what prehistory is about."

Now, perhaps Dr. Anyon was misquoted, but we all have repeatedly heard assertions of this kind, and I'd like to ask what such assertions could possibly mean. We have here two mutually incompatible theories. They can't both be right; they can't both even be approximately right. They could, of course, both be wrong, but I don't imagine that that's what Dr. Anyon means by "just as valid". It seems to me that Anyon has quite simply allowed his political and cultural sympathies to cloud his reasoning. And there's no justification for that: We can perfectly well remember the victims of a horrible genocide, and support their descendants' valid political goals, without endorsing uncritically (or hypocritically) their societies' traditional creation myths. Moreover, the relativists' stance is extremely condescending: it treats a complex society as a monolith, obscures the conflicts within it, and takes its most obscurantist factions as spokespeople for the whole.

My second example of sloppy thinking comes from Social Text co-editor Bruce Robbins' article in the September/October 1996 Tikkun magazine, in which he tries to defend -- albeit half-heartedly -- the postmodernist/poststructuralist subversion of conventional notions of truth. "Is it in the interests of women, African Americans, and other super-exploited people," Robbins asks, "to insist that truth and identity are social constructions? Yes and no," he asserts. "No, you can't talk about exploitation without respect for empirical evidence" -- exactly my point. "But yes," Robbins continues, "truth can be another source of oppression." Huh??? How can truth oppress anyone? Well, Robbins' very next sentence explains what he means: "It was not so long ago," he says, "that scientists gave their full authority to explanations of why women and African Americans ... were inherently inferior." But is Robbins claiming that that is truth? I should hope not! Sure, lots of people say things about women and African-Americans that are not true; and yes, those falsehoods have sometimes been asserted in the name of "science", "reason" and all the rest. But claiming something doesn't make it true, and the fact that people -- including scientists -- sometimes make false claims doesn't mean that we should reject or revise the concept of truth. Quite the contrary: it means that we should examine with the utmost care the evidence underlying people's truth claims, and we should reject assertions that in our best rational judgment are false.

This error is, unfortunately, repeated throughout Robbins' essay: he systematically confuses truth with claims of truth, fact with assertions of fact, and knowledge with pretensions to knowledge. These elisions underlie much of the sloppy thinking about "social construction" that is prevalent nowadays in the academy, and it's something that progressives ought to resist. Sure, let's show which economic, political and ideological interests are served by our opponents' accounts of "reality"; but first let's demonstrate, by marshalling evidence and logic, why those accounts are objectively false (or in some cases true but incomplete).

A bit later in his article, Robbins admits candidly that "those of us who do cultural politics sometimes act as if ... truth were always and everywhere a weapon of the right." Now, that's an astoundingly self-defeating attitude for an avowed leftist. If truth were on the side of the right, shouldn't we all -- at least the honest ones among us -- become right-wingers? For my own part, I'm a leftist and a feminist because of evidence and logic (combined with elementary ethics), not in spite of it.

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/nyu_forum.html

The obscurantism of synthesis is VERY damaging to our objective of having an accurate map of the world so we can actually help actual people and not just sit around and be confused and helpless, blown about by what ever random thought enters our head kapeche?

That ride has the price of a confused mind that will make those who take it quite literally too dazed to act...

"So, to test the prevailing intellectual standards, I decided to try a modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North American journal of cultural studies -- whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross -- publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Interested readers can find my article, ``Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,'' in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue of Social Text. It appears in a special number of the magazine devoted to the ``Science Wars.''

What's going on here? Could the editors reallynot have realized that my article was written as a parody?

In the first paragraph I deride ``the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook'':

that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in ``eternal'' physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the ``objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.

Is it now dogma in Cultural Studies that there exists no external world? Or that there exists an external world but science obtains no knowledge of it?

In the second paragraph I declare, without the slightest evidence or argument, that ``physical `reality' [note the scare quotes] ... is at bottom a social and linguistic construct.'' Not our theoriesof physical reality, mind you, but the reality itself. Fair enough: anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)

Throughout the article, I employ scientific and mathematical concepts in ways that few scientists or mathematicians could possibly take seriously. For example, I suggest that the ``morphogenetic field'' -- a bizarre New Age idea due to Rupert Sheldrake -- constitutes a cutting-edge theory of quantum gravity. This connection is pure invention; even Sheldrake makes no such claim. I assert that Lacan's psychoanalytic speculations have been confirmed by recent work in quantum field theory. Even nonscientist readers might well wonder what in heavens' name quantum field theory has to do with psychoanalysis; certainly my article gives no reasoned argument to support such a link."

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html

Wilbur is taking you for a ride but unlike Sokal isn't honest enough to admit what time it is...

This sort of mind numbing meaningless tripe has real consequences. As left physicist Alan Sokal says if we can't sort truth from fiction we will have no revolution because a revolution requires the ability to accurately perciecve who is suffering and not just haze them out of existence in some meaningless "snynthesis."

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html

"And my motives for trying to defend these old-fashioned ideas are basically political. I'm worried about trends in the American Left -- particularly here in academia -- that at a minimum divert us from the task of formulating a progressive social critique, by leading smart and committed people into trendy but ultimately empty intellectual fashions, and that can in fact undermine the prospects for such a critique, by promoting subjectivist and relativist philosophies that in my view are inconsistent with producing a realistic analysis of society that we and our fellow citizens will find compelling.

David Whiteis, in a recent article, said it well:

Too many academics, secure in their ivory towers and insulated from the real-world consequences of the ideas they espouse, seem blind to the fact that non-rationality has historically been among the most powerful weapons in the ideological arsenals of oppressors. The hypersubjectivity that characterizes postmodernism is a perfect case in point: far from being a legacy of leftist iconoclasm, as some of its advocates so disingenuously claim, it in fact ... plays perfectly into the anti-rationalist -- really, anti-thinking -- bias that currently infects "mainstream" U.S. culture.

Along similar lines, the philosopher of science Larry Laudan observed caustically that

the displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is -- second only to American political campaigns -- the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.

(And these days, being nearly as anti-intellectual as American political campaigns is really quite a feat.)

Now of course, no one will admit to being against reason, evidence and logic -- that's like being against Motherhood and Apple Pie. Rather, our postmodernist and poststructuralist friends will claim to be in favor of some new and deeper kind of reason, such as the celebration of "local knowledges" and "alternative ways of knowing" as an antidote to the so-called "Eurocentric scientific methodology" (you know, things like systematic experiment, controls, replication, and so forth). You find this magic phrase "local knowledges" in, for example, the articles of Andrew Ross and Sandra Harding in the "Science Wars" issue of Social Text. But are "local knowledges" all that great? And when local knowledges conflict, which local knowledges should we believe? In many parts of the Midwest, the "local knowledges" say that you should spray more herbicides to get bigger crops. It's old-fashioned objective science that can tell us which herbicides are poisonous to farm workers and to people downstream. Here in New York City, lots of "local knowledges" hold that there's a wave of teenage motherhood that's destroying our moral fiber. It's those boring data that show that the birth rate to teenage mothers has been essentially constant since 1975, and is about half of what it was in the good old 1950's. Another word for "local knowledges" is prejudice."

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/nyu_forum.html

(Con't)

...."All sorts of endeavors, of no matter what origin or of what authenticity, are simply elevated to transrational and spiritual glory, and the only qualification for this wonderful promotion is that the endeavor be nonrational. Anything rational is wrong; anything nonrational is spiritual.

"Spirit is indeed nonrational; but it is trans, not pre. It transcends but includes reason; it does not regress and exclude it. Reason, like any particular stage of evolution, has its own (and often devastating) limitations, repressions, and distortions. But as we have seen, the inherent problems of one level are solved (or "defused") only at the next level of development; they are not solved by regressing to a previous level where the problem can be merely ignored.

"And so it is with the wonders and the terrors of reason: it brings enormous new capacities and new solutions, while introducing its own specific problems, problems solved only by a transcendence to the higher and transrational realms.

"Many of the elevationist movements, alas, are not beyond reason but beneath it. They think they are, and they announce themselves to be, climbing the Mountain of Truth; whereas, it seems to me, they have merely slipped and fallen and are sliding rapidly down it, and the exhilarating rush of skidding uncontrollably down evolution's slope they call "following your bliss."

"As the earth comes rushing up at them at terminal velocity, they are bold enough to offer this collision course with ground zero as a new paradigm for the coming world transformation, and they feel oh-so-sorry for those who watch their coming crash with the same fascination as one watches a twenty-car pileup on the highway, and they sadly nod as we decline to join in that particular adventure. True spiritual bliss, in infinite measure, lies up that hill, not down it."

[Note: A more detailed description of the pre/trans fallacy can be found in Eye to Eye.]

As mentioned yesterday in a response to hootowl, at present I unfortunately don't have the time to devote to the "science vs. spirituality" debate.

What I can offer are two further references for anyone interested. The first would be the section on "Scientific Tunnel Vision" in M. Scott Peck's RLT. A very straighforward treatment of the issues.

The second comes from Ken Wilber. IMHO he has done a magnificent (and long-overdue) job of tackling this topic. Wilber has been hailed as "the Einstein of consciousness;" his approach to this cutting edge debate re: "rational vs. transrational," is mature, thoughtful, and incisive.

He has thought so deeply - and captured so many facets of the salient issues - that his contribution to the discussion, in my opinion, should not be overlooked.

Here is a sample:

From SEX, ECOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY by Ken Wilber (1995, 2000)

Wilber writes:

"Ever since I began writing on the distinctions between prerational (or prepersonal) states of awareness and transrational (or transpersonal) states - what I called the pre/trans fallacy - I have become more convinced than ever that this understanding is absolutely crucial for grasping the nature of higher (or deeper) or truly spiritual states of consciousness.

"The essence of the pre/trans fallacy is itself fairly simple: since both prerational states and transrational states are, in their own ways, nonrational, they appear similar or even identical to the untutored eye. And once pre and trans are confused, then one of two fallacies occurs:

"In the first, all higher and transrational states are reduced to lower and prerational states. Genuine mystical or contemplative experiences, for example, are seen as a regression or throwback to infantile states of narcissism, oceanic adualism, indissociation, and even primitive autism. This is, for example, precisely the route taken by Freud in The Future of an Illusion.

"In these reductionistic accounts, rationality is the great and final omega point of individual and collective development, the high-water mark of all evolution. No deeper or wider or higher context is thought to exist. Thus, life is to be lived either rationally, or neurotically (Freud's concept of neurosis is basically anything that derails the emergence of rational perception - true enough as far as it goes, which is just not all that far).

"Since no higher context is thought to be real, or to actually exist, then whenever any genuinely transrational occasion occurs, it is immediately explained as a regression to prerational structures (since they are the only nonrational structures allowed, and thus the only ones to accept an explanatory hypothesis). The superconscious is reduced to the subconscious, the transpersonal is collapsed to the prepersonal, the emergence of the higher is reinterpreted as an irruption from the lower. All breathe a sigh of relief, and the rational worldspace is not fundamentally shaken (by "the black tide of the mud of occultism!" as Freud so quaintly explained it to Jung).

"On the other hand, if one is sympathetic with higher or mystical states, but one still confuses pre and trans, then one will elevate all prerational states to some sort of transrational glory (the infantile primary narcissism, for example, is seen as an unconscious slumbering in the mystico unio).

"Jung and his followers, of course, often take this route, and are forced to read a deeply transpersonal and spiritual status into states that are merely indissociated and undifferentiated and actually lacking any sort of integration at all.

"In the elevationist position, the transpersonal and transrational mystical union is seen as the ultimate omega point, and since egoic-rationality does indeed tend to deny this higher state, then egoic-rationality is pictured as the low point of human possibilities, as a debasement, as the cause of sin and separation and alienation.

"When rationality is seen as the anti-omega point, so to speak, as the great Anti-Christ, then anything nonrational gets swept up and indiscriminately glorified as a direct route to the Divine, including much that is infantile and regressive and prerational: anything to get rid of that nasty and skeptical rationality. "I believe because it is absurd" (Tertullian) - there is the battle cry of the elevationist (a strand that runs deeply through Romanticism of any sort).

"Freud was a reductionist, Jung an elevationist - the two sides of the pre/trans fallacy. And the point is that they are both half right and half wrong. A good deal of neurosis is indeed a fixation/regression to prerational states, states that are not to be glorified. On the other hand, mystical states do indeed exist, beyond (not beneath) rationality, and those states are not to be reduced.

"For most of the recent modern era, and certainly since Freud (and Marx and Ludwig Feuerbach), the reductionist stance toward spirituality has prevailed - all spiritual experiences, no matter how highly developed they might in fact be, were simply interpreted as regressions to primitive and infantile modes of thought. However, as if in overreaction to all that, we are now, and have been since the sixties, in the throes of various forms of elevationism (exemplified by, but by no means confined to, the New Age movement).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

Kitaj Here is an example of the sort of thing that happens in "Tranpersonal Psychology" that makes it a pseudoscience and a true science. Read this and THINK before you respond:

"Another example is the ESP experiments of Mr. Rhine, and other
people. As various people have made criticisms--and they themselves
have made criticisms of their own experiments--they improve the
techniques so that the effects are smaller, and smaller, and
smaller until they gradually disappear. All the parapsychologists
are looking for some experiment that can be repeated--that you can
do again and get the same effect--statistically, even. They run a
million rats no, it's people this time they do a lot of things and
get a certain statistical effect. Next time they try it they don't
get it any more. And now you find a man saying that it is an
irrelevant demand to expect a repeatable experiment. This is
science?

This man also speaks about a new institution, in a talk in which
he was resigning as Director of the Institute of Parapsychology.
And, in telling people what to do next, he says that one of the
things they have to do is be sure they only train students who have
shown their ability to get PSI results to an acceptable extent--
not to waste their time on those ambitious and interested students
who get only chance results. It is very dangerous to have such a
policy in teaching--to teach students only how to get certain
results, rather than how to do an experiment with scientific
integrity.

So I have just one wish for you--the good luck to be somewhere
where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have
described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain
your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on,
to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom."

http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm

From the excellent article by Dr. Feynman I referenced above.

Civil behavior asked how to motivate a comfort addled masses, damn good question, any ideas?

BTW I AM listening though I am sure all of you probably think otherwise because I am surly and unpleasant about the IMO damage done by irrationality invading the left.

IMO it all boils down to this, in a misplaced spirit of inclusiveness the remnants of the "left" has become incapable of criticizing anyone or anything within the movement. This has TERRIBLE consequences because it's ONLY with self criticism, evaluation, accountability, and winnowing out bad ideas growth ever happens. That is why so called "progressives" in fact aren't making any progress and in fact we are repeating the same old stale tired ideas and tactics from FORTY years ago TWO generations past.

We MUST change this and do some self reflection instead of just reflexively defending our own "status quo" if we are to win on behalf the poor, the imperiled planet, women, gays, people of color, discriminated against cultural groups, basic research, libraries, museums, art and dance programs, and victims of corporate and government tyranny. PLEASE think about it, like it our not the right wing fascists ARE adapting and evolving they are using new technologies, commodifying and emptying out formerly meaningful concepts like "identity politics" (now Hillary Clinton and Clarance Thomas), green washing with ethanol, etc. IMO unfortunately the fascists are evolving fast and we are plodding along and repeating the same old mistakes, that sucks for EVERYONE. If we don't do some real soul searching, cleaning house, and figuring out what is true and what is false and to fight and win for what is true we will keep losing like we have since the Reagan error.

Kitaj i have two responses to your post

1. I do NOT disparage right brain activities ironically enough I consider myself first and foremost an artist, I have written 4 chap books of poetry and I am very interested in pursing wild life photography into the realm of abstract and avant garde:

www.flickr.com/photos/birdeye/

So I would say I do value right brain activity and that it is fact the focus of my life. What I do not do is make an ontological category error

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological

and mistake my subjective imaginations and thoughts about the world for external phenomena. To do this in the form of "synthesis" is quite literally inviting madness for it means we mistake our internal imaginings for external phenomena, i.e. if we are hearing voices or seeing visions we ought to see a psychiatrist rather than proclaim ourselves a "seer" or visionary or attempt to fold in a "synthesis" our imaginings into the external world. Another word for the synthesis of mistaking internal imaginings of "energies", "chi lines," "god, gods, or goddesses" for external objective reality is insanity IMO. If we are to win against our oppressors we must be clear as to what is real and imaginary descent into madness is not helpful.

2. Transpersonal Psychology is a psedo-sceience see this excellent and funny article by physicist Richard Feynman for details about his visit to Easlen:

http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm

Feynamn BTW is a perfect example that just because one has ones ontological categories clear does not mean one has to be a dry cold, mechanical boor. In addition to being a physics genius Feynamn was also extremely funny, a prankster, bongo player, and had an interest in Mayan and Tuvan cultures, in short he was a true Renascence man. A Renaissance man (or woman) who is multiple dimensional and has both humanistic and science interests is DIFFERENT than someone who dangerously mistakes their internal imaginings for external phenomena and attempts to synthesize these two disparate categories of phenomena. Please read the Feynaman article and think about what it says. Thanks!!!

I would end by saying that although I consider myself an artist I was an environmental studies and philosophy major in college and part of that training was taking high level biology classes. I am EXTREMELY grateful that I learned the scientific method for discerning truth from falsehood and I would recommended everyone have at least one high level science class under their belts to have a truly rounded view of the world. If we lose enlightenment principles of inquiry due to right wing fundamentalist intolerance or left wing flaky everything goes metaphysical inclusiveness without filters then we begin a descent into a dark ages of ignorance and superstition IMO. And yes I am passionate about this for I think it's very important and I fear for learning, libraries, and research when I see the attacks on basic research research and intellectualism from both the left and right, brrrrrrr...

civil behavior thanks for speaking out for free speech here. Hear, hear. From what I have seen ANY posts with certain swear words (but not fuck) more than 2 links as indicated above or g e n e r a l strike are censored automatically at the server level. As you have figured out these censorships can be overcome by omitting the http:// as said above plus by spacing out censored words so they are seen as individual letters by the server.

If it seem like I am being harsh BTW it's because I want my peeps to be mentally and physically tough if the shit hits the fan, if you can't take a little criticism of flawed metaphysical ASSumptions how we y'all fare under torture by the goons? Sadly I predict in my life time a "French resistance" type movement WILL be necessary in the continental U.S. Toughen up guys and gals and question gun control you may need it...

No doom and gloom

So much for corporate dominance and elite control and profiteering. Ecology is most definitely a science with exact and clear application of the scientific method, and without ecology and clear no nonsense direct confrontation with our oppressors we are surely doomed. We will most likely be clearly heard heard if our arguments are clear, concise, fact based and to the point.

hootowl, you just want to delegitimize right-brain reality. The name of the game is to develop and integrate left and right brain at the highest level. And though different, right-brain realities CAN be studied *scientifically* - that's what transpersonal psychology is all about.
But if you wont take the time to review the experimental and experiential evidence, your opinion hold little weight.

Finally, Western science - a science that paradoxically and neurotically denies half - the right brain - of reality has its own legacy of negatives that result from exactly this scizophrenic split, just as exclusivistic mysicism does, coming from the other side of the split.
Sorry, but lack of timedoes not permit me to continue further. All the best, Kitaj

Hoot owl,

I had composed a special response for you last night and it seems as though it has been moderated out of existence. One of the first times I didn't compose and save in Word first.

In essence it said those of us in the choir are all singing the same song just with different voices. Its the other 99% that religion, militarism and wealth precludes from joining us.

Even your g e n e r a l strike needs participants. How exactly do you intend to get them to join?

Don't you realize that their shiny toys, private taj mahals and their deferment of happiness here on earth to heaven above with their god willing is enough for them to continue to sit on their butts. They intend to go down in flames. How do you think you are going to motivate them with the idea of a strike?

And to CD moderators. We are your base. To allow us to express our opinions freely is what will keep us here. Why moderate freedom of speech? Isn't that why you began it?

Hootowl, the proof is in the pudding. Spirit allowed the civilizations in the America's to survive here for over ten thousand years. Now, after just 230 years, America is in serious decline. So much for the scientific world view...

Meeting the eyes of the enemy by Jeffery "Free" Luers in prison for burning an SUV. Not quite what you might presume, very thought provoking, certainly more so than most "spiritual" thought (ducks):

http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=375

106 organizations that are changing the world. Is it enough? Time will see, obviously I am not going to find anyone here to participate in a g e n e r a l s t r i k e with so it better...

http://amvirtualassistant.com/blog/2008/05/26/106-organizations-that-are-changing-the-world-are-you-he...

Does anyone BTW even want to discuss a g e n e r a l s t r i k e?

Not only is it NOT possible poweroflove it's not logically consistent and confuses ontological categories, care to actually address that argument? Did you even bother to read what I wrote at all? For all the talk of "wisdom traditions" I find most self proclaimed "mystics" utterly lack patience in a thoroughly modern way. If you want some real wisdom develop patience, breath in and out, and take the TIME to actually READ what *I* a flesh and blood human being wrote to *you* a flesh and blood human being instead of just panicking and pasting your canned (not authentic communication) mumbo jumbo.

We won't win against the oppressors with a 5 second attention span I assure you. We also won't win if we don't communicate authentically and respond to each other as people instead of pasting canned responses to original thought. What do YOU think?

Nice one poweroflove I spend an hour soul searching and constructing a tight original argument from scratch and you CUT and PASTE a bunch of crap from the web without addressing a SINGLE point I made. Lazy much?

..."The 20th century lived under the dominion of pseudo-rationality claiming to be the sole rationality, which atrophied comprehension,
reflection, and long-term vision. Inadequate to handle the most serious problems, this pseudo-rationality created one of the most serious
problems ever to face humanity.

"Which leaves us with the paradox: the 20th century produced gigantic progress in all fields of scientific knowledge and technology. At
the same time it produced a new kind of blindness to complex, fundamental, global problems, and this blindness generated countless
errors and illusions, beginning with the scientists, technicians, and specialists themselves.

"Why? Because the major principles of pertinent learning are misunderstood. Fragmentation and compartmentalization of knowledge keeps us from grasping 'that which is woven together.'

"Shouldn't the coming century liberate itself from the control of mutilated mutilating rationality so that the human mind can finally control it? It means understanding disjunctive, reductive thought by exercising thought that distinguishes and connects. It does not mean giving up knowledge of the parts for knowledge of the whole, or giving up analysis for synthesis, it means conjugating them.

"This is the challenge of complexity which ineluctably confronts us as our planetary era advances and evolves."

Hootowl,

I do wish I had the time to debate the issue you raise. In any case I'm not clear that it has direct relevance to the Empire/Community focus of Korten's blog. As far as the "spirituality vs. rationality" issue goes, my current view is that a synthesis of the two is not only possible, but in fact is essential...and the most rational and effective place from which to facilitate positive change.

That said, I do think that a focus on the "self" which is doing the thinking and problem solving is on point. This mindset has emanated from such disciplines as quantum physics and 2nd-order cybernetics.

In short we must learn to see our minds much more clearly than we ordinarily do - mired as we are in outworn/outmoded assumptions. And a key aspect of this process of "seeing the seer" is a willingness to look more critically at the way we see the world via "rational thought."

To this end I want to share a bit more of Morin's examination of our current conditon --- which, is so to speak, that "we have met the enemy, and he is us!"

********************************************

*The complex*

"Pertinent, knowledge must confront complexity. Complexus means that which is woven together. In fact there is complexity whenever the various elements (economic, political, sociological, psychological, emotional, mythological...) that compose a whole are inseparable, and there is inter-retroactive, interactive, interdependent tissue between the subject of knowledge and its context, the parts and the whole, the whole
and the parts, the parts amongst themselves.

"Complexity is therefore the bond between unity and multiplicity. Developments proper to our
planetary era confront us more frequently, ineluctably with the challenge of complexity...

"Gigantic progress in knowledge has been accomplished within the framework of disciplinary specializations during the 20th century. But this progress is dispersed and disjointed, precisely because of specialization, which often shattered contexts, globalities, complexities. As a result,
tremendous obstacles that hinder the exercise of pertinent knowledge have accumulated right within our educational systems.

"These systems make the disjunction between the humanities and the sciences, and the division of the sciences into disciplines that have become hyper-specialized, self-enclosed.

"Complex global realities are shattered, the human is dislocated and redistributed. The biological dimension, including the brain, is enclosed in biological departments; the psychological, social, religious, and economic dimensions are separated from each other and relegated to social science departments; the subjective, existential, poetic qualities are restricted to literature and poetry departments. And philosophy, which by nature is a enclosed realm.

"Fundamental problems and global problems are pushed out of disciplinary science. They are safeguarded only in philosophy, but no longer sustained by contributions from the sciences.

"In these conditions, minds shaped by disciplines lose their natural aptitude to contextualize knowledge and integrate it into its natural
entities. A weakened perception of the global leads to a weakened sense of responsibility; each individual tends to be responsible solely for his
specialized task) and weakened solidarity (every individual loses the feeling of his ties to fellow citizens)....

"Fragmented, compartmentalized, mechanized, disjunctive, reductionist intelligence breaks the complex of the world into disjointed fragments, fractures problems, separates what is connected, makes the multidimensional unidimensional.

"This intelligence is nearsighted and often goes blind. Possibilities of comprehension and reflection are nipped in the bud, the chances of corrective judgment or a long term view are drastically reduced.

"We find ourselves in a vicious cycle of increasingly multidimensional problems,increasing incapacity to think multidimensionally; the crisis worsens as fast as the incapacity to reflect on the crisis increases; the more planetary our problems, the more they are left unthought. Blind intelligence, unable to envisage the planetary context and complex, makes us unaware, unconcerned, and irresponsible."

Actually power of love read closely what Einsteain says when he says:

""This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

All this is saying have appreciation for and take care of the beauty of physical reality including all people. I have no problem with that at all in fact I think it's a magnificent thought. Note thought that it says NOTHING about unquantifiable energies, white light, astrological force, or gods, goddesses or other hobgoblins of the mind and it is therefore not mysticism which makes claims about metaphysical entities beyond ordinary consciousness. Beutiful yes, mystical no, try again.

P.S. I respect Buddhism and native thought for insights into the subjective nature of my mind i.e. fantasy but it is a dangerous ontological category error to think they have anything to say about objective reality outside my own subjective mental space. See my above argument as to WHY that is true.

Siouxrose said: "Sorry for the loss of my son." WTF!!!!??? Where did that come from?

You can say it's a circle (metaphor) until the cows come home but I always find what ACTUALLY HAPPENS is that those who believe in pre determination of personalities thorough cosmic forces or whatever always use such system to assure that they remain back at the castle reading (look I am the seer archetype what a shock!) while others are consigned to do the shit shoveling, hauling rocks, and fighting off barbarian invaders YMMV. Again I challenge you to provide even one example of ANYONE who invented a system of archetypes or other systems of freedom denying pre determination who immediately placed themselves in the worker class, never happened, never will. The propaganda may say circle (kind rainbow sister) but the results say hierarchy with the out group doing the shit work, thus your immediate dismissal of me to be the cannon fodder on the front line while you stay back and dispense wisdom THAT is hierarchy whethether you chose to acknowledge it or not. To quote the old Who song it's "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

In a true revolution everyone reads and dispenses wisdom and everyone takes a turn on the front line fighting the man get it?

Poweroflove made a serious epistemological mistake by saying the following:

"But seriously, I am aware many people who have resolved this Apparent dichotomy via a synthesis at a more inclusive level of understanding. At that level it becomes a non-issue simply because it has been outgrown."

Actually mysticism and science and NOT reconcilable for the following reason.

Science has a set methodology for sorting truth from fiction called the scientific method. This method among other things involves a null hypothesis

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis

testing against experimental data, and peer review by outside experimenters.

Mystical experience on the other hand involves either interpretation of texts or personal subjective experience with no mechanism for verification. Because of this it is essentially static in nature (there is no intersubjective way to challenge someones subjective experience thus it remains apart and cannot grow) and textual interpretations are in essence a closed system within language (called hermeneutics in philosophy) that involves no outside verification against reality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

The difference between hermeneutics and the null hypothesis is instructive

for Science:

a)Has a sorting mechanism against the truth of reality through the generation of experimental data that winnows truth from falsehood. Thus I will know if my theory is merely hallucinatory because the null hypothesis is NOT refuted by the data. The null hypothesis being the default that the theory is NOT correct.

b) Science can evolve because theories are continually tested against reality and improve both as our mathematical and physical tools improve.

Mysticism on the other hand:

a) Has no sorting mechanism at all, how can I tell if your "vision" is proof of non measurable metaphysical presences? Answer I can't, there is no testing of your subjective experience, I just have to take your word for it that you aren't bat shit crazy when you say you have a vision.

b) Cannot evolve for their is no continual testing of mystical experiences they remain subjective individual experiences detached from each other in individual minds and not thus not amenable to testing procedures like a null hypothesis or consistent experimental conditions that would allow repeated testing. Failing those conditions no peer review is possible except through hermeneutics which is closed interpretation WITHIN language.

Thus if say the Bible says the earth is 6000 years old within mytacsim I can either

a) Trust that the voice someone heard in their head in "vision" that that is true.

b) Engage hermeneutics to try to tease out of the language what it MEANS to say 6000 years old no objective testing is possible.

With science OTH I can just directly look at fossil record, plus radiocarbon dating, looking at trapped gas bubbles in ice etc to determine the age of the sample. This experimental data can further be replicated by replicating the experiment and peer reviewed both for consistence within the text AND agreement with reality.

Can you see in this example that science and mysticism are irreconcilable outlooks and that science is right and mystics epic fail?

Note that I am not saying imagination is not important. Imagination can help us dream up new theories and above and beyond that feels subjectively wonderful. I like nothing better than listening to Public Enemy, or Beethoven, or Joni Mitchel, or looking at a painting my Miro or writing a poem. What I am saying though is that if our thoughts are to speak about external reality outside our subjective experience truthfully then our ideas need to be tested against external reality using the scientific method. IMO much of what is called "spirituality" blurs these important SEPARATE ontological categories (subjective and objective) leading to much confusion and a flawed view of the world.

Thus mysticism and science are NOT compatible as outlooks on the world. Both may have their place in a certain sense (I'd substitute imagination for mysticism though) because one talks about subjective experience (mysticism) and the other objective reality (science). Further we have no proof that energies or other spiritual hobgoblin exist in an objective sense because they have NEVER been demonstrated through the rigorous methodology of the scientific method.

Hmm I guess my philosophy degree finally came in handy afterall. :)

For those that were attacking Korten for not speaking of the Natives.

When Christopher Columbus landed on a Caribbean island to "discover" America in 1492, a generous Native people greeted him warmly with food, water, and other gifts.It was their first encounter with Empire.
Columbus wrote in his log:

They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things,which they exchanged for glass beads and hawks bells.They willingly traded everything they owned...They were well-built.with good bodies and handsome features...They do not bear arms,and do not know them,for I showed them a sword,they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.They have no iron.Their spears are made of cane...They would make fine servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want...They are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have,they never say no.To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone...As soon as I arrived in the Indies.on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by forcein order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.

The above is the beginning of the Genocide section of "The Great Turning"

I've quoted it here on Columbus Day and other occasions.

KITAJ: You are obviously an open-minded, peace-making, enlightened individual; and I thank you for your contribution(s) to this discussion.

DAVID KORTEN: I am also honored that you showed up (virtually) in the forum. Your work is terrific!

MRAVEN: I am sorry for the loss of your son. Astrology, by the way, which is my area of expertise is NOT hierarchical, its teaching is based on the most universal and egalitarian symbolic model of all: the circle!

POWER OF LOVE: What you relate (deep & good posts) in the way of the consciousness of the parts and how they facilitate the workings of the whole is how I look to our earth as part of a set of planetary spheres or cosmic clockworks. It is not that a planet directly impacts behavior, but that we are all part of all that is, and what happens anywhere reverberates through us. Some of us are more sensitive to specific frequencies than others, just as some people are by nature empathetic while others seem to have walls built around their sensitivity.

It's a shame when this forum becomes a place of name calling and so much anger. It's like the frustration we feel for the decimation of our nation is too often cast at one another in this forum. I enter it to LIFT awareness with thoughts and ideas that are generally not part of the mainstream, and I learn a lot. However, there are some who just seem to want to scream at everyone else. Maybe that's their version of therapy, but I notice it's pushing some voices away... persons who once added a lot to this site.

Edgar (Morin) an then Albert E. (again!)

From Seven Complex Lessons:

"The 20th century lived under the dominion of pseudo-rationality claiming to be the sole rationality, which atrophied comprehension,
reflection, and long-term vision. Inadequate to handle the most serious problems, this pseudo-rationality created one of the most serious
problems ever to face humanity.

"Which leaves us with the paradox: the 20th century produced gigantic progress in all fields of scientific knowledge and technology. At
the same time it produced a new kind of blindness to complex, fundamental, global problems, and this blindness generated countless errors and illusions, beginning with the scientists, technicians, and specialists themselves.

"Why? Because the major principles of pertinent learning are misunderstood. Fragmentation and compartmentalization of knowledge keeps us from grasping 'that which is woven together.'"

*********************************************

Dr. Einstein, at your service!

(1954)

"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness.

"This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

..."The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self....

"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."

...............................................

So is Einstein a mystic or a rationalist?

Hint: Just stop with the divisive man-made labels, already! :-)

Our habits of mind have been part and parcel of the problem we face.

Thanks for the follow up David.

All else aside I've been having "the conversation"with many,many people that have never even heard of this blog.

I believe that preaching to the choir is good practice ,but if we want to make any progress it must become an everyday "conversation" with any or all that will listen.

Since first hearing you on Alternetive Radio then reading your latest book I've mentioned your work to many people from many different social back rounds.

As has been stated in the thread.

Any one doing anything to hasten the fall of the E M P I R E is traveling in the right direction .

mrraven, I fear that personal trauma has pushed you to opposite extreme of the new agers causing you to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
The antics and shortcomings of some *new agers* does not invalidate thousands of years of explorations of the spectrum of consciousness. Buddhism is an ultra-sophisticated investigation of the psyche and consciousness, and there are many who have integrated Eastern AND Western investigations of the psyche.
One CAN integrate the values of the Western Enlightenment and esoteric spirituality; just because it isnt easy or is rarely done does not invalidate the project.
Einstein said he didnt believe in a personal God but he did believe in the visionary imagination as did many of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. They saw the limitations of science, and they saw something beyond science. Ken Wilber talks about this, AND a critique of new age use of physics in "Quantum Questions."
I also suggest you check out psychedelic researcher Stanislov Grof.
And like it or not, there may well be a sacred science that integrates both physics and metaphysics and offers a DIRECT experience of the cosmic processes that create existential reality. However, I do not have the time for a debate about this.
For those who can handle a jolting presentation of our predicament, I suggest the documentary "What A Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire."
As to how to overcome the stranglehold the *rat bastards* have on this country and this planet, I am sorry, but, I will not talk about this in a public forum. We live in a country that would put Thomas Jefferson in Guantanamo if he were alive and writing today - enuff said. Regards, Kitaj

One the routes through which the "synthesis" I mentioned has occurred has been though the emergence of general systems theory (GST).

Prior to the emergence of systems theory, we human beans had obviously made great progress in working toward an accurate and pragmatic understanding of our world. However, classical science generally operated out of a tacit assumption that reality (or any phenomenon or whole) could be adequately understood in terms of its parts. Joanna Macy has clarified this point:

"Until our century classical western science had proceeded on the assumption that the world could be understood and controlled by dissecting it.

"Breaking the world down into ever-smaller pieces, classical western science divided mind from matter, organs from bodies, plants from ecosystems, and analyzed each separate part. This mechanistic approach left some questions unanswered - such as how do these separate parts interact to sustain life and evolve…

"As a result of such questions, scientists various disciplines, starting with biology, began to look at wholes instead of parts, at processes instead of substances.

"What they discovered was these wholes - be they bodies, cells, ecosystems and even the planet itself - are not just a heap of disjunctive parts, but dynamic, intricately organized and balanced systems….They saw that each element is part of a vaster pattern, a pattern that connects and evolves by discernible principles. The discernment of these principles is what is known as general systems theory."

Ludwig von Bertalanffy, (often thought of as the "father" of General Systems Theory) said it this way:

"I became puzzled about the obvious lacunae in.…research and theory…. which appeared to neglect or actively deny just what is essential in the phenomena of life."

He began with a general definition of a "systems" as "a set of elements standing in interrelations."

Originally based on work in biology, GST is now considered a general scientific approach whose principles are valid for living as well as non living systems. A system can be defined as a grouping of elements that possess a wholeness and in which the various levels of subsystems stand in relation to one another.

One aim of GST is to notice general isomorphisms in systems, i.e., to look for the general organization or structure in terms of similarities, differences and relationships instead of dichotomies.

**************************************************

According to Ervin Laszlo, the formulation of General Systems Theory was much broader and of much greater significance than a single theory: it created a new paradigm for the development of theories (from Ludwig von Bertalanffy Quotes, http://www.isss.org/quoteslvb.htm).

Work along these lines continued by Laszlo and Gregory Bateson, who addressed their attention to systems theory as a "bridge between conventionally separated domains."

This was an effort to perceive and understand scientifically phenomena, which eluded the mechanistic model of reality which von Bertalanffy called "the analytic, mechanistic, one-way causal paradigm of classical science."

The mechanistic model supposed a whole could be understood in terms of its parts, that the nature and function of a substance or an organism could be comprehended by reducing it to its material, externally observable components.

In sum, a systemic approach, as opposed to the analytical approach, includes the totality of the elements in the system under study, as well as their interaction and relational interdependence with other systems.

Systems theory exists as an interdisciplinary model or metaphor that seeks to address a science of wholes at different hierarchical levels.

Laszlo has offered a very clear definition of a system: "an ordered whole in relation to its relevant environment." Systems are embedded within surrounding environments with which, in open systems frameworks, they continually interact.

Macy has also re-introduced the concept of "synergy," a term coined by Buckminster Fuller, which refers to the phenomenon that the output of a total system is not reducible to or predictable from the behavior of separate subparts within the system.

************************************************

I believe Korten's work implies that we need a systems approach to dis-integrating Empire, and re-integrating humans into what and where we truly are - organisms embedded in, and functioning in dynamic synergy with - Community at level after level after level.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"The life of the individual only has meaning insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value to which all other values are subordinate."

Albert Einsten

Since we're on the subject of one of the world's great "understanders"...

*************************************************

Einstein certainly was a complex character, and is reported to have said all sorts of interesting things, such as:

"I did not arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind."

and

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift; the rational mind is faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

BTW - from where I'm sitting the whole "science vs. spirituality" thing (or rational vs. intuitive "thing") is So Seventies! :-)

But seriously, I am aware many people who have resolved this Apparent dichotomy via a synthesis at a more inclusive level of understanding. At that level it becomes a non-issue simply because it has been outgrown.

I've been fascinated by the discussion that developed here in response to my article and posted some of my further thoughts as part of this discussion thread. I posted it earlier this morning, but it seems to have been stuck for hours "awaiting moderation." Anyone who is interested can find my comment on my website at this link:

http://davidkorten.org/content/world-we-want-commentary

P.S. Big Raven who are "your people?" Are you a full blood Native studying with a traditional elder? Curious minds want to know.

p.s. poweroflove here is the entire context of your selected quote from Einstein:

"Science without Religion Is Lame, Religion without Science Is Blind"
- Letter describing Einstein's religious beliefs up for auction
By: Gabriel Gache, Science News Editor

This is what Albert Einstein wrote in his letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, in response to his receiving the book "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt". The letter was written on January 3, 1954, in German, and explains Einstein's personal beliefs regarding religion and the Jewish people; it was put on sale one year later and remained into a personal collection ever since. Now the letter is again on auction in London and has a starting price of 8,000 sterling pounds.

The letter states pretty clearly that Einstein was by no means a religious person – in fact, the great physicist saw religion as no more than a "childish superstition". "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this", Einstein wrote."

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Science-Without-Religion-is-Lame-Religion-Without-Science-is-Blind-8555...

p.s. dustichicage the sidebar idea with links to groups and other resources to take ACTION is EXCELLENT. As would be a discussion forum separate from the articles to have these sorts of IMO necessary discussions without burdening the items discussions excessively.

http://www.monicasjoo.org/artic/channelbrief/sinisterchannelings1.htm

While I was writing and gathering material for the book I became increasingly alarmed and frightened by the right wing, racist, anti-feminist assumptions in much New Age thinking. What emerged was a hidden agenda behind the facade of Light, love and healing, an agenda that supports US corporate free market capitalism, patriarchal science and other horrors."

*****************

Alice Bailey was right-wing, light obsessed and demonised darkness. When the atomic bombs were exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, her "Master DK" welcomed this as a great spiritual event because it would "liberate" light from within the dark womb of the atom or matter; justifying the destruction of the Japanese people, who, they said, were due to leave their physical form and belonged to an earlier Root Race anyway! It should come as no surprise to find that the Nazis studied Blavatsky's writings. And like Blavatsky, Alice Bailey was also anti-semitic. (see note 2

"I wrote "New Age and Armageddon: the Goddess or the Gurus ?" after the death of my oldest son from virulent cancer in 1987. He had become involved with Rebirthers, New Age therapists, with disastrous results. In the book I discuss, among other things, New Agers' reactionary and patriarchal worldview, their denial of life's natural cycles, their envy of birthing mothers (they believe in rebirth without the mother), and their concepts of poverty-and-prosperity-consciousness, which goes along with the "you create your own reality" thinking. They inevitably end up guilt-tripping the poor, oppressed and ill. This explains the self-satisfied and intolerable smugness of affluent white New Agers, who congratulate themselves on their good Karma and good fortune, claiming that "Money is my friend" (see note 1) and that physical immortality should be their birthright.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Theosophy/Bailey.html
http://skepdic.com/theosoph.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djwal_Khul#Criticism

DustinCigcago I did describe, what I did how it failed, and my latest idea reviving the g e n e r a l s t r i k e.

Of course having a GS would require work, far easier to rehash the tired old vapors of Theosophy of Madam Blavatsky the founder of New Age metaphysics and a known anti Semite I'd add:

p.s Siouxerose if we don't ALL decide to be front line revolutionaries the hierarchy is going to fuck us in the end. Once they squeeze the third world dry they'll turn us too, count on it...

Siouxrose said" "I was explaining that humanity is composed of different natural types with different gifts."

That's what all justifier of hierarchy believe, the interesting thing about such theories is that those who write them always give themselves the high material reward low work categorization. Have you ever heard "I believe in archetypes, and oh BTW I am an untouchable, off to shovel shit, bye." Of course not, and you know it, thanks for shilling for the hierarchy that's real damn helpful.

I explained in counter to poweroflove that some beliefs are false and not grounded in reality and some situations amenable to binary logic, anyone care to refute that?

Dust in Chicago I have probably read at least 3000 pages in perhaps a dozen books in the last 6 months, and yourself?

HOOT OWL: You are the one who's got an arrogant chip on your shoulder. I said I was a TEACHER which I am. Whatever you determine to be--sounds like a front line revolutionary wannabe--that's YOUR choice.

POWER of LOVE went into painstaking, patient detail explaining how beliefs work and how yours limit you and attempt to place blame on the rest of us. I was explaining that humanity is composed of different natural types with different gifts.

I will not further correspond as you are too busy pointing blame and are seething with anger, when whatever is going to shift requires OTHER. Good luck.

See also:

http://atheism.about.com/od/einsteingodreligion/tp/Einstein-on-a-Personal-God.htm

BTW Eienstein was an atheist not a mystic:

"On 24 March 1954 Einstein answered in English as follows:

I get hundreds and hundreds of letters but seldom one so interesting as yours. I believe that your opinions about our society are quite reasonable.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. "

*********

"A Chicago Rabbi, preparing a lecture on "The Religious Implications of the Theory of Relativity," wrote to Einstein in Princeton on zo December 1939 to ask some questions on the topic. Einstein replied as follows:

I do not believe that the basic ideas of the theory of relativity can lay claim to a relationship with the religious sphere that is different from that of scientific knowledge in general. I see this connection in the fact that profound interrelationships in the objective world can Ije comprehended through simple logical concepts. To be sure, in the theory of relativity this is the case in particularly full measure.

The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere. "

************

In Berlin in February 1921 Einstein received from a woman in Vienna a letter imploring him to tell her if he had formed an opinion as to whether the soul exists and with it personal, individual development after death. There were other questions of a similar sort. On 5 February 1921 Einstein answered at some length. Here in part is what he said:

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion.

Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.

http://www.skeptically.org/thinkersonreligion/id8.html

BTW none of this is new CP Snow noted anti intellectualism in the humanities in his lecture the two cultures in 1959:

""Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have your read a work of Shakespeare's?

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question—such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read?—not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their Neolithic ancestors would have had."

(pages 14—15)"

http://members.iif.hu/visontay/ponticulus/britannicus/worries/snow.html

We continue to babble non verifiable absurd metaphysics at our own peril for it makes us less grounded in the world we all must live in. And no the bastardizations of physics in New Age books are NOT real science but rather applying scientific terms in a metaphorical way out side their proper sphere of application. All having a foolish and flawed model of the world does is give our oppressors more power.

"Another example of this explicit hypothesis framing is the statement "the language of Eastern mystics and Western physicists are becoming very similar." It's just not true. As one quantum scientist put it "we don't spend all our time talking about these sorts of things as [Zukav] suggests." Science is still about developing models and finding facts to better understand the universe, usually (as Zukav himself) admits in maths - as far removed from Eastern mysticism as you can get. The fact that occasionally the oddities of quantum theory have led to some speculation about the interplay of mind and matter is neither here nor there (and when it has, the scientists have always come at "mind" from a scientific viewpoint, not "matter" from a mystical viewpoint)."

http://popularscience.co.uk/reviews/rev120.htm

More fallacies, sigh are we as dumb as Christian fundamentalist or what? Kitaj May said:

"The facts is, the study of esoteric spirituality and transpersonal psychology have shown conclusively that the human being can operate at levels of intelligence and consciousness light years beyond both conventional science and religion, and has access to a huge spectrum of consciousness beyond consensus-reality-adjustment-normality.
In other words, *spirituality* - the higher dimensions of consciousness - can be studied scientifically, utilizing empiricism and deductive reasoning.
Einstein and other western scientists were/are talking about direct mystical vision, not mere superficial beliefs. Exoteric religion - superfical beliefs held on to by fearful, immature people - fundie christians come to mind here, but this includes all religions - is exactly what Marx said it is: the opiate of the people, who cannot face Death like the mature mystic, and in their fear, are easily herded, manipulated and controlled by the Power Elite."

Just because you ASSERT something without objective proof doesn't mean it's true. NONE of these things have EVER been demonstrated in a satisfactory way or charlatans would be able to demonstrate them before skeptics which hasn't happened. The second part of your post about peak oil and other real world measurable stuff was pretty good.

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/11/fact-or-fiction.html
http://ask.metafilter.com/11118/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/science/14essa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://asa3.org/ASA/education/views/quantum-z.htm#i

http://www.badscience.net/?cat=19

Poweroflove:

"As I see it - to the very degree that you cling to your "either/or" (polarizied) thinking, you will continue to ask, "What shall we DO?"

And to the degree that you move beyond these unconscious frames — you will already be the Doing, via precise and skillful action."

Actually some things are amenable to classic logic and either or thinking.

EITHER we stop Dick Cheny's war in Iraq OR more innocents will die.
EITHER the CEO of Nike is stopped OR more people will paid pennies an hour working in sweat shop conditions that destroy the planet while displacing American workers making a living wage, etc.

These are examples of zero sum situations where classic binary "black and white" logic is 100% appropriate.

To think that all things are not "zero sum" or amenable to a more "wholistic" analysis is to misapply specific concepts from economic, physics and other sciences where they were never intended to be applied

Some real fallacies today. Doom and gloom:

"Hootowl you must follow your own path. Judging the paths of others is inappropriate and in my view just wrong."

Does that mean I can't judge Dick Cheney's or the CEO of Nikes path to destruction of us all as well? How nice, very helpful, not.

The facts is, the study of esoteric spirituality and transpersonal psychology have shown conclusively that the human being can operate at levels of intelligence and consciousness light years beyond both conventional science and religion, and has access to a huge spectrum of consciousness beyond consensus-reality-adjustment-normality.
In other words, *spirituality* - the higher dimensions of consciousness - can be studied scientifically, utilizing empiricism and deductive reasoning.
Einstein and other western scientists were/are talking about direct mystical vision, not mere superficial beliefs. Exoteric religion - superfical beliefs held on to by fearful, immature people - fundie christians come to mind here, but this includes all religions - is exactly what Marx said it is: the opiate of the people, who cannot face Death like the mature mystic, and in their fear, are easily herded, manipulated and controlled by the Power Elite.
If you stop and deeply consider what is written above, you will see that the Great Divide between the political progressivism and spiritual realization are not only not antagonistic but can potentially compliment each other.
That said, the reason for pessimism in the face of presentations like Korten's is that what he proposes is too little too late. He has a nice gig that gives meaning to his life and allows him to cocoon himself in naivete.
The overwhelming FACT is that humanity has greatly over-populated the planet and this population overshoot has taken us past the point of no return in terms of avoiding catastrophe on a global scale.
It aint just peak oil and climate change - it's also peak water, peak topsoil, peak arable land and massive degradation of all of earths ecosystems.
Gotta go, to be continued if necessary, Kitaj

Hootowel, if you haven't gotten any ideas on what you can do by reading CD, then you haven't been reading. (even reading is a good to-do).

Why not instead tell us what YOU think YOU can do...

(TO COMMON DREAMS EDITORS) it would be nice to have an 'umbrella' sidebar of other organizations and publications that would be useful to readers (on each article page, related to that article- would be the most helpful... see Cursor.org)

Hootowl,

For the record Herr Einstein also said:

"God is subtle but he is not malicious."

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

(Here I would substitute the word "spirituality" for religion, if I had my druthers).

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

And finally, my favorite:

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once.

"Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

*****************

I'd say that, combined, your posts and mine pretty much sum up the role of "preconceptions" and how they can get in the way of "grokking" the most effective actions which will help create the more-just-world we all crave.

As I see it - to the very degree that you cling to your "either/or" (polarizied) thinking, you will continue to ask, "What shall we DO?"

And to the degree that you move beyond these unconscious frames -- you will already be the Doing, via precise and skillful action.

Recommended reading: "Blessed Unrest" by Paul Hawken.----(not about religion or capitalism).
Cheers

Hootowl you must follow your own path. Judging the paths of others is inappropriate and in my view just wrong. You have chosen to use the Lakota war on new age abuses of their culture as a generalization that all should follow. Again I remind you that there are over six hundred Indian Nations in the U.S., and all have their own creation stories and their own beliefs. The Lakota are a medium sized Tribe and their views are not dominant across all Indian Nations. We respect our Lakota brothers and sisters right to pursue their beliefs. We do not allow them to tell us how to believe, just as it is clear here at CD that we do not allow you to tell us how to believe. I respect your beliefs, for YOU. Others must follow their onw beliefs. It is in collective wisdom that changes are made.

I want to jump in to respond to some of the comments on my article and to extend an invitation to visit my website http://davidkorten.org.

I'm puzzled by claims made by some commentators that I miss the nature or urgency of the crisis facing our species. Much of the article to which these comments refer is devoted to making the argument that we are on the brink of environmental and social collapse as a consequence of terminally destructive institutions and cultural stories. I elsewhere note that corporations are legally designed to fit the behavioral profile of psychopaths and that our governing institutions are prone to elevate psychopaths, who lack a capacity for consciousness, to the highest positions of power because they reflect the values of the system.

With reference to the now much earlier mention of genocide against native peoples in North America, I provide a brief, but pointed historical summary of that experience in my book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community in the section titled "Genocide" beginning on page 165. It comes just before the section on "Slavery."

With reference to American Indian culture, I consider one of the signs of hope for the human future to be the fact that many indigenous peoples, including Native Americans, are coming forward to offer those of us raised in Western culture a gift of their values and wisdom. It fulfills an ancient prophecy and is an essential contribution to the work of creating a world that works for the whole of life. I am grateful for that gift.

My main point in this particular article is that if we look beneath our differences we can find a foundation of common ground, our Common Dreams if you will, on which to build a needed political consensus to move beyond pointless debates about American flag lapel pins and whose minister said what in a sermon years ago.

I can understand that some people may find my call for conversation to be a bit mild given the depth and urgency of the crisis, but it is an essential starting point. Serious conversation, such as the one occurring right here, that challenges defining cultural stories is a revolutionary act that undermines the status quo by helping people see otherwise denied possibilities. Growing public awareness of the seriousness of our current human crisis creates an essential opening for the rapid spread of the conversation this article advocates.

One of the advantages of reaching one's elder years is having lived through enough history to experience how rapidly deep change can happen — and how committed groups can shape and accelerate it. I experienced the changes in race relations brought by the civil rights movement, the changes in gender relations brought about by the women's movement, and the rise of environmental consciousness brought by the environmental movement. Each began with a conversation among a small group of people that led to an expanding challenge to a false story.

I was an active participant in the movement that raised public consciousness of the use by global corporations of trade agreements to attack democracy, equity, and the environment. It began as a conversation among a few international activists the beginning of 1994 when there was virtually zero public awareness that multilateral trade agreements had far more to do with power than with trade. Our conversations focused on a search for common ground rather than attacking one another for our differences. Having found our common ground, we could each speak to our larger constituencies with one voice, but in our separate dialects. Five years later the epic 1999 protest action in Seattle shut down a World Trade Organization meeting and inspired the subsequent protests that brought the corporate multilateral trade agreement juggernaut to an abrupt halt.

It began with a conversation and it grew through the viral spread of that conversation to a point where literally millions of people were mobilizing around the world. It may have been a conversation mainly among members of the choir but it became a very large choir with a powerful voice that reached far beyond its members and gave birth to the even larger and more powerful social organism we now call global civil society. You can find more thoughts on the power of stories and conversation as a revolutionary force at http://davidkorten.org/content/story-power

Identifying the values and dreams we share in common, rather than focusing only on what divides us, opens the possibility of creating the broad alliances essential to navigating the transformation our current human circumstance demands. It may sound like a New Age idea to some, but my experience tells me is it very practical politics that creates the foundation for essential changes in our institutions and public policies. You can find more of my thoughts on how we can use this power at http://davidkorten.org/content/great-turning-0.

Those concerned about avoiding accommodation to the institutions of Empire may be interested in my recommendations to dismantle the military establishment (http://davidkorten.org/SmartSecurity) and eliminate the institution of the private benefit corporation (http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2171). Both are practical actions essential to our physical security and prosperity.

I have also come to realize over the years that responding to violence with violence only perpetuates the culture and institutions of violence that we must now retire. Self-defense and acting to restrain those who are incapable of functioning as responsible members of society is one thing. When we act from hatred to destroy them through physical violence, we become the very thing we deplore.

The distinctive power competence of civil society is our ability to challenge the cultural stories that lead us to yield our life energy to the institutions of imperial rule. Once we liberate ourselves from the cultural trance, we can choose as a people to withdraw our loyal submission and render these institutions powerless. Thom Hartmann calls it "walking away from the king." A prime example was the virtually bloodless coup when the Filipino people walked away from Marcos in 1986 and he fled the country in shame.

With regard to cynicism, no matter how much it may be justified by the circumstances, it only creates a self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecy. We must keep hope alive and act with confidence that creating a better world is possible.

David Korten

Obviously no one has any ideas for concrete actions but I'll ask again just in case, what should we DO people? Again I said g e n e r a l s t r i k e any other ideas? We have been being quite long enough IMO.

Poweropflove that is sheer sophistry on behalf of non action. Actually philosophies CAN be divided into two types

1. Those that believe the universe is knowable and measurable.

2. Those who believe there are non measurable metaphysical energies or forces that exist.

Einstein a scientist, i.e. an empiricist which is a knower of epistemological theory #1 above also said:

"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."

http://www.infoplease.com/cig/theories-universe/scientific-origins-universe.html

That is damn important for all this spiritual humbug is ghosts of the mind and naught but a distraction from doing the real work of figuring out what we will DO in the actual physical comprehensible world.

Siouxerose said:

"There are natural peacemakers, and there are those given to go TO the front lines. You may be in the latter. My role is to teach..."

What a condescending crock of bullshit for 3 reasons:

1. How do you think hierarchies start? They start when the local lord of the manor says I shall stay back at the castle while you lesser folk go dig the ditches and fight the battles, for I am far too enlightened to engage in such menial tasks. Untouchables much? Rich and white much? College student much?

2. I assure you as a philosophy major and constant reader that I have read FAR more than you ever had and from far more varied sources. Last week I just finished The Rise and Fall of Third Reich, 1500 pages of History, now I am working on The Fixer by Bernard Malamud, it's almost unspeakably arrogant for someone who mainly reads from "spiritual" psedo-science section of the book store to say I will be the teacher and you will all follow my great wisdom. Well guess what I prefer to get my great wisdom from books by people like Murray Bookchin who debunk new age charlatans on behalf of real revolutionary thought in the the true leftist secular anracho syndacalist tradition.

3. If we are going to win we will ALL have to be on the front line, no one gets to stay back at the ranch and read while other people do the work, as leftists rather that's what we are fighting against, and further that's a recipe for failure as it drastically reduces our numbers. Given a choice between being a priestess and shoveling shit most will choose priestess, that is the problem with the "spiritual" pseddo left that Bookchin so accurately called out.

Using terms like "New Age beliefs" or "New Agers," is so vague and generalized as to be meaningless. Such terms obfuscate and confuse. Using them reveals more about the user's fuzzy thought-processes, than about any referant in the "external world."

It's like referring to "native Americans" or worse, "American Indians" (do they live in Bombay or what?!). Generalizations like these are great for generating heat, but no light.

Korzybski showed that by using language this way, we essentially hypnotize ourselves...and make the ground more fertile for dismissing and /or attacking members of the imaginary category we dreamed up.

Of course we need to act to stop the "rat-bastards." If we believe we'll succeed using the same kind of "thought-forms" that got us into the predicament in the first place, we ourselves are deluded. Skillful means arise from skillful minds.

Paraphrasing...

"We cannot solve the extraordinarily complex problems we face today at the same level of thinking that created them."

Einstein said that.

So what are we going to do instead of 1,2,3? I am not saying it has to be v i o l e n c e but it has to be something different what are those things? I suggested a g e n e r a l s t r i k e. Any other concrete ideas to stop the empire? Hint chewing paradigm cud is not effective, you may get some college credits, you will NOT get social change.

p.s. CD moderators if you are really so afraid of views (and yes from the left) that challenge the consensus here how are you any better than the right wing O'Reillys of the world that cut peoples mics when someone stands up and says something they don't want to hear? Hint I had to break up up my posting and space words just to present a point of view within the overall left dialog, amazing and saddening to me.

5. Riding bikes, gardens, shopping at co-op, etc. Partial success improves ethics in our lives, reduces individual impact, and creates a model for a future sustainable society. Perhaps a drop in the bucket taking an overall system view.

So my advice? 5 works in at least a limited sense so go for it, I know I do. 4 may work on the local level if you are in a lefty college town sort of area, go for it if you think you'll actually get results. 1,2,3 do NOTHING.

2. Sign waving, permitted marches and writing to your Congress beast? Obviously epic fail the empire marches on not even pausing except to laugh and point fingers.

3. Electing Democrats, epic fail they vote for the war and don't protect the poor or the environment.

4. Voting for Greens or other third parties epic fail outside of a few progressive college towns in Vermont and California.

So here is my CD "quarterly report:

1. Paradigm tuning, meditating, and other new Age baloney? 200 hundred dollar workshops of traditions stolen from indigenous people who bitterly resent the theft as destroying their cultures (see my links above and READ them) has done nothing but empty some gullible y u p p i e s pocket books who have too much time on their hands. White and rich much? Verdict epic fail.

After that I went to dozens of peace marches and guess what it isn't working, it's not, can't you see that people the trees still get cut, the bombs still keep falling, the Wal Mart trucks keep rolling. Despite this failure people here and in the left in general seem p a t h o l o g i c a l l y weded to doing the same things over and over and over and over again to no good result. As bad as the capitalists are at least they have a quarterly report where they try to figure out what worked and what didn't and they brain storm to do new things when they lose money in certain sectors, and leftists? Not so much...

Since anything that challenges the pseudo left consensus and is long posting is now censored by CD let me try this in small chunks.

I have big Raven I spent a year living on a mountain under a tarp in Humboldt county California. In that time I hiked literally tons of food up a steep mountain under goon surveillance, slept in a net made of parachute cord at 150 feet in a tree, locked down 10 feet under a logging road, and was arrested and spent 3 days in jail for locking down to a sawmill gate. What have you done?

Hoot owl
Why dont YOU get off your ass and quit preaching to the converted and do something? And if you dont know what to do then YOU have not been paying attention or maybe your paying to much attention to one thing, all I know is that you are putting people down for a least they are trying.
And as far as my peoples beliefs they have NOTHING to do with your new age beleifs NOTHING.This is just another way of dis-crediting us. So knock it off.
Swine whith pearls!
Peace is beleiveing in ones own humanity!

POWER OF LOVE: Powerful postings! I have recognized that people stuck inside a paradigm don't recognize their state until something tweaks inside of them, that "aha" moment, and then they get it. This would explain why a great many argue within the paradigm thinking it's about the "us" versus "them" who's right dance that just spirals indefinitely maintaining a vicious status quo.

HOOT OWL: I use the Zodiac as my frame of reference, and it's far from gobbly gook. In fact it's ANCIENT WISDOM as opposed to your casual dismissal as "new age." The point being, there is not ONE right frame of reference, nor one RIGHT action. There are natural peacemakers, and there are those given to go TO the front lines. You may be in the latter. My role is to teach, lift minds and help create the critical mass of a movement that itself signifies enlightenment. Such a status if shared by enough would alter the context and texture of society. THIS is what Korten is also catalyzing. In any revolutionary movement, there are those that WRITE the message, those that take it to the streets, those that repair the wounded, and those that make tea. We ALL have our roles, so you can scream all you want for the species of activism that may seem right, fitting and timely for you; but you cannot speak for another.

Also, not everyone is cut out to be a martyr. Rachel Corrie learned that... the weapons today, the surveillance, the insidious nature of a growing fascist-police state generally means that those with the LIGHT must work wisely. In earlier times during similar Inquisitions, the sages left the cities and found small safe harbors. We have to not only choose our battles wisely, but recognize what role serves us (and our ultimate intentions) best. You seem to think you can create an instant solution, we are involved in a LONG work that will evolve consciousness. It is a tragedy that people are dying, being tortured, etc. I have NO excuse for that. But my storming the present DC Bastille is not going to change it either. Note the efforts of those in high placed positions who have tried and been thwarted. Your sense of justice is sound and I agree with all that's making your soul scream. I am not diminishing its veracity. It's all there... remember, too, that there is a higher law, that of karma. Your dismissing THAT is ignorance (if you take that stance). It's like arguing against gravity. Many things do not require your intellect's consent to be absolutely TRUE.

hootowl May 27th, 2008 3:06 am --- when you say "stop the rat bastards", do you mean 'removing them'?

I think anyone with their head screwed on right knows who the 'rat bastards' are: the ruling-elite 'corporatist Empire' that has grasped total control of our country and hides behind this facade of a two-party, 'Vichy' government.

But how to "stop (remove) the rat bastards"??

Korten argues for a change in consciousness, a "Great Turning", as do Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in their similar "Multitude", as does Al Gore in his fabulous "The Assault on Reason" --- but you seem to suggest 'stronger medicine', perhaps mirroring Raul Julia in "Havana" when he explains the need for violence against the Batista regime (rat bastards) to Robert Redford, "but they will not leave --- by asking nicely."

I understand the gut appeal of what you and Julia say, and have felt this compulsion myself.

But as strongly as I feel against this ruling-elite, 'corporatist Empire', 'rat bastard' group, which is so clearly blocking human progress, this is the medicine that I recommend to cure their cancerous metastasis:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/corr-m23.shtml

How is this googlygook going to help an Iraqi mother mopping up the brains of her infant killed an American imperialist bomb paid for with our tax dollars? Serious question BTW.

If we utterly lack focus on the real problems we will utterly lose and so will the oppressed of the world plain and simple. As far as I am concerned we ought to have been done looking "more deeply at ourselves" a LONG time ago, this self help/self actualization stuff was stale in the 70s and even more so now. We need to stop the rat bastards, period end of story. I'll say it again rat bastards for that is the language of the working class bars around here and we fail to speak it we will remain a pitiful 1%.

From "Seven Complex Lessons for the Future"......

"Rationality is the best safeguard against error and illusion. There is a constructive rationality that develops coherent theories and verifies the
logic of theoretical organization in terms of compatibility between various ideas composing the theory, and agreement between assertions and the empirical data to which it applies.

"This rationality must remain open to everything that disputes it; otherwise it closes itself into a doctrine and becomes rationalization.

"And there is a critical rationality which is
exercised particularly on error and illusion in beliefs, doctrines, and theories. But rationality itself is subject to error and illusion when, as
just indicated, it is perverted into rationalization.

"Rationalization believes itself to be rational because it constructs a perfectly logical system based on deduction or induction.

"However, rationalization is based on false or
mutilated foundations, and remains closed to dispute from contradictory arguments and empirical verification. Rationalization is closed, rationality is open. Though rationalization draws on the same sources as rationality, it is one of the most powerful sources of error and illusion. A doctrine
that obeys a mechanical, determinist model to consider the world is not rational but rationalized.

"True rationality is by nature open and engaged in dialogue with the real, which resists it. It constantly goes back and forth between the
logical instance and the empirical instance; it is the fruit of debate of ideas, and not the property of a system of ideas.

"Rationalism that ignores subjectivity, affectivity, life, and beings, is irrational. Rationality must recognize the contribution of emotions, love, repentance.

"True rationality knows the limits of logic, determinism, mechanics; it knows that the
human mind cannot be omniscient, that mystery is part of reality. It negotiates with the obscure, the irrationalized, the irrationalizable. It is
not only critical but self-critical. True rationality can be recognized by its
capacity to recognize its own shortcomings.

"Rationality is not an exclusive prerogative of scientific and technical minds, denied to others. Learned atomists, rational under laboratory
constraints and in their sphere of competence, may be completely irrational in politics or private life.

"...In our Western societies we have myth, magic, and religion, including the myth of providential reason and the religion of progress. We
start to become truly rational when we recognize the rationalization included in our rationality, and recognize our own myths, including the
myths of our almighty reason and guaranteed progress.

"This is why, in educating for the future, we must recognize the principle of rational uncertainty; if rationality does not maintain constant self-critical vigilance it can turn into rationalizing illusion. Which is to say
that true rationality is not only theoretical, not only critical, but also self-critical.

1.4 Blinding paradigms

"The play of truth and error not only functions in the empirical verification and logical coherence of theories. It also functions profoundly in the invisible depths of paradigms. This is why education must learn to examine them.

"A paradigm can be defined as:

"The promotion/selection of master concepts of intelligibility.

Order in determinist concepts, Matter in materialistic concepts, Mind in spiritual concepts, Structure in structuralist concepts are the master selected/selecting concepts that exclude or subordinate antinomical concepts (disorder, mind, matter, event). Thus, the paradigmatic level is the level of the principle of selection of ideas to be integrated into the discourse or theory, or refused and rejected.

"...Thus the paradigm selects and determines conceptualization and logical operations. It designates the fundamental categories of
intelligibility and controls their use. Individuals know, think, and act according to interiorized culturally inscribed paradigms.

"...A paradigm may elucidate and blind, reveal and obscure. There, deeply ensconced inside the paradigm, lies a crucial factor in the game of truth and error."

In other words, even as we act to bring about change, we all need to be awakening from a kind of slumber. Our laziness would have us just go along and get along: trying to solve problems with the same old blind spots, rationalizations, and polarized thinking - as in: "we either Act or we Think. It's cut and dry. Philsophy bites."

If we want to end our seeming compulsion to repeat actions that haven't worked in the past - and whereby we relieve suffering with one hand while perpetuating with the other - we're not going to be able to escape the need to...
look more deeply at ourselves, and in a word, Awaken.

Alrighty then, hootowl, I'll try to say it again, in yet another way (or rather have Morin articulate it, genuis that he actually is).

As they used to say on an SNL parody of therapy:

"You have to look at yourself."

If the need to abolish dominator institutions, cultures, and interpersonal dynamics were simple, we would have accomplished it long ago. Remember the French Revolution? Remember the Amerian revolution?

The paradigmatic social system that came into being with the ancient city-states of Mesopotamia, et. al. has been with us throughout the phase we (without irony) call "human civilization."

This very poignant five -or so - thousand year phase is ready to complete. It began in Iraq and, and strangely, seems to be finishing there. If we want to help move things - we're just going to have to be willing to do - and Think About Things - differently than we have.

So, Morin (considered a "national treasure" in France) suggests that if we are unwilling to see that our most basic approaches to things built have error built in to their core. Notice that he is not advocating a blanket condemnation, but rather a clear seeing, and willingness to move beyond the thought-forms (and actions they shape) which we have so far taken for granted.

Powerlove let me put it this way and maybe you'll grok what I am getting at, say you took a walk at the edge of a city next to a weedy field and saw someone abusing and kidnapping a child. Would you think to yourself hmmm perhaps the kidnapper was abused as a child I shall try to understand his paradigm, I could make a decisive action but I wouldn't want to be "inflexible and authoritarian" I'll introspect for a while. NO! You wouldn't do that you'd stop the motherfucker from kidnapping the child without prevaricating or trying to understand him.

IMO we are in the EXACT same position with the global corporate elite and DICK Cheneys of the world as with a kidnapper. The time for philosophizing is LONG over, time to stop some crimes against humanity. How are we going to do that concretely people? Hint we are failing the global criminals are winning, now give me some fresh ideas for actions.

Poweroflove that sounds nice and all but at the end day either we are going to stop the sociopaths raping the poor, the weak, and ecosystems or we aren't pretty simple really. I do take it as an absolute certain truth that there is NO excuse for bombing the people of Iraq and stealing their oil, or outsourcing jobs to China where they pay people who live in massive slum ghettos pennies an hour. I have zero interest in understanding what makes Dick Cheney or the CEO of Nike tick I want to stop them period, end of story.

Hopefully we will stop them before they turn on us HERE in the U.S. but seeing how ineffectual the current left is I have my doubts. Again if we had spent endless hour psychoanalyzing Hitler we would have lost, that is just reality, it sucks but those are the facts of life that no airy fairy philosophy will change and I say that as a philosophy major (2 decades ago) who waded through endless tomes of everything from Kant to Derrida to Bell Hooks.

Some people are just dicks really and you have to stop them from doing damage it's really LESS difficult than people are making it here.

Siouxrose, thank you.

I also want to acknowledge that the Korten Blog was posted in time for Memorial Day. The holiday itself (particularly our unquestioning acceptance of it) has always seemed rather bizarre to me. I do understand the need to grieve, and to honor courage, dedication, etc.

However, there is also an implicit acceptance (and often glorification) of violence and legalized murder and maiming, that underlies this "national holiday."

Memorial Day is, and has always been, about war and the human debris which Empire inevitably leaves behind.

Korten is writing about the painful, messy movement beyond Empire. With the weapons systems available today, not to mention the economic, environmental, and political challenges we face - the movement toward the paradigm of community must be at the top of our "to do list," if our (and other) species are to survive.

Most likely it will take great trauma during the coming years, for large numbers of people to really get it that together we have been walking down an insane, utterly unworkable path - for millennia.

Related to the point you make about "new age relativism," I'll simply say that you have misunderstood where I'm coming from.

The primary issue, as I see it, is..."Do you want to be right or do you want to be effective." As I see it being effective means holding yourelf to the highest standard: being constantly alert to notice one's own misperceptions and misconceptions. And demonstrating a consistant willingness to correct errors and keep learning.

Anything else turns out to be ignorance, arrogance, or both...

In this regard, recall that an authoritarian outlook shows itself as rigidity of thought. Dyer has captured the feeling-tone of this particular dimension:

"The way an authoritarian perceives the world & himself is often exhibited as a generalized unwillingness to consider perspectives that conflict with his (or her) own preconceived ideas…."the last thing [such a person] will do…is to listen, evaluate, & be prepared to change his position if it seems warranted.

"It is virtually impossible for him ever to [sincerely] admit having been wrong or having learned anything from anyone [with views different from himself]…You will never hear [him or her] say [& mean]: 'Well, you have a point there.'" …[When it comes to 'dyed-in the wool' authoritarians - rational discussion [regarding emotionally laden issues]…is never a cooperative effort to reach agreement, beginning with mutual respect on each side…

"The most frustrating thing about authoritarians is their inaccessibility: most of the time, there is literally no way to reach them."

mrraven500 wrote:

"Poweroflove sed 'Nothing undermines openness more surely than certainty.'

"What a bunch of totally unmitigated crap!"

First of all >>> great start, my man! Love the honesty.

Let's begin by clearing up that those are Senge's words, not mine.

Second, I have often felt and probably have at some point used the phrase "totally unmitigated crap." (kinda' like it!)

However, I usually manage to keep in mind my own fallability. That is, that I can be wrong (or at least only seeing a very partial view of truth).

If in truth you fully believe in your own sense of certainty, then I would have to say you have "certainly" sipped and supped at the Kool Aid punch bowl.

In fact we have all grown up in massively authoritarian society infused with the dominator dynamics you rightly excoriate re- the heinous multinationals and Cheney's of the world.

And yes, we all have been infected to one degree or another with the dominator paradgim, which at times shows up in our thoughts and actions. To be in integrity we all need to own the similar and resonant authoritarian aspects of ourselves when they emerge.

As much research has shown, most authoritarian individuals tend to share a strong tendency toward "anti-introspection" - they do not care to look within and question whether what they are doing is right. They just know it is. Because no questions are asked in this prejudicial world, nothing new can come in.

This makes for a claustrophobically closed system.

Beyond this one can say that the difference between moral, rational persons and truly evil people is that the former have probably attempted to correct those mistakes in some way whereas persons who can be designated as evil. are certain that they are 100% right in their actions.

As Peck has eludicates in his groundbreaking attempt to craft a psychology of evil (People of the Lie, 1983) - almost all the evil in this world is committed by people who are Absolutely certain that they know what they are doing.

http://www.nasa.gov/mov/230220main_9247_web2.mov
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05/26/best-image-ever/

Rational scientific thought 1 Irrational New Age Hobgoblin 0

Has any New Ager ever done ANYTHING even a tenth as inspiring as that photo above? THINK before you answer.

http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/gold.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_General_Strike_of_1919

I also said that was c e n s o r e d :

"It's different times maybe lets put out a call to Wal Mart workers to stop loading Chinese imports made under terribly polluted sweat shop conditions that displace American workers. Maybe there needs to be a telemarketer silence day. I DON'T know the details but I think we need to start brainstorming and I do know one mass action would be worth 10,000 articles like this one."

Have I removed enough confrontational words to be allowed to p o s t yet
m o d e r a t o r s. The reason for the spaced words is I think CD uses a word
c e n s o r i n g algorhythm and that's one way to d e f e a t it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike

Civil behavior I keep trying to post in formation about
g e n e r a l s t r i k e s and the m o d e r a t o r s keep c e n s o r i n g them. Ask them to let me post if you want to know more, shrug.

Civil behavior I keep posting information about general strikes and CD moderators keep censoring them I'll try again:

http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/gold.shtml