What do Bigfoot believers, ‘Intelligent Design’ cheats, and ‘Panaphonic’ and ‘Somy’ electrical gear fraudsters have in common?

Seeing is believing – this shows incontrovertible proof that bigfoots exist!

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. What do Bigfoot believers, ‘Intelligent Design’ cheats, and ‘Panaphonic’ and ‘Somy’ electrical gear  fraudsters have in common?

– my response to Brendan Cook’s article ‘Bears in the Woods’

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Brendan Cook has written an extraordinarily well-crafted piece entitled - The Bears in the Woods. It clinically exposes various kinds of fraud and fraudulent thinking.

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This post of mine is by way of an appreciative response, and an attempt to show what underlies the kinds of fraud about which Brendan so eloquently writes.

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The subjects of The Bears in the Wood are a roll call of evils buzzing around in our world – deception, self-deception, sowing confusion, superstition, fundamentalism, forms of truth-telling masquerading as their opposite number……

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These, and a whole fist-full of others, are the symptoms – but what is the disease?

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The disease is the inability, or unwillingness, to understand the different forms of truth-telling.  Ken Wilber has described the three ways of truth, and their telling, in two or three of his books.  He called them the ‘I’ ‘WE’ and ‘IT’ voices, three means by which we investigate reality and express ourselves.

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There’s nothing strange about I, WE and IT they are our forms of expression that correspond to the three major academic groupings the Arts, The Sciences and The Humanities.

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If you are a Scientist you are concerned, primarily, with IT-truth i.e. the kind of truth-telling about objective reality, using the methodologies of science.

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If you are an Arts-person you are primarily concerned with I-truth – the subjective truth that says ‘this is how it looks and feels to me, where I am, being me’.

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If you are a Humanities person you are, primarily, concerned, primarily with moral truth – as action in the world.

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Of course each form of truth-telling makes use of the other two – we are after all a single individuation of the human spirit!

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Interestingly spiritual-mystical experience is inevitably an ‘I’ form of truth-telling – it can be no other, and the mystical is the core of religion and religiosity.  However the study of religion and the action of religion falls under the moral truth of the Humanities.

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Religion is harmful, useless even, not only if it is the cause of conflict but also if it fails to lead to right action, in the world, in service of others.

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I have published 21 posts (of varying length and quality!) on our three I, WE and IT ways of being, expressing, and doing,  i.e.  HERE

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The reasons that people are deceived, or self-deceive, are of course, a different subject.  They might include the need for a security blanket, the need for certainty, the need to be right, the need to be on a side that looks like the winning group, the desire to be of the chosen people etc.

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Of course there are also plenty of snake-oil salesmen willing to start a religious group through which  they can manipulate and exploit those with such needs as I’ve listed above.  Fundamentalism is as Karen Armstrong says ‘the lust for certainty’.  Intelligent design is an unwillingness to focus on the real benefit of religion as an inspiring story and focus instead on mind-bending, mind-destroying literalism.

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Karen Armstrong is one of two writers who brilliantly expose the nonsense of misappropriating the methods and claims of one form of truth-telling in trying to operate in another.  (Terry Eagleton is the other).  Key to this understanding is the restitution of Mythos (heart-knowing, intuition) as the partner to Logos (reason, head-knowing).  For more on this see my posts, (of variable length and quality!) - HERE

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There is I believe a positive correlation between the historic subjugation of women and the sustained attempt to eliminate the voice of Mythos. Although the in-validation of Mythos is not strictly a gender issue, more the invalidation of the feminine, heart-knowing ,voice.    (Mythos unlike Logos isn’t in the WORD 2007 dictionary – it slipped away like women in history)

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Armstrong again writes at length about the restitution of Mythos, to counter-balance Logos, in her latest book HERE

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Two of the key phrases in The Bears in the Woods are;

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1) ‘and his standard of proof changes‘ – (the Bigfoot believer, Intelligent Designer believer etc) -  this of course points up the need to have moral integrity and the ability to understand the positives and negatives of the three major forms of truth-telling.  Above all it points up the hypocrisy of relying on a set of criteria only when it suits pre-judice.

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2) ‘he’s doing for personal fulfillment‘ (the Bigfoot believer) – this is a clear example of what happens when we are demanding one set of truth by misapplying and distorting one set of truth-telling rules.  The individual, the big-foot believer should be doing art about fantasy creatures instead of trying to justify the unjustifiable via unwarranted ‘scientific’ assertions.  This of course is ‘scientism’.

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Is ‘religionism’ a co-equivalent term for scientism? – to describe the mis-application of its form of truth-telling?  There is dire need for such a term.

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Another excellent cultural critic Terry Eagleton has also recently published a book highly relevant to this discussion.  There is a review of both Armstrong’s book and the Eagleton book –  HERE

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What do Bigfoot believers, ‘Intelligent Design’ cheats, and ‘Panaphonic’ and ‘Somy’ electrical gear fraudsters have in common? – ultimately an aversion to truth and integrity and honesty.  What is the antidote?

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Education is the answer, but between the cynical exploitation of children and youth, as in the deification of wretched specimens like Michael Jackson, and the equally cynical exploitation of the parents by snake-oil religionists it takes special souls to escape the morass!

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Understanding the difference between I truth, IT truth and WE truth can help some.  Others are just on the make, or simply feel snug in their fundamentally-wrapped-up world.

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Why see shades of grey when black and white thinking gives so much more self-satisfaction?

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How should we answer the question, “What is it to be positively and fully human?”

SunWALK – A MODEL FOR ALL PROFESSIONAL,

HUMAN-CENTRED STUDIES

NB On my blogs I want to revisit the concepts as ‘key concepts in SunWALK’. This revised introduction explains SunWALK and how all relevant concepts were ’sifted’ into 3 levels of importance.

The new posts will show the relevance of the key concepts to a wide variety of fields, from aesthetics to understanding fundamentalism, from teaching and learning to political reform

—–0—–

All professional studies need to take account of what it is to be human and of how, human beings function, in broad and holistic terms.

Being human is seen, intra-personally, as the flow of the life-force through each individual giving rise to the three ‘primary’ colours’ of Caring, Creativity and Criticality.

SEE diagram HERE

Caring – the ‘WE’ voice of caring and the moral sense, – giving rise to the Humanities

Creativity – the ‘I’ voice of subjective expression – giving rise to the Arts

Criticality – the ‘IT’ voice of objective engagement – giving rise to the Sciences.

These are seen as modes of being and doing, which we express, inter-personally, in Community with others. Hence the ‘SunWALK 4Cs model’ in answer to the most fundamental of all questions, “What is it to be, positively and fully, human?”

In constructing the model I gradually acquired a large set of concepts.

These I sifted through three levels roughly relevant to ‘important’, ‘very important’ and ‘indispensable’.

The indispensable concepts constitute the core model SunWALK, along with the model of what it is to be human.

The SunWALK model (of human-centred studies) combines the following elements;

1 the storied development of

2 meaning, which is

3 constructed, and de-constructed,

4 physically, mentally and spiritually, through

5 Wise &

6 Willing

7 Action, via

8 Loving and

9 Knowing – developed in

10 Community, via the

11 ‘Dialectical Spiritualization’ of

12 Caring,

13 Creativity &

14 Criticality processes, all undertaken in the light of the

15 ‘Sun’ of (chosen) higher-order values &beliefs, using best available, appropriate

16 content.

This framework can be applied to create sub-models for any professional studies. This ‘one-sentence’ version of the frame extends the 4Cs a little further and constitutes the shortest and most highly condensed version of SunWALK.

At this ‘third level’ the concepts are ‘organizing elements’, and we have a model as opposed to simply a list of concepts. To this set of core concept-categories all other concepts are related, but I have separated them out into important (first level) and second level (very important).

The concept list are not seen as absolutely fixed and concept-categories can be increased or decreased in importance – especially in application to fields other than education for which the model was originally developed. But since the core of the educational model was a model of what it is to be human it must have application to other fields of professional studies.

The two following sections are:

The second level – the sixty odd concepts of ‘main importance’, and

The first level – the 400+ concept list (still open to growing) – merely important!

—–0—–

LEVEL 2: THE CONCEPT-ELEMENTS IN SUNWALK’S CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

THREE ‘LEVELS’ OF CONCEPT-ELEMENTS A) ORGANIZING, B) MAIN AND C) SECONDARY

NB SunWALK is the mnemonic for the ‘what’ of the model, as well as its overall name The model has a conceptual framework of some 400 concepts. This list is of the main concepts, some sixty odd. The 4Cs, caring creativity, criticality + community & the name (& mnemonic) ‘SunWALK’ provide the central & organizing concepts of the whole model. WALK = Wise, & Willing, Action through Loving and Knowing. ‘Sun’ = light of spiritual source/s

The model as core process consists of four elements – the 4Cs Human spirit is seen as light – the 3Cs are the intrapersonal ‘primary colours’ of the human spirit (and correspond to the Greek’s truth, beauty and goodness) + the interpersonal dimension of ‘Community’. Corresponding to the 3Cs are three forms of knowing: ‘social-others-centred’, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ and the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’. The 4Cs are seen as the dynamic ‘how’ dimensions of the model. The one sentence version of the model is above.

In addition to the concepts categories/themes in the ‘one-sentence’ version of the model above there are there are two more lists – one of 60+ concepts and one of 400+ concepts, from which the model emerged via the sifting process.

—–0—–

THE SIXTY+ LEVEL 2 CONCEPT-ELEMENTS

1 Abilities

Action

Aims & Objectives & Goals

Authentic

5 Autonomy

Awe, wonder & amazement

Balance

Being & becoming

Belief/s

10 Certainty

Compassion and empathy

Content

Curriculum

Democracy

15 Dialectical Spiritualization

Dialogue see Dialect Spiritualization

Education, ed. as an art c.f. a science

Encouragement

20 Energy see spirit & chi

Engagement

English the teaching of & as an art

Environment/ecology/inner being

Experience

25 Faith

Group process-PFC/Consultation/dialogue

Healing

Heart-mind

Imagination

Intuition insight/inner develop/. Holism/whole/Holistic Ed

30 Human being -

h. nature/

h. spirit

Humanization & de-humanization

Identity

35 Justice

Knowledge & Knowing

Learning & Teaching

Life-force/energy/spirit/chi/inochi

Love – affect/spirit – see caring and

compassion and empathy

40 Maturation

Meaning & Meaning making

Meditate/meditation

Metaphor

Mind

Modes of experience & engagement

45 Moral ed. + m. sensibility

Mystery transcendentally & in human

nature

Personhood authenticity/autonomy

Philosophy & philosophical inquiry & Philosophy for children PFC

Process & process philos & theology

50 Purpose and identity

Real/ity

Science as criticality & objective knowing

Soul see also human spirit, mind

Spiritual/ity/ization/ s. qualities

55 Story & Autobiography

‘Sun’ as source of spiritualization

Teacher Education

Teaching & Learning

Text and Context

60 Truth/beauty & goodness – correspond

to Criticality, Creativity & Caring

Will volition and motivation

Wisdom

—–0—–

LEVEL 1: THE MASTER LIST OF 400+ ELEMENTS’/THEMES/ CONCEPTS FOR THE SunWALK model.

Aesthetic/s see Creative

Abilities

Action see Behaviour

Affective see feelings

Attitudes

Adulthood

Alienation

Aims & Objectives & Goals

Appearance & reality

Authenticity

Authority

Autobiography see story

Autonomy

Awareness

Beauty – see the Creative

Behaviour see Action

Being & becoming

Belief/s

Brain – ‘left brain’ & ‘right brain’

Caring

Certainty

Change

Childhood

Cooperative learning – see

community

Commitment

Communication

Community

Compassion and empathy

Conceptual development

Conflict resolution

Conformity

Connectedness see holism

Conscience

Consciousness & c. raising/expanding

Consultation – group process

Contemplation

Control

Creative thinking

Creative /ity

Crisis

Critical thinking

Criticality

Culture

Curriculum

Decision-making

Democracy and democratic process

Detachment

Development

Dialectical = problematization + dialogue

Discipline

Discovery

Discrimination

Doing

Dualism

Discovery (inc. curiosity)

Ecology see environment

Education

Educational environment

Emotion/s see affect

Empathy see compassion

Energy see spirit & chi

Engagement – see modes

Environment/ecology/inner being

Essence

Ethics – see moral/ity education

Ethos/Atmosphere

Existence

Existential/ism

Experience

Experimentation

Faith

Falsity

Feelings see affect

Free will- see will

Freedom

Global development

Goodness – see caring

Group process-PFC/Consultation

Team work/co-operation

Growth see development

Habit

Harmony – h. in diversity

Having c.f. being/doing/becoming

Holism/whole/Holistic Ed

Human being – h. nature/spirit

Humankind – humanity

Human Rights

Ideals

Imagination

Independence see autonomy

Individual/ity c.f. individualism

Indoctrination

Indwelling/intuition/inner being

Information – i. and knowledge

Initiation – education as

Inner being/spiritual/insight – see

interiority

Insight see intuition &

Interiority

Integrity

Intuition – insight/inner development

Insight

Instinct

Intelligence

Judgement

Justice

Justification – see knowledge

‘Know that’ – see Knowledge

Knowledge I WE IT voices

Language

Learning & Teaching

Life-force/energy/spirit/chi/inochi

Literature

Love – affect/spirit – see caring

Management

Materialism

Mechanistic models

Meaning & Meaning making

Meditation c.f. contemplation

Memory

Men/gender – see left brain/right brain

Metaphor

Methods in learning

Mind

Modes of experience & engagement

Moral development & sensibility

Moral sensibility

Mystery (in human nature)

/potential/subconscious/unknown

Narrative see story

Nature

Needs

Negotiated learning – see democratic

process

Non-reflective learning

Norms

Objectivity

Openness

Paradigm

Paradox

Participation

Perception/attention/forms/field

Person/hood see human being

Personal history see story autobiography

Personhood – see also

authenticity/autonomy

Philosophy

Philosophy for children PFC

Physical self

Planning

Play

Poetry

Politics

Positivism

Potential

Power & empowerment

Principles

Problem-solving v posing

Qualitative the

Qualities, spiritual e.g. empathy

Questioning

Rationality/reason/able/ness

Real/ity

Reductionism

Reflection – reasoning/meditation

Reflective learning

Rejection

Relationships

Relativity

Religion

Science – see also objective knowing

Self

Self-esteem

Self-image

Self-knowledge

Sensitivity

Service to others

Socialization

Society

Soul

Spiritual/ity/ization/ see energy

Spiritual qualities (e.g. empathy)

State

Story & Autobiography

Subjectivity

Tacit knowledge – see knowledge

Teacher Education

Teaching & Learning

Teacher thinking

Teacher thinking about the child’s

spirituality/holistic development

Thinking /caring /creative /criticality

see mind

Time

Tradition

Training (v. education)

Transformation

Truth/beauty & goodness

Understanding

Utilitarian

Validity

Values

Vision

Volition – see will

Wholeness – see holistic

Will

Wisdom

Women/gender – see left & r. brain

Work – re identity & purpose

SunWALK – A MODEL FOR ALL PROFESSIONAL, HUMAN-CENTRED STUDIES

.

NB On my blogs I want to revisit the concepts as ‘key concepts in SunWALK’. This revised introduction explains SunWALK and how all relevant concepts were ’sifted’ into 3 levels of importance.

.

The new posts will show the relevance of the key concepts to a wide variety of fields, from aesthetics to understanding fundamentalism, from teaching and learning to political reform

.

-0-

.

All professional studies need to take account of what it is to be human and of how, human beings function, in broad and holistic terms.

.

Being human is seen, intra-personally, as the flow of the life-force through each individual giving rise to the three ‘primary’ colours’ of Caring, Creativity and Criticality.

.

SunWALK logo - The 3 ways of expressing our humanity - Caring, Creativity and Criticality - in Community

Caring – the ‘WE’ voice of caring and the moral sense, – giving rise to the Humanities

Creativity – the ‘I’ voice of subjective expression – giving rise to the Arts

Criticality – the ‘IT’ voice of objective engagement – giving rise to the Sciences.

.

These are seen as modes of being and doing, which we express, inter-personally, in Community with others. Hence the ‘SunWALK 4Cs model’ in answer to the most fundamental of all questions, “What is it to be, positively and fully, human?”

.

In constructing the model I gradually acquired a large set of concepts.

.

These I sifted through three levels roughly relevant to ‘important’, ‘very important’ and ‘indispensable’.

.

The indispensable concepts constitute the core model SunWALK, along with the model of what it is to be human.

.

The SunWALK model (of human-centred studies) combines the following elements;

1 the storied development of

2 meaning, which is

3 constructed, and de-constructed,

4 physically, mentally and spiritually, through

5 Wise &

6 Willing

7 Action, via

8 Loving and

9 Knowing – developed in

10 Community, via the

11 ‘Dialectical Spiritualization’ of

12 Caring,

13 Creativity &

14 Criticality processes, all undertaken in the light of the

15 ‘Sun’ of (chosen) higher-order values &beliefs, using best available, appropriate

16 content.

.

This framework can be applied to create sub-models for any professional studies. This ‘one-sentence’ version of the frame extends the 4Cs a little further and constitutes the shortest and most highly condensed version of SunWALK.

.

At this ‘third level’ the concepts are ‘organizing elements’, and we have a model as opposed to simply a list of concepts. To this set of core concept-categories all other concepts are related, but I have separated them out into important (first level) and second level (very important).

The concept list are not seen as absolutely fixed and concept-categories can be increased or decreased in importance – especially in application to fields other than education for which the model was originally developed. But since the core of the educational model was a model of what it is to be human it must have application to other fields of professional studies.

.

The two following sections are:

The second level – the sixty odd concepts of ‘main importance’, and

The first level – the 400+ concept list (still open to growing) – merely important!

—–0—–

LEVEL 2: THE CONCEPT-ELEMENTS IN SUNWALK’S CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

THREE ‘LEVELS’ OF CONCEPT-ELEMENTS A) ORGANIZING, B) MAIN AND C) SECONDARY

.

NB SunWALK is the mnemonic for the ‘what’ of the model, as well as its overall name The model has a conceptual framework of some 400 concepts. This list is of the main concepts, some sixty odd. The 4Cs, caring creativity, criticality + community & the name (& mnemonic) ‘SunWALK’ provide the central & organizing concepts of the whole model. WALK = Wise, & Willing, Action through Loving and Knowing. ‘Sun’ = light of spiritual source/s

The model as core process consists of four elements – the 4Cs Human spirit is seen as light – the 3Cs are the intrapersonal ‘primary colours’ of the human spirit (and correspond to the Greek’s truth, beauty and goodness) + the interpersonal dimension of ‘Community’. Corresponding to the 3Cs are three forms of knowing: ‘social-others-centred’, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ and the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’. The 4Cs are seen as the dynamic ‘how’ dimensions of the model. The one sentence version of the model is above.

.

In addition to the concepts categories/themes in the ‘one-sentence’ version of the model above there are there are two more lists – one of 60+ concepts and one of 400+ concepts, from which the model emerged via the sifting process.

—–0—–

THE SIXTY+ LEVEL 2 CONCEPT-ELEMENTS

1 Abilities

Action

Aims & Objectives & Goals

Authentic

5 Autonomy

Awe, wonder & amazement

Balance

Being & becoming

Belief/s

10 Certainty

Compassion and empathy

Content

Curriculum

Democracy

15 Dialectical Spiritualization

Dialogue see Dialect Spiritualization

Education, ed. as an art c.f. a science

Encouragement

20 Energy see spirit & chi

Engagement

English the teaching of & as an art

Environment/ecology/inner being

Experience

25 Faith

Group process-PFC/Consultation/dialogue

Healing

Heart-mind

Imagination

Intuition insight/inner develop/. Holism/whole/Holistic Ed

30 Human being -

h. nature/

h. spirit

Humanization & de-humanization

Identity

35 Justice

Knowledge & Knowing

Learning & Teaching

Life-force/energy/spirit/chi/inochi

Love – affect/spirit – see caring and

compassion and empathy

40 Maturation

Meaning & Meaning making

Meditate/meditation

Metaphor

Mind

Modes of experience & engagement

45 Moral ed. + m. sensibility

Mystery transcendentally & in human

nature

Personhood authenticity/autonomy

Philosophy & philosophical inquiry & Philosophy for children PFC

Process & process philos & theology

50 Purpose and identity

Real/ity

Science as criticality & objective knowing

Soul see also human spirit, mind

Spiritual/ity/ization/ s. qualities

55 Story & Autobiography

‘Sun’ as source of spiritualization

Teacher Education

Teaching & Learning

Text and Context

60 Truth/beauty & goodness – correspond

to Criticality, Creativity & Caring

Will volition and motivation

Wisdom

—–0—–

LEVEL 1: THE MASTER LIST OF 400+ ELEMENTS’/THEMES/ CONCEPTS FOR THE SunWALK model.

Aesthetic/s see Creative

Abilities

Action see Behaviour

Affective see feelings

Attitudes

Adulthood

Alienation

Aims & Objectives & Goals

Appearance & reality

Authenticity

Authority

Autobiography see story

Autonomy

Awareness

Beauty – see the Creative

Behaviour see Action

Being & becoming

Belief/s

Brain – ‘left brain’ & ‘right brain’

Caring

Certainty

Change

Childhood

Cooperative learning – see

community

Commitment

Communication

Community

Compassion and empathy

Conceptual development

Conflict resolution

Conformity

Connectedness see holism

Conscience

Consciousness & c. raising/expanding

Consultation – group process

Contemplation

Control

Creative thinking

Creative /ity

Crisis

Critical thinking

Criticality

Culture

Curriculum

Decision-making

Democracy and democratic process

Detachment

Development

Dialectical = problematization + dialogue

Discipline

Discovery

Discrimination

Doing

Dualism

Discovery (inc. curiosity)

Ecology see environment

Education

Educational environment

Emotion/s see affect

Empathy see compassion

Energy see spirit & chi

Engagement – see modes

Environment/ecology/inner being

Essence

Ethics – see moral/ity education

Ethos/Atmosphere

Existence

Existential/ism

Experience

Experimentation

Faith

Falsity

Feelings see affect

Free will- see will

Freedom

Global development

Goodness – see caring

Group process-PFC/Consultation

Team work/co-operation

Growth see development

Habit

Harmony – h. in diversity

Having c.f. being/doing/becoming

Holism/whole/Holistic Ed

Human being – h. nature/spirit

Humankind – humanity

Human Rights

Ideals

Imagination

Independence see autonomy

Individual/ity c.f. individualism

Indoctrination

Indwelling/intuition/inner being

Information – i. and knowledge

Initiation – education as

Inner being/spiritual/insight – see

interiority

Insight see intuition &

Interiority

Integrity

Intuition – insight/inner development

Insight

Instinct

Intelligence

Judgement

Justice

Justification – see knowledge

‘Know that’ – see Knowledge

Knowledge I WE IT voices

Language

Learning & Teaching

Life-force/energy/spirit/chi/inochi

Literature

Love – affect/spirit – see caring

Management

Materialism

Mechanistic models

Meaning & Meaning making

Meditation c.f. contemplation

Memory

Men/gender – see left brain/right brain

Metaphor

Methods in learning

Mind

Modes of experience & engagement

Moral development & sensibility

Moral sensibility

Mystery (in human nature)

/potential/subconscious/unknown

Narrative see story

Nature

Needs

Negotiated learning – see democratic

process

Non-reflective learning

Norms

Objectivity

Openness

Paradigm

Paradox

Participation

Perception/attention/forms/field

Person/hood see human being

Personal history see story autobiography

Personhood – see also

authenticity/autonomy

Philosophy

Philosophy for children PFC

Physical self

Planning

Play

Poetry

Politics

Positivism

Potential

Power & empowerment

Principles

Problem-solving v posing

Qualitative the

Qualities, spiritual e.g. empathy

Questioning

Rationality/reason/able/ness

Real/ity

Reductionism

Reflection – reasoning/meditation

Reflective learning

Rejection

Relationships

Relativity

Religion

Science – see also objective knowing

Self

Self-esteem

Self-image

Self-knowledge

Sensitivity

Service to others

Socialization

Society

Soul

Spiritual/ity/ization/ see energy

Spiritual qualities (e.g. empathy)

State

Story & Autobiography

Subjectivity

Tacit knowledge – see knowledge

Teacher Education

Teaching & Learning

Teacher thinking

Teacher thinking about the child’s

spirituality/holistic development

Thinking /caring /creative /criticality

see mind

Time

Tradition

Training (v. education)

Transformation

Truth/beauty & goodness

Understanding

Utilitarian

Validity

Values

Vision

Volition – see will

Wholeness – see holistic

Will

Wisdom

Women/gender – see left & r. brain

Work – re identity & purpose

Education is a mess – is there an integrative way to teach?

I have updated an introduction to the SunWALK model of human-centred studies; 

SunWALK: Summary of the main meanings of the components represented in 

the model and its ‘logo-diagram-mandala’ – providing a teacher’s process model 

 

.

SunWALK: Summary of the main meanings of the components represented in 

the model and its ‘logo-diagram-mandala’ – providing a teacher’s process model

Give me a brief introduction:

SunWALK grew out of reflection on many years of teaching children and adults and particularly a period of five years teaching in a RC middle school – theorizing my practice via a PhD and practising my theory day-to-day.

SunWALK simply says that the quality of all of our lives will be higher if we undertake all education within the framework of deepening our humanity.  

Deepening our humanity is a matter of developing technical competencies within the chief dimensions of the human spirit; Caring (the Humanities), Creativity (the Arts) and Criticality (the Sciences & Philosophy) – all in local, national and world Communities.  These are the ‘4Cs’ of the model – 3 intra-personal, 1 inter-personal.

We and our one planet will be better of if all of the technical stuff, from learning to read to Masters degrees in engineering, take place in the context of humanization/the 4Cs.  This requires international, national, school & classroom commitment to deepening the best of being human as the context for learning the technical.

We can’t afford to have character and morality and compassion as hoped-for accidental outcomes.  Moral Education, PSME, RE etc. don’t work as bolt-on extras.  They need to be the general context in which competencies are developed.

It is a model based on the energy flow of the human spirit – that is the given. That is physical, mental and spiritual energy that flows through all living human beings.  

That energy, the human spirit, is the true ’stuff of education’.  With the best of the past teachers need to equip children to face tomorrow’s challenges which will always be a mixture of new problems combined with eternally recurrent problems.  Building all education with will be the medium with which the teacher works to nurture and challenge balanced development.

Today we have lost the balance between specialization, and whole-systems thinking and acting – SunWALK model brings into harmony the best of ‘Western’ & ‘Eastern’ world-views. 

OK – so what’s the ‘Sun’ and the ‘WALK in the model’?

The ‘Sun’ = the individual’s spiritual inspiration & values sources – accumulated and ongoing, as operating internally and as expressed in speech and behaviour. 

WALK = Willing & Wise Action through Loving & Knowing – here seen as the general goal for education, and as the interiority, character and behaviour of the student. 

The model/logo combines a range of sub-models including the following:

a) An ‘interior’ model of the human spirit – in relation to ‘the world’.

b) A model for re-positioning education within being & becoming human – in the world with others.

c) A general model of the curriculum – for primary, secondary and higher education.

d) A framework for the analysis and evaluation of teaching episodes or projects.

e) A model of education that makes non-faith-specific spiritual and moral education intrinsic to all learning.

 

THE MODEL AND THE PROCESS IN ONE (long) SENTENCE: - 

The SunWALK model of spiritualizing pedagogy sees human education as the 

storied

development of 

meaning, which is 

constructed, and de-constructed, 

physically, mentally and spiritually, through 

Wise & Willing

Action, via 

Loving and Knowing – developed in 

Community, through the

‘Dialectical Spiritualization [1]’of 

Caring, Creativity & Criticality processes, all undertaken in the light of the 

‘Sun’ of chosen higher-order

values and beliefs, using best available,appropriate 

content.

These underlined concerns are central components and focuses of the practice and theory in the model. 

This is an intense combination of theory and practice.  It automatically requires the teacher to practice their theory and theorise their practice – dynamically as practice-based research.  It automatically enables the classroom to be connected to the school & community as a whole and to e.g. a relevant department in a university.

It attempts to suffuse all teaching with the demands, challenges and joy of being human in the world with others.  But it seeks to bring together the Whole and the parts, the ineffable and the concepts – not just concepts because as Heschel (1971:7) says, “Concepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.”

The diagram/logo/

The outer ring of the SunWALK logo combines two dimensions:

1 ‘Community i.e. the social,interpersonal dimension of interaction with other individuals or groups.

2  ‘Cultural sources’ including such dimensions as the traditions, the political & the legal.  

The three major divisions of the arts,sciences and humanities are here thought of as the stored, yet potentially dynamic, accumulation of knowledge and beliefs and procedures – everything from galleries to written laws of physics that the individual can draw upon or be influenced by. This is the ‘stuff out there’ rather than the interiority of consciousness in which there is the perpetual flow and re-shaping, focusing de-focusing etc. of heart-mind.

In SunWALK everything within the inner circle = a representation of ‘interiority’, i.e. human consciousness – the human spirit. 

The human spirit is presented intra-personally as 3 ‘voices’ – 3 modes of being & of engaging with reality & of knowing.

The three emanate from the singleness of ‘heart-mind’, consciousness.  

They are presented (metaphorically) as the ‘primary colours’ of Creativity (the yellow of inspiration), Criticality (the blue of reason) & Caring (the red warmth of love). 

Creativity is the ‘I’ voice of subjective engagement via an artistic medium – it is concerned with subjective knowing and is particularly related to the core virtue ‘beauty’ and its products are of course ‘the Arts’. 

Criticality is the ‘IT’ voice of objective engagement which enables progress in the Sciences ( & Maths., Philosophy and ‘critical’ studies). It is concerned with objective knowing – and it is related particularly to the core virtue ‘truth’.  The products of course are the sciences and technology  - but also philosophy and critical studies.

Caring is the ‘WE’ voice which enables moral engagement – for progress in the moral domain and in service of others. It is concerned with social knowing – related particularly to the core virtue ‘goodness’ and to ‘the Humanities’. 

All three of course need to be conditioned by the pre-eminent virtue of justice.  All students need to have these ways of engaging with reality developed in a balanced way.  High technical competence combined with moral dwarfism leads to ……

The physical dimension is seen as the instrument for the flow of spirit in all of its forms – e.g. via dance, drama & PE and sports.

Each individual develops her/his I, WE and IT voices, the 3Cs, via socialization, starting in the family, the local community and then later in formal education. A sense of justice is seen as paramount intrapersonally as well as inter-personally i.e. it enables us to engage with that which is beautiful, good or true with balance, clarity & due weight.

The essential process in all 4Cs is multi-level dialogue. In the case of the individual dialogue is seen as meditation, reflection and inner-talk. In the case of groups it is dialectical process via consultation.

The ‘Celtic’ knot that surrounds the central shield indicates that the 3Cs are simply aspects of the one human spirit– the flow of ‘heart-mind’.

The white shield at the centre represents the meditative state in which there is no ‘focused’ engagement via one of the 3Cs – and in which there is relatively little of the interference or chatter that we experience in the unquiet mind. 

This can enable us to ‘go beyond ourselves’, i.e. transcend our normal knowing – any of the 3Cs (I, WE or IT modes), as gateways, can be a pathway to the transcendent and to subsequent improved insight into reality.

The black dot at the centre is the ‘well-spring’ of consciousness. For artists (and great scientists) it is the Muse. For religionists it is the voice of God within (albeit distorted by the dust of self). For non-religionists it is the inner source of spirit as energy & inspiration – the bits of realization and insight that come to us for which we don’t make an effort.

Educating the human spirit is seen as nurturing, and cultivating, the life-force which culminates in the developed human who, through higher-order consciousness, realizes abilities from within Caring, Creative or Critical engagements. 

Teaching is seen as nurturing and cultivating what is normally present, almost from birth, & certainly by the time we go to school – namely the flow of spirit expressed in nascent forms of Caring, Creativity, and Criticality – in Community with others. Holistic Learning takes place when the learner uses Creativity, Criticality and Caring – in Community – inspired by higher-order values – in dynamic combinations such as Creativity providing texts for criticality – which then, via dialogue, produce/attract the spirit for more creativity.

In SunWALK spirituality is not a dimension; it is the model as a whole. In SunWALK moral education is not a dimension – it is intrinsic to all of its praxis. 

The SunWALK logo can also be seen as a mandala, or even as a plan drawing for a fountain or an ‘arts centre of light’!  

SunWALK is a major shift to a process view of the world, of being human and of educating our young people. It rejects a worldview that is limited to the mechanistic, the ‘human-as-computer, the fragmentary and the materialistic; seeking instead modelling that is based on flow/process, holism and the spiritual.   

SunWALK is designed to enable teachers and students to become agents of change to transform a world that is still operated as atomistic, mechanistic and materialistic into one that is holistic, dialogic, and derived from the best processes and products of the human spirit.

The SunWALK logo and model of education Copyright Roger Prentice 1995 & 2009

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SEE ALSO these allied blogs --

 Human-centred courses –

 Dictionary of Concepts

Home is HERE i.e. my ‘meta-blog’ -The ´1000 ways …of Celebrating the human spirit

 

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Beware – some common-sense has broken out!

The Centre of Theology and Philosophy

University of Nottingham

CoTP News || March 12, 2009

BBC2 Documentary: Did Darwin Kill God?

alism

Did Darwin Kill God? — airs tonight!

A new trailer for the documentary can be accessed here (2 min 16 sec).

Airing on BBC2 Tuesday 31st March 7.00pm.

The BBC’s Darwin Season: marking the life and work of Charles Darwin – highlights:

BBC Two

As many of you may be aware, the BBC has launched a ‘Darwin Season’ on both radio and television to commemorate the double anniversary that falls this year for Charles Darwin: 200 years since his birth and 150 years since the publication of his groundbreaking book-The Origin of Species. The received view of evolution’s relation with religion is that the former undermines the latter. Philosopher and theologian Conor Cunningham from the Centre of Theology and Philosophy, University of Nottingham, says this is simply nonsense.

Cunningham who has just completed a new book-Evolution: Darwin’s Pious Idea, which will be published in the autumn, was approached by the BBC and asked to write and present a one hour documentary exploring Darwinism’s apparent impact on Christianity. According to Conor, the cultural war between religion and evolution, most vocally represented by American creationists and scientists such as Richard Dawkins is completely unnecessary and more than that, it is damaging for both religion and science. In his documentary – Did Darwin Kill God? – Conor travels around England, America and Israel interviewing philosophers, Bible scholars and scientists in a bid to discover how this destructive conflict arose, and in the process concluding that it is based on bad science, inaccurate history, inadequate philosophy and even worse theology.

The main purpose of the documentary is to offer a critique of both Christian fundamentalists who reject evolution, doing so, Conor argues, because they display a complete lack of understanding about the Christian tradition, and Darwinian fundamentalists – those such as Dawkins who take Darwin’s theory beyond the domain of science and apply it to all aspects of life, and is so doing undermine the very cogency of evolution as a science. Consequently, Darwinists such as Dawkins are as great a threat to evolution as are creationists. In addition Conor seeks to remind viewers of the orthodox understanding of Christianity’s God, for it is this understanding that makes opposition between Darwin’s theory of evolution and Christianity not only misplaced but impossible.

Also, the University of Nottingham podcast website has added an interview with Conor Cunningham: A plague on both houses (mp3 Friday 13 March 2009; 32.1MB, 34.41mins).

A slide version of the SunWALK holistic education model – on what it is to be fully and positively human

A slide version of the SunWALK holistic education model – on  what it is to be fully and positively human:

 

HERE

 

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Human Rights abuses in Iran – activists also report the expulsion of nine Baha’i students from the University of Kerman.

Further to the previous report concerning the arrest of Baha’i women in Iran another report states;

The offices of the Human Rights Activists in Iran also announced that Iran’s LEF has searched the home of Zhinus Sahabi, the secretary of the closed-down offices of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights and Mine Clearing Collaboration Campaign, who was arrested last week. Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel peace prize laureate, is in charge of both these foundations. The Center for Defense of Human Rights was closed on charges that it did not have an official license.

…….Human Rights Activists in Iran also reported the expulsion of nine Baha’i students from the University of Kerman.

To read the article go  HERE

Getting our I, WE & IT voices Balanced – inspired by Ken Wilber

Getting our I, WE & IT Voices Balanced

 

Are your voices in a twist? We each have 3 God-given voices to sing different kinds of songs. Imagine if one voice dominates & consequently the other 2 ’shrivel’ to almost nothing. Where would we be?

 

Answer – where we and our world are now. This is how Ken Wilber explains our situation.

 

All great wisdom traditions (and Perennial Philosophy) used to believe in the Great Chain of Being which taught that reality was a rich tapestry of levels starting with matter:

spirit

 

soul

mind

body

 

matter

Wilber suggests reality now is best understood as a Great Nest of Being – like a set of ‘Russian Dolls’ – same levels – ‘matter-body-mind-soul-spirit’ but like an onion. (All are forms of spirit?)

 

He speaks of three historical periods: 1) before the Enlightenment = pre-modernism; 2) after the Enlightenment = modernism; 3) recently = post-modernism.

 

What did the good side of modernism give us? The good side of modernism = we were able to develop separately the 3 voices of I. WE & IT – I, (Art) WE (Morality) and IT (Science)

 

I = the subjective voice that we express in the arts (Beauty – and subjective truth)

WE = the moral voice that we express in the Humanities including religion (Goodness)

IT = the objective voice that we express in the Sciences (Objective Truth)

 

In pre-modern times I, WE and IT were not separate voices. Before the Enlightenment the Church decided everything. It forced Galileo to recant the truth of what he saw scientifically through his telescope. The Church insisted the sun went around the earth. It also decided what was and wasn’t good, and what was and wasn’t beautiful in the arts.

 

After the Enlightenment modernism gave us three voices developing separately I, WE and IT which were also three separate ways of knowing which I prefer to express thus:

 

‘I knowing’ = the subjective voice in the Arts (Beauty as pleasing patterns en-formed) -Creativity

‘WE knowing’ = the moral voice in the Humanities inc. religion (Goodness as fellow-feeling) -Caring

‘IT knowing’ = the objective voice in the Sciences (Truth as sorting, measuring, replicating) -Criticality

 

The bad side of modernism = the domination by the IT voice (‘Scientism’) to create ‘Flatland’. That is the ITness of science has become so powerful that it has caused the other two voices, more or less, to become invalid. This has been called the dis-enchantment of the modern world.

 

Therefore:

Pre-modernism = science, the humanities & the arts couldn’t develop separate to ‘Church’

Modernism = all three could develop separately (includes separation of Church and State)

Post-modernism means different things to different people a) a reaction against modernism, b) a counter-balance to (Flatland) modernism or c) a continuation of modernism

 

More narrowly postmodernism = the idea that there is no ‘truth’ only interpretations, and all interpretations are socially constructed (by elites to exploit groups e.g. women or colonies)

 

Important in pm = ‘there is no grand narrative’ that binds – such as the Christian story. My answer = ‘yes there is – being human in the world, with others, seeking truth, beauty, goodness and justice = the perennial grand narrative’.

 

The bad side of modernism = the empiricism of science has like a cuckoo forced out ‘I knowing’ and ‘WE knowing’. Inappropriately applying the scientific way of knowing (empiricism) to other areas of life is called scientism . (Creates ‘Flatland’)

 

Fundamentalism is, in part, derived by rejection of modernism – especially separation of state & religion. Ultimately it = the unwillingness to let the I, WE & IT voices grow separately.

 

The good side of post-modernism – it teaches us that

1 Reality is not always pre-given, but in some significant ways is a construction, an interpretation. The belief that reality is simply given, is referred to as ‘the myth of the given’.

2 Meaning is context-dependent, and contexts are boundless.

3 Cognition must therefore privilege no single perspective. (SEE Wilber p121)

 

Conclusion: We still validate science (the empirical and the rational), though we teach it poorly, but we don’t validate contemplation. Contemplation can also be thought of as heart-knowing – which is inspiration that follows meditation, especially the experience of at-one-ment/egolessness.

 

Our interior self is a flow of ‘heart-mind’. – separating heart and mind has been a disaster that has invalidated, or diminished, the feminine principle in men and women. (Heart-mind is an ancient idea ‘xin’ or ‘hsin’ in Chinese).

 

I, WE and IT ways need each other. If a person gets inspiration from contemplation (as Einstein did) s/he needs to order it or check it with IT knowing and WE knowing. Science needs I knowing and WE knowing as well. The Humanities need I knowing as well as IT knowing. Art needs WE & IT knowing.

 

Organized religion has suffered because it couldn’t stay clear on I, WE and IT knowing. It has made a comeback via the arts and ‘pick and mix’ spirituality. Its special domain, like art is I knowing – + WE knowing as inspired by what it sees as the revealed word of God.

 

Action needed = The world (especially the religions, governments & parents) need to nurture the I, WE and IT voices to achieve balance and concord. Unity, peace & development depend on validating objective truth and knowing, subjective truth and knowing and the moral wisdom that lies at the heart of all of the great traditions. The call is to the balancing of these three ‘voices’ of the human spirit.

 

My educational model towards this end I have called SunWALK = we need to teach our children, and ourselves, to pursue Wise, Action, through Loving and Knowing guided by the Sun of higher-order values SEE http://www.SunWALK.org.uk Roger Prentice Email; rogerprentice@bigfoot.com Ver 8.7.06

Adapted from and inspired by the work of Ken Wilber in The Marriage of Sense & Soul

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE

 

Wilberian Studies; integral and holistic studies that draw on inspiration from Ken Wilber

 I therefore sought to outline a philosophy of universal integralism. Put differently, I sought a world philosophy—or an integral philosophy—that would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world’s great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations . . . a holistic philosophy for a holistic Kosmos, a genuine Theory of Everything.        —Ken Wilber (TOE, p. 38).

For my own work, and for the benefit of those with similar interests, I have decided to keep a list of sources that I come across that fall under the category of ‘Wilberian studies’. That is integral and holistic studies that draw on inspiration from Ken Wilber. These include leadership studies, education, philosophy, psychology etc. I am collecting these interesting variations on, and adaptions and applications of Wilber’s four quadrants and three voices of I, WE and IT. – SEE especially Wilber’s The Marriage of Sense and Soul.

My own diagram/application is at the foot of this posting.

Here are the first few other Wilberian ‘four quadrants’ variations, adaptations and applications ;

5 The Promise of Integralism A Critical Appreciation of Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology by Christian de Quincey

HERE

4 Intimations of Jung in Integrative Psychology and in Ken Wilber’s Quadrants by John Giannini

HERE

3 Integral Spiral Dynamics by Michael Dowd

HERE – click to see full size. Click HERE to see the 4 parts of the diagram in detail.

2 Developing Leadership Capacity: Searching for the Integral – by Wood and Hessler-Key

HERE

1 Prof Slaughter’s article

HERE

My own application;
HERE was to suggest that teachers see the raw material of their work as the flow of spirit (the student’s spirit and their own) – that spirit inevitably being socialized in to the three voices of I, WE and IT. Teaching thus becomes the work of nurturing refinement in abilities within the I WE and IT voices. The real concern is the learner and her/his holistic development
The real stuff of education thus is spirit – that uses community and cultural stuff drawn from the Arts, Humanities and Sciences – the Arts being the ‘food’ of the I voice, the Humanities being the food of the WE voice and the Sciences being the ‘food’ of the IT voice. Proceeding like this I have suggested constitutes a) integralization and b) spiritualization i.e. a paradigm shift and one that in my personal experience greatly strengthens the academic concerns of teaching.

Triadic forms: Texts and our construction of meaning

Within the SunWALK model at the heart of this site (summaries are HERE ) I suggest that we all communicate at any one time in one of three voices – the subjective I voice of the Creative (Arts), the moral WE voice of the Caring (Humanities) – and the objective IT voice of Criticality (as in Scientific investigation, practical criticism and philosophical inquiry). I suggest that education, and personal well-being, is a matter of achieving balance between those three voices – because they each energize the others. I also suggest that wisdom is a balance of these three – at least practical, common sense, day-to-day wisdom.

The three ‘voices’ correspond to other triadic forms – Kant’s three inquiries for example. Another three concern how meaning is derived from text. This topic is brilliantly introduced on Daniel Chandler’s website at the University of Wales (Aberystwyth). He says;

The range of theories about where meaning emerges in the relationship between readers and texts can be illustrated as a continuum between two extreme positions respectively, those of determinate meaning and completely ‘open’ interpretation, thus:

* Objectivist: Meaning entirely in text (‘transmitted’);
* Constructivist: Meaning in interplay between text and reader (‘negotiated’);
* Subjectivist: Meaning entirely in its interpretation by readers (‘re-created’).

It may surprise some readers that anyone could adopt either of the extremes as a serious theoretical position. However, there are prominent theorists whose positions are at least close to these poles. For David Olson and other ‘formalists’ the meaning of a text is ‘contained in’ the text, and it must be ‘extracted’ by readers. Such a model of communication is ‘transmissive’: meaning is seen as something which can be ‘transmitted’ from a ’sender’ to a passive ‘receiver’. As one moves towards the other pole the model of communication becomes more of a process of ‘negotiation’ or ‘construction’ (variously referred to as a ‘constructionist’, ‘constructivist’, ’social-interactive’ or ‘dialogical’ model). In formalist theories meaning resides in texts ; in dialogical theories meaning is a process of negotiation between writers and readers (Holquist 1983). Those who stress negotiated meaning argue that the meanings of texts are neither completely predetermined nor completely open, but are subject to certain constraints. Some commentators refer to influences on the process of making meaning such as ‘a preferred reading’ – which may be represented in the text as ‘an inscribed reader’ or may emerge in ‘interpretative communities’. Individual readers may either accept, modify, ignore or reject such preferred readings, according to their experience, attitudes and purposes. This whole attitudinal spectrum towards meaning- making with texts parallels that relating to the nature of reality: ranging from objectivism, via intersubjectivity, to subjectivism.

As I have mentioned elsewhere understanding, and upholding, these various triadic approaches is vital to upholding an inclusive, universalist, world view and a balanced understanding of reality. It is also the antidote to fundamentalism and to various other sicknesses that plague us.
To be developed.

The ‘SunWALK PhD’ is HERE

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To read the rest of Daniel Chandler’s introduction – and much more – go HERE

A very interesting article on identity, prepared by Chandler for the OU, is HERE

Other articles by Chandler are HERE

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NB All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

 

Flatland, Modernism, pre-modernism and post-modernism – Ken Wilber’s view

If you’ve struggled with what people actually mean by postmodernism and its relationship to modernism and pre-modernism you might appreciate these extracts from Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology – I certainly did.

 

See also my other posting on I, WE & IT and also the posting on Mythos and Logos including Karen Armstrong’s work.

 

Modernism, pre-modernism and post-modernism

In other words, the four quadrants (or the Big Three) are actually the underpinnings of the modern differentiation of the values spheres of art, morals and science. Where premodernity had tended to fuse, or not clearly differentiate, the Big Three, modernity clearly differentiated them and set each free to pursue its own path. This differentiation was part of the dignity of modernity, which, in allowing each domain to pursue its own truths, allowed each to make stunning and far-reaching discoveries , discoveries that, even the harshest critics agree, set modernity apart from premodernity.

 

But something else set modernity apart. The differentiation of the big Three went too far into the dissociation of the Big Three : the dignity drifted into disaster, and this allowed an imperialistic science to dominate the other spheres and claim that they possessed no inherent reality of their own (scientism, scientific materialism, one-dimensional man, the disenchantment of the world). Gone was mind and soul and spirit, and in their place, as far as the eye could see, the unending dreariness of a world of its; ” a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; merely the hurrying a material, endlessly, meaninglessly.”

 

And so it came about that virtually the entire spectrum of consciousness, and certainly its higher levels, (soul and spirit), were reduced to permutations and combinations of matter and bodies. Put bluntly, all ‘Is’ and ‘we’s’ were reduced to ‘its’, to objects of the scientific gaze, which no matter how long or hard it looked, could find nothing resembling the Great Nest of human possibilities, but saw only endless patterns of process ‘its’, scurrying here and there. Integral Psychology P.64

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Thus , it seems that premodernity had at least one great strength that modernity lacked: it recognized the entire Great Nest of Being, which is basically a general map of higher human potentials. But premodernity also had at least one great weakness; it did not fully differentiate the value spheres at any of the levels of the Great Nest. Thus, among other things, objective-scientific investigation of the spectrum was hampered; the specific and often cultural expressions of the Great Nest were taken to be universally valid; and the moral injunctions recommended to all were tied to those limited cultural expressions. Giordano Bruno might have experienced many of he upper levels of the Great Nest, but because the value spheres were not fully differentiated at large and their individual freedoms were not protected by law and custom, the Inquisition cheerfully burned him at the stake.

 

Modernity, on the other hand, did manage to differentiate the Big Three of art, morals and science, on a large scale, so that each began to make phenomenal discoveries. But as the Big Three dissociated, and scientific colonialism began its aggressive career, all ‘Is’ and all ‘we’s’ were reduced to patterns of objective ‘its’, and thus all the interior stages of consciousness – reaching from body to mind to soul to spirit – were summarily dismissed as so much superstitious nonsense. The Great Nest collapsed into scientific materialism – into what we will be calling “flatland” – and there the modern world, by and large, still remains.

 

Our job, it thus appears, is to take the strengths of both premodernity and modernity, and jettison their weaknesses. Pp 64-65

To re-legitimize other ways of knowing, to work clearly with and between all three I, WE & IT ways of knowing (plus community-tradition) brings the possibility of re-enchantment and balanced development of the individual and of societies!

The model at the heart of this site utilizes Wilber’s triadic structure you can read a summary HERE.

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

 

Where does Aesthetics and Aesthetic experience fit in all of this? (re Wilber, heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’)

see post on September 5th, 2007

 

Where does Aesthetics and Aesthetic experience fit in all of this?

Aesthetics belongs to the science of philosophy (Criticality) BUT aesthetic experiences are ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ i.e they are Creative and subjective.

 

The Indian philosopher Coomaraswami said that art and religion were not similar – they are, he said, the same. I would say that they are the same in that both involve engagement that involves a ‘loss of ego boundaries’ i.e. they are ‘unitive’ experiences. But both of these are or can be morally neutral activities. Religion on the other hand is false if its spirituality does not engender right action.

 

Aesthetic experience then, so I argue, is closer to artistic creation and is similar to mystical experience. We may or may not see our unitive experience as taking place within a moral context or a moral world-view, such as a religion. That is a unitive experience like membership of a religion, or a taste for spiritual food does not of itself mean that we and our actions are moral. We have more or less the sensibility and will to grasp the moral implications and act on them

 

Our moral sense comes from parents, family, schooling etc. If we are religious then a major shaper of our moral sensibility is the founder of the religion and his/her teachings. If we are Humanist or a ‘Free-thinker’ other inspiring individuals shape our moral sensibility.

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE

 

 

 

Wilber, heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’ through which we engage with reality

Heart-knowing, head-knowing, and the 3 ‘voices’ through which we engage with reality

The three intrapersonal ‘voices’ of human engagement, have previously been presented as Caring, Creativity and Criticality.

Our Caring, Creativity and Criticality ways of engaging are developed through internalizing the voices of parents and family and then all of the Humanities, the Arts and the Sciences experiences we have at school and in the wider society.

 

Corresponding to the three voices we have three ways of knowing:

1 the ‘social-others-centred’ way of knowing – in the case of Caring

2 the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ way of knowing – in the case of Creativity and

3 the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’ way of knowing – in the case of Criticality

So;

Caring, the ‘social-others-centred’ way of knowing = the internalized voice of the Humanities, and is about engaging with reality via the moral viewpoint

 

Creativity, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’ way of knowing = the internalized voice of the Arts, and is about engaging with reality via the subjective viewpoint

 

Criticality the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’ way of knowing = the internalized moral voice of the ‘Sciences’ and is about engaging with reality via the (supposed) objective viewpoint.

 

NB Criticality is wider that what is normally meant by the Sciences and scientific methods. It includes philosophy and such activities as Eng Lit criticism. Why? Because it is about reasoning and other ‘left-brain’ objective activities. The participant assumes the position of being objective and is learning or teaching about phenomena – s/he is not learning or teaching in the phenomena – a distinction that correlates with that between ‘knowing that’ (Paris is the capital of France) and ‘knowing how’ (being able to dance a response to a tragic event).

 

Heart-knowing and head-knowing, left-brain and right-brain

Heart-knowing, the ‘subjective-creative-mystical’, is seen as partly an innate, intuitive way of knowing and seems to relate to right-brain activities.

 

The ‘methods of the ‘objective-reasoning-scientific’’voice’ seem to relate to right-brain activities.

 

The third form, i.e. social knowing, is seen as deriving from the cultural interpersonal matrix of family and community relationships, internalized as the Caring seems to draw upon both sides of the brain (as do architects!).

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NB All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE

 

 

 

 

Diagram of the SunWALK model of Holistic Education

The SunWALK logo/diagram conveys the basic ideas of the SunWALK model of Holistic Education;

 

The diagram functions as a logo, badge, a mandala, diagram, curriculum outline, model of what it is to be human (- and even as a building plan design).

You can read more about the basic ideas HERE

or a complete doctoral thesis HERE

Personal Helicon by Seamus Heaney; resonance, memory, self-understanding and depths of the soul

Sculpture the ‘Well of Life’, Zagreb – source

I chose the following poem by Seamus Heaney (1996 p.14) as ‘the poem’ for my doctoral thesis because it shows beautifully how we resonate now, in relation to what we sensed and experienced as children. It also shows how, through metaphor, the objective connects with the subjective to thrill, to the very quick of our being.

About the poem, Personal Helicon Pelligrino (2003 p.1) explains;
Mount Helicon is a mountain in Greece, that was, in classical mythology, sacred to Apollo and the Muses. From it flowed two fountains of poetic inspiration. Heaney is here presenting his own source of inspiration, the “dark drop” into personal and cultural memory, made present by the depths of the wells in his childhood. Now, as a man, he is too mature to scramble about on hands and knees, looking into the deep places of the earth, but he has his poetry – and, thank God, so do we.

Of course if Heaney was reading it we would have that wonderful voice, like an aromatic tree giving up the sap, and perfuming the air with all the good things from the soil.

Personal Helicon by Seamus Heaney
for Michael Longley

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.
Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

—–0—–

All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE

PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY – TWO VIEWS A) BY KEN WILBER AND B) BY DEB PLATT

Even a cursory glance at the ideological and physical conflicts of today will indicate the desperate need for understanding that enables a ‘clearing in the forest’ of beliefs – one that will enable harmony in diversity.

 

On this site I argue that the deepest recognition has to lie in our humanity which we hold in common with all others – I am human, you are human, they are human – we all are human. However since religion exists in many and powerful manifestations the most important of all questions is, “In what ways is there a common light at the centre of of all of the great world religions?” The answer is presented in Perennial Philosophy. Perennial Philosophy is not a particularly good title – something like ‘core mystical reality’ or ‘the great chain of being’ are more accurate, albeit much clumsier titles.

 

In many ways the appeal to recognize sameness in others, harmony in diversity, is also a call to a kind of federalism. That is to say such a recognition will enable the people of the world to hold an allegiance to the whole as well as to the particular – much as most Americans or Germans hold an allegiance to their national government as well as to their state governments.

 

HERE IS HOW KEN WILBER SUMMARIZES THE SEVEN MAJOR POINTS OF THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, IN HIS BOOK GRACE AND GRIT:

1. Spirit exists.
2. Spirit is found within.
3. Most of us don’t realize this Spirit within, however, because we are living in a world of sin,
separation, and duality–that is, we are living in a fallen or illusory state.
4. There is a way out of this fallen state of sin and illusion, there is a Path to our liberation.
5. If we follow this path to its conclusion, the result is a Rebirth or Enlightenment, a direct experience
of Spirit within, a Supreme Liberation, which–
6 marks the end of sin and suffering, and
which
7 issues in social action of mercy and compassion on behalf of all sentient beings.

THIS IS HOW DEB PLATT PRESENTED HER LATE LEMENTED SITE ON WHICH SHE BROUGHT TOGETHER A VAST AND BEAUTIFUL SELECTION OF QUOTATIONS FROM WORLD RELIGIONS

If anyone knows what happened to her site please tell me. Her site was a truly great contribution toward religious understanding and its disappearance a great loss. Equally if you managed to copy her site before it was taken down please let me know (rogerprenticeATbigfoot.com relace AT with @).

 

This is the ‘universal’, mystic heart of all of the great wisdom traditions as Deb Platt presented it;

• There’s a reality beyond the material world:
• Which is uncreated.
• It pervades everything,
• but remains beyond the reach of human knowledge and understanding.
• You approach that reality by:
• Distinguishing ego from true self
• Understanding the nature of desire
• Becoming unattached
• Forgetting about preferences
• Not working for personal gain
• Letting go of thoughts
• Redirecting your attention
• Being devoted
• Being humble
• Invoking that reality
• Surrendering
• That reality approaches you through:
• Grace
• The teacher
• You’re transformed so that you embody that reality by:
• Dying and being reborn

Holistic Education doesn’t have allegiance to any one religion or philosophy, but Perennial Philosophy is very important for many and is the position of this site. It is motivated by recognition of the essential oneness of the great wisdom traditions

(SEE also Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy or Chap 2 of Jack Miller’s Educating for Wisdom & Compassion)

‘Practical theory’ re: Jane’s Short Story, meaning, interpretation, stories, meta-thinking, the teacher – and generating an antidote to fundamentalism!

 

     Teachers, and other professionals, deal in a) texts (written and other kinds) and b) discourse about their meaning and interpretation with students every day.

 

     When we engage with texts we do so in one of three voices – the philosophical-scientific, the creative or the moral-caring. This article comprises the first of a few reflections about hermeneutics in relation to the process of teaching – and in relation to the SunWALK model and ‘what it is to be fully and positively human’ – the main focus of this site.

 

‘Essentially, hermeneutics involves cultivating the ability to understand things from somebody else’s point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. Hermeneutics is the process of applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts (such as art or sculpture or architecture), which may be either historic or contemporary.’ Wiki

 

     1 It makes sense for middle school children, and above, to come to understand that texts represent possible meanings and ‘critiques’ represent readings of texts. It might also be useful from this to understand that readings can both change over time in our lives, but principles might remain constant.

 

    
Developing meta-thinking via periodic re-visits to a useful text

     There are calls for teachers to help children to achieve meta-thinking and one enjoyable way is to re-visit a story in succeeding years with the discourse centred around such questions as;

“How do you read the story?” and

“How do you feel what you’ve learned over last year has changed your views and, what you value – in relation to the story?” and

“In what respects have you, and your thinking, changed and developed over the last year?”and

“How do you read the story now compared to when you first ‘met it’ – what’s stayed the same and what has changed?”

 

     One re-visiting was to Jane’s Short Story in a Roman Catholic middle school. Jane’s Short Story was posted to this site yesterday (8^th Aug 2007). I wrote Jane’s Short Story to see how good Year 7 children (11 to 12 year olds) were at de-constructing and critiquing a piece that was deliberately stream-of-consciousness, oblique and cryptic! They surprised me the first time we used the story as a text and they also impressed me with their reflections on how their thinking had developed and the differences they saw on their second encounter.

 

     Such work is also an antidote to the shallowness and superficiality that blights much of what children suffer in school. If you treat children as profound thinkers they show that they are profound thinkers – that’s part of the genius of the process in Lipman’s Philosophy for Children

 

What’s the connection with the SunWALK model?

 

     PFC Philosophy for Children is the exemplary programme for the ‘IT’ voice, the objective mode of engaging with truth. The spirit flows even more powerfully if we combine IT engagement with working with the ‘I’ voice of creative expression. This means that the children can treat the text, including occasionally pieces by the teacher and/or other pupils both as literary text and as philosophical text. Switching back and forth between the two activities and the two treatments of text becomes a very powerful mode of teaching – including for the third voice, that of the moral and other-centred i.e Caring.

 

What’s the connection with fundamentalism?

     There are many including;

Once you have separated out the different forms of truth-telling, the IT voice of philosophy and science, the ‘I’ voice of Creativity and the ‘WE’ voice of Caring you no longer have to defend texts in inappropriate and very dangerous ways. Treating religious texts as the supreme sources of inspiration for acting with justice, truth, beauty and goodness makes sense. Treating such texts as finite and fixed in their meaning as if they were simply mathematic formulae doesn’t.

     It is we who make the meaning, not God – which is why we should always be tentative in how we assert our interpretations (including this one!). Sacred texts are gifts of meaning-making possibilities. Of course part of the texts is time-related and part constitutes eternal realities, but understanding what we are doing as we engage in objective, subjective or moral truth-seeking helps minimize confusion.

     Literalism is the denial of God because it is the denial of meaning-making possibilities in relating to sacred texts – it limits the text to fixed and finite meaning – and tends to take us away from the focus on the need to act in the world with justice, truth, beauty, goodness – and all of the other so-called names and attributes of God.

 

     It also allows people to start believing that the ‘others’ have broken whatever covenant is deemed to have existed so that no ‘rules’ of war’ need be complied with.

     Its only in early life that we can prevent the kind of indoctrination of hatred for others. Understanding that spirituality, be it theistic or humanist, is simply the process of gaining the will to act morally is vital. Understanding the ‘voices’ with which engage and the texts that we engage with are all either objectively focused or subjectively focused or morally focused is vital in developing the truly mature mind-set and world-view.

 

Jane’s Short Story; teaching children ‘nowness’ in creative writing and photography

Source

In the unpublished doctoral thesis, from which this piece and Jane’s Short Story, is largely taken, the range of concerns include ‘the perpetuation in the present of early experience’. I’m interested to discover that one definition of ‘nowness’ is presentness: the quality of being the present; “a study of the pastness of the present and…of the presentness of the past”.

I wrote Jane’s Short Story to see what a Year 7 class (11 – 12 year olds in the UK) could ‘handle’, but it has become a major piece for teaching me, as well as for teaching others.

Jane’s short story (line numbers are simply to help in discussion)

1 “Come to mummy Jane. Come on, yes, you can do it.” Ste…steppp…stagger step..step got there BIGKISSmmmms’nice. Her mother’s nose stroked back and forth across her neck, as giggles of delight and laughter bubbled from Jane.
“Jane pay attention otherwise you’ll be asking me what the work is in five minutes time.”
5 (’Oh no I won’t Mr Moaner, I know perfectly well what you’re asking – so stop picking on me!’)
“Images Jane, images.”
Tulips. Gigantic red tulips, opened a bit beyond their best, and bigger than any red thing and redder than any red thing and she crawled to grasp, to know the greenness of the green cool green stems and embrace them and lose herself in the redness that was ……..
10 “I want you all to pay attention to the structure of your story……..”
How could she tell her mother that she never felt safe after he left. Only in his hugs with the smell of him did she ever, could she ever, feel safe. She chewed over this and poured herself another bowl of corn-flakes, sensing school time getting nearer and nearer. Her mother had left without giving the bus fare.
Yet again Jane’s leg itched from the nylon thread in the seam of her skirt.
15 She grasped the chair to ease her leg away from the itch, only to put her fingers under her chair and into some freshly placed chewing-gum. “Ugh! Boys are so disgusting!”
“Thank you Jane. I’m not sure what that has to do with careful control of your narrative but I suppose we should be grateful that at least you’ve re-visited our world, even though the visit will no doubt be brief. The trouble with you Jane is that you don’t use the possibilities and talent you have.”
20 Endless possibilities. The muddy brown wet sand, miles and miles of it. She sensed freedoms beyond the edge of her imagination, she would be all creation itself.
“Put your hat on Jane and come here – you’re not going in the sun until I put some cream on you.” Jane submitted to the sun-cream and enjoyed it but also remembered the tug of the harness around her shoulders – tug tug, with her running but not going anywhere.
25 “……and do try to put some images into your writing – do make it come alive.”
The finch, with feathers going in directions they shouldn’t, struggled on its side. The broken leg would not need mending because the shock was already killing the tiny creature. Jane hated the cat with an acid and granite hatred.
“You have ten minutes to finish your story.”
30 Jane sat back on her rump and examined her mother’s radiant face.
She spat out the tulip petals as her sadness entered her.
She was as rigid as the door he had slammed behind him.
She willed the incoming tide to consume her castle and leave only empty sands.
The finch stopped its fluttering and took on the stillness of death.
35 Jane wrote some lines.
Jane felt the tug tug of the harness and struggled to go somewhere.

—–0—–

Jane is, substantially, but not wholly, me.  It was an attempt to make the feminine side of my soul ‘walk and talk’

In writing the story I reached back down to early memories with which to ‘clothe’ some of the levels in the streams of consciousness.

In continuing to work with children, or adults, I still sometimes use Jane’s Short Story – as a way to encourage others to create their own stories, made from their own real, and imagined, experience. I discovered how powerful it is if PFC (Philosophy for Children), and creative task-setting, are combined/interwoven – so much so that I believe that the two, when harnessed, together create something akin to ‘exponential development’ i.e the most powerful form of transformative learning. It is still a joy, and a learning experience, when children make their own creations walk and talk, sing and shout, just as Jane became ‘real’ to me, some 9 or 10 years earlier. From time to time I revisit the story and change a few words. Once I also gave it to the same class on succeeding years and asked them to see what they could see compared to their ‘reading’ of the previous year – and to say what differences they felt between the two readings. On the success of this I think that it is worth doing something similar with every class, i.e. for them to re-visit a piece two years running. What they are looking at, with each re-visiting, is, in part, the growth they have had via another year’s experience – a very useful exercise in meta-cognition for the children.

Although it was written when I was in my early fifties I include the story here because it encapsulates some of how autobiography is expressed in even the most creative, or the most abstract, of our work. The story was written in a ‘stream of consciousness’ style to see how well my classes could be at deconstructing the text. It was written in my second year of doing PFC. Sometimes I use it just as a text, sometimes the classes go on to write their own episodes from Jane’s life.

My experience is that children in Year 7 or 8 take a little time to decode the levels in the ‘stream of consciousness’ but then respond most sensitively to the possibilities that exist in and around the story. It seems to work at quite a deep level for some, and very few, except perhaps in initial perplexity, reject the story. It also helps to teach them that story, in its different kinds of truth, can combine re-collected personal experience and meld it with imaginative material. It can be a minor revelation for children who see ’story is story’ and ‘real life = the truth.

Jane, both as part of my spirit and personal history, and as an independent spirit, has continued to exist, but she has also been transmogrified into the creations of other authors, adults as well as children. It is Jane in the personal myth called Island Shoreline Ocean, presented at the beginning of Chapter 3. My (our) past is re-presented and it is continuously transmogrified, in further re-representations. Each of us re-experiences what we are, as we engage or re-engage, with our beliefs, values, attitudes memories and new experiences. We echo past experiences in each new experience, even when we are seeking to help others in their creativity. Jane’s short story lives on in me as a crystallization of the feelings and images deep in my soul, deep, one might say, in my ‘present’. It has generated versions from 11 – 12 year olds, but also from an 84 year old man who, on one of my courses, wrote the first story he had ever written in his life. (He was pleased and amazed; I was deeply moved by his openness and courage!)

TASK/SUGGESTED LESSONS: It would be fascinating to combine the ideas above with photography!

Great photography blog HERE

Reason and Revelation, Religion and Philosophy – the pre-eminence of Socrates in Baha’i Writings

SourceRichard Dawkins – bete noir of many religionists. Source

‘Faith in religion’ and ‘the reason and logic of philosophy’ are in direct opposition – right? We might be forgiven for thinking this is so, given some of what comes out of religions – and out of philosophers. One religion at least seems to elevate philosophy to a high status and to give a pre-eminent position to Socrates in particular. Baha’u'llah, the founder of the Baha’i religion, speaks in glowing terms of Socrates;

…… Socrates … was indeed wise, accomplished and righteous. He practiced self-denial, repressed his appetites for selfish desires and turned away from material pleasures. He withdrew to the mountains where he dwelt in a cave. He dissuaded men from worshipping idols and taught them the way of God, the Lord of Mercy, until the ignorant rose up against him. They arrested him and put him to death in prison. Thus relateth to thee this swift-moving Pen. What a penetrating vision into philosophy this eminent man had! He is the most distinguished of all philosophers and was highly versed in wisdom. We testify that he is one of the heroes in this field and an outstanding champion dedicated unto it. He had a profound knowledge of such sciences as were current amongst men as well as of those which were veiled from their minds. Methinks he drank one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters. (Baha’u'llah: Tablets of Baha’u'llah, Page: 146

Depending on how you read phrases like ‘he drank one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters’ Baha’u'llah seems to elevate Socrates to a station akin to that of a prophet.

In my SunWALK model reason (using the senses + reasoning) and revelation are seen as two of the ways by which we come to know. Others are;

a) tradition in the sense of the contents of the repositories of Art, Sciences and Humanities and the living traditions that are exercised in various communities.

b) caring by which I mean our heart consciousness that derives from the relationships in which we are embedded and the love and other positive qualities we have received from those with whom we have relationship. (Without having received love it is very difficult to love.)

Interesting piece by Dawkins HERE

Knowledge, Knowing and the Unknowable: Head, Heart and the Mystery of Our-selves

 

Ver 2. as at 4th Aug 2007

PREFACE

This was written as a summary of some of the discussions held during a recent course run with 9 wonderful young women and men. So first and foremost this is for Poppy, Ellie, Jono, Saha, Natalie, Paddy, Jody, Kenny – and Davey.

This is what I feel/think I’ve learned so far;

WHAT’S WRONG?

Because of its lopsidedness and excessive specialization modern science, and thought generally, has got us into a mess. The mess is characterized by our consciousness and life being fragmented, mechanical and excessively materialistic. We need to create a new ‘post post-modernism’ that combines the positives from modernism, post-modernism and pre-modernism.

First of all we have to chose a starting point – because all of life is a circling matrix of connectedness.

THINKING AND FEELING AND BEING – AND BEING ‘MORE THEN’

I am – therefore I think. (Variation on Descartes’ starting point).

We are/You are – thereby I am. (Variation on a Swahili saying).

I am supported in my existence by all of the relationships in which I am embedded – including my ’significant others’, and those I chose to lead me, and those with whom I chose to identify – so as to become like them or at least possess some of their qualities.

Our being is much more than our thinking, reason and logic – we are 51%, or more, feelings.

Unless our capacities for feeling are attenuated, blunted or simply under-developed.

We are known and knowable – but also exist at levels that are beyond the knowable.

That is we are, in the depths of our being, a mystery to our selves – and to each other.

Thinking is one way to engage with other/s, or the self – and with reality.

Thinking is what we do as part of being – sometimes it is more, and sometimes less, than the feeling/s we are also generating/experiencing. One or the other is in dominance at any one time.

Thinking and feeling are simply different forms of the single human spirit that flows through each of us – and apparently around that ’space’ we call our inner world or interiority.

What would be a sensible name for the single flow of spirit that switches back and forth between ‘heart’ and ‘mind’? I suggest ‘heart-mind’. ‘Heart-mind’ actually has a long history in Chinese thought.

‘Heart-mind’ is preferable to ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ as some sort of separated ‘organs’.

Heart-mind is interiority – conscious thoughts and feelings, + re-callable memories + that which normally remains in the sub-conscious, such as painful memories.

HEART-MIND (THE ONENESS OF THINKING AND FEELING) AS THE 3 ‘I’, ‘WE’ AND ‘IT’ VOICES OR MODES OF ENGAGING WITH REALITY – AND OF CIOMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER

Thought and feeling however don’t account for the fact that we communicate with each other, at any one time, in one of three voices; ‘I’. ‘WE’ and ‘IT’ .

Sometimes our heart-mind/spirit switches into the I mode of artistic-subjective expression and engagement with reality.

Sometimes it switches into the WE mode of caring and other-focused action.

Sometimes it switches into the IT mode of scientific-objective investigation and engagement with reality.

We switch back and forth with great rapidity – unless we are in a meditative state or dreamless sleep. The other 2 voices are always ‘running in the background’.

THE ‘I’, ‘WE’ and ‘IT’ VOICES CORRESPOND TO CREATIVITY, CARING and CRITICALITY

I suggest that the term ‘thinking’ is better thought of as three separate ways in which we engage with reality, with each other – and our selves.

Thinking in the sense of Criticality (inc. philosophy, science maths, Eng. Lit, etc.) is one way for the human spirit to engage with reality. The other two are Caring and Creativity.

Caring focuses on moral truth as caring – action for the sake of others.

Creativity is concerned with subjective truth as a way to engage with reality – its voice says “This is how it has been for me, this is how it looks for me – standing in my ’skin’.

Criticality focuses on objective truth – in which reasoning and logic are especially important.

Thought and feeling/s are two sides of a single coin – each transforms into the other moment by moment in the dynamics of the heart-mind. This is evident in simple introspection.

Heart-mind, is however socialized into the 3 I, WE and IT voices.

All 3 have cognitive and affective charges at any one time.

The I WE and IT voices are internalizations/socializations of parental voices, school and community voices.

The cultural ‘repositories’ that correspond to the I,WE and IT voices we call the Arts, Humanities & Sciences.

The moral voice is an internalization of early caring and experience – with conscience as the internalization of the parental voice.

There may be sensible connections to be made between left and right brain hemispheres and the UIT and I voices.

It seems sensible to connect the I voice and the mystical since both involve unitive experiences.

In dealing with the Critical IT way of engaging with reality we deal in concepts – but we might agree with Heschel who says “Concepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.”

CONCEPTS AS ‘DELICIOUS SNACKS’ – AND ‘AMAZEMENT’ AS THE UNITIVE STATE OF THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

Amazement is the state of union, the unitive state which in its elevated forms is the mystical.

The mystical needs to be recognized as a normal, every-day even, part of being human. It needs de-mystifying and de-rarefying. It is not the sole prerogative of the exceptional such as Joan of Arc or of those who unhelpfully hear voices.

The basic experience is embedded in every day language as when we say, “It took me out of my-self.”

In normal, conceptual, busy-busy life we have a strong sense of ego/self/me-me. But sometimes I forget my self – through a unitive experience.

As the gospel song says;

I’m gonna lay down my heavy load

Down by the riverside

Down by the riverside

I’m gonna lay down my heavy load

Down by the riverside

Gonna study war no more.

One reading of the ‘heavy load’ is the small self, the ego, the ego boundary that keeps us in the relative hell of separation and pain and suffering.

Contemplation or perhaps deeper meditation is what takes us to the unitive state.

But I don’t think permanent self-loss is the goal because the dynamic lies in going back and forth between the unitive and the duality that is most of everyday life.

In fact I believe that our knowing comes as a consequence of the dynamic that arises from going back and forth between the unitive and duality

LOGIC IS WHAT WE NEED WHEN WE RETURN FROM THE STATE OF AMAZEMENT/MYSTICAL UNION

Logic is a good servant but insufficient as an overall master explanation of what we are, or what amounts to truth.

For example logic can be used impeccably to support the view that God exists, and equally for the view that there is no God.

Logical constructions, like journeys, always start somewhere.

That ’somewhere’ in our intellectual-spiritual journeys, and dialogue with each other, is always a set of assumptions and viewpoints.

DEVELOPING A NEW PARADIGM – AND REALIZING THAT THE INADEQUACIES OF THE OLD PARADIGM LIE IN ITS SET OF ASSUMPTIONS (BECAUSE THEY LARGELY LIE UNTESTED)

The assumptions, like a geographical position, always imply a world-view.

The assumptions are largely untested like the 9/10ths of the ice-berg that is below the surface.

The world-view can include a range of other assumptions including what it is to be human, what constitutes reality, what is good or bad etc.

The new paradigm that is struggling to be born is characterised by wholeness, flow and realizations of the spiritual nature of being human – the opposites of fragmentation, the mechanistic and the excessively materialistic. Above all it centres on realizing to a much deeper and higher forms answers to the most important of all questions; “What is it to be (fully and positively) human?”

REALIZING UNITY – PERSONALLY OR COLLECTIVELY – IS HELP BY THE GIFT OF WISE VOICES

Individually our happiness depends on our integration – of heart and head, of identity and purpose, of personal development and service to others. One key secret is realizing that mind and body and spirit are all one and the same – the singleness of the life-force, chi, the human spirit.

Collectively we also need deeper realization of unity – that unity is based on the existential reality of being human. Like millions of others I learned this from Shakespeare. Scots would add Robbie Burns.

Unity can not in the social political sphere be achieved through philosophy or theology, both of which depend on reason and logic. Why? Well as the ancient saying goes, ‘The longest journey in the world is from the human head to the human heart, but the shortest journey in the world is from the human heart to the human head.’

Unity can only be achieved via a commitment to the existential reality of being human. We are all human. We strive for a better life. We have loved ones and we all suffer grief and loss……………….

Our theology and philosophy are only games (of reason and logic) that we play – on the ‘foundation’ of incomplete certainty, not-knowing and mystery – and they must take second place to realizing our existential human oneness – and truth and beauty and goodness.- and above all justice as our over-riding interior ‘conditioner’ as well as the chief conditioner in the social and political realms.

Deep unity is realized through our existential sameness. The ‘healthy doubt’ is vital in matters of theology and philosophy. Doubting, just a modicum not a flood, is healthy when it functions as a cousin of tentativeness and humility. Absolute certainty is the condition of the fundamentalist – and the fascist and terrorist. Unity requires something other than closed minds and cold hearts. The co-existence of humility – but without a collapse into the hell of relativity, political correctness and effete values now displayed in so many Western countries. But our unity lies in the state of not-knowing, not in hard and water-tight (heart-tight?) convictions;

“We are united by our doubts and divided by our convictions.” Sir Peter Ustinov

Excesses of certitude cut us off from truth and can lead to horrors of cruelty – the Nazis were certain that Jews, and Gypsies were sub-human.

“Certitude divides and diversity unifies…..We have to elevate religion above politics…..”

H.R.H. Prince El-Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan BBC Newsnight 9th Feb 2006

I am because we are. I am ultimately in a state of not knowing. I see through a glass not darkly, but with imperfect vision – this being an inevitable consequence of being finite.

Speaking personally I can’t live fully up to the truth, beauty, goodness, justice and mystery that I’ve learned (about) so far. This means that I, like us all, need forgiveness; hearts embrace, minds take a stroll together before parting. I/we need for-give-ness as part of the love through which to gain the will to walk on!

Go well.

Roger

Dr Roger Prentice

Dialogue, ‘I’, ‘WE’ and ‘IT’ modes of engagement for Caring, Creativity & Criticality

Source

Within any model of holistic education, including my own SunWALK, I see dialogue as being multi-level.

i) At the interpersonal level we have dialogue with each other, or group to group – including about any aspect of the Arts, Sciences and Humanities.

ii) At the intra-personal level we have;

In the creative ‘I’ voice we have meditation/mystical union in which, ironically, ego is set aside in order to achieve subjective expression. The loss of the ‘ego boundary’ in the creative act

In the critical ‘IT’ voice we also have inner dialogue – thought is often seen as internalized speech. However if Einstein’s many references to what is essentially a mystical view of his own scientific creativity – as we shape the before and after

In the caring ‘WE’ voice we have a wider set of forms of dialogue set as it is in relationships e.g. body language as well as spoken and written language.
Intra-personal meditation has been described as conversing with our own spirit!

—–0—–

All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE