guess i havent written on the blog for a long time. the below are some random thoughts written for some list serve discussions. further updates on the blog later wen i stop traveling! will edit this post later. in a hurry now!!
I. On a post industrialist society:
Nity, I thought raised some pertinent questions in his response on how do we go about laying the foundations of sustainable postindustrial society. Also on how to ensure that lives of inspirational people remains inspirational rather than daunting. These are some of my thoughts around it.
Society largely tends to look at people like Gandhi, Mandela, king, Teresa, guvera, or a malcom X as end products rather than continuing processes, destinations and not as life journeys. None of them become who they were overnight. But when we compare (not that it is healthy) and look at it as a quantum leap to make, it is bound to look daunting. This is a mistake I think many of their followers have made, in promoting the traveler than the travel itself. The mere flesh and bones individual than over his/her core philosophies, life questions, experiments, mistakes etc so very soon these degenerate into hero-worshipping clubs. Deified hence killed and hence forgotten, we now have such curious phenomena as the images of hard core socialists being used as mascots for neo-liberal capitalism or 'holy' wars being fought in the names of apostles of peace.
We have to stay clear form this trap of obfuscation and not look at them as ideals to match up to, but as courageous adventurers who traveled into unknown parts within us to come back with new truths, inspiring others along the way, to embark on this quest to get in touch with the human in us. This deification that has happened instead, I see is one of the causes for these people to come across as daunting.
The same applies to the dream of a sustainable and just post industrialist society. To look at it as an end goal to achieve, as this fixed point in the future, from where we stand today can look daunting and paralyzing. But to start off on continuing process of changing and resisting what we can today, and constantly pushing at the boundaries can be liberating. Who is to say, if the new world that would emerge out of these efforts might be more beautiful than the dream itself!
(i) With respect to the how we go about laying the foundations of a postindustrial society, I also feel this quest for a higher image of us as individuals (and as a species) is very vital. As Eknath Easwaran points out in the article, "we see ourselves as a few dollars' worth of chemicals, driven to compete with one another and exhaust our Earth. How could anyone be taken in by such a mediocre portrait of human nature?" a problem cannot be solved at the same level it was created in. similarly, the real solutions to the crisis lies beyond the human unconscious, where it was created in the first place. There are many metaphors/imagery depicting this journey back in the spiritual and ecological discourses, the return of the prodigal son, mankind healing itself back into harmony or an 'evolution' of consciousness etc whatever it is, its high time we got into this act both as individuals and societies if we want a future for us on this planet.
(ii) Also, another thing I would like to point out is creating a postindustrial society also becomes daunting, when it becomes difficult to imagine an alternative future to the present condition. We seldom experience life outside the boundaries of concrete jungles, decaying cities, consumerism, ego-centrism or the rat race. Add to this cocktail, our education systems and the media, which are bent upon dumbing down our capacities for imagination and creativity. To look beyond this cage of conditioning is not possible for many unless they experience life on different terms.
So the onus falls on those of us who have experienced or can imagine life outside this cage, to start creating small islands of change, for others to even get a glimpse of it. These experiments need not be 'perfect', like said earlier to be in the right direction along with the awareness that there is lots of scope of improvement, is more important. To imagine alternative futures and experiment/innovate on their own might not be as difficult for more people after this. Unless such numerous learning societies and communities of practice are evolved, I see no escape out of jail. The below is a metaphor that Elisabet Sahtouris uses, that I find very apt to illustrate this (apologies to those who am repeating for the zillionth time! :-)
"…[Elisabet Sahtouris] invites us to think of the present world situation as "a stage between caterpillar and butterfly – a time of metamorphosis when an old unsustainable system fights to preserve itself as a new system struggles to be born". "Caterpillars chew their way through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call them, begin to take form within their bodies. The caterpillar's immune system fights these new cells as though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong enough to survive. Then the caterpillar's immune system fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup, which the new cells recycle into their developing butterfly. "The caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done… ……The task is to focus on building the butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built among those engaged in them."
(As found on http://partnering.inet.net.nz/Newsletter312.html)
These two-steps are fundamental I feel if we are to transition to sustainable post-industrial culture. Initially the progress might be slow, but I believe it would cascade faster than expected once the tipping point is reached, as these are living systems being driven by an evolving collective wisdom/intelligence. (Of course, some of you might disagree with such a hypothesis)
I would be happy to hear what others think about this. More importantly I would be grateful if can start talking about how we could go about operationalising this in our own lives, singly as well as collectively.
II On furthering the discourse
I found the discussion on East and West quite intense. And it was a pity that it tapered off right after Vineeta had raised some important questions. Hoping that the break has provided us all a chance to reflect on what was said, am attempting to further this conversation:
The machine: For somebody born 6 months before ‘1984’ and brought up almost entirely in urban India, I am neither aware of the “east” nor the “west”. I grew up thinking Cars and Televisions have always been around, that cities are ‘better’ than villages, going to schools, colleges and offices was the only way to go about living a meaningful life, and saluting the national flag two mornings in a year was patriotism. Hence I find it easier to use ‘the machine’ as a metaphor than the ‘West’. While acknowledging the machine historically originated and still has strong roots in certain societies, it has spread so much today except some small pockets, I wonder if labels like the “east” and “west” still hold for many of us. The metaphor also reduces some obvious problems in communication across diverse cultures, some of which we witnessed recently.
Along a similar tangent, I would also like bring to notice the works of people like Daniel Quinn and Jared Diamond who say that the values such as ‘command, control and destroy’ took firm roots within us way back with the origin of organized agriculture in many parts of the world some 10,000 yrs ago. Not wanting to make it very simplistic, does this then mean that the seeds of our present crisis were sown long long before 1492 or Chengiz Khan or the “industrial age”? That history unfolded as it did, because certain societies were more infected with these values than others, and their access to guns and steel made it a disastrous cocktail for the rest? Has the machine been in the making since the last ten thousand years or a mere 200? Without absolving any particular bunch of people of the blame(for whatever reason it might serve, one wonders), does this mean than the assault of the last 500 yrs is a result of a continuing build up from even before the emergence of the “east” and “west”? Questions I feel we need to seriously look at beyond the east-west debate, if we are to understand our tryst with the machine.
De institutionalization: As krishnamurti said (and many others too), we shape our environment and in turn are shaped by our environments, we mould the machine and the machine moulds us (and our psyches) in return. So these institutions are, so to speak only one half of this vicious cycle, the other half is us and our growing ego/anthropo centrism. Hence, as some of u might agree it is not just enough today if we just closed down the corporations, governments and schools from our societies, but profoundly unlearn/decondition the machine from within us. Interestingly this deconditioning is also simultaneously a process of healing and awakening to what it truly means to be human. Unless this is done (or at least a certain ‘distance’ be traversed in the quest for ‘swaraj’ before it’s too late) it’s doubtful that whatever “solutions” we might find to the machine would really work (as Vineeta wonders).
This also highlights to me the importance of moving beyond critiques of the present day institutions and further expanding the discourses on profound unlearning, healing and regenerating. This would also involve understanding how the (vicious)cyclical man-machine interaction. While critique still has a vital role esp when it is generative, I feel it would be enriching if we could have more conversations on how we can move forward from here. Actually, when I look around there are very few radical discourses on regeneration happening today (Thankfully this space is one of them!) and it comes as no surprise that many young ppl of my generation just feel paralyzed hearing only the critique. Hence I would appeal to and invite the other friends on this forum to continue pushing new boundaries at evolving discourses that inspire hope and action.
Healing: I find many things that are helpful in the process of healing. Solitude, honest reflection, learning to give, slowing down, striving to listen (and not merely hear) etc have been some of them that has helped so far and hope my list would grow. Am also trying to be careful to not embrace them as ideals to implement in life. But more as natural outcomes of being aware of my conditioned thoughts and reactions. Dunno what else to say beyond this and not make it sound like a lot of 'ungrounded' philosophy. Maybe as appropriate contexts emerge further in the discussion, I might be able to share more.
Also, I was discussing this with Manish in the morning today and he was telling me that many spiritual/wisdom traditions like Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Hinduism etc in their hey days were discourses that evolved as an answer to the growth and spread of the machine in the respective societies. And that it would be a good idea for us on this forum to try and understand the essence of these philosophies with respect to its challenge to the machine and in showing new pathways for resistance and regeneration. So that is one more direction this dialogue can take if friends from different parts of the world, could go further into the radical discourses that emerged in their cultures and how this wisdom could be recontextualised for our present condition. This could also open our eyes to the wisdom and diversity that lies both in the "east" and in the "west" :-)
I. On a post industrialist society:
Nity, I thought raised some pertinent questions in his response on how do we go about laying the foundations of sustainable postindustrial society. Also on how to ensure that lives of inspirational people remains inspirational rather than daunting. These are some of my thoughts around it.
Society largely tends to look at people like Gandhi, Mandela, king, Teresa, guvera, or a malcom X as end products rather than continuing processes, destinations and not as life journeys. None of them become who they were overnight. But when we compare (not that it is healthy) and look at it as a quantum leap to make, it is bound to look daunting. This is a mistake I think many of their followers have made, in promoting the traveler than the travel itself. The mere flesh and bones individual than over his/her core philosophies, life questions, experiments, mistakes etc so very soon these degenerate into hero-worshipping clubs. Deified hence killed and hence forgotten, we now have such curious phenomena as the images of hard core socialists being used as mascots for neo-liberal capitalism or 'holy' wars being fought in the names of apostles of peace.
We have to stay clear form this trap of obfuscation and not look at them as ideals to match up to, but as courageous adventurers who traveled into unknown parts within us to come back with new truths, inspiring others along the way, to embark on this quest to get in touch with the human in us. This deification that has happened instead, I see is one of the causes for these people to come across as daunting.
The same applies to the dream of a sustainable and just post industrialist society. To look at it as an end goal to achieve, as this fixed point in the future, from where we stand today can look daunting and paralyzing. But to start off on continuing process of changing and resisting what we can today, and constantly pushing at the boundaries can be liberating. Who is to say, if the new world that would emerge out of these efforts might be more beautiful than the dream itself!
(i) With respect to the how we go about laying the foundations of a postindustrial society, I also feel this quest for a higher image of us as individuals (and as a species) is very vital. As Eknath Easwaran points out in the article, "we see ourselves as a few dollars' worth of chemicals, driven to compete with one another and exhaust our Earth. How could anyone be taken in by such a mediocre portrait of human nature?" a problem cannot be solved at the same level it was created in. similarly, the real solutions to the crisis lies beyond the human unconscious, where it was created in the first place. There are many metaphors/imagery depicting this journey back in the spiritual and ecological discourses, the return of the prodigal son, mankind healing itself back into harmony or an 'evolution' of consciousness etc whatever it is, its high time we got into this act both as individuals and societies if we want a future for us on this planet.
(ii) Also, another thing I would like to point out is creating a postindustrial society also becomes daunting, when it becomes difficult to imagine an alternative future to the present condition. We seldom experience life outside the boundaries of concrete jungles, decaying cities, consumerism, ego-centrism or the rat race. Add to this cocktail, our education systems and the media, which are bent upon dumbing down our capacities for imagination and creativity. To look beyond this cage of conditioning is not possible for many unless they experience life on different terms.
So the onus falls on those of us who have experienced or can imagine life outside this cage, to start creating small islands of change, for others to even get a glimpse of it. These experiments need not be 'perfect', like said earlier to be in the right direction along with the awareness that there is lots of scope of improvement, is more important. To imagine alternative futures and experiment/innovate on their own might not be as difficult for more people after this. Unless such numerous learning societies and communities of practice are evolved, I see no escape out of jail. The below is a metaphor that Elisabet Sahtouris uses, that I find very apt to illustrate this (apologies to those who am repeating for the zillionth time! :-)
"…[Elisabet Sahtouris] invites us to think of the present world situation as "a stage between caterpillar and butterfly – a time of metamorphosis when an old unsustainable system fights to preserve itself as a new system struggles to be born". "Caterpillars chew their way through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call them, begin to take form within their bodies. The caterpillar's immune system fights these new cells as though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong enough to survive. Then the caterpillar's immune system fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup, which the new cells recycle into their developing butterfly. "The caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done… ……The task is to focus on building the butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built among those engaged in them."
(As found on http://partnering.inet.net.nz/Newsletter312.html)
These two-steps are fundamental I feel if we are to transition to sustainable post-industrial culture. Initially the progress might be slow, but I believe it would cascade faster than expected once the tipping point is reached, as these are living systems being driven by an evolving collective wisdom/intelligence. (Of course, some of you might disagree with such a hypothesis)
I would be happy to hear what others think about this. More importantly I would be grateful if can start talking about how we could go about operationalising this in our own lives, singly as well as collectively.
II On furthering the discourse
I found the discussion on East and West quite intense. And it was a pity that it tapered off right after Vineeta had raised some important questions. Hoping that the break has provided us all a chance to reflect on what was said, am attempting to further this conversation:
The machine: For somebody born 6 months before ‘1984’ and brought up almost entirely in urban India, I am neither aware of the “east” nor the “west”. I grew up thinking Cars and Televisions have always been around, that cities are ‘better’ than villages, going to schools, colleges and offices was the only way to go about living a meaningful life, and saluting the national flag two mornings in a year was patriotism. Hence I find it easier to use ‘the machine’ as a metaphor than the ‘West’. While acknowledging the machine historically originated and still has strong roots in certain societies, it has spread so much today except some small pockets, I wonder if labels like the “east” and “west” still hold for many of us. The metaphor also reduces some obvious problems in communication across diverse cultures, some of which we witnessed recently.
Along a similar tangent, I would also like bring to notice the works of people like Daniel Quinn and Jared Diamond who say that the values such as ‘command, control and destroy’ took firm roots within us way back with the origin of organized agriculture in many parts of the world some 10,000 yrs ago. Not wanting to make it very simplistic, does this then mean that the seeds of our present crisis were sown long long before 1492 or Chengiz Khan or the “industrial age”? That history unfolded as it did, because certain societies were more infected with these values than others, and their access to guns and steel made it a disastrous cocktail for the rest? Has the machine been in the making since the last ten thousand years or a mere 200? Without absolving any particular bunch of people of the blame(for whatever reason it might serve, one wonders), does this mean than the assault of the last 500 yrs is a result of a continuing build up from even before the emergence of the “east” and “west”? Questions I feel we need to seriously look at beyond the east-west debate, if we are to understand our tryst with the machine.
De institutionalization: As krishnamurti said (and many others too), we shape our environment and in turn are shaped by our environments, we mould the machine and the machine moulds us (and our psyches) in return. So these institutions are, so to speak only one half of this vicious cycle, the other half is us and our growing ego/anthropo centrism. Hence, as some of u might agree it is not just enough today if we just closed down the corporations, governments and schools from our societies, but profoundly unlearn/decondition the machine from within us. Interestingly this deconditioning is also simultaneously a process of healing and awakening to what it truly means to be human. Unless this is done (or at least a certain ‘distance’ be traversed in the quest for ‘swaraj’ before it’s too late) it’s doubtful that whatever “solutions” we might find to the machine would really work (as Vineeta wonders).
This also highlights to me the importance of moving beyond critiques of the present day institutions and further expanding the discourses on profound unlearning, healing and regenerating. This would also involve understanding how the (vicious)cyclical man-machine interaction. While critique still has a vital role esp when it is generative, I feel it would be enriching if we could have more conversations on how we can move forward from here. Actually, when I look around there are very few radical discourses on regeneration happening today (Thankfully this space is one of them!) and it comes as no surprise that many young ppl of my generation just feel paralyzed hearing only the critique. Hence I would appeal to and invite the other friends on this forum to continue pushing new boundaries at evolving discourses that inspire hope and action.
Healing: I find many things that are helpful in the process of healing. Solitude, honest reflection, learning to give, slowing down, striving to listen (and not merely hear) etc have been some of them that has helped so far and hope my list would grow. Am also trying to be careful to not embrace them as ideals to implement in life. But more as natural outcomes of being aware of my conditioned thoughts and reactions. Dunno what else to say beyond this and not make it sound like a lot of 'ungrounded' philosophy. Maybe as appropriate contexts emerge further in the discussion, I might be able to share more.
Also, I was discussing this with Manish in the morning today and he was telling me that many spiritual/wisdom traditions like Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Hinduism etc in their hey days were discourses that evolved as an answer to the growth and spread of the machine in the respective societies. And that it would be a good idea for us on this forum to try and understand the essence of these philosophies with respect to its challenge to the machine and in showing new pathways for resistance and regeneration. So that is one more direction this dialogue can take if friends from different parts of the world, could go further into the radical discourses that emerged in their cultures and how this wisdom could be recontextualised for our present condition. This could also open our eyes to the wisdom and diversity that lies both in the "east" and in the "west" :-)
posted by naveen at
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