‘I don’t believe life has a purpose. Life is a lot of protoplasm with an urge to reproduce and continue in being… but each incarnation, you might say, has a potentiality, and the mission of life is to live that potentiality.’
Joseph Campbell is an incredible storyteller, spiritual guru, philosopher, academic (comparative religion & comparative mythology), writer, etc etc. Another old dead guy with a wicked sense of humour that I’m sure I would have fallen for in his day.
So “How do you do it?” you may ask. How do you live your life to it’s potential?
Campbell’s advice is: “Follow the bliss.”
‘There’s something inside you that knows when you’re in the center, that knows when you’re on the beam or off the beam. And if you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life. And if you stay in the cneter and don’t get any money, you still have your bliss.’ [1]
P284-5 Campbell, Joseph, The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (New York: Doubleday, 1988).
Following my rants on the problems with our current corporatist version of capitalism, Annie Lennox does a much better job at summing up what’s wrong with our current “democracy”, and how it came to be that way:
The programming code in these entities we call “corporations” needs to change. Corporations are not people, and they shouldn’t have any of the freedoms or rights that people have.
We need rules and definitions that work for us, for ALL of us, not just the 1000 greedy bastards at the pyramid’s top.
Corporations should be defined as entities that work for humanity, not the other way around.
The big question is how??? Even if all of us wanted to change the rules of the game, if we all agreed it was time to reprogram these out-of-control machines, what could we do about it?
Has the game overpowered the players? Is that even possible?
People created the rules. People obey the rules. And people can change the rules.
There ain’t no game without the players, and there ain’t no global capitalism without humans.
We need a system that works for the people, and is governed by the people. Isn’t that what democracy is supposed to be about?
I am assisting the teaching of a master’s subject called The Political Economy of Conflict and Peace, at the University of Sydney this semester. My first presentation was yesterday and in the lead up to it I drowned myself in the political economic papers and books I wrote or read over the last couple of years. And searching YouTube for parts of documentaries that I have found useful in the past. This entry has become a bit of a dumping ground for me to refer and share again at later times… maybe you’ll find some of this random collection of thoughts and clips useful too…
The global economy today:
What does today’s global stage look like? I.e. What is the shape of today’s political/economical/social pyramid: tall or flat? What do people’s lives look like at the extremes?
How do the different stories, of individuals, groups and nations, told from different perspectives, from realist to liberal to marxist and all those in between, help us understand the dynamics of key actors and their sets?
Three basic theories based on three key actors:
Realism – analyses the world as states acting on their self-interests
Liberalism – analyses the world as individuals acting on rational self-interests
Marxism – analyses the world as classes acting on their rational self-interests
In The Structural Theory of Imperialism (a World Systems Theory), Johan Galtung describes a Conveyor Belt between the periphery of the Periphery (pP) pumping resources through to the periphery of the Core (pC) – this is clear to anyone who travels to places like South America, who grow the best coffee beans, sell them to the “north” for cheap and buy them back in the form of the horrible Nescafe Instant, which is all that is generally on offer to the citizens. Crazy! Same goes for all cash crops from cocoa to cotton, which prevent these people from growing food for themselves, causes slavery and human trafficking,
Demystifying Economics – Jim Stanford explains how the Booms and Bust are a necessary part of the system, and why it is the people at the very top of the pyramid who are bailed out, while the people with mortgages and jobs are the ones that have to pay.
Simms shows that on our current trajectory it would take 15 planets’ worth of earth’s biocapacity to reduce poverty to a state where the poorest receive $3 per day. In other words ‘we will have made Earth uninhabitable long before poverty is eradicated.’[1]
Did you know that half of all world trade currently passes through tax havens? Apparently they ‘allow rich people and corporations to stash trillions in assets that could provide governments with at least $250 billion a yearin tax revenues.’[2]
“At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. Together they created today’s nightmare vision of an organised terror network. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. The rise of the politics of fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that dominates Washington. Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together. The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision.”
This three part documentary traces the rise of Neo-Conservativism in the U.S., with “disillusioned liberals” like Irving Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz looking to Leo Strauss’s political thinking to come together with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Neo-conservatives come to power under the Reagan administration, using fear to unite the citizens (and unite with the radical Islamists) in a war against the Soviet Union. It traces this alongside the radical Islamist movement back to Sayyid Qutb’s visit to the U.S. to learn about their education systems but sees the “corruption of morals and virtues in western society through individualism” and returns to Egypt to and starts the movement. Qutb is executed in 1966 and one of his followers, a–Zawahiri, later becomes the mentor to Osama bin Laden. Then of course, the two radical groups then face each other head on in the “War on Terror”.
A much shorter and funnier version of the above: Pirates and Emperors
The Eagle and the Condor (the meeting of the Mind and the Heart, of Masculine and Feminine, of the knowledge and wisdom of our world, from Western individualism, to Eastern collectivism, to Indigenous connection to the land)
1. Change corporation law – redefine “corporation” so that they are NOT treated as separate entities in their own right that can be declared bankrupt in and of themselves. Corporation law must be adjusted to hold shareholders responsible for monetary and non-monetary profits and loss.
2. Change finance / stock market laws – in implementing the above, the ST money market would probably have to go, as would trading Derivatives and Options. The stock exchange would slowdown and be based on long term investments.
3. Change banking laws for money/debt creation and collection – limit their ability to print money via debt, decrease bank’s profits, and maybe all debt cancels after 50 years, I’m not sure. Something needs to be done to regulate them though.
4. Change balance of power in the WB, WTO and IMF – give more votes to the poorer nations and create fairer trade policies
5. Create international tax laws – to crack down on tax havens.
Personally:
6. Philosophically, a self-examination of our values – what makes a life “good”? Two shifts: shift from valuing capital to valuing creativity; and shift from EGO to ECO.
7. Women might reconsider what they find attractive qualities in men – see the attraction of a creative and caring man over a rich and selfish man. Then maybe men will change in suit.
8. Write letters to corporations telling them you won’t buy their product until they stop slave trade and ridiculously low paying 80-hour weeks in sweatshops, and treat their workers in a way they would like to be treated.
9. Public shame of the ridiculously rich – unite in an attempt to decrease the obesity of the rich, and as a consequence decrease the hunger of the poor.
10. See what we might be able to do to campaign to change the laws above.
Essentially I’m talking about setting a limit to the lifestyle of those at the very bottom and very top to the pyramid. There’s nothing wrong with inequity. As my friend said, “if you wanna work smart and hard and eat lobster all the time, and if I wanna work little and eat noodles, then that’s cool. But we both should have food and shelter. It’s just a matter of cutting out the extremes and increasing social mobility between the classes.”
[1] Andrew Simms, ‘Trickle-Down Myth’, New Scientist (18 Oct 2008). p. 49. Andrew Simms is the policy director of the New Economics Foundation in London. In this article Simms steps through the mathematics to show the system is designed such that for the poor to get ‘slightly less poor, the rich have to get very much richer’. This means it would take ‘around $166 worth of global growth to generate $1 extra for people living on below $1 a day’.
[2] Susan George, ‘We Must Think Big’, New Scientist (18 Oct 2008). p. 51.
Critical Discourse Analysis is a study of LANGUAGE, IDEOLOGY, POWER and SOCIAL CHANGE. ‘Discourse analysis is not a “level” of analysis as, say, phonology or lexico-grammar, but an exploration of how “texts” at all levels work within sociocultural practices,’ says Candlin in the Preface to Fairclough. If you didn’t already gauge from the title then take this as your warning: this entry contains high levels of academic language. It is also disjointed and includes a lot of quotes (because I’m lazy).
‘One crucial conditionfor social interaction in general and talk in particular is that people understand each other. This is possible only if we assume that social members have socially shared interpretation procedures for social actions, for example, categories, rules and strategies.’ (Dijk, 1985:2)
Critical Discourse Analysis is one of the “tools” I mentioned a few entries ago that can be useful for understanding the “taken for granted” systems of knowledge that we use in order to communicate. As such it helps us view the world in a more reflexive way – which not only makes people watching more interesting, it empowers us to interact with our reality in new and wonderful ways…
Critical Discourse Analysis involves looking at the “texts” that make up our realities, questioning their assumptions, identifying underlying ideologies, the connection between language and social-institutional practices, and how these connect to formation and maintenance of power structures (like The Pyramid).
These so-called “texts” range from books to movies, TV commercials, news stories, dinner conversations, education, parent-child relations, business meetings, and jokes. A “text” in this context is anything involving a communicative language – verbal and non-verbal.
Learning about this tool illuminates the ginormous impact that “texts” that surround us have on our lived experiences; how they operate as the key forces behind both maintaining status quo structures, and the initiation of social change.
Critical Discourse Analysis is intended to ‘critique some of the premises and the constructs underlying mainstream studies in sociolinguistics, conversational analysis and pragmatics, to demonstrate the need of these sub-disciplines to engage with social and political issues of power and hegemony in a dynamic and historically informed manner… to re-engage with central constructs of power and knowledge, and above all, ideology, to question what is this “real world” of social relations in institutional practices that is represented linguistically.’ (Fairclough, 1995:viii)
Critical Discourse Analysis might look at labels like “terrorist” and “counter-terrorist”, or “ally” and “enemy”… and examine not only the term, but how it is used by different people in different ways. The definition and use of terms such as these are clearly dependent upon which side you are on.
What might this tell us about the propaganda techniques of Neo-Conservatives? Or could this clip itself be propaganda against them?
So… what does Critical Discourse Analysis involve?
Dijk explains that ‘a typical ethnographical analysis of speech events features, for example, a description of the discourse genre, the overall delimination, social function, or label of the whole speech event, the topic (theme or reference), the setting (time and physical environment), the different categories for participants, the purpose of the interaction, the type of code (spoken, written, etc.), the lexicon and the semantics, the grammar (also at the discourse level), the sequences of acts (both verbal and nonverbal), and the underlying rules, norms or strategies for the actions or the whole event… And even this enumeration is not complete.’ (Dijk, 1985:9)
‘The method of discourse analysis includes linguistic descriptionof the language text, interpretationof the relationship between the (productive and interpretative) discursive processes and the social processes.’ (Fairclough, 1995:97)
Fairclough refers to Mandel (1978) to describe the “postmodernist” features of “late capitalist” discourse that includes “post-traditional relationships” with relationships based upon authority in decline, both in the public and personal domain, for example, when it comes to kinship and self-identity ‘rather than being a feature of given positions and roles’ they are ‘reflexively build up through a process of negotiation’. Also the development of a “promotional” and “consumer” culture – with our strong emphasis on market and consumption rather than production. It is difficult not to be involved oneself in promoting because it’s part of so many people’s jobs and because it self-promotion is now part of our personal identity. (Fairclough, 1995:137-8).
Fairclough is calling for a critical social and historical turn. ‘It would seem vital that people should become more aware and more self-aware about language and discourse. Yet levels of awareness are very low. Few people have even an elementary metalanguage for talking about and thinking about such issues. A critical awareness of language and discursive practices is, I suggest, becoming a prerequiste for democratic citizenship, and an urgent priority for language education in than the majority of the population (certainly of Britain) are so far form having achieved it.’ (Fairclough, 1995:140).
Textual analysis involves two complementary types of analysis: linguistic and intertextual – that are a ‘necessary complement’ to each other.
‘Whereas linguistic analysis shows how texts selectively draw upon linguistic systems (again, in an extended sense), intertextual analysis shows how texts selectively draw upon orders of discourse – the particular configurations of conventionalised practices (genres, discourses, narratives, etc.) which are available to text producers and interpreters in particular circumstances…’ (Fairclough, 1995:188)
Texts are dependent on society and history in the form of the resources available but intertextual analysis is dynamic and dialectical in that the texts themselves can ‘transform these social and historical resources,’ “re-accentuate” genres and mix genres in texts. ‘Language is always simultaneously constitutive of (i) socialidentities, (ii) socialrelations and (iii) systems ofknowledgeand belief – though with different degrees of salience in different cases.’ (Fairclough, 1995:131)
Fairclough suggests developing “Critical Language Awareness” (CLA). It is important to try to increase the reflexive capacity of individuals.
Fairclough describes education as not only ‘a key domain of linguistically mediated power’ but is also a ‘site for reflection upon and analysis of the sociolinguistic order and the order of discourse’ by equipping learners with a critical language awareness as a ‘resource for intervention in and the reshaping of discursive practices and the power relations that ground them, both in other domains and within education itself.’ (1995:217)
With mass media generally acknowledged as the ‘single most important social institution in bringing off these processes in contemporary societies’ Fairclough recognises that ‘wealsolive in an age of great change and instability in which the forms of power and domination are being radically reshaped, in which changing cultural practices are a major constituent of social change which in many cases means to a significant degree changing discursive practices, changing practices of language use.’ (1995:219)
I think its encouraging to remember that society and culture are ALWAYS changing, language is ALWAYS evolving, and power structures are ALWAYS shifting. And I suppose we should be thankful that developed capitalist countries exercise their power typically through ‘consent rather than coercion’, ‘ideology rather than through physical force’ and through ‘the inculcation of self-disciplining principles rather than through the breaking of skulls’. If I’m going to be controlled, I definitely prefer it to be in this way.
References:
Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis : The Critical Study of Language (London ; New York: Longman, 1995).
Dijk, Teun Adrianus van, Handbook of Discourse AnalysisBook 3, (London ; Orlando: Academic Press, 1985).
Do you ever sit there, on a park bench, at the beach, or even out of your car window, and simply observe the people that walk by? What are they wearing? What do their facial expressions and body language tell you? Do you ever put words in other peoples mouths? Guessing what they are talking about.
A couple bickering. “Why are you always like that?” “You never listen.” “That’s because all you do is complain…”
A dude trying to pick up a chick. “How you doin?” “Piss off!” “Come on…” “Seriously, piss off!”
In a park in Lima, Peru, there were none of such stories. Everywhere I looked I saw stories of love:
An elderly couple reminiscing the past.
A young couple planning their future.
“You know what I’m going to do for you tonight?!”
It can be fun to imagine what is going on in others’ worlds. These interpretations tend to be based on things that have gone on in our own world, either things we have experienced directly through relationships and events, or indirectly through television shows, movies, books etc.
If you do this, then you are a social scientist, an anthropologist, a studier of people. For anyone who enjoys a little people watching, the tools I will share over the next week or so will allow you to gain deeper insights to the things you observe – both in your observations of others, and in your observations of your self.
Earlier this year I was writing about some of the gaps that I have observed:
– a gap between education at school and real life
– a gap in how knowledge is distributed between rich and poor, between academia and public, between governments and their people…
– a gap between those who gain the monetary profit from corporations and those held responsible for the corporations’ non-monetary costs to people and environment
Some of my entries over the next couple of months will be looking at how these gaps might be bridged. I will be approaching challenge by looking at the materials I’ve been researching these last six months, trying to interpret the academic jargon into everyday langugae, and apply it to everyday situations, like the people-watching scenario above.
A word of warning: while endevoring to interpret the jargon, these entries still contain it. If you feel alarmed, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Words like “Hegemony” and “Heuristics” and “Foucaultian” and “Phenomenology” almost scared me away from academia altogether. It’s worth pushing through – these words are quite illuminating and worth putting the time in to understand them.
What I will try to do is define these terms the first time I use them, and refer back to that entry when I use them later. If it’s hard to follow I suggest a quick Wiki-search – grab a quick definition, and see if it makes sense. Feel free to leave your questions in the comments section about areas I haven’t explained so well and I’ll come back to it and try. It’s really important to me to develop my communication skills so when you see them please help me by point out my owns gaps – I would really appreciate it.
The “Intellectual Toolkit” (as one of my supervisors calls it) that I will share includes a selection of methodologies, big thinker’s theories, and key debates, that are appropriate for my research in the social and political sciences.
“Critical Discourse Analysis”
“Phenomenology”
“Narrative Inquiry”
The “Agency / Structure” debate (Foucault’s views on the Power)
Social Construction Theories (Paulo Freire’s ideas in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”; Berger and Luckman’s ideas on “The Social Construction of Reality”; and Norman K. Denzin’s ideas on “Auto-Ethnography” )
As I have discovered each of these tools and perspectives, I have felt my eyes open to new ways understanding the people and world around me. I am coming to see how language builds stories which builds identities, culture, and worldviews, which all in all provide a context from which we come to understand the relationship between our individual realities and the Reality beyond.
I hope that by sharing this information you might enhance your people watching too!
Does school prepare us for life in the real world? Is knowledge passed from academia to public spheres? Are we learning from the past, or do we continue to make the same mistakes? How well do we really understand ourselves and others in our geopolitical, social, and historical context?
It seems to me there are major gaps within our distribution of knowledge.
Today I want to focus on one of those gaps, the gap between life in school and life after school. Over the coming weeks I will look at other gaps, and then at ways they might bridged.
Schooling in Australia comes down to one result: the HSC. (For non-Australian readers, HSC = Higher School Certificate)
This seemingly life-determining series of exams is ridiculously stressful for students. Suicide, chronic fatigue and depression are among many of the disasterous mental and physical consequences.
After the HSC I have noticed that many students are left feeling high and dry.
The choices may seem too many, or too few, but either way many (including myself ten years ago) feel confused about what to do next. I mean, how many 17 year olds know what they want to do when they leave school? And of those who at the time thought they know, how many look back ten years later and realise that, well, they didn’t?
Whether motivated by guidance from friends, siblings or parents, by money-incentives, or some other not-very-well thought through reasoning, many of us go straight into university and waste 1-3 years doing, or starting to do, a degree in something irrelevant to our future.
Even if we are one of the new generation of Aussies who head overseas for a ‘gap year,’, most return home to face the same dilemma that they faced when they left: they still don’t ‘know what they want to do when they grow up.’
So the next stage of the majority’s life story ends up either drinking at university parties as they go to minimal classes to earn that obligatory piece of paper; or working a 9-5 job answering phones, waiting tables, or driving trucks, in order to pay off the credit card or HECS debt.
Maybe things have improved in the eight years since I finished school, or maybe the non-denominational (a la fundamentalist) Christian school I attended was an exception? If so please do point out my errs.
From my observation the gap between finishing high school and finding one’s role in society is a widely felt phenomenon in Australia, and maybe among other western-capitalist countries too.
Through trail and error of various degrees and jobs I have discovered many career options that at high school I never knew existed. Why didn’t I know about these things???
Instead of encouraging a thirst for knowledge and the intrinsic rewards that comes from creativity, our schools seem to encourage a regurgitating of words and formulas in order to gain the extrinsic rewards of good marks, good university & eventually a good salary.
All of this so that you can pay back your university debts, get a mortgage and work towards the Australian Dream: owning your own house.
Translation: join the system, perpetuate The Pyramid.
Those who control the distribution of knowledge, controls the minds of the people.
Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against The Pyramid. Unless I have some visionary solution to power paradoxes of the human condition I don’t feel I am in a place to criticise. The Pyramid might be the only way a society functions, so maybe our education system is the best it can be.
So let’s put The Pyramid in the parking lot for a moment. How could these gaps in education, should The Pyramid allow it, be bridged? These are some suggestions:
1. Empower children to think for themselves.
I think children could be more involved in the direction of their learning (as in Montessori schools). I think the focus should be on teaching them how to think rather than what to think, helping them develop the critical thinking skills that allow them to do this.
2. Encourage a desire to learn rather than presenting it as an obligatory task.
Learning shouldn’t be something forced upon you. It seems so negative that a child is told they have to do their homework or else get in trouble from the teacher.
Instead, learning should be presented as the luxury it is. It should be presented as the passing on of the cumulated knowledge of humanity, with which it is up to the students to expand and build upon during their lifetime.
Isn’t that a much more exciting proposition than punishment/reward scenarios of learning just to get good grades?
3. Value creativity over conformity
Learning opens up the gates for a child’s imagination, for them to discover their individual potential. Learning makes people more interesting, gives people a better sense of humour, and enhances one’s quality of life in ways that money can’t.
Creativity is a source of pleasure and purpose, but it requires children’s confidence in themselves – getting over the fear of peers, parents or teachers rejecting or ridiculing what they create.
4. Teach more practical & useful skills.
Decision making, goal setting, managing savings, investing in shares or property, avoiding accumulation of debts, solving conflicts, understanding politics and democracy, and the history of civilisation on the whole.
Why don’t schools teach students a general introduction to university disciplines including philosophy, theology, development studies, anthropology, peace studies, and the like?
5. Notify students that the roles that society defines are not the only roles. They can create their own role, their own box.
Students should be provided with a broad perspective of their place in the world, be able to see their perspective in the scheme of other people’s perspectives, and see the similarities and see what factors have influenced the differences. We can’t know everything, but we can develop an understanding of the general areas knowledge or skills that are available, and with an understanding that new areas of knowledge and skills are created every day.
Students should be given the opportunity to find jobs that they will enjoy, that are not a means to an ends but are a day-to-day source of personal growth and giving back to society.
Maybe I’m too idealistic. Yes, I’m sure I am.
I do understand that someone has to take out the trash…
Of course in my mind this is done by computerised machinery, all trash is biofriendly and so even this job is maintained by creative-thinking programmers.
I think if we were encouraged to have a desire to learn, an ability to critically evaluate our world, and to think creatively, we as a society would evolve in the most incredible ways.
Creativity, motivation and critical awareness have the potential to stimulate innovation to new levels, foster ongoing improvement in all areas of life, from local to global and beyond.
Check out what Ken Robinson has to say on the issue in the TED talk “schools kill creativity”:
Have you ever wondered why one Joker can beat four Kings. I mean, what does a joker have, besides a funny hat? How does a character based on the Fool, kick all these kings’ asses?
I have been considering the relationship between seriousness and sarcasm, peace and tragedy, efforts to conserve and the innate drive to create… I think there is some kind of answer to this riddle here, somewhere, among far too many ideas I am juggling in my head.
Alfred North Whitehead, my current philosophy hero, writes:
‘Satire is the last flicker of originality in a passing epoch as it faces the onroad of staleness and boredom. Freshness has gone: bitterness remains.’ p277
Whitehead writes this at a time just after the First World War had blown apart many-a-person’s optimism. He questions what it means to be “civilized” and whether the West is in rise or decline. As he looks through history, at civilisations that have crumbled, and he says that it is satire – which in my analogy I am relating to the joker – is the last thing/man standing.
I love Whiteheads philosophies mainly because of their witty blatant honesty, and because he articulates so many of my values.
In his book Adventures of Ideas, he gives an exquisite account of Peace making it clear he is not talking about the “negative conception of anesthesia” or any limiting political notion of one nation’s peace at another’s peril. He says:
‘The experience of Peace is largely beyond the control for purpose. It comes as a gift. The deliberate aim at Peace very easily passes into its bastard substitute, Anesthesia. In other words, in the place of a quality of “life and motion,” there is substituted their destruction. Thus Peace is the removal of inhibition and not its introduction.’ p284
In the pursuit of peace it is easy to stop when one reaches a state of decadence – but that is where the peace becomes anesthetic, and everything in life starts its slow decline.
Peace is the antithesis of such anesthesia.
Whitehead is a “Process Philosopher” – he sees everything in the world in constant flux, always changing, always becoming.
Peace too is a process, not a final result. You “do” peace – you don’t “find” it, at least not until you die.
One of the signs to look for is REPETITION.
‘Repetition produces a gradual lowering of vivid appreciation. Convention dominates. A learned orthodoxy suppresses adventure.’ p276
We need to learn, and couple our new knowledge with reflectivity. We need to take the learned orthodoxy and make it our own. We need to take society’s conventions and go on some adventure with them. Rather than repeating the past, and lowering our appreciation for it, we need to change it – make every day different, make every moment a new one.
‘No static maintenance of perfection is possible. This axiom is rooted in the nature of things. Advance or Decadence are the only choices offered to mankind. The pure conservative is fighting against the essence of the universe.‘ p273
When you read my words, and the words I quote from Whitehead, I’m sure you agree with parts and disagree with other parts. It is this process of critical examination that we come to learn where we stand. We cannot know one without the other. Even the words I type are not static. When they leave my mind, go through my fingers, and are posted on the internet, they take on a life of their own. It is in your reading of them, and your interpretation of them, that they take on new meaning. Nothing in this universe is static.
Whitehead, like myself, equates Peace with Creativity, with Beauty and Truth and Adventure and Art. Whitehead, and I agree, believes that Tragedy also has an important role to play.
‘Decay, Transition, Loss, Displacement belong to the essence of the Creative Advance. The new direction of aim is initiated by Spontaneity, an element of confusion. The enduring Societies with their rise, culmination, and decay are devices to combine the necessities of Harmony and Freshness.‘ p284-5
‘Peace is the understanding of tragedy, and at the same time its preservation.’ p284
Peace involves both the harmonizing AND the clashingof people and ideas, in a societies’ various pursuits for satisfaction.
Peace is Freedom. Peace is the freedom to pursue satisfaction, and the freedom to stop and decline or to define a new challenge when you get there. The adventure is ongoing, the evolution continues forever.
‘Without adventure civilization is in full decay.’ p278
You may notice a recent Whiteheadian influence on my blog as I absorb his categories and concepts and synthesize them with my own.
Although written 80 years ago, Whitehead’s ideas and insights are still relevant – and I think as much as the five qualities of Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art and Peace apply to analyzing our society and civilization as whole, they also apply to our individuallives.
When I look at my life and the lives of people around me I wonder:
Does capitalism promote creativity or strip us of it?
Compared to past civilizations, are we more original or less?
What percentage of our daily life is stale and boring?
What percentage of our lives is adventurous, spontaneous and novel?
Are we a people and a civilization on the rise, or in decline?
Is our satirical humor a sign that our kingdom will soon fall?
Is that why the Joker beats four Kings?
My eclectic choice in friendships reflects a value of laughter over money, a sense of humour over security, and witty wisdom over swords, politics and inhibitive institutions.
Clearly in my psyche the Joker trumps the King – how about in yours?
References:
All quotes are from Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, Cambridge University Press, 1964. Originally published in 1933 in London.
Picture:
Excerpt with that exemplary story of wit and wisdom came from A. H. Johnson, The Wit and Wisdom of Whitehead, Philosophy of Science. Vol. 13, No. 3 (Jul., 1946), pp. 223-251.
While it seems overall human civilisations only really know the pyramid, if we think outside the square – could any other shapes work?
When I first considered this question I drew a number of shapes:
Could we operate in a circle, a flat line, a square, a rectangle, a diamond?
“How about a a flatter pyramid?” I asked my friend.
“That’s Communism,” he replied. “It tends to make everyone poor, and just a few mega rich.”
I nodded woefully. Over time I have looked to other sources of inspiration.
In animal kingdoms…
In nature…
In space…
Inside ourselves…
From our minds…
[1]
.
.
.
I think my favourites are 1. THE SPIRAL 2. THE WEB 3. THE HUMAN BODY
Spirals might have interesting usages but probably not in this context. It makes me think of the pyramid on steroids, kinda what we have now – with the rich getting richer and the poor poorer in a manner that is spiraling with no limits.
Webs on the other hand are an interesting idea. Could a political, economic and social structure be more like a web than a pyramid?
Does the World Wide Web already provide a platform for this? Maybe.
When it comes to the organismic shape of the human body, I have to wonder: Do the my body’s organs and cells operate in more of a pyramid organisation structure, with my brain at the top and a hierarchy of body parts below it? Or does the networking of my spine through to the individual nerves throughout my body, the connections between my body and my mind, connections between my heart and veins, between lungs through alveoli and capillaries and through to feed oxygen to the cells in the tips of my fingers- is this more like a web?
Are our brains like pharaohs, monarchs, dictators and bankers, sitting at the top enjoying the work the rest of the body does? Or are our brains, spines, hearts, lungs, nerves and senses showing us a different system? Could our society be modelled on this?
If my foot and my arm squabbled about taking over from my brain, my body wouldn’t function so well. I need my feet to walk, I need my mouth and voice box to talk, just as right now I need my fingers to type. If my stomach goes on strike, my taste buds aren’t going to have much fun. If my hand decides not to feed me, I will die. Similarly if my hand feeds me endless amounts of McDonalds and chocolate – seeking short term pleasures at the cost of long term body functions – I will also die a relatively quick death. Similarly if those up the top of the human pyramid neglect those at the bottom, it won’t take long for the whole pyramid to fall.
While my entire body seems to be an integrated web, when it’s a working system some parts do seem to have more fun than others: I’d rather be a brain than a finger, just as I’d rather be a taste bud than a stomach. I’d prefer to be rich than poor in the capitalist world. But one without the other doesn’t really work. All body parts are happier the more happy/healthy the other parts.
At the end of the day, whether we have a system based on a pyramid or a body,
What I would really like to do is draw a big circle around the pyramid and label it “ecosystem”.
Look at your $1 bill and you will see this symbol is already kind of there…
A pyramid with a circle around it.
The “All-seeing eye” – “a universal symbol representing spiritual sight, inner vision, higher knowledge”, is a Masonic symbol that is a “mystical distortion of the omniscient (all-knowing) Biblical God”[1] which goes back as far as the ancient Egyptian god Horus.
Rather than representing an omniscient God, the all-seeing-eye makes me think of the growing fascist-nature of our governments, and the rich/elite/powerful who control them.
That’s not so bad, in my mind, as long as there is that circle around it which (ironically) is already there on the $1USD note!
I think it is really important to remember what our social, economical and political model is located inside – an environment with limits.
The great pyramid of human civilisation can outgrow itself and if our Pyramid bursts through this circle there will be no humans left to build another one.
Can the pyramid work within our planetary limits? Maybe. I think it is possible for everyone to live out their lives playing their individual roles that altogether work for the good of all.I think it’s possible for us to have different levels of power and economic wealth, so long as together we create an anatomically correct system – that is, one that fits proportionately within our ecological circle. In order to do this, population must be limited, hence poverty must be limited, the crazy wacky food production lines must be changed (I just watched Food Inc. ewwww!).
If human civilisation is to be a functioning body,we have to re-think the roles and functions of its constituents.
There must be rewards of all the rolesand each should be designed to be desirable and fulfilling. Just as unemployment might be depressing, so is living 70-hours a week in a concrete prison in the sky.
I wonder what would the social/economic/political roles look like if we were living within our ecological limits?
“Things are the way they are because they have been designed to be this way,” a friend of mine said. “It’s all about preserving The Pyramid.”
What’s The Pyramid? Let me tell you…
“The Pyramid” (according to my friend) is a method of social, economic and political organisation that is at the core of every human civilisation from the Egyptians to Hindus to Monarchies to Capitalism.
All the big political conflicts come down to one thing: The Pyramid.
Conflicts are either initiated by people on top pulling strings to preserve or expand the present Pyramid; or conflicts are initiated by revolutionaries who disagree with the structure and seek to turn The Pyramid up-side-down.
As I thought through history, I realised my friend was right. The English and Spanish Conquest of the Americas, India, China… We seize land to expand our pyramid. We seize resources to secure our pyramid. We take down any leaders who don’t agree to it’s rules. We call anyone who challenges the Pyramid a “terrorist” and “national threat”. Why? Because they really are a threat to this hierarchy – and the people at the top do not like that.
From the Egyptians:
To the Hindu caste system:
To Capitalism today…
Globalisation has seen the pyramids of once isolated civilisations join together to create an even bigger pyramid. And as the upper and middle class grows, so does the lower class, hence as our global population rapidly expands, so does The Pyramid. The rich get richer as the poor get poorer.
In the global pyramid, the top 0.5 billion earning over $20,000 a year (of which many earn far more, and a small number earning far far more than that) while 60% of the world’s population live on less than $2 a day.
The pyramid of wealth distribution looked at in another way shows the top 1% taking 2/3rds of the US national income…
How is such inequality allowed to persist?
Through a carefully constructed system that involves a “social distribution of knowledge” [1]. We educate some (the children of the monetarily rich) to make the system work for them, and educate others (the children of the not-so-money-rich) to work for the system.
Those in power know the formula: give people a reason to live (eg through career path or religion or an ideology) and educate them enough for their societal roles. No more, no less.
The system teaches people to obey authority, not to question it. It encourages conformity, a docile acceptance of the status quo.
According to my friend’s theory, all the “evils” of the world are there for a reason: to maintain The Pyramid. This includes:
Poverty is there because a massive base is needed to support the weight of the top.
War is there because it secures the resources required to make weapons and keep the system running as those at the top require.
Lack-of-education is there because in the social distribution of knowledge, not everyone needs to know stuff. All you need to know is what your role requires you to know, no more, no less.
Religion is there because it gives people a purpose. It explains the unknowns, it controls the masses, and it gives people hope for a better life next time round – be it up in heaven or in one’s reincarnation.
Debt is there because it contracts a permanent slave of those people and countries who work to repay it.
The destructive cycle is this: (1) as we seek to join the upper class or move up the middle classes (a good thing), we inadvertently (2) increase the lower class – not such a good thing if this means 12 hour work days behind a sewing machine. Then, (3) as the base of the pyramid increases, so does poverty (families have less food and less land to provide), and (4) as poverty increases, education decreases and people have more babies, causing (5) the global population continues to explode and (6) as the earth’s resources recede it seems inevitable that, at some point in the future, billions of people’s lives are going to be lost.
Should we challenge The Pyramid? Maybe. But to be honest I’m not sure that we can.
What happens when someone challenges the authority of The Pyramid? They get taken down. Just look what they are doing to Julian Assange!
History has shown Animal Farm scenarios time and time again: revolution upon revolution. When oppressive humans are kicked off the planet and animals declare themselves equal, it’s only a matter of time before pigs (or some other animal) will rise upand become the new oppressor.
The Pyramid has been torn down and built back up by a numerous groups who then take the place of the new rich and powerful. Whoever wins the battle replicates the model’s inequalities, and rewrites history to produce a new “social distribution of knowledge.” It’s an endless cycle.
Geez this is depressing. Where’s my Christmas spirit? Don’t get me started on Christmas… the capitalistic “Christian” tradition that is based on a pagan holiday inadvertently idolizing the “God” that declared “He” never wanted to be idolised. Ah sorry, I shouldn’t write it off like this. It is a lovely family time. I’ll try to uplift my words from here on…
If we can’t fight The Pyramid, should we embrace it? Maybe. Maybe there are ways of making it work without the above evils, I’m not sure.
Is inequality ok? Maybe. It’s impossible for everyone to be equal. And unappealing – diversity makes the world a more interesting place. And whose to say that the rich people are “rich”? Are those at the top of the pyramid “better off” than the people at the bottom? Life can be pretty boring if you have everything without the challenge. The poor might be much richer in different ways…
But it can’t be denied that it’s pretty shit that two-thirds of the world have no place to shit.
Maybe it’s best to live one’s life somewhere in the middle. Probably myself and most of you think of ourselves as somewhere in the middle (although earning more than $20k pa places us in the upper).
Even in the top segment of the pyramid if you have a mortgage and particularly if you have children, then choices become even more limited – we are culturally molded to work for the system. I wonder how many people at the very very top of The Pyramid are even consciously aware that they are creating or perpetuating it?
Is there anything wrong with being a cog in this wheel? No. I guess not – as long as you are happy. What if this happiness is just an illusion? Maybe living in an illusion is the best place to be. Should we be putting our efforts into finding ways to make the pyramid work for us? Maybe. But maybe not. Alternatives may exist, I’m not yet sure.
In sum, things are the way they are because they have been designed this way. Poverty, religion, education systems, health-related issues – all of our problems are (at least in part) designed to serve the powerful and preserve The Pyramid. If you want to address these problems in a way that is real and sustainable, then it will be useful for you to consider the power hierarchies within The Pyramid, and engage with those in decision-making positions to make changes toward more just institutions and hence a more just world.
When my friend first shared this theory I protested, now I’m coming around.
I have a habit of grabbing pictures off Google Images and not recording the copyrights… if anyone would like me to acknowledge their work where I haven’t please do let me know.
References:
[1] The Social Construction of Reality, Berger and Luckmann 1966
I am assisting the teaching of a master’s subject called The Political Economy of Conflict and Peace, at the University of Sydney this semester. My first presentation was yesterday and in the lead up to it I drowned myself in the political economic papers and books I wrote or read over the last couple of years. And searching YouTube for parts of documentaries that I have found useful in the past. This entry has become a bit of a dumping ground for me to refer and share again at later times… maybe you’ll find some of this random collection of thoughts and clips useful too…
Critical Discourse Analysis is a study of LANGUAGE, IDEOLOGY, POWER and SOCIAL CHANGE. ‘Discourse analysis is not a “level” of analysis as, say, phonology or lexico-grammar, but an exploration of how “texts” at all levels work within sociocultural practices,’ says Candlin in the Preface to Fairclough. If you didn’t already gauge from the title then take this as your warning: this entry contains high levels of academic language. It is also disjointed and includes a lot of quotes (because I’m lazy).
Does school prepare us for life in the real world? Is knowledge passed from academia to public spheres? Are we learning from the past, or do we continue to make the same mistakes? How well do we really understand ourselves and others in our geopolitical, social, and historical context?
Have you ever wondered why one Joker can beat four Kings. I mean, what does a joker have, besides a funny hat? How does a character based on the Fool, kick all these kings’ asses?
To the Hindu caste system:
