"But then, suddenly, I ‘got it’ at an emotional and philosophical level (for me they’re often the same)."
Important line here.
What I never see addressed, is the huge and essential difference between analysis, after the fact, like you do with the Star Wars plots, and modelling or prediction. While there is good reason to apply experience to expectations, these indicators can never lead the way. So the question becomes what can, should be in charge moving forward.
The guy from Assisi is telling us, and I recognise a person with good hands there. Who knows how to accomplish stuff in the physical world. Ask the master builder, not the strategist, and he will tell you the soul is in charge, not the plan, not the possible, not the imagined outcome, not the will. And this is very similar to what McGilchrist calls the right hemisphere way. It says, among many other things, that we must become weary of all forms of representation. Not do away with them, but prevent them from having the deciding power.
Making a list of all that should not be in charge and outline appears. Never to be named, never to be grasped, never to be set in stone. But kept holy. It is the unwritten.
The crazy thing with McGilchrist's work is that the insight is nothing new. And the great danger of his analysis is that it now is up for grabs. To be integrated and institutionalised. Like a fourth move in the hemisphere manoeuvre. Peace to me, is not external first. Internal peace is about the relationship of me and my ecology. Me and my home. It radiates outward from my core. Making my peace my responsibility and nothing more.
I don't believe in attractors, I believe in radiators.
This is not as strange as you think. I'm half way through writing a 3-part essay / artistic offering in 3 parts on the McGilchrist maneuver (or perhaps from the Franciscan perspective) – systems/souls/society. Will send it when finished.
I just published a piece I wrote a month or so back where I use the Star Wars mythology as a framing. And given that I'm High Priest of a Church (unofficial, of course) - I'm a little obsessed by the attempt (successful in the US not here in UK) to have Jediism recognised as a Religion. I'd argue Star Wars is - or at least it represents - a pretty widespread 'belief system'. Perhaps unconscious, perhaps disavowed but these big stories have real power. The force is strong in you, Jonathan!
Dear Johnathan, you wrote: The film was released in 2016 but sits in a narrative chronology just before the original Star Wars in 1977 (when, along with 3,326,631 other people, I was born). Your essay reads like the generational problem of technology affected perceptions of a make-believe reality that satisfies a desire for distracting entertainment and wishful thinking about an inner life of the future, while remaining instinctively resistant to becoming knowledgeable about one's own inner realty and the estimated 95% of 'what' we are, that cannot cross the threshold of conscious awareness.
Your essay was predicted by Murray Bowen's research into the emotional nature of systems-souls-society and expressed in this essay:
Societal Emotional Process
Each concept in Bowen theory applies to non family groups, such as work and social organizations. The concept of societal emotional process describes how the emotional system governs behavior on a societal level, promoting both progressive and regressive periods in a society. Cultural forces are important in how a society functions but are insufficient for explaining the ebb and flow in how well societies adapt to the challenges that face them. Bowen's first clue about parallels between familial and societal emotional functioning came from treating families with juvenile delinquents. The parents in such families give the message, "We love you no matter what you do." Despite impassioned lectures about responsibility and sometimes harsh punishments, the parents give in to the child more than they hold the line. The child rebels against the parents and is adept at sensing the uncertainty of their positions. The child feels controlled and lies to get around the parents. He is indifferent to their punishments. The parents try to control the child but are largely ineffectual.
Bowen discovered that during the 1960s the courts became more like the parents of delinquents. Many in the juvenile court system considered the delinquent as a victim of bad parents. They tried to understand him and often reduced the consequences of his actions in the hope of effecting a change in his behavior. If the delinquent became a frequent offender, the legal system, much like the parents, expressed its disappointment and imposed harsh penalties. This recognition of a change in one societal institution led Bowen to notice that similar changes were occurring in other institutions, such as in schools and governments. The downward spiral in families dealing with delinquency is an anxiety-driven regression in functioning. In a regression, people act to relieve the anxiety of the moment rather than act on principle and a long-term view. A regressive pattern began unfolding in society after World War II. It worsened some during the 1950s and rapidly intensified during the 1960s. The "symptoms" of societal regression include a growth of crime and violence, an increasing divorce rate, a more litigious attitude, a greater polarization between racial groups, less principled decision-making by leaders, the drug abuse epidemic, an increase in bankruptcy, and a focus on rights over responsibilities.
Human societies undergo periods of regression and progression in their history. The current regression seems related to factors such as the population explosion, a sense of diminishing frontiers, and the depletion of natural resources. Bowen predicted that the current regression would, like a family in a regression, continue until the repercussions stemming from taking the easy way out on tough issues exceeded the pain associated with acting on a long-term view. He predicted that will occur before the middle of the twenty-first century and should result in human beings living in more harmony with nature."
Before we can get back to living in harmony with nature though we will have to become more knowledgeable about our unseen nature and the overwhelming non-conscious orchestration of our behaviors, so we can transcend those language labelling appearances of reality, we hold so dearly within our self-hypnotic mind-sight. Until then the people of the 'screen-time' generations will continue to believe in the make-believe nature of language and manifest Orsan Scott Cards aphoristic judgement of humanity; “This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.”
He said: “No. Fieldwork is the sine qua non of Anthropology.”
I love this take; it resonates strongly with my own life, of leading from what I call the coalface. The place of action. Real action. You have to feel in your own body what it is we are working on and trying to achieve.
Well written, it sets the stage for achieving the outcome of what we all seek!
To escape what is easy to see and say as truth but it doesn't awaken us. (a quote from philosopher Slavor Zizek on IAI.) His latest book is interesting: "Hegel in the Wired Brain." The Singularity Race as defined by Kurzweil; who's book should come out this year or maybe not, for he has been working on how to reverse engineer the brain for more than 20 years. Good luck to him. All he needs is to understand Hegel and he will realise that the singularity is already in the realm of the spirit. This of course means that god the universe cannot be usurped. At least in that respect, we mankind should be ok when we return to take up our true identity of creating universes together with god. Kurzweil and his fellow Superhuman bots will only manage to delay their own true identity. It is only through an awakening to true perception that man will recognise the true cognitive difference between the two hemispheres, and a need for a change of mind.
My lifelong motto has been: "Seek, and you shall find, and the truth will set you free.
This led in the end, by working on the coalface of solving problems on the job, to a completeness paradigm for a general transportation simulation system the foundation of which was perceived 33 years ago and realised through Iain McGilchrist's split brain hypotheses to be the RH algorithm as directionally opposite to the LH's take, still the general direction of scientific research. Being a Christian non-religious follower of Jesus Christ and as such I instinctively understood the two complete thought systems as representing St Paul's expression of living in the flesh as opposed to living in the spirit, the higher thought system.
The LH represents complete integrative meaning, and the RH represents complete integrative differential meaning! I am only here, recognising the strength of the RH algorithm in achieving the 100-year goal of Perspectiva. And a need to write a book my mentor and I have already started to write. Something like: "The Right Hemisphere: The New Math of Life, Science in the Spiritual as well as the Material World. Brother Niels
Thank you for these well crafted reflections. After conceiving the possibility of peace making as sexy, I find this next step of “disarming the Death Star” inspirational. It stirs my imagination into beautiful implosions.
However, some of the subsequent analytical steps feel a bit too structuralist and somehow missing the kernel. Bringing Moloch to the picture doesn’t captivate this reader. If seems to me that it is often being use as means of filling gaps and bringing frisson to social analysis; it certainly is capturing the imagination of some fine minds even if in somewhat naive ways. Good solid theology would come in handy here.
In line with one of the readers, I find that the amount of non-conscious behaviour or alternatively waking up is central to the dismantling work. And also warmly concur with another reader: I too believe in radiators much more than attractors, which leads us to Francis of Assis. What was the nature of this “doing” he was referring to? I suspect it had a lot to do with the quality of being. One that had a huge impact on social structures, incidentally...
And yes. Vigilance, always. It has been said it’s the price of liberty. I guess of peace too, especially when well blended with loving care.
"...if your moral imperative dictates that you capture the cosmos, you want to launch and want to see no future launches by anyone else. This creates an incentive that is truly perverse. If you want certainty that your probes are successful, you’ll have to act to prevent all future competition. It’s hard to imagine many ‘nice’ ways to do that."
"But then, suddenly, I ‘got it’ at an emotional and philosophical level (for me they’re often the same)."
Important line here.
What I never see addressed, is the huge and essential difference between analysis, after the fact, like you do with the Star Wars plots, and modelling or prediction. While there is good reason to apply experience to expectations, these indicators can never lead the way. So the question becomes what can, should be in charge moving forward.
The guy from Assisi is telling us, and I recognise a person with good hands there. Who knows how to accomplish stuff in the physical world. Ask the master builder, not the strategist, and he will tell you the soul is in charge, not the plan, not the possible, not the imagined outcome, not the will. And this is very similar to what McGilchrist calls the right hemisphere way. It says, among many other things, that we must become weary of all forms of representation. Not do away with them, but prevent them from having the deciding power.
Making a list of all that should not be in charge and outline appears. Never to be named, never to be grasped, never to be set in stone. But kept holy. It is the unwritten.
The crazy thing with McGilchrist's work is that the insight is nothing new. And the great danger of his analysis is that it now is up for grabs. To be integrated and institutionalised. Like a fourth move in the hemisphere manoeuvre. Peace to me, is not external first. Internal peace is about the relationship of me and my ecology. Me and my home. It radiates outward from my core. Making my peace my responsibility and nothing more.
I don't believe in attractors, I believe in radiators.
Thanks Jonathan. My comments at https://johnstokdijk538.substack.com/p/lets-defeat-moloch.
This is not as strange as you think. I'm half way through writing a 3-part essay / artistic offering in 3 parts on the McGilchrist maneuver (or perhaps from the Franciscan perspective) – systems/souls/society. Will send it when finished.
If this is strange, then strange is good!
I just published a piece I wrote a month or so back where I use the Star Wars mythology as a framing. And given that I'm High Priest of a Church (unofficial, of course) - I'm a little obsessed by the attempt (successful in the US not here in UK) to have Jediism recognised as a Religion. I'd argue Star Wars is - or at least it represents - a pretty widespread 'belief system'. Perhaps unconscious, perhaps disavowed but these big stories have real power. The force is strong in you, Jonathan!
Dear Johnathan, you wrote: The film was released in 2016 but sits in a narrative chronology just before the original Star Wars in 1977 (when, along with 3,326,631 other people, I was born). Your essay reads like the generational problem of technology affected perceptions of a make-believe reality that satisfies a desire for distracting entertainment and wishful thinking about an inner life of the future, while remaining instinctively resistant to becoming knowledgeable about one's own inner realty and the estimated 95% of 'what' we are, that cannot cross the threshold of conscious awareness.
Your essay was predicted by Murray Bowen's research into the emotional nature of systems-souls-society and expressed in this essay:
Societal Emotional Process
Each concept in Bowen theory applies to non family groups, such as work and social organizations. The concept of societal emotional process describes how the emotional system governs behavior on a societal level, promoting both progressive and regressive periods in a society. Cultural forces are important in how a society functions but are insufficient for explaining the ebb and flow in how well societies adapt to the challenges that face them. Bowen's first clue about parallels between familial and societal emotional functioning came from treating families with juvenile delinquents. The parents in such families give the message, "We love you no matter what you do." Despite impassioned lectures about responsibility and sometimes harsh punishments, the parents give in to the child more than they hold the line. The child rebels against the parents and is adept at sensing the uncertainty of their positions. The child feels controlled and lies to get around the parents. He is indifferent to their punishments. The parents try to control the child but are largely ineffectual.
Bowen discovered that during the 1960s the courts became more like the parents of delinquents. Many in the juvenile court system considered the delinquent as a victim of bad parents. They tried to understand him and often reduced the consequences of his actions in the hope of effecting a change in his behavior. If the delinquent became a frequent offender, the legal system, much like the parents, expressed its disappointment and imposed harsh penalties. This recognition of a change in one societal institution led Bowen to notice that similar changes were occurring in other institutions, such as in schools and governments. The downward spiral in families dealing with delinquency is an anxiety-driven regression in functioning. In a regression, people act to relieve the anxiety of the moment rather than act on principle and a long-term view. A regressive pattern began unfolding in society after World War II. It worsened some during the 1950s and rapidly intensified during the 1960s. The "symptoms" of societal regression include a growth of crime and violence, an increasing divorce rate, a more litigious attitude, a greater polarization between racial groups, less principled decision-making by leaders, the drug abuse epidemic, an increase in bankruptcy, and a focus on rights over responsibilities.
Human societies undergo periods of regression and progression in their history. The current regression seems related to factors such as the population explosion, a sense of diminishing frontiers, and the depletion of natural resources. Bowen predicted that the current regression would, like a family in a regression, continue until the repercussions stemming from taking the easy way out on tough issues exceeded the pain associated with acting on a long-term view. He predicted that will occur before the middle of the twenty-first century and should result in human beings living in more harmony with nature."
Before we can get back to living in harmony with nature though we will have to become more knowledgeable about our unseen nature and the overwhelming non-conscious orchestration of our behaviors, so we can transcend those language labelling appearances of reality, we hold so dearly within our self-hypnotic mind-sight. Until then the people of the 'screen-time' generations will continue to believe in the make-believe nature of language and manifest Orsan Scott Cards aphoristic judgement of humanity; “This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.”
Dear Jonathan,
He said: “No. Fieldwork is the sine qua non of Anthropology.”
I love this take; it resonates strongly with my own life, of leading from what I call the coalface. The place of action. Real action. You have to feel in your own body what it is we are working on and trying to achieve.
Well written, it sets the stage for achieving the outcome of what we all seek!
To escape what is easy to see and say as truth but it doesn't awaken us. (a quote from philosopher Slavor Zizek on IAI.) His latest book is interesting: "Hegel in the Wired Brain." The Singularity Race as defined by Kurzweil; who's book should come out this year or maybe not, for he has been working on how to reverse engineer the brain for more than 20 years. Good luck to him. All he needs is to understand Hegel and he will realise that the singularity is already in the realm of the spirit. This of course means that god the universe cannot be usurped. At least in that respect, we mankind should be ok when we return to take up our true identity of creating universes together with god. Kurzweil and his fellow Superhuman bots will only manage to delay their own true identity. It is only through an awakening to true perception that man will recognise the true cognitive difference between the two hemispheres, and a need for a change of mind.
My lifelong motto has been: "Seek, and you shall find, and the truth will set you free.
This led in the end, by working on the coalface of solving problems on the job, to a completeness paradigm for a general transportation simulation system the foundation of which was perceived 33 years ago and realised through Iain McGilchrist's split brain hypotheses to be the RH algorithm as directionally opposite to the LH's take, still the general direction of scientific research. Being a Christian non-religious follower of Jesus Christ and as such I instinctively understood the two complete thought systems as representing St Paul's expression of living in the flesh as opposed to living in the spirit, the higher thought system.
The LH represents complete integrative meaning, and the RH represents complete integrative differential meaning! I am only here, recognising the strength of the RH algorithm in achieving the 100-year goal of Perspectiva. And a need to write a book my mentor and I have already started to write. Something like: "The Right Hemisphere: The New Math of Life, Science in the Spiritual as well as the Material World. Brother Niels
Thank you for these well crafted reflections. After conceiving the possibility of peace making as sexy, I find this next step of “disarming the Death Star” inspirational. It stirs my imagination into beautiful implosions.
However, some of the subsequent analytical steps feel a bit too structuralist and somehow missing the kernel. Bringing Moloch to the picture doesn’t captivate this reader. If seems to me that it is often being use as means of filling gaps and bringing frisson to social analysis; it certainly is capturing the imagination of some fine minds even if in somewhat naive ways. Good solid theology would come in handy here.
In line with one of the readers, I find that the amount of non-conscious behaviour or alternatively waking up is central to the dismantling work. And also warmly concur with another reader: I too believe in radiators much more than attractors, which leads us to Francis of Assis. What was the nature of this “doing” he was referring to? I suspect it had a lot to do with the quality of being. One that had a huge impact on social structures, incidentally...
And yes. Vigilance, always. It has been said it’s the price of liberty. I guess of peace too, especially when well blended with loving care.
Who needs Death Stars when you've got von Neumann Probes?
https://aeon.co/essays/cosmic-expansion-is-a-given-who-inherits-the-cosmos-is-not
"...if your moral imperative dictates that you capture the cosmos, you want to launch and want to see no future launches by anyone else. This creates an incentive that is truly perverse. If you want certainty that your probes are successful, you’ll have to act to prevent all future competition. It’s hard to imagine many ‘nice’ ways to do that."