evolve:
i just caught your post (somehow it came into my box later than rasheed's
reply to it) -- i'm glad you chose this as your first post -- there is so
much in there to respond to, but i want to first carry your mental web out a
little further.
first of all, i LOVE the metaphor "adam smith's invisible hand is giving us
a great big finger". it is a perfect retrospective look back over recent
history and sums up the complex sequence of thoughts into a coherent
picture.
we are still not out of the industrial age era inspired by the thinking of
smith, laplace, descartes, newton, and frederick taylor (the father of
scientific management). descartes' thinking culminated in the world as
machine. newton's thinking culminated in the "ghosts" of measure and
mechanistic prediction and control. taylor's thinking culminated in the
metaphor of the organization as a machine. these static latches together
have created quite a formidable set of static patterns to evolve out of.. on
the one hand, they have made possible much good -- perhaps we would not be
communicating across the globe right now if it were not for some of these
advances; on the other hand, certain aspects of immorality are coming to
light which you so eloquently painted out.
in the beginning of your message, you point to the response of your
counselor when you chose not to pick a cog of the machine.. or more along
the lines of this discussion group, a function in the Giant (from Lila). it
is funny how it appears that people have now been reduced to a set of
functions. perhaps that is what is causing the backlash from so many
people.. there is a limit to the deterministic mindset.
there ARE current changes in the intellectual static patterns occurring as
people are waking up to these problems. Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" theory
and the "evolving self" model are making waves in the enjoyment people can
find and create in the world. the advances in quantum mechanics have begun
to reverberate throughout many, many areas of society and are evolving the
static patterns of deterministic thinking (see Danah Zohar's _Quantum
Society_). even the organizational structures might transform rapidly
through efforts like the Dialogue Project at MIT, _Birth of the Chaordic
Age_ by Dee Hock, and _Creative Destruction_ by Sarah Kaplan. this of
course is meant to be encouragement that the old models are transforming..
now what are they going to transform to????
that is the deeper root you address. the Giant's desire to exploit
resources (Dee Hock points out a flaw in thinking in the term "Human
Resources") to amass more wealth and power, and its mechanistic channels of
distribution and marketing, need to transform or else the old, deeper-rooted
patterns will repeat. i like one illustration pirsig uses in ZATAMM.. he
is talking about the "system" and how you can destroy the factories and the
hierarchies of control but unless you address the _thinking_ that produced
those structures, the patterns will repeat themselves (I also if this was a
large seed for the MoQ in Lila) and give birth to newer versions of the same
thing.
and you address that beautifully through the insight that most of being
_taught_ is really just being _told_. most of the educational process is
ingraining these same patterns, which will ensure their perpetuation. and
the educational structures have become quite bulky, as have many
corporations. the thought ecology is bloated with ingrained patterns and
Dynamic Quality slowly trickles through. so the thought ecology needs to be
changed.
enter the internet. when the true power of this networked society we have
created becomes apparent, it will allow dynamic insights and modifications
to static patterns to perpetuate at much quicker rates. just knowing that
someone feels a similar frustration in new zealand is encouraging... i'm
sure you will find that there are many more people feeling this way.
so what about consumerism? the first step in changing something is to
become aware of it. you have become aware of it, and that in itself is very
powerful. if enough people shine their psychic energy on it, it will begin
to dissolve of itself. i think you have the makings of an excellent essay
that will help raise awareness to a lot of tacit reflexes perpetuating
throughout the world society...
shaoul
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