Dear All,

I have just drafted the following section for the opening ending chapter of 
the book I am writing about 'evolving good neighbourhood'.

Here you may see the close connection between selectionist notions of 
evolution and fixed standards of judgement in educational and 
administrative practice - and why these standards have to be transformed if 
we are to get ourselves out of a global fix in which we are addicted to 
conflict and block out loving feeling.


Warmest

Alan

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>From Perfecting Concrete Blocks to Natural Evolution - The Vitality of 
Diverse Spatial ‘Imperfection’ in Education and Governance




As may be apparent from previous chapters, I think that the notion of 
evolution by natural selection is an oxymoron, a paradoxical ‘concrete 
block evolution’ espoused by obstructive ‘concrete blockheads’ 
intellectually out of touch with their feeling, receptive-responsive 
hearts. It is a truly compassion-killing notion, Hell-bent on replacing 
natural, fluid-dynamic diversity with concrete monoculture. Set within an 
abstract, 3-dimensional Euclidean frame, a cubical cubicle filled to 
completion with independent cubical singularities, it leads inexorably to 
the notion of an ideal form of individual ‘unit of selection’ - the 
‘fittest competitor within a rigidly walled niche. This in turn gives rise 
to the idea of perfecting individuals by selecting out those traits that 
don’t conform with a prescriptive set of standards - an idea that has 
become deeply entrenched in human educational and regulatory systems. It 
comes inevitably with an intolerance of those who in one way or another are 
judged by fixed standards to be ‘not good enough’ - ‘imperfect’ in some 
way. Such intolerance can lead to great cruelty and great distress as we 
impose rationalistic notions of perfection and imperfection upon others and 
ourselves in a conflict-ridden anti-culture of discontent, as I described 
in Chapter 1.

Not only is this concrete block view of evolutionary perfectionism deeply 
distressing to those judged not good enough, but its rigidity results in 
the exclusion of the enormous creative possibility of bringing diverse, 
complementary relationships to bear as we navigate the ever-transforming 
world of our natural, fluid dynamic neighbourhood. It is radically 
counter-evolutionary; a bastion set against change. It makes no sense in an 
ever-reconfiguring, non-linear, space-including context where the evolution 
of one cannot be dislocated from the evolution of all, and vice versa.

There is therefore very good intellectual reason for feeling 
compassionately that what we might deem in a perfectionist framework to be 
a design fault in human nature, our vulnerability and proneness to ‘error’, 
which comes through the inclusion of space - darkness - in our make-up, is 
actually vital. It is an aspect of our nature that enables us to love and 
feel love and so work co-creatively in dynamic relational neighbourhood, 
celebrating and respecting rather than decrying our diversity of 
competencies and appearances.

Correspondingly I think there is a need for us to grow beyond the obsessive 
perfectionism that is evident in our present educational and administrative 
systems, governed by fixed, objective rules, regulations and standards. 
There is a need to recognise that there can be no such thing as an ideal, 
fixed, individual form that all can aspire towards. Evolutionary perfection 
can only be a property of all in dynamic relationship, not one in 
isolation. The exception that seeks to rule can only create turbulence, not 
perfection. Our educational and administrative systems need to help us 
learn how to flow, by including and loving the very source of irregularity 
that makes us imperfect as independently performing objects but perfect as 
dynamic relational - receptive and responsive flow-forms. The standards 
that we tend to encase ourselves in need to be allowed to come alive, flex 
and transform as ever-reconfiguring guide-linings in our ongoing evolution. 
In this way we can be naturally intelligent neighbourhoods, not 
artificially intelligent blockheads.

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