Dear Alan and all
Alon's bleak vision of the self as singularity (as Alan describes Alon's
work, and perhaps incorrectly) could indeed be severely bleak given the
danger of singularity that I understand Peter McLaren to be warning against
here, "Liberal theories of justice attempt to harmonize individual interests
in the private sphere. But as Daniel Bensaid points out, correctly in my
view, you can't allocate the collective productivity of social labour
individually."
This is one sense in which in my living theory project I seek to educate to
warn students of the dangers inherent to Western liberal theories of the
self. Liberal theories of the self are inherently conservative. Like
McLaren, I follow this path in my educational practice and my research
account of that practice,
"As a critical educator, I follow Glen Rikowski's work and encourage
students to ask themselves the following question: What is the maximum
damage we can do to the rule of capital, to the dominance of capital's
form?"
I ask this question because the political world of advanced/globalizing
capitalism throws up a structural reality I occupy - as distinct though not
discrete from the privatized and imaginal spaces of a loving and intimate
life as both elements are lived within in the same flow - is not convivial,
and neither is it particularly loving. Where is the love in Israel's state
terrorism of the Lebanese people? What is convivial about Sunni killing
Shi'a in the name of freedom and justice? What kind of love inhabits
neoliberal politics? Where have loving educational relationships for social
purpose receded to in the face of a violently 'consumerist' higher
education? These are the ways in which the dominance of capital's form
militates against public conviviality and love. This is why I am very
concerned by the tyranny of the priapic Western liberal 'I' and self that
seems to dominate a lot of action research living theory. For every bit of
the private good it achieves (and I can see that it does) a very high public
price has to be paid in the form of losing political purpose for the
achievement of public conviviality.
The dominance of the self and 'I' in contemporary Western life seems, in so
many ways, anathema to the quality of conviviality and loving relational
accountability that I'm sustaining in both private and public interrelated
arenas of my life. It is certainly anathema to a way of life in Ubuntu. I
value the take of Taylor, Steele and Barr (2002, For a Radical Higher
Education: After Postmodernism) for extending this excitingly (almost)
political new strand of conversation opening up here and now in the list,
"There is an ideological juxtaposition of huge, global forces beyond the
control, even the full comprehension, of both individuals and any
explanatory framework, and an insistence that the only politics possible
(and desirable) in postmodernity is focused on local, micro concerns. At its
worst, this concentration upon the intensely local and the particular is a
symptom of withdrawal, escapism, and alienation."
These 'huge, global forces' are not very convivial nor yet loving.
So how can this BERA list find ways to do research, craft theory and sustain
political 'action' that connects what I believe to be vitally convivial and
loving in our lives as eloquently expressed by Eleanor and what I also know
to be the dirty, messy, ugly truth of huge global forces beyond the control
- and comprehension - of individuals? Until living theory finds inclusional
room for sociological accounts of 'out there' structural reality in ways
that show, clearly, how individual accounts can 'change' this external world
then living theory runs the risk of remaining an 'interior theory' held
together by a unity of imagination seemingly out of touch with the violence
of global capitalism and its victims.
In public hope
Yaakub Murray
-----Original Message-----
From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alan
Rayner
Sent: 15 December 2006 11:17
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "relying on others to forward an e-mail"
Dear Brian and all,
Just to emphasize that I do not share Alon's bleak vision of the self as
singularity, and indeed see this vision as inconsistent with his many
'alternative' expressions of gushing, flowing, poetic, artistic, dynamic
individuality, ontology and heuristics.
The loving receptivity of 'space' ('darkness') that I speak of in
inclusional and electrogravitational terms is I think deeply akin to agape.
The fear of this loving receptivity is akin to the salt crystal desperately
seeking solution but scared of water, and so unable to open up to the
possibility of transformation - thereby self-immunizing from its
neighbourhood in a desperate attempt to sustain its ontological security
which is seemingly (but only seemingly) threatened with annihilation by
opening up trustingly to others in (dare I put it this way) holey
communion. This holey communion or 'common spiritedness' is identical in my
mind with what Jack has spoken of as 'conviviality'. Interestingly,
'convivial' was the way that my term as President of the British
Mycological Society was described by some members of its 'Council'. As
convivial beings we can recognize convivial expression in others as an
aspect of ourselves. We can also 'choose' through mental abstraction to
ignore it and sentence ourselves to a life alone (All One).
With regard to the 'Achilles Syndrome' that I mentioned in another message,
I think the problem lies not with the Heel but in the egotistic attempt to
cover it up in the vain pursuit of individual (All One) perfection (which
is INCOMPATIBLE with an evolutionary process of Natural Inclusion, where
evolutionary perfection is a property of all in dynamic relationship, not
one in isolation). The Heel is vital, to be loved and valued, not covered
up in protective armour. The meek, who admit their vulnerability and work
convivially and complementarily through this admission, are the generative
source of evolutionary creativity. The strong-minded who deny their
vulnerability are the degenerative source of evolutionary totalitarianism,
the March of the Cybermen.
Of course in a community of desiccated salt crystals all objectively
wrapped up in themselves, the opening up (admission) of inclusional
possibility does indeed feel like a very dangerous and foolhardy
enterprise. More often than not it may meet with autoimmune rejection. But
it is vital to sustainable, co-creative, lovingly receptive-responsive
neighbourhood.
Warmest
Alan
--On 14 December 2006 18:05 +0000 Brian wakeman <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Alon, Alan, Jack and All,
>
> Thanks for the correction folks.........
>
> but after forty years in education with my values
> tested in the practical realities of life with
> children, parents and colleagues......I still feel I
> am inter-related with others...mutually dependent on
> each other.....like parts of the body that are a
> diversity but unity.....functioning for the greater
> good by being committed to each other....appreciating
> each other...rather than competing, aggressive, self
> dominated....it comes at a cost of course ...being
> hurt...feeling let down.....seeing the 'entropy', the
> capacity of things to fall apart at work in
> relationships and institutions...but that's the
> sacrifice of a grander vision of human beings.......
> beyond individualism....imperfectly expressed in the
> 'agape' of my local community.
>
>
> I guess part of the problem is my limited
> understanding of the vision that you are intimating
> in your second sentence, Alon.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Brian
>
>
> --- Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> For once in my life I was not ironic.
>>
>> Since childhood, I have constructed a life
>> philosophy and later a
>> heuristic living ontological theory that is all
>> about direct
>> self-accountability within an autopietic
>> transformation. One can blame
>> no one but himself/herself.
>>
>> I am not sure I rely on the mechanic or surgeon: I
>> think I choose to go
>> to them when something is wrong with my car or body
>> and to hire them to
>> help me help myself: more like giving a hook rather
>> than fish.
>>
>> Human existence belongs to the person who embodies
>> it and to him/her
>> alone. Others can assis if they wish. But they
>> cannot live another
>> person's life. This is the reason for my
>> construction of a wholly
>> embodied and embodied psychology/heristics of human
>> exidstence.
>>
>> I am somewhat critical of the ideas of
>> neighbourhood: I think we are
>> neibourhoods of individuals in the world
>> interrelating for the
>> construction of best neighbourhood we can construct
>> in the taxes/deeds
>> that we pay.
>>
>> Alan asked us to forward his email and then when we
>> did not did it
>> himself. This prompted my reply.
>>
>> I think this is enough for now. I am in the process
>> of putting
>> together and completing a play and an academic book
>> and perhaps proze
>> fiction/novel on it, mostly using transforming,
>> living and unfolding
>> blogs thayt stretch over and within time and space.
>> Alon
>>
>> Quoting Brian wakeman <[log in to unmask]>:
>>
>> > Dear Colleagues,
>> >
>> > Sorry I can't let this one go without raising a
>> query.
>> >
>> > Is this right in your experience?
>> >
>> > "Never ever rely on others"
>> >
>> > Part of the risk in living is "relying on others".
>> > We are all fallible, and perhaps have been hurt
>> and
>> > let down by relying on others......
>> >
>> > but...... I have to rely on others e.g. in loving
>> > relationships; for technical help beyond my
>> skills:
>> >
>> > - my motor mechanic when I can't change a clutch
>> > - my surgeon when I agree to an anaesthetic
>> >
>> > I know they may let me down, I may be
>> disappointed, or
>> > even be angry......but I have needed to invest
>> trust
>> > in people.
>> >
>> >
>> > I guess it depends on what Alon means by "rely
>> on".
>> >
>> > Were you being 'ironic' Alon, perhaps?
>> >
>> > I note that Alon has relied on Jack or Marie to
>> > forward his e-mail. What's going on here?
>> >
>> > Have I missed the point?
>> >
>> >
>> > Regards
>> >
>> > Brian
>> >
>> > --- Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Re- > I'm responding from my home computer, which
>> >> the BERA server rejects, so
>> >> > perhaps you or Jack or Marie could forward this
>> on
>> >> to the others?
>> >>
>> >> Alan - I let you fulfill the most important idea
>> in
>> >> my heuristics of
>> >> human existence. Never, ever, rely on others.
>> >> Always rely on yourself
>> >> and yourself alone. And do it. Thank you for
>> >> forwarding this.
>> >>
>> >> Am I learning to become an educator or am I
>> not???
>> >> Alon
>> >>
>> >> Quoting Alan Rayner <[log in to unmask]>:
>> >>
>> >> > ------------ Forwarded Message ------------
>> >> > Date: 14 December 2006 09:01 +0000
>> >> > From: "A.D.M.Rayner" <[log in to unmask]>
>> >> > To: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
>> >> > <[log in to unmask]>
>> >> > Cc: Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]>, Jack
>> >> Whitehead
>> >> > <[log in to unmask]>, "A.D.M.Rayner"
>> >> <[log in to unmask]>, Marie
>> >> > Huxtable <[log in to unmask]>, Ted
>> Lumley
>> >> <[log in to unmask]>,
>> >> > [log in to unmask]
>> >> > Subject: Re: Educational
>> >> >
>> >> > Dear Alon,
>> >> >
>> >> > I'm responding from my home computer, which the
>> >> BERA server rejects, so
>> >> > perhaps you or Jack or Marie could forward this
>> on
>> >> to the others?
>> >> >
>> >> > Yes, I like 'ings' too.
>> >> >
>> >> > Flows are 'dynamic relational', always with
>> >> reciprocal inner (concave) and
>> >> > outer (convex) distinguished and coupled
>> through
>> >> intermediary aspects (e.g.
>> >> > when 'I walk across a room', there is a
>> reciprocal
>> >> reconfiguration of the
>> >> > inner space that my skin outlines with outer
>> space
>> >> that my skin inlines',
>> >> > just as there is a flow of water around a boat
>> >> that reciprocates its forward
>> >> > passage). They do not involve the movement of a
>> >> spatially dislocated object
>> >> > from A to B as a linear progression in a
>> Euclidean
>> >> 3-dimensional framework
>> >> > (this being a dimensionally collapsed view of
>> >> Nature, with space and time
>> >> > abstracted as empty outsiders). They involve
>> the
>> >> reciprocal coupling of
>> >> > concave and convex domains in non-linear
>> (curved)
>> >> energy-space.
>> >> >
>> >> > Insofar as flows have 'purpose', this is to
>> >> sustain dynamic equilibrium, via
>> >> > a continual 'living' process of 'attunement' or
>> >> 'harmonization' (in physics,
>> >> > called 'resonance'), as when a hurricane
>> transfers
>> >> heat from tropical to
>> >> > temperate latitudes (note that a hurricane
>> cannot
>> >> be considered as an
>> >> > 'object' independent from the atmosphere of
>> which
>> >> it is a dynamic inclusion,
>> >> > anymore than a human body can be considered as
>> an
>> >> object independent from
>> >> > Nature). So, the Severn Bore, for example, is
>> >> quite different from the
>> >> > Kiekergaardian bore; it is a flow form that
>> >> sustains dynamic equilibrium.
>> >> > And so are you and I.
>> >> >
>> >> > Below I am pasting in some writing from Chapter
>> 9
>> >> of 'Natural Inclusion',
>> >> > which develops some of these themes in relation
>> to
>> >> management and
>> >> > educational practice.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Incidentally, I have just come across a book by
>> >> Petruska Clarkson called
>> >> > 'The Achilles Syndrome: Overcoming the Secret
>> Fear
>>
> === message truncated ===
>
>
> Brian E. Wakeman
> Education adviser
> Dunstable
> Beds
>
|