Dear All,

I was going to post a response to Sarah's description of 'fluffy-bunniness' 
and reference to Alon's bone-chilling honesty yesterday, but was 
forestalled by her personal critique of Jack, which I can neither entirely 
accept nor entirely reject, though I can sense and acknowledge the pain 
that must underlie it and hope that this can be allowed the space to ease.

For myself, I just want to see the amazing creative conversation space that 
has been opened up via the B.E.R.A. list sustained.

Anyway, just to reassure you all, if reassurance is the appropriate word, 
inclusionality is no 'fluffy-bunny philosophy'; it includes foxes! And for
myself, born as I was under the sign of Leo in the year of the Tiger, I 
have some quite sharp canine teeth that for better or worse have been known 
to
play a role in consuming fluffy bunnies (though not as yet Vampire 
Bats,Imperial Rats or Concrete Blockheads) through opening up their bodily 
boundaries for dissolution by my digestive enzymes!

By its very dynamic nature, inclusionality can neither ENTIRELY accept nor 
ENTIRELY reject the exclusional practice of any form of totalitarianism 
(orthodoxy, objective rationality), the latter being dependent on faith in 
the COMPLETE (absolute) definability of self and other as autonomous Whole 
Objects (paradoxical singularities that make axiomatic nonsense of real 
life dynamics). This does not mean that inclusionality is oblivious of such 
practice and faith. Nor does it mean that it is good inclusional practice 
directly to confront such practice or faith, for confrontation simply 
amplifies the opposition upon which such practice and faith is founded. 
Good inclusional practice works lovingly to transform the cultural context 
in which totalitarian hostility is empowered, whilst artfully 
circumventing,and where necessary resisting and puncturing its potentially 
domineering (hegemonic/impositional/bullying) influence.

Some forms of totalitarianism are primarily defensive, forming 'benign 
tumours and cysts', others are invasive and malignant (imperialism). Much 
as I greatly value and have benefited from his contributions, I see the 
form of totalitarian orthodoxy that in all honesty I think Alon sometimes 
expresses as being primarily defensive, a response to deep hurt and/or fear 
that cries out 'Leave Me All One', like a hedgehog rolling itself up into a 
ball covered in prickles.

Indeed all kinds of survival structures produced naturally in the face of 
energy limitation or threat - seeds, spores, cysts, eggs, crystals - etc 
are of this ilk - protective packages of creative potential in suspended 
animation. But such suspended animation is of a purely LATENT form; for 
real life EXPRESSION it has to open up and become receptively responsive to 
its neighbourhood, of which it is inescapably a dynamic inclusion. As an 
inclusional fox, I am inclined to leave Alon to himself, as he TELLS me to 
stick to myself and speak in terms of 'I', not 'we'. I feel this is quite 
an unpalatable proposition of personal sovereignty and it succeeds well in 
deterring my inclusional interest. My difficulty arises when such 
totalitarianism is expressed in my neighbourhood, in terms that I find 
nonsensical (if scholarly)and self-defeating. This arouses in me both a 
compassionate concern for the hedgehog, that he is suppressing his own 
creative potential and intellectual acuity in a very self-disabling way, 
and a concern for others (including me) who get hurt, stifled and misled in 
the process. From time to time I therefore find myself 
receptively-responsively impelled - as here - to take some risk in inviting 
Alon (as yet unsuccessfully) to loosen up in a way that will be productive 
and creative both for him and his evolutionary educational neighbourhood. 
But so long as he remains profoundly attached to the notion of his absolute 
singularity (autonomy) as a self-contained object, dislocated like the 
'number 1' from his neighbourhood, the most I feel he can accomplish is to 
epitomize rather brilliantly and artistically what such attachment implies 
for a life all one, talking to oneself. And, yes, as a singular exception 
that illuminates the complex reality, that would in some ways be a most 
valuable contribution to our understanding of natural neighbourhood as 
neither one nor many in isolation, but all, everywhere, in dynamic 
relationship. But I suspect it would not be the most happy outcome for 
Alon, remaining stuck within his brilliantly constructed facade, immune to 
what is being offered and unable to offer his scholarship and insights in a 
way that can be hole-heartedly recognised and acknowledged by others. I 
just wish the hedgehog would open up a bit more and relax, but I know also 
the danger that he will regard my critical prodding as provocation and curl 
up even more extremely, if not launch a few spines in my direction.

There we are then. I hope these unfluffy comments won't have got any of you 
or myself into a stew, but will serve to open up some helpful possibilities 
for creative cuisine.


Warmest Growls


Alan