PS
It occurs further to me to suggest that ontological security (comfort) is
to be found in RECEPTIVITY - the inductive (loving/maternal) influence to
which all flow-forms gravitate and fall into place with one-another in
natural dynamic neighbourhood. When this receptivity is absented from our
cultural pararadigms, we seek security instead by reinforcing our
individual and collective boundaries, thereby both walling ourselves in and
walling ourselves out of natural correspondence. It is this absence of the
presence of absence that I wish to re-present in our educational
re-evolution.
--On 20 December 2006 12:29 +0000 Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Alan,
>
> Yes, I devoded past research and its scope to the Gibsons' ecological
> psychology affordance, very similar, within cognitive psychology
> (vision), to what you are saying here. And am still susbscribing to this
> idea.
>
> For my present scope and project, I should like very much to correct, as
> far as my interests and scope are concerned, your 'objective' entity' to
> a 'subjective' being/becoming self/auto-transforming in the world. I
> have a personal humanistic dislike to 'objective' and objective entities
> as far daseins, human subjects, are concerned. I just cannot see human
> as anything to do with object and objective. I see this, ironicaly, as
> wholly biased. That is why my scope now is to show a different
> perspective and more unbiased that is subjective and dealing with
> subjects.
>
> I am focusing, for what else can I do as one person but focus my scope,
> on embodiment as a non demagogical and more humanistic and dignifying
> heuristic approach to human existence.Alon
>
> Quoting Alan Rayner <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> Dear Alon,
>>
>> I think what you say here illustrates all too clearly how invasive
>> totalitarianism engenders defensive totalitarianism through the breakdown
>> of trust. The abused is seemingly left with little option but to try
>> autopoietically to construct, reconstruct and protect their local
>> self-identity through a semi-permeable facade that isolates them one-way
>> from their neighbourhood and precludes two-way (mutual)
>> receptive-responsiveness. The Vampire Archetype reproduces itself in its
>> victims. Likewise, Vampiric conventional educational practices reproduce
>> themselves in learners, who become additional Bricks in the Wall of
>> exclusional practice.
>>
>>
>> This is why I think an 'Educational Re-evolution' based on 'Natural
>> Inclusion' (cf objective comparison and selection) is necessary, at the
>> heart of which is a move from regarding the individual self as an
>> objective 'entity', embodied 'in the world' (an occupier of living
>> space) to appreciating the self as OF THE WORLD, a fluid dynamic,
>> COMPLEX IDENTITY with both local and non-local dimensions. We need to
>> move from a system that instructs purely how to discriminate, to one
>> that equips with the ability both to integrate and differentiate in an
>> evolutionarily co-creative natural neighbourhood where One can never
>> consistently Stand Alone.
>>
>> I think you can play a vitally important role in this re-evolution if you
>> allow your defensive barriers to relax (they don't have to be removed
>> ENTIRELY!), softening and hardening as appropriate to circumstance rather
>> than being absolutely defined.
>>
>>
>> Warmest
>>
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>> --On 19 December 2006 16:40 +0000 Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Alan,
>>>
>>> As I am writing this, I am listening via the web to a very disturbing
>>> Israeli radio programme that tells the story of the Polish Jewish
>>> holocaust survivors who were murdered after the war and their liberation
>>> from Auschwitz. This explains and embodied my idea on trusting no one
>>> but yourself.
>>>
>>> I am not sure there is a contradiction between what you are saying and
>>> what I saying. I am not sure that I have ever written that I, and the
>>> individual, is/am isolated from the world. On the contrary, I always
>>> said that the 'I' is embodied in the world. And responding to,
>>> interelating and engaging with the world for his/her auto-poietic
>>> progress. Still, I also talked about the need for self-education as the
>>> most productive education. This is why I sanf Pink Floyd (Another Brick
>>> in the Wall, verse 2) to my teachers. Alon
>>> Quoting Alan Rayner <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>
>>>> Dear Alon,
>>>>
>>>> Great!
>>>>
>>>> As I'll be going off-line shortly, I thought I'd let you have a very
>>>> preliminary response (and also to your second message which came in as
>>>> I was composing this one).
>>>>
>>>> I'm intrigued by your feeling that moving to 'we' is a 'betrayal' of
>>>> 'I'. I do indeed accept that the 'I' needs to love and care for itself,
>>>> but as part of that loving and caring I see the receptive-responsive
>>>> opening up, in appropriate circumstances, of communication channels
>>>> with its neighbourhood - like a hedgehog uncurling, a seed
>>>> germinating, an egg hatching, a tree forming mycorrhizal partnerships
>>>> with fungi etc - as vital to its well-becoming (dynamic ontology)as an
>>>> expressive, space-embodying, flow-form.
>>>>
>>>> I think that real life cycles (or, better, 'spirals') are all about the
>>>> transitions between latent and expressive forms of spatial inclusion.
>>>> The HUGE mistake, as I see it, of objective rationality, through the
>>>> exclusion of space ('boundless fifth dimension'), has been to try
>>>> externally to FORCE (rather than inclusionally dissolve or melt) latent
>>>> form into expressive form (motion).
>>>>
>>>> It is this contrast with objective rationality that I hoped to draw
>>>> attention to in my invention (yes, it was me who thought of this term)
>>>> of the term 'inclusionality' (Contrasting 'including all' with
>>>> 'rationing' or 'rationalizing' reality into discrete factions and
>>>> fractions through collapsing its dimensionality down to three, plus
>>>> time). Whatever term one uses is rarely likely to please everybody.
>>>> Having put it out there I have to stay with it. Correspondingly, I do
>>>> appreciate your sense of obligation to stay with your presently
>>>> constructed heuristics, and I recognise that it is valuable and
>>>> courageous for you to show in public how you have struggled (with what
>>>> I see as the paradox) to apply this in living your own life. I also
>>>> suspect you may not find the ontological crisis (transformation) of
>>>> opening up (relaxing) this construction as unpleasant as you fear. In
>>>> fact, you might find it rejuvenating and revitalizing! Who the Hell is
>>>> Telling You You are too Old?! Perhaps that's the strain of the
>>>> heuristics telling upon you.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Warmest
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Alan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --On 19 December 2006 15:26 +0000 Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Alan - Thank you very muchfor this.
>>>>>
>>>>> I will take time to reflect and internalise your very fair and
>>>>> productive constructive criticism and will unfold a single chunk
>>>>> reflection over time and space, in the way that as a trained
>>>>> phenomenologist, I was, myself, taught and tught others to do.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd commence with my main training as a personality, clinical
>>>>> psychologist and therapist who believs that a therapist role is to
>>>>> help one to help herself: The self namely the 'I' is an ever cimplex
>>>>> matter, constructed of some vicious self-self struggles. Shouldn't
>>>>> it be wise to deal with it before moving to the we? Isn't moving to
>>>>> the we a betrayal of the 'I'. Doesn't the 'I' has an obligation for
>>>>> itself to take care of itself in a loving and productive fashion?
>>>>>
>>>>> More reflections and questions will unfold soon and during course. I
>>>>> just want to pick up on your claim that I'd be offended. On the
>>>>> contrary I welcome your challenge very much and am veruy prompt to
>>>>> respond constructively to show that I have nothing but respect for you
>>>>> for this entry. Alon
>>>>>
>>>>> Quoting Alan Rayner <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>
