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PS Hmm. I don't think I put that very well, but I hope you got the gist. The question of how openness deals non-confrontationally with closure is tricky to put into language. Basically by not slamming the door absolutely shut, I guess. But not by rolling over without protest, either.

Warmest

Alan

 

----- Original Message -----
 
From:  Alan  Rayner (BU) <mailto:[log in to unmask]>  
 
To: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]  
 
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 10:20 AM
 
Subject: Re: To be inclusional
 

 
Dear Susan,

 
 
Natural inclusional thinking is not without  discernment. It does seek to reveal and protect from the oppressive  influence of 'intransigent' thought, but does not directly oppose, alienate  and so preclude the possibility of transforming intransigent thought into  something more open to others' energetic influence. As Osho put it: 'A man of  peace is not against war, for to be against anything is to be at war'.  

 
 
Warmest

 
 
Alan

 
 

----- Original Message -----
 
From:  Susan Goff <mailto:[log in to unmask]>  
 
To: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]  
 
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 6:39 AM
 
Subject: Re: To be inclusional
 

Hello Alan
I am interested to understand how  critical practice fits within your embracing of all things. Does natural  inclusion make  the outing of hidden and powerful powers of oppression  a stance that you do not hold? I am open to encountering how this is thought  of by you
Susan


On 22/05/10 7:07 PM, "Alan Rayner (BU)"  <[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]>  wrote:

 

Dear  All,

In a  parallel correspondence list, I was delighted to receive the following  comment:

"This simplicity is for me  the great thing about "inclusional thinking". What does it mean to be  inclusional after all? To be open and receptive to embrace all things, to  open ones eyes and mind's eye, that is all. Does this not in itself  inspire joy, diversity and inner wealth?"
 
I couldn't agree more!

The  difficulty I perceive is that this natural inclusional way of being and  seeing is inconsistent with the intransigent logic of definitive exclusion  from 'other' that most of us have become accustomed to, and which reaches  deep and divisively into purely objective science, mathematics, theology,  governance, economics, language and education.

This  is why I have been trying to co-develop and explicate a different kind of  logic of 'the including middle', which to my mind corresponds with 'living  educational theory', that acknowledges the continuity of 'transfigural'  space across 'figural' boundaries. Without this underlying logic, the  inclusional way of being (and of educating) lacks the foundation of what  rationalists might call 'intellectual justification': it might even be  dismissed as the product of well-meaning but wishful thinking, out of  touch with harsh reality. With this underlying logic, it can be shown that  abstract objectivity [and the harsh reality of human social organization  that has arisen from it] lacks intellectual justification, because it is  founded on an unrealistic premise of independence of space from form that  is inconsistent with evidence and cannot make consistent (i.e.  non-paradoxical) sense.

I  know that this 'intellectual' aspect of 'natural inclusionality', and the  way I try to express it, is what many find 'difficult', 'off-putting' and  'bewildering'. It is certainly difficult to express and sustain in an  adversarial culture antithetical to its understanding. I may be mistaken  in thinking it is necessary if the 'space for all viewpoints' that some  members of this list (and who paradoxically appear to regard natural  inclusionality as an antithetical denial of such openness) have called for  is to be sustained, and even more necessary if our educational practice is  to be truly thoughtful - considerate of our natural  neighbourhood.

The  comment quoted above arose from a discussion about 'silence and  inclusionality'. Here is how I tried to respond to it, both intellectually  and feelingly:

"Correspondingly, in real life, sound and silence are mutually  inclusive, just as energy and space, light and darkness, 'figural' and  'transfigural' are mutually inclusive. Space/silence alone would be  lifeless - the unnatural, formless 'death' that you describe. Energy/sound  alone - without space/silence within, without and throughout - is  unthinkable. Silence is in the receptive heart of your 'soul', which  'loves the noise of life'.

At  heart, as you say, and as your descriptions affirm, this is terribly  simple. Our human problem is that this simplicity can get overlaid with  layer upon layer of complication, which can take an age of complicated  unravelling to bring back into the deep focus of our mind's eye -  especially an intellectual mind's eye! But having produced all that  intellectual complication - built on the flawed logic that isolates  silence from sound and can even claim to have created artificial life by  inserting a computer-synthesized copy of a bacterial genome into a living  bacterium - that task of unravelling becomes necessary. Meanwhile, those  who know simply what it means to 'be an inhabitant' -  to  be open and receptive to embrace all things - can live in the woods and  wonder."

In another, related, piece of  correspondence I wrote:

"'Breakdown' occurs when the 'figural' is mentally dislocated  by intransigent definition from 'transfigural', and 'mind' strives to  serve its own possessive purpose instead of fulfilling its 'heart's  desire'.  'Breakthrough' comes with acknowledgement of the continuity  of transSpace through the complex veil of figural boundaries."  

 
I guess I'd better practice some silence now, and get around to  reading nearly 160 student essays submitted, along with nearly 80 pieces  of extremely varied creative writing and artwork, for my final year  undergraduate course on 'life, environment and people'.

 Warmest

Alan