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
>
>