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 of Failure' (1998,
> Element Books). It describes my personal distress, arising from my childhood
> and adolescent experience of 'education', and my associated 'Achilles Heel'
> or 'Secret Flaw', perfectly (also alluded to in my novel, 'Design Fault',
> see http://people.bath.ac.uk). It contains the following, telling sentence:
>
> "Another important reason for the prevalence of the Achilles Syndrome are
> the inadequacies, deficiencies, absurdities and cruelties of our educational
> systems"
>
> If ever there was validation of the need for living educational theory, this
> is it.
>
>
> Here are seven characteristics of the 'Achilles Syndrome' (linked also to
> what is more popularly referred to as 'Impostor Syndrome', but I think the
> Achilles version is deeper and more Archetypal). All apply well to me.
>
> 1. A mismatch between externally assessed competence or qualification and
> internally experienced competence or capability, leading to feelings of 'I
> am a fraud';
>
> 2. Inappropriate anxiety or panic in anticipation of doing the relevant
> task;
>
> 3. Inappropriate strain or exhaustion after the task;
>
> 4. Relief instead of satisfaction on completion of a task;
>
> 5. Inability to carry over any sense of achievement to the next situation;
>
> 6. A recurrent conscious or unconscious fear of being found out, and of
> shame and humiliation;
>
> 7. A longing to tell others about the discomfort but the fear of being
> called weak or unstable. This sense of a taboo adds to the strain,
> loneliness and discomfort
>
>
> You might find the following passages of Chapter 9 of interest also in this
> light. I think they're also very relevant to Marie's work with 'giftedness',
> and how giftedness is abused in our current systems, leading to the
> predominance of 'concrete blockheadedness'.
>
>
> Warmest
>
> Alan
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> Inclusional Implications of the Boundless 'Fifth' Dimension: Curing Cosmic
> Cancer
>
>
>
> Perhaps it was unwise of Mother Space, in her everywhere-Divine Wisdom, to
> enable any of her diverse local expressions to become aware of its awareness
> of itself. But if there is to be creativity at all, any possibility of life
> and evolution, maybe such possibilities must also be entertained. The
> trouble is that such a form of expression could develop a Mind of its Own to
> declare itself an independent entity and so make an enemy of its
> neighbourhood, setting the scene for invasion of its birthplace, determined
> to take over vacant possession.
>
> Maybe it was this declaration of independence, through an ever-hardening
> belief in its own free will or purely internal purpose as 'first cause' of
> its own actions, associated with its ability to make absolute judgemental
> choices, that brought about the Fall of One such a form from Merciful Grace.
> The difficulty lay in its declaration, as an abstraction of its Mind alone,
> not the actuality of its inescapable inclusion in interdependent
> relationship by and of All, space included. For, by no stretch of
> imagination is this form truly able to act or be acted upon as a superior or
> inferior object independent from its dynamic situation. It cannot be an
> absolute, independent singleness. Every man like every form is no more and
> no less than a transient island of flow, connected through and undersea with
> every other, a distinct identity but never a discrete entity.
>
> The declaration of independence was the product of a partial and idealistic
> vision, which led this one such form mentally to Box reality securely and
> paradoxically in a finite, three-dimensional Euclidean frame stretched to
> infinity, whilst vaunting its own free agency. By the end of the second
> millennium CE, life in this frame was painfully overheating. Was there no
> escape from the pressure cooker? What could this form do about it? Could
> this form, for so long the World's plunderer now save the World from
> depredation? What kind of transformation would such a noble act of rescue
> take? Would it be some wondrous new technology and/or legislation, of the
> kind that this form was so good at inventing, again and again, in the nick
> of time, as crisis loomed? Then there could be some great collective sigh of
> relief, followed by a return to die-hard habits to await the next crisis of
> exploitation. Or, perhaps, as one of Man's star mathematical performers
> suggested, it was already too late: it was now time, through the ultimate
> technological fix of space travel, to move on like a virus to other host
> planets, leaving the wasteland of His own vacant possession behind.
>
> But there always was, is and evermore shall be a loophole: a window into and
> out of the solid confinements of the 'Adverse Square Law', through which the
> unbounded presence of space everywhere melts all into coherent, fluid
> dynamic relationship. An eye of the needle through which to ask not how to
> shift the world from a disastrous course, but how to help the world
> transform our sense of individual, active-reactive self-identity into
> receptive-responsive neighbourhood. A loophole at the intersection of
> Vertical ('I') with Horizontal ('-') outwardly recurving planes, to form an
> electrogravitational centre of inference: a centre of dynamic balance in the
> core and spread through the surfaces of all tangible, primarily non-linear
> form, a zero-point source and receiver of all through all, distributed
> everywhere. A core of pure spatial relationship, continually reconfiguring,
> and hence utterly different from the fixed-point control centre of Euclidean
> geometry upon whose illusory existence so many principles of human
> governance have been founded. One place and many where apparently opposing
> sides are conjoined and transformed into complementary dynamic partners via
> the inclusion of light in darkness and darkness in light, in vastly unequal
> proportion. One place and many corresponding with the notion of 'space' as
> the '5th element' in Hindu philosophy, which both includes and is included
> in the 'melted elemental forms' of 'Earth, Air, Fire and Water': a boundless
> 'fifth' dimension transcending the three-dimensional singularity of frozen
> space and extraneous time.
>
> Once 'seen with gravitational feeling', this boundless dimension utterly
> transforms and revitalizes understanding of how we may manage our lives and
> living space in a loving and sustainable way. Here boundaries are understood
> as co-creative, co-created zones of differentiation, mutual respect and
> complementarity, not severing divides between conflicting sides in
> opposition. It is the implications of this transformational understanding of
> our natural, dynamic human neighbourhood for the way we may live in
> harmonious, respectful, co-creative evolutionary relationship that I wish
> now to consider in this opening ending chapter.
>
>
> The Vitality of Imperfection - From Abstract Concrete Blocks to Natural
> Evolutionary Neighbourhood
>
> As may be apparent from previous chapters, I think that the notion of
> evolution by natural selection is an oxymoron, a paradoxical 'concrete block
> evolution'. When we accept and work with this notion, we assume the role of
> obstructive 'concrete blockheads' intellectually out of touch with our
> feeling, receptive-responsive hearts. It is a truly compassion-killing
> notion, Hell-bent on replacing natural, fluid-dynamic diversity with
> concrete monoculture. It is a model of cancerous degeneration, not
> co-creative innovation. Set within an abstract, 3-dimensional Euclidean
> frame, a cubical cubicle filled to completion with independent cubical
> singularities, it leads inexorably to the notion of an ideal form of
> individual 'unit of selection' - the 'fittest' competitor within a rigidly
> walled niche. This in turn gives rise to the idea of perfecting individuals
> by selecting out those traits that don't conform to a prescriptive set of
> standards - an idea that has become deeply entrenched in human educational
> and regulatory systems. It comes inevitably with an intolerance of those who
> in one way or another are judged by fixed standards to be 'not good enough
>  - 'imperfect' in some way. Such intolerance can lead to great cruelty and
> great distress as we impose rationalistic notions of perfection and
> imperfection upon others and ourselves in a conflict-ridden anti-culture of
> discontent, as I described in Chapter 1. We actively seek out, punish and
> attempt to eliminate whatever we find fault with, whilst glorifying what we
> perceive to be flawless in a culture of blame, shame, claim and gain.
>
> Not only is this concrete block view of evolutionary perfectionism deeply
> distressing to those judged not good enough, but its rigidity results in the
> exclusion of the enormous creative possibility of bringing diverse,
> complementary relationships to bear as we navigate the ever-transforming
> world of our natural, fluid dynamic neighbourhood. It is radically
> counter-evolutionary; a bastion set against change other than its own
> proliferation and concomitant destruction of diversity. It makes no sense in
> an ever-reconfiguring, non-linear, space-including context where the
> evolution of one cannot be dislocated from the evolution of all, and vice
> versa.
>
> There is therefore very good intellectual reason for feeling compassionately
> that what we might deem in a perfectionist framework to be a design fault in
> human nature, our vulnerability and proneness to 'error', which comes
> through the inclusion of space - darkness - in our make-up, is actually
> vital. It is an aspect of our nature that enables us to love and feel love
> and so work co-creatively in dynamic relational neighbourhood, celebrating
> and respecting rather than decrying our diversity of competencies and
> appearances.
>
> Correspondingly I think there is a need for us to grow beyond the obsessive
> perfectionism that is evident in our present educational and administrative
> systems, governed by fixed, objective, rules, regulations and standards.
> There is a need to recognise that there can be no such thing as an ideal,
> fixed, individual form that all can aspire towards. Evolutionary perfection
> can only be a property of all in dynamic relationship, not one in isolation.
> The exception that seeks to rule can only create turbulence, not perfection.
> Our educational and administrative systems need to help us learn how to
> flow, by including and loving the very source of irregularity that makes us
> imperfect as independently performing objects but perfect as dynamic
> relational - receptive and responsive flow-forms. The standards that we tend
> to encase ourselves in need to be allowed to come alive: to flex and
> transform as ever-reconfiguring guide-linings in our ongoing evolution. In
> this way we can be naturally intelligent neighbourhoods, not artificially
> intelligent, concrete blockheads.
>
> So, how can such ever-reconfiguring guide-linings be formulated and
> communicated through our educational and administrative systems? What kind
> of leadership is required? Is the very idea of leadership one of the
> die-hard habits that keep us stuck in concrete?
>
>
> Powerboat Leadership and Sailboat Craftsmanship
>
> There is a form of leadership that does not call for a careful, creative and
> reflective consideration of possibilities viewed from all angles by all
> concerned. Rather, it demands conformity with its own vision and
> specification of destination. In the absence of others' agreement, it
> carries on regardless with whatever action it has planned, convinced in its
> own mindset that this is the 'right thing to do'. Any leader of this ilk,
> whether elected by a supposedly democratic majority or not, considers him or
> herself to have a prerogative to do what they know to be best for the world,
> regardless of context. Moreover, by exercising their moral imperialism in
> the face of opposition they demonstrate the strength of their authority, a
> resolve that historical narrative will, they imagine, in due course affirm
> and celebrate. But events often don't exactly turn out as predicted. The
> real life and death situation on the ground is far more complex and
> non-linear than envisaged. The effects of intervention in complex situations
> aren't so certain in the long run. The ensuing tragedies are never more
> heart-rending than when a leader decides to declare war upon his
> neighbourhood.
>
> This is a style that I think is all too commonly the sole form of leadership
> recognized in human organizations: a product of prescriptively definitive
> (rationalistic) thinking and action that places deterministic power at
> control centres or hubs. It amounts to what might be called authoritarian,
> dictatorial, proprietorial or, as my friend Ted Lumley puts it, powerboat
> leadership. It entails leadership towards a set destination of a fleet of
> individuals that have declared themselves independent of their natural
> situation by dint of strapping an outboard motor of technology on their
> backsides, which creates one Hell of a wash of collateral damage for those
> caught up in their turbulence. It is the kind of leadership provided by some
> so-called experts, gurus, presidents and ministers whose actions primarily
> serve individual self-interest, whereby an individual or elite lays down the
> law or 'codes of conduct' for others to follow, regardless of circumstances.
>
> Personally, I would hate to provide, or be accused of providing this kind of
> leadership, even though I have found it to be expected of me as a
> professional academic responsible for initiating students and non-academics
> into 'good theory and practice'. There is another style of leadership, or
> perhaps more aptly, craftsmanship, that I do, however, feel more comfortable
> with and indeed aspire to, as a cultivator of creative space for myself and
> others to air our views and benefit from shared experience. This is what
> might be called Arthurian (after King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
> Table), co-educational, non-proprietorial or, as my friend Ted Lumley puts
> it, sailboat leadership. Such craftsmanship is based on learning through
> experience how to attune with natural processes, in a way that others can
> learn from. This is what I try to bring to my role as a University educator.
> I have found through experience that all students except those relatively
> few most fearful for their qualifications and future prospects come to love
> and greatly appreciate this approach as a source of guidance for their
> creative and critical development.
>
> Now, as the supposedly 'United Nations' of humanity contemplates its 'next
> steps', in the face of seemingly global environmental crisis, the question
> of which, if either, of these forms of leadership is wiser seems very
> important. Here, it is not a question necessarily of 'which is better?' in
> an 'either/or' sense, but how can these styles best be balanced? I accept
> that pragmatically, given the current predominantly concrete mindset of our
> culture, there may need to be at least some 'powerboat' leadership by way of
> technology and legislation to help us on our way. But I would want to ensure
> that it doesn't become exclusive and is balanced by a good and perhaps
> increasing dose of 'sailboat' leadership.
>
> How does anyone in this situation who seeks leadership or has leadership
> thrust upon them, see their role? Do they see themselves as co-cultivators
> of creative space for wise enquiry? Does they see themselves as Directors
> and Proprietors of organizations? Is wise leadership something definable
> that we can be instructed about via the 'right kind of training' in a real
> or virtual Institution? Is wisdom perhaps identifiable with love, some
> indefinable presence that we can open ourselves to and co-cultivate?
>
> I want now to explore in general rather than specifically detailed terms how
> different perceptions of leadership, power and geometric influence affect
> approaches to three kinds of life management. These respectively set out to
> regulate, apply and mimic living processes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 13 December 2006 17:21
> Subject: Re: Educational
>
>
> Alan - I would replace the ed to ing - namely, detached to detaching;
> fixed to fixing: And space to one's subject of interest:
> Conceptualising and approaching human existence and the human subject
> in my case.  'Biology and ecology, human relationships?' in your case?
> Otherwise I fear we abstract into a theory of all theories.
>
> I still think life has to flow somewhere: A clear purpose and
> intention.  Otherwise it is just a big Kierkekaardian bore.  The idea
> of just floating in space with no clear purpose and direction scares
> me.  Anyone can flow somewhere in space: What is important to me is
> where it is flowing to.  I am not sure the question of fixed static or
> flowing and transforming is an issue anymore, at least not in my field
> of interest and purpose.  The living/transforming has won.  I believe
> the question now is flowing where?
>
> My point is that poetry can and should be used for scientific analysis.
>   Poetry is aesthetic but why, for what purpose: And how is it
> epistemological and educational, convincing and coherent?!. Alon
>
> Quoting Alan Rayner <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> Dear Alon,
>>
>> I very much like this emphasis on the artistic and lyrical as a vital
>> inclusion of any deep enquiry into the fundamental nature of human life,
>> taking you beyond the realm of detached objectivism. I feel that the story
>> of how you are transforming your originally purely analytical perspectives
>> by this means exemplifies the transition from fixed to living 'standards
> of
>> judgement' and could provide the basis for a highly creative and original
>> thesis. I might liken this to 'ice melting through becoming receptive to
>> warmth', 'salt dissolving into solution through exposure to water' and a
>> 'seed germinating into a flower'. There is this vital transition from the
>> crystalline or latent form to expansive fluid form, a transition which is
>> not the 'annihilation' that positivistic thinkers may fear. In terms of
>> 'inclusionality', I see this transformation as arising most fundamentally
>> from the dynamic embodiment of space as 'immaterial presence', opening the
>> door to the creative possibility of unfixed, non-Euclidean geometry.
>>
>>
>> Warmest
>>
>>
>> Alan
>>
>> --On 13 December 2006 14:49 +0000 Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> I was watching Federico Fellini's 'La Strada' yesterday: An incredible,
>>> classic, poetic and artistic film but not so much educational or
>>> epistemological with no clear message and insight, other than the usual
>>> Fellinian anti Church messages.  And certainly not analysis.  It is full
>>> of artistic symbols (e.g., sea).
>>>
>>> I am using it to reflect on the difference between poetic and artistic
>>> and epistemological, phenomenological, educational and analytical that
>>> uses poetry and art.
>>>
>>> I have been drawn to art in my heuristics of human existence so as to
>>> analyse and delve inside it as an educational exercise and rebelled
>>> against my original training that told me to leave the poetic and
>>> artistic for the analytic, empirical and scientific.
>>>
>>> I transformed myself from being a very cold, impersonal scientist to an
>>> artist of human existence. I am overwhelmed this transformation.
>>>
>>> My intentions are still educational and epistemological though as a
>>> psychologist and the constructor of my heuristics of human existence.
> Alon
>>
>
>
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>