Culture is has been used as a weapon. The issue is not "culture" wars but culture as a weapon of mass destruction in a war of ideas. People of African descent have experienced as much. Having both gone through a 'dehumanization' process in the European imagination with "white" transformed into super human and Black transfixed into subhuman, we have become defined through the lense of "Black" and "White." We, both Black and White, must begin the process of rehumanization that reconnects, renews and reorders the deeply held beliefs, the a priori assumptions and the.assumed benefit structure of society.
How is culture a weapon? When is culture a weapon? Why would culture be used as a weapon? I think these are the questions that the enslaved died with on their lips, that the sharecroppers counted when the harvest didn't add up, that the Occupy Movement must define if they are to get the answer they seek. There are both hard and soft manifestations of the weapon of culture. Benefit structures that reward and reinforce cultural practices is the soft side. Punishment for oppositional behavior with the hammer that is designed to smash all resistance is the first stiffening of the hard side.
Culture offers the gift of humanity or the goad of insanity.
How much of reality is socially constructed? To what extent is our experience politically constructed?
Friday, November 25, 2011
Creating our future
I remember once candidly engaging in discussion about my thoughts regarding religion with a student, who was a Baptist minister, in a "Faith-based Community Economic Development" course I was teaching. I stated something to the effect that because people have had different religious beliefs across time and space, GOD was a social construct. Boy did he rib me about that.
I am not an academically trained philosopher but am wont to wax philosophically from time to time. One area in which I dip my philosophically metaphorical and metaphorically philosophical toe is the discussion of the meaning of life.
Social construction
We agree on the meaning of things. Modernity looks back in time and snort derisively at the role the church played in the European conceptualization of the world before Martin Luther and the Enlightenment. The most familiar example of a collective mistaken reality is the notion that the earth is flat. But similarly there are other ideas and contemporary accepted explanations that are no better and just as fallacious as the pre-modern notion that the world is flat. Carter G. Woodson spoke to this phenomena when he opined that "if you control a man's thinking you don't have to worry about his actions.
Existentialism
Before this relatively recent social theory of the nature of reality there was the European philosophical movement that presaged it. While recognizing that there are differences, the glue that holds together the school of thought is that belief that each individual determines who they are by what they believe. This is the same process on the individual level that social construction attributes to a collective process.
Self-awareness
The experience of living in the moment, mindfulness, Zen and self-awareness are all states of consciousness that allow a break from the trance of social construction that results in the phenomena of flow. An experience of hyper-vigilance that allows a level of engagement that at times is described as disengagement. Within our mind there is the doer or will and the watcher or intention.Being aware of and having access to the ability to remain aware while disengaging contributes to the ability to achieve flow whether mentally or physically,
Intention
Parallels to the idea of intention abound. The Nicheren Shoshu Buddhist require adherents to focus on a desirable outcome daily while chanting an approved mantra. The combination of focusing to maintain the tone, cadence and enunciation of the words distracts enough to where the conscious mind, the will, is not in full control of your mental faculties. This allows the inner self that controls the anatomic system that keeps the lungs working and the blood flowing through the body. However, hypnotic demonstrations have established that if we believe it we make it so.
Vision
One of the keys to accessing this power is the vision that we each have of ourselves, who we think we are and our vision of the world. I think it was the prophet Amos who said,"my people perish for lack of knowledge/vision."
I am not an academically trained philosopher but am wont to wax philosophically from time to time. One area in which I dip my philosophically metaphorical and metaphorically philosophical toe is the discussion of the meaning of life.
Social construction
We agree on the meaning of things. Modernity looks back in time and snort derisively at the role the church played in the European conceptualization of the world before Martin Luther and the Enlightenment. The most familiar example of a collective mistaken reality is the notion that the earth is flat. But similarly there are other ideas and contemporary accepted explanations that are no better and just as fallacious as the pre-modern notion that the world is flat. Carter G. Woodson spoke to this phenomena when he opined that "if you control a man's thinking you don't have to worry about his actions.
Existentialism
Before this relatively recent social theory of the nature of reality there was the European philosophical movement that presaged it. While recognizing that there are differences, the glue that holds together the school of thought is that belief that each individual determines who they are by what they believe. This is the same process on the individual level that social construction attributes to a collective process.
Self-awareness
The experience of living in the moment, mindfulness, Zen and self-awareness are all states of consciousness that allow a break from the trance of social construction that results in the phenomena of flow. An experience of hyper-vigilance that allows a level of engagement that at times is described as disengagement. Within our mind there is the doer or will and the watcher or intention.Being aware of and having access to the ability to remain aware while disengaging contributes to the ability to achieve flow whether mentally or physically,
Intention
Parallels to the idea of intention abound. The Nicheren Shoshu Buddhist require adherents to focus on a desirable outcome daily while chanting an approved mantra. The combination of focusing to maintain the tone, cadence and enunciation of the words distracts enough to where the conscious mind, the will, is not in full control of your mental faculties. This allows the inner self that controls the anatomic system that keeps the lungs working and the blood flowing through the body. However, hypnotic demonstrations have established that if we believe it we make it so.
Vision
One of the keys to accessing this power is the vision that we each have of ourselves, who we think we are and our vision of the world. I think it was the prophet Amos who said,"my people perish for lack of knowledge/vision."
Meditation, Mediation and Maximization
We are living in a world where we are subject to our self-perceptions. They limit and allow us to be who we are. I had a dream last night where things had gone out of control. At some point, I realized that I was dreaming (not quite sure what tipped me off) but then decided to change things from its current wacked out state that was sending me into a panic into a situation where the circumstances were aligned with my intention.
One thing I noticed is that in many ways we live our lives operating from the same set of assumptions and expectations that guide us in our dream state. This often results in our acting in our waking lives like we do in our dream lives where we are functioning as though we are in a trance and watching, sometimes with interest and other times with anxiety, our dream self act out behavior. Mindful living is akin to lucid dreaming where we are exercising intentionality in our actions.
One way to exercise mindful living is to practice moving meditation. While there are many paths to mindfulness and their are different practices that fall under the label mediation it is the journey and not the destination that we must focus on. I am proposing walking meditation. By this I mean working at being aware of your body sensations at all times. Doing this keeps us in the now. However, the now happens on various levels.
Meditation - personal: It is a truth that we all live in our heads. Our experiences result in our being conditioned to expect and respond in fairly specific ways. Learning is a process of pattern recognition. Language is recognition of sound patterns. Dancing is recognition of movement patterns. Even walking is recognition of patterns required to balance our weight to continue upright. The creation of these memories or knowledge of patterns allow us to respond to our environment without rethinking and evaluating all of our experiences again and again. Based on this we sometimes jump to conclusions and even identify shortcuts in thinking that are triggered by the appearance of similar patterns in our environment. However, relying solely on our brain bank of patterns can result in our acting as in a trance. Meditation allows us to be reflective and intentional in our responses.
Mediation - interpersonal: The life that we live in our head interacts with our behavior in the life we live in our homes. Just as we have been conditioned by our experiences to see patterns in behavior, we also have memories or knowledge of our response patterns. When we interact with others we don't necessarily have access to their ideas or intention during the interaction. Therefore, by and large, we rely on the intent and motivations that underly our own behavior in interpreting the behavioral intent of others. We often think that the patterns that guide our behavior are applicable to the behavior of others. We can slip into that assumption as part of our trance behavior that results from evolutionary resource (time, energy, effort) conservation strategies. This is often useful and exists because it has proven utility as a life strategy. But it runs the risk of identifying our assumptions as reality and replacing the intent of others with our own imaginings. Again this tendency exists because it has utility as a resource conservation strategy. But while this is often helpful it can also be wrong. Walking mediation allows us to interrogate our assumptions regarding others behavior by either accepting it with an awareness of our assumptions or to identify congruence between our assumptions and our current experience.
Maximization - universal: Moving from self-awareness of our bodily sensations to general awareness of our mental activity an result of extended periods of mindfulness resulting from walking meditation allows for enhanced spiritual experiences. We live in a multidimensional world. We miss out on the wonder and beauty of life if we only focus on the one dimension of encoding our experiences and relying on the automatic assumptions connected with them. Waking meditation provides us with an awareness of what is happening now rather than only reflecting on what happened in the past or what our pattern recognition tells us what will be the future. It is ironic that focusing on bodily sensations can unlock spiritual revelations. It is not a function of reason but of revelation.
One thing I noticed is that in many ways we live our lives operating from the same set of assumptions and expectations that guide us in our dream state. This often results in our acting in our waking lives like we do in our dream lives where we are functioning as though we are in a trance and watching, sometimes with interest and other times with anxiety, our dream self act out behavior. Mindful living is akin to lucid dreaming where we are exercising intentionality in our actions.
One way to exercise mindful living is to practice moving meditation. While there are many paths to mindfulness and their are different practices that fall under the label mediation it is the journey and not the destination that we must focus on. I am proposing walking meditation. By this I mean working at being aware of your body sensations at all times. Doing this keeps us in the now. However, the now happens on various levels.
Meditation - personal: It is a truth that we all live in our heads. Our experiences result in our being conditioned to expect and respond in fairly specific ways. Learning is a process of pattern recognition. Language is recognition of sound patterns. Dancing is recognition of movement patterns. Even walking is recognition of patterns required to balance our weight to continue upright. The creation of these memories or knowledge of patterns allow us to respond to our environment without rethinking and evaluating all of our experiences again and again. Based on this we sometimes jump to conclusions and even identify shortcuts in thinking that are triggered by the appearance of similar patterns in our environment. However, relying solely on our brain bank of patterns can result in our acting as in a trance. Meditation allows us to be reflective and intentional in our responses.
Mediation - interpersonal: The life that we live in our head interacts with our behavior in the life we live in our homes. Just as we have been conditioned by our experiences to see patterns in behavior, we also have memories or knowledge of our response patterns. When we interact with others we don't necessarily have access to their ideas or intention during the interaction. Therefore, by and large, we rely on the intent and motivations that underly our own behavior in interpreting the behavioral intent of others. We often think that the patterns that guide our behavior are applicable to the behavior of others. We can slip into that assumption as part of our trance behavior that results from evolutionary resource (time, energy, effort) conservation strategies. This is often useful and exists because it has proven utility as a life strategy. But it runs the risk of identifying our assumptions as reality and replacing the intent of others with our own imaginings. Again this tendency exists because it has utility as a resource conservation strategy. But while this is often helpful it can also be wrong. Walking mediation allows us to interrogate our assumptions regarding others behavior by either accepting it with an awareness of our assumptions or to identify congruence between our assumptions and our current experience.
Maximization - universal: Moving from self-awareness of our bodily sensations to general awareness of our mental activity an result of extended periods of mindfulness resulting from walking meditation allows for enhanced spiritual experiences. We live in a multidimensional world. We miss out on the wonder and beauty of life if we only focus on the one dimension of encoding our experiences and relying on the automatic assumptions connected with them. Waking meditation provides us with an awareness of what is happening now rather than only reflecting on what happened in the past or what our pattern recognition tells us what will be the future. It is ironic that focusing on bodily sensations can unlock spiritual revelations. It is not a function of reason but of revelation.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
From underground to the cloud: Understanding social outcomes
An article in the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 24-25, 2011, p. A15) titled, "From Phoenecia to Hayek to the Cloud," the author, Matt Ridley shared his thoughts regarding how cooperation is essential for human development He asserts trading, exchange and interacting with a large group leads to a "group mind" and results in that much more brainpower contributing to prosperity. Networked intelligence is significantly more powerful than individual intelligence. In fact, one of the insights that I gleaned from over 20 years of teaching graduate courses at a small New England college is that learning is a social process.
This has significant cultural implications. For the societies where individualism, rather than cooperation, is the cultural ethos there is a resulting resource disparity. This was often combined in pre-industrial European societies with the idea of the divine right of kings. In industrial European societies the rationalization and justification of inequality is grounded in the philosophy of meritocracy. In both cases the social theories were used to explain a form of social organization that is socially assigned, exclusive and unearned and requires the many to defer to few while being exploited.
Increasingly American society has adopted and advocated individualism in an attempt to explain and sustain exploitative relationships that require, again, the many to defer to the few. The idea that economic disparity contributes to social dysfunction is highlighted in Wilkinson and Pickett (2010). In their study, entitled The Spirit Level, they look at societies and correlate economic inequality and social outcomes. It becomes clear that the greater the inequality the more dysfunctional the society.
In American society there is a level of inequality structured into the political economy. With people of African descent relegated to a position where they are denied opportunity based on the irrational justification that once was used to justify the rights of kings, and the social theory of meritocracy, that upholds contemporary power and privilege. Combined with the discredited and bankrupt concept of 'race' it ensures that society as a whole will suffer due to the structural inequality in the political economy as a result. It is ironic and tragic that the dehumanization of the African personality in the European imagination continues to work against the interests of its major proponents and to the advantage of the economic elite just as in the days of Bacon's Rebellion.
Ridley's basic premise that cooperation is superior to individualism is reflected in Wilkinson and Pickett's conclusions about inequality. I am suggesting that inequality, individualism and meritocracy are all culturally consistent with ideologies that justify and rationalize the existing social order. The things that many people do not take into account is that the social conceptual superstructure is built on an a priori conceptual infrastructure that when accepted inevitably leads to the preordained conclusions. Everyone is hurt when the misinformation of polygenesis is accepted as fact and the disinformation regarding social reality based on it, called race, is used to explain and try to understand our human experience. We can't make sense out of nonsense.
This has significant cultural implications. For the societies where individualism, rather than cooperation, is the cultural ethos there is a resulting resource disparity. This was often combined in pre-industrial European societies with the idea of the divine right of kings. In industrial European societies the rationalization and justification of inequality is grounded in the philosophy of meritocracy. In both cases the social theories were used to explain a form of social organization that is socially assigned, exclusive and unearned and requires the many to defer to few while being exploited.
Increasingly American society has adopted and advocated individualism in an attempt to explain and sustain exploitative relationships that require, again, the many to defer to the few. The idea that economic disparity contributes to social dysfunction is highlighted in Wilkinson and Pickett (2010). In their study, entitled The Spirit Level, they look at societies and correlate economic inequality and social outcomes. It becomes clear that the greater the inequality the more dysfunctional the society.
In American society there is a level of inequality structured into the political economy. With people of African descent relegated to a position where they are denied opportunity based on the irrational justification that once was used to justify the rights of kings, and the social theory of meritocracy, that upholds contemporary power and privilege. Combined with the discredited and bankrupt concept of 'race' it ensures that society as a whole will suffer due to the structural inequality in the political economy as a result. It is ironic and tragic that the dehumanization of the African personality in the European imagination continues to work against the interests of its major proponents and to the advantage of the economic elite just as in the days of Bacon's Rebellion.
Ridley's basic premise that cooperation is superior to individualism is reflected in Wilkinson and Pickett's conclusions about inequality. I am suggesting that inequality, individualism and meritocracy are all culturally consistent with ideologies that justify and rationalize the existing social order. The things that many people do not take into account is that the social conceptual superstructure is built on an a priori conceptual infrastructure that when accepted inevitably leads to the preordained conclusions. Everyone is hurt when the misinformation of polygenesis is accepted as fact and the disinformation regarding social reality based on it, called race, is used to explain and try to understand our human experience. We can't make sense out of nonsense.
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