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Nature tells a story, about society

My starting point for today is the enclosure of agricultural land in England in and around the eighteenth century. Not a topic that usually springs into my mind, but having studied it in some depth it’s clearly nestled someplace in there. It was quite dry as history goes, but actually pretty interesting now I come to think of it again: these decisions shaped our notions of ownership, social structure, and economic reasoning; leading towards the ways we live now and ideas we may no longer question.

Getting back to the point, what struck me most was how this visually altered the landscape: that these social decisions changed the face of nature; and how the arrangement of the arable and urban environment displays our thinking, values, and priorities (linking into Values and the economic).

Stepping away from the relative obscurity of agricultural history, the same also applies within the local environment. As mentioned in Natural World and Living the dream, I tend to look to nature in its capacity to offer wisdom about how we live. It seems to me that the image of nature can be read in terms of intentions, forethought, neglect, patience, timeliness, perseverance, and faith in the future.

On a simple level, front gardens describe our priorities: do we value convenience, low costs and little maintenance; or do we look to the value these spaces offer natural ecosystems or local environment, and the aesthetic joy they contain? Do we keep a beautiful old tree because it offers a sign of longevity and an intriguing form, while depicting the passing seasons; or do we grow tired of the burden of sweeping its falling leaves?

Many gardens and public spaces tell a tale of neglect, of spaces once held with clear intentions that are no longer present. I wonder at times if there are people able to ‘read’ these spaces and discern at what point an older person was no longer able to tend it; the number of seasons that had passed under the dubious custodianship of a rental agreement; or the degree of horticultural foresight applied to the establishment of newly built shared accommodation.

I find that becoming custodian of a neglected space can be demoralising: an often thankless task of redressing and eradicating past oversights to restore a clearer vision. For me, there’s true value in it though; in reclaiming land through intention and effort, recreating something that can speak volumes and provide a breath of fresh air in its testament to humanity.

Coming back to enclosures and social change, this reminds me of Community – what it was, what we lost in that how we organise and relate to the space around us may belie our attitudes to life and one another. Historical events, be they large or small, shape our ideas as well as our realities (something explored within Writings on Education). For me, this highlights the importance of knowing our path, reading our environment, and being able to respond purposefully to what we find there.

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Art, collaboration & commodification

I spoke of the commodification of artistic creativity briefly in The value of art in society, and it’s a question I want to look into further – the compromise to the artist’s voice when it’s drawn into more economic systems.

For me, art is something that brings forms and images into new relationships so that by taking them in we may come to think differently about life, perception, reality or meaning. Artists can then serve society well by leading us to reflect upon life through their own well-executed observations and concerns. I suppose art itself shows us what’s important to a society, what matters or preoccupies our minds.

Historically I suppose that at some point this activity faced the challenge of how to find a home within an increasingly economic reality, leading artists into various relationships with those able or motivated to support them in what they do. And I imagine this then influenced the nature of the art produced, a development that tells interesting stories about modern civilisation and the course we’ve taken. Art in a way walks a path alongside society, religion, nature, our explorations of the world, and our perceived place within it.

Which leads to this question of the place of art within our society: is its essential function somewhat compromised by the roles it’s come to hold? I mean, if art offers this deeper level of meaning and understanding through how it works with realities, then what does it mean if it’s bought for certain ends? Can an artist be free in what they offer if their survival hinges on pleasing the public or those offering payment?

From a slightly different perspective, what does it mean to work with others creatively? Working ‘with’ others often seems to mean working ‘for’ them: lending your voice to another’s ends. Artistry often seems placed in the service of other agendas or products; whether that’s in lending an artistic eye to serve as a lens in entertainment or consumerism, or packaging a certain style into a branding opportunity.

In creative collaborations I find myself wondering to what extent either voice truly says what it would like to – there must always be compromises and conflicting intentions or perspectives. Outcomes may be interesting in what they do end up articulating, but it seems to me it’s likely a watering down of what the separate individuals involved would say; especially when one party holds the purse strings.

It’s interesting, because we also seem to want authenticity and integrity from artists; there’s often a demand that artists be free of external obligations, and a sense of ‘selling out’ when commercial concerns step in. It’s a fascinating contradiction, as within modern life it seems the role of the artist must be to stand somewhat against the systems of our times; so the fact they’re often dependent upon those systems for their livelihood is a challenge. How can you make a living without compromising your freedom? What can you lend a voice to without undermining yourself?

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Does truth speak for itself?

Continuing on from Why seek a single truth? and How arguments avoid issues this post turns to the idea of truth.

There’s clearly a lot of talk lately about issues of truth, post-truth, lies, and reality. It seems we’re somewhat lost at sea in terms of what’s real, in that we all have our own experiences and interpretations of modern realities. And I wonder to what extent this may be largely a question of communication, as we’re often educated to argue for our perspective which leaves little room for accommodating divergent ideas about reality.

These are concerns raised in the above posts and also within Writings on Education and Globalised society finding its feet, where I’ve attempted to explore why we tend to argue in defence of personal ideas and seek to defeat those who view things otherwise.

Honestly, it’s an approach that leaves me mystified, as I’m generally not at all interested in arguments: if you feel the need to convince and make me wrong, then you seem to be on the side of yourself rather than the side of truth and mutual understanding. In most cases each side contains grains of truth at least, so both will likely need to adjust for a new, third truth to emerge.

To my mind there’s little need to convince, preach or persuade as truth stands for itself and needs no argument. Admittedly there may be different estimations of the facts, different interpretations of what can be observed, but for me these lie in the realm of opinion rather than truth. We may hold different opinions or understandings of what’s happening, but the path toward truth then seems to be through listening rather than attempting to win over. If my ideas and yours sit within reality, then a notion of truth must contain both and would be truer for doing so.

If we can just speak and explain our understanding as clearly as we can then if it’s true, it’s true and if it’s not then our ideas can be compassionately expanded through a broader experience of reality. As discussed in Communication and the process of change, it seems important from a human perspective that we respect the other and leave space for ideas to evolve without any sense of personal defeat.

When someone isn’t genuinely interested in listening or finding truth, then it becomes this gesture of battle rather than dialogue. And I’m simply not sure the battleground of the argument ever leads to a true victory, as you might win the argument but often at the cost of disregarding the other or derailing the truth of the issue to force a defeat.

For me, the mindset of the argument seems to really limit our ability to explore complex realities. A dialogue such as I’m sketching here might not be simple or as easily resolved; but unless we seek to truly understand our differences, truth itself rarely seems to win and without that I’m unsure what kind of system we’re building.

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How arguments avoid issues

Building upon Why seek a single truth?, it occurs to me that people often seem happy to derail discussions to win a point and feel that slight personal satisfaction. However, in doing so, truth and understanding are often lost. This raises the question of what we’re aiming for in communicating: is this a battle of personal ego or one seeking greater truth?

As discussed before, we’re often trained to use argument, rhetoric and debating in how we communicate; the Western tradition becoming this battleground of ideas where we employ words as weapons for personal victory. Of course, taking a broader perspective, all communication is essentially the use of language for a purpose; so it makes sense that we learn how to persuade, inform, entertain, captivate, and so on. To my mind though, training in the use of language is training in the nature of thought and in how we employ that to relate to others and the world around us (ideas touched on in Writings on Education and “Education’s End”).

The question then becomes: how do we determine our purposes? Is every conversation to be an argument, where we attempt to convince others our views are right? Does our sense of what’s right then lie in the hands of those best able to employ language for their own ends and undermine their opponent? Are we sure that path leads to wisdom, rather than laying us open to the misuse of the power of language for personal satisfaction?

In other words, are we communicating for our sense of self or for a deeper sense of truth and mutual understanding? The format of “the argument” often seems to lead to this terrain where those skilled at arguing overshadow others who may be seeking something more. The question of personal motivations and objectives seems an important one.

Looking to the wisdom of language itself, “communication” comes back to the idea of being “shared”; so, the ways we are able to bring our experience and understanding into this space of common knowledge. I see it as this opportunity for diverse people to share their perspectives and for others to suspend their own ideas to live through the eyes of the other, to see another side of our shared reality and obtain a fuller picture. Conversation then becomes a place where a larger understanding of reality can emerge as we gain insight into how others are affected by it. All of this is lost when we focus instead on opportunities for taking out an opponent.

Lately though I’ve noticed some people voicing the desire for dialogue: articulating how conversations are simply descending into conflict and issues being lost in the fray; people seeking ways of relating that overcome these limitations and allow us to meet one another and tackle the issues at stake. Having been so caught up in the mechanics of the argument however, it seems we lack the tradition of dialogue – this may be a new way of being we must now create.

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“Education’s End”

Revisiting a text touched on only briefly in Writings on Education, this post considers “Education’s End” by Anthony Kronman. A book concerned with the place of the humanities within American universities, impacts of the research ideal and trends of political correctness, and challenges arising from this in terms of the extent to which humanities can offer a strong voice of meaning we seem to be lacking.

One idea I find interesting is the ‘conversation’ of civilisation and the value of knowledge being rooted in an ongoing sense of meaning. How “the conversation of the West invites a free and critical response to the inheritance it conveys. It insists that the past be studied and given the weight it deserves, but demands that one struggle to reimagine its claims in fresh and better ways, in a conversation that is permanently open”. Kronman argues there’s value in the constraint of being situated within a flow of thought and relating yourself to what’s gone before; the alternative being “to cut oneself off from the responsibilities that come with an inheritance and the duty, as a steward, to conserve and improve it”. This disconnection from the chain of reasoning – living with the resultant ideas and realities without fully seeing the need to understand how we got here or keeping our place in that conversation – seems a plausible description of modern life; but if we lack that level of meta knowledge, what degree of control or freedom do we have to adjust our course?

There’s also an interesting argument around the pre-eminence of technology and how, in seeking to overcome “the existing limits on our powers”, it sets itself against us as “our powers have meaning for us only within the limits of human life”. That tech “encourages a partial knowledge of humanity and invites us to think that this is all there is worth knowing”; conclusions similar to in “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher. In response, Kronman highlights the appeal of religion as “it is the love of man that needs to be restored” and “without the humanities we lose the only perspective from which the demon of meaninglessness can be met”. Essentially, that we need some form of meaning and appreciation of ourselves – a “commitment to the human spirit”.

Running alongside is the idea of ‘secular humanism’; and while I have little time for a humanism that seeks to conquer religious faith, as I said in Why seek a single truth?, a non-confrontational approach able to contain both belief and non-belief within an inclusive dialogue seems something we’re lacking. “Secular humanism recalls us to the mortal facts. It helps us remember who we are. But it does this by sowing doubts where certainties exist and by putting into question the answers our scientific civilisation invites us to take for granted”, converting “certainties to doubts and convictions to questions. It would bring the moral and political beliefs that condition our lives into view and give us the chance to inspect them”.

This seems a valuable read for anyone looking to understand the path of Western thought into our times; and the ideas above may also offer a path towards new dialogue within modern life.

Reference: “Education’s End. Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life” by Anthony T. Kronman, (Yale University Press), 2007.

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Writings on Education

My post on Education, Society & the Individual became quite tangled in reality, so here I want to step back and consider the place of education within society through the words of E. F Schumacher in “Small is Beautiful” and Anthony Kronman in “Education’s End”.

Writing somewhat before our times, Schumacher highlighted the importance of education in “the transmission of ideas of value … for it is obviously somewhat foolhardy to put great powers into the hands of people without making sure that they have a reasonable idea of what to do with them”. In clarifying the significance of this, Schumacher elaborates “When we think, we do not just think: we think with ideas … All through our youth and adolescence, before the conscious and critical mind begins to act as a sort of censor and guardian of the threshold, ideas seep into our mind, vast hosts and multitudes of them”. So, through education people are seeking “ideas that would make the world, and their own lives, intelligible to them. When a thing is intelligible you have a sense of participation; when a thing is unintelligible you have a sense of estrangement”, the danger of which being how it “breeds loneliness and despair, the ‘encounter with nothingness’, cynicism, empty gestures of defiance.”

Within this context, philosophy is “an attempt to create an orderly system of ideas by which to live and to interpret the world” and education the ability to “choose between one thing and another” or “to know what to do”. However, in then reviewing the main ideas inherited from the nineteenth century (evolution, natural selection, the ideas of Marx and Freud, then the relativism and positivism which dissolved absolute standards and presented observable knowledge as the only standard of meaning) Schumacher reveals “a view of the world as a wasteland in which there is no meaning or purpose, in which man’s consciousness is an unfortunate cosmic accident”. Pointing out that while “to their originators, these ideas were simply the result of their intellectual processes … in the third and fourth generations, they have become the very tools and instruments through which the world is being experienced and interpreted.”

Discussion then passes onto how all subjects “are connected with a centre; they are like rays emanating from a sun. The centre is constituted by our most basic convictions … of metaphysics and ethics, of ideas that – whether we like it or not – transcend the world of facts.” Hence the need for education to produce such wholeness, as if neglected “the centre will not by any means be empty: it will be filled with all those vital ideas which, in one way or another, seeped into [the] mind”. Schumacher concludes our main task to be one of “metaphysical reconstruction” in order to “understand the present world, the world in which we live and make our choices” as “the problems of education are merely reflections of the deepest problems of our age.”

Turning briefly to “Education’s End”, Kronman picks up this concern alongside his experience of seeing “the question of life’s meaning lose its status as a subject of organised academic instruction” throughout his time as Dean of Yale Law School. The book argues the importance of the humanities in how they “study the world of human values … from within and compel those who follow their path to decide where they stand in this world and why” as “we are not prisoners of our upbringings … to varying degrees we are able, as adults, to gain some measure of detachment from the experiences of childhood and to assess them with a critical eye … to ask whether, on reflection, we wish to continue to endorse them”. In essence, Kronman is urging us to re-evaluate the humanities and recognise their essential role in directing and humanising modern life.

Once again posts on Education are hard to condense, and I’ve decided to let these ideas speak for themselves. Clearly education is a challenging task but being aware of the ideas we hold about life, where they’ve come from and led, and understanding our power to reflect upon and change them in shaping our collective future seem to really be at the core.

Reference: “Education’s End. Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life” by Anthony T. Kronman, (Yale University Press), 2007.

Reference: ‘The Greatest Resource – Education’ Chapter Six in “Small is Beautiful. A Study of Economics as if People Mattered” by Dr E. F. Schumacher, (Abacus edition, Sphere Books, London), 1974.

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What makes a good life

This blog, these writings, are my way of trying to express how I see things. Sometimes that’s quite complex, it can also be feisty or a little blunt, and at times it’s more poetic or nebulous. This post is probably the latter. It’s not a recipe for a good life, but an idea as to what a good life may be.

Life for me can be seen as an interplay of light and dark, good and bad, as in art: the line taken between these elements, the tension and its resolution. So we are all these unique actors dealing with our own mix of the dark and the light, trying to find the dance, the way of moving between and resolving this tension of opposites. Clearly there are as many dances as there are people, but the creative activity of “finding our way” and turning it for good seems to be one way of looking at life.

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Why seek a single truth?

This has been bothering me a while, in various settings, so here’s my shot at articulating it. In many areas of life we look for a “winner” – to win arguments, conversations, so many things. It’s an attitude that seems embedded within many principles of Western society.

Our model of communicating is often this combative one of debating and defeating: that the individual must be able to assert their views and overpower the other. As an example, take the mention of rainbows in my post Natural World – are they beautiful and magical, or simply the refraction of light? Does one truth negate the other? Wonder or appreciation fight a strange battle with rationalism.

As to where this comes from, it’s hard to say conclusively. In education we’re taught to argue, debate, persuade – maybe this is an executive decision regarding communication; or arises out of these being some of the functions of language; or, more pragmatically, because that way ‘success’ becomes measurable.

Culturally it seems a legacy of ancient Greek wisdom; although it’s my understanding they used this more to explore the world of ideas than the material world of humans and things. Is this where we’re going wrong, in applying reasoning from the idealistic world of concepts onto the everyday realities of life? Because ‘reality’ to my mind is much more complex and interwoven, there may not be a single cause or a definitive right/wrong judgement that can be universally applied to any situation.

Looking for a single truth (and insisting you’re the one holding it) seems to avoid the possibility of finding greater truths that lie in the much greyer spaces. As I said in Communication and the process of change individual views surely arise out of our experiences and understandings, and likely appear correct in that context. We all see things from our personal perspective in most cases, or from the high mountain of ideals, so while there may be principles that can very much apply, we can’t just ignore another’s reality.

What I’m essentially trying to say is that in seeking single truths we seem to be running roughshod over the fact that our experiences, our perspectives and therefore our personal truths are different. Not to say “this is my truth” works either – that’s holding to your own perspective and not acknowledging the other in a different way.

The answer seems to be a third way – between attack and defence, right and wrong, black and white – a dialogue, a listening, an understanding, a transcending, a new reality that emerges out of recognition of differences and can contain them in an ethical framework of ideals that doesn’t undermine the individuals concerned. I see this as “both/and” – often two or more things can be true or valid.

I just think that all the time we keep relating in this way we’re exacerbating differences, undermining the realities of others by judging them from the abstract realm of thought. We might hold to certain ideals we believe to be right, true, beyond question, but I’m not sure I know of many people who live completely in line with ideals. I suspect much of what we do is pretty far from ideal if we were fully aware of the ‘realities’ behind things.

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Modern activism in practice

With this post I’m equal parts relieved and challenged by the fact I decided my topics last year – I wouldn’t have chosen to tackle such a topic at this time, but won’t change things to avoid it either. And to be clear, I’m writing here about ways we communicate and try to convince others rather than about specific causes or the use of opposition within politics, as these may well be correct courses of action.

Recent years have led to the branding of self as a modern way to be: using your presence as consumer, citizen, social entity to influence others in directions you choose; becoming conscious of roles we play and doing so more knowingly. There’s a positive side to that: we’re increasingly aware of ways we’re interconnected and opportunities to demonstrate our values and how we choose to act for others to see. And the internet offers the chance to broadcast this in a way that hadn’t been possible, but also risks setting us against one another as we act to persuade and to defend our crafted selves.

There’s also a certain “because we can” tendency toward leveraging the platform technology offers us. As mentioned in Globalised society finding its feet and Media and responsibility we seem to be in this era of repurposing existing ways of thinking and relating, a sort of ‘coming of age’ of technology, as we direct these tools more deliberately within modern life. What I’m trying to say is that maybe this is still maturing and I wonder if we’re not rushing into it without a robust philosophy as to our intentions. Is there room to re-evaluate the principles behind how we communicate and relate to one another?

We have a natural inclination to embrace trends and make the most of them, but it does seem tech is shifting us towards a life of instant reactions which – while often valid and valuable in many ways – may also exacerbate fear and push people toward harsh judgements. If the internet makes instantaneous interactions possible, does that mean we let that define our way of being? Do we get in quick before the story moves on, often with a cheap shot or a simplified, out-of-context opinion? Where’s the considered dialogue?

And in bringing these activities into social media channels – where before activism and protest sat further apart from personal connections – we avail ourselves of opportunity but also bring confrontation. There seems to be this push to merge all our social roles into this single voice, making mutual understanding more difficult. When does attacking others ever really help? Often it may undermine the very values we’re advocating.

These are complicated times and issues people rightly feel deeply about; and modern life’s given us these tools which may be creating as many problems and challenges as they’re solving at this point. Are we causing unnecessary division through attitudes we bring into tech? Could we find another way of communicating, a more inclusive dialogue where progress is possible? Because I worry we risk much harm in our desire to do good.

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Podcasts as conversation

In this Culture post I want to take quite a broad look at podcasts and what they have to offer. And when I talk of podcasts, I’m naturally thinking of those I choose to listen to (Rich Roll, Tim Ferriss, and On Being mainly) but I imagine similar things can be said of others.

I think what I like most about them is how it’s listening to the art of conversation and to a fuller expression of human nature than many forms of modern media afford us. There’s something very human about hearing people speak together – their language, tone, pace, humour, and the conversational gestures and interactions that emerge. Even when things veer off track or the people themselves seem to not quite connect, there’s a truth in what’s created. And, without the visual distractions of an image, we’re called on to tune in more to that.

All this seems to revive the world of technology by allowing the conversational human element, rather than the echo chamber of our perceptions. As mentioned in Reality as a sense check, when we’re dealing only with written text I feel there’s a tendency to “hear things with our own voice” – for our ideas, tone, moods and so on to shroud the words with our own preferred meanings. In podcasts you get to hear the other, the nuances and intentions they bring to their words, and the values or attitudes that shine through them.

As discussed in “Towards a New World View” there’s also something beautiful about hearing mutual understanding emerge, as people share their humanity and seek to move common understanding forward through exploring interests and experiences. This links in a way to my thoughts on Communication and the process of change, Value of each human being, and Community – what it was, what we lost in that we all have something to offer and much to learn from one another and the truth of personal experience.

Connecting into Tech as an evolving second life, there also seems something valuable in receiving information and ideas through the eyes and words of human beings. It seems a refreshing return of the purely spoken word and to what is added through bringing our humanity into modern culture, where trends often seem inclined more towards novelty and superficiality. In hearing what people are passionate about, the lessons they’re learning in life, and the messages they wish to impart there seems a sense of community emerging across it all.

Maybe that’s a little idealistic; I can be guilty of focussing more on the possibility rather than the reality of situations. Clearly personal inclinations factor in the choice of material we listen to, and the choices those creating this content make in terms of who they work with and the questions they ask – as ever, there’s a need for discernment. But generally it seems quite democratic, quite laid bare for us to take in as we will rather than overly crafted and controlled – the human voice can be heard.

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