Bridging metaphoric focus

Playfully Changing the Prevailing Climate of Opinion: Climate change as focal metaphor of effective global governance (Part #4)

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

Underlying both the above perpectives, it is argued here that there is a third perspective that may provide a bridging metaphor -- vital to the approach to both changing patterns of consumption and in response to climate change. Whilst the perspective of a gardener may emphasize a higher degree of empathetic engagement with the processes of the garden, that of the technical perspective necessarily stresses a more cognitively disciplined, instrumentalist approach to those processes. Both envisage possibilities of skilled intervention and innovation -- processes of change and development.

There is widespread recognition that preoccupation with external phenomena has psychological implications:

• gardeners everywhere have acknowledged the psychological impact of gardens and gardening, and may well engage in those processes for that reason [more | more]
• there is widespread recognition within certain spiritual disciplines of the role of gardening and sacred ecosystems (cf Zen temple gardens, sacred groves and other sanctified ecosystems)
• the psychological impact of technology is discussed in a variety of contexts (Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Magic, Memory, and the Angels of Information, 1994/1998), notably in relation to the development of the web (Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, 1995), and is even a focus of concern (computer addiction, videogame addiction, etc)

Many do not have access to gardens and the experience of gardening -- but they may well project their acknowledgement of certain psychological processes into competitive sport. It is however significant that for a variety of sports, emphasis has been placed on the "inner game", whether as a key to conventional success in the outer game or as an experience of significance in its own right (cf the Inner Game of: Tennis, Golf, Frisbee, Chess, Poker, Billiards, Fencing, Go, Sumo, Skiing). The insight has been adapted to competitive economic activity (cf the Inner Game of: Business, Investing, Wealth, Work, Management, Trading, Entrepreneurship, Selling, Prospecting). The same is true of gardening (cf Diane Dreher, Inner Gardening: A Seasonal Path to Inner Peace, 2002; and notions of an "inner garden", or a "secret garden").

It is worth reflecting on the extent to which "gardening" corresponds to the "agricultural" phase of human community development in contrast with the "hunting" phase more appropriately corresponding to competitive sport. These therefore reflect contrasting dispositions between which some form of "marriage" is called for -- to enable a coherent new response to the challenge of the times. At present "gardening" corresponds to the kind of strategic process that sustains "business as usual", whereas "sport" (notably in the form of competitive ball games) corresponds to the kind of strategic process characterized by "point scoring" and "fast footwork". It might be argued that any "marriage" between them has so far proved to be infertile.

The question in what follows is whether gardening and/or sport, as processes with which people everywhere have a degree of psychological engagement, may not prove to be the key to changing the climate of opinion at this crucial period in the history of humanity and the planet.

If a technical justification for the argument that follows is necessary, this may be found in the isomorphism in the systemic relations between these phenomena and processes in different contexts, as understood in terms of general systems theory (cf James Grier Miller, Living Systems, 1978). Possibly more pertinent is the extent to which the role of metaphor is now considered fundamental to technological creativity and innovation -- metaphor has itself even been considered as a technology (cf Laura Mandell, Metaphor as Technology, 2003). But in addition, technology is itself considered as a powerful source of metaphor (cf Robert D Romanyshyn. Technology as Symptom and Dream, 1989; David Weinberger, Technology as Metaphor). It is from these perspectives that the alternative technology explored at CAT can be fruitfully used as a template for alernative insight.

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Visuals] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]