Being otherwise in Isdom

The Isdom of the Wisdom Society: Embodying time as the heartland of humanity (Part #13)

The reference above to "crazy wisdom" suggests that -- in addition to humour -- the frame of reference within Isdom needs to be understood as fundamentally "otherwise" (Being Other Wise: dynamics of a meaningfully sustainable lifestyle, 1998). The role of humour in response to political and other adversity is well-recognized (cf Patrick Rorke. The Wisdom of Adversity, 1945; Victor S.M. de Guinzbourg. Wit and Wisdom of the United Nations: Proverbs and Apothegms on Diplomacy, 1961), notably through the Noble Prize of the Association for the Promotion of Humour in International Affairs.

The contrast with conventional thinking is perhaps most succinctly demonstrated by physicists' own need for "craziness". This is illustrated by the much-quoted statement by Niels Bohr in response to Wolfgang Pauli: "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that is not crazy enough." To that Freeman Dyson added:

"When a great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete and confusing form. To the discoverer, himself, it will be only half understood; to everyone else, it will be a mystery. For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope!" (Innovation in Physics, Scientific American, 199, No. 3, September 1958)

The biologist J B S Haldane opined: "Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose" (since referred to as "Haldane's Law") -- an explanation for the increasing counterintuitiveness of modern scientific theories. But whilst "craziness" is now acceptable in physics -- and backed by high levels of funding -- yet such "craziness" is quite unacceptable in the search for more appropriate responses to the dramatic challenges of governance and personal identity -- and the planetary crises of the foreseeable future. Why indeed is it not assumed that really "crazy" solutions will be required -- and that those on the table are "not crazy enough"? Why should physicists have a monopoly on such "craziness"? And why should "crazy" strategic options only become acceptable, and justified, in the craziness of warfare and knee-jerk responses to crises?

The nature of appropriate "craziness" is usefully clarified by George Monbiot (On the edge of lunacy, Guardian, 6 January 2004) in commenting on the allocation of UK extensive foreign aid funds to the government-sponsored, right-wing Adam Smith Institute (London):

The institute's purpose is to devise new means for corporations to grab the resources that belong to the public realm. Its president, Madsen Pirie, claims to have invented the word privatisation. His was the organisation that persuaded the Conservative government to sell off the railways, deregulate the buses, introduce the poll tax, cut the top rates of income tax, outsource local government services and start to part-privatise the national health service and the education system. "We propose things," Pirie once boasted, "which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they're on the edge of policy." In this spirit, his institute now calls for the privatisation of social security, the dismantling of the NHS and a shift from public to private education.

How to distinguish between this kind of disaster-prone "craziness" and that which those in search of "alternatives" and "new paradigms" appear to call for?

Perhaps to some degree, the key to Isdom lies in the ability to ask unusual questions of a certain type -- as suggested by the wordplay: Why's-dom. Perhaps it is these questions which "pluck" the strings of associations of the "pattern that connects". Perhaps it is in some way an ability to "play" on that pattern -- as on the strings of a guitar or a sitar.

In addition to the emphasis on the instant -- the present moment (see Presenting the Future, 2001) -- there is a need to shift from the static quality characteristic of conventional structures to the dynamic -- to their "momentum" in the present moment as argued elsewhere (see From Statics to Dynamics in Sustainable Community, 1998; Discovering richer patterns of comprehension to reframe polarization, 1998)

How then may the identity of the dwellers of Isdom be understood -- those whose psychic centre of gravity is therein? How might they be perceived? There are, for example, allusive pointers in mytho-poetic references to the world of faerie -- possibly also helpful to any reflection about how to conceive and communicate with extraterrestrials who may indeed be well-ensconced in Isdom (see Communicating with Aliens: the Psychological Dimension of Dialogue, 2000). Elsewhere (Patterning Archetypal Templates of Emergent Order, 2002) it was suggested that:

Another modality calling for reflection is the process reality contrasted with that of reified objects. The identities sustained by the dynamics within process reality are then effectively "aliens" -- unrecognizable from a static perspective to which they are not "linked". It might then usefully be asked whether people could be distinguished on a continuum depending on the degree to which their identity is associated with how they "move", as opposed to how they are -- their "status". At the process extreme, in folk traditions those of the "flow world" might then be readily recognized as spirits and the like -- hidden fairies contributing coherence to the forest. The religiously inclined might refer to them as angels or demons. In part, they would only live through the dynamics between the static identities. The "demons" would be of special concern as malevolent riders of those dynamics -- "dark riders". What identities live through processes of overpopulation, starvation, disease, injustice, pollution and violence -- or globalization itself? [more] In an era of "spin doctors" and multi-media morphing, are there more fruitful ways of understanding the conceptual implications of shapeshifting? [more]

Also helpful are some accounts of dream encounters with archetypes -- where the significance derives from the encounter rather than of any description that it is possible to give of it.

Also intriguing is the initiative of the Batuz Foundation (initially with Inge Morath) to give expression to a Société Imaginaire. For those with the ability to do so, why should the ability to create and inhabit castles of the collective imagination not be explored -- the castles in potentia of Isdom?

Another interesting lead is that articulated by the surrealists, notably by André Breton in the First Surrealist Manifesto (1924):

We are still living under the reign of logic, but the logical processes of our time apply only to the solution of problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism which remains in fashion allows for the consideration of only those facts narrowly relevant to our experience. Logical conclusions, on the other hand, escape us. Needless to say, boundaries have been assigned even to experience. It revolves in a cage from which release is becoming increasingly difficult. It too depends upon immediate utility and is guarded by common sense. In the guise of civilization, under the pretext of progress, we have succeeded in dismissing from our minds anything that, rightly or wrongly, could be regarded as superstition or myth; and we have proscribed every way of seeking the truth which does not conform to convention.

To what extent are such realities to be marginalized as mere "figments" of the imagination? Efforts such as those of the Imagination Lab suggest prudence with respect to premature cognitive closure. The central role of the imagination at Damanhur confirms its value in sustaining the life of a community (see Imaginal education, 2003). Perhaps the ultimate insight is provided by Kenneth Boulding, author of Image (1956), who provocatively suggests:

"Our consciousness of the unity of self in the middle of a vast complexity of images or material structures is at least a suitable metaphor for the unity of group, organization, department, discipline or science. If personification is a metaphor, let us not despise metaphors -- we might be one ourselves" (Ecodynamics; a new theory of social evolution, 1978)

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Being otherwise in Isdom