Mythopoetic articulation

Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops (Part #2)

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Gidley (2007) makes a case for an aesthetic dimension to integrative exploration:

I enact a deepening of integral evolutionary theory by honoring the significant yet undervalued theoretic components of participation/enactment and aesthetics/artistry via Steiner and Gebser, as a complement to Wilber.

In an appendix she endeavours to "hold an aesthetic lens to the evolution of consciousness through examples from the genealogy of writing" (Literacy Unveiled: Art as Language from a Palaeoaesthetic Perspective, 2007).

In previous discussions the possible use of myth in support of global governance was explored (Relevance of Mythopoeic Insights to Global Challenges: cognitive integration implied by the Lord of the Rings, 2009; Cognitive Cycles Vital to Sustainable Self-Governance: The Lord of the Rings as an emergent integrative dynamic, 2009). The latter paper cited the comment on the relevance of the poetic form in explaining why "we are our own metaphor" -- as presented by the biologist Gregory Bateson to a conference on the effects of conscious purpose on human adaptation:

One reason why poetry is important for finding out about the world is because in poetry a set of relationships get mapped onto a level of diversity in us that we don't ordinarily have access to. We bring it out in poetry. We can give to each other in poetry the access to a set of relationships in the other person and in the world that we are not usually conscious of in ourselves. So we need poetry as knowledge about the world and about ourselves, because of this mapping from complexity to complexity. (Cited by Mary Catherine Bateson, Our Own Metaphor: a personal account of a conference on the effects of conscious purpose on human adaptation (1972, pp. 288-9)

The merit of such an approach is also to be found in the work of Kenneth Boulding, an instigator of general systems methodology, who was wont to summarize the insights of academic conferences in poetic form (Ecodynamics: A New Theory of Societal Evolution, Sage, 1978). General systems notably highlighted characteristic isomorphisms between disparate systems.

A more general argument with regard to the relevance of poetry-making to governance is presented elsewhere (Poetry-making and Policy-making: arranging a marriage between Beauty and the Beast, 1993). This has since been used with respect to reframing strategic preoccupations (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006), most notably with respect to crises in the Middle East (Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran: an unexplored strategic opportunity?, 2009).

The concern may be differently expressed as one of Imagining the Real Challenge and Realizing the Imaginal Pathway of Sustainable Transformation (2007) -- or perhaps In Quest of Mnemonic Catalysts -- for comprehension of complex psychosocial dynamics (2007). Many authors have variously articulated the fundamental importance of image and imagination as a means of engaging creatively with the future (Kenneth Boulding, The Image: knowledge in life and society, 1956; Fred Polak, The Image of the Future, 1973; Colin Wilson, The Strength to Dream: literature and the imagination, 1961). Interestingly, Thomas Homer-Dixon raises the question as to whether human capacity in this respect will be adequate to the challenge (The Ingenuity Gap, 2000).

As noted above, the argument of Douglas Hofstadter for an individual being "a strange loop" raises questions about how collectivities, notably communities, might then be understood in terms of strange loops -- especially through the manner in which understanding is itself called into question. Hofstadter has chapters on "entwinement" (referring to multiple strange loops in one brain) and on "how we live in each other", with an extensive discussion of "multiple simultaneous locations of self". Given Bateson's argument, reinforced by that of Gidley, there is then a case for experimenting with suggestive poetic expressions of the complexity implied by such strange loops in a collective context, notably in relation to the cycles essential to sustainability. Whether simple or trivial, one illustrative example is:

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