Tragedy of qdis-membered gatewaysq

Evoking Authenticity: through polyhedral global configuration of local paradoxes (Part #12)

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Suppose that active (or potential) gateways within our culture had been inactive or dismembered by some means. This might be like being confronted with an automobile from which the wheels had been removed -- or a doorway that had been bricked up. In science fiction terms the elements of the door frame would have been disassembled -- and taken to different places. Or an operating door might be rendered phoney and inoperable by the attitude of the person encountering it -- possibly epitomized by modern attitudes to the traditional Chinese archway symbolizing contemplation and perspective. Worse still, a phoney door might have been substituted -- offering a transition to nowhere significant. How is an active gateway transformed into a purely symbolic archway to nowhere? But even worse of course would be loss of memory of the existence of such a door -- except perhaps in magnificent fairy tales for children.

There are some interesting examples of what might be dismembered doorway elements:

• sets of tales (eg Aesop, Nasruddin, Jataka) to which people are successively exposed without any means of understanding how they fit together. Each tale is a mini-story which can "transport" people imaginatively. But suppose it is the significance of the tales together -- their co-significance in their complementarity, as with the parts of a door -- which provides the critical mass for a more sustainable form of transportation
• a set of koans typical of Zen might constitute a transformation experience of a different nature to that offered by a single koan. But how are the koans in the set to be re-membered to configure such a gateway. Might the same be said of a critical collection of aphorisms of any culture?
• much is made of the distinctiveness of particular perfumes, textures, tastes, or even sounds, as detected by the appropriate senses. But why is it, in each case, that the possibility of configuring these qualitative differences is not explored? Who has the insight to recognize and circumnavigate a "globe" of odours -- of tastes, of sounds, or of colours? Are people effectively deprived of gateways and maps for such qualitative journeys?
• could it be said that the gateways offered by literature and music are in many respects dismembered or rendered operable only for "local" travel? Why is the possibility of qualitative travel no more than of a similar order to that of the earliest explorers dependent on local guidance to help them to the next location?
• a number of devices engendered within various cultural traditions are poorly understood as wholes -- emphasis being placed on their features, aspects and the personal significance of their parts. This is notably evident in the case of the labyrinth, the mandala, the horoscope, the enneagram, the I Ching, the prayer circlet of beads, and variants of sand painting. A gateway can only function as an integrated whole. Any focus on aspects detracts from that integration -- symbolized by their centro-symmetric form. Their form and function as gateways perhaps derive their mystery and fascination from the degree to which they echo the muscular form and psycho-social dynamics associated with female genitalia.
• sets of virtues and vices that collectively may be understood as navigational aids through which the mundane may be transcended [more]. The focus on the challenge of any particular vice (greed) or virtue (compassion) inhibits insights into the manner whereby the set (of interacting virtue-vice pairs) as a whole can reframe reality -- thus serving as a gateway.
• systems of knowledge organization are most significant in their inability to relate to each other or to handle polarities and paradoxes -- from which their incommensurability partly stems. If the governance and development of society is subject to tensions from a variety of polarized perspectives, then knowledge organization would seem to need to be designed in the light of those polarities and paradoxes [more; more].
• a "re-union" or a "con-ference" (possibly of "members" of an "association") suggests a bringing together of distinct perspectives through generic dialogue processes alluded to in associated terms such as "congress" and "intercourse" (with their curious secondary connotations to sex). Despite the number of such events, their capacity to constitute a transformational gateway (whether singly or in combination) has proven to be highly questionable. The diverse elements required to build a gateway may well be in the same place at the same time, but like a kit of parts their "assembly" is not necessarily appropriate and does not necessarily result in their "co-operation" as a gateway in more than a token, cargo-cult sense. The assembly of the parts tends to be based on simplistic understandings of "common values" or "common ground". For a getaway to operate, it is the diversity of the assembled perspectives that needs to be brought into play. Perhaps the focus should not be based on "conference" but on "difference" as a framework for holding disagreement.
• stakeholders in relation to any issue may together constitute a gateway for transformative processes. The challenge in practice lies in their recognition and their appropriate configuration -- as exemplifed most concretely by the shape of the table in some diplomatic negotiations.

Is it possible that the real "tragedy of the commons" is a conceptual one through which common gateways have been closed off through a pattern of enclosure [more; more]? Does the nature of any operational gateway depend on the capacity to configure highly disparate qualitative insights, despite their inherent incompatibility?

In the logic of this paper, there is of course a danger in the polarity between closing and dis-membering (stigmatized as "bad") and opening and re-membering (caricatured as "good"). In practice doors and gateways only function if they can be both opened and closed. With respect to information and meaning, this dimension has been most usefully explored by Orrin Klapp (Opening and Closing: strategies of information adaptation in society, 1978; Overload and Boredom: essays on the quality of life in the information society, 1986) [more]

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