Questing for a dynamic quality without a name

Living as an Imaginal Bridge between Worlds (Part #17)

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Mystery of global governance: As a legal scholar and professor of international relations, David Kennedy made a presentation on The Mystery of Global Governance (2008) arguing:

Global governance remains a mystery because so much about global society itself eludes our grasp....We do not know how power is put together on the global stage, let alone how its exercise might be rendered just or effective.... Everywhere there is important knowledge, promising new initiatives, intriguing insights. But somehow the broader picture remains elusive.... knowledge about the ways the world is governed is not spread evenly. It clumps in the centers and spreads unevenly to the periphery. But it is also hoarded in all these middle lands and liminal spaces.

The unequal distribution of knowledge about the mysteries of global governance calls for more than filling in the gaps in what we know and sharing out what we have learned. The distribution of knowledge about strategic action in a fluid world is also a political, economic and social issue of the first order.

The fruitful framing of global governance as a "mystery" raises the question as to the nature of the cognitive modality appropriate to its comprehension in a period of ever more evident misleadership (Comprehension of Appropriateness, 1986; Emergence of a Global Misleadership Council: misleading as vital to governance of the future? 2007). As noted above, the attentive research on "liminality" itself has seeds of premature and inappropriate closure in the face of evident existential confusion. This recalls the classic warning: The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name (Tao Te Ching). The emergence of "liminality" as a fashionable name then engenders the "10,000 things" in taoist terms.

Quality without a name: The highlighting by environmental designer Christopher Alexander of a "quality without a name" is more appropriately precautious in offering, through his "pattern language", a cognitive pointer to the core attractor of a "place to be" -- even for humanity. For him, to seek the timeless way we must first know the quality without a name.

There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named., The search, which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central search of any person, and the crux of any individual person's story. It is the search for those moments and situations when we are most alive (The Timeless Way of Building, 1979)

This is consistent with the above-mentioned insight of Eric Voegelin that the sense of order sought is conveyed by an experience of transcendence which can never be fully defined nor described, though it may be conveyed in symbols (In Search of Order, 1987). Again the unconventional nature of any associated cognition can be understood as a theme of apophatic discourse, and "unsaying", as discussed separately (Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008). When fruitfully understood, the place of "betwixt or between" (being neither here nor there) is then indicated by the classic Vedic adage: Neti Neti (Not this, Not that) with the portal to that fruitful cognition then corresponding to The Gateless Gate (Mumonkan) of Zen tradition.

The dilemma with respect to any descriptive communication is that any assertions regarding the quality of that space "without a name" necessarily denature it. This could well be the case with respect to the "mystery" of global governance. As previously noted, there is great irony to the fact that, at a time of widespread concern with the global level of hot air emissions, proposals for global governance should be characterized by a high order of strategic hot air (Sins of Hot Air Emission, Omission, Commission and Promission, 2009; Strategic Inflation of Expectations and Inconsequential Drift, 2009). The "targets" of such political, commercial and religious persuasion are however rapidly developing avoidance techniques (Mutual targeting in a democratic process, 1998).

Cognitive geometry: In his subsequent explorations, following continuing work on The Nature of Order (2003-4), Alexander has been concerned with the implications of the "geometry" of that order (Harmony-Seeking Computations: a science of non-classical dynamics based on the progressive evolution of the larger whole, International Journal for Unconventional Computing (IJUC), 2009). This focus raises comprehension issues relevant to the above argument, as previously discussed (Harmony-Comprehension and Wholeness-Engendering eliciting psychosocial transformational principles from design, 2010).

The possibility raised by the above argument is that any collective strategic quest for global "peace", "sustainability", "transdisciplinarity", "human development", and the like, can only emerge from a more complex cognitive space -- a "liminal space" -- perhaps an analogue to the higher dimensionality now required by fundamental physics and cosmology.

Prevailing assumptions of the possibility of universal agreement on simple solutions might then be compared to the quest for a magical silver bullet. Such assumptions "compact the cognitive soil", denaturing it and rendering it infertile, as with over-urbanised environments. Again, as noted above: The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Some kind of "keystone functionality" is required at a different level.

It is curious that any quest for this functionality currently gives rise to "universal" models or value systems of limited credibility and application. These do not effectively encompass the alternatives they design out -- thereby transforming them into simple binary exercises in "us and them". The Bridge of Sighs offers an appropriate metaphor for their use. The complex subtle possibilities extolled in the tradition of any "philosopher's stone" or "sacred space" (temenos) are deprecated. Despite amazing advances in translation possibilities, there is little sense of any emergent "Rosetta Stone" -- embodying dynamic qualities essential to de Bono's "water logic" (Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007; Systemic Crises as Keys to Systemic Remedies: a metaphorical Rosetta Stone for future strategy? 2008; Hyperaction through Hypercomprehension and Hyperdrive: necessary complement to hypertext proliferation in hypersociety, 2006).

In contrast to any descriptive appropriation of ambiguity through use of "liminality", this would emphasize the enabling and enhancing of capacity to thrive in such ambiguity -- as the emergent reality of the 21st century. If major cognitive surprises, equivalent to those offered by 20th century physics are to be expected, possibilities might include:

• contact with extraterrestrial cultures cultivating uncertainty to a degree similar to the cultivation of certainty in the current global civilization:
  • with its current marginalization of those cultures traditionally operating otherwise, as highlighted by Magoroh Maruyama and others (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993).
  • with a degree of "marginalization" of the non-technical mindset currently reinforced by the "silver bullet" expectations of "positive" thinking
• radical reframing of subjective engagement with externalities:
  • of the natural environment, as noted above -- again possibly reinforced by a extraterrestrial criteria (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criteria of species maturity? 2008)
  • of the technical environment
    • technical implications (Robert D. Romanyshyn, Technology as Symptom and Dream, 1989; M. M. Weil, and L. D. Rosen (The Psychological Impact of Technology From a Global Perspective: a study of technological sophistication and technophobia,Computers in Human Behavior, 1995)
  • of the psychosocial environment:
    • following the original Renaissance insights of Marsilio Ficino (Thomas Moore, The Planets Within: the astrological psychology of Marsilio Ficino, 1990) as separately discussed (Composing the Present Moment, 2001)
    • following the mythological insights of Joseph Campbell (The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: metaphor as myth and as religion, 2002)

  Betwixt and Between

  Neither here nor there Neither now nor then

  Nowhere and Now here

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.	Focus	Concern	Outcome
Conventional growth model	Getting there	Know where	Nowhere
Psychology of sustainability	Getting here	Know here	Now here

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Responsibility for Global Governance Who? Where? When? How? Why? Which? What? 2008
Where: neither here nor there?	When: neither now nor then?
An initiative of global importance requires engagement Everywhere	An initiative of global importance requires engagement Everytime
Everywhere implies that it will at least happen Somewhere	Everytime implies that it should at least happen Sometime
It could happen Anywhere, but is now happening Nowhere.	It could happen Anytime, but not when there is Notime.
Anger arises Somewhere because engagement should happen Everywhere.	Anger arises Sometime because engagement should happen Everytime.
Everywhere it is known that it could happen Anywhere, but Nowhere is it realized that Somewhere it is not.	Everytime implies that it could happen Anytime, but it takes Notime to realize that Sometime will not do.
Everywhere blame is assigned Somewhere because Nowhere has happened what could have happened Anywhere.	Everytime blame is assigned Sometime because it takes Notime to do what could have been done Anytime.

***

With appreciation to the possum who triggered early morning reflection on this theme

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