Interweaving disparate voices in the moment

Alternating between Complementary Images of Coronavirus (Part #8)

Interweaving significance: The articulation above tends to overemphasize the disparate nature of the requisite attitudes. The reality of experience requires a capacity to "dance" cognitively between them -- hence "strategic nimbleness" -- as exemplified in the martial arts, and especially their underlying philsophy. This is notably evident in classical articulations of sets of strategies which continue to be appreciated in strategic settings (The Book of Five Rings; The Art of War; Thirty-six Strategems). A comprhensive set of challenging questions -- as 48 koans -- is offered in another classic, The Gateless Barrier (or The Gateless Gate).

How many "moves" are required to "fox" or deceive an opponnent? How is appreciation of this skill to be distinguisnhed from deprecation of confidence trickery -- given the risk/trust framework presented above? Ultimately, however, who is the opponent -- the "tiger" to be lured out of the "mountain" in the case of the Thirty-six Strategems? How many themes need to be interwoven for effective global governance, and how is interweaving to be understood, as separately discussed (

The point can be made otherwise through the casting of an array of characters or voices in any dramatic plot, composition or creative choreography -- in order for it to be attractive and memorable. This is especially evident in cultural epics such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, the Kalevala, or the Ring of the Nibelung. What constitutes their attractive power and durability does however remain elusive.

Rather than the cube-based configuration (above), one approach to indicating the requisite complementarity is through the following Venn diagram. This frames the central space responsive to the particular aspects -- and the potential "dance" between them.

Indicative representation of complementarity

Metaphorically, the configuration can usefully be understood as a form of resonance hybrid whose integrity derives from that dynamic. The following offering various clarifications of that pattern of resonance between complementary modes:

How indeed does such resonance relate to the wave-related arguments of Alexander Wendt (Quantum Mind and Social Science: unifying physical and social ontology, 2015) or to those of Chris Laszlo (Quantum Management: the practices and science of flourishing enterprise, Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, 2020)? Do complementary images imply contrasting forms of otherness (Encountering Otherness as a Waveform -- in the light of a wave theory of being, 2013)?

Ways of looking? Given the case made for the integrative perspective offered by aesthetics, reference can be usefully made to the extensive post-modern exploration of the poem by Wallace Stevens (Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, 1917). Rather than a pattern of eight, are thirteen ways of looking to be understood as potentially characterizing a pattern of memetic warfare? The approach is further justified in an earlier argument in the light of the blackbird's renowned singing capacity (Anticipating When Blackbirds Sing Chinese, 2014). This concluded with the following themes:

Noopolitics and memetic warfare within the noosphere
Engaging with a memespace of paradoxical complexity
Ways of looking at ways of looking
Post-modern challenge to simplistic binary framing of the other

Imaginative composition of ways of looking or listening
Embodying a multiverse of uncertainly ordered incongruity
Thirteen ways of apprehending blackbird song
Imagining future communication integrity enabled by aesthetics

Following the controversial disclosures regarding the degree of invasive electronic surveillance (currently in process of extension to COVID-19 contact tracking), how might a variety of ways of looking be elicited and juxtaposed -- perhaps such that together their strange integrity rendered them meaningless to conventional observation? The title of Stevens' poem is claimed to allude to the Cubist painting tradition of observing subjects simultaneously from numerous viewpoints to present a novel perspective. Umberto Eco might be said to offer an example (Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15).

Covid-19 versus Corvid-19? The earlier argument included a provocative adaptation of "blackbird" to "crow", citing R. J. Derosa (Of Crows, Poetry, and Politicians):

I often stop and watch a crow cawing atop a pole. Each caw takes a lot of energy.... Politicians also make a lot of noise. I would rather listen to birds any day. Crows and politicians share one similarity; they both puff themselves up prior to emitting sound. Given a choice, I will always prefer crow-talk (RJ Derosa's Weblog, 27 March 2012). [emphasis added]

Given the disastrous approach to global governance, toeing a conventional line, this evoked the following images appropriately exploiting the collective noun for a group of crows -- namely a murder of crows (Kevin Dickinson, Why is it called a murder of crows? Big Think, 30 September 2018).

A "murder of crows" ?

Global governance by a "murder of crows" -- the G8 Group ?

With respect to current preoccupation with COVID-19, and any anticipation of future pandemics (COVID-21 and thereafter), there is a delightful irony to the above association with "crows". In scientific terms, the crow is a member of the Corvidae family which includes some 120 species; Corvus being one genus of 45 members within that family. The irony is evident in the common erroneous reference to Covidae (4,300 Google results) rather than to Corvidae (1,200,000 results), most notably in extensive websites of images, but also including scientific and other reports. As might be suspected, there are even references to CORVID-19 (663,000 results) -- a phenomenon discussed by Joseph Longo (In the Covid Crisis the Corvid is having a moment, Mel Magazine, 17 April 2020).

The relevance of such confusion in a period of pandemic merits further attention in the light of the ambiguity of the traditional symbolic significance associated with the crow. On the one hand, the crow is closely associated with death -- notably in the light of its role as a carrion eater, feeding on flesh on battlefields (Why are black crows associated with death? Quora, February 2018; Charles Mudede, We See Death When We See Crows, The Stranger, 9 September 2015). Some cultures have seen the crow as a messenger of death, the unknown and the underworld. They were especially evident at the time of the Great Plague in 1665 -- curiously complemented by plague doctors wearing beaked masks. (Erin Blakemore, Why plague doctors wore those strange beaked masks, National Geographic, 12 March 2020).

On the other hand, the Corvidae are considered to be the most intelligent birds, and have been appropriately associated with a source of insight and the trickster archetype (Michelle Starr, 13 Strange Reasons Why Crows And Ravens Are Definitely The Smartest Birds, Hands Down, ScienceAlert, 30 Ausugst 2019; Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom From the Urban Wilderness, 2009).

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Interweaving disparate voices in the moment