Aesthetic play

Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance (Part #4)

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Whatever form such communication takes, its significant use in bridging across boundaries depends on a playful art -- or artful playfulness -- expressed through an elegant sense of place, timing and appropriateness.

Verbal interaction: In the typical symposium gathering, this is the primary mode acknowledged. Typically it takes the form of discursive, often lengthy statements on which others may be asked to comment, possibly under very particular constraints. These may even be considered as boundaries -- or bounds -- beyond which it is considered inappropriate to step. These processes may offer the occasion for humour. However more typically the dynamics of reparteee and humour emerge outside formal sessions. Boundaries are then set otherwise, are readily challenged and often crossed in a creative variety of ways: more extensive use of anecdote, humour, aphorisms, and the like (Victor S.M. de Guinzbourg, Wit and Wisdom of the United Nations: proverbs and apothegms on diplomacy, 1961)

Arguably the rapid dynamics of repartee, artfully undertaken with discipline, offer a route to higher orders of interactivity -- countering the problematic features of interventions boring their way across communication space and marked by a degree of aridity when lacking any challenge calling for a degree of self-questioning (Edward Sullivan, The Artless Art of Repartee, 1922). This boundary testing style of discourse is characterized by humour and provocative exaggeration. It is notable in the case of flirtation -- when this is culturally acceptable. An adequate distinction is not however made between its use for witty gamesmanship (one-upmanship) in contrast with enhancing the integrative quality of the pattern of discourse as a whole.

Of particular interest is the capacity to reframe boundaries and preoccupations through metaphor. The question is whether metaphor may be effectively used to reframe highly problematic boundaries, as in the case of challenging interfaith discourse, intercultural discourse or exchanges between different ethnic groups -- all charged in various ways. Is such a modality also of great potential relevance in bridging discourse across disciplinary boundaries, as previously argued (Metaphors as Transdisciplinary Vehicles of the Future, 1991)? In a remarkable study, Susantha Goonatilake has argued that a truly global science will result from integrating perspectives associated with non-Western cultures (Toward a Global Science: mining civilizational knowledge, 1999). The implications of his argument have been separately explored (Enhancing the Quality of Knowing through Integration of East-West metaphors, 2000).

Any such capacity may be extended by embedding metaphors in poetic expression -- when this is acceptable, which may be a question of boundary crossing in its own right. A notable practitioner of this art, in otherwise formal disciplinary meetings, was Kenneth Boulding. He was wont to use the format to summarize complex debates.

Donald Rumsfeld, as US Secretary of Defense, was renowned for the use of haiku in formal press conferences. A case has been made for the use of poetry to bridge the mental and other boundaries in arenas which are currently the focus of problematic military activity (Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran, 2009; Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006). There is a degree of irony that there is a long traditional use of poetic expression in the boundary crossing associated with affairs of the heart and "winning" the heart of another -- although this precedent has not suggested the use of such expression in the "battle for hearts and minds" in those arenas.

Following the pattern of repartee, there is a further possibility in "poetic wrestling" and jousting. As with the spontaneous emergence of humour in repartee, this calls for skills in poetic improvisation in response to the poetic statements of the other (Strategic Jousting through Poetic Wrestling, 2009).

Body language: There is a degree of recognition of the role of body language in "getting a message across" some communication boundary. There is a degree of sensitivity to the nature of the game-playing in "entering" the body space of another, whether this is experienced as invasive or as establishing some form of bond. Politicians typically seek professional advice in this regard. This is not apparently the case with respect to formal communication across other boundaries. However the signals of body language are widely interpreted, if only unconsciously, in conference settings -- whether in formal sessions or in the associated informal dynamics. Sensitivity to the space of another may be specially important in cross-cultural communication, in respect for protocol, and in creatively breaking the formality of such constraints.

Such language may take the form of posture, gesture, pace and manner of movement -- as well as through any capacity to dramatize these together in theatrical vignettes. They may they then be understood as indicative of passionate engagement rather than arid detachment. As such they may figure notably in encounters.

Whether accompanied by verbal statements, body language may be a primary mode of expression of the role of the "fool" when this is permitted in formal gatherings, as it was in some royal courts in centuries past. A notable example of this is the documented role in an international gathering of Harvard-educated Brother Blue, otherwise a street theatre artist (A Congress that Dared the Unthinkable: report on the First New Age Congress, Florence, 1978; Emergence of Integrative Processes in a Self-reflective Assembly, 1978) His ability to use body language to reframe and transform arid debate proved significant there.

Of potential relevance is the application of frame analysis (possibly by Erving Goffman) which in one case made evident the manner in which the movements of an otherwise unremarkable child in a playground was effectively setting the rhythm for the interactions of others there. In that respect to the questions raised below for cross-fertilization of ideas, by the endangered "waggle dance" of bees, merits reflection.

Dress: Much is made of appropriate dress, most notably for international gatherings -- necessarily bringing together people with a variety of dress codes in both formal and informal situations. The potential variety is most striking where dress codes associated with particular cultures are interwoven with those of particular ethnic groups or belief systems -- as at the World Parliament of Religions. Academic disciplines may have distinctive formal dress codes, as in the most traditional colleges. It is of course the case that disciplines might be interpreted as a form of cognitive dress code as is, at least metaphorically, implicit in the argument of Antonio de Nicolas (Habits of Mind: an introduction to clinical philosophy, 2000). The many "models" produced, through which thinkers "get their act together", could be so construed -- even to the point of describing any uch collection as a "wardrobe".

Dress is well-recognized as a non-verbal "statement" in its own right, and as such potentially a provocation, challenging convention, offering alternative perspectives, and calling for a larger contextual framework -- whilst at the same time effectively embodying an argument. The "visibility" of such statements guarantees a high degree of communication across boundaries where verbal statements may be far less effective or ignored.

The success of dress codes in communicating in this way is of course integral to the commitment to fashion and the driving force of the fashion industry. The nature of the statement may be of primary political concern, as with the attention to this matter by the President of France (Burkha as Metaphorical Mirror for Imperious Culture? 2009). This preoccupation is associated with wider concern regarding visible religious symbols worn as dress accessories (Politicization of Evidence in the Plastic Turkey Era: al-Qaida, Saddam, Assassination and the Hijab, 2003). Also of relevance is the metaphoric use of "hats". "shoes" and "medals" by Edward de Bono, as discussed below.

For any of Pythagorean persuasion, it is a delight to note that the originator of world modelling, the futurist Herman Kahn (Thinking About the Unthinkable,1962), was based at the Hudson Institute at Croton-on-Hudson -- then the headquarters of the World Modelling Association, grouping the models of the fashion world.

Art as metaphor: It is of course the case, as many have explored, that any form of artful expression is necessarily a metaphor and vehicle for other forms of significance. There is therefore an irony that perhaps the only art on which participants at the Symposium were formally offered any choice was one of taste, and then only in the form of a choice between "meat" and "vegetarian" food. What form of cognitive nourishment might participants variously seek at a symposium?

As noted below, the implication that individuals might have quite different aesthetic preferences was not addressed -- despite its potential cognitive implications for any "art of integration". In that sense there was an implicit commitment to uniformity -- exemplifying an unconscious approach to a particular understanding of integral thinking. This is curious given the recognition shared by many participants (even as advocates) of the contrasting cognitive implications of personality typing (the AQAL of Ken Wilber, MBTI, enneagram. etc).

Elegance in science: The importance of aesthetic dimensions to scientists, and as a guiding consideration in scientific research, is widely documented. It has been said to be essential to adequate theory formulation. Various major initiatives have been undertaken to explore the relevance of aesthetics to science (MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, AlloSphere, Bridges Organization: art and mathematics). This is necessarily fundamental to any integrative outcome of such research -- especially across boundaries. Many theories and models are readily described as "beautiful", even the essence of beauty as it is open to human cognition. Of notably interest in this respect are the tantalizing implications of correspondences, emerging from both a scientific perspective and from the symbolist tradition (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007).

The significance of this consideration for integrative understanding became dramatically evident in the explorationby mathematicians of symmetry groups, notably the most complex -- such as that nicknamed the Monster Group -- and their beautiful renderings. The correspondences which provided the bridging connectivity to its recognition were so subtle and unexpected as to be nicknamed "Moonshine theory" in the mathematical literature (Marcus du Sautoy, Finding Moonshine: a mathematician's journey through symmetry, 2008).

Polysensorial cognitive challenge: Arguments regarding the limitations of the vision metaphor and its implications for policy-making and policy communication have been previously made (Metaphor and the Language of Futures, 1992). The question is in what way other senses may offer metaphorical insights vital to sustainable navigation of the future -- otherwise potentially fragmented cognitively by reliance on singular senses. (Strategic Challenge of Polysensorial Knowledge, 2008; Cyclopean Vision vs Poly-sensual Engagement, 2006). How might aesthetics then come into play as offering a degree of cognitive integration amongst the senses, as suggested by research on synaesthesia?

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