Insights from engaging with the wild (Annex 10)

Encyclopedia of Evil Claims, Claimants, Counter-claims and Sigils (Part #11)

Insights from the terrors of the wild: The relevance of the questions can be simply explored in the engagement with a dangerous wild animal, typically evocative of fear (agrizoophobia) -- even terror -- as with a raging tiger, a crocodile, a snake, or a bear. Curiously however there are people with well-honed skills and experience in that process (horsewhisperers, and the like). They see no need to react to such exposure by eliminating the animal, capturing it, caging it, or taming it (otherwise framed as "breaking its spirit"). However the nature of their skills is less than evident to most -- who prefer to respond reactively, as with the eradication of any perceived threat to lives or livelihood (possibly through framing as pests). The unusual insights and innovations of Temple Grandin come to mind in engaging with livestock.

Is the western-led response to the evil of ISIS comparable to efforts to eradicate wolves from rural areas, notably given exploitation of that metaphor (Andrew L. Peek, The Roots of Lone Wolf Terrorism, Foreign Affairs, 12 January 2016)? This is despite controversial issues raised by the recently recognized role of "dangerous" wildlife in ecosystems -- in relation to efforts to reintroduce them (named rewilding). The eradication metaphor itself has controversial implications, as separately argued (Eradication as the Strategic Final Solution of the 21st Century?, 2014).

Is the quality of such thinking to be compared to any French initiative to dispatch its aircraft carrier to the Pacific in order to smash El Niño as being an immediate threat and source of terror in those regions -- perhaps inspired by the logic of weather modification for strategic purposes? As with El Niño, fundamental beliefs may not be as responsive to bombs as is assumed. Expressed otherwise, ideas cannot be bombed.

Insights from fear of conversion: There is an extensive literature on fear of conversion between religions, notably in the light of the proselytizing zeal of competing relgions:

J. N. Bremmer, et al (Eds.): Cultures of Conversions (Groninen Studies in Cultural Change, 2006).
Esther Dwarswaard: Proselytism and Conversion zeal (Knowledge Centre for Religion and Developmen, 2010)
Debating Conversion in Different Historical Contexts (Center for the Study of Conversion, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2014)
Lewis R. Rambo: Understanding Religious Conversion (Yale University Press, 1995)
Lewis R. Rambo, et al (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Oxford University Press, 2014)
H. Gooren: Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation: tracing patterns of change in faith practices (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
Ines W. Jindra: New Model of Religious Conversion: beyond network tTheory and social constructivism (Brill Academic, 2014)

The fear is evident with respect to suspicions regarding the hidden agendas of interrelegious dialogue, as well as the threat of syncretism, heresy, blasphemy and apostasy, usefully documented by Anton Karl Kozlovic (Seven Logical Consequences of Interreligious Dialoguing: A Taxonomy of Praxis Possibilities, Marburg Journal of Religion: 8, 2003). Especially noteworthy is the ghreat engendered by the zeal of new religions, sects and cults, readily understood to be misguided, if not inherently evil. The insights are valued in the light of concerns regarding fundamentalism, especially Islamic jihadism.

Questionable opportunities? Still to be explored in relation to the strange archetypal battle between good and evil are issues usefully framed by the classic set of WH-questions:

Where is the opposition coming "from" -- as might be explored in cognitive, philosophical, and existential terms sustained by belief (in relation to locus in a global context)?
Why is it experienced as deadly -- in its effects on those framing themselves as the epitome of good?
What is there to fear -- perhaps understood in terms of the transformation it may entail in valued habitual processes, and therefore held to be absolutely non-negotiable?
When is it deadly -- especially if it is mistakenly assumed to be continually threatening, rather than only occasionally, if unpredictably, or especially triggered?
Who embodies the danger -- especially if there is a tendency to over-generalization, stereotyping and stigmatism (and failure to address the mysteries of identity. multiple identities, etc)?
Which manifestations are dangerous -- especially if profiling is unspecific and ill-informed (requiring distinctive responses)?
How best to respond -- given that conventional responses may be more than inappropriate?

Such questions may themselves be related to the complexity of cognitive and existential catastrophe, as separately discussed (Conformality of 7 WH-questions to 7 Elementary Catastrophes: an exploration of potential psychosocial implication, 2008). This may be associated with the exploration of catastrophe theory and semiophysics of (René Thom, Semio Physics: A Sketch, 1990; Peeter Müürsepp, Semiophysics as a Theoretical Basis for Scientific Creativity; F.T. Arecchi, Complexity and Emergence of Meaning: toward a semiophysics, 2001; Franson D. Manjali, Catastrophe Theoretic Semantics: towards a physics of meaning, Semiotics Institute Online, 1997). The encounter with deadly opposition -- framed as evil -- is then to be understood as a threatening cognitive catastrophe.

The argument here concerns the nature of a question, prefiguring as a form of "cognitive catastrophe", through which an existing pattern of understanding is transformed to enable a new pattern to emerge. It might be said that there is a distinct "feel" to each such form of question (Cognitive Feel for Cognitive Catastrophes: Question Conformality, 2006). It could prove to be related to creative insight or revelation.

This approach can be used to explore the nature of the question most "deadly" to any non-negotiable commitment to the status quo, as separately discussed (World Futures Conference as Catastrophic Question: from performance to morphogenesis and transformation, 2013). That exploration was notably framed in terms of the following themes:

Modes of experiencing otherness as potentially deadly: In the light of the visual renderings of the different forms of catastophe, their topology suggests exploration in terms of particular phobias such as: fear of falling, fear of heights (acrophobia), fear of gavitational pull (barophobia), fear of disorientation (vertigo), fear of open places (agoraphobia), fear of enclosure (claustrophobia), fear of freedom (eleutherophobia), fear of movement (kinesophobia). Of interest, with respect to the fear of falling, is the use of the metaphor in spiritual terms (The Fall of Man in Abrahamic theology) and in reference to backsliding.

It is appropriate to note the potential relevance of the pattern of 16 fundamental "archetypal morphologies" in the figure below, as identified by topologist René Thom. Of specific relevance are the "metaphorical" terms, by which he briefly describes the nature of each (see also Wolfgang Wildgen, Catastrophe Theoretical Semantics: an elaboration and application of René Thom's theory, 1982). The question is how these might be indicative of engagement with otherness experienced as potentially deadly through the transformative change implied.

Archetypal morphologies of Thom -- potentially indicative of distinctive forms of fear of otherness? schematics from René Thom (Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: an outline of a general theory of models, 1972) (see other depictions)

With respect to the sense and nature of "opposition", further credibility of an approach of this nature is offered by the work of Hector Sabelli and Gerald H. Thomas (The Future Quantum Computer: Biotic Complexity, 2008) who argue:

Some forms of opposition, including negation, may be modeled by catastrophes. Thom's catastrophes provide a good starting point to go beyond the standard "and" and "or" gates. First, according to Thom's theorem, we need to consider only a few control forms. The limited number of archetypal morphologies that Thom identified is assumed to be universal. Certainly forms are created and constrained by physical factors that also extend across the chemical, biological, social, and psychological domains. We may apply this concept to logical statements. Second, it is good starting point because catastrophe forms appear in the study of choice... Third, Thom... and others have already explored how catastrophes can be used to model active verbs representing actions, as contrasted to Boolean logic that only models the non-active copula "to be." Thom give a constructive and a destructive interpretation to each catastrophe. For instance, the fold represents to begin and to end; the cusp represents to engender or unite and to capture and to break; the butterfly represents to give and to receive, as well as to exfoliate.

It is appropriate to note the (necessarily) controversial appreciation of Thom's methodology (David Aubin, Forms of Explanations in the Catastrophe Theory of Rene Thom: Topology, Morphogenesis, and Structuralism, 2004). However it is remarkable to note a fruitful interpretation of Thom's basic thesis (Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: an outline of a general theory of models, 1972):

structural stability can be understood as the normal order of global societal engaged in business-as-usual and committed to the status quo, currently understood as threatened by deadly oppostion in the form of terrorism -- held to be imbued with evil
morphogenesis can be understood as the process of transformation to any new pattern of order, necessarily a terrifying prospect for many, if not most

Thom's initial preccupation was with the transformation of biological forms during their life cycle. This necessarily makes no reference to the experience of that form exposed to the necessity of change.

Fear of change framed by morphogenesis of a butterfly? A remarkable illustration of transformative change is provided by that undergone in the well-recognized lifecycle of the butterfly -- from caterpillar, via pupa, to imago. The widespread calls for "change", and the sensed need for it, could be explored metaphorically in terms of the pressures and tensions, felt within the butterfly, that elicit the necessary "rewiring" of its instinctual behavioural patterns and metabolic processes. from the insect chrysalis -- the stage in the life cycle of lepidopterons when, within a self-spun cocoon, rapacious (and somewhat ugly) caterpillars undergo a sensational re-configuration of both form and function, to emerge as delicate (and often beautiful) butterflies (or moths if their particular genes so dictate).

Caterpillar-to-Butterfly Transformation -- a Renaissance
Caterpillar		Pupa/Chrysalis		Butterfly
	? ? ?		? ? ?
Business-as-usual consumption society committed to the status quo	Existential terror	Unexplored transition	Existential terror	Flight-enabled global civilization (as variously imagined)

There is naturally no reference to the terror experienced by a caterpillar faced with the process of transformation into a butterfly. As noted below, this example features as a metaphor in some commentaries on social transformation. This frames global civilization as:

currently to be compared to a caterpillar, focused primarily on consumption, accumulation, and voluminous growth -- with no implication of transformative growth of any other kind, however necessary this might be for the future evolution of humanity
confronted by the imminent future prospect of becoming a butterfly, with all the agonising reorganization that this may imply -- naturally to be experienced as terrifying

Such transformation provides a perspective on the widely discussed theme of fear of change (Fear of Change, The Huffington Post; Mark Connelly, Fear Of Change Is A Top Reason For Resistance To Change, Change Management; Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War: with fear of change, 2011). This may be framed as terror of change, notably for the individual (Lawrence Tirnauer, Power and Terror of Change, The Psychotherapy Patient, 1985).

For any institution or society, what indeed is the "deadly question" to enable the transition from "caterpillar" to "pupa", and from "pupa" to "imago" -- through the "death" of the preceding modality?

Much of the terror may be associated with what is necessarily unknown, possibly calling for a new mode of thought (Inexplicable unknowns: the challenge of "the dark"? 2010; Epistemological Panic in the face of Nonduality Does nothing matter? 2010). That which is not understood is readily reframed as inherently evil.

As discussed separately (Animating the Representation of Europe, 2004), the necessary institutional metamorphosis for the 21st century has been explored by John Elkington (The Chrysalis Economy, 2001) through this caterpillar-to-butterfly metaphor. For Elkington, the transformation is not achieved without radical shifts in the nature of the animal that involves "self-digestion" before metamorphosis is possible. He uses insights from this metaphor to illuminate many aspects of corporate transformation.

Using the same metaphor, Edgar Morin (Vers l'abime, Le Monde, 1er janvier 2003) argues:

La métamorphose de la chenille en papillon nous offre une métaphore intéressante: quand la chenille est entrée dans le cocon, elle opère l'autodestruction de son organisme de chenille, et ce processus est en même temps celui de formation de l'organisme de papillon, lequel sera à la fois le même et autre que la chenille. Cela est la métamorphose. La métamorphose du papillon est préorganisée. La métamorphose des sociétés humaines en une société monde est aléatoire, incertaine, et elle est soumise aux dangers mortels qui lui sont pourtant nécessaires. Aussi l'humanité risque-t-elle de chavirer au moment d'accoucher de son avenir.

Its seemingly terrifying nature, especially when inappropriately managed, is usefully distinguished from the following semblances of change by Susan Richards (Taming the Change Management Monster, 20 October 2015):

Knee-jerk Change -- based on hasty decisions made without due diligence or sufficient input from affected parties
Cinderella Change -- expecting to succeed without seeking out and addressing the reasons for the failure of previous initiatives; requires a Fairy Godmother
Do As I Say Change -- when leadership teams speak the right words but do not demonstrate their commitment through actions
Yo-Yo Change -- unpredictable, exemplified by ever-changing priorities, plans, and promises
Tightrope Change -- when employees are asked to "work without a net" of education and training to perform their altered jobs
Dishonest Change -- featuring communication that is unclear or glosses over expected negatives like possible job loss

Curiously there is some intuitive, metaphorical recognition of a requisite degree of transformation to enable an organization or project to "fly". With respect to organizational transformation, there are many related jokes concerning earth-bound "turkeys" in contrast with "eagles" able to fly. The notion of radical wings is also of relevance (Counteracting Extremes Enabling Normal Flying: insights for global governance from birds on the wing and the dodo, 2015).

Comparison with a caterpillar, clutching desperately as its source of nourishment with prolegs, suggests that global civilization is unconsciously anticipating a pupal transitional phase through the focus on "spinning" narratives and the cocooning trend. In this respect, the cognitive implications of an "encyclopedia" are more fruitfully explored through "encycling", as separately discussed (Encycling rather than Encyclopedia: dynamic versus static? 2014). Given the inspiration currently offered by biomimicry, this suggests the merit of exploring the extensively studied processes of biological metamorphosis as indicative of psychosocial analogues. To the extent that those implied by the emergence of the butterfly are recognized and prefigured through intuition and imagination, the extensive commentary evoked by the butterfly dream of Chuang Tzu merits attention (C. W. Chan, The Butterfly Dream, The Philosopher, 83, 2; Kuang-ming Wu, The Butterfly as Companion, 1990).

Identification with threatening otherness through mirroring: Given the fear of an enemy, ultimately as the embodiment of evil and source of terror, missing from any references to "know thine enemy" is the insight in the remarkable well-known reference in the Pogo strip cartoon by Walt Kelly: We have met the enemy and he is us. This is upheld as framing the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition.

The quote speaks to the recognition, articulated otherwise, of the manner in which a feared enemy mirrors one's own condition in some subtle manner. This notably featuress in the extensive psychological literature on the shadow, understood as indicative of a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses (Stephen A. Diamond, Essential Secrets of Psychotherapy: what is the "Shadow"? Psychology Today, 20 April 2012; Jeremiah Abrams and Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow: the hidden power of the dark side of human nature, 1991; Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow: understanding the dark side of the psyche, 1993; Christopher Perry, The Shadow, The Society of Analytical Psychology). As noted by Perry with respect to the shadow and evil:

That leads us to the deepest areas of the shadow, where we find manifestations of evil as a dynamic in the world to which we need to relate with collective guilt, responsibility and reparation: privatised water, the arms trade, famine, torture, Guantanamo Bay etc; each of us will have such a list. The problem of evil is one that Jung explored through his correspondence with the Dominican, Fr Victor White, and through his writings, particularly Answer to Job.

Aside from extension of the shadow metaphor to the collective unconscious, the sense of threat is also evident in its use with respect to the shadow economy (namely the black market), shadow government, and the dark web.

Resilence of an adaptive cycle: Of some relevance to any such understanding is the theory of hypercyclic morphogenesis, namely the emergence of a higher order of self-reproducing structure, organization, or hierarchy within a system. This might well be associated with increasing understanding of an adaptive cycle appropriate to resilience. As implied by the caterpillar-to-butterfly metaphor, rather than constituting unidirectional transformations, these are phases in a cycle of renewal. The butterfly engenders new caterpillars calling for comprehension in cognitive terms. This challenge is intimately related to that of the need to navigate the adaptive cycle with which they are associated. The case for recognizing an adaptive cycle has been made by the Resilience Alliance and by Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, 2006). (Adaptive Hypercycle of Sustainable Psychosocial Self-organization, 2010)

Adaptive cycle in complex systems (many variants and developments are available via Google Images)
As reproduced from The Upside of Down (2006)	As reproduced from The Resilience Alliance.

A particular difficulty with the term "adaptation" was originally clarified in a report to the Club of Rome . Understood as "maintenance learning", this was usefully distinguished from "shock learning". As discussed in a critique of that report (Societal Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory, 1980):

Maintenance learning is the acquisition of fixed outlooks, methods, and rules for dealing with known recurring situations. It enhances our problem-solving ability for problems that are given. It is the type of learning designed to maintain an existing system or an established way of life. Maintenance learning is, and will continue to be, indispensable to the functioning and stability of every society. (p.10)

Maintenance learning reinforces existing categories and paradigms, the disciplines to which they give rise, and the professional and institutional division of labour of which they are the basis. Funding for the associated information systems is governed by maintenance priorities.

But, as the Club of Rome report points out:

Traditionally societies and individuals have adopted a pattern of continuous maintenance learning interrupted by short periods of innovation stimulated largely by the shock of external events... Even up to the present moment, humanity continues to wait for events and crises that would catalyze or impose this primitive learning by shock. But the global problematique introduces at least one new risk -- that the shock could be fatal. This possibility, however remote, reveals most clearly the crisis of conventional learning: primary reliance on maintenance learning not only is blocking the emergence of innovative learning, but it renders humanity increasingly vulnerable to shock; and under conditions of global uncertainty, learning by shock is a formula for disaster. (p. 10)

Reframed in terms of the adaptive cycle, there is a case for recognizing a shocking intermediary phase through which the caterpillar-to-butterfly transition is rendered cyclic. Considered as a fourth phase this merits exploration in terms of Jung's (necessarily?) controversial understanding of evil in his Answer to Job (1952) -- as a missing fourth element calling for fourfold insight.

Engaging with terror of transformation through embodiment: From such perspectives, the challenge is how to reframe the "ground" on which -- or within which -- engagement with terrifying opposition is encountered This requires exploration of how to shift beyond the preoccupation with possession of "field" and "terrain" as (intellectual) property. The issue might be on how to transform the field (in topological terms) and to "shift the goal posts" and whatever they are held to signify. It could be understood as the quest for "uncommon" ground (911+ Questions in Seeking UnCommon Ground and protecting the Middle Way from Binary Thinking, 2001).

This seemingly requires a process analogous to that in which the caterpillar engages at the cellular and organ level -- which might well be understood as "radicalising". This can then be seen a prelude to embodiment otherwise an embodiment of the other as terrifyingly mirrored and imagined (Embodiment of Change: Comprehension, Traction and Impact? Discovering enabling questions for the future, 2011). Understood as the mirroring of a collective shadow, how best to engage with the terror engendered by looking in a mirror -- perhaps as exemplified for Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890)? Cognitively the terror might be compared with that associated with fear of conversion.

Rather than the "after" in the case made by Richard Kearney (Thinking after Terror: an interreligious challenge. Journal of Intedisciplinary Crossroads, 2005), it could be better explored in terms of "in", as in a commentary on his argument (Thinking in Terror: refocusing the interreligious challenge from "Thinking after Terror", 2005). There it was argued that

This comment has been entitled "Thinking in Terror" to suggest that there may be an abomination more terrifying than the terrors of the Holocaust and 9/11. How might this feature in the "great mystery"? There is the possibility that the terror is unconsciously recognized as so great that thinking about it is set behind the most rigid forms of denial -- petrifying those that consider its implications (as suggested by the Gorgon Medusa and other myths) [more]. This may effectively give rise to a "terror of thinking". What might cause such terror?

This was clarified in the following terms:

There is a challenge offered by terrorism from a spiritual perspective -- and by the scientific innovations offering ever more horrific means of causing terror. The challenge lies in whether the theoretical advances in the fundamental sciences regarding the nature of reality offer cognitive guidelines and templates through which dialogue can transcend the dualism separating religions. Pointers are, for example, offered by physicist David Bohm (Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980) and his subsequent deep involvement in dialogue processes [more], or by mathematician Ron Atkin (Multidimensional Man; can man live in 3-dimensional space?, 1981) [more]. People might thereby be carried into the "fabric of reality" -- into "the stones" -- through a process that may hold a key to the "invisible" character of the ubiquitous "unspeakable, inexplicable, unlocateable terror" to which Kearney refers.

This is consistent with other recommendations variously associated with Sun Tzu:

To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.
Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.

This insight may be explored further in the light of the process of enantiodromia whereby the overiding emphasis on one framework or set of values eventuall egenders its opposite. This is a process only too evident in the adoption by those abhorring certain modalities who seem eventually to take on those modalities to some degree -- as with terrorism -- and despite denials of moral equivalence.

The process could be explored in the light of the insights of fundamental physics regarding the requisite design of the CERN Large Hadron Collider or the nuclear fusion reactor (ITER). These offer framings which can be speculatively explored, as separately discussed (Dynamic Interrelationship of Symbols of Coherent Experiential Representation of Nonduality (DISCERN), 2008; Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006).

With their dependence on mathematics of the greatest sophistication, it might be asked whether handling evil appropriately calls for more extensive exploration of mathematical theology, as separately discussed (Mathematical Theology: Future Science of Confidence in Belief -- Self-reflexive Global Reframing to Enable Faith-based Governance, 2011; Towards a Logico-mathematical Formalization of "Sin": fundamental memetic organization of faith-based governance strategies, 2004).

With respect to CERN, that initiative could be seen as a splendid metaphor of the degree of extreme denial characteristic of conventional scientific thinking at its best? To what extent is the degree of focus on the most fundamental secrets of the known universe and its origins to be seen as comparable to the much-cited tale of the person searching at night under a lamplight for lost keys, because it was "easier" to search there although the person knows the keys to have been lost beyond the lighted area where the search was more difficult?

With respect to ITER, this would seem to offer insights into fruitful new ways of handling deadliness (in that case radioactivity) -- skillfully avoiding inappropriate closure -- such as to derive vital energy for global civilization. Is this how perception of evil should be channelled? Both CERN and ITER suggest new ways of reconfiguring the "ground" on which engagement with deadly opposition can be fruitfully explored -- to the benefit of both opponents. Should the engagement then continue to be framed as "fighting", with a view to "defeat", as is the only strategic option currently envisaged (Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors, 1998)? Poetry could help to render other insights comprehensible (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006).

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Insights from engaging with the wild (Annex 10)