Fourfold generic visual pattern of dynamic relationships

Psychosocial Implication in Gamma Animation (Part #4)

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Here the convention used is to attach primary conscious significance to the upper half of each table, and to the right-hand half of each table -- holding a sense of "right" and even "rectitude". The left-hand quadrants then hold a sense of the challenging and questionable -- possibly with associations to "sinister" (even "evil"), as twisted irrelevancies characteristic of the misleading alternative understanding of "others". The views on the left are then characteristic of "them" -- on the "other side of the tracks" -- in contrast with those cultivated by "us" (on the right).

Those quadrants in the lower half of each table are even more questionable (whether especially deprecated in terms of the preferences of science or of religion). They are characterized by a degree of secrecy. Those identified as "unfortunate" and "regrettable", include the scandals typical of both science and religion in which conventional science and religion are respectively complicit. It includes the "dirty tricks" typical of scientific research or the sexual abuse by clergy -- considered exceptional incidents. The preference is to handle them "internally", typically without affecting the views of those who believe in science or religion, as the case may be. These are the readily deniable activities "under the table" or "in the black" -- acknowledged condescendingly in private "with a hood and a wink" by those of "greater experience", who know "how things really work".

Activities in the lower left quadrant are most readily qualified as "criminal", calling for immediate inquiry and action, if exposed before wider audiences (and supported by incontrovertible evidence). In the case of religion they give rise to fatwas, diplomatc pressure, or excommunication. Science lacks an equivalent, although traces are evident in processes of "striking off" lists of accreditation or funding. It is from this quadrant that strategic surprises emerge as explored by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007). He argues for a radical reconsideration of strategies in that light (Antifragile: how to live in a world we don't understand, 2012).

As the contrasting examples illustrate, if a binary political case were to be used (with respect to "right-wing" and "left-wing" factions), the comments on "right" and "left" columns in the table would continue to apply. The same would be true in the case of "male" and "female", or "Israeli" and "Arab".

Understood as a minimal framework, it is designed to hold contrasting areas of activity whose existence those in the upper left quadrant must necessarily recognize to some degree. More interesting however is to use this simple format to adapt the more general presentation of the earlier table:

This suggests a "transcendent" upper right quadrant in each case and one typical of "tolerance" in the lower right case. Neither has proven as yet to be especially fruitful of new insight.

Using Huxley's distinctions, it might be said that Alphas -- effectively as gatekeepers -- successfully monopolize control of the upper right quadrants, irrespective of the binary theme articulated by such a fourfold framework (science-religion, male-female, etc). In the case of Betas, with a vested interest in the status quo as followers of Alphas, they are primarily associated with the right-hand column in each case -- notably in the light of their role as interface with the "unfortunate behaviour" of the lower right quadrant, however this may be "arranged" under the direction of Alphas (who would not wish to be informed of it). Deltas and Epsilons navigate to the extent possible in the lower quadrants.

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