Resonances between power in practice and in imagination

Engaging with Globality through Cognitive Circlets (Part #7)

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Whilst the torque in any form is used as a visible mark of rank or insight (or the lack thereof), there are curious resonances between the imagined power of such distinction and imaginative interpretation of the cognitive implications of the symbols denoting it.

It might be argued that use of some form of circlet or torque is irrelevant to the dynamics of the real world, however much it is valued as a charming tradition or for the extreme economic and aesthetic value attributed to their bejewlled design. It remains a fact however that particular powers are associated with some wearers (or arrogated by them), as notably experienced by the wearers of lesser variants. The former are effectively capable of "warping" the experiential and cognitive geometry of the latter.

In both cases the torque may, if only potentially, be of greater significance virtually than in its tangible forms. Ironically, as mentioned above with respect to magical rings, considerable significance may in fact be attributed to imagined possibilities of a torque in speculative fiction and epic fantasies (appealing to the disempowered) than to their use as marks of rank (by the socially empowered). Nevertheless, at the time of writing, much is being made of the "coronation" of Barack Obama through which he will indeed be endowed with an array of powers which many of the disempowered (notably descendants of slaves) expect him to use to alleviate their condition.

Extreme tangible examples of torques, as noted, are the crowns of royalty, the papal tiara, mayoral chains, and the collars of freemasonry. In each case, using Atkin's approach, power may be used by the wearer to "warp" the experiential geometry of the relatively disempowered. The distinctions of freemasonry, emphasized by symbolic jewels, even suggest a way of thinking about the relative cognitive warping within any body of freemasons in the light of Atkin's analysis of the possibility of communicating insights otherwise held to be secret. This would be true to a lesser degree with respect to the bejewelled collars of orders of knighthood.

Given the significance attached to cut jewels in the design of some torques, it is appropriate to explore how their faceting may point to integrative understandings of dialogue of different quality -- whether or not they enable such communication is some special way (Patterning Archetypal Templates of Emergent Order: implications of diamond faceting for enlightening dialogue, 2002).

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