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Challenge for both turtle and frog in encountering black swans?


Constrained, Unconstrained and Surprised in a Global Context (Part #12)

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Curiously the Lo Shu magic turtle is believed to have emerged in a period of great crisis exemplified by the Great Flood of Gun-yu. In the current period of global crisis a particular focus has been given to recognition of black swans in relation to Black Swan Theory.

This is a metaphor describing an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist â-- a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after the first European encounter with them.The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007).

As an example, the COVID-19 pandemic may be recognized in such terms, although this is controversial -- as is perhaps characteristic of any effort to frame a surprise:

"Black swan" or not, the obvious question is how a "turtle" engages with a surprise in comparison with a "frog". Those deploring the response by authorities to the pandemic would readily frame it as characterized by the perspective of "in-the-box", frog-in-the-well thinking. In deploring that response, critics might be assumed to associate their own perspective with that of the "turtle". The many protests appealing for freedom could be seen in that light -- in contrast with the repressive constraints upheld as characteristic of lockdowns, masking and vaccination requirements.

Curiously, as noted by Tao Jiang, it has indeed been the perspective of the frog-in-the-well which has dominated the mainstream narrative of Chinese governance down the centuries, and that of authorities everywhere. That of the turtle has been a minority perspective -- effectively marginalized -- echoing the status of present-day appeals against constraints and authoritarianism.

Missing from any such simplistic conclusion is the manner in which surprise is experienced by both the frog and the turtle of the fable -- in any encounter with a black swan. Does insight into the living ritual of li enable the frog-in-the-well perspective to engage as successfully with the unexpected in comparison with insight into the pattern of changes which the turtle may be held to embody (exemplified by the Yi Jing as the "Book of Changes")? Can it be said that the perspective of the frog is primarily a fruitful engagement with certainty, whereas the turtle offers a celebration of uncertainty?

One contemporary articulation of the dilemma has attracted attention through its controversial presentation by Donald Rumsfeld, as US Secretary of Defense, in the midst of a Middle East crisis:

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones (There are known knowns, Wikipedia)

It is puzzling that in their seeming opposition to each other neither the Confucian nor the Zhuangzist perspective seems especially empowered to encompass their  relationship in a drama open to surprise. It is similarly curious that the dramatic crises of global civilization at this time do not engender epics which recognize the complementary roles of opposing perspectives. Could people be enabled to "dance cognitively with disaster", as might be implied by such epics as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana of Hinduism -- two of the longest epic tales in the world.

Exploiting Rumsfeld's argument, is any subunderstanding with respect to the perspective of the frog or the turtle to be understood as systemic neglect by both (Unknown Undoing: challenge of incomprehensibility of systemic neglect, 2008)?

Can the Confucian and Zhuangzist perspectives be recognized as entangled in a drama to which neither is able to give aesthetic form or appreciate -- through which they will experience the form of surprise capable of triggering a paradigm shift?

The cognitive challenge of the times is appropriately illustrated by popular European rejection by the younger generation of over 30 songs in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2006 as bland, unimaginative expressions of classical "positive" values -- in favour of historically unprecedented support for a rank outsider in the form of a self-questioning, humorous presentation of "satanic" lyrics by a Finnish heavy metal rock group masked as demons. Curiously, in the light of its "demonic success" in 2006, Finland's widely recognized rapid uptake of information technology had been acknowledged in the accession speech of the Finnish President of the European Commission on the New Dimensions of Learning in the Information Society (July 1999) -- by referring first to the influential role of archetypal figures in the Kalevala, the epic poem of Finnish culture (cf Newsweek, May 1999; Wired, September 1999).

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