Home: A Planetary Perspective (Susan Wright) - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-29T15:48:06Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/home-a-planetary-perspective-susan-wright?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A51878&feed=yes&xn_auth=noWith the horrible historical…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-28:5301756:Comment:524752013-10-28T14:16:11.548ZMichael Grayhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/MichaelGray
<p>With the horrible historical examples of how a small group of people who claim to be acting on behalf of the "people" as a whole created hell-on-earth for those actual people, who then had no voice and were slaughtered like inconvenient obstacles to a higher vision--foam rising up from individuals free to pursue their own interests, and a "unitas multiplex" allowed to evolve according to the interests, allegiances, and affinities expressed in connections that arise naturally--Yes, what a…</p>
<p>With the horrible historical examples of how a small group of people who claim to be acting on behalf of the "people" as a whole created hell-on-earth for those actual people, who then had no voice and were slaughtered like inconvenient obstacles to a higher vision--foam rising up from individuals free to pursue their own interests, and a "unitas multiplex" allowed to evolve according to the interests, allegiances, and affinities expressed in connections that arise naturally--Yes, what a wonderful concept.</p>
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<p>My own current thinking about self and world perhaps inhabits a neighboring realm of inquiry: is this world a halfway house designed to educate the individual being and provide an opportunity to work through old karmic stuff in order that our being can take flight into realms that are inherently higher and more open; or is this world important in its own right, the living home of our living embodiment? If the latter perspective is more true and more pertinent to our current lives, then is Earth a home realm that provides the vital foundation for any idea we are able to form of it? And in that case, can this home be revived when enough of us sense our individual indebtedness to planet Earth. Kafka wrote: "When Adam and Eve were cast out of Paradise their fate was changed. That the fate of Paradise was also changed is not written."</p> Starting with this post (and…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-26:5301756:Comment:522782013-10-26T04:11:01.886ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p>Starting with <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/complexity-and-postmodernism?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A48025" target="_self">this post</a> (and several following) are some quotes from Morin's article <a href="http://manoftheword.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/morin-paradigm-of-complexity.pdf" target="_blank">"From the concept of system to the paradigm of complexity."</a> Resonant with some themes above is…</p>
<p>Starting with <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/complexity-and-postmodernism?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A48025" target="_self">this post</a> (and several following) are some quotes from Morin's article <a href="http://manoftheword.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/morin-paradigm-of-complexity.pdf" target="_blank">"From the concept of system to the paradigm of complexity."</a> Resonant with some themes above is <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/complexity-and-postmodernism?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A47937" target="_self">this post</a>:</p>
<p>"Also, we must found the idea of system on a non-totalitarian and non-hierarchical concept of the whole, and, more particularly, on a complex concept of the unitas multiplex as a means of access to poly totalities. This preliminary paradigm is, in fact, of capital social and political importance. The paradigm of holistic simplification leads to a neo-totalitarian functionalism and accommodates itself easily to all the modem forms of totalitarianism. In any event, it leads to the manipulation of the individual units in the name of the whole" (6).</p>
<p>Which reminds me of the Slot material Balder mentioned in <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/home-a-planetary-perspective-susan-wright?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A52042" target="_self">this pos</a>t:</p>
<p>"If a new planetary cathedral or 'Home' is to be erected, he suggests instead that it will be in the form of foams: a profusion of livable spheric spaces which share walls and are interdependent, but do not have -- and cannot sustain -- a single center or a single outer membrane."</p> In the closing scene of the m…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-26:5301756:Comment:523752013-10-26T03:10:14.393ZMichael Grayhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/MichaelGray
<p>In the closing scene of the movie, "An Incomplete Life", Robert Redford says to Morgan Freeman,</p>
<p> "I hear you had a flying dream."</p>
<p>And Freeman responds (something like),</p>
<p> "Yes. I flew so high I could see where the blue turns to black. From up there you could see that everything has a reason." </p>
<p>In the closing scene of the movie, "An Incomplete Life", Robert Redford says to Morgan Freeman,</p>
<p> "I hear you had a flying dream."</p>
<p>And Freeman responds (something like),</p>
<p> "Yes. I flew so high I could see where the blue turns to black. From up there you could see that everything has a reason." </p> Perhaps there is an alternati…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-25:5301756:Comment:524592013-10-25T01:35:45.836ZMichael Grayhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/MichaelGray
<p>Perhaps there is an alternative to zooming out (blurring the details in order to include a broader range) and zooming in (losing perspective of the whole in order to examine the threads in the weave). I'm reading "My Stroke of Insight" which tells the story of a brain scientist's experience of her own left hemisphere stroke. During the painful and long years of recovery, the author, Jill Bolte Taylor, encountered a blissful sense of being undifferentiated from the whole, and--although she…</p>
<p>Perhaps there is an alternative to zooming out (blurring the details in order to include a broader range) and zooming in (losing perspective of the whole in order to examine the threads in the weave). I'm reading "My Stroke of Insight" which tells the story of a brain scientist's experience of her own left hemisphere stroke. During the painful and long years of recovery, the author, Jill Bolte Taylor, encountered a blissful sense of being undifferentiated from the whole, and--although she couldn't express herself or function in ordinary life--she saw directly how compassion for all was her natural way of being. Could it be that such right brain intuitions and the concomitant experience of belonging to a greater whole offers a reprieve from the side-effects of every specific focal setting that our left brain is able to take? If people could feel from inside that they belong, wherever and however their interest draws them, might architecture, political and social organizations, and the health of earth, all blossom? </p> stefano I am copying your pos…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-24:5301756:Comment:524502013-10-24T16:09:55.753ZRev. O.M. Bastethttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/u_1rciwzlli1nrh
<p>stefano I am copying your post to Marilyn Hamilton (<a href="http://integralcity.com" target="_blank">http://integralcity.com</a>) (there might be a www. there.) Her vision is a "Planet of Cities" not of nations, and you've done a wonderful job of musing about what that might look like. The closest physical representation is photos of the earth at night. The bright spots are the cities. National boundaries are invisible -- even in daytime they are marked only by places of…</p>
<p>stefano I am copying your post to Marilyn Hamilton (<a href="http://integralcity.com" target="_blank">http://integralcity.com</a>) (there might be a www. there.) Her vision is a "Planet of Cities" not of nations, and you've done a wonderful job of musing about what that might look like. The closest physical representation is photos of the earth at night. The bright spots are the cities. National boundaries are invisible -- even in daytime they are marked only by places of enforcement.</p>
<p>Can you think of a "nation" which was created by voluntary agreement among people, and not by enforcement of a government? I can't. I am equating "natural" with "voluntary." It means chosen, not imposed.</p> well then it would pay to be…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-24:5301756:Comment:523652013-10-24T15:18:06.270Z13w6cecaz7s7hhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/u_13w6cecaz7s7h
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<p>well then it would pay to be born in the right neighbourhood : ))</p>
<p>if you read sloterdijk ,in his latest big work, the sphere trilogy , he sees something like this as the future</p>
<p>anyhows. he call s it the aphrodite foam culture</p>
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<p>well then it would pay to be born in the right neighbourhood : ))</p>
<p>if you read sloterdijk ,in his latest big work, the sphere trilogy , he sees something like this as the future</p>
<p>anyhows. he call s it the aphrodite foam culture</p> nation states not natural? th…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-20:5301756:Comment:522452013-10-20T20:19:13.632Z02asljkd3sydbhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/u_02asljkd3sydb
<p>nation states not natural? that's an astounding idea. sometimes i wonder that new structures aren't necessarily required, like is green vmeme really a stage, or is it more of a transient aspect of late orange? perhaps the unification of states into nations, was done (painfully) to solve a set of problems, and might gradually dissolve if better solutions to those problems appeared. for example, howard bloom talks about the tyranny of the filling cabinet, an ancient technology which required…</p>
<p>nation states not natural? that's an astounding idea. sometimes i wonder that new structures aren't necessarily required, like is green vmeme really a stage, or is it more of a transient aspect of late orange? perhaps the unification of states into nations, was done (painfully) to solve a set of problems, and might gradually dissolve if better solutions to those problems appeared. for example, howard bloom talks about the tyranny of the filling cabinet, an ancient technology which required centralisation and the growth of enormous bureaucratic (desk based) institutions. but isn't that now obsoleted by technologies like the internet? can't services function better more decentralised? or another example, steven pinker asks what things led to the enormous reduction in violence through the ages, everyday common barbarities which would simply horrify us today. one major factor seems to be urbanisation, the city (although he lists perhaps a dozen others also). but if the city is the key, and the nation state was merely a response to a different problem, perhaps the key developmental stage for the world is city building, rather than nation building. and perhaps the global village is a network of cities, if that makes sense. individuals can choose to make the (painful but hopeful) migration to cities, arriving in slums, perhaps, but with the hope of earning enough to send their children to school, and beginning a multi-generational transition up the vmeme scale, as documented in "arrival city" -- the key is, make sure they can transition, rather than simply arrive in a dead end slum. actually, a mistake some 1st world towns have made is try to house people in middle class neighbourhoods where planning laws forbid the creation of small businesses, dooming the immigrants to life on state benefits. so the whole transition can happen in a city. as you say, do we really need nation states? perhaps the map of the world could disassemble from 197 nations, to a patchwork of thousands of large cities, linked by economic, cultural, and spiritual activity -- less of a west and the rest, and more of a series of global nets, with amber, orange, and yellow nodes, intermingled. so to get from purple to yellow, you don't have to move from mogadishu to amsterdam, you just need to move from one city to another city area nearby. rather than a top-heavy developed north and underdeveloped south, cities resonate with other cities across the world, each vmeme network is global, but not dominant. but every urban city offering most of the civilising amenities of health and entertainment and spirituality to all its citizens. the great thing we remember about the roman empire, is rome.</p> Yes, every zoom-view is true,…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-20:5301756:Comment:525062013-10-20T18:32:02.913ZRev. O.M. Bastethttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/u_1rciwzlli1nrh
<p>Yes, every zoom-view is true, but partial. That becomes ever more intensely, fiercely, poignantly true for me, and you pointed out some specifics beautifully. I didn't mean to imply that the most-zoomed-out was "best." It might be best for some purposes, but not "holistically."</p>
<p>Don't get me started on "nation-states." No, we cannot build HEALTHFULLY functioning ones, because they are not natural, they are created only by force and enforcement. Cities are the largest natural aggregates…</p>
<p>Yes, every zoom-view is true, but partial. That becomes ever more intensely, fiercely, poignantly true for me, and you pointed out some specifics beautifully. I didn't mean to imply that the most-zoomed-out was "best." It might be best for some purposes, but not "holistically."</p>
<p>Don't get me started on "nation-states." No, we cannot build HEALTHFULLY functioning ones, because they are not natural, they are created only by force and enforcement. Cities are the largest natural aggregates of human beings done on a voluntary basis. integralcity.com.</p> ah, sorry, i was mixing up ho…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-20:5301756:Comment:524092013-10-20T09:18:09.640Z02asljkd3sydbhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/u_02asljkd3sydb
<p>ah, sorry, i was mixing up holon and holistic. it's "holistic" that jan smuts coined. i guess the two men, koestler and smuts, were percieving different problems, in their life experience, and tried to use similar terms and concepts but with different nuances. "everywhere we look in nature, said the philosopher jan smuts, we see nothing but wholes. and not just simple wholes, but hierarchical ones: each whole is part of a larger whole which is itself a part of a larger wholes" — kw, the…</p>
<p>ah, sorry, i was mixing up holon and holistic. it's "holistic" that jan smuts coined. i guess the two men, koestler and smuts, were percieving different problems, in their life experience, and tried to use similar terms and concepts but with different nuances. "everywhere we look in nature, said the philosopher jan smuts, we see nothing but wholes. and not just simple wholes, but hierarchical ones: each whole is part of a larger whole which is itself a part of a larger wholes" — kw, the atman project.</p>
<p>i don't disagree that if you stand back, you see a thing, ant... further back...cow... further back... mountain... further back... planet... </p>
<p>but each bigger view is also limited. the view from space of the earth, can suggest a perception that we are one earth, one sphere, but then from there you can't hear anything either, you can't hear two people talking to each other, the culture which connects them.</p>
<p>also, you can't see the environment which the planet is situated in. buckminster fuller called the sphere "spaceship earth" which suggests we must rely on and steward our earth-ship to provide all our needs. but that picture omits the wider context of the solar system. how does the picture look from the surface of a rock in the asteroid belt, "4 trillion tonnes of titanium here". should we see ourselves as spaceship-earth, a self sufficient beautiful home of limited resources... or should we instead... be building spaceships?</p>
<p>design often deals with multiple perspectives at different levels. the great modernist architect mies van der rohe, creator of immense structures, said "god is in the details" — there are just many ways to break a great design with poorly implemented details. it is what wilber referred to as parts which destroy the whole, and wholes which oppress their parts. a green meme united nations could create a whole at the planetary level which proceeds to destroy its parts thoroughly. </p>
<p>the "universal" style of modern architecture ran into problems when they discovered that buildings become very uncomfortable when placed in foreign climates. there was a renewed interest in "architecture without architects" -- how did the dirt poor ignorant peasants construct their dwellings, using thousands of years of vernacular experience? a big-picture view, the planet, the globe, the universal, isn't better, it is just another perspective which needs to operate in parallel with all the lower perspectives. maybe we highly educated cutting edge cultural creatives with professional titles, ought to design buildings more like peasants do. can we shift?</p>
<p>i guess all i'm trying to say is, in my own perception there's a slight imbalance in that essay about home, a slight overemphasis of the higher order, and not enough time spent on asking, how do we tweak all the lower orders in order to make a higher order even possible? seeking material wealth is not a fake principle, simply waiting for the arrival of spiritual peace, any more than a cathedral is a substitute for a comfortable sheltered room to sleep in. </p>
<p>too many architects learnt painful lessons in the 50s and 60s that grand designs for transformative social housing, simply produced awful places to live, because they didn't understand how people live in the most basic sense. later they learnt from the mistakes, they saw that communities work when there is the right level of separation, providing "defensible space". this is when we understand how each level works. nationhood is not outdated, not whilst we still have large areas of the planet existing as failed states, feudal bad lands, and theocracies longing for the golden age of empire. </p>
<p>can we build functioning nation states, let alone planets? rudyard kipling's sense of, oh please won't someone invade and colonise those lands, remains a moral dilemma. do they really wanna be like you?</p>
<p>the view from high up there in the deep emptiness, is calm and peaceful, the earth is a blue marble hanging in space. but down here we're in a quagmire of memes, conflicting codes, and failing sub-systems. adding another storey on top may simply stress the foundations further. </p>
<p></p> Oh look what TED just tossed…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-10-19:5301756:Comment:525052013-10-19T21:02:18.815ZRev. O.M. Bastethttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/u_1rciwzlli1nrh
<p>Oh look what TED just tossed out to the world!!…</p>
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<p>Oh look what TED just tossed out to the world!!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/iwan_baan_ingenious_homes_in_unexpected_places.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2013-10-19&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_swipe">http://www.ted.com/talks/iwan_baan_ingenious_homes_in_unexpected_places.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2013-10-19&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_swipe</a></p>
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<p id="tagline" lang="en" class="notranslate" xml:lang="en">n the center of Caracas, Venezuela, stands the 45-story "Tower of David," an unfinished, abandoned skyscraper. But about eight years ago, people started moving in. Photographer Iwan Baan shows how people build homes in unlikely places, touring us through the family apartments of Torre David, a city on the water in Nigeria, and an underground village in China. Glorious images celebrate humanity's ability to survive and make a home -- anywhere.</p>
<p>Photographer Iwan Baan captures the many ways people shape their shared built environment -- from glossy starchitecture to handmade homes. <a target="_blank" title="Iwan Baan's bio" href="http://www.ted.com/speakers/iwan_baan.html">Full bio </a></p>