Integrative Cognition
ilya_sha...@yahoo.com
wide scale. I refer to it as integrative cognition. I regard it as the
only way to really understand a culture, a religion, an experience or a
way of life. And it is this: Combination of subjective experience and
objective analysis.
Allow me to explain what I mean. DeTocqueville, a Frenchman who lived
for a stretch of time in early America, was able to develop a profound
understanding of American society. He did so by combining subjective
experience with objective analysis: By living in America and
experiencing its ways himself, and also by studying it from without.
The first allowed understanding of the society as it is felt by those
inside. The second allowed understanding of the society as it is
experienced by other civilizations. In combining the two, DeTocqueville
arrived at a precise understanding - understanding that was both
analytical and experiential and that made both come alive.
This is integrative cognition at its best, combining subjective
experience and objective analysis. It is a cognition that allows people
to feel what the participants are feeling - and also see from without
the effects of their actions, both ones good and ones bad. And in being
able to do both, the person is able to tell the participants what they
do wrong and how they can improve their ways - and tell the people in
the rest of the world what the participants are feeling and thinking
and let them see the ways in which they are right or wrong and how best
to deal with them.
As a Russian immigrant who traveled all over America, I've been able to
do just that. And it was during my travels that I encountered the
problem facing a lot of people: Namely, ignorance of other cultures,
ignorance of other civilizations and ignorance, as a result, of their
own civilization. When working in Indiana, I in fact saw this ignorance
expressed as part of the belief structure of the society, when an
intelligent, lively young woman told me, essentially, that it is wrong
to make conclusions about cultures, even if they are apparent
immediately. This, of course, is not only blindness but in fact
deliberate blindness; blindness that is made an actual part of the
social code, in order that people not see the culture in which they are
steeped (and have no mental place to extricate themselves from it).
Living in a single culture - and trained not to see social dynamics -
the person lacks the objective perspective required to see the biases
of his culture. Being blind to the wrong on their culture, the
participants in the culture allow its wrong to perpetuate. And being
blind to the good in other cultures, they fail to incorporate into
their culture their wisdom.
Needless to say, Indiana is far from the only place in the world where
this takes place.
To only see things objectively, is to have no understanding of how they
are experienced. To only experience things, is to have no understanding
of their external effects. In combining the objective and the
subjective, one understands the experience completely. And I am of the
opinion that it is only through this process that a culture, a religion
or a way of thinking can be truly fathomed.
I therefore consider it not only right, but essential, for people to
experience cultures, ways of life and belief systems other than ones
with which they have been raised. It is a matter of understanding the
world; it is also a matter of understanding oneself and one's culture
and knowing how to improve both. It is the knowledge that is required
for there to be true knowledge and hence true responsibility. And that
means that it is the duty of anyone who claims to love his country, to
love his culture or to seek a responsible life.
Ilya Shambat.
Marginal Product
How can you say it's subjective to be an insider and objective to be an
outsider? Either is a perspective _subject_ to point of view and all the
animal flaws that come with that. But I agree in so far as having an
understanding of differing views is helpful.
Lilly
I think what is meant by subjective understanding is just that, as an
insider you can experience the subject, but as an outsider (once having
tasted the subject) you can take an objective (or distanced, detatched
or clinical, perhaps) look at things.
It is, after all, easier to see the whole ball if you're on the outside
and at a distance from it, but and ever really get a full understanding
of something unless you get right inside it. Dissect it and sniff in
the smells of it's guts.
Combine the two and you've got a basis for a pretty good understanding
of anything, It's the basic way in which humans will go about tackling
any problem presented to them.
Classic Eduard De Bono
Maybe I just don't understand and think I do.
Which is more likely. It's 2:15am and I've turned down a guy to go on
the computer for 'just another half a hour, lovey!'
WHAT?!!!
Bugger it, got what I wanted (for once. hee hee heee)
Lillly
xXx
ilya_sha...@yahoo.com
Marginal Product wrote:
> How can you say it's subjective to be an insider and objective to be an
> outsider? Either is a perspective _subject_ to point of view and all the
> animal flaws that come with that. But I agree in so far as having an
> understanding of differing views is helpful.
What I'm saying is that, in order to truly fathom a mindset (society,
religion, culture, etc.) one has to observe it from without (seeing its
external effects) and experience it from within (thus understanding it
the way it is experienced). To believe that the experiential
perspective is wrong by virtue of being subjective, is to degrade human
experience - and in so doing to ultimately degrade humanity.
Marginal Product
To believe that the experiential
> perspective is wrong by virtue of being subjective, is to degrade human
> experience - and in so doing to ultimately degrade humanity.
Can't argue with that.