Why I am attending the Story Field conference.
Larry Victor
1974 (although I didn't then use the terminology), and now at 72 with x
functional years left, I need to CHANGE. Not to change others, but
myself. I look to the conference (mostly the people I will meet) to
help me return to my original mission, EaseMen (to catalyze an
Expedition to Augment a Synergistic EcoHolarchical Metamorphic Emergence
of Noosphere). I sense we are ready to take the leap.
Searching cyberspace for decades, and finding little encouragement of
sufficient action, I deeply sense an emergent opening in the
Evolutionary story field, that I hope to connect with, and contribute to.
I highly respect the energy and courage of Tom Atlee, whom I met at a
Y2K conference in Boulder (and who responded by phone to me after
reading my summary analysis of the Y2K scene). Those he attracts will be
quality, and although I feel "open space" and "world café" processes
are obsolete (re our current needs), I look forward to a week living
within these processes.
I hope to learn, to give and receive support, to attempt to share my
visions and stories, and mostly to be part of what might later be viewed
as a catalytic moment in the history of Humanity/ GAIA.
Finally, I hope to make contacts with others who might seaf (support,
enable, augment, facilitate) my future efforts.
I am open to contribute what time and energy I have towards the success
of the conference. Of the multitude of options for me to engage my
limited time, THIS conference stands out strongly.
Larry Victor (nuet)
Lion Kimbro
I've been asking myself,
"Why am I intrigued with the Storycology idea?
What is it about "Story" that is pulling me?"
I've tried to explain it, but I usually end up fumbling on my words.
So, all I have here is fragments.
---
SHORT VERSION:
* books have inspired me (George Orwell)
* interested in an "Open Source EST/Landmark Forum"
* new religious forms?
* OpenSource society?
* social self-awareness?
* I don't know.
My idea of mailing lists is that:
MAILING LISTS are *NOT* PEZ DISPENSORS OF LABOR
No expectations of reading
everything,... or even anything!
(STOP here, if you have things to do.)
---
LONG VERSION:
The idea comes to me as a series of visions and arguments:
* Books --
George Orwell's "What are we to do with our lives?" [1]
Marshall Brain's "Manna" [2]
I don't believe that these sorts of visions are possible, but I do
believe that they are stars that can guide us to good realities.
And who knows; What if they *are* possible?
* "Open Source Motivational Society"
Something like the Landmark Forum or EST, ("LGAT"s,)
but open source, individualized, more participatory in construction
and execution, broadly practiced.
Something like a cross between a religion, a society, a club, a
metaphysics, a practice, and so on.
* Re-consideration of Science, Philosophy, Psychology, Metaphysics,
Imagination
Somewhere down the line, I think we need a clear social vision of
the role of the imagination.
In the past, men said, "Imagination comes from God." It was
something with near mystical powers. Now we know, "That's not
true; It's all atoms and molecules and neurochemistry."
When you show people a Melvin Powers book, or Napoleon Hill or
something, they say, "Well, that's not science," and turn away from
anything it says in there. We have few inspirational guiding
models.
Rattatoui (movie) manages to get it right, but it seems
disconnected, distant, isolated, viewed on its own. Is that OK?
Does the human spirit today demand a freedom from ideas and
ideology, such that social reflection cannot serve people?
* New Religious Form
The vision of a church, wherein the agenda is on the order of
love, science, business, "Who are you? What do you want?",
celebration, freedom, -- a church that is somehow plural. ("What
is the same? What is diverse?") Is it a club? A theory? What
is it? Is there a thing there, or is this a wisp?
* Emergent HiveMind
Visions of emergent hierarchies of news reporting, of assumptions
of interconnecting, parts spontaneously assembling, because they
can trust that their parts will be put to use.
Self-organizing societies that can more than fulfill the dreams of
their members, and keep them from stepping on each other's toes.
Freedom is one thing. Then: what do you do with your mind?
* Social Self-Awareness
Models such as the "Causal Layered Analysis" [3] help.
Wouldn't it be great if we had a shared concept of what it is to be
an individual in a society, and how things work? We have some right
now -- no conversation about ethics is possible, without bringing up
a theory of Adam Smith's, "Supply and Demand."
Right now, Milgram and Zimbardo [4] are the guiding stars for
conversation about society. As indebted as I am to their crucial
work, I can't help but ask: "Can't we do better?" What I mean is,
are there positive ideas that we can share and use?
Some kind of "social individualism." I just made up the term, but
I did a quick google search, and, sure enough, there are people
using the term to mean more or less what I intend. [5]
I keep thinking: "Wouldn't it be great to have a MAP?"
Wouldn't it be great if [a] society handed you a map, and said,
"Here's what it's all about? Here's how we play the game with each
other? Here's fair, and here's not fair, here's the fringe and how
to touch it, here's the center, and how to abide by it; Here are
the keys, and here are the driver's training courses?"
In plain language? With nice helpful diagrams and maps?
Wouldn't such a thing resemble a religion, or a corporation, or a
high school class, or something? What would social self-awareness
be?
And would it be a good thing, or a bad thing?
---
I love all of these ideas.
And I *hate* all of these ideas.
They are crudely conceived, crudely shapen.
There is little to back them up.
They fall down at the slightest gust of wind.
They require strength, justification, action, and support.
And, oh, they have to actually be good.
If they're bad, this is all just a waste of time.
It's frustrating to me, because I love these ideas, but I see their
weaknesses to clearly.
That they are repeated endlessly is no comfort to me; We can look
around, and easily find repeater societies, repeating some mantra, and
yet the whole thing makes no sense.
These ideas require both acid and growth into depths.
Vigorous exploration and construction, and sniping analysis and
criticism.
That we can't even form a cohesive story explaining them all in a
realistic way is a bad sign.
---
[1] "What are we to do with our lives?" by George Orwell
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201081h.html
"""
From any dream, however dismal and horrible, one can escape by
realizing that it is a dream; by saying, "I will awake."
The Open Conspiracy is the awaking of mankind from a nightmare, an
infantile nightmare, of the struggle for existence and the
inevitability of war. The light of day thrusts between our eyelids,
and the multitudinous sounds of morning clamour in our ears. A time
will come when men will sit with history before them or with some old
newspaper before them and ask incredulously, "Was there ever such a
world?"
"""
[2] "Manna" by Marshall Brain
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
"""
Distilling two days of presentations down into a few sentences, here's
what I learned. As best I could tell, the basic idea behind the
Australia project was to create heaven on earth, or at least the
closest facsimile of heaven possible. Heaven was different for
different people, so your task was to define heaven for yourself and
make it happen. As long as your view of heaven did not unduly impinge
on anyone else's view, or require that you consume massive amounts of
resources at the expense of someone else, you could bring your version
of heaven to reality for yourself. It was stated in the presentation
much more eloquently than that, but that was the gist of it.
"""
[3] CommunityWiki: Causal Layered Analysis
http://www.communitywiki.org/en/CausalLayeredAnalysis
Causal Layered Analysis : poststructuralism as method
http://metafuture.org/Articles/CausalLayeredAnalysis.htm
The basic breakdown, is to:
1. the masses scared by newspapers
2. analysts discussing news items in context
3. deep work with themes, efforts, metaphors, struggles
4. artists, working largely unaware, with the zeitgeist
Sort of a "consciousness - unconsciousness" metaphor of the social
mind.
[4] "Situational Sources of Evil"
http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/when-good-people-do-evil-%e2%80%93-part-i/
This blog post is written by Professor Zimbardo himself, nicely
summarizing what may be two of the major important and relevant
social psychology discoveries of the century. One from Milgram, the
other from himself.
[5] Google: "Social Individualism"
http://www.google.com/search?q=social%20individualism
Link one on some Anarchist's site seems interesting, arguing that
both excessive social concern and excessive individual concern are
both problematic.
Elsewhere, a sociologist or something wrote:
"""
Relationships between individuals and society have often been
presented from the perspective of the social institution. Social
psychology has addressed the variables that affect the individual in
relationships with larger groups. Social individualism is a conceptual
framework that explores the relationship of the individual and society
from the view of the individual's internal needs, desires, and drives
to determine the role that society will fill in the interaction. The
role of the individual in directing and determining the shape of
social relationships is critical. Social individualism has
philosophical (existentialism, phenomenology), sociological (symbolic
interactionism), and psychological (Neo-Freudian, Gestalt, Humanistic,
Assertive, Libertarian) roots. Central concepts to the theory of
social individualism, many of which have been culled from Carl Rogers,
include awareness, perception, self, self-directedness,
other-directedness, self-actualization, needs, alienation,
frustration, congruence, cognitive dissonance, locus of evaluation,
unconditional positive regard, inner nature, ideal self, threat,
growth, distortion, defense, openness to experience, and perceived
locus of control. The formation of a conceptual framework such as
social individualism may help existential and humanistic social
scientists approach their work from a more conceptually organized
perspective.
"""