Dear Organlearners,
Greetings to all of you.
We have to choose often each day. However, it is one thing to choose among
possibilities and another thing to choose in advance which possibilities
from which to choose. The former can be described being-choices and the
latter be escribed as becoming-choices. To be denied becoming-choices is
to put learning in grave danger. Let me explain. I will use an example
which has to do with religion. I will try to avoid proclaiming any
religious dogma here, although I cannot avoid my experiences, even when
they are religious. Experiences are crucial to authentic learning.
I was deeply disturbed by the sermon this morning in our parish. The
sermon was on Genesis 1. The pastor said that we have to choose between
two accounts of creation: the seven-day account of the Bible and the
theory of evolution in science. Should we choose evolution, then we
effectively scrap Genesis 1 though which eventually the rest of the Bible
will have to be scrapped. Thus he concluded that we will have to choose
the biblical account so as to honour the whole (not wholeness!) of the
Bible.
What the pastor did without the congregation realising it, was to choose
self in advance that the literal interpretation of Gen 1 is the correct
one. The literal interpretation may be summarised as follows: God created
all of Creation in six consecutive cycles of twenty four hour each.
However, the interpretation of ANY document is not merely its "what" (the
outcome as being), but also the "how" (the process as becoming). This
means that the pastor allowed himself a becoming-choice, namely how to
interpret the Bible, but denied the congregation that becoming-choice. He
chose the literal interpretation which I would rather call the simplistic
interpretation.
This simplistic interpretation is but one of many possible
interpretations. Simplicity is indifferent to wholeness. For example, in
Gen 1:27 it is written that God created man AND woman on the sixth day.
Should we have any feeling towards wholeness, then we should also take Gen
2 into account. In Gen 2:20 it is written that the man which God created,
became very lonely after having given names to all the animals, other than
his same kind, in the garden of Eden. How long did it take him to do this
taxonomical work? He must have been superhuman to do it all in one day
while leaving God still enough daylight to create the woman from his rib!
To harmonise Gen 1:27 and Gen 2:20, I have to seek a different
interpretation than the simplistic one. One possibility is to interpret
the use of "night and day" in Genesis 1 as metaphors for the deeply
abstract concept of creative cycles. Another metaphor would be "winter and
summer" which is a by a factor 1/365 less common in experience than the
former metaphor. However, please observe carefully that I have chosen for
a harmonious interpretation which involves at least wholeness and thus
complexity rather than simplicity. In other words, I have made a
becoming-choice between simplicity and complexity. I chose the course of
complexity while the pastor chose the course of simplicity.
Because of me making this becoming-choice, I not even have to harmonise
the various citations in the Bible on Creation through searching for an
appropriate interpretation, but I also have to harmonise the Biblical
account of Creation with the evolution theory of science. When getting
into science itself, surprisingly nough, again I have to make
becoming-choices and being-choices. Historically four major theories of
evolution (with surprisingly at some fifty year intervals) have been
proposed by first Lamarck, then Darwin, followed by Smuts and lastly by
Prigogine. Were these four person's not allowed a becoming-choice, then
none of them would have been able to formulate a theory for evolution.
Each of them had to deal with the fact that the present diversity in
organisms (which they observed among living as well as fossil specimens)
have a most striking ordering among them. This fact had been pointed out
even before Lamarck by nobody else than Goethe. He pointed out the "what"
and with their theories they tried to render the "way" ("how").
Should some scientist choose Lamarck's theory (being the most simplistic)
as the correct rendering and then tell me that I have to follow suite in
all my own choices, I am again in the same predicament as with the pastor
this morning. The pastor and I are connected indissolubly through the
wholeness of the church, one of the twelve apostolic articles of faith.
Likewise that scientist and I are also connected indissolubly through the
wholeness of science. However scientists, even aftyer four centuires,
have yet to set our their articles of faith. Guess who was the person
first ever to point out this "wholeness of science" as crucial to our
scientific becoming? Goethe once again!
The reason why I have been troubled so much this morning while listening
to the pastor, is that the lack of wholeness seems to have become the
standard for thinking in every walk of life, whether it be religion,
politics, economy or science. Our universities are now in great peril
because of this fragmetarism. Almost every leader in any of the walks of
life allows him/her a becoming-choice (without which he/she would not have
become a leader ;-) and then tells us which subsequent being-choices to
make, allowing us no other becoming than their own. The same with leading
organisations like our universities. Thus they deny the essentiality
liveness ("becoming-being"). This impairs our own creativity so that their
temporary leadership is fixed into an indefinite tyranny over us as their
slaves rather than followers.
The worst is that these rulers have chosen fragmentarism to worm
themselves into seemingly a position of leadership. They claim themselves
to be leaders, but they always rule on a minor part rather than the
greater whole. To prevent us from learning how little they know of the
whole and thus how poor leaders they are, they are forever fragmenting so
as to rule rather than lead. Striving for increasing wholeness through
learning is crucial to true leadership for individuals as well as
organisations like universities. It is for me a great intellectual pain
that our universities transform their leadership into rulership by denying
wholeness in academical evolution.
Can we make choices without learning? Can we make choices without becoming
richer in the seven essentiality like liveness and wholeness? Liveness for
me has the subpatterns "becoming" and "being" to it so that it is
necessary for us to make both becoming-choices and being-choices. Likewise
wholeness has for me the subpatterns "unity"and "associativity" to it so
that we will have to make both unity-choices and associativity-choices.
Rulers, whether they rule the religious, political, economical, scientific
or any other walk of life, are very fond to stress that we have to make
unity-choices. They want us to unite under them. However, they carefully
avoid giving us any associativity-choices. We have to part with them for
unity in a partisanship which they rule. By reducing wholeness to merely
one pattern, namely unity, they accomplish the same as by reducing
liveness to merely one pattern, namely being. This reduction allows them
to strengthen their hold over us as rulers. St Paul truly said in his
epistle to the Ephesians that our struggle is against the rulers (not
leaders!) of this world.
I think that the time has come for us to know that there are more than one
way of learning so that we will eventually have to choose which way of
learning to follow. This is a most complex choice because we will also
have to learn how to deal with complexity. But first our learning will
have to make us aware to complexity or "how to see complexity". This is
where the seven essentialities of creativity come in. Together they form
an almost incomprehensible complex pattern. But since they are so
intimately related to each other, when we choose to learn as much as
possible of one of them, merely that essentiality will help us to become
aware of complexity. However, to be able to also manage complexity, we
will have to learn more of the other six too.
Without trying to rule over his congregation as the pastor this morning, I
would dvise you to choose one of the seven essentialities (liveness,
sureness, wholeness, fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness) as
the first of which you will learn as much as possible. Do not fret about
selecting the wrong one because there is none -- sooner or later you will
want to learn about each of the others too. The crucial point for now is
to make an effective connection (fruitfulness="connect-beget") with one of
these seven essentialities. Choose that essentiality which touch your
spirituality most. Then begin to search for information on that
essentiality. For example, should you choose fruitfulness, sooner or later
your search will lead to the works of Arthur Koestler. Should you choose
wholeness, you will find more authors who have contemplated on it like
Goethe, Smuts and Boehm.
But most important of all, keep your own experiences in mind as your
primary source for understanding. For example, should you choose
wholeness, you will be comparing you own learning of wholeness with the
learning that of Goethe on it rather than trying to import what Goethe
wrote on it. The reason is that Goethe learned from his own experiences
far more of wholeness than what was available in the literature of his
days on it. By stressing experience, it seems as if I have allowed you no
choice between inner experience and external sources of information. No,
you will have to make a learned choice here too. Likewise our universities
will have to make a choice too, whether their rulers like it or not.
However, since our universities belong to you and not these rulers, you
will eventually have to tell them your choice whether they like it or not.
Do not allow them to take this choice from you. Do not allow them to
intimidate you with their disciplinary expertise. To stand on the pin of a
needle and to stand on solid ground are two different things.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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