Replying to LO27405 --
Dear Organlearners,
Chris Macrae <wcbn007@easynet.co.uk> writes:
>AM de L said
>>Respect is cultivated by creating constructively.
>
>This sounded like an extremely important idea.
>Please could you elaborate, clarify or provide
>an example.
Greetings Chris,
First a bit of history. I have been studying creativity and its
relationship to learning since the early seventies. That was also when my
exploring began of the deserts without the backing of civilisation.
Whenever I came back from the tranquility of a desert, the first thing
which struck me while passing through villages, towns and cities was the
immense lack of creativity as well as learning among those people for whom
civilisation became hell rather than heaven.
In 1990 (I think) an old friend, deep in his nineties, called me to visit
him. It was my last visit to him. First he spoke with deep longing about
his own desert journeys and the beauty of succulent plants growing there.
I just listened, reliving my own experiences. Then he said surprisingly:
"I now want to tell you of a puzzle which took me all my life to put
together". He was a retired police captain who trained police dogs. I have
never met a greater gentleman than him.
He began to speak systematically how opportunists in all public walks of
life destroyed much of civilisation in our dear country. In each case he
pointed out the ultimate consequence -- a lack of respect among the people
affected. I was listening with growing amazement. This old caring
policeman was as good as the best among philosophers. In each case I could
connect silently his argument with what I knew of creativity and learning
as its first constructive emergent.
His words were like a movie on a video screen of which two of the three
colours were absent. I was merely painting rapidly in my mind the other
two colours in to get the full coloured movie. He ended with something
like "This lack of respect is evident in all the turmoil and crime which
our countryfolk suffer." I experienced an immense "Steigerung" that day.
Liveness ("becoming-being") is one of the 7Es (seven essentialities of
creativity). Living knowledge, living faith and living love increase with
deeds ("becomings") sustained by creativity Only afterwards can the
increases in these three be articulated authentically with words
("beings"). Should deeds ("becoming") and words ("being") switch their
roles, it will be like playing a movie backwards. The words (soundtrack)
will be meaningless and the deeds (actions) will be alien.
Not only does liveness guide our creativity to sustain our spiritual
activities, but also the other six 7Es, namely sureness, wholeness,
fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness. Should we tamper with
anyone of them, the movie will be inferior. Shift the focus of the lense
and see the role of sureness. Cut sections out of the movie and see the
role of wholeness. Look at something else and see the role of
fruitfulness. Look at the movie half asleep and see the role of spareness.
Put a red filter over the lense and see the role of otherness. Cover half
of the lense and see the role of openness.
These tamperings with the movie are but mild experiments on the 7Es. Take
a daily newspaper and study each report on destructive events. In each
event one or more humans were involved in the destruction. Search by means
of the report which of the 7Es was seriously impaired. This is the stark
reality of journeys on the road of destructive creativity.
>(Some more detailed questions. What's an
>example of constructively or its opposite in
>this context?
Think of the WTC towers during the years of their construction. Many
professions had to join hands creatively. Each level in the tower had to
be strong enough to carry the weight of all the levels above it. The
engineers had to reckon with the spareness (limit) of steel and concrete.
Think of a WTC tower when it began to collapse. The burning jet fuel
detroyed the carrying strength of the levels in which it burnt. The
sparenes of the remaining concrete and steels became less. These levels
could not sustain the weight of the dozens of levels on top. The tower
collapsed.
>who on which sides of the relationship
>are we talking about as 'creating'?
Should those terrorists who have hijacked the two jet liners have planned
and built the two WTC all on their own (which would have taken them
hundreds of years), they would have had far too much respect for their
creation to destroy it completely in less than a hour.
The terrorists declared that they were fighting for the rights of people
in some or other country. Should those who dropped bombs in that country
or sold trash to its people in stead had worked in that country with its
people to build schools, cultivate lands and took care in hospitals, they
would have respected its people far too much to let vengeance and money
come in between them.
>Is the evolution of this respect also
>moderated by the wider communal
>context in which the sides are situated? )
Yes. But whereas destructive creativity (impairing merely one of the 7Es
is enough) spreads rapidly, constructive creativity spreads far slower and
thus by experience the resepct for what others have created
constructively. In constructive creativity all 7Es have to be taken into
account, continually be improved and always weaved into one fabric. This
takes wisdom, trust and care which most communities lack seriously because
of having been subjected to so much destructivity over such long times.
Communities like nations progress when they create more constructively
rather than destructively. Such progress is to the benefit of those who
fellow memebers still have to advance. However, when they progress, they
also rise in power relative to other communities or nations.
This is where the opportunists with their hunger for power comes in as my
dear old friend explained that day. To get the power they have to corrupt
the minds of their subjects so as to let them have that power over their
subjects. Thus the opportunists become immensely powerful while the power
of the rest of the community or nation begins to decline gradually.
The last to become wise are all those who have put their expertise, faith
and love in power, whether it be money or social status. Less people
succeed in progress and more become disadvantaged. The gaps between the
rich/informed and the poor/ignorant widen. The deeds of disrepect increase
rapidly in both sides.
So ends yet another movie on the birth, life and death of one more.
community or nation. The slowly rising part filled its people with joy. It
took the greater part of the movie. The rapidly falling part displaced
that joy with grief. It takes the lesser part of the movie. Shall we not
question these unquestioned movies?
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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