Replying to LO27745 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:
>Do We Want a Different World? If so, how are
>we going to achieve it? For over a decade, modern
>societies have flirted with the word "creative" as an
>aspiration for their economies, education systems,
>management styles, city planning. It is recognised that
>only disciplined lateral thinking produces new paradigms
>of effective change. And yet, artists trained and practised
>in this kind of thinking are largely excluded from the key
>discussions on how to develop creative starting points.
>Why? Is it because they appear too idealistic? Is it
>because decision-makers become nervous when faced
>with new landscapes ... dizzy heights ... unknown terrain?
>Are they embarrassed by thinking the seemingly impossible
>before having organised the method of achieving it? That
>caution costs us dear.
Greetings dear Andrew,
Thank you for your passionate plea for healing our world by including
artists in the healing. There are many reasons why artists have been
shunned onto a side track. Here are a few showing just how complex the
problem is.
One of the reasons is lack in some of the 7Es and definitely a lack in
wholeness. Allow me to explain. Every fellow learner on this list knows
that Einstein was a great scientist. Some know that he was also as a
violinist an artist. But I wonder if there is even one fellow learner who
have studied the great art in his scientific papers, especially the first
three soon after each other which made him famous. Why?
Firstly, fellow learners will have to learn some physics and mathematics
to understand these papers before looking for the art in them. Secondly,
they will have to learn what makes any artifact a work of art. Thirdly,
they must have the desire for authenticity. They will have to study those
original three papers of Einstein and not merely some of the hundreds of
thousands of commentaries on them. Is this possible with the immense
specialisation (fragmentation ;-) of modern society? Goethe would have
done it and Smuts (who did not have any university training in phsyics)
actually did it, but how many wholesome persons like Goethe and Smuts does
society have?
A second reason is the fact that emergences are very inefficient.
We cannot have both efficiency and emergences as I have
explained in
Efficiency and Emergence LO22451
< www.learning-org.com/99.08/0068.html >
See also my reply to Bill Hancy which I have finished and mailed
a couple of minutes ago.
A third reason is that that just as we may have shysters among executive
managers, we may also have them among artists. Thus we need to know what
makes an artist a great artist. Beethoven, who was indeed one of the
greatest of all artists, have studied this problem intensely despite
reverances to his greatness already before he became deaf. For him art had
to reflect all the faculties of the artist's personality -- love, faith,
character, knowledge and creativity. With the perseverance of the great
painters, sculptors and poets before him, he did the same for music. As
for knowledge itself, he studied the music of others up to the end of his
life as he studied philosophers, writers, etc. He maintained that an
artifact which does not bear witness to wisdom (the sapient level of
knowledge) cannot qualify as a work of art.
>There is always the need to grow a generation of
>artists/thinkers. Artists comment on the present and
>speculate on the future. They can analyse the modern
>psyche with precision and often apprehend future
>trends with seemingly mystic accuracy. They take
>the lead in defining "ways of seeing" and history
>shows us that the beliefs and value systems of a
>society will be revealed through its art ... or lack of it.
I cannot agree more. For example, think of Leonardo da Vinci. Whatever he
did in so many fields, was a work of art too. And each of them belong as
much to the 20th century as to the 15th century in which he created them.
How will we recognise a great artist to learn from that person? Goethe
said that the more the artist draws in from the "world-outside" into the
"world-inside" and then gives it back as art to harmonise with the
"world-outside", the greater the artist that person becomes.
>I pray thee: But do forth ever more and more,
>so that thou be ever doing.
Yes, yes, yes. Let us become increasingly sensitive to liveness
("becoming-being").
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
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.