Dear Organlearners,
Douglas Max <dmax@bellatlantic.net> writes:
> If the answer to hurting is learning as At suggest, then what would have
> happened had the US said to the terrorists believed to be responsible for
> the Embassy bombings, "We can either send in $75 Million worth of cruise
> missles and destroy your bases or dedicate that money to educating your
> children and help you "learn" your way out of this culture"?
Greetings Doug,
Thank you for your powerful message of which I have quoted the part
above.
Yes, I believe with all my mind and heart that we can break the cycle
of hurt by learning. We will never break the cycle of hurt by
additional hurt.
Last night a bomb exploded in Cape Town, South Africa, at the
waterfront. It exploded in a US based franchise business with a
highly symbolical name "Planet Holywoord". The explosion was
horrendous. It was reported that the bomb exploded under a bar
counter. Thus its shock wave, scrapnel and fire were directed to
spread out horizontally into the surrounding people. Many were maimed
and dismembered. The pain and suffering, some which will not end in
this life, cannot be matched by descriptions -- the same as for all
the horrendous bombings during the apartheid era.
It was reported that the bomb was set off in retaliation to the
counter attacks of the US in retaliation to the bombings on US
embassies in retaliation to US practices in retaliation to ZYX in
retaliation to WVU in retaliation to TSR in retaliation to QPO in
retaliation to NML in retaliation to KJI in retaliation to HGF in
retaliation to EDC in retaliation to BA........... Unless the cycle
becomes broken, the "Planet Hollywoord" retaliation will result in
retaliation ABC which will cause retaliation DEF which will cause
retaliation GHI which will cause retaliation JKL which will cause
retaliation MNO which will cause retaliation PQR which will cause
retaliation STU which will cause retaliation VWX which will cause
retaliation YZ..........
Doug, you then write:
> The US is victim of terrorism...do we then attack (admittedly we wouldn't
> say terrorize) the terrorists, or "cuddle" them?
My honoured friend, there is no mercy for this old sinner because it
is his duty to say to you all that the whole world is the victim of
terrorism. Most probably not even one victim in the "Planet
Holywoord" bombing was a US citizin.
Neither should we confuse "learning" with "cuddling" or "memorisation
and regurgitation" or "cut and paste" or "sausage making using the
same trusted recipe". How can we know what "learning" is if we do not
AUTHENTICALLY learn what "learning" is? Can we "cuddle" our ill
concieved concept of learning"? Can we "memorise and regurgitate" it?
Can we "cut and paste" it. Can we "use the same trusted recipe" to
turn out sausage after sausage of it?
If we want to break the cycle of hurting with learning, we will also
have to break the cycle of fictitious learning. The hurt which
fictitious learning cause, is also immense. I see it everywhere
around me happening to pupils and students. What sort of "bomb" cause
this spiritual hurt? A spiritual nuclear bomb? No. I cannot formulate
it better than my friend Ben Goslin who says: "They get hurt by the
bashing of their brains with a feather". What we need is authentic
teachers for whom learning are most serious.
Can authentic learning be uncreative? I challenge each of you to cite
merely one example that authetic learning is not creative learning.
Please, let us face the reality up to the present. Until such time
when someone can offer us one example of authentic learning which is
not creative, we have to accept the tenet that TO LEARN IS TO CREATE.
But how do we create? What is creativity? Did you know that the word
"creativity" was almost never used before WWII? Only a few
dictionaries printed before WWII even listed the word! So what
happened that the word "creativity" became such a commonly used word
after WWII? I believe it was the immense hurting which WWII caused
among humankind. Why such immense hurting? Because the destructive
creativity of WWII makes most other wars in the history of humankind
look like a brawl in a bar.
Is there a fully fledged art (theory and practice) of creativity
which we can use as a guide for the full complexity of reality?
Except for my own feeble art which begins with the labyrinth of
entropy production and moves along the seven essentialities, I know
of no other attempt which I can follow with confidence. However, if I
had to teach this complex art as such to my granddaughter Jessica, I
would jeopardize her creativity forever. She needs to be guided how
to create and how to learn, not to become knowledgable in my art.
Thus do my art provide an escape from this dilemma?
Yes. It shows that we have elementary manifestations of human
creativity which sustains further creativity. I have identified five
of them: dialogue, game-playing, problem-solving,
exemplar-studying and art-expressing
In other words, if we want to break the cycle of hurting by authentic
learning, we will have to promote human creativity by one or more of
the following sustaining manifestations: dialogue, game, problem,
exemplar and art. People intuively realise this on their tacit level
of knowledge. Look around you and observe what events people stream
to in their tens of thousands. A "dialogue" on possible impeachment,
the "games" to determine the world soccer champions, the "problems"
caused by a natural disaster, the "exemplar" of the soap box on
internet and the "art" of a movie like the Titanic.
Which of these five will we use to break the cycle of hurting with
respect to fundamentalistic terrorism? All five of them? A
combination of a few of them? One of them? I really dont know.
But let us think a little more about dialogue.
Jan Smuts, once a prime minister of South Africa, a war general, a
naturalist and last, but not least, the father of holism ("Holism and
Evolution", 1926), was also the main driving force in setting up the
first the League of Nations after WWI and then the United Nations
after WWII. On 16-12-1918, five weeks after the armistice on WWI, he
submitted a paper to the Imperial War Cabinet, arguing that the world
had three options to prevent another world war: Imparialism based on
self-interests, Commonwealthism based on economic cooperation and a
League of Nations based on dialogue.
Well, you all know the outcome. They decided on the League of
Nations, but rather getting constructive dialogue of the ground,
they were bent on giving it powers to hurt in a soft (cold-warlike)
manner. They did not desire dialogue, they wanted cold war -- and
they got it for the next 70 years plus WWII as a bonus. They did not
know what to do with dialogue -- to paint "rich pictures" so that
people could make up their mind once they have learned to let go of a
"rich picture".
In that report Smuts made the following comment. The thread to the
success of his idea was the United States of America's tendency to
isolationism. Thirty years later this thread became actual in his
own country when he was defeated by the National Party in the
elections of 1948. They furnished their own brand of isolationism,
better known as Apartheid. They shrugged off Smuts's warnings that
they will experience increasing isolation which will cause incredible
hurt to our country. They were simply too confident in their own
powers. Thus another lesson in hurt became prepared.
Please, learn from us here in South Africa. The great majority of us
do not know what dialogue is about. Dialogues here are almost as
scarce as snow balls in the hot Namib desert. The Apartheid Era could
have ended in less than 12 years (needing two elections) if most
South Africans could have been involved in dialogues among themselves
and with the rest of the world. In stead it dragged on for 40 years.
A year ago, when I was elected again as elder in our church, I said
that I will only accept after a dialogue with the board of elders. I
wish you were there that night. The pastor, chairperson of the board,
began the meeting by saying that I wanted an interview with the
board. I smiled, refered to my letter and said that I wrote that I
wanted a dialogue ("gesprek" in Afrikaans). He then replied, quite
confused, that the church's reglement of order does not make
provision for a dialogue. I said that they do not have to worry,
nobody will get hurt, I simply want us to have a dialogue. Wow, did I
had a struggle the next hour and a half to keep it a dialogue without
invoking the chair. Then, suddenly, the chairperson discovered that a
hour and a half have passed without anybody even noticing it. He had
to stop the dialogue because there were also other matters to attend
to. His last words were: (freely translated) "I had no idea how this
gesprek (dialogue) would ever happen, but somehow something happened
which did not hurt us and from which we have learnt."
We began a "Learning Organisation Dialogue Group" a few months
ago in Gauteng, the province in which the cities of Pretoria and
Johannesburg are situated. We meet once a month as an "open space".
(Doc Holloway wrote a few weeks ago a very good introduction on the
Barry Owen's idea of "open spaces". Maybe Rick can give us the URL.)
Most the people who have attended any one of these "open spaces" have
said that it provided more authentic dialogue for them than all their
other work the rest of the month. They are astounded at people's
inexperience and thus fear to participate in dialogues. It is a grave
problem in our nation.
> Yes, a crazy idealistic view. The world doesn't work this way. I know
> this...and I "hear" the postings already being drafted saying I'm crazy.
> But, if we don't emulate what we want, we won't get it.
Doug, you are not crazy. You are a person who learn authentically,
i.e creatively. But by doing this, people will begin to say and write
that you are crazy. Well, let them do it because it is one way to
initiate a dialogue. Eventually, when everybody particpates in
dialogue, will we all be crazy?
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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