John MacFadyen
I wonder if a major underlying problem and causal factor for human disrespect for other sentient beings and manifestations of life energy is human aggression and competitiveness. Alongside those factors is the fact that male sexuality and libidinal drive has continued to persist and lean towards impulsive gratification and vicarious enjoyment in violence, with little if any reflective awareness about the objectification of women and power abuse. There is very little education about libidinal forces and how to understand and cope with these drivers. Population growth is surely related to these factors and the more expansionism and consumerism there is the more habitats of other species disappear and the world becomes devoid of the proper ‘wild’ which can exist without human interference. Recent statistics estimate that something like 94% of the biomass of living creatures on the planet are humans and their domesticated animals, including farm animals. Only 6% is wild animals.
Testosterone itself is not the problem. It is the low centre of gravity that most humans function on and a human failure to turn to face our own collective shadow. I remember an eminent philosopher stating recently that the problem facing current human civilisation isn’t evil; it is shallowness. It is so very important that Whiteheadian process thinking highlights that all life manifestations are of the same value at the level of ‘Source’ and humans have to take responsibility for safeguarding principles related to this direction of responsible stewardship.I agree with what you said there Sheri. I didn’t see your response until just after I sent my finished offering. I didn’t realise that I’d sent off the first piece unedited. Can we bypass the stage of lower grade projections , where we can easily set lost in over-identification, and gain more primary process awareness and experience of witnessing something arising in consciousness which can be understood and worked with? Something major in our impulsivity to project and fixate, needs slowed down and examined.
I appreciate why Jesus is focused upon as a good example for us us all as human entities (as he was), and how this came about. I wonder though if his example was meant to be an inspiring example for others to follow, instead of constantly making Jesus himself the focus. The values and ethics he exemplified in themselves feel closer to the field of potentialities. As humans are we afraid to feel into and pray to an inexplicable creative energy field that is beyond and before any representational form. We seem to continually get caught up in our stories which then become cultish. It seems as though Whitehead was trying to take us beyond these systemic fixations into a way of using language which grounds us in a sense of respect for the unknowable mystery of life and appreciation of our place in the scheme of things alongside all other actualities. Can we utilise Whitehead’s wisdom to transcend the value structure that our species has imposed on the world, a value structure which seems rooted in competitiveness and underpinned and constantly recharged by fear and anxiety? Is this course in ‘World Religions’ not evidence of this Whiteheadian transcendent function and process being at work?
I appreciate why Jesus is focused upon as a good example for us us all as entities (as he was) for trying to show up and be present. I wonder though if his example was meant to be a great example to be followed and exemplified by others who then become illuminated instead of constantly making Jesus the example.We are all Jesus in our own right are we not?
Hinduism, like all religions has within it and beyond its traditional forms a great diversity of individual creative manifestations. The ways in which individuals make it their own are as diverse as the number of individual there are practicing Hinduism. So yes what a remarkable diversity and spirit of creative enterprise there is within the Hindu religion.
Hi Mike
I support your vote for Mother Poet of the World and wonder if you have come across the poetry of Mary Oliver? Or whether you have read any traditional Chinese or Japanese poetry, much of which is by men but the feminine is definitely reaching and feeling deeply into the masculine reflective minds and hearts.Logotherapy has held meaning for me as a reflection of or kind of of Process Theology in itself. Meaning making at the level which Logotherapy points to is fundamentally deeply discerning and creative in relation to direct experience. The theme of interconnectedness and ‘the many becoming one and being increased by one’ fits Logotherapy’s spaciousness and a kind of sacred and humbling bow within the enduring openness and patience we can manifest to support us in facing life challenges and ultimately our own death and the deaths and life values we witness through appreciating the wider field of diversity and interbeing. Iimagine that Whitehead and Frank, had they meet, would have felt much in common between them.
Hi Bill,
I like what you have highlighted here about how Process Thought can align itself with world religions and that it can also stand on its own and be of great service to the world as a way of thinking about the world and how to be an ethical person and participate in and promote a learning culture as individuals and systems of co=operation which reflect those ethics, values and principles. Even if we call Process Thought a core approach to living in general which can be applied to all human process = there could be Process plumbers, electricians, bakers, Social Workers, Teachers, car manufacturers etc. All human activities could well benefit from integrating a Whitehead informed approach approach and in doing so there would be ongoing developments as creative novelty revealed itself within and throughout these many actualities – but I think there would be an ethical basis to these activities.I would like to build upon what Charles added, especially his last sentence : “ And the idea of an almighty God who can supernaturally protect them from adversity gives them a sense of security that they’re loathe to let go of” . I find Ken Wilber’s model of human development helpful to understand our species evolutionary journey and the levels and lines of functioning we can transcend and include in a wholesome or unwholesome way. His model takes us through the evolutionary stages of human evolution and also the stages that children can move through as they grow up. The first three stages are ‘archaic’, ‘magical thinking’ and ‘mythical thinking’. The next stage is ‘lower rational thinking’ – and from there onwards thinking and feeling have the potential to become more spacious, expansive and discerning, responsive rather than closed, reactive or defensive. In those earlier stages of development it is difficult for any of us developmentally to see and think and feel beyond the levels of capacity for complex differentiation that we currently inhabit. When these levels and lines of development are collectively held to in a fixed way it is difficult to individuate through to more complex levels of differentiation. I think Wilber would say that when this fixity is in operation there exists a ‘dominator hierarchy’ rather than a ‘growth hierarchy’ blocking evolutionary and developmental flow. In Whitehead’s personal development I can see how he progressed through many stages and retained a wholesome appreciation of aspects of each stage as he progressed out into the wild blue yonder.
Hello Jace,
I find your offering here very stimulating and thought provoking. If I may connect in at where you start from : “
I experience the Superjective Nature of God as the activity by which an actual occasion – i.e., a subject – intends itself into existence, amplifying the Consequent Nature of God: the many become one and are increased by one.” This highlighted a great many, ‘actual occasion sparks’, lures , even a rush or flood of lures – too many to follow and engage with here. Anyway, the first illumination is an appreciation of the interpenetrative and relational nature of everything, and the ever abundant and freshness/aliveness nature of ‘process’. The multiplicity of actual occasions being increased by one must create such a rich field of subtle and very subtle cross- fertilising potentialities beyond our comprehension. It makes me wonder whether the descriptive phrase ‘increased by one’ really points to ‘an increase’, a new potency which intermingles with many potencies, both old, new and the ‘timeless’. In some Buddhist traditions there is a belief that the relative world is an ongoing process of ‘going beyond and including’,and that, in terms of creative potential, especially if we can connect with our ‘openness nature of Being’, this inclusivity can enable us to be truly responsive rather than reactive, and recognise potentialities as the are emerging, both inner and outer.
Within your Whitehead quote: The ancient doctrine that ‘no one crosses the same river twice’ is extended. No thinker thinks twice; and, to put the matter more generally, no subject experiences twice….Actuality in perishing acquires objectivity, while it loses subjective immediacy. It loses the final causation which is its internal principle of unrest, and it acquires efficient causation whereby it is a ground of obligation characterizing the creativity” (ANW, PR, p.29). I am interested to better understand what Whitehead means by his last sentence within this quote. Does he mean that the level of objectivity which emerges arise out of such actual occasions causes fear, as the ‘final causation and internal principle of unrest, to drop away, and thereby establishing a realisation process wherein one feels “a ground of obligation characterising the creativity” ? So much to ponder on. Such rich and evocative lures.
Thanks JaceThank you for sharing your story Jay. I enjoyed hearing about how you were invited, through your connection with Keido, your Gensho friend, to feel into your own spiritual path more deeply and with greater breadth. Thomas Merton’s example and writings played a significant role in my own spiritual journey. Through him I could feel through and into a territory beyond Buddhism and Christianity – beyond but through Religions -.
He enabled me to purify and reclaim or restore the ‘God’ word. He was an amazing role model. It is interesting to think about the capacity we are capable of for concrescence within a relationship through reading about and connecting with people like Thomas Merton (and so many others, and not only human or even beings but perhaps all actual entities if we are open to being affected and feeling , without closing around experience with too much knowing.
Thank you JayHi Jace, Kevin and Jay,
This discussion interests me greatly in relation to the natural/positive/developmental and ‘detrimental to growth’ roles that repression plays in Whitehead’s process philosophy and how that can be described in his concepts? It makes me wonder whether everything is originally, at the point of conception, unconscious (maybe as pure potentially?), and consciousness as individual entities is emerged into as the conscious/unconscious dynamic field encounters the precariousness of life conditions.
John MacFadyen