A blip giving it lip

Parental passion in the spring of 1948 gave rise to the fertilised egg that was to be me. Some kind of  unconscious driving force guided cell division and differentiation in the nine months leading to being born. Then there was enculturation where nurture put the final touches on what nature had to offer.

There have now been 66 years of taking in food and water, passing out pee and poop, and being involved with education (in six countries). Main features of my life have included:

• Infancy, childhood and adolescence in small towns in the NE of Scotland
• 14 years of schooling, four years of University (Zoology), one year of Teacher Training
• Teaching – two years in Edinburgh, two years in Jamaica, three years in Zambia
• University – masters degree (Agricultural Extension)
• Retreat, and supply teaching
• Teaching – four years in South Sudan (+ education advisory work)
• University – masters degree (Education)
• Retreat, and supply teaching
• Education Advisor – four and a half years in Belize
• Retreat
• Education Advisor – three years in Lesotho
• Retreat
• Freelance consultant – short contracts in Tanzania, Scotland, and for the ILO in Geneva
• Retreat and private study – five years and ongoing (With Parkinson's Disease)

During all of that the action/reflection cycle has been constantly spiralling upwards. Several times I lived and worked in a foreign country then took time out to consider how my life is spent. Teacher teach yourself. Keep the ends open. Expand the horizons.

My parents had parents who had parents and so on back through primates, mammals, reptiles and fish to the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. I can trace my roots back to my great-grandparents 150 years ago. I never married and have no children. A tiny blip of stupendous inconsequence.

There once was only mindless matter but consciousness evolved and is now, with humans, aware of itself – at least in theory. The emerging insights of Neurology and Evolutionary Psychology have yet to make it big in popular culture. These days I help the process along when  I read, think, feel and blog. Lifelong learning.

66 and going strong - a mindful life.

A blip giving it lip.

murderous machetes

In Bangladesh there is a hit list of secular and atheist bloggers. Several of them have been brutally hacked to death by the machete's of Islamic extremists. Opposing points of view. Death to the unbeliever. There seems to be an effective education system. The propaganda is changing minds. Are there lessons to be learned?

I don't know. When I taught science in the S Sudan I did not pay much attention to what went on in the Madrasas. My impression was that the curriculum was limited and there was a lot of rote learning. And there was some reading of Arabic so they could study the Koran by themselves. The Madrasas produced unthinking robots; the government schools, if they were well managed, produced thoughtful citizens for the globalising world (?)

The British blueprint for education was grafted on to the colonies. It served its purposes well and it has continued to do so after independence. It acts as a sieve which separates out those who are best suited to operate in government and corporate institutions.

Successful education results in changing minds. Schools operate on individuals five days a week for about twelve of their formative years. Other formative influences include parents, community, and the worlds of work, church and the media. These are the nurturing forces that pad out the mindbrain's natural hard wired frameworks.

There is no perfection. I have some idiosyncratic thoughts that I post on a blog. But in this cosy, corner of the cosmos this will not bring machete wielding extremists to my door – inshalla.

Say it again

There is a lot of repetition of ideas in my stories. This is a good thing. When I try to introduce and encourage new thoughts, feelings and moods, it is useful to repeat them over and over. The neurologists, when considering neural plasticity, are fond of noting that what fires together wires together; this is another way of noting that the road is made by walking.

My goal is to find better ways to be human and to make the world a better place. I now feel that mindfulness can contribute but there is a lot of slippage. By accumulating, listing and repeating the key ideas the mindbrain is kept floating above the dark stuff. And practice makes perfect.

Just sit.

Say it again – the only constant thing is change; the only certainty is doubt.

Always alternatives

Some people say that there is no alternative to the way things now are. They thus defend the status quo. But those people are lacking in imagination and creativity. It is self evidently true that the only constant thing is change and that the rate of change is increasing.

For the vast majority of our ancestral time we were foraging communalists. Being speechless we were slow to develop new ways of thinking. But, about 100,000 year ago, language evolved and the creativity and entrepreneurship of human groups flourished by creating and choosing between alternatives.

Archaeology recognises three stone ages – palaeolithic, mesolithic and neolithic. Then there was the bronze and  iron ages where a wide range of metal tools increased agricultural productivity and allowed for increasingly sophisticated division of labour (eg them v us within and between groups).

Foraging communalism was the human way for most of our time on the planet. Then came the domestication of plants and animals and settled agriculture. Then it was villages, towns, city states, and empires And in these modern times we have transnational corporations (TNC), the United Nations, and a wide range of nation states interacting and giving rise to globalisation.

Different human groups have different world views and associated points of view. They have concocted a fascinating collection of myths and magic. But now, since the European Enlightenment, there has been a gradual shift to a science-based set of facts and logic which, at its best, reckons that it does not deal with 'truth' but rather with the best working hypotheses given the evidence presently available.

Politics and economics are soft social sciences rather than hard physical ones like physics and chemistry. The soft stuff is dramatically more subjective than the hard stuff. The soft crew tries to present itself as hard but this is illusion. So there is bluster and spin. For example:

The present (2015) status quo view is that the collapse of communism marked the end of history because it is now obvious (?) that fundamentalist, free-market, invisible-hand capitalism is the only 'reasonable' way of running a corporation, a country or the planet. The single bottom line is profit. And the rich get richer because they are worth it.

In the early 1970s those who touted such right-wing free market thinking were dismissed as nutters.  The status quo at the time was for that brand of socialism called social democracy which had the triple bottom line of environment, society, and economics sitting on the foundation of justice and caring for the vulnerable. At present, 45 years later, it is the left wing supporters who are viewed as dangerous nutters because they challenge the right wing line of theoretical thought.

The only constant thing is change. There are always alternatives!

doodle origins

'I' am growing more aware that there are many more thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) in the unconscious parts of the mindbrain than there are in the conscious and self-conscious parts.

Fair enough, this is a subjective impression; but there is hard evidence in terms of a continuous stream of TFM passing through the attention centre.

The TFMs come from the unconscious, capture attention for a while, and then they are gone. Where do they go? Do they go back into the unconscious in a modified form or are they like flames when a fire goes out? … I have not figured that out yet.

There are 'Aha' moments when the answer to a question suddenly appears - eureka. And, at their best, musicians are in the groove, athletes are in the zone and poets take dictation from their muse. This is normally linked to a non-egoic (self-less) state of mind which is expansive, awe-some and creative. It is called flow.

My mindbrain seems hard wired to make sense of random noise (patternicity eg to see constellations in the night sky) and to reckon that every action has an agent (agenticity eg to believe that droughts are punishments from the Gods).

These days I get my jollies through leaving the unconscious agent to 'see' patterns. And the patterns

manifest as short stories (text) and doodles (graphics). My technique involves avoiding distraction and busy-ness so that the mindbrain becomes peaceful in the non-egoic way - and text and graphics emerge.

My blog is testament to unconscious activity – text and graphics. This blogpost exists to demonstrate that of which it 'speaks' graphically. A good picture is worth a thousand words. Do they say anything to you? They are divided into five main categories:

• Faces single

• Faces groups

• Faces abstract

• Abstract

• Scenes

 

 

 

 

Intending to attend

Attention has been got at by ICT these last few weeks. There has been an upgrading of the technology first to a Samsung 8 inch tablet running on Android and with a touch screen, then an Asus X555L laptop running on Windows 8 and without a touch screen. Also I have moved from MS Office to Open Office.

I find it difficult to hold focus on a given topic – there are so many attention grabbing options at the touch of a button (astonishing apps). And my organic short term memory is not effective these days. I therefore need to muster the discipline for figuring how to make things happen and then repeating the procedure until it sticks.

Most programmes have a built in help system and this sometimes includes tutorials on how to get started and how to use the more sophisticated options. Failing that you can search for them on Google or Youtube. The quality of these vary but I usually find something useful from keen nerds.

I feel an intention coming to attention. The idea is simple . Print out a to-do-list and set a kitchen timer to limit the amount of time you spend with this aspect of CPD. Here is a generic list for the basics of using a new programme.

1. how to enter the programme
2. how to create a new file (or open one that already exists)
3. how to enter data (ref types – text, clips, links, audio, video, photo etc)
4. how to save or export the file (ref types)
5. how to exit the programme

Passing feelings

I am falling behind with blogposts. This one is made up of extracts from a letter to a pal. I have cut out the bits that mention various pals by name. No gossip.

There are so many people in the world and so few that I know. But then what is meant by 'knowing'. It has to do with 'communication' linked to predictability. When someone thinks, speaks and acts in a foreseeable manner there is 'familiarity'. This can be comforting but it can also be mind-bendingly boring.

My mind is culturally conditioned and is thus to some extent parochial despite my having lived and worked in five countries. But there is neural plasticity and by taking mindful thought most aspects of the mind can be changed. Some aspects of the mindbrain are hardwired by nature and these are tougher to transform than the more flexible nurtured bits.

Words, sentences, and paragraphs. The ever-active mindbrain churns them out. An agenda can be imputed to the unconscious but 'I' am not in charge of it. The same pattern holds true for the doodles. 'I' have no advance plan. Just begin and then let the muse do her thing.

Patterns of thought, feeling and mood (TFM) about TFM have changed rapidly in the last 20 years. The key to the new understanding is to view the human brain as an organ which evolved to enable small groups of people to be effective hunters and gatherers. Neurological advances linked to evolutionary psychology provided a platform for consilience (multidisciplinary approaches).

Note that Rick Hanson pulls lots of stuff together and writes about it well http://www.rickhanson.net/mind/ ) And, off the top of my head, three of my inspirational fellow travellers are Jon Kabat Zinn, Jonathan Haidt, and Daniel Kahneman. They all write and speak well. Google them or search for them on my blog http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/ .

I have been semi retired since 1988 and fully retired for more than five years. I love it.

In the old days I thought I was doing something useful when I was teaching science and biology. However, my expectations for the higher level work (government advisor) were ill founded as were those about social development. My quest was to find better ways to be human. This transcended the worldly stuff - and it is ongoing. I have retired from the institutions but not from life. Every day is fresh and new. I invariably find interesting stuff welling up from the unconscious and knowing that it is not 'real'.

“Kunst, vas is das?” While cruising the social networks I came across a talk by Alain de Botton “Art as Therapy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFnNgTSkHPM - “Art can be a source of help with our problems — our innermost problems — the problems of the soul.”

I now have well over 200 'doodles'. Works of art? They vary enormously in subject matter and have been described as 'scary'. Examples are available at the top of my most recent blogposts. (http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/ ) They are produced by non-action. 'I' let them happen. The unconscious is given a free hand. The muse? What is it trying to communicate?

good and great

I was born in 1949 to an upper working class family in rural NE Scotland. I was brought up to respect my elders and betters whether or not they deserved it. The various authority figures may have had faults but these were to be overlooked so as not to rock the boat and disturb the status quo. I was in the church choir and sat through two services on every Sunday. I was interacting with what I thought of as hypocrites in hats.

Especially at the local level, several of the authority figures had a vocation rather than a job. They got their existential jollies from taking pride in their work and serving their communities. The bottom line was about more than profit and wages. Salt of the earth.

But, then as now, there was tension and ill feeling in the interactions between the rich and the poor and between the bosses and the workers. The class struggle – upstairs and downstairs.

The lethal non-sense of the two world wars raised a lot of questions about the validity of the class system. I was born shortly after the end of the second war. Those who were my elders and betters had lived through it. The status quo got a serious shake up. But many of the old ways survived.

I was encultured into subservience in my early years. (Little children should be seen but not heard). Some of the authority figures before whom I would bow and doff my cap are listed below – local and national examples. Note in passing that I have problems with authority. I feel antipathy towards anyone who tells me what to think and how to act.

Local Respectables:

the family

the doctor, the district nurse,

the schoolmasters,

the minister, the church elders,

the policeman

the landowners,

the business people,

the provost and local councillors,

the solicitor

the workers – farmers, fishermen, and townspeople

National Respectables:

the MP, the prime minister and the cabinet ministers,

the queen and the royal family,

the experts and intellectuals,

the media celebrities - print and broadcast

Cognitive scope

I could work on topic xxx but there is probably somebody or some group that has already thought about it or done it. So, if I was to be rational and systematic, I would approach the existing literature and the main shakers and movers and list the main claims, concerns and issues of the various stakeholders.

I could then draw on my experience as a curriculum developer to sketch out the topic's cognitive scope (what breadth and depth), sequence (where to begin, progress and end) and pace (how quickly to move through the material).

I could, along the way, refer to a set of frameworks that help to avoid parochiality – for example:

Expanding horizons: (think Cosmic zoom) ie Portsoy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK, EU, global, planetary (ref Ken Wilber and 'no boundaries')

Level of Enterprises: micro, small, medium, large (national corporations), trans national corporations (TNC), UN system esp IMF and World Bank (eg Davos, Bilderberg)

Organisational Structure: Voluntary, NGOs, CSO, CBO (community based organisations), mutuals, cooperatives, trade unions, political parties, QUANGO, PPI, employers organisation – local to global

ISSUES: climate, environment, nuclear, vulnerability, facism, sexism, ageism, migration, politics and economics (right, centre, left), financial sector, race to the bottom, religions, ETC

Stakeholders: top down, middle in, bottom up – special interest groups (activists)

My long term quest has been to find better ways to be human (see below). But that is a huge topic. After I have sketched the big picture (eg ref the bighistory project) I could focus on some details. However, the devil will tempt me with simple slogans and soundbites. And I will carelessly adopt those that match items of my nurturing as a pre-mature human being in a given time and place. But forewarned is forearmed.

Noam Chomsky is one of my sources of inspiration and forewarning. He reckons that there are two sets of principles - the principles of power and privilege (roughly right wing eg politicians) and the principles of truth and justice (roughly left wing eg intellectuals). They oppose each other. Chomsky exposes the pretences of those who claim to be the bearers of truth and justice. He shows that in fact these intellectuals are the bearers of power and privilege and all the evil that attends it.

It is now clear to me that, however wide and deep, cognitive scope is not enough. The affective dimension has to be acknowledged and allowed for, especially by the global shakers and movers. But that line of thinking can be a topic for another day.

http://dodclark.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/better-ways-to-be-human.html

Saft in the heed

It is easy to get saft in the heed about meditation. For me this happens mainly when I fall back into assuming that meditation has to do with religion as I came to think about it in my late teens.
For example, with the Church of Scotland's religion, I have the notion of a heavenly father (God) who has intentions and a purpose. From the believer’s point of view he is an externally sourced Will that must be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God has representatives here on earth – the infallible Popes and the Kings with Divine Rights. There is also holy scripture. All myth and magic. For many years the miraculous world view helped some people to avoid cognitive dissonance while it drove others further into it. No matter how bad it gets, God will provide even though he normally works in mysterious ways. Since the European enlightenment this has been called the existential cop out.

The elites that make up the church and state manage to fool most of the people most of the time. They can even justify the crusades. Holy wars to end all wars. These days the church is a marginal social force. Corporations in league with the state and its media channels are the modern pedlars of selfish dreams about using credit to consume fashionable commodities. To 'save' myself and possibly others there is need for renunciation. This involves a change of mind. Mindfulness meditation makes release more likely. But it took me some time to have experience of the grand sounding notions. This involved figuring the meaning of two key words.

Meditation is a form of prayer?

I was in the church choir in the late 60s and sat through two services each week; and I was an active member of the church Youth Club. But no one ever explained what is involved in praying. I eventually came to feel that prayer involves communication with a supernatural being (either directly or through his representatives). In essence you have needs and God will arrange that they are met ie he will answer your prayers. All you need is faith. If he does not meet your needs it is because you do not have enough faith - which by definition is blind. Non-sense.

Meditation is a form of religion?

Meditation is associated with various eastern belief systems – eg Taoism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. They ask that you ‘emancipate yourself from mental slavery’ and as such the systems can be usefully thought of as a psychology of perception. Blind faith is not required. If you take time to be still you will experience peace through release from your culturally conditioned monkey mind. Renunciation is then easy – in fact it is inevitable for who, having experienced the peace of mindfulness, would yearn after “the noise that men call fame, the dross that men call gold”.

Amoral establishment

I am re-reading Owen Jones (2014) The Establishment – and how they get away with it. Them and us. Scary stuff.

I missed many points on the first reading. But I have played with the ideas that I did pick up.  They include money, power, greed and selfishness. The impression is that these might be adaptive and thus a ‘good thing’. And this raises the questions, “Is democracy a good thing?” and “Is there a moral high ground in terms of evolutionary psychology?”

There have been millions of years of evolution leading up to mammals and to man. Choices were made and the fittest survived. Many did not.

Evolution works not only on individuals and groups but also on environments and ecosystems.  And it works on all of these as they play against each other all of the time. Natural selection weeds out the less effective. Survival rests with that which makes most copies of itself in the next generation. Pure serendipity.  No judges, no judgements. Unbreakable laws.

Mankind does not stand alone. Individual humans belong to cultural groups that have territories within ecosystems. Climax communities form and evolve in reaction to changes. There will inevitably be changes. “Things fall apart – the centre will not hold.”

Disasters. Drought, flood, plague and pestilence; earthquake and volcano; collisions by comets and meteorites; death and injury while foraging and hunting, and while fighting with neighbouring groups. Sickness, old age and death. Mankind is not in control.

Biogeochemical cycles. Mince and tatties become me plus some faeces that become food for the decomposing bacteria whose waste products are fertiliser for the grass that becomes cow that becomes mince again. “Round and round and round in the circle game.” We are dynamic stardust.

Ongoing churn. There are interactions between large and small plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and viruses.  Photosynthesisers capture carbon dioxide and water and, in the presence of sunlight and chlorophyll, produce sugar and oxygen. The light energy from the sun becomes temporarily trapped as chemical energy in sugar. The energy is set free again inside cells and water and carbon dioxide are given off as waste products. The sun is the source of all planetary energy, and it will go out eventually.

Carnivores, omnivores and herbivores. Predators, prey, parasites and decomposers. All interacting and maintaining the balance of nature on Planet Earth. Breathe, eat, drink, socialise, have sex and die.

The modern scientific ‘facts’ are awesome and they contradict the myths and magic of earlier times and are therefore often ignored. But humanity may be at two tipping points:

• The need for better Stewardship of the environment is more widely felt – Green politics.
• A better understanding of the psychology of perception leads increasing numbers of people to Mindfulness and to non attachment to views. Live and let live – reconciliation and consilience.

It would be ‘nice’ if:

• More people were honest, caring and responsible regarding self, family, group, ecosystem, and planet. Socialism and social democracy.
• Fewer people were to be cruel, suicidal zealots and war mongers for whom there is only one bottom line – profit. Corporate capitalism and neoliberal free markets.

SO - “Is democracy a good thing?” and “Is there a moral high ground in terms of evolutionary psychology?”

We can make things simple by assuming that there are three world views ranging from left wing through centralists to right wing. The following table lists a few issues. The reader is invited to add other items. I have left the centralist column empty because in most cases it takes a middle way and tries to highlight the good points and avoid the bad points in the more extreme world views.

For whatever reason, most of the time, I feel most comfortable with the social democratic view. I also feel that extremists on the left and right, but particularly on the right, are nutters who must have had problems growing up. There is a failure of empathy. I cannot understand how they could possibly have such ‘strange’ views. To me the facts seem to speak for themselves and there is no alternative to social democracy. My elegant point of view is ‘Be reasonable, do it my way.’

My brain is hard wired to learn a language but it is my culture that dictates which one. My brain is hard wired to develop a world view but it is my culture that dictates which one. Before the potentials become actuals there is cognitive dissonance which is unpleasant. It elicits adrenalin based anxiety and panic. This gives motivation to change the mind so as to elicit cognitive consonance and possibly to be rewarded with a pleasing squirt of dopamine.

SO - “Is democracy a good thing?”

“Is xxx a good thing?” How is ‘good’ to be evaluated and by whom and for what reason? Xxx  is mind stuff with no abiding reality. Words label mental conditions. Democracy, dictatorship, truth, beauty, Allah, God, Satan, etc. Nothing to kill or die for. “Judge not lest thee thyself be judged.” Those who practice mindfulness come to know this.

SO - “Is there a moral high ground in terms of evolutionary psychology?”

‘Moral high ground’ and ‘moral low ground’ are intellectual phrases that label mental conditions. Anything goes. The phrases can help or hinder the survival of individuals, groups and ecosystems.

What are we to think about before, during and after apartheid in South Africa, the holocaust in Germany, Hiroshima in Japan, etc? Man’s inhumanity to man. There will be those who are taken in by the propaganda and justify, excuse and even applaud it.

In the Amazon basin Transnational Corporations buy off local politicians to form coalitions of those with wealth and power. Their greed and selfishness results in the genocide of the native people who   might stand in their way. Survival of the fittest.

The present global Establishment is strongly right wing and cannot see an alternative to neoliberal free markets which make the rich deservedly richer and the feckless and lazy poor deservedly poorer.

BUT this is just a passing fashion. In the UK in the 1970s, before the Thatcher revolution, the conventional wisdom was for social democracy – and the free marketeers were the nutters on the margins. We may be at a tipping point. Various renowned economists are now advocating a more                                                    social democratic agenda and there is a growing number of freelance philosophers and special interest groups breathing new life into participatory democracy.

Contention has been and will be with us always. But mindfulness training will enable wiser and more civilised policy making. Maybe!

Vocal executive presence

An edited flow of consciousness based on

a TED Talk by Laura Sicola https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02EJ1IdC6tE

and Manuel Arriaga, (2014). Rebooting Democracy: A Citizen’s Guide to Reinventing Politics. Thistle Publishing. Kindle Edition.

For further reference see my - http://www.toonloon.bizland.com/nutshell/leadersh.htm

…oo0oo…

People in a group are present for each other

There is a tendency for a shepherd/boss to stand out from the sheep/workers

Workers have operational presence ie they implement

The Boss has executive presence ie he plans, monitors and evaluates – this generates a lot of activity in the pre-frontal cortex

Boss = leader, manager, administrator with strategy, tactics, operations

Executive presence – charisma – stand out from the crowd – clothes, body posture, social skills, work the crowd, work-related conversation rather than idle chit chat, gravitas

Vocal executive presence – when your voice helps in making you stand out from the crowd. Strength, confidence, clarity. Appearance, communication skills, gravitas.

As a teacher, lecturer and public speaker I developed a commanding voice – especially when presenting to people for whom English was a second language. These days, with Parkinson’s Disease there is a loss of the fine motor control that makes a commanding voice possible. Arguably my ‘written executive presence’ is getting better but I have no objective evidence.

…oo0oo… Glossary:

Charisma: compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others.
synonyms: charm, presence, aura, force of personality, strength of character

Executive presence is a blending of temperament, competencies, and skills that, when combined, send all the right signals. Leaders know they must embody executive presence to get ahead, influence others, and drive results. Leadership development professionals know they must help their executives develop it

Gravitas: dignity, seriousness, or solemnity of manner.
synonyms: gravity, loftiness, grandeur, decorum, sobriety, sedateness

Jehovah cop out

I had a couple of Jehovah Witnesses at the door. My impression was that they were simple mindedly caught in a ‘story’ that had commandeered some brain circuits and set up road blocks to free-range thinking and feeling.

My impression is that my ‘story’ is superior in that it is open to new worldviews. For example the Big History worldview suggests that evolution increases the amount of choice available and works at three levels – cosmic, biological and cultural.

In the beginning, or at least not long after the beginning, there were chemicals. These begat simple living things which begat more complicated living things which interacted with their environment. Even more complicated living things appeared and they had culture which enabled even more complicated interactions with their environment. These show three patterns of responsiveness:

Most of my brain is given over to “thoughtless, mechanical, fast, reaction” to internal and external stimuli – thus I keep my body temperature steady and ride a bicycle without thinking about it.

Parts of my brain, largely the cortex, are given over to “thoughtful, organic, slow, response” to internal and external stimuli – this is where the executive system manages executive functions some of which are available to the self conscious attention centre.

...ooo… edited from Wikipedia  …ooo…

Executive functions  is an umbrella term for the management (regulation, control) of cognitive processes, including working memory, reasoning, task flexibility, and problem solving as well as planning and execution.

The executive system is a theorized cognitive system in psychology that controls and manages other cognitive processes, such as executive functions. The prefrontal areas of the frontal lobe are necessary but not solely sufficient for carrying out these functions.

The executive system is thought to be heavily involved in handling novel situations outside the domain of some of our 'automatic' psychological processes that could be explained by the reproduction of learned schemas or set behaviours. Five types of situations in which routine activation of behaviour would not be sufficient for optimal performance include:

1. Those that involve planning or decision making
2. Those that involve error correction or troubleshooting
3. Situations where responses are not well-rehearsed or contain novel sequences of actions
4. Dangerous or technically difficult situations
5. Situations that require the overcoming of a strong habitual response or resisting temptation.

…ooo… end Wikipedia …ooo…

The interaction with the Jehovahs would have ticked items 2 to 5 on that list. There was a rational response rooted in the historical evidence concerning the origins of the bible and the existence of JC. But I did not have the energy to open that memory box. And there was an emotional response in that I did not want to cause them to lose faith. They had opted for an existential cop out. Good luck to them and their simple minded and miraculous worldview.

Aha – existentialism - a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

Put in the shortest form: Living without certainty and with personal responsibility is a nearly unbearable burden.
http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/existentialism/whatis.html

BUT

Who is the ‘I’ with free will and what governs their choice?  Their worldview will be a result of conditioning due to nature, nurture and serendipity with some epigenetics thrown in. A stream of thinkers have gone before. Ancestral academics churning out stories based on myths and magic and setting up physical and conceptual boundaries.

But now we have science. It can lead us on a cosmic zoom so we know that we are stardust and part of fast churning biogeochemical cycles. The flow of matter and energy takes shape as human beings who have become conscious of their consciousness and thus of the fact that boundaries are mind made and can thus be endlessly redrawn.

I can write such things because I have sat on the shoulders of giants but I was not quick witted enough to speak them to the Jehovahs. But they did not have ears to hear – they were enculted to have faith in their well intentioned, miracle working, heavenly patriarch.

Jehovah’s cop out. Avoid conflict, let it be.

Capitalism and social animals

We are social animals. For most of the time we have been in existence we have lived in small groups of foragers in our home territories. The people outside the group are ‘them’ and those in the group are ‘us’. There is cooperation between us (we are familiar with each other) and competition with them (we are strangers to each other).

Them v us thinking is still common in the modern world in the form of racism, sexism, ageism, class, occupation, location, politics, religion, favorite football team and TV Soap etc. The difference between groups is marked by language, clothes, commodities and all manner of status symbols. As individuals we are conditioned into displaying the labels of our preferred ‘us’ and adopting its ‘grand world view’ and a host of its detailed ‘points of view’.

So why and how was I conditioned to being socialist rather than capitalist? Nature graced me with a tendency towards a particular type of personality and temperament (submissive introvert?) and it got switched on and off by specific social and environmental factors ie by nurture and epigenetics. Note that there is neural plasticity – ‘I’ can change.

I have lived and worked in six countries. The anonymity of modern, urban settings has allowed me to play many parts. But when I return to my tightly knit, natal, rural setting the imagined, watchful eye of the neighbor limits my range of possibilities.

Since the evolution of settled agriculture, division of labour has increased. Typically this has included a small group of people managing the use and distribution of common resources (the commons). These are the regulators and rulers (the elite – the 1%) who set themselves apart from the muddy boot farmers (the masses – the 99%). The elites normally developed a version of the God/King story through which they commandeer the wealth and conspicuously spend it. Monuments are popular eg the Pyramids and the London Eye.

Left to “the invisible hand” the wealth of nations is captured by the elite. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And with globalization the wealth is captured by the transnational corporations (TNC) which are democratically unaccountable to the masses. And today’s super-rich capitalist cliques operate an unsustainable system of profit making that can be labeled as neoliberal, free-market fundamentalism. This is capitalism and it calls for austere structural adjustment, deregulation, privatization, trade union bashing, buying off politicians, small government, tax avoidance, externalising the environmental damage they cause, and paying dividends to shareholders.

It was not all that long ago that those who advocated for the capitalist free market were ostracised as nutters and thus starved of funding and respect. But there has been a great reversal. Left leaning capitalism lite before Thatcher morphed into right leaning, full blooded capitalism during and after her. Care of the vulnerable, fairness in the use of resources, and stewardship of the environment were dropped from the new world view where unscrupulous greed is good and there is a single bottom line – profit for shareholders (and surreal bonuses for CEOs).

The situation today is that more and more power is being captured by the super-rich who are bent on unscrupulous profit making. This is justified by simple sound bites – “a rising tide floats all boats” and some of the wealth will “trickle down” from the rich to the poor.

In some places the exploitation and inequality created by the capitalist corporations is opposed by groups of activists who are severely punished. In other places the capitalists buy off the politicians and the academics, and control the media so that everyone comes to believe that there is no alternative to the neoliberal world view. This is elegant power. Chomsky calls it the manufacture of consent.

Before capitalism evolved in the 16^th century there was feudalism and the divine right of kings (and of the Pope in Europe). The peasants, craftspeople and merchants did the essential work of sustainably managing the ‘commons’ and the ruling elite creamed off the profits in the form of taxation.

Capitalism began to flourish with the enclosure and privatisation of the commons which could then be bought and sold on an open market. Agricultural improvements drove people off the land into towns and cities where they became wage slaves amongst the dark satanic mills of the industrial revolution.

There is no single accepted definition of capitalism. Here are some examples drawn from the internet:

• an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state for the greatest good of the greatest number.
• an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means.
• an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, characterized by the freedom of capitalists to operate or manage their property for profit in competitive conditions (Also called free enterprise, private enterprise.)
• an economic and political system characterized by a free market for goods and services and private control of production and consumption. (Compare socialism and communism.)

During the last few weeks the notion of ‘alternatives to capitalism’ is being highlighted - mainly as a reaction to the suffering caused by the neoliberal austerity measures. Responses range from thoughts about how to smooth the rough edges of unregulated profit maximisation by the private sector (ie capitalism lite) through to increasing public sector control and management of the commons (ie socialism).

There is no single accepted definition of socialism. Broadly speaking it is a social, political and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and by co-operative management of the economy.

"Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership (achieved by nationalization), citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.

Classic and somewhat extreme alternatives to Neoliberal Capitalism include totalitarian Communism and Fascism, Socialism, Anarchism, and Libertarianism. More moderate systems include social democracy and various lite flavours of the above ie centre left and centre right.

BUT – the rich have power, money and therefore influence. They are thus well able to service their own exploitive and unfair agenda. Countervailing power can be exercised to supplement representative democracy with more participatory and special interest forms which enable subsidiarity to mutual and cooperative civil society organisations

…ooo0ooo…

These last few days the theme that has captured my attention is alternatives to capitalism and the idea of post-capitalism.  Paul Mason had a video about it and it was the main topic in a recent copy of the New Internationalist magazine.

In my old fashioned way I have been herding other people’s cows. This calls for understanding what the other people are saying, recording it accurately, and thus staying true to the cumulative tradition.

My subjective problem is in getting my head round the fact that most of the rich and powerful people actually believe in Neoliberalism and the beneficence of the invisible hand in the free market.

I am conditioned into believing that some kind of social democratic middle way is best. Some stuff is managed better by the public sector and some by the private sector.

But human nature is not to be trusted. There is need for regulations and for checks and balances to ensure that exploitation and inequality are minimised.

It might be useful to recognise a three stage process:

PRE CAPITALISM --- CAPITALISM --- POST CAPITALISM

But that can be a project for another few days.

Quiet introverts – 2

I have finished reading Susan Cain (2012) “Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking” Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. Well written in a chatty way. But she does not say anything particularly new and her coverage of neuroscience is disappointingly slight.

She stresses the importance of parenting and schooling in ensuring that individual kids are handled sympathetically. Their development is shaped by a combination of nature and nurture and both of these are plastic enough to be changeable by taking thought.

My thought trains: Sympathetic handling demands rejecting the ‘one size fits all’ way of thinking.  Kids are of mixed ability and aspiration.

An unenlightened, formal education system acts as a sieve that uses a common curriculum and national examinations to separate the academically inclined from the rest.

An enlightened, formal education system has a core curriculum with extensions to meet the learning needs and styles of youngsters with different personalities and temperaments. Howard Gardner  introduced the theory of  multiple intelligences which include - musical–rhythmic, visual–spatial, verbal–linguistic, logical–mathematical, bodily–kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential and moral. This led to the production of student profiles instead of academic report cards.

Given that she seems to have been systematic in covering the related literature I was disappointed that she did not give more attention to meditation and mindfulness. She notes that evolutionary psychology has the potential of uncovering the roots of human types but she does not develop that line of thinking.

“This book is about introversion as seen from a cultural point of view. Its primary concern is the age-old dichotomy between the “man of action” and the “man of contemplation,” and how we could improve the world if only there were a greater balance of power between the two types.

It focuses on the person who recognizes him-or herself somewhere in the following constellation of attributes: reflective, cerebral, bookish, unassuming, sensitive, thoughtful, serious, contemplative, subtle, introspective, inner-directed, gentle, calm, modest, solitude-seeking, shy, risk-averse, thin-skinned.

Quiet is also about this person’s opposite number: the “man of action” who is ebullient, expansive, sociable, gregarious, excitable, dominant, assertive, active, risk-taking, thick-skinned, outer-directed, lighthearted, bold, and comfortable in the spotlight.”

Cain, Susan (2012-03-29). Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking (p. 269). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Conclusion: she does not deliver on her hype but she has some attention grabbing stories and I read her cover to cover in only a few sessions.