Transformative Learning for a New Worldview: Learning to Think Differently

Transformative Learning for a New Worldview

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Transformative Learning for a New Worldview Learning to Think Differently M. G. Jackson

© M. G. Jackson 2008 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 9780230553507 hardback ISBN-10: 0230553508 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

In memory of my wife Pramila

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Contents List of Figures

ix

Preface

x

Part I Transformative Learning in Contemporary Global Culture 1

Introduction

3

2

Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion Contradictions, incoherence and confusion in the school classroom An alternative approach to environmental education Gaia theory and cultural transformation Coming to grips with sustainability

11

3

Learning to Think Differently An adequate terminology for learning to think differently An overview of the process Critical elements of the process

27 28 31 33

4

Atoms, People and Other Things The enlightenment answers to the perennial questions Critique

47 48 49

5

The Laws of Nature The laws of nature – an overview Understanding the concept of law as immanent through myth

62 63

6

A Flawed System of Ideas Incoherence Contradiction The origin of the concept of the detached observer

80 81 82 83

7

Alternative Assumptions The world as a process Everything is radically interconnected with everything else Detached participation

87 87 95 99

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11 14 20 25

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Contents

8

A Return to the Perennial Questions What is real? What is the world like? A little more about terminology

102 103 106 112

9

Towards a New Cultural Model Community Science An adequate theory of history

116 119 125 135

Part II Transformative Learning in Post-colonial Societies 10

Transform, Reform, Reaffirm The impact of colonialism Interpreting the past, visualising the future A fresh anchorage

145 146 149 161

Part III Transformative Learning in Practice 11

Secure Their Foundation The process of cultural transformation Priorities today A variety of possible transformative learning exercises The facilitator Some suggestions for planning and conducting transformative learning exercises Suggestions for each step in the transformative learning course

165 165 174 175 177 180 183

Appendix 1: Pesticide Use and Human Health

189

Appendix 2: Pests

192

Notes

195

References

200

Index

206

List of Figures 2.1 Conventional school education aims at transferring concepts and parcels of information to students. Collaborative learning fosters an interactive process of learning among teachers, students and community members. New insights, knowledge and techniques are created in this process and shared by all. 3.1 This diagram shows how a worldview translates into accepted ways of doing things, and how failure of these accepted ways of doing things feeds back to the stage of the worldview, modifying it. 3.2 This diagram describes the transformative learning process. Alternative practices are devised and tested. The results then feed back into the process, confirming alternative assumptions, or indicating the need for still further thinking.

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31

34

Preface

The phrase ‘learning to think differently’ is often used today and in a variety of contexts. Its meaning in this essay therefore needs to be clearly stated at the outset. As the title indicates, it is a process in which all our inherited assumptions about the world and ourselves are questioned, thus clearing the ground, so to speak, for the construction of an alternative set of assumptions (or worldview) that is more appropriate for our times. Not only is the substance of our thought (basic assumptions) changed but even the mode of our thinking. The process by which this happens is termed ‘transformative learning’. This essay is an attempt to describe this process as it is occurring today and in which all of us, willingly or not, are involved and to suggest how we might facilitate it. I came to study this process in the following way. Since 1986, I have worked with the Uttarakhand Environmental Education Centre (UEEC) in Almora in the mountain state of Uttarakhand in North India designing and testing school environmental education (EE ) courses. During this time, I became interested in the problem of the incoherence being created in the school curriculum by the introduction of environmental education courses/topics. By incoherence, I mean that the solutions to environmental problems suggested by these introductions contradict the message of modernisation and development conveyed by the rest of the curriculum. These contradictions occur because the first principles assumed by the modernist and the environmentalist perspectives are fundamentally different. These two sets of first principles are logically irreconcilable and thus the contradictions cannot be removed. The textbook writers attempt to reconcile them, but do not succeed and so add confusion to the initial incoherence. This is only one instance of the incoherence that today pervades contemporary global culture. Other examples are (1) the Gaia theory in science in which Gaia, the Earth, is seen by environmentalists and some scientists as a living being, while others concede only that it is very complex system; (2) the concept of organising and conducting human affairs on a local rather than a global scale; (3) organic farming as against synthetic chemical-based farming; and (4) natural and herbal health care systems as against allopathic medicine. In all these cases too, basic assumptions about the world and human nature radically different from x

Preface

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those of mainstream culture are implied. The effect of this incoherence in all aspects of contemporary life is doubt, confusion, contention – and strife. ‘Greenwashing’ is rampant and oxymorons like ‘sustainable development’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ proliferate. What are the assumptions underpinning the alternative theories and practices that are now appearing in contemporary global culture? For that matter, what exactly are the assumptions underlying mainstream thought and action? Why are these latter being challenged on so many fronts today? How can the alternative assumptions be consolidated into a logically consistent, coherent and adequate new worldview? These are questions that must be asked, and answered, if we hope to understand the transformative process – and to facilitate it. Increasing numbers of people in all parts of the world, in all areas of human endeavour and in all strata of society, are attempting to answer these questions. A vigorous global dialogue is underway. As I followed this dialogue, and also participated in it, I gradually came to the conclusion some three or four years ago that none of these questions had yet been explored deeply or comprehensively enough. Writing this essay has been the means by which I have tried to go beyond the limits of current thinking and dialogue. The essay has now reached a stage where I think that it might be worthwhile sharing it with other participants in the dialogue. The following propositions will be advanced and discussed. 1. The transformation of a society’s worldview is a definite process, both necessary and inevitable at certain times in history, which can be understood and described. From such an understanding comes the possibility of participating in the process in ways that facilitate it, and in so doing minimise the disruption and suffering that accompany it. 2. ‘Thinking differently’ about the world and ourselves must occur at the level of our most fundamental concepts. These concepts are not matters of fact but speculative assumptions about the nature of the world and ourselves. They arise from the answers we give to the perennial questions, that is, those questions that every culture in every age has had to answer. These questions are: (1) what is the world like; (2) who am I; and (3) what is real? 3. Current assumptions must be identified, described and then rigorously critiqued. Only in this way can their inadequacies be revealed. Possible alternative assumptions must be visualised and their implications explored. Alternative assumptions that emerge successfully

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4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

must then be co-ordinated into a logical and coherent system, or worldview, to complete the process. Transformation is impossible unless we can see what is happening today in a broad historical perspective. The proximate perspective is that of Western civilisation in its entirety. Equally important is the wider perspective of the totality of human history. Taking advantage of these perspectives will require an alternative to the progress theory of history now assumed in contemporary global culture. Transformation is also impossible unless we realise that the conceptual resources of Western civilisation are inadequate to the task of transformation at this time. It will be necessary to look to the worldviews of non-European civilisations and European civilisation prior to the 6th century BC for some of the ‘new’ ideas that will be needed. This will lift the dialogue about ‘thinking differently’ from the parochial to the truly global. The process of transformation can be facilitated by the pursuit of selfconscious transformative learning exercises. These are most effectively carried out by small groups. Learning in this sense is a three-fold task. The first part is unlearning inherited ways of thinking. The second is visualising new ways that are boldly speculative. Such new ways of thinking are tentative and therefore must be tested in practice. This testing is part of the transformative learning process. ‘Thinking differently’ means using alternative concepts to construct a new view of the world, and also an altogether different mode of thinking. Transformative learning, if it is to be effective, requires a new vocabulary. New words are needed to express new concepts. New ways of using existing words are also necessary.

While aspects of some of these propositions have been touched upon by various writers already, none of them, in my opinion, has received the sustained and critical treatment that is necessary. Nor have these various propositions appeared together in a coherent, systematic exposition. The general plan of this essay may now be indicated. Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the subject of cultural transformation. In Chapter 1, an historical perspective is suggested to make what is happening today intelligible. Chapter 2 describes the contradictions, incoherence and confusion that mark the early stages of the process as entirely new ways of thinking and doing appear in place of inherited ways that are increasingly seen to be irrelevant, and indeed counterproductive. Chapter 3 describes, in general terms, the transformative learning process underlying cultural

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transformation, and Chapters 4–9 illustrate the successive stages in this process. In all these chapters, 1–9, the focus is on the worldview of contemporary Western culture, a worldview that is rapidly colonising the entire globe and which is therefore of primary concern to everyone, everywhere. In Chapter 10, attention is focused on the post-colonial societies of the South and the remnants of indigenous peoples in the West/North. The contemporary process of cultural change is more complex in these societies and thus more challenging. Transformative learning exercises in these societies must also take into account learners’ own traditional cultural models. In doing this, they can finally come to terms with the experience of being colonised. At the same time, these societies can make a vital contribution to the larger global process by enlarging the pool of alternative concepts available to it. Finally, in Chapter 11, I describe the practical aspects of fostering transformative learning, offering concrete suggestions for planning and conducting courses/workshops. The most important writings shaping my general approach to this subject are first of all Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1929) and Adventures of Ideas (1933). I am indebted to Donald Sherburne’s A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1966) for helping me to understand Whitehead’s ideas. Two others are Stephen Stirling’s Sustainable Education: Revisioning Learning and Change (2001) and Edward Goldsmith’s Archaic Societies and Cosmic Order – A Summary (2000). Albert Howard’s An Agricultural Testament (1940) and Masanobu Fukuoka’s The One Straw Revolution (1994) were decisive in helping me along in my own personal transformative learning experience. Heila Lotz-Sisitka, and contributors to the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education which she edits, made me realise that my own experience is similar to that of environmental educators in other post-colonial societies. Luigina Mortari’s paper Educating to Think in Environmental Education (Mortari, 2003) gave me the impetus I needed to trace the effects of Plato’s ‘Ideas’ in creating a crisis today that can only be resolved by ‘learning to think differently’. My conclusions, however, are different from hers. Finally, I acknowledge my debt to the expositions of Vedic culture by Raimundo Panikkar (The Vedic Experience: Mantramanjari, 2001), G. C. Pande (Foundations of Indian Culture, 1990) and Jeanine Miller (The Vision of Cosmic Order in the Vedas, 1985). As I said, my work with the UEEC provided me a point of entry into the current global debate on incoherence. I am grateful to my colleagues in the UEEC, and particularly to Lalit Pande, its Director, for having

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invited me to work with them and for challenging me to make sense of our collective experience. To Lalit I owe a special debt of gratitude for the sustained, in-depth dialogue we held over many years on all aspects of the subject of transformative learning. He also read various drafts of the book and gave me valuable feedback. Other colleagues also readily shared their experience, ideas and opinions with me and thus have significantly contributed to the making of this book: Kishen Singh Suyal, G. P. Pande, Anuradha Pande, Diwan Nagarkoti, Suman Pande, Champa Joshi, Rama Joshi and Manju Negi. I thank them all. I hasten to add, however, that I take full personal responsibility for all I have written in this book. Suman read an early draft of this book and suggested numerous improvements. She also formatted the manuscript and made Figures 3.1 and 3.2. I am grateful to her. I also thank Claude Alvares and Edmund O’Sullivan who read drafts of this essay, encouraged me and made several useful suggestions. Yuka Hashimoto introduced us to the term transformative learning (TL) in 2002, a term that was immensely valuable in helping us to understand the difficulty of teachers and others in understanding the rationale for our EE courses and led to our experimentation with explicit TL learning exercises. She also introduced us to the literature on this subject. These inputs greatly helped us to improve the quality of our work, and it helped me in the writing of this essay. I am grateful to her. Neera Kashyap revived my interest in this project when I had, at one point, given up on it. Anupama Nayar helped me complete this work in many small but vital ways. My son Kirti provided vital support, both material and moral, in the writing of the book. I am grateful to all of them. Finally, I wish to thank Jill Lake, Melanie Blair, Vidya Vijayan, Phillipa Grand and Hazel Woodbridge at Palgrave for encouragement, patience and suggestions in finalising the manuscript and for the production of the finished book. I have made extended use of material published by me earlier in the following two papers: From Practice to Policy in Environmental Education, Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, 20, pp. 97–110 and Environmental Education in India: What Has Been Achieved?, Indian Educational Review, 37 (1), pp. 20–36. The editors of these journals, Heila Lotz-Sisitka and C. S. Nagraju, respectively, have kindly given me their permission to do so. I thank them both. I also thank Lalit Pande

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for permission to reproduce the diagram in Figure 2.1 and the story ‘Pests’ in Appendix 2 from various UEEC publications (UEEC, 2002 and 2003). Motilal Banarsidas, Publishers, Delhi, have given me permission to quote the Nasadiya Hymn from their publication The Vedic Experience: Mantramnjari by Raimundo Panikkar (Panikkar, 2001). M. G. Jackson

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Part I Transformative Learning in Contemporary Global Culture

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1 Introduction

[M]odern scholarship and modern science reproduce the same limitations as dominated the bygone Hellenistic epoch, and the bygone Scholastic epoch. They canalize thought and observation within predetermined limits, based upon inadequate metaphysical assumptions dogmatically assumed. (Whitehead, 1933, p. 122) In the past half century there has been a tremendous increase in the production and consumption of goods and services worldwide. All along it has been assumed that this would improve the well-being of all people everywhere in the world. In the first decade of the 21st century, there are good reasons to question this assumption. There is now more food produced but no reduction in the extent of malnutrition from lack of food. Some old diseases have been controlled, but many have not, and some of those that were controlled are again on the increase. Yet other diseases are on the increase from excessive food consumption. Equally disconcerting are the host of new and mostly unexpected problems that increased production and consumption have created – environmental degradation, social disintegration, increasing economic disparities, loss of cultural diversity and escalating conflicts over access to dwindling natural resources. All the frantic efforts to ameliorate these problems – more education, scholarly studies, scientific research and aid – do not seem to be having very much effect. At the same time, increasing numbers of people the world over, and in all social and economic strata of society, are protesting the injustice and exploitation which seem to be an inevitable feature of the Western (now increasingly global) cultural model. They also point out that this model is unsustainable as well. All these people are at least tacitly questioning 3

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the assumptions upon which this model is built. Many radical changes in mainstream ways of thinking and doing are being proposed – changes that imply alternative assumptions. So far, however, these alternatives do not appear to have a coherent rationale, and so lack the power to bring about actual changes on the ground. Between those who question the existing cultural model and propose alternatives and those who maintain that there is nothing wrong, or who are busying themselves attempting to fine-tune the existing model, there is no real communication; they are on different wavelengths. Meanwhile, virtually everyone is inwardly apprehensive about the future. It is understood that the model of contemporary global culture is unsustainable – the logic is undeniable and the evidence compelling – but there is a feeling of powerlessness to do anything about it. There is insufficient clarity about what must be done and how. And, of course, there is the all-too human unwillingness to jeopardise the security of the status quo, however unsatisfactory and precarious. How is this vast and complex phenomenon to be understood? Is there any single viewpoint that can capture all its varied aspects and reveal their interconnections and significance? Only from such a viewpoint, it seems to me, is there any hope of coping with it. This is the most important question we can ask ourselves today. The 20th-century philosopher A. N. Whitehead in his book Adventures of Ideas (1933) has pointed out that such crises have been a recurring feature of Western civilisation. A crisis situation builds up because the concepts of the worldview of a given cultural era become increasingly inadequate in helping people make sense of the new phenomena that changing circumstances bring before them. People are increasingly unable to solve, or, in many cases, even to recognise, the problems that emerge. Unsolved problems accumulate. The ‘changing circumstances’ are often brought about in the first place by the continued use of the concepts of the existing worldview after they have ceased to be relevant. He further observes that these inherited assumptions – the ‘certainties’ of the age – are not matters of fact, but merely speculative assumptions. Therefore, to resolve the crisis, assumptions must first be changed. With a different set of assumptions – if we do a proper job of formulating and assembling them – existing problems may disappear altogether simply because they are no longer seen as problems, or because it becomes possible to define them in ways that make them solvable. These two insights offer us the viewpoint needed to understand our present situation ‘in a single glance’, as it were, and indicate where a beginning needs to be made in coping with it. From this viewpoint,

Introduction 5

what is happening can be seen as a definite (even if messy) process that we may be able to describe, and even to facilitate. The current tumult is the first, and essential, phase of a transformation of our worldview. It is the womb of a new cultural model. In the broad sweep of European intellectual history, Whitehead discerned an alternation between periods of speculation and scholarship. At times, new directions of thought seem to arise spontaneously in response to a growing perception of the inadequacy and irrelevance of existing patterns of thought in dealing with contemporary experience. Radical new ideas appear that are unsettling to existing science and scholarship, giving rise to much controversy and confusion. Scholarship, by its strict attention to accepted methodologies, is superficially conservative of belief. But its tone of mind leans towards a fundamental negation. For scholars the reasonable topics in the world are penned in isolated regions, this subject-matter or that subject matter. Your thorough-going scholar resents the airy speculation which connects his own patch of knowledge with that of his neighbour. He finds his fundamental concepts interpreted, twisted, modified. He has ceased to be king of his own castle, by reason of speculation of uncomfortable generality, violating the very grammar of his thoughts. (Whitehead, 1933, p. 112) However, the new speculative insights are eventually accepted, developed and consolidated. A new period of scholarship ensues. The new insights are ‘    furnished with methodologies and handed over to the university professors    ’ (Whitehead, 1933, pp. 108–9). The first period of such speculation in recorded European history occurred in Greece in the 4th and 5th centuries BC. Ancient Greek culture is usually considered to have extended over a period of about a millennium from about 800 BC to AD 200. Bertrand Russell reckons the first notable products of Hellenic culture were the Homeric epic poems and that philosophy began with Thales around the beginning of the 6th century BC (Russell, 1946, Book I, Chapter 1). ‘The beginning of philosophy’ signals the beginning of a movement from a mythical mode of engagement with the world to a speculative, rational mode. This process intensified during the 5th century and culminated in the 4th century in the works of Plato and Aristotle. Then followed a period in which the speculative insights of the 4th century were explored and developed, giving rise to distinct philosophical schools and to systematic, rational

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enquiry. This period roughly began with the conquest of Greece by the Macedonians and continued to the death of Cleopatra. In his analysis, Whitehead uses the terms Hellenic as a shorthand expression to refer to the speculative period of Greek culture of the 4th and 5th centuries BC, and term Hellenistic for the period of scholarship that followed. Hellenistic culture was continued in mediaeval Europe as Scholasticism. The speculative insights of the Hellenic period, as fleshed out and systematised during the Hellenistic period, along with some Christian theological doctrines, formed the worldview of this age. It was an age of didactic scholarship, traditional in outlook, resisting change and intolerant of speculation. A new age of speculation occurred, this time in Western Europe, in the 17th century, again leading to a profound change in the worldview of European civilisation. This new wave of speculation, termed the Enlightenment, questioned and discarded most of the doctrines of the Scholastic era, and the very assumptions underlying them, replacing them with assumptions that form the conceptual framework or worldview of contemporary global culture, or more briefly, ‘modern’ culture. The details of what changes occurred during these two past episodes of speculation will be dealt with more appropriately in later chapters. The point to be made here is that there have been speculative intervals in the course of European history when radical changes in worldview occurred, and that another such interval is now underway. In the quotation at the head of this chapter, Whitehead also implicitly frames an agenda for any serious enquiry into this phenomenon of transformation. He asks, in effect, the following questions. 1. 2. 3. 4.

What are the assumptions that are being dogmatically upheld? Why are they being dogmatically upheld? Why are they inadequate? Why at certain times in history is a given set of assumptions, in fact, given up? 5. What is the process by which a given set of assumptions gives way to a new set? An attempt will be made in the chapters that follow to answer these questions. At this point, it might, however, be useful to make a preliminary comment on the first of these questions. Whitehead was one of the most penetrating thinkers of the 20th century. He was the first to understand the challenge of the new discoveries in sub-atomic physics of

Introduction 7

the 1920s, and the only one to date, I think, to respond adequately to it. He realised that ‘    the notion of vacuous material existence with passive endurance, with primary individual attributes, and with accidental adventures had    vanished from the field of ultimate scientific conceptions    . Some features of the physical world can be expressed that way. But the concept is useless as an ultimate notion in science and cosmology’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 309). Further, Cartesian subjectivism in its application to physical science became Newton’s assumption of individually existent physical bodies, with merely external relationships. [I] diverge from Descartes by holding that what he has described as primary attributes of physical bodies are really the forms of internal relationships between actual occasions and within actual occasions. Such a change of thought is the shift from materialism to organism, as the basic idea of physical science. (Whitehead, 1929, p. 309) As a footnote to the above quote, it may be added that his term ‘actual occasions’ refers to his radically alternative assumption that the ultimate sole real entities of the world are not physical things at all, but units of process, or ‘drops of experience’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 18). This shift from materialism to organism of which Whitehead speaks indicates the nature of the fundamental assumptions that must be confronted today. Virtually, all present discussion, from this point of view, is superficial. We speak of transformation, but in fact leave the most fundamental of contemporary assumptions unexamined. This shift to a concept of organism is, to my mind, indispensable to the effective transformation of the worldview of contemporary global culture. Indeed, it is the very direction in which new currents of thought are tending. At the same time, the materialist assumption of substantial, enduring material entities as the ultimate real things of the universe is, in my experience, the most stubbornly held of all contemporary assumptions. As Whitehead says, it boils down to whether we ‘see’ primary attributes of individual entities or relations between and within entities. Another introductory comment on Whitehead’s agenda may also be helpful at the beginning of this essay. His insight of an alternation of periods of speculation and scholarship seems to me to imply a latent challenge to the prevailing progress theory of history. In Adventures of Ideas he writes, ‘One aspect of the adventure of ideas is this story of the interplay of speculation and scholarship, a strife sustained through the ages of progress’ (Whitehead, 1933, p. 113). Again:

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‘The difference between the two, namely the Hellenic and the Hellenistic types of mentality, may be roughly described as that between speculation and scholarship. For progress both are necessary’ (Whitehead, 1933, p. 112). He thus makes it clear that he interprets the overall course of Western history as progressive, even if punctuated by repeated episodes of speculation. In this, he conforms to the modern notion of progress. This is one instance in his writings where he does not think a fundamental assumption of contemporary global culture needs questioning.1 In this essay, I will argue that this assumption most certainly does need to be questioned. The concept of progress which dominates our cultural era first appeared at the time of the European Enlightenment. It derived from the conviction that the workings of the universe could be completely and finally known through the systematic exercise of human reason. The success of the scientific enterprise launched at that time seemed to justify this assumption. Nature could be understood and made to serve human needs, leading to ever-greater levels of human material welfare. This assumption was then extended to the social domain; it would now be possible to perfect human nature and society by means of rational thought based upon contemporary observation. From this point of view, medieval European culture was seen as a dark age of human ignorance and superstition to be wiped out by the ‘light of reason’. In the future, European civilisation would continuously and inevitably move in the direction of the universal goal of securing true and final human happiness. This concept provided a new organising conceptual framework for interpreting history. In terms of this framework, Europeans saw themselves and their new-found cultural model as the culmination of a long, slow movement of human civilisation towards the discovery of the sure means of perfectibility. All previous European cultures are seen as stages in this progression from primitive beginnings to their own enlightened state. Non-European cultures are then accommodated in this same time sequence; they become what Shiv Viswanathan terms ‘contemporary ancestors’ (Viswanathan, 1988). Since progress is seen as a universal phenomenon, all contemporary ancestors will inevitably become enlightened, and so pass into the cultural stage of contemporary European (now Western) culture. From this theory of history, the further notion arose that it is the moral duty of the West to assist non-Western cultures to become ‘modern’ as rapidly as possible. In practice, of course, this notion of helping people ‘for their own good’ was profoundly self-serving since it was

Introduction 9

used to justify Western economic exploitation that was the objective of colonialism in the past and development and globalisation today. The progress theory of history is now being questioned (e.g. by Goldsmith, 2003; Jackson, 2005; Sachs, 1999; and Viswanathan, 1988). There are two main lines of this questioning. One is to ask, what does the term progress really mean? It implies linear change. The question is, change in what, and in what direction? There is steadily increasing disillusionment about the answers given to these questions by the Enlightenment thinkers; our collective experience of the 20th century helps us to see their naivety and fuzzy mindedness. A second line of questioning is to ask why, if modern global civilisation represents progress, we are in such a mess. Contemplating the present state of the world, Zac Goldsmith concludes that progress, as epitomised by the contemporary global economic system, ‘    is unrealistic, undesirable, unnecessary and impossible’ (Goldsmith, 2003). Even when attention is confined to European culture, it is difficult to sustain the argument that the enlightenment worldview and the culture it has given rise to is an unqualified improvement over what went before. True, many of the problems of mediaeval European culture have been solved, but many new ones, no less serious, are appearing in contemporary global culture. Perhaps the notion of progress is misplaced; perhaps there is only change from one Scholastic age to the next, with the differences being of emphasis – exaggerations and neglects in different directions (refer again to note 1). Looking to the stage of world history, it is obvious that the European cultural model has been imposed on the rest of the world by force and has not been adopted voluntarily because of its intrinsic superiority. Force, military and/or economic, is an essential feature of all empires, including the present-day empires of global capital and media (Goldsmith, 2001). Another arresting piece of evidence against the progress theory of history, which will figure in Chapter 5, is that a key concept, that of ‘radical interconnectedness’, now appearing in the dialogue on cultural transformation was a central feature of ancient Greek culture but was discarded subsequently. If that was ‘progress’, what is it we are now seeing? Thus, while progress in the sense of the elaboration and refinement of concepts and practices within a cultural era is a fact, to apply the concept across cultural eras is questionable.2 If the progress theory of history is doubted, another way must be found to explain the periodic irruption of speculation. The way suggested in this essay is to see such

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episodes of speculation as the means whereby a human community periodically adjusts its outlook, redefines itself, in response to changing circumstances. A specific cultural configuration is born, it grows, matures, ages and passes away. A new configuration arises in its place. Every cultural configuration is appropriate, and hence successful, at its florescence; in its decay a burden and obstruction (O’Sullivan, 2002). This alternative theory of history could give us a much-needed new perspective on our own situation at the beginning of the 21st century, a breath of fresh air that can help clear away the fog of confusion, denial and fear that has settled upon us. Further, setting aside the progress theory of history would free us from the sense of the inevitability of the contemporary global cultural model, giving us space to contemplate the possibility of an alternative and perhaps more flexible model for the future, and to experiment.

2 Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion

The panorama of cultural transformation is far too vast and detailed to describe comprehensively. The best that can be done, I think, is to focus on a few specific instances where transformation is beginning to occur, where new ways of thinking are beginning to find expression – in the hope that they will exemplify some of the general features of the process. Two examples are drawn from the field of environmental education (EE) in schools, and another from the field of scientific research (the Gaia theory). Other instances could equally have been used, but I am more familiar with these. Central to these new ways of thinking is the concept of sustainability. This is an ambiguous concept at present, and therefore an effort must be made to come to grips with it. This will also be attempted in this chapter.

Contradictions, incoherence and confusion in the school classroom Nowhere perhaps are the contradictions in contemporary global culture more starkly exhibited than in the school classroom. The following example is taken from the Indian experience of introducing EE in the school curriculum. Since independence, India has followed a policy of rapid industrialisation and the chemicalisation of agriculture (chemical fertilisers and pesticides, high grain-yielding varieties of crops and expanded irrigation). Pesticides have been used extensively to fight community diseases like malaria. To support these modern technical enterprises, a strong Western scientific orientation has been given to school education. Contemporary Western science is depicted in school textbooks as having found the truth about the way the universe works, or at least is capable 11

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of finding the truth. The application of these scientific truths in the form of current technology is therefore considered the only way to modernisation and development. It is taken for granted that such development will give greater material comfort and security to all people and is wholly beneficial and benign. However, it has become painfully evident that this very technology is causing environmental problems – resource degradation and exhaustion, pollution, ill health and a host of social consequences of these. The first concerted and systematic effort to address this problem was undertaken in 1988. This took the form of an ad hoc ‘infusion’ of environmental concerns – that is, descriptions of environmental problems and suggested solutions – into existing textbooks, primarily those of the physical sciences, in the form of separate, added-on sections and chapters (National Council of Educational Research and Training [NCERT], 1988). A whole range of environmental concerns was thus introduced into the Council’s model textbooks published between 1987 and 1989 (NCERT, 1989a–d). In this approach to EE the lead of the international community, as formulated at the 1972 Stockholm Conference and the 1977 Tbilisi Inter-Government Conference, was followed (NCERT, 1995). It remains the official strategy to date with infusion projects being taken up by state departments of education; a recent instance has been the World Bank-financed programme in nine states in the year 2002. A critical analysis of the infused textbooks reveals that many statements in the infused environmental subject matter contradict the notions of modernisation and development that feature prominently in the rest of the textbook. Such contradictions are not superficial; indeed, the assumptions on which solutions to environmental problems are constructed are clearly different than those of present-day science. The overall curriculum, therefore, no longer ‘hangs together’; it is incoherent. Textbook writers themselves appear at times to be aware of this problem, but their attempts to correct it are unsuccessful, creating confusion to compound the initial incoherence. Pesticide use in agriculture and in public health programmes is one of the subjects that is creating incoherence and confusion in the school curriculum.1 The following narration is based upon a selection of statements from the NCERT textbooks of environmental science, science and biology (see Appendix 1). The 5th-grade textbook presents a stark contradiction: the student is told that pesticides are a serious threat to people’s health, and also that he/she should spray DDT regularly in his/her house to kill mosquitoes.

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An ineffectual attempt is made to remove this contradiction by saying that we must learn to use science and technology with great care and understanding. The statement ‘take care that it is not sprayed in excess’ is presumably intended as an example of using science and technology with great care and understanding. It implies that ‘large’ doses are harmful while ‘small’ doses are not, but does not define either of these terms. Thus, far from clearing up the basic contradiction, this treatment only adds confusion. The message that pesticides are harmful to human health is stated more explicitly in the 8th-grade textbook, and in the 9th-grade textbook, their indispensability to food production is stated as a matter of fact. Further, in the 12th-grade textbook, it is explained that even small repeated doses of DDT are accumulated in the human body, thus making the earlier solution proposed – spray regularly, though not in ‘excess’ – completely untenable. Finally, in the 12th-grade textbook a more determined attempt is made to remove the initial contradiction by describing integrated pest management (IPM), but this is really only an elaboration of the earlier advice to ‘    use science and technology with great care and understanding’, and similarly fails because even IPM advocates the spraying of pesticides. In the last analysis, the student is made aware of the environmental problem of pesticide use but is offered no solution to it, except for the vague hope held out in the 9th-grade textbook that scientists might invent pesticides that kill only insects and are biodegradable. This sentiment is consistent with the often-expressed view in the textbooks that environmental problems created by current technologies can be solved by the development of improved technologies. A real solution does, however, begin to suggest itself in the 12th-grade textbook: the discontinuance of pesticide use altogether. Students are told convincingly that pesticide use is counterproductive and that it is possible to farm organically without the use of any pesticides. If this were done, the problem of pesticide toxicity to animals and human beings would disappear. The textbook authors do not, however, explicitly say this; to do so would flatly contradict the ‘green revolution’ farming paradigm that figures so prominently in the rest of the textbook. Instead they waffle: they extol traditional farming and organic farming which do not use pesticides. The authors also admit that ‘Scientists are realising that “traditional” does not mean “backward” and that    [scientists] have much to learn from farmers’. The authors do not say that traditional farming and organic farming are intelligible only from the viewpoint of a distinctly different set of scientific assumptions

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than those on which ‘green revolution’ farming is based. What those different scientific assumptions are is not explained. In attempting to avoid contradicting themselves, textbook authors are passing on to children their own confusion and irresolution. The textbook authors’ confusion and irresolution are, of course, shared by everyone. It pervades all areas of practice and policy in contemporary global culture and seemingly cannot be removed except perhaps by changing existing cultural assumptions. The positive aspect of this story is that the textbook writers are willing to reassess traditional Indian culture, and the worldview of which it is an expression.2 In doing this, they are creating still more confusion at present. However, it is a tacit acknowledgment that alternative scientific assumptions will be necessary to resolve the environmental crisis.

An alternative approach to environmental education While infusion was the main plank in the country’s EE policy, the Department of Education of the Government of India also announced (in 1987) a scheme ‘Environmental orientation to school education’ to provide financial support for innovative work in the field of EE, thus recognising that additional thinking and experiment are necessary to future policy formulation. Under this scheme, the Uttarakhand Environmental Education Centre (UEEC) in Almora (in Uttarakhand State) designed and tested a 3-year course of EE as a separate subject in the curriculum for grades six to eight in state government schools (Box 2.1). The state government Department of Education collaborated in this experiment. The course was designed (Box 2.2) on the premise that the existing treatment of environmental problems in the curriculum was too diffuse to be effective; it was unable to focus on local problems in a holistic manner. Further, while the ‘infused’ textbooks improve awareness of environmental problems, they do not provide the conceptual tools or practical skills that are needed to solve them.

Box 2.1. Hamari Dharti, Hamara Jivan (Our Land, Our Life): A school course of environmental education As elsewhere in India, the most pressing rural environmental problem in the mountainous region of Uttarakhand is land degradation, that is, the thinning of forest cover, soil erosion and

Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion 15

the drying up of natural water sources. The production of lifesupporting materials like food, fodder, fuelwood is decreasing, and water scarcity is increasing due to inadequate groundwater recharge. And at the same time, human population is increasing. The general impact of modernisation, including school education, has alienated young people from the land; they all want well-paid jobs in the city and an urban, westernised lifestyle. Very few, however, can achieve this, and large numbers of educated young people remain in the village with no vision of a better life for themselves on the land, and none of the skills that are needed to achieve such a vision. In 1987, the UEEC, Almora, launched an EE course in government schools of the region to address these problems. The course deals with land and village forest rehabilitation and the importance of the community to achieve these. Students systematically study their local village ecosystem, learn traditional land, water and animal management techniques from village residents (that is, their own parents and neighbours – who are thus given legitimacy as teachers), and learn to interpret all this information within a framework of current ecological concepts (that is, ecosystem, species diversity and adaptation, ecosystem health, ecosystem constraints and carrying capacity; and also the idea that the community is an integral part of the village ecosystem). They also learn village land and water use planning through participatory, democratic community effort. Overall, an attempt is being made to foster the alternative view of a future of the village in which dignity, environmental security, increased livelihood security and improved levels of well-being can be achieved through local self-help effort. The guiding concept is not ‘development’, but ecosystem health. Students learn to diagnose it, and how to improve and maintain it. Between 1987 and 2002, the course was developed and tested in about 600 schools, involving some 1000 teachers and 70,000 students in grades 6, 7 and 8 (age approximately 12–14 years). From July 2002, it has been integrated into the general school curriculum by the Uttarakhand State Department of Education. Also from July 2002, the course was extended to the plains region of the state necessitating a separate edition of the course workbooks and a separate teacher orientation workshop module. Pande (2001), Pande (2004) have given fuller descriptions of the course.

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Box 2.2. Design features of the UEEC environmental education course 1. A discrete course for EE would be designed and tested. The Uttarakhand State Department of Education found a slot for the course in the curriculum; it would replace optional courses that were not very popular or relevant to local circumstances. 2. The course would focus on improved (ecologically sound) land, village forest and water management to achieve ecological security and greater productivity. It would at the same time be both environmental and vocational. 3. The course would emphasise practical work directed to gaining a qualitative and quantitative understanding of a specific village ecosystem. Sampling, measurement and interpreting skills to be learned. 4. Students would learn land, forest and water management skills. 5. The conceptual framework would be the ecosystem and its subordinate concepts of species diversity and adaptation, ecosystem health (progression, regression, equilibrium), ecosystem constraints, carrying capacity and the human community as a functional part of the village ecosystem. 6. Modern and traditional knowledge were both to be critically assessed in relation to the goal of creating and maintaining a healthy village ecosystem. 7. The residents of the village studied by students were to be requested to help in conducting the course, by providing information and help with measurements (e.g. spring flow, fuelwood consumption, compost production and human and animal numbers). They, in turn, would benefit indirectly from the course by developing greater awareness of the problems of land degradation and of the possibilities and techniques for correcting them. 8. Small group learning for investigative work and a classroom discussion mode of teaching/learning. Workbooks to replace conventional textbooks. 9. In-service teacher orientation workshops. Orientation meetings for school principals and state education department administrative and supervisory staff.

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With these limitations of the infusion model in mind, a radical departure from existing thinking on EE was made. The concept of sustainability informs the course, as it does the infusion experiment, but is applied here in a consistent, practical and unambiguous way. The possible usefulness of traditional knowledge is acknowledged, though it is critically assessed, as is contemporary scientific knowledge. The standpoint from which this assessment is done is ecological. A different pedagogy, designated ‘collaborative learning’ (Figure 2.1), is prescribed that accepts that learning is more than absorbing information. Reactions to the course have been mixed. Children love it. It is the only course in the curriculum that relates to their own everyday experience. Of course, much depends here upon the skill and enthusiasm of the teacher. Parents are initially uncomprehending. They see education as a means of training children for jobs outside the village. And quite rightly too; that is what it is expressly designed to do. Slowly, however, some parents do begin to appreciate the intent of the course. The extent to which they do depends very much on how well the teacher is able to involve them in the course and make it a truly collaborative enterprise. State Education Department officials have been sufficiently impressed to decide to make the course a part of the regular curriculum. The example of the course appears to be influencing the direction of mainstream thinking on EE policy; at any rate, the key features of the course

Community members

Teacher

Students

Conventional school education

Community members

Teacher (facilitator)

Students

Collaborative learning

Figure 2.1. Conventional school education aims at transferring concepts and parcels of information to students. Collaborative learning fosters an interactive process of learning among teachers, students and community members. New insights, knowledge and techniques are created in this process and shared by all (Source: UEEC, 2002).

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are beginning to appear in official policy documents (UEEC, 2001, 2005). It is the experience of UEEC staff that teachers are the most problematic element in running the course. Those who are able to ‘tune in’ to the course – to accept its alternative assumptions – are enthusiastic and effective. Most, however, have reservations. This is understandable given that the course is so utterly unlike anything they have known. Also, other courses continue in the same way as before. Thus, in the orientation workshops organised for teachers (UEEC, 2002), attention has been given to overcoming their reservations (see Box 2.3).

Box 2.3. Teacher orientation workshops for the UEEC environmental education course Teachers who volunteer or are assigned to teach the course are invited to orientation workshops. The purpose is to acquaint them with the objectives of the course and the methodology of teaching it and to help them understand the alternative assumptions the course presupposes. The last mentioned objective, it was soon discovered, is not simply a matter of describing these alternative assumptions. Unless they are seen as valid, teachers are not motivated to teach the course well. Special sessions were therefore designed in which environmental, social and livelihood issues are discussed informally. Teachers are confronted with facts and opinions that contradict, or show the inadequacy of, the mainstream thinking they assume, and which expose the internal contradictions in such thinking. It is also necessary for teachers to see that the present marginalisation of rural communities where the course is run is a result of systematic national and global policies. In short, teachers are challenged to question all their assumptions about education, development and modernisation. This is necessary if they are to consider seriously the alternative assumptions presupposed by the course – that is, to identify and articulate these for themselves and explore their implications for practice. If these assumptions are seen to lead to a resolution of the initial contradictions, they are validated. The workshops have to be augmented by refresher/progress evaluation meetings and by school visits by UEEC staff to give

Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion 19

encouragement and sort out problems. The enthusiasm and creativity of those teachers, who respond positively to these workshops, have been unmistakable. Some of them have enriched our shared experience by innovating on their own. A bonus has been that these qualities are seen to persist in the teachers who have subsequently moved up in the education department hierarchy. UEEC staff have been constantly innovating over the years trying to find more effective ways to pursue this process of helping teachers to ‘learn to think differently’. An important factor in the success of these learning exercises with teachers is the skill of the discussion facilitator – on how well he/she has himself/herself identified his/her own assumptions, critiqued them and explored alternatives. To a large extent, facilitators gain competence on the job. Facilitators cannot thus be mass produced. This has become a problem when increasing numbers of facilitators are needed in order to handle the increased load of teachers occasioned by the mainstreaming of the course.

It is obvious that the course does not solve the problems of contradictions and incoherence in the school curriculum as a whole. Other courses continue to be based largely on mainstream assumptions. This course is generally seen as a good idea in itself, even as a possible model for all courses in the curriculum, but no one seems to have the least idea how to reconstruct the curriculum on an entirely new set of assumptions. School education, after all, cannot be transformed in isolation from the larger society in which it is embedded, and whose purposes it serves. The role of education is, in a Scholastic age, to transmit, to perpetuate the existing cultural model. In an era of transition, when it is necessary to question the existing model, the educational process needs to articulate and debate the assumptions underlying the existing model and attempt to visualise an alternative model. Society must sanction this change in the role of education, but it cannot do so if its thinking remains within the confines of the existing model. Many educationists understand that educational and societal transformation will have to be a complimentary, reciprocal process (e.g. O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004; Sterling, 2001). How this task is to be approached remains a question needing further thought and experiment. So far, educational experiments have been confined to a single course (as Hamari Dharti, Hamara

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Jivan), to a few grades or to a single school only (Sterling, 2001) and thus have had very little effect on mainstream thinking.

Gaia theory and cultural transformation The Gaia theory will be described briefly in this section and its role in furthering cultural transformation will be discussed. Special attention will be given to how students and scientists are reacting to it. A brief mention is made of its scientific rationale, the new theory of autopoeitic, or self-creating, self-generating and self-perpetuating, systems. Finally, the questions it leads to about current concepts of life and matter are framed, and alternative concepts are introduced in a tentative and preliminary way. The reaction of scientists The Gaia theory (Lovelock, 1979, 1995) is one of the most dramatic scientific developments of the 20th century, as far-reaching in its implications for how we conceive of the world as the findings of physicists exploring the subatomic realm. Consider Gaia theory as an alternative to the conventional wisdom that sees the Earth as a dead planet made of inanimate rocks, ocean and atmosphere, and merely inhabited by life. Consider it as a real system, comprising all of life and its environment tightly coupled so as to form a self-regulating entity. (Lovelock, 1991) A good, non-specialist description of the Gaia theory, placing it in the context of general and dynamic systems theories and complexity theory, has been given by Capra (1997). The evidence for the Gaia theory is impressive, particularly that from the computer modelling exercises that Lovelock has conducted. Nevertheless, there is strong opposition from scientists. It is intriguing that of all the theories and models of self-organisation, the Gaia hypothesis encountered by far the strongest resistance. One is tempted to wonder whether this highly irrational reaction by the scientific establishment was triggered by the evocation of Gaia, the powerful archetypal myth. (Capra, 1997, p. 106)

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To the extent that the Gaia theory has been accepted by mainstream scientists, it is a ‘    watered-down, mechanistic, neutered systems science of textbooks in engineering, computers, management and geography’ (Haigh, 2001). The threat has been banished – for the time being. Changing worldviews: students’ reactions to the Gaia theory Imagining the world as one big living system seemed a bit strange at first, but the more you think about it the more you wonder ‘why hasn’t anyone thought of that before’. Having never come across the concept before, I was very surprised at how easy I found the idea to swallow    . 1st impression – what a pile of tree-hugging, hippy crap    . It was interesting to me to see how conditioned is my mind to ‘conventional science’. I’ve always seen the planet from a ‘whole organism’ point of view and I think most ordinary people do – it’s only the scientists who have dismantled it into components for their own research. (Haigh, 2001)

The Oxford Brookes University offers a course on Gaia, MO 2676.2., Gaia: The Earth as a Living System (Haigh, 2001). In this course, Haigh uses student journals to foster reflective learning. The journals vividly portray students’ reactions to ‘the unorthodox ideas and contradictions of Gaia, [and also how they meet] the challenge    [of thinking] deeply, critically and self-consciously about their prior understanding of the world’ (Haigh, 2001). A self-contained, two-week study unit entitled The Living Earth: An Introduction to Gaia and Geophysiology concludes the course. In it, students are specifically asked to say whether or not they think the self-organising earth system is alive. The more conventionally scientifically minded students (that is, from the physical geography and environmental science streams) tend to say ‘no’, that at most, it is ‘nothing but’ a large, complex self-regulating system. Social science students, many of whom are active environmentalists, are, on the other hand, more open to considering the possibility that the earth is a living being. The comments quoted at the beginning of this section, taken by Haigh from the students’ journals, are of students in the latter group. How a student reacts obviously depends upon his personal

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worldview – that is, on whether or not the key concepts of his worldview allow him to ‘make sense’ of this proposition. All this suggests that the students who did make sense of this proposition had already, in some measure, in some way, perhaps largely unconsciously, deviated from contemporary mainstream thinking. This study unit seems to have been the catalyst they needed to bring forth their own, latent, alternative assumptions; or, it might be said that the idea of the earth system as a living being provided them an acceptable format for articulating assumptions they already held. How and why they held these are questions needs to be answered – if possible. Another question: why does this ancient mythical symbol of Gaia, Mother Earth, or Earth Goddess, have this catalytic power in contemporary, supposedly, secular, culture? Autopoeitic systems: the scientific rationale for the Gaia theory When I went to school and university in mid-20th century, life was described in terms of processes such as eating, metabolising, excreting, breathing, moving, growing, reproducing, cognition, intelligence and memory. In other words, when these activities are observed in a material structure, it is said that the structure is alive. By the end of the century, all these definitions had been subsumed by the more general concept of self-organising systems, and more specifically by the concept of autopoeisis. This term means ‘self-making’. An autopoeitic system is selfbounded, self-generating and self-perpetuating (Capra, 1997, pp. 95–9). This is a most useful concept. The ‘problem’ (that is, the challenge) is that entities like ecosystems, including the whole-earth ecosystem (Gaia), can also be seen, by this definition, as living. This is both an intellectual and an emotional shock; we cannot make sense of this idea in terms of the concepts sanctioned by the modern worldview. But the problem is far more serious than this. Gaia’s message: life is real The previous paragraph dealt only with how life is described and not with the more fundamental question of what life is in itself. The worldview of global culture has a categorical answer to this question: in itself, life is nothing at all – not really. It is ‘only’ the way certain configurations of material particles behave. Only the particles (whether defined as lumps of stuff, or as electro-magnetic fields) are real. The Gaia theory carries a latent threat to this assumption of the materialistic, mechanistic worldview in the form of a radical alternative: life is also real – a real entity, independent of matter. It is the creative

Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion 23

impulse and guiding presence of autopoeitic systems. To entertain such an idea throws into question the entire edifice of thought built upon the contemporary worldview. There is a good reason, however, for entertaining this alternative. People who have thought about systems have always recognised a problem in describing their behaviour if one conforms to materialistic, mechanistic assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture. The assumption in this case is that the way a system behaves can be fully explained in terms of the laws that pertain to the individual parts of the system; that is, in terms of the laws of mechanics. Computer models of complex systems, however, often generate unexpected results when initial conditions are varied even slightly. These unexpected, and unexplainable results appear to suggest that the opposite assumption – that the behaviour of the parts is determined by laws that apply to the whole – would be more appropriate. But, rather than entertain this possibility scientists blandly assert that the unexpected results are ‘emergent properties’ of the system (see, e.g. Goodwin, 2003). Now this phrase, though it seems to satisfy everyone, even the most ardent holistic scientist and deep ecologist, does not really explain anything. As we so often do when we cannot understand a phenomenon in terms of the concepts sanctioned by our worldview, we give it a name. The name is then taken to signify that we have understood, that is, explained, the phenomenon. The threat of being forced to admit that we do not know is part of the reason for the uproar that the Gaia theory is creating. As if this were not bad enough, going more deeply reveals a serious problem concerning matter itself. Enlightenment thinkers decided that thenceforth the principles by which science and society were to be organised would be formulated exclusively on the basis of logical thought based upon sensory experience. In mounting this project, they implicitly assumed: (1) sense data recreate in our minds an image of the physical world ‘as it really is’; and (2) phenomena that cannot be known in this way, that is, via sense data, are not real. These two assumptions lead to a third: (3) matter can be sensed directly and is therefore real, life cannot and therefore is not real. Matter can be seen, felt, weighed, life cannot. There have all along, however, been sceptics, and it can usefully be recalled today what they said. Immanuel Kant, more than two centuries ago, argued that we can never know what an object of perception is in itself. Experiences of a certain kind are worked up by the mind to give what is assumed to be an accurate representation of the world of

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objects ‘out there’ ‘as it is’. We can speculate that a physical object is a ‘something’, but what this ‘something’ is, in itself, cannot be known (see Russell, 1946, p. 680). Even John Locke, the founder of empiricism, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding of 1690 admitted that he was stymied by substance; it is, he wrote, a ‘something-I-know-not-what’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article on John Locke). In fact, we cannot even be certain that there is anything at all at the apparent origin of the sense data we entertain. Most of us, however, have no such misgivings; for us there are most definitely solid material objects ‘out there’ which we perceive through our senses. When asked what matter is, the best we can do is to say that a physical object (that is, matter) is what occupies space. This, however, is pretty feeble, for if we are then challenged to define space, we find that we cannot do so in the absence of physical objects; we must be able to point to two or more discrete objects in order to define space. This line of questioning appears to have led to the conclusion that we neither know nor can know by empirical observation what life or matter are. This is not a new conclusion in the history of Western thought. Plato recognised and accepted that there are limits to what can be known by observation and logical thought. Professor A. E. Taylor in summing up his commentary on the Timaeus has this to say: In the real world there is always, over and above ‘law’, a factor of the ‘simply given’ or ‘brute fact’, not accounted for and to be accepted simply as given. It is the business of science never to acquiesce in the merely given, to seek to ‘explain’ it as the consequence, in virtue of rational law, of some simper initial ‘given’. But, however far science may carry this procedure, it is always forced to retain some element of brute fact, the merely given, in its account of things. It is the presence in nature of this element of the given, this surd or irrational as it has sometimes been called, which Timaeus appears to be personifying in his language about Necessity. (Taylor, 1927) It seems to me that we are, in respect of matter and life, up against brute facts. They cannot be defined with reference to anything simpler in our experience, nor, without grave risks, can either be defined in terms of the other. The contemporary Western worldview is a dubious, not to say disastrous, experiment in attempting to define life in terms of matter. The opposite, attempting to define matter in terms of life,

Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion 25

would likely be no less problematic. Perhaps it would be better to take Plato’s advice. But where does that leave us? A summing up The Gaia theory is a veritable Pandora’s Box. It can suggest, as was said earlier, that life is real; at least as real as matter. If this challenge is taken seriously and an attempt is made to redefine the terms ‘life’ and ‘matter’, perhaps it would be necessary to consider first of all what is meant by ‘real’. Then too, life and matter cannot be redefined independently of each other, or independently of space and time either. Finally, what is meant by ‘knowing’ – how does one come to know anything? And come to think of it, who am I who come to know something?

Coming to grips with sustainability The concept of sustainability has come into existence in global culture in response to the environmental degradation that is now evident. There are many definitions of sustainability, but all tend in the direction of ‘living in harmony with nature’. These definitions are logically irreconcilable with the concept of the ‘scientific management of natural resources’ on which the theory and practice of economic development are constructed. These two contrasting concepts are derived from different sets of first principles, or assumptions, or, we may say they presuppose differing worldviews. This has rendered all thinking about solving environmental problems incoherent and confused, and thus most ‘solutions’ are ineffective, or lead to ‘unexpected’ social and economic repercussions. I have elsewhere described some instances of this that are occurring in India (Jackson, 2004). Sustainability is such a powerful threat to ‘business as usual’ in global culture that there are vigorous attempts to neutralise or co-opt it. Thus we have the now familiar ‘greenwashing’ of policies and activities to avoid criticism and opposition, and the creation of oxymorons like ‘sustainable development’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ to divert attention. Development is the very embodiment of the core concepts of global culture – of ‘progress’ and the ‘scientific management of resources’ (including ‘human resources’) that are clearly unsustainable. Contemporary education is, after all, designed to perpetuate and expand global culture (Jackson, 2003b) – which is unsustainable. It is well to recall what Whitehead has told us: radical change does not come from ‘the establishment’. Professors, scientists and business leaders do not initiate

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a Hellenic age, except for the occasional maverick; this is largely the work of dropouts. The varying interpretations placed on the term sustainability by people of differing political, social and economic groupings adds to the confusion. Thus the ‘haves’ think in terms of ‘green businesses’ and ‘green cities’, while the ‘have-nots’ cynically point out that these mean only the perpetuation of the marginalisation and exploitation they already suffer as a result of modernisation and globalisation. The ‘haves’ attempt to preserve biodiversity in nature reserves, but are heedless of it in agriculture where it would be bad for business. Nature reserves exclude the ‘have-nots’ who traditionally depend upon such areas for their livelihoods (Jackson, 2004). This pervasive confusion should suggest that we focus on the fundamental incoherence introduced into the worldview of global culture by the concept of sustainability. Participants of the worldview of contemporary global culture (conceptually) construct the world as a machine – the ‘clockwork universe’ of the European Enlightenment thinkers. This machine requires a mechanic capable of understanding how it is built and works and who can keep it tuned and repaired. Increasingly, the machine is further seen as needing to be redesigned and remodelled, thus calling for an engineer (e.g. genetic engineers and nano-engineers). The concept of sustainability derives from a world constructed as a living being or organism. Ecosystems, including the whole-earth ecosystem, are self-defining, self-organising and self-maintaining, and are capable of changing. A living being requires nurturing, or, as in agriculture, good husbandry, and not tinkering with or redesigning. A still more radical, but so far little explored, implication of this construction is that there is not even a nurturer who does things to the organism from ‘outside’. The nurturer is part of the organism. Sustainability in this context thus means that he/she must understand his/her role in the organism and be content to abide in it. The concept of sustainability resonates within many of us today. However, as long as we continue to be committed to, or acquiesce in, the worldview of global culture, it will not have the force needed to ensure unambiguous thought and action in dealing with environmental problems. Only a comprehensive transformation of our worldview will give it legitimacy.

3 Learning to Think Differently

In Chapter 1, it was suggested that periodic cultural transformation is a natural, recurring phenomenon and that it is occurring again today at the beginning of the 21st century. This is indicated by the growing conviction that collectively we must rethink our fundamental cultural assumptions. In this chapter, an attempt will be made to describe the process of cultural transformation as comprehensively and in as much detail as possible, using historical records and contemporary experience. The need to think differently about the many problems that confront us all in this globalising world is widely advocated, but it is my experience that what this really means is not at all clear. Usually it is taken to mean making adjustments in the way programmes are implemented and tinkering with existing technologies to make them less problematic. The policies behind the programmes or the theories behind the technologies are not questioned; there is no need to; the aim is to improve delivery. A little serious, disinterested reflection, however, suggests that in most cases, it is what is delivered that is problematic. Accepting this may lead us to think more deeply and as a result to make changes in policies and theories. This is expected to eliminate or at least lessen the unexpected (and often unexplainable) side effects that are occurring. Tremendous effort, talent and money are currently being spent on thinking up and implementing new policies and theories, but to little avail; human development indicators and environmental health indicators are worsening – and at an accelerating rate. As environmental educator David Orr puts it briefly: ‘The world is coming apart at the seams’ (Orr, 2001). If we are honest, we will admit that we are confused and seemingly powerless. 27

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Transformative Learning in Contemporary Global Culture

This essay argues that the way forward is to reconsider the basic assumptions underlying current policies and theories; that is, to reconsider the basic assumptions on which the whole structure of our thought, or worldview, is based. What does it mean to ‘reconsider basic assumptions’? How is it done? And what follows after that? And, to begin with, what are these assumptions? To take the last question first, the basic assumptions of any culture are those concerning the terms – life, matter, time, space, law (causation) the self and knowing – that jointly determine the culture’s worldview. A number of people are demonstrating that the assumptions in respect of these in the contemporary worldview are inadequate to explain the new facts that are coming to light in all areas of life. This is the first step, probably the most difficult, but still only the first. Even those who have taken this step, however, generally do not know how to proceed further, and the results of their ‘thinking again’ are useless in terms of resolving the confusion and impotence that beset us. Possible alternative assumptions about these terms must then be contemplated. Taken together, these alternatives must also form a coherent and logical system of thought – an alternative worldview from which an alternative to the present global cultural model can be constructed. Finally, it needs to be demonstrated that with the new model existing problems are either no longer problems or that it becomes possible to formulate them in ways that lead to real solutions. Rethinking basic cultural assumptions is a subject rarely discussed today. To do so effectively, a few specialised terms will be required, and a few existing terms will need to be used in new ways. These are defined in the following section.

An adequate terminology for learning to think differently The terms worldview, or sometimes simply view, systems of thought, conceptual scheme or conceptual framework, mindset and cosmology will denote ‘    a coherent, logical, adequate constellation of speculative ideas about the structure and functioning of the universe that is shared by all members of a given culture. This constellation of general ideas forms, so to speak, the imaginative background of that culture    ’ (Jackson, 2005, p. 69). Speculative ideas are also termed assumptions. Harman also uses the term assumptions: ‘Every society ever known rests on some set of largely

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tacit basic assumptions about who we are, in what kind of universe we find ourselves, and what is ultimately important to us’ (Harman, 1988, p. 10). Primary assumptions are the answers given to the perennial questions: (1) what is the world like? (2) who am I? and (3) what is real? These answers are the ‘general ideas’ mentioned above in defining the term worldview. Secondary assumptions, such as the concepts of ‘progress’ and ‘sustainability’, are logically derived from one or more of the primary assumptions. Experience results from the operation of two processes: cognition and thinking. The former is a result of sensory perception, the perception of memories and the intuitive perception of non-sensory patterns of relationship ‘behind’ sensible phenomena. It also includes what is conventionally termed ‘feeling’, thus covering all modes of experiencing. Thinking means the logical mental processing of what is cognised to produce knowledge and understanding. When only sensory perceptions are taken into account in the process of thinking, knowledge results. Understanding results only when all perceptions are admitted into the thinking process. With understanding comes the ability to act meaningfully and effectively on what one knows. The process of thinking is organised by the seven universal elements of thought – namely, life, matter, time, space, law (causation), the person and knowing. These elements can be named, but not defined. They are not things – neither perceptions nor concepts – but what give form to these things. Definitions are forms, but the elements are prior to form. Alternatively they can be termed inescapable categories of thought. They are Plato’s ‘brute facts’. We can define them in any way we like, but we cannot explain them away. O’Sullivan and Taylor also speak of ‘    the “frames” or mental structures through which we interpret our world, understand ourselves and find meaning’ (O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004). They designate this ‘consciousness’ (ibid. p. 6). Consciousness, however, is the bare ‘fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world’ (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2002), whereas the term worldview, as defined above, is the system of speculative ideas that underlie and shape the content of consciousness. In this essay, therefore, the term worldview will be preferred. A worldview must be coherent, logical and adequate. Coherence means that the fundamental ideas constituting the worldview must be seen as proceeding from a single, unifying, overarching concept. A logical worldview means simply that the various ideas constituting it should

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not be contradictory. Adequate means that it is capable of explaining, logically and coherently, every element of contemporary experience. (In these definitions, I follow Whitehead [1929, p. 3].) A theory is a speculative explanation of a particular phenomenon which derives it legitimacy from conforming to the primary assumptions of the worldview of the culture in which it appears. There can be more than one theory for a particular phenomenon that conforms to a given worldview. Thus Copernicus’ heliocentric theory was an alternative speculative explanation of the relative movements of the sun and planets to the earth-centred theory of Ptolemy. Both were legitimate in the context of the prevailing worldview of the time – a worldview in which sun, planets and moon were seen as living beings with the power of self-locomotion, and an intelligence which enabled them to cognise their relative places in the solar system and abide in them. Sometimes, however, a new theory comes along that does not fit the worldview of the times. If it is powerful enough, it can change the worldview. Newton altered the worldview of the 17th century by conceiving sun, planets and moon as lumps of matter, moving perpetually (once set in motion) in absolute time and space and emitting a something termed ‘force’ that determines their movements relative to each other. With his theory of universal gravitation, he created a new worldview and a new scientific theory at one stroke.1 A new theory may seem to trigger a change in worldview, as in this case, but logically a change in worldview must precede a change in theory, otherwise the theory will not be viable. A change in worldview will necessitate a change in all theories in all branches of study. A cultural model defines the contours of and limits to the culture of a given era in terms of secondary assumptions derived from the primary assumptions of its supporting worldview. The model of contemporary global culture, for example, mandates ‘competition’ and the ‘pursuit of happiness’ (that is, the pursuit of pleasure). These are secondary assumptions about the nature of relationships among individuals, derived from the primary assumption about the nature of the individual person. As to limits, this model sanctions particle accelerators but not healing by the laying on of hands. Figure 3.1 attempts to summarise how a worldview translates into accepted ways of thinking and doing. With this figure in mind, and the definitions given in this section, attention can now be turned to examining the process of ‘learning to think differently’.

Learning to Think Differently

Primary assumptions (worldview)

1

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Cultural model

Strategies, policies, theories

Accepted ways of doing things (techniques, technologies, management systems)

2

3

4

Figure 3.1. This diagram shows how a worldview translates into accepted ways of doing things, and how failure of these accepted ways of doing things feeds back to the stage of the worldview, modifying it.

An overview of the process When accepted ways of doing things (Stage 4, Figure 3.1), owing to changing circumstances, no longer seem effective, or unexpected outcomes contrary to our expectations appear, we attempt to modify or fine-tune them. Thus we change the manager or our management style, improve communications, install new software, use a more powerful insecticide, clean up or change dirty technologies, install safety nets (to catch those that fall off the high wire of the global economy) and so on. Or, we may choose to tolerate the unexpected negative outcomes. Or we may convince ourselves that the unexpected outcome, while unfortunate for those affected, will be resolved in the future to the advantage of everyone if only we persist in our present ways. Examples of these reactions are specifying the tolerance levels for pesticide residues in food and water, and structural adjustments mandated by international financial institutions. Many, however, are convinced by the failure of ‘tinkering’ and toleration (at Stage 4) that it is necessary to back up to Stage 3 and formulate new strategies, policies and theories that will change thinking and practice at the level of Stage 4. Thus, there are proposals for childcentred education, the theory of autopoietic systems as a means of explaining the behaviour of organisms, and economic localisation, or ‘small is beautiful’. None of these, however, is proving effective, and they are creating floods of confused discussion, not to say controversy. This situation indicates that we must back up one more step to question our cultural model (Stage 2). The model defines and limits the possibilities for change that exist at the level of Stage 3. Questioning the model requires us to step back to the level of primary assumptions (Stage 1). Thus, child-centred education presupposes an alternative definition of what it means to learn to that which gives rise to present classroom pedagogy. Unless this alternative is assumed, the theory of child-centred

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learning will be impossible to translate effectively into practice. The autopoietic theory is incapable of reining in the indiscriminate and unlimited urge to exploit all life forms to fulfil human needs and desires. For that to happen, the prevailing concept of life as ‘only’ an emergent property of matter would have to be questioned. Economic localisation is meaningless without a willingness to question the capitalistic dogmas of competition and that the purpose of business is to earn money, and beyond these the prevailing concept of the self that legitimises them. Earlier, in Chapter 2, it was said that the concept of sustainability is creating a crisis which can only be overcome by a change in primary assumptions, that is, by returning to Stages 2 and 1. ‘Learning to think differently’ at the level of Stages 2 and 1 is what happens when one scholastic age is transformed into a subsequent scholastic age. Edmund O’Sullivan (2002) has distinguished three modes of, or predominant movements within, cultures that correspond to the stages of ‘thinking again’ outlined here. These are maintaining continuity, reforming and transforming. This is a useful categorisation, whether one is seeking to make sense of the profusion of clashing prescriptions for the future now appearing or to understand the decline and fall of cultural eras. In the latter, historical application, these three modes are sequential. The first reaction when things begin to go wrong is strenuously to maintain the status quo, with perhaps some fine-tuning (‘tinkering’). When this fails, attention turns to reform (questioning policies, programmes, theories – questioning at Stage 3), and still further down the slope, to transformation (questioning at Stages 2 and 1). This historical perspective is obviously congruent with Whitehead’s analysis, describing what happens when a culture passes from a scholastic phase to a speculative phase. The foregoing description of the transformative process suggests an orderly progression from questioning at Stage 4 through Stage 3 to Stages 2 and 1. This may be approximately the way it happens in individuals, and also for society as a whole. However, all individuals do not go through the process at the same rate. Many begin, but most do not go beyond Stage 4; most of those who do, get stuck at Stage 3, the reform stage; very few proceed to Stages 2 and 1. The result is that in a society undergoing transformation, there is inevitably controversy and conflict, marked by the ‘profusion of clashing prescriptions for the future’ mentioned in the previous paragraph. Those who uphold the status quo do not really understand the reformers because they are able to ignore, discount or explain away the evidence for dysfunction

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in existing culture. Similarly the reformers do not understand those who argue that transformation is necessary because transformers argue from an alternative worldview and presume an alternative cultural model, unintelligible to the reformers, not to mention the tinkerers. Rational discussion between reformers and transformers is impossible even if both sides are able to articulate clearly their respective worldviews, which they are almost never able to do.2 The overall process of societal transformation proceeds only when the number of transformers become more numerous or powerful than the reformers. The crucial issue is, therefore, how and when the thinking of individuals is transformed. A worldview is by definition a social construct. In speaking about change in a prevailing worldview, it is, however, necessary to focus on the individual. How and why does his/her thinking change? The answers to these questions lie inside himself/herself as well as outside. Individual transformation is inconceivable in isolation. Our approach to this subject will, therefore, begin with the individual, then consider the effect of his/her change in thinking on others, and finally how this sends messages back to the individual, enabling him/her to modify and further develop his/her original formulations.

Critical elements of the process Three elements of the personal transformative process are crucial. The first is how an individual handles ‘cognitive dissonance’ and the second is the individual’s capacity to ‘stand outside himself/herself’. The third element is the willingness and ability to put to the test of practice the results of one’s ‘thinking differently’. From a process point of view, transformation can be seen to consist of three phases, more or less logically sequential. In the first phase, cognitive dissonance is experienced. If a person can face this squarely, that is, without denial, or self-deception, and if he/she is not overwhelmed intellectually and emotionally, he/she can move on to the second phase, ‘standing outside himself/herself’. This is a shorthand phrase denoting the detachment and objectivity that is needed to question all one’s most basic assumptions and to visualise alternative assumptions in an effort to resolve the cognitive dissonance experienced. More specifically, in this phase of the process, five tasks must be accomplished: (1) identifying all one’s present assumptions about the world and oneself; (2) articulating these assumptions; (3) rigorously critiquing them; (4) formulating alternative; and (5) coordinating these

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Formulate an alternative worldview

Formulate alternative primary assumptions

Construct an alternative cultural model

Question existing primary assumptions

Devise alternative strategies, policies, theories

Present cultural model seen as inadequate

Test alternative strategies, policies, theories in practice

Begin here

Figure 3.2. This diagram describes the transformative learning process. Alternative practices are devised and tested. The results then feed back into the process, confirming alternative assumptions, or indicating the need for still further thinking.

alternative assumptions into a logically consistent and coherent system, or worldview. These five tasks logically follow one another, though in practice the entire exercise of ‘standing outside oneself’ is an iterative one as is shown in Figure 3.2. One may begin anywhere. Cognitive dissonance Cognitive dissonance occurs when self-evident facts contradict the picture of the world a person holds in his/her mind. That picture is the cultural model he/she participates in and which he/she unconsciously assumes is a true representation of the world ‘as it really is’. Such contradiction is disturbing, often downright painful, both intellectually and emotionally. It is encountered daily in numerous small matters; it is often due to lack of data or misperception, and appropriate corrections are made. Larger contradictions, however, may not be resolved, even at Stage 3, and an attempt is made to explain them away, or ignore them. Either way a person is uncomfortable. In theory, when the level of discomfort reaches a threshold level, a decision is taken to question critically one’s picture of the world (Stages 2 and 1). This threshold appears to vary enormously with the individual. Some spontaneously cross it, some can do so with help and most never even reach it. Edmund O’Sullivan recognises three aspects of cognitive dissonance: denial, despair and grief. ‘Denial is a defence mechanism that prevents us from being overwhelmed by the deeply problematic nature of our times    . Once the depth of our problems is allowed in, we must contend with despair    The sense of loss at the personal, communal and planetary levels [causes grief]’ (O’Sullivan, 2002). All three of these emotional

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reactions are negative and paralysing. They are necessary preliminary stages of the TL process, but many people get bogged down here, unable by themselves to move on to the next phase, ‘standing outside themselves’, where they adopt a positive attitude, that is when it begins to seem possible to resolve the cognitive dissonance they are suffering. I would like to pause at this point to illustrate the anguish of cognitive dissonance from some personal accounts. An example of the intellectual discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance is the reaction of physicists in the 1920s to the uncertainty that they encountered in the subatomic realm. Werner Heisenberg wrote: ‘The violent reaction to the recent developments of modern physics can only be understood when one realises that here the foundations of physics have started moving; and that this motion has caused the feeling that the ground would be cut from under science.’ Albert Einstein in his autobiography describes his own feelings: ‘It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.’ (Both quotes are from Capra [1997, p. 38].) As an example of the emotional turmoil that is an important component of cognitive dissonance, I quote Yuka Takahashi. After this trip to Cambodia all I could think about was the needless suffering I had witnessed. I could not make sense of it. Was this human nature? Was there really any meaning in the universe after all? My faith in the innate goodness of people and my hope for a better future was ebbing away. I was consumed by the anger I felt toward the extent of inequity and injustice in the world, my sense of helplessness, and the guilt of knowing that I benefited from the privilege generated from that very oppressive system. I struggled not to numb the pain by building walls around myself. (Takahashi, 2004). The difficulties in passing over the threshold into ‘standing outside oneself’ are considerable and must be clearly recognised. I base my comments here in the first place on my own experience of disillusionment with the ‘green revolution’ to which I devoted some 20 years of my career. I was helped to overcome my inability to handle the cognitive dissonance I suffered by the writings of Howard (1940) and Fukuoka (1994). Yuka Takahashi was lifted from her ‘dark hole’ of despair by an encounter with the teachers and students of an informal school run by an NGO for slum children in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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The children and the teachers were struggling against great handicaps, but with optimism and a joy of learning. She relates that The teachers and children in this school taught me to see marginalized people not as the victims of social injustice, but as individuals who are in the process of social transformation. Where before I had seen only despair, now I saw hope, courage, and resistance. This shift in my perspective, in turn, allowed me to focus on the potential within myself and in all others as well. (Takahashi, 2004) From these experiences, the lesson is clear. To help people who are overwhelmed by cognitive dissonance, one or more radically different ideas must be suggested, one way or another, for they are overwhelmed because they see no way to resolve the cognitive dissonance, given their existing stock of ideas. In the UEEC teacher orientation workshops, we put this insight to test. In these workshops, we deliberately create as much cognitive dissonance as possible, as, for example, by challenging participants to resolve logically contradictory facts or opinions from contemporary life (specific examples are given in Chapter 11) and by means of stories such as the one given in Appendix 2. Participants are divided into small working groups of 3–5 and asked to suggest how to overcome the problems portrayed in this story. Typically, the workshop facilitator, on visiting a group after they have discussed the story among themselves for half an hour or so, finds them admitting defeat, or at best suggesting a few, piecemeal remedial measures to some of the individual problems in the story. These measures do not add up to an adequate, comprehensive response to the totality of the situation. Often the individual suggestions are mutually contradictory. At this point, if the facilitator throws in an altogether new idea, the participants perk up and begin to move on under their own steam. That is, they begin to consider the implications of the new idea in terms of finding a resolution of the story situation. They move on to the next phase of the TL process – ‘standing outside themselves’3 . Daniel Babikwa, from his experience of TL exercises with farmers in Uganda, also concludes that the facilitator must at times contribute his ideas and specialised knowledge to the group discussions (Babikwa, 2004). This tallies with the experience of the UEEC staff of TL exercises with rural communities. It cannot be assumed that the people of these communities can on their own resolve the contradictions and

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uncertainties in which they find themselves. It is too much to expect transformative learning (TL) to occur spontaneously and bear fruit in complete isolation from the larger worldwide TL exercise. Heila Lotz-Sisitka shares her experience of conducting teacherorientation workshops for environmental education teachers in the context of the South African school system in a seminar presentation in 2003. In an exercise similar to the UEEC exercise referred to above, schools were encouraged to develop vision and mission statements for their schools and a strategic environmental management plan for their school. The exercise and its outcome are narrated in Box 3.1. It is obvious that the problem in this exercise is set in a wider context than the UEEC exercise and thus highlights how regional and national imperatives have a bearing on local issues. This exercise was begun with the aim of empowering teachers to learn to think differently on their own about complex, seemingly intractable problems, but it was soon discovered that teachers lacked sufficient inner resources to do so, and the exercise ended up being disempowering (Lotz-Sisitka, 2003). She explains this in her seminar paper and at the same time pinpoints a serious dilemma that confronts the facilitator in conducting such workshops.

Box 3.1.

A schoolyard project

The vision and mission at Silindile Junior School included the upgrading of the schoolyard – a large ‘parade ground’ of bare soil with pit latrines in the corner. The posters of their project plans featured a green lawn bordered by flowers, fenced off from the neighbouring community’s goats. Throughout South Africa, this is the mental image of a respectable school, where learners and teachers feel pride in their environment and display commitment to their school. In the case of Silindile, however, this image could not be realised, not because the teachers were not committed to improving their school, but because there was not enough water for the garden, and too little money for a fence. Situated in the Sithabiseni area near KwaNdebele, a former homeland, the area suffers daily cuts in its supply of potable water. Like much of South Africa, the area is arid. The former government built dams nearby, but when they run low the water supply is still reserved, as it was previously, for the industrial, agricultural

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Box 3.1. (Continued) and domestic activities in areas formerly designated ‘white’. When the pressure in Sithabaneni’s reservoir drops too low, the water is cut off between 4 am and 6 pm. Children who fail to collect water from the communal taps after 6 pm either need to get up before 4 am or go without a cooked breakfast. At school children frequently doze off and teachers ascribe this to hunger or lack of sleep (Janse van Rensberg and Du Toit, 2000). What would sustainable use of water be in this context? Residents of Sithabiseni have a constitutional right to potable water. But, given the shortage of water, should schools be encouraged to plant water-thirsty plants, and build flush toilets? Should they not look for African solutions, such as water wise gardening, and anaerobic toilets, which do not require water borne sewage, introduced by the British? How important is it to teach about water conservation in this small school, when farmers and industry in the nearby surroundings are using high volumes of water? Eskom, the major African electricity supplier has power stations nearby, and these use high volumes of water. Should Eskom reduce their water use, and emissions, and introduce nuclear power, which would introduce the risk of radio-active pollution? What, indeed, is sustainable use in this context (Janse van Rensburg and Du Toit, 2000)? (Quoted from Lotz-Sisitka, 2003)

There was very little evidence of systemic or historical analysis in teachers’ understanding of sustainability issues and/or environmental issues, or of teachers developing such processes to introduce these kinds of analyses to learners (Janse van Rensburg and Du Toit, 2000). This was linked to ‘limited symbolic capital’, and limited access to resources to explore issues. Given the emphasis on constructivism, project staff expected teachers to construct new meaning, [and] not wanting to ‘impose’ new ideas and values/particular perspectives,    relied heavily on the personal (often limited) constructs of individual educators. This created an educational dilemma. It proved

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difficult to assist teachers to explore the socio-historical, political and economic dimensions of environmental issues without introducing support materials, but these were viewed as introducing bias (any information is by its very nature biased) ( Janse van Rensburg and Du Toit, 2000). In addition, teachers generally did not see themselves as ‘agents of change’ challenging the dominant values of the day. However, they expressed a strong desire for social change in the context of communities’ and learners’ current and future circumstances (Janse van Rensburg and Du Toit, 2000). It was difficult to really engage the deep systemic nature of oppression in ways that were empowering; in most cases where teachers started to explore the issues of social change, they were often overwhelmed, or efforts were poorly conceived and superficial. The empowerment intention had the adverse effect of disempowerment or paralysis (Janse van Rensburg and Du Toit, 2000). (The sentence in bold letters is in the original.) (Lotz-Sisitka, 2003)

The ‘educational dilemma’ is, in other words, that by introducing leading ideas and information there is a risk of converting the TL exercise into a conventional classroom teacher–student transaction. And yet such ideas and information seems essential if paralysis is to be overcome. As mentioned earlier, the UEEC staff and Babikwa have gone ahead to introduce leading ideas and information. Does this mean that they have in effect abandoned the aim of TL? To answer this question, it is necessary to look at it against the background of a complete picture of the TL process. The concept of ‘ecosystem health’ or a ‘healthy ecosystem’, introduced into the UEEC workshops, is a secondary assumption; it is another way of formulating the concept of sustainability. In the TL process, as it is being sketched in this essay, secondary assumptions logically emerge after identifying and critiquing the first principles or primary assumptions of the learners’ existing worldview. In the experience of the UEEC educators mentioned above, this concept of ecosystem health is handed out ready-made in an attempt to keep the process going. If it is intuitively grasped by learners (that is, in-service teachers), they are enabled to overcome their paralysis. And, experience shows that this concept does appeal to many teachers. Indeed, many go on to become successful teachers of the course. This is good as far as it goes. Most alternative ways of thinking and doing

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visible today are a result of taking on board such ready-made secondary assumptions as these. When learners do take on board some such secondary assumption, they do so because it ‘resonates’ with some deep part of themselves. It implies an acceptance of the primary assumptions underlying the secondary assumption thus acquired. Only the learners have not usually consciously acknowledged these primary assumptions, nor attempted to articulate them. They have not made the primary assumptions of their inherited worldview explicit either, and thus have not critiqued them. In other words, they have not secured the metaphysical foundations of the newly acquired secondary assumptions (ecosystem health in this case) and the practices they give rise to. When they attempt to discuss these assumptions with those who have not taken them on board, and they are the majority, they find that meaningful dialogue is ultimately impossible. This is paralleled within the convert by a situation in which their inherited primary assumptions and the new ones exist side by side but are strictly compartmentalised. These give rise to two systems of thought, neither sharply defined, but mutually exclusive all the same. Thus the person periodically reverts to his/her inherited mindset when he/she is ‘off the job’ and interacting with people who function all the time in terms of the inherited worldview of the age. This is debilitating for the individual, for the work he/she seeks to accomplish is not understood, and is not as successful as it might have been. And he/she is unable to act consistently in all areas of his/her life. Still all is not lost, or need not be lost. In terms of Figure 3.2, a TL exercise can begin at any point in the overall process, and work forward or backward as required. The process is an iterative one in any case, and typically, there is much to and fro movement in any exercise. So if participants enter at the point of secondary assumptions fully formed, it does not matter, provided that they ultimately move forward and backward to cover the entire process. Only then will transformation be complete. To sum up, the sharing of new concepts is a justified expedient, and is pedagogically valid, after cognitive dissonance has done its work. It must be followed up by undertaking the five tasks of the next phase – that of ‘standing outside oneself’. Most workshops, and most writers on this subject, have so far not ventured into this phase of the process, and hence there is virtually no practical experience to report here – at least not to my knowledge. In Chapter 11 of this essay, I suggest a tentative TL exercise format that might be tried experimentally.

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So far the experience of TL is largely with adult learners, including university students. How children are to be approached is unclear, but the UEEC experience related in Chapter 2, and that reported by many environmental educators, suggests that children have no problem accepting new secondary assumptions – as long as these help the children to make sense of their immediate lived experience. If these assumptions were to be reinforced throughout the curriculum, they would presumably ‘take’ permanently. The primary assumptions they imply would probably then be best left to be made explicit at the secondary level – just as is now done, for example, for the primary assumptions underlying the theories of present-day physics and chemistry that students encounter only at the 10th- to 12th-grade levels. Reverting now to adult learners, it is necessary to note that a major cause for actual resistance to passing on to the phase of ‘standing outside oneself ’ is, understandably, fear. It takes courage to think and act differently to everyone else in society. We fear being thought ‘odd’, ‘awkward’, or ‘mad’ and as a result losing the respect of others. We prefer to suffer in silence. A number of psychiatrists, beginning with Sigmund Freud, have questioned the conventional notion that a person who differs from the mainstream is ‘odd’ or ‘mad’. I quote from a summary of their views by Hibbard (2003). Freud, after witnessing the insanity of the First World War, proposed that society itself might be mad and therefore could not serve as a standard of mental health    . [R. D.] Laing argued that we live in the midst of ‘socially shared hallucinations    our collusive madness is what we call sanity.’ [Theodore] Roszak comments that ‘sick souls may indeed be the fruit of sick families and sick societies; but what, in turn, is the measure of sickness for society as a whole? While many criteria might be nominated, there is surely one that ranks above all others: the species that destroys its own habitat in pursuit of false values, in wilful ignorance of what it does, is “mad”’. Such reflections may be a small comfort to the individual struggling alone with the cognitive dissonance he/she experiences. Nevertheless, these psychiatrists seem to be describing what happens when a given Scholastic age begins to break down: the mainstream resorts to ever more blatant self-deception and attempts to suppress, discredit or co-opt critics in an effort to maintain the status quo. It becomes increasingly mad.

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In addition to the fear of being different from others, there is always some measure of fear of change, fear of the unknown. To the extent that a person is identified with a given idea or structure, and derives his/her sense of identify and security from it, he/she resists change, and, of course, any urging to undertake TL. These psychiatric perspectives point to the usefulness of group TL exercises. Groups provide the security needed to expose one’s inner doubts, anxieties and insights, and to debate every issue without a need for reserve. Of course, such group exercises must question everything and listen to everyone in the group. As the name implies, they should be learning, not comforting, exercises. Standing outside oneself Some writers consider it impossible to ‘stand outside oneself’. Poststructuralists, according to the environmental educator Noel Gough, insist that ‘    we cannot get outside of our social architecture in order to describe or analyse it “objectively” ’ (Gough, 2003). My own experience, both personal and with groups pursuing TL, is that it is possible to get outside oneself. Much depends upon a person’s prior experience of handling cognitive dissonance. If he/she has, as a result of cognitive dissonance, come to question every one of his/her basic assumptions (and to accept that they are assumptions and not matters of fact), he/she is already standing outside himself/herself. In any case, the possibility of standing outside oneself does exist, because if it did not, radically new assumptions would not appear spontaneously as they often do. It is, however, not easy, and help from others is almost invariably needed. Identifying current assumptions The first task in this phase is to identify every last assumption one has about the nature of the world and oneself. If even one assumption is left unnoticed or, if noticed, exempted from scrutiny, the TL process is vitiated. This is a tall order; for, as suggested in the last section, it means setting aside one’s identity. The resulting emptiness is frightening, and one tends impulsively to clutch at least one or a few of one’s existing assumptions more tightly and self-consciously than before. But if one does not ‘empty’ oneself, the result is reform, not transformation. To indulge in another metaphor, a wine cask in which the wine has gone bad must be completely emptied and thoroughly washed out before new wine is put in it, otherwise the new wine is contaminated and quickly goes bad. In my experience, the dregs in the cask of the worldview

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of the participants in contemporary global culture that are usually not removed, even by those actively pursuing TL exercises, are the assumption of the existence of discrete physical entities ‘out there’ and a person (me) who can be defined in relation to those entities. Earlier in this chapter, it was said that primary assumptions are the answers given to the perennial questions. With regard to the second of these, what is the world like; these answers are framed as definitions of the seven universal formative elements. A clarification at this point will be helpful in understanding this matter correctly and thus in guiding the task in hand. The formative elements cannot be defined in general; they are abstract categories of thought, but not specific thoughts or definitions themselves. They are, as was said, formative elements of thought, they give rise to specific definitions in the context of a particular worldview. Thus ‘matter’ might be defined as discrete material particles in motion (Democrites, the materialism of the contemporary global cultural model) or as amorphous ‘stuff’ individuated by the imposition of specific, non-material ‘forms’ (Aristotle, medieval European Scholasticism), ‘wave-like patterns of probability’ (Capra, 1997) (20th-century physics), or as the ‘physical’ aspects of mental projections (Bishop Berkeley’s subjective idealism). The person might be defined as a detached observer of phenomena (Descartes, contemporary global culture) or as an ‘ecological self’ (some presentday ecologists). Life can be seen as an emergent property of matter (materialism) or as what enlivens material structures, the ‘creative impulse and guiding presence of autopoeitic systems’. In the history of Western civilisation, there have been three distinct assumptions about the nature of causation. (These will be described and contrasted in Chapter 5.) The task of identifying all our existing primary assumptions means, therefore, asking ourselves what our definition is for each of these seven elements. Since these definitions are, quite naturally, buried (that is, unconscious) or ‘taken for granted’, some amount of digging is necessary to disinter them. As an illustration, the assumptions of present-day global culture are identified in the first section of Chapter 4. Articulating primary assumptions When these primary assumptions (answers to the perennial questions) have been disinterred, it is necessary to articulate them adequately so that it is possible to examine them critically. In any Scholastic age, primary assumptions are neither identified nor articulated and so cannot be critiqued. Today we are entering an era of speculation when all these

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things need to be done. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to presenting fairly detailed descriptions of the assumptions of contemporary global culture identified in the first section of Chapter 4. It is also helpful to review the primary assumptions made in previous eras of Western civilisation, and even those of non-Western civilisations. This will give useful perspectives on our task. This will be done as we go along. Critique of assumptions Once answers to the perennial questions are adequately articulated, they must be examined critically from two points of view. The first is to trace the connections of these primary assumptions with the secondary assumptions that figure in the present cultural model. Hints of such connections were given in Chapter 2. If we are convinced that particular primary assumptions are, in fact, responsible for the dysfunction of contemporary global culture, then we pass on to the second test, which is to consider whether these assumptions are logically sound in themselves. If they fail this test, we can, I think, conclude that this is the reason, or at least one of the reasons, for the cultural dysfunction we are experiencing today. This method of checking for internal logical soundness is illustrated in Chapters 4 and 5. A second reason for the negative implications of the primary assumptions of contemporary global culture is that collectively they do not constitute a logically sound or coherent system of ideas. Therefore, examining the system, or worldview, is part of the task of critiquing existing assumptions. Definitions of ‘logical soundness’ and ‘coherence’ were given in an earlier section of this chapter. Chapter 6 is devoted to this topic of critiquing the worldview of contemporary global culture as a system of definitions. Formulating alternatives For the formulation of alternative assumptions, one must give free reign to one’s imagination. The results can then be checked in the same way that existing assumptions are tested (previous subsection). Another source of ‘new’ ideas is previous European cultures and also non-European cultures. If we are no longer wedded to the process theory of history, a theory that is negated by the fact that we admit to the need to ‘think differently’, we need not assume that all these pre-modern and non-Western assumptions are useless. It is possible that some of them may be relevant today when we are searching for alternatives to the assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture. In

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Chapter 2, it was hinted that the appearance of the Gaia theory suggests a return of a definition of causation that was prevalent in Pre-Hellenic Greece and in most traditional, non-European civilisations. This topic will be explored in depth in Chapter 5. This is an example of the possible usefulness today of assumptions of previous cultures that were discarded in the course of Western history. Of course, such assumptions must, like all others, be critically examined for their intrinsic logicalness and their implications for practice. In Chapter 7, several promising ‘new’ ideas that are spontaneously appearing at present in the global TL dialogue are described and evaluated. Coordinating new assumptions into a viable worldview Finally the various new assumptions must be put together into a worldview which leads to an improved cultural model that will avoid or solve existing problems. The new worldview must be internally self-consistent and coherent. While there has been some progress in the overall global TL process up to the task of formulating alternative assumptions, this last task has been given no critical attention so far. In Chapter 8, by way of illustrating what is to be done, the promising new assumptions described in Chapter 7 are assembled in an overall framework that is both internally logical and coherent, and holds promise of being effective in practice when its implications (secondary assumptions) are elaborated and put to the test. The test of practice Any alternative worldview that is formulated must remain tentative and has to be put to the test of practice. To do this, an alternative cultural model must be constructed by formulating secondary assumptions derived from the primary assumptions of the new worldview. These are then elaborated into strategies, policies and theories which are tested in practice. In the testing phase, there is a possibility of failure, disappointment and ridicule. Generally, even those who reach this stage of the process do not see themselves as ‘    agents of change challenging the dominant values of the day’ (Lotz-Sisitka, 2003). Here again, a group learning context can be supportive of the individual. The importance of practice in the TL process cannot be overemphasised. It appears to me that too much of the present discussion on TL is based upon theoretical considerations and not on practice. Another problem is that a number of promising new policies/programmes/theories are being put forth today for testing.

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However, unless these are examined for the unarticulated secondary and primary assumption they imply, there is every danger of failure. In other words, their metaphysical foundations have not been secured before they are offered for testing. A final word Figure 3.2 is an attempt at a comprehensive representation of the TL process. The point of entry, the box labelled ‘present cultural model seen as inadequate’ represents the first phase of the process, acknowledging cognitive dissonance. The next three boxes, which form a triangle, together represent the second stage, that of ‘standing outside oneself’. The last three boxes, those at the top right, collectively represent the testing of the adequacy of the worldview fashioned. It is an iterative process, unending, with no preconceived outcomes, and with no possibility of being planned or managed. A community (e.g. citizens, teachers, business people or school children in a classroom) that can initiate and sustain this iterative process is ‘empowered’: it is ‘developed’, or at least capable of developing itself. This is a theme that will be discussed further in Chapter 9.

4 Atoms, People and Other Things

This and the following five chapters (that is, 4–9) are devoted to illustrating the transformative learning (TL) process sketched in Chapter 3, beginning from the recognition by learners of the need to ‘think differently’. That is, they have already accepted that the cognitive dissonance they have experienced can only be removed by a transformation of their present worldview. Each of the successive stages in the TL process is dealt with in the chapter(s) indicated below. Identification of present primary assumptions – Chapter 4 Critique of present primary assumptions – Chapters 4 and 5 Critique of present worldview as a system – Chapter 6 Formulation of alternative assumptions – Chapter 7 Formulation of an alternative worldview – Chapter 8 Formulation of alternative secondary assumptions – Chapter 9 The specific illustrations that are given are my own or those of others selected by me. Needless to say, they are not intended to be the last word. My primary intention is to illustrate the method. The method is an open-ended process; no final outcomes should be insisted upon at the beginning, otherwise it will cease to be a true TL exercise. Final outcomes emerge from discussion and eventual consensus. The process proceeds by debating the suggestions made by participants, and rejecting, modifying or accepting them. Perhaps my suggestions will help the process along. With these comments in mind, we may turn to the task of identifying and critiquing the primary assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture. These assumptions are the answers we give to the perennial questions. The answer to the second question – what is 47

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the world like – consists of definitions of each of the seven formative elements of thought. We begin therefore, with a brief statement of what these answers are.

The enlightenment answers to the perennial questions What is the world like? The world is composed of four ultimate, independent, but interacting entities: material particles in motion; objective time and space; and persons who observe these particles in motion. A person is defined as a physical entity, that is, as a specific configuration of material particles, but at the same time as having the capacity for the detached observation of particles in motion. There is a logical contradiction here that will be investigated in Chapter 6. This is the core of the Enlightenment view forged in the 17th century. Since then, there have been refinements in the first three of these – from atomic to subatomic particles, and from Newton’s absolute time and space to Einstein’s relative time and space – but the system has remained intact. Issac Newton assumed that law is imposed by a Creator and that he (Newton) was describing these imposed laws, as far as possible. Later, the idea of a Creator who imposes law fell by the wayside, leaving only the mathematical equations, or in other words, law as mere description of observed regularities. Life, since it is not conceived as a something in itself like matter, has to be thought of as an emergent property of matter. Finally, the definition of knowing is axiomatic from the concept of a world of matter in motion and a detached observer of that world: the world is known by the receipt of sensory data flowing from the world to the observer. The observer then processes these sensory inputs into a picture of the world ‘as it really is’. This is the worldview that is termed mechanistic materialism. Each of these seven definitions will be expanded in subsequent sections. Who am I? The ‘I’ in the worldview of contemporary global culture is considered to be a person. What is real? The four ultimate, or ‘given’, entities, matter, time, space and the detached observer are real entities. In theory, a real entity should presumably be one that endures, that neither comes nor goes, nor suffers change. Time, space and the ultimate constituents of matter meet

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this requirement. The detached observer by this definition cannot be considered a real entity, and yet in practice it is so considered. This again points to a problem with the definition of the ‘I’.

Critique Of the seven definitions just listed, six – matter, life, space, time, the person and knowing – will be taken up in this chapter. An adequate critique of causation (or law) requires the development of a considerable theoretical background and will therefore be taken up separately in the next chapter. Matter and the person will be taken up together (in the following subsection) since the person is defined in the contemporary worldview as a material entity. There are no things The purpose of this section is to explicate and critique the concept of matter as it appears in the worldview of contemporary global culture. To begin with, it is essential to note that the term ‘matter’ has become ambiguous – to the point of being useless for the purpose in mind here. Until the end of the 19th century, matter, in its most elementary form, was considered to be solid, enduring and unchanging bits of material substance, a definition not much different from that proposed by the Greek atomist Democrites in the 5th century BC. During the first three decades of the 20th century physicists, with their passion for analysis, probed deeper and deeper into the atom in an attempt to find the ultimate, unchanging unit of matter. They did not succeed. Instead they discovered that there was nothing left that corresponded to their original concept of matter. It was this that Whitehead was referring to in 1929 when he wrote that ‘    the notion of vacuous material existence with passive endurance, with primary individual attributes, and with accidental adventures has    vanished from the field of ultimate scientific conceptions’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 309). What these scientists found in its place they termed variously: ‘quanta of energy’, ‘electro-magnetic fields’, ‘waves of probability’. Fritjof Capra writes that the ultimate things are ‘    inter-connections between things, and these, in turn, are inter-connections between other things, and so on    we never end up with any things    ’ (Capra, 1997, p. 30). Bertrand Russell defined matter as ‘what satisfies the equations of physics’ (Russell, 1946, p. 633). He then went on to say that ‘There may be nothing satisfying these equations; in that case either physics, or the concept of “matter”, is a mistake’ (Russell, 1946, p. 598). All this reveals,

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to my mind, only confusion and uncertainty. Scientists have succeeded in demonstrating the inadequacy of the prevailing definition of matter, a most valuable insight, but seem unable to suggest a plausible alternative. This failure is not due to lack of ability. They are not using the proper tools. Scientists have failed to understand that defining the term ‘matter’, in the first instance, is not a scientific task, but a metaphysical one. Science deals with theories and not with the more general notions underlying them. In terms of Figure 3.1, science works at Stages 3 and 4, while Stages 1 and 2 is the domain of metaphysics. Each has its own special tools. The tools of metaphysics are criticism of primary assumptions and the speculative formulation of alternatives. The latter is also sometimes termed ‘speculative philosophy’. I think it would be well to pause briefly at this point to define the terms metaphysics and speculative philosophy. The former is that branch of philosophy concerned with the primary concepts in terms of which we seek to understand nature and ourselves. In this chapter, these primary concepts have been termed primary assumptions. In terms of the six stages in the TL process given at the beginning of this chapter, metaphysics is the domain of the first five. Of these, the first three are critical while the last two are speculative – or critical and speculative philosophy, respectively. Speculative philosophy has been defined by Whitehead as follows: Speculative philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of ‘interpretation’ I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme. Thus the philosophical scheme should be coherent, logical, and, in respect to its interpretation, applicable and adequate. Here ‘applicable’ means that some items of experience are thus interpretable, and ‘adequate’ means that there are no items incapable of such interpretation. ‘Coherence, as here employed, means that the fundamental ideas, in terms of which the scheme is developed, presuppose each other so that in isolation they are meaningless. This requirement does not mean that they are definable in terms of each other; it means that what is indefinable in one such notion cannot be abstracted from its relevance to the other notions. It is the ideal of speculative philosophy that its fundamental notions shall not seem capable of abstraction from each other. In

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other words, it is presupposed that no entity can be conceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe, and that it is the business of speculative philosophy to exhibit this truth. This character is coherence. The term “logical” has its ordinary meaning, including “logical” consistency, or lack of contradiction, the definition of constructs in logical terms, the exemplification of general logical notions in specific instances’. (Whitehead, 1929, p. 3) In this essay, I have endeavoured to adhere to this ideal. The definitions of the terms ‘coherence’, ‘logical consistency’ and ‘adequacy’ given here are expansions of the initial definitions given in Chapter 3. The term ‘metaphysics’ is deeply suspect in contemporary global society, and so it must have been in all Scholastic eras. When new speculative insights have been accepted and ‘handed over to the professors’, the fact that they are tentative, tenuous speculative constructs is lost sight of, and the very role of metaphysics in culture is ridiculed as being ‘impractical and useless’. But today, we have entered a new age of speculation, and we must use the methods of metaphysics. Chapters 4–9 of this essay describe and illustrate these methods. The work of speculative philosophy in the context of this section is the endeavour to formulate concepts of a general nature relevant to the seven categories of thought. These are primary assumptions. To do this adequately, it is necessary to set aside the particular definitions of these categories that make up any existent worldview. What will be left is only a very general statement that indicates broadly to area of experience that is being addressed. Thus, shorn of all the assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture, ‘matter’ might be defined as: 1. an actual entity (that is, a distinct, discrete element of experience), or 2. what is experienced as a ‘thing in itself’, or 3. an object of an experience. The primary assumptions in respect of ‘matter’ in the worldview of contemporary global culture are specific elaborations of this generalised definition. Among these are the following: 1. Matter is atomic. It is made up of discrete, distinct entities that endure and are unchanging. 2. For its definition, these entities require the concept of Newtonian or Einsteinian space.

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3. These entities possess distinctive, inherent properties or qualities. 4. These entities can combine temporarily in various ways to give more complex entities which are transitory. 5. A complex entity can be understood by analysing it into its simpler components. The nature of the complex is determined by the properties of these simpler components. These assumptions are further detailed to give theories which guide experimentation. In terms of secondary assumptions, they give rise to the institutions set up to pursue knowledge and develop systems and technologies, and also define the aims of obtaining this knowledge and of deploying specific technologies. The work of 20th-century physicists, as noted above, was scientific work. They failed to see that the results of their work landed them in a situation that demands setting aside all their primary assumptions before they could hope to advance. It is clear that they did not give up even one of these assumptions. (I make this statement on the understanding that they maintain that energy – whatever that is – can neither be created nor destroyed.) This brief excursion into the nature, function and procedures of metaphysics will, it is hoped, indicate clearly what our task is in this chapter and in Chapter 5. In this subsection, dealing with the concept of ‘matter’, the discussion will not be restricted to the realm of the subatomic. Thus the term ‘an actual entity’ will signify the concrete elements of everyday experience. In everyday speech, it is ‘an object’ or ‘a thing’, and among the objects or things of common experience are our own bodies. If the forgoing list of primary assumptions in respect of ‘matter’ be accepted as adequate, the discussion can move on to critiquing them. In my opinion, number three in this list is crucial; if it is found to be logically defective, the entire set of assumptions fails. In this subsection, therefore, we confine ourselves to this definition – that is, that entities or objects or things possess distinctive, inherent properties. Number two in the list, stating the necessity of Newtoian/Einsteinian space to the definition of ‘matter’, is taken up in the next subsection. If this concept of space is rejected, then too the entire concept of ‘matter’ as it is defined by this list is invalidated. The following critique of the notion that actual entities have distinctive properties in themselves, when pursued rigorously forces us to the conclusion that there simply are not, cannot be, any substantial entities at all. The critique goes as follows. If we assume that all the things

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we encounter in our experience of the world are discrete, substantial and autonomous, it follows that each one should possess attributes by which it can be distinguished from all other things. The least ambiguous of these are the physical attributes of mass, shape, size or volume, density, velocity and acceleration – the so-called primary attributes of the philosophers. As Whitehead has pointed out (Chapter 1), however, these are not attributes of the individual entities, but refer to the relationships among entities in a system. Viewed in isolation from all other entities, they cannot be defined at all. The mass of an object, for example, tells us nothing about the object itself, but about its relationship to another object, and in fact to all the other objects in the system of which it is a part – and ultimately to all the other objects in the universe. Ecologists have come to the same conclusion when dealing with ecosystems. A tree, an earthworm, a bacterium can adequately be described only in terms of the niche it fills in the system; that is, in terms of its place in the structure and functioning of the system. In isolation from the ecosystem of which it is a part it could not live, it would have no meaning, and, indeed, could not be said to exist. The philosopher and natural farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka insists that ‘An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing’ (Fukuoka, 1994). In the example of a solar system given in Chapter 3, a planet can only be defined in terms of a set of relationships among all the bodies of the system. Ultimately, the planet is reduced to a mere empty focal point of myriad converging influences, or to an equally empty point of origin of myriad influences streaming away to all the other bodies in the system (and, indeed, to the entire universe). The planet, or the person, is either nothing or it is everything – it is all the same. The logical impossibility of defining things in isolation is not, however, only now revealed. The same problem dogs Aristotle’s notion of ‘substance’. Substance is supposed to be simply what is without qualifications of any sort. Qualifications according to Aristotle are bestowed on substance by abstract universal forms that ingress into it. Substance, when taken seriously, is a concept impossible to free from difficulties. A substance is supposed to be the subject of properties, and to be something distinct from all its properties. But when we take away the properties, and try to imagine the substance by itself, we find that there is nothing left. To put the matter another way: what distinguishes one substance from another? Not differences of properties, for, according to the logic of substance, difference of properties presupposes numerical diversity between the substances

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concerned. Two substances, therefore, must be just two, without being, in themselves, in any way distinguishable. How then are we ever to find out that they are two? ‘Substance’, in fact is merely a convenient way of collecting events into bundles. What can we know about Mr. Smith? When we look at him, we see a pattern of colours; when we listen to him talking, we hear a series of sounds. We believe that, like us, he has thoughts and feelings. But what is Mr. Smith apart from all these occurrences? A mere imaginary hook from which the occurrences are supposed to hang. (Russell, 1946, pp. 211–12) This conclusion that there are no discrete, substantial, autonomous individual things in the world not only gives us an insight into why contemporary global culture is so fundamentally dysfunctional, it is also a potent injunction to us to strive for logical rigour in framing alternative assumptions for the future. As a footnote to Russell’s comment above, we might briefly anticipate further developments. In Chapter 7, it will be necessary to decide on a definition of a person. No one, absolutely no one, doubts that he or she exists. To doubt this is impossible since one must exist in order to doubt. The person is no perceptual or conceptual thing. It is the ‘hook’ from which the empirical person hangs, but is it really imaginary? Something certainly does exist, but what? Objective time and space In attempting to formulate a statement that is indicative, in the most general way possible, of the area of human experience referred to by the terms ‘time’ and ‘space’, or ‘spacetime’, we might say that they account for the fact that in our experience myriad entities – physical things, thoughts and feelings – are made definite, discrete and their mutual relationships made clear. The concept has been considered in the history of philosophy mainly in respect of physical entities or what have earlier been referred to as ‘objects’ or ‘things’. Various specific definitions of these terms have been formulated and have figured in the worldviews of different cultural eras of Western civilisation, but they can be subsumed under two heads: ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’. An understanding of this distinction between these two is essential to the success of the work of ‘standing outside oneself’. In this section, I will first of all endeavour to explain the difference between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ in this regard.

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In a few words, time and space are objective when they are assumed to exist even in the absence of objects. They exist prior to and ‘outside’ any experience of actual entities. Time and space are said to be subjective when they arise with the experience of objects or things. They are a system of relationships among elements within a given episode of experiencing. Issac Newton’s concept of absolute time and space is an example of the objective. It will be instructive to present here his concept in his own words. This done in Box 4.1.

Box 4.1. Newton’s concept of absolute objective time and space The concepts of absolute time and space were formulated by Issac Newton in the Sholium to his Principia in the following words. Hitherto I have laid down definitions of such words as are less known, and explained the sense in which I would have them to be understood in the following discourse. I do not define time, space, place and motion as being known to all. Only I must observe that the vulgar conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which, it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common. I. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year. II. Absolute space, in its own nature, and without regard to anything external, remains always similar and unmovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces; which our senses determine by its position to bodies, and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space;    .

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Box 4.1. (Continued) IV. As the order of the parts of time is immutable, so also is the order of the parts of space. Suppose these parts to be moved out of their places, and they will be moved (if the expression may be allowed) out of themselves. For times and spaces are, as it were, the places as well of themselves as of all other things. (Quoted by Whitehead, 1929, pp. 70–1)

Whitehead comments on this concept of absolute objective time and space in the following words. Newton is presupposing four types of entities which he does not discriminate in respect to their actuality: for him minds are actual things, bodies are actual things, absolute durations of time are actual things, and absolute places are actual things.    This is the ‘receptacle’ theory of space–time.    Thus bits of space and time were conceived as being as actual as anything else, and as being ‘occupied by other actualities which were the bits of matter’. (Whitehead, 1929, p. 71) Albert Einstein has modified the concept of absolute space and time. I maintain that this modified concept is still a definition of objective time and space; it still gives us a picture of a world of material entities spread out in an objective matrix of space–time, of a world ‘out there’ which one cognises from ‘in here’. I assert this very tentatively since I cannot claim really to understand the concept of relative time and space or space–time beyond what is offered by popularisations for the non-specialist. About this Bertrand Russell has said: Since Einstein distance is between events, not between things, and involves time as well as space. It is essentially a causal conception, and in modern physics there is no action at a distance. All this, however, is based upon empirical rather than logical grounds. Moreover the modern view cannot be stated except in terms of differential equations, and would therefore be unintelligible to the philosophers of antiquity. (Russell, 1946, p. 88)

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Quite. It is equally unintelligible to a present-day commentator who has never been able to master differential equations. I will venture one comment, however. Conclusions based upon ‘empirical’ grounds, or, in other words, on the basis of experimental observations, cannot be logical if the assumptions on which the experiments are set up and conducted are illogical. It is because the experimental results do not ‘make any sense’ that logic has been abandoned. The physicist needs to be enough of a metaphysician to realise that if him/her results do not make sense, a new set of assumptions is needed in ‘terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted’. Or else someone else should realise it, and point it out. And while I am at it, I will make one more (possibly) rash comment. To return to the concept of time and space as objective, that is, as actual entities, at par with things, the concept cannot, perhaps, be faulted on logical grounds, given the system of concepts in which it is embedded. It is just difficult to imagine time and space as real entities. Though scientists of the 17th and 18th centuries eagerly seized on the concept in order to develop a new type of science, a science we are beginning to rue today, philosophers have, in general, never accepted this concept (Whitehead, 1929, p. 70). And in this the philosophers side with the ‘vulgar’, who conceive of time and space in relation to objects, and not as objects in themselves. I am inclined to agree and to suggest that it is risky for anyone, scientist or philosopher, to disregard the ‘conventional wisdom’ of humanity in framing ideas of the ultimate nature of the universe. The fact that this wisdom is spontaneous and universal points to something true about the universe that should not be dismissed out of hand. This is a theme, by the way, that will figure prominently in this essay. It is introduced and discussed in some detail in the next chapter. Aside from this objection to the concept of objective space as formulated by Newton, the concept appears unnecessary in view of the conclusion reached in the previous section that there are no discrete physical entities. Actual entities, whatever they may be, are dimensionless. Only if they have dimension or extensivity is the concept of objective space needed, otherwise not. The alternative to the receptacle or objective concept is that of subjective time and space. According to this concept, an observer apprehends actual entities (whether they are things or something else), ‘spreads them outs’, so to speak, and arranges them to give an intelligible pattern. The ‘spreading out’ is the work of time and space. Immanuel Kant argued for the concept of subjective time and space. His view, according to Russell was that

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   the outer world causes only the matter of sensation, but our own mental apparatus orders this matter in space and time, and supplies the concepts by means of which we understand experience. Things in themselves, which are the cause of our sensations, are unknowable; they are not in space and time, they are not substances,    space and time are subjective, they are part of our apparatus of perception. (Russell, 1946, p. 680) If there are really no substantial physical entities, then an alternative concept of space and time will be needed. Subjective space and time might serve. There is, however, a logical problem with the subjective concept of time and space also, and it is best to recognise it straightaway. This problem revolves around the question asked in the previous subsection: what is the nature of those entities that are conventionally taken to be substantial things, but are not? They are certainly not ‘nothing’. What, then, are they? They seem to be the causes of, or occasions for, episodes of experiencing, in the sense of providing both the impetus and the raw material for such episodes. The logical problem is ‘where’ and ‘when’ are these occasions that give rise to episodes of experiencing? On the one hand, time and space arise with the experience, and do not exist prior to or outside the experience. On the other hand, episodes of experiencing are caused by these occasions which therefore must be ‘prior’ to the episodes, and ‘somewhere else’ than in the episodes. Is there another space and time matrix outside the episodes of experiencing, a non-spatial, atemporal realm beyond experiencing? Does the term ‘non-spatial, atemporal realm’ have any meaning? These are questions that have been asked for millennia in different cultural contexts. They are perennial philosophical questions for which no logically convincing argument has ever been given. We will return to them later, when a little more background has been developed. Life must be defined In Chapter 2, it was pointed out that life is not really defined in the worldview of contemporary global culture. It is only described. In itself, it is said to be ‘nothing but’ an emergent property of matter. This is obviously necessary in a materialist–mechanistic worldview, but is profoundly inadequate. It devalues life in practice; soil, animals, plants, people and ecosystems are treated solely as resources to be exploited. Logically it can easily be shown that this ‘definition’ is really no definition at all. It is a matter of avoiding a definition. On the one hand,

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it is said that life is the way particular assemblages of material particles are observed to behave. On the other hand, we say that assemblages that display such behaviour are alive. This is a tautology, and a tautology cannot be accepted as a definition. Again, by defining life in terms of matter (an emergent property of matter), the coherence of the entire contemporary worldview is impaired. The definitions that make up a worldview must ‘    presuppose each other so that in isolation they are meaningless    [but this] does not mean that they are definable in terms of each other’. As in other cases, here too our endeavour must be to frame the most general statement possible about the category of life as a starting point for the criticism of specific notions of it, and as a basis for speculation about alternative notions. Life, let us say, is the activity of actual entities, however those entities are conceived – that is, life is the unceasing flow of the arising and perishing of these entities, their changes and interactions. This ‘flow’, in itself and not what flows, is life. An example of a more specialised definition, already suggested, is ‘    the creative impulse and guiding presence to autopoeitic systems’. In passing, we might recall that one of the attempts by physicists at defining matter mentioned in the previous section: ‘    ultimate things are interconnections between things, and these, in turn are interconnections between other things, and so on    we never end up with any things’ (Capra, 1997, p. 62). Surely, however, it is illogical to say that matter is nothing but events, when the term ‘events’ can only be understood as the activity of things. Further, it appears, from this statement, that the very category of matter has been lost sight of. If events are not the activity of things, then they are presumably a manifestation of life. In other words, matter is being defined in terms of life. Here is the reverse of the practice of defining life in terms of matter; matter, in itself, is ‘nothing but’ the workings of life. How is knowing possible? The most general statement that can be made about the category of thought termed ‘knowing’ is, perhaps, to say that any discrete element in an experience is known to the subject of that experience. This statement assumes a duality of a subject and an object of experience; in the most abstract sense of these terms, they are simply ‘that which experiences’ and ‘that which is experienced’. It implies nothing about the nature of either. Depending upon the metaphysical context, or the worldview, in which it appears, this abstract definition will be particularised. In the worldview of contemporary global culture, the entities that appear in

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experience are assumed to be material ‘things’, ‘spread out’ in objective time and space in a world ‘out there’. The experiencer is another ‘thing’, or a living thing with powers of perception. Given these particularised definitions, the question for us becomes how can physical entities in the world ‘out there’ become elements of my experience ‘in here’? Attempting to answer this question has constituted major philosophical and scientific agendas in Western culture for the past three centuries. It seems to me to be a hopeless undertaking. I say this on the basis of logic and of the adequacy of the answers so far developed. All the answers proposed so far share the common following assumption. The observer receives sensory data from the various objects in its environment and processes these into an image of the object in the mind of the observer. The objects in the environment are physical and so are the sensory inputs they originate, the nerves that receive these inputs and the final set of nerves in the brain. What is not physical is the mind, and hence the images it holds are not physical things. There is a transformation required at the last stage of this train from the physical to the mental. An explanation of how this transformation is effected has not, as far as I know, been found so far, and perhaps it never will be. Perhaps we are asking the wrong question, a question based upon faulty premises. All that has really been done is to offer an explanation in terms of an analogy – that of a camera. This is a very simplistic analogy since the final photographic print is as much a physical object as the object photographed and the light waves that proceed from that object to the photographic plate. Analogies are sometimes helpful in understanding a phenomenon, but they do not explain. In this case, the camera analogy actually covers up the problematic discontinuity in the process. A further difficulty with this way of trying to explain knowing is that of ‘enhancement’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 119). Something more is added to the bare sense data before a mental image is composed. The image usually allows the person to ‘see’ the interrelationships among the various entities that occur together in a particular episode of experiencing, and hence carries meaning. Whence are these added inputs? In common speech, we say they are intuitions. Do they come from ‘out there’, or are they ‘programmed’ into the mind? Intuitions, if they are from ‘outside’ are certainly not physical entities; do they then come from somewhere else than the ‘real’ physical world ‘out there’. Can there be such a place in a materialist cosmology? This is an instance of the inadequacy of the definition of knowing; it is inadequate in the

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sense that there are some items of experience that are inexplicable in terms of this definition. Another item of experience that is inexplicable in terms of this materialist definition of knowing is memories. Memories are also entities that appear in experience, and they are also immaterial. Where do they reside and how come they into current episodes of experiencing? Returning to the issue of intuitions, it was said that a possible explanation for them is that they are the way the brain is programmed to work. If so, there has to be a programmer, which is presumably previous experience. But many of the organising patterns in the mind, most clearly the mathematical ones, are there a priori, as Immanual Kant so ably argued long ago. This is yet another instance of the inadequacy of the materialist theory of perception. A moment ago it was said that perhaps all the problems of the materialist definition of knowing arise from asking the wrong questions – because we are working from faulty premises. I have in mind here, the entire concept of a world ‘out there’, a world of physical entities in objective time and space, and detached observers of those entities. If there is no world ‘out there’, the problems described above would simply go away. Of course we would have to formulate an alternative set of definitions for the seven categories of thought, and then we would have other philosophical and scientific questions, questions that might be more tractable. We could make a start with an alternative definition of an actual entity.

5 The Laws of Nature

Our critique of the worldview of contemporary global culture consists of two parts: (1) a critique of individual assumptions and (2) a critique of the worldview as a whole. Chapter 4 and most of this chapter are devoted to the first. The definitions of matter, life, time, space, the self and knowing were taken up in Chapter 4, while the concept of law as mere description (the Positivist assumption) is considered in this chapter. In Chapter 6, a critique of the system as a whole is offered. In order to critique the positivist assumption of law effectively, it will be necessary to review the various other assumptions that have featured in Western civilisation during the last three millennia or so, and to compare them. A critique of the positivist assumption will emerge from this review. Three concepts of law have appeared at different times in Western civilisation. These are: (1) law as immanent; (2) law as imposed; and (3) law as mere description (the positivist assumption). These have figured, respectively, in pre-Hellenic culture, the Hellenistic, Scholastic and Enlightenment periods, and in the 20th century. The ways that people have tried to understand and engage nature according to these three concepts of law have been, for the first, myth and for the second and third, logical mentation. It is argued that the Gaia theory, which is both a scientific theory and a myth, signals a return to Western culture of the concept of law as immanent. The implication of this is that logical mentation alone is an inadequate means of understanding nature and ourselves, and that an intuitive/mythical mode of engagement is also necessary. The unquestioned assumption that reason alone is adequate is itself a major cause of the dysfunction of contemporary global culture. Accordingly, in the second section of this chapter, the nature and function of myth as a means of relating to nature, to each other and 62

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to ourselves is described. The Gaia theory is thus interpreted, from one point of view, as a powerful mythical symbol, a resurrection of the ancient Earth Mother symbol that figures so prominently in most nonWestern cultures and during the period of the Iliad in Western history. The film story of the sinking of the Titanic is interpreted as a myth that meets the same need today as traditional myths did in the past; in this case it dramatises the theme of hubris and its punishment. It is argued that the appearance of these mythical symbols signals a spontaneous return to the concept of law as a immanent and the beginning of a process of healing in global culture.

The laws of nature – an overview Amongst the welter of details with which we are confronted, there are discernible regularities. Some types of events recur, and some sets of events are always observed together, often in the same sequence. We fashion our lives on what sense we make of these regularities. To ‘make sense’ of these regularities means to hold in one’s mind some assumed explanation of these recurrences and concurrences. Such explanations are termed the laws of nature. Explanations are speculative assumptions of how the world might be. If these assumptions change, then the world we experience changes. In a sense, we create the world we experience. A corollary of this is that there are no laws of nature antecedent to our experience of the world just waiting for us to discover them. We create them. Law as immanent The notion of law has manifest itself in European culture in three forms. The most comprehensive and all-embracing is what may be termed the concept of the law as immanent. Whitehead defines this concept as follows: the order of nature expresses the characters of the real things which jointly compose the existences to be found in nature. When we understand the essences of the things, we thereby know their mutual relations to each other. (Whitehead, 1933, p. 116) In an ecological idiom, we would say that the concept presupposes a holistic unity of all that exists; the whole contains the multiplicity of diverse particular things, and is present in each of these things. Each of

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the things is, in essence, the whole. The behaviour of individual things in relation to other things is determined by their place and function in the whole. Each individual thing is, as it were, automatically coded for appropriate behaviour by virtue of being a part of the whole. This conception of law gives rise to what might be termed an ‘organismic’ model of the universe. An organism is a micro-cosmic instance of, and a metaphor for, a universe governed by law that is immanent in itself and in all its parts. The concept of law as immanent figured in all ancient cultures, including pre-Hellenic culture, and in many, probably most, nonWestern cultures, and is expressed in a profusion of myth.1 In Vedic culture, it is termed Rta.2 It is not a static collection of ‘laws of nature’, or an immutable blueprint, but a dynamic, subtle, evolving pattern of relationships. This pattern is inherent in phenomena whether they are considered separately or collectively. It would be natural to seek the content of Rta but the quest would be doomed to failure because Rta is    neither a single law or form nor any system of laws or forms. It is rather the ultimate presupposition of all specific types of order or systems of laws    , itself not a limited form but a whole that is self-determined and self-expressive in infinite variety (Pande, 1990, p. 25) The concept of the Rta has traditionally been expressed metaphorically because it is too subtle to render adequately in the idiom of logical discourse, or even that of mathematics. Moreover, the metaphor used is invariably of a living being. As the Rigveda puts it, ‘All beings, men, and creatures, abide forever in the bosom of Savitr the divine’ (Rigveda 1,35,5, translated by Panikkar, 2001, p. 140). In a living organism, each of the parts (organ, tissue, cell, molecule, etc.) contributes in a unique way to the structure and functioning of the whole. The whole provides the parts with knowledge of the overall organisational pattern in which they participate to ensure their integrated functioning – to ensure that all the parts act to maintain the integrity and health of the whole. Health is synonymous with harmony. A healthy animal body functions harmoniously. When it is stressed, giving rise to ill health or disharmony, it strives to cure itself, restore its lost harmony. In physiological terminology, the organism displays homeostasis. Miller (1985) explains that Rta must be understood from three points of view. The first is the universal or cosmic aspect that is described in

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the previous paragraph. The second is the socio-ethical aspect. This is the basis for ethical behaviour of the individual in human society. This aspect of Rta is termed Dharma, which, in its most general sense, means harmonious life or action (Osborne, 1973, p. 200). Elaborating on this Zimmer writes, ‘The word implies not only a universal law by which the cosmos is governed and sustained, but also particular inflections of “the law” which are natural to each    modification of existence’. Pirsig (1974, pp. 370–1) sees Dharma as equivalent to the Greek concept of arete, or excellence. His authority is H. D. F. Kitto’s The Greeks. ‘What moves the Greek warrior [with reference to the Iliad] to deeds of heroism is not a sense of duty as we understand it – towards others: it is rather duty towards himself. He strives after that which we translate as “virtue” but in Greek is arete “excellence”’ (Pirsig, 1974, p. 370). It constitutes a unitary, comprehensive definition of ethical behaviour. The third aspect is what Miller terms the religico-sacrificial. It is the general notion that human beings in all aspects of their lives must actively contribute to the maintenance of Rta by sacrifice. In Vedic times, this was done ritually.3 Today I would say that the notion of sacrifice translates into to that of restraining one’s appetites and desires, tempering one’s ‘pursuit of happiness’, and ‘self-fulfilment’ in the interest of balance, of harmony – in the ecosystem, the family, the community and in the entirety of humanity. If all this sounds pretty dreary and irksome, Panikkar suggests that at the personal level, the concept of Rta is, on the contrary, liberating. ‘No need to control everything, to be certain of all things, to know everything. No need to live facing the future or scrutinise frantically the past. We may trust in Rta’ (Panikkar, 1985, p. xix). Of course, to put our trust in Rta, we must know Rta. As will be shown in the next section, this is not possible by logical mentation. It is only through myth that we can know it. Law as imposition The [concept] of Imposed Law adopts the alternative metaphysical doctrine of External Relations between the existences which are the ultimate constituents of nature. The character of each of these ultimate things is thus conceived as its own private qualification. Such an existent is understandable in complete disconnection from any other such existent; the ultimate truth is that it requires nothing but itself in order to exist. But in fact there is imposed on each such existent the necessity of entering into relationships with the other ultimate constituents of nature. These imposed behaviour patterns

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are the Laws of Nature. But you cannot discover the natures of the relata by any study of Laws of their relation. Nor, conversely, can you discover the laws by inspection of the natures. (Whitehead, 1933, p. 117) An example will make this concept clear. Issac Newton’s description of the solar system in terms of his law of universal gravitation embodies this concept. He assumed that (1) the ultimate constituents of nature are self-existent material bodies – sun, planets, moons; (2) these bodies are in motion at undiminishing velocity in straight lines unless acted upon from outside themselves; (3) that each of these bodies possesses the attribute of heaviness or mass; (4) these bodies possess an active property, force, proportional to their mass, that acts upon other bodies, even without contact, causing them to deviate from their straight-line trajectories; and (5) time and space are objective and absolute. Given these assumptions, he was able to describe the exact distance of each planet from, and its movement around, the sun. This invariable relationship, he said, was a law of nature that had been imposed upon these bodies by the Creator. In his general approach to the study of natural phenomena, Newton was not as radically innovative as he is generally made out to be. His law of universal gravitation was the culmination of a train of thought that was initiated in Hellenic times. This train of thought can be termed ‘particularisation’, that is, a tendency to look at the parts rather than the whole. This movement towards particularisation seems to have begun with the recognition of ‘self-evident’ axioms of geometry and mathematics. From these, deductions of practical value could be made. This led to the notion that these axioms are eternal, immutable patterns that are imposed on amorphous substance or activity to give them form – the forms that constitute experience. This is often referred to as the ‘Pythagorean orientation’. It was taken up by Plato and later by Aristotle. Aristotelian deductive science embodies this orientation and led to the systematic, in-depth study of detached phenomena. The concept of the whole did not disappear altogether, for it was thought that these axioms are held in the mind of God, but it receded into the background. The beginning of the end of the concept of law as immanent occurred in Hellenic times. It was marked by a devaluation of traditional myths which became ‘plebeian superstitions’ in the eyes of the intellectual aristocracy of the Hellenic period (Russell, 1946, p. 31). The final demise of the concept of law as immanent is found in Newton’s work, and tentatively in Johanne Kepler’s work before him. The planets ceased

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to be recognised as living beings. As living beings, they were parts of an organic universe. As lumps of dead matter, they are discrete, self-sufficient entities – and their co-ordinated movements had to be accounted for by the concept of law as imposed. Another important facet of this tendency to particularisation can be seen in Plato’s dialogues where he attempted to isolate and define general aspects of experience such as beauty, truth and justice. These were visualised as abstract organising principles, or ‘Ideas’, as he termed them, which enter into experience and give it form. Like the axioms of geometry, the Ideas are static and immutable. Plato assumed that these ideas could be understood and defined by logical mentation. His dialectic method, the Socratic dialogue, was the means of doing this. The purpose of these definitions was to guide practice in everyday life. There are both logical and practical difficulties in this way of thinking, but before looking into these, it is necessary to note one other feature of Plato’s notion of Ideas. In describing the Ideas in the previous paragraph, it was said that they ‘enter into’ experience to give it form, just as still earlier it was said that geometrical patterns are ‘imposed on’ substance to give it form. In both cases, the basic concept is that the patterns/Ideas exist separately from the world of experience (including the experience of substance); that is, they exist in a supersensible realm. Pirsig (1974) suggests that Plato was attempting to reconcile two contradictory concepts, those of permanence and change, that had been formulated earlier – and both of which he felt were true. Parmenides, who lived in the first half of the 5th century BC, considered the multitude of sensible things ultimately to be illusory, presumably because they can be shown to be impermanent. Only the One exists, and it is infinite and indivisible. Heraclitus, who lived a little earlier than Parmenides, thought that the only reality is change; there is nothing permanent but change itself. However, Plato was unable to unify these contradictory concepts and so ended up proposing a dualistic world – a world if Ideas, separate from, though determining, a world of forms. This dualistic outlook has characterised mainstream thinking in Western culture from then on; it was explicit in Hellenistic and Scholastic thought and carried over into Enlightenment thinking. Rene Descartes, for example, visualised a world in which there is a ‘    dualism between God the Creator and the mechanistic world of his creation and between mind as a spiritual principle and matter as mere spatial extension    ’ (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1992, article on the History of Western Philosophy). Today environmentalists see this same

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duality in contemporary mainstream thought – the divide between my person and the environment – as responsible for violence against nature (see e.g. Mortari, 2003). Thinkers in other cultures have made a better job of reconciling the concepts of permanence and change, and we can usefully recall what they had to say. This will be done in Chapter 8. The problems with Plato’s dualistic worldview are both logical and practical. Looking first at the practical, we recognise, for example, beauty when we experience it, and it is possible to live beautiful lives and create beautiful artefacts, but we cannot define it. We can do a post hoc analysis of a beautiful thing and come up with a list of rules for creating other beautiful things, but these rules are useless in helping us to do so. Pirsig (1974), for example, came to the conclusion from years of trying to teach students how to write beautiful essays ‘by the rule book’ (he was a teacher of rhetoric) that it is impossible. In his argument, Pirsig uses the word ‘quality’ and not beauty to characterise a good essay. Further reflection brought him to the conclusion that quality was nothing less than the reflection of arete, Dharma, in a particular artefact. And since arete, cannot be defined by logical mentation, as was argued in the section on the concept of law as immanent, neither can beauty or quality – nor justice and truth, for that matter. All are just so many ways of ‘seeing’ the operation of the whole in distinct instances of experiencing. In themselves they are indefinable, unreal. This is the logical problem with Plato’s Ideas. Moreover, the limits to, and legitimate use of, reason have not been appreciated by Plato. It cannot reach behind what is given in experience. What we are given are aspects of the Whole in the shape of discrete episodes of experiencing. Reason can only work on the elements in these episodes. By way of summarising the foregoing description of the concept of law as imposition, it may be said that this law is a special, limited case of the more general concept of law as immanent. There are simple, recurrent aspects of Rta that can be described mathematically such as the ‘self-evident’ axioms of geometry. They might be useful for limited purposes. But they are only aspects, and for right understanding and behaviour, must be seen as such. In other words, the final and most adequate explanation for the solar system is that it is an organism. Certain aspects of it, for example the relationship between any two of its members, can be explained approximately in terms of mechanism – as Newton demonstrated. The world is ultimately, however, an organism, not a machine.

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The concept of law as immanent is invoked to explain how things happen, and, more importantly, why they happen as they do. With the concept of imposed law, the notion of necessity is also present, but the verbal/mathematical expressions in which the concept of this law is couched lack the direct immediacy, the emotional force, of the symbols of myth which is so important in guiding ethical conduct. To wind up this discussion on the concept of law as imposed, it will also be well to reflect that if all Newton’s basic assumptions are rejected, which increasingly they are today, this concept becomes untenable. If there are ultimately no discrete material entities, on what is law imposed? Law as mere description The concept of law as imposition, from its tentative beginnings in the Hellenic period, gathered strength over the next two millennia until in the 17th century it decisively eliminated the concept of law as immanent. From then on the concept of law as imposed by a Creator itself waned; it was increasingly felt that the assumption of a Creator was unnecessary, even a distraction, to objective scientific enquiry. Better to focus on that which is clearly perceptible to the senses and to draw what conclusions one can from the regularities observed in such phenomena. These regularities were considered to be the law – at least as much of it as can be known. Thinkers who led this movement imagined that they were freeing themselves from needless preoccupation with unprovable metaphysical or theological assumptions. They failed to recognise their own set of assumptions. The concept of law as mere description, as Whitehead termed it, assumes that we have direct acquaintance with a succession of things    observed    [and] a comparative knowledge of the successive observations. Acquaintance is cumulative and comparative. The laws of nature are nothing else than the observed identities of pattern persisting throughout the series of comparative observations. Thus a law of nature says something about things observed and nothing more. (Whitehead, 1933, pp. 119–20) This is the positivist doctrine of ‘observe and describe’ that is the ideal, indeed, the dogma of contemporary science.

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The concept of law as mere description offers no basis for explaining phenomena; it professes only to describe them. Thus the philosopher David Hume rightly, from the point of view of law as mere description, observed that no causal mechanism between two related events is discernible. His notion of causation was, therefore, simply that by repeatedly seeing two sorts of events together, and occurring in the same order in time, we develop a habit of thinking of them together in that way. Causation, given the concept of law as mere description, can be nothing more than this habit of thought. ‘We have no other notion of cause and effect, but that certain objects, which have been always conjoined together    . We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction’ (Russell [1946, p. 639], quoting from Hume’s ‘Treatise of Human Nature’ published in 1739). Of course, both scientists and everyone else inevitably do seek explanations. In the absence of the concepts of law as immanent or as imposed, they unconsciously employ other assumptions about why things happen. One is that discrete physical entities exert a something termed ‘force’ that explains why two bodies move in relation to each other in just the ways they are observed to do. Force, however, is not a thing at all, and so cannot cause anything to happen. The term force (‘F’) in the equations of Newtonian mechanics is a purely mathematical construct; that is, Force = Mass × Acceleration. All the equations can be rewritten to eliminate the term ‘F’ (Russell, 1946, p. 524). Another explanation assumed by contemporary scientists is what the philosopher of science Rom Harre calls a ‘micro-explanation’. Generally stated, this concept is that the nature of the individual things that make up a larger composite entity determines the nature of that entity (Harre, 1972). Take for example the question of how an organism is structured as it is. The explanation is that its overall structure is ‘caused’ by its microstructure – that is, by the structure of the DNA molecules in the nuclei of its component cells. The reasoning is that DNA molecules replicate themselves; they arrange individual amino acids into a distinctive structure just like their own. Therefore they determine the structure of the whole organism. The ‘therefore’ in the previous sentence is, however, a cover up; there is a logical discontinuity at this point. One should either not give any explanation at all, which is the official view, or, if one does offer an explanation, it should be logically convincing. Mainstream biologists do neither. Another logical problem with the micro-explanation approach is that it leads to an infinite regress, and thus ultimately explains nothing. The structure of DNA is caused by the structures of its component molecules,

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which in turn are caused by their component atoms. Eventually one arrives at an irreducible ultimate particle (since one is a materialist). It does not have any structure. The original question remains, where does structure come from? Further, we must note that the assumption of law as mere description forces scientists into blatant deception. The Baconian doctrine stipulates that observation of phenomena followed by induction is the only valid scientific procedure. In practice, however, scientists typically have a hypothesis about why something is the way it is before they begin to observe. Then they search for evidence to support this hypothesis. J. K. Bajaj (1988) has shown by reference to Bacon’s own writings that his method of inductive reasoning is not free from bias due to his unacknowledged a priori hypotheses about why events happen as they do. As the biologist Peter Medawar writes, ‘    induction in scientific papers [is] the posture we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us (quoted by Goldsmith, 1998, p. 39)’. By the 20th century, all trace of the concept of law as imposed, not to mention concept of law as immanent, had disappeared. What sort of a world is it that cannot really be explained, as mainstream science officially maintains? There is no unity, only a welter of ultimately unrelated phenomena in which we must strenuously exert ourselves to discover some semblance of order. As Bertrand Russell said in midtwentieth century, ‘    the idea that the world is a unity is rubbish. I think the universe is all spots and jumps, without any unity and without continuity, without coherence or orderliness    (quoted by Goldsmith, 1998, p. 115)’. And yet contemporary scientists are continually stumbling upon order, as the Pythagoreans did so long ago. Strange attractors and fractals have emerged from the bowels of super computers (Capra, 1997). Further,

Quantum mechanics reveals    [a] world [that] does not consist of independent particles whose characteristics of position, momentum, electrical charge, spin, and so on [that] can be varied independently of each other. The quantum realm is governed by principles of intimate entanglement and co-ordination between its components, a nonlocal connectedness resulting in holistic, correlated order that extends over time and space. (Goodwin, 2003)

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The order that is forcing itself on scientists is not, however, explained; it is only described. So far the thinking of mainstream scientists remains locked into the concept of law as mere description. For this reason, they cannot really account for the order they are observing except to say that it emerges from phenomena. In other words, it is ‘explained’ by the micro-structure of the process. A summing up This brief and very general survey of the concepts of law assumed at various times in the course of Western history is intended to set the stage for a discussion of how we might begin to come to grips with the crisis in contemporary global culture. It is being argued that the disappearance of the concept of law as immanent from our worldview and our assumption of the concept of law as mere description have crippled us intellectually and emotionally. The concept of law as mere description is now manifestly inadequate to deal either with the insights that 20th-century science has produced, or the problems arising from the ‘rational’ management of human affairs. At the same time, we now have no convincing reason to act in one way rather than another; there is no explanation of why the world is as it is. This concept of law as mere description is perhaps the major cause of our dysfunctional culture and of our inability to heal ourselves. This survey has also revealed that an adequate understanding of law by means of logical mentation alone is impossible. And yet, Western civilisation has devoted all its energies over the past two and a half millennia to precisely this. There is an urgent need for a drastically new way of thinking. This will be in the direction of re-instating the concept of law as immanent and mythical mode of understanding it. The following section is therefore devoted to an exploration of myth as a means of understanding the working of law as immanent. Following that, two examples of the spontaneous reappearance of myth in contemporary life are described. The mythical mode of engagement with nature, society and with one’s own self also has its dangers. A brief mention of these and how to deal with them is made at the end of this chapter.

Understanding the concept of law as immanent through myth [T]he sphere of logical thought is far exceeded by that of the mind’s possible experiences of reality. To express and communicate

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   [what is] gained in moments of grammar-transcending insight metaphors must be used, similes and allegories. These are not mere embellishments, dispensable accessories, but the very vehicles of the meaning, which could not be rendered, and could never have been attained, through the logical formulae of normal verbal thought. Significant images can comprehend and make manifest with clarity and pictorial consistency    a translogical reality, which, expressed in the abstract language of normal thought, would seem inconsistent, self-contradictory, or even absolutely meaningless. (Zimmer, 1956, p. 25) An understanding of myth is seemingly indispensable if the concept of law as immanent is assumed. This section describes the mythical mode of human interaction with the world. First the general nature of myth will be explained and then two specific examples of modern myth – Gaia and the sinking of the Titanic – will be explored. A myth is a representation of an aspect of Rta. The symbols of myth are animate entities, human beings, gods, demons and animals, all endowed with human thoughts, emotions and abilities, although usually exaggerated in one direction or another. Phenomena – physical, emotional and spiritual – are described in terms of stories enacted by these entities.4 Inanimate entities are also common symbols in myth, deriving their significance from their roles in particular stories. And always, the story intimates the working out of the patterns comprising Rta. Myths thus help people understand current events, and give them guidance in the affairs of daily life. Myths are created by people who are able to articulate that which is felt or known intuitively by everyone. Over the years and generations, mythical stories undergo changes, for they are dynamic constructs, changing with changing circumstances, or, more correctly, changing as is necessary to maintain their timeless relevance. Sometimes they are obviously local variants of larger cultural myths. Sometimes local myths spread, displacing others with the same or a similar theme to become dominant in an entire culture; the historian A. L. Basham points out instances of this in Vedic culture (Basham, 1954). I would say that all events in traditional societies are routinely understood as exemplifications of mythical themes. More accurately, contemporary events are significant in terms of their conformity with these themes, and, at the same time, are contributions to their continual construction. Further, as current events, at least the more vivid ones, recede into the past they often seem to become

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more and more assimilated to the mythical themes they exemplify. To that extent, there is no past, but only a timeless mythical present.5 The language of myth is also that of dreams. The psychoanalyst C. G. Jung and others have pointed out that the symbols of dream, even in the dreams of participants in the worldview of contemporary global culture, are similar to those of ancient myth (Campbell, 1988). The meanings of these symbols have largely been forgotten and modern people thus have no access to Rta as it operates in the world and in their own psyches. Though the occurrence and importance of myth declined in Western culture from the Hellenic period, the need for and ability to generate myth seems not to have disappeared from the human psyche – if the dramatic reappearance of myth in contemporary global culture is any indicator. Gaia as a myth When I first saw Gaia in my mind I felt as an astronaut must have done as he stood on the moon, gazing back at our home, the Earth. The feeling strengthens as theory and evidence come in to confirm the thought that Earth may be a living organism. Thinking of the Earth as alive make is seem, on happy days, in the right places, as if the whole planet were celebrating a sacred ceremony. (James Lovelock, quoted by Sachs, 1999, p. 123)

Gaia is both a useful scientific theory and an evocative mythical theme, that of the Earth Goddess who has a prominent place in the myths of ancient Greece (Graves, 1969) and in Vedic culture where she is known as Prithvi (Atharveda 12:1, Panikkar, 2001). In its most potent version, the Gaia theory thus assumes the concept of a living universe. It is being enthusiastically embraced as such by diverse groups of environmentalists and is important for many more people who are not explicit environmentalists. With most scientists, it is creating consternation. In this section, the difference between metaphor and myth is highlighted and the uproar in scientific circles examined. James Lovelock, the author of the Gaia theory, in the Preface to his book The Ages of Gaia (Second edition, 1995) relates an exchange he had with a fellow scientists at a meeting at Oxford of an inter-disciplinary group of scientists to discuss the theme ‘The self-regulating Earth’. This exchange seems so appropriate as an introduction to the subject of myth that I quote what Lovelock wrote at some length.

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Towards the end of my talk at this meeting, a talk in which I tried to show that the ecosystems of the land masses and the ocean are at present failing to achieve thermostasis and would operate more effectively during an ice age, I said, ‘Perhaps Gaia likes it cold.’ This was intended simply as verbal shorthand for some wordy technical phrase such as: the evidence suggests that the system, comprising the algal ecosystems of the oceans and those of the land plants, taken together with the atmosphere and climate, maintain thermostasis only at global average temperatures below about 12 C. In my talk I had spoken like this more than once. I felt the need for metaphor and it seemed to me that ‘Gaia likes it cold’ might be a neat sentence with which to summarise and conclude my talk. To my amazement a scientist friend came to me afterwards and said ‘Jim, you can’t say things like that. It takes us back to the days of Gaia as an Earth Goddess. The scientists sitting near me were shocked to hear you speak in such terms’. (Lovelock, 1995, pp. xii–xiv) Metaphor is widely used in everyday speech and also in discussing scientific subjects. A metaphor is ‘    a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable    a thing regarded as symbolic of something else’ (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2002). As Lovelock says, it is a ‘neat’ way of summarising a long complex explanation. Why then should Gaia, as a metaphor, create such indignation among scientists? It is, I think, because Gaia is much more than a metaphor; it is a myth. This conclusion seems to be supported by the attitude of environmentalists. Now myths are not arbitrary or fanciful productions of an individual mind, though they are articulated through particular persons. They are powerful, dramatic, collective representations of subtle patterns that are intuited by everyone. They are powerful because they resonate with something within us and demand our attention and acquiescence. The resonance is due to the fact that the subtle patterns shaping the world ‘out there’ also shape the processes ‘within me’ by which I apprehend and make sense of the world. This is attested to by the fact that most mythical motifs are shared by people of diverse cultural patterns; they seem to be the birthright, so to speak, of all human beings. Since we became ‘enlightened’ in the 17th century and approach reality only by the ‘light of reason’, we have denied the existence of the subtle patterns that myths embody. But that does not banish them.

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We all are familiar enough with psychoanalytical theory to know that any element of experience that is denied recognition by the conscious mind does not disappear, but recedes into the unconscious. It then finds expression in dream clothed in the forms of timeless mythical themes. Enlightenment man6 dismisses the mythical mode of engagement with the world as incompatible with a search for ‘Truth’. In short, it is ‘nonsense’. To mainstream scientists, therefore, all talk of Gaia, with its mythical evocation, is nonsense. It is ‘nonsense’ to which they themselves are liable and against which they have to be on their guard. This explains, I think, the admonition the scientists at the Oxford meeting gave Lovelock. In other words, the Gaia theory is a threat to the prevailing concept of law as mere description. This is why Martin Haigh has said that to the extent that the Gaia theory has been accepted at all by the scientific mainstream, it has been ‘neutered’ (Haigh, 2001). What he means, I suggest, is that the Gaia theory in all its potency presupposes the concept of law as immanent. ‘Neutering’ it means framing it in terms of the concept of law as mere description. The Gaia theory will be ‘at home’ only in a science that presupposes law as immanent. What such a science will look like will be considered in Chapter 9. At this point it will, however, be relevant to observe that only such a science will give us understanding. In accordance with the definition of understanding given in Chapter 3, it results only when sensory data, memories and intuitively perceived patterns implicit in phenomena, but not perceptible to the senses, are admitted as inputs into the thought process. If we deny intuition as a legitimate cognitive input, we end up with only knowledge. It is only when we understand that we can act on what we know in a responsible, ethical way. Sinking of the enlightenment cultural model The reappearance of Gaia is not the only instance of the spontaneous return of an ancient mythical theme to contemporary awareness. In the following paragraphs, I narrate what, in my opinion, is another instance of this. During the last hours of the 20th century, between 9 and 12 PM on 31st December 1999, one Delhi television channel showed the film Titanic. It evoked various thoughts/emotions in me, but the predominant one was how apt a metaphor this sinking of an awesome, proud ship was for the course of 20th-century Western culture. The hubris with which this ‘unsinkable’ ship was launched invited disaster. This event, at the beginning of the 20th century, was also an omen of

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what was in store for us. The magnificent creation of the 17th-century European enlightenment sailed confidently into the 20th century, only to encounter an iceberg of reality: two world wars, an environmental crisis and the ravages of two hegemonic variants of the enlightenment vision – communism, which has already failed, and capitalism, which is rapidly failing. Developments in science and society have further contributed to the disintegration of the Western enlightenment cultural model. The findings of physicists studying the subatomic realm in the 1920s challenged all the assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture. This was followed later in the century by the Gaia theory with its implication that the planet Earth is a living organism. Reactions to the sterility of and meaninglessness of 20th-century Western culture in the West and protest against the cultural and economic hegemony of the West elsewhere marked the second half of the century. All these have challenged the very worldview of Western culture. Our ship is fatally stricken and ‘will sink’ to use the memorable words of the Titanic’s designer as he prepared to go down with Her. Surely, I thought later, this story is more than just a metaphor – it is a myth. The theme of hubris and the retribution that is provoked by it is the same as in the myth of Icarus who flew too high – too close to the Sun – whereupon the wax in his wings (which were made of wax and feathers) melted and he fell into the ocean and was drowned.7 This film story, as myth, obviously presupposes a controlling pattern behind the scenes – a pattern that ensures everyone and everything operates within limits. Any exaggeration of thought, feeling or action that transgresses those limits disturbs the harmony and sets in train a reaction that restores it. This is in marked contrast to the assumption of a world without intrinsic coherence and order, assumed by Russell – the assumption that it was simply ‘bad luck’ that the iceberg drifted into the path of the ship. The message – reminder – of the Titanic as myth is that there is a universal imperative for ethical behaviour that is nowadays largely ignored. The modern experiment of attempting to posit a utilitarian rationale for ethical behaviour has clearly been a disastrous failure. Humankind has, collectively and individually, a definite place in the overall scheme, and if it thinks to go its own way, it will be punished. The Vedic poet ‘    said that Rta, though benign, can be “stern and fierce” in respect of transgressions. Brihaspati rides the fearsome chariot of Rta for destroying the wicked’ (Chaitanya [2000] paraphrasing Rigveda 2:23:3). Gaia produces children who are full of love, wisdom and harmony, but

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also, when necessary, monsters that rage through the world devouring and destroying.8 The Titanic story as myth also illustrates how, in the words of the poet Ted Hughes, mythical stories think for themselves once we know them. They not only attract and light up everything relevant in our experience, they are also in continual private meditation, as it were, on their own implications. They are little factories of understanding. New revelations of meaning open up out of their images and patterns continually, stirred into reach by our growth and changing circumstance. (Hughes, 2000) In participating in a myth, it is necessary to reflect on its personal as well as its cultural implications. Take the sub-theme of Rose, the heroine of the story. It is an example of a person struggling to be free of social conditioning and to find her own way in the world. Equally, her story is a story of how each of us in this day and age must seek the feeling and intuitive functions of ourselves (the boisterous life below decks) in order to challenge the exclusive reliance on the ‘light of reason’ (the ‘cultured’ life above decks). A note on the dangers of myth To complete this discussion of myth, the dangers of the mythical mode of engagement with the world must be mentioned. Aberrations do occur, giving rise to mass psychoses. Pernicious racial/ethnic myths have appeared in our times, leading to much violence. Such aberrations are usually of brief duration, and are thus not true myths. ‘If a tale can last    for two or three generations, then it has either come from the real place, or it has found its way there’ (Hughes, 2000). Another feature of mass psychoses is that their mythical theme is parochial and not universal. Such psychoses thus create acute disharmony in the larger contexts within which it occurs, setting in motion corrective, often equally violent reactions. True myth is always harmonising. Ancient myth must be interpreted, even reformulated, in a contemporary idiom to be wholesome and useful. Basham’s study of the history of mythical themes reveals that they are ever adapting to changing circumstances, at least in cultures that adhere to the mythical mode of engagement with the world. With the conscious efforts now being made to re-instate the idea of law as immanent in our way of looking at the world, the ancient mythical theme of Mother Earth is reappearing,

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but in an altered formulation suited to the circumstances that prevail today. To my mind, this is a confirmation of the power of true myth to reformulate itself to meet changing requirements. Where such reformulation is not done, and a mythical theme appears – in response to current need – in one of its earlier cultural forms we have an equally grave problem – that of fundamentalism. It is a refusal to allow mythical themes to proceed with their own spontaneous transformation. They cease to be myth, and instead become immutable matters of fact. This is happening in many non-Western societies in reaction to the hegemony of Western-style global culture and the self-destructive course it has set, and the increasing, though unacknowledged, irrelevance of their own past formulations of universal mythical themes. It is to be expected, but is a distraction from, and danger to, the necessary process of cultural transformation that is needed.

6 A Flawed System of Ideas

The purpose of Chapters 4 and 5 was to demonstrate the methods of identifying, explicating and critiquing the primary assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture. In doing this, it has also been shown how unsatisfactory these assumptions are in terms of their logic and their adequacy. Most of them contain logical inconsistencies and all are inadequate in that they do not provide plausible explanations of major features of common experience. These conclusions go a long way towards explaining the dysfunction of the cultural model we have inherited from the European Enlightenment. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that the world need not have come to such a pass as it is in today for us to realise this fact. With a little more metaphysical acumen, the shortcomings of these assumptions could have been foreseen. They were, in fact, seen by a few people, but their views were ignored. The mood of the 17th century was of impatience to get on with a grand scientific exploration of nature, and scientists had little time or thought for metaphysics. And the fruitfulness of their project seemed to vindicate their hurry. In all this, there is a lesson for us today; we are embarking on a fresh speculative enterprise, and it behoves us to try to understand and avoid the sort of mistakes they made. One further task remains by way of critique: to consider how well the seven definitions assumed in the worldview of contemporary global culture fit together as a system. In general, we can say that if the individual definitions, when considered together, do not form a system that meets the requirements of coherence, logical consistency and adequacy that system or worldview will probably give rise of problems (‘unexpected side effects’) in practice. The purpose of this chapter is to check out the worldview of contemporary global culture in terms of these criteria. 80

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Two problems demand our attention. The first is that of incoherence arising from the fact that there are four ultimately real entities and no single, overarching, unifying concept. The second is a contradiction arising from the ambivalence in the definition of the person.

Incoherence In Chapter 4, Whitehead’s definition of coherence, as applied to metaphysical systems, was quoted. Elsewhere he rephrased this definition more succinctly as follows: ‘Incoherence is the arbitrary disconnection of first principles’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 6). In terms of this definition, the system we are considering, positing as if does four ultimately entities none of which requires anything but itself to exist, is clearly incoherent – and to an absurd degree. The reason for this appears to be that Newton, who gave final shape to this system, just picked and chose particular concepts (first principles, primary assumptions) from various philosophical systems of the past, most notably the concept of enduring material atoms in perpetual motion in empty space of the Greek atomists, and the concept of law as imposed of Plato. He did not deduce these concepts from any single supreme concept, nor did he attempt to coordinate these readymade assumptions to ensure their coherence as a system. He apparently did not see any need to. The reason for this is that he was a scientist. Whitehead makes this clear in the course of his general assessment of Newton’s contribution to world thought. Newton’s Scholium    constitutes the clearest most definite, and most influential statement among the cosmological speculations of mankind, speculations of a type which first assume scientific importance with the Pythagorean school preceding and inspiring Plato. (Whitehead, 1929, p. 71) As a scientist, Newton’s immediate, indeed, sole concern was to further the study of natural phenomena. In this, of course, he was in tune with the thinking of the times; people saw a science based upon observation and description, particularly description in mathematical terms, as the way to freedom from the medieval Scholastic mindset. As it turned out his laws of mechanics, based upon these concepts revolutionised not only Western science, but the entire Western worldview as well. However, he addressed only the first and third of the perennial questions, ignoring the second one – who am I who experiences the

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world. More accurately, he simply held on to the notion of a detached observer that had been a primary assumption of Western civilisation since Hellenic times, and had been freshly and forcefully articulated by Rene Descartes in the 16th century. The presence of incoherence in the worldview of a culture leads to confusion and thence to mistakes in practice. Environmentalists cite the notions of the environment and the observer who is not part of the environment and is able to manipulate it without any constraints as the primary cause of the mess we have made of our planet (see, for example Mortari, 2003). Such a distinction between ‘me’ and ‘the environment’ does not seem to occur in non-European cultures that are informed by coherent worldviews, and the people of these cultures possess a greater degree of what is termed today ‘ecological consciousness’. There are two lessons to be learned from the results of Newton’s type of thought. In tackling any discrete problem or area of human endeavour, it is not sufficient to focus only on that problem or area. The results of such efforts are bound to come to grief. We must always keep the ‘big picture’ in mind. Metaphysics has the perspective and the tools to help us do this. The second lesson is that taking shortcuts in the TL process leads to failure. The Enlightenment exercise skipped over the first three tasks described in Chapter 3 (identification, explication and critique of existing assumptions) under the heading ‘Standing outside oneself’, and also omitted the final task, of creating a logical, coherent and adequate system of ideas.

Contradiction The worldview of contemporary global culture is marred by contradiction arising out of the definitions assumed for the ‘I’. I say ‘definitions’ because there are two of them, one explicit and other implicit, arising out of the definitions of other categories. This was pointed out in Chapter 4 but discussion was deferred until this chapter. The explicit definition is the one mentioned in the previous section: the person or ‘I’ is a detached observer of phenomena. ‘Phenomena’ means material entities in motion and their various interactions. Phenomena are other than ‘I’, that is to say, the ‘I’ is not made up of material entities. The implicit definition is that the ‘I’ is a person, a body, a physical entity, a thing like any other thing. This means that it is an assemblage of basic material entities. The structure and functioning of this assemblage

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can be understood completely in terms of the properties and activities of these basic entities. This notion guides all thought in the modern world. There is no more revealing instance of this fact than the study of human physiology and psychology and the pathologies encountered in these two realms. Logically, this is all very tidy. But the question arises: If the human body and its functions can be objects of study, like any other thing, who is the observer who is said to be detached from things? We cannot doubt its existence, yet it is not a material entity. Logically, there is no place in a materialist worldview for a non-material entity. Let me summarise and highlight this problem by formulating it in the following three propositions. 1. All phenomena are physical phenomena, or emergent properties of physical phenomena. 2. I, an observer of such phenomena, am a separate order of reality from them. 3. I am a physical phenomenon. The logical contradiction in these three assumptions is evident when stated in these terms, but in the hustle and bustle of getting and spending, we are oblivious of it. Confusion and violence are the result.

The origin of the concept of the detached observer The concept of the detached observer has been a persistent feature of Western civilisation from earliest times. It seems to be a corollary of the concepts of the soul, as articulated by Plato, and of Rene Descartes’ concept of a ‘thinking substance’. Both concepts affirm the existence of an entity associated with, and yet distinct from, a person’s physical body; an entity of a different order of reality than the physical body. Socrates, speaking of his immanent death in the Phaedo says ‘Death    is the separation of soul and body’ (Russell, 1946, p. 148). Further, ‘He is not grieved at death, because he is convinced “in the first place that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of which I am as certain as I can be of any such matters) and secondly (though I am not so sure of this last) to men departed, better than those whom I leave behind” ’ (Russel, 1946, p. 148). Russell goes on to say that this distinction between soul and body ‘has a religious origin    . The Orphic    proclaims himself the child of earth and of the starry heaven; from earth comes the body, from heaven the soul. It is this theory that

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Plato seeks to express in the language of philosophy’ (ibid, p. 149). Later this concept of the soul joined up, more or less, with that of the soul in the Hebrew–Christian tradition. The distinction between soul and body is only one aspect of the duality that pervades Plato’s thought. Other, analogous pairs are reality and appearance, Ideas and sensible objects, and reason and sense perception (Russell, ibid, p. 149). The first terms in each of these pairs are related. The Ideas constitute the real world in as much as they are the eternal backdrop, as it were, of the world of sensible objects. The latter is only an appearance. The soul is capable of cognising the real world of Ideas, whereas sense perception and mundane mentation cognise and interpret the world of appearance. The latter is a function of the body. These conclusions proceed from the notion that the soul is immortal. The following three arguments are advanced for thinking that the soul survives death: First, there is a belief that the soul has a succession of many lives. The processes of nature in general are cyclical; and it is reasonable to suppose that this cyclicality applies to the case of dying and coming to life. If it were not so, if the process of dying were not reversible, life would ultimately vanish from the universe. Second, the doctrine that what men call ‘learning’ is really ‘recollection’ shows, or at least suggests, that the soul’s life is independent of the body. Third, the soul contemplates the Forms [Ideas], which are eternal, changeless, and simple. The soul is like the Forms. Hence it is immortal. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article on Platonism) A further argument, which Russell says had been around for quite some time, is that only what is complex can be dissolved, and that the soul, like the Ideas, is simple and not compounded of parts. What is simple, it is thought, cannot begin or end or change    . [Also]    things seen are temporal, but things unseen are eternal. The body is seen, but the soul is unseen; therefore the soul is to be classified in the group of things that are eternal. (Russell, 1946, p. 154)

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The issue before us is, I suggest, to decide upon the validity of the claim for the existence of an entity termed by Plato the soul. If it cannot be shown to exist, then the current concept of the detached observer is a mistake – in so far as the soul is considered the ultimate definition of the person. This issue can be framed as the question: is the individual soul a discrete entity, distinct from other souls? Alternatively, is the soul defined in terms of its qualities or properties? If the answers to these questions is yes, then the soul cannot be said to be a discrete entity distinct from every other soul; it cannot be said to exist. This is the same argument used in deciding whether physical things exist or not (Chapter 4). I think it can be concluded from all that has been said above that the soul cannot be conceived in isolation from the body; it shares the body’s discreteness as an entity that is different from other bodies. If there is any doubt about this, Socrates appears to put it to rest: ‘Socrates’ soul is identical with Socrates himself: the survival of his soul is the survival of Socrates – in a purified state’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article on Platonism). This soul of Western conception has generally been considered to be the essential person. The person is, as Socrates says, his/her soul. But if the soul cannot be said to exist, that definition too, like those of body and mind, has to be given up. And yet, as was said at the end of Chapter 4 I do not for a moment, doubt that I exist. Who or what, then, is this I? An attempt will be made to answer this question in Chapters 7 and 8. Descartes said that the thinking faculty of the human being is a ‘thinking substance’ existing independently of material substance. He began his speculations by doubting all received truths, until only one true proposition appeared to remain. Russell explains this in the following words, quoting, in part, from Descartes himself:

There remains, however, something that I cannot doubt: no demon, however, cunning, could deceive me if I did not exist. I may have no body: this might be an illusion. But thought is different. ‘While I wanted to think everything false, it must necessarily be that I who thought was something; and remarking that this truth, I think, therefore I am, was so solid and so certain that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of upsetting it, that I judged that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy that I sought’.

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Having now secured a firm foundation, Descartes sets to work to rebuild the edifice of knowledge. The I that has been proved to exist has been inferred from the fact that I think, therefore I exist while I think, and only then. If I ceased to think, there would be no evidence of my existence. I am a thing that thinks, a substance of which the whole nature or essence consists in thinking, and which needs no place or material thing for its existence. The soul, therefore, is wholly distinct from the body and easier to know than the body; it would be what it is even if there were no body. (Russell, 1946, pp. 547–8) A critique of Descartes concept of a ‘thinking substance’ is a relatively straightforward task. There is direct experiential evidence for the existence of the ‘I’ prior to, and independently of, the experience of thinking. Descartes was obviously unaware of this evidence, or chose to discount it. The evidence has been described, to the extent that it can be described in words, by those who practise stilling the mind completely. ‘I’ is the bare awareness from which all experience emerges. It should not in fact be termed ‘experience’, as I have just done, since it is prior to all experience. It can be ‘experienced’ by anyone who is willing to put in the required effort in the right manner. If one has had this experience, or if one has not but is willing to accept the testimony of those that have, it will be evident that Descartes reversed the true order of things. I think only because I am. This cuts the ground from under his entire argument for an autonomous ‘thinking substance’. There is no such thing. Here then, we have another mistake that somehow came to be unquestioningly accepted by successive eras in Western civilisation, or perhaps it should be said that it reinforced the mistakes made earlier by Plato. This entire question will come up again in Chapters 7 and 8 when an attempt will be made to explain the certainty every person has that they do in fact exist, and that that bare certainty seems to be all that is left to him after every possible attempt at definition fail. With these observations on the detached observer, the critique, or my suggested critique, of the worldview of contemporary global culture is complete. In Chapter 7, we will move on to examining some alternative primary assumptions about the world and human nature.

7 Alternative Assumptions

In this chapter three promising alternative primary assumptions will be described and evaluated. All have been hinted at in the previous chapters. The first of these is that the world is a process and not a collection of things. This sweeps aside entirely our present notion of discrete, enduring material entities existing and interacting in a preexisting space–time matrix, cognised by a detached observer. The second is that everything is interconnected, interdependent in a way that is not intelligible in terms of our contemporary concept of law as mere description. Third, the person is a detached participant in phenomena, and not a detached observer of phenomena.

The world as a process During the 1927–28 academic session at the University of Edinburgh, A. N. Whitehead gave a series of lectures that were later published as Process and Reality (Whitehead, 1929). He suggested that the ultimate real things of which the world is composed are not physical entities, but episodes of experiencing. These are units of living process, and therefore he termed his cosmology the philosophy of organism. In what follows I have tried, in the first place, to describe Whitehead’s central concept of ‘actual occasions’ in my own words, as I have understood it. I have used Whitehead’s own special terms for the most part, but in a few instances I have also suggested alternative terms that seem more appropriate to the context of this essay. After describing the concept, I point out those aspects of it with which I disagree and describe my own suggestions. Throughout, the terms ‘experience’ and ‘experiencing’ are used in ways that correspond to the definitions given in Chapter 3. 87

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Actual entities Actual entities, or as they will be referred to here, ‘episodes of experiencing’, are innumerable and all are essentially the same. These combine in various ways to form complex structures of process such as what are conventionally termed atoms, crystals, amoebae, trees, people, ecosystems, planets and galaxies. In a unit of process, or episode of experiencing, three phases can be visualised. In the first, completed episodes of experiencing in the causal past of the episode in question are cognised as well as what Whitehead terms ‘eternal objects’. He terms the cognition of completed episodes from the past ‘physical prehensions’. The cognition of eternal objects is termed a ‘conceptual prehension’. While some past episodes, and some eternal objects from the totality of such objects, are positively prehended, others are negatively prehended, that is, they are excluded or rejected. Prehensions are thus selective. The term ‘cognition’ as used in the preceding paragraph means, in the case of physical prehensions, the transmission of influence from the prehended entity to the prehending episode in the process of its formation. In the case of the prehension of eternal objects, cognition appears to be what we would term intuition. Eternal objects are the same as Plato’s ‘Ideas’, or subtle organising principles. Though Whitehead follows Plato in this matter, he makes it clear that he does not visualise a realm of eternal objects with a pre-eminent reality as Plato does. In his system that place is taken by episodes of experiencing themselves. In phase two, physical prehensions are arranged into meaningful patterns in accordance with the requirements of the eternal ideas that have also been prehended by that occasion. This arranging also involves enhancing the strength of some prehensions and diminishing that of others through reinforcement and opposition. The final aim of the episode is the coordination of the initial (physical) prehensions into a single, novel experience. This is phase three. It is the culmination of the process, what Whitehead terms a ‘satisfaction’ or a ‘drop of experience’. With this, the process comes to an end. The episode perishes as an actual entity, but in perishing, it becomes ‘objectively immortal’ and becomes available to subsequent episodes or experiencing as a datum for physical prehension. A ‘satisfaction’ will be conceived of in the context of this essay as a ‘bringing forth a world’. Each episode brings forth a complete, unique world. However, as each episode, directly or indirectly, prehends every

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episode in its causal past, and as the same eternal objects participate, more or less, in all episodes, none of them occurs in isolation, but is knit into the fabric of the whole – of a single universe. Associations The smallest and simplest episodes might be visualised as what are today termed subatomic particles. From a human point of view, their duration is momentary and their extensivity vanishingly small. These combine in various ways to create larger, and larger-order, episodes, possessing greater duration and extensivity. Single episodes combine in two dimensions to give temporal and spatial associations. ‘A purely temporal association contains no pair of contemporary actual episodes; it is a mere thread of temporal transition from episode to episode    [each] episode prehending the episode immediately preceding it in the thread.    A purely spatial association includes no pair of episodes such that one of the pair is antecedent to the other.’ (In this quotation from Sherburne [1966, p. 231], the term ‘episode’ has been substituted for Whitehead’s term ‘actual occasion’.) An electron, or whatever is the smallest actual entity or episode, is a purely temporal association. Large-scale associations like rocks, people, trees and ecosystems are both temporal and spatial associations at once. ‘The most common condition is for    [an association] to spread itself both spatially and temporally. A tree, which at an instant is many    [episodes of experiencing] thick spatially, is also many generations of [episodes of experiencing] thick temporally’ (Sherburne, 1966, p. 230). Associations arise in the following way. In an episode of experiencing episodes from the causal past are prehended individually. If a group of these episodes is similar amongst themselves, they become associated in phase three to form a single entity. Similarity occurs because the prehended entities are mutually immanent in each other; that is, they all contain common elements from their causal pasts – they prehend the same completed episodes from the causal past – and common eternal objects. These associations become discrete elements of the new episode and are passed on as such to subsequent episodes. In other words, if the world I bring forth contains a tree, a stone or a person, that tree, stone, person assumes the status of a ‘thing’ that will appear in fresh worlds in the future. In a complex spatial–temporal association, there are many levels of associations arranged hierarchically, each association organising those it subsumes and being organised by the higher-order associations of which it is an element.1

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The togetherness of all actual entities The totality of episodes of experiencing is recognised by Whitehead as a distinct entity in its own right, a world process. This world process he terms ‘God’. It is an actual entity, or episode of experiencing, though of a different type to those so far considered. In the development of the episode of experiencing that is ‘God’, the usual process is reversed: the process begins with the physical prehension of the entire realm of eternal ideas and the conceptual prehension of all the generations of completed episodes of the ordinary type; the latter are then ordered (or reordered) in terms of the demands of the totality of the former. Thus the satisfaction of the episode of experiencing that is ‘God’ is a specific state of the totality of worlds so far brought forth and constitutes a freshly defined potential for the next generation of episodes or worlds. The significance of ‘God’ is summed up by Whitehead as follows. The things which are temporal (actual entities) arise by their participation in the things which are eternal (eternal objects). The two sets are mediated by a thing which combines the actuality of what is temporal with the timelessness of what is potential. This final entity is    [that] entity in the world, by which the barren inefficient disjunction of abstract potentialities obtains primordially the efficient conjunction of ideal realisation. (quoted by Sherburne, 1966, pp. 25–6). Whitehead’s concept of actual entities, or episodes of experiencing, is a definition of the general category ‘matter’. Having done away with the definition of matter as discrete material entities, it is obviously necessary to redefine all other categories as well. This Whitehead has done. The result is an entirely new cosmology, the philosophy of organism. It will be useful to look briefly at the other definitions this cosmology assumes. Subjective time and space Each episode of experiencing creates its own space–time coordinates. There is no pre-existing space–time ‘out there’ in which episodes occur. In other words, space and time are subjective. (From this point of view both Newtonian and Einsteinian space–time are objective. That is, they assume the ultimate reality of objects ‘out there’ and a person ‘in here’ who is defined by the collectivity of those ‘external’ objects.) Within an episode of experiencing, time and space appear in their familiar objective forms; there is a past and a future, there is a here and a there. If one’s world includes only ordinary, everyday ‘sensible’ objects, time and

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space generally appear as conceived by ‘the vulgar’ that is determined by things in movement. If one is a physical scientist, time and space are Newtonian (while at work), except for those whose world includes very small objects, very distant objects, and, in general, very fast-moving objects, where they are best thought of in Einsteinian terms. By way of further amplification of this point, we may first of all remind ourselves that prehended data (completed episodes) are all in the causal past of the current episode. Within the present episode, they are arranged temporally and spatially or, so to say, ‘spread out’ to give an intelligible world. Thus experiences from the causal past are transformed in the process to contemporary facts. Since each association of episodes has its own space–time co-ordinates, it lives in a world of its own creation. The more complex the associations appearing in an episode of experiencing, the more extensive are its co-ordinates. However, since the members of each species of episodes have a common general content and structure, all the members of the species live in a world with a similar time–space matrix. This gives the appearance of a common world for the species. In respect of the totality of episodes, however, there can be no time or space as we know them. Whitehead does not adequately explain how this idea of subjective space and time (our familiar objective time–space within an episode of experiencing) is to be reconciled with his concepts, quoted above, of ‘temporal’ and ‘spatial’ associations of episodes of experiencing. If space and time are subjective to the individual, then in what sense are some individuals ‘antecedent’ to others, or ‘contemporary’, for that matter? Again, in what sense do the many individual completed episodes exist at different places, that is, maintain their distinctive identity? There is a similar problem within an episode of experiencing itself (Sherburne, 1966, p. 38). The first phase in the process is the prehension of data, which are, in the second phase, organised into a unitary experience. It is only during the second phase that time and space come into operation. Obviously the ‘first’ and ‘second’ are not a sequence in time. Sherburne admits that there is no logical resolution of this problem, and yet the concepts of ‘causal past’ and of a sequence of phases in an episode of experiencing are necessary to Whitehead’s cosmology. The best that can be done, he concludes, is to say that here we are dealing with time and space sui generis, that is, a unique species of time and space. Actually Sherburne is in good company. Such a concept of ‘atemporal time’ has been found to be necessary in many cosmologies. And,

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in fact, Whitehead also tacitly admits this when he describes ‘God’ as prehending all the generations of completed episodes of the ordinary type, and sets the stage for the next generation of episodes. Causation To describe how the selection of data and of eternal objects occurs, Whiehead’s definition of causation must first be understood. He assumes the concept of law as immanent, or as intrinsic to episodes of experiencing. His formulation of this concept in the context of his system comprises three terms: eternal objects, the ‘extensive continuum’ and ‘God’. The terms eternal objects and ‘God’ have already been defined. The extensive continuum takes its rise from the ‘    notion of pure, or general, potentiality,    [or] “the bundle of possibilities, mutually consistent or alternative, provided by the multiplicity of eternal objects.    It is that first determinant of order – that is, of real potentiality – arising out of the general character of the world’ (quoted by Sherburne, 1966, pp. 223–4). Through successive episodes of experiencing termed ‘God’, the universe is configured in its totality. ‘God’ is a larger process in which all myriad worlds brought forth by episodes of the ordinary type participate, and in which the greater and the myriad lesser episodes mutually co-determine each other. This brief, possibly inadequate, explanation of Whitehead’s concept of law as immanent will hopefully be sufficient to indicate its similarity to the concept of Rta described in Chapter 5. More recent attempts to describe this concept are considered in the next section. A spatial association is accounted for by Whitehead as resulting from the predominant participation of the same eternal object in several contemporary episodes. A temporal association occurs when the predominant ‘past’ episode prehended by a developing episode of experiencing is similar to what it itself is to become. In terms of human experience, the strongest impression or memory or feeling of the person that occurred in his immediate ‘past’ that is most like the person that he/she is now to become in the current episode of experiencing is prehended. This is the meaning of the phrase used a moment ago, ‘    the episode immediately preceding it in the thread’. The course of the process, or of an episode of experiencing, is determined by the actual data, or past episodes, prehended by it, and also by the end result – the satisfaction or world brought forth. This is because of the inexorable logic of the ‘togetherness of all episodes – or of Rta, to use the terminology of the present essay. In other words, data are

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prehended and then organised as they are so that the final world brought forth is as it must be. Whitehead points out that these two causes are, respectively, what Aristotle termed ‘efficient’ and ‘final’ causes. In the worldview of contemporary global culture, science recognises only the former, thus assigning a large role to the operation of ‘chance’ – that is, to unexplained and unexplainable factors. Life Episodes of experiencing are termed ‘organisms’ by Whitehead and his cosmology, the philosophy of organism. I suggest that episodes are living in the sense that they display all the features of autopoietic systems: dynamism, a capacity for self-creation, for self-definition and for novelty. The degree to which episodes display these features, of course varies, being almost nil at the level of subatomic units and highly visible at the level of an ecosystem and a human being. Whitehead, however, and to me inexplicably, considers the simplest associations of episodes to be lifeless. It is only, he says, when they become sufficiently complex to exhibit novelty of form or function, that is, the appearance of forms and functions that could not have been predicted from knowledge of the nature of their simpler constituents, that it is appropriate to term them alive. He is thus tacitly assuming the ‘emergence’ definition of life that figures in the materialist worldview. I suggest that everything, that is, every episode, be considered alive, though possessing differing degrees of ‘aliveness’. In the worldviews of most non-European, and even of pre-Hellenic European cultures, everything is alive. Knowing the world In Whitehead’s scheme, knowing the world and creating the world are synonymous. The person that seems to know, the world he/she knows, and the world that is known, are all created simultaneously as the world appears in an episode of experiencing. These bare statements may not convey an adequate understanding of Whitehead’s concept of knowing. It must be recalled that in terms of the contemporary worldview, there is a pre-existing world ‘out there’, an observer ‘in here’ and an act of perception by which the observer comes to know this world. In terms of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, this definition has no meaning – nor does the definition given in this essay in Chapter 3. Perception, Whitehead says, is a result of a two-step process. The first step occurs in phase one of an episode of experiencing where episodes in the causal past are prehended, or, in other worlds, ‘grasped’. This

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grasping is more in the nature of a vague yet insistent feeling than the sharp, definite image that our current term ‘perceiving’ denotes. This step is termed by him perception in the mode of causal efficacy. The second sub-process occurs in the final phase of the episode of experiencing where physical prehensions are arranged in space and delineated sharply to give a world – the world brought forth – which is the culmination of that episode. This process is termed perception in the mode of presentational immediacy. A complete, overall act of perception, or of knowing the world, incorporating both sub-processes, is termed perception in the mode of symbolic reference. A further word is now necessary concerning time. In a temporal series of episodes a given entity may be perceived to occupy different positions in relation to other entities in each successive episode. This comparison occurs because not only the immediately previous episode, but also those previous to it in the series are prehended simultaneously in the current episode. In this way, the given entity is perceived to ‘move’ in relation to other entities. This ‘motion’ gives rise to the sense of time in the current episode. The person In Whitehead’s system subjectivity, the experiencer of experiences, is assumed to be an emergent property of the process of experiencing. The subject appears only at the time of the third phase of the episode of experiencing; it does not exist before that. For my part, I find this assumption inexplicable; I would say that for any experience, however elementary, a subject and an object are implied. The operations in all phases of the episode of experiencing, the prehending and processing of data, is incomprehensible without a prehender and a processor. Whitehead then goes on to assume that the subject that emerges in the final phase is a person. He would thus seem to be identifying a discrete, particular human body that is a persistent feature of a temporal series of episodes with the subject of the current member of that series. If, as I will maintain throughout this essay, the subject is present throughout an episode of experiencing, and not just in the last phase, such an identification is illogical. In response to this Whitehead would, I think, maintain that when he refers to a subject he means a conscious subject, and that consciousness only occurs with fairly complex associations. In this essay, I wish to argue that consciousness, like life, is a feature of all episodes of experiencing. There are degrees of intensity of consciousness, so that

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very simple structures like stones appear to us unconscious and lifeless, while complex ones are conscious, indeed, self-conscious. This notion of a qualitative discontinuity between simple and complex structures, as with the concept of progress, is carried over by Whitehead from the Enlightenment worldview. They need not have been; indeed, his cosmology would have been logically more tidy if he had dropped them. A final comment One final comment on Whitehead’s concept of process is necessary. In the first paragraph of this section I wrote, ‘He suggests that the ultimate real things of which the universe is composed are    episodes of experiencing.’ He is very emphatic about this: ‘actual entities [episodes of experiencing in this essay]    are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 18). Again, he writes, ‘Apart from the experience of subjects there is nothing, nothing, bare nothingness’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 167). It is clear that for him ‘nothing means ‘no thing’ – and that is the end of the matter. The idea that the ‘no thing’ might yet be something, and indeed everything, is, in general, foreign to Western thought. But it is, in my opinion, essential to any worldview that is adequate to the needs of global culture in the 21st century. Such a concept is described in Chapter 8, and why I think it is essential is explained.

Everything is radically interconnected with everything else A few quantum physicists and environmental educators appear to be approaching the concept of law as immanent. They do not use this term, but the drift of their thinking is to my mind unmistakable. I base the following account of this development on David Selby’s excellent review paper The signature of the whole: radical interconnectedness and its implications for global and environmental education. In their most transformative expressions, global and environmental education can be viewed as educational countercultures to mechanism and reductionism as they have colonised education and as educational expressions of a holistic paradigm. This is often expressed symbolically using the billiard ball and web models. The billiard ball model – depicting a cluster of billiard balls on a billiard table – has been employed to indicate separateness, discreteness, and forms

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of external relationship between things where the relationship has no effect on their internal structure and dynamics.    Transformative global and environmental educators have countered the billiard ball model with the web model (understood dynamically). The latter has seemed to convincingly capture understandings drawn from ecological and quantum (sub-atomic) science that: everything is dynamically connected and related to everything else; nothing can be completely understood save in relationship to everything else; identity is multifaceted and includes a significant near-and-far contextual element; what happens somewhere will impact to a greater or lesser extent elsewhere, even everywhere (captured to some extent in the environmentalist’s saying ‘You are always downstream of someone’); what happens locally is also a global phenomenon (a part of the whole, itself acting to inform the whole) and the signature of global events will be manifest locally; different global issues – such as environment, development, health, peace, rights – are interconnected; past, present, and future are interwoven, co-evolving and co-creating elements of time. (Selby, 2002) The billiard ball model reminds me of the model of gas molecules flying about in a closed container, forever colliding, rebounding, flying off in new directions which featured in my high school chemistry textbook. This too was an attempt to depict a mechanistic world. Such mechanistic systems models are based upon the five assumptions listed at the beginning of Chapter 4. The concept of law assumed by the model is clearly that of mere description. The web model is not different in essence from the billiard ball model; it is based upon the same set of primary assumptions. What is different about it is that is possible now, with our enhanced computational capacity, to describe more than one event or relationship at a time. It is now possible to determine the future disposition of all the bodies concerned, given their disposition at present. This gives a more distinct feeling that a set of bodies in motion is a system. However, it is still a mechanical system, a micro-explanation of phenomena. True ecology attempts to describe systems in organismic terms. It employs a macro-explanatory approach, and emphatically assumes the concept of law as immanent. Mainstream science ‘neuters’ or kills these organic systems by framing them mechanically as models that can be run on a computer. This, I suggest, is what the web metaphor tries to capture.

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To reclaim the true ecological vision, the organismic concept of systems, a different metaphor is clearly needed. Thus Selby goes on to ask, ‘Have transformative global and environmental educators gone far enough in responding to mechanism?’ He does not think they have, and therefore proposes a third metaphor, that of ‘dance (of the free-form variety)’. The following quotations, taken from the same paper (that is, Selby, 2002), are attempts to describe the idea that this metaphor suggests. Leading-edge ecologists and quantum physicists have suggested to us that there is a world of ‘unbroken wholeness’ or ‘holomovement’    underlying the world of separate things and the world of interconnections. Physicist David Bohm    has described the subatomic world of relatively separate things (neutrons, electrons, etc.) as the ‘explicate order’ behind which is an ‘implicate order’, in which everything is enfolded within everything else. Bohm extrapolates from the subatomic world to suggest we would be wise to countenance the implicate order in our understanding of our macroworld – to see that in a profound and very real way, everything is embedded in everything else and that things or objects are ontologically subordinate to flows and patterns. Viewed from the point of view of modern ecology    the reality of individuals is problematic because they do not exist per se but only as local perturbations in [the] universal energy flow    . ‘Entities – including ourselves – according to new physics and new ecology are momentary configurations of energy, local perturbations in a total energy field or holomovement. We emerge into the explicate, become manifest, only to resubmerge into the implicate order of being (which at one level of presence we never left). We are ephemeral manifestations of a fertile no-thing-ness from which all things emerge and to which all return    . Phenomena (people, other-than-human life-forms, places, countries) at this level are coevolving manifestations of a multileveled and multidimensional dance of internal and external relationships. These quotations suggest to me an approach to the concept of order as immanent in the parts and the whole as described in Chapter 4. I say ‘approach’ because I do not think they are yet completely adequate.

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There is some ambiguity. On the one hand, the terms ‘implicate’ and the ‘explicate’, ‘emergence’ and ‘resubmergence’, ‘internal’ and ‘external’, still seems to suggest two distinct realms, rather than simply two perspectives on one single reality. As long as there is even a trace of duality in our thought in regard to this issue, we are assuming the concept of law as imposition. On the other hand, however, the statement quoted earlier – ‘We emerge into the explicate, become manifest, only to resubmerge into the implicate order of being (which at one level of presence we never left)’. (italics mine) – does suggest quite clearly that there are not two realms or levels of reality, but only one. Admittedly, the concept of Rta is slippery. It seems impossible to capture it with only the word and mathematical symbols available to us today. Metaphor is better, and Selby’s use of ‘dance’ is a tacit acknowledgment of this. Better still is myth as argued in Chapter 4. The concept of law as immanent is indeed coming back into Western civilisation. The appearance of modern myths like Gaia and the Titanic story embodying this assumption were cited in Chapter 5. The law as immanent seems to be implied in deep ecology (Oppermann, 2000), in Edward Goldsmith’s ‘Gaian process’ (Goldsmith, 1998), in Albert Howard’s ‘Nature’s farming’ (Howard, 1940), and in the natural farming concept of Fukuoka (1994). In all these cases, ‘Nature’ appears to be invoked as a metaphor for the Rta. The statement ‘We are ephemeral manifestations of a fertile “no-thingness” ’ strikes me as significant. In Chapter 4, we concluded that there are no things, and yet every focal point in the dance is, after all, something. Here Selby seems to recognise this, calling it a manifestation of a ‘fertile no-thing-ness’. Another conclusion too is perhaps permissible from Selby’s paper. He seems to recognise that the concept of law as immanent is only possible in a universe in which there are no things (that is, no discrete, substantial, autonomous entities). For, the very term Selby has coined – dance – precludes things, for how can discrete, substantial, autonomous entities that exhibit only ‘vacuous material existence with passive endurance’ (to use Whitehead’s phrase) ‘know’ their role in a dance? Selby makes a further important point in his paper. He feels that while the dance metaphor is the most general and ultimately only adequate conception of law, there is still a place for the billiard ball metaphor. As he says, ‘I need to know    that my car engine will work and can be put right if a part becomes faulty.’ I suggest that what he implies here is that the idea of law as mere description (Newtonian mechanics)

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is an adequate assumption in dealing with a certain specified range of phenomena. It is, however, only a special case of a general concept of law as immanent. It works because the degree of ‘livingness’ of the entities involved and hence their capacity for spontaneous change, for novelty, is minimal. Where mechanical devices interface with nature and society, however, there is inevitably violence. No better example of this can be found than Selby’s car. This is the underlying rationale for the Luddite argument: the inescapable choice that must be made between violence and foregoing most modern mechanical devices. As Claude Alvares writes, ‘    both [contemporary] mechanistic science and the technology based upon it are fundamentally violent forms of handling the world    violence is intrinsic to [this] science, to its text, to its design and implementation’ (Alvares, 1988).

Detached participation I can think of no better way to introduce this subject than to repeat something I wrote a couple of years ago. It begins to appear, therefore, that the ‘environment’ is a necessary, compensatory conceptual construct for people who have wilfully alienated themselves from the rest of the universe. There are no ‘environmental’ problems, or any other sort of problems, ‘out there’; there is only the problem of the way we see ourselves and the rest of the universe. We therefore need a new way of seeing, a vision in which our problems are various local violations of the cosmic order that occurs due to the assertion by individual human beings of their independence from the whole. (Jackson, 2004) This section describes current attempts to define an alternative concept of the person in a way that seems necessary today, together with a critical evaluation of these attempts. It is a primary assumption of global culture that a person is a real entity consisting of a physical body (with all its thoughts, emotions and behaviour) which is distinct from what it experiences. It has been shown in Chapters 4 and 5 that this assumption is untenable on logical grounds. There is really no way in which the person can be defined as a thing in itself. If we assume otherwise, it is simply for the sake of convenience – an assumption knowingly connived at. This is what the majority of human beings has always done, and indeed must do

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as a matter of convenience. It was only the European Enlightenment thinkers that took the person and objects as real, self-subsistent entities – much to our present chagrin. If a person is not a discrete, autonomous entity, but rather an aspect of the whole, it follows that he/she cannot be a detached observer of the whole; he/she is a part of what he/she observes. Many environmentalists, searching for an alternative definition of the person speak of what they term an ‘ecological self’, an ‘ecological individual’ or an ‘ecological ego’ (Oppermann, 2000; Roszack, 2001; Rowe, 2003, respectively). They seem to be referring to a person who is aware of his embeddedness in the natural world. The implicit analogy is that of an organism in an ecosystem. They have taken the Earth as the relevant ecosystem in order to define the person. Miller (2002) paraphrasing Gunaratna uses the term ‘participatory observation’ for the same concept. I think this latter is a more useful formulation. This means that the person, when in the midst of his/her daily activities, concurrently maintains an awareness of the larger system in which he/she is embedded. He/she is then detached from those activities and can look at them objectively. His/her thoughts and actions will tend toward harmony with the functioning of the whole system – and contribute to its harmonious functioning. A conscious effort is needed to accomplish this, and a conviction that the whole is more important, more real, than the part. I propose to call this person a ‘detached participant’. The argument for the ecological self or detached participant, as developed so far, can be summarised in the following way. There is no autonomous person, only an aspect of the Whole. The aspect is, for convenience, constructed as the conventional, empirical, socially embedded person that it is necessary to assume. It is role acting which does not obscure the awareness of really being the Whole. The Whole is taken to be Gaia, the Earth ecosystem. As important as this insight is – and indeed it is vital – I have always had the uncomfortable feeling that it has not been fully explored, and that if it were, it would ultimately be found to be illogical. This would render the definition of the person as an ‘ecological self’ or a ‘detached participant’ meaningless. Agreed, a person can only be defined as the whole system in which he/she is embedded. That system taken for practical purposes is Gaia. The question that must then be asked is, how is Gaia defined? Applying the same logic, She can only be defined in terms of the larger system in which She is embedded. That system is, let us say, the Solar System. She must function within the Solar System as an ecological self or detached

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participant. As far as we know She does so – which accounts for Her regular behaviour with respect to the other entities of the Solar System. The Solar System, in turn, is an aspect of a still larger system, a Galaxy. Galaxies are grouped into still larger systems. Assuming there is an end to this series of larger and ever more inclusive systems – a Universe – that system is the ultimate person. It is, in effect, the person of all levels to the smallest and least inclusive. But who or what is that ultimate person? Keeping to our previous way of defining the person as the next larger whole of which the entity is an aspect, we encounter a problem; there can be no person at the level of the Universe because there is nothing beyond It or bigger than It. The ‘person’ of the universe, and by extension, the ‘persons’ at all levels of the universe are thus Nothing (nothings). The human person’s real identity is thus not ultimately Gaia; it is nothing – no thing. This is the same conclusion that we reached in Chapter 4 by a different route. The larger implications of this conclusion can only be considered in the next chapter. For the present, let us say that the concept of the detached participant is a practical possibility – indeed, an absolute necessity – only its real meaning awaits clarification. If the series of ever larger and more inclusive wholes or systems is endless, then the person can be explained in terms of an infinite regress. However, resorting to an infinite regress to explain something is not generally thought to be valid. It would really only be a futile attempt to save our initial inadequate assumption that the human person is Gaia. Looking back over this entire line of thinking behind the concept of the ecological self from the perspective of Whitehead’s concept of episodes of experiencing as the ultimate entities of the manifest world, it will be evident that those pursuing this line are making the same mistake Whithead is in respect of the person. Logic dictates that the subject of an experience cannot be identified with any particular discrete element in that experience – that is, in this case, with a human body. An adequate definition of the person still eludes us. We persist in seeing ourselves as separate from the rest of the world.

8 A Return to the Perennial Questions

Given the present world situation, the ideas presented in Chapter 7 appear inevitable to many people who devote time and thought to the task of ‘learning to think differently’. It should be equally obvious, however, that, of themselves, individually, these ideas lack the power to transform. And so they are being repeated, with variations, over and over again in seemingly endless discussion. We are unable to move forward; we are bogged down. To change the metaphor, we are still essentially imprisoned in the worldview of contemporary global culture. Our cell door is not actually locked, but we are paralysed and cannot open it and walk out despite knowing that freedom is necessary and possible. Power is not inherent in ideas themselves. But they can acquire power when they are seen as parts of a comprehensive, logically consistent and coherent system – a worldview. They acquire power when they are seen as necessary to the system; that is, when they give meaning to the other ideas of the system (as well as derive meaning from them) and ensure the logical integrity of the system as a whole. So far we have no system, but only a collection of ideas. Our task is now to build an adequate system. The method of doing this will be to start by answering the most important of the perennial questions, what is real? Having answered that, the other two will be taken up. The logical consistency of the three answers will have to be ensured. The system of answers will incorporate the three concepts described in Chapter 7, modifying or reformulating them as may be necessary to ensure conformity with the overall logic of the system. 102

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What is real? To answer this question, it is necessary to set forth some criteria of judgement. The criteria that will be adopted here are that only that is real which exists always, which does not come and go, which never changes and which requires nothing else in order to exist. In constructing a system of answers to the perennial questions, a beginning will be made by assuming the concept of the world as a process, as it was described in Chapter 7. This process can be reduced to a duality of subject and object, to bare notions of subjectivity and objectivity. Each presupposes the other; neither can exist apart from the other. They are thus not ultimate, real entities. Rather, they are but polar aspects of a single entity – experiencing. Or, they are a logical necessity to describe the primary entity – an episode of experiencing. This way of thinking avoids introducing duality, which should ensure logical consistency to our scheme of ideas. This line of argument can be carried still further to suggest that the unity of subject and object in an episode of experiencing is only an instance of an ultimate unity, and indeed is that unity itself. In support of this suggestion, it may be noted that every episode of experiencing has a beginning and an end. Things that are not permanent, but which come and go, necessarily presuppose a something in the background, which is permanent. This ‘something’ is the enduring, ever-present, unchanging context of all experiencing. It will be termed the One or the Infinite. It is indescribable because it is ‘prior to’ thought. This is the bedrock concept upon which the foundations of the system proposed here will be constructed. In Chapter 7, it was argued that the ‘I’, the root of our sense of being an individual, is logically the same as the ultimate, universal Being who is yet no Being, no thing. Thus, by a different route, logic leads us to an ultimate unknowable, a something that is nothing – and everything. Apart from this logical necessity for the concept of the One or Infinite, our direct experience lends support to this notion of ‘something in the background’. When we question ourselves what it is that we know without any possibility of doubt, the only answer we can give is: I exist. As argued in Chapter 7, it is impossible to doubt one’s own existence; in order to doubt, one must exist. This ‘I’ is ever present; in every thought, feeling and act it is ‘I’ who thinks, feels and acts. It is present even in deep sleep; though there is no awareness of the ‘I’ in deep sleep, there is no doubt, when we wake up, that ‘I’ continued during sleep. And in any case, there is no means of proving that the ‘I’ did not exist in deep sleep.

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Finally, the ‘I’ does not seem to change; it is the same in childhood and in all later stages of life, whatever specific experiences come and go. Another instance of direct experience occurs to us sometimes when we wake up from deep sleep. It is as if we actually witness a world coming into existence. At first there arises the simple awareness of being aware; I do not know who I am or where I am – or even that I am. This gives way to the knowledge ‘I am’ followed by the appearance of objects in awareness, and at the same time of the person (me) who is aware. The appearance of objects and myself marks the coming into operation of subjectivity and objectivity, of time and space. The reverse of this occurs when my world shuts down as I fall asleep. The awareness of being aware that occurs during the brief moment between sleep and waking is the context of experiencing. More positively, the concept of the context or ground of experiencing is found to be what remains when, in deep meditation, the mind is quietened and all experiencing ceases. The empirical person and the world he/she observed both disappear; only awareness of being aware remains. Even the bare sense of individuality, of the ‘I’, is not. What remains is simply ‘That which is’ – the One. The conclusion from all this is that the One alone is real. Everything else is a fleeting appearance against the backdrop of the One, the Infinite. It unifies the subject and object aspects of an episode of experiencing. It is what exists ‘prior to’ and ‘following’ an episode. In the process of experiencing, it is what gives the sense of an ‘I’ to which the act of experiencing is referred. Professor Huston Smith has brought to our attention the fact that the European mind, as represented by the thinkers of the Hellenic period and after, never really grasped the concept of the One, or the Infinite. The concept of the Infinite ‘    is so subtle, so abstruse, that purely objective, rational intellect is likely to miss it altogether’ (Smith, 1963, p. 6). The Greeks    tried to conceptualise everything they encountered, but this very penchant excluded them from ready access to a notion (that) concepts could never close on. Anaximander’s Unbounded (apeiron) held promising possibilities, but instead of pursuing these his successors backed away from them – Greek philosophers were not about to give high marks to something that lacked determination. By the time of Aristotle, infinity had come to be associated with imperfection and lack (Physics, III: 6–8); it meant the capacity for never-ending increase and was always potential, never completely

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actual    Paul Grent writes [in his Thomism (Harper & Row, 1967)]: ‘For the Greeks, “finite” is complementary and synonymous with “perfect”    “Infinite” is pejorative and synonymous with “imprecise”, and “unformed”    To-be-finite is for matter a perfection which comes to it from form’. Frithjof Schuon [in his Islam and the Perennial Philosophy (London: World of Islam Festival, 1976)] concurs, noting that ‘the Greeks always have a certain fear of the Infinite,    because (they confused) the unlimited with the chaotic, the infinite with irrational’. Leo Sweeney [in his Infinity in the Presocratics (The Hague: Matinus Nijhoff, 1972)] summarizes the matter as follows: ‘From whatever angle it was approached, infinity patently clashed with the dominant Greek notion of form as equivalent to perfection’.1 (Smith, 1963, p. 7) In contemporary culture the concept of infinity is restricted to discussions of mathematics. It is beyond the largest possible countable number. Or, it is used loosely to mean very big or very much of something. It will be evident that in the foregoing paragraphs I have been attempting to present in as culturally neutral terms as possible the Indian Vedic concept of the Brahman-Atman. A fuller, and yet non-specialist, account of this concept has been given by Heinrich Zimmer in his Philosophies of India (1956). There appears to me no other way to break the stranglehold of dualistic thought in Western culture than to adopt this concept. Actually, the term ‘the One’ for the concept of the Infinite is not completely adequate. As a number it implies that it is something, when it is no-thing. To guard against this it, would be better to say that it is the ‘No Number’, or perhaps simply to use the term ‘That which is’. These avoid any suggestion of thingness. However, these terms are awkward to use, and therefore, for convenience, we will continue to use the term ‘the One’. As a footnote to the foregoing, it should be noted that to say that the One alone is real does not mean that the world is unreal or meaningless. It is only so if viewed without reference to the One. It takes on reality and meaningfulness from the One in which it is held. Meaning flows from relationship to context. The ultimate context is the One. The world of contemporary global culture, a materialist clockwork world, is ultimately meaningless because it lacks a context. In such a world, each of us seeks meaning in terms of his own person, or in some collectivity of persons – creating endless confusion and conflict.

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In the foregoing answer to the question what is real, an answer to the second of the perennial questions – who am I – has also been found. There remains, therefore, only the third question, what is the world like?

What is the world like? In the scheme of ideas being developed in this essay, there are many actual entities or episodes of experiencing. Each of the Many is the One, though it has a circumscribed view. It will now be necessary to enquire more closely into the relationship between the One and the Many. A potential world Within the One, the world (let us say) exists in potential, that is, the subject–object duality that makes possible a manifest world is latent in the One. From a world in potential, an actual world (that is, the experiential construct of Chapter 7) comes into being. The phrase ‘comes into being’ suggests the concept of creation – a world emerging from or appearing within the One. This is, however, inadequate. At this level of abstraction, time and space do not exist. It will therefore be better to say that the One can be ‘visualised’ from three different perspectives. The first is the unitary, ever-present, unchanging, unknowable reality – the ‘What is’. From a second perspective, it is composed of a trinity of subject, object and their relationship – the potential for a world, termed simply the Potential. From a third perspective, the One is seen as a multiplicity of actual entities, or episodes of experiencing, the Many, contained within a unitary world process which is itself an episode of experiencing. These three perspectives are simultaneous; they do not describe a temporal or spatial sequence, or even a logical one. To place the concept of the Many in an adequate context, we must grasp the concept of the Potential. The Rigveda has a verse that describes this symbolically which I find it impossible to better. Him dwelling at the river’s source, surrounded by his Sisters.2 (Rigveda, VIII, 41, 2, Griffith, 1889) Here the Dweller at the source of the river of manifestation is the Potential. The river is the Many, or more precisely the world process in which the many individual episodes are so many drops. The Seven Sisters are the seven ‘universal formative elements of thought’ introduced in Chapter 3. The Sisters, or elements, are at rest in the source and become

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active in the flowing river – that is, when the Dweller ‘leaves’ the Source and becomes the Many. In Chapter 2, it was suggested that the impetus and guiding presence of episodes of experiencing is life. In terms of the symbolism of this verse, life is what gives the impetus to the Dweller to leave the Source and sustains Him throughout His course. Matter then is the definiteness of form, of the contours that the river assumes in its flowing. All concrete symbols have limitations. In the present case, the movement from potentiality to actuality – a river leaving its source – suggests a process in time. But time only comes into operation when the flow begins. ‘Prior’ to that there is no time. The potential ‘dwells’ in the Timeless One. Most mythical symbols are ultimately ambiguous, but then their function is not to be definitive, only suggestive – ‘little factories of understanding’. This concept is more subtle than that of creation. In the last analysis, there is no creator, no creation and no process of creation. There is only the One, the Nothing, the Infinite. In this essay, I am suggesting, as a concession to our need to ‘explain’ the unexplainable, we say that the world is created by an episode of experiencing. To say this, it is necessary to concede that the One may be viewed from three different points of view: the indescribable One, the indescribable Potential and the describable (to some extent) Many. The utmost concession that can be made is to say that these three perspectives may be treated as a logical sequence. But this initial concession should not be lost sight of in describing other aspects of the alternative cosmology being suggested here. A world of many actual entities Each of the Many is a replica of the One, and is the One. It is composed of the same trinity of subject and object, and the unity in which these two are held; as actual entities each is an episode of experiencing (as described in Chapter 7), viewing or experiencing others, and also an object viewed by each of the others.3 The sense of being an individual, an ‘I’, derives from the unity in which subjectivity and objectivity are held. It is the basis of the empirical person that appears at the last stage of the process. In Whitehead’s cosmology, the subject of the experience is an emergent phenomenon of the process; in this he appears to be confusing the person who appears at the third stage of the process and the subject of the entire process – of whom the person is only an appearance. In other words, the person is derivative of That which is aware of the act of experiencing or the unitary, simple awareness of being aware.

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The Many are held together in the unity of one World Process. This is also a process of bringing forth a world, the macro-cosmic counterpart of the process of the bringing forth of a world by each of the Many. Only here, Rta in its entirety is ‘physically’ prehended in the first stage, while the totality of completed episodes of the Many are ‘conceptually’ prehended in the second stage. The former is then reordered to accommodate the latter. The reordered version of Rta is the satisfaction of the episode of cosmic experiencing.4 Rta is an integral feature of all episodes of experiencing. It is what gives structure to each of these episodes and to their mutual interactions. This was explained in Chapter 7, but it is now necessary to go into the matter in a little more detail. The structure of each episode depends first of all on the ‘choices’ it makes in prehending specific data. There is a definite selection from the totality of data available. The ‘choices’ in any episode are what they must be; they are the outcome of the working out of Rta in that specific situation. Some sense of what this means in a human context is possible if we reflect on why we notice some things in our environment and not others, why we like some things and not others, are drawn to some people and repelled by others. The notion that we freely decide on the basis of conscious objective criteria rationally applied seems hardly creditable. The structure of an episode of experiencing depends not only on what data are prehended but also on how they are arranged. The pattern of this arrangement also reflects the working out of Rta in that specific instance. It has repeatedly been said that general patterns behind events are intuited. This means that some aspects of Rta are apprehended. They are used to bring order to the welter of prehended data to give an integral experience – or what Whitehead terms a ‘satisfaction’. ‘The actual entity [that is, episode of experiencing] terminates its becoming in one complex feeling involving a completely determinate bond with every item in the universe’ (Whitehead, 1933, p. 44). The term ‘satisfaction’ used by Whitehead to indicate the completion of an episode of experiencing is termed in the cosmology being described here, the final phase of ‘bringing forth a world’. That world, in the case of a human episode, includes the conventional person defined in terms of his relationships with all the entities in the world brought forth. The real identity of this person is, as was said at the beginning of the chapter, the One. In the first two stages of the episode of experiencing, the One is simply the subject of the concrescing episode. It then becomes a person at the completion of the process of bringing forth a world.

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Episodes of experiencing can be classified broadly according to their predominant affective tone into intellectual, emotional and physical. These are ‘classified’ as such in the memory bank of Rta. Each of these classes of memory acts with some degree of autonomy within the totality of Rta. Thus, there is a physical ‘realm’, an emotional ‘realm’ and an intellectual ‘realm’ in every world brought forth, though in a given world (episode) one or the other occupies the foreground of attention. From the point of view of the individual association that we term a person, it is convenient to speak analogously of three dimensions or ‘bodies’, as when we speak in a shorthand way of addressing the intellectual, the emotional and the physical aspects of the child in educational theory and practice. The notion of an emotional realm, and an emotional body, can explain the discoveries of the psychotherapist C. G. Jung (1956). His ‘collective unconscious’ is an aspect of the emotional realm – or the emotional body – and the ‘archetypes’ particular aspects or themes of the emotional aspect of Rta. The archetypes are universal because they are the major ways in which Rta is exemplified in that realm. Jung’s followers, and perhaps Jung himself, seemingly felt it necessary to attempt to explain his discovery in materialistic terms: archetypes of the collective unconscious ‘    are biologically grounded’. They are ‘    manifestations of organs of the body and their powers’ (Campbell, 1988, p. 51). With the passing away of the materialist worldview, this materialist explanation will not be necessary or appropriate, and the alternative suggested here may prove useful. Analogously, a worldview as a seemingly autonomous, living, changing conceptual entity that is born and eventually dies can be viewed as a manifestation of the intellectual aspect of Rta. And the realm of solid, tangible things’ and the patterns of their interactions are a manifestation of the physical realm (or body). It is now necessary to return once more to the concepts of time and space in the context of the cosmology being developed in this essay. It was said in Chapter 7 that time and space are subjective, that is, they only come into existence with an episode of experiencing. We were, however, forced to admit the existence of an ‘atemporal’ time that orders the episodes of experiencing that have ‘perished’ and have been relegated to the ‘causal past’, and also orders the phases of the process of ‘bringing forth a world’ that is an episode of experiencing. The concept of atemporal time seems inescapable because it is the source of the temporal or subjective time that helps to structure each episode of experiencing. An explanation of what it is in itself seems to be beyond us.

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How the time of everyday experience derives from atemporal time may be understood in the following way. Space is the way that prehended entities from the causal past are, in the third phase of an episode of experiencing, made definite, discrete things. They are given extension and, so to say, ‘spread out’ according to the abstract organising patterns of Rta. Once this is accomplished, time comes into existence. Time is as the ‘vulgar’ conceive it, that is, arising from the motion of objects in space. Motion is abstracted from the fact that in consecutive episodes of experiencing in a temporal association the spatial relationships of the same objects differ. We say that these objects have ‘moved’ in relation to each other. From this apparent motion, the sense of time arises. Indirectly, therefore, the atemporal time that orders the series of episodes relating to the relative ‘motions’ of a given set of things gives rise to the familiar sense of ‘temporal’ time. Similarly, subjective space derives from the non-spatial, abstract configuring of completed episodes of experiencing in Rta. The subjective experience of time and space in episodes of experiencing of the Many is thus the micro-cosmic analogues or derivatives of the experience of atemporal time and non-spatial space in the larger, all-containing episode of the World Process – in the same way that the subject of each of the Many is an analogue and derivative of the subject of the World Process. A final topic that needs our attention is that of novelty. All episodes of experiencing produce outcomes that are novel – that is, not exactly like any episode that preceded them. This ‘novelty’, however, is only apparent. It is apparent because, from the limited perspective of one individual, I am unable to comprehend the totality of past episodes. If I could, I would ‘see’ that there is no novelty at all. Every event is determined by what has happened in the causal past. This is the full meaning of Rta. Participants in the contemporary global cultural model cherish the notion of free will. It is assumed that I can myself determine the course of the future, at least to some extent. In any episode of experiencing, a selection of inputs – sensory, memory and intuitional – is no doubt made. The selection is not, however, a matter of free will but is determined rigorously by the necessities of Rta. The person that assumes that it decides is, in terms of the cosmology being developed here, simply an aspect or instrument of Rta. There is no freedom in the sense that the person is free from the totality of past circumstances. In traditional philosophical discourse, this assertion is seen as inevitably leading to the doctrine of determinism. This is frightening.

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The fear of determinism is, however, entirely due to faulty reasoning. It is wrongly assumed that determinism leads to fatalism, the belief that since everything that happens must happen as it does and that nothing I do can make any difference; therefore, I will do nothing. But doing nothing is not an option; one is compelled to act. In whatever happens, therefore, I will be a participant. Furthermore, as I cannot know in advance what is to happen, the best I can do is what circumstances seem to dictate. What particular circumstances I take note of, how I interpret them and what expectations I have for the future are all alike the outcomes of the totality of circumstances – the configuration of Rta in the present episode of experiencing. In short, I am assigned a role in contemporary drama. That role was ‘scripted’ before I stepped on to the stage. I can neither refuse the role nor alter the lines I am to speak. I can, however, decide whether or not I will identify with the stage character I have been assigned. That choice is not determined. If I decide not to identify with the stage character, the person in the current episode of experiencing, I find ‘my’ true identity, which transcends Rta. Then there is no feeling of being bound by Him. I am free, a detached participant. Summary The foregoing alternative worldview can be summarised by noting the answers to the perennial questions which it gives. What is the world like? The world is unitary, the single, indivisible One, but with a trinity of aspects: the One itself, the Potential for a sensible universe and a plurality of episodes of experiencing. Life is the dynamism of episodes, matter their completedness. Time and space are relative, coming into operation within each episode of experiencing. Each episode ‘brings forth a world’ and in it finds a person with whom ‘I’, the subject of the episode, identifies. In bringing forth a world ‘I’ know that world. The relationship among episodes is determined by law as immanent, which is intrinsic to the totality of episodes and to each component episode. Who am I? The ‘I’, the individuality of each episode of experiencing, is the One. What is real? The One alone is real and also the I, the subject of an episode of experiencing, since it is the same as the One. The multiplicity of episodes of

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experiencing is derivatively real. An episode of experiencing is also real, though if it is not seen as just one way of looking at the One, then it is unreal. Summarising overall, the assumption of one, sole reality of all that exists ensures the coherence of the primary assumptions defined here. Logical consistency among these assumptions has been assured in the ways each is defined. The question of adequacy of this scheme of ideas is to be decided in terms of the success of the secondary assumptions that can be derived from it in solving the many problems of contemporary global culture. It has been noted that to ensure the logical consistency of the system as a whole, it has been necessary to assume the concept of atemporal time. This assumption is carried over from Whitehead and is an implied or explicit feature of mythical as well as modern scientific cosmogonies. The apparent necessity of this manifestly illogical assumption is a reminder of the tenuous nature of all metaphysical construction. In respect of the work of systems building, I think that Whitehead struck the right note when he wrote, ‘There remains the final reflection, how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths of the nature of things. In philosophic discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. xiv).

A little more about terminology The purpose of this chapter has been to sketch an alternative worldview that takes into account the many new insights that are now appearing in global culture. I have endeavoured to make this system of ideas logically consistent and coherent. How well this has been achieved can now be debated. What remains to be done in terms of the TL process is to draw out its implications for practice. This is the subject of Chapter 9. Before passing on to Chapter 9, however, it would be well to say a little more about the terminology adopted in writing this essay. In this unconventional terminology, the conclusions arrived at later in the essay were anticipated; indeed, these conclusions were only possible because of the terminology adopted at the outset. In reading Chapter 3, the reader may have felt that the terminology adopted was arbitrary and completely subjective. In reality it was neither. These terms were the end point, as much as the starting point, of this essay. The development of the essay has been iterative – from initial definitions to end conclusions and when conclusions were found to be inadequate, back again to definitions.

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For example, I found that if I began by assuming any of what I now term the seven universal elements of thought to be a particular thing or a process, my freedom to speculate freely was severely restricted. Similarly, it seemed necessary to redefine the terms ‘cognition’ and ‘thinking’ in order to break out of the straight-jacket of the rationalistic mindset that characterises participants in the worldview of global culture. We cannot begin to ‘think differently’ unless we learn to think differently (that is, in a different way) – that is, we must learn to recognise and use all our faculties. ‘Thinking differently’ about what a person is means returning to the second of the perennial questions: who am I. It is necessary, I suggest, to frame the question in exactly these words. When we ask, what a person is, we are already on the wrong track. The former question focuses attention on ‘I’, the immediate subject of my experience, and not on another person ‘out there’. Persons ‘out there’ are objects of which ‘I’ am the observer. An exception to this general procedure is the definition of cognition. In Chapter 3, it is defined in the way that departs only a little from the way it is understood in terms of the modernist worldview. Then, in Chapter 7, it is redefined in terms of the concept of knowing as equivalent to ‘bringing forth a world’. I did not, however, return to the original definition in Chapter 3 to modify it; to have done so would have made it completely unintelligible to the reader at that point in the essay. When we speak of cognition and thinking, we refer to activities of the mind. The mind itself is conceived as a mechanical (or electronic) thinking apparatus. (Hence all the money poured into research on neural pathways and the effects of hormones.) In the alternative worldview described here, mind is the term given to pure process; it is primordial, a given feature of the universe, a brute fact, and not the activity of a thing. Whitehead uses the ‘    term mind to mean the complex of mental operations involved in the constitution of an actual entity’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 85). That process or set of mental operations is synonymous with the process of ‘bringing forth a world’. The World mind and individual mind are the macro-cosmic and micro-cosmic aspects of this mind process or bringing forth a world. They are complimentary aspects of the movement into manifestation of the Dweller at the Source. The terms awareness and consciousness require careful definition when used in the context of this essay. It seemed premature, however, to do this earlier. A preliminary understanding of the subject matter in which these terms have appeared has been possible without them.

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In ordinary thought and speech, awareness is always ‘of’ something definite, an awareness of an object (including the person I take myself to be), a situation or a fact. This, however, is consciousness; it operates during the waking and dream states. Awareness exists even in the absence of anything definite to be aware of. This is termed contentless awareness or, in common speech unconsciousness. It occurs during deep sleep. Awareness is thus continuous, unbroken; it underlies all three states – waking, dreaming and deep sleep. This is termed pure awareness, or awareness of being aware (Sri Madhava Ashish, personal communication, about 1970). Pure awareness is the ‘something that is nothing and yet everything’. It is time that we attempt a clear definition of the person. It was said in Chapter 7 that an association, once formed, attains the status of a thing that recurs with only small changes in subsequent episodes of experiencing. One of the things in my current episode of experiencing is a body with which the subject ‘I’ identifies itself. The body becomes ‘my’ body. This body is a temporal as well as a spatial association and appears in a series of consecutive episodes, each new episode prehending a previous one most like the one that it is to become. The person is thus an imaginary ‘thread’ that connects a series of temporal episodes. In short, the person is imaginary; it persists only so long as I identify myself with it. Withdrawing identification, the person disappears. ‘That which is’ remains. A detached participant then acts its part on the stage of manifest existence. This definition of the person has vital implications for knowing and doing. As a person, I assume that I know and that I do. But all this is as imaginary as the person itself. There is no person, only knowing and doing. The term ‘bringing forth a world’ has been taken from Capra (1997, Chapter 11). He in turn took it from the book The Tree of Knowledge by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela who coined it in describing their new systems theory of cognition. I initially hesitated to borrow this term, but in the end could not think of a more apt expression for what I wanted to convey. The hesitation was due to the fact that, if I used the term, it had to be completely divested of the meaning Maturana and Varela gave it. Their theory is firmly embedded in the materialist, mechanistic worldview, in that it assumes a real world of things ‘out there’ in objective time and space, existing independently of and prior to any act of experiencing it. It differs from earlier theories in the modernist worldview, in that it does not presuppose a sharply defined outer world, but only a source of stimuli which cause structural

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changes in the mind that is conceived as an autopoietic system, the result of which is a precise, detailed representation of the external world unique to the individual. The cosmology described here explicitly denies an objective world ‘out there’. There are no things, not even vaguely defined ones. This must be firmly held in mind in reading this essay. Perhaps a word of justification for the use of some Sanskrit words is required. It is simply that these words, Rta and Dharma, are the names for concepts that do not appear in Western thought. Consequently, there are no adequate names for them in English. To attempt to translate, these Sanskrit terms would likely make it more difficult than it otherwise is for most readers to understand correctly the concepts referred to; any words that might be chosen would probably carry associations in the mind of the reader that would mislead him/her to thinking that he/she understands the concepts represented when in fact he/she does not. I have not, however, used the Sanskrit term for the ‘One’, Brahman, attempting instead to define it in terms that have been used in Western philosophical discourse, even if rarely.

9 Towards a New Cultural Model

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the process by which a cultural model is defined. In the language of the TL process this means developing secondary assumptions about the world and ourselves, basing them on the primary assumptions of a logically consistent and coherent worldview. The process will be illustrated by working from the alternative worldview sketched in Chapter 8. Thus, the secondary assumptions to be formulated must embody the following primary assumptions or concepts. 1. The world is made up of units of process, or episodes of experiencing. 2. Each of these brings forth a world and within this world all events are inter-connected, since each of them, directly or indirectly, enters into the constitution of each of the others, and the totality of episodes is governed by Rta. 3. Life is the process of bringing forth a world, or the impetus for and guiding presence of the process, while matter is the content of that world experienced by the subject of that experience. 4. That subject is both the subject in each episode of experiencing and also the subject in all episodes of experiencing, the One. It is the One and the many at the same time. 5. Time and space are subjective to the experiencer of each episode. 6. Knowing the content of a world brought forth in an episode of experiencing is synonymous with bringing it forth. Furthermore, every secondary assumption formulated must embody all these primary assumptions. Otherwise, it will lack a logically consistent rationale; it will not be viable in practice. 116

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The task may involve formulating new secondary assumptions de novo as well as examining assumptions that have already been formulated for their conformity to the requirements listed above. The concept of sustainability, the concept of Gaia as a living being, and the concept of an ecological or systems science are examples of the latter. In fact, there are many such assumptions already available. I think it will be quite enough to be getting on with if we concentrate on some of these. There is, however, a problem with many, perhaps all, of these existing secondary assumptions, which become evident when we enquire into the primary assumptions presupposed by them as they are presently formulated. This can be illustrated by reference to the concept of sustainability. In Chapter 2, it was said that sustainability is problematic because it presupposes an alternative worldview on which contemporary global culture is constructed. The problem is, however, more serious than that. The concept is contradictory within itself since it assumes some but not all the primary assumptions listed above while retaining most of the assumptions of the contemporary worldview. Thus even wholehearted adherents of sustainability are unwittingly forced to make compromises in practice. This seems to be the case with most secondary assumptions so far offered up for debate. A careful look at the concept of sustainability will suffice to clarify this matter of internal contradictions. The concept of sustainability appears to derive from a worldview that is radically different from the worldview of contemporary global culture. When we enquire into the specific assumptions of this worldview, however, the only one that is really different is the concept of law. The concept of law as immanent has been substituted for that of law as mere description. The remaining assumptions continue to be those of the contemporary worldview. Thus, it continues to be assumed that the basic units of the universe are discrete material entities. But such entities cannot be ‘radically inter-connected’. Further, the contemporary concept of objective time and space continue to be assumed, but this concept is only appropriate to a universe composed of material entities since objective time and space are needed to define those entities. In short, the advocates of sustainability have simply replaced one primary assumption in the contemporary worldview, and by so doing have introduced debilitating contradictions. Further, their worldview is even more incoherent than the present one, since there are more basic assumptions that cannot be conceptually unified.

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All this goes to show why it is essential that every secondary assumption presuppose every last element in a logically consistent and coherent worldview, and why the formulation of such a worldview must be done before any thought is given to secondary assumptions. Since we do have such a worldview available, or at least the suggestion of one (in Chapter 8), we have the option of taking up the many already-existing secondary assumptions and considering how they need to be modified in order to conform to that worldview. In the case of sustainability, it is clear that the concept must explicitly deny the existence of material particles in motion as the basic entities comprising the universe, and endorse a concept of units of process in its place – and in fact, all the other assumptions that go with that of radical inter-connectedness. If we adopt one, we must adopt all. From these introductory comments we may now pass on the formulation of secondary assumptions. Attention will be given to three such assumptions: the concept of community, the concept of science as conversation and a concept of history that explains the course of human affairs as a continuing attempt to adhere to Dharma with its everchanging demands. These have already made their appearance but, like sustainability, have been inadequately formulated. Others could be taken up, but I suggest that if these three were clarified and their conceptual foundations secured, they will go a long way towards delineating the general shape of an alternative cultural model. At the least, they will offer the participants in the global TL debate something solid to chew.

Box 9.1.

The world

A reminder at this point may avoid confusion in reading this chapter and subsequent chapters. The term this world will be used, for convenience, as a shorthand notation for the phrase ‘the world that I bring forth in an episode of experiencing’. This is the only world that exists. Within that episode I experience, ‘my’ world is structured by time and space, subject and objects, events, relationships and a knowledge of all these. This world is similar to that of all contemporary human episodes of experiencing – to the extent that each of us believes that there is a common world ‘out there’ in which ‘I’ find myself along with other people.

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Community The ideal of a future based on ecological principles must have, as a fundamental pre-requisite, the re-emergence of Gemeinshaft [community] in social relationships. (Alwin Jones, quoted by Goldsmith, 1998, p. 285) In this section, I will argue that community is necessary to human welfare and, indeed, survival. Jones’ use of the expression ‘ecological principles’ appears to refer to the concept of community as an organic, living entity in which relationships among individuals are defined by the requirements of the whole. Alternatively, one may say that the configuration of Dharma emerges from a process in which a group of people live in mutual dependence on each other. The assumption of law as immanent and of the impossibility of defining persons as things in themselves are both evident. What is a community? To facilitate further meaningful discussion, several general terms that will be used in discussing the concept of community must be clearly defined. A society is the aggregate of the people living together in a more or less ordered way in a broadly defined geographical area and participating in a common culture, or as has been said, a cultural model. Thus, there is ‘Western society’ defined and governed by the ‘Western cultural model’ that includes broadly the present-day people of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. There is a South Asian society consisting of the people of the nations from Pakistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east, Nepal in the north and Sri Lanka in the South. There may be, usually are, subgroups within societies based upon religion, race and ethnic roots. Culture is the totality of the concepts, customs, institutions, technologies and artistic creations of the people of a particular society in a particular period. It is determined by its cultural model. The model, however, not only defines the culture, but is itself a product of that culture. As for community, we will say that it is a true system – self-bounded, self-generating and self-perpetuating, that is, it is an autopoeitic structure. It is a living, adapting and evolving entity. It changes in response to influences from without but along a distinctive trajectory derived from the logic of its history and its geographical setting. It can be overwhelmed, and even killed, by external pressures such as are brought

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to bear by modernisation (that is, colonisation, ‘development’, integration into the global economy). It can also be weakened or killed by internal contradictions that cannot be resolved and, of course, by the viruses of stupidity, greed, selfishness and the lust for power. It evolves in the sense that an ecosystem is said to evolve towards its climax state, from a less complex and hence less stable state to a more complex and stable one. However, history suggests that, again like ecosystems, even a mature community may suffer decline and death if the cultural model of which it is an expression fails adequately to adapt to changing conditions and so becomes untenable. I offer a practical definition of community based upon my own experience of traditional village communities in the mountainous region of Uttarakhand State in North India. By this definition, a community is a small subunit of a society. ‘Small’ means that the community is of such a size that every member of it recognises everyone else by face and name. The members of the community share a common local variant of the cultural model of the society of which it is a unit. This is shaped by local history and geography. The upper limit of size may be about 500 individuals. The community is also defined geographically: a compact area of a size that takes, say, not more than half an hour to traverse on foot. In such a group of people, there is an opportunity for harmonious social relations, gentle livelihood pursuits and non-oppressive modes of governance to emerge spontaneously.

The disappearance of community in contemporary global society The village community in the West has been destroyed and society atomised. In this atomised society primary importance is given to the individual and his/her ‘freedom of action’ is safeguarded. An individual’s behaviour is specified by a civic code and the society is governed in accordance with constitutional law, both imposed, but only as far as is necessary to secure ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’, a utilitarian view propounded by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. In practice ‘happiness’ means pleasure. Further, the notion of the social group with which the individual is to identify and for the sake of which he/she is expected to curtail his/her pursuit of happiness at times has become the nation and lately the still more remote, nebulous entity the ‘global village’. Such a ‘village’ is the product of the rational management of human affairs; it is no longer an organic entity which by its very nature indicates a person’s place and his relationships to others. In the global ‘village’ effective community has disappeared, only a large

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geographical definition remains. This parallels the displacement of the concept of law as immanent by that of law as mere description. Edward Goldsmith in his comprehensive and penetrating description of ecosystem Earth writes similarly about community. In light of the worldview of modernism the State is the only possible instrument of government. It is seen as normal, and indeed desirable, that people should be but the individualistic, competitive, aggressive and disorderly units of an atomized society. The notion that society is a natural system, capable of homeostasis, is foreign to modern sociologists, let alone modern politicians.    This distorted view of human society can only be entertained by one who has had no experience of a [traditional] society of the types within which our ancestors once lived and which still survives somewhat precariously in those areas that have succeeded in remaining, partly at least, outside the orbit of international trade. (Goldsmith, 1998, p. 386) The environmental philosopher Johan Hattingh makes an important observation about values that is pertinent to this discussion. The loss of values in contemporary global culture is widely lamented, and strenuous efforts are being made to teach values to children in school. But, as Hattingh observes, values are being conceived as ‘    abstract entities that somehow hover over and above the things we do and the contexts within which we act, and that    can guide our actions like stars can give us direction if we have to navigate over a landscape at night    [These are]    experienced by learners and teachers alike as an external framework that is brought from the outside to a context of learning or decision-making or action, containing a number of ready-made values that at best are “applied” or at worst imposed on that context (Hattingh, 2004)’. He goes on to say that what is important is not abstract values, but the act of valuing which spontaneously arises in a particular context. We may, after the fact, give reasons for a given act of valuing; the reason is a ‘value’. This is what is meant, I suggest, by saying that the contours of Dharma emerge from the context of community; Dharma is not an externally imposed set of rules. The rules are simply a verbal codification of the ways in which people value (verb) in a given situation and act accordingly. A externally imposed code cannot be expected to substitute for the living experience of community. The environmental educator Bob Jickling also recognises that ‘    ethics [emerge] from particular practices, judgements and decisions.

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   Ethics is a process of reflection, imagination and experimentation, where individuals and/or groups create new ways of being in their part of the world (Jickling, 2005)’. He then goes on to enquire how ethical norms (or values) appropriate to a given group and context emerge. With traditional non-European cultures he points out that they emerge in the form of stories. He relates that Julie Cruikshank listened to stories told by a woman of one of the First nations people of Canada and reported that she (the storyteller) was ‘Fundamentally    interested in the work stories do – how they help their listeners    to construct relationships and how they give people something to think with’ (ibid). This is reminiscent of Ted Hughes view that myths are little factories of understanding. Myth or story seems to be the only language in which ethics or values can meaningfully be discussed. Jickling admits that in ‘    North America we are linguistically ill-equipped to talk about ethics’ (ibid). I suppose he is referring here to the people of European descent in North America. A traditional community Since there are no real communities left in the West, it is necessary to look at a traditional village to gain an adequate understanding of the concept. My own experience of true community is of the mountain villages of North India. I will describe these, briefly, and then try to generalise from this description. Numerous other examples have been described by Goldsmith (1998, Chapter 63), and I have also elsewhere described the culture and livelihood practices of communities of shifting cultivators in India and their disintegration (and that of their environment) under the imposition of ‘development’ (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 3). A community in this mountain setting can be defined as a group of people (families) occupying a definite geographical area. This area can usefully be considered an ecosystem which is composed of land (forest and cultivated land), vegetation, domestic animals and the people themselves (Jackson, 2005). The people, from one point of view, are like their domestic animals in that they consume food, produce waste (which is recycled) and expend energy as work. From another point of view, they are managers of the ecosystem, collectively forming an intangible component or aspect of the physical ecosystem – a community. They are bound together by a common history, worldview and a shared interest in managing the physical ecosystem for their sustenance. Their cultural model is expressed in customs, ritual, technology and myth. It is a specific, local version of the broader Vedic cultural model. These

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communities are small, usually having not more than 500 members (about 100 households). All the residents of the village can be considered collectively a single manager because a large proportion of the ecosystem land is common village land (that is, ‘commons’), and all water is also common property. Cultivated land is owned and worked by individual families, but an individual family’s cultivated land is divided into many small, scattered plots (due to inheritance) intermingled with those of other families. All cultivated land in the village is divided into a few large blocks and crops are rotated around these blocks. In other words, everyone grows the same crop in a given season in any particular block. The variety of crop is also the same and it is sown and harvested at the same times. This facilitates protecting the crops from wild animals and birds and some operations like weeding which are done jointly. Fuller descriptions of these village communities and ecosystems have been given by Pande (2004). The patterns of relationship among people in these village communities are integral to the community and not imposed from outside it. They have taken shape over time as the community has changed and evolved. Duties, rights, social hierarchies and the assignment of work are defined with reference to the community in such a manner as is thought necessary to ensure harmony and stability. The individual is subordinated to the community, though ideally in ways which do not reduce his/her autonomy at his/her own level. I speak here of an ideal, for in the period of recorded history there have always been some larger political and economic structures that have subsumed these village communities, and have thus imposed on them in various ways, particularly in the last two centuries, thus distorting their functioning. How these communities deal with distortion by outside forces is instructive. Today some of these stressed communities are beginning to resist impositions, insisting, for example, on defining ‘development’ in their own way and relying on themselves to achieve it (Jackson, 2005; UEEC, 2005), thus seeking to avoid the environmental degradation and social disintegration that have been found to accompany most development initiatives. In doing this they address traditional modes of thinking and acting no less than those being imposed by contemporary global culture. An example of the former is the patriarchal mindset of traditional Vedic culture. All this gives considerable insight into their mode of collective community thinking, and into the ways in which they respond to internal contradictions and external pressures in an effort to restore balance.

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A complimentary concept to that of the village ecosystem, one that makes it practically operational, is the concept of ecosystem health (Jackson, 2004). It is based upon the notion that ecosystems are living beings and can thus get sick. To manage a village ecosystem effectively, a means to diagnose ill health is needed. Indicators of health (or otherwise) in this rural mountain setting are: volume and constancy of spring and stream flows, extent of soil erosion, degree of species diversity (in soil, in cultivated crops, in village forests and among domestic animals) and human population in relation to ecosystem carrying capacity. Measurable social indicators are human health (in particular, the incidence of infectious and nutritional deficiency diseases) and of personal and social maladjustment such as alcoholism and domestic violence. The amount of leisure time women have is also an important indicator. No less important are unmeasurable social indicators: feelings of well-being, security and community spirit. Ecosystem health can be seen as a concept that logically subsumes: (1) sustainability, (2) productivity and (3) community empowerment. Community empowerment, in turn, subsumes equity. The means to community empowerment is a self-conscious community TL exercise. Larger considerations A moment ago reference was made to the ‘global village’. This should not be taken to mean that a global society is not necessary. It is, only it cannot be constructed from the top down. It must be constructed from the bottom up, with the smallest unit being the community as here defined. On the analogy of the living organism, the local community is a cell. These cells are aggregated into tissues, to organs and finally the whole animal. Every cell is itself a whole, but at the same time a functional part of the next higher level of organisation. For a whole to be healthy, to function harmoniously, all its component units must be healthy. Reverting to community, right ethical behaviour, right livelihoods and right governance must be defined at the lowest level, the local community. They must emerge from the ordinary everyday functioning of the community. They are then applied to successively higher levels. To the extent that all communities reflect a commitment to local ecosystem health, it should not be impossible to harmonise and co-ordinated their various cultural norms. Only thus will national and global affairs truly reflect a commitment to a worldview featuring process, radical inter-connectedness, detached participation and their companion concepts. This is what the term ‘a sustainable society’ means in practice. Or, for that matter, what a ‘just society’ means.

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Many large issues remain. How can community be created in the modern city? How can it be created in the area of livelihood pursuits? In other words, how do we reverse the trend towards globalisation and foster localisation in all spheres of human life? Many commentators point out that, given the instability of contemporary global society, a break up is unavoidable, and that a localisation trend can be expected to emerge spontaneously. Goerner points out that as a system of any sort grows beyond a certain size it becomes unstable and either perishes or reorganises spontaneously to a more intricate form consisting of smaller stable subsystems within a larger whole. In the case of large businesses, they are likely to implode and die or reorganise into a system of small, flexible, autonomous, yet highly inter-connected business units, created and controlled by local communities. Such systems are at once more complex and more stable (Goerner, 1999). Another powerful force pushing us towards localisation will probably be the exhaustion of petroleum supplies (Box et al., 2005). The transition to smaller, local human organisations will undoubtedly be accompanied by much dislocation, confusion and strife. But this will heighten the level of cognitive dissonance for people who have so far resisted acknowledging it, and so force them to attempt to ‘think differently’. The arena of TL will expand to include large numbers so far not involved. Fortunately, some spadework has already been done that will help in reconstruction. One is thinking here of the experiments which presuppose, more or less, the concepts of community and ecosystem health: alternative agriculture, health care, education, small-scale businesses, local currency schemes and, in general, efforts to redefine ‘development’ in ways that empower individuals and communities.

Science What would a science based upon the primary assumptions of the worldview outlined in Chapter 8 look like? An answer to this question is crucial to any discussion of cultural transformation. The purpose of this section is to suggest an answer. To begin with, we may note that this question is being addressed by some scientists themselves, particularly some biologists (see, e.g. the work cited by Capra, 1997 and Goerner, 1999). They are attempting to create a new science that assumes the concept of law as immanent. So far this attempt is, to my mind, inadequate. In the first place, basic definitions are not being clarified. The concept of law as immanent is being pictured as a web by many. Selby (2002) has shown the

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inadequacy of this metaphor and suggested that of a dance (Chapter 7). But the dance metaphor so far lacks conceptual definiteness. Further, the nature of actual entities is not made clear. Goerner, following some biologists, suggests it is energy. ‘Energy flows’, ‘swirls of energy’, ‘energy webs’ and ‘energy fields’, however, all beg the question: what is energy? Present definitions depend upon the concepts of physical things as the ultimate actual entities of the universe, and these in turn presuppose objective time and space. Obviously these latter cannot logically be reconciled with the concept of law as immanent. If this confusion over the basic concepts of new science is not taken care of at the outset, grave difficulties are likely to crop up later. My second reason for considering new, or web, science as inadequate is that I detect the unstated assumption behind the entire enterprise that, as Newton’s laws of motion, a scientific theory, changed the entire worldview of Western civilisation, a comparable change in science today will be sufficient for the transformation or contemporary global culture. This is a view that seems to be shared by a large number of non-scientists as well. It is, however, no more than a blind spot in a culture in which scientific concepts have completely eclipsed all more general, necessary, abstract category of concepts that collectively form the matrix of all thought, including scientific thought. The dangers of allowing science this illegitimate pre-eminence have been discussed in Chapter 4. The essence of my reservations about new science is that a healthy, truly viable new cultural model for our times can only emerge from a rigorous TL exercise. New science like other new currents of thought and practice in many fields of human endeavour are all valid only when seen for what they are – a groping for a new all-embracing vision of the universe and of humankind’s place in it. I say ‘groping’ because none of these currents can by itself create that vision. The vision must be created first to give sure guidance to the individual initiatives. Our task here, therefore, is, beginning with the vision of Chapter 8, to deduce from it an appropriate scientific paradigm and methodology for pursuing scientific study. Let us, therefore, go back to square one and define the term science itself. Simply put, science is the systematic observation of phenomena, the recording of these observations in memory or by means of words, numbers or other symbols and the search for regularities in the observations so made and recorded. How people have done science, however, varies among cultures in terms of what is observed, how it is observed, how observations are interpreted and to what purpose. These depend, in

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turn, upon the worldview of the culture and the secondary assumptions that have been elaborated from that view. Research methodology in the mechanistic science paradigm In respect of the science paradigm of contemporary global culture (or, in short, ‘mechanistic science’) two assumptions stand out. They dictate the methodology in all areas of scientific interest. First is the notion of simple causation among two, or at the most, only a few, discrete physical entities. This follows from the mechanistic materialist conception of the universe as exemplified by Newton’s laws of motion. To develop such an explanation we attempt to create ‘ideal conditions’. We wish to determine the effect of, say, y1 entity on the behaviour of x entity. We suspect that other entities, say y2 , y3 , y3 , y4 and so on, also affect the behaviour of x, and so we design an experiment in which, as far as possible, we eliminate the influence of these other entities. By successively determining the effects on x of each of a small, finite number of y entities, it is assumed that we eventually arrive at a comprehensive knowledge of why x behaves as it does. The influence of all the other myriad y entities in the universe is assumed to be vanishingly small or nil. This is largely successful for simple physical systems under laboratory conditions, and the results can often be expressed in fairly precise mathematical terms. With complex biological, emotional and conceptual phenomena, however, the notion of simple causation breaks down. The negative environmental fallout of modern chemical agriculture is one example. Similarly, the theory of nutrition which sees the human body as a thermodynamic machine and the mechanistic neo-Darwinian theory of evolution are unravelling before our eyes (Goerner, 1999). The 20th-century physicist, to his dismay, also found that even the laws of mechanics could no longer be expressed with mathematical certainty. The entire structure of modern scientific knowledge is thus being threatened by developments within the science laboratory and outside in nature and society. All this, however, has not yet affected mainstream science, nor, in most scientists’ minds, even brought into question the basic tenets of their inherited 17th-century worldview. A second assumption that dictates procedure in the mechanistic science paradigm is that a phenomenon can be understood in terms of the properties and behaviour of its parts. This flows from the notion that the parts are discrete physical entities with intrinsic properties, and that one of these properties, namely a something called ‘force’, determines the structure and functioning of the whole. (The faulty reasoning

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in both notions is overlooked.) Thus, phenomena are analysed into their component phenomena or parts in order to understand the whole phenomena. This mindset accounts, for example, for the frenetic search for the ‘ultimate particle’ and for the vast effort to map every last gene in the genetic code. The fact that these efforts are in vain is becoming increasingly clear as further research and application fail to deliver. The analogous assumptions that flow from the worldview described in Chapter 8, and specifically from the assumption of law as immanent, are (1) a systems concept of all phenomena and (2) that an understanding of a system comes from observing its place and function in the larger system of which it is a part. With this as an introductory statement we can proceed to describe the research methodology that is dictated by these derivative assumptions. Research methodology in the alternative science paradigm The ultimate    [necessary] context [of any phenomena] is the entire universe. Every event is ‘caused’ by every other event in the universe that ever has, or ever will, occur. Every event occurs as it does because the universe is at it is. Everything is inter-related, bound into a seamless whole – Rta. Attempting to isolate any particular pair of events for study is, from this point of view, meaningless. (Jackson, 2005, p. 116) In this science paradigm an attempt is made to understand a given phenomenon in terms of its place in a larger context, rather than in terms of the interactions among its constituent elements. In other words, an attempt is made to develop macro-explanations as opposed to microexplanations which are the aim of research in the mechanistic science paradigm (Harre, 1972). Guided by this assumption, an attempt is made to characterise the state of a system at a given time and to note how various events of immediate concern unfold subsequently. If observation is carefully done, a record (mental or otherwise) of the observations made is maintained, and a systematic process of induction is followed, an effective body of knowledge can be built up. All non-European cultures developed such bodies of knowledge. Vedic agricultural science is an example (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 8). Observation is restricted to selected features of the system since any system is too vast, embedded as it is in the universe as a whole, to observe in toto. These features, or ‘markers’, are selected for their obviousness, proximity and the ease with which they can be evaluated in

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relation to each other. The rationale for this procedure is that natural systems exhibit stable, recurring patterns of behaviour, with dramatic shifts occurring only rarely. A particular configuration of marker events is taken to indicate of the state of the system that is likely to recur whenever that configuration is again observed. An example of this procedure is the rainfall prediction systems developed in India in Vedic times and still widely used (Kanani, 2007). The objective of the application of this knowledge is to enable people to adapt to natural phenomena, and not, as with modern scientific knowledge, to manipulate and control them. People in Vedic times realised that failure to adapt to the demands of the ‘Way’ would invite disaster, something we are today beginning to perceive. From the foregoing general characterisation of the science paradigm being suggested here it is possible to formulate several broad guidelines for conducting research. These are: 1. The proper objects of study are systems The proper objects of scientific study are whole systems. Every perceptible and conceivable distinct entity in the world is a system. These systems are living units of process; all of them, even the simplest, are very intricate and very delicate. 2. Formulate macro-explanations Systems are to be understood in terms of macro-explanations, that is, in terms of their place and function in the most immediately larger system in which they are embedded, rather than in terms of micro-explanations. These latter, it will be recalled, are explanations in terms of the numbers, kinds and arrangements of the constituent parts of a system. To obtain micro-explanations, the investigator must analyse or break apart the system. This makes it dysfunctional, or kills it altogether, and hence precludes really understanding it. In the macro-explanatory approach the system is observed without interfering with it. Research activities, where they are formally pursued, are to be organised on the basis of types of systems rather than on the basis of disciplines created by the pursuit of science in the mechanistic paradigm that seeks micro-explanations. 3. The observer is part of the observed As a scientist, I am part of the system I observe. What I observe depends upon what aspects of the system I choose to observe, on how I describe my observations and on the personal interpretive conceptual framework I use to explain them. The findings of such scientific study

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are thus always subjective, tentative and fallible. (This is, of course, true of all scientific study; it will be helpful, therefore, to be explicit about it at the outset.)

4. Everyone is a scientist Scientific enquiry is an integral part of ordinary life. Everyone is a scientist. Of course, a few individuals may make a career of in-depth study of particular systems. They are ‘specialists’, but only do essentially what everyone does all the time. Thus, following a macro-explanatory agenda, the line of communications between ‘specialists’ and ‘laypersons’ will be kept open, thus limiting the scope for the creation of a scientific priesthood.

5. Interventions in systems must be gentle Interventions in systems (technologies) must be gentle. That is, they must not impair the health of the systems they address. Thus, they should not abstract a part of the system, or forcibly introduce a foreign element into the system. Examples of this in the modernist science paradigm are: the poisoning of insects in a crop field; inserting a foreign gene into an animal or plant; mutilating, poisoning and burning the human body to ‘cure’ cancer. Such violent interventions can only, in the long run, impair the health of systems, giving rise to violent reactions or kill the systems altogether. Similarly, when natural systems, that is, those having suffered little or no violent human interventions, are modified to accommodate human beings, such as converting a forest to an agricultural or urban ecosystem, they must not be distorted in terms of their essential features (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 4).

6. Sick systems must be healed Virtually, all natural systems and all human-created systems on our planet Earth are today sick. The highest priority in scientific research will therefore have to be given to the questions of why they are sick, how they sickened and how they can be healed. The functioning of a healthy system will in such circumstances have to be inferred/intuited from studying sick systems. Systems have to be made healthy again – or, more accurately, helped to heal themselves – and then ways found to keep them that way.

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7. Leave well alone If a natural system is healthy, then leave it alone. In terms of this rule, most of today’s research ‘problems’ instantly cease to be problems at all. Thus, if a quantity of a substance is playing its natural role, and not creating discordance anywhere, then it is not a problem. From this point of view all present-day research in subatomic physics, for example, is not a valid research agenda. Abandoning it would save huge amounts of human talent, time and resources – and remove the risk of creating yet more horrors. If it be argued that the components of the lump of substance must be isolated, studied and manipulated in order to meet increasing human needs, it should be replied that the ‘needs’ seem to be the problem, not the means of meeting them. The appropriate research agenda here is to attempt to understand the sickness of a society that views unlimited human ‘needs’ as normal or natural. Most current research is pernicious because it seeks to understand phenomena that are not problems, and having understood them (in micro-explanatory terms), and at the same time created a discipline and a department, must inexorably go on to find an application of this new understanding. Then a need for the application must be created, which usually spawns a host of new – and real – problems. 8. Human-created systems cannot be designed Human-made systems, if they are to be viable, cannot be designed. Rational human thought is simply not up to the job. The most that can be done is to allow a system to grow by itself from the ground up in an existing context. As it grows we can try to understand how it grows – or fails to grow – and from this understanding try to facilitate its growth. The system, if appropriate, will grow, but not simply in size on the existing pattern, but will, to remain viable, grow in complexity also. Thus a given system, as it grows in size, reaches a critical size at which it becomes unstable. At this point it may either die or split up into a number of smaller systems on the same pattern as the original. At the same time a larger system comes into existence that subsumes the many small systems. The new regnant system may also subsume other small systems of different patterns (Goerner, 1999). The analogy here is obviously that of an organism. From this point of view the research agenda of the people involved in the system and those in the management business will be to attempt to understand: (1) the principles of the functioning of healthy organic systems; (2) how to facilitate their continued growth and health; and (3) how and why human-created systems, even the most successful, can

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eventually cease to be appropriate and so sicken and die – and why we must refrain from attempting to prolong their lives at all costs. Science as conversation E. F. Schumacher has suggested a neat metaphor for the research methodology appropriate to the scientific paradigm being described here – that research is a dialogue with Nature.    The whole of human life is a dialogue between man and his environment. We pose questions to the universe by what we do, and the universe, by its response, informs us whether our actions harmonise with its laws or violate them. (Paraphrased by Chaitanya, 2000) The response gives information, or feedback, that can be used to refine the initial question, if necessary, and then pose it again. In this way the question that was initially formulated can progressively be refined. At the same time, the questioner becomes more and more tuned to the context, of which he/she is an integral part. The ‘universe’ in Schumacher’s quote, when applied practically, means addressing the next larger context of the immediate situation occupying one’s attention. Thus, if I have cancer, I question my whole person. That is, I try a therapy that is designed to strengthen my whole person (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) and then observe how it reacts. The cancer may regress, but if so it will be a result, or part, of a larger healing process. At the same time, the question addresses the next larger context of my family. Changes that strengthen the family or make it healthier may be part of my therapy. Similarly with still more inclusive contexts: from the immediate community to the whole planet and finally the universe. The sorts of changes that may need to be made to heal my cancer at all these more inclusive levels can be visualised, except perhaps for the last. In a universal context, I must ultimately die, and coming to terms with this is no small part of this cancer therapy. Actually, the cancer is itself an answer to a prior question – maybe not explicitly asked, but implicit all the same. The question was: is my way of relating to, interacting with, my person and the social and natural world around me appropriate? Does my lifestyle, and the ethos of the culture in which I participate, conform to the requirements of seeking harmony and stability? My cancer says ‘no’. I must, therefore, try to refine my question and pose it again by making changes in my assumptions and hence in my lifestyle. I must mount a personal transformative learning

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(TL) exercise. If the cancer is cured, my new ‘question’ is an improvement on my earlier one. There will be further evidence as well that my new question is an improvement: maybe a clearing up of other, chronic aliments, a greater sense of well-being, a better family and community life, less pollution, less aggression. At the same time, my cancer is not the only symptom of a dysfunctional culture. It is only the answer in my most immediate context. In larger contexts there are larger answers: the cancer of urbanisation; the asphyxiation of debt burden; the blood poisoning of chemical pollution; the lunacy of consumerism. It will be evident that the treatment of cancer relies on the natural healing ability of living systems. My job is to facilitate this healing by correcting conditions that have caused the cancer in the first place. I myself diagnose my problem and treat it. If I am a farmer and have a ‘problem’ of insects eating my crops, I would understand that it is an ‘answer’; my management is faulty. Maybe I use chemicals, or do not recycle sufficient biomass to the soil, or am treating my farm as primarily a business. Or maybe it is the corporations that manufacture pesticides and seeds, or governments that, in the name of free trade, force him to grow monocultured crops of unadapted varieties. Maybe it is the all-pervasive greed of the modern world. Rephrasing my question will involve changes in my fields and in all the larger contexts in which they and I am embedded. And first of all, changes in the way I think. An example here is the pioneering natural farmers in India (Alvares, 1999). These natural farmers are also indicating how scientific research needs to be conceived when the alternative worldview described in Chapter 8, or, for that matter, the worldview of their Vedic ancestors, is assumed. Research must be embedded in the natural context of the phenomena being studied. Thus, every natural farmer is also a scientist since the only appropriate setting for scientific research into his/her farming practices his/her own farm, just as every cancer patient is also a cancer researcher. One does not just sit back and expect a specialised corps of scientists or doctors to tell one what to do. Community-based research, embedded in a given village ecosystem, is the next higher level of enquiry. Answers to ‘questions’ (that is, new techniques, systems, varieties of crops and so on) are sought in terms of the indicators of ecosystem health mentioned in the section on community in this chapter. In the same way there will be appropriate methods of investigation at each successive and more inclusive level of organisation.

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People can, of course, learn from the experience of others, and meetings, such as farmers markets and fairs, and the exchange of seeds are examples of the ways in which experience may be shared. The experiences of individuals can be documented, and general conclusions can be drawn that can, with due care for the particular context, applied elsewhere. Ancient farming manuals, such as Krishiparashar (Sadhale, 1996) did just this. In a contemporary context, the most important thing that can be shared is the general way of thinking about farming, cancer or whatever. With this approach to scientific research, the technologies, techniques and management systems that are produced are gentle because they are under personal and community control and do not violate local ecosystem limits. All this, of course, has very great implications for the gigantism of present-day research and technology application. I will not attempt to say more than that a change of scientific methodology just described would have to be part of a general reversal of the current globalising trend towards what is being termed localisation. The essence of localisation is the primary, community-level organisation of all human activities that was described in the previous section. In the area of interpersonal human relationships, research takes the form of conversation with other people rather than with Nature. This is the way Dharma is articulated through the collective construction and sharing of myths and stories in a particular context. Here too, everyone is a scientist, a social scientist, and must be. Constructing Dharma and living it is an essential part of everyday life. Bob Jickling in his paper ‘Ethics research in environmental education’ (Jickling, 2005) tends to this point of view, though he uses the language current among academic social scientists. This, I feel, is a very positive development, but I have misgivings about the research methodology he uses and which is used seemingly by all social scientists, or at least all those whose works I have read. My misgiving is that they begin their enquiry – in this case enquiry into the emergence of ethical codes of behaviour – without any theory or even a hypothesis explaining how and why a system of ethics should emerge through conversation. I think it is fair to say that no scientific enterprise that does not begin with a theory or hypothesis can succeed, whatever the field of enquiry. In this case a concept of law that is assumed a priori is needed. In the absence of such an assumed concept, the research of social scientists is unfocused; they explore everything that comes to their attention. This is, of course, an example of the pure Positivist doctrine of first observing

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phenomena and then describing regularities, if any are found. As was seen in Chapter 5, this agenda is impossible to follow in practice; a researcher always has presuppositions, whether consciously held or not, that in fact do determine what comes to his/her attention and how he/she observes it. The Positivist doctrine does not work in the physical and biological sciences, nor can it work in the social sciences. It is far better, and productive of good science, to clarify one’s presuppositions at the outset. In their work, the presuppositions of many social scientists are evident, even though they try to appear to have no presuppositions at all. Western environmental educators investigating the knowledge systems of non-Western traditional cultures, for example, focus only on the practices and ignore the conceptual background from which these emerge (Price, 2005). Clearly, they are committed finally to a materialist worldview, their professed open-mindedness notwithstanding. Indeed, their stated objective is to integrate local, traditional techniques into the mainstream contemporary knowledge system. As we have seen in Chapter 2, this only creates incoherence and confusion. Conclusion To conclude this discussion of methodology in the alternative science paradigm described in this section as succinctly as possible, I would say that conversing with ourselves, with our neighbours, with the planet and with the cosmos is not only good science, it is essential to good living.

An adequate theory of history A theory of history offers an interpretation of the facts that constitute the historical record. Its purpose is to help people orient themselves to the present, to give them, their community and their society a collective identity. At the same time, it is an interpretation of historical events that is required to justify their present orientation and identity, that is, their cultural model. The progress theory of history derives its legitimacy from the worldview of contemporary global culture. In previous chapters, all the primary assumptions of that worldview have been examined and found wanting, thus fatally challenging the credentials of this theory. How then are we to understand human history? Any theory we formulate will have to account for three facts: (1) alternating periods of scholasticism and speculation, or in other words,

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the need for periodic cultural transformation or renewal; (2) the movement away from, and now back to, a concept of law as immanent and (3) the predominance of the concept of law as immanent when considering the totality of human cultures throughout history, from which point of view Western culture from Hellenic times to the present is an anomaly. An alternative theory will also have to be framed in terms of the primary assumptions of whatever alternative worldview is decided upon. S. J. Goerner (1999) sees history repeating itself in a cycle of: (1) ‘coming together for a common cause’ (formulating a new cultural model after an existing model unravels); (2) ‘building’ a new social order on the basis of the new cultural model; (3) ‘establishment’; (4) ‘ossification’ and (5) ‘unravelling’ due to ‘worldliness and greed’. Edmund O’Sullivan’s three movements within society – maintaining continuity, reforming and transforming, mentioned in Chapter 3 – also imply that history is cyclical. To my mind, this notion of cyclicality, though an improvement on the notion of progress, is not completely adequate. I propose that the historical record is better explained in terms of how closely events adhere to the demands of Rta, or fail to do so. When a society strays too far from an adequate recognition of the demands of Rta in relation to the world situation in which it finds itself, a reaction sets in to bring it back. The reaction takes the form of compelling new ways of thinking, and hence of doing, that are more adequate than existing ones. The reaction is Rta’s way of restoring balance and harmony. A reminder may be necessary here. Rta, as was said in Chapter 5, is not a celestial blueprint or a set of rules and regulations, but ‘the ultimate presupposition of all specific types of order or systems of laws’, it is ‘a dynamic, subtle, evolving pattern of relationships’. As it is, it is unknowable. When it is said that ‘we adhere to the demands of Rta’ it means that we have understood and acted on what we perceive (that, cognise and understand) to be right and necessary in relation to our world situation. All is intuitive, tentative and speculative; nothing is a matter of ‘fact’. We may, or may not, do an adequate job of ‘perceiving’, and, in either case, there will be an appropriate feedback signal which is again a matter for us to ‘perceive’. When Schumacher said that we must ‘converse with Nature’ he really meant, I suggest, that we must converse with Rta. Nature and Rta are the same. Edward Goldsmith’s ‘Way’ is similarly another expression for Rta. Cultures depart from the Way for two reasons: (1) failure adequately to understand what is required to move society in the way indicated by circumstances (that is, by Rta); and (2) a failure of individuals to live

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up to what they do understand due to inattention, lack of imagination, hubris, greed and lust for power. It remains now to consider how well this theory accounts for the history of Western civilisation. The following account is very general, but hopefully will indicate the usefulness of the theory. European civilisation up to the beginnings of ‘philosophy’, that is, up to about the 6th century BC, can be characterised as practising a mythical mode of interaction with Nature. This means that people tacitly assumed the concept of law as immanent. They relied on revelation, or the intuitive perceptions of a few exceptional individuals, for their understanding of the Way. Such understanding was formulated in the language of myth. Revelation is mostly a one-way process, and probably the notion of dialogue in the sense described in the previous section was not well developed. In any case, revelation led to the formulation of codes of organising society and governing the behaviour of individuals. These codes became fixed and immutable over time and were neither reconfirmed by fresh revelation nor modified by means of dialogue with nature. A time came when many people began to find them meaningless and stifling. A distinct sense of cultural decay had set in. The stage was set for a repudiation of the existing cultural model and for bold speculation. New answers to the perennial questions were proposed. Earlier it was said that Rta might be considered a living, autopoeitic structure. In these terms, the crisis in the 6th century BC can be seen as a situation in which Rta was stressed, that is, disbalanced. From that condition, a movement back towards greater balance, stability was set in motion. Major themes of the speculative thought of the period were a need for a more adequate means of engagement with the physical world and a greater role for logical mentation in human affairs. In terms of the alternative theory being suggested here, these perceptions were the authentic voice of Rta – necessary at the time to correct a dangerously unstable condition. But these thinkers went too far; they over-compensated. It is one thing to particularise one’s perception of the world against a backdrop of the ultimate unity of all that exists (Rta), but quite another to do so and at the same time drop the concept of unity altogether – throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. Most thinkers of the Hellenic period did not, as we have seen, do this explicitly, but they nevertheless set in motion a trend that over the centuries resulted is just this. What I wish to suggest is that what was required at that time was a practical means by which everyone, and not just a few seers,

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could communicate directly with nature, and that too not in terms of revelation but of dialogue or conversation. Real dialogue makes possible the continuous updating of Dharma at the ‘grassroots’, and the evolution of specific ways of interacting with Nature. It demands logical mentation as well as intuitive perception. It involves a critical, but not dismissive, attitude to myth, the ability to entertain myth consciously. Well, this did not happen, with all the consequences that have been described in previous chapters. The TL exercise of the 5th century BC was not as successful as it might have been. It seems to me that, in the speculative interval in which we now find ourselves, we are being challenged to correct for the over-compensation that occurred at that time. Let us pause to remind ourselves that autopoeitic structures – to which Rta has been likened – never really attain equilibrium but constantly fluctuate around a theoretical equilibrium situation. When fluctuations become large enough to threaten the life of the structure a process of damping down by the action of negative-feedback loops comes into play. This will almost inevitably be either an under- or an over-compensation, but the dangerous situation will have been relieved. Further compensating movements will be necessary and will occur in due course. Coming now to the Enlightenment: it was an even less successful TL exercise than its predecessor. There was no doubt a growing dissatisfaction with the Aristotelian mode of deductive thinking about everything. People had lost touch with Nature in its manifest physical dimension and the intuitive insight of the times indicated the need for direct, careful observation. This was surely appropriate. But the Enlightenment thinkers failed to clear the ground, to set aside altogether the worldview of the mediaeval period, and so, when they built again, it was on the foundations laid by the Greeks of the Hellenic period: a rejection of the mythical mode of engagement with Nature in favour of an empirical, logical mode. It will be recalled that during the Renaissance which preceded the Enlightenment European thinkers discovered Greek speculative thought and embraced it enthusiastically. Thus they continued the trend set by the Greeks, moving Western civilisation still further from the Way. In the foregoing account I have concentrated on the first of the two causes of drift of civilisation from the Way – a failure to understand what is shown. Every cultural era has also, of course, been plagued by failures of people to live up to even what they have understood. I have elsewhere suggested how such failure appears to have slowly weakened Vedic culture (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 7). Today, however, our plight is primarily due to an unprecedented failure to understand.

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Thus, there is really nothing to live up to. This has given free reign to all the most destabilising of human tendencies. Indeed, these tendencies are institutionalised today. This appears to be the usual turn of events in all cultures that become terminally ill: wealth and power become concentrated in a small elite, leaving the majority in misery, resentment and despair (Goerner, 1999, Chapter 7). A rigorous testing of the theory of history presented here requires consideration of the histories of non-Western cultures as well. In most cases there is considerable difficulty in doing this since for many our knowledge of them is based entirely on contemporary oral testimony (see the review by Goldsmith, 1998, and papers by Cajete, 2004, Shilling, 2002, and Wane, 2002). The stories that are told are usually of a primeval revelation that has guided the people of that culture thereafter, though learning and adaptation are also implied. There is no history at all in these traditions in sense of a time series of factual events in the past. Nevertheless, it does seem permissible to infer that there are no real discontinuities in terms of the answers to the perennial questions framed in the original revelations. This is, of course, in marked contrast to the history of Western civilisation with its distinctly different cultural models succeeding one another. For the pre-speculative period in ancient Greece the situation is really no better. We are forced to rely on the documentation at the very end of that period, that is, the epics poems and myths. The long history of their development to that point occurred before the appearance of the first written records. With Indian Vedic culture, however, there is a long period of documented history, stretching back some five or six millennia. But here, too, there has not, even up to the present day, been any radical change in the worldview first enunciated in the Rigveda. There are changes, which can be seen as responses to changing circumstances, and there have been developments in terms of a deepening of understanding and an elaboration and refinement of techniques. The best-documented period in this respect is the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries when this cultural model faced the most severe challenge of its career up to that time in the shape of European colonialism. By the 19th century, Hindu (Vedic) culture had stagnated and become dogmatic in its clinging to outmoded forms. New ideas and institutions from the West caused much emotional and intellectual churning. But the result was, by and large, to focus on the reform of the cultural model, and not to its replacement (see reviews by Jordens, 1975; Owen, 1975); the primary assumptions of the worldview of Vedic culture were not questioned. In this case too, therefore, we conclude, this time on the

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basis of solid historical fact, that there have been no discontinuities in worldview.1 This conclusion is clearly at odds with the findings for Western cultural history, and yet this historical record is also explainable in terms of the alternative theory suggested here. The explanation is, simply that the people of these non-Western cultural traditions, by the time they first articulated the primary assumptions of their respective worldviews, had basically ‘got it right’; that is, they had found the ‘Way’, in the sense that they had developed an awareness of Rta underlying phenomena, and an effective method of ‘conversation’. They have managed to stay more or less on the Way ever since, continually making small adjustments as they came along.1 The conclusion that non-Western cultures ‘got it right’, while Western civilisation wandered, suggests a moral. We should never depart too far from a worldview of our inherited culture, where that view has appeared spontaneously from the living experience of community and has seemingly stood the test of time. Continual reform and fine-tuning are then needed, but not replacement. As the theory has been framed in the preceding paragraphs, it suggests that to follow the Way, or not to follow the Way, is a matter of free will. This, of course, is not true, since there is no such thing as free will as commonly understood. We are, I suggest, dealing with large tides of affairs in which individuals are simply swept along. If an individual feels that these tides are influenced by ‘his/her’ decisions, he/she is deluded; ‘his/her’ decisions are a manifestation of the impersonal tide. ‘His/her’ deciding this or that is merely the role he/she has been assigned. The alternative theory of history outlined here explicitly denies the concept of progress in human affairs. If we are not going anywhere in particular, is there then no purpose in human life? What is the purpose of this seemingly endless bringing forth of all these worlds? This question is not absent from the thoughts of people writing today about cultural transformation. Many of them insist that our purpose is to understand the demands of the Way and act on that understanding, as, for example, by talking to Gaia (Goldsmith, 1998; Rowe, 2003). I agree with this, but would point out that a perfectly logical approach to this matter requires us to ask a further question. What is Gaia’s purpose? A sound principle to keep in mind here is that the purpose of anything necessarily lies outside itself. A thing’s purpose is to ensure the proper functioning and the continuance of the larger entity of which it is a part. This, of course, leads back to the ultimate entity, the One, which logically can have no purpose. If we, in essence are the One, then we

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too have no purpose. Nor do we need a purpose. Only as autonomous persons, do we ask: what is the purpose of it all. I know that to ask this question is useless, yet I continue to ask it. It is the most persistent question in human history, irrespective of culture. And, accordingly, it is the theme of the most powerful and pervasive of myths (Campbell, 1988). The answer these myths give is this: the purpose of human life is to strive for self-transcendence, to strive to realise one’s essential identity with ‘That which is’. Realising one’s real identity, one achieves that happiness and that sense of completeness which do not depend upon circumstances. Purpose is not something to be achieved in an imagined future, but in the current episode of experiencing. The ‘future’, after all, exists only in the now of an episode of experiencing. Thus, I have two levels of purpose, as it were: a proximate purpose of participating wholeheartedly and with understanding, in the world I ‘bring forth’, and a final purpose of transcending ‘myself’ and ‘my’ world. Both these purposes are reflected in the effort to become a detached participant.

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Part II Transformative Learning in Post-colonial Societies

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10 Transform, Reform, Reaffirm

In present-day post-colonial societies, traditional cultural models and their supporting worldviews are an additional factor to be taken into account in the process of learning to think differently. This addition makes the process more complex and difficult, and also offers important opportunities. The difficulties are experienced by those in post-colonial societies themselves, while the opportunities are for everyone everywhere. Examples of the opportunities, in the shape of concepts that are not found in Western civilisation or that have been deliberately forgotten, were given in earlier chapters: the concept of the Absolute or the One, the concept of law as immanent and the concept of a living universe. It has been argued that these concepts are essential to the emergence of a viable new global worldview. What remains to be considered, therefore, are the difficulties: how people in post-colonial societies are attempting to reconcile the assumptions of their own cultural inheritance with modernist assumptions imposed upon them by colonialism and how they react to the many new ideas being thrown up in the global TL exercise, many of which are recognisably the same as their traditional assumptions. This enquiry is extremely important for the people of post-colonial societies who hitherto have seen their sole task as adjusting their outlook to that of the Western, Enlightenment worldview – or as rejecting that view and dogmatically, aggressively affirming their traditional view. The recognition of the need for thoughtful enquiry is essentially positive, in that it is recognised that neither worldview can simply be dismissed. An example of this was the school textbook writers given in Chapter 2. It is with this group that this chapter is concerned. The other responses – uncritical acceptance of modernism or its categorical rejection – are essentially negative as no transformation of outlook is then possible. Dogmatism 145

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about one’s existing beliefs – traditional or modern – is synonymous with a failure to face up to cognitive dissonance. Examples of this were given in Chapters 3 and 5, and perhaps that is all that need to be said about this group. My general attitude to this subject is that, in the matter of outcomes to the TL exercises in post-colonial societies, there should be no preconceptions. Thus, for example, we should not begin with the idea that the global TL exercise aims at one uniform universal worldview. The notion of one world, so indispensable, need not require cultural uniformity, but only the creation of a broad framework within which the cultural models of all societies can find a place and contribute to the health and stability of the whole. The way to create such a framework, I suggest, is, first of all, to allow and encourage the people of all societies to work through their own local TL agenda. We should not be hasty in trying to visualise the contours of larger containing systems (regional, global) but be content at present to allow these to emerge by themselves in due course. This is a corollary of the localisation agenda advocated in Chapter 9. What should not be done is to formulate guidelines or frameworks at an international level and recommend these to everyone – such as, for example, Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio Summit and the more recent Earth Charter. It makes no difference that such declarations are the results of consensus among the representatives of many cultures. Such representatives are not qualified, in my opinion, to offer suggestions in a global arena until they have cleared up the confusion, doubts and uncertainties in their own local settings. Such ‘guidelines’ are usually a prelude to, or cover for, new forms of domination where power over, and control of, the majority by a small elite is the outcome. The 20th century has seen enough of such grand visions that have gone this way.1

The impact of colonialism To understand how and to what extent Western colonialism over the past three centuries or so has changed subjugated peoples’ thinking, it is necessary to distinguish between two main types of colonialism. These differ in respect of their objectives and their impact. The objective of the first type is economic exploitation. The Roman Empire is an example of this type and also the British Empire in Asia. The colonising power imposes administrative and judicial systems, develops transport and extractive industries solely for its own benefit. In India, the British also implemented taxation and trade policies that effectively destroyed most

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existing commercial enterprises to favour their own home industries. In broad outline, this is the strategy that has been extended to the present in the guise of globalisation. As Robbins (2002) has pointed out, the East India Company was the prototype of the present-day multinational corporation. In India, the British also adopted a policy of educating a small number of Indians to help with the administration. The school and university curricula were largely British and the medium of instruction English. The aim was stated explicitly by Lord Macaulay when he introduced the Indian Education Act in the British Parliament in the 18th century: ‘We must do our best to form a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’ (cited by Kumar, 2000). Those who passed through this system were rewarded with secure, well-paying jobs and enhanced social status. This process only intensified after independence with the Indian Government adopting and expanding the previously established educational set-up as a matter of national policy. Large numbers of Indians attend Western universities. This dovetails with the further intensification of the worldwide tide of Westernisation now running. There can be little doubt that this is a continuation of the policy of colonising the minds of subject peoples. A World Trade Organisation official talking about some new General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) legislation put it this way: ‘Basically it won’t stop until foreigners finally start to think like Americans, act like Americans, and, most of all, shop like Americans’ (quoted in Resurgence magazine, Number 206, May–June 2001). A second type of colonialism has as its objective the securing of living space and this involved killing of the existing inhabitants and/or segregating them in enclaves on marginal land. This form of colonialism relieved the pressure created by the population explosion in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. It also solved the problems created by policies at home such as the Enclosures Act in Britain. This form of colonialism was predominant in North America and Australasia. I have sketched these two contrasting forms of the colonial experience to highlight the issues involved. In some instances the situation was clearly a mixture of these two types and as a result more complex. Economic and settlement colonialism have had very different effects on the colonised people. Very generally, the former may be said to have led to ‘calculated adaptation’ in which the colonised accepted the imposed system and made the best of it for themselves as individuals. This has not, however, caused them to abandon their traditional

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worldview in favour of that of their colonisers. Outwardly, that is, in their public and professional integrations, they take on board the worldview of the colonisers, but in their private integrations, their inherited worldview and cultural norms prevail. The experience of the victims of settlement colonialism has generally been traumatic, causing individual and community disintegration. They are overwhelmed by the experience of being forcibly separated from their ancestral places and natural resources bases. They are impoverished, lose their self-identity and often their will to live. Children are traumatised when they are forcibly removed from their families and educated in the cultural mode of the colonisers. On top of all this they are physically segregated from the mainstream, colonising culture and ignored. A few have managed to emerge from this situation and join the mainstream. One of these, Renee Shilling, an Anishinaabe woman from Manitou Rapids, Rainy River First Nations, in North Western Ontario, sums up the experience of this type of colonialism in these words: For over a century, Indigenous nations in Canada have been subjected to foreign systems of education. They have been controlled by oppressive and abusive policies that have completely undermined the social, cultural, political and economic functions of their nations. The colonial experience is embedded in the spirit of the people and in the fabric of society. (Shilling, 2002) In the face of the manifest unsustainability of the model of contemporary global culture and the resultant uncertainty about the future, many people in post-colonial societies have today begun to consider their inherited worldview as a possible alternative. They seem to be doing this spontaneously and quite naturally – because the inherited view, as I have argued already, has never been completely eradicated. When I say that the inherited cultural model is being examined afresh, I mean in the positive sense and not in the fundamentalist sense referred to earlier. In India, this process actually began at the beginning of the 20th century – even before political independence was achieved. Mahatma Gandhi in the first half of the 20th century recognised the fact that the more or less autonomous village community is the stable core of Indian civilisation and insisted on a vision of independent India as a republic of self-governing village communities (Gandhi, 1962). This vision has been honoured in independent India in the form of a provision in

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the constitution establishing Panchayati Raj (village-level governance by elected village councils). On the ground, this provision for local selfgovernance has been made problematic by the assumption by the civil service of the task of development in addition to routine district and state administration (making it more intrusive), and the penetration of ‘the market’. As mentioned a moment ago, these two, ‘development’ and ‘the market’, are two faces of contemporary colonialism. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s critique of the modern Western cultural model and his vision for the future of India and the world are still very much alive in India – and elsewhere. The victims of settlement colonisation too are now demonstrating that they can resurrect their traditional worldviews and cultural models and examine them. The old stories have kept these alive. With the expanding opportunities and even encouragement, indigenous peoples everywhere are beginning a tentative process of TL. In this effort, they are being helped by people of their own culture, like Renee Shilling, and by disenchanted people from the mainstream colonising culture who themselves are earnestly searching for alternatives to that culture and see possibilities in traditional models. How they are going about it and what they have accomplished so far will be described in the next section.

Interpreting the past, visualising the future General procedure In Figure 3.2, the entry point for TL exercises is represented by the box labelled ‘Present cultural model seen as inadequate’. The ‘present cultural model’ is that of contemporary global culture. It goes without saying that unless this model is seen as inadequate there is no question of people being motivated consciously to undertake transformative learning. In other words, people will be motivated to enter into a personal or group TL exercise if they have decided to take the cognitive dissonance they suffer seriously, and have decided that it must somehow be tackled – and, if possible, resolved. They welcome any opportunity to do this. In a post-colonial setting, as was said earlier, there is a tendency for people who have reached this stage to pause to consider seriously, and probably for the first time in their lives, the possible relevance of their inherited traditional cultural model to the contemporary world. Thus, there are two models for them to deal with at the very outset.

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To begin with, it is necessary to consider why the traditional model too is inadequate and, more importantly, why it might in some respects be useful. Most traditional cultural models, for example, appear to have been more sustainable, where not unduly interfered with from outside, than the modern one. Social life might be seen as having been more cohesive and technology more gentle. In drawing up a balance sheet for the traditional model, these are on the plus side. There may be features that are judged negative, such as, in Vedic culture, an ossification of the social pattern so that it has become oppressive for low castes and women. Earlier, I argued that village land and forest management practices are defective and have led to extensive degradation. All these negative features appear to have resulted from a lack of understanding and/or an inability to read feedback signals and/or to greed and a desire for power and control (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 7). When a balance sheet has been drawn up, it may be decided that there are good reasons to carry a consideration of the traditional model on to the first phase of the TL enquiry proper – that is, to the tasks of identifying, articulating and critiquing the primary assumptions of its underlying worldview. This will be done side by side with a similar treatment of the worldview of contemporary global culture. On completing these tasks, it should become evident whether or not any of the primary assumptions of the traditional worldview merit being carried over to the next task that of formulating/adopting alternative assumptions. In the illustration of the TL exercise given in Chapters 4–9, some assumptions from traditional, non-Western worldviews have been taken over, more or less intact – the concepts of the One, of Rta and of the person. These concepts are common to many non-Western worldviews (Cajete, 2004; Chaitanya, 2000; Goldsmith, 2000; Jackson, 2005; Mokuku and Mokuku, 2004; Sen, 1992; Shilling, 2002; Wane, 2002). Approaches to the second and third of these assumptions are presently also being made in purely Western contexts. The progress theory of history stands in the way People in societies that suffered economic colonialism generally adopted the worldview of their Western colonisers in their public and professional integrations. They have thus taken on board the concept of progress which devalues their traditional worldview. But that traditional view has not disappeared; it remains very much alive. In practice, in the context of TL, this leads to problems. As participants in the global cultural model, they feel obliged to adhere to the progress theory, and at the same time are seeking possible alternatives to that model. They are

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convinced that their traditional model in some ways might be a viable alternative. In this section, the nature of some of these problems will be described. Today, there is much interest in the knowledge of traditional nonWestern cultures (referred to as ‘indigenous knowledge’ or IK) among people who participate in the worldview of contemporary global culture, both Westerners and Westernised citizens of post-colonial societies themselves. They are poring over ancient manuscripts and interviewing people of communities of surviving traditional cultures. They see IK as potentially useful, that is, as being possible alternative and more sustainable ways of doing things than contemporary ways. One example was of traditional Indian farming given in Chapter 2. The reactions of these people to this newly discovered IK fall, generally, into one of two categories. One is to ask whether this knowledge is ‘scientific’, meaning can it be squared with the theories of materialist science. They go on to suggest that all IK should be validated, that is, checked out in controlled experiments of the types mandated by the materialist scientific paradigm. The other reaction to IK is immediately to incorporate it, as it is, into school/university curricula. One example of the former tendency is seen in the effort to evaluate Indian agricultural history. In the 1990s, a number of senior agricultural scientists, many retired and all of whom had made outstanding contributions to the ‘green revolution’ during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but who, by the 1990s began to take serious note of its adverse environmental, social and economic ‘side effects’, established the Asian Agri-History Foundation to foster the study of traditional agricultural practices through the ages.2 As information accrued from such studies, the question naturally arose of how to interpret it. What is its status as knowledge: is it scientifically valid? and would ancient techniques work today? A debate arose in the pages of the Asian Agri-History journal.3 Most writers have automatically assumed the progress theory in answering these questions. They see the grand sweep of agricultural history from Vedic to modern times as ‘progress’ from ‘primitive’ beginnings to the ‘advanced’ technology of contemporary scientific agriculture. Some ancient practices ‘make good sense’, display ‘an excellent understanding’, and ‘can be justified on the basis of he knowledge we possess today’, while others are considered ‘incomprehensible’, ‘difficult to accept’, or simply ‘superstitions’ (Nene, 1996, 1999a,b). Documents with a greater proportion of practices of the latter type accordingly have

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‘an inferior knowledge base’ (Nene, 1999b). Those that are ‘comprehensible’ would have to be validated experimentally, using modern experimental methods. ( Jackson, 2005, p. 124) The contradiction in this line of interpretation is obvious. On the one hand is the admission that modern scientific agriculture is unsustainable, and has therefore failed us, and on the other the assertion that this very agricultural paradigm is the standard against which to judge the worth of knowledge gained through other paradigms – in this case the Vedic science paradigm. The practical implications of this contradiction are several. Much ancient knowledge that is summarily termed ‘incomprehensible’ and ‘superstitious’ may yet be valuable today. But validation may not always be as effective as supposed because a particular practice when lifted out of the context of the culture in which it is embedded, and in which it is highly effective, may not be effective in the entirely alien context of the modern agricultural experiment station, under the eyes of a scientist who has no understanding of its natural context. A still further implication is that the problem of modern scientific agriculture – that is, that it is unsustainable – has not been squarely faced. It tends to be assumed that it is unsustainable only because: (1) farmers in their enthusiasm and ignorance overdo things (apply too much chemical fertilisers and pesticides); (2) certain pest-control measures need to be replaced and/or (3) more sophisticated, computer-generated fertiliser and pesticide application schedules are needed. However, the problem is not one that can be solved by fine-tuning. It is a systemic problem; the entire modern scientific agricultural paradigm is faulty; or so I have argued ( Jackson, 2005, Chapter 4; this essay, Chapters 4–6). If this is the case, the important thing we need to learn from agricultural history is not this or that alternative technique but an entirely different way of thinking. Our ancestors thought differently. Does their way of thinking have any significance today? As a footnote to the foregoing, it must be added that at the same time we must learn to discriminate between those ancient practices that do not reflect the ideals of the scientific paradigm of their respective cultural models. Of these, there are many. In Vedic agriculture, the practices of burning forests, grazing domestic animals in forests and clean ploughing and weeding are examples of this ( Jackson, 2005, Chapter 7). These are instances of failure to live up to what was understood and/or failure to read feedback signals aright. This is another reason for focusing on the worldviews of traditional cultures rather than on specific practices.

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The same reluctance/inability to look behind practices to the secondary and primary assumptions of traditional cultures manifests in other contexts as well. Leigh Price has reviewed the work of social scientists in Southern Africa, and particularly that of environmental educators, on IK and identifies this as a major problem. In her own words: There is a tendency for education practitioners to tactically use IK only where it fits with positivistic knowledge constructions. Thus, non-empirical issues such as spirituality are often excluded from discussions which otherwise include IK. This invisibility with regards IK spirituality and non-empirically testable claims is perhaps because, despite rhetoric to the contrary, practitioners do not hold IK valid unless it matches their, usually positivistic, knowledge. (Price, 2005) A second reaction to newly discovered IK is to advocate that it be incorporated into existing school and university curricula, especially in post-colonial societies. What is not realised is that adding on or inserting bits of IK in this way will render such curricula incoherent, and introduce all the contradictions and confusion that was mentioned in Chapter 2. There is no other way forward than the careful assessment of IK systems in terms of the primary and secondary assumptions of their respective worldviews/cultural models, or in other words, bringing these IK systems into full-fledged TL exercises. Returning to the Indian agricultural scene, a very welcome development is the appearance of what I term the ‘rediscovery’ theory of history. Ahuja et al. (2001), Mehra (1996) and Virmani (1996) have noted the similarity between the traditional Indian reverence for, and hence protection of, diverse species of plants and the contemporary concept of the need for preserving biological diversity. These authors go on to say that the concept of biodiversity conservation was originally formulated millennia ago in Vedic culture and was subsequently forgotten, only to appear again today. They are, in essence, repudiating the progress theory of history: IK is not primitive, but anticipated modern scientific knowledge. I agreed and suggested that a better way to explain this phenomenon might be that the intuitions that gave rise to the ancient Vedic reverence for plants are now finding expression in a present-day ecological science paradigm, and in particular, in the concept of biodiversity conservation (Jackson, 2002). These intuitions are universal and therefore I coined the name ‘theory of universal intuitions’ ( Jackson, 2003a). This was the forerunner of the theory proposed in this essay.

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The foregoing discussion has been confined to the victims of economic colonialism. Those who have suffered settlement colonialism seemingly have different problems, though here I speak with caution because of a lack of direct knowledge of such communities. They appear to be largely outside contemporary global culture and have not internalised to any great extent its worldview. Still in their attempts at revitalising their traditional cultural model they must ultimately also come to grips with mainstream culture. Their future lies in becoming part of that larger culture from which they have till now been excluded – and in helping it to heal itself. Such help can be in the form of providing concepts from their own traditions. In short, they have to participate in local and global TL exercises. Interpreting myth 1. At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing. There was not air nor yet sky beyond. What was its wrapping? Where? In whose protection? Was water there, unfathomable and deep? 2. There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness; of night and day there was not any sign. The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse. Other than that was nothing else at all. 3. Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness, and all was Water indiscriminate. Then that which was hidden by the Void, that One, emerging, stirring, through power of Ardour, came to be. 4. In the beginning Love arose, which was the primal germ cell of the mind. The Seers, searching in their hearts with wisdom, discovered the connection of Being in Nonbeing. 5. A crosswise line cut Being from Nonbeing. What was described above it, what below? Bearers of seed there were and might forces, thrust from below and forward move above. 6. Who really knows? Who can presume to tell it? Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation? Even the Gods came after its emergence. Then who can tell from whence it came to be?

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7. That out of which creation has arisen, whether it held it firm or it did not, He who surveys it in the highest heaven, He surely knows – or maybe He does not! (Rigveda, X, 129, Panikkar, 2001, p. 58) The primary assumptions of the worldviews of traditional cultures have invariably been embodied in the symbols of myths and stories. The first requirement for anyone wishing to come to grips with these assumptions is, therefore, the ability to ‘read’ these concrete symbols and to translate them, as far as may be possible, into the abstract word symbols of contemporary thought and speech. This ability is not common today anywhere. Where there is a tendency for participants in contemporary global culture to look upon myths as quaint, and thus of no relevance to contemporary life and problems, the citizens of post-colonial societies have a tendency to take them literally, with the same result. Only by allowing the symbols of myth to ‘sink in’ and do their work at the deepest levels of our being can we succeed. And, when they have done their work – generated understanding – we must further allow that understanding to find expression in contemporary language. This is as much the work of the poetic as of the logical, scientific mind. Examples of this sort of translation were given in Chapters 5 and 8. Here, it will now be helpful to illustrate this translation process in somewhat more detail. The Rigveda is possibly the oldest known document in the world. It records the speculative thoughts of Vedic culture, and among these are found all the main assumptions of that cultural model, at least in embryo. These were subsequently elaborated and refined in many ways in the Upanishads and by still later seers and interpreters. Many of these assumptions are shared by the people of other traditions. The Nasadiya hymn, reproduced in full at the head of this section, is framed in terms of an enquiry into the origin of the universe – it asks whence and how this manifest universe arose. The cosmological speculations of most traditional cultures are set out in terms of a creation myth, a connected story. In this hymn we do not have such a connected story, but a metaphysical enquiry. Nevertheless, this enquiry is pursued in the language of the concrete images of myth. To what extent can we translate these into the verbal symbolism of the contemporary discursive mode of thought?4

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In this hymn, it is straightaway admitted that the questions being posed can never be answered. No one, not even he ‘who surveys the universe from the highest heaven’ can answer them definitely. What is the use of asking questions we cannot answer? Or are we missing the point? Is there meaning here that we fail to understand? There must be, otherwise the hymn would not have been worth singing or writing down; it could never have inspired and oriented an entire civilisation. Raimundo Panikkar points us towards a true understanding of the hymn. We are dealing here    not with a temporal cosmogonic hymn describing the beginning of creation, or even with an ontological theogony, or with a historical description concerning the formation of the Gods or even of God. It is not the description of a succession of stages through which the world has passed. The starting point of the hymn is not a piece of casual thinking seeking the cause of this world or of God or the Gods, but rather an intuitive vision of the whole. This hymn does not attempt to communicate information but to share a mystical awareness that transcends the sharpest lines of demarcation of which the human mind is capable: the divine and the created, Being and Nonbeing. (Panikkar, 2001) The concept of the ‘One’, the Absolute, has already received our attention in Chapter 8 where logical and meditative means of attempting to understand it were described. Here the origin of the concept as a purely intuitive perception is being suggested. The symbol employed is that of ‘Water’, a symbol that figures in many creation myths and was seen also in the speculations of the Greek Thales (if we are permitted to suggest that Thales, the first modern philosopher, inadvertently expressed himself metaphorically). The other symbol used is that of ‘Darkness’. That it is the One, the All is emphasised by saying, in effect, that it cannot have any wrapping or covering – otherwise it would not be the All. A number of the other primary assumptions of the Vedic worldview are also embedded in this hymn. In the first place, Being, or Existence, or the experiencing of subjects is a fact that must be reckoned with in any cosmological scheme. But it is only one of a pair of opposites – Being and Nonbeing. Thus the Darkness is both the All, the One, and the Two. This was confirmed by ‘the seers [who], searching their hearts with wisdom, discovered the connection of Being and Nonbeing’.

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This discovery hints at the notion that the macro-cosmic One, which is both Being and Nonbeing, is replicated in each human being as the empirical person and its non-manifest essence. This two-in-one nature of the cosmos and the person is symbolised in a verse in another hymn as two birds sitting on a tree. Two birds, fast bound companions, Clasp close the self-same tree. Of these two, the one eats sweet fruit; The other looks on without eating. On the self-same tree a person, sunken, Grieves for his impotence, deluded; When he sees the other, the Lord, contented, And his greatness, he becomes freed from sorrow. (Mundaka Upanishad, III, 3, 1–2, Hume, 1931) Another important primary assumption of the Vedic cosmology is that concerning life. The One is a living being: ‘The one breathed without breath, by its own impulse’. This means that all manifest entities in the universe are also living beings, and this is confirmed in a number of other places.5 Further, if life is a potential ‘within’ the One, then too are all the other universal formative elements of thought; the ‘One who breathes’ is an alternative, equivalent image of the Dweller and the Source surrounded by His seven sisters that we encountered in Chapter 8. Following up on this alternative image of the One who breathes leads to an understanding of how the Many, or in terms of this verse, Being, ‘emerges’ from the One, or Nonbeing. This is accomplished by ardour on the part of the One. Panikkar here translates the Sanskrit word tapas as ardour. Literally the word means heat or a concentration or focusing of inner energy. The sense of this verse seems to be that the unlimited, indefinable One delimits itself by an effort of will. An analogy is the intense focusing of ones’ mental energy that is needed to bring forth a clear-cut conception from a background of inarticulate thought and feeling. The conception can never do full justice to the rich potential of the inarticulate background, but the result is something definite as opposed to the indefiniteness of the background. The force behind this ardour, we are told, is love: ‘In the beginning Love arose.’ I suggest that this is a spontaneous, uncaused desire of the One to externalise Its potential for a universe in which its amorphous love can find concrete expression. It is the force that binds the many

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created entities together and that unifies diverse, apparently separate individuals. At a human level it is experienced as love between a man and a woman, a parent and a child, utterly inexplicable yet compelling. For the saint, this love flows to all of existence. Panikkar suggests that the third line of the 5th stanza of the hymn, which mentions ‘bearers of seed’ and mighty forces’, refers to male and female principles (ibid. p. 59), a common theme in many cosmologies. Basham is more explicit, translating the same line ‘Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces (Basham, 1954, p. 250)’. Finally, Radhakrishnan says that as a result of tapas there appear the ‘    active Purusha (the male principle) and the passive Prakriti (the female principle), the “I” and the “not I”, the formative principle and the chaotic matter. The rest of the evolution [of the manifest world] follows from the interaction of these two opposed principles (Radhakrishnan, 1923, Vol. I, p. 102)’. A later, short hymn of three stanzas (Rigveda X, 190) supplements the Nasadiya hymn. 1. From blazing Ardour Cosmic Order came and Truth; from thence was born the obscure night; from thence the Ocean with its billowing waves. 2. From Ocean with its waves was born the year which marshals the succession of nights and days, controlling everything that blinks the eye. 3. Then, as before, did the creator fashion the Sun and Moon, the Heaven and Earth, the atmosphere and the domain of light. (Panikkar, 2001, pp. 60–1) The name of this hymn is ‘Tapas’. Tapas is said in this hymn ‘to give birth to cosmic order and to Truth, or [the] principles of harmony and self-consistency. These are Rta and Satya’ (Panikkar, 2001, p. 60). A number of other picturesque descriptions of Rta are found in the Rigveda. ‘Firm-seated are the foundations of Rta. In its lovely forms are many beauties. By eternal law they give us long-lasting nurture. By eternal law have the worlds entered the universal order’ (Rigveda, IV, 23, 9, translated by Chaitanya, 2000). Chaitanya, paraphrasing Rigveda II, 23, 3, writes that ‘The Vedic poet    said that Rta, though benign, can be “stern and fierce” in respect of transgressions. Brihaspati rides the fearsome chariot of Rta for destroying the wicked’ (Chaitanya, 2000). We had occasion to describe Rta in Chapter 5; among the three aspects

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of Rta mentioned there, the concept of tapas enters into the third, the religico-sacrificial, in the form of sacrifice, or austerity, which is needed to maintain the balance, the health, of the cosmos. Commenting further on Rigveda X, 129 (the Nasadiya hymn), Panikkar goes on to say: Cosmic ardour gives birth also to that undifferentiated reality which has no better symbol than cosmic night, the night that does not have the day as counterpart, but envelops everything, though in the darkness of the not-yet manifested. From this yoni (womb), ‘magma or ‘matrix’ [the ‘Ocean’], space and time [the ‘year’] come to be. After space and time, life can appear and thrive; all that “blinks an eye” begins its career through existence. Once life is there, the world can be ordered according to its regular and harmonic forms of existence: sun, moon, heaven, earth, the sidereal spaces and the light, the last-named being the culmination and perfection of the work of fashioning the world    . (Panikkar, 2001, p. 60) Time and space thus come into existence with the creation of a world. Speaking of time we find, however, that it is implied in the breathing of the One (verse 2) ‘before’ the creation, implying an atemporal time. Here is an anticipation, perhaps, of the theme that runs through Vedic thought of a pulsating universe, that is, of alternating phases of creation and dissolution, measured by atemporal time (also refer to note 4, Chapter 8). My purpose in examining these hymns in this way has been to illustrate the process of ‘translation’, as I have termed it, and in the process to seek to discover the primary assumptions of the Vedic worldview. As for the ‘translation’ it may appear rather feeble at places, especially where, for want of words, I have been forced back upon the use of concrete symbol. Also, I hope it is clear that though I have often used the language of creation, the hymn is not, as Panikkar has insisted, about creation. Such are the difficulties encountered in ‘translation’. With respect to these difficulties of translation, it only goes to show very definitely that the modern discursive mode of thought is, by itself, inadequate to the business of understanding ourselves and the worlds we bring forth. The need to translate at all is that the primary assumptions of Vedic culture (or any other traditional cultural tradition) have to be compared with those of contemporary global culture in order to succeed in the TL exercises that are being suggested in this chapter. For

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comparison, they need to be expressed in a common language. If we had the skill, we could, I suppose, do it the other way around – translate the description of the worldview of modern world culture into the language of myth. It would be an interesting and valuable experiment to try to do this. In Chapter 11 this is, in fact, suggested. But to recur to a major contention of this essay: we need to change not only what we think, but also how we think. We cannot, without grave risk, refuse to change the way we think. We must be equally at home with the discursive and the mythical symbolic modes of thought and use both in our attempt to understand and communicate. What are the primary assumptions uncovered in this exercise? In answering this, I propose to recur to the format used in Part I. That is, we will begin by considering the answers this cosmology gives to the perennial questions and then to the definitions it supplies for the seven formative elements of thought (the ‘seven sisters’). The second and third of the perennial questions – who am I, and what is real – have been answered in terms of the dual concept of the One, with its macrocosmic and microcosmic dimensions. This concept has already been discussed at length in this chapter and in Chapter 8 where it serves as my preferred concept in the alternative cosmology outlined there. Attention may thus be turned to the first question – what is the world like. The world that is experienced and the person that experiences it both derive from the One, and so there is not the ultimate duality between them that characterises contemporary global culture. Life in the Vedic cosmology is a primordial element; the One itself is alive and imbues all that is in the manifest universe with life. Matter is, in its most abstract formulation, what is other than ‘I’; it is the objective side of the subject–object duality that is the basis of all manifestation. In contrast to the notion current in contemporary global culture, matter is not limited to physical stuff. There are three types of matter: gross, or our familiar matter, subtle matter and super-subtle matter. Each is characteristic of a distinct realm. The human being is considered to have a three-tier structure analogous to this cosmic structure; a physical body, a subtle body composed of thoughts, emotions and feelings, and a causal body, the seed of individuality of the subject of experiences. The inter-connectedness of all elements of experience follows from the conviction that all is subject to the cosmic ordering of Rta – the assumption of law as immanent. Time and space in the physical realm appear to be of the objective type. In other realms this is probably also true, though the scales of

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time and space are probably different. Knowing is mediated by the physical senses and by intuition. Later, metaphysicians developed elaborate theories of perception, in some ways like those of modern science (Radhakrishnan, Vol. II, 1923, pp. 488–92), but of this there is no mention in the Rigveda. With this, our exercise comes to an end. It has been my endeavour to lay bare, as far as possible, the basic conceptual framework of the Vedic worldview with the objective of illustrating the technique by which this can be done for any non-Western worldview. It is, of course, necessary for the participants of TL exercises in postcolonial societies to follow such an exercise up with a study of how the primary assumptions exhibited have been elaborated into secondary assumptions that constitute their cultural model, and still further into the policies, programmes and theories that are the rationale for the familiar ways they think and act everyday. I do not propose to do this for the Vedic model we have been considering. To continue this illustration any further would require a description of this model, a huge and complex undertaking, which I do not think is justified in an essay intended for readers from many cultural traditions. I hope enough has been said in earlier chapters to indicate the general approach to this task.

A fresh anchorage Today    the Western world is uneasy with its own Weltanschauung and its imitators are uneasy with their loss of anchorage and vision. (Kothari, 1990, p. 28) In Chapter 3, a distinction was made between cultural reform and cultural transformation. Reform implies a continued affirmation of the worldview of a given society and a recognition that the cultural model of that society has strayed from the Way, that is, from its own best formulation of the Way. Transformation implies recognition that the society’s worldview has become so inappropriate, so contrary to the current indications of the Way, that it must be replaced. The worldviews of post-colonial societies by and large need reaffirming, and perhaps their cultural models need reforming. The worldview of contemporary global culture needs to be rejected and a new view, with its attendant cultural model, needs to be formulated. Nevertheless, it is necessary for people in post-colonial societies also to participate in the global TL exercise aimed at transforming the worldview of contemporary global culture. Not only is their participation vital

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for the success of the global exercise, it is an essential part of their own effort to emancipate themselves from the effects of colonialism and now globalisation, that is, from the effects of the forcible imposition of the Western worldview and its cultural model. But their first priority, in my opinion, is clearly to reaffirm their own worldview and cultural model, reforming the model if necessary. By reforming I mean reforming the ways of thinking and doing that may have crept into their lives which do not accurately reflect their own best intentions.6 Only from such a secure anchorage can they say to the forces of globalisation: ‘thus far and no further’, and ‘yes, we will buy that, but on our own terms’. If post-colonial societies achieve this, and the Western world also achieves its own goal of transformation, the shaping of an overarching global cultural model can, as I have already suggested, be safely left to itself. In the final analysis, however, TL exercises, wherever they are carried out, must address the whole of human experience – that of the Western world, the worlds of non-Western societies and the shared experience of rampant, hegemonic globalisation. Failure to address any one of these elements will abort the exercise, and any aborted TL exercise anywhere in the world will vitiate the global ambience of goodwill and openmindedness that is so essential to our collective effort at building a secure future.

Part III Transformative Learning in Practice

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11 Secure Their Foundation

In the first two parts of this essay, the process of cultural transformation has been described. It is a process in which the entire worldview of persons and of an entire society is transformed, and as a result, the prevailing cultural model is replaced with a new one. Such a transformation is now underway in contemporary global culture. I have argued that it is essential to attempt to facilitate this process by undertaking self-conscious TL exercises. In this part of the essay, we will first of all review how the TL process proceeded during the Enlightenment and Hellenic periods and how it appears to be proceeding at present. The purpose of this review is to attempt to discover where definite efforts might best be made to facilitate the process today. Second, suggestions will be offered on how planned interventions in the process might be done.

The process of cultural transformation To begin with, it is necessary to attempt to visualise the overall process of cultural transformation as a historical movement in order to orient ourselves to the task of mounting purposeful TL exercises. In doing this, the theory of history developed in Chapter 10 will be used. Implicit in this theory is the notion that the totality of human society forms a single autopoeitic system, complex and seemingly chaotic, but one system nonetheless. Each of the diverse parts is itself an autopoeitic system that is integral and essential to the larger system. This system, or world society, has reached a state of extreme instability for all the reasons that have been reviewed in this essay and elsewhere. When this occurs in an autopoeitic system, the system can collapse and 165

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die, or it can spontaneously undergo a radical restructuring to give a more complex, and more stable, system. It is often stated that we can determine the outcome of this restructuring by the decisions and actions we take now. At one level, this is, I believe, an adequate and necessary perspective. At a deeper level, however, anything you or I or any groups of us do is itself a manifestation of the process of spontaneous change that is occurring, and not its cause; what is happening now is being caused by the totality of what everyone throughout all history has thought and done – and by innumerable other occurrences in the past. We are vehicles through which change, death or a new lease on life, will be enacted. To put the matter less starkly, I am hopeful of continued life for our planet and our species. The real issue could be life or death, but is more likely to be: how long and painful will the transition be? I would like to insist that this deeper insight be kept in the forefront of our thinking in attempting to discover where and how we can best intervene. In addition to all the symptoms of dysfunction that appear when a particular cultural model becomes stressed, an awareness of the deep systemic causes at work also begins to appear. A few individuals here and there are led to consider what needs to be changed and how. Alternatives suggest themselves and are put to the test of practice. Attention here is focused on the cultural model. Of these individuals, a few begin to see that this effort is inadequate in itself. A much deeper look is necessary – a look at the assumptions underlying the cultural model, what have been termed primary assumptions in this essay. Typically, these people work individually or in small groups, but informal networks spring up in which the work of each is seen, discussed and criticised by others. From the results of their combined thoughts and deliberations, the existing worldview is dismantled and a new one created in its place. This new view gives rise to a new cultural model as it comes to be shared by more and more people. This new model may be composed of de novo assumptions deduced from the primary assumptions of the alternative worldview, and/or of elements that have been assumed directly and later found to harmonise with the alternative worldview, and/or of elements that have been directly assumed but later modified by the requirements of the new view. This vast, complex process is a learning exercise for everyone involved, which is why it has been considered a TL exercise. Today such an exercise has a global dimension, though sub-exercises are also occurring in local, traditional cultures.

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How did it happen in the past? I propose, in this section, to look at the historical record from which the foregoing broad generalisation has been derived. What did the process of cultural transformation that occurred at the time of the Enlightenment and in the ancient Hellenic period actually look like on the ground? In the next section, the contemporary exercise will similarly be reviewed. These reviews of actual experience in the distant and immediate past will help us pinpoint where interventions in the contemporary process are most urgently needed, and guide us in making them. The participants in the TL exercise that we call the Enlightenment, and which resulted in a radical transformation in the European worldview, were remarkably few in number – Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, to mention the most prominent. Some have subsequently been classified as philosophers and some as scientists, but few had any of the formal credentials that we use today to label people. Most were men of independent means or who supported themselves by professional work of one kind or another. Many were prominent in political circles. They were thus a diverse lot who worked independently, outside the centres of formal learning. The Encyclopaedia Britannica in its article on the History of Western Philosophy pointedly notes that Medieval philosophy    was characteristically associated with the medieval university. It is a singular fact, therefore, that, from the birth of Bacon in 1561 to the death of Hume in 1776 – that is, for 200 years – not one first-rate philosophical mind in Europe was permanently associated with a university    Hobbes expressed extreme contempt for the decadent Aristotelianism of Oxford; Descartes, despite his prudence, scorned the medievalists of the Sorbonne; and Spinoza refused the offer of a professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg with polite aversion. It was to be another 100 years before philosophy returned to the universities. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, article on the History of Western Philosophy, 15th edition, 1992) Whitehead alerted us to this phenomenon (Chapter 1). It is the responsibility of a university to reproduce and further the worldview and cultural model of a Scholastic age. During a Speculative interval that worldview is questioned and discarded, all the activity, therefore, occurs, by definition, outside the university. The acceptance, development and consolidation of the new speculative insights by university professors

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mark the beginning of a new Scholastic age in which the university resumes its historic role, but with a new agenda. The situation today, as we shall see in a moment, appears, on the whole, to conform to this generalisation. Among the members of this small, diverse group of speculative Enlightenment thinkers, there was an active exchange of views.    much philosophical communication took place within a small but at the same time loose and informal circle [of Enlightenment thinkers]. Treatises were circulated in manuscript; comments and objections were solicited; and a vast polemical correspondence was built up. Prior to publication, Descartes prudently sent his Meditationes to the theologians of the Sorbonne for comment; and, after its publication, his friend Mersenne sent it to Hobbes, Antoine Arnauld, and Pierre Gassendi, among others, who returned formal ‘objections’ to which Descartes in turn replied. In addition, the 17th century possessed a rich repository of philosophical correspondence, such as the letters that passed between Descartes and the scientist Chritiaan Huygens, between Spinoza and Henry Oldenberg (one of the first secretaries of the Royal Society), and between Leibnitz and Arnauld. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article on the History of Western Philosophy) Many of these men were speculative philosophers, critiquing the primary assumptions of the medieval worldview and speculating boldly about alternative assumptions. Some, like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, were scientists concerned with scientific theories, but managed effectively to criticise the existing worldview at the level of primary assumptions in the pursuit of new theories. Newton’s work has already been interpreted from this point of view (Chapter 3). Copernicus, while formulating a new model of the solar system did not question the assumption that the planets are living beings; nevertheless, his new model caused people to begin questioning their place in the universe. Kepler was a scientist working at the level of theory formulation, that is, at the testing phase of the TL process. He also did not question the prevailing concept of planets as living beings, but his work made Newton’s revolutionary theory of gravitation possible. Newton’s work, in addition to his own unique contribution, the redefinition of time and space, synthesised a number of other primary assumptions of the time. Numerous other scientists, freed from the ‘dogmatic assumptions dogmatically assumed’ of the medieval European worldview,

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investigated natural phenomena from the perspective of the newly emerging materialist, mechanistic worldview. Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Galileo and Descartes – scientists and methodologists of science – performed like men urgently attempting to persuade nature to reveal her secrets. Newton’s comprehensive mechanistic system made it seem as if at last she had done so    The new enthusiasm for reason that they all instinctively shared was based    upon the conviction that for the intellectual conquest of the natural world reason had really worked. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article on the History of Western Philosophy) The British empiricists (Locke, Berkeley and Hume) concerned themselves with the question of the origin of this reason. Thus, looking at the Enlightenment as an informal TL exercise, contributions to cultural transformation were simultaneously made not only in diverse areas of human interest but at various levels of the process. As a result of intense debate and testing, these efforts coalesced into a new cultural model based on a widely agreed to alternative worldview. ‘In 1700 the mental outlook of educated men was completely modern; in 1600 it was still largely medieval’ (Russell, 1946, p. 522). The Hellenic period too was characterised by the participation of a diverse lot of individuals, working independently or in small groups, and yet reacting to each other’s work, ensuring that overall everyone not only contributed to the process but also learned as he/she went along. In reading about the history of the thought of that period, one often encounters the comment that no document describing a person’s thought has survived to the present day but that it can be reconstructed from the (mostly negative) comments of others which have come down to us. The period during which the great speculative philosophers flourished was from Thales who was at work before 588 Bc to the death of Aristotle in 322 BC. Some of the earliest of these men formulated what modern commentators (e.g. Russell, 1946) consider scientific propositions such as that the primary substance of the universe is water (Thales). More likely, as I have pointed out in Chapter 10, these were metaphysical statements expressed in the concrete symbols of myth. Pythagoras cannot be considered a pukka scientist (that is, a mathematician) by modern standards since he also speculated on the symbolism of numbers. Aristotle was a scientist, but in developing his science, he, like Newton, made

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the primary assumptions of his science explicit. Thus, none of these Hellenic thinkers can really be classified in the modern way into scientists, philosophers, theologians, mystics or what have you. But, one and all, they were boldly speculative in the metaphysical realm. Seen as a TL exercise, the Hellenic period lacked the testing phase which seems so important to us today, and also to the men of the Enlightenment. Their metaphysical input was sufficient, however, to keep Europeans busy for the following two millennia. How is it happening now? As it was in the 17th century, so it has been in the 20th: scientists have led the way at the level of experimentation and theory formulation. Relativity, quantum theory, indeterminacy, chaos and Gaia are leading the way; they are begging for an alternative worldview to be intelligible, but this has yet to appear. During the 20th century, there appears to have been only one comprehensive contribution to the search for an alternative, that of A. N. Whitehead. At the very end of the century and at the beginning of this century, some timid and as yet quite inadequate attempts at speculating on primary assumptions have been made (e.g. Gaia as myth, radical interconnectedness and an ecological self). The inertia in our collective thinking is monumental. The history of the 17th century and the Hellenic era should shame us into greater effort on this front. At the beginning of the 20th century, the mental outlook of educated people in the West was modern. At the beginning of the 21st century, it is still largely modern. Grassroots projects There is, however, one feature of the current episode of cultural transformation that seems to have been absent from the earlier episodes. This is the tremendous number and variety of projects at the grassroots level, projects that explicitly postulate alternative secondary assumptions. I have in mind, for example, alternative health care, agriculture, manufacturing and education. These projects are, in effect, the testing of these assumptions in practice, the last stage in the TL process and are thus learning experiences for everyone involved in them. Taken together, these projects are thus an important component of the larger global TL exercise, but in themselves inadequate if not complimented by attention to securing the metaphysical foundation of the secondary assumptions they assume. I wish to go into this matter in some detail because there is a pervasive failure to recognise or understand this inadequacy. This is seriously hampering the overall TL process at the global level.

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All such projects with which I am acquainted, and including the one on which I have worked for the past 20 years, begin with one or two secondary assumptions. Examples of these are the idea that a village, or a human body, or the manufacturing plant is to be visualised on the model of an autopoeitic system, and not of a machine; locale-specific, rather than uniform, standardised, global, education; the notion that the goal of a factory is to produce things that people need, and not to earn money; tribal people are the co-creators and guardians of the forest ecosystems in which they live, and not their destroyers. Such projects are the logical working out of these assumptions in particular contexts. If these assumptions are not clearly conceived or adequately articulated, there is a risk of problems arising later on. The shortcomings of the concept of sustainability should alert us to this risk. Furthermore, most groups working on alternatives do not even formulate anything like a complete cultural model but focus narrowly on one secondary assumption. This too may lead to problems later. These risks can be reduced by securing the metaphysical foundation of all the secondary assumptions used and implied. That is to say, only such assumptions as emerging from full-scale TL exercises should be used. It is now possible to do this as there is an adequate conception of the overall TL process and thus a theory to guide practice. I will go so far as to suggest that individuals and groups engaged in current projects that deploy alternative secondary assumptions henceforth have a responsibility to attempt to justify their use of such assumptions by conducting full-scale TL exercises. Having drawn attention to the weakness of current projects in terms of the TL model, I will now reiterate that they are nevertheless valid learning exercises and that the insights from them for this process are invaluable. Indeed, it will be recalled that many of these insights have helped in the construction of the model. Some more will be used in this chapter. Formal institutions Any survey of what is happening today with respect to the global TL exercise logically must look at the actual and potential roles of formal institutions of education, research, policy formulation, consultancy and so on. It might seem natural to us to suppose that they will be in the forefront of the transformation process. But this does not seem to be the case. Universities, and most academics, for example, unreservedly endorse the political and economic interests of Western capitalist, consumerist society, in a word, globalisation. They make two

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assumptions: (1) globalisation is a viable agenda for achieving a sustainable and just future for all people and (2) that it is the sole responsibility of universities to respond to the needs of this globalisation agenda. These two assumptions are never questioned. By not questioning globalisation, all universities are by default serving the interests of the powers that be, which in today’s world are corporate business interests, Western governments which have been subsumed by these interests and the co-opted elites of the nonWestern world. For these interests, business as usual requires a steady supply of compliant, technically competent manpower [sic] for the global economy, and a mass of enthusiastic consumers. For them school and university education is the means to ensure this. In their eyes academics have become mere trainers and contact researchers. Is the reality much different? ( Jackson, 2003b) The reason for this subservience to the globalisation agenda is obvious. Over the past two decades or so, universities have become increasingly dependent on financial assistance from business. Funding from business and, increasingly, from governments too comes with strings attached. Also, knowledge generation and dissemination are rapidly becoming commercial activities, subject to market demands, and universities are engaging in fierce competition among themselves (Haigh, 2003). Is the problem today that the [Western] university’s ability to attract government funding, corporate research grants and international students would be jeopardised by a policy of attempting to critique in a fundamental way current economic and social trends? It appears to me that the unwritten and unspoken terms of agreement between funders and universities and other fund recipients are: ‘Globalisation is a fact. Don’t question it. Sure, it is creating some problems. Here is a grant to do research on them. Identify them, describe them and offer solutions that are possible within the globalisation framework.’ ( Jackson, 2003b) Thus the contemporary professor is no more disposed to ‘thinking differently’ than was his counterpart in the medieval university. The result is the same: all the ‘learning to think differently’ was done outside the university. The European universities of the 16th century were the custodians of the medieval worldview, an amalgam of church doctrine

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and classical Greek thought, mostly Aristotelianism, and certainly had no interest in questioning the status quo. In fact, there were some sharp incentives not to. All this goes to validate Whitehead’s insight about Scholastic and Speculative periods. With other formal institutions – schools, government departments, ministerial committees, think tanks and so on – the situation can hardly be expected to be any different. Having said all this, I would now like to pass on to a discussion of the few tentative steps some universities are, in fact, beginning to take towards ‘learning to think differently’. These initiatives can, I suggest, be seen as recognisable parts of the TL process. Professor Haigh points to the several new university courses/degree programmes that presuppose sustainability in their construction. He has also shown how such courses, combined with a questioning/challenging mode of teaching can result in students questioning their inherited assumptions (Haigh, 2003). This is good as far as it goes. Lotz-Sisitka (2003) has, however, alerted us to the fact that the concept of sustainability is slippery. It can be, and largely has been, co-opted by the powers that be to serve – safeguard – the current globalisation agenda. ‘Sustainable development’ and ‘education for sustainable development’ are examples. Or, as Professor Haigh himself has put it in another context, general systems theory has been ‘neutered’ by mainstream scientists (Haigh, 2001). The crux of the matter is that the concept of sustainability is a secondary assumption and as such cannot be immune from such cooption unless it is clearly defined in terms of primary assumptions. It is not enough to define sustainability in neat one-liners about ‘meeting the needs of future generations’ and so on. Systems theory is just that, a theory, and thus depends for its authority on the secondary and primary assumptions behind it. These must be spelled out to prevent co-option and ‘neutering’. All these university initiatives might, as in the case of the grassroots initiatives, be seen as the testing of secondary assumptions/theories in practice. Doing this adds to our store of collective experience of TL and is thus valuable. But there are no signs that I am aware that universities are willing and able to back up and validate their working assumption in respect of these initiatives. As in the case of the grassroots initiatives described earlier, I would suggest that any university that deploys secondary assumptions not in tune with the modernist worldview in

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their teaching and research programmes has a responsibility to society to validate them. Against the day when this may begin to happen, it will be worthwhile right now, I think, to offer such guidelines as are possible. The next section does this.

Priorities today The following definition of the TL exercise will be used. Any planned, organised educational experience that contributes to the transformation of people’s worldview is a TL exercise. The theoretical framework or model for planning and conducting such exercises is the TL process described in Chapter 3. Specific exercises may aim at dealing with the full process, termed here ‘full-scale’ TL exercises, or may focus on one or a few aspects of the process. A full-scale exercise covers the entire phase of ‘standing outside oneself’ and the testing phase. The many grassroots and university exercises already described are examples of ‘partial TL exercises’; they deal with some steps in the ‘standing outside oneself’ phase – namely the identification and description of some secondary assumptions, existing and alternative – and the testing of these alternative assumptions. Even exercises designed solely to increase people’s awareness of their own cognitive dissonance are valid TL exercises. These are, as it were, preparatory exercises and, if successful, bring people to the point of accepting their confusion, doubts and helplessness, to the point where they decide not to continue to build defensive walls around themselves, but to suffer instead. The review in the previous section revealed a glaring lack of attention to primary assumptions and even to the full investigation of secondary assumptions. Exercises to deal specifically with these matters can be designed. All these qualify as TL exercises; all contribute to the larger goal of transforming the worldview of contemporary global culture. On the basis of the review in the last section, I would say that exercises dealing with the entire second phase of the process (‘standing outside of oneself’) are a priority today. Lack of attention to this phase is the bottleneck in the entire process of cultural transformation. A second bottleneck is the inability/unwillingness of people to take their cognitive dissonance seriously; this too is a priority area. Another area, not so far mentioned, that needs urgent attention is exercises for marginalised groups of people. The reason for this is that people in these groups have generally acquiesced in the contemporary global cultural model that oppresses them, and as a result they feel

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powerless. There are now numerous examples from around the world of such people being helped to change their perceptions of the world and themselves, and to visualise what they can accomplish when they do so. The UEEC work with rural women, many of whom are illiterate, is one such example (UEEC, 2005).

A variety of possible transformative learning exercises A variety of TL exercises are possible. These can vary in terms of how completely they cover the entire process as indicated in the previous section. In some circumstances and for some groups of people, fullscale exercises may be appropriate. University courses on the TL process itself in the context of undergraduate and graduate programmes in such subjects as education, environmental education, psychology, sociology, history and philosophy are examples. The approach of such courses would vary with subject-area context, but all would tend to converge as they proceed – if they are fruitful. On the other hand, a course that draws students from a variety of disciplines might be possible and more effective. I do not know of any such courses, but it seems to me that they would be a way to introduce TL into the university curriculum without arousing too much resistance. In other circumstances, partial exercises may be sufficient and may also be all that is possible. In contemporary global society, people are predominantly the doing type; they are ‘practical’ and have no time for ‘philosophy’. They are commonly found in the testing phase (projects at the grassroots and university teaching programmes) and find it difficult to sit down and attempt to clarify their assumptions. Their assumptions ‘feel right’ and that is enough for them. Perhaps they do – and this is certainly important – but all secondary assumptions, in the interest of the larger process of cultural transformation, need to be clarified. And so, for this type of people, partial exercises aimed at doing this need to be developed. For yet others, exercises need to be developed to increase the intensity of their cognitive dissonance to the point where a breakthrough to phase one is achieved. These could be followed up with exercises on phase one for those who do break through, and still later on phase two (testing). Exercises will also vary according to context. Exercises with agricultural scientists, office and factory workers, aid-agency executives, illiterate village women, business consultants and environmental educators will all differ from each other. Within a university, as has already been pointed out, different subject-matter areas represent varying contexts.

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TL can only be approached in the idiom, and in the area of life experience, of both the participants and the facilitator. A facilitator must have sufficient knowledge of and experience in the given context to deal effectively with all the facile, dismissive explanations of ‘side effects’ that learners who cannot handle their cognitive dissonance raise. And he/she needs an intimate knowledge of context to deal with the ‘yes, but   ’ reaction (see next section) when it crops up. Time may be a constraint. In a university setting, a full-scale exercise can be planned as a complete semester course with, say, two ‘seminar’ sessions of two hours each per week with plenty of reading and writing as homework. Where one is dealing with busy professional people, three- or four-day workshops with short, concise handouts to read in the evenings may be all that is possible. This is the bare minimum, and very uncertain results can be expected, but if a series of such workshops can be organised that allows participants time in between to reflect while on the job, effectiveness could be greatly improved. In a university setting, a short, one- or two-week TL module can be developed that can be inserted into an existing course. Professor Haigh’s module on the Gaia theory (The Living Earth: An Introduction to Gaia and Geophysiology, an unpublished, classroom handout, Department of Geography, Oxford Brookes University) is an example here. With communities, informal group discussions held in the evenings or during the day in slack periods in the agricultural calendar have been conducted by the UEEC and others, often with impressive results. Within any particular context and with any sort of time constraints, one may encounter two types of participants, those who voluntarily join and those who are assigned as a matter of organisational policy. The former are likely to be people who have taken cognitive dissonance seriously and who may already have developed an interest in some of the alternative ideas now in the air. For these people, elaborate and lengthy activities designed to create cognitive dissonance are unnecessary; their volunteering to attend the exercise means that they are ready straightaway for the ‘standing outside oneself’ phase of the TL process. Those who are assigned may never have been troubled by cognitive dissonance or, worse, are unaware that there is a cause for concern at the way contemporary life is moving. For them, exercises with a number of activities to create cognitive dissonance will have to be designed. Such exercises may not, however, be very successful. UEEC experience with assigned in-service teachers attending teacher orientation workshops to prepare themselves to teach our environmental education course has

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been that a large number of them do not seem to respond to this type of activity. This conclusion is based on observations made on the participants’ performance in the workshops and on their subsequent performance in teaching the course. The reason people are assigned, of course, is that an organisation decides to try out a radically new programme and wants everyone involved in it to understand the conceptual rationale for it. For, if people do not understand, and agree with, the underlying rationale for a new programme, they will not be motivated to implement it and will, at best, just go through the motions of implementation. The solution to this problem is to approach the entire matter of organisational change from a different angle. Change should not be imposed from the top, but should be allowed to grow organically from the bottom. This is done by encouraging individuals or groups within the organisation who do understand the need for change and have ideas about how to achieve it to experiment on a small scale within the organisation itself. If these experiments are successful, they may convince others and the experiments can be expanded in proportion to the numbers of people who understand them. With these small groups, TL exercises might be very fruitful.

The facilitator To the best of my knowledge, there are no existent guidelines for planning and conducting TL exercises. This is not surprising because until now the TL process has not been comprehensively described, and there has thus been no theoretical framework to guide practice. With the framework suggested in this essay, it should now be possible to undertake full-scale and partial TL exercises in any context with considerable confidence. At the same time, it must be emphasised that the TL exercise facilitator must be resourceful and adaptable. The guidelines to be given are suggestive, not prescriptive. I do not think that the TL exercise will ever be reduced to a mechanical process of information transfer like, for example, the teaching/learning of science in contemporary schools and universities. In the end, we are forced to admit that TL exercises cannot be planned in any very strict sense, nor managed according to any set of rules. Every exercise is a new adventure. The TL facilitator must be equipped with a clear conception of the overall objective, must have been through TL exercises himself/herself as a learner1 and must have served as an apprentice facilitator for some time. Given these basic qualifications,

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a facilitator just jumps into a TL exercise, following his/her intuition at each step – and learning as he/she goes along. ‘Be prepared for surprises’ is the watchword. The facilitator’s job is to keep the exercise moving in the general direction of completing the several tasks that lead to transformation. Failure to do this is, in my experience, the greatest pitfall in conducting TL exercises. One encounters resistance on the part of participants at every stage, unconscious no doubt, but nonetheless deadly. An exercise can get stuck at any stage, and the sign that it is stuck is that discussion goes round in circles. A decisive nudge from the facilitator is needed at these points to break out of these debilitating whirlpools and move on. The question of whether or not to supply information and new ideas has been discussed. It seems to me that the weight of experience suggests that to keep the exercise going facilitators must be prepared to offer information and concepts – tentatively, of course, not dogmatically. Any hint of dogmatism kills the exercise. A tip that I can pass along in this regard is, yes, offer information and concepts, but not too readily and not necessarily all at once; participants must be encouraged to explore fully their own imaginative and intuitive capabilities. Pedagogically, this pays good dividends. The risk is, of course, that participants may take on an alternative assumption unreflectingly. To avoid this, they must be challenged to defend the new idea once they have assented to it. If they do not make the new idea their own, later they are apt suddenly, and often without discernable reason, to revert to their previous assumption – which the facilitator thought had earlier, by mutual agreement, been left behind. When this happens the facilitator, who thought the exercise was moving along, will be surprised, not to say frustrated, when the participant says, ‘Yes, all this is fine, but: it is not practical; no one will agree to it; I’ve got to do what the system/my boss dictates’ – and so on. This problem is perhaps more acute with participants in post-colonial societies. They will have, in many of these societies, spent their lives in an authoritarian ambience – at home, at school and university, and on the job. Their tendency is to accept authority in all circumstances, automatically and unconsciously, so that if the facilitator offers suggestions, they have difficulty in thinking critically about them, or at any rate in expressing disagreement. They will appear to go along, leading the facilitator to believe that the exercise is moving ahead, whereas in fact it is going nowhere. A special effort must be made by the facilitator from the outset to avoid appearing as an authority figure.

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The facilitator must, of course, beware of his own tendency to spontaneous reversion. Those of us who are taking on this challenge today were, after all, reared in the inherited worldview of contemporary global culture. Only with much struggle and considerable suffering have we gone beyond it. And yet, any alternative assumptions we have come to accept often seem not to have entirely rooted out our inherited assumptions; some remnants seem to remain. I for example have been convinced of, and argued for, the need for biodiversity in crop fields, which means letting ‘weeds’ coexist, within limits, with the crop plants we have sown and letting them have free run of field margins. And yet, in walking through my own ‘weedy’ natural farming experimental plots, I have been dismayed when I catch myself unconsciously uprooting stray weeds because the plots look ‘untidy’ and ‘unprofessional’. It is embarrassing to be thus caught out in front of participants. A new generation, reared on alternative assumptions, will presumably be free of this weakness when it is time for them to take over from us. One benefit of group learning settings is that they provide a secure environment to learners in which they can give free reign to their imagination and intuition, explore new ideas and express themselves without reservation. A TL facilitator must create and maintain such a learning environment in his/her TL exercises if there is to be any hope of their success. Every good teacher, of course, knows this and has developed the knack of doing it. My colleagues and I in the UEEC have found that informal exchanges with participants outside the structured activity of the exercise are valuable. They not only improve rapport but also foster greater openness. The quieter participants are sometimes the most perceptive and thoughtful. They do not readily speak up in the formal proceedings in spite of encouragement but in a one-to-one informal exchange speak readily enough. This boosts their self-confidence, gives them the satisfaction of having contributed to the exercise and reassures them that they are welcome to speak up. Sometimes, a small group of participants will corner the facilitator during the tea break and create an impromptu mini-exercise. These informal exchanges, as I said, are a valuable part of the exercise, and the facilitator must be prepared to spend time and effort to cultivate them. A question that naturally arises is, how do facilitators acquire the necessary knowledge and skills needed successfully to plan and conduct TL exercises? The answer is primarily by doing it. Younger people must be apprenticed to experienced facilitators and learn on the job. This should be supplemented by a study of the theory of TL and of the

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literature describing various exercises done to date. I tend to resist the idea of ‘training’ them up in any formal way. ‘Training’ goes against the whole spirit of TL, and I cannot imagine a more effective way for them to become facilitators than by the ancient, traditional practice of apprenticeship.

Some suggestions for planning and conducting transformative learning exercises In the section on the facilitator, it was said that it is vital for him/her to be able to keep the exercise moving. This cannot be done without a theoretical model of the TL process in mind. To give this model practical shape, a TL course outline format is given in Box 11.1. The facilitator can develop this format into a course outline specific to the context of the exercise to be conducted. That context may call for a full-scale exercise, or a partial one, but it would be well to develop a full outline in all cases so that it serves to orient all concerned to the entire process. Thus, in a university curriculum in Sustainable Development, the course would most likely begin with step 2, it being assumed that participants will all have recognised and accepted the cognitive dissonance that they experience. Step 3 may also not be needed as participants have already rejected the secondary assumptions – or at least some of them – of mainstream culture and embraced alternatives, which is presumably why they are enrolled in such a curriculum. On the other hand, where it is necessary to create cognitive dissonance, an entire exercise may be devoted to step 1, or maybe to steps 1 and 2. In all cases, however, I think it would be helpful to prepare a full course outline.

Box 11.1.

A general TL exercise format

Step 1. Creating cognitive dissonance Step 2. Confronting insoluble problems Step 3. Identifying and defining secondary assumptions – present and alternative Step 4. Primary assumptions in the background – identifying and describing them, both existing and alternative Step 5. On to testing Step 6. Handling feedback

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In making a course outline, each of the steps given in Box 11.1 is elaborated in a few sentences that describe the purpose and scope of the step. A step will usually be divided into a number of discrete activities, which should be named and the time required for each be indicated. Each activity should be planned and described briefly and precise instructions on conducting it listed. The requirements for each activity in terms of materials, visual aids and background reading, should be prepared. If handouts are to be used, they should be written at the time of planning the activity. A format used for planning workshops in ‘Teaching for a Sustainable World’ (Fien, 1995) will be found useful. The terminology, examples and language style used in the course outline, as in the course itself, must be appropriate to the context in which the course is to be conducted. An outline for a course designed for nuclear physicists would read very differently from the one for community health workers, and both of these would differ from that for illiterate rural people. With the latter, written support materials are not needed. Any formal, obviously structured approach to the exercise is unlikely to succeed with them. Altogether, TL exercises with this category of people are a special challenge. Group size, organisation and management are crucial to success. Experience has shown me that a group of at least 10–12 people and not more than about 20 is best. The group is divided into three to five subgroups, or teams. Many of the course activities are best done by teams. A problem, say, is formulated by the facilitator and posed to the participants who then tackle it on a team basis. After a stipulated time, each team reports its results to the whole group. The salient points of each team are recorded in vertical columns on the blackboard and are then compared and discussed by the whole group. The facilitator then sums up and either states what appears to be a consensus or highlights the differences, in which case the need for further thought and discussion is indicated. Even if there is a consensus, it can be challenged by the facilitator if he/she thinks it inadequate. In this way, group learning occurs both at the team and at the whole-group levels. Often one member of a group will assume a leadership role and become the team’s spokesperson – as, for example, in reporting the results of a team’s agreed response to an issue or problem. This is fine, but other team members must also be challenged; a way to do this is to stipulate that the job of team spokesperson must be rotated, so that a different member reports each time a team activity is undertaken. The facilitator should visit each team during its deliberations to give the members a chance to talk about their progress, share their tentative

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conclusions, seek clarifications or further information. This is crucial, and to ensure sufficient attention to it, it is a good idea to have an assistant facilitator or even two. These can be apprentices. Where there is more than one facilitator, good co-ordination among them is vital. It is essential to specify a time for every activity and to keep to it. Otherwise discussion goes on and on. If a discussion, by the end of the allotted time, is inconclusive and clearly needs more time, participants can be told that further discussion will be deferred till after tea or until the next morning. A break has a wonderful way of clarifying issues. A course will include a mix of activities – team and whole-group discussions, projects, practical work (e.g. growing a crop following natural farming methods, preparing lunch), seminars, field visits and so on (more about these in a moment) to keep the proceedings lively. An hour and a half for any one activity should perhaps be the limit, except for field trips. In most courses, participants will need to be given reading assignments. To focus attention on the topics and questions to be addressed in the course, it may also be useful to prepare handouts for the participants. These will probably need to be revised from time to time. Two more general suggestions on management relate to pedagogy. The first is student journals. Haigh (2001) has shown how useful these are as an aid to individual learning. Students record regularly their progress in the course in terms of what they think they have learned, how they reacted to new ideas and points of view, their problems, resistances and their evaluation of the course. The journals also help the facilitator, who reads them periodically, evaluate the course and his/her handling of it. The drawback is that reading participants’ journals regularly requires a lot of time. The second general suggestion has already been made but needs to be reiterated. Information and ideas may have to be supplied to keep the discussions and the course moving. It will be found that a good deal of factual information will have to be supplied. A good way to do this is to prepare handouts or occasionally to give a lecture. These handouts and lectures should be as concise as possible, especially when the course is a short one; the participants should be able to read them whilst the course is in progress (e.g. in the evenings), otherwise they will have no value. In respect of starting the course off, I suggest an introductory session in which a general, unstructured, spontaneous discussion is encouraged. This allows participants to say what they think the course is about. Managing this type of discussion requires considerable skill and experience on the part of the facilitator. He or she must not be perceived as managing or directing the discussion but at the same time must guide

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it gently in the direction of the goal of TL. This discussion allows the facilitator to judge the nature of the participants’ interests, areas of competence, skills and, in general, their mindsets. Course strategy can be decided upon/modified after this session. Participants and facilitator get acquainted. One further suggestion is to make notes of what transpires in the course. This is more easily done if there is more than one facilitator. These notes will be helpful in conducting a winding up session at the end and a post-mortem session by the facilitators after the course is over.

Suggestions for each step in the transformative learning course Creating cognitive dissonance Creating cognitive dissonance can be done by confronting participants with facts and opinions such as the following which feature in the UEEC environmental education teacher orientation workshops. In India about 15 kg of soil is lost to erosion in producing one kg of grain. This equals about 1 mm depth of soil per year. Natural processes create, on an average, 1 mm depth of soil in 100 years. (Times of India, 21 November 2001) Ten percent of our children die of malnutrition and 40 percent of our population are undernourished. This year in Orissa people are dying of starvation. At the same time we export fruit, vegetables, fish, and oilcakes, not to mention non-food agricultural produce. We have 60 million tonnes of foodgrains stored as a reserve. (Parliamentary debate reported in Mainstream, 18 August 2001) Open trade is not just an economic imperative, it is a moral imperative. Trade creates jobs for the unemployed. When we negotiate for open markets, we are providing new hope for the world’s poor. And when we promote open trade, we are promoting political freedom. (President George W. Bush, reported in The Ecologist, 31, 6, 2001) Globalisation will destroy India    Globalisation means, above all, Americanisation and industrialisation    When you industrialise the rural areas of any country, small farmers are pushed into [urban] slums. (Edward Goldsmith in an interview with the Times of India, 30 March 2000)

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Britain will this year export 111 million litres of milk and 47 million kg of butter, while simultaneously importing 173 million litres of milk and 49 million kg of butter. (Reported in The Ecologist, 29, 3, 1999) The prison population of America is two million. America has 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. America has more prisoners than farmers. The state of California spends more on prisons than on school education. (Reported in Resurgence, 206, May/June 2001) Now that we have crossed into the third millennium we have the technology to break the rules of nature. Panajiotis Zavos, a doctor on a baby-cloning team, speaking at a conference on human cloning in Rome (The Ecologist, 31, 6, 2001) Raising people’s incomes is a major criterion for growth and success among funding agencies, NGOs and people alike. But, Shambu asked himself, is it really our job as community workers to raise incomes? Surely the essential objective is to strengthen communities. Strong communities can raise income levels but increasing income levels do not necessarily strengthen communities. Shambu Prasad of the NGO Dastkar in Andhra Pradesh, reported by Bakshi (1998) The real and legitimate goal of sciences is the endowment of human life with new invention and riches. Francis Bacon (referred to by Gordon, 1995)2 Some of these facts and opinions are specific to local context, parts of everyone’s everyday experience, and some relate to what people in India have imbibed from their schooling and the media. Items should be selected with a view to creating strong emotional as well as an intellectual response and to highlighting contradictions. They are projected onto a screen and participants are asked to read them out loud, a different participant for each. After the entire list is read out, at a leisurely pace, the facilitator invites comments and discussion on each. Participants should be challenged if they attempt to ‘explain away’ contradictions.

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The objective is not, at this stage, to resolve these contradictions, and the facilitator does not offer to do so; indeed, she tries to let these facts and opinions drive home the message that with our existing mindset their resolution is impossible. Activities designed in this way should properly end on a note of uncertainty, confusion and concern. This is a whole-group activity. Insoluble problems This step follows on from step 1 and should be included in any exercise that features that step. It will further heighten participants’ feelings of confusion, doubt and helplessness. At the same time, it begins to suggest the cause of these – our questionable assumptions. Some problems such as the following can be posed. 1. The problem of chemical pesticides (see Chapter 2) 2. The schoolyard project, Box 3.1 3. Specially written stories like the one in Appendix 2; these can be written for any context 4. The overloading of the school curriculum; that is, the dilemma of the need to include ever more subject matter in the curriculum in order to keep up with the requirements for employability in the global economy, and the fact that children are already stressed due to overloaded curricula. Considering any one such problem constitutes a complete activity. Half an hour is devoted to team work, another half an hour to team presentations and a final half hour to whole group discussion. As was suggested earlier, there should be no hurry to find solutions at this stage also. And usually solutions are not forthcoming from the participants. The real purpose of the activity is not to solve the problem, but to help define the larger problem of the mindset with which we operate. If a new idea does pop up, it can be followed up. Leave enough slack in the programme to accommodate such a development. By a ‘new idea’, I mean, of course, an alternative secondary assumption. Anything less than this is unlikely to work, which is why the problem is a problem. Ultimately, new ideas or assumptions have to be introduced, if not by the participants then by the facilitator. To highlight the real problem – that of a fixed mindset – the UEEC workshops feature a puzzle as a concluding activity for this step. This is the following. Nine points are arranged to form a square with three points in each of three rows and three in each of three columns, as

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O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

O

The instructions are as follows: connect all the points with four straight lines. In making these lines, you are not permitted to lift your pen from the paper from start to finish, nor to double back over lines already made. Some participants may be familiar with this puzzle. For those that are not, it at first seems insoluble and it may be dismissed as such. It is, of course, soluble, but only if we shed a critical initial assumption. What are the assumptions that prevent us from solving the problems in the previous activity? Identifying and defining secondary assumptions This step should be taken up from where the previous one left off: the major problems/contradictions of our times are a result of our fixed mindset. This mindset needs to be analysed in terms of its component assumptions. This step may be the first in some exercises, as explained earlier – that is, in exercises with grassroots workers and university staff and students. In this case, existing assumptions have already been seen as the problem and alternative assumptions have been postulated – and also acted upon. At the beginning of this step, some theoretical background for the TL process will have to be given. This can be done as lectures and in the form of handouts. Supplementary reading may be prescribed. Adequate time for whole-group discussions must be allowed. Identifying the secondary assumptions that make up the model of contemporary global culture might best be a team activity followed by whole-group discussion with the objective of developing an agreed list. Once this is done, the same procedure might be followed in defining these assumptions in terms of the attitudes, policies, theories, programmes and projects they give rise to. This could be supplemented by case studies, where available, of the working out of these assumptions in practice. These case studies could be researched, written up by individual teams and presented by them to the whole group, with a different study for each team.

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Finally, an attempt must be made to draw up a comprehensive list of alternative assumptions. Activities may also be framed as panel discussions, with one member from each team being a member; each member would present the considered view of his or her team. The facilitator serves as the moderator. Field visits to projects, including interviews of the people concerned with them, might be useful. Primary assumptions in the background Here is where almost all participants will enter a new, unfamiliar territory. Major inputs from the facilitator to orient them and supply them with information will be needed. These can be provided in lectures, handouts and other reading assignments. Activities can be framed with the objective of visualising fresh answers to the perennial questions. Still others may be designed to examine these answers (primary assumptions) for their logical consistency and coherence. Finally, a return to the secondary assumptions from the previous stage should be made to determine whether or not, or to what extent, they are congruent with the alternative primary assumptions. One definite task of the facilitator, I would say, is to introduce the participants to the symbolism of myth and to the subject of how one thinks in terms of these symbols. Earlier, it was suggested that a useful activity would be the translation of traditional myth. Equally, participants might be asked to create myths that embody the alternative primary assumptions they have decided upon. Or they could identify and describe contemporary myths in the making, as for example Gaia, or the sinking of the Titanic. The nature and scope of the tasks involved in this and the previous step have been illustrated in Chapters 4–8. These illustrations may suggest numerous other activities that can be planned and carried out in TL exercises. Testing Step 5 involves two tasks. The first is identifying and articulating the policy/theory/programme/project implications of the validated alternative secondary assumptions. Grassroots workers and university people could be asked to check out their own projects in respect of the validated secondary assumptions arrived at in the previous section – and to suggest changes if necessary. The second task is putting these to the test of practice in the field, factory, classroom and so on. This involves the mounting of projects,

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and activity which requires considerable time and resources, and which may not therefore always be feasible as a part of the course. Handling feedback The intention in step 6 is to have participants ‘read’ the ‘feedback’ from projects and to decide how to deal with it. Where TL exercises are done with grassroots workers and university people, they can be asked to examine their own projects and report on the feedback signals they are getting, how they are interpreting them and how they are dealing with them or propose to deal with them. The last mentioned may include a return to the stage of policies, programmes, theories to modify them, or even further back to reformulate secondary assumptions. The TL process, as was said earlier, is an iterative process. Where participants are not involved in projects of their own, this activity may not be possible – unless the facilitator can present a case study of an actual project to work on. By way of winding up this section, let me repeat the suggestion to keep notes of the entire exercise and to write them up as a report. From these, in due course, the distilled experience of a number of such exercises can be described. The point is that what the facilitators learn must be shared with other facilitators and with all people concerned with TL. The exercises described in this chapter will take us into a new area of endeavour. There will be successes, mistakes and perhaps some failures to assess and new insights to consider. Paying attention to them, we will all learn as we go along.

Appendix 1: Pesticide Use and Human Health

The following excerpts are taken from school textbooks for grades 5–12 published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT, 1989a-d). Farmers use insecticides to kill insects and protect their crops from them. Insecticides pose a serious threat to other useful insects, animals and human beings.    Therefore it is necessary that we learn to use science and technology with great care, caution and understanding. (Understanding Environment, Grade 5, p. 118) Spray insecticide such as DDT in your house regularly. Take care that it is not sprayed in excess. (Understanding the Environment, Class 5, NCERT [1989a], p. 61) At times, pollutants have entered the food chain and have harmed several living organisms. DDT, for example, has entered in almost all the major food chains (Fig. 14.9).    In humans DDT causes severe health problems. (Science, Class 8, NCERT [1989b], p. 222) Insecticides have helped in increasing food production by killing insects, but can also be harmful because of their ill effects on man’s health.    Any technological application thus has a positive and often also a negative side to it. The best strategy is to maximise the positive and to remove all the negative effects. Often this is not easy, particularly when huge investments and profits are involved. The clash is between short term gains and long term environmental safety. Often, steps taken with only short term interests in mind can lead to irreparable damage. The role of environmental protection groups is thus very important. These groups take the long term view, analyse the consequences of each technological process and offer alternative solutions. (Science, Class 9, NCERT [1989c], p. 251) It is estimated that there is an annual loss of 30 percent in agricultural productivity owing to pests and diseases. This emphasises the need for using pesticides. (Biology, Class 12, NCERT [1989d], p. 959) Some people consider pesticides to be a blessing that allows us to grow more crops, fight diseases and make life more pleasant. Other people call pesticides poisons that are slowly destroying ecosystems all over the world that will end up as a calamity for the human race. Most people hold opinions somewhere 189

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in between these two extremes. You should have some information on the controversy, to help you understand the problem better. Pesticides are poisons. They cannot discriminate between pests and non-pests. Thus, when pesticides are applied in a field, they affect not only the target organisms, but all organisms that come into contact with the chemical. You have studied about food webs in Chapter 21. The food web in a wheat field may consist of several hundred species, most of them insects. A large number of the insects live by attacking the wheat plants. One or two may be so numerous that they can cause severe damage – these are called pests; most, however, are too few in number to cause any damage. This is because there is another set of species that live off the plant eaters, and keep their numbers down. However, these predators are usually much fewer in number than the plant eaters – just as there may be a hundred deer but only one tiger. Applying pesticides to such a field kills both types of [sic] animals, but because there are many more plant eaters, more of them survive, whereas most of their predators [die]. This results in increased numbers and types of pests. So, applying pesticides could result in more pests than not applying pesticides. The pests that manage to survive pesticide application are usually the ones genetically capable of withstanding high doses of pesticides. These survivors naturally produce offspring that are more resistant to pesticides. With repeated application of pesticides, a kind of accelerated evolution occurs to produce resistant populations of pests. The development of resistance, as this phenomenon is called, has several grave implications. Farmers are forced to use higher and higher doses of more expensive and more toxic chemicals to protect their crops. This effect is called the pesticide treadmill, where farmers use larger proportions of their income on pesticides, without increasing their yields. This has happened with cotton in India, where some farmers now apply forty times more insecticide than they did earlier just to sustain their yield of cotton. Not only is this economically disastrous, it results in drastically reduced populations of predators, and simplified and unstable ecosystems. Another example is that of mosquitoes in large parts of India that have become resistant to DDT, BHC, malathion and fenitrothion. As a result, the number of malaria cases is increasing, and the government is forced to spend larger sums of money to control mosquitoes. Another problem with pesticides is that of bioconcentration. Most organochlorine pesticides are highly soluble in the fat of animals. Further these chemicals are quite resistant to being metabolised.    In India due to prolonged use of DDT, 13–31 ppm of DDT can be detected in the body fat of people, which is the highest in the world. There are other problems with pesticides too. These poisons are frequently used by people who are unaware how deadly they are, and lead to adverse health effects. In India, most people using pesticides cannot read warnings and get accidentally poisoned. Further, ‘safe’ use of pesticides often requires protective equipment like gloves and masks, which the poor cannot afford. Further, lack of stringent measures in the manufacture and storage of pesticides may have grave consequences such as the recent Bhopal gas tragedy.

Appendix 1 191 Some arguments against the use of pesticides were presented above. Are there alternatives to pesticide use? Moving away from the unthinking application of large doses of pesticides, with potentially disastrous consequences, scientists have now accepted that a more ecologically sound way of dealing with pests is Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM uses a combination of techniques such as biological control (e.g., using the natural predators of pests to reduce pest numbers), mechanical control (e.g., manually destroying the eggs of pests to interfere with their reproduction), carefully timed use of pesticides at the most susceptible stage of the life cycle of pests, resistant varieties and the use of cultural practices such as mixed-cropping, crop rotation, intercropping and crop cycles lasting several years. The ‘new-found’ wisdom of IPM has its origins in indigenous knowledge and traditional farming practices developed by farmers over centuries of experimentation and experience. Scientists are realising that ‘traditional’ does not mean ‘backward’ and that they have much to learn from farmers. Most farmers in India still use such methods – locally developed varieties adapted to local conditions and pests, intercropping, crop rotations, etc. These methods are part of a wider strategy, now called ‘organic farming’, which does not disrupt local ecosystems, and leads to sustained yields at low cost, both to the farmer and the environment. Farmers in western countries have gradually shifted back to such methods as they realise that dependence on pesticides make their farming non-sustainable in the long term. (Biology, Class 12, NCERT [1989d], pp. 962–5)

Appendix 2: Pests

The following is a story designed to foster transformational learning by children, teachers and parents. It is featured in the 6th-grade workbook of the school course Humari Dharti, Humara Jivan (Our Land, Our Life) (UEEC, 2003) (See Boxes 2.1 and 2.2), plains edition. The context is the irrigated Northwestern Ganga plains where there is now widespread environmental deterioration and economic hardship. A reference is made in this story to a student project in the same course on natural farming which students pursue in their own homes. Aruna is in the 6th grade. From last evening she had been very worried. This worry accompanied her to school this morning. When she was doing her homework last evening she saw that her father was very troubled. He said to Aruna’s mother ‘This year we bought a very expensive new pesticide because the one we have been applying for the past three years has become ineffective. This year we will also have to buy more fertiliser. To maintain the same yield we have to apply more fertiliser every year, and the cost of fertiliser is also increasing steadily. The cost of growing crops is increasing year by year’. Aruna’s elder brother Rajpal (who is in the 11th grade) said ‘In our science textbook it is written that insects develop resistance to insecticides so that the insecticides have no effect on them’. Aruna’s grandfather was listening to all this. He said to his son ‘Long ago I told you not to use fertilisers and pesticides, but you didn’t listen to me. When I was farming I never used these things. Today, though you are spraying more and stronger pesticides, crop damage continues to increase. These chemical fertilisers stimulate the growth of our crops, but the plants are not healthy and this is why they cannot resist pests and diseases’. In reply Aruna’s father said ‘When I first used chemical fertilisers our crop yields more than doubled, and I thought we could earn a lot of money, whereas today we don’t have money even to buy fertilisers and pesticides. Many people are in an even worse condition than we are’. Thinking about this Aruna was on her way to school this morning when she met Mahipal who was a team mate in her environment course at school. She told him about her family problem. After listening to Aruna’s story Mahipal said ‘A few days ago my father and I discussed a similar matter. He applies chemical fertilisers and sprays pesticides. I told him that it is written in our science textbook that the pesticides we use to kill insects in our crops and vegetables are poisonous for us too. They cause many diseases. When we spray these pesticides we breathe in some amount of them. Scientists have found that they are present in all the foods we eat every day. They are even found in cow and buffalo milk’. 192

Appendix 2 193 ‘My father said “What can we do? If we don’t spray these pesticides our crop yields will go down due to insect damage. Further, if vegetables like eggplant and cauliflower are damaged by insects we will not get a good price for them”. ’ ‘He also said “Why are you troubled by all this? We do not spray pesticides on the vegetables we grow for our own use.” This sentence of my father troubled me still more, and I asked him if it is right for us to eat vegetables free from pesticides while growing them with pesticides for people in the city. He had no reply to this question’. Further on, Aruna and Mahipal met Zarina and Mahendra. They too were members of Aruna’s team. Aruna and Mahipal told them of their problems. Zarina said ‘I don’t think there will be any pests in my vegetable garden. And my grandmother tells me that even if there happens to be any pests, she knows of many natural control measures for them. She says there is no need for me to worry. She said “For centuries people are using neem leaves as an insect repellent.” She said that if everyone were to grow crops in a natural way using compost or mulch crop plants would be healthy and there would be no need to spray them with pesticides’. On hearing this Aruna, Mahipal and Mahendra agreed that they too had no pest problem in their vegetable gardens. All four of them applied compost in their gardens. With one voice they said that if their fathers were to apply compost in their fields the problem of pests could largely be solved. For a few minutes they were all quiet. Then Zarina said ‘Our gardens are very small and we prepare enough compost for them, but for big fields a lot of compost will be needed. How can so much compost be made? We use most of the dung from our animals as fuel.’ None of them had an answer to this. ‘Do you know,’ said Mahendra, ‘two days ago my father and my brother Prem (Mahendra’s brother Prem studies agriculture at the university) were discussing these very problems. Prem said that the real problem with the use of fertilisers and pesticides is that farmers do not understand scientists’ recommendations: they need to be trained. Then my father took out a copy of a university publication on how to use fertilisers and pesticides, and, showing it to Prem, said, “I am following these recommendations for many years. In the beginning, I won a prize one year for the highest paddy yield in the district, but now I am seeing that year-by-year our production is falling. Now tell me, what should I do?” ’ Mahendra continued, ‘When this discussion was taking place our neighbour, Sita aunty, was talking to my mother, and she joined in, saying, “Do you know what the problem is? These new hybrid varieties are like a person addicted to a narcotic; they cannot grow without fertiliser. In the beginning the seed companies convince you to buy their seeds, and then you have to buy their fertilisers and pesticides as well.” Continuing, she said, “Some days ago Prema’s father (Prema is her daughter, that is, she was referring to her husband) and I were saying that our old paddy variety, the one we inherited from our parents, with enough compost, yielded as much as we are getting today.” ’

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‘At this point Prema’s father, Sukhbir Singh, joined us and said, “But the problem is that we no longer have seeds of the old variety”.’ ‘ “I have heard,” he continued, “that Sardar Gurubachan Singh has seed of an old paddy variety. It gives a good yield and also doesn’t require as much water as the new varieties. With these new varieties we are pumping too much water and our wells are going dry. I am thinking of going to Sardarji; maybe I can get some seed from him”. ’ ‘Everyone was quiet for a while. Then Sita Aunty said, “With that old variety we will need a lot of compost”. ’ Aruna asked the others ‘What is the solution to this problem?’ Talking together in this way they arrived at their school. There was 15 minutes left before the first period. The four team members saw their environment teacher Mrs. Sharma and decided to ask her what the solution is to the problem they had been discussing. Mrs. Sharma listened carefully as they told her about their problem. Then she said ‘I think this is a problem that the whole class should discuss. Perhaps we can find a solution.’ Their environment course class was the first period. At the beginning of the period Mrs. Sharma said ‘Team number four has brought a very important problem for us to discuss today. I am asking them to explain this problem to the class.’ Aruna, Mahipal, Zarina and Mahendra together told the class of their discussion. After this Mrs. Sharma said ‘Now, in today’s period the members of each team will discuss this problem among themselves and try to find an answer. When you go home today also discuss this problem with your parents and neighbours. In tomorrow’s class period I will ask each team to present the results of their discussions to the class, and then we will have a general discussion. Perhaps we will find a solution to this problem.’ Then she continued ‘I will give you one suggestion. A few days ago we learned a new concept – our village ecosystem. We read about this in Exercise 5. I think that this concept can help us to find a solution to our problem.’ You also discuss this problem in your environment class. Ask your teacher to set aside enough time for this discussion. First carefully describe what is happening in your home and village. Discuss these matters with your parents and neighbours, and after that in your team and finally in the entire class. Write the results on the blank page opposite.

Notes 1 Introduction 1. In all fairness, it should be noted that Whitehead did say in the same book that ‘    modern assumptions differ from older assumptions, not always for the better. They exclude from rationalistic thought more of the final values of existence’ (Whitehead, 1933, p. 122). He thus showed himself capable of some degree of detachment even though he seems disposed to the idea of progress. 2. Theoretical mathematics, as distinct from its applications in a particular era, can, however, be seen as developing in complexity and power over all of recorded history. More complex mathematical concepts and techniques make possible the building of more complex machines and structures. Whether or not these machines and structures are superior to simpler ones is, however, far from self-evident. Deciding this question requires a consideration of context: how does a new machine or structure affect society, the environment and the individual (physically and psychically), and of what intentions is it an expression. The answers to all these questions are specific to the worldview of the culture in question. When particular machines or structures do as much or more harm than good, we must pause to question whether there has been progress or not.

2 Contradictions, incoherence and confusion 1. The subjects of chemical fertilisers, air pollution, resource depletion or nuclear energy could equally have been used to illustrate the problems of incoherence and confusion introduced into the curriculum by infusion. 2. The important subject of learning to think differently in post-colonial societies where traditional worldviews must also be taken into account is dealt with in Chapter 10.

3 Learning to think differently 1. Newton’s law of gravitation also depends upon several other primary assumptions that were becoming mainstream at that time: (1) mechanism (inert atoms of matter in motion as the primary reality of the world); (2) life as nothing but an emergent property of certain complex constellations of such material atoms; (3) a detached observer who cognises the world ‘out there’ exclusively by logical mentation based upon empirical (sense) data; (4) the pre-eminence of mathematical descriptions of phenomena. 2. Two particularly illuminating examples of this ‘talking at cross purposes’ that have remained in my memory are the ‘Debates’ organised and published by 195

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the Ecologist magazine. These are Is science neutral? (Volume 30 (3), pp. 20–3 [May 2000]) and Is organic food healthier than conventional food? (Volume 35 (1), pp. 28–31 [February 2005]). 3. A major reason that participants become overwhelmed is the multiplicity of problems. Seen is isolation from each other, they do indeed seem unsolvable (Appendix 2). What the participants typically lack is the ability to take a holistic view of the situation; they cannot see that there is only one problem of which the numerous seeming individual problems that confront them are just so many facets. There is thus just one solution. A concept that is ‘thrown in’ at this point in UEEC teacher-orientation workshops, and in the classroom, is that the village is an ecosystem. If the ecosystem is healthy, as it most certainly is not at present since there are so many problems, its illness must be diagnosed and a holistic or systemic treatment must be followed. This treatment will necessarily address all the many problems initially seen, but differently than if they had been addressed individually, in isolation. The treatment will be gentle, because the solution of one problem does not aggravate another problem. Rather, all problems are solved simultaneously and harmoniously.

5 The laws of nature 1. For a sample of current research into Vedic and contemporary Indian tribal societies, see Chaitanya (2000) and Sen (1992). An example of contemporary tribal societies is the shifting cultivators of tropical highland Asia (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 3). The worldviews of North American Indigenous Peoples has been investigated by Shilling (2002) and Cajete (2004), and that of African Indigenous Peoples by Mokuku and Mokuku (2004) and Wane (2002). The Ecologist special issue The Cosmic Convent, volume 30 (1), 2000, describes the findings of investigations into ancient Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Greek, Egyptian Zoroastrian and Chinese cultures, and also into contemporary tribal societies the world over. Concluding his survey of many cultures, Goldsmith refers to a common feature of all as ‘The Way’ (Goldsmith, 2000). This refers to the complex of lifestyles and livelihood pursuits that recognise and adapt to the need to maintain the health of the local ecosystem and the local community. These are determined by myths which embody the concept of law as immanent in specific contexts. 2. The R in the word Rta is pronounced approximately as ri, the i as in ‘is’. The tongue is also trilled slightly in pronouncing the r. The t is a dental and not a palatal t. The a is pronounced as u in ‘put’, but not as a distinct sound on its own rather it is part of the t sound. 3. This theme of sacrifice is common to many, perhaps most, ancient cosmologies. Here is another example. It has been narrated by C. G. Jung who, on a trip to Taos, New Mexico, met and talked to a Pueblo Indian chief, Ochwiay Biano (Mountain Lake). ‘After a profound silence he continued. “The Americans want to stamp out our religion. Why can they not let us alone? What we do, we do not only for ourselves but for the Americans also. Yes, we do it for the whole world. Everyone benefits by it.” I could observe from his excitement that he was alluding to some extremely important element of his religion.

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4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

I therefore asked him; “You think, then, that what you do in your religion benefits the whole world?” He replied with great animation, “Of course. If we did not do it, what would become of the world?” And with a significant gesture he pointed to the sun   . “After all    we are a people who live on the roof of the world; we are the sons of Father Sun, and with our religion we daily help our father to go across the sky ” ’ (Quoted by Dunne, 2000, p. 68). The term ‘myth’ is used loosely in this essay to include stories of the gods and goddesses and legendary heroes and heroines, folk tales, fairy stories and animal stories, and also mythologised historical persons and events. From this point of view history, as an organised collection of facts, is subsumed by the mythical present. However, factual history has its uses. In India it is sometimes conflated with myth, giving very unsatisfactory results; neither factual history nor mythical story can be understood correctly. I use the word ‘man’ purposely. There are many today that argue that women never participated in the enlightenment project as whole-heartedly as men; indeed, they were victims of it, along with nature. See, for example, Shiva (1991). The story of Icarus appears in Robert Graves ‘The Greek Myths’ (Section 92 entitled ‘Daedalus and Talos’) (Graves, 1969). Graves (1969) presents almost 200 separate stories in his two-volume work. All these stories are interlinked – the same characters appear again and again in various stories, and aspects of a given story are further explained or elaborated in other stories. It is not possible adequately to understand any one story in isolation; understanding comes only from seeing it in the context of the whole fabric of Greek mythology. Gaia, Mother Earth, for example, figures in as many as one-third of all the stories related by Graves.

7 Alternative assumptions 1. According to Eric Jantsch (1980), Whitehead’s concept of hierarchy was influential in the development of general systems theory later in the century.

8 A return to the perennial questions 1. It was only with the third-century Roman philosopher Plotinus that a ‘    fullblown, positive view of the Infinite (is found) in the West, and then in part, perhaps, through Indian influence’ (Smith, 1963, pp. 7–8). After him, the concept of the infinite largely disappeared again. 2. I am indebted to Sri Krishna Prem and Sri Madhava Ashish (1966, pp. 137–8) for pointing out this verse from the Rigveda. I have, however, preferred the translation by Griffith (1889) to theirs. My interpretation too differs from theirs. 3. The episode of experiencing is a subject viewing (prehending) all antecedent episodes during the first phase of its existence – that is, the stage of data prehension – and an object to be viewed (prehended) by subsequent episodes as a completed episode, a datum.

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4. Episodes of cosmic experiencing and the experiencing of each of the Many are the macro-cosmic and micro-cosmic expressions of the process in which the Dweller at the Source ‘leaves’ on his journey into outwardness – and then returns. The same pattern of emergence and return is seen in the process of awakening from deep sleep described on page 104. Yet again, the Hindu cosmogonical myth of the ‘Days and Nights of Brahma’ (Basham, 1954, p. 154) can be interpreted in these same terms.

9 Towards a new cultural model 1. The continuing story of the responses of The Vedic cultural model to the challenge of contemporary global culture is taken up in Chapter 10.

10 Transform, reform, reaffirm 1. ‘In Southern Africa we are in a process of freeing ourselves from a vision of colonialism. My concern is that if we accept the Earth Charter uncritically we might be accepting another form of colonialism that may be even more invidious than the previous one (van Harmelen, 2003).’ 2. The earliest documentary references to agriculture in India date back to about 2500 BC. Some of the archaeological evidence dates back still further. 3. This debate took the form of an informal discussion conducted through the pages of the Asian Agri-History Journal on the subject of finding an adequate interpretation of Indian agricultural history. I was one of the participants. I first attempted to sum up this discussion in a paper in this journal (Jackson, 2003), reproduced it in the context of sustainable agriculture in a book (Jackson, 2005) and now present it with suitable changes in the context of TL. 4. I adopt the archaic philosophical meaning of the word discursive: that is, ‘proceeding by argument or reasoning, rather than by intuition’. It derives from the medieval Latin discursivus, deriving from the old Latin, discurere, the same as the modern English word ‘discourse’ (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2002). 5. See, for example: Atharvaveda XII, 1 (Panikkar, 2001) (Earth); Krishi-Parashar verses 130 and 131 (Sadhale, 1996) (planets); Atharvaveda VI, 142 (Panikkar, 2001) and Ahuja et al. (2001) (plants); Rigveda X, 9 (Panikkar, 2001) (water); Rigveda X, 94 (Panikkar, 2001) (stones). 6. During the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi insisted that Indians participating in the Vedic heritage should first free themselves from the debilitating effects of caste discrimination and the oppression of women in their own society. He, like many Indian reformers of the 19th century, was convinced that these were distortions of the Vedic heritage. These reforms have continued to gain momentum and have carried over into independent India. More radically, he advocated a return to the Vedic idea of Satya or Truth. I say return, but such a radical adherence to Truth had rarely been achieved at any time in history on any large scale. It appealed widely and inspired the dramatic non-violent resistance to colonial domination during the first half of

Notes 199 the 20th century, but has more or less been stifled by all the negative impulses that are the common lot of human beings – abetted now by competition and consumerism. The attempt to employ only non-violent means in political, economic and social affairs does, however, continue to find expression in experiments, both in India and elsewhere, in education, business, agriculture, health care and community (re)building and, of course, in politics. Indeed, with the emergence of the crises in global culture, adherence to non-violent means has become a universal imperative.

11 Secure their foundation 1. All participants in a TL exercise are learners, whether they are ‘students’ or ‘facilitators’. In this case, I mean the learner is a novice, not a facilitator. In general, I will use the word participant to indicate a novice. 2. These examples are all taken from UEEC (2002), except for the last which was taken from Gordon (1995).

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Index

actual entities definition of, 51, 88 as ultimate real things, 95 actual occasions, see actual entities adequacy (of worldview), definition of, 29–30 adequate, definition of, 30 Agenda, 21, 146 Agri-History Foundation, 151 Agri-History Journal, 151 agriculture, 117, 122–3, 128, 133–4, 152, 192–4, 196 Ahuja, U., 153, 198 Almora, x see also Uttarakhand Environmental Education Centre Alvares, C., 99, 133 Anaximander, 104 anchorage, 161–2 answers (to questions in alternative science paradigm), 132–3 apeiron, 104 archetypes, 109 arete, 65, 68 Aristotle, 43, 104, 169, 173 associations, 89 assumptions alternative, xi–xii, 87, 168 of alternative science, 128 current, xi de novo, 166 inherited, 4, 145, 152, 155, 156, 179 of mechanistic science, 127–8 metaphysical, 3 primary, 80, 87, 116–18; definition, 29 secondary, 112, 116–18, 173–4; definition, 29; validating, 171, 173–4 speculative, xi, 4 Atman, 105 atom, 48, 49, 51, 87, 88

atomised society, 120–1 Greek atomists, 49, 81 subatomic particles, 48, 51–2, 77, 93 subatomic physics, 6–7, 96, 97 autopoeisis, definition of, 22 autopoeitic systems, 22, 59, 93, 119–20, 137, 138, 165–6 awareness, 104, 113–14 Babikwa, D. J., 36–7, 39 Bacon, F., 71, 167, 169, 184 Bajaj, J. K., 71 Bakshi, R., 184 Basham, A. L., 73, 158 beauty, 68 Being, 103, 154, 156 Berkeley, G., 43, 167, 169 billiard ball metaphor, see laws of nature, law as imposed biodiversity, 153 birds, the two, 157 Bohm, D., 97 Box, D., 125 Brahman, 105, 115 Brihaspati, 77 bringing forth a world, 88–9, 108, 114–15, 118 British empiricists, 169 brute facts, 24–5 business, see localisation; systems business leaders, 25–6 Cajete, G. A., 139, 150, 196 Campbell, J., 74, 109, 141 cancer, 132–3 capitalism, 77 Capra, F. alternative science, 125 autopoeitic systems (definition), 22 bringing forth a world, 114–15 definition of matter, 43, 49, 59 scientists’ reaction to Gaia, 20

206

Index 207 causes, efficient and final, 92–3 see also laws of nature Chaitanya, K., 77, 150, 158 chance, 77, 93 child-centred learning, 31–2 classification of episodes of experiencing, 109 cognition, definition of, 29, 113 cognitive dissonance crossing the threshold of, 35–42 definition of, 34–5 disempowerment, 37–9, 196 emotional turmoil, 35–6 intellectual discomfort, 35 resistance to, 41–2 coherence, definition, 29, 50–1, 112, compare incoherence collaborative learning, see learning, collaborative collective unconscious, 109 colonialism Earth Charter and, 146, 198 economic, 146–7 impact of, 146–9 settlement, 147–8 communism, 77 community as an autopoeitic system, 119–20 definition of, 119–20 disappearance in global society, 120–1 distortions of village community, 123 traditional, 122–4 competition, 32 complexity theory, 20 confusion, x–xi, 14, 28, 31 consciousness, 29, 113–14 contemporary ancestors, 8 contemporary global culture, x, 30, 62, 72, 82 continuity discontinuity, 139–40 logical continuity, 70 contradictions, 12–14, 82–3 Copernicus, N., 30, 167, 168 corporate social responsibility, see oxymorons, examples of cosmology, 28

creation, 107, 155 critique of mechanistic materialism, 49–61 cultural model construction of, 116–18 definition, 30 discontinuity in, 139–40 Enlightenment, 76–7 global, 3–4 new, 116–18 traditional, 145, 149–50 cultural myth, 154–6 cultural reform, 32–3, 161–2 cultural transformation, 20, 32–3, 161–2, 165–74 culture definition, 119 mainstream, see contemporary global culture non-Western, 139 Vedic, 139 see also indigenous knowledge dance metaphor, see laws of nature, law as immanent darkness, 154, 156 Darwin (neo-Darwinian theory of evolution), 127 debates (organised by The Ecologist magazine), 195–6 deception, 71 self-deception, 33 deduction, 66 deductive thinking (Aristotelian mode of), 138 Democrites, 43 Descartes, Rene, 43, 67, 82, 85–6, 168, 169 detached observer, 83–6, 100 detached participant, 100, 111, 114 detached participation, 100 determinism, 110–11 development, x, 12, 25, 119–20 Dharma, 64–5, 115, 121, 138 discontinuity, qualitative, 95 DNA molecule (and micro-explanations), 70–1 dogmatism, 3, 112

208

Index

dreams, 74 dreaming, 113–14 dropouts, 25–6, 167 Du Toit, D., 38–9 dualism in Platonic and Western thought, 67–8 subject–object, 106 see also duality duality (of subject and object), 103 Dunne, C., 196–7 Dweller at the Source, 106–7, 113 Earth Charter, 146, 198 Earth Goddess, see Gaia East India Company, 146–7 ecological ego, 100 ecological individual, 100 ecological self, 100 ecosystem, 15, 16, 22 village, 124 ecosystem health, 15, 16, 124 education for sustainable development, 173 Einstein, A., 35, 56 emergent property, 23, 32, 58–9, 107 criticism of, 58–9 empire British, 146–7 of global capital and media, 9 Roman, 146–7 Enlightenment, 6, 48, 81–2, 138 environmental education contradictions in, x, 12–14, 189–91 Our Land, Our Life, 14–20 role of NCERT in, 12 episodes of experiencing, 87–9 ethics, 121–2 experience, definition of, 29 experimentation in alternative science paradigm, 128–32 in mechanistic science paradigm, 127–8

factories of understanding, 78 fallout, 127 see also global, cultural model, negative fallout from; unexpected outcomes Father Sun, 196–7 feedback, see information feedback Fien, J., 181 force, 70 formal institutions and transformative learning, 171–4 see also universities formative elements of thought, see universal formative elements of thought Forms, 66 see also Ideas (Plato); Pythagorean orientation fractals, 71 free will, 110–11 Freud, S., 41 Fukuoka, M., xiii, 35, 53, 98 fundamentalism, 79 Gaia her children, 77–8 a Pandora’s box, 25 reaction of scientists, 20–1, 74–6 reactions of students, 21–2 theory, x, 20–1, 176 see also myth Gaian process, 98 Galileo, 169 Gandhi, M. K., 148–9, 198–9 generalised definition (of the seven formative elements of thought), 51, 54, 59 global cultural model, negative fallout from, 3–4, 34, 149, see also Western cultural model village, 120–1 globalisation, 26, 172 Goerner, S. J., 125, 127, 131, 138–9 Goldsmith, E. community, 121 empire of global capital and media, 9 Gaian process, 98

Index 209 non-Western cultures, 139 the Way, 136, 140, 196 Goldsmith, Z., 9 Goodwin, B., 23, 71 Gordon, K., 184 Gough, N., 42 grassroots, 138 projects, 170–1 Graves, R., 74, 197 Greek mythology, see myth green revolution, 151 greenwashing, 25 Griffith, R. T. H., 106, 197 ground of experiencing, 104 Gunaratna, 100 Haigh, M. J. Gaia theory, 20–5 neutered theories, 21, 76, 173 student journals, 21–2, 182 transformative learning, 173 university and globalisation agenda, 172–3 university degree courses/programmes, 173 happiness, 120, 141 Harman, W., 28–9 Harre, R., 70 Hashimoto, Y., xiv see also Takahashi, Y. Hattingh, K., 121 Heisenberg, W., 35 Hellenic age, 6, 66, 169–70, compare Hellenistic age Hellenistic, 6, 78 Hellenistic age, 3, 7–8 see also scholastic age Heraclitus, 67 Hibbard, W., 41 hierarchy, 89, 197 history alternative theory of, 135–41 cyclical theory of, 136 Indian agricultural, 151–4 progress theory of, 7–10, 150–4, 195 theory of departure from the Way, 136–9 Hobbes, T., 167 holistic, 63–4

Howard, A., xiii, 35, 98 hubris, 77 Hughes, T., 78 Hume, D., 70, 167, 169 ‘I’, 48, 103–4, 107, 111 Icarus, see myth Ideas (Plato), 67–8, 88 incoherence, x, 81–2 inconsistency, see contradictions India, 11, 14–15, 120, 147, 198–9 Indian Education Act, 147 indigenous knowledge, 151–4 indigenous peoples, 148 cultural change, 149 effect of colonisation on, 147, 148 induction, 71 industrialisation, 11 Infinite, the, 104–5, 197 information feedback, 132, 138, 188 infusion, of environmental concerns in to school textbooks, 12 insoluble problems, 185–6 interconnectedness, radical, 95–9 intuition, 29, 60–1, 88 intuitions, 153; see also universal intuitions, theory of Jackson, M. G. agriculture, 152, 196 community, 122, 123 education, 25–6, 172 environmental problems, 26, 99 interpreting history, 151–2, 153, 198 progress theory of history, 9 science, 128, 130 transformative learning, 172 Vedic culture, 138, 150, 152, 153 worldview, definition of, 28 Janse van Rensburg, E., 38–9 Jantsch, E., 197 Jickling, B., 121–2, 134–5 Jones, A., 119 Jordens, J. T. F., 139 journals students’, 21–2 use in transformative learning exercises, 182

210

Index

Jung, C. G., 74, 109, 196–7 just society, 124 Kanani, P. R., 129 Kant, I., 23–4, 57–8 Kepler, J., 167, 168 knowing according to Whitehead, 93–4 criticism of current notion of, 59–61 definition of in contemporary global culture, 60 knowledge, definition of, 29 knowledge, traditional, see indigenous knowledge Kothari, R., 161 Kumar, S., 147 Laing, R. D., 41 law of gravitation, 30, 66, 195 laws of nature, 63 law as immanent, 63–5, 92, see also Rta law as imposed, 65–9, 95–6 law as mere description, 69–72; criticism of, 70–2, see also positivist doctrine, definition learners (in transformative learning exercises), 199 learning, collaborative, 17 learning to think differently definition of, x, xi, xii, 27–8 overview of the process, 31–3 see also cognitive dissonance; standing outside oneself, the process; transformative learning life according to Whitehead, 93 as an emergent property of matter, 58–9, 72, 94 is real, 22–5 ‘light of reason’, 8 living in harmony with nature, 25 localisation, 31–2, 125 Locke, John, 24, 167, 169 logical consistency, 29–30, 51 logical, definition of, 29–30 logical mentation/thought, 67, 72–3 limitations of, 68, 72 Lotz-Sisitka, H., xiv, 37–9, 45

love, 157–8 Lovelock, J., 20, 74–5 Luddite argument, 99 macro-explanation, 128, 129 macrocosmic, 107, 113, 198 Many, the, 106, 107–11 markers (in alternative and Vedic science paradigms), 128–9 market, 149 farmers’, 134 mass psychosis, 78 materialist worldview, 48–9, 105, 114, 168–9 Gaia theory as a threat to, 22–3 mathematics, 195 matter definition of in contemporary global culture, 51–2 difficulties in defining, 23–4, 53–4 general definition of, 51 see also substance, difficulty in defining mavericks, 25–6 meaning, 29, 35, 53, 60, 72–3, 74, 78, 102, 105, 156 meaningful, 88, 122 meaningless, 77, 105, 137 mechanistic worldview, 48–9, 105 Medawar, P., 71 mediaeval period (European), 138 Mehra, K. L., 153 memories, 29, 61 merely given, 24 metaphor, 73, 75 metaphysical foundations, 40, Chapter 11 metaphysical task, 50 metaphysics, see speculative philosophy micro-explanation, 70, 96, 128, 129 problem with, 70–1 microcosmic, 110, 160, 198 Miller, J., 64–5 Miller, J. P., 100 mind, definition of, 113 modernisation, x, 26 Mokuku, C., 150, 196

Index 211 Mokuku, T., 150, 196 Mortari, L., xiii, 67–8, 82 Mother Earth, see Gaia myth dangers of, 78–9 definition of, 73–4, 75 Gaia, 74–6, 78–9 Greek, 197 Icarus, 77 interpreting traditional myth, 154–61 pernicious racial/ethnic myths, 78 and purpose, 141 Titanic, 76–8 true, 78 Nasadiya hymn, 154–5 National Council of Educational Research and Training, 12, 189–91 natural farmers, 133 natural farming, see Nature’s farming (or natural farming) Nature, 98 Nature’s farming (or natural farming), 98 necessity, 24, 111 Nene, Y. L., 151–2 neutering (of systems theory), 21, 76 Newton, I. absolute objective time and space, 55–6 and cultural transformation, 167 law as imposed, 48, 68 law of gravitation, 168–9, 195 receptacle theory of space and time, 56 Sholium, 55–6, 81 transformation of Western worldview, 30 No Number, the, 105 Nonbeing, 103, 154–5, 156 nonsense, 76 novelty, 110–11 object, 103, 158, compare subject (or subjectivity) objectivity, 103 One, the, 103, 105, 111, 156 Oppermann, S., 98, 100

order, 71–2 organism, 7, 26 see also philosophy of organism Orr, D., 27 Osborne, A., 65 O’Sullivan, E., 10, 19, 29, 32, 34–5 Our Land, Our Life (school environmental education course), 14–20 Owen, L., 139 Oxford meeting, 74–5 oxymorons, examples of, xi, 25 Pande, A., 15 Pande, G. C., 64 Pande, L., 15 Pande, S., 123 Pandora’s box, 25 Panikkar, R., 64, 65, 156, 158, 159, 198 Parmenides, 67–8 participatory observation, 100 particles, 22, 58–9 see also subatomic particles particularisation, 66–7 particularised definitions, 51, 59–60 perception, 29 see also sensory data, cognition perennial questions, 29 alternative answers now suggested, 103–12 answers given by the Enlightenment, 48–9 in Vedic myth, 160–1 person, 29, 54, 82–3, 114 Whitehead’s definition of, 94–5 pesticide use, 11–14, 189–91 pests, a story, 185, 192–4 philosophy of organism, 88–95 physicists, 52 Pirsig, R., 65, 67–8 Plato, 24–5, 67–8, 84 Plotinus, 197 positivist doctrine, definition, 69 see also laws of nature, law as mere description post-colonial societies interpreting traditional myth, 154–61

212

Index

post-colonial societies – continued loss of anchorage and vision in, 161–2 progress theory, an obstacle, 150–4 transformative learning exercises, 175–88 Potential, the, 106–7 practice, the test of practice in transformative learning, 45–6, 187–8 Price, L., 135, 153 primary assumptions, see assumptions, primary primary attributes (of physical bodies), 7, 52–3 Principia (Newton), 55–6 Prithvi, see Gaia process, the world as, 87–95 professors, 5, 25–6, 51, 167, 171–3 progress theory of history, see history propositions advanced in the book, xi–xii Ptolemy, 30 purpose, 140–1 pursuit of happiness, 65, 120, 141 puzzle, nine point, 185–6 Pythagoras, 71, 169 Pythagorean orientation, 66 quality, 68 quantum science, 96 Radhakrishnan, S., 158, 160–1 radical inter-connectedness, 9, 95–9 rainfall prediction, 128–9 real criteria of, 103 What is real, 48–9, 103–6, 111–12 realms emotional, 109 intellectual, 109 physical, 109 see also classification of episodes of experiencing reason, limits to, 68, 72–3 reasoning, inductive, 71 reform, 32–3, 162 Renaissance, 138

research methodology in the alternative science paradigm, 128–32 as conversation with nature, 132–5 in the mechanistic science paradigm, 127–8 Rigveda, 64, 77–8, 106, 139, 154–5, 158–9 Robbins, N., 146–7 Rose, heroine in the film Titanic, 78 Roszack, T., 41, 100 Rowe, S., 100, 140 Rta as an autopoeitic structure, 137 definition of, 64 and free will, 110 as homeostasis in an organism, 64 as a imperative for ethical behaviour, 77 inexorable logic of, 92–3 memory banks of, 109 myth as a representation of the working of, 73 pronunciation, 196 putting one’s trust in, 65 return to Western culture, 98 a Sanskrit word, 115 from three points of view, 64–5 and the Way, 136–7, 140 see also laws of nature, law as immanent Russell, B. definition of matter, 49–50 definition of soul, 84 earliest scientific propositions, 169–70 mental outlook of medieval and modern men, 169 relative objective time and space, 56 substance, 53–4 unity is rubbish, 71 Sachs, W., 9, 74 sacrifice, 65 Sadhale, N., 134, 198 Sanskrit (use of Sanskrit terms), 115 satisfaction, see bringing forth a world scholars, 5 see also professors

Index 213 scholarship, 6 compare speculation scholastic age, 3, 19–20, 167–8, 173 see also Hellenistic age; speculative age Scholasticism, 6 school curriculum, 11–14, 17–18 see also environmental education school education, 19–20 school, Silindile, 37–8 Schumacher, E. F., 132 science alternative, 128–32 definition of, 126–7 mechanistic (research methodology in), 127–8 new or web science inadequate, 125–6 the positivist doctrine the dogma of contemporary science, 69 research guidelines in alternative science paradigm, 129–32 systems (neutered), 21 Vedic, 128–9 and violence, 98–9 science as conversation, 132–5 scientific management of resources, 25 scientists and the Baconian doctrine, 71 and cognitive dissonance, 35 do not initiate a Hellenic age, 25–6 of the Enlightenment, 168–9 everyone a scientist, 130 have failed to define matter, 49–50 and micro-explanations, 70–1 Newton and incoherence, 81–2 opposition to Gaia theory, 20–1 and questionable explanations, 70–1 Selby, D., 95–9 Sen, G., 196 sensory data, 60 Sherburne, D. W., 89–90, 91–2 Shilling, R., 139, 148, 196 Shiva, V., 197 sick ecosystems, 124 societies, 41 side effects, 27, 151

see also fallout; unexpected outcomes Silindile Junior School, 37–8 Sisters Seven, 106 see also universal formative elements of thought sleep, 103–4 Smith, H., 104–5, 197 Smith, Mr., 54 society definition, 119–20 post-colonial, 145–6, see also transformative learning exercises, in post-colonial societies traditional, effects of colonialism on, 146–9; transformative learning in, 145–6, 149–50, see also community, traditional Socrates, 83–4 solar system, 30, 53, 168–9 soul, 83–5 Source, the, 106 space absolute, 55–6 objective, 54–5, 61 problems with objective time and space, 57 problems with subjective time and space, 58, 109–10 receptacle theory of, 56 relative, 56–7 subjective, 57–8, 90–2 space-time, 56 speculation, 4–6 speculative age, 167, 169–70, compare scholastic age speculative ideas, definition, 28–9 see also assumptions speculative philosophers, 168–70 speculative philosophy, 50–1 Spinoza, B., 167 Sri Krishna Prem, 197 Sri Madhava Ashish, 113–14, 197 standing outside oneself, the process, 42–5 Sterling, S., 19–20 strange attractors, 71 student journals, 21

214

Index

subatomic particles, 48, 89 subject (or subjectivity), 103, 158 see also object substance, difficulty in defining, 53–4 sustainability contradictions in the concept, 117 definition of, 25–6 and ecosystem health, 124 incoherence in the concept, 117 and university courses, 173 unsustainability of modern scientific agriculture, 152 varying interpretations of, 26 sustainable development see oxymorons, examples of sustainable livelihoods, 125 sustainable society, 124 symbols abstract word, 73, 155, 159 of myth, 73, 155, 159 systems autopoeitic, see autopoeitic systems gentle interventions in, 130, 134, 196 human-created, 125, 131–2 mechanistic, 96 neutered, see neutering (of systems theory) organismic, 96–7 philosophical, 80, see also cosmology; worldview problems of predicting behaviour, 23 science, 21 self-healing ability of, 133 sick, 130 the study of, 129 theory, 20 an understanding of, 128–9 see also science as conversation Takahashi, Y., 35, 36 see also Hashimoto, Y. talking at cross purposes, 32, 195–6 tapas, 158 Taylor, A. E., 24 Taylor, M. A., 19, 29 teacher orientation workshops, 18–19 teachers, 17–19, 37–40, 196

terminology, 28–31, 112–15 Thales, 156 That which is, 105, 106 theory definition, 30 Gaia, 20–1 rediscovery, 153 systems, 20 universal gravitation, 30, 66 universal intuitions, 153 things as actual entities, see actual entities assumed definition in materialist worldview, 51–2 generalised definitions, 51 as material entities, 48, 51–2 see also matter, substance thinking differently, xi–xii, 113, 137–8 definition, x thinking substance, 83, 85–6 thinking, definition, 29 thought discursive, 155, 159–60, 198 normal, 72–3 verbal, 72–3 thread, imaginary, 114 ‘throwing in’ suggestions, 36–7, 196 time absolute, 55–6 atemporal, 109–10 objective, 55–8 problems with subjective time, 58, 91–2 receptacle theory of, 56 relative, 56–7 subjective, 57–8, 90–2, 109–10 sui generis, 91 Titanic, as a myth, 76–8 togetherness (of all actual occasions), 90 traditional culture, see culture transformation cultural, 165–6 personal, 33–4 social, 32–3, 162 transformative learning definition of, x–xii process, xi, 27–8, 34 theoretical framework for, 177

Index 215 transformative learning exercises course outline for, 180–1 definition of, 174–7 facilitator, 177–80 format for, 180 in post-colonial societies, 145–6 priority areas for, 174–5 suggestions for planning and conducting (in general), 180–3 suggestions for planning and conducting (specific), creating cognitive dissonance, 183–5; handling feedback, 188; identifying and describing primary assumptions, 187; identifying and describing secondary assumptions, 186–7; insoluble problems, 185–6; testing, 187–8 translation (of myth), 154–60 true, 57 Unbounded, see apeiron unconscious, the, 76 understanding, definition of, 29, 76 unexpected outcomes, 31 universal formative elements of thought, 47–8, 51, 106–7 definition of, 29 universal intuitions, theory of, 153 universities, 167, 171–4 and transformative learning exercises, 175–6 Upanishad, Mundaka, 157 urbanisation, 133 Uttarakhand Environmental Education Centre location, x school environmental education courses, 14–20, 41, 192–4 teacher orientation workshops, 18–19 transformative learning exercises, 174–5, 176–7, 179, 183–5 Uttarakhand, location, x, 120 values, 121–2 see also Dharma van Harmelen, U., 198

Vedic agricultural science, 151–2, 153 Vedic culture, 128–9, 155 Vedic worldview, 139–40, 155–61 verbal thought, 72–3 village ecosystem, 122–4 village, 122–4 see also community Virmani, S. M., 153 Viswanathan, S., 9 vulgar, the, 55–6, 57 waffle, 13 Wane, N. N., 139, 196 web metaphor, see law as imposed Western cultural model, 26, 119 see also global, cultural model, negative fallout from Whitehead, A. N. actual occasions, 7, 88–9, 108–9, see also actual entities adequate (worldview), 29–30, 50–1 associations, 89 causation, 92–3, see also laws of nature coherence (in a worldview), 29–30, 50–1, 81 dogmatism, 3, 112 enhancement (or perceptions), 60–1 final real things, 95 god, 90 knowing the world, 93–4 laws of nature, 63, 65–6, 69 life, 93 logical (worldview), 29–30, 50–1 materialism, 6–7 mind, 113 on Newton’s contribution to world thought, 81 objective time and space, 57 person, the, 94–5 philosophy of organism, 7–8, 87–95 primary attributes of physical bodies, 6–7, 52–3 Process and Reality, 87 progress theory of history, 7–8, 195 scholarship, 5 Scholastic and Hellenistic ages, 3

216

Index

Whitehead, A. N. – continued speculative assumptions, 4 speculative philosophy, 50–1, 170 subjective time and space, 90–2, 112 togetherness of all actual entities, 90 vacuous material existence, 6–7, 49 world, 88–9, 118 mechanistic conception of, 26 organismic conception of, 26 Potential, a, 106–7 what is the world like, 48 see also bringing forth a world

worldview alternative, 111–12 of contemporary global culture, 26, 48–9 definition of, 28, 31 inherited, 40, 145–6 materialist, 48–9 mechanistic, 26, 48–9 transformation of, 32–3, 34 Vedic, 160–1 Zimmer, H., 72–3, 105