Cosmos Café [4/30] - Free Progress Education

[Douggins (Douglas Duff)]

@achronon

Now, all of the antitheses that I just mentioned cannot be found on the same level, if you will. To me, they indicate a multidimensionality that needs to be kept in mind when thinking about the topic of “education”. This multidimensionality most likely precludes any kind of reasonable political solution, or resolution, of the issue. Our current mode of mentation can’t accommodate anything other than single-point causation with singular results. The fact that any one cause may have any number of possible outcomes is simply inconceivable in our current mode of thought.

I wish to include something you wrote on another thread about Nora Bateson and her “mutual learning contexts” which she also termed transcontextuality in other essays:

@achronon

What caught my eye in Bateson’s piece was her engaged plea for us to reevaluate not only our most fundamental assumptions about “how things (e.g., the world) work”, but also the presuppositions that enable those assumptions. Both Kripal and the Generations discussants favor reactivated/rejuvenated/revitalized/reconfigured metaphysics as an essential aspect of seeking relevant approaches, and that, in turn, brought R.G. Collingwood’s Essay on Metaphysics to mind in which he argues quite specifically that the metaphysical undertaking itself need be understood as the arduous and relentless (my words, not his) search for and discovery of absolute presuppositions, true starting points if you will.

What is interesting about Nora Bateson’s ruminations is that she thinks we have a better chance of finding these when we start thinking about life as mutual learning contexts . This has the advantage of overcoming what she believes is a lot of presupposed mechanistic thinking about the systems we’re trying to deal with. It reveals other, perhaps more yielding, ideas than the overworked and underquestioned mechanized notions we consciously, or unconsciously, apply . She may be onto something.

And I think we are onto something. We are working on transcontextual explorations which lead to alternative modes of mentation. We are actively creating a community here that listens to alternative modes of existence. As Marco Masi mentions in one talk (and a few others continue to note), we can talk about reform and change but we actually have to live out what we want to have happen, so we are left to our individual modes of change (self-improvement) and changing the minds of those around us. And the constant changes from within the systems. What is the answer to our biggest problems?