Pardon my musing this morning, just returned from running hill repeats before
it became too hot, and doing so often does strange things to the mind. In
running this morning, the hill didn't resist my efforts, it was, in another
theoretical framework, a constraint to my movement in space and time,
channeling my motion along a particular pathway. There was no opposition,
except perhaps between my own will and the physiological reserves of my body
-- but in thinking so I leave the physics behind and jump back into the ways of
common western thought. These oppositional and dichotomous terms -- how did
they come to be, that we must always think with them? (Kathie and Martin --
are you on to something that resistance implies asymmetric distribution of
power -- we don't tend to think of the US federal government 'resisting' grass
roots efforts at such things as conservation, but local groups are often
described as 'resisting' larger initiatives?)
But, but, but... grabbing hold of lbe methodology to pull one out of the
western quagmire... out of the cultural box... what are the historical roots of
such dichotomous thinking? Are they specific to western and capitalist
systems? Do other cultures frame the social world this way? Is there a
relation to our new digital age of ones and zero's, in which one equals
not-zero, and zero equals not-one? Could this technology have arisen out of a
triadic culture? An n-tuple way of thinking? What would Bateson have come up
with, besides schismogenisis, if he had studied such things as political
mediation?
lbe affords n-tupleness to the 6th degree. Dichotomous thinking if one wants
to think of categories in opposition. Triadic structures afford mediation.
The main categories of the system form a six-fold structure...
Enough of this resistance to grading... frittering away the time... back to the
grindstone. Compliance at last.
(sigh)
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 01 2001 - 01:01:42 PDT