Re: [xmca] Just the Change Lab? For Helena et al

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Mike
I found this response to Helen thought provoking. In particular this
comment:
"What is fantasy for your lived reality may be reality for his lived
fantasy"
I have been reflecting on our understanding of "imaginal realms" and how
these realms are juxtaposed to another's lived reality.

John Sallis is an American philosopher whose project is to reclaim another
understanding of *imaginal realms* which is NOT reduced to fantasy,
fabulation, phantoms, or unreality.

Mike, in your comment and Dylan's lyrics the understanding of *truth* is
changing from notions of *correctness* MAY *be* changing to a notion of
*truth* AS DISCLOSING what has been concealed.

As another example of the times changing I recently watched a 3 part TV
series  called *Dhrama Rising*which follows the Buddhist notion of dharma
[as way of life] *rising* as it has been introduced into the West as a
cultural-historical engagement with the realm of modernity.

The complexity and polyphonic *interpretations* [appearing from within a
cultural-historical lens] created by this interweaving created a sense of
wonder and amazement at the deepcultural transformation and metamorphosis
occuring in  these times that are a changing. In my imaginal realms I
intuitively feel this fluidity of thought as conceptual interweaving in
relation to imaginal realms which has a quality OF a new
beginning/FOUNDING. Imaginal NOT located within private subjectivity but in
more romantic notions of the imaginal realms. THIS realm is not phantasy or
fabulation and in-forms thought in new relational intertwinings.

Mike, your comment opens up a space [a clearing] to question if the
 imaginal is always fantasy? [in contrast to truth?]
That way of understanding *truth* and *phantasy*may be only one particular
schema or genre or framework with a particular sense of presence [and
concealment]. THIS way of life which pre-judges *foundations* over
*foundings* [new beginnings] as notions of *truth*.
If I am chaining I apologize but your questioning the understanding of
*work* also throws into relief notions of *play* and opens up clearings for
reflection on what really *matters*.
*Playing* as participation WITHIN activities  may be a novel way to reflect
on our current notions of *working* as something we do as a
necessary *work* before playing. THIS may also be a particular historically
formed schema or genre or framework which no longer *holds* our imaginal
yearnings.

On the other hand, this could be merely the fantasy of nostalgia,
articulating a yearning left over from the 60's when I was listening to
Dylan as a young lad.

Larry






On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 9:14 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All- I am addressing this note to Helena but I assume that many are
> interested in the issues
> they raise and so much is going on, its a wonder anyone can keep track!
> This will be a long note. I am inserting
> some song lyrics into the message for reasons that will become clear if you
> are interested in reading. If not,
> delete any ole time.
>
> Helena. You write:
>
>
> My problem with his creative approach to research is that he acts as if the
> whole world has moved on to whatever he's studying next. He talks about
> "the
> historical development of work," "work..transformed from mass production
> and
> mass customization to co-configuration of customer-intelligent products and
> services with long life cycles", "post-bureaucratic work", 'work as "a
> living, growing networkŠnever finished," etc etc. This may be true of
> "work"
> as it occurs in the Change Laboratory,
>
> Two or three comments here (the third including the first poem/song by Bob
> Dylan).
>
> First, you might consider the differing national/cultural contexts that you
> and Yrjo inhabit.
> What is fantasy for your lived reality may be reality for his lived
> fantasy. He is a Finn, working
> in Finland. The land of Nokia, of Linux and perhaps the world's most
> successful public school system.
> It is a country that does not make its way, economically, in the world, by
> the overwhelming power of
> its military, its control over foreign governments through
> technologically-backed coercion, and its ability
> to manipulate foreign markets. It makes its way by innovation, by being
> precisely where Yrjo's imaginary
> is located.
>
> When Yrjo wrote *Learning by Expanding *the Soviet Union existed and
> Finland was a welfare state. Today
> there is no USSR, there is Putinism/state capitalism, and the rest of the
> world has taken Capitalism to
> extremes that were hard to imagine in 1986. And Finland is no longer the
> welfare state it was. But it is
> a country committed to living by their wits, creativity, and imagination.
> Of "living on the cutting edge" which
> leads to blood of a kind different than that of American (and not only
> American) capitalism. And different from
> rampant forms of fundamentalism. I am neither trying to valorize it or
> criticize, just characterize it as I understand it.
> Understood from this viewpoint, Yrjo's characterization of THE LEADING EDGE
> OF HISTORICAL CHANGES IN WORK AS IT IS EXPERIENCED IN MANY PLACES, BUT
> CLEARLY IN FINLAND, seems less quixotic. Right or wrong.
>
> After reading all of the messages after work today, I got myself caught
> listening to public radio and then to a
> record. First the radio story, then the record, by way of further
> ruminations.
>
> On the radio program they were talking about the way that many professions
> are bifurcating around ability to
> exploit modern technologies so that, for example, CPA's are dividing into
> two classes: Those who are caught doing
> scut work, and those who have mastery of technologies that allow them to
> work and make bundles more money
> at lower costs. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer ---- in more
> differentiated fashion. You are absolutely correct in pointing out does not
> connect directly to issues of already-and-continuing forms of work and
> issues of scraping together a living John Dos Pasos and John Steinbeck
> style (witness the current state of Detroit). But it DOES exist in many of
> the emerging modes of survival in an ever more unequal world.
>
> By whim, I had to run some errands after ruminating over all this, and I
> picked a Bob Dylan record off my shelf
> to listen to as I drove. Here is the first song I heard. Despite is
> antiquity, it had a kind  of resonance in the context
> of the current discussion. At least something to contemplate and maybe
> argue about. I SO appreciate your writing as you did. Remember, Yrjo is an
> early and continuing member of this list, so no need to refer to him in the
> third person.
>
> Here is the Dylan song lyrics. I found myself amazed that they did not feel
> 50 years old, interpreted in a new context.
> mike
> _____________________
>
>
>
> The times they are a changing
>
>
>
> Come gather 'round people
> Wherever you roam
> And admit that the waters
> Around you have grown
> And accept it that soon
> You'll be drenched to the bone.
> If your time to you
> Is worth savin'
> Then you better start swimmin'
> Or you'll sink like a stone
> For the times they are a-changin'.
>
> Come writers and critics
> Who prophesize with your pen
> And keep your eyes wide
> The chance won't come again
> And don't speak too soon
> For the wheel's still in spin
> And there's no tellin' who
> That it's namin'.
> For the loser now
> Will be later to win
> For the times they are a-changin'.
>
> Come senators, congressmen
> Please heed the call
> Don't stand in the doorway
> Don't block up the hall
> For he that gets hurt
> Will be he who has stalled
> There's a battle outside ragin'.
> It'll soon shake your windows
> And rattle your walls
> For the times they are a-changin'.
>
> Come mothers and fathers
> Throughout the land
> And don't criticize
> What you can't understand
> Your sons and your daughters
> Are beyond your command
> Your old road is
> Rapidly agin'.
> Please get out of the new one
> If you can't lend your hand
> For the times they are a-changin'.
>
> The line it is drawn
> The curse it is cast
> The slow one now
> Will later be fast
> As the present now
> Will later be past
> The order is
> Rapidly fadin'.
> And the first one now
> Will later be last
> For the times they are a-changin'.
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