I can still capture my sense of shame as I watched one of the first CND marches as they came along Chiswick Hight Street, I had not joined in something worthy and honourable. What a long road public protests have been on since then. All down history when the populace rise up against the establishment and the imposition of their will, the populace comes in for harsh treatments. A cause always has to offer a martyr or two before the establishment begins to yield. Nowadays the rebels are not swathed down, or hung on gibbets but are still subjected to draconian measures in every effort to shut them up and hope they will slink away. But now it is all played out in the media spotlight and the steel fist has to be concealed from public view with weasel words that disguise the background manoeuvres and keep public sympathy from aligning with the rebel cause.
The resolute and ruthless breaking of the miners strike bought us close to civil war, spared only by the a public demonising of Arthur Scargill that never quite left that image behind to swing around him in support. Since then the establishment tactics have drawn back a tad but still have the single focus of suppressing all public demonstrations not in support of establishment worthies. What an uneven battle it is. The establishment have the fire power, the resources, manpower and technology in excess on their side and they get to call all the shots of when where and how. A David and Goliath contest of epic proportions, it is a wonder that any public demonstrations ever occur such are the enormities of the obstacles the establishment puts in their path. It has to be pre-prepared, it has to be pre-agreed and the route, destination and marshalling all are to the approval and satisfaction of the establishment. The establishment are in pole position to orchestrate the CCTV coverage, data collection on all participants and being well versed in media manipulation have a huge advantage in tipping any media response to a direction that suits their aims. What chance then for the demonstrators. Neutralised, any spark of ire quenched before ignition, pacified, reduced to a tamed crowd under the control and direction of the very expression of forces they have risen up against. All they have left is quantity, their raw voices having been emasculated.
Thank goodness then for the Dean of St Paul's for allowing the demonstrators to gather on his forecourt, refused access to any other more meaningful location to express their outrage at the financial institutions. Not a protest I agree with, to vague and flabby as to intent and purpose. But all power to them for the public expression of contempt with these mega organisations that are compromising our lives. Not easy to forego home comforts, not easy to jeopardise your future, not easy to stay reasonable and contained, not easy to be stuck in a limbo of wanting to stir discontent but refused any modus for spreading it. The establishment have retained the upper hand and can be seen working away in the background trying to find the silver bullet which will finally win over a public demonising of these protesters into layabouts, benefit dodgers, cheats and part-timers. Once the successful image gets planted then the establishment will have their free-hand to clear up the mess, with the public on board. Damned if they comply with establishment rules and damned if they flout them. They fully deserve all of our support, irrespective of whether you agree or not with their objectives. They are representing our battle to retain a freedom to protest. A freedom we will for sure have a need to use in the near future.
Saturday 29 October 2011
Monday 24 October 2011
Done in Our Name
Safety, and particularly highway safety, is highly emotive so beware anyone who steps up to rock that cradle. The core issues are clear beyond dispute. The closing speeds of vehicles on opposite direction carriageways are at their most extreme. Accidents can occur where vehicles end up crossing into the opposite carriageway, so these carriageways must to be separated. When these cross-overs happen the resulting carnage is horrific with inevitable loss of life. I do not underestimate the mental and physical distress on all those involved in cutting people out as a result of such an accident, trying to save lives and then having to break the news of a life lost so suddenly. There were three well established carriageway separators, tension cable or moulded sheet steel on posts, dense bush planting and now a new mass concrete continuous section about 900mm high.
We as a society do not choose to protect lives at all costs from the risk of death. The car manufacturer makes commercial judgements as to how much of life safety features are introduced into a car as standard. Not what is possible. Simply what is thought might seen as affordable by the customer, you and I, compared to a competitor. Or at best what we might choose as an extra over option and at what price level. Not a lot on the evidence and well, well short of the possible. How much to spend in saving lives is a pragmatic choice made by you and me. When we condone, as in stand by and watch, our youth going out to get plastered beyond their ability to control their life's consequences we have no right to take a high moral stand point. When we condone, as in standby and allow our politicians, to cut back spending on the frail elderly needy, so there are insufficient resources to ensure the basics of life are provided routinely hour in hour out. The essentials of shelter, food, basic daily care and minimal social contact, just the bare essentials, ignoring higher aspirations of improving their quality of life and giving them a meaningful environment to respond to. Then we have given up any right to claim life matters, claim it is our high priority.
So lets keep highway safety in perspective. Emotive yes, but actually lower down the pecking order I suggest than care for the elderly, care for our new born and care for our youth. Keep it real. Highway safety is yet another pragmatic cost choice. We are very aware of the scenes of road carnage as we pass by. The number of incidents are actually quiet small. 400 hundred cross-over events in a year resulting in 40 deaths. Keep it real. How many teenagers die as a result of excess alcohol? We probably dont know any more than we know how many elderly die of neglect or babies from inadequate natal care. These are not huge numbers considering the number of daily road journeys made. It is called risk management, something we are not used to thinking about but really do need to get a grip on. The level of risk is low and therefore tolerable compared to costs and consequence of trying to significantly improve on these figures when our journey qualities would have to take a huge nose-dive. Look around and see how much more relaxed our European neighbours can be about their road safety without incurring horrendous road causality figures.
So what has got me all fired up. CSB', concrete safety barrier's. I cannot recall a single political parties manifesto that referred to the need to replace motorway barriers. In these times of extreme austerity when services we hold dear are being cut off, not slashed and reduced, but simply turned off, who was it that got to decide in our name to spend hundreds of millions of pounds replacing these central barriers? Who in our name decided without reference to us, without inviting our opinion, that a replacement scheme was essential and should go ahead without consultation, without advertisement to us the public. Just de-facto. The decision was made and it happened. Who got to weigh up the rival merits of the different options and who made the decision, vetted by what watchdog committees, that concrete was the out and out winner? Such that ripping out the old barriers and replacing them with concrete was a right choice for our nation at this time? The interim advice IAN 60/05 that can be seen here, issued by the Highways Agency gives some insight. It appears to be a classic one-sided rival lobbying argument that has swept the board. All the contra arguments are brushed airily aside as if of little consequence. Only the supporting arguments, in favour of concrete, are given any credence. Note how concrete, one of the worst environmental materials, is given an unquestioning thumbs up, because it is home produced! This is indicative of the level of debate. Very partial and very one sided. So who cares. We all should.
The visual intrusion of these concrete barriers is horrendous. They are scale-less, featureless, will weather appallingly and reduces the drive experience to one of unrelieved visual boredom. Motorway designers had learnt their lesson and put gentle curves back into more economic straight roads just to relieve this visual boredom. At millions of pounds we are now relentlessly undoing that past insight. They cannot be easily replaced, we are now stuck with them for the future. But we should rise up and protest and stop more being laid down. This is not the driving experience any of us will relish, blinkered by the unrelenting featureless barrier that strips away any sense of distance and scale. That destroys any sense of the passing countryside. UKplc will become known as the bad driving experience of Europe. Design and environmental issues do matter and do have to be balanced against other priorities, even that of saving lives.
We as a society do not choose to protect lives at all costs from the risk of death. The car manufacturer makes commercial judgements as to how much of life safety features are introduced into a car as standard. Not what is possible. Simply what is thought might seen as affordable by the customer, you and I, compared to a competitor. Or at best what we might choose as an extra over option and at what price level. Not a lot on the evidence and well, well short of the possible. How much to spend in saving lives is a pragmatic choice made by you and me. When we condone, as in stand by and watch, our youth going out to get plastered beyond their ability to control their life's consequences we have no right to take a high moral stand point. When we condone, as in standby and allow our politicians, to cut back spending on the frail elderly needy, so there are insufficient resources to ensure the basics of life are provided routinely hour in hour out. The essentials of shelter, food, basic daily care and minimal social contact, just the bare essentials, ignoring higher aspirations of improving their quality of life and giving them a meaningful environment to respond to. Then we have given up any right to claim life matters, claim it is our high priority.
So lets keep highway safety in perspective. Emotive yes, but actually lower down the pecking order I suggest than care for the elderly, care for our new born and care for our youth. Keep it real. Highway safety is yet another pragmatic cost choice. We are very aware of the scenes of road carnage as we pass by. The number of incidents are actually quiet small. 400 hundred cross-over events in a year resulting in 40 deaths. Keep it real. How many teenagers die as a result of excess alcohol? We probably dont know any more than we know how many elderly die of neglect or babies from inadequate natal care. These are not huge numbers considering the number of daily road journeys made. It is called risk management, something we are not used to thinking about but really do need to get a grip on. The level of risk is low and therefore tolerable compared to costs and consequence of trying to significantly improve on these figures when our journey qualities would have to take a huge nose-dive. Look around and see how much more relaxed our European neighbours can be about their road safety without incurring horrendous road causality figures.
So what has got me all fired up. CSB', concrete safety barrier's. I cannot recall a single political parties manifesto that referred to the need to replace motorway barriers. In these times of extreme austerity when services we hold dear are being cut off, not slashed and reduced, but simply turned off, who was it that got to decide in our name to spend hundreds of millions of pounds replacing these central barriers? Who in our name decided without reference to us, without inviting our opinion, that a replacement scheme was essential and should go ahead without consultation, without advertisement to us the public. Just de-facto. The decision was made and it happened. Who got to weigh up the rival merits of the different options and who made the decision, vetted by what watchdog committees, that concrete was the out and out winner? Such that ripping out the old barriers and replacing them with concrete was a right choice for our nation at this time? The interim advice IAN 60/05 that can be seen here, issued by the Highways Agency gives some insight. It appears to be a classic one-sided rival lobbying argument that has swept the board. All the contra arguments are brushed airily aside as if of little consequence. Only the supporting arguments, in favour of concrete, are given any credence. Note how concrete, one of the worst environmental materials, is given an unquestioning thumbs up, because it is home produced! This is indicative of the level of debate. Very partial and very one sided. So who cares. We all should.
The visual intrusion of these concrete barriers is horrendous. They are scale-less, featureless, will weather appallingly and reduces the drive experience to one of unrelieved visual boredom. Motorway designers had learnt their lesson and put gentle curves back into more economic straight roads just to relieve this visual boredom. At millions of pounds we are now relentlessly undoing that past insight. They cannot be easily replaced, we are now stuck with them for the future. But we should rise up and protest and stop more being laid down. This is not the driving experience any of us will relish, blinkered by the unrelenting featureless barrier that strips away any sense of distance and scale. That destroys any sense of the passing countryside. UKplc will become known as the bad driving experience of Europe. Design and environmental issues do matter and do have to be balanced against other priorities, even that of saving lives.
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Public or Private?
With the drive to privatise government quangos the vision has occurred to me of Serco or Centrica taking over the running English Heritage or the National Trust. Why not? I am sure they will run a lean tight organisation and would make pots of money out of it in the process. Far better than pour pots of taxpayers money down the bottomless drain. Government would then be free to concentrate on the important cabbages and king questions. Trouble is, just as with the NHS, when a government takes on accountability for providing a service to its citizens it cannot cherry pick and just do those nice easy profitable parts. The NHS ends up with all the knotty, difficult and inordinately expensive investigations and routines that the private sectors excludes out their policies and walks away from.
It easy to imagine honey spots of our countryside or highly popular stately homes, where the private sector would die to get their hands on them, to cream off some serious profits. That leaves all those scattered equally important but small or unspectacular visit places no one wants to go to, or where there are mountains of restoration to hold back decay or work to make available for visitors. Just those sort of places where profit orientated companies would run a mile from. As far as I know there are no plans to change the status of the National Trust nor English Heritage. My objective in raising this hare is that it exemplifies a breakpoint between functions that serve the nation and those functions which can or should be profit driven. The nations needs are not constrained to only profitable operations. Profit driven companies are not suited to providing needs where profit return cannot be the overriding judgement. For the record I do think its was a catastrophic mistake to sell off water, electricity and telephone. These are vital infrastructures necessary to sustain our nations progress, irrespective of cost or return. The sale of coal and postal services is fully justifiable as they are no longer mainstream to development. Equally ensuring a extensive high speed broadband backbone to cover the country is a crucial investment into our future. If left driven solely by profit, it may not be a fastest enough path nor ensure the widest covered.
We have to care for and invest in our Nation for our own wellbeing but also to give future generations as firm a start footing as we have inherited from the past. Which loops me back to my earlier post, Right to Plunder. We are but custodian of our Nation with a duty and obligation to nurture it and hand it on to future generations in a good viable state. Despite the strong armed bully boys who took whatever spoils they wanted, subjugated us to their will and tithed us on our labours. The Nation is ours, formed out of the sweat and toil of our forebears, cared, loved, protected and died for by succeeding generations. This is our inheritance and the inheritance we offer on to succeeding generations. Time to put our inheritance on a more secure and long term stable basis. No longer subject to the whims and fancies of monarch, or the titled, or those who would claim it and exploit as if it was their own.
Radical yes. For a start let us forgo on freehold. No one can own our Nation. Lease on a use, repair and return basis sure but in the end it returns to all of us. No more crown property, it was stolen from the people and now is the time to return it to the people. We all own the regal trinkets of wealth acquired out of our past endeavours and held as fiscal bounty. Not of course as individuals, not to be squandered but just as custodians. With a duty of care and protection. A duty exercised on all of our behalf's and well beyond the reach of government to mortgage against as cover to their extravagances. A custodianship that encourages us to connect with, participate in and take pride in, our mutual ownership. As in my Right of Plunder, nothing to be taken away unless restoration or compensation paid in full upfront. The land, the sea, the structures placed on it and the rights to run service on or under it, eventually all to return to us to pass on in turn to our successors.
It easy to imagine honey spots of our countryside or highly popular stately homes, where the private sector would die to get their hands on them, to cream off some serious profits. That leaves all those scattered equally important but small or unspectacular visit places no one wants to go to, or where there are mountains of restoration to hold back decay or work to make available for visitors. Just those sort of places where profit orientated companies would run a mile from. As far as I know there are no plans to change the status of the National Trust nor English Heritage. My objective in raising this hare is that it exemplifies a breakpoint between functions that serve the nation and those functions which can or should be profit driven. The nations needs are not constrained to only profitable operations. Profit driven companies are not suited to providing needs where profit return cannot be the overriding judgement. For the record I do think its was a catastrophic mistake to sell off water, electricity and telephone. These are vital infrastructures necessary to sustain our nations progress, irrespective of cost or return. The sale of coal and postal services is fully justifiable as they are no longer mainstream to development. Equally ensuring a extensive high speed broadband backbone to cover the country is a crucial investment into our future. If left driven solely by profit, it may not be a fastest enough path nor ensure the widest covered.
We have to care for and invest in our Nation for our own wellbeing but also to give future generations as firm a start footing as we have inherited from the past. Which loops me back to my earlier post, Right to Plunder. We are but custodian of our Nation with a duty and obligation to nurture it and hand it on to future generations in a good viable state. Despite the strong armed bully boys who took whatever spoils they wanted, subjugated us to their will and tithed us on our labours. The Nation is ours, formed out of the sweat and toil of our forebears, cared, loved, protected and died for by succeeding generations. This is our inheritance and the inheritance we offer on to succeeding generations. Time to put our inheritance on a more secure and long term stable basis. No longer subject to the whims and fancies of monarch, or the titled, or those who would claim it and exploit as if it was their own.
Radical yes. For a start let us forgo on freehold. No one can own our Nation. Lease on a use, repair and return basis sure but in the end it returns to all of us. No more crown property, it was stolen from the people and now is the time to return it to the people. We all own the regal trinkets of wealth acquired out of our past endeavours and held as fiscal bounty. Not of course as individuals, not to be squandered but just as custodians. With a duty of care and protection. A duty exercised on all of our behalf's and well beyond the reach of government to mortgage against as cover to their extravagances. A custodianship that encourages us to connect with, participate in and take pride in, our mutual ownership. As in my Right of Plunder, nothing to be taken away unless restoration or compensation paid in full upfront. The land, the sea, the structures placed on it and the rights to run service on or under it, eventually all to return to us to pass on in turn to our successors.
Saturday 15 October 2011
Baptism of Fire
Just a few months ago we started volunteering with a group helping to improve the local woodlands biodiversity and access. An opportunity to spend time in woodlands, in glorious locations, doing something useful and, as it turned out, amongst a varied group of nice guys. Vaguely knew that clearing scrub and creating opportunities for free foraging cattle opened up the floor flora to wider diversity encouraging a wider fauna to live and breed. Seemed all very simple and straight forward. I knew next to nothing about the whys, where's or hows of what we were doing. Trusted that there was a Master Planner somewhere who looked down and gave approval and that it would turn out right. From the odd discarded comments, picked up the odd gold nugget that revealed more than I knew of this my local habitat.
Then managed to get myself included in this outdoor conference, "the Woodland Edge" for all those wide ranging professionals whose work one way or another impacts on woodlands. So my mind-blowing journey began, opening me up to some of the wide range of issues that confront woodlands, their management, their financing and their future. You will have gathered from my previous post, Caged by Language, that I was uncomfortably thrown into a very touchie feelie world were emotional content was probably more important to the participants than identify and isolating problems so that tentative solutions could be aired. Maybe I got it wrong but that was my impression. But of course it was only the start of my journey. Well everyone has to be on a journey nowadays. I went with the expectation of coming away with some comprehension of the dynamics of woodlands. Why on earth would anyone choose to invest in planting trees, leaving them for the next couple of generations to cut down and make some money out of. Then there was the issue of conservation and special designated areas where trees just could not be cut down to produce income, willynilly. How did they fit into it all. As a backstory perhaps, who was really profiteering from all this free volunteer labour, the community or some other behind the scene's organisation whose motives I may not necessarily endorse.
During the conference a great many issues were aired that explored degrees of these or similar issues. May be the professionals, (the salaried experts in their particular field) were well versed and brought an in depth understanding. It was not clear to me at all, as the discussions ranged across from forests, as I like to think of them, being mono-cultured planted stock, with a planned life and clear-felled for profit all the way across to the opposite side. A SSSI woodland where every decision to keep, enhance or remove has to be fully argued and justified in some balancing act between an existing living ecosystem and an aspiration to get back to some fixed in time aspirational ecosystem. With a whole range of woodlands falling between these extremes displaying more or less of one characteristics or another. So our professionals discussions were able to range across these woodland distinctions without feeling the need to clarify which aspect of woodland mix they had in mind. But then the conference was more about connecting with emotions than with the dross of practical distinctions.
After the conference I tired to share as feedback the confusion I took away with me but felt like a ignorant pariah pissing on the wonderful emotive outpourings. No really the conference mood was invigorating and uplifting it just did not give me answers that was looking for. Then I turn to "ECOS - a review of conservation" it seems as if it is an academic journal publishing researched papers. Then another world again opens up to conservation at a tipping point with government pushing in one direction. Localism with central direction of volunteer effort. In the opposite direction, that of communities, their 'ownership' of landscape feature which are significant in their daily lives and how their energies can be co-opted to help them to see and achieve their aspirations for their landscape. Irrespective of the extended technicalities of land ownership. At the heart of all these issues, is of course the big question. As a citizen of UKplc who actually owns and controls the land we stand on and live our lives within. When a special historic woodland is designated as something special, does it still 'belong' to the Crown Estates who hold the land deeds, the Forest Commission who hold a lease to manage and operate it within the constraints set by 'Government' who have prescribed what can or cannot happen, presumably for the benefit of all us citizens, so we can carry on enjoying and experiencing this designated unique space and habitat. There is a conundrum. Add to that mix profit and tax benefits for anyone who can show title to a piece of land and you have a potent heady brew with deep seated vested interests.. No wonder our professionals are baffled and confused as to who they serve and what the end objective is. There is no way the complexities of the issues they face can be wrapped up into simple 30 second sound bites capable of being understood by the legislators would make the changes. Equally how do we, as citizens of UKplc, relate, respond and make vocal our concerns for the environment we live in, care about and want to leave in good health for future generations? Have a look at Right to Plunder where I sketch out my thoughts on a self-financing way forward.
Then managed to get myself included in this outdoor conference, "the Woodland Edge" for all those wide ranging professionals whose work one way or another impacts on woodlands. So my mind-blowing journey began, opening me up to some of the wide range of issues that confront woodlands, their management, their financing and their future. You will have gathered from my previous post, Caged by Language, that I was uncomfortably thrown into a very touchie feelie world were emotional content was probably more important to the participants than identify and isolating problems so that tentative solutions could be aired. Maybe I got it wrong but that was my impression. But of course it was only the start of my journey. Well everyone has to be on a journey nowadays. I went with the expectation of coming away with some comprehension of the dynamics of woodlands. Why on earth would anyone choose to invest in planting trees, leaving them for the next couple of generations to cut down and make some money out of. Then there was the issue of conservation and special designated areas where trees just could not be cut down to produce income, willynilly. How did they fit into it all. As a backstory perhaps, who was really profiteering from all this free volunteer labour, the community or some other behind the scene's organisation whose motives I may not necessarily endorse.
During the conference a great many issues were aired that explored degrees of these or similar issues. May be the professionals, (the salaried experts in their particular field) were well versed and brought an in depth understanding. It was not clear to me at all, as the discussions ranged across from forests, as I like to think of them, being mono-cultured planted stock, with a planned life and clear-felled for profit all the way across to the opposite side. A SSSI woodland where every decision to keep, enhance or remove has to be fully argued and justified in some balancing act between an existing living ecosystem and an aspiration to get back to some fixed in time aspirational ecosystem. With a whole range of woodlands falling between these extremes displaying more or less of one characteristics or another. So our professionals discussions were able to range across these woodland distinctions without feeling the need to clarify which aspect of woodland mix they had in mind. But then the conference was more about connecting with emotions than with the dross of practical distinctions.
After the conference I tired to share as feedback the confusion I took away with me but felt like a ignorant pariah pissing on the wonderful emotive outpourings. No really the conference mood was invigorating and uplifting it just did not give me answers that was looking for. Then I turn to "ECOS - a review of conservation" it seems as if it is an academic journal publishing researched papers. Then another world again opens up to conservation at a tipping point with government pushing in one direction. Localism with central direction of volunteer effort. In the opposite direction, that of communities, their 'ownership' of landscape feature which are significant in their daily lives and how their energies can be co-opted to help them to see and achieve their aspirations for their landscape. Irrespective of the extended technicalities of land ownership. At the heart of all these issues, is of course the big question. As a citizen of UKplc who actually owns and controls the land we stand on and live our lives within. When a special historic woodland is designated as something special, does it still 'belong' to the Crown Estates who hold the land deeds, the Forest Commission who hold a lease to manage and operate it within the constraints set by 'Government' who have prescribed what can or cannot happen, presumably for the benefit of all us citizens, so we can carry on enjoying and experiencing this designated unique space and habitat. There is a conundrum. Add to that mix profit and tax benefits for anyone who can show title to a piece of land and you have a potent heady brew with deep seated vested interests.. No wonder our professionals are baffled and confused as to who they serve and what the end objective is. There is no way the complexities of the issues they face can be wrapped up into simple 30 second sound bites capable of being understood by the legislators would make the changes. Equally how do we, as citizens of UKplc, relate, respond and make vocal our concerns for the environment we live in, care about and want to leave in good health for future generations? Have a look at Right to Plunder where I sketch out my thoughts on a self-financing way forward.
Monday 10 October 2011
Caged by language
A recent conference I was lucky to attend reminded me very eloquently that the expression of our emotions, for one, are constrained by our language. A telling example was given that the Romans imposed a controlling and contained language on us where our use of 'Nature', even when softened to Mother Nature, is a one stage removed abstract. Compare that to a pre-roman direct connection to 'Mother', being the earth and surroundings that support and nurture us. A very direct positive and emotive connection to the land that sustains us. Tosh? Not when you explore your reactions to your environment and understand that the words available to you to explore your inner feelings are remote, detached, non-connected. Other languages do have a much more positive connection, you to your tribe, your ancestors and to those you depend on.
Not that I had that insight prior to the conference but I was stumbling around becoming aware we are both constrained and liberated by our language strictures. For some things we have wide variety of terms to draw on yet in some other areas there are no words or phrase which can quite offer a true summation of the inner thoughts processes. The wealth of English words is vastly enriched by all the nuances of association or social propriety that by phrasing or posture or altered tone it can be imbued with. Whilst we do enjoy a rich language we must do not lose sight that it is also limiting. Our obligation to each other must be to strive for clarity of expression, to get as close to our inner thoughts as possible. The fudge, the double speak actually spread confusion, not the harmony claimed (see also It is not important).
The other aspect of this very rewarding conference, Woodland Edge, was how, for me, it was disconcertingly touchie and feelie. I believe I have no trouble getting in touch with my emotions. My discipline depends on a continual examination and introspection of emotive responses to every conceivable environmental circumstance. How to respond to colour, texture, light, space, ownership, as non-exclusive examples. Every creative response requiring this internalised autopsy. This then is where I take some issue to the touchie feelie brigade. Though a maelstrom of connectedness and a feeling of oneness is cathartic, though it builds bridges which can become pathways for future problem solving what it does not do is to identify all those friction points where conflicts of objective or intention can become stuck. I have been schooled to objectify my internalised emotional responses. What is it that generated such a response and how might it be changed to heighten or diffuse that response. So touchie feelies also need to progress beyond the exhilaration of feeling and explore those areas, not of agreement, but of divergence. Bottoming out on where they differ, not so feel good, but actually more important as this will reveal insight into future possible problems.
All the time we must not lose sight of the limitations of our language and just as importantly the constraints of our particular discipline's thought processes and the jargon with which they are expressed. The more I see the more I realise that we humans are more or less on the same wavelength. In the end it is the just words and phrases used that seem to pose threatening discord. Strip back the words to more neutral expressions and we are actually expressing similar thoughts just but couched differently. That is all there is in the supposed conflict. Language. Remember every time you start a sentence it sets off a wave of limits and expectations to be followed. Start the same idea but with a different sentence lead in and you will end up communicating some thing slightly different, with a shifted emphasis. We are caged by our language but it is all we have to express all of ourselves with. It is essential to talk, to talk clearly and talk precisely.
Not that I had that insight prior to the conference but I was stumbling around becoming aware we are both constrained and liberated by our language strictures. For some things we have wide variety of terms to draw on yet in some other areas there are no words or phrase which can quite offer a true summation of the inner thoughts processes. The wealth of English words is vastly enriched by all the nuances of association or social propriety that by phrasing or posture or altered tone it can be imbued with. Whilst we do enjoy a rich language we must do not lose sight that it is also limiting. Our obligation to each other must be to strive for clarity of expression, to get as close to our inner thoughts as possible. The fudge, the double speak actually spread confusion, not the harmony claimed (see also It is not important).
The other aspect of this very rewarding conference, Woodland Edge, was how, for me, it was disconcertingly touchie and feelie. I believe I have no trouble getting in touch with my emotions. My discipline depends on a continual examination and introspection of emotive responses to every conceivable environmental circumstance. How to respond to colour, texture, light, space, ownership, as non-exclusive examples. Every creative response requiring this internalised autopsy. This then is where I take some issue to the touchie feelie brigade. Though a maelstrom of connectedness and a feeling of oneness is cathartic, though it builds bridges which can become pathways for future problem solving what it does not do is to identify all those friction points where conflicts of objective or intention can become stuck. I have been schooled to objectify my internalised emotional responses. What is it that generated such a response and how might it be changed to heighten or diffuse that response. So touchie feelies also need to progress beyond the exhilaration of feeling and explore those areas, not of agreement, but of divergence. Bottoming out on where they differ, not so feel good, but actually more important as this will reveal insight into future possible problems.
All the time we must not lose sight of the limitations of our language and just as importantly the constraints of our particular discipline's thought processes and the jargon with which they are expressed. The more I see the more I realise that we humans are more or less on the same wavelength. In the end it is the just words and phrases used that seem to pose threatening discord. Strip back the words to more neutral expressions and we are actually expressing similar thoughts just but couched differently. That is all there is in the supposed conflict. Language. Remember every time you start a sentence it sets off a wave of limits and expectations to be followed. Start the same idea but with a different sentence lead in and you will end up communicating some thing slightly different, with a shifted emphasis. We are caged by our language but it is all we have to express all of ourselves with. It is essential to talk, to talk clearly and talk precisely.
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