Transformative Learning for a New Worldview: Learning to Think Differently

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Transformative Learning for a New Worldview

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Transformative Learningfor a New WorldviewLearning to Think Differently

M. G. Jackson

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© M. G. Jackson 2008

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In memory of my wife Pramila

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Contents

List of Figures ix

Preface x

Part I Transformative Learning in ContemporaryGlobal Culture

1 Introduction 3

2 Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion 11Contradictions, incoherence and confusion in the school

classroom 11An alternative approach to environmental education 14Gaia theory and cultural transformation 20Coming to grips with sustainability 25

3 Learning to Think Differently 27An adequate terminology for learning to think differently 28An overview of the process 31Critical elements of the process 33

4 Atoms, People and Other Things 47The enlightenment answers to the perennial questions 48Critique 49

5 The Laws of Nature 62The laws of nature – an overview 63Understanding the concept of law as immanent through

myth 72

6 A Flawed System of Ideas 80Incoherence 81Contradiction 82The origin of the concept of the detached observer 83

7 Alternative Assumptions 87The world as a process 87Everything is radically interconnected with everything else 95Detached participation 99

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viii Contents

8 A Return to the Perennial Questions 102What is real? 103What is the world like? 106A little more about terminology 112

9 Towards a New Cultural Model 116Community 119Science 125An adequate theory of history 135

Part II Transformative Learning in Post-colonialSocieties

10 Transform, Reform, Reaffirm 145The impact of colonialism 146Interpreting the past, visualising the future 149A fresh anchorage 161

Part III Transformative Learning in Practice

11 Secure Their Foundation 165The process of cultural transformation 165Priorities today 174A variety of possible transformative learning exercises 175The facilitator 177Some suggestions for planning and conducting

transformative learning exercises 180Suggestions for each step in the transformative learning

course 183

Appendix 1: Pesticide Use and Human Health 189

Appendix 2: Pests 192

Notes 195

References 200

Index 206

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List of Figures

2.1 Conventional school education aims at transferringconcepts and parcels of information to students.Collaborative learning fosters an interactive process oflearning among teachers, students and communitymembers. New insights, knowledge and techniques arecreated in this process and shared by all. 17

3.1 This diagram shows how a worldview translates intoaccepted ways of doing things, and how failure of theseaccepted ways of doing things feeds back to the stage ofthe worldview, modifying it. 31

3.2 This diagram describes the transformative learningprocess. Alternative practices are devised and tested. Theresults then feed back into the process, confirmingalternative assumptions, or indicating the need for stillfurther thinking. 34

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Preface

The phrase ‘learning to think differently’ is often used today and in avariety of contexts. Its meaning in this essay therefore needs to be clearlystated at the outset. As the title indicates, it is a process in which all ourinherited assumptions about the world and ourselves are questioned,thus clearing the ground, so to speak, for the construction of an altern-ative set of assumptions (or worldview) that is more appropriate for ourtimes. Not only is the substance of our thought (basic assumptions)changed but even the mode of our thinking. The process by which thishappens is termed ‘transformative learning’. This essay is an attemptto 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 Indiadesigning and testing school environmental education (EE ) courses.During this time, I became interested in the problem of the incoherencebeing created in the school curriculum by the introduction of envir-onmental education courses/topics. By incoherence, I mean that thesolutions to environmental problems suggested by these introductionscontradict the message of modernisation and development conveyed bythe rest of the curriculum. These contradictions occur because the firstprinciples assumed by the modernist and the environmentalist perspect-ives are fundamentally different. These two sets of first principles arelogically irreconcilable and thus the contradictions cannot be removed.The textbook writers attempt to reconcile them, but do not succeed andso add confusion to the initial incoherence.

This is only one instance of the incoherence that today pervadescontemporary global culture. Other examples are (1) the Gaia theory inscience in which Gaia, the Earth, is seen by environmentalists and somescientists as a living being, while others concede only that it is verycomplex system; (2) the concept of organising and conducting humanaffairs on a local rather than a global scale; (3) organic farming as againstsynthetic chemical-based farming; and (4) natural and herbal healthcare systems as against allopathic medicine. In all these cases too, basicassumptions about the world and human nature radically different from

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Preface xi

those of mainstream culture are implied. The effect of this incoherencein all aspects of contemporary life is doubt, confusion, contention –and strife. ‘Greenwashing’ is rampant and oxymorons like ‘sustainabledevelopment’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ proliferate.

What are the assumptions underpinning the alternative theories andpractices that are now appearing in contemporary global culture? Forthat matter, what exactly are the assumptions underlying mainstreamthought and action? Why are these latter being challenged on so manyfronts today? How can the alternative assumptions be consolidated intoa logically consistent, coherent and adequate new worldview? These arequestions that must be asked, and answered, if we hope to understandthe transformative process – and to facilitate it.

Increasing numbers of people in all parts of the world, in all areas ofhuman endeavour and in all strata of society, are attempting to answerthese questions. A vigorous global dialogue is underway. As I followedthis dialogue, and also participated in it, I gradually came to the conclu-sion some three or four years ago that none of these questions had yetbeen explored deeply or comprehensively enough. Writing this essayhas been the means by which I have tried to go beyond the limits ofcurrent thinking and dialogue. The essay has now reached a stage whereI think that it might be worthwhile sharing it with other participants inthe dialogue.

The following propositions will be advanced and discussed.

1. The transformation of a society’s worldview is a definite process, bothnecessary and inevitable at certain times in history, which can beunderstood and described. From such an understanding comes thepossibility of participating in the process in ways that facilitate it, andin so doing minimise the disruption and suffering that accompany it.

2. ‘Thinking differently’ about the world and ourselves must occur atthe level of our most fundamental concepts. These concepts are notmatters of fact but speculative assumptions about the nature of theworld and ourselves. They arise from the answers we give to theperennial questions, that is, those questions that every culture inevery age has had to answer. These questions are: (1) what is theworld like; (2) who am I; and (3) what is real?

3. Current assumptions must be identified, described and then rigor-ously critiqued. Only in this way can their inadequacies be revealed.Possible alternative assumptions must be visualised and their implic-ations explored. Alternative assumptions that emerge successfully

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must then be co-ordinated into a logical and coherent system, orworldview, to complete the process.

4. Transformation is impossible unless we can see what is happeningtoday in a broad historical perspective. The proximate perspective isthat of Western civilisation in its entirety. Equally important is thewider perspective of the totality of human history. Taking advantageof these perspectives will require an alternative to the progress theoryof history now assumed in contemporary global culture.

5. Transformation is also impossible unless we realise that the concep-tual resources of Western civilisation are inadequate to the task oftransformation at this time. It will be necessary to look to the world-views of non-European civilisations and European civilisation priorto the 6th century BC for some of the ‘new’ ideas that will be needed.This will lift the dialogue about ‘thinking differently’ from the paro-chial to the truly global.

6. The process of transformation can be facilitated by the pursuit of self-conscious transformative learning exercises. These are most effect-ively carried out by small groups. Learning in this sense is a three-foldtask. The first part is unlearning inherited ways of thinking. Thesecond is visualising new ways that are boldly speculative. Such newways of thinking are tentative and therefore must be tested in prac-tice. This testing is part of the transformative learning process.

7. ‘Thinking differently’ means using alternative concepts to constructa new view of the world, and also an altogether different mode ofthinking.

8. Transformative learning, if it is to be effective, requires a new vocab-ulary. New words are needed to express new concepts. New ways ofusing existing words are also necessary.

While aspects of some of these propositions have been touched uponby various writers already, none of them, in my opinion, has received thesustained and critical treatment that is necessary. Nor have these variouspropositions appeared together in a coherent, systematic exposition.

The general plan of this essay may now be indicated. Chapters 1 and 2introduce the subject of cultural transformation. In Chapter 1, an histor-ical perspective is suggested to make what is happening today intelli-gible. Chapter 2 describes the contradictions, incoherence and confusionthat mark the early stages of the process as entirely new ways of thinkingand doing appear in place of inherited ways that are increasingly seento be irrelevant, and indeed counterproductive. Chapter 3 describes, ingeneral terms, the transformative learning process underlying cultural

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transformation, and Chapters 4–9 illustrate the successive stages in thisprocess. In all these chapters, 1–9, the focus is on the worldview ofcontemporary Western culture, a worldview that is rapidly colonisingthe entire globe and which is therefore of primary concern to everyone,everywhere.

In Chapter 10, attention is focused on the post-colonial societies ofthe South and the remnants of indigenous peoples in the West/North.The contemporary process of cultural change is more complex in thesesocieties and thus more challenging. Transformative learning exercisesin these societies must also take into account learners’ own traditionalcultural models. In doing this, they can finally come to terms with theexperience of being colonised. At the same time, these societies canmake a vital contribution to the larger global process by enlarging thepool of alternative concepts available to it.

Finally, in Chapter 11, I describe the practical aspects of fosteringtransformative learning, offering concrete suggestions for planning andconducting courses/workshops.

The most important writings shaping my general approach to thissubject are first of all Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1929)and Adventures of Ideas (1933). I am indebted to Donald Sherburne’sA Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1966) for helping me to under-stand Whitehead’s ideas. Two others are Stephen Stirling’s SustainableEducation: Revisioning Learning and Change (2001) and Edward Gold-smith’s Archaic Societies and Cosmic Order – A Summary (2000). AlbertHoward’s An Agricultural Testament (1940) and Masanobu Fukuoka’s TheOne Straw Revolution (1994) were decisive in helping me along in myown personal transformative learning experience. Heila Lotz-Sisitka, andcontributors to the Southern African Journal of Environmental Educationwhich she edits, made me realise that my own experience is similar tothat of environmental educators in other post-colonial societies. LuiginaMortari’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 thinkdifferently’. My conclusions, however, are different from hers. Finally,I acknowledge my debt to the expositions of Vedic culture by RaimundoPanikkar (The Vedic Experience: Mantramanjari, 2001), G. C. Pande (Found-ations of Indian Culture, 1990) and Jeanine Miller (The Vision of CosmicOrder in the Vedas, 1985).

As I said, my work with the UEEC provided me a point of entry intothe current global debate on incoherence. I am grateful to my colleaguesin 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 ofour collective experience.

To Lalit I owe a special debt of gratitude for the sustained, in-depthdialogue we held over many years on all aspects of the subject of trans-formative learning. He also read various drafts of the book and gave mevaluable feedback.

Other colleagues also readily shared their experience, ideas and opin-ions with me and thus have significantly contributed to the making ofthis book: Kishen Singh Suyal, G. P. Pande, Anuradha Pande, DiwanNagarkoti, Suman Pande, Champa Joshi, Rama Joshi and Manju Negi.I thank them all.

I hasten to add, however, that I take full personal responsibility forall I have written in this book.

Suman read an early draft of this book and suggested numerousimprovements. She also formatted the manuscript and made Figures 3.1and 3.2. I am grateful to her.

I also thank Claude Alvares and Edmund O’Sullivan who read draftsof 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 tounderstand the difficulty of teachers and others in understanding therationale for our EE courses and led to our experimentation with explicitTL learning exercises. She also introduced us to the literature on thissubject. These inputs greatly helped us to improve the quality of ourwork, 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 onepoint, given up on it. Anupama Nayar helped me complete this workin many small but vital ways. My son Kirti provided vital support, bothmaterial and moral, in the writing of the book. I am grateful to all ofthem.

Finally, I wish to thank Jill Lake, Melanie Blair, Vidya Vijayan, PhillipaGrand and Hazel Woodbridge at Palgrave for encouragement, patienceand suggestions in finalising the manuscript and for the production ofthe finished book.

I have made extended use of material published by me earlier in thefollowing two papers: From Practice to Policy in Environmental Education,Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, 20, pp. 97–110and Environmental Education in India: What Has Been Achieved?, IndianEducational Review, 37 (1), pp. 20–36. The editors of these journals,Heila Lotz-Sisitka and C. S. Nagraju, respectively, have kindly given metheir 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 and2003). Motilal Banarsidas, Publishers, Delhi, have given me permissionto 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 inContemporary Global Culture


1Introduction

[M]odern scholarship and modern science reproduce the samelimitations as dominated the bygone Hellenistic epoch, andthe bygone Scholastic epoch. They canalize thought and obser-vation within predetermined limits, based upon inadequatemetaphysical assumptions dogmatically assumed.

(Whitehead, 1933, p. 122)

In the past half century there has been a tremendous increase in theproduction and consumption of goods and services worldwide. All alongit has been assumed that this would improve the well-being of all peopleeverywhere in the world. In the first decade of the 21st century, thereare good reasons to question this assumption. There is now more foodproduced but no reduction in the extent of malnutrition from lack offood. Some old diseases have been controlled, but many have not, andsome of those that were controlled are again on the increase. Yet otherdiseases are on the increase from excessive food consumption. Equallydisconcerting are the host of new and mostly unexpected problems thatincreased production and consumption have created – environmentaldegradation, social disintegration, increasing economic disparities, lossof cultural diversity and escalating conflicts over access to dwindlingnatural resources. All the frantic efforts to ameliorate these problems –more education, scholarly studies, scientific research and aid – do notseem to be having very much effect.

At the same time, increasing numbers of people the world over, and inall social and economic strata of society, are protesting the injustice andexploitation which seem to be an inevitable feature of the Western (nowincreasingly global) cultural model. They also point out that this modelis unsustainable as well. All these people are at least tacitly questioning

3


4 Transformative Learning in Contemporary Global Culture

the assumptions upon which this model is built. Many radical changesin mainstream ways of thinking and doing are being proposed – changesthat imply alternative assumptions. So far, however, these alternativesdo not appear to have a coherent rationale, and so lack the power tobring about actual changes on the ground. Between those who ques-tion the existing cultural model and propose alternatives and those whomaintain that there is nothing wrong, or who are busying themselvesattempting to fine-tune the existing model, there is no real communic-ation; they are on different wavelengths.

Meanwhile, virtually everyone is inwardly apprehensive about thefuture. It is understood that the model of contemporary global cultureis unsustainable – the logic is undeniable and the evidence compelling –but there is a feeling of powerlessness to do anything about it. There isinsufficient clarity about what must be done and how. And, of course,there is the all-too human unwillingness to jeopardise the security ofthe status quo, however unsatisfactory and precarious.

How is this vast and complex phenomenon to be understood? Is thereany single viewpoint that can capture all its varied aspects and revealtheir interconnections and significance? Only from such a viewpoint,it seems to me, is there any hope of coping with it. This is the mostimportant question we can ask ourselves today.

The 20th-century philosopher A. N. Whitehead in his book Adven-tures of Ideas (1933) has pointed out that such crises have been a recur-ring feature of Western civilisation. A crisis situation builds up becausethe concepts of the worldview of a given cultural era become increas-ingly inadequate in helping people make sense of the new phenomenathat changing circumstances bring before them. People are increasinglyunable to solve, or, in many cases, even to recognise, the problems thatemerge. Unsolved problems accumulate. The ‘changing circumstances’are often brought about in the first place by the continued use of theconcepts 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. Witha different set of assumptions – if we do a proper job of formulating andassembling them – existing problems may disappear altogether simplybecause they are no longer seen as problems, or because it becomespossible to define them in ways that make them solvable.

These two insights offer us the viewpoint needed to understand ourpresent situation ‘in a single glance’, as it were, and indicate where abeginning 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 thatwe may be able to describe, and even to facilitate. The current tumult isthe first, and essential, phase of a transformation of our worldview. It isthe womb of a new cultural model.

In the broad sweep of European intellectual history, Whiteheaddiscerned an alternation between periods of speculation and scholar-ship. At times, new directions of thought seem to arise spontaneouslyin response to a growing perception of the inadequacy and irrelevanceof existing patterns of thought in dealing with contemporary experi-ence. Radical new ideas appear that are unsettling to existing scienceand scholarship, giving rise to much controversy and confusion.

Scholarship, by its strict attention to accepted methodologies, issuperficially conservative of belief. But its tone of mind leans towardsa fundamental negation. For scholars the reasonable topics in theworld are penned in isolated regions, this subject-matter or thatsubject matter. Your thorough-going scholar resents the airy specu-lation which connects his own patch of knowledge with that of hisneighbour. He finds his fundamental concepts interpreted, twisted,modified. He has ceased to be king of his own castle, by reason ofspeculation of uncomfortable generality, violating the very grammarof his thoughts.


However, the new speculative insights are eventually accepted,developed and consolidated. A new period of scholarship ensues. Thenew insights are ‘ � � � furnished with methodologies and handed over tothe university professors � � � ’ (Whitehead, 1933, pp. 108–9).

The first period of such speculation in recorded European historyoccurred in Greece in the 4th and 5th centuries BC. Ancient Greekculture is usually considered to have extended over a period of about amillennium from about 800 BC to AD 200. Bertrand Russell reckons thefirst notable products of Hellenic culture were the Homeric epic poemsand that philosophy began with Thales around the beginning of the 6thcentury BC (Russell, 1946, Book I, Chapter 1). ‘The beginning of philo-sophy’ signals the beginning of a movement from a mythical mode ofengagement with the world to a speculative, rational mode. This processintensified during the 5th century and culminated in the 4th century inthe works of Plato and Aristotle. Then followed a period in which thespeculative insights of the 4th century were explored and developed,giving rise to distinct philosophical schools and to systematic, rational



enquiry. This period roughly began with the conquest of Greece by theMacedonians and continued to the death of Cleopatra. In his analysis,Whitehead uses the terms Hellenic as a shorthand expression to refer tothe 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 Scholasti-cism. The speculative insights of the Hellenic period, as fleshed out andsystematised during the Hellenistic period, along with some Christiantheological doctrines, formed the worldview of this age. It was an age ofdidactic scholarship, traditional in outlook, resisting change and intol-erant of speculation.

A new age of speculation occurred, this time in Western Europe, inthe 17th century, again leading to a profound change in the world-view of European civilisation. This new wave of speculation, termed theEnlightenment, questioned and discarded most of the doctrines of theScholastic era, and the very assumptions underlying them, replacingthem with assumptions that form the conceptual framework or world-view of contemporary global culture, or more briefly, ‘modern’ culture.

The details of what changes occurred during these two past episodesof speculation will be dealt with more appropriately in later chapters.The point to be made here is that there have been speculative intervalsin the course of European history when radical changes in worldviewoccurred, and that another such interval is now underway.

In the quotation at the head of this chapter, Whitehead also implicitlyframes an agenda for any serious enquiry into this phenomenon oftransformation. He asks, in effect, the following questions.

1. What are the assumptions that are being dogmatically upheld?2. Why are they being dogmatically upheld?3. Why are they inadequate?4. 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 thesequestions.

At this point, it might, however, be useful to make a preliminarycomment on the first of these questions. Whitehead was one of themost penetrating thinkers of the 20th century. He was the first to under-stand 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 toit. He realised that ‘ � � � the notion of vacuous material existence withpassive endurance, with primary individual attributes, and with acci-dental adventures had � � � vanished from the field of ultimate scientificconceptions � � � . Some features of the physical world can be expressedthat way. But the concept is useless as an ultimate notion in science andcosmology’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 309). Further,

Cartesian subjectivism in its application to physical science becameNewton’s assumption of individually existent physical bodies, withmerely external relationships. [I] diverge from Descartes by holdingthat what he has described as primary attributes of physical bodiesare really the forms of internal relationships between actual occasionsand within actual occasions. Such a change of thought is the shiftfrom materialism to organism, as the basic idea of physical science.


As a footnote to the above quote, it may be added that his term ‘actualoccasions’ refers to his radically alternative assumption that the ultimatesole real entities of the world are not physical things at all, but units ofprocess, or ‘drops of experience’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 18).

This shift from materialism to organism of which Whitehead speaksindicates the nature of the fundamental assumptions that must beconfronted today. Virtually, all present discussion, from this point ofview, is superficial. We speak of transformation, but in fact leave themost fundamental of contemporary assumptions unexamined.

This shift to a concept of organism is, to my mind, indispensable tothe effective transformation of the worldview of contemporary globalculture. Indeed, it is the very direction in which new currents of thoughtare 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 assump-tions. As Whitehead says, it boils down to whether we ‘see’ primaryattributes of individual entities or relations between and within entities.

Another introductory comment on Whitehead’s agenda may also behelpful at the beginning of this essay. His insight of an alternation ofperiods of speculation and scholarship seems to me to imply a latentchallenge to the prevailing progress theory of history.

In Adventures of Ideas he writes, ‘One aspect of the adventure of ideasis this story of the interplay of speculation and scholarship, a strifesustained through the ages of progress’ (Whitehead, 1933, p. 113). Again:



‘The difference between the two, namely the Hellenic and the Hellenistictypes of mentality, may be roughly described as that between specula-tion and scholarship. For progress both are necessary’ (Whitehead, 1933,p. 112). He thus makes it clear that he interprets the overall course ofWestern history as progressive, even if punctuated by repeated episodesof speculation. In this, he conforms to the modern notion of progress.This is one instance in his writings where he does not think a funda-mental assumption of contemporary global culture needs questioning.1

In this essay, I will argue that this assumption most certainly does needto be questioned.

The concept of progress which dominates our cultural era firstappeared at the time of the European Enlightenment. It derived fromthe conviction that the workings of the universe could be completelyand finally known through the systematic exercise of human reason.The success of the scientific enterprise launched at that time seemed tojustify this assumption. Nature could be understood and made to servehuman needs, leading to ever-greater levels of human material welfare.This assumption was then extended to the social domain; it would nowbe possible to perfect human nature and society by means of rationalthought based upon contemporary observation. From this point of view,medieval European culture was seen as a dark age of human ignor-ance and superstition to be wiped out by the ‘light of reason’. In thefuture, European civilisation would continuously and inevitably movein the direction of the universal goal of securing true and final humanhappiness.

This concept provided a new organising conceptual framework forinterpreting history. In terms of this framework, Europeans saw them-selves and their new-found cultural model as the culmination of a long,slow movement of human civilisation towards the discovery of thesure means of perfectibility. All previous European cultures are seenas stages in this progression from primitive beginnings to their ownenlightened state. Non-European cultures are then accommodated inthis same time sequence; they become what Shiv Viswanathan terms‘contemporary ancestors’ (Viswanathan, 1988). Since progress is seenas a universal phenomenon, all contemporary ancestors will inevitablybecome enlightened, and so pass into the cultural stage of contemporaryEuropean (now Western) culture.

From this theory of history, the further notion arose that it is the moralduty of the West to assist non-Western cultures to become ‘modern’as rapidly as possible. In practice, of course, this notion of helpingpeople ‘for their own good’ was profoundly self-serving since it was


Introduction 9

used to justify Western economic exploitation that was the objective ofcolonialism in the past and development and globalisation today.

The progress theory of history is now being questioned (e.g. by Gold-smith, 2003; Jackson, 2005; Sachs, 1999; and Viswanathan, 1988). Thereare two main lines of this questioning. One is to ask, what does theterm progress really mean? It implies linear change. The question is,change in what, and in what direction? There is steadily increasing disil-lusionment about the answers given to these questions by the Enlight-enment thinkers; our collective experience of the 20th century helpsus to see their naivety and fuzzy mindedness. A second line of ques-tioning is to ask why, if modern global civilisation represents progress,we are in such a mess. Contemplating the present state of the world, ZacGoldsmith concludes that progress, as epitomised by the contemporaryglobal economic system, ‘ � � � is unrealistic, undesirable, unnecessary andimpossible’ (Goldsmith, 2003).

Even when attention is confined to European culture, it is difficult tosustain the argument that the enlightenment worldview and the cultureit has given rise to is an unqualified improvement over what went before.True, many of the problems of mediaeval European culture have beensolved, but many new ones, no less serious, are appearing in contem-porary 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 indifferent directions (refer again to note 1).

Looking to the stage of world history, it is obvious that the Europeancultural model has been imposed on the rest of the world by force andhas 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 (Gold-smith, 2001).

Another arresting piece of evidence against the progress theory ofhistory, which will figure in Chapter 5, is that a key concept, that of‘radical interconnectedness’, now appearing in the dialogue on culturaltransformation was a central feature of ancient Greek culture but wasdiscarded subsequently. If that was ‘progress’, what is it we are nowseeing?

Thus, while progress in the sense of the elaboration and refinementof concepts and practices within a cultural era is a fact, to apply theconcept across cultural eras is questionable.2 If the progress theory ofhistory is doubted, another way must be found to explain the periodicirruption of speculation. The way suggested in this essay is to see such



episodes of speculation as the means whereby a human communityperiodically adjusts its outlook, redefines itself, in response to chan-ging 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 itsflorescence; in its decay a burden and obstruction (O’Sullivan, 2002).

This alternative theory of history could give us a much-needed newperspective on our own situation at the beginning of the 21st century, abreath of fresh air that can help clear away the fog of confusion, denialand fear that has settled upon us.

Further, setting aside the progress theory of history would free usfrom the sense of the inevitability of the contemporary global culturalmodel, giving us space to contemplate the possibility of an alternativeand perhaps more flexible model for the future, and to experiment.


2Contradictions, Incoherence andConfusion

The panorama of cultural transformation is far too vast and detailed todescribe comprehensively. The best that can be done, I think, is to focuson a few specific instances where transformation is beginning to occur,where new ways of thinking are beginning to find expression – in thehope 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 (theGaia theory). Other instances could equally have been used, but I ammore familiar with these. Central to these new ways of thinking is theconcept of sustainability. This is an ambiguous concept at present, andtherefore an effort must be made to come to grips with it. This will alsobe attempted in this chapter.

Contradictions, incoherence and confusion in the schoolclassroom

Nowhere perhaps are the contradictions in contemporary global culturemore starkly exhibited than in the school classroom. The followingexample is taken from the Indian experience of introducing EE in theschool curriculum.

Since independence, India has followed a policy of rapid industrial-isation and the chemicalisation of agriculture (chemical fertilisers andpesticides, high grain-yielding varieties of crops and expanded irriga-tion). Pesticides have been used extensively to fight community diseaseslike malaria. To support these modern technical enterprises, a strongWestern scientific orientation has been given to school education.Contemporary Western science is depicted in school textbooks as havingfound the truth about the way the universe works, or at least is capable

11



of finding the truth. The application of these scientific truths in the formof current technology is therefore considered the only way to modern-isation and development. It is taken for granted that such developmentwill give greater material comfort and security to all people and is whollybeneficial and benign.

However, it has become painfully evident that this very technologyis causing environmental problems – resource degradation and exhaus-tion, pollution, ill health and a host of social consequences of these.The first concerted and systematic effort to address this problem wasundertaken in 1988. This took the form of an ad hoc ‘infusion’ ofenvironmental concerns – that is, descriptions of environmental prob-lems and suggested solutions – into existing textbooks, primarily thoseof the physical sciences, in the form of separate, added-on sectionsand chapters (National Council of Educational Research and Training[NCERT], 1988). A whole range of environmental concerns was thusintroduced into the Council’s model textbooks published between 1987and 1989 (NCERT, 1989a–d). In this approach to EE the lead of theinternational community, as formulated at the 1972 Stockholm Confer-ence and the 1977 Tbilisi Inter-Government Conference, was followed(NCERT, 1995). It remains the official strategy to date with infusionprojects being taken up by state departments of education; a recentinstance has been the World Bank-financed programme in nine statesin the year 2002.

A critical analysis of the infused textbooks reveals that many state-ments in the infused environmental subject matter contradict thenotions of modernisation and development that feature prominentlyin the rest of the textbook. Such contradictions are not superficial;indeed, the assumptions on which solutions to environmental problemsare constructed are clearly different than those of present-day science.The overall curriculum, therefore, no longer ‘hangs together’; it is inco-herent. Textbook writers themselves appear at times to be aware ofthis problem, but their attempts to correct it are unsuccessful, creatingconfusion to compound the initial incoherence.

Pesticide use in agriculture and in public health programmes is oneof the subjects that is creating incoherence and confusion in the schoolcurriculum.1 The following narration is based upon a selection of state-ments from the NCERT textbooks of environmental science, science andbiology (see Appendix 1).

The 5th-grade textbook presents a stark contradiction: the student istold that pesticides are a serious threat to people’s health, and also thathe/she should spray DDT regularly in his/her house to kill mosquitoes.


Contradictions, Incoherence and Confusion 13

An ineffectual attempt is made to remove this contradiction by sayingthat we must learn to use science and technology with great care andunderstanding. The statement ‘take care that it is not sprayed in excess’is presumably intended as an example of using science and techno-logy with great care and understanding. It implies that ‘large’ doses areharmful while ‘small’ doses are not, but does not define either of theseterms. Thus, far from clearing up the basic contradiction, this treatmentonly adds confusion.

The message that pesticides are harmful to human health is statedmore explicitly in the 8th-grade textbook, and in the 9th-grade text-book, their indispensability to food production is stated as a matterof fact. Further, in the 12th-grade textbook, it is explained that evensmall repeated doses of DDT are accumulated in the human body, thusmaking the earlier solution proposed – spray regularly, though not in‘excess’ – completely untenable. Finally, in the 12th-grade textbook amore determined attempt is made to remove the initial contradictionby describing integrated pest management (IPM), but this is really onlyan elaboration of the earlier advice to ‘ � � � use science and technologywith great care and understanding’, and similarly fails because even IPMadvocates the spraying of pesticides.

In the last analysis, the student is made aware of the environmentalproblem of pesticide use but is offered no solution to it, except for thevague hope held out in the 9th-grade textbook that scientists mightinvent pesticides that kill only insects and are biodegradable. This senti-ment is consistent with the often-expressed view in the textbooks thatenvironmental problems created by current technologies can be solvedby the development of improved technologies.

A real solution does, however, begin to suggest itself in the 12th-gradetextbook: the discontinuance of pesticide use altogether. Students aretold convincingly that pesticide use is counterproductive and that it ispossible to farm organically without the use of any pesticides. If thiswere done, the problem of pesticide toxicity to animals and humanbeings would disappear. The textbook authors do not, however, expli-citly say this; to do so would flatly contradict the ‘green revolution’farming paradigm that figures so prominently in the rest of the text-book. Instead they waffle: they extol traditional farming and organicfarming which do not use pesticides. The authors also admit that ‘Scient-ists are realising that “traditional” does not mean “backward” andthat � � � [scientists] have much to learn from farmers’. The authors do notsay that traditional farming and organic farming are intelligible onlyfrom the viewpoint of a distinctly different set of scientific assumptions



than those on which ‘green revolution’ farming is based. What thosedifferent scientific assumptions are is not explained. In attempting toavoid contradicting themselves, textbook authors are passing on tochildren their own confusion and irresolution.

The textbook authors’ confusion and irresolution are, of course, sharedby everyone. It pervades all areas of practice and policy in contemporaryglobal culture and seemingly cannot be removed except perhaps bychanging existing cultural assumptions.

The positive aspect of this story is that the textbook writers are willingto reassess traditional Indian culture, and the worldview of which it isan expression.2 In doing this, they are creating still more confusion atpresent. However, it is a tacit acknowledgment that alternative scientificassumptions 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, theDepartment of Education of the Government of India also announced(in 1987) a scheme ‘Environmental orientation to school education’ toprovide financial support for innovative work in the field of EE, thusrecognising that additional thinking and experiment are necessary tofuture policy formulation. Under this scheme, the Uttarakhand Envir-onmental Education Centre (UEEC) in Almora (in Uttarakhand State)designed and tested a 3-year course of EE as a separate subject in thecurriculum for grades six to eight in state government schools (Box 2.1).The state government Department of Education collaborated in thisexperiment. The course was designed (Box 2.2) on the premise that theexisting treatment of environmental problems in the curriculum wastoo diffuse to be effective; it was unable to focus on local problems in aholistic manner. Further, while the ‘infused’ textbooks improve aware-ness of environmental problems, they do not provide the conceptualtools or practical skills that are needed to solve them.

Box 2.1. Hamari Dharti, Hamara Jivan (Our Land, OurLife): A school course of environmental education

As elsewhere in India, the most pressing rural environmentalproblem in the mountainous region of Uttarakhand is land degrad-ation, that is, the thinning of forest cover, soil erosion and



the drying up of natural water sources. The production of life-supporting materials like food, fodder, fuelwood is decreasing, andwater scarcity is increasing due to inadequate groundwater recharge.And at the same time, human population is increasing. The generalimpact of modernisation, including school education, has alienatedyoung people from the land; they all want well-paid jobs in the cityand an urban, westernised lifestyle. Very few, however, can achievethis, and large numbers of educated young people remain in thevillage with no vision of a better life for themselves on the land, andnone of the skills that are needed to achieve such a vision.

In 1987, the UEEC, Almora, launched an EE course in govern-ment schools of the region to address these problems. Thecourse deals with land and village forest rehabilitation andthe importance of the community to achieve these. Studentssystematically study their local village ecosystem, learn tradi-tional land, water and animal management techniques fromvillage residents (that is, their own parents and neighbours –who are thus given legitimacy as teachers), and learn to interpretall this information within a framework of current ecologicalconcepts (that is, ecosystem, species diversity and adaptation,ecosystem health, ecosystem constraints and carrying capacity;and also the idea that the community is an integral partof the village ecosystem). They also learn village land andwater use planning through participatory, democratic communityeffort. Overall, an attempt is being made to foster the altern-ative view of a future of the village in which dignity, envir-onmental security, increased livelihood security and improvedlevels of well-being can be achieved through local self-helpeffort. The guiding concept is not ‘development’, but ecosystemhealth. Students learn to diagnose it, and how to improve andmaintain it.

Between 1987 and 2002, the course was developed and testedin about 600 schools, involving some 1000 teachers and 70,000students in grades 6, 7 and 8 (age approximately 12–14 years).From July 2002, it has been integrated into the general schoolcurriculum by the Uttarakhand State Department of Education.Also from July 2002, the course was extended to the plains regionof the state necessitating a separate edition of the course work-books and a separate teacher orientation workshop module. Pande(2001), Pande (2004) have given fuller descriptions of the course.



Box 2.2. Design features of the UEEC environmentaleducation course

1. A discrete course for EE would be designed and tested. TheUttarakhand State Department of Education found a slot forthe course in the curriculum; it would replace optional coursesthat 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 ecologicalsecurity and greater productivity. It would at the same time beboth environmental and vocational.

3. The course would emphasise practical work directed to gaininga qualitative and quantitative understanding of a specificvillage ecosystem. Sampling, measurement and interpretingskills 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 adapta-tion, ecosystem health (progression, regression, equilibrium),ecosystem constraints, carrying capacity and the humancommunity as a functional part of the village ecosystem.

6. Modern and traditional knowledge were both to be criticallyassessed in relation to the goal of creating and maintaining ahealthy village ecosystem.

7. The residents of the village studied by students were to berequested to help in conducting the course, by providinginformation and help with measurements (e.g. spring flow,fuelwood consumption, compost production and human andanimal numbers). They, in turn, would benefit indirectly fromthe course by developing greater awareness of the problems ofland degradation and of the possibilities and techniques forcorrecting them.

8. Small group learning for investigative work and a classroomdiscussion mode of teaching/learning. Workbooks to replaceconventional textbooks.

9. In-service teacher orientation workshops. Orientation meetingsfor school principals and state education department adminis-trative and supervisory staff.



With these limitations of the infusion model in mind, a radical depar-ture from existing thinking on EE was made. The concept of sustainab-ility informs the course, as it does the infusion experiment, but is appliedhere in a consistent, practical and unambiguous way. The possibleusefulness of traditional knowledge is acknowledged, though it is crit-ically assessed, as is contemporary scientific knowledge. The standpointfrom which this assessment is done is ecological. A different pedagogy,designated ‘collaborative learning’ (Figure 2.1), is prescribed that acceptsthat learning is more than absorbing information.

Reactions to the course have been mixed. Children love it. It is theonly course in the curriculum that relates to their own everyday exper-ience. Of course, much depends here upon the skill and enthusiasm ofthe teacher. Parents are initially uncomprehending. They see educationas a means of training children for jobs outside the village. And quiterightly too; that is what it is expressly designed to do. Slowly, however,some parents do begin to appreciate the intent of the course. The extentto which they do depends very much on how well the teacher is able toinvolve them in the course and make it a truly collaborative enterprise.

State Education Department officials have been sufficiently impressedto decide to make the course a part of the regular curriculum. Theexample of the course appears to be influencing the direction of main-stream thinking on EE policy; at any rate, the key features of the course

Communitymembers

Students Teacher(facilitator) Students

Communitymembers

Teacher

Conventional schooleducation

Collaborative learning

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



are beginning to appear in official policy documents (UEEC, 2001,2005).

It is the experience of UEEC staff that teachers are the most prob-lematic element in running the course. Those who are able to ‘tunein’ to the course – to accept its alternative assumptions – are enthu-siastic and effective. Most, however, have reservations. This is under-standable given that the course is so utterly unlike anything theyhave 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 UEECenvironmental education course

Teachers who volunteer or are assigned to teach the course areinvited to orientation workshops. The purpose is to acquaint themwith the objectives of the course and the methodology of teachingit and to help them understand the alternative assumptions thecourse presupposes.

The last mentioned objective, it was soon discovered, is notsimply a matter of describing these alternative assumptions.Unless they are seen as valid, teachers are not motivated to teachthe course well. Special sessions were therefore designed in whichenvironmental, social and livelihood issues are discussed inform-ally. Teachers are confronted with facts and opinions that contra-dict, or show the inadequacy of, the mainstream thinking theyassume, and which expose the internal contradictions in suchthinking. It is also necessary for teachers to see that the presentmarginalisation of rural communities where the course is run is aresult of systematic national and global policies. In short, teachersare challenged to question all their assumptions about education,development and modernisation. This is necessary if they are toconsider seriously the alternative assumptions presupposed by thecourse – that is, to identify and articulate these for themselves andexplore their implications for practice. If these assumptions areseen to lead to a resolution of the initial contradictions, they arevalidated.

The workshops have to be augmented by refresher/progressevaluation meetings and by school visits by UEEC staff to give



encouragement and sort out problems. The enthusiasm andcreativity of those teachers, who respond positively to theseworkshops, have been unmistakable. Some of them have enrichedour shared experience by innovating on their own. A bonus hasbeen that these qualities are seen to persist in the teachers whohave subsequently moved up in the education department hier-archy. UEEC staff have been constantly innovating over the yearstrying to find more effective ways to pursue this process of helpingteachers to ‘learn to think differently’.

An important factor in the success of these learning exerciseswith teachers is the skill of the discussion facilitator – on howwell he/she has himself/herself identified his/her own assump-tions, critiqued them and explored alternatives. To a large extent,facilitators gain competence on the job. Facilitators cannot thusbe mass produced. This has become a problem when increasingnumbers of facilitators are needed in order to handle the increasedload of teachers occasioned by the mainstreaming of the course.

It is obvious that the course does not solve the problems of contra-dictions and incoherence in the school curriculum as a whole. Othercourses continue to be based largely on mainstream assumptions. Thiscourse is generally seen as a good idea in itself, even as a possible modelfor all courses in the curriculum, but no one seems to have the least ideahow to reconstruct the curriculum on an entirely new set of assump-tions. School education, after all, cannot be transformed in isolationfrom the larger society in which it is embedded, and whose purposes itserves.

The role of education is, in a Scholastic age, to transmit, to perpetuatethe existing cultural model. In an era of transition, when it is neces-sary to question the existing model, the educational process needs toarticulate and debate the assumptions underlying the existing modeland attempt to visualise an alternative model. Society must sanctionthis change in the role of education, but it cannot do so if its thinkingremains within the confines of the existing model. Many educationistsunderstand that educational and societal transformation will have to bea complimentary, reciprocal process (e.g. O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004;Sterling, 2001). How this task is to be approached remains a questionneeding further thought and experiment. So far, educational experi-ments have been confined to a single course (as Hamari Dharti, Hamara



Jivan), to a few grades or to a single school only (Sterling, 2001) andthus 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 infurthering cultural transformation will be discussed. Special attentionwill be given to how students and scientists are reacting to it. A briefmention is made of its scientific rationale, the new theory of auto-poeitic, or self-creating, self-generating and self-perpetuating, systems.Finally, the questions it leads to about current concepts of life and matterare framed, and alternative concepts are introduced in a tentative andpreliminary way.

The reaction of scientists

The Gaia theory (Lovelock, 1979, 1995) is one of the most dramaticscientific developments of the 20th century, as far-reaching in its implic-ations for how we conceive of the world as the findings of physicistsexploring the subatomic realm.

Consider Gaia theory as an alternative to the conventional wisdomthat sees the Earth as a dead planet made of inanimate rocks, oceanand atmosphere, and merely inhabited by life. Consider it as a realsystem, comprising all of life and its environment tightly coupled soas to form a self-regulating entity.

(Lovelock, 1991)

A good, non-specialist description of the Gaia theory, placing it inthe context of general and dynamic systems theories and complexitytheory, has been given by Capra (1997).

The evidence for the Gaia theory is impressive, particularly that fromthe computer modelling exercises that Lovelock has conducted. Never-theless, 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. Oneis tempted to wonder whether this highly irrational reaction by thescientific establishment was triggered by the evocation of Gaia, thepowerful archetypal myth.

(Capra, 1997, p. 106)



To the extent that the Gaia theory has been accepted by mainstreamscientists, it is a ‘ � � � watered-down, mechanistic, neutered systemsscience of textbooks in engineering, computers, management andgeography’ (Haigh, 2001). The threat has been banished – for the timebeing.

Changing worldviews: students’ reactions to the Gaia theory

Imagining the world as one big living system seemed a bit strangeat first, but the more you think about it the more you wonder ‘whyhasn’t anyone thought of that before’.

Having never come across the concept before, I was very surprised athow 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 viewand I think most ordinary people do – it’s only the scientists whohave 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, Haighuses student journals to foster reflective learning. The journals vividlyportray students’ reactions to ‘the unorthodox ideas and contradictionsof Gaia, [and also how they meet] the challenge � � � [of thinking] deeply,critically and self-consciously about their prior understanding of theworld’ (Haigh, 2001). A self-contained, two-week study unit entitledThe Living Earth: An Introduction to Gaia and Geophysiology concludes thecourse. In it, students are specifically asked to say whether or not theythink the self-organising earth system is alive. The more convention-ally scientifically minded students (that is, from the physical geographyand environmental science streams) tend to say ‘no’, that at most, itis ‘nothing but’ a large, complex self-regulating system. Social sciencestudents, many of whom are active environmentalists, are, on the otherhand, more open to considering the possibility that the earth is aliving being. The comments quoted at the beginning of this section,taken by Haigh from the students’ journals, are of students in thelatter group. How a student reacts obviously depends upon his personal



worldview – that is, on whether or not the key concepts of his worldviewallow him to ‘make sense’ of this proposition.

All this suggests that the students who did make sense of thisproposition had already, in some measure, in some way, perhaps largelyunconsciously, deviated from contemporary mainstream thinking. Thisstudy unit seems to have been the catalyst they needed to bring forththeir own, latent, alternative assumptions; or, it might be said that theidea of the earth system as a living being provided them an acceptableformat for articulating assumptions they already held. How and whythey 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 contem-porary, supposedly, secular, culture?

Autopoeitic systems: the scientific rationale for the Gaia theory

When I went to school and university in mid-20th century, life wasdescribed in terms of processes such as eating, metabolising, excreting,breathing, moving, growing, reproducing, cognition, intelligence andmemory. In other words, when these activities are observed in a materialstructure, it is said that the structure is alive. By the end of the century,all these definitions had been subsumed by the more general conceptof self-organising systems, and more specifically by the concept of auto-poeisis. This term means ‘self-making’. An autopoeitic system is self-bounded, 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 anintellectual and an emotional shock; we cannot make sense of this ideain 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 notwith the more fundamental question of what life is in itself. Theworldview of global culture has a categorical answer to this question:in itself, life is nothing at all – not really. It is ‘only’ the way certainconfigurations of material particles behave. Only the particles (whetherdefined as lumps of stuff, or as electro-magnetic fields) are real. TheGaia theory carries a latent threat to this assumption of the material-istic, mechanistic worldview in the form of a radical alternative: lifeis also real – a real entity, independent of matter. It is the creative



impulse and guiding presence of autopoeitic systems. To entertain suchan idea throws into question the entire edifice of thought built uponthe contemporary worldview.

There is a good reason, however, for entertaining this alternative.People who have thought about systems have always recognised aproblem in describing their behaviour if one conforms to material-istic, mechanistic assumptions of the worldview of contemporary globalculture. The assumption in this case is that the way a system behavescan be fully explained in terms of the laws that pertain to the individualparts of the system; that is, in terms of the laws of mechanics. Computermodels of complex systems, however, often generate unexpected resultswhen initial conditions are varied even slightly. These unexpected, andunexplainable results appear to suggest that the opposite assumption –that the behaviour of the parts is determined by laws that apply tothe whole – would be more appropriate. But, rather than entertainthis possibility scientists blandly assert that the unexpected results are‘emergent properties’ of the system (see, e.g. Goodwin, 2003). Now thisphrase, though it seems to satisfy everyone, even the most ardent holisticscientist and deep ecologist, does not really explain anything. As we sooften do when we cannot understand a phenomenon in terms of theconcepts sanctioned by our worldview, we give it a name. The nameis then taken to signify that we have understood, that is, explained,the phenomenon. The threat of being forced to admit that we donot know is part of the reason for the uproar that the Gaia theory iscreating.

As if this were not bad enough, going more deeply reveals a seriousproblem concerning matter itself.

Enlightenment thinkers decided that thenceforth the principles bywhich science and society were to be organised would be formulatedexclusively on the basis of logical thought based upon sensory experi-ence. In mounting this project, they implicitly assumed: (1) sense datarecreate 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 sensedata, are not real. These two assumptions lead to a third: (3) matter canbe sensed directly and is therefore real, life cannot and therefore is notreal. Matter can be seen, felt, weighed, life cannot.

There have all along, however, been sceptics, and it can usefully berecalled today what they said. Immanuel Kant, more than two centuriesago, argued that we can never know what an object of perception isin itself. Experiences of a certain kind are worked up by the mind togive what is assumed to be an accurate representation of the world of



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 (seeRussell, 1946, p. 680). Even John Locke, the founder of empiricism, inhis Essay Concerning Human Understanding of 1690 admitted that he wasstymied 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 theapparent origin of the sense data we entertain. Most of us, however,have no such misgivings; for us there are most definitely solid materialobjects ‘out there’ which we perceive through our senses. When askedwhat matter is, the best we can do is to say that a physical object (thatis, matter) is what occupies space. This, however, is pretty feeble, for ifwe are then challenged to define space, we find that we cannot do soin the absence of physical objects; we must be able to point to two ormore discrete objects in order to define space.

This line of questioning appears to have led to the conclusion that weneither know nor can know by empirical observation what life or matterare. This is not a new conclusion in the history of Western thought. Platorecognised and accepted that there are limits to what can be known byobservation and logical thought. Professor A. E. Taylor in summing uphis 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 acceptedsimply as given. It is the business of science never to acquiesce in themerely given, to seek to ‘explain’ it as the consequence, in virtue ofrational law, of some simper initial ‘given’. But, however far sciencemay carry this procedure, it is always forced to retain some element ofbrute fact, the merely given, in its account of things. It is the presencein nature of this element of the given, this surd or irrational as it hassometimes been called, which Timaeus appears to be personifying inhis language about Necessity.

(Taylor, 1927)

It seems to me that we are, in respect of matter and life, up againstbrute facts. They cannot be defined with reference to anything simplerin our experience, nor, without grave risks, can either be defined interms of the other. The contemporary Western worldview is a dubious,not to say disastrous, experiment in attempting to define life in termsof matter. The opposite, attempting to define matter in terms of life,



would likely be no less problematic. Perhaps it would be better to takePlato’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 saidearlier, that life is real; at least as real as matter. If this challenge is takenseriously 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 ofeach other, or independently of space and time either. Finally, what ismeant by ‘knowing’ – how does one come to know anything? And cometo 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 culturein response to the environmental degradation that is now evident. Thereare many definitions of sustainability, but all tend in the direction of‘living in harmony with nature’. These definitions are logically irre-concilable with the concept of the ‘scientific management of naturalresources’ on which the theory and practice of economic develop-ment are constructed. These two contrasting concepts are derived fromdifferent sets of first principles, or assumptions, or, we may say theypresuppose differing worldviews. This has rendered all thinking aboutsolving environmental problems incoherent and confused, and thusmost ‘solutions’ are ineffective, or lead to ‘unexpected’ social andeconomic repercussions. I have elsewhere described some instances ofthis that are occurring in India (Jackson, 2004).

Sustainability is such a powerful threat to ‘business as usual’ in globalculture that there are vigorous attempts to neutralise or co-opt it. Thuswe have the now familiar ‘greenwashing’ of policies and activities toavoid criticism and opposition, and the creation of oxymorons like‘sustainable development’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ to divertattention. Development is the very embodiment of the core concepts ofglobal culture – of ‘progress’ and the ‘scientific management of resources’(including ‘human resources’) that are clearly unsustainable. Contem-porary education is, after all, designed to perpetuate and expand globalculture (Jackson, 2003b) – which is unsustainable. It is well to recallwhat Whitehead has told us: radical change does not come from ‘theestablishment’. Professors, scientists and business leaders do not initiate



a Hellenic age, except for the occasional maverick; this is largely thework of dropouts.

The varying interpretations placed on the term sustainability bypeople of differing political, social and economic groupings adds to theconfusion. Thus the ‘haves’ think in terms of ‘green businesses’ and‘green cities’, while the ‘have-nots’ cynically point out that these meanonly the perpetuation of the marginalisation and exploitation theyalready suffer as a result of modernisation and globalisation. The ‘haves’attempt to preserve biodiversity in nature reserves, but are heedless ofit in agriculture where it would be bad for business. Nature reservesexclude the ‘have-nots’ who traditionally depend upon such areas fortheir livelihoods (Jackson, 2004).

This pervasive confusion should suggest that we focus on thefundamental incoherence introduced into the worldview of globalculture by the concept of sustainability. Participants of the worldviewof contemporary global culture (conceptually) construct the world asa machine – the ‘clockwork universe’ of the European Enlightenmentthinkers. This machine requires a mechanic capable of understandinghow it is built and works and who can keep it tuned and repaired.Increasingly, the machine is further seen as needing to be redesignedand remodelled, thus calling for an engineer (e.g. genetic engineers andnano-engineers).

The concept of sustainability derives from a world constructed asa living being or organism. Ecosystems, including the whole-earthecosystem, are self-defining, self-organising and self-maintaining, andare capable of changing. A living being requires nurturing, or, as in agri-culture, good husbandry, and not tinkering with or redesigning. A stillmore radical, but so far little explored, implication of this constructionis that there is not even a nurturer who does things to the organismfrom ‘outside’. The nurturer is part of the organism. Sustainability inthis context thus means that he/she must understand his/her role in theorganism 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 toensure unambiguous thought and action in dealing with environmentalproblems. Only a comprehensive transformation of our worldview willgive it legitimacy.

August 1, 2007 21:1 MAC/TLN Page-27 0230_553508_07_cha03

3Learning to Think Differently

In Chapter 1, it was suggested that periodic cultural transformation isa natural, recurring phenomenon and that it is occurring again todayat the beginning of the 21st century. This is indicated by the growingconviction that collectively we must rethink our fundamental culturalassumptions. In this chapter, an attempt will be made to describethe process of cultural transformation as comprehensively and in asmuch detail as possible, using historical records and contemporaryexperience.

The need to think differently about the many problems that confrontus all in this globalising world is widely advocated, but it is my exper-ience that what this really means is not at all clear. Usually it is takento mean making adjustments in the way programmes are implementedand tinkering with existing technologies to make them less problematic.The policies behind the programmes or the theories behind the tech-nologies are not questioned; there is no need to; the aim is to improvedelivery. A little serious, disinterested reflection, however, suggests thatin most cases, it is what is delivered that is problematic.

Accepting this may lead us to think more deeply and as a result tomake changes in policies and theories. This is expected to eliminate orat least lessen the unexpected (and often unexplainable) side effects thatare occurring. Tremendous effort, talent and money are currently beingspent on thinking up and implementing new policies and theories, butto little avail; human development indicators and environmental healthindicators are worsening – and at an accelerating rate. As environmentaleducator David Orr puts it briefly: ‘The world is coming apart at theseams’ (Orr, 2001). If we are honest, we will admit that we are confusedand seemingly powerless.

27



This essay argues that the way forward is to reconsider the basic assu-mptions underlying current policies and theories; that is, to reconsiderthe basic assumptions on which the whole structure of our thought, orworldview, 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 assump-tions? To take the last question first, the basic assumptions of anyculture are those concerning the terms – life, matter, time, space, law(causation) the self and knowing – that jointly determine the culture’sworldview. A number of people are demonstrating that the assump-tions in respect of these in the contemporary worldview are inadequateto 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 thefirst. Even those who have taken this step, however, generally do notknow how to proceed further, and the results of their ‘thinking again’are useless in terms of resolving the confusion and impotence thatbeset us.

Possible alternative assumptions about these terms must then becontemplated. Taken together, these alternatives must also form acoherent and logical system of thought – an alternative worldviewfrom which an alternative to the present global cultural model can beconstructed.

Finally, it needs to be demonstrated that with the new model existingproblems are either no longer problems or that it becomes possible toformulate them in ways that lead to real solutions.

Rethinking basic cultural assumptions is a subject rarely discussedtoday. To do so effectively, a few specialised terms will be required, anda few existing terms will need to be used in new ways. These are definedin the following section.

An adequate terminology for learning to think differently

The terms worldview, or sometimes simply view, systems of thought, concep-tual scheme or conceptual framework, mindset and cosmology will denote‘ � � � a coherent, logical, adequate constellation of speculative ideas aboutthe structure and functioning of the universe that is shared by allmembers 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 theterm assumptions: ‘Every society ever known rests on some set of largely


Learning to Think Differently 29

tacit basic assumptions about who we are, in what kind of universe wefind 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? Theseanswers are the ‘general ideas’ mentioned above in defining the termworldview. Secondary assumptions, such as the concepts of ‘progress’ and‘sustainability’, are logically derived from one or more of the primaryassumptions.

Experience results from the operation of two processes: cognition andthinking. The former is a result of sensory perception, the perceptionof memories and the intuitive perception of non-sensory patterns ofrelationship ‘behind’ sensible phenomena. It also includes what isconventionally termed ‘feeling’, thus covering all modes of experien-cing. Thinking means the logical mental processing of what is cognisedto produce knowledge and understanding. When only sensory percep-tions are taken into account in the process of thinking, knowledge results.Understanding results only when all perceptions are admitted into thethinking process. With understanding comes the ability to act mean-ingfully and effectively on what one knows.

The process of thinking is organised by the seven universal elements ofthought – namely, life, matter, time, space, law (causation), the personand knowing. These elements can be named, but not defined. They arenot things – neither perceptions nor concepts – but what give form tothese things. Definitions are forms, but the elements are prior to form.Alternatively they can be termed inescapable categories of thought. Theyare Plato’s ‘brute facts’. We can define them in any way we like, but wecannot explain them away.

O’Sullivan and Taylor also speak of ‘ � � � the “frames” or mental struc-tures through which we interpret our world, understand ourselvesand find meaning’ (O’Sullivan and Taylor, 2004). They designate this‘consciousness’ (ibid. p. 6). Consciousness, however, is the bare ‘fact ofawareness by the mind of itself and the world’ (Concise Oxford EnglishDictionary, 2002), whereas the term worldview, as defined above, isthe system of speculative ideas that underlie and shape the contentof consciousness. In this essay, therefore, the term worldview will bepreferred.

A worldview must be coherent, logical and adequate. Coherence meansthat the fundamental ideas constituting the worldview must be seenas proceeding from a single, unifying, overarching concept. A logicalworldview means simply that the various ideas constituting it should



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 phenomenonwhich derives it legitimacy from conforming to the primary assump-tions of the worldview of the culture in which it appears. There canbe more than one theory for a particular phenomenon that conformsto a given worldview. Thus Copernicus’ heliocentric theory was analternative speculative explanation of the relative movements of thesun and planets to the earth-centred theory of Ptolemy. Both werelegitimate in the context of the prevailing worldview of the time – aworldview in which sun, planets and moon were seen as living beingswith the power of self-locomotion, and an intelligence which enabledthem to cognise their relative places in the solar system and abidein them.

Sometimes, however, a new theory comes along that does not fit theworldview of the times. If it is powerful enough, it can change the world-view. Newton altered the worldview of the 17th century by conceivingsun, planets and moon as lumps of matter, moving perpetually (onceset in motion) in absolute time and space and emitting a somethingtermed ‘force’ that determines their movements relative to each other.With his theory of universal gravitation, he created a new worldviewand a new scientific theory at one stroke.1 A new theory may seem totrigger a change in worldview, as in this case, but logically a change inworldview must precede a change in theory, otherwise the theory willnot be viable. A change in worldview will necessitate a change in alltheories in all branches of study.

A cultural model defines the contours of and limits to the culture of agiven era in terms of secondary assumptions derived from the primaryassumptions of its supporting worldview. The model of contemporaryglobal culture, for example, mandates ‘competition’ and the ‘pursuit ofhappiness’ (that is, the pursuit of pleasure). These are secondary assump-tions about the nature of relationships among individuals, derived fromthe primary assumption about the nature of the individual person. Asto limits, this model sanctions particle accelerators but not healing bythe laying on of hands.

Figure 3.1 attempts to summarise how a worldview translates intoaccepted ways of thinking and doing. With this figure in mind, andthe definitions given in this section, attention can now be turned toexamining the process of ‘learning to think differently’.



4321

Primaryassumptions(worldview)

Culturalmodel

Strategies,policies,theories

Accepted waysof doing things(techniques,technologies,management

systems)

Figure 3.1. This diagram shows how a worldview translates into accepted waysof doing things, and how failure of these accepted ways of doing things feedsback 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 chan-ging circumstances, no longer seem effective, or unexpected outcomescontrary to our expectations appear, we attempt to modify or fine-tunethem. Thus we change the manager or our management style, improvecommunications, install new software, use a more powerful insecticide,clean up or change dirty technologies, install safety nets (to catch thosethat 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, whileunfortunate for those affected, will be resolved in the future to theadvantage of everyone if only we persist in our present ways. Examples ofthese reactions are specifying the tolerance levels for pesticide residues infood and water, and structural adjustments mandated by internationalfinancial institutions.

Many, however, are convinced by the failure of ‘tinkering’ andtoleration (at Stage 4) that it is necessary to back up to Stage 3 andformulate new strategies, policies and theories that will change thinkingand practice at the level of Stage 4. Thus, there are proposals for child-centred education, the theory of autopoietic systems as a means ofexplaining the behaviour of organisms, and economic localisation, or‘small is beautiful’. None of these, however, is proving effective, andthey are creating floods of confused discussion, not to say controversy.

This situation indicates that we must back up one more step to ques-tion our cultural model (Stage 2). The model defines and limits thepossibilities for change that exist at the level of Stage 3. Questioning themodel requires us to step back to the level of primary assumptions (Stage1). Thus, child-centred education presupposes an alternative definitionof what it means to learn to that which gives rise to present classroompedagogy. Unless this alternative is assumed, the theory of child-centred



learning will be impossible to translate effectively into practice. Theautopoietic theory is incapable of reining in the indiscriminate andunlimited urge to exploit all life forms to fulfil human needs and desires.For that to happen, the prevailing concept of life as ‘only’ an emergentproperty of matter would have to be questioned. Economic localisationis meaningless without a willingness to question the capitalistic dogmasof competition and that the purpose of business is to earn money, andbeyond these the prevailing concept of the self that legitimises them.

Earlier, in Chapter 2, it was said that the concept of sustainability iscreating a crisis which can only be overcome by a change in primaryassumptions, that is, by returning to Stages 2 and 1.

‘Learning to think differently’ at the level of Stages 2 and 1 is whathappens when one scholastic age is transformed into a subsequent schol-astic age.

Edmund O’Sullivan (2002) has distinguished three modes of, orpredominant movements within, cultures that correspond to the stagesof ‘thinking again’ outlined here. These are maintaining continuity,reforming and transforming. This is a useful categorisation, whetherone is seeking to make sense of the profusion of clashing prescriptionsfor the future now appearing or to understand the decline and fallof cultural eras. In the latter, historical application, these three modesare sequential. The first reaction when things begin to go wrong isstrenuously to maintain the status quo, with perhaps some fine-tuning(‘tinkering’). When this fails, attention turns to reform (questioningpolicies, programmes, theories – questioning at Stage 3), and still furtherdown the slope, to transformation (questioning at Stages 2 and 1). Thishistorical perspective is obviously congruent with Whitehead’s analysis,describing what happens when a culture passes from a scholastic phaseto a speculative phase.

The foregoing description of the transformative process suggests anorderly progression from questioning at Stage 4 through Stage 3 toStages 2 and 1. This may be approximately the way it happens in indi-viduals, and also for society as a whole. However, all individuals donot go through the process at the same rate. Many begin, but most donot 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 thatin a society undergoing transformation, there is inevitably controversyand conflict, marked by the ‘profusion of clashing prescriptions forthe future’ mentioned in the previous paragraph. Those who upholdthe status quo do not really understand the reformers because they areable to ignore, discount or explain away the evidence for dysfunction



in existing culture. Similarly the reformers do not understand thosewho argue that transformation is necessary because transformers arguefrom an alternative worldview and presume an alternative culturalmodel, unintelligible to the reformers, not to mention the tinkerers.Rational discussion between reformers and transformers is impossibleeven if both sides are able to articulate clearly their respective world-views, which they are almost never able to do.2 The overall processof societal transformation proceeds only when the number of trans-formers become more numerous or powerful than the reformers. Thecrucial issue is, therefore, how and when the thinking of individuals istransformed.

A worldview is by definition a social construct. In speaking aboutchange in a prevailing worldview, it is, however, necessary to focuson the individual. How and why does his/her thinking change? Theanswers to these questions lie inside himself/herself as well as outside.Individual transformation is inconceivable in isolation. Our approachto this subject will, therefore, begin with the individual, then considerthe effect of his/her change in thinking on others, and finally how thissends messages back to the individual, enabling him/her to modify andfurther develop his/her original formulations.

Critical elements of the process

Three elements of the personal transformative process are crucial. Thefirst is how an individual handles ‘cognitive dissonance’ and the secondis the individual’s capacity to ‘stand outside himself/herself’. The thirdelement is the willingness and ability to put to the test of practice theresults of one’s ‘thinking differently’.

From a process point of view, transformation can be seen to consistof 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 over-whelmed intellectually and emotionally, he/she can move on to thesecond phase, ‘standing outside himself/herself’. This is a shorthandphrase denoting the detachment and objectivity that is needed toquestion all one’s most basic assumptions and to visualise alternativeassumptions in an effort to resolve the cognitive dissonance experi-enced. More specifically, in this phase of the process, five tasks mustbe accomplished: (1) identifying all one’s present assumptions aboutthe world and oneself; (2) articulating these assumptions; (3) rigorouslycritiquing them; (4) formulating alternative; and (5) coordinating these



Formulatean

alternativeworldview

Formulatealternative

primaryassumptions

Questionexisting primary

assumptions

Presentcultural model

seen asinadequate

Begin here

Constructan

alternativecultural model

Devisealternativestrategies,policies,theories

Testalternativestrategies,policies,

theories inpractice

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

alternative assumptions into a logically consistent and coherent system,or worldview. These five tasks logically follow one another, though inpractice the entire exercise of ‘standing outside oneself’ is an iterativeone as is shown in Figure 3.2. One may begin anywhere.

Cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance occurs when self-evident facts contradict thepicture of the world a person holds in his/her mind. That picture is thecultural model he/she participates in and which he/she unconsciouslyassumes is a true representation of the world ‘as it really is’. Such contra-diction is disturbing, often downright painful, both intellectually andemotionally. It is encountered daily in numerous small matters; it isoften due to lack of data or misperception, and appropriate correctionsare made. Larger contradictions, however, may not be resolved, evenat Stage 3, and an attempt is made to explain them away, or ignorethem. Either way a person is uncomfortable. In theory, when the levelof discomfort reaches a threshold level, a decision is taken to questioncritically one’s picture of the world (Stages 2 and 1). This thresholdappears to vary enormously with the individual. Some spontaneouslycross 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 preventsus from being overwhelmed by the deeply problematic nature of ourtimes � � � . Once the depth of our problems is allowed in, we must contendwith despair � � � The sense of loss at the personal, communal and plan-etary levels [causes grief]’ (O’Sullivan, 2002). All three of these emotional



reactions are negative and paralysing. They are necessary preliminarystages of the TL process, but many people get bogged down here, unableby themselves to move on to the next phase, ‘standing outside them-selves’, where they adopt a positive attitude, that is when it begins toseem possible to resolve the cognitive dissonance they are suffering.

I would like to pause at this point to illustrate the anguish of cognitivedissonance from some personal accounts. An example of the intellectualdiscomfort caused by cognitive dissonance is the reaction of physicistsin the 1920s to the uncertainty that they encountered in the subatomicrealm. Werner Heisenberg wrote: ‘The violent reaction to the recentdevelopments of modern physics can only be understood when onerealises that here the foundations of physics have started moving; andthat this motion has caused the feeling that the ground would be cutfrom under science.’ Albert Einstein in his autobiography describes hisown feelings: ‘It was as if the ground had been pulled out from underone, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which onecould have built.’ (Both quotes are from Capra [1997, p. 38].)

As an example of the emotional turmoil that is an importantcomponent of cognitive dissonance, I quote Yuka Takahashi.

After this trip to Cambodia all I could think about was the needlesssuffering I had witnessed. I could not make sense of it. Was thishuman nature? Was there really any meaning in the universe afterall? My faith in the innate goodness of people and my hope for abetter future was ebbing away. I was consumed by the anger I felttoward the extent of inequity and injustice in the world, my senseof helplessness, and the guilt of knowing that I benefited from theprivilege generated from that very oppressive system. I struggled notto numb the pain by building walls around myself.

(Takahashi, 2004).

The difficulties in passing over the threshold into ‘standing outsideoneself’ are considerable and must be clearly recognised. I base mycomments here in the first place on my own experience of disillu-sionment with the ‘green revolution’ to which I devoted some 20years of my career. I was helped to overcome my inability to handlethe 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 aninformal school run by an NGO for slum children in Dhaka, Bangladesh.



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 marginal-ized people not as the victims of social injustice, but as individualswho are in the process of social transformation. Where before I hadseen only despair, now I saw hope, courage, and resistance. This shiftin my perspective, in turn, allowed me to focus on the potentialwithin myself and in all others as well.

(Takahashi, 2004)

From these experiences, the lesson is clear. To help people who areoverwhelmed by cognitive dissonance, one or more radically differentideas must be suggested, one way or another, for they are overwhelmedbecause they see no way to resolve the cognitive dissonance, given theirexisting stock of ideas.

In the UEEC teacher orientation workshops, we put this insight totest. In these workshops, we deliberately create as much cognitivedissonance as possible, as, for example, by challenging participants toresolve logically contradictory facts or opinions from contemporary life(specific examples are given in Chapter 11) and by means of storiessuch as the one given in Appendix 2. Participants are divided intosmall working groups of 3–5 and asked to suggest how to overcome theproblems portrayed in this story. Typically, the workshop facilitator, onvisiting a group after they have discussed the story among themselvesfor half an hour or so, finds them admitting defeat, or at best suggestinga few, piecemeal remedial measures to some of the individual problemsin the story. These measures do not add up to an adequate, compre-hensive response to the totality of the situation. Often the individualsuggestions are mutually contradictory. At this point, if the facilitatorthrows in an altogether new idea, the participants perk up and beginto move on under their own steam. That is, they begin to consider theimplications of the new idea in terms of finding a resolution of thestory 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 inUganda, also concludes that the facilitator must at times contributehis ideas and specialised knowledge to the group discussions (Babikwa,2004). This tallies with the experience of the UEEC staff of TL exer-cises with rural communities. It cannot be assumed that the people ofthese communities can on their own resolve the contradictions and



uncertainties in which they find themselves. It is too much to expecttransformative learning (TL) to occur spontaneously and bear fruit incomplete isolation from the larger worldwide TL exercise.

Heila Lotz-Sisitka shares her experience of conducting teacher-orientation workshops for environmental education teachers in thecontext of the South African school system in a seminar presentationin 2003. In an exercise similar to the UEEC exercise referred to above,schools were encouraged to develop vision and mission statements fortheir schools and a strategic environmental management plan for theirschool. The exercise and its outcome are narrated in Box 3.1. It is obviousthat the problem in this exercise is set in a wider context than theUEEC exercise and thus highlights how regional and national imperat-ives have a bearing on local issues. This exercise was begun with the aimof empowering teachers to learn to think differently on their own aboutcomplex, seemingly intractable problems, but it was soon discoveredthat teachers lacked sufficient inner resources to do so, and the exerciseended up being disempowering (Lotz-Sisitka, 2003). She explains this inher seminar paper and at the same time pinpoints a serious dilemmathat confronts the facilitator in conducting such workshops.

Box 3.1. A schoolyard project

The vision and mission at Silindile Junior School included theupgrading of the schoolyard – a large ‘parade ground’ of bare soilwith pit latrines in the corner. The posters of their project plansfeatured a green lawn bordered by flowers, fenced off from theneighbouring community’s goats. Throughout South Africa, thisis the mental image of a respectable school, where learners andteachers feel pride in their environment and display commitmentto their school. In the case of Silindile, however, this image couldnot be realised, not because the teachers were not committed toimproving their school, but because there was not enough waterfor the garden, and too little money for a fence.

Situated in the Sithabiseni area near KwaNdebele, a former home-land, the area suffers daily cuts in its supply of potable water. Likemuch of South Africa, the area is arid. The former governmentbuilt dams nearby, but when they run low the water supply isstill reserved, as it was previously, for the industrial, agricultural



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 whofail to collect water from the communal taps after 6 pm eitherneed to get up before 4 am or go without a cooked breakfast.At school children frequently doze off and teachers ascribe thisto hunger or lack of sleep (Janse van Rensberg and Du Toit,2000).

What would sustainable use of water be in this context? Resid-ents of Sithabiseni have a constitutional right to potable water.But, given the shortage of water, should schools be encour-aged to plant water-thirsty plants, and build flush toilets?Should they not look for African solutions, such as water wisegardening, and anaerobic toilets, which do not require waterborne sewage, introduced by the British? How important is itto teach about water conservation in this small school, whenfarmers and industry in the nearby surroundings are usinghigh volumes of water? Eskom, the major African electricitysupplier has power stations nearby, and these use high volumesof water. Should Eskom reduce their water use, and emissions,and introduce nuclear power, which would introduce the riskof radio-active pollution? What, indeed, is sustainable use inthis context (Janse van Rensburg and Du Toit, 2000)?

(Quoted from Lotz-Sisitka, 2003)

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



difficult to assist teachers to explore the socio-historical, political andeconomic dimensions of environmental issues without introducingsupport materials, but these were viewed as introducing bias (anyinformation is by its very nature biased) ( Janse van Rensburg and DuToit, 2000).

In addition, teachers generally did not see themselves as ‘agentsof change’ challenging the dominant values of the day. However,they expressed a strong desire for social change in the contextof communities’ and learners’ current and future circumstances(Janse van Rensburg and Du Toit, 2000). It was difficult to reallyengage the deep systemic nature of oppression in ways that wereempowering; in most cases where teachers started to explore theissues of social change, they were often overwhelmed, or effortswere poorly conceived and superficial. The empowerment intentionhad the adverse effect of disempowerment or paralysis (Janse vanRensburg and Du Toit, 2000). (The sentence in bold letters is in theoriginal.)

(Lotz-Sisitka, 2003)

The ‘educational dilemma’ is, in other words, that by introducingleading ideas and information there is a risk of converting the TL exer-cise into a conventional classroom teacher–student transaction. And yetsuch ideas and information seems essential if paralysis is to be overcome.As mentioned earlier, the UEEC staff and Babikwa have gone ahead tointroduce leading ideas and information. Does this mean that they havein effect abandoned the aim of TL?

To answer this question, it is necessary to look at it against thebackground of a complete picture of the TL process. The concept of‘ecosystem health’ or a ‘healthy ecosystem’, introduced into the UEECworkshops, is a secondary assumption; it is another way of formulatingthe concept of sustainability. In the TL process, as it is being sketched inthis essay, secondary assumptions logically emerge after identifying andcritiquing the first principles or primary assumptions of the learners’existing worldview. In the experience of the UEEC educators mentionedabove, this concept of ecosystem health is handed out ready-made in anattempt 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. Thisis good as far as it goes. Most alternative ways of thinking and doing



visible today are a result of taking on board such ready-made secondaryassumptions 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 thesecondary assumption thus acquired. Only the learners have not usuallyconsciously acknowledged these primary assumptions, nor attempted toarticulate them. They have not made the primary assumptions of theirinherited worldview explicit either, and thus have not critiqued them.In other words, they have not secured the metaphysical foundationsof the newly acquired secondary assumptions (ecosystem health in thiscase) and the practices they give rise to. When they attempt to discussthese assumptions with those who have not taken them on board, andthey are the majority, they find that meaningful dialogue is ultimatelyimpossible. This is paralleled within the convert by a situation in whichtheir inherited primary assumptions and the new ones exist side by sidebut are strictly compartmentalised. These give rise to two systems ofthought, neither sharply defined, but mutually exclusive all the same.Thus the person periodically reverts to his/her inherited mindset whenhe/she is ‘off the job’ and interacting with people who function all thetime in terms of the inherited worldview of the age. This is debilitatingfor the individual, for the work he/she seeks to accomplish is not under-stood, and is not as successful as it might have been. And he/she isunable 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 TLexercise can begin at any point in the overall process, and work forwardor 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 ifparticipants enter at the point of secondary assumptions fully formed,it does not matter, provided that they ultimately move forward andbackward to cover the entire process. Only then will transformation becomplete.

To sum up, the sharing of new concepts is a justified expedient, andis pedagogically valid, after cognitive dissonance has done its work. Itmust be followed up by undertaking the five tasks of the next phase –that of ‘standing outside oneself’. Most workshops, and most writers onthis subject, have so far not ventured into this phase of the process, andhence there is virtually no practical experience to report here – at leastnot to my knowledge. In Chapter 11 of this essay, I suggest a tentativeTL exercise format that might be tried experimentally.



So far the experience of TL is largely with adult learners, includinguniversity students. How children are to be approached is unclear,but the UEEC experience related in Chapter 2, and that reported bymany environmental educators, suggests that children have no problemaccepting new secondary assumptions – as long as these help thechildren to make sense of their immediate lived experience. If theseassumptions were to be reinforced throughout the curriculum, theywould presumably ‘take’ permanently. The primary assumptions theyimply would probably then be best left to be made explicit at thesecondary level – just as is now done, for example, for the primaryassumptions underlying the theories of present-day physics and chem-istry that students encounter only at the 10th- to 12th-grade levels.

Reverting now to adult learners, it is necessary to note that a majorcause for actual resistance to passing on to the phase of ‘standing outsideoneself ’ is, understandably, fear. It takes courage to think and act differ-ently 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 sufferin silence.

A number of psychiatrists, beginning with Sigmund Freud, have ques-tioned the conventional notion that a person who differs from themainstream is ‘odd’ or ‘mad’. I quote from a summary of their views byHibbard (2003).

Freud, after witnessing the insanity of the First World War, proposedthat society itself might be mad and therefore could not serve as astandard of mental health � � � . [R. D.] Laing argued that we live inthe midst of ‘socially shared hallucinations � � � our collusive madnessis what we call sanity.’ [Theodore] Roszak comments that ‘sick soulsmay 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 manycriteria might be nominated, there is surely one that ranks above allothers: the species that destroys its own habitat in pursuit of falsevalues, in wilful ignorance of what it does, is “mad”’.

Such reflections may be a small comfort to the individual strugglingalone with the cognitive dissonance he/she experiences. Nevertheless,these psychiatrists seem to be describing what happens when a givenScholastic age begins to break down: the mainstream resorts to evermore blatant self-deception and attempts to suppress, discredit or co-optcritics in an effort to maintain the status quo. It becomes increasinglymad.



In addition to the fear of being different from others, there is alwayssome measure of fear of change, fear of the unknown. To the extentthat a person is identified with a given idea or structure, and deriveshis/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 TLexercises. Groups provide the security needed to expose one’s innerdoubts, anxieties and insights, and to debate every issue without a needfor reserve. Of course, such group exercises must question everythingand listen to everyone in the group. As the name implies, they shouldbe learning, not comforting, exercises.

Standing outside oneself

Some writers consider it impossible to ‘stand outside oneself’. Post-structuralists, according to the environmental educator Noel Gough,insist that ‘ � � � we cannot get outside of our social architecture in orderto describe or analyse it “objectively” ’ (Gough, 2003). My own exper-ience, both personal and with groups pursuing TL, is that it is possibleto get outside oneself. Much depends upon a person’s prior experienceof handling cognitive dissonance. If he/she has, as a result of cognitivedissonance, come to question every one of his/her basic assumptions(and to accept that they are assumptions and not matters of fact), he/sheis already standing outside himself/herself. In any case, the possibilityof standing outside oneself does exist, because if it did not, radicallynew assumptions would not appear spontaneously as they often do.It is, however, not easy, and help from others is almost invariablyneeded.

Identifying current assumptions

The first task in this phase is to identify every last assumption one hasabout the nature of the world and oneself. If even one assumption isleft unnoticed or, if noticed, exempted from scrutiny, the TL process isvitiated. This is a tall order; for, as suggested in the last section, it meanssetting aside one’s identity. The resulting emptiness is frightening, andone tends impulsively to clutch at least one or a few of one’s existingassumptions more tightly and self-consciously than before. But if onedoes not ‘empty’ oneself, the result is reform, not transformation. Toindulge in another metaphor, a wine cask in which the wine has gonebad must be completely emptied and thoroughly washed out before newwine is put in it, otherwise the new wine is contaminated and quicklygoes bad. In my experience, the dregs in the cask of the worldview



of the participants in contemporary global culture that are usually notremoved, even by those actively pursuing TL exercises, are the assump-tion 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 arethe answers given to the perennial questions. With regard to thesecond of these, what is the world like; these answers are framed asdefinitions of the seven universal formative elements. A clarification atthis point will be helpful in understanding this matter correctly andthus in guiding the task in hand. The formative elements cannot bedefined in general; they are abstract categories of thought, but notspecific thoughts or definitions themselves. They are, as was said, form-ative elements of thought, they give rise to specific definitions in thecontext of a particular worldview. Thus ‘matter’ might be defined asdiscrete material particles in motion (Democrites, the materialism ofthe contemporary global cultural model) or as amorphous ‘stuff’ indi-viduated 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 ofmental projections (Bishop Berkeley’s subjective idealism). The personmight be defined as a detached observer of phenomena (Descartes,contemporary global culture) or as an ‘ecological self’ (some present-day ecologists). Life can be seen as an emergent property of matter(materialism) or as what enlivens material structures, the ‘creativeimpulse and guiding presence of autopoeitic systems’. In the history ofWestern civilisation, there have been three distinct assumptions aboutthe nature of causation. (These will be described and contrasted inChapter 5.)

The task of identifying all our existing primary assumptions means,therefore, asking ourselves what our definition is for each of these sevenelements. Since these definitions are, quite naturally, buried (that is,unconscious) or ‘taken for granted’, some amount of digging is neces-sary to disinter them. As an illustration, the assumptions of present-dayglobal 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 sothat it is possible to examine them critically. In any Scholastic age,primary assumptions are neither identified nor articulated and so cannotbe critiqued. Today we are entering an era of speculation when all these



things need to be done. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to presentingfairly detailed descriptions of the assumptions of contemporary globalculture identified in the first section of Chapter 4.

It is also helpful to review the primary assumptions made in previouseras of Western civilisation, and even those of non-Western civilisations.This will give useful perspectives on our task. This will be done as we goalong.

Critique of assumptions

Once answers to the perennial questions are adequately articulated, theymust be examined critically from two points of view. The first is totrace the connections of these primary assumptions with the secondaryassumptions that figure in the present cultural model. Hints of suchconnections were given in Chapter 2. If we are convinced that partic-ular primary assumptions are, in fact, responsible for the dysfunctionof contemporary global culture, then we pass on to the second test,which is to consider whether these assumptions are logically sound inthemselves. If they fail this test, we can, I think, conclude that this isthe reason, or at least one of the reasons, for the cultural dysfunctionwe are experiencing today. This method of checking for internal logicalsoundness is illustrated in Chapters 4 and 5.

A second reason for the negative implications of the primary assump-tions of contemporary global culture is that collectively they do notconstitute a logically sound or coherent system of ideas. Therefore,examining the system, or worldview, is part of the task of critiquingexisting assumptions. Definitions of ‘logical soundness’ and ‘coherence’were given in an earlier section of this chapter. Chapter 6 is devoted tothis topic of critiquing the worldview of contemporary global culture asa system of definitions.

Formulating alternatives

For the formulation of alternative assumptions, one must give free reignto one’s imagination. The results can then be checked in the same waythat existing assumptions are tested (previous subsection).

Another source of ‘new’ ideas is previous European cultures and alsonon-European cultures. If we are no longer wedded to the process theoryof history, a theory that is negated by the fact that we admit to the needto ‘think differently’, we need not assume that all these pre-modernand non-Western assumptions are useless. It is possible that some ofthem may be relevant today when we are searching for alternatives tothe assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture. In



Chapter 2, it was hinted that the appearance of the Gaia theory suggestsa return of a definition of causation that was prevalent in Pre-HellenicGreece and in most traditional, non-European civilisations. This topicwill be explored in depth in Chapter 5. This is an example of the possibleusefulness today of assumptions of previous cultures that were discardedin the course of Western history. Of course, such assumptions must, likeall others, be critically examined for their intrinsic logicalness and theirimplications for practice. In Chapter 7, several promising ‘new’ ideasthat are spontaneously appearing at present in the global TL dialogueare described and evaluated.

Coordinating new assumptions into a viable worldview

Finally the various new assumptions must be put together into a world-view which leads to an improved cultural model that will avoid or solveexisting problems. The new worldview must be internally self-consistentand coherent. While there has been some progress in the overall globalTL process up to the task of formulating alternative assumptions, thislast task has been given no critical attention so far. In Chapter 8, byway of illustrating what is to be done, the promising new assump-tions described in Chapter 7 are assembled in an overall frameworkthat is both internally logical and coherent, and holds promise of beingeffective in practice when its implications (secondary assumptions) areelaborated and put to the test.

The test of practice

Any alternative worldview that is formulated must remain tentativeand has to be put to the test of practice. To do this, an alternativecultural model must be constructed by formulating secondary assump-tions derived from the primary assumptions of the new worldview. Theseare then elaborated into strategies, policies and theories which are testedin practice.

In the testing phase, there is a possibility of failure, disappointmentand ridicule. Generally, even those who reach this stage of the processdo not see themselves as ‘ � � � agents of change challenging the dominantvalues of the day’ (Lotz-Sisitka, 2003). Here again, a group learningcontext can be supportive of the individual.

The importance of practice in the TL process cannot be overem-phasised. It appears to me that too much of the present discus-sion on TL is based upon theoretical considerations and not onpractice. Another problem is that a number of promising newpolicies/programmes/theories are being put forth today for testing.



However, unless these are examined for the unarticulated secondaryand primary assumption they imply, there is every danger of failure.In other words, their metaphysical foundations have not been securedbefore they are offered for testing.

A final word

Figure 3.2 is an attempt at a comprehensive representation of the TLprocess. The point of entry, the box labelled ‘present cultural model seenas inadequate’ represents the first phase of the process, acknowledgingcognitive 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 thetesting of the adequacy of the worldview fashioned. It is an iterativeprocess, unending, with no preconceived outcomes, and with no possib-ility of being planned or managed. A community (e.g. citizens, teachers,business people or school children in a classroom) that can initiate andsustain this iterative process is ‘empowered’: it is ‘developed’, or at leastcapable of developing itself. This is a theme that will be discussed furtherin Chapter 9.


4Atoms, People and Other Things

This and the following five chapters (that is, 4–9) are devoted to illus-trating the transformative learning (TL) process sketched in Chapter 3,beginning from the recognition by learners of the need to ‘think differ-ently’. That is, they have already accepted that the cognitive dissonancethey have experienced can only be removed by a transformation of theirpresent worldview. Each of the successive stages in the TL process isdealt with in the chapter(s) indicated below.

Identification of present primary assumptions – Chapter 4Critique of present primary assumptions – Chapters 4 and 5Critique of present worldview as a system – Chapter 6Formulation of alternative assumptions – Chapter 7Formulation of an alternative worldview – Chapter 8Formulation of alternative secondary assumptions – Chapter 9

The specific illustrations that are given are my own or those of othersselected by me. Needless to say, they are not intended to be the lastword. My primary intention is to illustrate the method. The method isan open-ended process; no final outcomes should be insisted upon at thebeginning, otherwise it will cease to be a true TL exercise. Final outcomesemerge from discussion and eventual consensus. The process proceedsby debating the suggestions made by participants, and rejecting, modi-fying or accepting them. Perhaps my suggestions will help the processalong.

With these comments in mind, we may turn to the task of identifyingand critiquing the primary assumptions of the worldview of contem-porary global culture. These assumptions are the answers we give tothe perennial questions. The answer to the second question – what is

47



the world like – consists of definitions of each of the seven formativeelements of thought. We begin therefore, with a brief statement of whatthese answers are.

The enlightenment answers to the perennial questions

What is the world like?

The world is composed of four ultimate, independent, but interactingentities: material particles in motion; objective time and space; andpersons who observe these particles in motion. A person is defined as aphysical entity, that is, as a specific configuration of material particles,but at the same time as having the capacity for the detached observationof particles in motion. There is a logical contradiction here that will beinvestigated in Chapter 6. This is the core of the Enlightenment viewforged in the 17th century. Since then, there have been refinementsin the first three of these – from atomic to subatomic particles, andfrom Newton’s absolute time and space to Einstein’s relative time andspace – but the system has remained intact. Issac Newton assumed thatlaw is imposed by a Creator and that he (Newton) was describing theseimposed laws, as far as possible. Later, the idea of a Creator who imposeslaw fell by the wayside, leaving only the mathematical equations, or inother words, law as mere description of observed regularities.

Life, since it is not conceived as a something in itself like matter, hasto be thought of as an emergent property of matter.

Finally, the definition of knowing is axiomatic from the concept of aworld of matter in motion and a detached observer of that world: theworld is known by the receipt of sensory data flowing from the worldto the observer. The observer then processes these sensory inputs into apicture of the world ‘as it really is’.

This is the worldview that is termed mechanistic materialism. Each ofthese seven definitions will be expanded in subsequent sections.

Who am I?

The ‘I’ in the worldview of contemporary global culture is considered tobe a person.

What is real?

The four ultimate, or ‘given’, entities, matter, time, space and thedetached observer are real entities. In theory, a real entity shouldpresumably be one that endures, that neither comes nor goes, norsuffers change. Time, space and the ultimate constituents of matter meet


Atoms, People and Other Things 49

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

Critique

Of the seven definitions just listed, six – matter, life, space, time, theperson and knowing – will be taken up in this chapter. An adequatecritique of causation (or law) requires the development of a considerabletheoretical background and will therefore be taken up separately in thenext chapter. Matter and the person will be taken up together (in thefollowing subsection) since the person is defined in the contemporaryworldview as a material entity.

There are no things

The purpose of this section is to explicate and critique the concept ofmatter as it appears in the worldview of contemporary global culture.To begin with, it is essential to note that the term ‘matter’ has becomeambiguous – 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 materialsubstance, a definition not much different from that proposed by theGreek atomist Democrites in the 5th century BC. During the first threedecades of the 20th century physicists, with their passion for analysis,probed deeper and deeper into the atom in an attempt to find the ulti-mate, unchanging unit of matter. They did not succeed. Instead theydiscovered that there was nothing left that corresponded to their originalconcept of matter. It was this that Whitehead was referring to in 1929when he wrote that ‘ � � � the notion of vacuous material existence withpassive endurance, with primary individual attributes, and with acci-dental adventures has � � � vanished from the field of ultimate scientificconceptions’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 309).

What these scientists found in its place they termed variously: ‘quantaof energy’, ‘electro-magnetic fields’, ‘waves of probability’. Fritjof Caprawrites that the ultimate things are ‘ � � � inter-connections between things,and these, in turn, are inter-connections between other things, andso on � � � we never end up with any things � � � ’ (Capra, 1997, p. 30).Bertrand Russell defined matter as ‘what satisfies the equations ofphysics’ (Russell, 1946, p. 633). He then went on to say that ‘There maybe nothing satisfying these equations; in that case either physics, or theconcept of “matter”, is a mistake’ (Russell, 1946, p. 598). All this reveals,



to my mind, only confusion and uncertainty. Scientists have succeededin demonstrating the inadequacy of the prevailing definition of matter,a most valuable insight, but seem unable to suggest a plausible altern-ative. This failure is not due to lack of ability. They are not using theproper tools.

Scientists have failed to understand that defining the term ‘matter’, inthe first instance, is not a scientific task, but a metaphysical one. Sciencedeals with theories and not with the more general notions underlyingthem. In terms of Figure 3.1, science works at Stages 3 and 4, whileStages 1 and 2 is the domain of metaphysics. Each has its own specialtools. The tools of metaphysics are criticism of primary assumptions andthe speculative formulation of alternatives. The latter is also sometimestermed ‘speculative philosophy’.

I think it would be well to pause briefly at this point to define theterms metaphysics and speculative philosophy. The former is that branch ofphilosophy concerned with the primary concepts in terms of which weseek to understand nature and ourselves. In this chapter, these primaryconcepts have been termed primary assumptions. In terms of the sixstages in the TL process given at the beginning of this chapter, meta-physics is the domain of the first five. Of these, the first three are criticalwhile the last two are speculative – or critical and speculative philo-sophy, 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 elementof our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of ‘interpreta-tion’ I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed,perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a partic-ular instance of the general scheme. Thus the philosophical schemeshould be coherent, logical, and, in respect to its interpretation,applicable and adequate. Here ‘applicable’ means that some items ofexperience are thus interpretable, and ‘adequate’ means that thereare no items incapable of such interpretation. ‘Coherence, as hereemployed, means that the fundamental ideas, in terms of which thescheme is developed, presuppose each other so that in isolation theyare meaningless. This requirement does not mean that they are defin-able in terms of each other; it means that what is indefinable inone such notion cannot be abstracted from its relevance to the othernotions. It is the ideal of speculative philosophy that its fundamentalnotions shall not seem capable of abstraction from each other. In



other words, it is presupposed that no entity can be conceived incomplete abstraction from the system of the universe, and that itis the business of speculative philosophy to exhibit this truth. Thischaracter is coherence. The term “logical” has its ordinary meaning,including “logical” consistency, or lack of contradiction, the defin-ition of constructs in logical terms, the exemplification of generallogical notions in specific instances’.


In this essay, I have endeavoured to adhere to this ideal. The definitionsof the terms ‘coherence’, ‘logical consistency’ and ‘adequacy’ given hereare expansions of the initial definitions given in Chapter 3.

The term ‘metaphysics’ is deeply suspect in contemporary globalsociety, and so it must have been in all Scholastic eras. When new spec-ulative insights have been accepted and ‘handed over to the professors’,the fact that they are tentative, tenuous speculative constructs is lostsight 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 spec-ulation, and we must use the methods of metaphysics. Chapters 4–9 ofthis essay describe and illustrate these methods.

The work of speculative philosophy in the context of this section isthe endeavour to formulate concepts of a general nature relevant to theseven categories of thought. These are primary assumptions. To do thisadequately, it is necessary to set aside the particular definitions of thesecategories that make up any existent worldview. What will be left is onlya very general statement that indicates broadly to area of experience thatis being addressed. Thus, shorn of all the assumptions of the worldviewof contemporary global culture, ‘matter’ might be defined as:

1. an actual entity (that is, a distinct, discrete element of experience), or2. what is experienced as a ‘thing in itself’, or3. an object of an experience.

The primary assumptions in respect of ‘matter’ in the worldview ofcontemporary global culture are specific elaborations of this generaliseddefinition. Among these are the following:

1. Matter is atomic. It is made up of discrete, distinct entities that endureand are unchanging.

2. For its definition, these entities require the concept of Newtonian orEinsteinian space.



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 prop-erties of these simpler components.

These assumptions are further detailed to give theories which guideexperimentation. In terms of secondary assumptions, they give rise tothe institutions set up to pursue knowledge and develop systems andtechnologies, and also define the aims of obtaining this knowledge andof deploying specific technologies.

The work of 20th-century physicists, as noted above, was scientificwork. They failed to see that the results of their work landed them in asituation that demands setting aside all their primary assumptions beforethey could hope to advance. It is clear that they did not give up even oneof these assumptions. (I make this statement on the understanding thatthey maintain that energy – whatever that is – can neither be creatednor destroyed.)

This brief excursion into the nature, function and procedures of meta-physics will, it is hoped, indicate clearly what our task is in this chapterand in Chapter 5.

In this subsection, dealing with the concept of ‘matter’, the discussionwill not be restricted to the realm of the subatomic. Thus the term ‘anactual entity’ will signify the concrete elements of everyday experience.In everyday speech, it is ‘an object’ or ‘a thing’, and among the objectsor things of common experience are our own bodies.

If the forgoing list of primary assumptions in respect of ‘matter’ beaccepted 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 belogically defective, the entire set of assumptions fails. In this subsection,therefore, we confine ourselves to this definition – that is, that entitiesor objects or things possess distinctive, inherent properties. Number twoin the list, stating the necessity of Newtoian/Einsteinian space to thedefinition of ‘matter’, is taken up in the next subsection. If this conceptof space is rejected, then too the entire concept of ‘matter’ as it is definedby this list is invalidated.

The following critique of the notion that actual entities havedistinctive properties in themselves, when pursued rigorously forces usto the conclusion that there simply are not, cannot be, any substantialentities at all. The critique goes as follows. If we assume that all the things



we encounter in our experience of the world are discrete, substantial andautonomous, it follows that each one should possess attributes by whichit can be distinguished from all other things. The least ambiguous ofthese are the physical attributes of mass, shape, size or volume, density,velocity and acceleration – the so-called primary attributes of the philo-sophers. As Whitehead has pointed out (Chapter 1), however, these arenot attributes of the individual entities, but refer to the relationshipsamong entities in a system. Viewed in isolation from all other entities,they cannot be defined at all. The mass of an object, for example, tellsus nothing about the object itself, but about its relationship to anotherobject, and in fact to all the other objects in the system of which it is apart – and ultimately to all the other objects in the universe.

Ecologists have come to the same conclusion when dealing withecosystems. A tree, an earthworm, a bacterium can adequately bedescribed only in terms of the niche it fills in the system; that is, in termsof its place in the structure and functioning of the system. In isolationfrom the ecosystem of which it is a part it could not live, it would haveno meaning, and, indeed, could not be said to exist. The philosopherand natural farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka insists that ‘An object seen inisolation from the whole is not the real thing’ (Fukuoka, 1994).

In the example of a solar system given in Chapter 3, a planet can onlybe defined in terms of a set of relationships among all the bodies of thesystem. Ultimately, the planet is reduced to a mere empty focal point ofmyriad converging influences, or to an equally empty point of origin ofmyriad influences streaming away to all the other bodies in the system(and, indeed, to the entire universe). The planet, or the person, is eithernothing 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 notionof ‘substance’. Substance is supposed to be simply what is without qual-ifications of any sort. Qualifications according to Aristotle are bestowedon substance by abstract universal forms that ingress into it.

Substance, when taken seriously, is a concept impossible to free fromdifficulties. A substance is supposed to be the subject of properties,and to be something distinct from all its properties. But when wetake 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 ofproperties, for, according to the logic of substance, difference ofproperties presupposes numerical diversity between the substances



concerned. Two substances, therefore, must be just two, withoutbeing, in themselves, in any way distinguishable. How then are weever to find out that they are two?

‘Substance’, in fact is merely a convenient way of collecting events intobundles. What can we know about Mr. Smith? When we look at him, wesee a pattern of colours; when we listen to him talking, we hear a seriesof sounds. We believe that, like us, he has thoughts and feelings. Butwhat is Mr. Smith apart from all these occurrences? A mere imaginaryhook from which the occurrences are supposed to hang.

(Russell, 1946, pp. 211–12)

This conclusion that there are no discrete, substantial, autonomousindividual things in the world not only gives us an insight into whycontemporary global culture is so fundamentally dysfunctional, it is alsoa potent injunction to us to strive for logical rigour in framing altern-ative assumptions for the future.

As a footnote to Russell’s comment above, we might briefly anticipatefurther developments. In Chapter 7, it will be necessary to decide on adefinition of a person. No one, absolutely no one, doubts that he or sheexists. 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’ fromwhich the empirical person hangs, but is it really imaginary? Somethingcertainly does exist, but what?

Objective time and space

In attempting to formulate a statement that is indicative, in the mostgeneral way possible, of the area of human experience referred to by theterms ‘time’ and ‘space’, or ‘spacetime’, we might say that they accountfor the fact that in our experience myriad entities – physical things,thoughts and feelings – are made definite, discrete and their mutualrelationships made clear. The concept has been considered in the historyof philosophy mainly in respect of physical entities or what have earlierbeen referred to as ‘objects’ or ‘things’.

Various specific definitions of these terms have been formulated andhave figured in the worldviews of different cultural eras of Westerncivilisation, but they can be subsumed under two heads: ‘objective’ and‘subjective’. An understanding of this distinction between these two isessential to the success of the work of ‘standing outside oneself’. In thissection, I will first of all endeavour to explain the difference between‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ in this regard.



In a few words, time and space are objective when they are assumed toexist even in the absence of objects. They exist prior to and ‘outside’ anyexperience of actual entities. Time and space are said to be subjective whenthey arise with the experience of objects or things. They are a system ofrelationships among elements within a given episode of experiencing.

Issac Newton’s concept of absolute time and space is an example ofthe objective. It will be instructive to present here his concept in hisown words. This done in Box 4.1.

Box 4.1. Newton’s concept of absolute objective timeand space

The concepts of absolute time and space were formulated by IssacNewton in the Sholium to his Principia in the following words.

Hitherto I have laid down definitions of such words as areless known, and explained the sense in which I would havethem to be understood in the following discourse. I do notdefine time, space, place and motion as being known to all.Only I must observe that the vulgar conceive those quantitiesunder no other notions but from the relation they bear tosensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for theremoving of which, it will be convenient to distinguish theminto absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematicaland common.

I. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and fromits own nature, flows equably without regard to anythingexternal, 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 themeans of motion, which is commonly used instead of truetime; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year.

II. Absolute space, in its own nature, and without regard toanything external, remains always similar and unmovable.Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of theabsolute spaces; which our senses determine by its position tobodies, and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space; � � � .



Box 4.1. (Continued)

IV. As the order of the parts of time is immutable, so also is theorder of the parts of space. Suppose these parts to be movedout of their places, and they will be moved (if the expressionmay be allowed) out of themselves. For times and spaces are, asit 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 andspace in the following words.

Newton is presupposing four types of entities which he does notdiscriminate in respect to their actuality: for him minds are actualthings, bodies are actual things, absolute durations of time are actualthings, and absolute places are actual things. � � � This is the ‘receptacle’theory of space–time. � � � Thus bits of space and time were conceivedas being as actual as anything else, and as being ‘occupied by otheractualities which were the bits of matter’.


Albert Einstein has modified the concept of absolute space and time.I maintain that this modified concept is still a definition of objectivetime and space; it still gives us a picture of a world of material entitiesspread out in an objective matrix of space–time, of a world ‘out there’which one cognises from ‘in here’. I assert this very tentatively sinceI cannot claim really to understand the concept of relative time andspace or space–time beyond what is offered by popularisations for thenon-specialist. About this Bertrand Russell has said:

Since Einstein distance is between events, not between things, andinvolves time as well as space. It is essentially a causal conception, andin modern physics there is no action at a distance. All this, however,is based upon empirical rather than logical grounds. Moreover themodern view cannot be stated except in terms of differential equa-tions, and would therefore be unintelligible to the philosophers ofantiquity.

(Russell, 1946, p. 88)



Quite. It is equally unintelligible to a present-day commentator whohas never been able to master differential equations. I will venture onecomment, however. Conclusions based upon ‘empirical’ grounds, or, inother words, on the basis of experimental observations, cannot be logicalif the assumptions on which the experiments are set up and conductedare illogical. It is because the experimental results do not ‘make anysense’ that logic has been abandoned. The physicist needs to be enoughof 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 ofour experience can be interpreted’. Or else someone else should realiseit, 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 actualentities, at par with things, the concept cannot, perhaps, be faulted onlogical grounds, given the system of concepts in which it is embedded.It is just difficult to imagine time and space as real entities. Thoughscientists of the 17th and 18th centuries eagerly seized on the conceptin order to develop a new type of science, a science we are beginningto 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 notas objects in themselves. I am inclined to agree and to suggest that it isrisky for anyone, scientist or philosopher, to disregard the ‘conventionalwisdom’ of humanity in framing ideas of the ultimate nature of theuniverse. The fact that this wisdom is spontaneous and universal pointsto something true about the universe that should not be dismissed outof hand. This is a theme, by the way, that will figure prominently in thisessay. It is introduced and discussed in some detail in the next chapter.

Aside from this objection to the concept of objective space as formu-lated by Newton, the concept appears unnecessary in view of the conclu-sion reached in the previous section that there are no discrete physicalentities. Actual entities, whatever they may be, are dimensionless. Onlyif they have dimension or extensivity is the concept of objective spaceneeded, otherwise not.

The alternative to the receptacle or objective concept is that ofsubjective time and space. According to this concept, an observer appre-hends actual entities (whether they are things or something else),‘spreads them outs’, so to speak, and arranges them to give an intelligiblepattern. The ‘spreading out’ is the work of time and space. ImmanuelKant argued for the concept of subjective time and space. His view,according to Russell was that



� � � the outer world causes only the matter of sensation, but our ownmental apparatus orders this matter in space and time, and suppliesthe concepts by means of which we understand experience. Things inthemselves, which are the cause of our sensations, are unknowable;they are not in space and time, they are not substances, � � � space andtime are subjective, they are part of our apparatus of perception.

(Russell, 1946, p. 680)

If there are really no substantial physical entities, then an alternativeconcept of space and time will be needed. Subjective space and timemight serve.

There is, however, a logical problem with the subjective concept oftime and space also, and it is best to recognise it straightaway. Thisproblem revolves around the question asked in the previous subsection:what is the nature of those entities that are conventionally taken tobe 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 andthe 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 notexist prior to or outside the experience. On the other hand, episodesof experiencing are caused by these occasions which therefore must be‘prior’ to the episodes, and ‘somewhere else’ than in the episodes. Is thereanother 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 questionsthat have been asked for millennia in different cultural contexts. Theyare perennial philosophical questions for which no logically convincingargument has ever been given. We will return to them later, when alittle more background has been developed.

Life must be defined

In Chapter 2, it was pointed out that life is not really defined in theworldview of contemporary global culture. It is only described. In itself,it is said to be ‘nothing but’ an emergent property of matter. Thisis obviously necessary in a materialist–mechanistic worldview, but isprofoundly 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 nodefinition at all. It is a matter of avoiding a definition. On the one hand,



it is said that life is the way particular assemblages of material particlesare observed to behave. On the other hand, we say that assemblages thatdisplay such behaviour are alive. This is a tautology, and a tautologycannot be accepted as a definition.

Again, by defining life in terms of matter (an emergent propertyof matter), the coherence of the entire contemporary worldview isimpaired. The definitions that make up a worldview must ‘ � � � presupposeeach other so that in isolation they are meaningless � � � [but this] doesnot mean that they are definable in terms of each other’.

As in other cases, here too our endeavour must be to frame the mostgeneral statement possible about the category of life as a starting pointfor the criticism of specific notions of it, and as a basis for speculationabout alternative notions. Life, let us say, is the activity of actual entities,however those entities are conceived – that is, life is the unceasingflow of the arising and perishing of these entities, their changes andinteractions. This ‘flow’, in itself and not what flows, is life. An exampleof a more specialised definition, already suggested, is ‘ � � � the creativeimpulse and guiding presence to autopoeitic systems’.

In passing, we might recall that one of the attempts by physicistsat defining matter mentioned in the previous section: ‘ � � � ultimatethings are interconnections between things, and these, in turn are inter-connections between other things, and so on � � � we never end up withany things’ (Capra, 1997, p. 62). Surely, however, it is illogical to saythat matter is nothing but events, when the term ‘events’ can only beunderstood as the activity of things. Further, it appears, from this state-ment, that the very category of matter has been lost sight of. If eventsare not the activity of things, then they are presumably a manifestationof life. In other words, matter is being defined in terms of life. Here isthe reverse of the practice of defining life in terms of matter; matter, initself, is ‘nothing but’ the workings of life.

How is knowing possible?

The most general statement that can be made about the category ofthought termed ‘knowing’ is, perhaps, to say that any discrete element inan experience is known to the subject of that experience. This statementassumes a duality of a subject and an object of experience; in the mostabstract sense of these terms, they are simply ‘that which experiences’and ‘that which is experienced’. It implies nothing about the nature ofeither. Depending upon the metaphysical context, or the worldview, inwhich it appears, this abstract definition will be particularised. In theworldview of contemporary global culture, the entities that appear in



experience are assumed to be material ‘things’, ‘spread out’ in objectivetime 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 becomeshow can physical entities in the world ‘out there’ become elements of myexperience ‘in here’? Attempting to answer this question has constitutedmajor philosophical and scientific agendas in Western culture for thepast three centuries. It seems to me to be a hopeless undertaking. I saythis on the basis of logic and of the adequacy of the answers so fardeveloped.

All the answers proposed so far share the common following assump-tion. The observer receives sensory data from the various objects in itsenvironment and processes these into an image of the object in themind of the observer. The objects in the environment are physical andso are the sensory inputs they originate, the nerves that receive theseinputs and the final set of nerves in the brain. What is not physical is themind, and hence the images it holds are not physical things. There is atransformation required at the last stage of this train from the physicalto the mental. An explanation of how this transformation is effectedhas not, as far as I know, been found so far, and perhaps it never willbe. Perhaps we are asking the wrong question, a question based uponfaulty premises.

All that has really been done is to offer an explanation in terms ofan analogy – that of a camera. This is a very simplistic analogy sincethe final photographic print is as much a physical object as the objectphotographed and the light waves that proceed from that object to thephotographic plate. Analogies are sometimes helpful in understanding aphenomenon, but they do not explain. In this case, the camera analogyactually covers up the problematic discontinuity in the process.

A further difficulty with this way of trying to explain knowing isthat of ‘enhancement’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 119). Something more isadded to the bare sense data before a mental image is composed. Theimage usually allows the person to ‘see’ the interrelationships amongthe various entities that occur together in a particular episode of exper-iencing, 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 theyare from ‘outside’ are certainly not physical entities; do they then comefrom somewhere else than the ‘real’ physical world ‘out there’. Canthere be such a place in a materialist cosmology? This is an instanceof the inadequacy of the definition of knowing; it is inadequate in the



sense that there are some items of experience that are inexplicable interms of this definition.

Another item of experience that is inexplicable in terms of this mater-ialist definition of knowing is memories. Memories are also entities thatappear in experience, and they are also immaterial. Where do they resideand how come they into current episodes of experiencing?

Returning to the issue of intuitions, it was said that a possible explan-ation 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 exper-ience. But many of the organising patterns in the mind, most clearlythe mathematical ones, are there a priori, as Immanual Kant so ablyargued long ago. This is yet another instance of the inadequacy of thematerialist theory of perception.

A moment ago it was said that perhaps all the problems of the mater-ialist definition of knowing arise from asking the wrong questions –because we are working from faulty premises. I have in mind here, theentire concept of a world ‘out there’, a world of physical entities inobjective time and space, and detached observers of those entities. Ifthere is no world ‘out there’, the problems described above would simplygo away. Of course we would have to formulate an alternative set ofdefinitions for the seven categories of thought, and then we would haveother philosophical and scientific questions, questions that might bemore tractable. We could make a start with an alternative definition ofan actual entity.


5The Laws of Nature

Our critique of the worldview of contemporary global culture consistsof two parts: (1) a critique of individual assumptions and (2) a critiqueof the worldview as a whole. Chapter 4 and most of this chapter aredevoted to the first. The definitions of matter, life, time, space, theself and knowing were taken up in Chapter 4, while the concept oflaw as mere description (the Positivist assumption) is considered in thischapter. In Chapter 6, a critique of the system as a whole is offered.

In order to critique the positivist assumption of law effectively, it willbe necessary to review the various other assumptions that have featuredin Western civilisation during the last three millennia or so, and tocompare them. A critique of the positivist assumption will emerge fromthis review.

Three concepts of law have appeared at different times in Westerncivilisation. These are: (1) law as immanent; (2) law as imposed; and(3) law as mere description (the positivist assumption). These havefigured, respectively, in pre-Hellenic culture, the Hellenistic, Scholasticand Enlightenment periods, and in the 20th century. The ways thatpeople have tried to understand and engage nature according to thesethree concepts of law have been, for the first, myth and for the secondand third, logical mentation. It is argued that the Gaia theory, which isboth a scientific theory and a myth, signals a return to Western cultureof the concept of law as immanent. The implication of this is that logicalmentation alone is an inadequate means of understanding nature andourselves, and that an intuitive/mythical mode of engagement is alsonecessary. The unquestioned assumption that reason alone is adequateis itself a major cause of the dysfunction of contemporary global culture.

Accordingly, in the second section of this chapter, the nature andfunction of myth as a means of relating to nature, to each other and

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The Laws of Nature 63

to ourselves is described. The Gaia theory is thus interpreted, from onepoint of view, as a powerful mythical symbol, a resurrection of theancient Earth Mother symbol that figures so prominently in most non-Western 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 thatmeets the same need today as traditional myths did in the past; in thiscase it dramatises the theme of hubris and its punishment. It is arguedthat the appearance of these mythical symbols signals a spontaneousreturn to the concept of law as a immanent and the beginning of aprocess of healing in global culture.

The laws of nature – an overview

Amongst the welter of details with which we are confronted, there arediscernible regularities. Some types of events recur, and some sets ofevents are always observed together, often in the same sequence. Wefashion our lives on what sense we make of these regularities. To ‘makesense’ of these regularities means to hold in one’s mind some assumedexplanation of these recurrences and concurrences. Such explanationsare termed the laws of nature. Explanations are speculative assumptionsof how the world might be. If these assumptions change, then the worldwe experience changes. In a sense, we create the world we experience.A corollary of this is that there are no laws of nature antecedent toour experience of the world just waiting for us to discover them. Wecreate 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 theconcept of the law as immanent. Whitehead defines this concept asfollows:

the order of nature expresses the characters of the real things whichjointly compose the existences to be found in nature. When weunderstand the essences of the things, we thereby know their mutualrelations to each other.


In an ecological idiom, we would say that the concept presupposes aholistic unity of all that exists; the whole contains the multiplicity ofdiverse particular things, and is present in each of these things. Each of



the things is, in essence, the whole. The behaviour of individual thingsin relation to other things is determined by their place and functionin the whole. Each individual thing is, as it were, automatically codedfor appropriate behaviour by virtue of being a part of the whole. Thisconception of law gives rise to what might be termed an ‘organismic’model of the universe. An organism is a micro-cosmic instance of, anda metaphor for, a universe governed by law that is immanent in itselfand in all its parts.

The concept of law as immanent figured in all ancient cultures,including pre-Hellenic culture, and in many, probably most, non-Western cultures, and is expressed in a profusion of myth.1 In Vedicculture, 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 ofrelationships. This pattern is inherent in phenomena whether they areconsidered separately or collectively.

It would be natural to seek the content of Rta but the quest would bedoomed to failure because Rta is � � � neither a single law or form norany system of laws or forms. It is rather the ultimate presuppositionof all specific types of order or systems of laws � � � , itself not a limitedform but a whole that is self-determined and self-expressive in infinitevariety

(Pande, 1990, p. 25)

The concept of the Rta has traditionally been expressed metaphoric-ally because it is too subtle to render adequately in the idiom of logicaldiscourse, or even that of mathematics. Moreover, the metaphor usedis invariably of a living being. As the Rigveda puts it, ‘All beings, men,and creatures, abide forever in the bosom of Savitr the divine’ (Rigveda1,35,5, translated by Panikkar, 2001, p. 140). In a living organism, eachof the parts (organ, tissue, cell, molecule, etc.) contributes in a uniqueway to the structure and functioning of the whole. The whole providesthe parts with knowledge of the overall organisational pattern in whichthey participate to ensure their integrated functioning – to ensure thatall the parts act to maintain the integrity and health of the whole.Health is synonymous with harmony. A healthy animal body functionsharmoniously. When it is stressed, giving rise to ill health or dishar-mony, it strives to cure itself, restore its lost harmony. In physiologicalterminology, the organism displays homeostasis.

Miller (1985) explains that Rta must be understood from three pointsof view. The first is the universal or cosmic aspect that is described in



the previous paragraph. The second is the socio-ethical aspect. This isthe basis for ethical behaviour of the individual in human society. Thisaspect of Rta is termed Dharma, which, in its most general sense, meansharmonious life or action (Osborne, 1973, p. 200). Elaborating on thisZimmer writes, ‘The word implies not only a universal law by whichthe 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 ofarete, or excellence. His authority is H. D. F. Kitto’s The Greeks. ‘Whatmoves the Greek warrior [with reference to the Iliad] to deeds of heroismis not a sense of duty as we understand it – towards others: it is ratherduty towards himself. He strives after that which we translate as “virtue”but in Greek is arete “excellence”’ (Pirsig, 1974, p. 370). It constitutes aunitary, comprehensive definition of ethical behaviour.

The third aspect is what Miller terms the religico-sacrificial. It is thegeneral notion that human beings in all aspects of their lives mustactively contribute to the maintenance of Rta by sacrifice. In Vedictimes, this was done ritually.3 Today I would say that the notionof sacrifice translates into to that of restraining one’s appetites anddesires, tempering one’s ‘pursuit of happiness’, and ‘self-fulfilment’ inthe interest of balance, of harmony – in the ecosystem, the family, thecommunity and in the entirety of humanity.

If all this sounds pretty dreary and irksome, Panikkar suggests thatat the personal level, the concept of Rta is, on the contrary, liberating.‘No need to control everything, to be certain of all things, to knoweverything. No need to live facing the future or scrutinise frantically thepast. We may trust in Rta’ (Panikkar, 1985, p. xix). Of course, to put ourtrust 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 thatwe can know it.

Law as imposition

The [concept] of Imposed Law adopts the alternative metaphysicaldoctrine of External Relations between the existences which are theultimate constituents of nature. The character of each of these ulti-mate things is thus conceived as its own private qualification. Suchan existent is understandable in complete disconnection from anyother such existent; the ultimate truth is that it requires nothing butitself in order to exist. But in fact there is imposed on each suchexistent the necessity of entering into relationships with the otherultimate constituents of nature. These imposed behaviour patterns



are the Laws of Nature. But you cannot discover the natures of therelata by any study of Laws of their relation. Nor, conversely, can youdiscover the laws by inspection of the natures.


An example will make this concept clear. Issac Newton’s descriptionof the solar system in terms of his law of universal gravitation embodiesthis concept. He assumed that (1) the ultimate constituents of natureare self-existent material bodies – sun, planets, moons; (2) these bodiesare in motion at undiminishing velocity in straight lines unless actedupon from outside themselves; (3) that each of these bodies possessesthe attribute of heaviness or mass; (4) these bodies possess an activeproperty, force, proportional to their mass, that acts upon other bodies,even without contact, causing them to deviate from their straight-linetrajectories; and (5) time and space are objective and absolute. Giventhese assumptions, he was able to describe the exact distance of eachplanet from, and its movement around, the sun. This invariable rela-tionship, he said, was a law of nature that had been imposed upon thesebodies by the Creator.

In his general approach to the study of natural phenomena, Newtonwas not as radically innovative as he is generally made out to be. Hislaw of universal gravitation was the culmination of a train of thoughtthat was initiated in Hellenic times. This train of thought can be termed‘particularisation’, that is, a tendency to look at the parts rather than thewhole. This movement towards particularisation seems to have begunwith the recognition of ‘self-evident’ axioms of geometry and mathem-atics. From these, deductions of practical value could be made. This ledto the notion that these axioms are eternal, immutable patterns thatare 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 Aris-totle. Aristotelian deductive science embodies this orientation and ledto the systematic, in-depth study of detached phenomena. The conceptof the whole did not disappear altogether, for it was thought that theseaxioms 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 occurredin Hellenic times. It was marked by a devaluation of traditional mythswhich became ‘plebeian superstitions’ in the eyes of the intellectual aris-tocracy of the Hellenic period (Russell, 1946, p. 31). The final demiseof the concept of law as immanent is found in Newton’s work, andtentatively in Johanne Kepler’s work before him. The planets ceased



to be recognised as living beings. As living beings, they were partsof an organic universe. As lumps of dead matter, they are discrete,self-sufficient entities – and their co-ordinated movements had to beaccounted for by the concept of law as imposed.

Another important facet of this tendency to particularisation canbe seen in Plato’s dialogues where he attempted to isolate and definegeneral aspects of experience such as beauty, truth and justice. Thesewere visualised as abstract organising principles, or ‘Ideas’, as he termedthem, which enter into experience and give it form. Like the axiomsof geometry, the Ideas are static and immutable. Plato assumed thatthese ideas could be understood and defined by logical mentation. Hisdialectic 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 featureof 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 thatgeometrical patterns are ‘imposed on’ substance to give it form. In bothcases, the basic concept is that the patterns/Ideas exist separately fromthe 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 twocontradictory concepts, those of permanence and change, that hadbeen formulated earlier – and both of which he felt were true. Parmen-ides, who lived in the first half of the 5th century BC, consideredthe multitude of sensible things ultimately to be illusory, presumablybecause they can be shown to be impermanent. Only the One exists,and it is infinite and indivisible. Heraclitus, who lived a little earlierthan Parmenides, thought that the only reality is change; there isnothing permanent but change itself. However, Plato was unable tounify these contradictory concepts and so ended up proposing a dual-istic world – a world if Ideas, separate from, though determining, aworld of forms. This dualistic outlook has characterised mainstreamthinking in Western culture from then on; it was explicit in Hellenisticand 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 ofhis creation and between mind as a spiritual principle and matter asmere spatial extension � � � ’ (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1992, article on theHistory of Western Philosophy). Today environmentalists see this same



duality in contemporary mainstream thought – the divide between myperson and the environment – as responsible for violence against nature(see e.g. Mortari, 2003). Thinkers in other cultures have made a betterjob of reconciling the concepts of permanence and change, and we canusefully recall what they had to say. This will be done in Chapter 8.

The problems with Plato’s dualistic worldview are both logical andpractical. Looking first at the practical, we recognise, for example, beautywhen we experience it, and it is possible to live beautiful lives andcreate beautiful artefacts, but we cannot define it. We can do a post hocanalysis of a beautiful thing and come up with a list of rules for creatingother beautiful things, but these rules are useless in helping us to do so.Pirsig (1974), for example, came to the conclusion from years of tryingto teach students how to write beautiful essays ‘by the rule book’ (hewas a teacher of rhetoric) that it is impossible.

In his argument, Pirsig uses the word ‘quality’ and not beauty to char-acterise a good essay. Further reflection brought him to the conclusionthat quality was nothing less than the reflection of arete, Dharma, in aparticular artefact. And since arete, cannot be defined by logical menta-tion, 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. Allare just so many ways of ‘seeing’ the operation of the whole in distinctinstances 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 beenappreciated by Plato. It cannot reach behind what is given in experience.What we are given are aspects of the Whole in the shape of discreteepisodes of experiencing. Reason can only work on the elements in theseepisodes.

By way of summarising the foregoing description of the concept oflaw as imposition, it may be said that this law is a special, limited caseof the more general concept of law as immanent. There are simple,recurrent aspects of Rta that can be described mathematically such asthe ‘self-evident’ axioms of geometry. They might be useful for limitedpurposes. But they are only aspects, and for right understanding andbehaviour, must be seen as such. In other words, the final and mostadequate explanation for the solar system is that it is an organism.Certain aspects of it, for example the relationship between any two of itsmembers, can be explained approximately in terms of mechanism – asNewton demonstrated. The world is ultimately, however, an organism,not a machine.



The concept of law as immanent is invoked to explain how thingshappen, and, more importantly, why they happen as they do. Withthe concept of imposed law, the notion of necessity is also present, butthe verbal/mathematical expressions in which the concept of this law iscouched lack the direct immediacy, the emotional force, of the symbolsof myth which is so important in guiding ethical conduct.

To wind up this discussion on the concept of law as imposed, itwill also be well to reflect that if all Newton’s basic assumptions arerejected, which increasingly they are today, this concept becomes unten-able. If there are ultimately no discrete material entities, on what is lawimposed?

Law as mere description

The concept of law as imposition, from its tentative beginnings in theHellenic period, gathered strength over the next two millennia untilin the 17th century it decisively eliminated the concept of law asimmanent. From then on the concept of law as imposed by a Creatoritself waned; it was increasingly felt that the assumption of a Creator wasunnecessary, even a distraction, to objective scientific enquiry. Better tofocus on that which is clearly perceptible to the senses and to draw whatconclusions one can from the regularities observed in such phenomena.These regularities were considered to be the law – at least as much of itas can be known. Thinkers who led this movement imagined that theywere freeing themselves from needless preoccupation with unprovablemetaphysical or theological assumptions. They failed to recognise theirown 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 successiveobservations. Acquaintance is cumulative and comparative. Thelaws of nature are nothing else than the observed identities ofpattern persisting throughout the series of comparative observations.Thus a law of nature says something about things observed andnothing 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.



The concept of law as mere description offers no basis for explainingphenomena; it professes only to describe them. Thus the philosopherDavid Hume rightly, from the point of view of law as mere descrip-tion, observed that no causal mechanism between two related eventsis discernible. His notion of causation was, therefore, simply that byrepeatedly seeing two sorts of events together, and occurring in thesame order in time, we develop a habit of thinking of them togetherin that way. Causation, given the concept of law as mere description,can be nothing more than this habit of thought. ‘We have no othernotion of cause and effect, but that certain objects, which have beenalways conjoined together � � � . We cannot penetrate into the reason ofthe conjunction’ (Russell [1946, p. 639], quoting from Hume’s ‘Treatiseof Human Nature’ published in 1739).

Of course, both scientists and everyone else inevitably do seek explan-ations. In the absence of the concepts of law as immanent or asimposed, they unconsciously employ other assumptions about whythings happen. One is that discrete physical entities exert a somethingtermed ‘force’ that explains why two bodies move in relation to eachother in just the ways they are observed to do. Force, however, is nota thing at all, and so cannot cause anything to happen. The term force(‘F’) in the equations of Newtonian mechanics is a purely mathematicalconstruct; that is, Force = Mass × Acceleration. All the equations can berewritten to eliminate the term ‘F’ (Russell, 1946, p. 524).

Another explanation assumed by contemporary scientists is what thephilosopher of science Rom Harre calls a ‘micro-explanation’. Generallystated, this concept is that the nature of the individual things that makeup a larger composite entity determines the nature of that entity (Harre,1972). Take for example the question of how an organism is structured asit is. The explanation is that its overall structure is ‘caused’ by its micro-structure – that is, by the structure of the DNA molecules in the nucleiof its component cells. The reasoning is that DNA molecules replicatethemselves; they arrange individual amino acids into a distinctive struc-ture just like their own. Therefore they determine the structure of thewhole organism. The ‘therefore’ in the previous sentence is, however, acover up; there is a logical discontinuity at this point.

One should either not give any explanation at all, which is the offi-cial view, or, if one does offer an explanation, it should be logicallyconvincing. Mainstream biologists do neither.

Another logical problem with the micro-explanation approach is thatit leads to an infinite regress, and thus ultimately explains nothing. Thestructure of DNA is caused by the structures of its component molecules,



which in turn are caused by their component atoms. Eventually onearrives at an irreducible ultimate particle (since one is a materialist). Itdoes not have any structure. The original question remains, where doesstructure come from?

Further, we must note that the assumption of law as mere descrip-tion forces scientists into blatant deception. The Baconian doctrinestipulates that observation of phenomena followed by induction is theonly valid scientific procedure. In practice, however, scientists typic-ally have a hypothesis about why something is the way it is beforethey begin to observe. Then they search for evidence to support thishypothesis. J. K. Bajaj (1988) has shown by reference to Bacon’s ownwritings that his method of inductive reasoning is not free from biasdue to his unacknowledged a priori hypotheses about why eventshappen as they do. As the biologist Peter Medawar writes, ‘ � � � inductionin scientific papers [is] the posture we choose to be seen in whenthe 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, notto mention concept of law as immanent, had disappeared. What sortof a world is it that cannot really be explained, as mainstream scienceofficially maintains? There is no unity, only a welter of ultimatelyunrelated phenomena in which we must strenuously exert ourselvesto discover some semblance of order. As Bertrand Russell said in mid-twentieth century, ‘ � � � the idea that the world is a unity is rubbish. Ithink the universe is all spots and jumps, without any unity and withoutcontinuity, without coherence or orderliness � � � (quoted by Goldsmith,1998, p. 115)’.

And yet contemporary scientists are continually stumbling uponorder, as the Pythagoreans did so long ago. Strange attractors andfractals have emerged from the bowels of super computers (Capra, 1997).Further,

Quantum mechanics reveals � � � [a] world [that] does not consist ofindependent particles whose characteristics of position, momentum,electrical charge, spin, and so on [that] can be varied independently ofeach other. The quantum realm is governed by principles of intimateentanglement and co-ordination between its components, a non-local connectedness resulting in holistic, correlated order that extendsover time and space.

(Goodwin, 2003)



The order that is forcing itself on scientists is not, however, explained;it is only described. So far the thinking of mainstream scientists remainslocked into the concept of law as mere description. For this reason, theycannot really account for the order they are observing except to say thatit emerges from phenomena. In other words, it is ‘explained’ by themicro-structure of the process.

A summing up

This brief and very general survey of the concepts of law assumed atvarious times in the course of Western history is intended to set thestage for a discussion of how we might begin to come to grips withthe crisis in contemporary global culture. It is being argued that thedisappearance of the concept of law as immanent from our worldviewand our assumption of the concept of law as mere description havecrippled us intellectually and emotionally. The concept of law as meredescription is now manifestly inadequate to deal either with the insightsthat 20th-century science has produced, or the problems arising fromthe ‘rational’ management of human affairs. At the same time, we nowhave no convincing reason to act in one way rather than another; thereis no explanation of why the world is as it is. This concept of law as meredescription is perhaps the major cause of our dysfunctional culture andof our inability to heal ourselves.

This survey has also revealed that an adequate understanding of lawby means of logical mentation alone is impossible. And yet, Westerncivilisation has devoted all its energies over the past two and a halfmillennia to precisely this. There is an urgent need for a drastically newway of thinking. This will be in the direction of re-instating the conceptof law as immanent and mythical mode of understanding it.

The following section is therefore devoted to an exploration of mythas a means of understanding the working of law as immanent. Followingthat, two examples of the spontaneous reappearance of myth in contem-porary life are described.

The mythical mode of engagement with nature, society and with one’sown self also has its dangers. A brief mention of these and how to dealwith them is made at the end of this chapter.

Understanding the concept of law as immanent throughmyth

[T]he sphere of logical thought is far exceeded by that of themind’s possible experiences of reality. To express and communicate



� � � [what is] gained in moments of grammar-transcending insightmetaphors must be used, similes and allegories. These are notmere embellishments, dispensable accessories, but the very vehiclesof the meaning, which could not be rendered, and could neverhave been attained, through the logical formulae of normal verbalthought. Significant images can comprehend and make mani-fest with clarity and pictorial consistency � � � a translogical reality,which, expressed in the abstract language of normal thought,would seem inconsistent, self-contradictory, or even absolutelymeaningless.

(Zimmer, 1956, p. 25)

An understanding of myth is seemingly indispensable if the concept oflaw as immanent is assumed. This section describes the mythical modeof human interaction with the world. First the general nature of mythwill 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 areanimate entities, human beings, gods, demons and animals, all endowedwith human thoughts, emotions and abilities, although usually exagger-ated in one direction or another. Phenomena – physical, emotional andspiritual – are described in terms of stories enacted by these entities.4

Inanimate entities are also common symbols in myth, deriving theirsignificance from their roles in particular stories. And always, the storyintimates the working out of the patterns comprising Rta. Myths thushelp people understand current events, and give them guidance in theaffairs of daily life.

Myths are created by people who are able to articulate that which is feltor known intuitively by everyone. Over the years and generations, myth-ical stories undergo changes, for they are dynamic constructs, changingwith changing circumstances, or, more correctly, changing as is neces-sary to maintain their timeless relevance. Sometimes they are obviouslylocal variants of larger cultural myths. Sometimes local myths spread,displacing others with the same or a similar theme to become dominantin an entire culture; the historian A. L. Basham points out instances ofthis in Vedic culture (Basham, 1954). I would say that all events in tradi-tional societies are routinely understood as exemplifications of mythicalthemes. More accurately, contemporary events are significant in termsof their conformity with these themes, and, at the same time, are contri-butions to their continual construction. Further, as current events, atleast the more vivid ones, recede into the past they often seem to become



more and more assimilated to the mythical themes they exemplify. Tothat extent, there is no past, but only a timeless mythical present.5

The language of myth is also that of dreams. The psychoanalystC. G. Jung and others have pointed out that the symbols of dream,even in the dreams of participants in the worldview of contemporaryglobal culture, are similar to those of ancient myth (Campbell, 1988).The meanings of these symbols have largely been forgotten and modernpeople thus have no access to Rta as it operates in the world and in theirown psyches.

Though the occurrence and importance of myth declined in Westernculture from the Hellenic period, the need for and ability to generatemyth seems not to have disappeared from the human psyche – if thedramatic reappearance of myth in contemporary global culture is anyindicator.

Gaia as a myth

When I first saw Gaia in my mind I felt as an astronaut must havedone as he stood on the moon, gazing back at our home, the Earth.The feeling strengthens as theory and evidence come in to confirmthe thought that Earth may be a living organism. Thinking of theEarth as alive make is seem, on happy days, in the right places, as ifthe 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 ofancient Greece (Graves, 1969) and in Vedic culture where she is knownas Prithvi (Atharveda 12:1, Panikkar, 2001). In its most potent version,the Gaia theory thus assumes the concept of a living universe. It isbeing enthusiastically embraced as such by diverse groups of environ-mentalists and is important for many more people who are not explicitenvironmentalists. With most scientists, it is creating consternation. Inthis section, the difference between metaphor and myth is highlightedand the uproar in scientific circles examined.

James Lovelock, the author of the Gaia theory, in the Preface to hisbook The Ages of Gaia (Second edition, 1995) relates an exchange he hadwith a fellow scientists at a meeting at Oxford of an inter-disciplinarygroup of scientists to discuss the theme ‘The self-regulating Earth’. Thisexchange seems so appropriate as an introduction to the subject of myththat I quote what Lovelock wrote at some length.



Towards the end of my talk at this meeting, a talk in which I triedto show that the ecosystems of the land masses and the ocean areat present failing to achieve thermostasis and would operate moreeffectively during an ice age, I said, ‘Perhaps Gaia likes it cold.’ Thiswas intended simply as verbal shorthand for some wordy technicalphrase such as: the evidence suggests that the system, comprising thealgal ecosystems of the oceans and those of the land plants, takentogether with the atmosphere and climate, maintain thermostasisonly at global average temperatures below about 12�C. In my talk Ihad spoken like this more than once. I felt the need for metaphorand it seemed to me that ‘Gaia likes it cold’ might be a neat sentencewith which to summarise and conclude my talk. To my amazementa scientist friend came to me afterwards and said ‘Jim, you can’t saythings like that. It takes us back to the days of Gaia as an EarthGoddess. The scientists sitting near me were shocked to hear youspeak in such terms’.

(Lovelock, 1995, pp. xii–xiv)

Metaphor is widely used in everyday speech and also in discussingscientific subjects. A metaphor is ‘ � � � a figure of speech in which a wordor phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable � � �

a thing regarded as symbolic of something else’ (Concise Oxford EnglishDictionary, 2002). As Lovelock says, it is a ‘neat’ way of summarisinga long complex explanation. Why then should Gaia, as a metaphor,create such indignation among scientists? It is, I think, because Gaia ismuch more than a metaphor; it is a myth. This conclusion seems to besupported by the attitude of environmentalists.

Now myths are not arbitrary or fanciful productions of an individualmind, though they are articulated through particular persons. They arepowerful, dramatic, collective representations of subtle patterns that areintuited by everyone. They are powerful because they resonate withsomething within us and demand our attention and acquiescence. Theresonance is due to the fact that the subtle patterns shaping the world‘out there’ also shape the processes ‘within me’ by which I appre-hend and make sense of the world. This is attested to by the factthat most mythical motifs are shared by people of diverse culturalpatterns; they seem to be the birthright, so to speak, of all humanbeings. Since we became ‘enlightened’ in the 17th century and approachreality only by the ‘light of reason’, we have denied the existenceof the subtle patterns that myths embody. But that does not banishthem.



We all are familiar enough with psychoanalytical theory to know thatany element of experience that is denied recognition by the consciousmind does not disappear, but recedes into the unconscious. It then findsexpression in dream clothed in the forms of timeless mythical themes.

Enlightenment man6 dismisses the mythical mode of engagementwith the world as incompatible with a search for ‘Truth’. In short, it is‘nonsense’. To mainstream scientists, therefore, all talk of Gaia, with itsmythical evocation, is nonsense. It is ‘nonsense’ to which they them-selves are liable and against which they have to be on their guard. Thisexplains, I think, the admonition the scientists at the Oxford meetinggave Lovelock.

In other words, the Gaia theory is a threat to the prevailing conceptof law as mere description. This is why Martin Haigh has said that tothe extent that the Gaia theory has been accepted at all by the scientificmainstream, it has been ‘neutered’ (Haigh, 2001). What he means, Isuggest, is that the Gaia theory in all its potency presupposes the conceptof law as immanent. ‘Neutering’ it means framing it in terms of theconcept of law as mere description.

The Gaia theory will be ‘at home’ only in a science that presupposeslaw as immanent. What such a science will look like will be consideredin Chapter 9. At this point it will, however, be relevant to observe thatonly such a science will give us understanding. In accordance with thedefinition of understanding given in Chapter 3, it results only whensensory data, memories and intuitively perceived patterns implicit inphenomena, but not perceptible to the senses, are admitted as inputsinto the thought process. If we deny intuition as a legitimate cognitiveinput, we end up with only knowledge. It is only when we understandthat 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 spontaneousreturn of an ancient mythical theme to contemporary awareness. In thefollowing paragraphs, I narrate what, in my opinion, is another instanceof this.

During the last hours of the 20th century, between 9 and 12 PMon 31st December 1999, one Delhi television channel showed the filmTitanic. It evoked various thoughts/emotions in me, but the predom-inant one was how apt a metaphor this sinking of an awesome, proudship was for the course of 20th-century Western culture. The hubriswith which this ‘unsinkable’ ship was launched invited disaster. Thisevent, at the beginning of the 20th century, was also an omen of



what was in store for us. The magnificent creation of the 17th-centuryEuropean enlightenment sailed confidently into the 20th century, onlyto encounter an iceberg of reality: two world wars, an environmentalcrisis and the ravages of two hegemonic variants of the enlightenmentvision – communism, which has already failed, and capitalism, whichis rapidly failing.

Developments in science and society have further contributed to thedisintegration of the Western enlightenment cultural model. The find-ings of physicists studying the subatomic realm in the 1920s challengedall the assumptions of the worldview of contemporary global culture.This was followed later in the century by the Gaia theory with its implic-ation that the planet Earth is a living organism. Reactions to the sterilityof and meaninglessness of 20th-century Western culture in the West andprotest against the cultural and economic hegemony of the West else-where marked the second half of the century. All these have challengedthe very worldview of Western culture. Our ship is fatally stricken and‘will sink’ to use the memorable words of the Titanic’s designer as heprepared to go down with Her.

Surely, I thought later, this story is more than just a metaphor – it is amyth. The theme of hubris and the retribution that is provoked by it isthe same as in the myth of Icarus who flew too high – too close to theSun – whereupon the wax in his wings (which were made of wax andfeathers) melted and he fell into the ocean and was drowned.7

This film story, as myth, obviously presupposes a controlling patternbehind the scenes – a pattern that ensures everyone and everythingoperates within limits. Any exaggeration of thought, feeling or actionthat transgresses those limits disturbs the harmony and sets in train areaction that restores it. This is in marked contrast to the assumption ofa world without intrinsic coherence and order, assumed by Russell – theassumption that it was simply ‘bad luck’ that the iceberg drifted intothe path of the ship.

The message – reminder – of the Titanic as myth is that there isa universal imperative for ethical behaviour that is nowadays largelyignored. The modern experiment of attempting to posit a utilitarianrationale for ethical behaviour has clearly been a disastrous failure.Humankind has, collectively and individually, a definite place in theoverall scheme, and if it thinks to go its own way, it will be punished. TheVedic poet ‘ � � � said that Rta, though benign, can be “stern and fierce” inrespect of transgressions. Brihaspati rides the fearsome chariot of Rta fordestroying the wicked’ (Chaitanya [2000] paraphrasing Rigveda 2:23:3).Gaia produces children who are full of love, wisdom and harmony, but



also, when necessary, monsters that rage through the world devouringand destroying.8

The Titanic story as myth also illustrates how, in the words of thepoet Ted Hughes, mythical stories

think for themselves once we know them. They not only attractand light up everything relevant in our experience, they are also incontinual private meditation, as it were, on their own implications.They are little factories of understanding. New revelations of meaningopen up out of their images and patterns continually, stirred intoreach by our growth and changing circumstance.

(Hughes, 2000)

In participating in a myth, it is necessary to reflect on its personal aswell as its cultural implications. Take the sub-theme of Rose, the heroineof the story. It is an example of a person struggling to be free of socialconditioning and to find her own way in the world. Equally, her storyis a story of how each of us in this day and age must seek the feelingand intuitive functions of ourselves (the boisterous life below decks) inorder 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 modeof engagement with the world must be mentioned. Aberrations dooccur, giving rise to mass psychoses. Pernicious racial/ethnic myths haveappeared in our times, leading to much violence. Such aberrations areusually of brief duration, and are thus not true myths. ‘If a tale canlast � � � for two or three generations, then it has either come from thereal place, or it has found its way there’ (Hughes, 2000). Another featureof mass psychoses is that their mythical theme is parochial and notuniversal. Such psychoses thus create acute disharmony in the largercontexts within which it occurs, setting in motion corrective, oftenequally violent reactions. True myth is always harmonising.

Ancient myth must be interpreted, even reformulated, in a contem-porary idiom to be wholesome and useful. Basham’s study of the historyof mythical themes reveals that they are ever adapting to changingcircumstances, at least in cultures that adhere to the mythical modeof engagement with the world. With the conscious efforts now beingmade to re-instate the idea of law as immanent in our way of looking atthe world, the ancient mythical theme of Mother Earth is reappearing,



but in an altered formulation suited to the circumstances that prevailtoday. To my mind, this is a confirmation of the power of true myth toreformulate itself to meet changing requirements.

Where such reformulation is not done, and a mythical themeappears – in response to current need – in one of its earlier cultural formswe have an equally grave problem – that of fundamentalism. It is arefusal to allow mythical themes to proceed with their own spontaneoustransformation. They cease to be myth, and instead become immut-able matters of fact. This is happening in many non-Western societiesin reaction to the hegemony of Western-style global culture and theself-destructive course it has set, and the increasing, though unacknow-ledged, irrelevance of their own past formulations of universal mythicalthemes. It is to be expected, but is a distraction from, and danger to, thenecessary process of cultural transformation that is needed.


6A Flawed System of Ideas

The purpose of Chapters 4 and 5 was to demonstrate the methods ofidentifying, explicating and critiquing the primary assumptions of theworldview of contemporary global culture. In doing this, it has also beenshown how unsatisfactory these assumptions are in terms of their logicand their adequacy. Most of them contain logical inconsistencies andall are inadequate in that they do not provide plausible explanationsof major features of common experience. These conclusions go a longway towards explaining the dysfunction of the cultural model we haveinherited from the European Enlightenment. With the benefit of hind-sight, we can say that the world need not have come to such a pass asit is in today for us to realise this fact. With a little more metaphys-ical acumen, the shortcomings of these assumptions could have beenforeseen. They were, in fact, seen by a few people, but their views wereignored. The mood of the 17th century was of impatience to get on witha grand scientific exploration of nature, and scientists had little time orthought for metaphysics. And the fruitfulness of their project seemedto vindicate their hurry. In all this, there is a lesson for us today; we areembarking on a fresh speculative enterprise, and it behoves us to try tounderstand and avoid the sort of mistakes they made.

One further task remains by way of critique: to consider how wellthe seven definitions assumed in the worldview of contemporary globalculture fit together as a system. In general, we can say that if the indi-vidual definitions, when considered together, do not form a system thatmeets the requirements of coherence, logical consistency and adequacythat system or worldview will probably give rise of problems (‘unex-pected side effects’) in practice. The purpose of this chapter is to checkout the worldview of contemporary global culture in terms of thesecriteria.

80


A Flawed System of Ideas 81

Two problems demand our attention. The first is that of incoherencearising from the fact that there are four ultimately real entities andno single, overarching, unifying concept. The second is a contradictionarising from the ambivalence in the definition of the person.

Incoherence

In Chapter 4, Whitehead’s definition of coherence, as applied to meta-physical systems, was quoted. Elsewhere he rephrased this definitionmore succinctly as follows: ‘Incoherence is the arbitrary disconnectionof first principles’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 6). In terms of this definition,the system we are considering, positing as if does four ultimately entitiesnone 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 particularconcepts (first principles, primary assumptions) from various philosoph-ical systems of the past, most notably the concept of enduring materialatoms in perpetual motion in empty space of the Greek atomists, andthe concept of law as imposed of Plato. He did not deduce these conceptsfrom any single supreme concept, nor did he attempt to coordinatethese readymade assumptions to ensure their coherence as a system. Heapparently did not see any need to.

The reason for this is that he was a scientist. Whitehead makes thisclear in the course of his general assessment of Newton’s contributionto world thought.

Newton’s Scholium � � � constitutes the clearest most definite, andmost influential statement among the cosmological speculations ofmankind, speculations of a type which first assume scientific import-ance with the Pythagorean school preceding and inspiring Plato.


As a scientist, Newton’s immediate, indeed, sole concern was to furtherthe study of natural phenomena. In this, of course, he was in tune withthe thinking of the times; people saw a science based upon observa-tion and description, particularly description in mathematical terms,as the way to freedom from the medieval Scholastic mindset. As itturned out his laws of mechanics, based upon these concepts revolu-tionised not only Western science, but the entire Western worldview aswell. However, he addressed only the first and third of the perennialquestions, ignoring the second one – who am I who experiences the



world. More accurately, he simply held on to the notion of a detachedobserver that had been a primary assumption of Western civilisationsince Hellenic times, and had been freshly and forcefully articulated byRene Descartes in the 16th century.

The presence of incoherence in the worldview of a culture leads toconfusion and thence to mistakes in practice. Environmentalists cite thenotions of the environment and the observer who is not part of theenvironment and is able to manipulate it without any constraints as theprimary cause of the mess we have made of our planet (see, for exampleMortari, 2003). Such a distinction between ‘me’ and ‘the environment’does not seem to occur in non-European cultures that are informed bycoherent worldviews, and the people of these cultures possess a greaterdegree of what is termed today ‘ecological consciousness’.

There are two lessons to be learned from the results of Newton’s type ofthought. In tackling any discrete problem or area of human endeavour,it is not sufficient to focus only on that problem or area. The results ofsuch efforts are bound to come to grief. We must always keep the ‘bigpicture’ in mind. Metaphysics has the perspective and the tools to helpus do this.

The second lesson is that taking shortcuts in the TL process leadsto failure. The Enlightenment exercise skipped over the first threetasks described in Chapter 3 (identification, explication and critique ofexisting assumptions) under the heading ‘Standing outside oneself’, andalso omitted the final task, of creating a logical, coherent and adequatesystem of ideas.

Contradiction

The worldview of contemporary global culture is marred by contradic-tion arising out of the definitions assumed for the ‘I’. I say ‘definitions’because there are two of them, one explicit and other implicit, arising outof the definitions of other categories. This was pointed out in Chapter 4but 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 ofmaterial entities.

The implicit definition is that the ‘I’ is a person, a body, a physicalentity, a thing like any other thing. This means that it is an assemblage ofbasic material entities. The structure and functioning of this assemblage



can be understood completely in terms of the properties and activitiesof these basic entities. This notion guides all thought in the modernworld. There is no more revealing instance of this fact than the studyof human physiology and psychology and the pathologies encounteredin these two realms. Logically, this is all very tidy.

But the question arises: If the human body and its functions can beobjects of study, like any other thing, who is the observer who is saidto be detached from things? We cannot doubt its existence, yet it is nota material entity. Logically, there is no place in a materialist worldviewfor a non-material entity.

Let me summarise and highlight this problem by formulating it in thefollowing three propositions.

1. All phenomena are physical phenomena, or emergent properties ofphysical phenomena.

2. I, an observer of such phenomena, am a separate order of realityfrom them.

3. I am a physical phenomenon.

The logical contradiction in these three assumptions is evident whenstated in these terms, but in the hustle and bustle of getting andspending, 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 ofWestern civilisation from earliest times. It seems to be a corollary ofthe concepts of the soul, as articulated by Plato, and of Rene Descartes’concept of a ‘thinking substance’. Both concepts affirm the existenceof an entity associated with, and yet distinct from, a person’s physicalbody; 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 thefirst place that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (ofwhich 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 thosewhom I leave behind” ’ (Russel, 1946, p. 148). Russell goes on to say thatthis distinction between soul and body ‘has a religious origin � � � . TheOrphic � � � 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



Plato seeks to express in the language of philosophy’ (ibid, p. 149). Laterthis concept of the soul joined up, more or less, with that of the soul inthe Hebrew–Christian tradition.

The distinction between soul and body is only one aspect of theduality that pervades Plato’s thought. Other, analogous pairs are realityand appearance, Ideas and sensible objects, and reason and sense percep-tion (Russell, ibid, p. 149). The first terms in each of these pairs arerelated. The Ideas constitute the real world in as much as they are theeternal backdrop, as it were, of the world of sensible objects. The latteris only an appearance. The soul is capable of cognising the real world ofIdeas, whereas sense perception and mundane mentation cognise andinterpret 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 soulsurvives 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 tosuppose that this cyclicality applies to the case of dying and comingto 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 ‘recollec-tion’ shows, or at least suggests, that the soul’s life is independent ofthe body.

Third, the soul contemplates the Forms [Ideas], which are eternal,changeless, and simple. The soul is like the Forms. Hence it isimmortal.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article on Platonism)

A further argument, which Russell says had been around for quite sometime, is

that only what is complex can be dissolved, and that the soul, likethe Ideas, is simple and not compounded of parts. What is simple, itis thought, cannot begin or end or change � � � . [Also] � � � things seenare temporal, but things unseen are eternal. The body is seen, but thesoul is unseen; therefore the soul is to be classified in the group ofthings that are eternal.

(Russell, 1946, p. 154)



The issue before us is, I suggest, to decide upon the validity of the claimfor the existence of an entity termed by Plato the soul. If it cannot beshown to exist, then the current concept of the detached observer is amistake – in so far as the soul is considered the ultimate definition ofthe person. This issue can be framed as the question: is the individualsoul a discrete entity, distinct from other souls? Alternatively, is the souldefined in terms of its qualities or properties? If the answers to thesequestions is yes, then the soul cannot be said to be a discrete entitydistinct from every other soul; it cannot be said to exist. This is thesame 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 thesoul cannot be conceived in isolation from the body; it shares the body’sdiscreteness as an entity that is different from other bodies. If there isany doubt about this, Socrates appears to put it to rest: ‘Socrates’ soulis identical with Socrates himself: the survival of his soul is the survivalof Socrates – in a purified state’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, articleon Platonism).

This soul of Western conception has generally been considered to bethe essential person. The person is, as Socrates says, his/her soul. But ifthe soul cannot be said to exist, that definition too, like those of bodyand 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 madeto 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. Hebegan his speculations by doubting all received truths, until onlyone true proposition appeared to remain. Russell explains this in thefollowing 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 haveno body: this might be an illusion. But thought is different. ‘While Iwanted to think everything false, it must necessarily be that I whothought was something; and remarking that this truth, I think, there-fore I am, was so solid and so certain that all the most extravagantsuppositions of the sceptics were incapable of upsetting it, that Ijudged that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle ofthe philosophy that I sought’.



Having now secured a firm foundation, Descartes sets to work torebuild the edifice of knowledge. The I that has been proved to existhas been inferred from the fact that I think, therefore I exist while Ithink, and only then. If I ceased to think, there would be no evidenceof my existence. I am a thing that thinks, a substance of which thewhole nature or essence consists in thinking, and which needs noplace or material thing for its existence. The soul, therefore, is whollydistinct from the body and easier to know than the body; it wouldbe 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 relat-ively straightforward task. There is direct experiential evidence for theexistence of the ‘I’ prior to, and independently of, the experience ofthinking. Descartes was obviously unaware of this evidence, or chose todiscount it. The evidence has been described, to the extent that it can bedescribed in words, by those who practise stilling the mind completely.‘I’ is the bare awareness from which all experience emerges. It shouldnot in fact be termed ‘experience’, as I have just done, since it is prior toall experience. It can be ‘experienced’ by anyone who is willing to putin the required effort in the right manner. If one has had this experi-ence, or if one has not but is willing to accept the testimony of thosethat have, it will be evident that Descartes reversed the true order ofthings. I think only because I am. This cuts the ground from under hisentire argument for an autonomous ‘thinking substance’. There is nosuch thing. Here then, we have another mistake that somehow came tobe unquestioningly accepted by successive eras in Western civilisation,or perhaps it should be said that it reinforced the mistakes made earlierby Plato.

This entire question will come up again in Chapters 7 and 8 whenan attempt will be made to explain the certainty every person has thatthey do in fact exist, and that that bare certainty seems to be all that isleft to him after every possible attempt at definition fail.

With these observations on the detached observer, the critique, or mysuggested critique, of the worldview of contemporary global culture iscomplete. In Chapter 7, we will move on to examining some alternativeprimary assumptions about the world and human nature.


7Alternative Assumptions

In this chapter three promising alternative primary assumptions willbe described and evaluated. All have been hinted at in the previouschapters. The first of these is that the world is a process and not acollection of things. This sweeps aside entirely our present notion ofdiscrete, enduring material entities existing and interacting in a pre-existing space–time matrix, cognised by a detached observer. The secondis that everything is interconnected, interdependent in a way that isnot intelligible in terms of our contemporary concept of law as meredescription. 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 asProcess and Reality (Whitehead, 1929). He suggested that the ultimatereal things of which the world is composed are not physical entities, butepisodes of experiencing. These are units of living process, and thereforehe termed his cosmology the philosophy of organism. In what follows Ihave 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 usedWhitehead’s own special terms for the most part, but in a few instancesI have also suggested alternative terms that seem more appropriate tothe context of this essay. After describing the concept, I point out thoseaspects of it with which I disagree and describe my own suggestions.Throughout, the terms ‘experience’ and ‘experiencing’ are used in waysthat correspond to the definitions given in Chapter 3.

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Actual entities

Actual entities, or as they will be referred to here, ‘episodes of experien-cing’, are innumerable and all are essentially the same. These combinein various ways to form complex structures of process such as what areconventionally termed atoms, crystals, amoebae, trees, people, ecosys-tems, planets and galaxies.

In a unit of process, or episode of experiencing, three phases can bevisualised. In the first, completed episodes of experiencing in the causalpast of the episode in question are cognised as well as what Whiteheadterms ‘eternal objects’. He terms the cognition of completed episodesfrom the past ‘physical prehensions’. The cognition of eternal objectsis termed a ‘conceptual prehension’. While some past episodes, andsome eternal objects from the totality of such objects, are positivelyprehended, others are negatively prehended, that is, they are excludedor rejected. Prehensions are thus selective.

The term ‘cognition’ as used in the preceding paragraph means, inthe case of physical prehensions, the transmission of influence fromthe prehended entity to the prehending episode in the process of itsformation. In the case of the prehension of eternal objects, cognitionappears to be what we would term intuition.

Eternal objects are the same as Plato’s ‘Ideas’, or subtle organisingprinciples. Though Whitehead follows Plato in this matter, he makesit clear that he does not visualise a realm of eternal objects with apre-eminent reality as Plato does. In his system that place is taken byepisodes of experiencing themselves.

In phase two, physical prehensions are arranged into meaningfulpatterns in accordance with the requirements of the eternal ideas thathave also been prehended by that occasion. This arranging also involvesenhancing the strength of some prehensions and diminishing that ofothers 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 theculmination of the process, what Whitehead terms a ‘satisfaction’ or a‘drop of experience’. With this, the process comes to an end. The episodeperishes as an actual entity, but in perishing, it becomes ‘objectivelyimmortal’ and becomes available to subsequent episodes or experiencingas 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, uniqueworld. However, as each episode, directly or indirectly, prehends every


Alternative Assumptions 89

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 isknit into the fabric of the whole – of a single universe.

Associations

The smallest and simplest episodes might be visualised as what are todaytermed subatomic particles. From a human point of view, their durationis momentary and their extensivity vanishingly small. These combinein various ways to create larger, and larger-order, episodes, possessinggreater duration and extensivity. Single episodes combine in two dimen-sions to give temporal and spatial associations. ‘A purely temporal asso-ciation contains no pair of contemporary actual episodes; it is a merethread of temporal transition from episode to episode � � � [each] episodeprehending the episode immediately preceding it in the thread. � � � Apurely spatial association includes no pair of episodes such that one ofthe pair is antecedent to the other.’ (In this quotation from Sherburne[1966, p. 231], the term ‘episode’ has been substituted for Whitehead’sterm ‘actual occasion’.) An electron, or whatever is the smallest actualentity or episode, is a purely temporal association. Large-scale associ-ations like rocks, people, trees and ecosystems are both temporal andspatial associations at once. ‘The most common condition is for � � � [anassociation] to spread itself both spatially and temporally. A tree, whichat an instant is many � � � [episodes of experiencing] thick spatially, isalso many generations of [episodes of experiencing] thick temporally’(Sherburne, 1966, p. 230).

Associations arise in the following way. In an episode of experiencingepisodes from the causal past are prehended individually. If a group ofthese episodes is similar amongst themselves, they become associatedin phase three to form a single entity. Similarity occurs because theprehended entities are mutually immanent in each other; that is, theyall contain common elements from their causal pasts – they prehend thesame completed episodes from the causal past – and common eternalobjects. These associations become discrete elements of the new episodeand are passed on as such to subsequent episodes. In other words, if theworld 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 inthe future.

In a complex spatial–temporal association, there are many levels ofassociations arranged hierarchically, each association organising those itsubsumes and being organised by the higher-order associations of whichit is an element.1



The togetherness of all actual entities

The totality of episodes of experiencing is recognised by Whitehead asa distinct entity in its own right, a world process. This world process heterms ‘God’. It is an actual entity, or episode of experiencing, thoughof a different type to those so far considered. In the development ofthe episode of experiencing that is ‘God’, the usual process is reversed:the process begins with the physical prehension of the entire realm ofeternal ideas and the conceptual prehension of all the generations ofcompleted episodes of the ordinary type; the latter are then ordered (orreordered) in terms of the demands of the totality of the former. Thusthe satisfaction of the episode of experiencing that is ‘God’ is a specificstate of the totality of worlds so far brought forth and constitutes afreshly 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 particip-ation in the things which are eternal (eternal objects). The two sets aremediated by a thing which combines the actuality of what is temporalwith the timelessness of what is potential. This final entity is � � � [that]entity in the world, by which the barren inefficient disjunction ofabstract potentialities obtains primordially the efficient conjunctionof ideal realisation.

(quoted by Sherburne, 1966, pp. 25–6).

Whitehead’s concept of actual entities, or episodes of experiencing, is adefinition of the general category ‘matter’. Having done away with thedefinition of matter as discrete material entities, it is obviously necessaryto redefine all other categories as well. This Whitehead has done. Theresult is an entirely new cosmology, the philosophy of organism. It willbe 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 viewboth Newtonian and Einsteinian space–time are objective. That is, theyassume the ultimate reality of objects ‘out there’ and a person ‘in here’who is defined by the collectivity of those ‘external’ objects.) Withinan episode of experiencing, time and space appear in their familiarobjective forms; there is a past and a future, there is a here and a there. Ifone’s world includes only ordinary, everyday ‘sensible’ objects, time and



space generally appear as conceived by ‘the vulgar’ that is determinedby things in movement. If one is a physical scientist, time and spaceare Newtonian (while at work), except for those whose world includesvery small objects, very distant objects, and, in general, very fast-movingobjects, where they are best thought of in Einsteinian terms.

By way of further amplification of this point, we may first of allremind ourselves that prehended data (completed episodes) are all inthe causal past of the current episode. Within the present episode, theyare arranged temporally and spatially or, so to say, ‘spread out’ to give anintelligible world. Thus experiences from the causal past are transformedin 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 associationsappearing in an episode of experiencing, the more extensive are itsco-ordinates. However, since the members of each species of episodeshave a common general content and structure, all the members of thespecies live in a world with a similar time–space matrix. This gives theappearance of a common world for the species.

In respect of the totality of episodes, however, there can be no timeor space as we know them. Whitehead does not adequately explain howthis idea of subjective space and time (our familiar objective time–spacewithin an episode of experiencing) is to be reconciled with his concepts,quoted above, of ‘temporal’ and ‘spatial’ associations of episodes ofexperiencing. If space and time are subjective to the individual, thenin what sense are some individuals ‘antecedent’ to others, or ‘contem-porary’, for that matter? Again, in what sense do the many individualcompleted episodes exist at different places, that is, maintain theirdistinctive identity?

There is a similar problem within an episode of experiencing itself(Sherburne, 1966, p. 38). The first phase in the process is the prehensionof data, which are, in the second phase, organised into a unitary exper-ience. It is only during the second phase that time and space come intooperation. 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 anepisode of experiencing are necessary to Whitehead’s cosmology. Thebest that can be done, he concludes, is to say that here we are dealingwith time and space sui generis, that is, a unique species of time andspace.

Actually Sherburne is in good company. Such a concept of ‘atem-poral time’ has been found to be necessary in many cosmologies. And,



in fact, Whitehead also tacitly admits this when he describes ‘God’ asprehending all the generations of completed episodes of the ordinarytype, 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 assumesthe concept of law as immanent, or as intrinsic to episodes of exper-iencing. His formulation of this concept in the context of his systemcomprises three terms: eternal objects, the ‘extensive continuum’and ‘God’. The terms eternal objects and ‘God’ have already beendefined. The extensive continuum takes its rise from the ‘ � � � notion ofpure, or general, potentiality, � � � [or] “the bundle of possibilities, mutu-ally consistent or alternative, provided by the multiplicity of eternalobjects. � � � It is that first determinant of order – that is, of real poten-tiality – arising out of the general character of the world’ (quoted bySherburne, 1966, pp. 223–4).

Through successive episodes of experiencing termed ‘God’, theuniverse is configured in its totality. ‘God’ is a larger process in whichall myriad worlds brought forth by episodes of the ordinary type parti-cipate, and in which the greater and the myriad lesser episodes mutuallyco-determine each other.

This brief, possibly inadequate, explanation of Whitehead’s conceptof law as immanent will hopefully be sufficient to indicate its similarityto the concept of Rta described in Chapter 5. More recent attempts todescribe this concept are considered in the next section.

A spatial association is accounted for by Whitehead as resultingfrom the predominant participation of the same eternal object inseveral contemporary episodes. A temporal association occurs when thepredominant ‘past’ episode prehended by a developing episode of exper-iencing is similar to what it itself is to become. In terms of human exper-ience, the strongest impression or memory or feeling of the person thatoccurred in his immediate ‘past’ that is most like the person that he/sheis now to become in the current episode of experiencing is prehended.This is the meaning of the phrase used a moment ago, ‘ � � � the episodeimmediately preceding it in the thread’.

The course of the process, or of an episode of experiencing, is determ-ined by the actual data, or past episodes, prehended by it, and also bythe end result – the satisfaction or world brought forth. This is becauseof 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



prehended and then organised as they are so that the final world broughtforth is as it must be. Whitehead points out that these two causes are,respectively, what Aristotle termed ‘efficient’ and ‘final’ causes. In theworldview of contemporary global culture, science recognises only theformer, 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 andhis cosmology, the philosophy of organism. I suggest that episodesare living in the sense that they display all the features of autopoi-etic systems: dynamism, a capacity for self-creation, for self-definitionand for novelty. The degree to which episodes display these features, ofcourse varies, being almost nil at the level of subatomic units and highlyvisible at the level of an ecosystem and a human being. Whitehead,however, and to me inexplicably, considers the simplest associations ofepisodes to be lifeless. It is only, he says, when they become sufficientlycomplex to exhibit novelty of form or function, that is, the appearanceof forms and functions that could not have been predicted from know-ledge of the nature of their simpler constituents, that it is appropriate toterm them alive. He is thus tacitly assuming the ‘emergence’ definitionof life that figures in the materialist worldview. I suggest that everything,that is, every episode, be considered alive, though possessing differingdegrees of ‘aliveness’. In the worldviews of most non-European, andeven of pre-Hellenic European cultures, everything is alive.

Knowing the world

In Whitehead’s scheme, knowing the world and creating the world aresynonymous. The person that seems to know, the world he/she knows,and the world that is known, are all created simultaneously as the worldappears in an episode of experiencing.

These bare statements may not convey an adequate understanding ofWhitehead’s concept of knowing. It must be recalled that in terms ofthe contemporary worldview, there is a pre-existing world ‘out there’, anobserver ‘in here’ and an act of perception by which the observer comesto know this world. In terms of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism,this definition has no meaning – nor does the definition given in thisessay in Chapter 3.

Perception, Whitehead says, is a result of a two-step process. The firststep occurs in phase one of an episode of experiencing where episodesin the causal past are prehended, or, in other worlds, ‘grasped’. This



grasping is more in the nature of a vague yet insistent feeling than thesharp, definite image that our current term ‘perceiving’ denotes. Thisstep is termed by him perception in the mode of causal efficacy.

The second sub-process occurs in the final phase of the episode ofexperiencing where physical prehensions are arranged in space anddelineated sharply to give a world – the world brought forth – whichis the culmination of that episode. This process is termed perception inthe 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 ofsymbolic reference.

A further word is now necessary concerning time. In a temporal seriesof episodes a given entity may be perceived to occupy different positionsin relation to other entities in each successive episode. This comparisonoccurs because not only the immediately previous episode, but alsothose previous to it in the series are prehended simultaneously in thecurrent episode. In this way, the given entity is perceived to ‘move’ inrelation to other entities. This ‘motion’ gives rise to the sense of time inthe current episode.

The person

In Whitehead’s system subjectivity, the experiencer of experiences, isassumed to be an emergent property of the process of experiencing.The subject appears only at the time of the third phase of the episodeof experiencing; it does not exist before that. For my part, I find thisassumption inexplicable; I would say that for any experience, howeverelementary, a subject and an object are implied. The operations in allphases of the episode of experiencing, the prehending and processingof data, is incomprehensible without a prehender and a processor.

Whitehead then goes on to assume that the subject that emerges in thefinal phase is a person. He would thus seem to be identifying a discrete,particular human body that is a persistent feature of a temporal seriesof episodes with the subject of the current member of that series. If, asI will maintain throughout this essay, the subject is present throughoutan episode of experiencing, and not just in the last phase, such anidentification is illogical.

In response to this Whitehead would, I think, maintain that whenhe refers to a subject he means a conscious subject, and that conscious-ness only occurs with fairly complex associations. In this essay, I wishto argue that consciousness, like life, is a feature of all episodes ofexperiencing. There are degrees of intensity of consciousness, so that



very simple structures like stones appear to us unconscious and lifeless,while complex ones are conscious, indeed, self-conscious. This notionof a qualitative discontinuity between simple and complex structures,as with the concept of progress, is carried over by Whitehead fromthe Enlightenment worldview. They need not have been; indeed, hiscosmology would have been logically more tidy if he had droppedthem.

A final comment

One final comment on Whitehead’s concept of process is necessary. Inthe first paragraph of this section I wrote, ‘He suggests that the ulti-mate real things of which the universe is composed are � � � episodes ofexperiencing.’ He is very emphatic about this: ‘actual entities [episodesof experiencing in this essay] � � � are the final real things of which theworld is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to findanything more real’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 18). Again, he writes, ‘Apartfrom the experience of subjects there is nothing, nothing, bare nothing-ness’ (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 ‘nothing’ might yet be something, and indeed everything, is, in general,foreign to Western thought. But it is, in my opinion, essential to anyworldview that is adequate to the needs of global culture in the 21stcentury. Such a concept is described in Chapter 8, and why I think it isessential is explained.

Everything is radically interconnected with everything else

A few quantum physicists and environmental educators appear to beapproaching the concept of law as immanent. They do not use thisterm, but the drift of their thinking is to my mind unmistakable. I basethe following account of this development on David Selby’s excellentreview paper The signature of the whole: radical interconnectedness and itsimplications for global and environmental education.

In their most transformative expressions, global and environmentaleducation can be viewed as educational countercultures to mech-anism and reductionism as they have colonised education and aseducational expressions of a holistic paradigm. This is often expressedsymbolically using the billiard ball and web models. The billiardball model – depicting a cluster of billiard balls on a billiard table –has been employed to indicate separateness, discreteness, and forms



of external relationship between things where the relationship hasno effect on their internal structure and dynamics. � � � Transformativeglobal and environmental educators have countered the billiard ballmodel with the web model (understood dynamically). The latter hasseemed to convincingly capture understandings drawn from ecolo-gical and quantum (sub-atomic) science that: everything is dynam-ically connected and related to everything else; nothing can becompletely understood save in relationship to everything else; iden-tity is multifaceted and includes a significant near-and-far contextualelement; what happens somewhere will impact to a greater or lesserextent elsewhere, even everywhere (captured to some extent in theenvironmentalist’s saying ‘You are always downstream of someone’);what happens locally is also a global phenomenon (a part of thewhole, itself acting to inform the whole) and the signature of globalevents will be manifest locally; different global issues – such as envir-onment, development, health, peace, rights – are interconnected;past, present, and future are interwoven, co-evolving and co-creatingelements of time.

(Selby, 2002)

The billiard ball model reminds me of the model of gas moleculesflying about in a closed container, forever colliding, rebounding, flyingoff in new directions which featured in my high school chemistry text-book. This too was an attempt to depict a mechanistic world. Suchmechanistic systems models are based upon the five assumptions listedat the beginning of Chapter 4. The concept of law assumed by the modelis 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 differentabout it is that is possible now, with our enhanced computational capa-city, to describe more than one event or relationship at a time. It is nowpossible to determine the future disposition of all the bodies concerned,given their disposition at present. This gives a more distinct feeling thata set of bodies in motion is a system. However, it is still a mechanicalsystem, a micro-explanation of phenomena.

True ecology attempts to describe systems in organismic terms. Itemploys a macro-explanatory approach, and emphatically assumes theconcept of law as immanent. Mainstream science ‘neuters’ or kills theseorganic systems by framing them mechanically as models that can berun on a computer. This, I suggest, is what the web metaphor tries tocapture.



To reclaim the true ecological vision, the organismic concept ofsystems, a different metaphor is clearly needed. Thus Selby goes on toask, ‘Have transformative global and environmental educators gone farenough in responding to mechanism?’ He does not think they have,and therefore proposes a third metaphor, that of ‘dance (of the free-formvariety)’. The following quotations, taken from the same paper (thatis, Selby, 2002), are attempts to describe the idea that this metaphorsuggests.

Leading-edge ecologists and quantum physicists have suggested tous that there is a world of ‘unbroken wholeness’ or ‘holomove-ment’ � � � underlying the world of separate things and the world ofinterconnections.

Physicist David Bohm � � � has described the subatomic world ofrelatively separate things (neutrons, electrons, etc.) as the ‘explicateorder’ behind which is an ‘implicate order’, in which everythingis enfolded within everything else. Bohm extrapolates from thesubatomic world to suggest we would be wise to countenance theimplicate order in our understanding of our macroworld – to seethat in a profound and very real way, everything is embeddedin everything else and that things or objects are ontologicallysubordinate to flows and patterns.

Viewed from the point of view of modern ecology � � � the reality ofindividuals is problematic because they do not exist per se but onlyas local perturbations in [the] universal energy flow � � � .

‘Entities – including ourselves – according to new physics and newecology are momentary configurations of energy, local perturbationsin a total energy field or holomovement. We emerge into theexplicate, become manifest, only to resubmerge into the implicateorder of being (which at one level of presence we never left). We areephemeral manifestations of a fertile no-thing-ness from which allthings emerge and to which all return � � � .

Phenomena (people, other-than-human life-forms, places, countries)at this level are coevolving manifestations of a multileveled andmultidimensional dance of internal and external relationships.

These quotations suggest to me an approach to the concept of orderas 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.



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 twoperspectives on one single reality. As long as there is even a trace ofduality in our thought in regard to this issue, we are assuming theconcept of law as imposition.

On the other hand, however, the statement quoted earlier – ‘Weemerge into the explicate, become manifest, only to resubmerge intothe implicate order of being (which at one level of presence we never left)’.(italics mine) – does suggest quite clearly that there are not two realmsor levels of reality, but only one.

Admittedly, the concept of Rta is slippery. It seems impossible tocapture it with only the word and mathematical symbols available to ustoday. Metaphor is better, and Selby’s use of ‘dance’ is a tacit acknow-ledgment of this. Better still is myth as argued in Chapter 4.

The concept of law as immanent is indeed coming back into Westerncivilisation. The appearance of modern myths like Gaia and the Titanicstory embodying this assumption were cited in Chapter 5. The law asimmanent seems to be implied in deep ecology (Oppermann, 2000),in Edward Goldsmith’s ‘Gaian process’ (Goldsmith, 1998), in AlbertHoward’s ‘Nature’s farming’ (Howard, 1940), and in the natural farmingconcept of Fukuoka (1994). In all these cases, ‘Nature’ appears to beinvoked as a metaphor for the Rta.

The statement ‘We are ephemeral manifestations of a fertile “no-thing-ness” ’ strikes me as significant. In Chapter 4, we concluded that there areno 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 ‘fertileno-thing-ness’.

Another conclusion too is perhaps permissible from Selby’s paper. Heseems to recognise that the concept of law as immanent is only possiblein a universe in which there are no things (that is, no discrete, substan-tial, autonomous entities). For, the very term Selby has coined – dance –precludes things, for how can discrete, substantial, autonomous entitiesthat 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 whilethe dance metaphor is the most general and ultimately only adequateconception 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 canbe put right if a part becomes faulty.’ I suggest that what he implieshere is that the idea of law as mere description (Newtonian mechanics)



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

Detached participation

I can think of no better way to introduce this subject than to repeatsomething 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 wilfullyalienated 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 restof the universe. We therefore need a new way of seeing, a vision inwhich our problems are various local violations of the cosmic orderthat occurs due to the assertion by individual human beings of theirindependence from the whole.

(Jackson, 2004)

This section describes current attempts to define an alternative conceptof the person in a way that seems necessary today, together with acritical evaluation of these attempts.

It is a primary assumption of global culture that a person is a realentity consisting of a physical body (with all its thoughts, emotionsand behaviour) which is distinct from what it experiences. It has beenshown in Chapters 4 and 5 that this assumption is untenable on logicalgrounds. There is really no way in which the person can be definedas a thing in itself. If we assume otherwise, it is simply for the sakeof convenience – an assumption knowingly connived at. This is whatthe majority of human beings has always done, and indeed must do



as a matter of convenience. It was only the European Enlightenmentthinkers 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 aspectof the whole, it follows that he/she cannot be a detached observer ofthe whole; he/she is a part of what he/she observes.

Many environmentalists, searching for an alternative definition ofthe person speak of what they term an ‘ecological self’, an ‘ecologicalindividual’ or an ‘ecological ego’ (Oppermann, 2000; Roszack, 2001;Rowe, 2003, respectively). They seem to be referring to a person who isaware of his embeddedness in the natural world. The implicit analogyis that of an organism in an ecosystem. They have taken the Earth asthe relevant ecosystem in order to define the person.

Miller (2002) paraphrasing Gunaratna uses the term ‘participatoryobservation’ for the same concept. I think this latter is a more useful formu-lation.Thismeansthat theperson,wheninthemidstofhis/herdailyactiv-ities, concurrently maintains an awareness of the larger system in whichhe/she is embedded. He/she is then detached from those activities and canlook at them objectively. His/her thoughts and actions will tend towardharmony with the functioning of the whole system – and contributeto its harmonious functioning. A conscious effort is needed to accom-plish 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, asdeveloped so far, can be summarised in the following way. There isno autonomous person, only an aspect of the Whole. The aspect is,for convenience, constructed as the conventional, empirical, sociallyembedded person that it is necessary to assume. It is role acting whichdoes not obscure the awareness of really being the Whole. The Wholeis taken to be Gaia, the Earth ecosystem.

As important as this insight is – and indeed it is vital – I have alwayshad the uncomfortable feeling that it has not been fully explored, andthat if it were, it would ultimately be found to be illogical. This wouldrender the definition of the person as an ‘ecological self’ or a ‘detachedparticipant’ meaningless.

Agreed, a person can only be defined as the whole system in whichhe/she is embedded. That system taken for practical purposes is Gaia.The question that must then be asked is, how is Gaia defined? Applyingthe same logic, She can only be defined in terms of the larger system inwhich She is embedded. That system is, let us say, the Solar System. Shemust function within the Solar System as an ecological self or detached



participant. As far as we know She does so – which accounts for Herregular 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 endto 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 levelsto the smallest and least inclusive. But who or what is that ultimateperson? Keeping to our previous way of defining the person as the nextlarger 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 isnothing beyond It or bigger than It. The ‘person’ of the universe, and byextension, the ‘persons’ at all levels of the universe are thus Nothing (no-things). The human person’s real identity is thus not ultimately Gaia; itis nothing – no thing. This is the same conclusion that we reached inChapter 4 by a different route. The larger implications of this conclusioncan only be considered in the next chapter. For the present, let us saythat 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 isendless, then the person can be explained in terms of an infinite regress.However, resorting to an infinite regress to explain something is notgenerally thought to be valid. It would really only be a futile attempt tosave our initial inadequate assumption that the human person is Gaia.

Looking back over this entire line of thinking behind the conceptof the ecological self from the perspective of Whitehead’s concept ofepisodes of experiencing as the ultimate entities of the manifest world,it will be evident that those pursuing this line are making the samemistake Whithead is in respect of the person. Logic dictates that thesubject of an experience cannot be identified with any particular discreteelement in that experience – that is, in this case, with a human body.An adequate definition of the person still eludes us. We persist in seeingourselves as separate from the rest of the world.


8A Return to the PerennialQuestions

Given the present world situation, the ideas presented in Chapter 7appear inevitable to many people who devote time and thought tothe task of ‘learning to think differently’. It should be equally obvious,however, that, of themselves, individually, these ideas lack the powerto transform. And so they are being repeated, with variations, over andover again in seemingly endless discussion. We are unable to moveforward; we are bogged down. To change the metaphor, we are stillessentially imprisoned in the worldview of contemporary global culture.Our cell door is not actually locked, but we are paralysed and cannotopen it and walk out despite knowing that freedom is necessary andpossible.

Power is not inherent in ideas themselves. But they can acquire powerwhen they are seen as parts of a comprehensive, logically consistent andcoherent system – a worldview. They acquire power when they are seenas necessary to the system; that is, when they give meaning to the otherideas of the system (as well as derive meaning from them) and ensurethe logical integrity of the system as a whole.

So far we have no system, but only a collection of ideas. Our taskis now to build an adequate system. The method of doing this will beto 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 inChapter 7, modifying or reformulating them as may be necessary toensure conformity with the overall logic of the system.

102


A Return to the Perennial Questions 103

What is real?

To answer this question, it is necessary to set forth some criteria ofjudgement. The criteria that will be adopted here are that only that isreal which exists always, which does not come and go, which neverchanges and which requires nothing else in order to exist.

In constructing a system of answers to the perennial questions, abeginning will be made by assuming the concept of the world as aprocess, as it was described in Chapter 7. This process can be reducedto a duality of subject and object, to bare notions of subjectivity andobjectivity. Each presupposes the other; neither can exist apart fromthe other. They are thus not ultimate, real entities. Rather, they are butpolar aspects of a single entity – experiencing. Or, they are a logicalnecessity to describe the primary entity – an episode of experiencing.This way of thinking avoids introducing duality, which should ensurelogical consistency to our scheme of ideas.

This line of argument can be carried still further to suggest that theunity of subject and object in an episode of experiencing is only aninstance of an ultimate unity, and indeed is that unity itself. In supportof this suggestion, it may be noted that every episode of experiencinghas a beginning and an end. Things that are not permanent, but whichcome 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 orthe Infinite. It is indescribable because it is ‘prior to’ thought. This is thebedrock concept upon which the foundations of the system proposedhere will be constructed.

In Chapter 7, it was argued that the ‘I’, the root of our sense of beingan individual, is logically the same as the ultimate, universal Being whois yet no Being, no thing. Thus, by a different route, logic leads us to anultimate 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 inthe background’. When we question ourselves what it is that we knowwithout 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; inorder 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 indeep sleep; though there is no awareness of the ‘I’ in deep sleep, there isno doubt, when we wake up, that ‘I’ continued during sleep. And in anycase, there is no means of proving that the ‘I’ did not exist in deep sleep.



Finally, the ‘I’ does not seem to change; it is the same in childhood andin all later stages of life, whatever specific experiences come and go.

Another instance of direct experience occurs to us sometimes when wewake up from deep sleep. It is as if we actually witness a world cominginto 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 givesway to the knowledge ‘I am’ followed by the appearance of objects inawareness, and at the same time of the person (me) who is aware. Theappearance of objects and myself marks the coming into operation ofsubjectivity and objectivity, of time and space. The reverse of this occurswhen my world shuts down as I fall asleep. The awareness of being awarethat occurs during the brief moment between sleep and waking is thecontext of experiencing.

More positively, the concept of the context or ground of experiencingis found to be what remains when, in deep meditation, the mind isquietened and all experiencing ceases. The empirical person and theworld he/she observed both disappear; only awareness of being awareremains. Even the bare sense of individuality, of the ‘I’, is not. Whatremains is simply ‘That which is’ – the One.

The conclusion from all this is that the One alone is real. Everythingelse 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 ofexperiencing, it is what gives the sense of an ‘I’ to which the act ofexperiencing is referred.

Professor Huston Smith has brought to our attention the fact thatthe European mind, as represented by the thinkers of the Hellenicperiod and after, never really grasped the concept of the One, or theInfinite. The concept of the Infinite ‘ � � � is so subtle, so abstruse, thatpurely 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 thesehis successors backed away from them – Greek philosophers werenot about to give high marks to something that lacked determin-ation. By the time of Aristotle, infinity had come to be associatedwith imperfection and lack (Physics, III: 6–8); it meant the capacityfor never-ending increase and was always potential, never completely



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 “impre-cise”, and “unformed” � � � To-be-finite is for matter a perfection whichcomes to it from form’. Frithjof Schuon [in his Islam and the PerennialPhilosophy (London: World of Islam Festival, 1976)] concurs, notingthat ‘the Greeks always have a certain fear of the Infinite, � � � because(they confused) the unlimited with the chaotic, the infinite with irra-tional’. Leo Sweeney [in his Infinity in the Presocratics (The Hague:Matinus Nijhoff, 1972)] summarizes the matter as follows: ‘Fromwhatever angle it was approached, infinity patently clashed with thedominant Greek notion of form as equivalent to perfection’.1

(Smith, 1963, p. 7)

In contemporary culture the concept of infinity is restricted todiscussions of mathematics. It is beyond the largest possible countablenumber. Or, it is used loosely to mean very big or very much of some-thing.

It will be evident that in the foregoing paragraphs I have beenattempting to present in as culturally neutral terms as possible the IndianVedic concept of the Brahman-Atman. A fuller, and yet non-specialist,account of this concept has been given by Heinrich Zimmer in his Philo-sophies of India (1956). There appears to me no other way to break thestranglehold of dualistic thought in Western culture than to adopt thisconcept.

Actually, the term ‘the One’ for the concept of the Infinite is notcompletely adequate. As a number it implies that it is something, whenit 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’. Theseavoid any suggestion of thingness. However, these terms are awkwardto 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 theOne 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 andmeaningfulness from the One in which it is held. Meaning flows fromrelationship to context. The ultimate context is the One. The world ofcontemporary global culture, a materialist clockwork world, is ultimatelymeaningless because it lacks a context. In such a world, each of us seeksmeaning in terms of his own person, or in some collectivity of persons –creating endless confusion and conflict.



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


In the scheme of ideas being developed in this essay, there are manyactual entities or episodes of experiencing. Each of the Many is the One,though it has a circumscribed view. It will now be necessary to enquiremore 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, thesubject–object duality that makes possible a manifest world is latentin the One. From a world in potential, an actual world (that is, theexperiential construct of Chapter 7) comes into being. The phrase ‘comesinto being’ suggests the concept of creation – a world emerging from orappearing within the One. This is, however, inadequate. At this level ofabstraction, time and space do not exist. It will therefore be better tosay 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 ofsubject, object and their relationship – the potential for a world, termedsimply the Potential. From a third perspective, the One is seen as amultiplicity of actual entities, or episodes of experiencing, the Many,contained within a unitary world process which is itself an episode ofexperiencing. These three perspectives are simultaneous; they do notdescribe a temporal or spatial sequence, or even a logical one.

To place the concept of the Many in an adequate context, we mustgrasp the concept of the Potential. The Rigveda has a verse that describesthis 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 Poten-tial. The river is the Many, or more precisely the world process in whichthe many individual episodes are so many drops. The Seven Sistersare the seven ‘universal formative elements of thought’ introduced inChapter 3. The Sisters, or elements, are at rest in the source and become



active in the flowing river – that is, when the Dweller ‘leaves’ the Sourceand becomes the Many.

In Chapter 2, it was suggested that the impetus and guiding presenceof episodes of experiencing is life. In terms of the symbolism of thisverse, life is what gives the impetus to the Dweller to leave the Sourceand sustains Him throughout His course. Matter then is the definitenessof form, of the contours that the river assumes in its flowing.

All concrete symbols have limitations. In the present case, the move-ment from potentiality to actuality – a river leaving its source – suggestsa process in time. But time only comes into operation when the flowbegins. ‘Prior’ to that there is no time. The potential ‘dwells’ in the Time-less One. Most mythical symbols are ultimately ambiguous, but thentheir function is not to be definitive, only suggestive – ‘little factories ofunderstanding’.

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 onlythe One, the Nothing, the Infinite. In this essay, I am suggesting, as aconcession to our need to ‘explain’ the unexplainable, we say that theworld is created by an episode of experiencing. To say this, it is necessaryto concede that the One may be viewed from three different points ofview: the indescribable One, the indescribable Potential and the describ-able (to some extent) Many. The utmost concession that can be made isto say that these three perspectives may be treated as a logical sequence.But this initial concession should not be lost sight of in describing otheraspects 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 composedof the same trinity of subject and object, and the unity in which thesetwo are held; as actual entities each is an episode of experiencing (asdescribed in Chapter 7), viewing or experiencing others, and also anobject viewed by each of the others.3 The sense of being an individual,an ‘I’, derives from the unity in which subjectivity and objectivity areheld. It is the basis of the empirical person that appears at the last stageof the process.

In Whitehead’s cosmology, the subject of the experience is an emer-gent phenomenon of the process; in this he appears to be confusingthe person who appears at the third stage of the process and the subjectof the entire process – of whom the person is only an appearance. Inother words, the person is derivative of That which is aware of the actof experiencing or the unitary, simple awareness of being aware.



The Many are held together in the unity of one World Process. This isalso a process of bringing forth a world, the macro-cosmic counterpartof 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 accom-modate the latter. The reordered version of Rta is the satisfaction of theepisode of cosmic experiencing.4

Rta is an integral feature of all episodes of experiencing. It is whatgives 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 thematter in a little more detail. The structure of each episode depends firstof all on the ‘choices’ it makes in prehending specific data. There is adefinite selection from the totality of data available. The ‘choices’ in anyepisode are what they must be; they are the outcome of the workingout of Rta in that specific situation. Some sense of what this means in ahuman context is possible if we reflect on why we notice some thingsin our environment and not others, why we like some things and notothers, are drawn to some people and repelled by others. The notion thatwe freely decide on the basis of conscious objective criteria rationallyapplied seems hardly creditable.

The structure of an episode of experiencing depends not only on whatdata are prehended but also on how they are arranged. The pattern ofthis arrangement also reflects the working out of Rta in that specificinstance. It has repeatedly been said that general patterns behind eventsare intuited. This means that some aspects of Rta are apprehended.They are used to bring order to the welter of prehended data to givean integral experience – or what Whitehead terms a ‘satisfaction’. ‘Theactual entity [that is, episode of experiencing] terminates its becomingin one complex feeling involving a completely determinate bond withevery item in the universe’ (Whitehead, 1933, p. 44).

The term ‘satisfaction’ used by Whitehead to indicate the completionof an episode of experiencing is termed in the cosmology being describedhere, the final phase of ‘bringing forth a world’. That world, in the caseof a human episode, includes the conventional person defined in termsof his relationships with all the entities in the world brought forth. Thereal 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 issimply the subject of the concrescing episode. It then becomes a personat the completion of the process of bringing forth a world.



Episodes of experiencing can be classified broadly according to theirpredominant affective tone into intellectual, emotional and physical.These are ‘classified’ as such in the memory bank of Rta. Each of theseclasses of memory acts with some degree of autonomy within the totalityof Rta. Thus, there is a physical ‘realm’, an emotional ‘realm’ and anintellectual ‘realm’ in every world brought forth, though in a given world(episode) one or the other occupies the foreground of attention. Fromthe point of view of the individual association that we term a person, itis convenient to speak analogously of three dimensions or ‘bodies’, aswhen we speak in a shorthand way of addressing the intellectual, theemotional and the physical aspects of the child in educational theoryand practice.

The notion of an emotional realm, and an emotional body, canexplain the discoveries of the psychotherapist C. G. Jung (1956). His‘collective unconscious’ is an aspect of the emotional realm – or theemotional body – and the ‘archetypes’ particular aspects or themesof the emotional aspect of Rta. The archetypes are universal becausethey are the major ways in which Rta is exemplified in that realm.Jung’s followers, and perhaps Jung himself, seemingly felt it necessaryto attempt to explain his discovery in materialistic terms: archetypesof 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, thismaterialist explanation will not be necessary or appropriate, and thealternative suggested here may prove useful.

Analogously, a worldview as a seemingly autonomous, living, chan-ging conceptual entity that is born and eventually dies can be viewed asa manifestation of the intellectual aspect of Rta. And the realm of solid,tangible things’ and the patterns of their interactions are a manifestationof the physical realm (or body).

It is now necessary to return once more to the concepts of time andspace 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. Wewere, however, forced to admit the existence of an ‘atemporal’ timethat orders the episodes of experiencing that have ‘perished’ and havebeen relegated to the ‘causal past’, and also orders the phases of theprocess of ‘bringing forth a world’ that is an episode of experiencing. Theconcept of atemporal time seems inescapable because it is the source ofthe temporal or subjective time that helps to structure each episode ofexperiencing. An explanation of what it is in itself seems to be beyond us.



How the time of everyday experience derives from atemporal time maybe understood in the following way. Space is the way that prehendedentities from the causal past are, in the third phase of an episode ofexperiencing, made definite, discrete things. They are given extensionand, so to say, ‘spread out’ according to the abstract organising patternsof Rta. Once this is accomplished, time comes into existence. Time isas the ‘vulgar’ conceive it, that is, arising from the motion of objectsin space. Motion is abstracted from the fact that in consecutive epis-odes of experiencing in a temporal association the spatial relationshipsof the same objects differ. We say that these objects have ‘moved’ inrelation to each other. From this apparent motion, the sense of timearises. Indirectly, therefore, the atemporal time that orders the series ofepisodes relating to the relative ‘motions’ of a given set of things givesrise to the familiar sense of ‘temporal’ time.

Similarly, subjective space derives from the non-spatial, abstractconfiguring of completed episodes of experiencing in Rta.

The subjective experience of time and space in episodes of experien-cing of the Many is thus the micro-cosmic analogues or derivatives ofthe experience of atemporal time and non-spatial space in the larger,all-containing episode of the World Process – in the same way that thesubject of each of the Many is an analogue and derivative of the subjectof the World Process.

A final topic that needs our attention is that of novelty. All episodesof experiencing produce outcomes that are novel – that is, not exactlylike any episode that preceded them. This ‘novelty’, however, is onlyapparent. It is apparent because, from the limited perspective of oneindividual, 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 isdetermined by what has happened in the causal past. This is the fullmeaning of Rta.

Participants in the contemporary global cultural model cherish thenotion of free will. It is assumed that I can myself determine the courseof the future, at least to some extent. In any episode of experiencing,a selection of inputs – sensory, memory and intuitional – is no doubtmade. The selection is not, however, a matter of free will but is determ-ined rigorously by the necessities of Rta. The person that assumes thatit decides is, in terms of the cosmology being developed here, simplyan aspect or instrument of Rta. There is no freedom in the sense thatthe person is free from the totality of past circumstances. In traditionalphilosophical discourse, this assertion is seen as inevitably leading tothe doctrine of determinism. This is frightening.



The fear of determinism is, however, entirely due to faulty reasoning.It is wrongly assumed that determinism leads to fatalism, the belief thatsince everything that happens must happen as it does and that nothingI do can make any difference; therefore, I will do nothing. But doingnothing is not an option; one is compelled to act. In whatever happens,therefore, I will be a participant. Furthermore, as I cannot know inadvance what is to happen, the best I can do is what circumstancesseem to dictate. What particular circumstances I take note of, how Iinterpret them and what expectations I have for the future are all alikethe outcomes of the totality of circumstances – the configuration of Rtain 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 rolenor alter the lines I am to speak. I can, however, decide whether or not Iwill identify with the stage character I have been assigned. That choice isnot determined. If I decide not to identify with the stage character, theperson 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 theanswers to the perennial questions which it gives.


The world is unitary, the single, indivisible One, but with a trinityof aspects: the One itself, the Potential for a sensible universe and aplurality of episodes of experiencing. Life is the dynamism of episodes,matter their completedness. Time and space are relative, coming intooperation within each episode of experiencing. Each episode ‘bringsforth a world’ and in it finds a person with whom ‘I’, the subject of theepisode, identifies. In bringing forth a world ‘I’ know that world. Therelationship among episodes is determined by law as immanent, whichis 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 exper-iencing, since it is the same as the One. The multiplicity of episodes of



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 isunreal.

Summarising overall, the assumption of one, sole reality of all thatexists ensures the coherence of the primary assumptions defined here.Logical consistency among these assumptions has been assured in theways each is defined. The question of adequacy of this scheme of ideas isto be decided in terms of the success of the secondary assumptions thatcan be derived from it in solving the many problems of contemporaryglobal culture.

It has been noted that to ensure the logical consistency of the systemas a whole, it has been necessary to assume the concept of atem-poral time. This assumption is carried over from Whitehead and isan implied or explicit feature of mythical as well as modern scientificcosmogonies. The apparent necessity of this manifestly illogical assump-tion is a reminder of the tenuous nature of all metaphysical construc-tion. In respect of the work of systems building, I think that Whiteheadstruck the right note when he wrote, ‘There remains the final reflection,how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths of thenature of things. In philosophic discussion, the merest hint of dogmaticcertainty 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 worldviewthat takes into account the many new insights that are now appearing inglobal culture. I have endeavoured to make this system of ideas logicallyconsistent and coherent. How well this has been achieved can now bedebated. What remains to be done in terms of the TL process is to drawout 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 littlemore about the terminology adopted in writing this essay. In this uncon-ventional terminology, the conclusions arrived at later in the essay wereanticipated; indeed, these conclusions were only possible because of theterminology adopted at the outset. In reading Chapter 3, the reader mayhave felt that the terminology adopted was arbitrary and completelysubjective. In reality it was neither. These terms were the end point, asmuch as the starting point, of this essay. The development of the essayhas been iterative – from initial definitions to end conclusions and whenconclusions were found to be inadequate, back again to definitions.



For example, I found that if I began by assuming any of what I nowterm the seven universal elements of thought to be a particular thing or aprocess, my freedom to speculate freely was severely restricted. Similarly,it seemed necessary to redefine the terms ‘cognition’ and ‘thinking’ inorder to break out of the straight-jacket of the rationalistic mindset thatcharacterises participants in the worldview of global culture. We cannotbegin 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 ourfaculties.

‘Thinking differently’ about what a person is means returning to thesecond of the perennial questions: who am I. It is necessary, I suggest,to frame the question in exactly these words. When we ask, what aperson is, we are already on the wrong track. The former question focusesattention on ‘I’, the immediate subject of my experience, and not onanother 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 fromthe way it is understood in terms of the modernist worldview. Then,in Chapter 7, it is redefined in terms of the concept of knowing asequivalent to ‘bringing forth a world’. I did not, however, return to theoriginal definition in Chapter 3 to modify it; to have done so wouldhave made it completely unintelligible to the reader at that point in theessay.

When we speak of cognition and thinking, we refer to activities ofthe mind. The mind itself is conceived as a mechanical (or electronic)thinking apparatus. (Hence all the money poured into research on neuralpathways and the effects of hormones.) In the alternative worldviewdescribed here, mind is the term given to pure process; it is primordial, agiven feature of the universe, a brute fact, and not the activity of a thing.Whitehead uses the ‘ � � � term mind to mean the complex of mentaloperations involved in the constitution of an actual entity’ (Whitehead,1929, p. 85). That process or set of mental operations is synonymouswith the process of ‘bringing forth a world’. The World mind and indi-vidual mind are the macro-cosmic and micro-cosmic aspects of thismind process or bringing forth a world. They are complimentary aspectsof the movement into manifestation of the Dweller at the Source.

The terms awareness and consciousness require careful definitionwhen used in the context of this essay. It seemed premature, however,to do this earlier. A preliminary understanding of the subject matterin which these terms have appeared has been possible without them.



In ordinary thought and speech, awareness is always ‘of’ somethingdefinite, an awareness of an object (including the person I take myselfto be), a situation or a fact. This, however, is consciousness; it oper-ates during the waking and dream states. Awareness exists even in theabsence of anything definite to be aware of. This is termed contentlessawareness or, in common speech unconsciousness. It occurs during deepsleep. Awareness is thus continuous, unbroken; it underlies all threestates – waking, dreaming and deep sleep. This is termed pure awareness,or awareness of being aware (Sri Madhava Ashish, personal communica-tion, about 1970). Pure awareness is the ‘something that is nothing andyet everything’.

It is time that we attempt a clear definition of the person. It was saidin Chapter 7 that an association, once formed, attains the status of athing that recurs with only small changes in subsequent episodes ofexperiencing. One of the things in my current episode of experiencingis 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 andappears in a series of consecutive episodes, each new episode prehendinga previous one most like the one that it is to become. The person isthus an imaginary ‘thread’ that connects a series of temporal episodes.In short, the person is imaginary; it persists only so long as I identifymyself with it. Withdrawing identification, the person disappears. ‘Thatwhich is’ remains. A detached participant then acts its part on the stageof manifest existence.

This definition of the person has vital implications for knowing anddoing. As a person, I assume that I know and that I do. But all this isas imaginary as the person itself. There is no person, only knowing anddoing.

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 byHumberto Maturana and Francisco Varela who coined it in describingtheir new systems theory of cognition. I initially hesitated to borrowthis term, but in the end could not think of a more apt expressionfor 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 meaningMaturana and Varela gave it. Their theory is firmly embedded in thematerialist, mechanistic worldview, in that it assumes a real world ofthings ‘out there’ in objective time and space, existing independentlyof and prior to any act of experiencing it. It differs from earlier theoriesin the modernist worldview, in that it does not presuppose a sharplydefined outer world, but only a source of stimuli which cause structural



changes in the mind that is conceived as an autopoietic system, theresult of which is a precise, detailed representation of the external worldunique to the individual. The cosmology described here explicitly deniesan objective world ‘out there’. There are no things, not even vaguelydefined ones. This must be firmly held in mind in reading this essay.

Perhaps a word of justification for the use of some Sanskrit words isrequired. It is simply that these words, Rta and Dharma, are the names forconcepts that do not appear in Western thought. Consequently, thereare no adequate names for them in English. To attempt to translate,these Sanskrit terms would likely make it more difficult than it otherwiseis for most readers to understand correctly the concepts referred to; anywords that might be chosen would probably carry associations in themind of the reader that would mislead him/her to thinking that he/sheunderstands 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 Westernphilosophical discourse, even if rarely.


9Towards a New Cultural Model

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the process by which a culturalmodel is defined. In the language of the TL process this means devel-oping secondary assumptions about the world and ourselves, basingthem on the primary assumptions of a logically consistent and coherentworldview. The process will be illustrated by working from the altern-ative worldview sketched in Chapter 8. Thus, the secondary assumptionsto be formulated must embody the following primary assumptions orconcepts.

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 intothe constitution of each of the others, and the totality of episodes isgoverned by Rta.

3. Life is the process of bringing forth a world, or the impetus for andguiding presence of the process, while matter is the content of thatworld experienced by the subject of that experience.

4. That subject is both the subject in each episode of experiencing andalso the subject in all episodes of experiencing, the One. It is the Oneand 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 exper-

iencing is synonymous with bringing it forth.

Furthermore, every secondary assumption formulated must embody allthese primary assumptions. Otherwise, it will lack a logically consistentrationale; it will not be viable in practice.

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Towards a New Cultural Model 117

The task may involve formulating new secondary assumptions denovo as well as examining assumptions that have already been formu-lated for their conformity to the requirements listed above. The conceptof sustainability, the concept of Gaia as a living being, and the conceptof an ecological or systems science are examples of the latter. In fact,there are many such assumptions already available. I think it will bequite enough to be getting on with if we concentrate on some ofthese.

There is, however, a problem with many, perhaps all, of these existingsecondary assumptions, which become evident when we enquire intothe primary assumptions presupposed by them as they are presentlyformulated. This can be illustrated by reference to the concept of sustain-ability.

In Chapter 2, it was said that sustainability is problematic becauseit presupposes an alternative worldview on which contemporary globalculture is constructed. The problem is, however, more serious than that.The concept is contradictory within itself since it assumes some but notall the primary assumptions listed above while retaining most of theassumptions of the contemporary worldview. Thus even wholeheartedadherents of sustainability are unwittingly forced to make compromisesin practice. This seems to be the case with most secondary assumptionsso far offered up for debate. A careful look at the concept of sustainabilitywill suffice to clarify this matter of internal contradictions.

The concept of sustainability appears to derive from a worldviewthat is radically different from the worldview of contemporary globalculture. When we enquire into the specific assumptions of this world-view, 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 lawas mere description. The remaining assumptions continue to be thoseof the contemporary worldview. Thus, it continues to be assumed thatthe basic units of the universe are discrete material entities. But suchentities cannot be ‘radically inter-connected’. Further, the contemporaryconcept of objective time and space continue to be assumed, but thisconcept is only appropriate to a universe composed of material entitiessince objective time and space are needed to define those entities. Inshort, the advocates of sustainability have simply replaced one primaryassumption in the contemporary worldview, and by so doing have intro-duced debilitating contradictions. Further, their worldview is even moreincoherent than the present one, since there are more basic assumptionsthat cannot be conceptually unified.



All this goes to show why it is essential that every secondary assump-tion presuppose every last element in a logically consistent and coherentworldview, and why the formulation of such a worldview must be donebefore any thought is given to secondary assumptions. Since we dohave such a worldview available, or at least the suggestion of one (inChapter 8), we have the option of taking up the many already-existingsecondary assumptions and considering how they need to be modifiedin order to conform to that worldview. In the case of sustainability, itis clear that the concept must explicitly deny the existence of materialparticles in motion as the basic entities comprising the universe, andendorse a concept of units of process in its place – and in fact, all theother assumptions that go with that of radical inter-connectedness. Ifwe adopt one, we must adopt all.

From these introductory comments we may now pass on the formu-lation of secondary assumptions. Attention will be given to three suchassumptions: the concept of community, the concept of science asconversation and a concept of history that explains the course of humanaffairs as a continuing attempt to adhere to Dharma with its ever-changing demands. These have already made their appearance but,like sustainability, have been inadequately formulated. Others couldbe taken up, but I suggest that if these three were clarified and theirconceptual foundations secured, they will go a long way towards delin-eating the general shape of an alternative cultural model. At the least,they will offer the participants in the global TL debate something solidto chew.

Box 9.1. The world

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



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 humanwelfare and, indeed, survival. Jones’ use of the expression ‘ecologicalprinciples’ appears to refer to the concept of community as an organic,living entity in which relationships among individuals are defined bythe requirements of the whole. Alternatively, one may say that theconfiguration of Dharma emerges from a process in which a group ofpeople live in mutual dependence on each other. The assumption of lawas immanent and of the impossibility of defining persons as things inthemselves are both evident.

What is a community?

To facilitate further meaningful discussion, several general terms thatwill be used in discussing the concept of community must be clearlydefined. A society is the aggregate of the people living together in a moreor less ordered way in a broadly defined geographical area and particip-ating in a common culture, or as has been said, a cultural model. Thus,there is ‘Western society’ defined and governed by the ‘Western culturalmodel’ that includes broadly the present-day people of Europe, NorthAmerica, Australia and New Zealand. There is a South Asian societyconsisting of the people of the nations from Pakistan in the west toBangladesh in the east, Nepal in the north and Sri Lanka in the South.There may be, usually are, subgroups within societies based upon reli-gion, race and ethnic roots.

Culture is the totality of the concepts, customs, institutions, techno-logies and artistic creations of the people of a particular society in aparticular period. It is determined by its cultural model. The model,however, not only defines the culture, but is itself a product of thatculture.

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 struc-ture. It is a living, adapting and evolving entity. It changes in responseto influences from without but along a distinctive trajectory derivedfrom the logic of its history and its geographical setting. It can be over-whelmed, and even killed, by external pressures such as are brought



to bear by modernisation (that is, colonisation, ‘development’, integ-ration into the global economy). It can also be weakened or killed byinternal contradictions that cannot be resolved and, of course, by theviruses of stupidity, greed, selfishness and the lust for power. It evolvesin 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 andstable one. However, history suggests that, again like ecosystems, evena mature community may suffer decline and death if the cultural modelof which it is an expression fails adequately to adapt to changing condi-tions and so becomes untenable.

I offer a practical definition of community based upon my own exper-ience of traditional village communities in the mountainous region ofUttarakhand State in North India. By this definition, a community isa small subunit of a society. ‘Small’ means that the community is ofsuch a size that every member of it recognises everyone else by face andname. The members of the community share a common local variant ofthe cultural model of the society of which it is a unit. This is shaped bylocal history and geography. The upper limit of size may be about 500individuals. The community is also defined geographically: a compactarea of a size that takes, say, not more than half an hour to traverse onfoot. In such a group of people, there is an opportunity for harmonioussocial relations, gentle livelihood pursuits and non-oppressive modes ofgovernance to emerge spontaneously.

The disappearance of community in contemporary global society

The village community in the West has been destroyed and societyatomised. In this atomised society primary importance is given to theindividual and his/her ‘freedom of action’ is safeguarded. An individual’sbehaviour is specified by a civic code and the society is governed inaccordance with constitutional law, both imposed, but only as far as isnecessary to secure ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’, autilitarian view propounded by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century.In practice ‘happiness’ means pleasure. Further, the notion of the socialgroup with which the individual is to identify and for the sake of whichhe/she is expected to curtail his/her pursuit of happiness at times hasbecome the nation and lately the still more remote, nebulous entity the‘global village’. Such a ‘village’ is the product of the rational manage-ment of human affairs; it is no longer an organic entity which by itsvery nature indicates a person’s place and his relationships to others.In the global ‘village’ effective community has disappeared, only a large



geographical definition remains. This parallels the displacement of theconcept of law as immanent by that of law as mere description.

Edward Goldsmith in his comprehensive and penetrating descriptionof ecosystem Earth writes similarly about community.

In light of the worldview of modernism the State is the only possibleinstrument of government. It is seen as normal, and indeed desirable,that people should be but the individualistic, competitive, aggressiveand disorderly units of an atomized society. The notion that societyis a natural system, capable of homeostasis, is foreign to modernsociologists, let alone modern politicians. � � � This distorted view ofhuman society can only be entertained by one who has had no exper-ience of a [traditional] society of the types within which our ancestorsonce lived and which still survives somewhat precariously in thoseareas that have succeeded in remaining, partly at least, outside theorbit of international trade.

(Goldsmith, 1998, p. 386)

The environmental philosopher Johan Hattingh makes an importantobservation about values that is pertinent to this discussion. The loss ofvalues in contemporary global culture is widely lamented, and strenuousefforts are being made to teach values to children in school. But, asHattingh observes, values are being conceived as ‘ � � � abstract entitiesthat somehow hover over and above the things we do and the contextswithin which we act, and that � � � can guide our actions like stars can giveus direction if we have to navigate over a landscape at night � � � [Theseare] � � � experienced by learners and teachers alike as an external frame-work that is brought from the outside to a context of learning ordecision-making or action, containing a number of ready-made valuesthat 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 reasonis a ‘value’. This is what is meant, I suggest, by saying that the contoursof Dharma emerge from the context of community; Dharma is not anexternally imposed set of rules. The rules are simply a verbal codificationof the ways in which people value (verb) in a given situation and actaccordingly. A externally imposed code cannot be expected to substitutefor the living experience of community.

The environmental educator Bob Jickling also recognises that‘ � � � ethics [emerge] from particular practices, judgements and decisions.



� � � Ethics is a process of reflection, imagination and experimentation,where individuals and/or groups create new ways of being in their partof the world (Jickling, 2005)’. He then goes on to enquire how ethicalnorms (or values) appropriate to a given group and context emerge.With traditional non-European cultures he points out that they emergein the form of stories. He relates that Julie Cruikshank listened to storiestold by a woman of one of the First nations people of Canada andreported that she (the storyteller) was ‘Fundamentally � � � interested inthe work stories do – how they help their listeners � � � to construct rela-tionships and how they give people something to think with’ (ibid).This is reminiscent of Ted Hughes view that myths are little factories ofunderstanding. Myth or story seems to be the only language in whichethics 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 descentin North America.

A traditional community

Since there are no real communities left in the West, it is necessaryto look at a traditional village to gain an adequate understanding ofthe concept. My own experience of true community is of the moun-tain villages of North India. I will describe these, briefly, and thentry to generalise from this description. Numerous other examples havebeen described by Goldsmith (1998, Chapter 63), and I have also else-where described the culture and livelihood practices of communities ofshifting cultivators in India and their disintegration (and that of theirenvironment) under the imposition of ‘development’ (Jackson, 2005,Chapter 3).

A community in this mountain setting can be defined as a groupof people (families) occupying a definite geographical area. This areacan usefully be considered an ecosystem which is composed of land(forest and cultivated land), vegetation, domestic animals and the peoplethemselves (Jackson, 2005). The people, from one point of view, arelike their domestic animals in that they consume food, produce waste(which is recycled) and expend energy as work. From another point ofview, they are managers of the ecosystem, collectively forming an intan-gible component or aspect of the physical ecosystem – a community.They are bound together by a common history, worldview and a sharedinterest in managing the physical ecosystem for their sustenance. Theircultural model is expressed in customs, ritual, technology and myth. Itis a specific, local version of the broader Vedic cultural model. These



communities are small, usually having not more than 500 members(about 100 households).

All the residents of the village can be considered collectively a singlemanager because a large proportion of the ecosystem land is commonvillage land (that is, ‘commons’), and all water is also common property.Cultivated land is owned and worked by individual families, but anindividual family’s cultivated land is divided into many small, scatteredplots (due to inheritance) intermingled with those of other families. Allcultivated land in the village is divided into a few large blocks and cropsare rotated around these blocks. In other words, everyone grows thesame crop in a given season in any particular block. The variety of cropis also the same and it is sown and harvested at the same times. Thisfacilitates protecting the crops from wild animals and birds and someoperations like weeding which are done jointly. Fuller descriptions ofthese village communities and ecosystems have been given by Pande(2004).

The patterns of relationship among people in these villagecommunities are integral to the community and not imposed fromoutside it. They have taken shape over time as the community haschanged and evolved. Duties, rights, social hierarchies and the assign-ment of work are defined with reference to the community in such amanner as is thought necessary to ensure harmony and stability. Theindividual is subordinated to the community, though ideally in wayswhich do not reduce his/her autonomy at his/her own level. I speak hereof an ideal, for in the period of recorded history there have always beensome larger political and economic structures that have subsumed thesevillage 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 isinstructive. Today some of these stressed communities are beginningto 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 degrada-tion and social disintegration that have been found to accompany mostdevelopment initiatives. In doing this they address traditional modes ofthinking and acting no less than those being imposed by contemporaryglobal culture. An example of the former is the patriarchal mindset oftraditional Vedic culture. All this gives considerable insight into theirmode of collective community thinking, and into the ways in whichthey respond to internal contradictions and external pressures in aneffort to restore balance.



A complimentary concept to that of the village ecosystem, one thatmakes it practically operational, is the concept of ecosystem health(Jackson, 2004). It is based upon the notion that ecosystems are livingbeings and can thus get sick. To manage a village ecosystem effectively,a means to diagnose ill health is needed. Indicators of health (or other-wise) in this rural mountain setting are: volume and constancy of springand stream flows, extent of soil erosion, degree of species diversity (insoil, in cultivated crops, in village forests and among domestic animals)and human population in relation to ecosystem carrying capacity. Meas-urable social indicators are human health (in particular, the incidenceof infectious and nutritional deficiency diseases) and of personal andsocial maladjustment such as alcoholism and domestic violence. Theamount of leisure time women have is also an important indicator. Noless 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 tocommunity empowerment is a self-conscious community TL exercise.

Larger considerations

A moment ago reference was made to the ‘global village’. This shouldnot be taken to mean that a global society is not necessary. It is, only itcannot be constructed from the top down. It must be constructed fromthe bottom up, with the smallest unit being the community as heredefined. On the analogy of the living organism, the local communityis a cell. These cells are aggregated into tissues, to organs and finallythe whole animal. Every cell is itself a whole, but at the same time afunctional part of the next higher level of organisation. For a wholeto be healthy, to function harmoniously, all its component units mustbe healthy. Reverting to community, right ethical behaviour, right live-lihoods and right governance must be defined at the lowest level,the local community. They must emerge from the ordinary everydayfunctioning of the community. They are then applied to successivelyhigher levels. To the extent that all communities reflect a commitmentto local ecosystem health, it should not be impossible to harmoniseand co-ordinated their various cultural norms. Only thus will nationaland global affairs truly reflect a commitment to a worldview featuringprocess, radical inter-connectedness, detached participation and theircompanion concepts. This is what the term ‘a sustainable society’ meansin practice. Or, for that matter, what a ‘just society’ means.



Many large issues remain. How can community be created in themodern city? How can it be created in the area of livelihood pursuits?In other words, how do we reverse the trend towards globalisation andfoster localisation in all spheres of human life? Many commentatorspoint out that, given the instability of contemporary global society, abreak up is unavoidable, and that a localisation trend can be expectedto emerge spontaneously. Goerner points out that as a system of anysort grows beyond a certain size it becomes unstable and either perishesor reorganises spontaneously to a more intricate form consisting ofsmaller stable subsystems within a larger whole. In the case of large busi-nesses, they are likely to implode and die or reorganise into a system ofsmall, flexible, autonomous, yet highly inter-connected business units,created and controlled by local communities. Such systems are at oncemore complex and more stable (Goerner, 1999). Another powerful forcepushing us towards localisation will probably be the exhaustion of petro-leum supplies (Box et al., 2005).

The transition to smaller, local human organisations will undoubtedlybe accompanied by much dislocation, confusion and strife. But this willheighten the level of cognitive dissonance for people who have so farresisted acknowledging it, and so force them to attempt to ‘think differ-ently’. The arena of TL will expand to include large numbers so far notinvolved. Fortunately, some spadework has already been done that willhelp in reconstruction. One is thinking here of the experiments whichpresuppose, more or less, the concepts of community and ecosystemhealth: alternative agriculture, health care, education, small-scalebusinesses, 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 world-view outlined in Chapter 8 look like? An answer to this question iscrucial to any discussion of cultural transformation. The purpose of thissection is to suggest an answer.

To begin with, we may note that this question is being addressedby some scientists themselves, particularly some biologists (see, e.g. thework cited by Capra, 1997 and Goerner, 1999). They are attemptingto 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, basicdefinitions are not being clarified. The concept of law as immanentis being pictured as a web by many. Selby (2002) has shown the



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 somebiologists, suggests it is energy. ‘Energy flows’, ‘swirls of energy’, ‘energywebs’ and ‘energy fields’, however, all beg the question: what is energy?Present definitions depend upon the concepts of physical things as theultimate actual entities of the universe, and these in turn presupposeobjective time and space. Obviously these latter cannot logically bereconciled with the concept of law as immanent. If this confusion overthe basic concepts of new science is not taken care of at the outset, gravedifficulties are likely to crop up later.

My second reason for considering new, or web, science as inadequateis that I detect the unstated assumption behind the entire enterprisethat, as Newton’s laws of motion, a scientific theory, changed the entireworldview of Western civilisation, a comparable change in science todaywill be sufficient for the transformation or contemporary global culture.This is a view that seems to be shared by a large number of non-scientistsas well. It is, however, no more than a blind spot in a culture in whichscientific concepts have completely eclipsed all more general, necessary,abstract category of concepts that collectively form the matrix of allthought, including scientific thought. The dangers of allowing sciencethis 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 arigorous TL exercise.

New science like other new currents of thought and practice in manyfields of human endeavour are all valid only when seen for what theyare – a groping for a new all-embracing vision of the universe and ofhumankind’s place in it. I say ‘groping’ because none of these currentscan by itself create that vision. The vision must be created first to givesure guidance to the individual initiatives. Our task here, therefore, is,beginning with the vision of Chapter 8, to deduce from it an appropriatescientific paradigm and methodology for pursuing scientific study.

Let us, therefore, go back to square one and define the term scienceitself. 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 observa-tions 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



turn, upon the worldview of the culture and the secondary assumptionsthat 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 dictatethe methodology in all areas of scientific interest. First is the notion ofsimple causation among two, or at the most, only a few, discrete physicalentities. This follows from the mechanistic materialist conception of theuniverse as exemplified by Newton’s laws of motion.

To develop such an explanation we attempt to create ‘ideal condi-tions’. We wish to determine the effect of, say, y1 entity on the beha-viour of x entity. We suspect that other entities, say y2, y3, y3, y4 andso on, also affect the behaviour of x, and so we design an experimentin which, as far as possible, we eliminate the influence of these otherentities. 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 acomprehensive knowledge of why x behaves as it does. The influence ofall the other myriad y entities in the universe is assumed to be vanish-ingly small or nil. This is largely successful for simple physical systemsunder laboratory conditions, and the results can often be expressed infairly precise mathematical terms.

With complex biological, emotional and conceptual phenomena,however, the notion of simple causation breaks down. The negativeenvironmental fallout of modern chemical agriculture is one example.Similarly, the theory of nutrition which sees the human body as athermodynamic machine and the mechanistic neo-Darwinian theoryof evolution are unravelling before our eyes (Goerner, 1999). The20th-century physicist, to his dismay, also found that even the laws ofmechanics could no longer be expressed with mathematical certainty.The entire structure of modern scientific knowledge is thus beingthreatened by developments within the science laboratory and outsidein nature and society. All this, however, has not yet affected mainstreamscience, nor, in most scientists’ minds, even brought into question thebasic tenets of their inherited 17th-century worldview.

A second assumption that dictates procedure in the mechanisticscience paradigm is that a phenomenon can be understood in terms ofthe properties and behaviour of its parts. This flows from the notionthat the parts are discrete physical entities with intrinsic properties, andthat one of these properties, namely a something called ‘force’, determ-ines the structure and functioning of the whole. (The faulty reasoning



in both notions is overlooked.) Thus, phenomena are analysed intotheir component phenomena or parts in order to understand the wholephenomena. This mindset accounts, for example, for the frenetic searchfor the ‘ultimate particle’ and for the vast effort to map every last genein the genetic code. The fact that these efforts are in vain is becomingincreasingly clear as further research and application fail to deliver.

The analogous assumptions that flow from the worldview described inChapter 8, and specifically from the assumption of law as immanent, are(1) a systems concept of all phenomena and (2) that an understandingof a system comes from observing its place and function in the largersystem of which it is a part. With this as an introductory statement wecan proceed to describe the research methodology that is dictated bythese derivative assumptions.

Research methodology in the alternative science paradigm

The ultimate � � � [necessary] context [of any phenomena] is the entireuniverse. Every event is ‘caused’ by every other event in the universethat ever has, or ever will, occur. Every event occurs as it does becausethe universe is at it is. Everything is inter-related, bound into a seam-less whole – Rta. Attempting to isolate any particular pair of eventsfor study is, from this point of view, meaningless.

(Jackson, 2005, p. 116)

In this science paradigm an attempt is made to understand a givenphenomenon in terms of its place in a larger context, rather than interms of the interactions among its constituent elements. In other words,an attempt is made to develop macro-explanations as opposed to micro-explanations which are the aim of research in the mechanistic scienceparadigm (Harre, 1972).

Guided by this assumption, an attempt is made to characterise thestate of a system at a given time and to note how various events of imme-diate concern unfold subsequently. If observation is carefully done, arecord (mental or otherwise) of the observations made is maintained,and a systematic process of induction is followed, an effective body ofknowledge can be built up. All non-European cultures developed suchbodies of knowledge. Vedic agricultural science is an example (Jackson,2005, Chapter 8).

Observation is restricted to selected features of the system since anysystem is too vast, embedded as it is in the universe as a whole, toobserve in toto. These features, or ‘markers’, are selected for their obvi-ousness, proximity and the ease with which they can be evaluated in



relation to each other. The rationale for this procedure is that naturalsystems exhibit stable, recurring patterns of behaviour, with dramaticshifts occurring only rarely. A particular configuration of marker eventsis taken to indicate of the state of the system that is likely to recurwhenever that configuration is again observed. An example of thisprocedure is the rainfall prediction systems developed in India in Vedictimes and still widely used (Kanani, 2007).

The objective of the application of this knowledge is to enable peopleto adapt to natural phenomena, and not, as with modern scientificknowledge, to manipulate and control them. People in Vedic timesrealised that failure to adapt to the demands of the ‘Way’ would invitedisaster, something we are today beginning to perceive.

From the foregoing general characterisation of the science paradigmbeing suggested here it is possible to formulate several broad guidelinesfor conducting research. These are:

1. The proper objects of study are systems

The proper objects of scientific study are whole systems. Every percept-ible and conceivable distinct entity in the world is a system. Thesesystems are living units of process; all of them, even the simplest, arevery intricate and very delicate.

2. Formulate macro-explanations

Systems are to be understood in terms of macro-explanations, that is, interms of their place and function in the most immediately larger systemin 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 obtainmicro-explanations, the investigator must analyse or break apart thesystem. This makes it dysfunctional, or kills it altogether, and henceprecludes really understanding it. In the macro-explanatory approachthe system is observed without interfering with it. Research activities,where they are formally pursued, are to be organised on the basis of typesof systems rather than on the basis of disciplines created by the pursuitof 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 observedepends upon what aspects of the system I choose to observe, on howI describe my observations and on the personal interpretive conceptualframework I use to explain them. The findings of such scientific study



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

4. Everyone is a scientist

Scientific enquiry is an integral part of ordinary life. Everyone is ascientist. Of course, a few individuals may make a career of in-depthstudy of particular systems. They are ‘specialists’, but only do essentiallywhat everyone does all the time. Thus, following a macro-explanatoryagenda, the line of communications between ‘specialists’ and ‘layper-sons’ will be kept open, thus limiting the scope for the creation of ascientific priesthood.

5. Interventions in systems must be gentle

Interventions in systems (technologies) must be gentle. That is, theymust not impair the health of the systems they address. Thus, theyshould not abstract a part of the system, or forcibly introduce a foreignelement into the system. Examples of this in the modernist scienceparadigm are: the poisoning of insects in a crop field; inserting a foreigngene into an animal or plant; mutilating, poisoning and burning thehuman body to ‘cure’ cancer. Such violent interventions can only, in thelong run, impair the health of systems, giving rise to violent reactionsor kill the systems altogether.

Similarly, when natural systems, that is, those having suffered little orno violent human interventions, are modified to accommodate humanbeings, 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 ourplanet Earth are today sick. The highest priority in scientific researchwill 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 ahealthy system will in such circumstances have to be inferred/intuitedfrom studying sick systems. Systems have to be made healthy again –or, more accurately, helped to heal themselves – and then ways foundto keep them that way.



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 atall. Thus, if a quantity of a substance is playing its natural role, and notcreating discordance anywhere, then it is not a problem. From this pointof view all present-day research in subatomic physics, for example, isnot a valid research agenda. Abandoning it would save huge amountsof human talent, time and resources – and remove the risk of creatingyet more horrors. If it be argued that the components of the lump ofsubstance must be isolated, studied and manipulated in order to meetincreasing human needs, it should be replied that the ‘needs’ seem to bethe problem, not the means of meeting them. The appropriate researchagenda here is to attempt to understand the sickness of a society thatviews unlimited human ‘needs’ as normal or natural.

Most current research is pernicious because it seeks to understandphenomena that are not problems, and having understood them (inmicro-explanatory terms), and at the same time created a discipline anda department, must inexorably go on to find an application of this newunderstanding. Then a need for the application must be created, whichusually 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 canbe done is to allow a system to grow by itself from the ground up in anexisting context. As it grows we can try to understand how it grows – orfails to grow – and from this understanding try to facilitate its growth.

The system, if appropriate, will grow, but not simply in size on theexisting pattern, but will, to remain viable, grow in complexity also.Thus a given system, as it grows in size, reaches a critical size at whichit becomes unstable. At this point it may either die or split up intoa number of smaller systems on the same pattern as the original. Atthe same time a larger system comes into existence that subsumes themany small systems. The new regnant system may also subsume othersmall systems of different patterns (Goerner, 1999). The analogy here isobviously that of an organism.

From this point of view the research agenda of the people involvedin the system and those in the management business will be to attemptto understand: (1) the principles of the functioning of healthy organicsystems; (2) how to facilitate their continued growth and health; and(3) how and why human-created systems, even the most successful, can



eventually cease to be appropriate and so sicken and die – and why wemust refrain from attempting to prolong their lives at all costs.

Science as conversation

E. F. Schumacher has suggested a neat metaphor for the research meth-odology 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 envir-onment. We pose questions to the universe by what we do, and theuniverse, by its response, informs us whether our actions harmonisewith its laws or violate them.

(Paraphrased by Chaitanya, 2000)

The response gives information, or feedback, that can be used to refinethe initial question, if necessary, and then pose it again. In this waythe question that was initially formulated can progressively be refined.At the same time, the questioner becomes more and more tuned to thecontext, 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 situationoccupying one’s attention. Thus, if I have cancer, I question my wholeperson. That is, I try a therapy that is designed to strengthen my wholeperson (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) and then observe how itreacts. The cancer may regress, but if so it will be a result, or part, ofa larger healing process. At the same time, the question addresses thenext larger context of my family. Changes that strengthen the family ormake it healthier may be part of my therapy. Similarly with still moreinclusive contexts: from the immediate community to the whole planetand finally the universe. The sorts of changes that may need to be madeto 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 notexplicitly asked, but implicit all the same. The question was: is my way ofrelating to, interacting with, my person and the social and natural worldaround me appropriate? Does my lifestyle, and the ethos of the culturein which I participate, conform to the requirements of seeking harmonyand stability? My cancer says ‘no’. I must, therefore, try to refine myquestion and pose it again by making changes in my assumptions andhence in my lifestyle. I must mount a personal transformative learning



(TL) exercise. If the cancer is cured, my new ‘question’ is an improve-ment on my earlier one. There will be further evidence as well that mynew question is an improvement: maybe a clearing up of other, chronicaliments, a greater sense of well-being, a better family and communitylife, less pollution, less aggression.

At the same time, my cancer is not the only symptom of a dysfunc-tional culture. It is only the answer in my most immediate context. Inlarger contexts there are larger answers: the cancer of urbanisation; theasphyxiation 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 naturalhealing ability of living systems. My job is to facilitate this healing bycorrecting 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 thecorporations that manufacture pesticides and seeds, or governmentsthat, in the name of free trade, force him to grow monocultured cropsof unadapted varieties. Maybe it is the all-pervasive greed of the modernworld. Rephrasing my question will involve changes in my fields andin all the larger contexts in which they and I am embedded. And firstof all, changes in the way I think. An example here is the pioneeringnatural farmers in India (Alvares, 1999).

These natural farmers are also indicating how scientific research needsto 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 phenomenabeing studied. Thus, every natural farmer is also a scientist since the onlyappropriate setting for scientific research into his/her farming practiceshis/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 ordoctors 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, newtechniques, systems, varieties of crops and so on) are sought in termsof the indicators of ecosystem health mentioned in the section oncommunity in this chapter. In the same way there will be appropriatemethods of investigation at each successive and more inclusive level oforganisation.



People can, of course, learn from the experience of others, and meet-ings, such as farmers markets and fairs, and the exchange of seeds areexamples of the ways in which experience may be shared. The experi-ences of individuals can be documented, and general conclusions canbe drawn that can, with due care for the particular context, applied else-where. Ancient farming manuals, such as Krishiparashar (Sadhale, 1996)did just this. In a contemporary context, the most important thing thatcan be shared is the general way of thinking about farming, cancer orwhatever.

With this approach to scientific research, the technologies, techniquesand management systems that are produced are gentle because theyare under personal and community control and do not violate localecosystem limits.

All this, of course, has very great implications for the gigantism ofpresent-day research and technology application. I will not attempt tosay more than that a change of scientific methodology just describedwould have to be part of a general reversal of the current globalisingtrend towards what is being termed localisation. The essence of localisa-tion is the primary, community-level organisation of all human activ-ities that was described in the previous section.

In the area of interpersonal human relationships, research takes theform of conversation with other people rather than with Nature. This isthe way Dharma is articulated through the collective construction andsharing of myths and stories in a particular context. Here too, everyoneis a scientist, a social scientist, and must be. Constructing Dharma andliving 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 languagecurrent among academic social scientists. This, I feel, is a very positivedevelopment, but I have misgivings about the research methodology heuses and which is used seemingly by all social scientists, or at least allthose whose works I have read. My misgiving is that they begin theirenquiry – in this case enquiry into the emergence of ethical codes ofbehaviour – without any theory or even a hypothesis explaining howand why a system of ethics should emerge through conversation. I thinkit is fair to say that no scientific enterprise that does not begin witha theory or hypothesis can succeed, whatever the field of enquiry. Inthis case a concept of law that is assumed a priori is needed. In theabsence of such an assumed concept, the research of social scientists isunfocused; they explore everything that comes to their attention. Thisis, of course, an example of the pure Positivist doctrine of first observing



phenomena and then describing regularities, if any are found. As wasseen in Chapter 5, this agenda is impossible to follow in practice; aresearcher always has presuppositions, whether consciously held or not,that in fact do determine what comes to his/her attention and howhe/she observes it. The Positivist doctrine does not work in the physicaland biological sciences, nor can it work in the social sciences. It is farbetter, and productive of good science, to clarify one’s presuppositionsat 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 systemsof non-Western traditional cultures, for example, focus only on thepractices and ignore the conceptual background from which theseemerge (Price, 2005). Clearly, they are committed finally to a materialistworldview, their professed open-mindedness notwithstanding. Indeed,their stated objective is to integrate local, traditional techniques intothe mainstream contemporary knowledge system. As we have seen inChapter 2, this only creates incoherence and confusion.

Conclusion

To conclude this discussion of methodology in the alternative scienceparadigm described in this section as succinctly as possible, I would saythat conversing with ourselves, with our neighbours, with the planetand with the cosmos is not only good science, it is essential to goodliving.

An adequate theory of history

A theory of history offers an interpretation of the facts that constitute thehistorical record. Its purpose is to help people orient themselves to thepresent, to give them, their community and their society a collectiveidentity. At the same time, it is an interpretation of historical eventsthat is required to justify their present orientation and identity, that is,their cultural model.

The progress theory of history derives its legitimacy from the world-view of contemporary global culture. In previous chapters, all theprimary assumptions of that worldview have been examined and foundwanting, thus fatally challenging the credentials of this theory. Howthen 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,



the need for periodic cultural transformation or renewal; (2) the move-ment away from, and now back to, a concept of law as immanent and (3)the predominance of the concept of law as immanent when consideringthe totality of human cultures throughout history, from which point ofview Western culture from Hellenic times to the present is an anomaly.An alternative theory will also have to be framed in terms of the primaryassumptions 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 culturalmodel after an existing model unravels); (2) ‘building’ a new social orderon the basis of the new cultural model; (3) ‘establishment’; (4) ‘ossi-fication’ and (5) ‘unravelling’ due to ‘worldliness and greed’. EdmundO’Sullivan’s three movements within society – maintaining continuity,reforming and transforming, mentioned in Chapter 3 – also imply thathistory is cyclical. To my mind, this notion of cyclicality, though animprovement on the notion of progress, is not completely adequate. Ipropose that the historical record is better explained in terms of howclosely events adhere to the demands of Rta, or fail to do so. When asociety strays too far from an adequate recognition of the demands of Rtain relation to the world situation in which it finds itself, a reaction setsin to bring it back. The reaction takes the form of compelling new waysof thinking, and hence of doing, that are more adequate than existingones. 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 ‘theultimate presupposition of all specific types of order or systems of laws’,it is ‘a dynamic, subtle, evolving pattern of relationships’. As it is, it isunknowable. When it is said that ‘we adhere to the demands of Rta’ itmeans that we have understood and acted on what we perceive (that,cognise and understand) to be right and necessary in relation to ourworld situation. All is intuitive, tentative and speculative; nothing is amatter of ‘fact’. We may, or may not, do an adequate job of ‘perceiving’,and, in either case, there will be an appropriate feedback signal whichis again a matter for us to ‘perceive’. When Schumacher said that wemust ‘converse with Nature’ he really meant, I suggest, that we mustconverse 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 adequatelyto understand what is required to move society in the way indicated bycircumstances (that is, by Rta); and (2) a failure of individuals to live



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 thehistory 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, upto about the 6th century BC, can be characterised as practising a myth-ical mode of interaction with Nature. This means that people tacitlyassumed the concept of law as immanent. They relied on revelation,or the intuitive perceptions of a few exceptional individuals, for theirunderstanding of the Way. Such understanding was formulated in thelanguage of myth. Revelation is mostly a one-way process, and probablythe notion of dialogue in the sense described in the previous sectionwas not well developed. In any case, revelation led to the formulation ofcodes of organising society and governing the behaviour of individuals.These codes became fixed and immutable over time and were neitherreconfirmed by fresh revelation nor modified by means of dialogue withnature. A time came when many people began to find them meaning-less and stifling. A distinct sense of cultural decay had set in. The stagewas set for a repudiation of the existing cultural model and for boldspeculation. New answers to the perennial questions were proposed.

Earlier it was said that Rta might be considered a living, autopoeiticstructure. In these terms, the crisis in the 6th century BC can be seenas a situation in which Rta was stressed, that is, disbalanced. From thatcondition, a movement back towards greater balance, stability was setin motion.

Major themes of the speculative thought of the period were a need fora more adequate means of engagement with the physical world and agreater role for logical mentation in human affairs. In terms of the altern-ative theory being suggested here, these perceptions were the authenticvoice of Rta – necessary at the time to correct a dangerously unstablecondition. But these thinkers went too far; they over-compensated. Itis one thing to particularise one’s perception of the world against abackdrop of the ultimate unity of all that exists (Rta), but quite anotherto 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 thinkersof the Hellenic period did not, as we have seen, do this explicitly, butthey nevertheless set in motion a trend that over the centuries resultedis just this.

What I wish to suggest is that what was required at that timewas a practical means by which everyone, and not just a few seers,



could communicate directly with nature, and that too not in terms ofrevelation but of dialogue or conversation. Real dialogue makes possiblethe continuous updating of Dharma at the ‘grassroots’, and the evol-ution of specific ways of interacting with Nature. It demands logicalmentation as well as intuitive perception. It involves a critical, but notdismissive, attitude to myth, the ability to entertain myth consciously.

Well, this did not happen, with all the consequences that have beendescribed in previous chapters. The TL exercise of the 5th century BC wasnot as successful as it might have been. It seems to me that, in the specu-lative interval in which we now find ourselves, we are being challengedto correct for the over-compensation that occurred at that time.

Let us pause to remind ourselves that autopoeitic structures – to whichRta has been likened – never really attain equilibrium but constantlyfluctuate around a theoretical equilibrium situation. When fluctuationsbecome large enough to threaten the life of the structure a process ofdamping 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 compens-ating movements will be necessary and will occur in due course.

Coming now to the Enlightenment: it was an even less successful TLexercise than its predecessor. There was no doubt a growing dissatisfac-tion with the Aristotelian mode of deductive thinking about everything.People had lost touch with Nature in its manifest physical dimensionand the intuitive insight of the times indicated the need for direct,careful observation. This was surely appropriate. But the Enlightenmentthinkers failed to clear the ground, to set aside altogether the worldviewof the mediaeval period, and so, when they built again, it was on thefoundations laid by the Greeks of the Hellenic period: a rejection ofthe mythical mode of engagement with Nature in favour of an empir-ical, logical mode. It will be recalled that during the Renaissance whichpreceded the Enlightenment European thinkers discovered Greek spec-ulative thought and embraced it enthusiastically. Thus they continuedthe trend set by the Greeks, moving Western civilisation still furtherfrom the Way.

In the foregoing account I have concentrated on the first of the twocauses of drift of civilisation from the Way – a failure to understandwhat is shown. Every cultural era has also, of course, been plaguedby failures of people to live up to even what they have understood.I have elsewhere suggested how such failure appears to have slowlyweakened Vedic culture (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 7). Today, however,our plight is primarily due to an unprecedented failure to understand.



Thus, there is really nothing to live up to. This has given free reign to allthe most destabilising of human tendencies. Indeed, these tendenciesare institutionalised today. This appears to be the usual turn of eventsin all cultures that become terminally ill: wealth and power becomeconcentrated in a small elite, leaving the majority in misery, resentmentand despair (Goerner, 1999, Chapter 7).

A rigorous testing of the theory of history presented here requiresconsideration of the histories of non-Western cultures as well. In mostcases there is considerable difficulty in doing this since for many ourknowledge 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 primevalrevelation that has guided the people of that culture thereafter, thoughlearning and adaptation are also implied. There is no history at all inthese traditions in sense of a time series of factual events in the past.Nevertheless, it does seem permissible to infer that there are no realdiscontinuities in terms of the answers to the perennial questions framedin the original revelations. This is, of course, in marked contrast tothe history of Western civilisation with its distinctly different culturalmodels succeeding one another.

For the pre-speculative period in ancient Greece the situation is reallyno better. We are forced to rely on the documentation at the very endof that period, that is, the epics poems and myths. The long historyof their development to that point occurred before the appearance ofthe first written records. With Indian Vedic culture, however, there isa long period of documented history, stretching back some five or sixmillennia. But here, too, there has not, even up to the present day, beenany radical change in the worldview first enunciated in the Rigveda.There are changes, which can be seen as responses to changing circum-stances, and there have been developments in terms of a deepening ofunderstanding and an elaboration and refinement of techniques. Thebest-documented period in this respect is the 19th and the first half ofthe 20th centuries when this cultural model faced the most severe chal-lenge of its career up to that time in the shape of European colonialism.By the 19th century, Hindu (Vedic) culture had stagnated and becomedogmatic in its clinging to outmoded forms. New ideas and institutionsfrom the West caused much emotional and intellectual churning. Butthe 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 notquestioned. In this case too, therefore, we conclude, this time on the



basis of solid historical fact, that there have been no discontinuities inworldview.1

This conclusion is clearly at odds with the findings for Westerncultural history, and yet this historical record is also explainable in termsof the alternative theory suggested here. The explanation is, simply thatthe people of these non-Western cultural traditions, by the time theyfirst articulated the primary assumptions of their respective worldviews,had basically ‘got it right’; that is, they had found the ‘Way’, in the sensethat they had developed an awareness of Rta underlying phenomena,and an effective method of ‘conversation’. They have managed to staymore or less on the Way ever since, continually making small adjust-ments as they came along.1

The conclusion that non-Western cultures ‘got it right’, while Westerncivilisation wandered, suggests a moral. We should never depart toofar from a worldview of our inherited culture, where that view hasappeared spontaneously from the living experience of community andhas seemingly stood the test of time. Continual reform and fine-tuningare then needed, but not replacement.

As the theory has been framed in the preceding paragraphs, it suggeststhat to follow the Way, or not to follow the Way, is a matter of freewill. This, of course, is not true, since there is no such thing as free willas commonly understood. We are, I suggest, dealing with large tides ofaffairs in which individuals are simply swept along. If an individual feelsthat 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 theconcept of progress in human affairs. If we are not going anywhere inparticular, is there then no purpose in human life? What is the purposeof this seemingly endless bringing forth of all these worlds? This ques-tion is not absent from the thoughts of people writing today aboutcultural transformation. Many of them insist that our purpose is tounderstand the demands of the Way and act on that understanding, as,for example, by talking to Gaia (Goldsmith, 1998; Rowe, 2003). I agreewith this, but would point out that a perfectly logical approach to thismatter requires us to ask a further question. What is Gaia’s purpose? Asound principle to keep in mind here is that the purpose of anythingnecessarily lies outside itself. A thing’s purpose is to ensure the properfunctioning and the continuance of the larger entity of which it is apart. This, of course, leads back to the ultimate entity, the One, whichlogically can have no purpose. If we, in essence are the One, then we



too have no purpose. Nor do we need a purpose. Only as autonomouspersons, 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 isthe most persistent question in human history, irrespective of culture.And, accordingly, it is the theme of the most powerful and pervasive ofmyths (Campbell, 1988).

The answer these myths give is this: the purpose of human life is tostrive for self-transcendence, to strive to realise one’s essential identitywith ‘That which is’. Realising one’s real identity, one achieves thathappiness and that sense of completeness which do not depend uponcircumstances. Purpose is not something to be achieved in an imaginedfuture, 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 purposeof participating wholeheartedly and with understanding, in the worldI ‘bring forth’, and a final purpose of transcending ‘myself’ and ‘my’world. Both these purposes are reflected in the effort to become adetached participant.


Part II

Transformative Learning inPost-colonial Societies


10Transform, Reform, Reaffirm

In present-day post-colonial societies, traditional cultural models andtheir supporting worldviews are an additional factor to be taken intoaccount in the process of learning to think differently. This additionmakes the process more complex and difficult, and also offers importantopportunities. The difficulties are experienced by those in post-colonialsocieties themselves, while the opportunities are for everyone every-where. Examples of the opportunities, in the shape of concepts thatare not found in Western civilisation or that have been deliberatelyforgotten, were given in earlier chapters: the concept of the Absolute orthe One, the concept of law as immanent and the concept of a livinguniverse. It has been argued that these concepts are essential to theemergence of a viable new global worldview.

What remains to be considered, therefore, are the difficulties: howpeople in post-colonial societies are attempting to reconcile the assump-tions of their own cultural inheritance with modernist assumptionsimposed upon them by colonialism and how they react to the manynew ideas being thrown up in the global TL exercise, many of whichare recognisably the same as their traditional assumptions. This enquiryis extremely important for the people of post-colonial societies whohitherto have seen their sole task as adjusting their outlook to that ofthe Western, Enlightenment worldview – or as rejecting that view anddogmatically, aggressively affirming their traditional view. The recogni-tion of the need for thoughtful enquiry is essentially positive, in that it isrecognised that neither worldview can simply be dismissed. An exampleof this was the school textbook writers given in Chapter 2. It is with thisgroup that this chapter is concerned. The other responses – uncriticalacceptance of modernism or its categorical rejection – are essentiallynegative as no transformation of outlook is then possible. Dogmatism

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146 Transformative Learning in Post-colonial Societies

about one’s existing beliefs – traditional or modern – is synonymouswith a failure to face up to cognitive dissonance. Examples of this weregiven in Chapters 3 and 5, and perhaps that is all that need to be saidabout this group.

My general attitude to this subject is that, in the matter of outcomesto the TL exercises in post-colonial societies, there should be no precon-ceptions. Thus, for example, we should not begin with the idea that theglobal TL exercise aims at one uniform universal worldview. The notionof one world, so indispensable, need not require cultural uniformity,but only the creation of a broad framework within which the culturalmodels of all societies can find a place and contribute to the health andstability 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 workthrough their own local TL agenda. We should not be hasty in tryingto visualise the contours of larger containing systems (regional, global)but be content at present to allow these to emerge by themselves indue course. This is a corollary of the localisation agenda advocated inChapter 9.

What should not be done is to formulate guidelines or frameworksat an international level and recommend these to everyone – such as,for example, Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio Summit and the more recentEarth Charter. It makes no difference that such declarations are theresults of consensus among the representatives of many cultures. Suchrepresentatives are not qualified, in my opinion, to offer suggestionsin a global arena until they have cleared up the confusion, doubts anduncertainties in their own local settings. Such ‘guidelines’ are usually aprelude to, or cover for, new forms of domination where power over,and control of, the majority by a small elite is the outcome. The 20thcentury 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 thepast three centuries or so has changed subjugated peoples’ thinking, it isnecessary to distinguish between two main types of colonialism. Thesediffer in respect of their objectives and their impact. The objective of thefirst type is economic exploitation. The Roman Empire is an exampleof this type and also the British Empire in Asia. The colonising powerimposes administrative and judicial systems, develops transport andextractive industries solely for its own benefit. In India, the British alsoimplemented taxation and trade policies that effectively destroyed most


Transform, Reform, Reaffirm 147

existing commercial enterprises to favour their own home industries. Inbroad outline, this is the strategy that has been extended to the presentin the guise of globalisation. As Robbins (2002) has pointed out, theEast India Company was the prototype of the present-day multinationalcorporation.

In India, the British also adopted a policy of educating a small numberof Indians to help with the administration. The school and universitycurricula were largely British and the medium of instruction English.The aim was stated explicitly by Lord Macaulay when he introduced theIndian Education Act in the British Parliament in the 18th century: ‘Wemust do our best to form a class of persons, Indian in blood and colourbut English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’ (cited byKumar, 2000). Those who passed through this system were rewardedwith secure, well-paying jobs and enhanced social status.

This process only intensified after independence with the IndianGovernment adopting and expanding the previously established educa-tional set-up as a matter of national policy. Large numbers of Indiansattend Western universities. This dovetails with the further intensifica-tion of the worldwide tide of Westernisation now running. There canbe little doubt that this is a continuation of the policy of colonising theminds of subject peoples. A World Trade Organisation official talkingabout some new General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) legis-lation put it this way: ‘Basically it won’t stop until foreigners finallystart to think like Americans, act like Americans, and, most of all, shoplike Americans’ (quoted in Resurgence magazine, Number 206, May–June2001).

A second type of colonialism has as its objective the securing of livingspace and this involved killing of the existing inhabitants and/or segreg-ating them in enclaves on marginal land. This form of colonialismrelieved the pressure created by the population explosion in Europe inthe 18th and 19th centuries. It also solved the problems created bypolicies at home such as the Enclosures Act in Britain. This form ofcolonialism was predominant in North America and Australasia.

I have sketched these two contrasting forms of the colonial experienceto highlight the issues involved. In some instances the situation wasclearly a mixture of these two types and as a result more complex.

Economic and settlement colonialism have had very different effectson the colonised people. Very generally, the former may be said tohave led to ‘calculated adaptation’ in which the colonised acceptedthe imposed system and made the best of it for themselves as indi-viduals. This has not, however, caused them to abandon their traditional



worldview in favour of that of their colonisers. Outwardly, that is, intheir public and professional integrations, they take on board the world-view of the colonisers, but in their private integrations, their inheritedworldview and cultural norms prevail.

The experience of the victims of settlement colonialism has gener-ally been traumatic, causing individual and community disintegration.They are overwhelmed by the experience of being forcibly separatedfrom their ancestral places and natural resources bases. They are impov-erished, lose their self-identity and often their will to live. Children aretraumatised when they are forcibly removed from their families andeducated in the cultural mode of the colonisers. On top of all this theyare physically segregated from the mainstream, colonising culture andignored. A few have managed to emerge from this situation and join themainstream. One of these, Renee Shilling, an Anishinaabe woman fromManitou 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 subjectedto foreign systems of education. They have been controlled byoppressive and abusive policies that have completely underminedthe social, cultural, political and economic functions of their nations.The colonial experience is embedded in the spirit of the people andin the fabric of society.

(Shilling, 2002)

In the face of the manifest unsustainability of the model of contem-porary global culture and the resultant uncertainty about the future,many people in post-colonial societies have today begun to considertheir inherited worldview as a possible alternative. They seem to bedoing this spontaneously and quite naturally – because the inheritedview, as I have argued already, has never been completely eradicated.When I say that the inherited cultural model is being examined afresh, Imean in the positive sense and not in the fundamentalist sense referredto earlier.

In India, this process actually began at the beginning of the 20thcentury – even before political independence was achieved. MahatmaGandhi in the first half of the 20th century recognised the fact that themore or less autonomous village community is the stable core of Indiancivilisation and insisted on a vision of independent India as a republicof self-governing village communities (Gandhi, 1962). This vision hasbeen honoured in independent India in the form of a provision in



the constitution establishing Panchayati Raj (village-level governance byelected village councils). On the ground, this provision for local self-governance has been made problematic by the assumption by the civilservice of the task of development in addition to routine district andstate 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 visionfor the future of India and the world are still very much alive in India –and elsewhere.

The victims of settlement colonisation too are now demonstratingthat they can resurrect their traditional worldviews and cultural modelsand examine them. The old stories have kept these alive. With theexpanding opportunities and even encouragement, indigenous peopleseverywhere are beginning a tentative process of TL. In this effort, theyare being helped by people of their own culture, like Renee Shilling,and by disenchanted people from the mainstream colonising culturewho themselves are earnestly searching for alternatives to that cultureand see possibilities in traditional models. How they are going about itand what they have accomplished so far will be described in the nextsection.

Interpreting the past, visualising the future

General procedure

In Figure 3.2, the entry point for TL exercises is represented by thebox labelled ‘Present cultural model seen as inadequate’. The ‘presentcultural model’ is that of contemporary global culture. It goes withoutsaying that unless this model is seen as inadequate there is no ques-tion of people being motivated consciously to undertake transform-ative learning. In other words, people will be motivated to enter into apersonal or group TL exercise if they have decided to take the cognitivedissonance they suffer seriously, and have decided that it must somehowbe tackled – and, if possible, resolved. They welcome any opportunityto do this.

In a post-colonial setting, as was said earlier, there is a tendency forpeople who have reached this stage to pause to consider seriously, andprobably for the first time in their lives, the possible relevance of theirinherited traditional cultural model to the contemporary world. Thus,there are two models for them to deal with at the very outset.



To begin with, it is necessary to consider why the traditional modeltoo is inadequate and, more importantly, why it might in some respectsbe useful. Most traditional cultural models, for example, appear to havebeen more sustainable, where not unduly interfered with from outside,than the modern one. Social life might be seen as having been morecohesive and technology more gentle. In drawing up a balance sheetfor the traditional model, these are on the plus side. There may befeatures that are judged negative, such as, in Vedic culture, an ossifica-tion of the social pattern so that it has become oppressive for low castesand women. Earlier, I argued that village land and forest managementpractices are defective and have led to extensive degradation. All thesenegative features appear to have resulted from a lack of understandingand/or an inability to read feedback signals and/or to greed and a desirefor power and control (Jackson, 2005, Chapter 7).

When a balance sheet has been drawn up, it may be decided thatthere are good reasons to carry a consideration of the traditional modelon to the first phase of the TL enquiry proper – that is, to the tasks ofidentifying, articulating and critiquing the primary assumptions of itsunderlying worldview. This will be done side by side with a similar treat-ment of the worldview of contemporary global culture. On completingthese tasks, it should become evident whether or not any of the primaryassumptions of the traditional worldview merit being carried over tothe next task that of formulating/adopting alternative assumptions. Inthe illustration of the TL exercise given in Chapters 4–9, some assump-tions 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 andMokuku, 2004; Sen, 1992; Shilling, 2002; Wane, 2002). Approaches tothe second and third of these assumptions are presently also being madein purely Western contexts.

The progress theory of history stands in the way

People in societies that suffered economic colonialism generally adoptedthe worldview of their Western colonisers in their public and profes-sional integrations. They have thus taken on board the concept ofprogress which devalues their traditional worldview. But that traditionalview has not disappeared; it remains very much alive. In practice, inthe context of TL, this leads to problems. As participants in the globalcultural model, they feel obliged to adhere to the progress theory, and atthe same time are seeking possible alternatives to that model. They are



convinced that their traditional model in some ways might be a viablealternative. In this section, the nature of some of these problems will bedescribed.

Today, there is much interest in the knowledge of traditional non-Western cultures (referred to as ‘indigenous knowledge’ or IK) amongpeople who participate in the worldview of contemporary global culture,both Westerners and Westernised citizens of post-colonial societiesthemselves. They are poring over ancient manuscripts and interviewingpeople of communities of surviving traditional cultures. They see IKas potentially useful, that is, as being possible alternative and moresustainable ways of doing things than contemporary ways. One examplewas of traditional Indian farming given in Chapter 2. The reactionsof these people to this newly discovered IK fall, generally, into oneof two categories. One is to ask whether this knowledge is ‘scientific’,meaning can it be squared with the theories of materialist science. Theygo on to suggest that all IK should be validated, that is, checked outin controlled experiments of the types mandated by the materialistscientific paradigm. The other reaction to IK is immediately to incor-porate it, as it is, into school/university curricula.

One example of the former tendency is seen in the effort to evaluateIndian agricultural history. In the 1990s, a number of senior agricul-tural scientists, many retired and all of whom had made outstandingcontributions to the ‘green revolution’ during the 1960s, 1970s and1980s, but who, by the 1990s began to take serious note of its adverseenvironmental, social and economic ‘side effects’, established the AsianAgri-History Foundation to foster the study of traditional agriculturalpractices through the ages.2

As information accrued from such studies, the question naturally aroseof how to interpret it. What is its status as knowledge: is it scientificallyvalid? and would ancient techniques work today? A debate arose in thepages of the Asian Agri-History journal.3 Most writers have automaticallyassumed the progress theory in answering these questions. They seethe grand sweep of agricultural history from Vedic to modern times as‘progress’ from ‘primitive’ beginnings to the ‘advanced’ technology ofcontemporary scientific agriculture. Some ancient practices

‘make good sense’, display ‘an excellent understanding’, and ‘canbe justified on the basis of he knowledge we possess today’, whileothers are considered ‘incomprehensible’, ‘difficult to accept’, orsimply ‘superstitions’ (Nene, 1996, 1999a,b). Documents with agreater proportion of practices of the latter type accordingly have



‘an inferior knowledge base’ (Nene, 1999b). Those that are ‘compre-hensible’ would have to be validated experimentally, using modernexperimental methods.

( Jackson, 2005, p. 124)

The contradiction in this line of interpretation is obvious. On the onehand is the admission that modern scientific agriculture is unsustain-able, and has therefore failed us, and on the other the assertion that thisvery agricultural paradigm is the standard against which to judge theworth of knowledge gained through other paradigms – in this case theVedic science paradigm. The practical implications of this contradictionare several. Much ancient knowledge that is summarily termed ‘incom-prehensible’ and ‘superstitious’ may yet be valuable today. But validationmay not always be as effective as supposed because a particular practicewhen 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 entirelyalien context of the modern agricultural experiment station, underthe eyes of a scientist who has no understanding of its natural context.

A still further implication is that the problem of modern scientific agri-culture – that is, that it is unsustainable – has not been squarely faced. Ittends to be assumed that it is unsustainable only because: (1) farmers intheir enthusiasm and ignorance overdo things (apply too much chem-ical fertilisers and pesticides); (2) certain pest-control measures need tobe replaced and/or (3) more sophisticated, computer-generated fertiliserand pesticide application schedules are needed. However, the problemis 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 haveargued ( Jackson, 2005, Chapter 4; this essay, Chapters 4–6). If this is thecase, the important thing we need to learn from agricultural history isnot this or that alternative technique but an entirely different way ofthinking. Our ancestors thought differently. Does their way of thinkinghave any significance today?

As a footnote to the foregoing, it must be added that at the same timewe must learn to discriminate between those ancient practices that donot reflect the ideals of the scientific paradigm of their respective culturalmodels. Of these, there are many. In Vedic agriculture, the practices ofburning forests, grazing domestic animals in forests and clean ploughingand weeding are examples of this ( Jackson, 2005, Chapter 7). These areinstances of failure to live up to what was understood and/or failure toread feedback signals aright. This is another reason for focusing on theworldviews of traditional cultures rather than on specific practices.



The same reluctance/inability to look behind practices to thesecondary and primary assumptions of traditional cultures manifests inother contexts as well. Leigh Price has reviewed the work of social scient-ists 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 IKonly where it fits with positivistic knowledge constructions. Thus,non-empirical issues such as spirituality are often excluded fromdiscussions which otherwise include IK. This invisibility with regardsIK spirituality and non-empirically testable claims is perhaps because,despite rhetoric to the contrary, practitioners do not hold IK validunless it matches their, usually positivistic, knowledge.

(Price, 2005)

A second reaction to newly discovered IK is to advocate that it beincorporated into existing school and university curricula, especiallyin post-colonial societies. What is not realised is that adding on orinserting bits of IK in this way will render such curricula incoherent,and introduce all the contradictions and confusion that was mentionedin Chapter 2. There is no other way forward than the careful assessmentof IK systems in terms of the primary and secondary assumptions oftheir respective worldviews/cultural models, or in other words, bringingthese IK systems into full-fledged TL exercises.

Returning to the Indian agricultural scene, a very welcome devel-opment is the appearance of what I term the ‘rediscovery’ theory ofhistory. Ahuja et al. (2001), Mehra (1996) and Virmani (1996) have notedthe similarity between the traditional Indian reverence for, and henceprotection of, diverse species of plants and the contemporary conceptof the need for preserving biological diversity. These authors go on tosay that the concept of biodiversity conservation was originally formu-lated millennia ago in Vedic culture and was subsequently forgotten,only to appear again today. They are, in essence, repudiating the progresstheory of history: IK is not primitive, but anticipated modern scientificknowledge. I agreed and suggested that a better way to explain thisphenomenon might be that the intuitions that gave rise to the ancientVedic reverence for plants are now finding expression in a present-dayecological science paradigm, and in particular, in the concept of bio-diversity conservation (Jackson, 2002). These intuitions are universal andtherefore I coined the name ‘theory of universal intuitions’ ( Jackson,2003a). This was the forerunner of the theory proposed in this essay.



The foregoing discussion has been confined to the victims ofeconomic colonialism. Those who have suffered settlement colonialismseemingly have different problems, though here I speak with cautionbecause of a lack of direct knowledge of such communities. They appearto be largely outside contemporary global culture and have not intern-alised to any great extent its worldview. Still in their attempts at revital-ising their traditional cultural model they must ultimately also cometo grips with mainstream culture. Their future lies in becoming part ofthat larger culture from which they have till now been excluded – andin helping it to heal itself. Such help can be in the form of providingconcepts from their own traditions. In short, they have to participate inlocal 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. Thenthat 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?



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 cultureshave invariably been embodied in the symbols of myths and stories. Thefirst requirement for anyone wishing to come to grips with these assump-tions is, therefore, the ability to ‘read’ these concrete symbols and totranslate them, as far as may be possible, into the abstract word symbolsof contemporary thought and speech. This ability is not common todayanywhere. Where there is a tendency for participants in contemporaryglobal culture to look upon myths as quaint, and thus of no relev-ance to contemporary life and problems, the citizens of post-colonialsocieties 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 atthe deepest levels of our being can we succeed. And, when they havedone their work – generated understanding – we must further allow thatunderstanding to find expression in contemporary language. This is asmuch the work of the poetic as of the logical, scientific mind. Examplesof this sort of translation were given in Chapters 5 and 8. Here, it willnow be helpful to illustrate this translation process in somewhat moredetail.

The Rigveda is possibly the oldest known document in the world.It records the speculative thoughts of Vedic culture, and amongthese are found all the main assumptions of that cultural model,at least in embryo. These were subsequently elaborated and refinedin many ways in the Upanishads and by still later seers and inter-preters. Many of these assumptions are shared by the people of othertraditions.

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 – itasks whence and how this manifest universe arose. The cosmologicalspeculations of most traditional cultures are set out in terms of a creationmyth, a connected story. In this hymn we do not have such a connectedstory, but a metaphysical enquiry. Nevertheless, this enquiry is pursuedin the language of the concrete images of myth. To what extent can wetranslate these into the verbal symbolism of the contemporary discursivemode of thought?4



In this hymn, it is straightaway admitted that the questions beingposed can never be answered. No one, not even he ‘who surveys theuniverse from the highest heaven’ can answer them definitely. What isthe use of asking questions we cannot answer? Or are we missing thepoint? Is there meaning here that we fail to understand? There mustbe, otherwise the hymn would not have been worth singing or writingdown; 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 hymndescribing the beginning of creation, or even with an ontologicaltheogony, or with a historical description concerning the formationof the Gods or even of God. It is not the description of a successionof stages through which the world has passed. The starting point ofthe hymn is not a piece of casual thinking seeking the cause of thisworld or of God or the Gods, but rather an intuitive vision of thewhole. This hymn does not attempt to communicate informationbut to share a mystical awareness that transcends the sharpest linesof demarcation of which the human mind is capable: the divine andthe created, Being and Nonbeing.

(Panikkar, 2001)

The concept of the ‘One’, the Absolute, has already received our atten-tion in Chapter 8 where logical and meditative means of attemptingto understand it were described. Here the origin of the concept as apurely intuitive perception is being suggested. The symbol employed isthat of ‘Water’, a symbol that figures in many creation myths and wasseen also in the speculations of the Greek Thales (if we are permittedto suggest that Thales, the first modern philosopher, inadvertentlyexpressed 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 notbe the All.

A number of the other primary assumptions of the Vedic worldvieware 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 inany cosmological scheme. But it is only one of a pair of opposites –Being and Nonbeing. Thus the Darkness is both the All, the One, andthe Two. This was confirmed by ‘the seers [who], searching their heartswith wisdom, discovered the connection of Being and Nonbeing’.



This discovery hints at the notion that the macro-cosmic One, whichis both Being and Nonbeing, is replicated in each human being as theempirical person and its non-manifest essence. This two-in-one natureof the cosmos and the person is symbolised in a verse in another hymnas 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 thatconcerning life. The One is a living being: ‘The one breathed withoutbreath, by its own impulse’. This means that all manifest entities inthe universe are also living beings, and this is confirmed in a numberof other places.5 Further, if life is a potential ‘within’ the One, thentoo are all the other universal formative elements of thought; the ‘Onewho breathes’ is an alternative, equivalent image of the Dweller and theSource surrounded by His seven sisters that we encountered in Chapter 8.

Following up on this alternative image of the One who breathes leadsto an understanding of how the Many, or in terms of this verse, Being,‘emerges’ from the One, or Nonbeing. This is accomplished by ardouron the part of the One. Panikkar here translates the Sanskrit word tapasas ardour. Literally the word means heat or a concentration or focusingof 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 theintense focusing of ones’ mental energy that is needed to bring fortha clear-cut conception from a background of inarticulate thought andfeeling. The conception can never do full justice to the rich potentialof the inarticulate background, but the result is something definite asopposed to the indefiniteness of the background.

The force behind this ardour, we are told, is love: ‘In the beginningLove arose.’ I suggest that this is a spontaneous, uncaused desire of theOne to externalise Its potential for a universe in which its amorphouslove can find concrete expression. It is the force that binds the many



created entities together and that unifies diverse, apparently separateindividuals. At a human level it is experienced as love between a manand 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 andfemale principles (ibid. p. 59), a common theme in many cosmologies.Basham is more explicit, translating the same line ‘Seminal powers madefertile mighty forces (Basham, 1954, p. 250)’. Finally, Radhakrishnansays that as a result of tapas there appear the ‘ � � � active Purusha (the maleprinciple) and the passive Prakriti (the female principle), the “I” and the“not I”, the formative principle and the chaotic matter. The rest of theevolution [of the manifest world] follows from the interaction of thesetwo opposed principles (Radhakrishnan, 1923, Vol. I, p. 102)’.

A later, short hymn of three stanzas (Rigveda X, 190) supplements theNasadiya hymn.

1. From blazing Ardour Cosmic Order cameand 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 yearwhich marshals the succession of nights and days,controlling everything that blinks the eye.

3. Then, as before, did the creator fashionthe 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 givebirth to cosmic order and to Truth, or [the] principles of harmony andself-consistency. These are Rta and Satya’ (Panikkar, 2001, p. 60).

A number of other picturesque descriptions of Rta are found in theRigveda. ‘Firm-seated are the foundations of Rta. In its lovely formsare many beauties. By eternal law they give us long-lasting nurture. Byeternal law have the worlds entered the universal order’ (Rigveda, IV,23, 9, translated by Chaitanya, 2000). Chaitanya, paraphrasing RigvedaII, 23, 3, writes that ‘The Vedic poet � � � said that Rta, though benign, canbe “stern and fierce” in respect of transgressions. Brihaspati rides thefearsome chariot of Rta for destroying the wicked’ (Chaitanya, 2000).We had occasion to describe Rta in Chapter 5; among the three aspects



of Rta mentioned there, the concept of tapas enters into the third, thereligico-sacrificial, in the form of sacrifice, or austerity, which is neededto 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 whichhas no better symbol than cosmic night, the night that does nothave the day as counterpart, but envelops everything, though in thedarkness of the not-yet manifested. From this yoni (womb), ‘magmaor ‘matrix’ [the ‘Ocean’], space and time [the ‘year’] come to be. Afterspace and time, life can appear and thrive; all that “blinks an eye”begins its career through existence. Once life is there, the world can beordered according to its regular and harmonic forms of existence: sun,moon, heaven, earth, the sidereal spaces and the light, the last-namedbeing the culmination and perfection of the work of fashioning theworld � � � .

(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 breathingof the One (verse 2) ‘before’ the creation, implying an atemporal time.Here is an anticipation, perhaps, of the theme that runs through Vedicthought of a pulsating universe, that is, of alternating phases of creationand dissolution, measured by atemporal time (also refer to note 4,Chapter 8).

My purpose in examining these hymns in this way has been to illus-trate the process of ‘translation’, as I have termed it, and in the processto seek to discover the primary assumptions of the Vedic worldview.As for the ‘translation’ it may appear rather feeble at places, especiallywhere, for want of words, I have been forced back upon the use ofconcrete symbol. Also, I hope it is clear that though I have often used thelanguage of creation, the hymn is not, as Panikkar has insisted, aboutcreation. Such are the difficulties encountered in ‘translation’.

With respect to these difficulties of translation, it only goes to showvery definitely that the modern discursive mode of thought is, by itself,inadequate to the business of understanding ourselves and the worlds webring forth. The need to translate at all is that the primary assumptionsof Vedic culture (or any other traditional cultural tradition) have tobe compared with those of contemporary global culture in order tosucceed in the TL exercises that are being suggested in this chapter. For



comparison, they need to be expressed in a common language. If we hadthe skill, we could, I suppose, do it the other way around – translate thedescription of the worldview of modern world culture into the languageof myth. It would be an interesting and valuable experiment to try todo this. In Chapter 11 this is, in fact, suggested.

But to recur to a major contention of this essay: we need to changenot only what we think, but also how we think. We cannot, withoutgrave risk, refuse to change the way we think. We must be equally athome with the discursive and the mythical symbolic modes of thoughtand use both in our attempt to understand and communicate.

What are the primary assumptions uncovered in this exercise? Inanswering 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 theperennial questions and then to the definitions it supplies for the sevenformative elements of thought (the ‘seven sisters’).

The second and third of the perennial questions – who am I, and whatis real – have been answered in terms of the dual concept of the One,with its macrocosmic and microcosmic dimensions. This concept hasalready been discussed at length in this chapter and in Chapter 8 whereit serves as my preferred concept in the alternative cosmology outlinedthere. Attention may thus be turned to the first question – what is theworld like.

The world that is experienced and the person that experiences it bothderive from the One, and so there is not the ultimate duality betweenthem that characterises contemporary global culture.

Life in the Vedic cosmology is a primordial element; the One itself isalive 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 objectiveside of the subject–object duality that is the basis of all manifestation.In contrast to the notion current in contemporary global culture, matteris not limited to physical stuff. There are three types of matter: gross,or our familiar matter, subtle matter and super-subtle matter. Each ischaracteristic of a distinct realm. The human being is considered tohave a three-tier structure analogous to this cosmic structure; a physicalbody, a subtle body composed of thoughts, emotions and feelings, anda causal body, the seed of individuality of the subject of experiences.

The inter-connectedness of all elements of experience follows fromthe conviction that all is subject to the cosmic ordering of Rta – theassumption of law as immanent.

Time and space in the physical realm appear to be of the objectivetype. In other realms this is probably also true, though the scales of



time and space are probably different. Knowing is mediated by thephysical senses and by intuition. Later, metaphysicians developed elab-orate theories of perception, in some ways like those of modern science(Radhakrishnan, Vol. II, 1923, pp. 488–92), but of this there is nomention in the Rigveda.

With this, our exercise comes to an end. It has been my endeavour tolay bare, as far as possible, the basic conceptual framework of the Vedicworldview with the objective of illustrating the technique by which thiscan be done for any non-Western worldview.

It is, of course, necessary for the participants of TL exercises in post-colonial societies to follow such an exercise up with a study of howthe primary assumptions exhibited have been elaborated into secondaryassumptions that constitute their cultural model, and still further intothe policies, programmes and theories that are the rationale for thefamiliar ways they think and act everyday. I do not propose to do thisfor the Vedic model we have been considering. To continue this illus-tration any further would require a description of this model, a hugeand complex undertaking, which I do not think is justified in an essayintended for readers from many cultural traditions. I hope enough hasbeen said in earlier chapters to indicate the general approach to this task.

A fresh anchorage

Today � � � the Western world is uneasy with its own Weltanschauungand 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 andcultural transformation. Reform implies a continued affirmation of theworldview of a given society and a recognition that the cultural modelof that society has strayed from the Way, that is, from its own bestformulation of the Way. Transformation implies recognition that thesociety’s worldview has become so inappropriate, so contrary to thecurrent indications of the Way, that it must be replaced. The worldviewsof post-colonial societies by and large need reaffirming, and perhapstheir cultural models need reforming. The worldview of contemporaryglobal culture needs to be rejected and a new view, with its attendantcultural model, needs to be formulated.

Nevertheless, it is necessary for people in post-colonial societies alsoto participate in the global TL exercise aimed at transforming the world-view of contemporary global culture. Not only is their participation vital



for the success of the global exercise, it is an essential part of their owneffort to emancipate themselves from the effects of colonialism and nowglobalisation, that is, from the effects of the forcible imposition of theWestern worldview and its cultural model.

But their first priority, in my opinion, is clearly to reaffirm their ownworldview and cultural model, reforming the model if necessary. Byreforming I mean reforming the ways of thinking and doing that mayhave crept into their lives which do not accurately reflect their ownbest intentions.6 Only from such a secure anchorage can they say tothe forces of globalisation: ‘thus far and no further’, and ‘yes, we willbuy that, but on our own terms’. If post-colonial societies achieve this,and the Western world also achieves its own goal of transformation, theshaping of an overarching global cultural model can, as I have alreadysuggested, be safely left to itself.

In the final analysis, however, TL exercises, wherever they are carriedout, must address the whole of human experience – that of the Westernworld, the worlds of non-Western societies and the shared experience oframpant, hegemonic globalisation. Failure to address any one of theseelements will abort the exercise, and any aborted TL exercise anywherein the world will vitiate the global ambience of goodwill and open-mindedness that is so essential to our collective effort at building asecure future.


Part III

Transformative Learning inPractice


11Secure Their Foundation

In the first two parts of this essay, the process of cultural transforma-tion has been described. It is a process in which the entire worldviewof persons and of an entire society is transformed, and as a result, theprevailing cultural model is replaced with a new one. Such a transform-ation is now underway in contemporary global culture. I have arguedthat it is essential to attempt to facilitate this process by undertakingself-conscious TL exercises.

In this part of the essay, we will first of all review how the TL processproceeded during the Enlightenment and Hellenic periods and how itappears to be proceeding at present. The purpose of this review is toattempt to discover where definite efforts might best be made to facilitatethe process today. Second, suggestions will be offered on how plannedinterventions in the process might be done.

The process of cultural transformation

To begin with, it is necessary to attempt to visualise the overall processof cultural transformation as a historical movement in order to orientourselves to the task of mounting purposeful TL exercises. In doing this,the theory of history developed in Chapter 10 will be used. Implicitin this theory is the notion that the totality of human society formsa single autopoeitic system, complex and seemingly chaotic, but onesystem nonetheless. Each of the diverse parts is itself an autopoeiticsystem that is integral and essential to the larger system.

This system, or world society, has reached a state of extreme instabilityfor all the reasons that have been reviewed in this essay and elsewhere.When this occurs in an autopoeitic system, the system can collapse and

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166 Transformative Learning in Practice

die, or it can spontaneously undergo a radical restructuring to give amore complex, and more stable, system.

It is often stated that we can determine the outcome of this restruc-turing by the decisions and actions we take now. At one level, thisis, 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 mani-festation of the process of spontaneous change that is occurring, andnot its cause; what is happening now is being caused by the totalityof what everyone throughout all history has thought and done –and by innumerable other occurrences in the past. We are vehiclesthrough which change, death or a new lease on life, will be enacted.To put the matter less starkly, I am hopeful of continued life forour planet and our species. The real issue could be life or death, butis 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 forefrontof our thinking in attempting to discover where and how we can bestintervene.

In addition to all the symptoms of dysfunction that appear when aparticular cultural model becomes stressed, an awareness of the deepsystemic causes at work also begins to appear. A few individuals hereand there are led to consider what needs to be changed and how. Altern-atives suggest themselves and are put to the test of practice. Attentionhere is focused on the cultural model. Of these individuals, a few beginto see that this effort is inadequate in itself. A much deeper look isnecessary – 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 networksspring up in which the work of each is seen, discussed and criticisedby others. From the results of their combined thoughts and deliber-ations, the existing worldview is dismantled and a new one createdin its place. This new view gives rise to a new cultural model as itcomes to be shared by more and more people. This new model may becomposed of de novo assumptions deduced from the primary assump-tions of the alternative worldview, and/or of elements that have beenassumed directly and later found to harmonise with the alternativeworldview, and/or of elements that have been directly assumed butlater modified by the requirements of the new view. This vast, complexprocess is a learning exercise for everyone involved, which is why ithas been considered a TL exercise. Today such an exercise has a globaldimension, though sub-exercises are also occurring in local, traditionalcultures.


Secure Their Foundation 167

How did it happen in the past?

I propose, in this section, to look at the historical record from which theforegoing broad generalisation has been derived. What did the process ofcultural transformation that occurred at the time of the Enlightenmentand in the ancient Hellenic period actually look like on the ground? Inthe next section, the contemporary exercise will similarly be reviewed.These reviews of actual experience in the distant and immediate pastwill help us pinpoint where interventions in the contemporary processare 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 world-view, were remarkably few in number – Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, Berkeleyand Hume, to mention the most prominent. Some have subsequentlybeen classified as philosophers and some as scientists, but few had any ofthe formal credentials that we use today to label people. Most were menof independent means or who supported themselves by professionalwork of one kind or another. Many were prominent in political circles.They were thus a diverse lot who worked independently, outside thecentres of formal learning. The Encyclopaedia Britannica in its articleon the History of Western Philosophy pointedly notes that

Medieval philosophy � � � was characteristically associated with themedieval university. It is a singular fact, therefore, that, from the birthof Bacon in 1561 to the death of Hume in 1776 – that is, for 200 years –not one first-rate philosophical mind in Europe was permanentlyassociated with a university � � � Hobbes expressed extreme contemptfor the decadent Aristotelianism of Oxford; Descartes, despite hisprudence, scorned the medievalists of the Sorbonne; and Spinozarefused the offer of a professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg withpolite aversion. It was to be another 100 years before philosophyreturned to the universities.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, article on the Historyof Western Philosophy, 15th edition, 1992)

Whitehead alerted us to this phenomenon (Chapter 1). It is theresponsibility of a university to reproduce and further the worldviewand cultural model of a Scholastic age. During a Speculative interval thatworldview is questioned and discarded, all the activity, therefore, occurs,by definition, outside the university. The acceptance, development andconsolidation of the new speculative insights by university professors



mark the beginning of a new Scholastic age in which the universityresumes 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 thisgeneralisation.

Among the members of this small, diverse group of speculativeEnlightenment thinkers, there was an active exchange of views.

� � � much philosophical communication took place within a smallbut at the same time loose and informal circle [of Enlightenmentthinkers]. Treatises were circulated in manuscript; comments andobjections were solicited; and a vast polemical correspondence wasbuilt up. Prior to publication, Descartes prudently sent his Medita-tiones to the theologians of the Sorbonne for comment; and, after itspublication, 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 centurypossessed a rich repository of philosophical correspondence, such asthe letters that passed between Descartes and the scientist ChritiaanHuygens, between Spinoza and Henry Oldenberg (one of the firstsecretaries of the Royal Society), and between Leibnitz and Arnauld.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article onthe History of Western Philosophy)

Many of these men were speculative philosophers, critiquing theprimary assumptions of the medieval worldview and speculating boldlyabout alternative assumptions. Some, like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileoand Newton, were scientists concerned with scientific theories, butmanaged effectively to criticise the existing worldview at the level ofprimary assumptions in the pursuit of new theories. Newton’s workhas already been interpreted from this point of view (Chapter 3).Copernicus, while formulating a new model of the solar system did notquestion the assumption that the planets are living beings; nevertheless,his new model caused people to begin questioning their place in theuniverse. Kepler was a scientist working at the level of theory formu-lation, that is, at the testing phase of the TL process. He also did notquestion the prevailing concept of planets as living beings, but his workmade Newton’s revolutionary theory of gravitation possible. Newton’swork, in addition to his own unique contribution, the redefinition oftime and space, synthesised a number of other primary assumptions ofthe time. Numerous other scientists, freed from the ‘dogmatic assump-tions dogmatically assumed’ of the medieval European worldview,



investigated natural phenomena from the perspective of the newly emer-ging materialist, mechanistic worldview.

Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Galileo and Descartes – scientists andmethodologists of science – performed like men urgently attemptingto persuade nature to reveal her secrets. Newton’s comprehensivemechanistic system made it seem as if at last she had done so � � � Thenew enthusiasm for reason that they all instinctively shared wasbased � � � upon the conviction that for the intellectual conquest of thenatural world reason had really worked.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1992, article onthe History of Western Philosophy)

The British empiricists (Locke, Berkeley and Hume) concerned them-selves with the question of the origin of this reason.

Thus, looking at the Enlightenment as an informal TL exercise, contri-butions to cultural transformation were simultaneously made not onlyin diverse areas of human interest but at various levels of the process.As a result of intense debate and testing, these efforts coalesced into anew 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 adiverse lot of individuals, working independently or in small groups,and yet reacting to each other’s work, ensuring that overall everyonenot only contributed to the process but also learned as he/she wentalong. In reading about the history of the thought of that period, oneoften encounters the comment that no document describing a person’sthought has survived to the present day but that it can be reconstructedfrom the (mostly negative) comments of others which have come downto us.

The period during which the great speculative philosophers flourishedwas from Thales who was at work before 588 Bc to the death of Aristotlein 322 BC. Some of the earliest of these men formulated what moderncommentators (e.g. Russell, 1946) consider scientific propositions suchas that the primary substance of the universe is water (Thales). Morelikely, as I have pointed out in Chapter 10, these were metaphysical state-ments expressed in the concrete symbols of myth. Pythagoras cannot beconsidered a pukka scientist (that is, a mathematician) by modern stand-ards since he also speculated on the symbolism of numbers. Aristotlewas a scientist, but in developing his science, he, like Newton, made



the primary assumptions of his science explicit. Thus, none of theseHellenic thinkers can really be classified in the modern way into scient-ists, philosophers, theologians, mystics or what have you. But, one andall, they were boldly speculative in the metaphysical realm.

Seen as a TL exercise, the Hellenic period lacked the testing phasewhich seems so important to us today, and also to the men of theEnlightenment. Their metaphysical input was sufficient, however, tokeep 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 haveled the way at the level of experimentation and theory formulation.Relativity, quantum theory, indeterminacy, chaos and Gaia are leadingthe way; they are begging for an alternative worldview to be intelligible,but this has yet to appear. During the 20th century, there appears tohave been only one comprehensive contribution to the search for analternative, that of A. N. Whitehead. At the very end of the century andat the beginning of this century, some timid and as yet quite inadequateattempts at speculating on primary assumptions have been made (e.g.Gaia as myth, radical interconnectedness and an ecological self). Theinertia in our collective thinking is monumental. The history of the17th century and the Hellenic era should shame us into greater efforton this front. At the beginning of the 20th century, the mental outlookof educated people in the West was modern. At the beginning of the21st century, it is still largely modern.

Grassroots projects

There is, however, one feature of the current episode of cultural trans-formation that seems to have been absent from the earlier episodes. Thisis the tremendous number and variety of projects at the grassroots level,projects that explicitly postulate alternative secondary assumptions. Ihave in mind, for example, alternative health care, agriculture, manu-facturing and education. These projects are, in effect, the testing of theseassumptions in practice, the last stage in the TL process and are thuslearning experiences for everyone involved in them. Taken together,these projects are thus an important component of the larger global TLexercise, but in themselves inadequate if not complimented by attentionto securing the metaphysical foundation of the secondary assumptionsthey assume. I wish to go into this matter in some detail because thereis a pervasive failure to recognise or understand this inadequacy. This isseriously hampering the overall TL process at the global level.



All such projects with which I am acquainted, and including the oneon which I have worked for the past 20 years, begin with one or twosecondary assumptions. Examples of these are the idea that a village, ora human body, or the manufacturing plant is to be visualised on themodel of an autopoeitic system, and not of a machine; locale-specific,rather than uniform, standardised, global, education; the notion thatthe goal of a factory is to produce things that people need, and notto earn money; tribal people are the co-creators and guardians of theforest ecosystems in which they live, and not their destroyers. Suchprojects are the logical working out of these assumptions in particularcontexts. If these assumptions are not clearly conceived or adequatelyarticulated, there is a risk of problems arising later on. The shortcomingsof the concept of sustainability should alert us to this risk. Furthermore,most groups working on alternatives do not even formulate anythinglike a complete cultural model but focus narrowly on one secondaryassumption. This too may lead to problems later.

These risks can be reduced by securing the metaphysical foundationof all the secondary assumptions used and implied. That is to say, onlysuch assumptions as emerging from full-scale TL exercises should beused. It is now possible to do this as there is an adequate conception ofthe overall TL process and thus a theory to guide practice.

I will go so far as to suggest that individuals and groups engaged incurrent projects that deploy alternative secondary assumptions hence-forth have a responsibility to attempt to justify their use of such assump-tions by conducting full-scale TL exercises.

Having drawn attention to the weakness of current projects in termsof the TL model, I will now reiterate that they are nevertheless validlearning exercises and that the insights from them for this process areinvaluable. Indeed, it will be recalled that many of these insights havehelped in the construction of the model. Some more will be used in thischapter.

Formal institutions

Any survey of what is happening today with respect to the global TLexercise logically must look at the actual and potential roles of formalinstitutions of education, research, policy formulation, consultancy andso on. It might seem natural to us to suppose that they will be inthe forefront of the transformation process. But this does not seemto be the case. Universities, and most academics, for example, unre-servedly endorse the political and economic interests of Western capit-alist, consumerist society, in a word, globalisation. They make two



assumptions: (1) globalisation is a viable agenda for achieving a sustain-able and just future for all people and (2) that it is the sole responsibilityof universities to respond to the needs of this globalisation agenda.These two assumptions are never questioned.

By not questioning globalisation, all universities are by defaultserving the interests of the powers that be, which in today’s worldare corporate business interests, Western governments which havebeen subsumed by these interests and the co-opted elites of the non-Western world. For these interests, business as usual requires a steadysupply of compliant, technically competent manpower [sic] for theglobal economy, and a mass of enthusiastic consumers. For themschool and university education is the means to ensure this. In theireyes 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 increasinglydependent on financial assistance from business. Funding from businessand, increasingly, from governments too comes with strings attached.Also, knowledge generation and dissemination are rapidly becomingcommercial activities, subject to market demands, and universities areengaging in fierce competition among themselves (Haigh, 2003).

Is the problem today that the [Western] university’s ability to attractgovernment funding, corporate research grants and internationalstudents would be jeopardised by a policy of attempting to critiquein a fundamental way current economic and social trends? It appearsto me that the unwritten and unspoken terms of agreement betweenfunders and universities and other fund recipients are: ‘Globalisationis a fact. Don’t question it. Sure, it is creating some problems. Hereis a grant to do research on them. Identify them, describe them andoffer solutions that are possible within the globalisation framework.’

( Jackson, 2003b)

Thus the contemporary professor is no more disposed to ‘thinkingdifferently’ than was his counterpart in the medieval university. Theresult is the same: all the ‘learning to think differently’ was done outsidethe university. The European universities of the 16th century were thecustodians of the medieval worldview, an amalgam of church doctrine



and classical Greek thought, mostly Aristotelianism, and certainly hadno interest in questioning the status quo. In fact, there were some sharpincentives not to.

All this goes to validate Whitehead’s insight about Scholastic andSpeculative periods.

With other formal institutions – schools, government departments,ministerial committees, think tanks and so on – the situation can hardlybe expected to be any different.

Having said all this, I would now like to pass on to a discussion ofthe few tentative steps some universities are, in fact, beginning to taketowards ‘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/degreeprogrammes that presuppose sustainability in their construction. He hasalso shown how such courses, combined with a questioning/challengingmode of teaching can result in students questioning their inheritedassumptions (Haigh, 2003). This is good as far as it goes. Lotz-Sisitka(2003) has, however, alerted us to the fact that the concept of sustain-ability is slippery. It can be, and largely has been, co-opted by thepowers 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 anothercontext, general systems theory has been ‘neutered’ by mainstreamscientists (Haigh, 2001).

The crux of the matter is that the concept of sustainability is asecondary assumption and as such cannot be immune from such co-option unless it is clearly defined in terms of primary assumptions. Itis not enough to define sustainability in neat one-liners about ‘meetingthe needs of future generations’ and so on. Systems theory is just that, atheory, and thus depends for its authority on the secondary and primaryassumptions behind it. These must be spelled out to prevent co-optionand ‘neutering’.

All these university initiatives might, as in the case of the grassrootsinitiatives, be seen as the testing of secondary assumptions/theories inpractice. Doing this adds to our store of collective experience of TL andis thus valuable. But there are no signs that I am aware that universitiesare willing and able to back up and validate their working assumptionin respect of these initiatives. As in the case of the grassroots initiat-ives described earlier, I would suggest that any university that deployssecondary assumptions not in tune with the modernist worldview in



their teaching and research programmes has a responsibility to societyto validate them.

Against the day when this may begin to happen, it will be worthwhileright now, I think, to offer such guidelines as are possible. The nextsection does this.

Priorities today

The following definition of the TL exercise will be used. Any planned,organised educational experience that contributes to the transforma-tion of people’s worldview is a TL exercise. The theoretical frameworkor model for planning and conducting such exercises is the TL processdescribed in Chapter 3. Specific exercises may aim at dealing with thefull process, termed here ‘full-scale’ TL exercises, or may focus on one ora few aspects of the process. A full-scale exercise covers the entire phaseof ‘standing outside oneself’ and the testing phase. The many grassrootsand university exercises already described are examples of ‘partial TLexercises’; they deal with some steps in the ‘standing outside oneself’phase – namely the identification and description of some secondaryassumptions, existing and alternative – and the testing of these altern-ative assumptions. Even exercises designed solely to increase people’sawareness of their own cognitive dissonance are valid TL exercises. Theseare, as it were, preparatory exercises and, if successful, bring people tothe point of accepting their confusion, doubts and helplessness, to thepoint where they decide not to continue to build defensive walls aroundthemselves, but to suffer instead. The review in the previous sectionrevealed a glaring lack of attention to primary assumptions and evento the full investigation of secondary assumptions. Exercises to dealspecifically with these matters can be designed. All these qualify as TLexercises; all contribute to the larger goal of transforming the worldviewof contemporary global culture.

On the basis of the review in the last section, I would say that exercisesdealing with the entire second phase of the process (‘standing outsideof oneself’) are a priority today. Lack of attention to this phase is thebottleneck in the entire process of cultural transformation. A secondbottleneck is the inability/unwillingness of people to take their cognitivedissonance seriously; this too is a priority area.

Another area, not so far mentioned, that needs urgent attention isexercises for marginalised groups of people. The reason for this is thatpeople in these groups have generally acquiesced in the contemporaryglobal cultural model that oppresses them, and as a result they feel



powerless. There are now numerous examples from around the worldof such people being helped to change their perceptions of the worldand themselves, and to visualise what they can accomplish when theydo 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 howcompletely they cover the entire process as indicated in the previoussection. In some circumstances and for some groups of people, full-scale exercises may be appropriate. University courses on the TL processitself in the context of undergraduate and graduate programmes in suchsubjects as education, environmental education, psychology, sociology,history and philosophy are examples. The approach of such courseswould vary with subject-area context, but all would tend to convergeas they proceed – if they are fruitful. On the other hand, a course thatdraws students from a variety of disciplines might be possible and moreeffective. I do not know of any such courses, but it seems to me that theywould be a way to introduce TL into the university curriculum withoutarousing too much resistance.

In other circumstances, partial exercises may be sufficient and mayalso be all that is possible. In contemporary global society, people arepredominantly the doing type; they are ‘practical’ and have no time for‘philosophy’. They are commonly found in the testing phase (projects atthe grassroots and university teaching programmes) and find it difficultto sit down and attempt to clarify their assumptions. Their assumptions‘feel right’ and that is enough for them. Perhaps they do – and thisis certainly important – but all secondary assumptions, in the interestof the larger process of cultural transformation, need to be clarified.And so, for this type of people, partial exercises aimed at doing thisneed to be developed. For yet others, exercises need to be developed toincrease the intensity of their cognitive dissonance to the point wherea breakthrough to phase one is achieved. These could be followed upwith exercises on phase one for those who do break through, and stilllater on phase two (testing).

Exercises will also vary according to context. Exercises with agricul-tural scientists, office and factory workers, aid-agency executives, illit-erate village women, business consultants and environmental educatorswill all differ from each other. Within a university, as has already beenpointed out, different subject-matter areas represent varying contexts.



TL can only be approached in the idiom, and in the area of life experi-ence, of both the participants and the facilitator. A facilitator must havesufficient knowledge of and experience in the given context to dealeffectively with all the facile, dismissive explanations of ‘side effects’that learners who cannot handle their cognitive dissonance raise. Andhe/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 exercisecan be planned as a complete semester course with, say, two ‘seminar’sessions of two hours each per week with plenty of reading and writingas homework.

Where one is dealing with busy professional people, three- or four-dayworkshops with short, concise handouts to read in the evenings may beall that is possible. This is the bare minimum, and very uncertain resultscan be expected, but if a series of such workshops can be organisedthat 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 bedeveloped that can be inserted into an existing course. Professor Haigh’smodule on the Gaia theory (The Living Earth: An Introduction to Gaiaand Geophysiology, an unpublished, classroom handout, Department ofGeography, Oxford Brookes University) is an example here.

With communities, informal group discussions held in the eveningsor during the day in slack periods in the agricultural calendar have beenconducted 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 voluntarilyjoin and those who are assigned as a matter of organisational policy.The former are likely to be people who have taken cognitive dissonanceseriously and who may already have developed an interest in some ofthe alternative ideas now in the air. For these people, elaborate andlengthy activities designed to create cognitive dissonance are unneces-sary; their volunteering to attend the exercise means that they are readystraightaway for the ‘standing outside oneself’ phase of the TL process.

Those who are assigned may never have been troubled by cognitivedissonance or, worse, are unaware that there is a cause for concern at theway contemporary life is moving. For them, exercises with a number ofactivities to create cognitive dissonance will have to be designed. Suchexercises may not, however, be very successful. UEEC experience withassigned in-service teachers attending teacher orientation workshops toprepare themselves to teach our environmental education course has



been that a large number of them do not seem to respond to thistype of activity. This conclusion is based on observations made on theparticipants’ performance in the workshops and on their subsequentperformance in teaching the course.

The reason people are assigned, of course, is that an organisationdecides to try out a radically new programme and wants everyoneinvolved in it to understand the conceptual rationale for it. For, if peopledo not understand, and agree with, the underlying rationale for a newprogramme, they will not be motivated to implement it and will, atbest, just go through the motions of implementation.

The solution to this problem is to approach the entire matter oforganisational change from a different angle. Change should not beimposed from the top, but should be allowed to grow organically fromthe bottom. This is done by encouraging individuals or groups withinthe organisation who do understand the need for change and haveideas about how to achieve it to experiment on a small scale withinthe organisation itself. If these experiments are successful, they mayconvince others and the experiments can be expanded in proportion tothe 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 plan-ning and conducting TL exercises. This is not surprising because untilnow the TL process has not been comprehensively described, and therehas thus been no theoretical framework to guide practice. With theframework suggested in this essay, it should now be possible to under-take full-scale and partial TL exercises in any context with considerableconfidence.

At the same time, it must be emphasised that the TL exercise facil-itator must be resourceful and adaptable. The guidelines to be givenare suggestive, not prescriptive. I do not think that the TL exercise willever be reduced to a mechanical process of information transfer like, forexample, the teaching/learning of science in contemporary schools anduniversities. In the end, we are forced to admit that TL exercises cannotbe planned in any very strict sense, nor managed according to any setof rules. Every exercise is a new adventure. The TL facilitator must beequipped with a clear conception of the overall objective, must have beenthrough TL exercises himself/herself as a learner1 and must have served asan apprentice facilitator for some time. Given these basic qualifications,



a facilitator just jumps into a TL exercise, following his/her intuition ateach step – and learning as he/she goes along. ‘Be prepared for surprises’ isthe watchword.

The facilitator’s job is to keep the exercise moving in the generaldirection of completing the several tasks that lead to transformation.Failure to do this is, in my experience, the greatest pitfall in conductingTL exercises. One encounters resistance on the part of participants atevery stage, unconscious no doubt, but nonetheless deadly. An exercisecan get stuck at any stage, and the sign that it is stuck is that discussiongoes round in circles. A decisive nudge from the facilitator is needed atthese points to break out of these debilitating whirlpools and move on.

The question of whether or not to supply information and new ideashas been discussed. It seems to me that the weight of experience suggeststhat to keep the exercise going facilitators must be prepared to offerinformation and concepts – tentatively, of course, not dogmatically. Anyhint of dogmatism kills the exercise. A tip that I can pass along in thisregard is, yes, offer information and concepts, but not too readily andnot necessarily all at once; participants must be encouraged to explorefully their own imaginative and intuitive capabilities. Pedagogically, thispays good dividends.

The risk is, of course, that participants may take on an alternativeassumption unreflectingly. To avoid this, they must be challenged todefend the new idea once they have assented to it. If they do not makethe new idea their own, later they are apt suddenly, and often withoutdiscernable reason, to revert to their previous assumption – which thefacilitator thought had earlier, by mutual agreement, been left behind.When this happens the facilitator, who thought the exercise was movingalong, 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’vegot to do what the system/my boss dictates’ – and so on.

This problem is perhaps more acute with participants in post-colonialsocieties. They will have, in many of these societies, spent their livesin an authoritarian ambience – at home, at school and university, andon the job. Their tendency is to accept authority in all circumstances,automatically and unconsciously, so that if the facilitator offers sugges-tions, they have difficulty in thinking critically about them, or at anyrate in expressing disagreement. They will appear to go along, leadingthe facilitator to believe that the exercise is moving ahead, whereas infact it is going nowhere. A special effort must be made by the facilitatorfrom the outset to avoid appearing as an authority figure.



The facilitator must, of course, beware of his own tendency to spon-taneous reversion. Those of us who are taking on this challenge todaywere, after all, reared in the inherited worldview of contemporary globalculture. Only with much struggle and considerable suffering have wegone beyond it. And yet, any alternative assumptions we have cometo accept often seem not to have entirely rooted out our inheritedassumptions; some remnants seem to remain. I for example have beenconvinced of, and argued for, the need for biodiversity in crop fields,which means letting ‘weeds’ coexist, within limits, with the crop plantswe 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 uprootingstray weeds because the plots look ‘untidy’ and ‘unprofessional’. It isembarrassing to be thus caught out in front of participants. A new gener-ation, reared on alternative assumptions, will presumably be free of thisweakness when it is time for them to take over from us.

One benefit of group learning settings is that they provide a secureenvironment to learners in which they can give free reign to theirimagination and intuition, explore new ideas and express themselveswithout reservation. A TL facilitator must create and maintain sucha learning environment in his/her TL exercises if there is to be anyhope of their success. Every good teacher, of course, knows this and hasdeveloped the knack of doing it.

My colleagues and I in the UEEC have found that informal exchangeswith participants outside the structured activity of the exercise are valu-able. They not only improve rapport but also foster greater openness. Thequieter participants are sometimes the most perceptive and thoughtful.They do not readily speak up in the formal proceedings in spite ofencouragement but in a one-to-one informal exchange speak readilyenough. This boosts their self-confidence, gives them the satisfactionof having contributed to the exercise and reassures them that they arewelcome to speak up. Sometimes, a small group of participants willcorner the facilitator during the tea break and create an impromptumini-exercise. These informal exchanges, as I said, are a valuable partof the exercise, and the facilitator must be prepared to spend time andeffort to cultivate them.

A question that naturally arises is, how do facilitators acquire thenecessary knowledge and skills needed successfully to plan and conductTL exercises? The answer is primarily by doing it. Younger people mustbe apprenticed to experienced facilitators and learn on the job. Thisshould be supplemented by a study of the theory of TL and of the



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

Some suggestions for planning and conductingtransformative learning exercises

In the section on the facilitator, it was said that it is vital for him/herto be able to keep the exercise moving. This cannot be done without atheoretical model of the TL process in mind. To give this model practicalshape, a TL course outline format is given in Box 11.1. The facilitatorcan develop this format into a course outline specific to the contextof the exercise to be conducted. That context may call for a full-scaleexercise, or a partial one, but it would be well to develop a full outlinein all cases so that it serves to orient all concerned to the entire process.Thus, in a university curriculum in Sustainable Development, the coursewould most likely begin with step 2, it being assumed that participantswill all have recognised and accepted the cognitive dissonance thatthey experience. Step 3 may also not be needed as participants havealready rejected the secondary assumptions – or at least some of them –of mainstream culture and embraced alternatives, which is presumablywhy they are enrolled in such a curriculum. On the other hand, whereit is necessary to create cognitive dissonance, an entire exercise may bedevoted 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 dissonanceStep 2. Confronting insoluble problemsStep 3. Identifying and defining secondary assumptions – present

and alternativeStep 4. Primary assumptions in the background – identifying

and describing them, both existing and alternativeStep 5. On to testingStep 6. Handling feedback



In making a course outline, each of the steps given in Box 11.1 is elab-orated 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, whichshould be named and the time required for each be indicated. Eachactivity should be planned and described briefly and precise instructionson conducting it listed. The requirements for each activity in terms ofmaterials, visual aids and background reading, should be prepared. Ifhandouts are to be used, they should be written at the time of planningthe activity. A format used for planning workshops in ‘Teaching for aSustainable World’ (Fien, 1995) will be found useful.

The terminology, examples and language style used in the courseoutline, as in the course itself, must be appropriate to the context inwhich the course is to be conducted. An outline for a course designedfor nuclear physicists would read very differently from the one forcommunity health workers, and both of these would differ from thatfor illiterate rural people. With the latter, written support materials arenot needed. Any formal, obviously structured approach to the exer-cise is unlikely to succeed with them. Altogether, TL exercises with thiscategory 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 andnot more than about 20 is best. The group is divided into three to fivesubgroups, or teams. Many of the course activities are best done byteams. A problem, say, is formulated by the facilitator and posed to theparticipants who then tackle it on a team basis. After a stipulated time,each team reports its results to the whole group. The salient points ofeach team are recorded in vertical columns on the blackboard and arethen compared and discussed by the whole group. The facilitator thensums up and either states what appears to be a consensus or highlightsthe differences, in which case the need for further thought and discus-sion is indicated. Even if there is a consensus, it can be challenged bythe facilitator if he/she thinks it inadequate. In this way, group learningoccurs both at the team and at the whole-group levels.

Often one member of a group will assume a leadership role andbecome the team’s spokesperson – as, for example, in reporting theresults 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 tostipulate that the job of team spokesperson must be rotated, so that adifferent member reports each time a team activity is undertaken.

The facilitator should visit each team during its deliberations to givethe members a chance to talk about their progress, share their tentative



conclusions, seek clarifications or further information. This is crucial,and to ensure sufficient attention to it, it is a good idea to have anassistant facilitator or even two. These can be apprentices. Where thereis 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 theallotted time, is inconclusive and clearly needs more time, participantscan be told that further discussion will be deferred till after tea or untilthe next morning. A break has a wonderful way of clarifying issues.

A course will include a mix of activities – team and whole-group discus-sions, projects, practical work (e.g. growing a crop following naturalfarming methods, preparing lunch), seminars, field visits and so on(more about these in a moment) to keep the proceedings lively. An hourand a half for any one activity should perhaps be the limit, except forfield trips. In most courses, participants will need to be given readingassignments. To focus attention on the topics and questions to beaddressed in the course, it may also be useful to prepare handouts for theparticipants. These will probably need to be revised from time to time.

Two more general suggestions on management relate to pedagogy. Thefirst is student journals. Haigh (2001) has shown how useful these areas an aid to individual learning. Students record regularly their progressin the course in terms of what they think they have learned, how theyreacted to new ideas and points of view, their problems, resistances andtheir evaluation of the course. The journals also help the facilitator, whoreads them periodically, evaluate the course and his/her handling of it.The drawback is that reading participants’ journals regularly requires alot of time.

The second general suggestion has already been made but needs to bereiterated. Information and ideas may have to be supplied to keep thediscussions and the course moving. It will be found that a good deal offactual information will have to be supplied. A good way to do this is toprepare handouts or occasionally to give a lecture. These handouts andlectures should be as concise as possible, especially when the course is ashort one; the participants should be able to read them whilst the courseis in progress (e.g. in the evenings), otherwise they will have no value.

In respect of starting the course off, I suggest an introductory sessionin 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 exper-ience on the part of the facilitator. He or she must not be perceived asmanaging or directing the discussion but at the same time must guide



it gently in the direction of the goal of TL. This discussion allows thefacilitator to judge the nature of the participants’ interests, areas ofcompetence, skills and, in general, their mindsets. Course strategy canbe decided upon/modified after this session. Participants and facilitatorget acquainted.

One further suggestion is to make notes of what transpires in thecourse. This is more easily done if there is more than one facilitator.These notes will be helpful in conducting a winding up session at theend and a post-mortem session by the facilitators after the course is over.

Suggestions for each step in the transformative learningcourse

Creating cognitive dissonance

Creating cognitive dissonance can be done by confronting participantswith facts and opinions such as the following which feature in the UEECenvironmental education teacher orientation workshops.

In India about 15 kg of soil is lost to erosion in producing one kg ofgrain. This equals about 1 mm depth of soil per year. Natural processescreate, 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 ourpopulation are undernourished. This year in Orissa people are dyingof starvation. At the same time we export fruit, vegetables, fish, andoilcakes, not to mention non-food agricultural produce. We have 60million 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 imper-ative. Trade creates jobs for the unemployed. When we negotiate foropen markets, we are providing new hope for the world’s poor. Andwhen 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 therural areas of any country, small farmers are pushed into [urban] slums.

(Edward Goldsmith in an interview withthe Times of India, 30 March 2000)



Britain will this year export 111 million litres of milk and 47 millionkg of butter, while simultaneously importing 173 million litres ofmilk and 49 million kg of butter.

(Reported in The Ecologist, 29, 3, 1999)

The prison population of America is two million. America has5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the world’sprisoners. America has more prisoners than farmers. The state ofCalifornia 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 thetechnology 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 successamong funding agencies, NGOs and people alike. But, Shambu askedhimself, is it really our job as community workers to raise incomes?Surely the essential objective is to strengthen communities. Strongcommunities can raise income levels but increasing income levels donot 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 humanlife with new invention and riches.

Francis Bacon (referred to by Gordon, 1995)2

Some of these facts and opinions are specific to local context, partsof everyone’s everyday experience, and some relate to what people inIndia have imbibed from their schooling and the media. Items shouldbe selected with a view to creating strong emotional as well as an intel-lectual response and to highlighting contradictions. They are projectedonto a screen and participants are asked to read them out loud, adifferent participant for each. After the entire list is read out, at a leis-urely pace, the facilitator invites comments and discussion on each.Participants should be challenged if they attempt to ‘explain away’contradictions.



The objective is not, at this stage, to resolve these contradictions, andthe facilitator does not offer to do so; indeed, she tries to let these factsand opinions drive home the message that with our existing mindsettheir resolution is impossible. Activities designed in this way shouldproperly 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 exercisethat features that step. It will further heighten participants’ feelings ofconfusion, doubt and helplessness. At the same time, it begins to suggestthe cause of these – our questionable assumptions. Some problems suchas the following can be posed.

1. The problem of chemical pesticides (see Chapter 2)2. The schoolyard project, Box 3.13. Specially written stories like the one in Appendix 2; these can be

written for any context4. The overloading of the school curriculum; that is, the dilemma of

the need to include ever more subject matter in the curriculum inorder to keep up with the requirements for employability in theglobal economy, and the fact that children are already stressed dueto overloaded curricula.

Considering any one such problem constitutes a complete activity.Half an hour is devoted to team work, another half an hour to teampresentations and a final half hour to whole group discussion.

As was suggested earlier, there should be no hurry to find solutionsat this stage also. And usually solutions are not forthcoming from theparticipants. The real purpose of the activity is not to solve the problem,but to help define the larger problem of the mindset with which weoperate. If a new idea does pop up, it can be followed up. Leave enoughslack in the programme to accommodate such a development. By a ‘newidea’, I mean, of course, an alternative secondary assumption. Anythingless 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 bythe participants then by the facilitator.

To highlight the real problem – that of a fixed mindset – the UEECworkshops feature a puzzle as a concluding activity for this step. Thisis the following. Nine points are arranged to form a square with threepoints in each of three rows and three in each of three columns, as



O O O

O O O

O O O

The instructions are as follows: connect all the points with fourstraight lines. In making these lines, you are not permitted to lift yourpen from the paper from start to finish, nor to double back over linesalready made.

Some participants may be familiar with this puzzle. For those that arenot, it at first seems insoluble and it may be dismissed as such. It is, ofcourse, soluble, but only if we shed a critical initial assumption. Whatare the assumptions that prevent us from solving the problems in theprevious activity?

Identifying and defining secondary assumptions

This step should be taken up from where the previous one left off: themajor problems/contradictions of our times are a result of our fixedmindset. This mindset needs to be analysed in terms of its componentassumptions. This step may be the first in some exercises, as explainedearlier – that is, in exercises with grassroots workers and university staffand students. In this case, existing assumptions have already been seenas the problem and alternative assumptions have been postulated – andalso acted upon.

At the beginning of this step, some theoretical background for the TLprocess will have to be given. This can be done as lectures and in theform of handouts. Supplementary reading may be prescribed. Adequatetime for whole-group discussions must be allowed.

Identifying the secondary assumptions that make up the model ofcontemporary global culture might best be a team activity followedby whole-group discussion with the objective of developing an agreedlist. Once this is done, the same procedure might be followed indefining these assumptions in terms of the attitudes, policies, theories,programmes and projects they give rise to. This could be supplementedby case studies, where available, of the working out of these assump-tions in practice. These case studies could be researched, written up byindividual teams and presented by them to the whole group, with adifferent study for each team.



Finally, an attempt must be made to draw up a comprehensive list ofalternative assumptions.

Activities may also be framed as panel discussions, with one memberfrom each team being a member; each member would present theconsidered view of his or her team. The facilitator serves as themoderator. Field visits to projects, including interviews of the peopleconcerned with them, might be useful.

Primary assumptions in the background

Here is where almost all participants will enter a new, unfamiliarterritory. Major inputs from the facilitator to orient them and supplythem with information will be needed. These can be provided in lectures,handouts and other reading assignments. Activities can be framed withthe objective of visualising fresh answers to the perennial questions.Still others may be designed to examine these answers (primary assump-tions) for their logical consistency and coherence. Finally, a return tothe secondary assumptions from the previous stage should be made todetermine whether or not, or to what extent, they are congruent withthe alternative primary assumptions.

One definite task of the facilitator, I would say, is to introduce theparticipants to the symbolism of myth and to the subject of how onethinks in terms of these symbols. Earlier, it was suggested that a usefulactivity would be the translation of traditional myth. Equally, parti-cipants might be asked to create myths that embody the alternativeprimary assumptions they have decided upon. Or they could identifyand 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 previousstep have been illustrated in Chapters 4–8. These illustrations maysuggest numerous other activities that can be planned and carried outin TL exercises.

Testing

Step 5 involves two tasks. The first is identifying and articulating thepolicy/theory/programme/project implications of the validated altern-ative secondary assumptions. Grassroots workers and university peoplecould be asked to check out their own projects in respect of the valid-ated secondary assumptions arrived at in the previous section – and tosuggest 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,



and activity which requires considerable time and resources, and whichmay 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’ fromprojects and to decide how to deal with it. Where TL exercises are donewith grassroots workers and university people, they can be asked toexamine their own projects and report on the feedback signals they aregetting, how they are interpreting them and how they are dealing withthem or propose to deal with them. The last mentioned may include areturn to the stage of policies, programmes, theories to modify them, oreven 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, thisactivity may not be possible – unless the facilitator can present a casestudy of an actual project to work on.

By way of winding up this section, let me repeat the suggestion to keepnotes 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 exercisescan be described. The point is that what the facilitators learn must beshared with other facilitators and with all people concerned with TL.The exercises described in this chapter will take us into a new area ofendeavour. There will be successes, mistakes and perhaps some failuresto assess and new insights to consider. Paying attention to them, we willall learn as we go along.

July 21, 2007 9:35 MAC/TLN Page-189 0230_553508_16_app01

Appendix 1: Pesticide Use andHuman Health

The following excerpts are taken from school textbooks for grades 5–12 publishedby 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 humanbeings. � � � Therefore it is necessary that we learn to use science and technologywith 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 notsprayed in excess.

(Understanding the Environment, Class 5, NCERT [1989a], p. 61)

At times, pollutants have entered the food chain and have harmed severalliving organisms. DDT, for example, has entered in almost all the major foodchains (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. � � � Anytechnological application thus has a positive and often also a negative sideto it. The best strategy is to maximise the positive and to remove all thenegative effects. Often this is not easy, particularly when huge investmentsand profits are involved. The clash is between short term gains and long termenvironmental safety. Often, steps taken with only short term interests inmind can lead to irreparable damage. The role of environmental protectiongroups is thus very important. These groups take the long term view, analysethe 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 agriculturalproductivity owing to pests and diseases. This emphasises the need for usingpesticides.

(Biology, Class 12, NCERT [1989d], p. 959)

Some people consider pesticides to be a blessing that allows us to grow morecrops, fight diseases and make life more pleasant. Other people call pesticidespoisons that are slowly destroying ecosystems all over the world that will endup as a calamity for the human race. Most people hold opinions somewhere

189


190 Appendix 1

in between these two extremes. You should have some information on thecontroversy, 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 targetorganisms, but all organisms that come into contact with the chemical.You have studied about food webs in Chapter 21. The food web in a wheatfield may consist of several hundred species, most of them insects. A largenumber of the insects live by attacking the wheat plants. One or two maybe 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 becausethere is another set of species that live off the plant eaters, and keep theirnumbers down. However, these predators are usually much fewer in numberthan the plant eaters – just as there may be a hundred deer but only onetiger. Applying pesticides to such a field kills both types of [sic] animals, butbecause there are many more plant eaters, more of them survive, whereasmost of their predators [die]. This results in increased numbers and types ofpests. So, applying pesticides could result in more pests than not applyingpesticides.

The pests that manage to survive pesticide application are usually the onesgenetically capable of withstanding high doses of pesticides. These survivorsnaturally produce offspring that are more resistant to pesticides. Withrepeated application of pesticides, a kind of accelerated evolution occursto produce resistant populations of pests. The development of resistance,as this phenomenon is called, has several grave implications. Farmers areforced to use higher and higher doses of more expensive and more toxicchemicals to protect their crops. This effect is called the pesticide treadmill,where farmers use larger proportions of their income on pesticides, withoutincreasing their yields. This has happened with cotton in India, where somefarmers now apply forty times more insecticide than they did earlier justto sustain their yield of cotton. Not only is this economically disastrous, itresults in drastically reduced populations of predators, and simplified andunstable ecosystems. Another example is that of mosquitoes in large parts ofIndia that have become resistant to DDT, BHC, malathion and fenitrothion.As a result, the number of malaria cases is increasing, and the government isforced to spend larger sums of money to control mosquitoes.

Another problem with pesticides is that of bioconcentration. Most organo-chlorine pesticides are highly soluble in the fat of animals. Further thesechemicals are quite resistant to being metabolised. � � � In India due toprolonged use of DDT, 13–31 ppm of DDT can be detected in the body fat ofpeople, which is the highest in the world.

There are other problems with pesticides too. These poisons are frequently usedby people who are unaware how deadly they are, and lead to adverse healtheffects. In India, most people using pesticides cannot read warnings and getaccidentally poisoned. Further, ‘safe’ use of pesticides often requires protectiveequipment like gloves and masks, which the poor cannot afford. Further, lackof stringent measures in the manufacture and storage of pesticides may havegrave consequences such as the recent Bhopal gas tragedy.


Appendix 1 191

Some arguments against the use of pesticides were presented above. Are therealternatives to pesticide use? Moving away from the unthinking applicationof large doses of pesticides, with potentially disastrous consequences,scientists have now accepted that a more ecologically sound way of dealingwith pests is Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM uses a combination oftechniques such as biological control (e.g., using the natural predators ofpests to reduce pest numbers), mechanical control (e.g., manually destroyingthe eggs of pests to interfere with their reproduction), carefully timed useof pesticides at the most susceptible stage of the life cycle of pests, resistantvarieties and the use of cultural practices such as mixed-cropping, croprotation, intercropping and crop cycles lasting several years.

The ‘new-found’ wisdom of IPM has its origins in indigenous knowledge andtraditional farming practices developed by farmers over centuries of experi-mentation and experience. Scientists are realising that ‘traditional’ does notmean ‘backward’ and that they have much to learn from farmers. Most farmersin India still use such methods – locally developed varieties adapted to localconditions and pests, intercropping, crop rotations, etc. These methods arepart of a wider strategy, now called ‘organic farming’, which does not disruptlocal ecosystems, and leads to sustained yields at low cost, both to the farmerand the environment. Farmers in western countries have gradually shiftedback to such methods as they realise that dependence on pesticides make theirfarming 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 courseHumari Dharti, Humara Jivan (Our Land, Our Life) (UEEC, 2003) (See Boxes 2.1 and2.2), plains edition. The context is the irrigated Northwestern Ganga plains wherethere is now widespread environmental deterioration and economic hardship. Areference is made in this story to a student project in the same course on naturalfarming 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 doingher homework last evening she saw that her father was very troubled. Hesaid to Aruna’s mother ‘This year we bought a very expensive new pesticidebecause the one we have been applying for the past three years has becomeineffective. This year we will also have to buy more fertiliser. To maintainthe same yield we have to apply more fertiliser every year, and the cost offertiliser is also increasing steadily. The cost of growing crops is increasingyear by year’.

Aruna’s elder brother Rajpal (who is in the 11th grade) said ‘In our sciencetextbook it is written that insects develop resistance to insecticides so thatthe insecticides have no effect on them’.

Aruna’s grandfather was listening to all this. He said to his son ‘Long agoI 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 arespraying more and stronger pesticides, crop damage continues to increase.These chemical fertilisers stimulate the growth of our crops, but the plantsare 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 yieldsmore than doubled, and I thought we could earn a lot of money, whereas todaywe don’t have money even to buy fertilisers and pesticides. Many people are inan even worse condition than we are’.

Thinking about this Aruna was on her way to school this morning when shemet Mahipal who was a team mate in her environment course at school. Shetold him about her family problem.

After listening to Aruna’s story Mahipal said ‘A few days ago my father and Idiscussed 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 useto kill insects in our crops and vegetables are poisonous for us too. They causemany diseases. When we spray these pesticides we breathe in some amountof them. Scientists have found that they are present in all the foods we eatevery day. They are even found in cow and buffalo milk’.

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Appendix 2 193

‘My father said “What can we do? If we don’t spray these pesticides our cropyields will go down due to insect damage. Further, if vegetables like eggplantand cauliflower are damaged by insects we will not get a good price forthem”. ’

‘He also said “Why are you troubled by all this? We do not spray pesticideson the vegetables we grow for our own use.” This sentence of my fathertroubled me still more, and I asked him if it is right for us to eat vegetablesfree from pesticides while growing them with pesticides for people in thecity. He had no reply to this question’.

Further on, Aruna and Mahipal met Zarina and Mahendra. They too weremembers 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. Andmy grandmother tells me that even if there happens to be any pests, sheknows of many natural control measures for them. She says there is no needfor me to worry. She said “For centuries people are using neem leaves as aninsect repellent.” She said that if everyone were to grow crops in a naturalway using compost or mulch crop plants would be healthy and there wouldbe no need to spray them with pesticides’.

On hearing this Aruna, Mahipal and Mahendra agreed that they too had nopest problem in their vegetable gardens. All four of them applied compostin their gardens. With one voice they said that if their fathers were to applycompost in their fields the problem of pests could largely be solved. For afew minutes they were all quiet. Then Zarina said ‘Our gardens are very smalland we prepare enough compost for them, but for big fields a lot of compostwill be needed. How can so much compost be made? We use most of thedung 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 brotherPrem (Mahendra’s brother Prem studies agriculture at the university) werediscussing these very problems. Prem said that the real problem with theuse of fertilisers and pesticides is that farmers do not understand scientists’recommendations: they need to be trained. Then my father took out a copyof a university publication on how to use fertilisers and pesticides, and,showing it to Prem, said, “I am following these recommendations for manyyears. In the beginning, I won a prize one year for the highest paddy yield inthe 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 knowwhat the problem is? These new hybrid varieties are like a person addictedto a narcotic; they cannot grow without fertiliser. In the beginning the seedcompanies convince you to buy their seeds, and then you have to buy theirfertilisers and pesticides as well.” Continuing, she said, “Some days ago Prema’sfather (Prema is her daughter, that is, she was referring to her husband) and Iwere saying that our old paddy variety, the one we inherited from our parents,with enough compost, yielded as much as we are getting today.” ’


194 Appendix 2

‘At this point Prema’s father, Sukhbir Singh, joined us and said, “But theproblem is that we no longer have seeds of the old variety”.’

‘ “I have heard,” he continued, “that Sardar Gurubachan Singh has seed ofan old paddy variety. It gives a good yield and also doesn’t require as muchwater as the new varieties. With these new varieties we are pumping toomuch 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 varietywe 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 15minutes left before the first period. The four team members saw theirenvironment teacher Mrs. Sharma and decided to ask her what the solutionis to the problem they had been discussing.

Mrs. Sharma listened carefully as they told her about their problem. Then shesaid ‘I think this is a problem that the whole class should discuss. Perhaps wecan find a solution.’

Their environment course class was the first period. At the beginning of theperiod Mrs. Sharma said ‘Team number four has brought a very importantproblem for us to discuss today. I am asking them to explain this problemto the class.’ Aruna, Mahipal, Zarina and Mahendra together told the classof their discussion. After this Mrs. Sharma said ‘Now, in today’s period themembers of each team will discuss this problem among themselves and tryto find an answer. When you go home today also discuss this problem withyour parents and neighbours. In tomorrow’s class period I will ask each teamto present the results of their discussions to the class, and then we will havea 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 learneda 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 teacherto set aside enough time for this discussion. First carefully describe what ishappening in your home and village. Discuss these matters with your parentsand neighbours, and after that in your team and finally in the entire class.Write the results on the blank page opposite.

July 21, 2007 9:36 MAC/TLN Page-195 0230_553508_18_not01

Notes

1 Introduction

1. In all fairness, it should be noted that Whitehead did say in the same bookthat ‘ � � � modern assumptions differ from older assumptions, not always forthe better. They exclude from rationalistic thought more of the final valuesof existence’ (Whitehead, 1933, p. 122). He thus showed himself capable ofsome degree of detachment even though he seems disposed to the idea ofprogress.

2. Theoretical mathematics, as distinct from its applications in a particular era,can, however, be seen as developing in complexity and power over all ofrecorded history. More complex mathematical concepts and techniques makepossible the building of more complex machines and structures. Whether ornot these machines and structures are superior to simpler ones is, however, farfrom self-evident. Deciding this question requires a consideration of context:how does a new machine or structure affect society, the environment andthe individual (physically and psychically), and of what intentions is it anexpression. The answers to all these questions are specific to the worldview ofthe culture in question. When particular machines or structures do as muchor more harm than good, we must pause to question whether there has beenprogress or not.

2 Contradictions, incoherence and confusion

1. The subjects of chemical fertilisers, air pollution, resource depletion or nuclearenergy could equally have been used to illustrate the problems of incoherenceand confusion introduced into the curriculum by infusion.

2. The important subject of learning to think differently in post-colonial societieswhere traditional worldviews must also be taken into account is dealt with inChapter 10.

3 Learning to think differently

1. Newton’s law of gravitation also depends upon several other primary assump-tions that were becoming mainstream at that time: (1) mechanism (inertatoms of matter in motion as the primary reality of the world); (2) life asnothing but an emergent property of certain complex constellations of suchmaterial atoms; (3) a detached observer who cognises the world ‘out there’exclusively by logical mentation based upon empirical (sense) data; (4) thepre-eminence of mathematical descriptions of phenomena.

2. Two particularly illuminating examples of this ‘talking at cross purposes’ thathave remained in my memory are the ‘Debates’ organised and published by

195


196 Notes

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 ofproblems. Seen is isolation from each other, they do indeed seem unsolvable(Appendix 2). What the participants typically lack is the ability to take aholistic view of the situation; they cannot see that there is only one problemof which the numerous seeming individual problems that confront themare 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 theclassroom, is that the village is an ecosystem. If the ecosystem is healthy, as itmost certainly is not at present since there are so many problems, its illnessmust 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 notaggravate another problem. Rather, all problems are solved simultaneouslyand harmoniously.

5 The laws of nature

1. For a sample of current research into Vedic and contemporary Indian tribalsocieties, see Chaitanya (2000) and Sen (1992). An example of contemporarytribal societies is the shifting cultivators of tropical highland Asia (Jackson,2005, Chapter 3). The worldviews of North American Indigenous Peoples hasbeen investigated by Shilling (2002) and Cajete (2004), and that of AfricanIndigenous Peoples by Mokuku and Mokuku (2004) and Wane (2002). TheEcologist special issue The Cosmic Convent, volume 30 (1), 2000, describesthe findings of investigations into ancient Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Greek,Egyptian Zoroastrian and Chinese cultures, and also into contemporary tribalsocieties the world over. Concluding his survey of many cultures, Goldsmithrefers to a common feature of all as ‘The Way’ (Goldsmith, 2000). This refersto the complex of lifestyles and livelihood pursuits that recognise and adaptto the need to maintain the health of the local ecosystem and the localcommunity. These are determined by myths which embody the concept oflaw as immanent in specific contexts.

2. The R in the word Rta is pronounced approximately as ri, the i as in ‘is’. Thetongue is also trilled slightly in pronouncing the r. The t is a dental and nota palatal t. The a is pronounced as u in ‘put’, but not as a distinct sound onits own rather it is part of the t sound.

3. This theme of sacrifice is common to many, perhaps most, ancient cosmolo-gies. Here is another example. It has been narrated by C. G. Jung who, on atrip to Taos, New Mexico, met and talked to a Pueblo Indian chief, OchwiayBiano (Mountain Lake). ‘After a profound silence he continued. “The Amer-icans want to stamp out our religion. Why can they not let us alone? What wedo, we do not only for ourselves but for the Americans also. Yes, we do it forthe whole world. Everyone benefits by it.” I could observe from his excitementthat he was alluding to some extremely important element of his religion.


Notes 197

I therefore asked him; “You think, then, that what you do in your religionbenefits the whole world?” He replied with great animation, “Of course. Ifwe did not do it, what would become of the world?” And with a significantgesture he pointed to the sun � � �. “After all � � � we are a people who live on theroof of the world; we are the sons of Father Sun, and with our religion wedaily help our father to go across the sky ” ’ (Quoted by Dunne, 2000, p. 68).

4. The term ‘myth’ is used loosely in this essay to include stories of the godsand goddesses and legendary heroes and heroines, folk tales, fairy stories andanimal stories, and also mythologised historical persons and events.

5. From this point of view history, as an organised collection of facts, is subsumedby the mythical present. However, factual history has its uses. In India it issometimes conflated with myth, giving very unsatisfactory results; neitherfactual history nor mythical story can be understood correctly.

6. I use the word ‘man’ purposely. There are many today that argue that womennever participated in the enlightenment project as whole-heartedly as men;indeed, they were victims of it, along with nature. See, for example, Shiva(1991).

7. The story of Icarus appears in Robert Graves ‘The Greek Myths’ (Section 92entitled ‘Daedalus and Talos’) (Graves, 1969).

8. Graves (1969) presents almost 200 separate stories in his two-volume work. Allthese stories are interlinked – the same characters appear again and again invarious stories, and aspects of a given story are further explained or elaboratedin other stories. It is not possible adequately to understand any one storyin isolation; understanding comes only from seeing it in the context of thewhole fabric of Greek mythology. Gaia, Mother Earth, for example, figures inas 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 influ-ential 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 ‘ � � � full-blown, 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, theconcept 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 thetranslation by Griffith (1889) to theirs. My interpretation too differs fromtheirs.

3. The episode of experiencing is a subject viewing (prehending) all antecedentepisodes during the first phase of its existence – that is, the stage of dataprehension – and an object to be viewed (prehended) by subsequent episodesas a completed episode, a datum.


198 Notes

4. Episodes of cosmic experiencing and the experiencing of each of the Manyare the macro-cosmic and micro-cosmic expressions of the process in whichthe Dweller at the Source ‘leaves’ on his journey into outwardness – and thenreturns. The same pattern of emergence and return is seen in the processof awakening from deep sleep described on page 104. Yet again, the Hinducosmogonical 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 thechallenge 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 ofcolonialism. My concern is that if we accept the Earth Charter uncriticallywe might be accepting another form of colonialism that may be even moreinvidious than the previous one (van Harmelen, 2003).’

2. The earliest documentary references to agriculture in India date back to about2500 BC. Some of the archaeological evidence dates back still further.

3. This debate took the form of an informal discussion conducted throughthe pages of the Asian Agri-History Journal on the subject of finding anadequate interpretation of Indian agricultural history. I was one of the parti-cipants. 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 abook (Jackson, 2005) and now present it with suitable changes in the contextof TL.

4. I adopt the archaic philosophical meaning of the word discursive: that is,‘proceeding by argument or reasoning, rather than by intuition’. It derivesfrom the medieval Latin discursivus, deriving from the old Latin, discurere,the same as the modern English word ‘discourse’ (Concise Oxford EnglishDictionary, 2002).

5. See, for example: Atharvaveda XII, 1 (Panikkar, 2001) (Earth); Krishi-Parasharverses 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 thatIndians participating in the Vedic heritage should first free themselves fromthe debilitating effects of caste discrimination and the oppression of womenin their own society. He, like many Indian reformers of the 19th century, wasconvinced that these were distortions of the Vedic heritage. These reformshave continued to gain momentum and have carried over into independentIndia. 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 achievedat any time in history on any large scale. It appealed widely and inspired thedramatic 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 impulsesthat are the common lot of human beings – abetted now by competition andconsumerism. The attempt to employ only non-violent means in political,economic and social affairs does, however, continue to find expression inexperiments, 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-violentmeans 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. Ingeneral, I will use the word participant to indicate a novice.

2. These examples are all taken from UEEC (2002), except for the last which wastaken from Gordon (1995).

July 19, 2007 9:28 MAC/TLN Page-200 0230_553508_19_bib01

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August 1, 2007 21:39 MAC/TLN Page-206 0230_553508_20_ind01

Index

actual entitiesdefinition of, 51, 88as ultimate real things, 95

actual occasions, see actual entitiesadequacy (of worldview), definition

of, 29–30adequate, definition of, 30Agenda, 21, 146Agri-History Foundation, 151Agri-History Journal, 151agriculture, 117, 122–3, 128, 133–4,

152, 192–4, 196Ahuja, U., 153, 198Almora, x

see also Uttarakhand EnvironmentalEducation Centre

Alvares, C., 99, 133Anaximander, 104anchorage, 161–2answers (to questions in alternative

science paradigm), 132–3apeiron, 104archetypes, 109arete, 65, 68Aristotle, 43, 104, 169, 173associations, 89assumptions

alternative, xi–xii, 87, 168of alternative science, 128current, xide novo, 166inherited, 4, 145, 152, 155, 156, 179of mechanistic science, 127–8metaphysical, 3primary, 80, 87, 116–18;

definition, 29secondary, 112, 116–18, 173–4;

definition, 29; validating, 171,173–4

speculative, xi, 4Atman, 105atom, 48, 49, 51, 87, 88

atomised society, 120–1Greek atomists, 49, 81subatomic particles, 48, 51–2, 77, 93subatomic physics, 6–7, 96, 97

autopoeisis, definition of, 22autopoeitic systems, 22, 59, 93,

119–20, 137, 138, 165–6awareness, 104, 113–14

Babikwa, D. J., 36–7, 39Bacon, F., 71, 167, 169, 184Bajaj, J. K., 71Bakshi, R., 184Basham, A. L., 73, 158beauty, 68Being, 103, 154, 156Berkeley, G., 43, 167, 169billiard ball metaphor, see laws of

nature, law as imposedbiodiversity, 153birds, the two, 157Bohm, D., 97Box, D., 125Brahman, 105, 115Brihaspati, 77bringing forth a world, 88–9, 108,

114–15, 118British empiricists, 169brute facts, 24–5business, see localisation; systemsbusiness leaders, 25–6

Cajete, G. A., 139, 150, 196Campbell, J., 74, 109, 141cancer, 132–3capitalism, 77Capra, F.

alternative science, 125autopoeitic systems (definition), 22bringing forth a world, 114–15definition of matter, 43, 49, 59scientists’ reaction to Gaia, 20

206


Index 207

causes, efficient and final, 92–3see also laws of nature

Chaitanya, K., 77, 150, 158chance, 77, 93child-centred learning, 31–2classification of episodes of

experiencing, 109cognition, definition of, 29, 113cognitive dissonance

crossing the threshold of, 35–42definition of, 34–5disempowerment, 37–9, 196emotional turmoil, 35–6intellectual discomfort, 35resistance to, 41–2

coherence, definition, 29, 50–1, 112,compare incoherence

collaborative learning, see learning,collaborative

collective unconscious, 109colonialism

Earth Charter and, 146, 198economic, 146–7impact of, 146–9settlement, 147–8

communism, 77community

as an autopoeitic system, 119–20definition of, 119–20disappearance in global society,

120–1distortions of village community,

123traditional, 122–4

competition, 32complexity theory, 20confusion, x–xi, 14, 28, 31consciousness, 29, 113–14contemporary ancestors, 8contemporary global culture, x, 30,

62, 72, 82continuity

discontinuity, 139–40logical continuity, 70

contradictions, 12–14, 82–3Copernicus, N., 30, 167, 168corporate social responsibility, see

oxymorons, examples ofcosmology, 28

creation, 107, 155critique of mechanistic materialism,

49–61cultural model

construction of, 116–18definition, 30discontinuity in, 139–40Enlightenment, 76–7global, 3–4new, 116–18traditional, 145, 149–50

cultural myth, 154–6cultural reform, 32–3, 161–2cultural transformation, 20, 32–3,

161–2, 165–74culture

definition, 119mainstream, see contemporary

global culturenon-Western, 139Vedic, 139see also indigenous knowledge

dance metaphor, see laws of nature,law as immanent

darkness, 154, 156Darwin (neo-Darwinian theory of

evolution), 127debates (organised by The Ecologist

magazine), 195–6deception, 71

self-deception, 33deduction, 66deductive thinking (Aristotelian mode

of), 138Democrites, 43Descartes, Rene, 43, 67, 82, 85–6,

168, 169detached observer, 83–6, 100detached participant, 100,

111, 114detached participation, 100determinism, 110–11development, x, 12, 25, 119–20Dharma, 64–5, 115, 121, 138discontinuity, qualitative, 95DNA molecule (and

micro-explanations), 70–1dogmatism, 3, 112


208 Index

dreams, 74dreaming, 113–14

dropouts, 25–6, 167Du Toit, D., 38–9dualism

in Platonic and Western thought,67–8

subject–object, 106see also duality

duality (of subject and object), 103Dunne, C., 196–7Dweller at the Source,

106–7, 113

Earth Charter, 146, 198Earth Goddess, see GaiaEast India Company, 146–7ecological ego, 100ecological individual, 100ecological self, 100ecosystem, 15, 16, 22

village, 124ecosystem health, 15, 16, 124education for sustainable

development, 173Einstein, A., 35, 56emergent property, 23, 32,

58–9, 107criticism of, 58–9

empireBritish, 146–7of global capital and media, 9Roman, 146–7

Enlightenment, 6, 48, 81–2, 138environmental education

contradictions in, x, 12–14,189–91

Our Land, Our Life, 14–20role of NCERT in, 12

episodes of experiencing,87–9

ethics, 121–2experience, definition of, 29experimentation

in alternative science paradigm,128–32

in mechanistic science paradigm,127–8

factories of understanding, 78fallout, 127

see also global, cultural model,negative fallout from;unexpected outcomes

Father Sun, 196–7feedback, see information feedbackFien, J., 181force, 70formal institutions and transformative

learning, 171–4see also universities

formative elements of thought, seeuniversal formative elements ofthought

Forms, 66see also Ideas (Plato); Pythagorean

orientationfractals, 71free will, 110–11Freud, S., 41Fukuoka, M., xiii, 35, 53, 98fundamentalism, 79

Gaiaher children, 77–8a Pandora’s box, 25reaction of scientists, 20–1, 74–6reactions of students, 21–2theory, x, 20–1, 176see also myth

Gaian process, 98Galileo, 169Gandhi, M. K., 148–9, 198–9generalised definition (of the seven

formative elements of thought),51, 54, 59

globalcultural model, negative fallout

from, 3–4, 34, 149, see alsoWestern cultural model

village, 120–1globalisation, 26, 172Goerner, S. J., 125, 127, 131, 138–9Goldsmith, E.

community, 121empire of global capital and

media, 9Gaian process, 98


Index 209

non-Western cultures, 139the Way, 136, 140, 196

Goldsmith, Z., 9Goodwin, B., 23, 71Gordon, K., 184Gough, N., 42grassroots, 138

projects, 170–1Graves, R., 74, 197Greek mythology, see mythgreen revolution, 151greenwashing, 25Griffith, R. T. H., 106, 197ground of experiencing, 104Gunaratna, 100

Haigh, M. J.Gaia theory, 20–5neutered theories, 21, 76, 173student journals, 21–2, 182transformative learning, 173university and globalisation agenda,

172–3university degree

courses/programmes, 173happiness, 120, 141Harman, W., 28–9Harre, R., 70Hashimoto, Y., xiv

see also Takahashi, Y.Hattingh, K., 121Heisenberg, W., 35Hellenic age, 6, 66, 169–70, compare

Hellenistic ageHellenistic, 6, 78Hellenistic age, 3, 7–8

see also scholastic ageHeraclitus, 67Hibbard, W., 41hierarchy, 89, 197history

alternative theory of, 135–41cyclical theory of, 136Indian agricultural, 151–4progress theory of, 7–10, 150–4, 195theory of departure from the Way,

136–9Hobbes, T., 167holistic, 63–4

Howard, A., xiii, 35, 98hubris, 77Hughes, T., 78Hume, D., 70, 167, 169

‘I’, 48, 103–4, 107, 111Icarus, see mythIdeas (Plato), 67–8, 88incoherence, x, 81–2inconsistency, see contradictionsIndia, 11, 14–15, 120, 147, 198–9Indian Education Act, 147indigenous knowledge, 151–4indigenous peoples, 148

cultural change, 149effect of colonisation on, 147, 148

induction, 71industrialisation, 11Infinite, the, 104–5, 197information feedback, 132, 138, 188infusion, of environmental concerns

in to school textbooks, 12insoluble problems, 185–6interconnectedness, radical, 95–9intuition, 29, 60–1, 88intuitions, 153; see also universal

intuitions, theory of

Jackson, M. G.agriculture, 152, 196community, 122, 123education, 25–6, 172environmental problems, 26, 99interpreting history, 151–2, 153,

198progress theory of history, 9science, 128, 130transformative learning, 172Vedic culture, 138, 150, 152, 153worldview, definition of, 28

Janse van Rensburg, E., 38–9Jantsch, E., 197Jickling, B., 121–2, 134–5Jones, A., 119Jordens, J. T. F., 139journals

students’, 21–2use in transformative learning

exercises, 182


210 Index

Jung, C. G., 74, 109, 196–7just society, 124

Kanani, P. R., 129Kant, I., 23–4, 57–8Kepler, J., 167, 168knowing

according to Whitehead, 93–4criticism of current notion of, 59–61definition of in contemporary

global culture, 60knowledge, definition of, 29knowledge, traditional, see indigenous

knowledgeKothari, R., 161Kumar, S., 147

Laing, R. D., 41law of gravitation, 30, 66, 195laws of nature, 63

law as immanent, 63–5, 92, see alsoRta

law as imposed, 65–9, 95–6law as mere description, 69–72;

criticism of, 70–2, see alsopositivist doctrine, definition

learners (in transformative learningexercises), 199

learning, collaborative, 17learning to think differently

definition of, x, xi, xii, 27–8overview of the process, 31–3see also cognitive dissonance;

standing outside oneself, theprocess; transformative learning

lifeaccording to Whitehead, 93as an emergent property of matter,

58–9, 72, 94is real, 22–5

‘light of reason’, 8living in harmony with nature, 25localisation, 31–2, 125Locke, John, 24, 167, 169logical consistency, 29–30, 51logical, definition of, 29–30logical mentation/thought, 67, 72–3

limitations of, 68, 72Lotz-Sisitka, H., xiv, 37–9, 45

love, 157–8Lovelock, J., 20, 74–5Luddite argument, 99

macro-explanation, 128, 129macrocosmic, 107, 113, 198Many, the, 106, 107–11markers (in alternative and Vedic

science paradigms), 128–9market, 149

farmers’, 134mass psychosis, 78materialist worldview, 48–9, 105, 114,

168–9Gaia theory as a threat to, 22–3

mathematics, 195matter

definition of in contemporaryglobal culture, 51–2

difficulties in defining, 23–4, 53–4general definition of, 51see also substance, difficulty in

definingmavericks, 25–6meaning, 29, 35, 53, 60, 72–3, 74, 78,

102, 105, 156meaningful, 88, 122meaningless, 77, 105, 137

mechanistic worldview, 48–9, 105Medawar, P., 71mediaeval period (European), 138Mehra, K. L., 153memories, 29, 61merely given, 24metaphor, 73, 75metaphysical foundations, 40,

Chapter 11metaphysical task, 50metaphysics, see speculative

philosophymicro-explanation, 70, 96,

128, 129problem with, 70–1

microcosmic, 110, 160, 198Miller, J., 64–5Miller, J. P., 100mind, definition of, 113modernisation, x, 26Mokuku, C., 150, 196


Index 211

Mokuku, T., 150, 196Mortari, L., xiii, 67–8, 82Mother Earth, see Gaiamyth

dangers of, 78–9definition of, 73–4, 75Gaia, 74–6, 78–9Greek, 197Icarus, 77interpreting traditional myth,

154–61pernicious racial/ethnic myths, 78and purpose, 141Titanic, 76–8true, 78

Nasadiya hymn, 154–5National Council of Educational

Research and Training, 12, 189–91natural farmers, 133natural farming, see Nature’s farming

(or natural farming)Nature, 98Nature’s farming (or natural farming),

98necessity, 24, 111Nene, Y. L., 151–2neutering (of systems theory), 21, 76Newton, I.

absolute objective time and space,55–6

and cultural transformation, 167law as imposed, 48, 68law of gravitation, 168–9, 195receptacle theory of space and time,

56Sholium, 55–6, 81transformation of Western

worldview, 30No Number, the, 105Nonbeing, 103, 154–5, 156nonsense, 76novelty, 110–11

object, 103, 158, compare subject (orsubjectivity)

objectivity, 103One, the, 103, 105, 111, 156Oppermann, S., 98, 100

order, 71–2organism, 7, 26

see also philosophy of organismOrr, D., 27Osborne, A., 65O’Sullivan, E., 10, 19, 29, 32, 34–5Our Land, Our Life (school

environmental education course),14–20

Owen, L., 139Oxford meeting, 74–5oxymorons, examples of, xi, 25

Pande, A., 15Pande, G. C., 64Pande, L., 15Pande, S., 123Pandora’s box, 25Panikkar, R., 64, 65, 156, 158, 159, 198Parmenides, 67–8participatory observation, 100particles, 22, 58–9

see also subatomic particlesparticularisation, 66–7particularised definitions, 51, 59–60perception, 29

see also sensory data, cognitionperennial questions, 29

alternative answers now suggested,103–12

answers given by theEnlightenment, 48–9

in Vedic myth, 160–1person, 29, 54, 82–3, 114

Whitehead’s definition of,94–5

pesticide use, 11–14, 189–91pests, a story, 185, 192–4philosophy of organism, 88–95physicists, 52Pirsig, R., 65, 67–8Plato, 24–5, 67–8, 84Plotinus, 197positivist doctrine, definition, 69

see also laws of nature, law as meredescription

post-colonial societiesinterpreting traditional myth,

154–61


212 Index

post-colonial societies – continuedloss of anchorage and vision in,

161–2progress theory, an obstacle,

150–4transformative learning exercises,

175–88Potential, the, 106–7practice, the test of practice in

transformative learning, 45–6,187–8

Price, L., 135, 153primary assumptions, see

assumptions, primaryprimary attributes (of physical

bodies), 7, 52–3Principia (Newton), 55–6Prithvi, see Gaiaprocess, the world as, 87–95professors, 5, 25–6, 51, 167, 171–3progress theory of history, see historypropositions advanced in the book,

xi–xiiPtolemy, 30purpose, 140–1pursuit of happiness, 65, 120, 141puzzle, nine point, 185–6Pythagoras, 71, 169Pythagorean orientation, 66

quality, 68quantum science, 96

Radhakrishnan, S., 158, 160–1radical inter-connectedness, 9, 95–9rainfall prediction, 128–9real

criteria of, 103What is real, 48–9, 103–6, 111–12

realmsemotional, 109intellectual, 109physical, 109see also classification of episodes of

experiencingreason, limits to, 68, 72–3reasoning, inductive, 71reform, 32–3, 162Renaissance, 138

research methodologyin the alternative science paradigm,

128–32as conversation with nature, 132–5in the mechanistic science

paradigm, 127–8Rigveda, 64, 77–8, 106, 139, 154–5,

158–9Robbins, N., 146–7Rose, heroine in the film Titanic, 78Roszack, T., 41, 100Rowe, S., 100, 140Rta

as an autopoeitic structure, 137definition of, 64and free will, 110as homeostasis in an organism, 64as a imperative for ethical

behaviour, 77inexorable logic of, 92–3memory banks of, 109myth as a representation of the

working of, 73pronunciation, 196putting one’s trust in, 65return to Western culture, 98a Sanskrit word, 115from three points of view, 64–5and the Way, 136–7, 140see also laws of nature, law as

immanentRussell, B.

definition of matter, 49–50definition of soul, 84earliest scientific propositions,

169–70mental outlook of medieval and

modern men, 169relative objective time and space, 56substance, 53–4unity is rubbish, 71

Sachs, W., 9, 74sacrifice, 65Sadhale, N., 134, 198Sanskrit (use of Sanskrit terms), 115satisfaction, see bringing forth a worldscholars, 5

see also professors


Index 213

scholarship, 6 compare speculationscholastic age, 3, 19–20, 167–8, 173

see also Hellenistic age; speculativeage

Scholasticism, 6school curriculum, 11–14, 17–18

see also environmental educationschool education, 19–20school, Silindile, 37–8Schumacher, E. F., 132science

alternative, 128–32definition of, 126–7mechanistic (research methodology

in), 127–8new or web science inadequate,

125–6the positivist doctrine the dogma of

contemporary science, 69research guidelines in alternative

science paradigm, 129–32systems (neutered), 21Vedic, 128–9and violence, 98–9

science as conversation, 132–5scientific management of

resources, 25scientists

and the Baconian doctrine, 71and cognitive dissonance, 35do not initiate a Hellenic age, 25–6of the Enlightenment, 168–9everyone a scientist, 130have failed to define matter, 49–50and micro-explanations, 70–1Newton and incoherence, 81–2opposition to Gaia theory, 20–1and questionable explanations,

70–1Selby, D., 95–9Sen, G., 196sensory data, 60Sherburne, D. W., 89–90, 91–2Shilling, R., 139, 148, 196Shiva, V., 197sick

ecosystems, 124societies, 41

side effects, 27, 151

see also fallout; unexpectedoutcomes

Silindile Junior School, 37–8Sisters Seven, 106

see also universal formativeelements of thought

sleep, 103–4Smith, H., 104–5, 197Smith, Mr., 54society

definition, 119–20post-colonial, 145–6, see also

transformative learningexercises, in post-colonialsocieties

traditional, effects of colonialismon, 146–9; transformativelearning in, 145–6, 149–50, seealso community, traditional

Socrates, 83–4solar system, 30, 53, 168–9soul, 83–5Source, the, 106space

absolute, 55–6objective, 54–5, 61problems with objective time and

space, 57problems with subjective time and

space, 58, 109–10receptacle theory of, 56relative, 56–7subjective, 57–8, 90–2

space-time, 56speculation, 4–6speculative age, 167, 169–70, compare

scholastic agespeculative ideas, definition, 28–9

see also assumptionsspeculative philosophers, 168–70speculative philosophy, 50–1Spinoza, B., 167Sri Krishna Prem, 197Sri Madhava Ashish, 113–14, 197standing outside oneself, the process,

42–5Sterling, S., 19–20strange attractors, 71student journals, 21


214 Index

subatomic particles, 48, 89subject (or subjectivity), 103, 158

see also objectsubstance, difficulty in defining, 53–4sustainability

contradictions in the concept, 117definition of, 25–6and ecosystem health, 124incoherence in the concept, 117and university courses, 173unsustainability of modern

scientific agriculture, 152varying interpretations of, 26

sustainable developmentsee oxymorons, examples of

sustainable livelihoods, 125sustainable society, 124symbols

abstract word, 73, 155, 159of myth, 73, 155, 159

systemsautopoeitic, see autopoeitic systemsgentle interventions in, 130, 134,

196human-created, 125, 131–2mechanistic, 96neutered, see neutering (of systems

theory)organismic, 96–7philosophical, 80, see also

cosmology; worldviewproblems of predicting behaviour,

23science, 21self-healing ability of, 133sick, 130the study of, 129theory, 20an understanding of, 128–9see also science as conversation

Takahashi, Y., 35, 36see also Hashimoto, Y.

talking at cross purposes, 32, 195–6tapas, 158Taylor, A. E., 24Taylor, M. A., 19, 29teacher orientation workshops, 18–19teachers, 17–19, 37–40, 196

terminology, 28–31, 112–15Thales, 156That which is, 105, 106theory

definition, 30Gaia, 20–1rediscovery, 153systems, 20universal gravitation, 30, 66universal intuitions, 153

thingsas actual entities, see actual entitiesassumed definition in materialist

worldview, 51–2generalised definitions, 51as material entities, 48, 51–2see also matter, substance

thinking differently, xi–xii, 113, 137–8definition, x

thinking substance, 83, 85–6thinking, definition, 29thought

discursive, 155, 159–60, 198normal, 72–3verbal, 72–3

thread, imaginary, 114‘throwing in’ suggestions, 36–7, 196time

absolute, 55–6atemporal, 109–10objective, 55–8problems with subjective time, 58,

91–2receptacle theory of, 56relative, 56–7subjective, 57–8, 90–2, 109–10sui generis, 91

Titanic, as a myth, 76–8togetherness (of all actual occasions),

90traditional culture, see culturetransformation

cultural, 165–6personal, 33–4social, 32–3, 162

transformative learningdefinition of, x–xiiprocess, xi, 27–8, 34theoretical framework for, 177


Index 215

transformative learning exercisescourse outline for, 180–1definition of, 174–7facilitator, 177–80format for, 180in post-colonial societies, 145–6priority areas for, 174–5suggestions for planning and

conducting (in general), 180–3suggestions for planning and

conducting (specific), creatingcognitive dissonance, 183–5;handling feedback, 188;identifying and describingprimary assumptions, 187;identifying and describingsecondary assumptions, 186–7;insoluble problems, 185–6;testing, 187–8

translation (of myth), 154–60true, 57

Unbounded, see apeironunconscious, the, 76understanding, definition of, 29, 76unexpected outcomes, 31universal formative elements of

thought, 47–8, 51, 106–7definition of, 29

universal intuitions, theory of, 153universities, 167, 171–4

and transformative learningexercises, 175–6

Upanishad, Mundaka, 157urbanisation, 133Uttarakhand Environmental

Education Centrelocation, xschool environmental education

courses, 14–20, 41, 192–4teacher orientation workshops,

18–19transformative learning exercises,

174–5, 176–7, 179, 183–5Uttarakhand, location, x, 120

values, 121–2see also Dharma

van Harmelen, U., 198

Vedic agricultural science,151–2, 153

Vedic culture, 128–9, 155Vedic worldview, 139–40, 155–61verbal thought, 72–3village ecosystem, 122–4village, 122–4

see also communityVirmani, S. M., 153Viswanathan, S., 9vulgar, the, 55–6, 57

waffle, 13Wane, N. N., 139, 196web metaphor, see law as imposedWestern 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 entitiesadequate (worldview), 29–30, 50–1associations, 89causation, 92–3, see also laws of

naturecoherence (in a worldview), 29–30,

50–1, 81dogmatism, 3, 112enhancement (or perceptions),

60–1final real things, 95god, 90knowing the world, 93–4laws of nature, 63, 65–6, 69life, 93logical (worldview), 29–30, 50–1materialism, 6–7mind, 113on Newton’s contribution to world

thought, 81objective time and space, 57person, the, 94–5philosophy of organism, 7–8, 87–95primary attributes of physical

bodies, 6–7, 52–3Process and Reality, 87progress theory of history, 7–8, 195scholarship, 5Scholastic and Hellenistic ages, 3


216 Index

Whitehead, A. N. – continuedspeculative assumptions, 4speculative philosophy, 50–1, 170subjective time and space, 90–2, 112togetherness of all actual entities, 90vacuous material existence, 6–7, 49

world, 88–9, 118mechanistic conception of, 26organismic conception of, 26Potential, a, 106–7what is the world like, 48see also bringing forth a world

worldviewalternative, 111–12of contemporary global culture, 26,

48–9definition of, 28, 31inherited, 40, 145–6materialist, 48–9mechanistic, 26, 48–9transformation of, 32–3, 34Vedic, 160–1

Zimmer, H., 72–3, 105

Transformative Learning for a New Worldview: Learning to Think Differently

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