I have an angry elephant on the front porch. It's a very favored object, small but with a good hearty elephant call. This compilation is thorough and encouraging, so thanks for the pick-me-up. My place may be more off to the edge for awhile. I look for but still do not see much material that answers to my sensibilities about how existing structures are replaced by (relatively) more healthy structures. Yes, create parallel structures, but what will it take to achieve society wide mental re-orientation?, (from an object based toward a relationship based understanding of the generative nature of reality.)
Thanks Michael for the effort required to put this material in such good order.
Hi Sounder. (Does the name have anything to do with 'sounding the depths'?
I've just been reading some of your posts. Split model is obsolete, Coping with holes, and Defense from predators, which I especially loved. I feel a kindred connection in the hunger to bridge the material and the spiritual, and what you write resonates with me a lot. Vast issues these, the spiritual and the material, and another subject you touch on quite a bit, also close to my own heart, the individual and the collective. I will respond to some of your thoughts at some time, but as you noted yourself in one of your posts, sometimes one must digest a fair bit before a meaningful response can be made....
Glad if I was able to be a pick-me-up, and I appreciate your appreciation of the work!
As for having a place 'off to the edge for awhile', I think that's a perfectly good form of participation. I shall invoke Rupert Sheldrake's 'morphic resonance' and the idea that by coming to know things, or cultivatiing insights, those insights become resonantly accessible to others. And also Steiner, who said that simply by 'thinking the truth together' we affect the world.
Yes, it's beautiful isn't it? I'm all for external action, but its wonderful and reassuring to understand that we are already influencing the world simply by formulating and sharing thoughts. And also to see a modern scientific affirmation of that in Sheldrake's 'morphic resonance'.
Thanks for the mention, Michael. It's good to see all these different strands being brought together, though I must confess I have difficulty getting my head round the elephant metaphor! (Probably because I've used a very different metaphor myself in the past: https://malcolmr.substack.com/p/imago-society)
It was more a play on words really than a metaphor. It's partly, and incidentally, the latter only in as much as it refers to something big and powerful in gestation in society. In the bigger picture, I think your 'metamorphosis' image is much the more suitable. I loved your 'Imago Society' piece by the way, and will respond over there.
Ah... there seems to be something a little strange about your 'Imago' post. I find it following your link above, but when I go to 'archive' on your substack page, it doesn't appear. And more to the point right now, when I go via the link, it doesn't give me the option to comment. So I'm going to comment from here.
First, your speculations about what the caterpillar / butterfly might inwardly be experienceing are delightful as well as highly relevant.
But then some comments on the substance of it: I was a little amazed to hear that senior members of the judiciary have discussed the possibility of such a showdown with government. I had rather tended to imagine that most of the judiciary was 'captured'. OK, but I suppose it's clear that captured institutions are usually not completely captured. (US FBI / CIA being other contemporary examples. Perhap UK Civil Service too?)
The idea that before such a successful transition some kind of new institutions might have to come into being, which the courts might then see fit to bestow authority upon is interesting. I naturally wonder if there may be a synergy in this thinking, with the 'cultural institutions' (forming a 'culture, state commerce' triangle, a la Steiner) which I have written about on various occasions. In other words, whether new institutions of the cultural, as they emerge, may turn out to be part of the resolution.
And then a question: You wrote that "the principle of parliamentary sovereignty is a major feature of the British Constitution." William Keyte (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mBC873TSEE&t=563s), seems to suggest otherwise. He suggests that although the goverment website (for instance) claims this, constitutional law, originating in the Magna Carta, has the people sovereign, in that he says that juries have the power not only to determine whether the law should actually be applied in a given case, but even whether it was a just law to start with. (He says that principle was also transfered over to the states - and there's even a relatively recent US case in which the jury succesfully did that).
If Keyte (and the US precedent) are correct, could that even be part of the way out of the dilemma the UK judiciary are apparently facing?
The short answer to your question is that William Keyte's understanding of the UK's constitution is very different to the Supreme Court's understanding of it!
The longer answer starts with the court's need to know “the location of ultimate decision-making authority – the right to the 'final word' – in a legal system” (as Jeffrey Goldsworthy put it in his book, Parliamentary Sovereignty). So, yes, the people are indeed sovereign ... but there are 60 million or so of us. So the courts' question is "Who speaks for the people?"; to which their answer is "Parliament" (because members of the Commons are democratically elected).
So, no, I'm afraid Keyte's arguments wouldn't have any traction in court (and Magna Carta is actually irrelevant to the modern constitution).
I am fairly confident that the avenue I'll be proposing will work, though. I've another two or three posts to come preparing the ground but I'm hoping to map out a viable strategy within the next month for getting a Constitutional Parliament convened.
Thanks Michael. I don't think you'll be able to respond to Imago Society because it's just a page, not a post. But in fact I've refined those ideas significantly since I wrote it and I'll be writing on that theme – and setting out a more realistic strategy – in my next few posts.
Great - I'll look forward to that. Much of importance to talk about.
Meanwhile, I'm already in the process of writing a comment on it here, in this thread (I already discovered that I can't respond on the original article). So I'll finish that as a 'for now' response, and look forward to responding futher to the forthcoming posts.
First, because my shallow ego demands it: imagine my utter shock to be included in that august line-up of writers! I'm gobsmacked and so flattered, Michael. Thank you. And don't think that my inclusion in that line-up predisposes me to flatter you in return, K? Everything I'm about to say is absolutely from the heart.
This piece is inspirational, hope-engendering, and passionate, yet also so even-keeled, thorough, and practical. It's the kind of big-picture assessment you EXCEL at, but with an added personal touch that makes it uber-readable and relatable... Well done, friend. So well done.
What I also love about it (and Part I) is that I feel like I can (and I will) send this to ANYONE, no matter their political or ideological bent, and they will find truth in it -- including their own. That's how to build bridges, I think, with this kind of thinking and feeling. And that's what we're going to need, in spades, to re-build this system.
Who knows what it will look like? No one. But the first step is to believe it's possible. This essay puts me there, and I believe it will do that for others, too. Bravo, Michael.
Mary, you are absolutely one of my favourite substack writers. For me you gift is exactly the one of the poet - that abililty to be light and profound at the same time, and to approach things a little indirectly and yet in doing so make them even more concrete and compelling. (I don't know if that is a 'right' way to think of poetry, but it's a perahps somewhat clumsy way to express it for now!)
I warmly thank you as ever for your feedback. And I especially note the remark about 'no matter their political or ideological bent'. One of the real core aspirations of 'World in Transition' is to raise things above the useless old game of 'left and right'!
I'm not sure if 'indirect' is the right word... allegorical ... story telling ... bringing to life.... as much the gift of the playwright as the poet of course. Anyway, it reaches me!
WOW! This is outstanding! Thank you, Michael. That said, I'm at a loss to say much more right now, it takes me a while to process, and you have given us more than enough to ponder. It's all very encouraging.
Thanks Michael, For me, Sounder is a reminder to work on tone. and that what I may have to say is less important than what the listener hears. Many people have never even considered 'another way of looking at things' and associate divergent thinking with shrillness and Alex Jones. I try to show that divergent thinking is can be healthy and an aid to personal development. My objective is indeed to resonate with (and help activate) latent understandings that have not yet been given proper words or substance, that may provide amplitude to material that has yet to find much chance to resonate.
As to the gap between the spiritual and material, my attempt and avocation is to collapse the gap rather than to bridge it. The gap seems like an artificial aspect of the split model and in reality does not exist.
Robert Sardelo says that we read and write as a way to shape the world soul. Doing this, at least we engage with the world soul, but maybe with it shaping us more than we shape it.
Wow, that's beautiful - glad that I asked now! A great inspiration to think not just about our words, but about where they are coming from.
I take your point about using the word 'gap'. Yet for me it is not quite enough simply to say they are one and the same thing. There's a kind of mystery, typical of that which lies beyond or rationalisations and words, in which they both are and aren't. Deep subject.
I love the idea that "we read and write as a way to shape the soul of the world". I very much feel it that way. I'm a big fan or Robert Sardello. His introduction to Steiner's 'Psycho-analysis and Spiritual Psychology" is tremendous. (The book is a polemic on the fatal flaws of Jung's outlook (with which I agree, though I dismiss neither Jung's genius, nor the value of his work) and how to get to a psychology able to deal with spirit).
I have an angry elephant on the front porch. It's a very favored object, small but with a good hearty elephant call. This compilation is thorough and encouraging, so thanks for the pick-me-up. My place may be more off to the edge for awhile. I look for but still do not see much material that answers to my sensibilities about how existing structures are replaced by (relatively) more healthy structures. Yes, create parallel structures, but what will it take to achieve society wide mental re-orientation?, (from an object based toward a relationship based understanding of the generative nature of reality.)
Thanks Michael for the effort required to put this material in such good order.
Hi Sounder. (Does the name have anything to do with 'sounding the depths'?
I've just been reading some of your posts. Split model is obsolete, Coping with holes, and Defense from predators, which I especially loved. I feel a kindred connection in the hunger to bridge the material and the spiritual, and what you write resonates with me a lot. Vast issues these, the spiritual and the material, and another subject you touch on quite a bit, also close to my own heart, the individual and the collective. I will respond to some of your thoughts at some time, but as you noted yourself in one of your posts, sometimes one must digest a fair bit before a meaningful response can be made....
Glad if I was able to be a pick-me-up, and I appreciate your appreciation of the work!
As for having a place 'off to the edge for awhile', I think that's a perfectly good form of participation. I shall invoke Rupert Sheldrake's 'morphic resonance' and the idea that by coming to know things, or cultivatiing insights, those insights become resonantly accessible to others. And also Steiner, who said that simply by 'thinking the truth together' we affect the world.
And I shall continue to enjoy your posts.
By "thinking the truth together' we affect the world... gotta love Steiner. Couldn't agree more.
Yes, it's beautiful isn't it? I'm all for external action, but its wonderful and reassuring to understand that we are already influencing the world simply by formulating and sharing thoughts. And also to see a modern scientific affirmation of that in Sheldrake's 'morphic resonance'.
Thanks for the mention, Michael. It's good to see all these different strands being brought together, though I must confess I have difficulty getting my head round the elephant metaphor! (Probably because I've used a very different metaphor myself in the past: https://malcolmr.substack.com/p/imago-society)
It was more a play on words really than a metaphor. It's partly, and incidentally, the latter only in as much as it refers to something big and powerful in gestation in society. In the bigger picture, I think your 'metamorphosis' image is much the more suitable. I loved your 'Imago Society' piece by the way, and will respond over there.
Ah... there seems to be something a little strange about your 'Imago' post. I find it following your link above, but when I go to 'archive' on your substack page, it doesn't appear. And more to the point right now, when I go via the link, it doesn't give me the option to comment. So I'm going to comment from here.
First, your speculations about what the caterpillar / butterfly might inwardly be experienceing are delightful as well as highly relevant.
But then some comments on the substance of it: I was a little amazed to hear that senior members of the judiciary have discussed the possibility of such a showdown with government. I had rather tended to imagine that most of the judiciary was 'captured'. OK, but I suppose it's clear that captured institutions are usually not completely captured. (US FBI / CIA being other contemporary examples. Perhap UK Civil Service too?)
The idea that before such a successful transition some kind of new institutions might have to come into being, which the courts might then see fit to bestow authority upon is interesting. I naturally wonder if there may be a synergy in this thinking, with the 'cultural institutions' (forming a 'culture, state commerce' triangle, a la Steiner) which I have written about on various occasions. In other words, whether new institutions of the cultural, as they emerge, may turn out to be part of the resolution.
And then a question: You wrote that "the principle of parliamentary sovereignty is a major feature of the British Constitution." William Keyte (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mBC873TSEE&t=563s), seems to suggest otherwise. He suggests that although the goverment website (for instance) claims this, constitutional law, originating in the Magna Carta, has the people sovereign, in that he says that juries have the power not only to determine whether the law should actually be applied in a given case, but even whether it was a just law to start with. (He says that principle was also transfered over to the states - and there's even a relatively recent US case in which the jury succesfully did that).
If Keyte (and the US precedent) are correct, could that even be part of the way out of the dilemma the UK judiciary are apparently facing?
Hi Michael,
The short answer to your question is that William Keyte's understanding of the UK's constitution is very different to the Supreme Court's understanding of it!
The longer answer starts with the court's need to know “the location of ultimate decision-making authority – the right to the 'final word' – in a legal system” (as Jeffrey Goldsworthy put it in his book, Parliamentary Sovereignty). So, yes, the people are indeed sovereign ... but there are 60 million or so of us. So the courts' question is "Who speaks for the people?"; to which their answer is "Parliament" (because members of the Commons are democratically elected).
So, no, I'm afraid Keyte's arguments wouldn't have any traction in court (and Magna Carta is actually irrelevant to the modern constitution).
I am fairly confident that the avenue I'll be proposing will work, though. I've another two or three posts to come preparing the ground but I'm hoping to map out a viable strategy within the next month for getting a Constitutional Parliament convened.
Thanks Michael. I don't think you'll be able to respond to Imago Society because it's just a page, not a post. But in fact I've refined those ideas significantly since I wrote it and I'll be writing on that theme – and setting out a more realistic strategy – in my next few posts.
Great - I'll look forward to that. Much of importance to talk about.
Meanwhile, I'm already in the process of writing a comment on it here, in this thread (I already discovered that I can't respond on the original article). So I'll finish that as a 'for now' response, and look forward to responding futher to the forthcoming posts.
First, because my shallow ego demands it: imagine my utter shock to be included in that august line-up of writers! I'm gobsmacked and so flattered, Michael. Thank you. And don't think that my inclusion in that line-up predisposes me to flatter you in return, K? Everything I'm about to say is absolutely from the heart.
This piece is inspirational, hope-engendering, and passionate, yet also so even-keeled, thorough, and practical. It's the kind of big-picture assessment you EXCEL at, but with an added personal touch that makes it uber-readable and relatable... Well done, friend. So well done.
What I also love about it (and Part I) is that I feel like I can (and I will) send this to ANYONE, no matter their political or ideological bent, and they will find truth in it -- including their own. That's how to build bridges, I think, with this kind of thinking and feeling. And that's what we're going to need, in spades, to re-build this system.
Who knows what it will look like? No one. But the first step is to believe it's possible. This essay puts me there, and I believe it will do that for others, too. Bravo, Michael.
And thank you so much for the cross-post!
Mary, you are absolutely one of my favourite substack writers. For me you gift is exactly the one of the poet - that abililty to be light and profound at the same time, and to approach things a little indirectly and yet in doing so make them even more concrete and compelling. (I don't know if that is a 'right' way to think of poetry, but it's a perahps somewhat clumsy way to express it for now!)
I warmly thank you as ever for your feedback. And I especially note the remark about 'no matter their political or ideological bent'. One of the real core aspirations of 'World in Transition' is to raise things above the useless old game of 'left and right'!
Keep up your great work!
I'm not sure if 'indirect' is the right word... allegorical ... story telling ... bringing to life.... as much the gift of the playwright as the poet of course. Anyway, it reaches me!
I think your description is perfect, all of it. Thank you for your kind compliment.
You, too, friend -- gratitude for the feedback, and keep envisioning/synthesizing/creating/!
WOW! This is outstanding! Thank you, Michael. That said, I'm at a loss to say much more right now, it takes me a while to process, and you have given us more than enough to ponder. It's all very encouraging.
Thanks so much Rocket! Your encouragement too is very welcome. We all need it!
Thanks Michael, For me, Sounder is a reminder to work on tone. and that what I may have to say is less important than what the listener hears. Many people have never even considered 'another way of looking at things' and associate divergent thinking with shrillness and Alex Jones. I try to show that divergent thinking is can be healthy and an aid to personal development. My objective is indeed to resonate with (and help activate) latent understandings that have not yet been given proper words or substance, that may provide amplitude to material that has yet to find much chance to resonate.
As to the gap between the spiritual and material, my attempt and avocation is to collapse the gap rather than to bridge it. The gap seems like an artificial aspect of the split model and in reality does not exist.
Robert Sardelo says that we read and write as a way to shape the world soul. Doing this, at least we engage with the world soul, but maybe with it shaping us more than we shape it.
Wow, that's beautiful - glad that I asked now! A great inspiration to think not just about our words, but about where they are coming from.
I take your point about using the word 'gap'. Yet for me it is not quite enough simply to say they are one and the same thing. There's a kind of mystery, typical of that which lies beyond or rationalisations and words, in which they both are and aren't. Deep subject.
I love the idea that "we read and write as a way to shape the soul of the world". I very much feel it that way. I'm a big fan or Robert Sardello. His introduction to Steiner's 'Psycho-analysis and Spiritual Psychology" is tremendous. (The book is a polemic on the fatal flaws of Jung's outlook (with which I agree, though I dismiss neither Jung's genius, nor the value of his work) and how to get to a psychology able to deal with spirit).