Quote ... Unquote

I very much enjoyed the responses to the "Golden Rules" post a few days ago. I think that what happened was that we stopped thinking about the problems as being about "them" and started to look at ourselves, with humour and humility. Maybe we could do more of that. The blog is useful to chivvy along the pace of change, I hope, but the real change is within me and you.

Another thing I would like to raise is the way we use quotations.

I often think of a wise quotation that I might use to contradict what someone else says, but I very rarely use it. It always feels like using a hammer to crack a nut ... and maybe the nut one is talking to is a human being, after all! ... click "Read more"

This blog is 99% made up of the words of its contributors. Why is this important? Because I believe that we in the School rely too much on the words of the wise, and need to learn to stand on our own two feet. The wise are constantly contradicting each other, anyway. The Bible is self-contradictory, if one is literal about it. Shantananda contradicts himself. So if we are going to rely on the wise, we need to place more emphasis on our own understanding. If we regurgitate partly-digested wisdom at each other, this is not communication.

There are blogs which are the exact opposite - a collection of wise quotations, with maybe 1% original content. I would not disparage that at all, but this blog has a different function.

Shantananda told the translator at the first meeting: "don't listen to my words; listen to my meaning, and translate that". On another occasion he said, "no-one needs to bind himself to a word". He also said that the quickest way to self-realization is to speak from the heart, and act on your words, without worrying too much about whether you've made a mistake or properly understood the teaching.

These principles of his have been honoured almost entirely in the breach.

There have been too many wise words from India and elsewhere, and too little understanding. We need to start to discover our own voices. Some (I know) will say that this is the route to egotism, but I can only respond that if that is what is in my heart, then "better out than in"! We cannot purify what is hidden, but only what is shown.

So I would propose this rule:

Never use a quotation to dismiss someone else's words, or when you have words of your own, however poor.

Responses?

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Three Golden Rules

I'd like to propose some positive principles for the blog. I would ask that everyone who participates is prepared to say, when necessary, these three sentences:

"I'm sorry, I got that wrong"
"You made a really good point there"
"What do you think?"

I've mentioned these before - my father learned them on a management course in a slightly different form - and at that point I applied them to the School. I said that the School needed to learn to say these sentences: to admit error and the possibility of error, to praise individual students, and to ask non-rhetorical questions with real curiosity. I still believe that that is correct.

But maybe a function of the blog is for us, as members of the School (or perhaps in some cases "Honoured Alumni"!), to learn how to be the change we want to see. We need to learn these conversational skills and use them. In addition to this, if we have disputes in future, we can refer to these sentences for a way out.

They're just short-hand, of course, and need to be interpreted intelligently. If I genuinely believe that what I am saying is right, then I should not say "I'm sorry, I got that wrong". But I might say, "I'm sorry that we're having this argument. Perhaps I've misunderstood your position. Can you explain it in different words?" Or I might say, "I've often found your remarks helpful in the past, but this appears to me to be wrong, because ..."

There may be those who cannot agree to these sentences. If so, now is the time to argue the case!

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Torches of Freedom

This is the blog's first venture into video - a clip from Adam Curtis's 2002 documentary, The Century of the Self. I'm presently reading Edward Bernays' classic book Propaganda.

Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud's nephew, "the father of public relations", the man who invented "bacon and eggs", toppled the democratically elected government of Guatemala on behalf of a banana corporation and, as this clip shows, persuaded women to smoke.

He did so with the advice of a Freudian analyst who said that ... well, I won't spoil it for you.

In five minutes this clip lays bare the truth about what Bernays calls "the new propaganda ... the executive arm of the invisible government".

To view, just click on the video. You might need to click pause and wait a couple of minutes for the download if your connection is slowish like mine.

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In Memoriam

Yesterday we had a party for people who have left our stream over the years. This unprecedented event seemed to go very well. We didn't have a huge turn out (about 20 people, plus children), but everyone who came seemed really happy to be there.

For some reason, though, I felt sad and melancholic. I couldn't really put my finger on it during the event, but I believe that it was because yesterday represented the end of an era. Old Mr MacLaren would never have countenanced such an event - he took a pretty hard line on "leavers" - and when it finally happened, at the School's Waterperry home, it seemed to hit home that he really is gone now.

A few years ago I read a book called "Built to Last", which was a study of businesses that have lasted a long time, and why. One of the case studies was Disney, a company that went through a period of drifting immediately after the death of its founder. The authors of the book said that the problem with Disney was that for 15 years the first question everyone asked was "What would Mr Walt have said?" The company only began to revive itself when the management stopped asking this question and started to think for themselves. In fact what they did was restate the company's objective, which is to create happiness. Whether or not one likes Disney films, it will be evident that "How can we make people happy?" is a better question than "What would Mr Walt have said?" ... click "Read More"

Mr MacLaren's passing in 1994 was a dramatic event. I well remember the journey to Waterperry that night. Although we didn't yet know it, the elements seemed to express what had just occurred: it was the biggest electrical storm for years in the south of England. In the papers the next day I read how a girl playing football had been killed by the lightning. He was a force of nature, and I can't resist recalling here what Andrew Marvell wrote of Oliver Cromwell:

And like the three-fork'd lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide:

...

Then burning through the air he went
And palaces and temples rent;
And Cæsar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.

'Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry Heaven's flame
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due

Or perhaps it goes back even further - to the original genesis of the School in the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Gurdjieff, too, was a titan, and one with iron in his soul. He taught that unless someone had come under discipline, he did not really exist as a human being. Cruel stories cluster around him: how he made a fortune defrauding small-town mayors while working for the Russian railway; how he tortured horses so that they would obey no-one but him while he made his escape from Russia in 1917; his admiration for a Corsican bandit who would stare through his gunsight at a stretch of road for hour after hour, attention never wavering, waiting for the next victim.

Of course, there is much more to Gurdjieff, but if I overemphasize the cruel and harsh, it is because I think it's that element that passed out of the School yesterday. No longer will someone who leaves the School be ostracized; no longer will the fear of ostracism scare people into staying; and no longer need we see ourselves as superior in order to justify such behaviour.

This is, of course, a great day for the School. But if it also marks in some way the passing of Mr MacLaren, then perhaps it is natural to feel a certain sober regret. For all his foibles and his hardness, much to the man is due.

It would be interesting to hear what others felt yesterday, or in general about the recent developments.

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Principles

When I met with Mr Lambie a few weeks ago to discuss this web site I said that I would establish some guiding principles. Here are some, along the lines of Socrates' Daemon which told him what not to do.

1. Don't Break Confidentiality
One of the dangers of the medium is that people become more prone to gossip than they would otherwise be. People need to feel able to speak in School gatherings without fear of it being repeated elsewhere. Having said that, there are many cases where someone will say something that sparks off a thought that needs to be pursued. There's no reason that this can't be done without a traceable direct quote. We do need to be able to speak about a principle.

2. Don't Violate Anonymity
If we know or can guess at someone's identity this information should not be shared around. It is no business of anyone else if someone wants to participate anonymously.

3. Don't Infringe Copyright Without Permision
This would include course material and private communications.

4. Don't Criticise
Another principle of the School is that one should not criticise others. If people want to give vent to their feelings, they probably know where to do it. We can still have a clear sense of what's right and we don't need to accept wrongs, no matter how old or practiced they are within the organisation.

Apart from this I think that people can use their own common sense when taking part in the web log. If you have any comments, please let me know. Or if you would like to make suggestions, please do.

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