Some Healthy Culture Tables

 So I made some tables recently that I thought I'd post with a bit of commentary. The tables represent some of the implications of a philosophical view that I call "Coexistentialism" (though "Correlativism" might also do as a name). It assumes, among other things, that the impression given by lived experience, namely, that the experience of the external world and of the internal world are mutually defining and correlative, is true and valid, so that reducing one to the other is like trying to reduce one side of a coin to the other,  or  to reduce Up to Down, when what is primary is obviously the verticality which implies both.  The tables reflect the Cosmological aspect of Healthy Culture ("Culture" remember, is here defined as comprising Cosmology, Identity, Ritual, Infrastructure, and the Logic and runs through them all). As such the tables are meant to be of use in the experimental design of the rituals, infrastructure, etc of a culture of Recovery that is ontologically biased toward Coexistence over Existence,  Co-order over Order, the Correlative over either the Absolute, or the Relative, and an accenting of Togetherness over Apartness"generally. None of this implies that the former term negates that latter totally, but rather that the latter is in the service of the former rather than the other way around .

General Healthy Culture Table (Some Cognitive Coordinates):

Vernacular	Psychological	Philosophical	Prosocial		Phenomenological
Itness	Conception	Indefinite	inner adult	civil venue	when	where
Thatness	Perception	Finite	Inner child	local venue	then	there
Thisness	Sensation	Definite	inner animal	familial venue	now	here
Whatness	Apprehension	Infinite	inner elder	religious venue	always,never	Everywhere, nowhere
Insideness	Intention	Subjective	Individual		Time
Outsideness	Attention	Objective	Person		Space
Togetherness	Coawareness	Correlative	Individual-person		Space-Time

The archetype or model for these coordinates is of course the set of orienting directions (north, east, south, west, up, down and Center from top to bottom in the above columns). I would have put the directions in the table itself but didn't think about it at the time. With the last two columns I have seen fit to divide the the first four cells into two, each side representing the four zones "above" and "below" the central "equator". The first 3 columns in the table could also have been divided this way (Inner Itness/outer Itness", etc) but this would be less useful here. 

Sometimes I find it useful, when using a term like "the Finite" from this table in the correlative (not absolute or relative) sense, to add the prefix "Co", as in "Cofinite", "Coinfinite" etc, so that its clear that I am not speaking of the "The Finite" or "the Infinite" in a reified, absolute, dissociated, or totally abstract and disembodied, manner. Its a bit awkward but less potentially misleading. I try to only use such neologisms when I think that otherwise, the sense of what I am saying will tend to get lost in its translation in to the very paradigm its trying to replace. 

Here I want to point out three other things from this table. One is that, from the point of view of the Correlative (third column), the shared "Objective World" of what we call "Nature" is the other side of the coin of a shared "Subjective World" which I call the Shared Self (though you might also call it "Consciousness"). I call this Correlative reality "SharedSelfNature". This implies that both "Nature" considered as some fundamentally separate thing from Consciousness and Consciousness considered as fundamentally separate from Nature, are both myths. The second point is that, correlatively speaking, modern mathematics is involved in a categorical confusion regarding the infinite (or more meaningfully, our culture is involved in a cognitive confusion regarding mathematics). Mathematics as we understand it is basically Indefinite and it would be better to apply that name ("The Indefinite") to the concept and symbol that we now call "Infinity". Confusing "Itness" with "Whatness" is like confusing north with west, a sign of being generally lost. Finally; the togetherness or correlativity of Subject and Object opens the door to the possibility of a kind of Recovery Dialectic between them, a dialogical practice in pursuit of inner and outer consensus as to the Honest Truth. This is not to be confused with the dialectic of either Socrates or Hegel, which both seem to me dialectics of Denial. I will hopefully have time to develop all of these points individually here or elsewhere....

Inegalitarian Reaction Table (Reactive Antisocializing):

	Coreactive	Counterreactive
Hype-notized	Coreactive Hype-notized	Counterreactive Hype-notized
Gaslit	Coreactive Gaslit	Counterreactive Gaslit

I have discovered that Reactivity (which i think is ultimately an aspect of biopsychosocial and ecological trauma resulting in distorted and diminished coawareness and thus confusion) has two types or aspects, just as Inequality has both the view from the assumed "better than" and the view from the assumed "worse than". In the state of cultural "dysmutuality" coinciding with conquest and its aftermath for example, one can find those who accept coreactively the imposed hierarchy and those who challenge it counterreactively. However  reactive acceptance or reactive challenge, manifest differently depending on whether one is the conquering or the conquered. The former is likely to be "Hype-notized", taking for granted the superiority of their culture in the spirit of "Might is Right", (which I debunked in a previous post). The conquered, on the other hand, are likely to be correspondingly "Gaslit" about their own culture and traditions, at least to the extent that they consciously or unconsciously have the same belief about might and right. Of course one can be both gaslit towards higher ups and "hype-notized" vis-a-vis ones employees or whatever.

In 1076 in England for example, a Norman Lord would likely simply (and coreactively)  think the Saxons fit for only serving the Normans, while his son might, on the contrary argue (counterreactively)  that any Saxon raised properly in the Norman culture from childhood would be as good and decent a person and any other Norman. Notice that no-one is questioning the superiority of Norman culture in this case, (by for example suggesting that there is good and evil, health and sickness in every culture), so both the Lord and his son can be regarded as Hype-notized, the one Coreactively and the other Counterreactively. By the same token, but among the Gaslit conquered, you would likely find obedient servants who, believe in their own inferiority just as much as the lord does, and who find just as much security in "every one knowing their place" (I believe there is an illustrative stereotype of this involving Butlers). One the other hand, the counter reactive gaslit, (Saxons), are likely to consider themselves to be as superior to the Normans as the Norman Lord thinks himself to them, and thus rail and conspire against the injustice of being the oppressed and not the oppressor. As regards to this latter countereactive group, there can also be talk of "equality" rather than counter claims of superiority, but this version of equality never seems to be one informed by the sense of coawareness illustrated in the last of these tables. You seldom, in other words find people fighting for the right (and responsibility) to "deal with our shit while you deal with yours", or anything like that.  

This tendency to dissociate, (to lie by omission to oneself and others) regarding the coexistence of ones own "piece of the Truth", with ones "piece of the Lie", facilitates the same delusion in others of ones group (which either "Hype-notizes" or Gaslights the group as a whole), and is part of what I call "anti-socializing".

Egalitarian Cointeraction Table (Interactive Prosocializing):

Inner egalitarian interaction (Inclusive, Individual Listening)	Outer Egalitarian Interaction (Inclusive, Personal Listening)
Inner Elder (Honoring Healing)	Outer Religious Venue (Honoring Healing)
Inner Adult (Honoring Healing)	Outer Civil Venue (Honoring Healing)
Inner Child (Honoring Healing)	Outer Local Venue (Honoring Healing)
Inner Animal (Honoring Healing)	Outer Familial Venue (Honoring Healing)

If I called "Egalitarian Cointeraction" "Egalitarian Interaction" instead, there would be a danger of the reader thinking only of interactions between two "Persons" (outwardly viewed) and not the inner individual egalitarian interaction within each Individual (first column) happening simultaneously with the more "horizontal" outwardly engaged Personhood.

To the extent that there is vertical, inner dissociation exclusion, censorship, there is Alienation from ones own experience. This means one is not able to be an authentically manifest Individual (even to oneself). Not being able to honor include, connect to, and so express all of oneself inwardly means one cannot, honor, do justice to or be oneself to others in any of the four outer venues of Personhood. In other words, being Alienated inwardly means being Phony outwardly. 

"Honoring" here means listening to and including into the whole (so "healing"). Its interesting that the word "honor" is related to both the world "listen" and the word "honesty", since not listening to each aspect of ones subjective experience (having neither an "inner quorum" nor an "inner consensus) means that ones outer response to a given situation cannot be a really honest or authentic response.  Egalitarian honoring and including (inwardly and outwardly) is what is Prosocial about the whole thing. Of course one has to be Aware of things being dissociated, oppressed, and neglected (both inwardly and outwardly and in real time) to include and heal them.

Generally what inhibits this process, and so facilitates alienated phoniness, is the kind of antisocial framing I will elaborate on to below.

Prosocial Framing (The Nexus of Coawareness--Co-ordered, Correlative, Coexistential Awareness):

Outer Sickness Awareness	Outer Health  Awareness
Inner Sickness Awareness	Inner Health Awareness

Inner and outer healing requires inner and outer awareness of both our shared Individual-Personhood and our shared Alienated-Phoniness. There is obviously some degree of health in the outer world, however sick it is, or we would all be dead already. Similarly, there must be some health, authenticity and "cointegrity" in each individual for the same reason. Coawareness of all aspects of this inner/outer reality implies a Prosocial Framing of experience that reveals by its contrast the Antisocial Framing (dominant in a sick culture). In the antisocial framing one typically keeps one or more of the four quadrants out of frame (excluding for example, any acknowledgement or consideration of ones own sick culture (or that of ones group). This is usually in order to indulge in an attack on some other who is correspondingly misframed as having no healthy culture worth considering. At the same time as something like this is happening, the mutual influence of the Outer Culture (both sick and healthy) on both the self and other is also usually out of frame, all facilitating the above mentioned reactive "Self-Hypenosis" and/or "Gaslighting".

Of course, on the face of it (as well as after deep and thorough scrutiny), such a skewed framing of any situation is preposterous.

 The equal size of the four quadrants of coawareness as presented does not obviate the fact that in our current situation the sick outer culture of Phoniness is reinforcing our sick inner culture of Alienation against the Health of both sides (individual and personal), of our the shared world. The table is static but the reality it represents is certainly not. In fact, it would probably be clearer to make the table/nexus more like a wheel which can be thought of as either rolling to the left (in which case inner and outer healthy culture is acknowledging and engaging (because it is aware of) inner and outer Sick culture (this would be a dynamic of Prosocial Recovery), or one the other hand, to the right, (in which case Inner and outer sick culture , being unaware of its own existence as such) is unconsciously diminishing the very inner and outer wholeness which can alone facilitate the healing of real but unacknowledged alienation and phoniness. This direction of the wheel would symbolize a dynamic of Antisocial Denial. Nor is there any reason to think that the wheel cannot reverse itself at any time.

Still, the equal size of quadrants of coaware (and so "coframed") experience honors the existence of unknown and changing depths in all of the four quadrants. In other words, at any given time, things could be much better (outwardly or inwardly or both) than we know. Or, on the other hand, they could be (outwardly or inwardly or both) much worse. Moreover any such temporary situation would be liable to change for the better or worse and back again in an ongoing unpredictable way, such that the ideal here cannot be  to be "recovered", as this would only amount, (given the eternal reality, of not only of the "unknown" but of the "unknown unknown") to a cocky return to denial. 

The emergency of the dominant sick culture implies, like the emergency of a house on fire, the presence, not only of the outer "flames" (outer sick culture") but the "inner smoke" (inner sick culture) and thus the need for a shared ongoing awareness of both. Even if we were to somehow become immune to some form of "smoke", in the ongoing process, something new is sure to start burning, not to mention the inevitability of a multitude of other unexpected and/or unnoticed events. Of course, like in any emergency, the opposite extreme to that of cockiness, namely, panic or despair, is equally unwarranted. What such a situation requires is a normalized "balancing feedback orientation", something like the inclusive but calm alertness advocated in what is called "defensive driving", rather than any kind of "reinforcing feedback" dynamic inherent in self-righteous egotism or panicked despair. The recovery dynamic cannot be closed, static and rigid, because Life is not a closed and static state but an open and dynamic, mysterious process, the very openness of which makes any kind of absolute or rigid "taking for granted" of things like ones own  "correctness" (moral or otherwise) obviously inappropriate. Again however, the required balanced humility is  not the same thing as Shame, since shame implies a denial and unawareness of both ones own part of shared healthy culture, and everyone else's part of shared sick culture. Coawareness and its conscientious prosocial framing, allows us to avoid ether of these extremes

 Thus the end as well as the means of the cultural recovery process is to cultivate, sustain and expand, with the help, among other things, of the above shared understanding (and the experimental rituals derivable from it; see future posts) an increasingly coordinated dynamic of inner and outer healing at all levels of scale. Given the antisocial nature of the dominant culture of denial, this will likely begin as a kind of "Recovery Underground", but the idea is that, as a critical mass of recovering alienated-phonies is reached, cultural changes in civil institutions (evinced by enabling legislation among other things) would begin to facilitate corresponding changes, in local, familial, and religious/spiritual institutions and venues. But this would really be a non-linear process--not just a top down process scale-wise, since what would really be happening is a simultaneous transition from a shared culture of  Private Alienation the corresponding Public Phoniness to one of Individual and Personal recovery in the context to True Community.

 

{I am going to stop here because my elder is reminding my inner adult that my inner child and animal are tired of typing and sitting, and I am happy enough with this edit for now}

 

cheers,

--I-P

Ps. I will probably change my moniker soon to "R/RA-PH" (pronounced "rayf", rhymes with "waif"). This is an acronym standing for Recovering/Relapsing Alienated-Phony (or if you prefer "Relapsing/Recovering Alienated-Phoney". You may laugh, but remember not being a R/RA-PH mean being an "APHID" (an "Alienated Phony In Denial")! At least its not clear to me that there are any other real choices...

 

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