[lornep@worldweb.net: re Being wise & Wietookay]

[aa750@freenet.carleton.ca (Gail Stewart)]

A thoughtful comment from another list, <the commons>,
associated with the US magazine Orion (People and Nature).
It may have relevance to the Verzola attempt to identity
underlying factors?


    ================= Begin forwarded message =================

    From: lornep@worldweb.net (unknown)
    To: thecommons@orionsociety.org
    Subject: re Being wise & Wietookay
    Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 10:29:09 -0500

    Easy,
    
    I almost understand your reaction to the y2k concerns, but
    something is missing.
    
    Yes, it wouldn't be wise to get diverted into minor technical
    problems. But is the y2k concern a minor one?  Could you give a
    substantive summary on why we don't need to give attention to this
    matter as residents and members of the community in the places
    where we live?
    
    As you may know, in the U.S., the President's Council on Year 2000
    Conversion is suggesting and supporting community preparedness
    initiatives, including storing food in schools and setting up
    heated shelters.
    
    Others are seeing the y2k concerns as a significant indicator of
    the inherent misdesigning of centralized technological
    infrastructures for basic utilities -- water, electricity, gas,
    telecommunications and so on. They are suggesting that the year
    2000 be seen not as a one-time crisis, but rather as a _passage_
    into a new millennium of developing ways of life based on working
    in congruity with the natural forms and processes of the land.
    
    
    Another way to see this concern relates to what Marshall McLuhan
    proposed in his insightful explorations of media and society. [See
    _Understanding Media: The Extentions of Man_ by Marshall McLuhan.
    New York: New American Library, 1964.)
    
    McLuhan proposed that we _anticipate_ changes brought on by our
    technologies in a _feed-forward_ way.
    
    He wrote:
    
    "Control over change would seems to consist in moving not with it
    but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and
    control force.
    
    "But the favorite stance of literary man has long been 'to view
    with alarm' or 'to point with pride', while scrupulously ignoring
    what's going on."
    
    
    "...true social and political navigation depend upon anticipating
    the consequences of innovation..."
    
    
    McLuhan also noted that people working in the arts have vital and
    important roles to play in anticipating and suggesting responses
    to technological changes.  Storytelling can be a most effective
    way to give warnings of potential troubles and to propose ways of
    preparing for and preventing problems.
    
    So, while "The Story of Wietookay" could be improved through
    better plot lines and more character development, I do appreciate
    its fair warnings and its proposals for working together in
    community, in ways uniting the efforts of citizens, governments
    and businesses. I also found its lightness of spirit and its
    goodwill quite heartening.
    
    
    You wrote Easy: "I doubt all the 'thinking first' in the world can
    possibly anticipate all consequences and make the 'right'
    decisions. I see little evidence for this type of thinking."
    
    There has been and continues to be a lot of such thinking. But it
    isn't being implemented in the mainstreams of society.  Maybe y2k
    will encourage the adopting and adapting of the thinking McLuhan
    and others have proposed; and maybe even better anticipatory
    approaches will come out of this.
    
    Here is something I wrote in 1985, as an extension and further
    exploration of McLuhan's proposals:
    
    "Explore what is going on in the world and develop the necessary
    insights into the formative causes of what is happening. Then,
    move ahead of change. Anticipate it.  Chart the courses, sail and
    explore, using a feed-forward approach; making while you are
    going; correcting and testing as you make innovative changes.
    
    "The feed-forward approach has nothing to do with futurism, which
    is almost always an attempt to escape from current dilemmas
    (without an understanding of why the dilemmas exist), or a
    continual preparation for flights of fancy that will never take
    off and land somewhere. Rather, it is living in what the sages
    have called the eternal present. Moving in touch with what is
    going on here and now, making changes as if your life depends on
    doing this, because it does."
    
    
    Thanks Easy for your questioning thoughts. Asking question and
    being critically aware are important for exploring concerns and
    ideas more broadly and deeply.
    
    
    Lorne Peterson  
    

--
Gail Stewart
aa750@FreeNet.Carleton.CA