Of all the events in the world I think this election in the USA is a climactic point of a long build up, not just for the US but the world. What happens within the Democratic party is more important then what happens between the parties.
Moreno’s Scientific Methodology
Here is the paper I presented at the Christchurch AANZPA conference 2015:
Joseph Boyden — The Orenda
I’m gripped at about 20% into the book.
This Item puts me off a bit, though it also provides extra food for thought.
So far I think the author presents the world a world animated with the spirit of life in a sympathetic way and the Catholic view to the contrary is almost mocked, thus so far so good.
Enjoyed the CBC video about writing the novel, here:
Later – upon finishing the book — Thursday, 18 December 2014
It was horrendously violent – and it is hard to believe that such cruelty is possible. However I don’t agree with the article linked to above that is biased towards the priests or the against the Iroquois.
I finished it a few days ago and the book is still with me, it had an impact, not just the violence, but the characters, and particularly the sense of the soul of things and people – the orenda – that gives the book its title.
My Review of The Golden Notebook – Goodreads
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
I’m now about 20% into the book. I like it because have lived some of this life she describes. Middle class intellectuals in some colony. I see other reviewers don’t like hearing the privileged ruminate about their agonies. But we are a select bunch! For everyone one of us who entertain marxist ideals of a change in the system there are hundreds who don’t. It takes a modicum of privilege to even read stuff. So to hear how thes commies and fellow travellers carried on in the fifties is of interest to me. But I can see you had to be there perhaps to get it.
But then I was not there. I’m a generation older. It may not be common knowledge but there was a small wave of Marxist revival in the late sixties and early 70s. I imagine all round the world. It grew out of the vietnam war protests and the countercultural movement. It dawned on some of us liberals that we did not just want Peace. We want the Viet Cong to win. The imperialists needed to be defeated, and they were. It became clear too that national liberation was a viable and worthwhile step in the march of progress. Maybe that was not so clear to Lessing in her time? And the communes and alternative endeavours did not really work, not as a way of changing the system. It may sound crazy but I, along with many thought the “Times were a’ changin”. But really, no. And then China was in a stage before the cultural revolution disasters. It was easy to see there was something to be learned from the communists.
And there was! And then there was not!
Why did she get a Nobel Prise for her work? I think of Obama getting the peace prize – do you have to be a phoney to get it? I don’t think Lessing is a phoney. However she may have been mistaken for someone who is anti communist. It is very different to be a disillusioned to being anti. Jesuit priests apparently do not need to believe in god, they need to be searching for god. I wish there was some sort of world order of people searching for the marxist line of out time. And a Doris Lessing of our time – or at least one for baby boomers. Perhaps Marge Piercy? Is there anyone like her today, filling that niche she filled in 62?
From Counterculture to Cyberculture: The Legacy of the Whole Earth Catalog
Worth watching for a rundown on the era I think of as the era I grew up in. All of the people here are deeply influential in my life.
Some Favourite Posts
Who Shall Survive? Can we survive? Maybe. — Posted on April 26, 2010
I talk about Wisdom Councils and some important principles of sociometry.
Matiri River valley and the Thousand Acre Plateau
Here is the report where DOC lays down the conditions for the dams.
I note they say social and cultural impact are not in their brief. Amazing. Who is it then who assesses the social and cultural impact?
My trip was amazing and it would be one of the Great Walks if it were linked to the Mokihinui. The contrasts in terrain and scenery just as far as Poor Pete’s hut were dramatic.
Photos follow. Note the beautiful wetlands in the Matiri Valley, all under threat.
Poor Pete’s hut.
DOC’s hydro approval damns bats | Stuff.co.nz
Planning a tramp here, and then find that there is a threat. I hate that!
DOC’s hydro approval damns bats | Stuff.co.nz: “DOC’s hydro approval damns bats
HELEN MURDOCH
Last updated 13:00 26/05/2011
Continue reading “DOC’s hydro approval damns bats | Stuff.co.nz”
Why are psychological methods often known by the names their founders?
Freud, Moreno, Jung… methods are known by their founders.
This is because they are working in the realm of relationships. They are included in the science.
They are not working with things.
Marx is the same.
The objective thing they are working with is not objective in the way things are – at least things on the surface are objects.
In so far as we are part of such a modality we are part of a community around that person. We are part of a community of practice. A language community.
The Buddhists have lineage, so do psychologists but we don’t acknowledge that so easily.
It would be better to acknowledge our whakapapa in the psychological realms of our work in a more conscious way.
Later: Sunday, 7 January, 2018
Love that idea of our psychological whakapapa. Maybe there is a whakapapa of science too?
I think I’d like to research and rewrite the Moreno one. I think it is not so much existential as relational .
Debs Martin Comment On Mokihinui River | Stuff.co.nz
Good piece in todays Press – quoted in full below. Here is a link to some snaps we took last year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waltzzz/sets/72157628604924595/with/6589720617/
Debs Martin Comment On Mokihinui River | Stuff.co.nz:
Add Mokihinui River to national park
Plans to dam the West Coast’s Mokihinui River have been withdrawn but Forest & Bird’s Debs Martin argues that permanent protection is needed for the river and catchment.
Continue reading “Debs Martin Comment On Mokihinui River | Stuff.co.nz”