structure, unity, generalizations

Fri Oct 10 10:35:04 CDT 2008

Dear Adam and all,

First I would like to make a personal point – some sort of sociometric
statement - before I respond to Adam.

For me it's a little bit uncomfortable to enter in this and other debates
with this group without a feeling that I don't have the right to do so,
especially when we are talking about the great Adam Blatner. I explain: I
felt literally in love for the work and vision of Moreno just a few months
ago. I started to read anything that I could, searching for material on the
web, starting connecting with people in the psychodrama movement here in
Portugal. And then here I am writing and discussing things with some great
figures of this beautiful movement and I feel like I am jumping well ahead
of what I am "allowed" to. In a way I think I want to break some of cultural
conserves around me that people don't even notice, but in another way I must
respect the useful and honourable cultural conserves…it's a difficult
ambivalence to solve within me.

But I just don't want to mislead anyone. I'm a Portuguese, a 27 year's old
man and I'm an Economist Researcher working in a financial institution (yes,
I am following this financial and economical crisis!). But I feel, first of
all, that I don't fit in that standard and stereotyped jacket. I am a
thinker and intent to be a practitioner and what I feel is that psychodrama,
sociodrama and sociatry could offer me that. Theory and Practice must form a
strong link, as Yin and Yang form a perfect and harmoniously circle.

So I feel an outsider (and in fact I am), and I must apologize for that.
However, I am in this web group with the best of my intentions as I really
want to help to build a strong multi-disciplinary communication, promoting
and spreading the wonderful tools that you have, that is a wonderful
contribution that all of you are giving to the health of this slightly crazy
world.

Adam, I am a great admirer of your work (I am still reading all your
material…which is great, I already told you that). So my reflections are
just from a student of yours.

I share Adam's concerns about the great ambitions and illusive goals about
saving the world with some fixed specific methods, independently of their
time, space, level, type of group, etc. We are "just" human beings, and we
must feel our humbleness and limitations about what we can really deliver.

However, I don't want unconsciously imitate Moreno, I want consciously
imitate him! And by that, I mean to have a grand vision, a grand goal, and a
metaphysical stance to devote my life to. When Adam say "We should explore
ways we can implement various models and create new one" who don't agree
with him? But for what purpose we want to create those new models and new
creations? What is the underlying goal? We can use all the semantic that we
want but we all want to help, to heal, to build a better world, so there is
no fundamental disagreement. We all have an underlying motif, a metaphysical
stance that moves us day after day. And I believe as bigger and stronger
that vision is, the bigger the effort to move forward. Moreno didn't change
the world, but he left is mark that is being followed by all of us. Utopia
is needed, because it always represents the creative forces in action. When
there is no utopia there is no creativity.

A great thing that Adam said was that there are no structures out there
waiting to be seen – the myth of the given – but structures to be discern,
always evolving in a co-creative process. But that doesn't mean that we, as
human beings don't have pre-given predispositions and creativity itself is
one of them, and whatever techniques psychodrama, sociodrama or sociatry
will develop in the future to deal with a ever evolving world should always
restore the spontaneity-creativity axis of the human being, and that is, I
think, an ever-present endowment in all stages, in all cultures, in all
epochs.

In our relative world, we shouldn't deny the absolute; in the complexity of
our diversity we should recognize our commonality. That tension is always
there, it's an ever-present tension; it's an ever-present paradox.

The best for all of you,

Ivo
On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Adam Blatner <ablatner at verizon.net> wrote:

>  Dear Marcia, (and Ed and Grouptalk)
>
>       The reason you intuitively discern similarities among people is that
> life is complex and may be discerned to be operating at many levels!
> http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/socbns.htm
> http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/mindcomplexities.html   and so in many
> ways we share commonalities, and in that sense are the same.
>            On the other hand, we are also unique, because as a result of
> many categories of variables, each with many sub-categories and even more
> specifics, we are a nexus of differences!
> http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/individuality.html
>
>          This dialectical tension between two ideas is also present in
> Moreno's claim that society "has" a structure. There is no out-there
> objective structure, and one might well argue (as have a number of
> philosophers, at length) that it is misleading to imagine that objectivity
> is a sufficient way of thinking about reality---it denies our co-creative
> structuring of reality via our own consciousness!  So Moreno was right in
> intuiting some patterns that we can discern, and that these sociometric
> dynamics were significant and deserved recognition; but he was limited by
> his modern world-view in thinking that "there are" structures rather than
> "we discern structures."  His other insight into the pervasiveness of the
> creative process actually implies that we should hold loosely to our
> understandings, not tightly, recognizing that knowledge continues to evolve,
> require revision, refinement.
>
>         The political implications are that we must resist becoming
> over-inflated and grandiose (and resist unconsciously imitating Moreno), but
> rather we should explore ways we can implement various models and create new
> ones.
>
>       The problems with some of these concepts is that they generate great
> ambition while delivering elusive actual methods (except those that which
> can be used by individuals and in small groups of willing and educated
> participants). I am certainly willing to be corrected by  others offering
> specific examples of how I'm mistaken.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Edward Schreiber <edwschreiber at earthlink.net>
> *To:* MKarp11444 at aol.com
> *Cc:* list at grouptalkweb.org
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:05 AM
> *Subject:*  People are the same
>
> Dear Marcia, You are writing about the Organic Unity.  That which connects
> all of us to the Source - we are an expression of that Source, the Godhead.
> Third - the Central Structure, in my view, is about the SDE, which impacts,
> influences all groups, all humanity.  It's the interplay of the SDE and the
> OU that we touch, with the method - which you are a Master of.    By the
> way, I miss you!  Hope  see you in England & Granada next year.  Much love,
>   Ed
>
>
>
>  On Oct 9, 2008, at 4:12 AM, MKarp11444 at aol.com wrote:
>
>
> ******
> *From: *MKarp11444 at aol.com
> *Date: *October 9, 2008 4:00:33 AM EDT
> *To: *list at grouptalk.web
> *Subject: **People are the same*
>
>
> Hello Ed, Adam and all.
> The "central structure that either is found or discernible in every human
> society" helps me to understand why it is possible to work with so many
> different cultures and dfferent habits.WhenItravel to so many countries
> using Moreno's method I find that people are essentially the same. I know
> that Moreno said we have essentially 5 common dyads: the
> teacher-pupil, parent-child, employer-employee, and I can't remember the
> other two. (Does anyone know?) but reading Moreno's quote about the central
> structure and about telicrelationships makes me think that the sociodynamic
> effect incorporates it all.Even aJapenese person talking to a son in a way
> unfamiliar to me with extreme honoring forexample, I feel connected and
> generally understand what is being said sometimes before the translator
> translates. How is this possible?It surprises me.Am I correct in thinking
> that it is this central structure that so profoundly connects us and
> transcends the culture barriers? Can anyone clarify or add to my thinking
> about this? What I am questioning is how come I wind up feeling people are
> the same even though huge barriers separate us. Marcia Karp
> Grouptalk mailing list
> List at grouptalkweb.org
> http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org
>
>
> "The discovery that human society has an actual, dynamic, central structure
> underlying and determining all its peripheral and formal
> groupings may one day be considered as the cornerstone of all
> social science.  This central structure - once it has been identified - is
> either found or discernible in every form of human society, from the most
> primitive to the most civilized: it is in the genesis of every
> type of society.  In addition, it exerts a determining influence upon every
> sphere in which the factor of human interrelations is an active
> agent - in economics, biology, social pathology, politics, government and
> similar spheres of social action."    Dr. J.L. Moreno
>
>
> Sociodynamic Effect (SDE) moves resources from the whole to the few -  at
> the expense of the world and many.
>    Social Organic Unity is what underlies the SDE  - our connection to the
> Godhead that emerges within us, in our work, in groups.
>
>
> Grouptalk mailing list
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>
>
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