What is Real?

[Edward Schreiber]

Dear Colleagues,

Sorry for a delay in responding to this thread of emails, a worthy  
conversation for sure.  I had some family issues - an 89 year old  
Uncle ran out of money in the collapse of the economy - and so family  
had to be brought together.   I want to respond to Adam Blatner's  
comments:

AB: "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!"

"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 agree that there is a subject nature to what we each experience as  
real.  This subjectivity is what we bring to our work and our lives.   
To suggest that there is "no out-there objective structure" is a bit  
concerning.  The objective structure for me this last week was that  
Uncle E., in New Rochelle NY has social security income that is 1/3  
of his present expenses.  This income was supported with dividends  
from stocks that Seniors (once) felt would help them in their final  
years of their lives.  Not the case for the working poor.  The task,  
in my experience with it all, is to tease out my subjective response  
to these objective realities.  The quick-melt of the polar caps is an  
objective reality.  The fact that in one week an 89 year old writer  
living alone in New York State found his life's savings gone - is  
both objective and subjective.  The world and its structures are  
real.  Our subjective realities - in response to the world - impact  
our own physiological, biological, spiritual, emotional realities.

The fact that J.L. Moreno FOUND objective reality underlying and  
determining all groups, all systems, all societies - has led me to  
pierce my own subjective reaction, to highten my consciousness ----  
and yes ---- to determine a course of action.  In years past, as a  
social scientist my concern was on the systems in collapse of the  
natural world.  At first the dying bee population REALLY caught my  
attention, as have the polar shifts, polar melts, polar bears,  
changing climates, fires in California, draughts in Africa, and the  
vanished clean water in many places around the Globe.

Dr. Moreno's writings (in almost all his works) have pointed to this  
objective reality of human civilization, the sociodynamic effect.   
The long awakening of seeing this objective reality has been for me  
as for most of us, been experience and observed, witnessed and  
experienced through the filters that our subjective minds have formed  
as a way to make meaning to this objective reality.

I just do buy the notion that subjectivity is real and objective  
reality is  not.  The sociodynamic effect is everywhere.  Where did  
my Uncle's 285. dollars vanish to?  Did it just evaporate?  Did it,  
this sum, find its way to a black hole?  Sure, the value of "a stock"  
became of less value - and of course I and all my family have had  
subjective reactions - but this sucking of resources away from the  
many is not only subjective, it is real - it is in the world - it is  
the nature of the civilization in which we are living.

On the other side of this same coin is the potential to "co-create"  
something new.  That I fully agree - but new in what way?  To see the  
world through the lens of the sociodynamic effect has made objective  
reality clearer - less muddied with overlays of explanation that in  
the end simply explain away this sociodynamic effect.  We are at a  
great moment in humanity's history, don't you think?  For most of  
humanity's short stay, the sociodynamic effect impacted all social  
groupings, all nations - emerging in cultures, histories, conflicts,  
and peace.  The reversal of the sociodynamic effect the same.

The nature of the Organic Unity of Humanity (connected to the Source  
animating every sentient life) is another reality, seemingly  
throughout history. Jesus, Gandhi,
Martin Luther King, Lincoln, on and on - were sociometrists bringing  
forward "A New Earth" (as Eckhardt Tolle notes) but now we, humanity,  
are in the end stage of the sociodynamic effect with nature and the  
earth itself, or at least that is what some of the enviornmental  
sciences suggest.  For example, how can 3 percent of the human family  
use 28 percent of all the resources?  Can we sustain this?  At whose  
expense?  Those stripped of resources, will they survive?

The point is, for me, JL Moreno's GRANDIOSE understanding is a clear  
Zen-like template to see the world. I love standing with him in that  
- it gives me a sense of the world less confused with political  
positions.  I used to be very upset about all this, still am, but as  
this organic unity emerges, and I feel this, see this, Know this  
directly - I see the transformaitonal seeds being planted and growing.

I do not know a more precise presentation of reality - than that of  
JL Moreno.

Best,

Edward Schreiber




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://grouptalkweb.org/pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20081013/b11669b0/attachment.html>