12th November 2006 | Draft
A Singable Earth Charter, EU Constitution or Global Ethic?
- / -
Also published in abridged form in Statistics,
Visualizations and Patterns (Vol 5 of the Yearbook
of International Organizations, Munich, K G Saur Verlag, 6th edition,
2006/2007, as section 10.4.2) under the title: Why
any Earth Charter or EU Constitution should be Singable.
Guidelines for consideration
Policy implications: a "Concert of Democracies"?
Cognitive engagement with complexity
Individual identity within global frameworks
"Singing the Earth"
Sustaining collective memory of articulations of collective intent
Distinctions relevant to technical considerations
Organizational implementation
Conclusion
References
Guidelines for consideration
The following considerations could be borne in mind when reflecting on the
potential role of song in ensuring that a Constitution should have credibility
and value beyond that typically associated with legal documents:
- Needs to be short -- but able to embody a complex pattern of information
(in the light of advances in auditory display and sonification)
- Needs to be memorable -- especially in the sense of its function of "re-membering" a divided society
- Needs to offer reminders of significant relationships between matters
that may otherwise be treated as dangerously unrelated -- vital feedback
loops from a systemic control perspective
- Needs to be attractive in the context of a complex social system -- especially
according to the new understanding of "strange attractors" in the complexity
sciences
- Needs to strike a balance between the dysfunctional symbolic
extremes of:
- the Ode to Joy, adopted as the anthem
of Europe -- appealing primarily to the older generation, if only
because of its classical quality, exemplifying the democratic challenge
that admiration does not necessarily enable participation
- the overwhelming popular winner of the Eurovision
Song Contest in 2007
(Hard Rock Hallelujah) -- a heavy metal band in monstrous demonic
guise, appealing significantly to the younger generation [video]
- the 300-pages of the legal text of the proposed European
Constitution [more] -- unreadable, and therefore incomprehensible,
to most EU citizens (and perhaps deliberately so)
- Capable of being refreshed periodically, if not annually, in the light
of new insights, challenges and opportunities -- and if only in recognition
of the limitations of any previous version
- Inviting participation, if not entraining it -- as a contrast
to the apathy-reinforcement characteristic of modern political discourse
- Inherently imaginative -- reframing the past, offering new significance
to the present, and pointing to new ways of thinking about the future
- Challenging to cognition -- an element of puzzle and mystery to be "solved",
as with many computer and other games in which there is a gestalt to be recognized
(possibly even at several levels)
- Imminently practical in its elaboration -- as with the procedures for open
competition for major architectural or other design projects
- Susceptible to animated accompaniment -- with possibilities of exemplification
through multi-media techniques and gaming simulations
- Embodying systemic understandings valuable to governance at all levels
-- and consonant with experience at those levels
- Challenging to the conventional mindsets of lawyers, managers, politicians,
academics, designers, commmunicators and system builders -- responsible in
their various ways for the current democratic deficit and the failure to
address the issues of society effectively
- Implying the future possibility of techniques whereby principles of governance
could be elaborated from aesthetic patterns -- as a complement to the dominant
tendency to use costly marketing techniques, including promotional music,
to render legal texts acceptable
- Offering a new vehicle for the articulation and transportation of value-charged
insights -- especially a vehicle capable of holding the values of the future
- Encompassing meanings and values held to be significant by a greater proportion
of the population -- bridging the cultivated divisions between political
parties
- Offering means of embodying the paradoxes of contemporary society -- and
suggesting perspectives from which they may be transcended
- Responding to the collective schizophrenia which fails to bridge between
aesthetics and governance -- between "opera" and "work" -- as complemetary
disciplines, exemplified by the role performed by epics in some cultures
(eg the Mahabarata in
India, the Dragon
Dance in China)
- Suggesting harmonious patterns of complex relationships, so effectively
explored in the discipline of musical harmony -- and practiced by singers
worldwide
- Embodying an aesthetic feel for what "Europe" means -- and what
it means to be a "European" in a European cultural context, or
a citizen of the world
- Giving credibility to challenging responses to challenging complexes of
social problems (as exemplified by: the 12
songs of The
Globalization Saga: Balance or Destruction, 2004, as a CD accompaniment to a book by Professor
Franz Josef Radermacher, FAW - Institute
for Applied Knowledge Processing, Ulm, in association with the Global
Marshall Plan Initiative; the 13 songs in the CD accompanying the book of Alan AtKisson, Believing Cassandra: an optimist looks at a pessimist's world, 1999 -- the AtKisson Group is currently engaged in a strategic review process for the international Earth Charter Initiative)
| Das über das Medium Musik, auch komplizierte Sachverhalte einfach
transportiert werden können und Songs als Brückenschlag zur Seele
funktionieren und damit sensibilisieren die Augen für notwendige Entwicklungen
zu öffnen, das hat sich bei den bisherigen Präsentationen
der Musicalsongs bewiesen, sowohl in Bildungskontexten als auch in internationalen
Konferenzen. Franz Josef Radermacher, member of Club of Rome |
Policy implications: a "Concert of Democracies"?
Only song can reframe
the formally recognized "global
intelligence failure" and
"lack of imagination" associated with the uncritical support of the
handling of the Iraq situation -- by the most intelligent, the most powerful
and the most wealthy -- acting through the Coalition of the Willing. Such lack of intelligence
would be further compounded by efforts envisaged to force acceptance of a European
Constitution.
Is it meaningful to live in a Europe whose Constitution is
unsingable?
Is there not a similiar challenge for any Earth Charter?
And for any future Global Ethic?
As an an alternative to the divisive foreign policy of the Bush regime, inspired by the neocon Project for the New American Century, a new bipartisan report by the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton University), titled Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, US National Security in the 21st Century (2006), notably proposes an appropriate charter for the establishment of a "concert of democracies". This follows from one of the first speeches during World War I of President Woodrow Wilson who called for "a concert of free countries." The new concert is conceived in the following terms:
While pushing for reform of the United Nations and other major global institutions, the United States should work with its friends and allies to develop a global “Concert of Democracies” – a new institution designed to strengthen security cooperation among the world’s liberal democracies. This Concert would institutionalize and ratify the “democratic peace.” If the United Nations cannot be reformed,
the Concert would provide an alternative forum for liberal democracies to authorize collective action,
including the use of force, by a supermajority vote. Its membership would be selective, but self-selected.
The use of the "concert" metaphor in the report would seem
to constitute a shift beyond the policy sustaining the Coalition of the Willing
-- but one that, in musical terms, could be challenged as a possibly outdated
mode in which the "music" is necessarily "directed" by
the "conductor" to
ensure that all sing "in concert" from the same "hymn sheet":
Leading Americans across the political spectrum understood that we are
far better off if American power is exercised within an international framework of cooperation, where
others have a voice – although not a veto – and nations endeavor to work in concert towards common ends...This aspect of the Concert would constitute a major effort to
integrate non-Western democratic powers into a global democratic order. At the same time, the Concert
would be more substantial and exclusive than the already existing “community of democracies,” which
is a broad but shallow organization that seeks to strengthen democracy within states..
As a reviewer of what is also termed the "Slaughter
Report", Chibli
Mallat describes the Concert of Democracies initiative in the following terms:
...it is the result of three years of intensive bipartisan debate involving over 400 prominent people from academia, the policy-making community, and the media in the United States, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria and former Secretary of State George Shultz. The Slaughter report operates as a post-modern multi-layered problem solver, addressing such problems as terrorism, China, AIDS and other pandemics, global warming, energy and infrastructures. It is ambitious, and seeks the defining status of the famous "X article" by George Kennan on the strategy of "containment" published in Foreign Affairs magazine in 1947. [more]
To what extent could the Concert of Democracies be said to be merely a form
of institutionalization of the strategic mindset underlying the Coalition of
the Willing? Is the effective focus on "concerted effort" or "concertation"
without calling upon the musical connotations? As such it emphasizes concentration,
typically of a temporary character for a particular task -- as with any periodic
plenary assembly. It is perhaps appropriate to note that the related term concerto is
applied chiefly to compositions in which unequal instrumental or vocal forces
are brought into opposition.
However, in exploiting the connotations of such a potentially fruitful musical
metaphor (if that is the intention), it would be most regrettable if the USA
were only to develop its implications within a particular classical understanding
of musical harmony -- and the social organization associated with it from past
centuries (cf Jacques Attali. Noise:
the political economy of music, 1977/1985). This would avoid any
exploration of the other powerful potentials of musical harmony reflective
of the modern complexity that the new strategy purports to address.
There are
indeed other lessons to be drawn from the metaphor (cf John Kao, Jamming:
the art and discipline of corporate creativity, 1997; Lukasz Michalec
and David A Banks, Information
Systems Development Methodologies and all that Jazz, 2004).
Specifically it would be especially regrettable if "concert" became
merely another reframing of the unfortunate mindset underlying the "Global
Compact" of the United Nations (cf "Globalization":
the UN’s "Safe Haven" for the World’s Marginalized --
the Global Compact with Multinational Corporations as the UN’s "Final
Solution", 2000). A critical description of European institutions
has been made in terms of the "orchestra" metaphor by Timothy Garton Ash (The
European Orchestra, Hoover Digest: Research and Opinion
on Public Policy,
2001, 3).
Should the set of shared values fundamental to a Concert of Democracies be
expressed as a conventional checklist -- or rather as a song that interweaves their
relationships into a comprehensible whole exemplifying their complementarity
as a system of checks and balances?
Cognitive engagement with complexity
There is a real challenge in comprehending and communicating the strategic
challenges of sustainable development in an increasingly complex global environment,
as explored by Franz Josef Radermacher (Balance
or Destruction,
2004). Is there not a strong case for finding ways to hold the pattern
of systemic feedback loops (so essential to sustainability) in mnemonic devices,
such as song, that can be more widely understood and related to the values
justifying any action?
In musical terms, might it be possible to embody
such systemic sustainable development insights into a compromise between the
archetypal insights of Richard Wagner's Ring
Cycle and the participative mnemonics of Harold Baum's The
Biochemists' Song Book (1982/2003). The latter presents information
on the complexities of interweaving metabolic pathways, set to well known songs,
as an enjoyable memory aid. It is to be contrasted with the excellent charts
on the total pattern of metabolic pathways which illustrate the larger challenge
to comprehension (see Biochemical
Pathways: Metabolic Pathways; Biochemical
Pathways: Cellular and Molecular Processes; Metabolic
Pathways of
the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology). These are of
a degree of complexity commensurate with the systems exercises in global modelling
-- indicative of the constraints on sustainable development.
Metabolic pathways reflect the fundamental life sustaining processes at the
micro level. It is to be expected (from a general systems perspective) that
these would be isomorphic to some degree with those at a macro-systemic level,
especially with respect to the pattern of systemic pathways basic to sustainable
development. Also fundamental to sustainable development are the laws of thermodynamics.
These have also been turned into a song (First
and Second Law. Flanders and
Swann Online).
If wisdom is required to respond to the challenge of sustainable development,
how might that wisdom be best embodied in music and song? |
Individual identity within global frameworks
Constitutions and charters might be said to be about collective identity. The question is what they imply or ignore in relation to individual identity.
Whilst perhaps acknowledging the individual to some degree as an objective entity for which legal protection may in some way be required, charters are typically lax in honouring the individual subjectivity that motivates engagement with global charters, indifference to them -- or their rejection. Consider, for example, the complementary dimensions embodied in the experimental Universal Declaration of the Rights of Human Organization (1971).
The "war on terror" is increasing pressure for a form of documented identity of citizens to be embodied in biometric identity cards. It is appropriate to ask whether those who identify with the description of themselves by others in ID cards merit what amounts to a two-dimensional existence in legal "flatland" -- in contrast to other possibilities (cf Ron Atkin. Multidimensional Man: can man live in three dimensional space? 1981). Such extreme reductionism might be considered the antithesis of what people consider meaningful in their lives. How can any global framework be meaningful in practice under such circumstances?
Expressing a constititution of any kind in a collective song evokes the possibility that individuals might themselves be acknowledged through the song that best expresses their identity. Whereas an identity card typically requires a "signature" to become a legal document, there is then a question of whether a "signature tune" constitutes a richer expression of the identity of an individual. More important is the question of the manner in which the individual identifies with the tune and to what degree. The significance of such a possibility is evident in affinities that are celebrated in song -- "they are playing our tune". Curiously the individuals in many species of animal, notably birds, are recognizable to each other through their unique song.
Such possibilities suggest a way of thinking about global constitutions as constituting a framework evocative of individual and group songs -- through which the identity of each is enhanced and through which each identifies the other. The challenge at this time, given the huge quantity of music that is accessible and in process of being created, is that individuals identify with songs produced by others -- whether or not they sing or play them themselves. Only rarely, in celebration of a life or as part of a ritual, is a song composed for an individual. Unlike painters, it is rare for individuals to consciously produce a musical self-portrait (Richard Strauss, Robert Schumann, Kurt Bestor and Keith Jarrett are some exceptions) although the process is now a feature of musical education. Consequently it might therefore be said that a sense of identity is borrowed from others ("downloaded") and played in private self-confirmation as a form of "identity pace-maker". The facilitation of this process may be seen by the future as a form of "identity theft" by the collectivity at this time -- as with global constitutions.
How might an individual be encouraged to recognize the song that they are
effectively singing -- the integrative expression of their identity (cf Mary
Catherine Bateson , Composing
a Life, 1990, which she compares to jazz improvisation, although
the focus is primarily on life stories). How can the many features of music
be used to articulate and hold the dynamics of an evolving identity? Phil Rockstroh
(An Outcast's
Inappropriate Aria: singing at the dinner table of the Empire, Swans
Commentary, 2005) makes an even stronger, politically engaged, point:
Can you accept the unsettling truth of knowing that what we inflict upon the world we will eventually inflict upon ourselves, and visa versa? And ask over and over again this question: When so many external and internal forces work to thwart, degrade, and destroy our essential selves, hence the world -- what can help to restore us?
Poets tell us that only depth-delving songs, those sounds and images that reveal hidden truths, can partially restore what had been lost...Orpheus can pass into the underworld and back...but Eurydice remains lost to shadow... We only half live in the world...the rest is mystery... Lorca called it Deep Song: An autochthonic music that allows us to live beyond ourselves...to glimpse larger realities...and be freed from our self-constructed prison of believing the world of subjectivity and habit is the only world possible.
Deep Song is not mood music for those in a Prozac state of mind. It is a chord progression of the cosmic blues. It wails primordial storms and collapsing stars; it sings of uncharitable seas of dark matter and of the alien oceans of our tide-tossed hearts.
One approach to understanding the "lost language" of pattern-shifting in such a process reality can be obtained from insights into the 4,000 year-old chanted hymns of the Rg Veda of the Indian tradition (as discussed elsewhere). A very powerful exploration of this work by a philosopher, Antonio de Nicolas, using the non-Boolean logic of quantum mechanics, opens up valuable approaches to integration. The unique feature of the approach is that it is grounded in tone and the shifting relationships between tone. It is through the pattern of musical tones that the significance of the Rg Veda is to be found:
Therefore, from a linguistic and cultural perspective, we have to be aware that we are dealing with a language where tonal and arithmetical relations establish the epistemological invariances... Language grounded in music is grounded thereby on context dependency; any tone can have any possible relation to other tones, and the shift from one tone to another, which alone makes melody possible, is a shift in perspective which the singer himself embodies. Any perspective (tone) must be "sacrificed" for a new one to come into being; the song is a radical activity which requires innovation while maintaining continuity, and the "world" is the creation of the singer, who shares its dimensions with the song. (Antonio de Nicolas, Meditations through the Rg Veda, 1978, p. 57)
"Singing the Earth"
It is appropriate to note that articulating through song the integrative
significance of the Earth as a whole, and engaging meaningfully with it, has
been undertaken throughout the history of humanity. Such songs have typically
been the work of priests in ritual ceremonies. Whilst typically these have
been long forgotten (or suppressed) as pagan ceremonies, it is not to be forgotten
that such songs continue to be sung in neo-pagan ceremonies, of which the midsummer
celebrations in Nordic countries are particularly significant.
Also of contemporary significance
is the importance attached to such songs within indigenous societies around
the world. In particular, Australian Aborigenes continue to attach great significance
to their capacity to "sing the land" -- singing the land into existence.
The people and the land are understood as one -- by the very act of singing
the land, the land itself lives and breathes. Such understandings have been
extensively documented for UNEP in a project led by Darrell Posey (Cultural
and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity, 1999).
Such insights are of course faintly echoed in modern religions in cycles of
popular festivals in which the fertility of the land is celebrated: spring
festivals, mid-summer festivals,
early autumn (harvest
festivals, Thanksgiving,
etc) and winter
festivals.
Such celebration points to a poorly recognized relationship between the associated
mindset sustaining it and that called for at this time under the term "sustainable
development" and as the need for "appropriate lifestyles". Sustainable development
might be considered a simplistic secular euphemism for a lost cognitive engagement
with the Earth -- and the joy of being approrpriately alive, as recognized in
popular festivals worldwide. This raises the question as to the nature of the
cognitive engagement of the world's earliest "sustainable developers".
Curiously the few festivals specifically initiated
to celebrate sustainable development tend to be named "Earth
festivals".
Sustaining collective memory of articulations of collective intent
Of particular relevance in the case of religious ritual down the ages is the
recognition of the mnemonic function of music and chant -- mnemonic songs --
as a means to convey insight. Important items of information are deliberately
linked to rhythm and repetition in an effort to aid memory. Sutras and prayers
are meant to be chanted, thus engaging the musical/rhythmic regions of the
brain in synchrony with the written and uttered word. More of the brain is
activated by an exposure to a combination of data units + rhythm + melody +
intonation + pitch -- especially with the addition of dance. As notably explored
by suggestopedia for
purposes of accelerative
learning, this enables large units of structured data to be remembered
as a patterned whole. At a a more familiar level it is one of the reasons that
pop songs and rap are so easily remembered.
The question of the constraints on collective learning was a significant dimension
omitted from an optimistic commissioned study of the supposedly unlimited
possibilities of individual learning -- as reviewed elsewhere (Societal
Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory: a critique of the Club
of Rome Report, 1980), notably exploring the nature of the pathology of collective memory. For western culture it is interesting to note (drawing upon its classical roots, as presented
in the figure below) the traditional symbolic understanding of the relationship
between law, as one expression of longer-term collective intent, and the collective
memory capacity required to sustain its credibilty and viabity.
| Primordial relationship of law to memory as indicated by
the relationship in Greek mythology between Zeus (as
the guardian of law and morality), who fathered the nine Muses with Mnemosyne,
and his son Apollo (as
the giver of laws) |
 |
The complementary relevance of the Muses to memory, especially of collective
intent, might then be articulated as follows (with possibilities in italics of relevance to the memorability of declarations of collective intent):
- Calliope (epic poetry and eloquence ): As oral
narrative verse, this emphasizes deep feeling and ethical
significance rather than the
form or subject matter. It expresses the nature or ideals
of an entire culture at a significant or crucial period of its history. Accompanied
by a stringed instrument, the epic song was both the most popular form
of entertainment in the ancient world and the repository of a people's
cultural tradition and history. It charges the experiential world with
significance. This is exemplified by such works as the Iliad,
the Mahabharata or
the Kalevala.
However the importance of the latter to the successful uptake of information
technology was highlighted in an introductory speech by the Finnish Presidency
of the European Commission on the New
Dimensions of Learning in the Information Society (July 1999)
by referring first to the influential role of the Kalevala (as
discussed in an earlier paper (Enhancing
the Quality of Knowing through Integration of East-West Metaphors,
2000). Clearly epic poetry provides an important form of support for long-term,
deep cultural memory -- if only in the perpetuation of the memory of a
ruler. This may be closely related to expressions of long-term collective
intent -- again perhaps exemplified by a ruler desiring to perpetuate his
intent. For the Greeks,
the source of inspiration was conventionally ascribed to the Muse. [more] Should
the European Union not elicit epic poetry to communicate the "deep
feeling and ethical significance" of any proposed constitution? An
Iliad or Kalevala?
- Euterpe (music): Music of different types serves
to sustain collective memory of a short, medium or long-term nature. This
may be seen in the short-term marketing role of advertising jingles (or the
"psyching up" of traditional battle music), the medium-term role of popular
tunes defining a cultural period or collective identity (as with regimental
marches) over decades, and the longer-term role of folk and classical music
in sustaining cultural identity. Rhythm assists in remembering otherwise
unconnected data which may be especially important in oral tradition where
key rules and elements of folk wisdom are often expressed rhythmically. Research
has shown memory to be affected by many different factors, but notably including
music because of the manner in which it stimulates parts
of the brain (Sara B Kirkweg, The
Effects of Music on Memory, 2006; M H Thaut, D A Peterson & G
C McIntosh, Temporal
Entrainment of Cognitive Functions: musical mnemonics induce brain plasticity
and oscillatory synchrony in neural networks underlying memory,
2005). Beyond Beethoen's Ode to Joy, what is possible in this respect
to encode mnemonically the insights of an Earth Charter, a Global Ethic or
an EU Constitution?
- Clio (history): The role of history in sustaining
collective intent is exemplified by the much-cited phrase regarding failure
to learn from history: "Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana, Life of
Reason,
1905). Without a sense of history there can be no sustained collective learning.
History provides an understanding of why collective intent has been embodied
in declarations and constitutions in a particular way. Music may well be
powerfully inspired by historical events important to remembrance of cultural
identity (as with the use of the
Lambeg drum in Northern
Ireland). A journal, History
and Memory (Institute for the Study
of Historical Consciousness), explores the manifold ways in which the past
shapes the present and is shaped by present perceptions. How should the
lessons of history be configured and presented in support of declarations
of collective intent in response to the challenges of the future?
- Erato (lyrics and love poetry): The role of lyrics
in song is evident in protest and revolutionary songs as well as in those
in celebration, and remembrance, of the qualities of people and relationships.
Lyrics are a common feature of memory aids. How to elicit the lyrics in support of any collective understanding of future action? What are the lyrics supportive of sustainable development and paradigm change?
- Melopmeme (tragedy): Any tragedy, dramatically
presented, offers an extremely powerful means of drawing attention to dimensions
of life that may be readily (even preferably) forgotten. It links memories
of sufferings in the past to the potential of sufferings in the future. In
so doing it gives a dimensional sense of depth. Powerful collective examples
are provided by the many massacres and genocidal
initiatives (eg the Holocaust). On an individual level examples
include cases of premature death, broken relationships, betrayal, etc. Tragedy
may be intimately related to traumatic memories and therefore a focus of
psychotherapy. How to express the tragic consequences of inaction, or
inappropriate action, to help focus declarations of collective intent for
the future?
- Polyhymnia (sacred poetry): The importance to
collective memory of sacred poetry is exemplified by the Rg
Veda as a collection of
Vedic Sanskrit hymns. Typically such poetry seeks to provide a sense, or
memory, of both a higher dimensionality to life and a subtler, or higher,
form of law and order (cf Antonio De Nicolas, Meditations
through the Rg Veda: four-dimensional man, 1976/2003). What
are the subtler dimensions that need to be appropriately expressed as a guide
to future constitutions? How to move beyond simplistic references to particular
understandings of spiritual dimensions and to give recognition to other forms
of subtlety? What does sacralization then mean and how can poetry assist
in communicating the integrity it implies? (cf Poetry-making
and Policy-making, 1993; Sacralization
of Hyperlink Geometry, 1997)
- Terpsichore (dancing and
choral song): The patterns
of dance, especially traditional folk dances, provide a powerful means for
remembering and preserving cultural identity. In the form of sacred dances
they constitute a language in their own right which has long been used to
exemplify and celebrate collective intent. The kinesthetic sense allows people
to feel internally the movements of their muscles, joints and tendons.
Kinesthetic memory (or muscle memory) is essential for the memorization
of a musical score [more]
or the routines of a dance, namely remembering all the movements, gestures
and physical sensations needed. Such kinesthetic memory therefore supports
the semantic content that ritual and other dances may be intended to represent
-- whether in sacred temple dances or in some indigenous cultures (such
as amongst the Aborigenes of Australia). Given the effort to give expression
to Europe through choral song in the Ode to Joy, how should Europe be danced?
How should a Global Ethic be danced? What is to be learnt from sacred
dances of the past?
- Thalia (comedy): Through whatever vehicle, readily
remembered humour provides a powerful means of creatively bringing together
the seemingly disparate in ways that offer new insight essential to the
vitality of any culture and its ability to respond to incongruity -- notably
that resulting from inadequacies in the law (cf Humour
and Play-Fullness: essential integrative processes in governance, religion
and transdisciplinarity, 2005). Through humorously juxtaposing
and reframing inequities, it provides a catalyst for nonviolent receptivity
to change. Its playful quality may sustain and give credibility to processes
of change (cf Playfully
Changing the Prevailing Climate of Opinion: climate change as focal metaphor
of effective global governance, 2005). What
comedy and humour would creatively sustain insight into the potentials of
any collective intent otherwise expressed more seriously? (cf Victor S.M. de Guinzbourg. Wit and Wisdom
of the United Nations: proverbs and apothegms on diplomacy, 1961)
- Urania (astronomy): The configuration and movement
of heavenly bodies in relation to the Earth has traditionally provided one
of the most powerful mnemonic device for means of remembering and ordering
relationships over time, whether it be the daily rhythms of life, monthly
cycles, annual cycles relating to agriculture, or the longer-term rhythms
traditionally considered so vital to a sense of place in the cosmos (cf Engaging
Macrohistory through the Present Moment, 2004). Would the values
and clauses of key legislation be more widely (if not universally) comprehended
by associating them visually with stories linked to particular configurations
of stars and planets -- as was so effectively done for oral cultures of the
past? What might the stars on the flag of Europe signify?
Of particular interest, given the written text mode preferred for modern declarations
and constitutions, is the absence of prose from the above schema. Whilst the
above schema may be seen as a limitation of the oral tradition (Michael
E.Hobart and Zachary S. Schiffman, Orality
and the Problem of Memory, 1998),
it is vital to recall the extent to which functional illiteracy and preferences
for non-text media determine contemporary collective behaviour and the manner
in which memory is sustained. In a sense the oral culture remains of far more
importance than those preferring text modes would care to admit.
Distinctions relevant to technical considerations
In arguing for singable articulations of strategic significance, it is vital
to distinguish (as in the table below) the extremes to which reference may
be made.
| Styles of knowledge
communication (rough and tentative) |
| . |
"Left hemisphere" ("analytic") |
"Right hemisphere" ("integrative") |
"operational"
engaged |
(a) praxis,
demonstration,
work chants, battle songs
company songs |
(d) embodiment of conceptual relationships
in song; archetypal engagement; sacred music; healing music, deep song |
"descriptive"
detached |
(c) systems dynamics,
mapping |
(b) evocative song,
opera and
educational multi-media |
A far more detailed method of distinguishing preferred modes of knowledge
communication is required. The table serves usefully to distinguish the essentially
unsingable (c) from the songs characteristic of (b) -- on the understanding
that particular approaches may lie closer or further away from the intersection
of the implied axes distinguishing the coloured quadrants.
As an example, in a survey of different educational approaches to systems
thinking, Günther
Ossimitz (The
Development of Systems Thinking Skills Using System Dynamics Modeling Tools, 1997)
notes that the system view of ecologists is often more "qualitative"
than the system dynamics view of system. He gives as an example of the latter
Frederic Vester (Unsere Welt - ein vernetztes System, 1984/2002)
and his game Ökolopoly (available both as a board
game and as a computer
game). Radermacher's songs reflect this emphasis, as do AtKisson's.
The challenge is to explore the forms of integration between (a), (b)
and (c) -- namely the emergence of (d) as a cognitive "marriage" enabling a new form
of creative operacy (using Edward de Bono's term). What might be understood by "intelligent songs"? (cf Christopher Chase. Playing by Nature's Paradigm: systems science and the
Grateful Dead, 1997). What characterizes and distinguishes the composition of songs that enable so-called paradigm shifts? How are such distinctions to be realted to the extensive work on music cognition? [resources]
One early example is the work promoted by the Cathars through the troubadours and trouvères, highly sophisticated verse-technicians, whose music and poetry combined in the service of the courtly ideal of love:
Modern European literature originated in Occitania in the early 12th century. It was started by hundreds of Troubadours (poet-musicians), who sang the praises of new values and in a new way. Their themes were courtly love, and concepts such as "convivencia" and "paratge" for which there is no modern counterpart in modern English or French. "convivencia" meant something more than conviviality and "paratge" meant something more than honour, courtesy, chivalry or gentility (though our concepts of honour, courtesy, chivalry and gentility all owe something to the concept of "paratge". They praised high ideals, promoting a spirit of equality based on common virtue and deprecating discrimination based on blood or wealth. They were responsible for a great flowering of creativity (The Troubadours).
A more recent example might be the role of the indigenous American art form
of country music, especially blackfaced minstrel singers (with widely popular
songs such as Zip Coon),
in the meaning and making of a culture (cf Damon W. Root, Hidden
Country,
Reasononline, October 2002).
How might song, and understanding
of the theory of harmony, act as a vehicle for the pattern of systemic insights
in the UN's Agenda 21,
for example? The work of Lukasz Michalec and David A Banks ( |
