Impatience with ‘Our’ Western Society

Assertive action is conjugate to spatial accommodation

I suspect that there are many others like myself, that ‘get tired’ with living in a society or ‘culture’ that seems so dysfunctional yet so unable to get off the rails it is riding on.

It is clear to me that some of those others can vent by pointing their fingers at those who they judge to be ‘principally responsible’ for the dysfunction, but I don’t even have that for a ‘release’ since ‘finger-pointing’ or ‘attributing causal agency’ seems to me to go with the dysfunctional culture.

What is the matter with our ‘Western Culture’ that makes ‘WC’ a fitting abbreviation? It seems simple to me.  You don’t have to write volumes to describe what’s going on.

Ok, I wrote a book to describe it, ‘A Fluid-Dynamical World View’ – www.goodshare.org/fluiddynamicview.pdf

But the basics are as follows;

1. For every assertive action, there is a conjugate spatial-relational accommodating.

If the world is flow or field based, this must be so.  Mach’s principle of relativity claims that it must be so.

Howard Zinn, in ‘A People’s History of the United States’ at http://www.historyisaweapon/zinnapeopleshistory.html notes that ‘history’ as we Westerners write it, is equivalent to the memory of the sovereign state (or ‘sovereign being’), … a memory which discards the spatial-relational accommodating aspect

The sovereign-state is based on nothing other than ‘common belief’.  The ‘sovereign state’ of the United States is a glimmer in the eyes of the colonizers prior to the completion of its seizing of the land, the material counterpart of the ‘sovereign state’.

The ‘sovereigntists’ understand ‘colonization’ as if it were an assertive act marked by a time-line of assertive achievements, arrival, establishment of initial colonies, expansion, development, growth, etc. etc.

In Zinn’s terms, this is the ‘executioner’s view’ or the ‘memory of the executioner’.  The memory of the ‘victims’ starts from before the invaders arrived and it is only the latter chapter of their history that gets into their efforts to try defend their land from take-over by the invaders, with accounts of the successive collapse of the strongholds, their retreat and accommodations conjugate to the assertive advance, the genocide launched against their race and against aboriginal culture and language.

History as the ‘memory of the executor’ who understands himself to be the causal agency responsible for the settlement of new lands, does not tell the story of ‘the accommodation’; e.g. it does not tell the story of ‘wolf’ whose breeding grounds are encrouched upon by the advancing spatial front of newly-built settlements, and how accommodation of one sort or another is forced by the assertive intrusion.

If the wolves ‘become mean’, or if the aboriginals ‘become mean’ or if the black slaves ‘become mean’, if we stick by our manner of modeling dynamics in the one-sided terms of assertive action (as in Newtonian physics), then we would have to say that ‘mean behaviour’ was a locally originating (internal process-driven and internal purpose directed) behaviour on the part of the wolf and/or aboriginal.

In the ‘real world’; i.e. in a ‘flowing’ or ‘fluid-dynamical world’, all assertive actions are conjugate to spatial accommodation; i.e. space is not ‘empty’ as in the simplified ‘Newtonian’ model where we assume that we can describe the world dynamic in terms of ‘what material things do’ as the act/interact in an absolute fixed and empty space..

In space that is understood to be a resonant energy charged spatial medium, space is ‘spring-loaded’ and when one pushes into it, one compresses the springs and loads space with potential energy that can fuel contrary reverberations.

Colonization is like ‘rape’ in that it focuses on what it achieves.  History is the written account of the memory of the rapist.   If the rapist is lucky, the victim will forget and forgive how she was forced to accommodate the asserting colonizer (the contrary spring loading may dissipate), on the other hand, she may bide her time and rise up and stab him while he sleeps.

Our Western culture is in the habit of ‘modeling dynamics’ from the point of view of the ‘executor’ (winner) as if there were no spatial-relational ‘accommodation’ in conjugate relation with the actions of the executor.   We picture the arrival of the colonizers in their ships and the construction of their settlements and the growth and development of their social dynamic, without including in that picture, how ecosystemic dynamics of the inhabitants of the habitat they are asserting into shall accommodate their assertive action.

This is not only true of the sovereign state and the sovereign being (individual human or organism), but it is true of western organizational structures that include ‘the corporation’.   When Walmart colonizes the business firmament, there is, at the same time, a conjugate spatial accommodating.  Walmart may inflict genocide on mom-and-pop businesses in the shared dynamic space of the community.

To tell the story of ‘change’ in the one-sided terms of assertive actions, to give voice one-sidedly, to the memory of the sovereign states, sovereign beings, executive actors, fails to include the story of accommodation conjugate to the assertive aspect of the dynamic.

Accommodation is the parenting aspect of nature’s dynamic while assertive action is the child.  The blossoming storm-cell is the visible aspect of the accommodating aspect of the persisting flow; i.e. the expanding storm-cell is the RESULT of the accommodating aspect of the flow rather than it being the cause of the flow.

In other words, the ongoing flow of the atmosphere is the accommodating medium that first opens up for the new ‘flow-feature’.  The new flow-feature is not the product of ‘its own internally driven processes’ (the only reason that a hurricane forms is to transport thermal energy from thermally-energy-rich to thermal-energy-poor regions).

The ‘memory’ of the colonizers orients to the pattern of assertive action that they are deliberately making as they push forward into their new lands (‘new’ to them, but not new to the current occupants).  There must be ‘an accommodating’ for them to push on in; e.g. wolves do not live in the city.

Who does the ‘accommodating’?   The wolf would never ‘agree’ to the assertive intrusion of the colonizers (the notion of ‘agreement’ or ‘choice’ makes no sense here), so he resists to the point that some new ‘dynamic balance’ emerges.  The dynamic of space ‘does the accommodating’.  Space is an ‘accommodating medium’.   As Mach’s principle says, ‘the dynamic of the habitat conditions the dynamics of the inhabitants at the same time as the dynamics of the inhabitants are conditioning the dynamics of the habitat’.   That’s how fluid-dynamic spaces ‘work’; ‘the dynamic of flow condition the dynamics of the flow-features (storm-cells) at the same time as the dynamics of the flow-features are conditioning the dynamics of the flow’.

The colonizer is not the author of the ‘accommodating’, yet ‘history’ in its conventional (Western cultural) sense,  the ‘memory’ of the colonizer, the executor, is an account of ‘what the executor does, his marching forward in time based achievement.

There is a bigger story to tell.  It orients to the dynamics of space which prevailed prior to executor commencing his assertive action and which continue to prevail long after the ‘incoming inhabitant’ becomes part of the common ground or ‘habitat’.  These before-and-after spatial relational dynamics that live in the continuously unfolding present undergo transformation, accommodating newly emergent flow features and accommodating the assimilation of those that have emerged, blossomed, faded.

The dynamics of space do not ‘gather together features and later on disperse them.  The dynamics of space are continually gathering and re-gathering an endless diverse multiplicity of flow-features.   Gathering naturally prevails (death is feeding life, not vice versa), ‘dispersing’ is a term that is not basic to the dynamics of nature; it arises from our own RESTRICTED focus on local visible features (local material objects/organisms/systems).  If we open up our view so that it comprehends the ceaselessly accommodating dynamics of space (which transpires in the continuing present), there is no ‘dispersing’, only ceaselessly innovative regathering.

We know all about the conjugate assertive-spatial accommodating dynamic on a personal level.  As assertive individuals (male and female in ‘male mode’), we poke around in search of spatial accommodation, finding less resistance here, more accommodation there, as the tongues of flood waters search for spatial accommodation in an earthen barrier.  So it is, as well, with the beasts of the forest in their manner of relating to one another via the spatial dynamic they share inclusion in and what prevails is a certain ‘dynamic balance’ or ‘standing wave’ ordering.

When three or more assertive agents seek accommodation with one another at the same time, as mathematical physicists have determined, there is no solution to this problem in terms of the contribution of individual behaviour to these dynamics.  The spatial-relational dynamics are in a natural precedence over the dynamics of the ‘local material objects/organisms/systems’.

This is the ‘general case’ in nature.  To single out one assertive agent and to visualize his actions relative to an absolute space frame is an observer-contrived special case that does not exist in nature.  To notionally invent a win/lose competition between two opposing assertive agents (implying that they live in an absolute space frame) is an observer-contrived special case that does not exist in nature.  Darwinism is founded on an observer-contrived special case that does not exist in nature.

In nature, spatial accommodation is in a natural precedence over assertive achievement, just as it is in a fluid dynamic, which modern physics suggests is fundamental in Nature.

What is going wrong then?

On a personal level, even the beasts of the forest are seeking spatial accommodation, so how does the primacy of spatial accommodating give way to ‘assertive achievement’ in-its-own-right?

The opposing generals that both want to assertively seize a strategic stronghold abandon this notion of seeking spatial accommodation and make plans that are purely ‘assertive achievement’ oriented.   There is no probing around to discover where the spatial accommodation is most giving and least resistant.  The approach of the generals is to butt heads at a particular point so as to prevail at all costs.   The troops in the front lines of the assault (don’t fire until you can see the whites of their eyes) may be crushed by the force of the opposition.  This is not the approach of the wolf-pack, which would seek avenues of spatial accommodation, passing through them to outflank the quarry and close in from all sides.

The memory of generals is in terms of assertive achievement (positive and negative), not in terms of spatial accommodation.  The occupation of the Americas backed by military generals records things like ‘the battle of the Plains of Abraham’ and merely footnotes, if it even mentions, the spatial accommodating that was experienced by the French within the space that was now controlled by the British.

When we go from the personal level to the collective level, IN THE WESTERN CULTURE, our behaviour becomes like that of the generals.  We employ technology to back up an assertive plan of attack and to persist in that plan of attack in order to achieve it.  It is a full frontal assault that seeks to prevail absolutely, to seize and occupy a strategic position.  Assertive achievement is measured in terms of ‘sales’ or ‘take’ (akin to ‘kill’ as in taking in buffalo hides).

These military terms ‘plan of attack’, or simply ‘plan’ as relate to ‘assertive achievement’ are very unlike the notion of ‘seeking spatial accommodation’ or ‘taking our place in the natural scheme of things’ as is the ethic of the aboriginal.   We are talking about absolute control over the space we seize and occupy.  We are talking about ‘taking the place’ lock, stock and barrel rather than ‘taking our place in the natural scheme of things’.  We are talking about ‘the earth belongs to man’ rather than ‘man belongs to the earth’.

Military backed colonization is ‘rape’.  It is not ‘seeking spatial accommodation’ as individuals within a personal collective tend to do, and as the Amerindians proposed to the first waves of European settlers.

The history we write, as Zinn observes, is the memory of the sovereign state.  It is the memory of the generals without whom there would be no sovereign state, only a world without countries, as John Lennon suggests in ‘Imagine’ where the inhabitants of earth seek spatial accommodation.

The history we individuals write, that we record in our ‘resumés’, is the memory of the sovereign being, the ego-memory, which is in terms of ‘our own assertive achievements’, merely footnoting the spatial accommodations experienced by those whom we share inclusion in a common living space.

What Zinn gives a portrait of, is the ‘ego’ of the sovereign state.   The memory of the assertive achievements of the sovereign state, the memory of the ‘executioners’, as he calls it, is the ego of the sovereign state.  It merely footnotes the spatial accommodating that is experienced by those with whom we share inclusion in our common living space.

The resumé or ‘history’ we write of our individual selves, is the memory of our sovereign being, of our assertive accomplishments, the memory of the ‘executive’ aspect of our dynamic engaging; i.e. the memory of the ego of our sovereign being.  It merely footnotes the spatial accommodating that is experienced by those with whom we share inclusion in our common living space.

There is thus a ‘problem’ with ‘who we believe ourselves to be’, not only at the level of the sovereign state, but at the level of the sovereign being and at the level of the sovereign agency known as the corporation.

The problem derives from our ‘selective memory’, the sort of memory that recalls our ‘assertive achievements’ but merely footnotes the spatial accommodating that is experienced by all who share inclusion in our common living space.

To close the loop on this blog, as I suggested at the start;

The basics are as follows;

1. For every assertive action, there is a conjugate spatial-relational accommodating.

If the world is flow or field based, this must be so.  Mach’s principle of relativity claims that it must be so.

The assertive actions of European colonizers is highlighted in the ‘history’ of ‘the colonies’.  It records the memory of the executors of assertive achievement, the makers of progress, the importers of civilization.  But the colonizers imposed themselves into a spatial relational dynamic that had been cultivating its own dynamic balancing, and thus there was necessarily a spatial-relational accommodating associated with the assertive intrusion, into this same space, of the colonizers.  The history of this ‘spatial accommodating’ is, in Zinn’s terms, the history of the victims, those targeted by the ‘executors’ of assertive achievement for genocide and enslavement.

The Western culture confuses idealisation, dynamics in the one-sided terms of assertive achievement, for reality.  This reality is nothing other than the memory of the ego that merely footnotes ‘spatial accommodation’, the dynamics of the overall parenting medium of Nature in which we all share inclusion.

Our education system continues to imprint youth with a culturally stamped approval of the pursuit of assertive achievement, out of the context of spatial accommodation.  It is the legacy of our colonizing phase wherein genocide and slavery were mere footnotes to the glorious achievements of our sovereign state in which we ‘have every right to be proud of’, … or so says the memory of our generals.

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