Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 8:40 AM

Subject: RE: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)

Arthur said: (snip)

And
> what would Keith's outline tell China: do what you have always done, play to
> your resource strengths and leave high tech to the west? Also resource rich
> countries can do quite poorly given internal commercial and cultural
> considerations, viz., Argentina. (snip)

ECONOMIC TRACKING OR POOR INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTIVITY:

This kind of tracking is typical of 19th century thought.

It has a parallel in the last forty years educational tracking where children are tested and tracked according to their "intellectual" IQ. The only problem is that children, who don't accept the model and continue on their own, often do well in the very areas that they were moved away from by the scientists. Unfortunately, it is not always legal or humanitarian. The assumption is that they will be happiest getting the most for the least.

That failure has created a crisis in educational testing in the U.S. with colleges rejecting the use of standardized tests in favor of their more practical academic tests created for the educational and cultural approach of their institution (yesterday's NYTimes). Generalized Intellectual IQ , as well as most psycho-therapeutic processes function on the assumption that human systems are OK and that the individual is the problem. That individuals must either be "broken" and remade to fit the Ideal System (the New Birth assumption) or the Humanist argument that individual systems are also OK and that the problem is in finding the right fit between the two, hence IQ and other STANDARDIZED tests will accomplish that goal. The only problem is that both assumes a static system when in fact the one constant among humans is that a static reality is a rigid dogmatic one. Instead of a learning/developing system both the individual and the group system "calcifies" and becomes rigid. It seems to me that this goes against nature and that growth and change are the only real given. That it is the growing or what the Aztecs called "Ollin" or educational movement, that is the rule of game. The problem is in the learning systems of the culture and their Poor Intellectual Productivity. For example:

HOW STRENGTH BECOMES WEAKNESS AND EXAMPLE:

On a physical level, we can compare it to the use of the spine in animals. If a person does not have enough rigidity in their spine we call them "spineless." We are uncomfortable with a human who moves like a snake and yet the thalidomide children who suffered the lack of limbs learned to climb stairs with their spines. There is even a wonderful singer who shows such a powerful use of the voice and breath that we are amazed. He is a thalidomide baby and his spine is powerful in that way. That power makes his spinal nerves available to him in ways that voice teachers are amazed by. We teachers have all kinds of physical exercises to develop the same openness, flexibility and strength in normal people but rarely achieve it due to the uncomfortableness of the normal person with their spine. Our work is, unfortunately not pedagogical but therapeutic or as we say "the unteaching of improper habits taught by cultural and linguistic ideals taught after the child learned to walk." Why did the child do it? Because the people they loved and admired did it and they were the best success stories they knew.

Such conditioning begins immediately as the child imprints on the parent's bad habits as soon as they can stand. Normal parents who would see their children truly exercising their spines would think them an aberration or call such movements "writhing" and equate them with pain. "Honey, are you OK? How do you feel? Are you sick? You seem uncomfortable..." etc, etc. When German Jew Elsa Gindler and the Australian F.M. Alexander began to do research in these areas in the early 20th century, they were (and in many places still are) considered on the fringe of science. Today both the dance and million dollar athletes have changed that with a resultant great leap forward in the medical practice of physical therapy. But Hitler considered Gindler not only to be repugnant as a Jew but her theories about physical potential were not "upright" enough for his image of soldiers marching in the act of physical bonding. Gindler escaped Germany and the rest of us benefited mightily at his foolishness. In that tradition the actual words for the spine grew out of a need for the spine to act, NOT like a digital rope, but like a rigid bar that would withstand the physical blows of an enemy.

In the burst of entertainment interest sports such rules created copious injuries in professional athletes and yet were associated with "truth, dignity and upright character" while a natural spinal movement was considered "sleazy, slippery and even greasy." The realm of the Savage Barbarian. (on that they were right considering that the Mongols who didn't use armor cultivated a very different flexible posture for their horseback riding.) This prejudice against "Ollin" in the West continued even in the non physical activities like academia. Until recently, students were not allowed to have backs to their chairs because it was believed that a straight, rigid spine was a fixing of a Godly mistake for giving us such a bony device (Bertrand Russell). The sexual movement of the spine is another area that was tabooed as well in this "spineless" universe. But what was called "spineless" (i.e. spineless even moved out of the physical realm and became an adjective for a weak person in general), and what was truly "against the proper use of the spine" was not the same thing.

Theater is one of the areas where this fallacy has been impossible to support. F.M. Alexander lost his voice as a result of such rigidity and improper use of the spine. To heal himself, he restudied human anatomy and developed exercises for actors that opened the first crack in the door. Gindler did it with athletes and then there was the martial arts revolution where Western uprightness became identified with failure in the competitive circle. The superior balance of Kung Fu was even more upright that the Europeans but flexible as well. The martial arts from Asia have caused Westerners to give up their metal suits and develop spines that are both balanced when erect, like a standing snake, and yet flexible and powerful in the spinal muscles.

This is an example of how language in the West has actually limited our potential rather than helping it. i.e. inadequate educational concepts meant to develop a tool for a time/space need (hold a suit of armor erect while riding on a horse) was passed down to the present through fencing, boxing etc. and now makes absolutely no sense when the tool of the spine is examined for its actual potential and the development of that potential. The final blow came as injuries to million dollar athletes using these fallacious Western concepts caused legal suits being brought against "medical" authorities who were emotionally tied to the old rigid concepts of tight muscles and rigid spines. Money talks and prejudices fail when failure can destroy your medical practice. The Doctors came and studied with the "fringe" dancers and dance therapists as well as with students of F.M. Alexander, Elsa Gindler, Moshe Feldenkrais, Ilana Rubenfeld and Elaine Summers some of the brightest lights in the Practical IQ side of this story. What they taught was that historical systems must be constantly re-evaluated for why the rules in their original context were developed and whether that context is appropriate still for the present.

"It seems to me that ....growth and change are the only real given. That it is the growing or what the Aztecs called "Ollin" or educational movement, that is the rule of game. The problem is in the learning systems of the culture and their Poor Intellectual Productivity."

If I may return the principle to Education. Education should help people get what they would be inclined to do anyway. Its purpose should be to make that happen deeper and quicker than they would do on their own. Unfortunately intrinsically motivated children often don't fit into such tracking systems and in fact go faster when they are home schooled on their own and even more absurdly, sometimes they have no teachers, other than their own peers who bring home assignments from the school.

SO WHAT DOES IT ALL HAVE TO DO WITH CHINA?

There are some who would say that the above has nothing to do with economics. But, in "system's thought" it is not whether it is specifically the same but whether the process is the same. Then, whether the process is appropriate to the different context. You must first know whether the issue is a true parallel process or a "Trusel" (ala Warfield) Standard IQ as well as standard physical beliefs about the spine all seem to me to be parallel processes based upon a cultural and historical bias. With the tendency of the 19th and 20th centuries to "scale" everything into a mass production technique for the purpose of achieving "productivity" we run into a problem as large as the idea of "scale." The bias moves from one profession to another and finally ends at the "bottom line" in monetary systems. Such mass production does seem to work in certain situations but is a failure in other rather important ones. Situations that have to do with the highest aspirations of the human spirit as well as the greatest complexity in technological systems. Economics being one of them. I understand Ed's statement about economic practice and agree but the problem is found in the works of major economists like Friedman, for example, where anything outside of his model simply doesn't seem to exist. My profession is a good example and we pay for his rigidity through the conservatives and the Republican party. Although a lot of Republicans like opera as long as all they have to do is purchase a ticket.

In China you have another typical 19th century Western mass production International political system. The success of the Communist system is based upon their ability to deliver the development of the "Ideal Human" within a reasonable amount of time. The Soviet System with its less than benevolent Dictatorship as well as Cambodia and most other versions of this system have been huge failures although the Soviet's and East Germans did develop formidable educational systems. However, it has not been so much of a failure in Cuba. In fact it delivers a better product on some very important human levels towards the development of that Ideal Human.

In the Arts we learn that every culture uses the materials of the Arts in their own unique fashion creating their own unique systems of artistic expression. A typical fallacy of the 19th century was that all Art is Universal and that our art is THE Universally correct version of that. Then along came Bertrand Russell and spoke about the tendency of truths in one system being untrue in another. That thought gave the fledgling discipline of Aesthetics and Musicology the ammunition they needed to both support all cultural expressions and to tear down the hierarchy that was so essential to Western artistic theories. Unfortunately, in economic systems we are still at the stage where the favorite one is still the ONLY correct version. "Empirically" correct no less!.

Ray Evans Harrell

Re: Economics as a science (was Re: Double-stranded Economics)

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