Dear Ray,
Hear! Hear! I am properly *and gratefully* humbled.
I have for a long time been quite impatient with the Esalen
folks - "humanistic psychology" and such-like - and
*therefore* willfully ignorant of much of it, SO ... I was
quite content to be cheerfully superficial & glib about
wholism vs. holism. Two minutes of Googling is all it would
take to straighten *you* out, that's for sure. ("What in the
*whirled* could Ray possibly be talking about?" I said to
myself. "Here, look what the oracle, the google, sayeth".)
Well, too clever by half - and your patient & *caring*
account of just what in the world you were talking about was
BRILLIANT at every level - tone, depth, stance, plot. Just
perfect (as everyone noticed!). Bravo!
> And Steven, all knowledge is essentially local in
> character. I will accept that mine is as well but you
> should say the same about yours. Otherwise we are just
> talking politics and "who gets to tell the story."
Yes, yes, I *know* this ... but perhaps not yet in my bones;
I know this after much head-hurting study of the histories
of the (mostly European) sciences, trying to understand
their triumphalism *despite* manifest failures and
deficiencies. (I recall now that "localness" was part of the
point of my re-casting the Scopes Trial story.)
Still sometimes I am caught unaware whilst reposing in that
EA mental default mode, a Voltairean trance-state which
attends the sweet smile of universal reason bringing light
and civilization to all the peoples of the world. ("the old
scientific arrogance"!)
> But
> wholistic in my lifetime is an interesting story. So I
> will share it...
Yes. Thank you for your faith that telling such stories is a
good thing to do and actually worth the effort. The stories
and experiences you have related here on this list are
invaluable memorials of the human condition - in all its
intense locality - and I count myself fortunate to be among
those with whom you have been sharing them.
> it is considered an insult to the Creator of all
> languages, in my culture, to assume that I know more than
> you do about your own house. In fact my Father would
> deliberately mis-pronounce a word in another language or
> mis-spell it, if written, as a cue to his own ethnicity
> when dealing in other languages. That is the reverse of
> most Europeans who will correct you believing that you are
> just lazy, careless or stupid for mis-pronouncing a word
> in their language. I've saw him more than once refuse to
> correct it saying "This is the way I say it" which pissed
> them off even more. He said "Who would you rather make
> mad, an arrogant ........ or the Creator of All?" My own
> need to explain has grown out of my background with people
> who were forbidden to teach us or allow us to use our
> language but who wanted to make sure that we got the
> Cherokee concepts and processes in English. That makes
> for lots of words.)
Words fail me now. How to express, describe, or explain the
beautiful dignity of your father's practice? How to explain
the moral excellence which displays self-respect without a
trace of arrogance? At one level this comes out: treat
others as you would be treated.
So, thanks for the education, Ray. Glad I provoked you into
it.
all best wishes,
Stephen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Vancouver, B.C.
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