I wish I were so dignified. Thanks Stephen.
REH
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Straker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 4:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Holistic / a standing 'O'
> 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.
> [Outgoing mail scanned by Norton AntiVirus]
>
>
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