Q is for question and for quest
Whether out of idle curiosity or existential pain, it becomes "important enough" in almost every life and generation to ask questions like "if, when, where and how". Some even ask "why". And depending on the motivation for the questions and the potential in the answers, a few take up [or continue] a quest to "make a difference". Those quests often take one of two paths [sometimes attempting both simultaneously] which appear to lead in different directions. Will James summarized the options as follows:
- the “TENDER-MINDED - Rationalistic (going by 'principles'), Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-willist, Monistic, Dogmatical” ... represented by the statement, “DO what’s right … then LET the chips fall where they will.” ... focus on the journey ... ethical.
- the “TOUGH-MINDED - Empiricist (going by 'facts'), Sensationalistic, Materialistic, Pessimistic, Irreligious, Fatalistic, Pluralistic, Skeptical” ... represented by the statement, “DO whatever it takes … to GET the results you want.” ... focus on the destination ... practical.
In the last century, two world wars and advances in tech-knowledge-y not only extended long-standing questions and quests but spawned new ones and raised them all to levels of global importance. The resulting thoughts and actions ... from persons such as JM Keynes, Simone Weil and AN Whitehead to FA Hayek, Karl Popper and RM Weaver ... became our heritage in this century. It is now our turn to make sense of what they were trying to tell us ... and then to make our own contributions to the dialogue.
Welcome
In that spirit, a group in Wichita KS has formed
- to discuss the 3e's ... ecology, economy and education
- to question if/how understanding them better can lead us
- to think and act in ways that morally choose from and sustainably affirm the value combinations they offer
- to improve our lives locally and globally ... with the rest of humanity and with nature in the broadest sense ... across time.
We hope to form a diverse and continuous working group needed for perspective ... which uses the 3e's to establish a "trope" that familiarly and flexibly describes and details the challenges and choices we face across the wide range of specific but related factual settings which inevitably make up any community.
From the depth of that working group and with a common approach, we hope to select various panels to act as representatives who can interface with others in the community ... through various venues ... to assist with examining and explaining these persistent questions and quests in specific contexts.
We welcome those who are interested in joining us to check out our MEETINGS AND MINUTES page above. We also welcome your interest through Comments in this BLOG ...
The 3e's trope
For an introduction to one potential approach, please read and consider the 3e's trope which attempts to represent the challenging issues we face as being like the familiar issues of building and occupying a household full of things.
"A man's character emerges in the building and ordering of his house." - RM Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, Chapter VII - The Last Metaphysical Right
The first order of business for the working group [even as it is being formed] will be evaluating this trope ... together ... for future use as a shared "method". We need/welcome your input for this important formative task.
... more to come soon