Dear Davos, How much is there?

Rupert Murdoch at the World Economic Forum
Rupert Murdoch at the World Economic Forum

News channel  CNN is giving ‘influential bloggers’ a chance to ask world business leaders a burning question at the forthcoming world economic forum.

The question Fourcultures would ask is:

How much is there?

This question is deceptively simple. Think about it for a moment, then if you like, take the little poll to the right of this page.

The answers given at Davos would increase awareness of the way our assumptions are conditioned by the four biases described by grid-group cultural theory. Given the context – a meeting of world business leaders – it can be predicted that the most popular answer by far would be:

‘There is plenty, as long as we  harness our ingenuity and hard work’.

It would speak of, in Rupert Murdoch’s words, ‘what happens when human talent, ingenuity and ambition is given free rein’. This is the world view of the individualists, for whom the world is a cornucopia, to be unlocked by innovation and personal prowess.

The second most popular answer would be:

‘There is enough, as long as we regulate it properly’.

This is the hierarchical approach, and it is to be remembered that, internally,  many large businesses are effectively hierarchical bureaucracies.

Way behind would be

‘There’s not enough – we’ve got to change our values, share more and be more frugal’.

Unfortunately this is the answer of most egalitarians, including a large part of the green movement. I say unfortunately, simply because it’s hard for them to see that when they speak with business leaders they’re often speaking a different language.

Also unpopular would be

‘How should I know how much there is, let’s just spin the wheel and see where the ball lands!’

This is the fatalist worldview, and it’s extremely populareverywhere except Davos. But in their spare time, the business leaders of Davos may well apply exactly this approach to life; indeed there was something of this about the financial markets prior to the recent crash.

These four answers to the question ‘how much is there?’ don’t just contradict each other, they actively compete.

So when the Transition Culture website (a meticulously egalitarian and wonderful endeavour) works out its question for CNN, it’s hardly surprising that the question chosen starts with the words

‘On a finite planet…’

Picture the business leaders at Davos rolling their eyes and saying ‘Let’s just stop right there – who says it’s finite?’

For as long as business leaders think the environmentalists are really just defeatists, we have a big, big problem. Conversely, when the environmentalists learn to translate their words for the benefit of their hearers, we begin to have a solution.

City air makes you free but that’s not all it makes you

In the morning at the railway station the woman sitting next to me gave a big sigh and said,

‘Doesn’t this beat looking at all those city buildings!’

Given the view from the platform, you might see why I felt I had to agree. But are city buildings really all that bad? For instance, Ely Cathedral or the Chrysler Building can surely be  inspiring, not least because they seem to enhance their wider context. The former dominates the Cambridgeshire Fens; the latter sets the pattern for Manhattan.

Jonah Lehrer (editor of Seed Magazine) recently wrote an article that tries to explain why city life hurts your brain, and what you can do about it. He even manages to mention one of my heroes, Frederick  Law Olmstead.

What’s more, Jonah Lehrer’s blog is so interesting, in a ‘popular science’ kind of way, that I’m adding it to the Fourcultures bookmarks on Delicious. Follow the ‘Related Bookmarks‘ link at the right of this page.

Grid-Group Cultural Theory: a way of trying not to fool yourself?

complaints departmentTwo recent blog comments  are critical of the way I have presented grid-group cultural theory’s four cultures.

At journalist George Monbiot’s Guardian blog, TheNuclearOption says:

FourCultures: Astrology at least gives one 12 choices, rather than limiting it to four. People are wild chaotic creatures who at any time can flap their wings and turn into a Black Swan!

Meanwhile, over at economist John Quiggins’ blog, KieranO says:

Fourcultures, i like what Richard Feynman says ….
“Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

These four cultures that you describe, simply find and fool themselves. Science is about discovery.

To take the first criticism first, why are there only four cultural solidarities – why not two, twelve or more? Continue reading Grid-Group Cultural Theory: a way of trying not to fool yourself?

Grid-group cultural theory and hierarchical churches

The Gag WarehouseIt came to my attention recently that there are still churches which don’t let women preach or lead worship.

Choosing the leaders because they are men is a hierarchical approach to social organisation and needs to be set in a context. The other ways of choosing leaders should be noted:

Egalitarian – ‘priesthood of all believers’ (become more like the Quakers and be suspicious of activities that require structured leadership)

Individualist – ‘work out your own salvation’ (become more like the new age and construct your own tailor-made religion out of bought pieces. Leaders are entrepreneurs).

Fatalist – ‘the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles’ (Acts 1.26) (become more like a lottery and embrace chance. After all, leadership is pointless –  who remembers what Matthias ever did?) Continue reading Grid-group cultural theory and hierarchical churches

Is it misleading to say there probably isn’t a God?

The Atheist Bus Campaign story just keeps rolling along.

The latest is that after more than 400 complaints, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority is considering an investigation.

Meanwhile in Australia no such problems have been encountered, since the advertising industry is already censoring itself by refusing to work with anti-God ads.

mithras-westminster-museum-chester

It seems the ASA may be putting itself in the unenviable position of ruling on whether the claim that ‘There’s probably no God’ is misleading. To help the process along I can definitively advise that there is in fact a God in England and he has been located  in Oxford, York, Manchester, London and Chester (see image), as well as at a number of places in Northumbria. This is obviously bad news for atheists, but it may be equally bad news for Christians, Jews and Muslims. The God in question is none other than Mithras, the subject of a popular ancient Roman mystery cult. In fact, evidence of his existence is to be found all over western Europe.

Paganism was banned in 341, but London’s Mithraic temple is due to be re-established by developers in 2009.

There is a serious point to this: by denying a certain type of god, contemporary Atheists risk lending that god some backhanded credibility.


How to Combine Eastern and Western Philosophy

It’s Christmas time and all around people are revisiting the cultic practices of an ancient oriental sect, as though they were at the very heart of Western culture.Three wise men?

The longer I live the more annoying I find the maintenance of the fairly rigorous distinction between two traditions of philosophy – Eastern and Western. This can be defended as a necessary specialisation – as though ‘world philosophy’ would be just too much for any one brain to comprehend. But the more I think about it the more it seems like an ideology, a deliberate dualism to go with those rightly exposed and criticised by some feminists and some readers of Foucault. The West is active, the East passive, the West emotional, the East inscrutible, the West masculine, the East feminine and so on. Do we really need this distinction between East and West? What is it for? Who does it benefit? Continue reading How to Combine Eastern and Western Philosophy

So… what should I believe?

Psychologist Dorothy Rowe has a book out about religious belief, entitled What Should I Believe? She says,

it is possible to create set of beliefs, which allow us to live at peace with ourselves and other people, to feel strong in ourselves without having to remain a child forever dependent on some supernatural power, and to face life with courage and optimism.

What I find interesting about this is the acceptance of the idea that belief  as such presents itself as some kind of choice, while the content of belief is in need of construction by each and every would-be believer. It seems that DIY religion is not so much an option – it’s the only real possibility.

But I think there may be at least three alternatives… Continue reading So… what should I believe?