Beyond the dominant paradigm: embracing the indigenous and the transcendental

Futures

Volumn 30, Issue 2-3, 1998, Pages 223-233

  Williams, Ramana ^a  

^a QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMMUNICATION PARADIGM; CULTURAL DIVERSITY; INDIGENOUS CULTURE; MYSTICAL TRADITION; THEORY; TRANSCULTURAL APPROACH;

EID: 0031667312     PISSN: 00163287     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0016-3287(98)00030-5     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Elgin, D., Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness. William Morrow, New York, 1993, p. 14.
2. Hayne, A., Review of 'Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture: Oppositional Politics in a Postmodern Era', http://www.lib.wmc.edu/pub/researcher/issueXI-2/hayne.html.
3. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1993.
4. Bateson, G. and Bateson, M., Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. Mac-Millan, New York, 1987, p. 52.
5. Harman, W., Global Mind Change: The Promise of the Last Years of the Twentieth Century. Knowledge Systems Inc., Indiana, 1988, p. 9.
6. Fisher, W., Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value and Action. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, 1988.
7. Stevenson, T. and Lennie, J., Anticipating applications for digital video communications: two scenarios for Australia. Technology Studies, 1995, 2(1).
8. Hamelink, C., Emancipation or domestication: toward a utopian science of communication. Journal of Communication, 1983, 33(3), 75.
9. Jones, R., Didier Eribon: Michel Foucault. Theory and Society: Renewal and Critique in Social Theory, 1993, 22(6), 435.
10. Tehranian, M., Technologies of Power: Information, Machines and Democratic Prospects. Ablex Publishers, Norwood, 1990.
11. Saville-Troike, M., The place of silence in an integrated theory of communication. In Perspectives on Silence, eds. Deborah Tannen and Muriel Saville-Troike. Ablex Publishing, Norwood, 1985, p. 12.
12. Lawlor, R., Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime. Inner Traditions, Vermont, 1991, p. 193.
13. Ibid, p. 250.
14. Ibid.
15. An example to illustrate this point took place when I attended a traditional Maori funeral several years ago. As the motorcade arrived at the Meeting House and the several hundred people gathered to move onto the marae (forecourt) for the formal speechmaking, a tremendous wind rose up. For the entire period of the orations (over an hour) scarcely a single word was heard, being swept away into the yonder valley by the wind. For the next two days the same scenario unfolded - with each party of visitors to be welcomed, this same wind rose up. Intuitively many of the people present understood that this had great symbolic meaning, some intuiting that it represented the Maori psychospiritual state of disharmony known as 'hau-rangi' - where the mind (rangi) is likened to the wind (hau), moving about vigorously in a state of instability. The deceased had suicided. The question being asked was 'Who will be the one to stop the wind?'. It was intuitively understood that only a person whose words carried great spiritual mana would be sufficient to the task. Late on the second day, a small group of manuhiri (visitors) arrived. Again the wind started. The words of the first of the two speakers for the visiting party suffered a similar fate as those who had preceded him. However, as the second speaker rose holding his talking stick and intoning a traditional chant, the wind dramatically and instantly stopped. This Maori elder, well known around the island for his simple and traditional spiritual wisdom, carried, in his words - and his tears - the potency of truth. This episode, perhaps, was to remind the living, and especially the eldership, that more than anything it is spiritual truth, and simplicity that our young seek after today. See also Brailsford, B., The Song of Waitaha: The Histories of a Nation. Ngatapuwae Trust, Christchurch, 1994.
16. Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching, http://www.cnd.org/BIG5... osophers/Lao-Zi.txt.html.
17. Dissanayake, W., The guiding image in Indian culture and its implications for communication. In Communication Theory: Eastern and Western Perspectives, ed. D. Lawrence Kincaid. Academic Press Inc., San Diego, 1987, p. 156.
18. Emerson, R. W., The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays. Henry Frowde, Oxford, 1906, p. 177.
19. Yum, J.-O., Korean philosophy and communication. In Communication Theory: Eastern and Western Perspectives, ed. D. Lawrence Kincaid. Academic Press Inc., San Diego, 1987, p. 85.
20. Anandamurti, S. S., Subhasita Samgraha, Part 21. Ananda Marga Publishers, Calcutta, 1994, p. 31.
21. Sarkar, P. R., Ideation on Brahma, file i& w10th.txt. In The Electronic Edition of the Works of P.R. Sarkar, Version 4.0. Ananda Marga Publications, Calcutta, 1993.
22. Habermas, J., Modernity - an incomplete project. In Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster. Pluto Press, London, 1983.
23. Tehranian, M., Communication and theories of social change: a communitarian perspective. Asian Journal of Communication, 2(1).
24. White, D. and Hellerick, G., Nietzsche at the Mall: deconstructing the consumer. WWW: http://www.ctheory.com/a-nietzsche-at-the-mall.ht, 1995.
25. Lawlor, op cit, ref. 12, p. 50.
26. Ibid, p. 151.
27. Ibid, p. 49.
28. Bateson and Bateson, op cit, ref. 4, p. 55.
29. Robinson, R., Legend and Dreaming: Legends of the Dream Time of the Australian Aborigines. Edwards and Shaw, Sydney, 1966, p. 9.
30. Chung-Ying Cheng, Chinese philosophy and human communication. In Communication Theory: Eastern and Western Perspectives, ed. D. Lawrence Kincaid. Academic Press Inc., San Diego, 1987, p. 27.
31. Lawlor, op cit, ref. 12, p. 266.
32. Richie, J., Becoming Bicultural. Huia Publishers, Wellington, 1992, p. 67.
33. Habermas, J., The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1, Reason and the Rationalization of Society, translated by Thomas McCarthy. Beacon Press, Boston, 1984, p. 45.
34. Bateson, G., Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Wildwood, London, 1979, p. 18.
35. Robinson, op cit, ref. 29, p. xii.
36. Ngata, A., Nga Moteatea (The Songs): A Selection of Annotated Tribal Songs of the Maori with English Translation. A.H. and A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1961.
37. Sarkar, P. R., Shabda Cayanika, Part 2. Ananda Marga Publications, Calcutta, 1996, pp. 125-126.
38. The mundane broadly corresponds with the physical plane and the knowledge associated with it. Supra-mundane literally refers to 'that which is beyond the mundane' - it is the subtle and psychic plane. Sarkar invokes the term 'psycho-spiritual' to denote that plane where there is movement from the psychic towards the spiritual plane. The pure-spiritual is the plane of pure Consciousness, beyond mind.
39. Anandamitra, A., The Spiritual Philosophy of Shrii Shrii Anandamurti: A Commentary on Ananda Sutram. Ananda Marga Publications, Denver, 1981, p. 142.
40. It is arguable that an exception to this would be the advertising, marketing and mass media industries which could be said to access in certain instances, subtle subliminal levels (the supra-mundane). Since this is typically disposed towards personal gain - financial profit - this type of 'manipulative' communication could be said to fall within the negative aspect of the supra-mundane sphere. In this model their is no longer a simple linear relationship between sender and receiver, nor merely a polysemic relationship, which, in emphasizing multiple meanings, still remains at a cognitive level. The multiple field theory model advanced in this paper acknowledges the energetic -vibrational - level that is also at work. Since, ontologically, within this model, everything is vibrational, we can come to understand communication as being the creation of vibrational spaces. It is not, therefore, simply the 'message' that is at work (the cognitive level), but also, the vibrational space that the message and the medium through which the message is conveyed, opens up. In a very real sense, public and private space becomes colonized by the vibrational frequencies of these type of mass communications. Or, put the other way around, human societies exist within 'vibrationally colonised' spaces - energetic fields that extend from the individual, household, community, regional, national, cultural and civilisational levels. In current formal models we can look to Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields as being relevant here, Jung's collective unconscious or more probably, Sarkar's theory of microvita. We can speculate that these energetic fields are microvitic structures that exist at many layers (from micro (individual) to macro (civilisational) levels). For example, a typical Western university could be understood to have a particular type of microvitic structure encapsulating it. This would be generated by the type of mental, behavioural and cultural activities that take place within that space. Hence, to enter onto a university campus is to enter into a specific microvitic/energetic field. That space has been colonised by a dominant 'archetype' on the subtle (energy) level. The pervasiveness of this subtle structure will work to colonise the 'individual space' of those who enter within that energetic field. For this reason there will be a tendency towards 'conformity' in the mental stratum, including the modes of communication (rational-mundane). Where a person possesses an individual vibration vastly different from the dominant macro-field (the university in this case), there will be an inevitable tension; indeed, the tendency will, theoretically, be towards capitulation or conformity. Intuitively aware of this hypothesized level of reality, indigenous people such as Maori, have for a long time understood the need to conduct negotiations with Government in 'Maori space', where the dominant microvitic structures will privilege the supra-mundane. To this extent, we could expect very different outcomes from a futures workshop held in a university, as opposed to one held with, and in the traditional space of, the local indigenous community.
41. It is not widely known in the West that the symbol utilised by the Nazis - the swastika - is an ancient spiritual symbol utilised by numerous cultures, including those of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely seen throughout Asia and signifies permanent spiritual victory. The word itself is from Sanskrit.