Martin; Hal

[From: Bruce Nevin (Wed 930825 11:50:38 EDT)]

( Martin Taylor 930824 17:10 ) --

A brilliant summary, Martin. I'm even more looking forward to seeing
your presentation on videotape (which I've now ordered from Dag).

Perhaps the appearance of agreement over social conventions is apparent
only to an outside observer. It is an interesting question, then,
whether the notion of the participant observer is chimaerical--the
problem of analyzing one's bicycle riding without falling over. It seems
to depend upon shifting back and forth between participation
(performance) and outside-observing w.r.t. memory or w.r.t. reenactments
based upon memory.

Hal Pepinsky (three posts of 8/24) --

Perhaps you are now guessing that not everyone here shares your degree of
preoccupation with social issues of violence and peace. I am glad that
you recognize, verbally at least, that this preoccupation may itself be
what is termed a process addiction. The experience of disturbance is
perhaps important to maintain if one is dedicated to seeking peace. I
see this often even in Quaker circles, among those who came to Friends
because of the Peace Testimony and Friends' involvement with social
issues.

The etymological sense of "peace" is agreement, cf. pact. Perhaps we can
feel peaceful when at last others can be persuaded to agree with us? But
perhaps there are always more grounds for disagreement to be exposed and
chased in the quest for peace? But in the deeper, religious sense, peace
is agreement with what is, and that is what non-attachment speaks to.
(Someone enthusiastically said "I ACCEPT the universe!!" and G.B. Shaw
replied sotto voce "she'd damned well better!") We here do not and
probably will never find peace in the social sense of complete and
lasting agreement with one another. But we in the CSG (Control Systems
Group) are I think all dedicated to determining what is. We are
dedicated to science in the epistemological sense, frequently at our cost
in terms of science in the sociological sense.

With those distinctions, it may occur to you that you have less to say to
us than you have thought, and that perhaps it is inappropriate to
consider us an extension of your mailing list for your NWOD "look at what
Hal is doing and thinking today!!!" newsletter. If and when you seriously
look into what PCT is about, you may find entirely different things about
which you can say much more to us with far fewer words. I'd welcome that.

And some of us are very much involved in applying PCT to practical
problems of education, social work, and the like. I am sure that you
have observed that the school systems have far more in common with the
prison systems than most folks would like to admit. You might look at
the work of Ed Ford, for example his book _Freedom from Stress_, for
indications about applying PCT to problems of personal and social change.
Ed is an active participant in the CSG.

Do you know the book _We are All Doing Time_? It's by someone who picked
up on Ram Dass's prison work and ran with it, and is about his experience
in that work. I can give you more of a citation so that you can get the
book (probably at cost or free), if you like.

    Be well,

    Bruce Nevin
    bn@bbn.com (still)