Re: Theos-World Bringing Power to Planning Research
Sep 30, 2009 09:57 AM
by Govert Schuller
Chuck,
Very Chuckian, heretical, and besides the point.
Mao's sense of power was to use the state monopoly on violence and turn it into a terrorist tool directed on its own populace and in so doing he entered into the Guiness book of records as the greatest mass murderer who ever lived with 26 millions deaths to his name.
Flyvbjerg's agenda, as one reviewer stated it, is such that "social science should aim to generate "power-conscious" interventions geared towards opening dialogue and generating consensus which will enable society to move forward." His social science is indeed tinkering, but in a possibly very effective way, and certainly non-violent.
Govert
----- Original Message -----
From: Drpsionic@aol.com
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: Theos-World Bringing Power to Planning Research
The only person who ever said anything about power worth listening to was
Mao when he said, "Power comes from the barrel of a gun."
Everything else is just social tinkering.
Chuck the Heretic
_www.charlescosimano.com
In a message dated 9/30/2009 10:52:13 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
schuller@alpheus.org writes:
Dear Morten,
About Flyvbjerg's relevance I stated the following:
His relevance to us is twofold:
1) His research might help to understand some of the processes going on
with the development of the roads and high-ways possibly on and around Adyar,
and based on that understanding, to be more effective in having our voice
heard.
2) His research is eminently applicable to the TS and that on any level.
He beliefs in the values of democratic participation and transparency, but
sees the need of an analysis of power as it is actually yielded and the
relations it engenders. One of his main concerns is the relation between
rationality and power regardless of the often fine sounding norms and ideals an
organization might trumpet.
----- Original Message -----
From: Morten Nymann Olesen
To:
_ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/) _theos-talk@yahoogrotheos-t_
(mailto:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com) _
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 11:13 AM
Subject: Re: Theos-World Bringing Power to Planning Research
I wonder...
About Bent Flyvbjerg:
"Flyvbjerg has worked as a consultant to government, regulators,
corporations, banks, national audit offices, the EU Commission, and the United
Nations. He has been adviser to the UK, Dutch, and Danish governments in
formulating national policies for infrastructure, environment, transportation, and
science."
_ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/)
_http://www.sbs.http://wwhttp://www.sbs.http://ww_ (http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/faculty/Flyvbjerg+Bent/)
I find it a bit difficult to grasp how this relates to TS ideas and Adyar?
------------------------
H. P. Blavatsky said:
..."your vaunted progress and civilization are no better than a host of
will-o'-the-..."your vaunted progress and civilization are no better than a
host of will
The same can with a certain kind of truth be said of the present globe and
its sad tendencies in the area of what most people in their minds tend to
call PROGRESS.
........
H. P. Blavatsky said:
"ENQUIRER. Then let us begin with the first. What means would you resort
to, in order to promote such a feeling of brotherhood among races that are
known to be of the most diversified religions, customs, beliefs, and modes
of thought?
THEOSOPHIST. Allow me to add that which you seem unwilling to express. Of
course we know that with the exception of two remnants of racesâthe Parsees
and the Jewsâevery nation is divided, not merely against all other
nations, but even against itself. This is found most prominently among the
so-called civilized Christian nations. Hence your wonder, and the reason why our
first object appears to you a Utopia. Is it not so?
ENQUIRER. Well, yes; but what have you to say against it?
THEOSOPHIST. Nothing against the fact; but much about the necessity of
removing the causes which make Universal Brotherhood a Utopia at present. "
.......
"ENQUIRER. What are, in your view, these causes?
THEOSOPHIST. First and foremost, the natural selfishness of human nature.
This selfishness, instead of being eradicated, is daily strengthened and
stimulated into a ferocious and irresistible feeling by the present religious
education, which tends not only to encourage, but positively to justify
it. People's ideas about right and wrong have been entirely perverted by the
literal acceptance of the Jewish Bible. All the unselfishness of the
altruistic teachings of Jesus has become merely a theoretical subject for pulpit
oratory; while the precepts of practical selfishness taught in the Mosaic
Bible_, against which Christ so vainly preached, have become ingrained into
the innermost life of the Western nations. "An eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth" has come to be the first maxim of your law. Now, I state openly
and fearlessly, that the perversity of this doctrine and of so many others
>Theosophy alone< can eradicate. " (Arrows added to empahsize italics).
_ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/) _http://www.phx-http://wwwhttp://wwhtt_
(http://www.phx-ult-lodge.org/aKEY.htm)
Capitalism and greed interfers all over the globe these days. This is the
real state of things.
To conquer this greed we need other educational systems and an accept of
that Science already operates in Paradigm, which daily have a tendency of
shifting away from Capitalism and greed, as well as the terrible idea of
human made laws and sentences within "so-called" democracies or other political
systems.
H. P. Blavatsky said:
"ENQUIRER. But how does Theosophy explain the common origin of man?
THEOSOPHIST. By teaching that the root of all nature, objective and
subjective, and everything else in the universe, visible and invisible, is, was,
and ever will be one absolute essence, from which all starts, and into
which everything returns. This is Aryan philosophy, fully represented only by
the Vedantins, and the Buddhist system. With this object in view, it is the
duty of all Theosophists to promote in every practical way, and in all
countries, the spread of non-sectarian education. "
.......
"ENQUIRER. How? Do you expect that your doctrines could ever take hold of
the uneducated masses, when they are so abstruse and difficult that
well-educated people can hardly understand them?
THEOSOPHIST. You forget one thing, which is that your much-boasted modern
education is precisely that which makes it difficult for you to understand
Theosophy. Your mind is so full of intellectual subtleties and
preconceptions that your natural intuition and perception of the truth cannot act. It
does not require metaphysics or education to make a man understand the broad
truths of Karma and Reincarnation. Look at the millions of poor and
uneducated Buddhists and Hindoos, to whom Karma and re-incarnation are solid
realities, simply because their minds have never been cramped and distorted by
being forced into an unnatural groove. They have never had the innate human
sense of justice perverted in them by being told to believe that their
sins would be forgiven because another man had been put to death for their
sakes. And the Buddhists, note well, live up to their beliefs without a murmur
against Karma, or what they regard as a just punishment; whereas the
Christian populace neither lives up to its moral ideal, nor accepts its lot
contentedly. Hence murmuring, and dissatisfaction, and the intensity of the
struggle for existence in Western lands.
ENQUIRER. But this contentedness, which you praise so much, would do away
with all motive for exertion and bring progress to a stand-still.
THEOSOPHIST. And we, Theosophists, say that your vaunted progress and
civilization are no better than a host of will-o'-the-THEOSOPHIST. And we,
Theosophists, say that your vaunted progress and civilization are no better than
a host of will-o'-the-<WBR>wisps, flickering over a marsh which exhales a
poisonous and deadly miasma. This, because we see selfishness, crime,
immorality, and all the evils imaginable, pouncing upon unfortunate mankind from
this Pandora's box which you call an age of progress, and increasing pari
pass_u with the growth of your material civilization. At such a price,
better the inertia an
M. Sufilight
----- Original Message -----
From: Govert Schuller
To: _ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/) _theos-talk@yahoogrotheos-t_
(mailto:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com) _
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 9:54 PM
Subject: Theos-World Bringing Power to Planning Research
Dear all,
Just found (and immersed myself into) the work of a social scientist, Bent
Flyvbjerg, with both a pragmatic hands-on attitude and a grounding in
post-modern philosophy of power.
His research is quite impactful in the the field of organizational
planning, especially urban development, and on a more theoretical level. His
'best-seller' is "Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and
How it Can Succeed Again."
_ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/)
_http://www.amazon.http://wwhttp://wwwhttp://wwhttp://www.http://www.ahttp://_
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/052177568X/002-3682203-4012821)
His relevance to us is twofold:
1) His research might help to understand some of the processes going on
with the development of the roads and high-ways possibly on and around Adyar,
and based on that understanding, to be more effective in having our voice
heard.
2) His research is eminently applicable to the TS and that on any level.
He beliefs in the values of democratic participation and transparency, but
sees the need of an analysis of power as it is actually yielded and the
relations it engenders. One of his main concerns is the relation between
rationality and power regardless of the often fine sounding norms and ideals an
organization might trumpet.
He caught my attention because of the term 'phronetic planning research,'
which is how he calls his method. Pronesis is one of Aristotle's
'intellectual virtues,' meaning prudence, or applied wisdom (Sophia: with Sophia
being knowledge about the eternal laws of our being and Phronesis being the
skill to live virtuously in an ever changing context), or savoir vivre, or
situational, circumspective, deliberative, interpretative, authentic, temporal
care of our Dasein (be-ing-t/here)He
The last string of terms comes from Heidegger, who did an in-depth,
sustained phenomenological deconstruction of Aristotole's philosophy including
the virtue of phronesis. According to some Division B of Heidegger's opus
magnum "Being and Time" is one long phenomenological 'un-packing' of human
phronetic action seen as situational, circumspective, deliberative,
interpretative, authentic, temporal care of our Dasein.
The first article is about how he got engaged in his field of research and
is very enlightening, especially regarding his methodology.
The second article is a longer, more abstract venture into a philosophical
and pragmatic underpinning of his methodology.
Bringing Power to Planning Research: One Researcher's Praxis Story
By Bent Flyvbjerg, Aalborg University, Denmark
ABSTRACT
This article provides an answer to what has been calle_d the biggest
problem in theorizing and
understanding planning, namely the ambivalence about power found among
planning
researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to
work with issues of
power. He then gives an example of how the methodology he developed for
power studies,
called "phronetic planning research," may be employed in practice.
Phronetic planning
research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli
and Nietzsche to
Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational
questions: (1) Where
are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which
mechanisms of
power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These
questions are
exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The
author finds that the
questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice.
They make planning
research matter.
_ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/)
_http://flyvbjerg.http://flhttp://flyvbjerghttp://fly_ (http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/BringPow3JPERSubmit.pdf)
Phronetic Planning Research: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections
By Bent Flyvbjerg, Aalborg University, Denmark
ABSTRACT This article presents the theoretical and methodological
considerations behind a
research method which the author calls 'phronetic planning research'. Such
research sets out to
answer four questions of power and values for specific instances of
planning: (1) Where are we
going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms
of power? (3) Is
this development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it?
A central task of
phronetic planning research is to provide concrete examples and detailed
narratives of the ways
in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to
whom, and to
suggest how relations of power and values could be changed to work with
other consequences.
Insofar as planning situations become clear, they are clarified by
detailed stories of who is doing
what to whom. Clarifications of that kind are a p_rincipal concern for
phronetic planning research
and provide the main link to praxis.
_ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/)
_http://flyvbjerg.http://flhttp://flyvbjehttp://fl_ (http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/PhronPlan7.1PUBL.pdf) _
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_ (http://www.charlescosimano.com/)
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