Theos-Talk Archives (September 2009 Message tt00144)

Morten, 
I agree the movie was excellent. 
\John 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Morten Nymann Olesen" <global-theosophy@stofanet.dk> 
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 11:44:55 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
Subject: Re: Theos-World Bringing Power to Planning Research 






Dear Chuck and friends 

My views are: 

Yes, perhaps. 

I will just choose to repeat the views I e-mailed more than 3 years ago here at Theos-talk: 

"All this talk reminds me of the Chinese movie named HERO. 
A beautiful movie on a great legend. 
The movie by Zhang is set 2,200 years ago, during the reign of the King of Qin 
(Chen Daoming), the emperor who united China and built the Great Wall. 

The emperor realises the wisdom behind a sign given to him by the leading role in the movie 
called "Nameless". 
The Sign is called "Everything under the heaven". 
The sign has three levels of interpretation. 
It sort of relates to Arjuna's struggle on the spiritual path in the famous 
script called Bhagavad Gita. 

The emperor says just about the following, when he understands the meaning of the sign: 

1.The unity between Sword and man, makes the master capeable of using anything 
as a weapon, even a straw of grass. 

2. When the sword is in the heart, then it is not needed in the hand, 
and then one is able to strike ones enemy even at a distance of a hundred steps. 

3. The highest aim of the master of the sword is to 
neither have the sword in the hand or in the heart. 
When this happens the master of the sword has create peace with the world. 
He hold it sacred not to kill, but aims at creating peace to the world. 

------- 
The movie is excellent in the sense, that it relates calligraphy with the art of 
the sword. 
- - - Words are like swords. Please remember that. - - - 
So when any write an email at this place, or just an email, they aught to remember it. 
My own self included. 

Peace be with you all." 

- - - 

So certainly Power comes from words in E-mails. 
There was a reason in the old days to the fact that the Swords in country of Birbal the wise was Tounge-Shaped. 
:-) 

from 
M. Sufilight 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Drpsionic@aol.com 
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 7:20 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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