So the blog thing is new to me and I feel I should be writing an essay rather than a “post.” I’ll back-off my hangups and get in here with some ideas about the Bhutan Hour or Two.
A few of us met to consider how we would use the locale of Gainesville in Alachua County as a model for applying holistic consultancy or electrate activisism, or is it inventing holistic consultancy and electrate activisism.
The “Bhutan” thing (pardon the quotes, parens, italics and other semi-illiterate tricks, but I feel myself being drawn into the blogosphere as I type) is a reference to the constitution of Bhutan, which apparently sets as a purpose of their government, the maximization of gross national happiness. Sounds like a good idea.
Americans are not a happy bunch. In national opinion polls we now have 80% or more of us saying that we are going in the wrong direction. We certainly have our challenges — make your own list. We like to argue about which problems are the most serious and which we should address first. We treat our academy similarly, breaking it into disciplines and arguing over which is the most worthy. And we treat our communities similiarly, breaking ourselves into groups of all kinds and competeing against each other for recognition, resources, power.
Probably not the road to happiness. So can we think differently? Can we bring holistic thinking to bear? Can we invent/discover/unleash a holistic consultancy of people sharing ideas and actions leading to a gain in our gross city/county happiness? Some people talk and practice systems thinking. I think we will move beyond that — we are considering something beyond an engineering approach. Holistic in perspective — economic, political, religious and social. Holistic in approach — humanistic, scientific, artistic and engineering. Holistic in engagement — university, community and business. Holistic in scope – opportunity, quality of life. Holistic in consequence — equity, justice, sustainability and, of course, happiness and whatever I left out of any of these lists — lists are segmented and reductionist. Holistic thinking would move beyond the linear boundaries of text.
And our thoughts turned to activism — probably not the traditional local “activist” model but something that would be a bit more …. holistic. How to engage/involve people not normally involved. How to bring holistic thinking to the entire community — not divided by any of our categories. How to invent/discover/unleash a new kind of activism, leading to a new kind of holistic happiness — I almost wrote “holistic problem solving” — but that’s an old trap and perhaps an oxymoron. Our current modes of problem solving are predicated on reductionist thinking. Not holistic thinking. Its hard to write about things/ideas I don’t have words for. That’s why we have a blog — to work ideas out.
I’m optimistic about our ability to create these things. I am optimistic about our ability to improve gross domestic happiness in our community. If I had worked harder or longer on this post, it might have been an essay, but that’s probably not what I wanted at this point. A blog post is fine.
Tags: activism, advocacy, consultancy, happiness
May 20, 2008 at 5:54 pm |
Alain de Botton has made a career out of writing essays on topics related to happiness: architecture, love, travel, Proust… Here is a bit from an interview.
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Do you still believe in the Stendhal quote, “Beauty is the promise of happiness”?
I think it’s a very handy way of getting to the core of something. When people go “Oh, that chair is beautiful,” or “That table is beautiful,” really what we are saying is, you imagine being happy around that chair. It’s a nicely psychological — and in a way — literary way of looking at the visual. It is making up little stories about it. I can imagine a happy little story. It’s what happens with people as well, when you see someone who looks attractive, very often you think, “This is someone I could be happy with.” You invent a short little story with what life could be like with that person. The same thing happens with visual objects: chairs, paintings, buildings…
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This notion of the role “fantasy” (or imagination) plays in creating an attitude capable of happiness is insightful and relevant to our project.