Li Chi and Chu Hsi

Principles of creativity and the one, reflected through the history of philosophy tend to leave one with dualism or a suspicion of dualism. The resolution of concepts such as Plato's forms removed from nature and Aristotle's forms locked with in their various structures are re-defined later by archetypes and the new Confucianists who look at the philosophy of Li Chi and attempt a synthesis or bridge between the two. Heaven or heart is then linked and dynamically active in nature. Other ideas from Whitehead and the latest studies in consciousness suggest, at the deepest layers of the psychic structures we connect to universal ideas or field consciousness. Here neurons become relative to this deep layer. Chu Hsi attempted a similar reconciliation in his Neo-Confucian philosophy but obviously did not have the science to help him.

Richard Woodward in an article entitled “When Bad is Good,” says of contemporary art, “Artworks that mimic soft porn, showcase embalmed animals, mock the Pope, and otherwise offend propriety are filling auctions, museums, and galleries. Is there anything left to be upset about?”

Complaints about so-called art are increasingly common but ‘Spiral Dynamics’  (from Gebser, Graves, and Wilber) describes this and history well -  what began in art as a legitimate need for change and protest in the ‘traditional’ era (Gauguin, Picasso, Duchamp - at the end of the industrial era) cannot remain as protest.  ‘Modernism’ up to the 60’s introduced the corporate world and some confusion in the arts but ‘Post modern’ consciousness (see graphic) already presented new systems, new ecology, questions about personal ethics, and the call for economic justice, although mostly as a form of ethical protest. Now this level of awakening consciousness also needs to move to the integral level to create solutions for today. Protest cannot go on forever. That level of consciousness is already creatively and ethically bankrupt - solutions are now required instead. A new art based on Principles, social relevance, and personal integrity, has to emerge. 

In theology the emergence of the ‘traditional era’ describes monotheism emerging as an angelic influence based on law, hence the harshness of the era. It runs through to the era of the birth of Christ. Christianity then introduces the God-Son relationship and love. Integral theology eventually introduces God in relationship to the  couple and principles which seem to relate to the integral age. Therefore Christianity is also seriously challenged - process and progress like time and tide wait for no man.

National histories also contain issue and anomalies. If a people have been rigorously controlled by dictatorship and are then liberated they will not necessarily emerge into the integral modern age. They will emerge onto the level where their growth was arrested. This would suggest some of the Arab spring might emerge into tribal consciousness then have work to advance towards integral stages. If North Korea were to opened to democracy some evidence would suggest their emergence might open at the tribal or even shamanic levels, somewhere between tribal and archaic - wherever their history of freedom ended. Modernity would therefore require patience and growth. The idea of 'exporting' democracy is a seriously flawed operation, in part because of this.

Integral levels are used in educational theory at the moment and in cross curricular and interdisciplinary methods, as integral levels embrace more complexity as they advance and ask for more complex methodologies. The traditional intellectual European tradition including materialism and empiricism, for example, is therefore innadequate for the modern world as it does not address the complexities of the integral age. Integral education is required, as is the education of character and personal genius. Integral science and biology is actually evident from the 90’s onwards and has made older thinking somewhat redundant.

Integral also describes the personal growth stages in life - can you identify yourself in this system?

Can art be defined?

I noticed the other day an eminent art critic explained he could not define art at the end of a distinguished career. Perhaps the same question came up when a spat (now denied) arose between Hockney and Damien Hirst. Hirst apparently runs a production line, a factory, for his work, employing 100 people. He also claims to get bored watching them (a contemporary malaise referred to psychologically as perversion - various forms of the failure of empathy). Hockney in one post, said the poetry of art is taught but very little of the craft / craftsmanship is being handed down.

The absence of craftsmanship has been a 20th Century dilemma and it is fashionable to ignore painterly skill, draughtsmanship, and the technical qualities of various materials. Pollock's use of house paint is causing massive deterioration in his large canvasses already. Some questions arise concerning the permanency of his work and the philosophy of transience or living in the moment, 'panexperientialism' as Whitehead put it, is sometimes proposed as a philosophical parameter of justification here. This may or may not be relevant but perhaps the use of cheap paint began for good reason in his days of poverty before fame, and then simply continued as a habit.

A recent problem for this author, is the fact that Tracy Emin is now teaching drawing at the Royal College. If one looks at Tracy's draughtsmanship and gets out Lowenfeld's developmental scheme Tracy belongs to the 2-3 year level of developmental layers called the scribble or pre-schematic. In all honesty drawings by actual children at that age have more innocence, joy, spontaneity, and charm. Tracy is an adult a person with life's experiential history- tainted, as one commentator put it.

Around 32,000 years ago mankind was recording thoughts and experiences in drawing form in Chauvet, Altamira, and Lascaux. They were elegant, beautifully observed, rhythmical, poetic and profoundly meaningful, speaking to us about what life was like and what was sacred in that time. Yet these people are not so distant as to be complete strangers. They remain kinfolk in terms of an awakening element of consciousness which continues to develop towards modern sensibilities - at least some modern sensibilities. So what does Tracy bring to the Royal Academy? There seems to be little of the craft tradition and if Hockney is right, here's a dilemma in the modern record of creativity and in our experts claim to expertise too, who seek to define and dictate the processes of art and culture. The governing board of the Royal Academy, in this recent decision, might seem to some of us, more like 'the emperor in his new clothes,' rather than paragons of aesthetic mastery. Is this what Hockney was thinking about?

Heraclitus and Ehrenzweig

When Heraclitus proposed his ideas about logos  (an ordering or design component felt throughout life and the universe) he said many men knew it but forgot it in moments. Ehrenzweig understood something of logos except he called it the processes of the unconscious. The deepest layers of creativity arose he said from the chaos of undifferentiation. This was not so different from the threat of disintegration and chaos tied to psychoses but in the artists case, ego strength and faith in just such processes reaped a rich reward in terms of creativity.

Ehrenzweig goes on to suggest creativity requires a form of diffused attention required by the mind to  grasp visions and structures lying in  the unconscious. This is the artists raw material. This free floating attention is not dissimilar to mystical states states, oneness, or oceanic feelings, as described by Freud. What might drive some mad is therefore transformed by the power of the creative mind into articulate images grasped by consciousness and worked through editing, developing, reviewing and contemplating.

The vague primary unconscious structures then take shape according to the artists life skills experiences and education. Intuition, dreams, imagination, take such structures-symbols and make them into art. If Heraclitus is right Ehrenzweig is too and states we apprehend such universal patterns and structures rich in meaning. In a sense art is simply the immanent vision of ideas held transcendentally within the logos. If all creation, including the human mind, holds to these principles, as indeed the German idealists stated, culture is enriched by works seen to run deeper in layers of meaning as their surface images suggest.

Goethe - Flowers in Italy

Goethe embarked on his journey to Italy in mid-life. He reported a difference in his being which was interpreted as a gestalt, a synthesis of his personality which moved him to a more comfortable and holistic existence. In Palermo his experiences in the gardens led to a striking vision of a flower which seemed to him to contain a deeper design - an innate and natural patterning which would later become the foundation for C.G.Jung's archetypal patterns. Not surprisingly Anton Ehrenzweig in his 'Hidden Order of Art" saw something similar existing at the most basic and subconscious level in the processes of creativity. Even in layers which seemed like chaos, there were  complex patterns of ordering working before the work of art even began to take shape.

Carl Jung followed from Weimar Classical aesthetics (Kant-Schiller-Goethe) and introduced the world of ideas, self, and principles, as archetypes - elements of the collective unconscious. At our deepest level he suggested, we apprehend symbols (archetypal patterns) and it is our job to make something of it through our creative and conscious endeavors. This is his reasoning behind studies of symbols. A full personality-the self/identity he added,  is a pre-requisite for such tasks. It is the fulcrum lying between conscious and unconscious elements. Therefore the psychology of personal growth and the idea of personality were introduced to his psychology (Aion). 

Jung, when looking at Goethe’s experience in Italy - also the model for the self, observed Goethe's  gestalt moment. Various terms have been introduced describing personal growth and personality. Neumann called it 'centroversion,' and went on to say this coming together of the inner dynamics of the psyche was the prelude to genuine creativity.  The 'hero' he said was the one who took on the challenges of life, described in mythology as storms, monsters, seductions, and so fourth and triumphantly overcame them. The hero synthesized such dynamics and energies in authentic creative pursuits. Here the work of decontaminating and releasing subconscious drives to the process of art was paramount. Today one would reframe this as taking ownership of one's shadow and understanding that the negative within us is only the reverse mirror image of what some of our hidden talents might be.  This is the crucial task of life and the necessary work for the creative soul - the establishment of the true self.

My apologies for a long absence. Some medical procedures and a loss in the family slowed me down but I have a new article page which covers a philosophy of art -aesthetics. You'll find it on the articles page at www.dragonflyinflight.ws.


Contemporary studies in Neo Confucian philosophy illuminate the concepts of Li and Chi. In the west the same thing might be described as transcendent and immanent. By a short stretch of the imagination we can similarly move to the Jungian idea of archetypes and symbols then developed into cultural forms or to A.N. Whitehead who proposed we are immersed in a field of protoconsciousness. In other words there are two worlds at our disposal one embedded form the outset with ideals and principles which we can access if their is coherency in our social world, nurture, and education at our disposal which help uncover these perennial maxims. Contemporary psychology supports this and also points in stages to genius - our true self, our character and our calling, rooted in a broader field of consciousness which support our dreams and ideals perfectly. The German idealists spoke of this as the roots of aesthetics - nature at its deepest level in which we participate. The philosophy of Li-Chi explains it thus, “an ever-moving, ever-present set of patterns which flow through everything in nature and in all our perceptions of the world including our own consciousness.” These Principles, which Anton Ehrenzweig touched upon in his 'Hidden Order of Art,' permit access to ideas and therefore forms (art and culture) designed to satisfy, delight, and inform. The following study is what follows from this, not in a deterministic fashion but in processes of choice, freedom, education, and growth.

Civilization and its Discontents

Civilization and its Discontents - once again

The problem with the News of the World scandal (Phone hacking etc, July 2011) is echoed in a number of tabloids yet it is not an ethical dilemma related solely to the media community neither to individuals such as Rupert Murdoch nor to his erstwhile editors. Schiller, shortly after the chaos of the French Revolution suggested, in his ‘aesthetic letters,’ that a culture in disarray prevents anyone from perceiving principles. In the current British dilemma we see editors, owners, politicians, and police, all compromised. As noted by many, the current Prime Minister seemed slow, almost impotent to act, perhaps because of the web of deceit he had become entangled in also. The influence of this, so called, newspaper is far reaching and insidious.

Legal and legislative procedures will probably follow but they are only a temporary expediency. Suppression and repression never works in the long haul. What lingers in the darkness of the unconscious will remain and only seep out somewhere else, probably in another guise, and in a more malignant form. The dilema needs to be examined there in its depth, and at its roots. In addition, certain members of the British public are part of the same malaise; they are, after all, part of the unethical and economic support the gutter press receives year after year. 

What of the problem? It is systemic.The influence of this type of media is pervasive, pointing to levels of institutionalized corruption in a wide array of complicity. We have seen the economic and banking betrayal of dreams for many now heres another glimpse of how far we have really sunk and how extensive this dysfunctional network is. Still, the root lies in the individual and it is an internal problem which moves ultimately to the collective arena encouraging more bad behaviour and finding more support. The cry of justification, “Well he does it too,” then rings in our ears trying vainly to persuade us its all OK. Bread and circuses puts us to sleep. All is well until, one day we are rudely awakened from our dumbed down state. 

Unless we as a people make a choice to look within and take honest stock of ourselves and tackle it at the roots, this malaise will only get worse. Culture is a powerful influence. We are steeped in it on a daily basis. The child, unable to consider it all in terms of criticism, evaluation, and consequences, drinks it in, literaly as an early formative experience. It all seems acceptable, normal, a mileau to which he or she belongs but If we grow up with triviality, chances are we will live triviality, if we grow up with sleaze we indulge ourselves in sleaze and if we are betrayed in infancy or a little further down the line we engage ourselves in resentment and then in rage and we take revenge; the childs response, not the suff of citizenship upon which democracy rests. 

Empathy, the good stuff born in the arly relationships the child forms with parents is, however part and parcel of our early secure base and our later ideals. This has been established as a neccessary foundation already, in work by Erickson, Maslow, Bowlby, Hagman, and others. It is a root a template upon which we build and the beginning of a formative journey towards the aesthetics Schiler spoke of al those years ago. It leads to the expression of empathy in respectfull and warm relationships and it flows into values; all those things we hold sacred, the primary realationship of nurture, the values held within the broader community, and our creativity opening to principles which inform, educate, and delight; open to an advance into the kind of novelty nobody would object to in the end and where no one gets hurt.  All this is a far cry from the violations of trust this episode brought down upon us. There is nothing here which speaks of or draws out the best among us. 

The problem is threefold. The first points to the problem of individual growth, the ongoing search for authenticity, integrity, identity, character, and calling. Within this journey authenticity and principles is the opening of the road to the recovery of virtue. This can only come from th etrue self and one might add it also points towards profound, personal satisfaction. The second, the family, the crucible of our experiences, has to look to values such as commitment, love, stability, joy and all the things we might inherit as a template, our road map for the future. The third, education might do well to further support the internal potential of the child not only of his or her brain but in the development of character and the exploration of calling, the whole self, not just a fragment. This requires some thought. Just how do we introducing the enhancement of character into our curriculums without being too intrusive. It demands a new type of teacher for the most part an dnew methods with deeper understanding. A child holding true to inner qualities and innate talent is more likely to put them to use within the framework of our society in a way in which a contented and creative soul, such as this, becomes a healthy addition to our community, not a deadbeat or an irascible. There has to be an awakening to the fact that innate nature is, furhtermore, an adventure, the extreme sport of the inner world of the evolving psyche and what it might manifest in terms of healthy creativity to the wonderment of all; fun, an expection of joy in life, an adventure for all. Yet we trade this for the big lie.

Culture needs these values before it can claim the epithet. It requires common consent, it needs you and I but if we undertake the task to clear the psychological and spiritual landscape in a serious and methodical way like this, aesthetics i.e. values, principles, ethics, empathy, and joy, will make itself more available to us, enabling a transformation of our present cultural wasteland. It wont be an overnight miracle and it requires, hard thinking, choice, wisdom, and dedication but when will we start, if not today?

I have never indulged myself with The News of the World, the Sun or any other similar tabloid. They don't serve humanity in any meaningful way. They are at best distractions from the real tasks of life. At worst they divert and pervert the innate sense of decency we all might participate in and weaken the will to improve ourselves. They set civilization rolling down the hill like a rock destined for the lowest point.

When asked what he thought of Western civilization

Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948) Mahatma Ghandi replied “I think it would be a good idea.”