Context Defines A Relational World View

[boagie]

Hi you'all!!

Context defines is an idea the struck me sometime ago, but often little jewels of insight fail to be taken to a fruitful point of development. When I discovered recently the relational worldview of native North Americans so much made sense to me. No wonder they do not adopt the whiteman's worldview, based on the linear understanding of cause and effect, it is a vastly deficient worldview in which to understand the individual. This relational worldview I thought must have been developed through the new general systems theory, or systems science, but no, this worldview is as old as the native peoples of the land, and it is as simple and complex, as the concept of context defines. Its a shift in mindset folks!!!

find below a few links to relational understanding

http://www.casanet.org/program-services/tribal/relational-worldview-Inidan-families.htm#

Relational Studies - Theses

Relational constructionism - Participatory world views

[Ron C. de Weijze]

Boagie, did you know that the word 'religion' stems from re-'legare', to 'connect/join/bind/unite' (Latin) i.e. to relate?

[boagie]

Originally Posted by Ron C. de Weijze

Boagie, did you know that the word 'religion' stems from re-'legare', to 'connect/join/bind/unite' (Latin) i.e. to relate?

Ron C. de Weijze,

Actually I did know and I guess a congregation is somewhat of a model, in a unified community the process would be complete. Actually the way I see it now, it is the only sane approach to life, how is it that main stream white folks did not realize the superiority of this system. It makes the mass confusion of our society more understandable. I have spent some time in the northern communities of Baffin Island but did not really know what I was seeing at the time. I sensed the difference, but could not really put my finger on it as a world view making the difference. Of course analysis was the last thing on my mind at the time.


2) "That which exists is inexorably relational." Relational Studies

[Theaetetus]

Think of the world as content. Content is meaningless without context. The interplay between the two for an individual is the relation of one being to the world.

[boagie]

Originally Posted by Theaetetus

Think of the world as content. Content is meaningless without context. The interplay between the two for an individual is the relation of one being to the world.

Theaetetus,

The real relation for any organism is that to earth, it is through these relations that it must adapt or perish from the earth. Being that the earth is a very big system, those organisms which are found in particular locals, are adapted to a particular environmental [context], as a system within a system, so there are many contexts which are separate but open to the larger system of earth. A relational world perspective is not only most interesting in biology but in the social sciences as well, humanity must start to examine itself with contructive intent if it is to survive. Our own well being as individuals is much easier to understand through this relational understanding, it is in my view, a return to sanity.


"Change or perish!" L S B Leaky!!




"General Systems Theory, a related modern concept [to holism], says that each variable in any system interacts with the other variables so thoroughly that cause and effect cannot be separated. A simple variable can be both cause and effect. Reality will not be still. And it cannot be taken apart! You cannot understand a cell, a rat, a brain structure, a family, a culture if you isolate it from its context. Relationship is everything."
- Marilyn Ferguson
The Aquarian Conspiracy

[Billy]

These writers seem to equal individualist worldview=linear worldview and collectivist worldview=relational worldview.

They talk about time such that is might seem individualist worldview is associated with Becoming worldview and Collectivist worldview associated with Being worldview.

Asia is also said to have a collectivist worldview, and "systems" family therapies do too. The link seems to recommend a systems therapy approach when treating Indian families.

I wish I could explain why I find this kind of exciting.

Billy

From your link: "The European and American linear worldview dominates social services to Indian families. These families, however, use a relational worldview in their thinking. Understanding this worldview enhances the Indian Child Welfare worker's ability to provide services.

On our globe today there are two predominant worldviews, linear and relational. The linear worldview is rooted-in European and mainstream American thought. It is very temporal, and it is firmly rooted in the logic that says cause has to come before effect.

Worldview is a term used to describe the collective thought process of a people or culture. Thoughts and ideas are organized into concepts. Concepts are organized into constructs and paradigms. Paradigms linked together build a worldview. This article will summarize both worldviews and show how family functioning can be understood from the relational view.

...In human services, workers are usually taught that if we can understand the causes of a problem, by taking a social history, then we will better know how to help. Interventions are targeted to the cause or symptom and the relationship between the intervention and the symptoms are measured. Yet, the linear view is narrow. It inhibits us from seeing the whole person.

The relational worldview, sometimes call the cyclical worldview, finds its roots in tribal cultures. It is intuitive, non-time oriented and fluid. ....

Interventions need not be logically targeted to a particular symptom or cause, but rather are focused on bringing the person back into balance. Nothing in a person's existence can change without all others things being changed as well. Thus, an effective helper is one who gains understanding of the complex interdependent nature of life and learns how to use physical, psychological, contextual and spiritual forces to promote harmony."

[nameless]

Originally Posted by boagie

Context Defines A Relational World View

Context defines existence (all worlds).
Existence without context is not possible.
For anything to exist, there must be 'other' to compare/define it.

[Billy]

Originally Posted by nameless

Context defines existence (all worlds).
Existence without context is not possible.
For anything to exist, there must be 'other' to compare/define it.

First to quote from Boagie's links to relational understanding which he opened this thread with:

Understanding the Relational Worldview in Indian Families

abstracted from Relational constructionism - Participatory world views :

"Participatory world views

In many areas of writing and social practice it has become commonplace to think of people and organisations as having content-specific characteristics (e.g., traits, attitudes, structures), and as conducting internal and external processes (intra and interpersonal, intra and inter-organisational…). The approach taken here is very different. Relational processes form the ‘starting point’, these being viewed as the medium within which social realities and learning are socially constructed. More precisely, relational processes are said to construct (a) people and things and (b) relations – as social realities. It is suggested that relations very often are constructed as being between separate and opposed entities; these being viewed as relations of ‘either/or’. However, relations also may be constructed as ‘both/and’ - which invites a view of learning as participation by treating self and other as joined. The present constructionist perspective theorises the processes (rather than products) of social construction. This means that persons and organisations are viewed as ongoing and multiple constructions ‘made in’ processes, so to speak and not as the pre-existing ‘makers of’ processes.

... constructions are considered as.... relational in the sense of always inter-relating connections - many of which are tacit.

The above themes have been developed over many years in many literatures including philosophy of science, interactionist social psychology, feminisms, postmodernist histories of ideas and cultures... Whilst interests differ to focus e.g., on science, on gender, on nature... theorists generally have understood construction to be a process of differentiating and relating. Further these processes have been shown to include (some sort of) differentiation and relating of self and other. So, for example, Self and Other often are differentiated and related as e.g., knower and known, observer and observed, expert and novice... Recent Western constructions e.g., in many science subjects - between the observer and observed, typically construct exclusive differences that are understood as opposed in an Aristotelian logic of either-or. These have been called "subject-object" constructions where the former is viewed as active (knowing and influencing) in relation to some differentiated Other(s), treated as passive, knowable and formable, object(s).
Many have suggested and persuasively argued that subject-object relations are not enforced by the world ‘as it really is’. ...critiques of S-O assumptions suggest that these assumptions may be regarded as relational in the sense of being constructed in relation to particular local (historically located) cultures, and constructed in relation to particular standards (as conventions). ... One possible alternative, already spoken of, is the both-and view of relations in which self and other explicitly are viewed as in inclusive, co-operative relation. This has been called a "participative world view"– ...

An inclusive view of relations seems very radical indeed when considered in relation to an S-O construction such as is embraced by the Cartesian construction of mind separate from internal and external nature (S or O). The latter is a defining assumption of what Sampson called "possessive individualism"
(Sampson, 1993) – a world view in which mind and other personal characteristics are differentiated (set apart), nominalised (made into nouns), and "spatialized" (viewed as something, in some space). In the Subject-Object view S is ‘outside’ of and acts over O (internal and external nature).... In contrast, the "participative" or co-operative (me: Collectivist worldview) view of relations can be thought of as a construction in which S and O are enfolded and co-dependent as in the Yin/Yang symbol. ...."

That long quote might suggest that the final statement by "nameless" , QUOTE=nameless;24662]For anything to exist, there must be 'other' to compare/define it.[/quote]while of course true, nameless holds a linear worldview and an individualist philosophical position.

The S-O worldview is not more true nor more false than the relational worldview.

[nameless]

Originally Posted by Billy

while of course true,

So far...

nameless holds a linear worldview and an individualist philosophical position.

No, nameless does not. Incorrect on both counts. (If you had read any three of my posts you'd have known.)
My actual view of existence is that all moments of existence, ever, are synchronously arising, Now! (And immediately self-anihilate.)
Every universe in Complete in and of itself, One; every apparent 'part' is essentially one and the same as the perceived universe. I and that perceived by this Perspective are One.
I hold no 'philosophical position', but at the moment of disclosure. There might be another Perspective in another moment, in relation to the new universe perceived in/as that new moment. That does not qualify as a 'position'.
Perhaps before making such a presumptuous (and erroneous) assertion, if you are interested what I might think, feel free to ask me.

The S-O worldview is not more true nor more false than the relational worldview.

No Perspective is more true or false than another, but to the 'local' egoPerspective.
All Perspectives are 'correct'/true/reality within the context of that Perspective.
All Perspectives are unique.

[Billy]

Originally Posted by nameless

So far...


No, nameless does not. Incorrect on both counts. (If you had read any three of my posts you'd have known.)
My actual view of existence is that all moments of existence, ever, are synchronously arising, Now! (And immediately self-anihilate.)
Every universe in Complete in and of itself, One; every apparent 'part' is essentially one and the same as the perceived universe. I and that perceived by this Perspective are One.
I hold no 'philosophical position', but at the moment of disclosure. There might be another Perspective in another moment, in relation to the new universe perceived in/as that new moment. That does not qualify as a 'position'.
Perhaps before making such a presumptuous (and erroneous) assertion, if you are interested what I might think, feel free to ask me.


No Perspective is more true or false than another, but to the 'local' egoPerspective.
All Perspectives are 'correct'/true/reality within the context of that Perspective.
All Perspectives are unique.

Sorry. I should have said: At the moment of this disclosure, you held that position [if i read you correctly]