Transculturalism - A New Vision Of Culture And Its Management

VALUES - A CULTURAL AXIOMATIC

From Interculturalism to Transculturalism
A Bilingual (German-English) Exposé

In this essay I would like to address the subject of values, their logic and their management: Values! - Probably no other term has been used so frequently in East and West over the past years as this term. Washington's game of alliances is determined by it as much Europe's. Chief executives of the EU define the European Community as a community of values. On both sides of the Atlantic it presides over strategic, military and economic thinking. Even transatlantic policy and strategy are subject to this key criterion of alliances. The Asian nations might circumvent such a Western rationalist intellectual construct and simply uphold their uniqueness beyond the ken of outsiders. The values debate seems to be globally scaled in culturally diverse garbs and styles. It has taken over the baton from the 20th century's ideological debate to be carried on into the 21st century global arena of worldwide "co- opetition" (US neologism combining cooperation and competition). The baton sprint sports metaphor in a henceforth globally scaled arena sets the scene in the sense that it suggests both tough inter-group competition and best practice intra-group cooperation. Should it, however, be a replay of the old game with higher stakes, we know what we are in for. Therefore the understanding ofvalues as a global cultural axiomatic is imperative:

Either you share the values of the respective cultural group or you are out-group. The ideological axiomatic of the game of alliances of the previous historical era has been followed by a cultural axiomatic. But the fundamental principle of "L'ennemi de mon ennemi est mon ami and l'ami de mon ennemi est mon ennemi" ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend and the friend of my enemy is my enemy") still applies. It testifies to the inability to handle a certain degree of diversity and centrifugality, as this might undermine the integrity of the group. Stability of a system, metastability and instability could be borrowed from science to characterize different states of equilibrium in a system, natural or socio-cultural. Irreversible disequilibria conjure up the end of any system and are, as a rule, abhorred by natural as much as by sociocultural systems.

When in-group diversity and heterogeneity reaches a certain level it is reinforced by authoritarian means as in fascism. Therefore the making of nations frequently leads to authoritarianism and ethnocentrism, because the maintenance of the coherence and integrity of the cultural group requires centralized, authoritarian measures to control the centrifugal tendencies of group diversity by centripetal measures and structures that safeguard the homeostasis of the system, which otherwise would break apart. Depending on the cultural inclination of the cultural group the strategies for safeguarding the homeostasis and viability of a cultural group may take various shapes and forms from outright naked power in culturally authoritarian environments to more subtle mechanisms of inculcating group coherence through parochial and ethnocentric norms and values reinforcement in less authoritarian cultures. Whereas in the former authoritarianism assumes more physical and direct shapes and form which may include physical intra-group fighting and cleansing, in the latter group pressure at all other levels than the naked power coercive strategy of authoritarian cultures will be so strong that any deviation will by collectively crucified at the political, legal and media, informational and cultural level. One might conceptualize the strategies in view of the maintenance of group coherence on a continuum form naked power measures to a wide range of more indirect and more subtle coercive measures across the entire institutional and cultural environments of a cultural group. The type of strategies adopted will depend on the cultural orientation of the group. Coercion will be either very physical and direct in culturally authoritarian environments or more subtle and indirect in supposedly more democratic environments. In either case and in spite of the shapes and forms it takes the fundamental values axiomatic applies.

The principle displays a high degree of universality, while the form it takes is culture- contingent. Group integrity and survival is perceived as a non-negotiable superordinate value which entails a set of integrative values, norms and assumptions. Any attempt to question and reverse this high priority value triggers responses of collective survival in various degrees. At a geopolitical scale, for example, any active non-compliance and perceived reversal of China's One China Policy conjures up a thread of war to protect this high-ranking value in this nation's hierarchy of values. Closer to us the struggle for the integrity of cultural group values has set the European multi-cultural Balkans on fire right at the threshold to the twenty-first century. Even the Superpower that champions freedom and liberty above everything else has been and is at risk of sacrificing its prime values to the still higher value of group integrity and stability. If this superordinate value cannot materialize no other value can emerge in a cultural group.

The consecration of the values of the in-group necessarily goes with the condemnation of those who do not share the vital in-group values for the maintenance of group integrity, their definition as out-group and therefore as real and potential enemies who must be fought. The fight against this supposed enemy further fosters group coherence by focusing group all attention and energies on the common cause. And when this reaches a high degree it may result in war which is a total strategy for the maintenance of group integrity. In that sense the game of values as a group integrator or destroyer causes wars. They are cultural wars as to their mechanisms, although economic and other motives may be involved.

Values are dialectical by nature and the more they are affirmed the more they challenge opposite values. When a critical point is reached the escalation of conflict sets in. The very concept of values is dialectical and triggers various degrees of conflict. - Are values dialectical and take the shape of antagonisms because the entire human psychosomatic architecture, its very neurophysiology with its energetic antagonism, is cast in the mould of duality? Why is this core question not considered to instruct culture research? The scientific investigation of a values axiomatic would require the interdisciplinary cooperation by physiologists and culturalists to provide a further leading understanding of the biological basis of the dualism of the game of values. - Therefore the notion of values must be considered more holistically if one wants to understand human affairs, be it in the political, economic or social arena.

The psychosomatic dualism also seems to be a cultural construct in the sense that cultures like the Indian for example consider both as material. This may also better explain Hofstede's assumption that a lack of cultural identity corrupts. We may add that it can corrupt the mind and due to its somatic interconnection with its physiological base the body as well.

As values are at the very heart of what is called culture, culture is the key to war and peace of nations, although they may be caused by a range of motives, which can be identified and prioritized. If this notion with its logic can have such disastrous consequences one might assume that, if it is correctly managed, it may prevent such dialectical cycles of conflict. And one may further assume that such potent energies as seem to be inherent in culture and values can be harnessed to improve the performance of cultural players, of groups, nations and corporations, indeed, of the one earth with its global cultural group, for similar mechanism apply irrespective of the size of the group. Larger scale cultural groups can obviously trigger stronger cultural phenomena for the better of the worse which are replicated in the culture group's environment as a whole, because increased resources and higher stakes have a stronger and differently scaled impact. Ecological issues that impact the biosphere as a whole therefore require particular cultural awareness and intercultural cooperation in the interest of mankind at large. Is global survival not man's value number 1?

Shared values integrate, their negation disintegrates. They are a matter of "to be or not to be", a vital, existential psycho-social question for cultural players at their diverse group scales. The question then arises, whether cultural players are determined by the game of values as an integrator or destroyer of their existence as cultural players? This assumption would also relativize the leadership impact of their leaders. The values axiomatic, dialectical and antagonizing by nature - because human nature seems to be cast the mould of duality - would therefore prevail over the leaders who can shape the form of the values game but would nonetheless remain subject to its logic. At best they could act as referees who preside over the rules of the game of values. Then these would be simple instruments that personify and enact the game of values which have an inexorable mechanism of their own. Then leadership would be a mere variable in the equation of a values axiomatic which would therefore be the real and seemingly irreversible biological "condition humaine" that conditions all mental activity and thereby the environment. Yet, its fuller understanding might cast a new light on it that might instruct its management. As pointed out above, intercultural/-disciplinary cooperation by physiologists and culturalists could identify the missing link between the logic of values and the dualism of human nature and provide a key to its management as I have attempted to do in the transcultural approach presented in the second part of this essay under the title "From Interculturalism to Transculturalism".

The redirection of a holistic culture researcher's gaze at the consciousness of the observer and perceiver as the supposed owner of a mind with the sum total of its conditioning and programming to which the quantum paradigm invites us should be underpinned scientifically for evidence and validation of assumptions. First and foremost it requires intercultural cooperation between science and social science. This entails a contextualization of culture and values in the human structure a whole which can provide more complete information on the cultural values issue.

Let us go to the root meaning of values, before we explore different generations of culture research in order to find out what their contributions to the management of the values axiomatic as a strong determinant of human affairs can be. For, if we can better manage the logic of values we are also likely to improve the management of culture conflict, of the ultimate question of war and peace and of success and failure in other global arenas such as the global corporate world.

The term value seems to have existed for some thousand years in our cultural area's vocabulary and it precedes the entrance of the term culture into the vocabulary of that same culture area by half a thousand years. Both are, as culturalists and interculturalists know very well, derived from Latin. The root word of culture is cultura and has been used by our Roman Western forbears in the sense of tilling the soil. It also refers to cult in the sense of a transcendental connection of man. So, the physical-metaphysical environment seems to be at the heart of what two thousand years ago has been considered as cultura or culture as we call it today. Today the social dimension of the term is highlighted by interculturalists. This leads to a more modern threefold notion of culture which encompasses three relational dimensions, that to the physical environment, that to the transcendental environment and that to the human environment.

Valor from the Latin verb valere, valeo, valui is the Latin root word of value and implies strength, health and power, also that of words or that of money. So, value implies integrity and empowerment and that fulfils the biological and mental rationale of enhancing survival. A continuum with survival at one end and the maximization of pleasure on the other extreme can approximate a description of its spectrum of meaning. Survival and the quest for pleasure that is what living entities, in particular man, seeks. These two motives, one more physical the other more psychological constitute the cornerstones of the value construct. Survival and empowerment would be a more modern and concrete translation of the more classical and abstract word value. They constitute vital, inseparable motives of life and its enhancement. They enable life and as enablers of life they cannot be separated from life itself. As such their impact on human affairs can be understood and appreciated. Interestingly the Latin expression "vale!" from the same Latin root word valere as value can either be used as a farewell greeting or, with a different intonation, meaning "off with you". The power, the social implications of compliance or non-compliance with value preferences at the interpersonal level, as well as the fundamental dualism of values, their integrative and disintegrative potential, are contained in this Roman exclamation. Those who are familiar with the Spanish language, one of the Romance languages, know that the expression vale (third person singular of Spanish valer which translates Latin valere, the root word of value) is an utterance of approval. That which constitutes a value because it is perceived as being in line with vital interests and assumptions and as life preserving and enhancing is acknowledged by this common Spanish language expression. Anyone, irrespective of intellectual sophistication has this innate sense of what confirms or jeopardizes vital issues. The quest of value as a life enabler and enhancer is a universal cultural feature of healthy non (self-) destructive behaviour Within this universal cultural notion of value there may be group cultural diverse interpretations of what constitutes a value as a result of environmental conditions and socialization in line with diverse conditions. Due to the strong interconnection with the existential reality of what is termed value it can therefore be appreciated at the universal as well as at the culture group level. Due to that same interconnectedness with life itself negotiability of values seems to be limited. Human beings cannot at will reshape and remake the psychosomatic constitution which bears the imprint of cultural values and particularly not in the shorter term. The Japanese anthropologist I. Tsuda, for example said that it would take four generation to seitai-ize (physically coordinate) Westerners, an ideal of overall integration to which his own culture group member apparently seemed closer. What has grown out of centuries and millennia of ongoing reinforcement cannot be reengineered by act of will. This would create an internal psychosomatic inconsistency that could jeopardize psychosomatic health.

All this highlights culture as a powerful force and shows that values may appear as abstract notions on the one hand but with a very real, existential corollary on the other hand and explain the strength and irreversibility of culture-contingent behaviour and of the culture variable in human affairs in general. The abstract notion of culture has acquired a biological dimension by virtue of the logic of values as life enablers and enhancers. The term cultural DNA in analogy to the physical DNA discovered by Nobel prize laureate Crick in the fifties of the past century accounts for the deep-rootedness of cultural issues. It points to the irreversibility of it within human time frames as opposed to evolutionary time horizons on the one hand and to the modern notion of bio-cultural engineering in line with modern biological sciences, due to its endowment with quasi-biological status. This physiology of culture appears fairly materialistic. It is a first step to the study of culture, for if it was the last word by culture research on the management of culture one would be doomed to a determinism that denies human freedom and evolution.

Nonetheless, the train of thought exposed in the previous paragraph make the first generation of culture research, embodied by the Dutch G. Hofstede, intelligible. If one looks at culture traits which have acquired a physiological anchoring through conditioning and its reinforcement over long time, this cultural materialism and therefore determinism may apply. It might be helpful to differentiate between reversible and irreversible culture traits and thus establish a hierarchy of negotiability and adaptability of and to cultural behaviours, which are based on value preferences. When the mental contents - and culture is such a non-negligible content - have been recorded to such a degree as to determine human structures and functions, reversibility in human time frames as opposed to nature's is very unlikely and critical indeed. It would go against the notion of values and culture as a life enabler and enhancer. At that level of the hierarchy of reversibility-irreversibility of culture traits recognition and respect of cultural diversity alone make sense and any however well meaning interference with it would go against the uniquely life enabling and enhancing patterns that have evolved in the totality of a unique cultural context. Those less reversible culture traits, which are part of an extended conceptualization of the combined biological and cultural DNA of man, might be considered the actual cultural stereotypes common to all members of a cultural group. The notion of cultural prototypes, which accounts for culturally normals, hypernormals and marginals, implies variation and stronger reversibility and negotiability. The psychosomatic continuum of culture is fairly unchartered terrain. But thinking in terms of a hierarchy of negotiability and reversibility/irreversibility is surely part of a cultural intelligence that goes far beyond cultural determinism. The study of the dialectical nature of man addressed in the previous chapter challenges the study of his physiology, in particular his neurophysiology. And the study of a supposed somatic recording of culture addressed in this paragraph, which results in a hierarchy of negotiability of cultural traits and which culturally determines human structures and functions, again requires the investigation of the psychosomatic interface. Is there any serious alternative to the study of the holistic cultural man? Can biological and cultural man be separated at all?

Geert Hofstede, a major representative of the first generation of systematic intercultural research was trying to capture, as the myriad natural scientists of other fields of science before him - in zoology, phytology, physiology, and astronomy etc. - the nature of socio­cultural man. He was trying to chart his cultural nature and to develop a taxonomy and terminology for it. He is in line with all other first generation scientists. Epistemologically the human mind - after describing the outside phenomena for centuries and millennia - turns its gaze at that mind itself, in particular its socio-cultural content. The quantum paradigm of the first part of that century probably triggered the trend to also account for the observer of nature in the observation process. But as a first generation intercultural scholar he provides a first generation physics paradigm Newtonian description of the socio-cultural nature of man. His first generation interculturalism can be likened to the first generation physics paradigm. Both can be considered determinist. As a matter of fact, one could argue that major paradigm shifts as those which have occurred in physics and cosmology - in the natural sciences par excellence - which deal with nature, matter and energy, affect all other fields of scientific research. And one may further assume that the study of cultural man will go successively through the paradigm shifts that have occurred in the study of nature and energy. The subsequent paradigms do not negate but enhance the previous ones. They represent the highest and deepest insights of the time into the affairs under examination, physical or social. In this light Hofstede's research makes sense and obeys the law. It translates a certain determinism of the logic of leading epistemological paradigms and as first generation intercultural research it tends to be deterministic. And as the Newtonian paradigm may have underpinned the industrial/scientific revolution and the subsequent quantum paradigm has paved the way to space science and research and the landing on the moon, so will subsequent cultural paradigms mirror and replicate lead paradigms and become increasingly effective - hopefully! And this is the deeper RAISON D'ETRE or Rationale ofthe present exposé.

Correlating culture research to the epistemologically leading paradigms can contextualize and position this research epistemologically and terminate the feud over his scientific work and provide an additional scientific mantle of its own; that of the logic of replication of scientific lead paradigms. A paradigm corresponds to the highest level of the evolution of human consciousness and evolution of a moment in time with regard to the matter under study. As the pearl on a string it is not independent but rather preceded and followed by other paradigmatic pearls each contributing to a more holistic and complete vision of the reality under scrutiny. Thus, Hofstede's unambiguous country culture indices seem deterministic and appear to be inexorable cultural mental software. But, as the following paradigmatic pearl approaches these determinisi cultural index values of culture groups appear no longer as a programming but are relativized as a mere preprogramming. Here the determinism is not enslaving but can be controlled by a human mind that perceives the cultural programming and therefore has the power to position himself with regard to a supposed collective mental programming or culture-contingent software ofthe mind.

By adding additional pearls of insight onto the string of pearls which on completion would constitute the complete picture of culture, each paradigmatic pearl's light sheds a new light of understanding on culture resulting in time in a comprehensive cultural awareness and consciousness that instructs a new cultural management and policy that meet the needs of global man. That is, metaphorically speaking, the roadmap of culture research. Each pearl represents a level of culture consciousness. Only the complete picture constitutes the real jewel. Each pearl is a contributor to the whole and to the holistic understanding of culture in its totality. As long as there is no full circle culture consciousness, whereby the circle stands for wholeness and the sum of the pearls additionally for the wholeness of insight, the aim of intercultural research is not achieved. Each pearl is a part of that whole and if it is properly aligned on the string of pearls of insight it becomes a constructive building block for an increasing understanding of the cultural reality as a whole and a milestone towards a holistic culture consciousness. To become a jewel the string needs further completion.

The section of the string of pearls represented by Hofstede's research must therefore also be correctly aligned to bear fruit in view of successful intercultural analysis and management, its potential and drawbacks must be understood. Here one may say, for example that it opens the eyes for intercultural diversity but if used too deterministically it can blind to intra-cultural differences which are addressed by subsequent paradigmatic pearls. In hindsight we are in the fortunate position to look at intercultural research through the lens of natural science paradigm shifts and we assume that diverse sciences pass through the lead paradigm shifts of the most advanced sciences and that the most advanced ones among them will instruct all others. A break-through insight in one area of the interconnected totality of field of life will sooner or later affect other fields of research. A light that has been kindled in human consciousness somewhere will in time illuminate other conscious entities. By now you will have understood that I am reading intercultural paradigms through the optic of the natural science lead paradigm shifts which have enabled space exploration and which provide evidence of their effectiveness.

As Hofstede's deterministic paradigm evolves full circle the transition to the next paradigm already dawns. The progression from cultural determinism to indeterminism can be framed in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle according to which you can either determine the momentum or the position of a subatomic particle. If you determine the one, the other eludes. Similarly, the insight into intercultural diversity and the blinding to intracultural diversity seem to be at dead angles to each other: The determinism blinds to intracultural variation and the perception of the variation put the stereotypical cultural index values out of sight. The perception of the duality of cultural stereotypes versus prototypes, for example seems to be indicative of a paradigm shift as the paradigm shift introduced by the microphysics paradigm shift. In other words physics and cultural determinism and the subsequent indeterminism can be paralleled.

In each paradigm there is a beginning, a full maturing and a transition to the next. This is the way human consciousness seems to operate and manifest. The whole of human consciousness seems involved as a potentiality which unfolds and manifests in science as progressive paradigm shifts, as more and more enhanced, holistic and more performing epistemologies in natural, social and human sciences, whereby a break-through insight in one specific area of knowledge assumes a lead function for others who follow in time until a fuller understanding dawns and what has been involved is fully evolved and illuminates the entire field of existence.

In our cultural domain the transition towards the indeterminist paradigm represented by the quantum paradigm, which materializes in intercultural research as the interpretivist approach, where the aggregate culture models' values have little sway, is foreshadowed and pioneered by Anglo-Dutch intercultural research tandem Fons Trompenaars's and Charles Hampden-Turner's. Here, the definition of culture changes from determinist, specific dimensional values to holistic continua and cultural spaces needing reconciliation for enhanced cultural performance. A wave culture concept in line with N. Bohr's complementarity principle, according to which matter and energy can either be perceived as particles or waves, depending on the instrument of observation, seems to be more conducive to what they call dilemma resolution through reconciliation of values and the creation of synergies from conflicting values, provided one perceives and understands their wholeness. Here, values are no longer static and object-like but rather dynamic "processes in the mediation of differences" (THT terminology) suggesting biological processes. The more fluid wave assumption rather than the particle assumption, values as processes and the double helix template of life are THT value metaphors and conceptualizations for their integration which endow values with life-like characteristics and confer a quasi-biological status onto them.

The determinism inherent in a priori statistically derived, determined, specific country culture indices is followed here, progressively, by the transition to an indeterminism which perceives values as a dance in a field of options provided by the cultural space - as opposed to a specific value - created by the conceptualization of values as holistic continua with two opposite poles. A specific value gives way to a more holistic understanding of a value as a more undetermined field of options and potentialities which materializes as a consequence of the perceivers perception a values as holistic continua, processes, spaces and fields of potentialities, where the consciousness of the observer - the cultural awareness of the culture manager/analyst - plays a role that foreshadows that indeterminist "quantum culture paradigm" as one might call it.

Why this neologism which approximates a natural science paradigm to an intercultural research and management approach? Because they are both indeterminist from a paradigmatic viewpoint. Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as well as Niels Bohr's complementarity principle are as indeterminist as the interpretivist cultural approach, the third pearl on our paradigmatic culture research metaphor which is personified by intercultural researchers like Brannen and Salk. Here cultural outcomes in complex organizational environments become unpredictable and indeterminable. The specific values derived from the previous generations of intercultural research by Hofstede and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner are relativized to mere conceptual anchors with little if any predicting power for the emergence of new organizational cultures in ventures such as strategic international/intercultural alliances. The subject-object continuum of culture analysis and management becomes indeterminate, because both are variable and indeterminate. The notion of culture as a variance around a mean, i.e. that of a prototype as opposed to that of culture as a stereotype highlights the fluidity and multifactored dynamics of the new cultural context to be managed. To account for it the above authors widen the field of analysis on the one hand and differentiate it to the maximum possible to include a maximum of variables. They include a maximum of environmental and historical variables and introduce the notion of cultural prototypes. They try to capture all variables of the totality of the field to meet the cultural challenge of negotiating and facilitating the emergence of a culturally complex organizational environment.

So, there are three distinguishable generations of intercultural research which progressively expand and differentiate the notion of what is to be analyzed and managed (cultural values and their interfacing). The totality of relevant contextual variables should be accounted for. With myriads of variables interacting and depending on the cultural intelligence of cultural players outcomes become negotiable, unpredictable and above all indeterminate. Therefore it can be considered as an indeterminist culture management approach in which outcomes result from negotiation. And as stated earlier, there may be more or less reversible and negotiable cultural preferences in the process. The progression from the determinisi cultural paradigm in which intercultural research recapitulates the determinisi Newtonian science paradigm via the transitional paradigm personified by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, the so-called dilemma doctors, to the indeterminist culture paradigm which recapitulates the indeterminist quantum paradigm is characterized by a concomitant progression form fixed values thinking to growing fluidity and an expansion and differentiation of the inner cultural space as well as the outer cultural space.

Can there be any movement of the human mind beyond the expanded and differentiated inner mental and outer cultural environmental space? Can there be any improvement of this best practice interpretivist intercultural management approach which is indeterminate, incorporates and improves on the previous two approaches? Can there be possibly anything beyond the accounting for the totality of the field with the maximum potentialities of the inner mental space? Can there be any going beyond the totality of the combined cultural environmental and inner mental spatial field? Or is this presumed wholeness the terminal point of the intercultural management path of evolution? And is that the human cultural condition? (Continues after bold type print)

Or is there something we have hitherto ignored because our perception has been caught by the position (definition and description) of the cultural particle, the cultural particulars and therefore the momentum of human consciousness as a whole has eluded us? And what would be the consequence if we were creating awareness for the momentum of consciousness as a whole instead of the positioning of cultural mental particles alone. What if we were leveraging this quantum insight in intercultural research? Aren't we trying to open a new door hitherto not only locked but not even perceived. It is a matter of pioneering this quantum cultural assumption.

Yes and no! From a strictly intercultural research standpoint it seems to be the maximum possible, the state-the-the-art and world's best practice. So it appears. But let me remind you that we have been assuming and trying to provide enough evidence, I hope, that epistemological lead paradigm shifts are seamlessly recapitulated in other fields of research. Intercultural research strictly speaking is a latecomer, and therefore not a paradigmatic epistemological leader but a follower. So let us turn once more to the leading scientific epistemological paradigms in order to see whether there is a further leading pearl on their paradigmatic string of pearls towards a holistic understanding of the totality of man, nature, energy and cosmology and to use the light of this pearl on our intercultural string of pearls in order to elucidate more of our field in turn and thereby more of the cultural values axiomatic in order to manage it more effectively.

Newtonian physics have been equated with determinism, the quantum paradigm to indeterminism. Ilya Prigogine, Nobel prize laureate of physical chemistry refers to yet another conceptualization of nature and cosmology which is neither (l)determinist nor (2)indeterminist but (3)probabilistic, to creative probabilism as a third major paradigm. How can this assumption be translated into intercultural research?

It seems that any going beyond the two major paradigms has to be grounded on the thrust provided by the combination of science and philosophy of East and West, past and present which expands the psychological space even further and contextualizes culture in an even wider more effective way in line of the needs of the 21st century global environment. The transition from the indeterminist to the probabilistic paradigm can be recapitulated in intercultural research by the transition from interculturalism to transculturalism, in line with the logic of lead paradigms referred to. This expands the two-dimensional and dualistic psychosomatic cultural space in which culture research has operated hitherto into a three­dimensional noetic-psycho-somatic space and may constitute a true quantum leap where there was previously .literally no light at the end of the tunnel. To present this transition from the intercultural to the transcultural approach I would like to include the lead text of my literature shop which explains the lead term transcultural intelligence that similarly transcends cultural intelligence and intercultural competence.

Von der Inter- zur Transkulturalität.
Ein Paradigmawechsel?

Die nátur- und geisteswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse verschiedener Zeiten und Breiten konvergieren in einem Punkt, der einen neuen Blick auf die Kultur und die Interkulturalität ermöglicht. Dieses Destillat ermöglicht den Sprung von einer quantitativen zu einer qualitativen Interkulturalität und konstituiert somit einen regelrechten Quantensprung der Erkenntnis. Nicht mehr das kulturelle Wissen sondern die Natur und die Qualität der kulturellen Erkenntnis stehen im Mittelpunkt. Der neue Blickwinkel ergänzt und optimiert den traditionellen.

Insbesondere die Neurophysiologie, die Quantenphysik, die klassische griechische Philosophie und der Bewusstseinsforschung, sowie die höchsten Erkenntnisse der Kulturen über Zeiten und Breiten hinweg weisen auf diese Erkenntnis hin, die offenbar im Menschen von Anbeginn potentiell angelegt war und die sich mit dem Eintritt in das globale dritte Millennium aktualisieren kann. Somit scheint die Ontogenese und die Phylogenese die Lösungen für die mit ihr einhegenden Herausforderungen gleichermaßen bereitgestellt zu haben.

Bislang war die Menschheit nicht imstande, ihre kulturellen Probleme zu lösen und das Damoklesschwert der interkulturellen Antagonismen bleibt nach wie vor eine der größten Herausforderungen für die Menschheit. Die Ursache dafür liegt in unseren kulturell bedingten Erkenntnissen über die Struktur des menschlichen Geistes selbst.

Der transkulturelle Ansatz, wie ich ihn verstehe, zeigt, wie man auch ohne quantitatives Wissen über kulturelle Profile, individueller, organisationeller oder nationaler Akteure den mentalen Speicher, indem sich die sogenannte mentale Software befindet, für erfolgreiche und nachhaltige Interaktionen auf individueller oder kollektiver Ebene aktivieren, deaktivieren und transzendieren kann.

Doch wohin sollte man den kulturellen Raum unseres Geistes überschreiten? Kann der menschliche Geist diesen Autopilot entwickeln, der ihn die Turbulenzen, gleich einem realen Hightech-Flugobjekt, umsteuern lässt. Die dualistische Sichtweise des menschlichen Geistes sieht - mit Ausnahme der ethisch-religiösen Systeme - keinen „blauen Himmel" über den Turbulenzen der kulturellen Antagonismen. Und in diesem Bereich herrscht das Gesetz der Dualität und der Dialektik, weil er materiell ist und wie alles materielle dialektischer Natur ist. Und in dieser Welt der Dualität sind sowohl die meisten Menschen und Kulturforscher gefangen. No way out!? Deshalb bleiben weder die weltpolitischen, noch die weltwirtschaftlichen, geschweige denn die gesamte Umwelt und Überlebensfrage schlechthin bislang nicht nachhaltig lösbar. In dem mentalen Schiff der Dialektik steuert die Arche der Menschheit auf ein existenzielles Riff zu, auf dem sie zu zerschellen droht, wenn der Mentalbereich mit seiner antagonistischen Logik nicht steuerbar wird. Gesteuert kann er aber nur von einer übergeordneten Kategorie werden, die ihn mit seinen gesamten Programmen integrieren und in eine natürliche strukturelle Hierarchie einordnen kann. In Anlehnung an das neurophysiologische Gesetz der funktionellen Subordination, das besagt, dass höhere Nervenzentren untergeordnete steuern und dass letztere im Fall einer Abkopplung von den höheren dysfunktional werden. Analog erfordert also der Mentalbereich eine übergeordnete Ebene, um insgesamt steuerbar und integrierbar zu werden. Die Suche nach diesem Quid ist also eine existenzielle Herausforderung und das Finden und die wirksame Nutzung einer solchen Ressource wäre die Lösung für die gesamte kulturelle Herausforderung an der Schwelle des globalen Zeitalters.

Die psychische Ebene hat eine regulierende Steuerfunktion für die somatische Ebene. Doch welche Ebene steuert die psychomentale mit ihren Inhalten? Die Beantwortung dieser Frage würde systemanalytisch die Erweiterung der menschlichen Konstitution von einer dualistischen psychosomatischen hin zu einer trinitären ganzheitlichen spirituell­psychosomatischen oder in Anlehnung an die altgriechische Philosophie eine noetisch- psychosomatische umfassende menschliche Konstitution erfordern, wobei die der mentalen Ebene übergeordnete Funktion, entsprechend dem neurophysiologischen Prinzip der funktionellen Subordination die psychomentale Ebene, die Kultur, die in der Zeit entstanden ist, hierarchisch integriert. Die Lösung der kulturellen Herausforderung wird somit in das Subjekt verlagert, gewissermaßen in Anlehnung an das Quantenparadigma Bohrs und Heisenbergs. Das Beobachtete wird hier durch die Beobachtung bedingt: Ein Teilchendetektor liest Materie und Energie als Partikeln, ein Wellendetektor erkennt Materie und Energie als Wellen. Ebenso kann man sagen, dass die Ebene der Wahrnehmung der kulturellen Realität eine gänzlich verschiedene Realitätserkenntnis oder Kulturerkenntnis zur Folge hat. In den religiösen Weltanschauungen des Ostens und des Westen versucht man das Mentale, das heißt, das Produkt der Zeit, seit Jahrtausenden zu transzendieren. Es gilt als Befreiung schlechthin. In der indischen Kultur nennt man dies Bewusstsein-Zeuge, reines Bewusstsein und so fort. Das Christentum hat eigene Terminologien und Metaphern für dieselbe Realität. Physik, Metaphysik und Physiologie weisen also auf eine Realität hin, die eine wichtige Ergänzung unserer kulturellen Forschung, vielleicht sogar ein goldener Schlüssel für die kulturellen Herausforderungen des dritten Millenniums ist, mit dem eine jedes Mitglied der menschlichen Familie potentiell ausgestattet ist und der die Tür zu einer höheren Erkenntnis der kulturellen Realität öffnen kann. Ein potentielles kulturelles Panaceum schlechthin! Die Suche nach und die Identifizierung der evolutionsbiologisch angelegten Ressource, des „missing link" für effektives Kulturmanagement ist Gegenstand dessen, was ich unter verschiedenen Blickwinkeln in „Transcultural Management - Transkulturelles Management" erörtere. Vereinfachend kann es als lediglich eine höhere Spiralwindung des kulturellen Bewusstheitstrainings betrachtet. Hier wird Kultur als solche erlöst und kulturelle Diversität erscheint als eine quantité négligeable. Kultur wird durch eine neue Ortung in der ganzheitlichen menschlichen Konstitution managebar und was zuvor als unlösbar erschien, wird nun zur Startrampe für die Evolution des menschlichen Geistes.

Diese vertikale Achse der kulturellen Bewusstseinsebene relativiert die horizontale Achse der multidimensionalen Myriaden von kulturellen Unterschieden. Die traditionelle „horizontale Kulturerkenntnis" wird durch im ganzheitlichen transkulturellen Ansatz durch die „vertikale" ergänzt, ebenso wie die Quantenphysik die Newtonsche optimiert. Die neuen Paradigmen invalidieren nicht die alten, aber sie sind unendlich leistungsfähiger. Die alten Ansätze sind deterministisch, die neuen indeterministisch, relativ. Die Relativierung und Steuerung der Kultur als solcher, im sozialanthropologischen Sinn, vollzieht sich im Bewusstsein des Subjekts. Auf Grund des dadurch bedingten Subjekt-Objekt Kontinuums bedingt das Bewusstsein des Subjekts auch die kulturelle Realität. In Anlehnung an den physikalischen Paradigmawechsel kann man auch in der interkulturellen Erkenntnistheorie eine Progression vom „Determinismus" (Aggregat-Kulturmodelle) über den „Indeterminismus" (das interpretative Paradigma) zum „kreativen Probabilismus" absehen, bei dem der Mensch schließlich Mitschöpfer der kulturellen Realität wird.

Das Primat des individuellen menschlichen Bewusstseins als Schöpfer und Manager der eigen- und fremdkulturellen Belange führt zu einer Demokratisierung der Kulturvariablen, zu einem Empowerment und der Rechenschaftspflichtigkeit des Individuums, welcher kulturellen Gruppe es auch angehören mag.

Der eingangs erwähnte Konvergenzpunkt der Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften gestattet eine Systematisierung der Kultur in naturwissenschaftlichen Kategorien. Das Psychokulturelle kann aufgrund der Konkomitanz des Physiologischen der instrumenteilen Forschung dieser Disziplin zugänglich gemacht und somit, über die übliche Leihung des Mantels der Wissenschaftlichkeit, wie beispielsweise von der Biologie hinaus, eine echte naturwissenschaftliche Legitimation erhalten.

Die Synergie von Transkulturalität und Transdisziplinarität ergibt eine neue kulturelle Theorie und Praxis. In der Praxis vermag es die Hypothese einer ganzheitlichen trinitären noetisch-psychosomatischen Struktur, durch ihre Integrationsfähigkeit die ganzheitliche Ordnung aller Komponenten der psychophysischen Architektur zu retablieren und vermittels des durch die transkulturelle Intelligenz möglichen transkulturellen Bewusstseinsraums Kultur synergetisch und kreativ zu nutzen oder sie auf einem von der Evolution vorgesehenen transkulturellen Superhighway zu transzendieren: eine wahre Cultura Franca des dritten Millenniums.

Diese gemeinsame Sprache und Plattform menschlicher Kommunikation ist das Geburtsrecht eines jeden Menschen und er trägt beide potentiell in sich und bedarf keiner besonderen Ausbildung, sondern nur einer Bewusstwerdung. Sie kann das gemeinsame Fundament der Menschheit für eine globale Zivilisation des Friedens bilden und die strategischen, politischen, wirtschaftlichen und ökologischen Herausforderungen der Menschheit zu Beginn des neuen Millenniums positiv beeinflussen. Die transkulturelle Intelligenz vermag es, alle kulturellen Antagonismen zu meistern, wenn sich der Mensch dafür entscheidet.

FAQ about transculturalism

Definition: The transcultural approach to international diversity management is not just an alternative expression to the intercultural approach but an enhanced intercultural approach, one might say.

What is it based on? It is based on a holistic approach to culture, based on a holistic understanding of man. The intercultural wisdom deals with cultures. The transcultural approach deals with the repository of culture as a whole within the human psychological architecture and through it with cultures.

Can it be modeled? It has been modeled in my transcultural profiler as an architectural metaphor

How does the model work? The twelve times twelve dimensional model seamlessly integrates the various parameters for culture analysis derived from state-of-the-art intercultural research under a superordinate integrative paradigm - the transcultural or noetic... level.

What scientific principle is it based upon? Structure and function of the model are interdependent in the sense that the superior levels of the psychological edifice have an integrative and regulating impact on the subjacent level. Here an analogy is drawn between the neurophysiologic principle of functional subordination and psychological functions. The neurophysiologic principle postulates that superior nervous centers subordinate and regulate the functions of subjacent nervous centers. If the latter is disconnected from its hierarchically superior integrating nervous centre, it goes out of control. The repository of cultural programs is the mind. It is precisely that mind which lacks, as far as our Western dualistic psychosomatic understanding of man is concerned, a superordinate control and integration structure which could perform the integrative function of the subjacent psycho­somatic layers along with cultural content as a whole.

The research question was what? Based on the physiological analogy, is there a governing principle that could be leveraged so as to integrate the totality of the dualistic human architecture? Science and philosophy of East and West, past and present unanimously point to such a superordinate governing and integrative level of the human structure. Physiological research since the beginning of the past century has identified the law of functional subordination, which coincides with a paradigm shift from Newtonian to quantum physics. Both elucidate a determinant behind phenomena. Based on those scientific insights into neurophysiology, matter and energy, the question arises, whether there is a similar psychological determinant behind cultural phenomena. These paradigm shifts can now be applied to intercultural research. While the paradigm shifts in physics have occurred over centuries, intercultural research hardly had half a century to pass from a deterministic, via an indeterminist to a post-indeterminist understanding of cosmology which is neither determinisi nor indeterminist but a combination of the two and seems to involve creative probabilism. The aggregate models of culture followed by the interpretivist paradigm in the cultural domain seem to parallel the paradigm shifts that have occurred in science. The transcultural approach is another step in the evolution of intercultural research not only with particular cultures but also with culture as such.

How are the paradigm shifts connected? Each one enhances the previous perception and capabilities. The transcultural approach has been involved from the start in the ontogeny and phylogeny. Now the global environment requires that to evolve which has been involved. Is time has come to unfold.

What are the consequences? Empowerment of the individual consciousness as the ultimate culture manager along with his individual accountability; cultural ethics based on cultural performance criteria; furthermore a democratization of the culture issue away from the ivory towers of consulting monopolies. Interculturalists need to upgrade their intercultural awareness building by this higher order intercultural awareness building spiral turn. The combined transdisciplinary and transcultural approaches allow the conceptualization of culture in hard science terms: culture becomes measurable and visualizable; psycho-cultural - EEG correlations can be established; quantum optics-based imaging technology could further substantiate and validate the inter- and transcultural mindsets. A new field of scientific culture research could unfold.

What are the requirements for this approach? None! Deterministic cultural knowledge can be a detrimental conditioning factor of its own and deprive players of human freedom. An understanding of the structure and the function of the human being helps; also a desire and a commitment to perform better interculturally, at the individual level, the group level as well as globally. No conventional preliminary international diversity training is required, although it is no obstacle. An ethical mindset helps. Self-awareness of a higher order is involved.

What is the hallmark of transcultural intelligence? It is an enhanced cq or cultural intelligence which can not only think cybernetically and create cultural synergies. The third level of the constitutional threefold noetic-psychosomatic architecture of man allows the optimum use of culture and additionally its transcendence if conventional approaches do not bear fruit. It can also be considered a cultural emergency measure, as an ejection seat in the face of a (global) cultural crash. It appears to be unique culture management principle, hitherto widely unleveraged.

What is the meaning of noetic? It is the highest level of the holistic trinitary architecture of man; metapsychic, noetic or transcultural, spiritual, pure consciousness are similar terminological constructs. It refers to a structural level with integrative functional characteristics which can enhance cultural performance. The term with this connotation has been derived from Aristotelian philosophy. The modern Greek term has a differing meaning.

Subject-object continuum? The noetic level governs the mental repository with its cultural programs. The individual consciousness is thus empowered with the creation and management of the cultural reality within and without. The perception of the cultural reality depends on the shift of the perceiver's consciousness within the psychological architecture. The uncertainty principle and the complementarity principle also state that the actual perception is contingent on the act of perceiving. Also, religious scriptures (the Talmud) state, that we do not see the world as it is, but we see it as we are.

Is it healthy? Leveragingthe noetic level is a mental hygiene and a high level psychology that can alleviate and integrate.

Can it be termed a cultural superhighway? It is a cultural lingua franca - a cultura franca, if you like - of the third millennium on which a universal civilization of peace can be built, if man decides to transcend individual and collective egos in the interest of man's salvation from the antagonistic dialectics of his own mind which needs redemption by a superordinate agency within himself or divine or their combination.

Why should one accept it? Can you provide evidence? Do not accept it, test it! It's your business as much as it is mine! Do not wait for hard evidence from physiological research laboratories and interculturalists who might have their personal agendas.

Is it compatible with ethics and religion? It is only the second best to strict adherence to true religious ethics, which regulates intra- and interpersonal conduct in the best interest of man. But one may argue that evolution and ethics lead to noetics and the later to the divine, as illustrated by the 12 X 12 dimensional transcultural profiler in the book TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT. They are interconnected. With the transcultural approach you occupy the moral high ground. The transcultural approach is religious and ethical in the sense that it operates like a mystical thread that forms a common bond based on the fact of the fatherhood of GOD and the ensuing brotherhood of man: the family of man. Everyone will have to open the transcultural book according to his own conscience. This realm of freedom cannot be conceptualized and disposed of. Otherwise it would not be what it is supposed to be.

What about the culture gurus? Unenlightened interculturalism such as superficial interculturalism conjures up a cultural nemesis, similar to what has been called medical nemesis by Ivan lllic some decades ago.

Is that really scientific? It is no validated theory but the result of a fairly personal quest.

I have been starting out by illustrating the dualistic game of values as a key to war and peace and to the management in a globalized world. The dualism is just another facet of the overall dualism of the human neurophysiologic structure. To integrate it sustainably one has to transcend the mind with its cultural programming in order to access and leverage the transcultural/noetic dimension where the time-bound dualism and antagonisms by which the entire human architecture, psychological and physiological is characterized, can be managed naturally. The transition from the two-dimensional interculturalism to a three­dimensional transculturalism is an approach to culture management to be tested and explored. This approach is grounded in science, religion and philosophy as well as personal experience and last but not least years of reflection.

Finally, I would like to sum up the totality of intercultural research at a paradigmatic level:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

GEBHARD DEISSLER

MEDITATION

AS

MEDIATION

THE CULTURE OF

TRUTH

Culture Research

COPYRIGHT © GEBHARD DEISSLER 2010

MEDITATION AS MEDIATION

THE CULTURE OF TRUTH

If man is the crown of creation shouldn't he use the crown jewels of this royal heritage - his noblest capabilities - to reign supremely over his realm, instead of being its slave? Uncommon challenges require extraordinary measures. The realm of culture has become an extraordinary challenge.

All human endeavours to solve his social, cultural, political and psychological problems might remain unfruitful, as long as he does not - in addition to doing his best - find the humility and the greatness to put all his concerns and his total being into the hands of his Creator. This type of surrender to the Almighty's will is - far from being a loss of autonomy by individuals and groups - the completion and the pinnacle of their destiny. When the river joins the ocean it becomes boundless, irresistible. Why put candles in the all illuminating light of the sun?

If that sounds metaphysical, just find the point of absolute stillness and quietness, the sacred space inside, where the waves of culture in your mind subside. Then the waves can remerge with the ocean of freedom that transcends conditioning of the mind. As a unique individual you may have your personal way.

That is a way of accessing more of the latent potentiality. And this potentiality is what is required to solve those problems. Otherwise you might continue turning around your own constructs in circles and in spite of the greatest effort you might remain hungry for the hoped for culture of peace, cultural peace which is part of personal peace and social peace.

Also, first and foremost, man has to meet a great challenge indeed, that of the reconciliation of his animal nature and his divine nature. The intrinsic reconciliation of these two cultures active in him, the apish and the angelic, condition any interpersonal or intercultural reconciliation.

There is the old man and there is the new man. The old man is only connected to himself. The new man is connected to God himself. Love of God and the fellowman - and of himself - is the fulfillment of the law. Without love - it has been said by a sage - do what you will, you will only create more misery. Whatever cultural and other knowledge and skills one may boast, without meeting this requirement, all human travail seems to be bound to remain rather barren.

The Divine is latently part of man although he forgets about it. As the son carries the imprint of the father within himself without his being consciously aware of it, so does man carry the sacred imprint of his Creator within himself, although he may forget about it for any length of time and possibly never become aware of it. He is created in his likeness, the Christian Scriptures clearly point out. At the spiritual level he can consciously enter into contact with Him. This conscious spiritual contact provides the communication medium between Father and Son. When he thus listens to the harmonious divine melodies (1) and communes with God everything else ceases: The various problems along with the solutions which he has been trying to engineer by himself alone cease. He resorbs everything and cleanses whatever you have brought to him.

If this sounds two metaphysical just try the mental hygiene of stillness and quietness as a launching pad towards your freedom, freedom from cultural pressures.

He reconfigures and reconstructs the primal DNA, mental, physical, psychological, cultural and so forth, without a blemish. He resets "the system" to the pristine status, before you left him and went your own way; the way of your mind with its labyrinth of conditioning which you now might seek to flee.

The wonderful thing is that He always accepts you back home, however far you may have been going astray. This resetting of man's being into his original divine status is true religion. The liberation from the maze. It can work for individuals, groups, nations, indeed the entire humanity. This magic, mystic key at the spiritual level is always there. Whenever it is used, intrapersonal, interpersonal and intercultural problems can be suspended, because the communion can wipe the slate of the mind clean. - That is the fastest and highest form of mediation! Such meditation is mediation. - All the problems recorded on it and which you have brought along can be cleansed and end. Only the barrier of a lack of humility lets humans not accept this simple, powerful reality of the pristine cleansing power. That is absolution by dissolution of the bonds of the cultural mind; an absolution from the sins of man's erring mind. And sin is an error, the error which has occurred through his distancing himself from Love and Truth. That Truth sets free. That love builds bridges from heart to heart. The spiritual awareness process can set things right. And with it man has a key for problem resolution. The response will come in time, if your will is in line with His will. Cultural issues are a problem of the past if one communes with the Source or with the Creator (whatever your personal assumptions might be) that brought forth the diverse DNAs.

And again, if it sounds somewhat metaphysical, try to rise above your mental programming, upstream to the clarity of the pristine source, to life and consciousness before its diversification in the myriad forms set in. You merely struggle with appearances, the essence is beyond them. So, do not remain superficial. Only at the source you can drink of the pure cleansing nectar.

This communion puts you above the problems. They have no more sway on you. You can take a clean slate home. The communion has wiped it clean. If you can keep it that way, no cultural challenge can play havoc with you. That is, if you can keep up the communion and listen to the Source rather than paying heed to the diverse forms alone. That state records no problems, does not need to solve any. On this way of Truth there is only Freedom, heavenly freedom.

The truth about culture is that only Truth can liberate from cultural conflicts and errors. Truth is God, as much as Love. And He is the only way on which Truth can be achieved. This way is the way of LIFE as opposed to its negation. It is Life itself that cleanses all human errors.

The Truth is that Truth liberates. A cosmic enigma enshrined in the person of Christ for believers in the Christian world. Set the compass on Truth now and forever. Then you remain on the Way - The Way of Life - The way of cultural freedom - Freedom from the cultural burden altogether and strive to draw on culture only to enhance and enrich life. That is its actual purpose. Create something nobler from its dialectics.

There can be no truth besides Truth. Everything else is error of the mind. All problems are errors. Solutions beside Truth are error too.

There is no other formula than that of Truth. No problem can be solved independently from it. So make sure you connect to Truth. Not you solve the problem. Truth solves it. Such is the power of Truth. Only Truth is. If you are not in Truth, you are actually not, because Truth is the only true reality. Everything else is untrue, unsubstantial and unsustainable. Nothing can exist outside Truth, because only in Truth - that Truth which transcends the myriad cultural constructions of truth - is true existence is.

There can be no problem within Truth. If a problem occurs it is outside Truth. The solution consists in replacing yourself within the realm of Truth. There is no other problem resolution.

What you consider as a problem is not the problem. The problem is you because you have left the realm of Truth. There Truth is not. And where Truth is not, there is error; error in every way, in whatever direction you may turn.

There is only one Truth, none other beside it; beyond the forms. One Absolute Truth. Remain in the presence of that Truth.

Remain in Truth as the fish remains in water. Outside the water there is no life for the fish. Outside Truth there

is no Life for you. No True Life.

The Culture of Truth is the only Real Culture. Cultural problems are errors. Within real culture there can be no cultural problem. The cultural problem occurs when you are outside real culture, the Culture of Truth. Only in the unreal culture there are cultural problems. And they cannot be solved because they have no reality. What has no reality cannot be made real. So, no cultural solution can become reality either. You will fight windmills forever until you realize that you are on an unreal battlefield. When you understand the difference between Real and Unreal Culture, the Culture of Truth dawns and with itthe cultural solutions. Unreal culture and cultural problems arise as a consequence of error, of erring into the Unreal which has no Truth and therefore no real substance. And where there is no true substance, true solutions cannot manifest and the error continues until the error of erring in the unreal ends. The moment the unreal ends, Truth shines forth and conflict ends. Such can be the rich harvest of the quest for a Culture of Truth.

And as the Lotus and the Swan reign supremely above the muddy waters and the eagle's flight dominates the most rugged mountains, so can you - if it sounds a little metaphysical - look at it poetically and grow wings that carry you across the minďs realm of cultural strive towards freedom, for man is born to be free in Christ as the Apostle of Freedom and of the Peoples of the World, Saint Paul, declared at the beginning of the Christian era and what is at the basis of its Civilization.

To dream the impossible dream To fight the unbeatable foe To bear with unbearable sorrow To run where the brave dare not go To right the unrightable wrong To be better far than you are To try when your arm are too weary To reach the unreachable star This is my quest

(from Don Quixote in Man of la Mancha quoted form "JOY " by William Schutz 1967)

(1) The author has designed a twelve octaves transcultural profiler, whose upper registers can integrate and harmonize the entire cultural edifice (See Transcultural Management - Transkulturelles Management).

GEBHARD DEISSLER

THE CULTURAL LABOUR

OF

MANKIND

CULTURE RESEARCH

KULTUR FORSCHUNG

Copyright © G. Deißler 2009

THE CULTURAL LABOUR

OF

MANKIND

The labouring of cultures, nations and religions are but symptoms of the whole of creation gravitating towards unity. The wars of diversity are but a reshuffling and reconfiguration of the totality. We look into the direction of the diverse components. Yet it actually it about the total which integrates. The singularities of diversity are bound for a singular unity.

The integration of the universe of universes will reveal the mystery of life. What cannot be found in the parts will make sense when the whole becomes evident. It is impossible to understand an organ independently from the biological system it is part of. Similarly, the mystery behind creation will only become evident when its wholeness becomes evident.

The agent which can enable and impede this perception is the mind which focuses on and clings to components of the whole, because it finds security and stability in them and the price of this perceived security is that it misses the totality, which appears as far too vague to provide the security one seeks. And yet the small securities are all time-bound. The only real security lies in the totality of the whole because it transcends individual time.

Man thinks that if he gives up the small scale individual security, he loses his life altogether. Therefore he refuses a wider reference frame, be it supranational or global cosmic or the perspective of the whole of creation. And yet, whether one adheres to a creationist of evolutionist view of the world, the whole is an integrated, interdependent system, whether it has evolved sequentially or whether it has been created in one seven-day act of creation by a Creator.

Whatever worldview one may have, the totality wants to express itself through each member of it as it carries the information of the totality in it. The member or component of the totality can inhibit this through clinging to what he/she perceives superficially as his/her wholeness, which is a fragment. The totality of life is one and it wants to express itself wholly in each part. Otherwise disequilibria may occur. This applies to individual and to social entities alike.

The individual and collective self focusing on what it perceives his/her interest cuts itself off from the life of the totality of the whole. This creates deficits in individual and social entities which leads to compensatory behaviour to recover what their pursuit of a supposed security has inhibited. Therefore all the dialectics of diversity are but compensatory processes of the negation of the One. For only in the One life flourishes freely. The disconnection form the One means inhibiting life.

All life is relationship, relationship with life, which is One. Death is separation form life at the maximum. Relationship or separation within an organism and with life as such determine an organism's vital viability. When the breath of life does not reach parts of the organism it suffers. And when a part suffers the whole organism suffers. Cut off from the blood flow, which is life, the organ suffers and the organism as a whole. All medical systems try to restore, according to the philosophies of their medical system, the relationship between the parts of the organism as a whole. All political social and other systems try to reconfigure the relationships of the parts of those systems as whole. Philosophy, science and religion seek to understand and reconnect to the whole, to their concept of the whole. Through wholeness he restores his own wholeness. This wholeness means life. And the inexistence of wholeness is step towards death, as full life exists only in the Oneness man intuitively searches.

Man seeks to achieve his wholeness by clinging to parts which are actually the denial of true wholeness. But he cannot find any fulfillment and peace in pursuing them in the parts of the whole and One. Only in the latter life pulses freely and fully.

The totality of creation reveals that which enables it, as the organ cannot explain life, but only the organism as a whole. Life is indivisible. The indivisibility of life constitutes the individual; organically, psychologically and spiritually, structurally and functionally. The wholeness and indivisibility of the individual and the wholeness and indivisibility of creation are not in contradiction, they rather fulfill the law of the one, of the indivisibility of life at their respective scales. If the individual however loses out of sight that his indivisibility and his life are total replications of the totality, a separation from the oneness of life may occur which may impair his indivisibility and vitality, because his life and that of life of the whole of creation are part of the same life. Seeking life at the expense of the whole is a contradiction in term and leads to problems because all life is one. There is no getting around it. The relationship between individual wholeness and the indivisibility of life and that of creation is mysterious, but it can be understood.

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