Aesthetics and Beauty
Aesthetics has a big impact in how we think. A more generalized aesthetic of beauty may extend beyond purely being in the eye of the beholder. Within the matrix of complex, living systems is a evolving and dynamism that struggles with the contradictions of life. Embedded within the intersection and interaction of trend lines and cycles that interact with each other to create complex feedback loops is a certain beauty and elegance. Beauty is in the integrity of the things out there, and how they come together to create this whole aesthetic of nature, upon which we call home and take comfort in. When we perceive wholeness in the natural world, we feel that we want more of that within our built environments. Become conscious of how the built environment affects you, and perpetuates cultural values. The Zeitgeist is the cultural consciousness that manifests not only in the built environment but also in the social architecture. .
The Cultural-Aesthetic Experience: Become conscious of how the built environment affects you, and perpetuates cultural values—the Zeitgeist. The built environment is constantly affecting us. We are co-evolving with the built environment as it expands exponentially in the form of human sprawl into the surrounding environment. Are we co-evolving in a positive way or are we becoming psychically malformed and disfigured, distant from our essential humanity?
· Runaway exponential growth defines the quantitative measures of modern progress.
· The media reflects the clown-house reality of what we have become.
· Inappropriate technology--when technology such as through television, cars and air conditioning, degrades the quality of life for all parties involved.
Do our modern values fit within this forward thinking aesthetic-ethos--an aesthetic of harmony and interrelatedness, which has a sense of wholeness to it? A gentle nudging of the modern human mind may be necessary to get into a more organic based frame of thinking.
The Subjugation of the Authentic Self: Modern reality is circular: subjugation of personal choice and free will to the imperatives of the marketplace. Free will is replaced with a drug-induced consumer driven numbness, which becomes conveniently misidentified as a paragon of progress, prosperity and human evolution. Within this social existence, people are easily convinced that they still have free will when they do not. The passive state that results from drug-induced numbness conveniently ensures a cycle of denial, which affirms prevailing social values (co-opted by those of the marketplace through the rise of the commercial pseudo-culture). Studies indicate that drugs like Prozac greatly diminish sexual desire. My assertion is the generalized affect of modern life is to diminish not only sexual desire but also an overarching interconnectivity in our relationships. This keeps us from fully acting from a place of intense meaning and passionate desire.
One-Dimensional Reality: On one we level, we have become so psychologically attuned to a present reality that bases itself on a need to consume more as consumers--immediate gratification. We have lost an ability to learn from the past, while we carry with us a shame of the past and of the lost opportunities in both our lives and the collective reality. A constructive sense of the pre-industrial past and its significance on our present experiences is something that eludes us, and this allows us to make the same mistakes perpetually— and so history has a tendency to repeat itself not out of some un-escapable human instinct of attribute but out of the negative, way we see ourselves. We have become trapped in our self-fulfilling prophesy, a perpetual motion of stagnation.
The significance of the past is disregarded in an futile and ill-thought out attempt to numb ourselves from the shame of what we are. Shame and delusion are polar opposites. They are two peas in the dialectic pod of history and they have been necessary so that we could become what we are today. Complementary to this has been the realization that the dialectic of dysfunctionality that defines the human condition of civilized society is not the only way. How we interpret human reality within the living systems of the universe is going to have shift in order for humanity to survive. It is important that we escape the shame-based thinking because it leads us to unconsciously create socioeconomic systems that are ultimately and tragically prematurely self-destructive.
The ahistorical worldview is fostered by modern hubris and allows us to disconnect our modern perspectives and experiences from those of the not so distant past. This worldview denies the value of the past, based on the assumption that the pace of change is so great in the present that the events of the past are insignificant.
1. The political and sociological approach is to explain this in relation to the birth of modern liberal institutions and their evolution in the contemporary society.
2. The less palatable explanation is simply to say that the blitzkrieg economics of the exponentially expanding gigantism propelled by modern technology is what now defines contemporary society and makes it so difficult to reconcile the present with our past.
3. Scientific materialism that has not only dismissed the relevance of the spiritual and the cultural from our lives, but has also sought to emphasize the powerful new technologies that helped to pave the way for an new more rational and efficient process of doing things. These newfangled ways have also helped to move us away from the understanding of how we are tied together with our world.
Paradigm Shifts: The realization of the current predicament should be motivating us to effective action. Yet even those who are aware of the gravity of the situation seem to have difficulty mobilizing into a massive and effective movement for global change. When people point to apathy and denial in the mainstream they often overlook the many ways in which apathy manifests within them. Our genetic disposition causes us to be complacent in the face of subtle changes, such as global climate change and the depletion and degradation of environmental systems. However in times of rapid chaotic change, we can be quite adaptive because our survival is at stake. However, human history seems to tell us that this is often much too little and way too late.
Albert Einstein once said “It is impossible to solve a problem with the same means that caused this problem.” Max Planck, a physicist, said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing the advocates of the old truth and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die out and a new generation grows up familiar with it.” Herman Scheer says “civilization faces a turning point, because we are at the borderline of the present global energy system…(Hermann Scheer System in Flux)”
Point of Inflection: Once we reach the point of chaotic ecological/climate change, the window may already be closed. With extreme weather becoming an increasingly common occurrence I think the probability is high that we are already seeing the beginning of this period of intense upheaval of planetary systems and the closing of the window for change. Jim Fournier of Planetwork refers to this window as the point of inflection. His optimistic view is based on the assumption that these changes are systemic, that is they are beyond the actions of any one individual. This does not means that we should just rest easy and wait for the necessary changes to manifest. Through our actions that we birth the paradigm shift that will power us through the point of inflection. The point of inflection is not simply a place where a quantitative change manifests, it is a point of an intense concentration of metaphysical energy, where reality becomes warped and then inverted and social trends towards increased consumption not only stabilize but eventually decline, in synch with global patterns of ecological contraction and global climate change. Even if we were to achieve rapid reductions, “factor 4” (say 50%) in consumption and emissions in ten years (and this would be a most dramatic achievement), and in the next 20 years achieve "factor 10" reductions, this might not be enough. There is a high possibility that the damage already inflicted on the environment will cause carrying capacity to be reduced faster than any possible or feasible effort to reduce consumption.
EdenSpace: Creating Spa-Like Environments so that People can get the Most Out of Life: How do we create an embedded consciousness within an aesthetic that brings us to a higher, more enlightened level of existence? The human element is to make a home for the human soul: plants gardens and fountains. This serves to facilitate a revelatory framework that allows us to proceed at a maximal rate up the learning curve of life, to overcome our tendencies towards self-destruction. We are moving towards realm of form and moving away from the realm of illusion and thus there is a learning curve to this process of experiencing life, learning from one’s mistakes and then expanding one’s perception of things within the phenomenology of life. When the soul is at rest, we can act from a deeper place—a sacred space.
· Inside, promenade with fountains, art, light wells
· Outside, garden promenade with benches and tables
· Landscaped terraces above ground floor
Read more about The Age of Social Transformation by Peter Drucker