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 The Teaching Arm of St Francis Community                      

STATE  OF  THE  WORLD  FORUM

THE  SOURCE  OF  FAITH

Lindsay  Mell

State  of  The  World  Forum
Occasional  Paper  2007/1

ACADEMY OF THE WORD
March  2007

‘Nothing’s right, I’m Torn 

I’m all out of faith … 

Illusion never changed into something real

I’m wide awake and I can see 

The perfect sky is torn. 

You’re a little late

I’m already Torn.’

From the song Torn, 

performed by Natalie Imbruglia 

‘I’ve gotta have faith.’

From the song Faith, 

performed by George Michael

‘Thanks for keeping the Faith !’

John Lodge of The Moody Blues

at the conclusion

of the State Theatre Sydney Concert

for the 2005 Moody Blues World Tour

Dedicated  to  Faith

Faith can be broadly considered as the substance of belief. 

Basically, faith can be recognised as derived in this substantive sense through perception, whereby perception is realised as the essence of life and being, experience and reality. 

Perception would constitute a broadly fluid dimension of reality and existence, perhaps realised as a phenomenon of harmony, yet also retaining a perspective of essential continuity in a context of relative autonomy. 

Purpose would remain fundamental to this relative continuity, as characterised by a speculative aspect, rather than being imposed from a determinist interpretive referential frame.  Commonly, a cyclical orientation is attributed to the nature of this phenomenon of relative yet consistent and authentic continuity, which proceeds through speculative purpose. 

There is also an organic aspect customarily associated with this cyclical progression in the context of authentic continuity, along with a perceived aspect and/or principle of optimal balance.  Perhaps a further optimal perspective in this respect is to consider the phenomenon of reality as characterised by influential ‘folds’ of experience, through which circumstances and situations progressively morph and meld into existence. 

All these characteristic influences presuppose a particular beginning of the phenomenon of perception, along with the continuity of all facets of reality and experience.  Thereby, each aspect of existence and being can be recognised as constituting a distinctive place and significance in the whole human and universal context.  

Diversity would thence thrive through this emergent pattern of continuity and consistent change.  Change itself could be considered as actually patterned in nature and aspect. 

Deep personal and collective reflection, discernment and perception is required to comprehensively interpret these facets of perception and experiential endeavour.  Consequently, whatever is essentially relevant and resonant in this whole context of experiential meaning and significance can become apparent. 

However, in this context ‘we live in eternal question’, as Albert Einstein inferred.  Life and existence is a quest, a journey, and inherently a struggle to realise socio-personal authenticity. 

Meanwhile, banal unitarian perspectives of experience and reality, which constrain life and experience through determinist orientation, lack relevance and resonance in the whole life context and incremental experiential life journey for each and every person.  

Characteristic of this broad pattern of continuity in the life process will always be aspects of anxiety and doubt, as the inherent spontaneity and speculative element of the intuitive yet tentative trajectory of the struggle to live and exist authentically proceeds inexorably. 

Broad appreciation and realisation of each person and their distinctive place(s) in this context is therefore vital.  

Belief based on faith is correspondingly crucial, with the respective blend of beliefs each person validates and applies being essential to what ultimately comes to constitute ‘the context of moral justification’ (Giddens 1976: 78-79). 

Faith and belief therefore become the substance of existential experiential veracity and authenticity. 

Accordingly, the prospect and substance of what can be considered ‘good’ remains a core tenet and orientation of prospective endeavour as an explicit moral criterion.  

This moral element can be observed to permeate interpretive analysis from pre-Second World War notions of socio-personal human and universal continuity to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s famous hermeneutic method, thence to Jacques Derrida and Anthony Giddens’ respective veneration of whatever is ‘good’ as the valid moral criterion. 

The prospect of the realisation of such a moral trajectory is what sustains aspiration and endeavour towards greater awareness and/or appreciation of socio-personal mutuality and maturity. 

Trust is the quintessential intuitive quality which seems to ultimately sustain faith and belief in this context.  While intent and purpose serve as elements through which trust may be palpably justified, but yet not cultivated and/or sustained. 

Authentic equanimity, evolved through a deep abiding sense of equilibrium, may be considered the ever-resonant touchstone which forms the locus of this ethos and holistic endeavour. 

While a universal sense of Love in the human context can substantiate all collaborative endeavour and mutual maturity. 

Anathema to such qualities, certainly in the relatively recent to contemporary generational context, would be the aspect of atrophied institutional social structure, which is often considered to perpetrate a potent determinist influence on socio-personal endeavour. 

Meanwhile, a deep sense of blighted aspiration, along with progressive socio-personal frustration and ambivalence, characterise the broadly contemporary marginalisation of babyboomer generational authenticity.  This situation has culminated in much resentment expressed in the relatively contemporary cultural context, particularly evident through the pop/rock music (songs) of this era. 

Also patently evident as a prominent theme of this popular cultural genre is the infusion of a particular broad epic narrative influence in the ‘stories’ thereby presented in graphic lyrical form. 

Further, the inherent complexity of ‘late modernity’, as Giddens put this, is a fundamental element of many songs from this era, with socio-personal concerns prominent in this context, along with social justice and human rights advocacy. 

Ever evident is a deeply poignant sensitivity in much of the music of the era, with a growing sense of fragility and tragedy, expressed through often cryptic imagery. 

More recently, a particularly spiritual orientation is pervasively resonant in much of this emergent imagery.

Continuous consistent faith affirms and sustains belief

It is common in this contemporary context of life and experience for people to seek to locate whatever they perceive as the source of their reality and character.  Such a quest is as pertinent and relevant for people as individuals as it is for them collectively as they represent the perspective of common humanity. 

This linkage of human attributes with the source of humanity and human enterprise through the element of perception implies affirmative belief from those concerned, such that a transition through life experience is evident and can be perceived to proceed. 

Belief requires substantiation if it is to remain plausible and sustainable. 

Correspondingly, the perpetuity of belief requires faith to be sustained and affirmed.  So faith, to be credible, progressively requires consistency and continuity.  Only through the commitment to sustain faith persistently, through the realisation of such consistent continuity, can the reality of implicit faith be justified. 

Thus faith is thereby proven through the evidence of its perpetuity, rather than necessarily proven at the outset and applied precisely through each respective set of circumstances which become manifest throughout the life journey of any particular person(s). 

The source of such faith, and implicitly the belief through which it is sustained through to perpetuity, can be realised as a form of essence.  Such essence can basically be considered the context through which the perception which sustains belief and faith is grounded.  Implicitly, then, such a form of essence, through which perception can be construed as derived in its deepest sense, is the very epitome of the source of perception itself. 

Given such a perspective, essence really can be considered the ground of perception itself.  So that perception in the quintessentially human sense can be construed as derived from the universal source of perception, from which it basically emanates. 

Such a universal source of perception serves to provide the elemental nature of each strain and variant of perception, as this manifests through the lives and experience of people personally and collectively. 

It could be maintained such a stream of perceptual influence and endeavour could be realised as a tendency towards a unitarian form of focus. 

Thence the ostensibly random quality of such a fluid influence would be experienced as a dynamic characterised through a sense of specifically channelled purpose and enterprise. 

However, another perspective of such a potentially determinist perspective of perception is that it could be construed as a contrived interpretation through which any fluid perspective would be impaired as an existential phenomenon. 

Contemporary interpretations of human endeavour and development, particularly from the cultural perspective, have tended towards the embrace of a ‘harmony’ orientation and focus for human endeavour, through which the fluid nature of prospective initiative could be substantiated, while mediating any tendency to unitarian conformity.  Further amenable to continuity through such a perspective would be the element of essential relativity which, while also to be mediated, so as to be channelled through any tendency to conformity and/or entrenchment as a basic condition, would require autonomy of acceptance as an existential reality. 

Purpose as a natural speculative element could thereby be accepted and appreciated as a credible human phenomenon through such relatively autonomous perspectival interpretation, provided the essentially fluid nature of such a basic perspective of human initiative and endeavour would be preserved. 

Correspondingly, implicit through such broad realisation and awareness would or could be a palpable sense of progressive cyclical orientation in human endeavour and development.  

Discerned and interpreted from an essentially organic aspect, such an orientation tends to be observed as pervasive inherently anyway.  Particularly in stark relief, such a cyclical nature is epitomised as evident through the progression of the seasons in nature and life.  However, it is also epitomised inherently through the complete character and nature of organic life, realised through the universal progression of planetary and cosmic transition, the life cycles of all living entities, the movement of the tides, along with the whole phenomenon of geographic/ geological change, and the trajectory/ teleology of history, whether human or otherwise. 

Cyclical orientation can be posited as the means through which determinist interpretations of structural perception can be resolved, as Floyd Allport (1955) realised through his endeavours to resolve behavioural determinism as an entrenched aspect of clinical orientation in psychology and medicine. 

Further, Hans-Georg Gadamer (1975) revealed a progressive cyclical orientation of meaning and significance as elements of interpretation, through which people tended to decipher, apply and justify elements of phenomena they perceived as real and true in the context of their experience and existence.  

Gadamer proclaimed this method of interpretation to be the hermeneutic circle, or cycle. 

Meanwhile, theorists such as William Koivisto, following Nikolai Kondratieff ([1935] 1957), identified the prevalence of a cyclical orientation in economic models of human enterprise, whereby what often tend to be referred to as alternate economic ‘fundamentals’ – employment and inflation, progress and recession, for instance – function through a basically cyclical trajectory.  

Through the tenets of conventional economic and commercial analysis, such cycles further tended to be aligned and associated with seasonal patterns of human behaviour, such as the adoption of fashion and styles, or trends.  

Correspondingly, these phenomena tend to be further linked and associated with the organic and/or natural cyclical seasonal transition of spring to summer, through to autumn, and thence to winter, progressively and perpetually. 

Such conventional analysis based on cyclical progression is customarily associated with the phenomenon of balance as a prevalent contemporary lifestyle element.  People tend to refer to the quest and/or aspiration of work/life balance as a cyclical experiential progression for their lives, for instance.  However, the resistant dilemma with any such proposed predominantly structural approach and orientation for lifestyle development is it inevitably becomes too prescriptive and/or obligatory as an existential reference criterion. 

This is why the more fluid amenable pervasive principle of harmony now tends to permeate predominant Western cultural perspectives and the perception of progressive cyclical organic cultural development, as I have discerned and intimated through earlier seminar presentations in this ‘State of the World’ Forum series. 

Consequently, Harmony Day is rapidly becoming a prominent event sequence in the neo-contemporary Australian cultural tradition, infused almost exclusively at the outset through the growing Eastern, particularly Asian, influence now prevalent in Australian cultural mores. 

So, rather than seeking some form of contrived work/ life balance, while this remains an important relevant orientation, many Australians are increasingly learning how to ‘chill out’, so to speak.  They seek to allow diverse cultural elements to thrive, with respect, acceptance and appreciation of diverse perspectives, traditions and ideas as vibrant respective contributions to a fluid spectrum of the organic cultural web, and/or pattern, of mutual collective and (inter)personal endeavour. 

Such an orientation seems valid, reasonable and credible as long as the relatively dynamic nature of this phenomenon is not impaired through any form of insistence on deference to conventional notions of structural balance.  

The interpretation which resonates emphatically for me in this context is that of Gilles Deleuze (1994: 9-10) through which fluid ‘folds’ of experience are realised as progressively folding together into each other while retaining their endemic nature and character as phenomena.  Thereby every situation and/or context is progressively morphing and melding into a new and renewed distinctive experiential and cultural landscape. 

Relative to such interpretation, the antecedent elements and attributes of each and all cultural circumstances would retain their respective distinctive places in the whole organic realm of each particular situation.  Thence there would be no feasible imperative to eschew any elements of cultural tradition and/or influence on the basis of these being obsolete, or consequently irrelevant to the broad cultural ethos and context. 

Beginning as origin – pervasive paradox and the pattern of reality 

Considered from such an holistic perspective, the prospect of what is commonly cited as ‘a new beginning’, such as is proclaimed currently through the slogan of a popular television news network, would be a contradiction.  

Because, once there is a beginning, what thence proceeds is whatever constitutes a vital sense of continuity and consistency from whatever antecedents remain prevalent in this context.  So, there can be no ‘new’ beginning – everything proceeds from whatever ‘beginning’ was there from the outset, wherein all relevance and resonance is inherent, and to which it pertains. 

Otherwise, the idea and image of a new beginning can be quite misleading.  Adolf Hitler, or perhaps Josef Goebbels, early in the years of the Nazi regime, ambitiously and arrogantly titled one of the most vehemently prominent German National Socialist propaganda journals – ‘The New Beginning’. 

Even the image of ‘a new day in the morning’, touted by another television news network, remains somewhat flawed, as there is never really any truly ‘new’ day.  Each and every day retains certain predominant character elements which render it akin to all preceding days throughout time.  

However, each day will also retain character elements which distinguish it distinctively from each and every other day throughout time, thereby rendering a pervasive quality of paradox in the context of each situation, pertinent to the dynamics thence evident. 

Indeed, if we follow Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s broad analysis ([1903] 1963), all circumstances and every situation in life resides in pervasive paradox, such that paradox is a definitive element in human experience, interpretation and analysis. 

Consequently, the whole notion of entrenched dichotomy as a primary element in human experience can be construed as mediated through this preponderance of paradox.  Duality can be rendered recessive through such a perspectival thread of analysis, so that adversarial positioning and competition can be mediated. 

This situation would proceed through the broad diversity of perspective opened out from the basic appreciation of any and every such perspective from the optimal range of perception elements.  Perception channels thereby would not be limited to either a couple or a few competing perspectives, but would be manifested through the diverse streams of awareness and realisation intertwined and melded into existence through myriad circumstances.  

Yet these elements would retain their distinctive place(s) and contributions to each and every particular situation, while characterised definitively through the human and universal context of a profound state of flux. 

The reality of a particular origin or source from which all beginning proceeds obviates the corresponding reality through which continuity thence ensues, through the particular trajectory of reality which consequently comes to predominate. 

Therefore, such a broad perspective substantiates the very continuity of reality which in itself reveals a specific trajectory, and therefore pattern, through which reality proceeds over time. 

Reality is whatever happens over time … 

And as reality forms into a perspective of continuity, this phenomenon can thereby be described as a pattern. 

Albeit, however, this is a fluid pattern – not a static one.  

The reality of change itself – the ever variegated plethora of diversity which characterises our lives in the context of our many faceted circumstances and situations – constitutes substantial evidence of a particular trajectory and pattern as a whole phenomenon.  Change is in itself patterned in nature and aspect. 

So when it is proposed, as is often so in the contemporary socio-cultural context, that change is endemic and ought to be embraced, then it is important to know what form of change is proposed.  As all and each of us contribute to change in each of our respective distinctive ways, then it behoves us to seek to form and mould change in the way(s) we would authentically and earnestly propose for it to proceed.  At least we could thereby contribute according to our respective perspective(s) of the trajectory of change, and thereby reality, rather than being convinced certain specific change is both inexorable and beyond our influence, which are common presumptions. 

Such a prospect requires quality reflection, discernment and perception from us, such endeavour being a responsibility which we would better apply through genuine earnest and authentic reflection, rather than through any rapid impulsive embrace of change, whether for its own sake or otherwise. 

Consequently, it would be anathema for anyone to insist too emphatically that all their aspirations be realised comprehensively.  Because their particular ‘wants’, even when elicited holistically, may yet not broadly concur with the universal dynamic of destiny according to any absolute comprehensive interpretation. 

Some modification and amendment may be required for any given situation to feasibly and optimally blend with the given prevailing circumstances.  As long as ample awareness and realisation of the pertinent situational pattern of reality is discerned and perceived, then those concerned would be well placed to purvey their respective contribution(s) and benefit accordingly, while all concerned would thence also benefit.  

Such broad discernment and perception would substantiate and affirm the meaning derived through realised significance of any particular situation and circumstances in question.  This would thereby serve to clarify and obviate the form through which the hermeneutic interpretation implied would be perceived as in process. 

Whatever is or may be relevant and resonant in this whole context could then be explored, considered and affirmed, with ample appreciation of the intuitive element of discernment in all this.  Thence the place of each distinctive socio-personal contribution in the whole context would become definitively evident through the course of time. 

What therefore becomes vital in all this is the place of each person in the whole broad context of life and experience, because everyone retains a distinctive place in this broad pattern which is relevant and resonant in this whole context. 

Thus, through reflection on Albert Einstein’s purported broad perspective that ‘we live in eternal question’, in relation to his basic affirmation of the importance of imagination as a creative beneficent element, we could realise the sense of what Einstein sought to convey through his observation.  This would be the reality that we live in an existential context in which the primary characteristic of our human nature is for us to remain ‘questioning’, and by implication questing, beings. 

Our nature amid the phenomenon of our lives is to ask why – why all this exists, why we are here, and by implication what is the relationship of all these elements of our reality and existence. 

Imagination is perhaps our vital attribute or quality in this quest, for Einstein.  However, it seems unlikely he would have proposed to apply imagination through some random arbitrary form or method, as if imagination were simply little more than a tool for procuring innovative ideas to enable us to be deemed clever in the broad context of life.  Instead it would seem he would have envisaged imagination would constitute an intuitive quality through which we could seek to discern what was relevant and resonant relative to the comprehensive dynamics of any given situation and/or enterprise.  

Thence these situational dynamics could be located in the broad socio-personal and cultural context, such that they could be adequately appreciated and realised comprehensively, consistently and authentically.  

These dynamics would thence constitute the resonant substantial pattern of the collaborative mutual reality and phenomena of our existence and identity as these facets of our experience would remain pertinent for us. 

Therefore, there is a feasible alternative to us being relatively passive participant-observers in the ‘room’ of our universe and reality in the context of which we seem to ‘find’ ourselves located throughout our lives, thereby to ‘open ourselves’ to whatever we find in this room.  This is broadly how ‘imagination’ is described through another prominent television network promotional display. 

Rather, we can contribute respectively and distinctively to this broad phenomenon and context through our particular facets of intuitive speculative perception, perspective and reason. 

However, in ‘working out’ what is going on specifically relative to this broad phenomenon, if we were to ‘live as one throughout’ – through a form of harmony and/or unity, effectively, as suggested by another television network promotional – then presumably we would not achieve this authentically if we were to rely on a banal constricted form of unity.  

Rather, the spontaneous dynamic of a fluid melded unfolding form of phenomenon, implied through the sense of harmony and intuitive continuity as the broad experiential pattern of existence and reality, would constitute a situation whereby diversity and renewal would prevail as an ever spontaneous thread of experiential realisation and awareness. 

Consequently, ‘fear and doubt’ would remain evident as forms of ‘reality check’ through which our questioning, questing nature could be substantiated, and through which the continuity of life and experience could be perpetuated authentically.  Some elements of fear and doubt, potentially expressed through reasonable concern and critique for instance, could thence be retained in this context.  However, no imperative for these to subsist as prevalent agents need be presumed obligatory. 

The sense implied here is that life and experience is, after all, essentially a socio-personal and cultural struggle.  This is perhaps more pertinently epitomised as a struggle for appreciation, expression, recognition and realisation of aspiration and identity in the developed Western context.  

Such a validation of struggle further implies the modest sense that there is always more to learn through life and experience.  Life is optimally perceived as an incremental learning journey through which each gradual development is a new yet related opportunity for progressive realisation. 

Given these circumstances, doubt is always evident as the received pretext for learning.  While temporary anxiety, as a facet of fear, will also manifest as mandatory in this.  These are not necessarily negative characteristics in this particular form, however.  These attributes can form a source of affirmation for the ‘quest’ to substantiate learning and awareness achieved towards the realisation of given aspirations and facets of identity. 

Such an aspect of struggle serves as the optimal nature of the quest to fulfilment throughout life, as the plausible resolution and antidote to the severe sense of socio-personal and cultural marginalisation which is a common dilemma in the context of the life journey. 

Thereby, the customary resort to competitive adversarial behaviour and relations can be channelled into collaborative collective endeavour which contributes distinctively to the broad pattern and continuity of the whole life process. 

What emerges as the focal element of this vital quest of life and experience is the quality of faith.  Each person requires a certain aspect of faith in themselves and each other to proceed adequately with their life journey(s).  This can only be affirmed through the propensity and courage to broaden incrementally appreciation and realisation of each other person(s) in this, and their distinctive respective place(s) in the whole life context. 

 

Earnest collaboration and mutual maturity through intuition 

– the blended pattern of life and experience

This can only be affirmed through the propensity and courage to broaden incrementally the appreciation and realisation of each other person(s) and their respective distinctive place(s) in the whole life context.  Ideally, this requires some comprehensive personal dedication to this noble dynamic quest. 

Faith is grounded in belief and, as G K Chesterton has observed pertinently, those who fail to remain earnest and authentic in discerning and elucidating their basic belief imperatives are likely to ultimately realise that virtually ‘anything’ comes to substantiate their basic belief. 

Clearly, ‘anything’ is not a firm vibrant substantial pretext as the basis of belief. 

Belief in this context, and from this perspective, is thence clearly vital.  

It constitutes the existential and experiential ground which forms the basis of faith.  Thus whatever substantiation and foundation of belief anyone forms out as the veracity and validity of their faith will be critical to how they prove, establish and orient their life journey(s) and experience.  Based on these considerations, then, the reality of faith as a human phenomenon is more of an outcome than a precipitative element.  Whereas, the belief ground and orientation anyone establishes for their faith is critical as the existential and experiential ground, initiative and intent which supports their faith. 

Considered from this perspective, the particular content and blend of beliefs anyone develops, accepts and applies is less critical than the faith which emerges from this ground of belief.  Because everyone will establish different tenets of belief according to their respective place(s) in life and experience, while the broad aspect of life and humanity will continuously and perpetually comprise a rich diversity of belief affirmation. 

The relevance and resonance implied in the reality of personal and collective faith is to endeavour always to establish, accept and nurture such a faith orientation.  Implicit as a consequence of this situation is the initiative to apply cooperation, and the consensus which affirms this, such as through what is vaguely inferred as common sense.  Such initiative implies a spirit of earnest collective collaboration, allowing a resonantly speculative intuitive approach to prevail. 

Collective moral responsibility, realised through a context of moral justification, following the work of Anthony Giddens, would provide the means through which to apply such collaboration.  There would be a firm prospect of what I refer to as a broad aspect of mutual maturity being acquired throughout the course of this noble endeavour and/or enterprise. 

Through this experiential process, the sense of purpose and aspiration each person realises through the blended pattern of life and experience would thence become relevant and resonant throughout the whole context of reality and humanity. 

This would provide the substantial existential ground through which particular forms of motives and intent could be affirmed.  Thence the vital values and beliefs through which specific perspectives and forms of faith are generated and evolved could be validated and applied. 

Such a phenomenon would resemble the form of ‘meaningful relatedness’ George Simmel (Gadamer 1975: 65) considered to be the epitome of optimal collective human endeavour, in the context of proactive ‘communicative ethics’.  

Such ethics was considered vital to human endeavour, as Jurgen Habermas  (Benhabib 1992: 73) recognised in this broad ‘context of moral justification’ so resonant for Giddens. 

Given such a perspective, there will always be a purposeful place for whatever is considered ‘good’, and thence beneficial, in the whole context of life and experience, following the trajectory which is enunciated throughout the work(s) of Alfred North Whitehead, George Santayana, along with Chesterton.  

This is resonantly affirmed in the relatively contemporary sense cited through Jacques Derrida’s (Michelfelder and Palmer 1989) famous public declaration of what is ‘good’ as implicit in human relations and expression.  This perspective is also thereby implied as an elemental focus of Gadamer’s hermeneutic interpretive method. 

Faith is substantiated through belief.  

Hence belief is basically evident as the source of faith. 

Consequently, faith is the ground through which people collectively, as personal representatives of common humanity, are able to nourish collaborative human endeavour.  Considered from this perspective, faith can be affirmed as a form of organic catalyst through which human endeavour can be established and constituted. 

Correspondingly, belief is just as vital in this organic human context as the means through which faith can be appropriated. 

If such interactive faith and belief is reliable in its veracity and authenticity, then its resilience and momentum will enable those who apply it to sustain their distinctive contribution(s) and substantial place in life. 

Through the course of such socio-personal interaction it is optimal and beneficent if those engaged in such endeavour are able to realise relations with each other through which this collaborative dynamic thrives and is encouraged. 

It is common to affirm a state of mutuality forms when such activity prevails.  Consequently, it is often asserted a state or ethos of trust is cultivated through this situation.  However, trust is patently not an attribute anyone can affirm and substantiate independently, as if it were a target to be accomplished, or even a quality to be acquired autonomously. 

Rather, trust essentially becomes manifest through a spontaneous intuitive form of derivation.  It can be perceived or discerned as evident, then just as palpably seem to slip away into oblivion. 

Trust is not a deliberative agent, although it can seem to become manifest through some form of premonition through which those concerned, or at least someone, realises a resonant sense of synchronicity with another person, for instance. 

Premonition is a quality in itself which implies a certain facet of awareness and/or insight through which some form of deep intuition is implied. 

Intent in belief and/or faith is not a reality which seems to apply generically to trust.  While purpose can only be associated with trust through the access of belief and faith as agents through which trust finds expression. 

What can be observed in this context of socio-personal attributes and qualities is that the relation of these elements to the whole phenomenon of life, experience and reality represents an organic perspective.  Through this perspective, the circumstances thereby derived and discerned predispose the nature and character of human interaction, or the comprehensive organic and/or universal context. 

However, this certainly does not imply such human universal interaction is thereby predetermined, although it would be palpably heavily influenced, through these foregoing interactive elements. 

The response to this broad exposition of interactive elements might be that this may be all very well, but how might this work out as an existential dynamic? 

Well, the authors of what is commonly celebrated as the global World Peace Flame project (MacCuish, Patel and Wells: 2003) have managed to distil quite a marvellous dynamic through their work which clearly accords and resonates with these foregoing broad essential ideas and elements.  These are themes familiar to those who have become engaged in the United Nations Association of Australia ‘Year of Community’ Project from my own applied work in this respect. 

At the outset, the Peace Flame project authors recognise and celebrate the aspect of ‘balance’ in the context of ‘perception’ as the basic core value to be applied to the realisation of optimal interpersonal interaction. 

‘When your physiology and emotions are balanced and you are feeling full of energy, your powers of discrimination [throughout my work this attribute/ quality is designated as discernment realised essentially through intuition] become sharpened and your perceptions more positive.  This in turn helps you to make better decisions [compare this with my related analysis through my works Motives – the source of fulfilment (1988) and The Corporate Imperative (1987)], and so you respond more effectively to people and invite better responses back (2003: 3-4) …’ 

Moreover, further deeper ‘awareness’ of vital perceptual and perspectival elements culminates in the focal quality I’ve been researching extensively in the form of authentic equanimity throughout my seminar presentation papers over many years now. 

‘… And within your awareness, most importantly of all, light can direct you towards the same source of strength that every culture in history has said exists within us all:  a radiant experience of light that brings us equanimity (4) …’ 

Further, the authors describe the phenomenon of this ‘experience’ as characterised by ‘peace and bubbling inner joy’ (4). 

Moreover, from my perspective, as I have established throughout this ‘State of the World’ Forum seminar paper series presented thus far, ‘perception’ is ‘sharpened’ through ‘discrimination’, and/or discernment for me.  

Because (inter)personal perception derives from a broader source perception which is universal in aspect and nature. 

Consequently, so it is that ‘… the collective strength and pure intent of all who are using the light of the World Peace Flame … helps remind us all that we have a unique and valuable part to play in creating a world in which we respect the environment, care for people and strive to achieve our innermost aspirations (4) …’ 

Prominent explorer of universal consciousness, adventurer and Jungian analyst, Laurens van der Post, recognised well the prospects for distinctive personal contributions of individuals in their quest(s) to realise their substantial aspirations. 

‘Just as the greatest source of power in the physical universe comes from its tiniest component – the atom … So the greatest power in society comes from its smallest component – the individual (5) …’ 

Yet the vital interactive collective element which prevails in this context of universal humanity is the diverse blend of personal mutual contributions which coalesce to culminate in the whole aspect of nature and life, experience and reality. 

Clearly vital in the context of faith and belief, particularly as these are invested in the quest to realise specific purposes and aspirations, is the perpetuity of Love as the primary source element in all this. 

Love can also contribute to, and substantiate, collaborative endeavour through a prevalent ethos of mutual maturity, which can culminate in the broad resonance of universal love. 

As the legendary idealist and visionary, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, stated:  ‘Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity … we shall harness the energies of love.  Then, for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire (13) …’ 

Most pertinent and relevant in this context is what can be gleaned palpably from the teleology of Gadamer’s hermeneutic principles, Whitehead’s ‘cosmological’ overview, Chesterton’s holistic perspective of paradox, along with Santayana’s broad proclamation of universal mutual reason and aesthetics. 

Such a prospective comprehensive implication is encapsulated in this analysis:

‘History is full of extraordinary circumstances … 

‘Gandhi’s Salt March opened the eyes of the whole world to India’s plight.  

‘It is said to have marked the beginning of the end for the British Empire (14) … Seemingly ordinary men and women through the centuries have taken hold of an extraordinary idea and with it completely altered their lives – and sometimes the very course of history (15) …’ 

Moreover, ‘The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity’ Leo Tolstoy declared (27). 

Resonant essence in the context of transition – lyrics for the marginalised

Faced with an entrenched aspect of bland social anonymity cultivated in the radical ultra-conservative 1950s era, in the wake of the Second World War, early babyboomers throughout the world found themselves bereft of dynamic broad social elements through which to express their authenticity up to about the cusp of the 1960s. 

Consequently, the 1960s era culminated in a relative explosion of personal expression in the socio-communal context as younger people of this time sought to come to terms with substantially cohesive initiatives in socio-personal repression and inhibition. 

Given such a confronting, antagonistic, adversarial and austere socio-communal malaise, it followed that the younger generation of prolific babyboomers from this era would respond with the cultivation of their own distinctive counter-cultural influences.  Albeit, these sometimes emanated from the effect of mind-transforming drugs, accompanied by an emphatic turn to extravagant colourful neo-romantic artistic expression. 

However, as the momentum of aspirational and authentic faith and belief in socio-personal continuity and progression prevailed throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it became clear there were many aspects of the lives of those concerned which required comprehensive development for them to feasibly aspire towards broad fulfilment. 

Consequently, the resonant essence of the cultural media and other influences common to this transformation can be observed to have changed accordingly.  For instance, what began relatively ebulliently as the mid-1970s era of ‘disco’ music, by the early 1980s – indeed even before at times – was characterised by a much more sober complex reflective, while tentative and tenuous, cultural aspect.  This considerable transition was evident through music lyrics which became much more deeply speculative and somewhat introspective in nature. 

All these disparate influences culminated broadly in a basically severe sense of being marginalised, as perceived by many babyboomers, ultimately escalating to a broadly blighted sense in the realisation of authentic aspirations throughout the 1980s and beyond. 

Most evidently, this phenomenon manifested as a loss of significant individuality and/or individuation in the immediate socio-personal context.  

However, as this severely detrimental phenomenon mushroomed with unfolding successive decades, what was further experienced as an adjunctive reality was a deep sense of lost and/or foregone fulfilment in aspirational endeavour.  

This phenomenon incorporated a corresponding deep loss of continuity and connectivity to the broad tapestry and/or pattern of socio-communal endeavour.  Perhaps this could be more acutely discerned as a blighted sense of interpersonal belonging and/or resonant authenticity in the communal context. 

Consequently, the quite pertinent perspective of many babyboomers by now emergent generically is that there ought to be some sense of moral responsibility inherent in all this – that there should be a point whereby responsibility is accepted for this malady and dilemma, where ‘the buck stops’ so to speak. 

Broadly, this perspective tends to manifest as a deep sense of decline in the moral and ethical fabric of socio-communal relations and connection. 

What is imperative as a comprehensive realisation and/or context of appreciation  in this is that the particular culture in which we live, and exist, and therefore have our being, is our culture.  Whether we love it or harbour misgivings and/or resentment regarding it, the culture of our time is our culture.  So however we come to regard this situation is vital to how we realise our experience and being – now and through to perpetuity.

Yet contemporary songwriters and performers tend to remain typically astoundingly coy, reductionist, and even often dismissive, of the prospect of any substantial significance, continuity and/or consistency being associated with pop/rock music in the broad socio-cultural context.  

Indeed, prominent songwriter [Sir] Paul McCartney effectively critiques such banality among his peers in his defence of a more substantive place for resonantly sensitive pop/rock music expressed through his popular piece entitled Silly Love Songs, among others in this genre. 

Such authentic sentiment must be comprehensively revisited and reinterpreted in the whole universal trajectory of human endeavour, from my perspective.  

If babyboomers cannot come to terms with their respective place(s) in their particular musical and performative generation, then their own individual and socio-personal significance and resonance in the cohort of their generation, and therefore in the context of historical continuity in this sense, will ultimately languish into obscurity. 

Indeed, there would be a further ominous consequence in that this situation would precipitate a rupture in the continuity of all humanity and being through the failure of this particular generation to feasibly explore, discern and express the significance of their generational endeavour in the whole universal context.  Such a situation would inevitably constitute a cataclysmic discontinuity in the tapestry and pattern of human endeavour.  While the aversion of such a consequence would depend on the substantial authentic realisation of the place, meaning, significance, relevance and resonance of each distinctive cultural contribution in this whole broad socio-cultural context.      

Recently, through a particular commercial opinion poll on the most prominent soundtracks of popular music, Australian babyboomers voted the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon as presumably the foremost such compilation of this generation. 

Ostensibly, this outcome proceeded from the prominent ‘cult following’ status this particular album acquired over time.  However, embedded under the surface of such a phenomenon are palpable babyboomer values, since substantially forsaken with the rise of global society based on broad economic affluence. 

Through the song Another Brick in the Wall, concerns were raised about bland banal atrophied structuralism as a potent determinist influence, and the threat to effectively spontaneous intuitive speculative applied learning methods and techniques. 

While concern with avaricious capitalism, the ideology to which babyboomers eventually substantively succumbed, is expressed through the song Money, as with songs like Madonna’s Material World, along with many other popular works in this genre.  These were works which adumbrated the core rebellious babyboomer ideals grounded in the 1960s counter-cultural social movements among the youth of this generation. 

Yet there is a substantially idealist strain evident through perceptual predilections of those babyboomers prominently situated through their presumed perhaps favourite song, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.  There is much implicit deep philosophy in this song, which basically constitutes a caution to the young woman subject of this moral tale, who is journeying in a familiar path through her illusory quest to ‘buy … a stairway to heaven’.  Yet, most paradoxically, she does really want to know what’s going on – ‘she wants to be sure … cos, you know, sometimes words have two meanings’. 

Meanwhile, ‘for those who stay long’ in this life, ‘the piper’ will eventually ‘call us to reason’. 

It seems for me babyboomers have related so resonantly with this song over the years because it epitomises subliminally their own deep confusion and frustration at their substantially blighted original intuitive aspirations. 

Further, just as one leading broadcaster characterises popular songs as representative of ‘the soundtrack of our lives’, so many songs present a narrative which approximates myriad facets of each person’s life in many diverse forms and ways.  Hence songs often become popular through the resonance and relevance of the given imagery to the lives of those who relate to this imagery. 

Among these is the Eagles’ Hotel California, simply on the basis of the frequency of instances in which it is rendered on ‘easy listening’ radio broadcasts.  

The curious darkly romantic imagery of this piece is broadly equivalent to the kind of imaginative experience with which babyboomers would feel an affinity, as it romanticises the pub life familiar to many of them, at least from earlier in their lives.  There is a confused vainly self-focussed aspect to life among many younger people trying to come to terms with their often broadly banal social existence, through which a dark element which cannot be subdued is often evident. 

The California Dreaming narrative of The Mammas and the Pappas relates and epitomises the moral epiphany common through interpersonal change when this tends to engulf deep friendships and relations.  As a prevalent everyday narrative experience this brings forth the aspect of interpersonal dilemma pertinent to such romantic intuitive resonant endeavour relative to the broad socio-personal context. 

Further, John Lennon, through his Imagine, is able to broaden and deepen similar imagery to apply the personal through to the universal context of humanity, sustaining a rich aspirational theme of romantic idealism, while still allowing a slightly dark aspect to be carried forth: ‘Imagine … there’s no country … and no religion too …’  This is often cited in universal and Australian contexts as among the primary few most popular of songs.  His more blatantly stark confronting song Gimme Me Some Truth and Revolution are other pieces through which alignment is sought relative to the personal with the universal aspects of life.  

Many of these facets of the marginalisation of socio-personal ideas, ideals, and particularly aspirations, of the babyboomer generation were brought forward through scintillatingly dynamic imagery of the brilliant work of The Beatles as a pop/rock performance group. 

John Lennon and Paul McCartney gems, such as Eleanor Rigby heralded the plight of the marginalised as a universal personalised phenomenon – ‘all the lonely people, where do they all come from … where do they all belong …’  

And Let It Be – ‘In my hour of darkness, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom … ‘ Yet, still, ‘when all the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, Let It Be’.  

While the epic The Long and Winding Road narrative cites the ‘… pool of tears, crying for the day … Don’t leave me standing here, let me know the way’.  

Even the essentially satirical pieces, such as Lady Madonna and Paperback Writer, invoke such an ethos.  

George Harrison also often featured marginalised experience, for instance, through his famous Double White Beatles song While My Guitar Gently Weeps:  ‘… I look at the world and I notice it’s turning … with every mistake we must surely be learning … Still My Guitar Gently Weeps …’ 

Later, Harrison was more emphaticly cautionary in his independent post-Beatles mode, through songs like Beware of Darkness and Isn’t It A Pity.  

While Paul McCartney independently often takes up the imperative of romance and popular music as the means for people to realise their basic romantic aspirations, such through the advocacy of his song Silly Love Songs – 
‘You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs … I look around me and I see it isn’t so, oh no …’  Just as John Lennon basically seemed to contribute his advocacy song Imagine to serve as a pretext for socio-personal reflection. 

Elton John correspondingly lauds the case of the marginalised, struggling to cope with the demanding exigencies of everyday experience and reality, through such songs as Your Song, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Goodbye Norma Jean, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me, Tiny Dancer, and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road … You can’t plant me in your penthouse, I’m going back to my plough …’ 

The theme of broadly popular epic narrative, as I would put this, also often forms out as a deep plea on behalf of the marginalised, for instance through such Billy Joel songs as Piano Man, New York State of Mind, The Stranger, and Leave a Tender Moment Alone, and the Don McLean songs American Pie, Castles in the Air and Vincent. 

Through his Buddy Holly series of tribute songs, Don McLean further effectively develops the regret associated with such a romantic intuitive idealist performer unable to develop his earnest aspirations in his lifetime. 

Among the most popular American songs of relatively contemporary times, which manifest the complexity of late modernity, are those of Jim Webb.  These tend to portray delicate poignant relations from a narrative perspective.  

Galveston, Where’s the Playground Susie?, By the Time I Get to Phoenix and Macarthur’s Park, for instance, all detail the struggle of everyday people in marginalised constrained circumstances.

Various American songwriters and performers have advocated for marginalised people over the years in a tradition which extends back at least to the conversion of Blues and Country songs to the modern pop/ rock idiom.  Iconic figures such as Bob Dylan were at the vanguard of this movement, among songwriter/ performers such as Joni Mitchell, with Big Yellow Taxi and Both Sides Now for instance, emphasising the plight of the marginalised. 

This resonant tradition was celebrated through the two great relatively inaugural live-in pop/ rock festivals, Woodstock and Monterey, with such performers as Janis Joplin openly testifying to this trajectory from earlier icons, such as the legendary Bobby McGee, through her song Me and Bobby McGee.  

While she retained the blues for the marginalised throughout her work, evident through Ball and Chain from her Cheap Thrills album, among many such others. 

Dionne Warwick was iconic among the black performers to extend this trajectory on behalf of the marginalised amazingly innovative pieces, such as Walk On By, reputedly inferentially about prostitution, Message For Michael, I Say a Little Prayer For You and Do You Know the Way to San Jose ? – basically a critique of the so-called ‘American Dream’ of independent lifestyle.  The songwriting prowess of Burt Bacharach and Hal David was a key element in this as in other contexts.     

Leon Russell picked up on themes reminiscent of those explored by Jim Webb, attending to the complexity and fragility of marginalised then ‘modern’ life, while purveying a more distinctive poignantly sensitive element, through such pieces as A Song For You, Masquerade, Superstar and Hello Little Friend – all written in the characteristic epic narrative mode. 

Performers like Stevie Wonder later thence purveyed a more spiritual social justice orientation in this context, as through his sensitively haunting social justice piece How Come ?, and his My Love duet with Julio Iglesias.  

Meanwhile, Carole King worked with themes in the more basic Blues/ Country/ Pop Rock crossover genre, extending the a la Joni Mitchell mode for the marginalised, as with Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow ? and You’ve Got a Friend. 

Songwriter performers such as James Taylor thence extended this mode with pieces like Fire And Rain, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight and Copperline, advancing this tradition of advocacy for the marginalised.  Moreover, a host of performers of those times chimed in with songs in this ilk, for instance the group America’s Sister Golden Hair. 

Later, various performers also revisited some of these classic songs, among many others.  

Karen Carpenter was most notable in this, for instance, with pieces such as Won’t Last a Day Without You, For All We Know, Rainy Days and Mondays and It’s Going To Take Some Time (a Carole King song), Make Believe It’s Your First Time, and I Know I Need to Be in Love, for instance, being particularly resonant for the marginalised.      

David Gates, together with his group Bread, accepts the challenge of applying fragile complex marginality specifically to romantic interpersonal involvement in the modernity context.  Everything I Own, Make It With You, Aubrey, Diary and Lost Without Your Love are instances of Bread songs where such aspirational romantic involvement is manifest from a marginal perspective. 

Such values are further often evident in Bee Gees songs from a less precisely definitive aspect, yet still concerned to reveal marginality.  Deep sensitivity and devotion are values to be sustained whatever the circumstances throughout the lyrics of songs such as How Deep Is Your Love?  While such sentiments as the advocacy of authenticity, rather than being just ‘a puppet on a string’ (actually from an Andy Gibb song – I Just Want To Be Your Everything), are evident throughout Nobody Gets Too Much Heaven No More, Tragedy, Staying Alive, Hopelessly Devoted to You, Good Morning Mister Sunshine, Run To Me – ‘whenever you’re lonely’ and through such reflections as ‘… It’s only Words, and words are all I have to take your heart away …’  These all constitute basic statements of advocacy for fragile vulnerable people faced with marginalised situations. 

Early Neil Diamond songs often also explored such themes, such as I Am I Said, Shiloh and Solitary Man. 

While Art Garfunkel with Paul Simon weaved in a distinctly spiritual element to such themes through their classic Bridge Over Troubled Waters, and through the later more candid analyses of such songs as Still Crazy After All These Years.

Social justice, human rights and poignant sentiment 

As the 1970s merged into the 1980s, particular performers became more preoccupied with socio-personal concerns, especially as pop/rock concerts arrayed around moral causes and issues.  This particularly followed the modification of Woodstock and Monterey type concerts to advocate for specific causes and issues, of which George Harrison’s Concert for Bangla Desh was a prime instance. 

John Lennon had already experimented with linking particular songs to prominent issues in the context of contrived large public gatherings, such as through the famous ‘Bed-In For Peace’.  

Meanwhile, earlier the whole implied narrative of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album had represented advocacy for the marginalised, while basically the spectrum of Bob Dylan’s prose-style songs bemoaned the plight of delicate marginalised people and causes, following what emanated from the whole Blues/ Country/ Spiritual tradition in American music. 

Thence into the 1980s groups like Police, with lead singer Sting, wrought this marginalised predicament broadly into the revamped pop/rock arena through a particular social justice/ human rights orientation, through songs such as Every Step You Take – ‘I’ll be watching you’, An Englishman in New York, and Fields of Gold.

While the group U2, fronted by lead singer Bono, gave their advocacy in this context a much harder edge with songs like I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and With Or Without You. 

As a particular piece, among the most poignantly sensitive epic songs to bring forward this orientation in recent times was Peter Gabriel’s Don’t Give Up, about a miner whose life context deteriorates into an excruciatingly difficult imbroglio.  Gilbert O’Sullivan was another performer who explored similar themes, such as through his epic piece Along Again Naturally, as did Eric Carmen through his iconic piece All By Myself, and Ralph McTell with Streets of London. 

Another prominent icon who performed with Peter Gabriel at the forefront of the group Genesis was Phil Collins, who thence oriented this poignant sensitivity relative to the marginalised particularly into the context of strained intimacy and affection and/or romance.  Among the pieces through which he notably explores such themes are In Too Deep and Coming Through the Air Tonight, along with his stark critique of inequality – Another Day For You and Me in Paradise.       

Meanwhile, the Moody Blues contributed a much more delicately wistful perspective of interpersonal marginality realised through such classic pieces as The Question, Nights in White Satin, and Justin Hayward’s Forever Autumn, written for the soundtrack of War of the Worlds, based on the H G Wells novel. 

This social justice/ human rights advocacy element was more implied than boldly blatant through Australian songs of this era, such as Redgum’s Only Nineteen, on the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Gladstone Pier and Diamantina Drover, both of which heralded the plight of marginalised workers in isolated Australian communities.  While Jimmy Barnes with Cold Chisel chipped in with songs like Kai-San, again decrying elements of the Vietnam War aftermath, along with the socio-personal abnormalities of Sydney suburban urban sprawl, which were featured in a much more interpersonal mode in Choir Girl. 

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) chimed in with much more poignantly sensitive renditions on these issues through songs such as Midnight Blue, a testament to the fragile contingencies of perceptibly unsustainable love, Telephone Lines, Don’t Bring Me Down and Wishing. 

While Skyhooks had earlier heralded the progressive 1970s era with their iconic anthem Living in the 70s, Sherbet contributed a more wryly colloquial defence of the marginalised with such songs as One Summer – ‘he’s like a telecom lead, he never did see’, for instance ! – and the sardonic Howzat !, mock-glorifying a cricket game term which implies being ostensibly ‘caught out’. 

Even in the somewhat more overtly commercial context, John Farnham’s pieces, especially after the mid-1980s advent of the Whispering Jack album, seemed to take on a much more social justice advocacy emphasis.  Songs reminiscent of such a focus include The Voice, extolling broader public openness in communication and expression, and The Age of Reason, posing the challenge as to whether or not such an ‘age’ characterises contemporary times.   

Earlier, such groups as the Little River Band released pieces such as the delicate All Out of Love and Reminiscing, being songs through which poignant sentiment and sensitivity were nurtured through narratives which extolled the marginalised.  Further, the widely celebrated ‘diva’ of Australian pop/ rock music, Marcia Hines, tended to be subtly supportive of advocacy to address social and interpersonal disadvantage through such intimately earthy pieces as What I Did For Love, and the delicate I Don’t Know How to Love Him, from the then controversial celebrated musical Jesus Christ Superstar. 

Moreover, advocacy relative to the plight of indigenous Aboriginal people, expressed by various indigenous performers, with pieces such as Treaty, Thinking About You, and the Christine Anu song My Island Home, being vital among these, along with various pieces from such groups as Goanna, and Midnight Oil formerly fronted by Peter Garrett, remaining classic vital works in this ilk.  

As the 1980s slipped inexorable into the 1990s, a curious phenomenon seemed to pervade the pop-rock scene, where the babyboomers were concerned, which was a complex paradox in the context of the previous progressive eras. 

One commercial radio network promotional message proclaimed wryly at this time an expression to the effect that having rocked steadily through the 1960s, 70s and 80s, ‘we needed the 90s to recover’ !  Recovery inevitably implied more reflective, deep, cryptic, indeed paradoxical, lyrics and expression.  Although, making his name substantially throughout the 1980s, riding the momentous success of the group Split Enz, New Zealander Neil Finn, fronting Crowded House, was truly a master of the primarily lyrical mode in songwriting and performance. 

Every Crowded House song is a storehouse of cryptic imagery, bearing out the tragic complexity and disillusioned aspirations of our lives – each song potentially a philosophical treatise in itself, born out of contemporary late-modern confused fragile experience: ‘There is freedom within … freedom without – try to catch the deluge in a paper cup’, for instance !  While a parodied 1950s American expression of nurture and encouragement (‘Hey now’) serves to herald a resistant aggravated conviction of interpersonal faith – ‘Hey now, hey now, Don’t Dream It’s Over … They come, they come, to build a wall between us … You know that they won’t win …’ 

Meanwhile, there is the eclectic cultural imbroglio suggested by the prospect of ‘… a slow boat bound for China … going nowhere on the mantel-piece … 
It’s the same place, but everything’s different … Should I lie like a lounge-room lizard, or sing like a bird released ?’ 

Each Crowded House song seems like a profound cameo dilemma:  

‘Experience is cheap, I never listened to the warning … But the cradle is soft and warm – Into Temptation …’ While It’s Only Natural, Weather With You and Whenever I Fall are all songs which present complex cameo narratives of variegated late-modern reality and existence. 

Moreover, Tina Arena invoked a much more poignantly reflective narrative context to portray the more sensitive tentative experience which so resonated for Australian babyboomers throughout the 1990s, after their substantially frantic earlier times, a trajectory so evident throughout the Crowded House songs. 

Tina Arena regrets:  ‘… Two smiling faces, that’s how it used to be … What once was forever – now a faded memory … Heaven Help My Heart, ‘cos it’s a lot like me … wondering where this all will end and I’ll find the love I need … I know it’s out there somewhere, somehow I still believe …’ 

Also most resonant for Tina Arena seemed to be the definitive ‘boomer’ philosophy expressed through these lyrics from her song Wasn’t It Good: 

‘Remember the first time we met each other, you were in your world and I was in mine … Breaking down the barriers, we broke all the rules – but Wasn’t It Good … wasn’t it fine … So long together, two would-be lovers, caring for flowers that just wouldn’t grow … Ending all of our tomorrows, we’ll have yesterdays, but Wasn’t It Good …’ 

As with her signature song, Chains, these lyrics emphatically exude advocacy for the marginalised and ‘battlers’. 

By the close of the 1990s, there seemed to be a more pensively wistful element pervading popular music and songs of the ‘boomer’ variety, which even often seemed vaguely appealing to post-boomers, basically born after 1970.  

Notable in this ilk is the Celine Dion song, Our Love Will Go On, linked as it is inevitably with the context of the poignant movie, Titanic, a narrative resonant continuously throughout the trajectory of 20th century history in the Western context.  Rather than characterised as pieces of nostalgia, such were much more substantial narratives, representative of the authentic resonance and relevance of consistent continuous historic experience and reality which is more pertinently perceived through a form of poignancy in sentiment, sensitivity and attitude. 

The emergence of Celine Dion songs formed an abrupt diversion to the relative notions which tended to prevail previously in this 1990s time of transition, when those preoccupied with pop/rock music sought some recovery of their emotion(s) and spirit.  When I Fall In Love and Because I Love You were other Celine Dion performed songs in this mode.      

Earlier, Moriah Carey chimed in to this ethos and sentiment, invoking a particularly spiritual intimation with deeply evocative songs which upheld faith and belief as elements of continuity and consistency in the life narrative.  

Vision of Love and the comprehensive spiritual ethos rendered by Moriah Carey through the Jackson Five song I’ll Be There, along with her song I’d Give My All, were resonant in this context. 

A further fervent contribution to this poignant ethos, through which faith and belief were prominently situated, was rendered by Bryan Adams through such songs as To Really Love a Woman – set to the movie Don Juan de Marco, and Everything I Do – from the movie Robin Hood, which reverberated with faithful sentiment and solidarity for the marginalised, Please Forgive Me, also blending spirituality and romance, and This Is It, proffering fragile fledgling love, and delicately performed with Barbra Streissand. 

Such a thematic orientation is further adumbrated by Ronan Keating through such songs as You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All. 

The Irish group, The Corrs, are supremely adept at weaving such spiritual sentiment into an ethereal narrative, which correspondingly augurs forth the plight of the marginalised through I Would Love to Love You Like You Do Me – about unrequited love, Forgiven Not Forgotten, All the Love in the World, Runaway, Through such pieces there seems to be a concerted effort to earnestly and wistfully seek to progress the prospect of resonant authentic romantic love and sentiment which is genuinely evoked and intended.

Correspondingly, pieces such as To the moon and back, from Savage Garden, and Seal’s Rose On the Grave song, appear to advance such sentiment in the context of the marginalised more resolutely, taking on a spirit which is most reminiscent of the pieces of somewhat earlier performers, such as the group 1927, which can be recognised through songs such as If I Could and Not Being With You, from their Ish album. 

NOTE:  What is presented here is intended as a sweeping overview to provide an immediate broad spectrum of resonant pieces in this field.  Hence, owing to research constraints, the titles and lyrics of the pieces cited sometimes appear as paraphrased versions.  However, these are indicative of specific actual pieces which are authentic to their genres, as presented here from my most earnest perspective.   

Cultural dissonance, ambiguity and confusion 

– the place of meaning, significance, relevance and resonance

Among the most persistent sources of controversy relative to our everyday lives in the contemporary context, indeed as before, is the place of popular music as a cultural phenomenon. 

The cultural and intergenerational shifts that proceed around popular music can manifest as quite breathtaking at times.  For instance, babyboomers in Australia and elsewhere in former times, and in great proportions, roundly extolled the primary place, importance, and even quite specific and resonant significance, of pop/rock music for their lives and aspirations. 

These days such a thoroughgoing place and significance for this particular cultural idiom has waned, especially in the wake of the entrenched pressure and influence of earlier more radical cultural antecedents, along with the basically wholesale generational surrender of babyboomers to the broadly unmediated pressure and influence of their predecessors. 

Through this influential referential mode, babyboomers have witnessed their own cultural and generational capitulation relative to authentic significance in the face of autocratic recidivist generational influences.  Babyboomers, particularly of the Australian variety, have come to generally retain a most radical revisionist interpretation of their popular culture, particularly in the pop/rock musical context, relative to the original trajectory associated with this iconic idiomatic cultural and aspirational form. 

This situation emanates substantially from broad cultural dissonance, ambiguity and confusion, exacerbated through a palpable lack of generational authenticity and integrity.  Consequently, this situation constitutes an acute basic inter-generational realisation, acceptance and appreciation of inter-cultural significance, from my perspective. 

The source of this dilemma is a corresponding broad failure to perceive, thence to realise and appreciate, the inherent continuity and consistency of meaning, significance, relevance and resonance of aspects and facets of inter and cross-cultural endeavour.  These vital attributes of discernment contribute distinctively to the whole cultural context through pertinent socio-personal sources. 

Every interpretation of cultural significance will vary in some sense, and therefore remain distinctive in itself, in this broad sociological context.  The danger here is when any prospective plausible and/or palpable cultural interpretation is either ignored, marginalised, or otherwise superficialised out of place and/or extenuation as a viable/ feasible perspective. 

Evidence of the substantive marginalisation of potential distinctive contributions to the broad socio-cultural context not only pertains to popular music and its interpretation, of course. 

The case of Anthony Richter relative to the evolution and apparent demise of his most original Neuronetic Logic Lattice idea and project, as represented here from the 2006 Growing Community – Living Together Journal (Autumn 2006 Edition), reveals how even innovative initiatives and/or endeavours of vital prospective significance and resonance can become comprehensively marginalised.  This remains so, even when broad initial acceptance and appreciation of the significance of these is often quite considerable. 

Hence Frank Knopfelmacher was cited in H G P Colebatch’s (1995) biography of Richter as describing ‘the horror as well as the glory’ of Australian society … Talented people … must frequently choose between leaving home for their work careers or risk stultification in a provincial climate that is often laden with backbiting, envy and a pervasive feeling of small-mindedness’ (1995: 44). 

Richter recognised ‘a continuity of human history’ through which technology proceeded (5).  However, when the quality of reason became merely a utilitarian and/or pragmatic function, it would lose its consistency and thereby become ‘contaminated’ (15-16, 20).  Where ‘gaps’ appeared ‘in our deductive logic’, these were spanned through ‘assumption, intuition and belief’, with the propensity to ‘inference’ constituted through ‘Faith, Hope, Belief and Charity’ (31). 

Moreover, ‘confusion’ further contaminated ‘perceptions’, which ‘are subjective’ and flawed through personal ‘assumptions’ (34-35).  Much of ‘academic philosophy’ was so contaminated for Richter, so he came to eschew it (27). 

Hence through ‘history … there was no great improvement in reasoning ability over time’ (66).  Rather, ‘a suspension of belief’ was required ‘to open the gaps in the logic sequence’ (74) of the process of reasoning. 

Yet, ‘Substance emerges from the experience gained by attempts to do things’ (75).  What emanated from this noble quest was ‘a sense of The Way’ (86).  ‘Mankind had largely stopped asking questions about the nature of Reason’ (89). 

What Richter sought was a ‘human map … to connect the Immutables of human behaviour as revealed by history to [the] overall purpose of understanding human reason’ (93).  This ‘map’ would constitute ‘a collection of values and/or beliefs held by an individual[s] who we recognise as in some way enlightened’ (101). 

Basically,  ‘We view our life as some sort of journey …’ (103)       

Marginalised Ideas – The Community Project Context

Despite substantial social, cultural and interpersonal initiatives and programs in myriad aspects of our lives, the broad reality is we continue to ever increasingly rely on economic relations to orient and often define and determine how we live. 

While this reality remains prominent for us, what is also palpably evident is our propensity to allow complexity and ambiguity to engulf our lives.  We seem reluctant to explore and track through comprehensively potential prospects for the substantial amelioration of confusion in our social, communal and interpersonal relations. 

Those who propose substantial holistic ways of sorting through the intricacies of social reform often remain marginalised or treated with acute lack of respect and/or recognition of their work. 

The process of social and communal amelioration emanating from greater generalized prosperity, wealth and quality of life is an enshrined universal principle of the United Nations Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals.  While a stated principle of the Declaration of Human Rights is: 

‘Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his [and her] personality is possible.’ 

The Community Project group members who have supported the Year of Community proposal throughout its thirteen-year history have gradually situated themselves at the vanguard of social research in many ways through their various substantial personal and social initiatives, skills and qualifications.  Yet the considerable efforts of those involved in this important vital project remain vaguely recognized, if at all, in the public domain. 

Robust social reform initiatives often remain marginalised as potential substantial developments.  Among the most glaring indictments in this respect is the sorry story of Formulab International, a so-called ‘darling of the stock market’ in the mid-1990s, formed and championed by one Anthony Richter, who proposed a Neuronetic Logic Lattice which would enable a viable auspicing context for elaborate intuitive reasoning.  However, Richter realized such a project and its benefits would need to be securely situated in the continuous realm of human endeavour from the basic historical, cultural and social perspectives. 

Richter described his reasoning technology as facilitating a ‘Gestalt effect’ whereby what emerged through the whole of this context was greater than the sum of its parts (11).  This analysis served to verify for me what I would accordingly cite as the paradox effect whereby constrained limited perspectives could only ever be really appreciated in the whole context in which they are situated.  

Moreover, most critically, Richter’s technology proceeded ‘… not primarily from technological needs but from his awareness of a continuity of human history’ (5). 

Hence Richter’s Neuronetics was defined by him as in part ‘the study of the connective nature of human events’ and ‘the belief structures inherent in reasoning’ (3), along with the ‘relationship’ of these in a ‘learning’ context. 

Reason is not inherently moral, but rather tends to emanate from a utilitarian or pragmatic quality for Richter (15-16).  However, the quality of reasoning is not used ‘consistently’ in the human context, and therefore is ‘contaminated’.  Therefore, ‘… uncontaminated reasoning must tend to enhance rather than diminish the individual’s autonomy’ (20).  Moreover, he believes there was ‘no fundamental re-examination of the systems of human reason’ throughout the 20th century. 

Richter overtly espouses a diminished perspective of the quality of mystery – ‘I don’t think humans proceed into mysteries’ (28).  Ironically, he professes to avoid applying this quality of mystery himself, yet he clearly appreciates and cites the quality of ‘inference’ such that it epitomizes such a form of mystery as vital in the reasoning process.  ‘For acceptance of [change] we engage our inference – Faith, Hope, Belief and Charity … we are obliged to span gaps in our deductive logic with assumption, intuition and belief’ (31).  

While without these qualities or attributes there would be a perception gap in our reasoning processes, it yet follows there is an element of mystery inherent in the qualities of ‘inference’ Richter cites, from my perspective.  Further, human nature reveals an ‘innate need for self-identity and identity with one’s own family’ (30). 

Human ‘confusion’ contaminates reasoning for Richter, although he confounds his own reasoning when he maintains that society can act as a cohesive human entity:  ‘society cannot be blamed for what it wants – but for what it demands’ (34). 

Richter explains his prognosis of what pervades contaminated reason.  ‘Our perceptions are subjective – we impose upon a scene or circumstance our own assumptions as to its meaning.  Our interpretations are faulty and we make errors of presumption (34-35) … There is no question that we are, at the centre, not to be relied upon for reason (37)’ but ‘there is no suggestion that [we are] unable to reason’ (39).  What we need is a comprehensive ‘map’ to enable and assist us to reason more adequately and holistically (41-42). 

Quoting the Czech-born philosopher, Frank Knopfelmacher, Colebatch in his biography of Richter describes ‘ ‘the horror as well as the glory’ of Australian society’ (44).  Accordingly,  ‘… Talented people … must frequently choose between leaving home for their work careers or risk stultification in a provincial climate that is often laden with back-biting, envy and a pervasive feeling of small-mindedness’ (44). 

When he attempted to strive through his constricted yet volatile social struggle throughout his youth, Richter observed of this time:  ‘I was aware of the fact that people had no idea of their feelings towards themselves, towards each other or towards us as children (45) … People didn’t really have much interest in other people … I wondered why they were like this, and concluded:  the mass of people simply survive (55) … I yearned for the days when society was so developed that it had a large mass of people who could choose to be scholars and be devoted entirely to understanding – when Universities were not seen as factories (56) …’ 

Meanwhile, Richter eschewed ‘academic philosophy’, which he presumed might ‘contaminate’ his thinking (57).  ‘We are, as individuals, incredibly susceptible to suggestion.  Once the suggestion has been made, it forms a connection’ (57).  Consequently,  ‘… I read anything I could get on psychology that explained the relationships between behaviour and thinking and motive.  And how societies worked (57) … I was looking for threads of connection that might map out a much larger design … It was the behavioural aspects in psychology that interested me most – the things that were innate in our behaviour, the instincts … So much opinion existed in psychology that there was no way you could filter or make judgments … I was interested in those processes occurring within us that were a function of our nature, those responses we had no control of, but were innate to our behaviour (58) …’ 

So Richter proceeded to seek out and explore ‘connections’ which could be ‘immutable’ in human nature (58).  Nevertheless, history revealed ‘… there was no great improvement in reasoning ability’ over time (66)  ‘… I came to the conclusion that by understanding the process that is the human mind you might be able to improve it’ (60). 

Among the key prospects Richter sought for his thence established Neuronetics methodology was:  ‘A means by which humans can make better sense of seemingly disparate relationships or events’ (71).  So, as always for him, the human aspect remained the source of the technology interface.  Inherent in the process of Reason was ‘a suspension of belief, to open the gaps in the logic sequence (74) … If you had a perfect logic sequence you wouldn’t require reason.  Reason is where you have to give up your normal attachment to facts … There is a prospect for reason again when we are given a means to know the thing we have previously been asked to accept at face value …’ (74).  

Further, he admitted reason was always partly contaminated ‘… because it is the product of fallible human minds’ (75). 

Substance through distinctive experience was a further espoused touchstone for Richter.  ‘… all the eloquence in the world, unless accompanied by even the humblest action, will amount to nothing’ (75).  While Colebatch notes:  ‘Substance emerges from the experience gained by attempts to do things’ (75), as he construes Richter’s position.  Reasoning technology would contribute ‘… a missing dimension to the human condition’ (75). 

Russell Dewey, of Stanford Research Institute, described Richter’s work as a ‘logical model … simple and elegant … integrating the parallel processing’ of ‘cells … in four basic types:  receptor, sensor, cognition and motor’ (76).  While Colebatch writes of Richter:  ‘He set out not only to describe, but to make a difference.  A great part of his life, thought and work … [was about] affirming the value of certainty in a chaotic world’ (79). 

Since the inception of his ‘exhilarating social and cultural experience’ through his technology development joint venture in Singapore, Richter’s world thence could not be described as a form of ‘harmony’ – ‘too frivolous’, or ‘balance’ – ‘too mechanistic’, but rather it epitomized ‘a sense of The Way’ (86).  Singapore was emerging into an ‘… integration with the West, while preserving and holding up to the West many values from which it must learn’ (87). 

While, amid all this heady socio-cultural progress,  ‘… Richter was acutely aware that he moved in a time when Mankind had largely stopped asking questions about the nature of Reason.  Even professional philosophers had relatively little interest in such questions … and as far as ordinary social debate went, such things had simply disappeared from the scene’ (89), Colebatch writes. 

Richter could recognize meagre improvement in human behaviour over the generations, while generally also ‘… humans … were not able to use reason in dealing with each other … [not as] a transient thing but a constant one’ (93).  He sought a ‘ … human map … to connect the Immutables of human behaviour as revealed by history to his overall purpose of understanding human reason’ (93). 

As a prospective predominant influence, Richter in part acknowledged the primary place of ‘the idea of the Tao’ in this, in ‘that certain things work in a certain way as part of the make-up of the world … I believe the best way of knowing where we are going is to understand the way we came – what are those innate connective things we can apparently do nothing about?’ (94) …’  Richter cited the artists of antiquity in this context:  ‘… They had no fear of posterity and had no reason to conceal their values and motives (94) …’  Thence Richter broadened his analysis to incorporate a greater principle.  ‘Whilst it is individuals that make up any civilization, it is their collective behaviour which determines their fate, both as a civilization and as individuals’ (97). 

However, paradoxically, the distinctive contribution of the individual became prominent in this.  ‘Regardless of his or her relative profile or visibility the existence of a man or woman with a map is essential to the ongoing success of a State, society, or community … The ‘map’ is a collection of values and/or beliefs held by an individual who we recognize as in some way enlightened (101) …’  Basically,  ‘… We know our life is some sort of journey, that we are not necessarily alone in it, and that there are times when some help would be a good thing (103) … But even the most charitable would be hard-pressed to find much [that is] civilized about the ways in which we frequently conduct our affairs at every level from the personal to the international’ (104), Richter proposed. 

‘Nor can the greatest intelligence and professional knowledge guarantee consistent reasoning even in the field of one’s specific expertise’ (105), declared Richter.  

Yet, alternatively, consistency could be construed as complementary to continuity, from my perspective.  For,  ‘When we ignore the lessons of either the past or the present we fail to join the dots’ (105). 

However, Richter emphasized that while ‘… Neuronetic Logic will first assist in reasoning and … the consequences of proposed actions … it will not replace moral choice or absolve moral responsibility in decision-making (107) … the gift that personal reasoning machines will give [will be] a greater power of reason and certain knowledge of the consequences of intended actions (109) …’ 

Yet such an outcome would require a much more enlightened attitude to reason.  ‘Somehow, one must instead discover what is wrong with the premises that sustain the argument …’ rather than taking sides and entrenched positions (110). 

Considerable value was ascribed to intuition as it interacted with perception in the cognitive context, from Richter’s perspective.  ‘Humans are able to perceive, manipulate and find their way around in unstructured environments, but they do so intuitively, without being able to elaborate explicitly how they perform those tasks at a cognitive level (118) …’  While,  ‘In the absence of information, humans will make assumptions’ (119).  

Richter cited a resonant instance of how intuitive attributes manifested through a form of existential excess in reference to a particularly insightful episode from the human aspect.  ‘At the time of the Wright Brothers’ first flight men were some distance from understanding more than elementary aerodynamics.  And yet they began to fly’ (124-125).  

Continuity in the context of ‘time and place’ was vital in this.  ‘… I developed a particular awareness of time and its consequence in connectivity.  Looking back, I think this started at University when I was studying perception and cognition … It seemed obvious that the best possible consequence from thinking would be achieved by having things relate in time and place (124) …’ 

The Australian disposition and attitude tended to resist the realization of intuition through innovation.  ‘… Australia almost always suffers ‘Not Invented Elsewhere’ syndrome, a clear case of the shameful cultural cringe (128) …’ which is as evident in the contemporary intellectual cultural context.  ‘Risk, uncertainty, failure, heartbreak and giving are the currency of this [our] realm, where safety, certainty and limitations buy nothing more than you’ve ever had, nor cause you to feel anything more than you’ve ever felt’ (131)’ Richter later stated. 

From this perspective, Richter proposed a ‘Global Gestalt Paradigm of Connectivity’ to map ‘the certain way in which the universe works (139ff) … The premise is that, within the limitations of known physics, exhaustive connections should be established between all things possible (143) … Two approaches to psychology suggest a way – to take either an analytical (biological) or behavioural (functional) view of the brain (140) …’ 

The preferred ‘map of existence’ which Richter then cited embodied some key priorities.  ‘The first stop on our route is mortality.  Or even better, immortality ! … The second stop, I suggest, is family and community:  for these we look to the Sciences of Society (using that term to refer to something much broader than the so-called ‘social sciences’) (148) …’  Thence would follow in proximate succession ‘growth and recreation’ for ‘Education and Learning’, and ‘Communication’, with ‘growth/ development maps’ established to facilitate these, designed to enable substantive (inter)personal orientation and achievement (152ff).  

A graphic definitive analysis was offered by Richter of these priorities.  ‘Society is in some ways like a relationship gone bad for reasons which neither party understands because somewhere along the way they have both stopped looking either at each other or themselves’ (155-156).  Interestingly and revealingly, Richter preserved the dualist polarized binary form of explanation and expression here, which must surely serve to muddy what would seem his otherwise most comprehensive sense of open paradox and equanimity. 

Clearly Richter sought to forsake any tendency to invoke an element of mystery in the humanistic process through which reason and logic would be expressed through perception and cognition.  Yet inference and intuition remained primary facets of his ideas, even in the face of the sheer complexity and ambiguity endemic in life. 

Confusion contaminated reasoning.  Yet, through the prospect of a substantial comprehensive human perceptual ‘map’, errors of presumption and/or assumption could be addressed. 

However, moral sensibility and sensitivity were vital for Richter from his early years when he questioned why people remained broadly estranged from each other in their basic everyday situations, mostly seeking simply to survive. 

Threads of connection could map out a broad design for people throughout life.  Yet people tended to stay distracted through the saturation of common meagre opinion and suggestion, to which everyone was susceptible once the connection with actual behaviour was formed.  Making sense of disparate human relationships in the context of reason and moral endeavour therefore became the substantial experience entailed for Richter – ‘affirming the value of certainty in a chaotic world’ (79), as Colebatch describes Richter’s quest. 

Rather than seek ‘harmony’ and/or ‘balance’, Richter aspired to ‘a sense of The Way’ (86), through which it was important to elicit what prospectively could be innate immutable principles of understanding and human behaviour. 

Continuity and basic consistency in the human realm were vital.  While we each share our life journeys, some broad awareness of how each of our distinctive contributions could make a difference in life was essential in the social, communal and (inter)personal realms.  Again, as Richter noted,  ‘When we ignore the lessons of the past or the present we fail to join the dots’ (105).  While, ‘having things relate in time and place’ is ‘the best possible consequence’ (124). 

Mortality/ Immortality, family and community, growth and recreation, education and learning, and communication are the key themes Richter advanced as the prospective focal optimal criteria for the growth/ development maps he envisaged.  Identity and self-identity in the family/ community contexts were vital attributes for amelioration and continuous development (30). 

-	Lindsay Mell, 

Coordinator, UNAA ‘Year of Community’ Project, 

April 2006

REFERENCE:  [NB:  Page numbers in the article text refer only to this work] 

Richter’s Laws – A Handbook for Human Success in a Post-Computer World 
by H G P Colebatch, 1995, Graham Brash Publisher, Singapore. 

The foregoing article reprinted from: 

2006 Growing Community – Living Together (Autumn 2006 Edition), 

Journal of the United Nations Association of Australia ‘Year of Community’ Project – The Community Project.

NOTE:  It is worthy of recognition that a company named Emotiv, championed by former Young Australian of the Year for 2000, Tan Le, and ‘partner’, Nam Do, have recently developed software which is stunningly similar to the work and ideas of Anthony Richter. 

These developments appeared in The Sun-Herald article entitled ‘Mind over matter’ by Daniel Dasey, March 18 2007, page 29.  This project apparently received a $1.5 million grant from the Australian Federal Government. 

As customary, no mention whatsoever was made in the article of Anthony Richter’s prior substantial groundwork in this context.  So it would appear the whole context of continuity and significance established through Richter’s once famous work is lost in this respect.    

Conclusion

Fluid perception, intuitive trust, poignant sensitivity and authentic equanimity 

– the universal dynamic of destiny 

Popular music, or even the specific pop/rock genre, is not the only form of relatively contemporary culture through which the marginality, and/or resentment associated with blighted aspiration(s), is broadly evident among the babyboomer generation.  This condition can as readily be recognised as evident through forsaken and/or disillusioned ideas, endeavours and initiatives associated with enterprise ventures derived from diverse sources, for instance. 

Moreover, any comprehensive scan of film and theatre productions will readily reveal a plethora of themes which obviate and/or even focus on babyboomer marginality, disillusionment, frustration and/or resentment, whether this be intentional or implicit.  Other aspects of popular culture, whether from the arts, humanities, social sciences, or whatever influential realm, will accordingly reveal this concern to be as pertinent in such socio-cultural contexts as in any other. 

The anomalous quandary palpably evident in this is the imperative for a deeply evolved quality of consistent continuity to permeate the broad aspect of inter-generational and socio-personal endeavour. 

Provided the fabric and/or pattern of human development proceeds thenceforth through an earnest ethos of authentic equanimity and mutual maturity, along with moral responsibility, then substantial effort could be achieved towards a comprehensive cosmologic perspective of the continuity of socio-communal development. 

However, relative to such a comprehensive perspective of the ontological trajectory of humanity, it is vital to realise and recognise at least the authentic phenomenon of a particular beginning of this ontology and trajectory. 

Consequently, any prospect of some ‘new beginning’ in this is palpably illusory and misleading as a proposed ontological phenomenon. 

Moreover, the nature of perception would figure as a fluid dimension in all this, derived from an organic aspect of prospective balance and harmony through speculative purpose.  Diversity would characterise the phenomenon of change in this context. 

Correspondingly, the basic quest and struggle of the life journey would proceed from, and acquire, qualities of relevance and resonance accordingly, through profound appreciation and realisation of an intuitive spontaneous speculative element in purpose and being.  Further, the substantial element of moral responsibility would foster the ethos of mutual maturity inherently vital in this. 

Trust would figure as an intuitive, rather than deliberative, quality and/or attribute in this context.  Therefore, it would not be necessarily amenable to specific cultivation as such. 

Love, expressed through poignant sensitivity and a spiritual orientation, would be vital to sustain this aspect of profound human continuity. 

Transition through this context of continuity would be sustained through substantial commitment to the perpetuity of authentic belief as the affirmative ground and source of earnest faith. 

The basically dynamic fluid influence through which this phenomenon would proceed would be optimally characterised through a comprehensive aspect of harmony realised through a spirit of essential relativity, rather than some form of balance secured through unitarian conformity. 

Broadly, a cyclical orientation seems evident as a primary criterion from this perspective.  Fluid ‘folds’ of experience aptly characterise this continuous ontology, rendered through a pervasive quality of paradox.  

Earnest authentic reflection would serve as the means through which discernment and perception would optimally support such vital endeavour, construed through the universal dynamic of destiny. 

Life would proceed as the quintessential incremental learning journey, and thence experience, on this basis, all of which would serve as an antidote to the severe sense of socio-personal and cultural marginalisation broadly experienced, particularly by many babyboomers, in the contemporary life context. 

Meanwhile, faith is grounded in belief, and thereby substantiated.  

While it is through authentic faith the veracity and validity of the existential and experiential ground of life can be verified, as the pretext for genuine initiative and intent. 

 

   
REFERENCES

NB:  All page numbers in the text of this The Source of Faith seminar paper pertain any of the books designated by the foregoing year of publication stated in each first page number bracket for that publication in the text of this paper.

Allport, Floyd  1955:	  Theories of Perception and the Concept of Structure
				John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Benhabib, Seyla  1992:	Situating the Self – gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics
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	References pp. 47-79 in this seminar paper.

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith:	Heretics; 1905

				Othodoxy;  1908

				The Bodley Head G K Chesterton
				Selected by P J Kavanagh
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				Chesterton’s Stories, Essays and Poems
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				The Man Who Was Thursday – A Nightmare
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				The Uses of Diversity – A Book of Essays
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				Quote from an article in Black and White
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				Published in The Man Who Was Orthodox
				Selections from 
The Uncollected Writings of G K Chesterton
A L Maycock (ed.), Dennis Dobson, London, 1963.

Colebatch, H G P  1995:	Richter’s Laws 
– A Handbook for Human Success 
in a Post-Computer World
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Deleuze, Gilles  1994:	Difference and Repetition
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Foucault, Michel:		Ethics – subjectivity and truth
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				Technologies of the self – 
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Gadamer, Hans-Georg  1975:

				Truth and Method
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Geertz, Clifford:		Myth, Symbol, and Culture (ed.)
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				Local Knowledge – 
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Giddens, Anthony:		New Rules of Sociological Method: 
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Koivisto, William  1957:	Principles and Problems of Modern Economics
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Kondratieff, Nikolai  1935:  ‘The Long Waves in Economic Life’
Readings in Business Cycle Theory
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MacCuish, Savitiri/ Patel, Mansukh and Wells, Andrew

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				Paradox – coping with complexity
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				Appreciating Perception
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				Culture and Perception – 
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				Academy of the Word
				‘State of the World’ Forum
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				Sydney, Australia

				Situational Perception
				Academy of the Word
				‘State of the World’ Forum
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				Presented in November 2006
				Sydney, Australia 

				Motives – the source of fulfilment
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				The Corporate Imperative
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Michelfelder, D and Palmer, R  1989:

				Dialogue and Deconstruction – 
				the Gadamer-Derrida encounter
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				References pp. 4-17 in this seminar paper.

Runes, Dagobert (ed)  1955:	Treasury of Philosophy
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					Entry on George Santayana, pp.1042-1053. 
					Entry on Alfred North Whitehead, 
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Santayana, George:			Reason in Art
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The Sense of Beauty – 
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Whitehead, Alfred North  1929:	The Function of Reason 
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