Holos Project 20 January 2021: A New Narrative for Humankind

With Taoist Scholar and Philosopher, Dr Rhett Gayle of Macao University.

In the ‘age of modernism’ our story has been shackled in a materialistic and mechanistic paradigm. How might it be liberated into an organismic and holistic evolutionary story?

“Sitting around the fire that holds the darkness at bay, stories are told. These stories tell the listeners their history, who they are and what is important, meaningful and valuable. They convey how we do things and why, showing us who are the heroes to imitate and the villains to shun. So it was in the distant past, and so it is now even if the firelight is now a flickering screen and the tribe around the fire is much larger and scattered around the world. We conduct our lives in the context of the narratives that we believe, even our civilization is created and held together by narrative. One story that has been prominent during the course of my life, told initially around the twin fires of the crematoria of Auschwitz and the nuclear fire of Hiroshima, is that the story of civilization is flawed in some soon to be fatal way. We need a new way of thinking, a new paradigm, some new story to act within so as to save the world from the consequences of our acting on the basis of the old story. In this talk I will discuss the difficulties inherent in manufacturing a new story, the methods which we might use to open the way for the emergence of useful new stories and what criteria a good new story might meet to be successful. I will also point out some of the ways in which the new stories currently on offer are the old story wearing new clothes”

Rhett Gayle

Pre-work Questions:

Please contemplate the following questions in preparation for our generative conversation:

· What five questions could define your personal life philosophy?

· What five key experiences have reinforced or challenged that philosophy?

Break-out Questions:

1. Have you ever changed your worldview? What caused this?
2. How do you know what to desire?
3. What makes a good narrative? eg must it be true?
4. How do you know who you are?
5. How will having a better story help you and the world?
6. What benefit are humans to the planet? What does the planet want to create through us?