If
we're going to save the world and stuff, we're going to need to bring
some diverse skills and capacities to bear. The two models above, which
come from these posts last year, suggest what these needed skills and capacities might be.
The
problem is, we tend to gravitate towards like minds, people who think
like we do, have the values we have, and to some extent have developed
the skills and capacities we have. That doesn't bode well for diversity.
The Jungian model of knowledge identifies four orientations for learning, understanding and seeing the world:
- sensual (through the senses),
- emotional (through the heart),
- intellectual (through the mind) and
- instinctual (through the body/genes)
None
of us is purely aligned with any one of these four orientations, but
most of us lean towards one or two. Hedonists lean to the sensual,
artists to the sensual and emotional, philosophers to the emotional and
intellectual, scientists to the sensual and intellectual, primitivists
to the instinctual, naturalists to the sensual and instinctual. As a
lifelong philosopher, the intellectual and the emotional orientations
(in that order) remain my forté, though as I've grown older I've
refocused on the sensual and the instinctual, though I remain poor at
learning and seeing the world through these orientations.
We
need the artists to help us imagine and perceive and create, the
scientists to help us understand and realize, the naturalists and the
hedonists to keep us joyful and connected, and the philosophers to help
make sense of it all.
If you were to look at the collective
capacities of those in my communities, or at least, say, the 150 I am
closest to and love the most, you'd find a decided lack of diversity:
too many philosophers and not enough artists, too many scientists and
not enough intuiters, too many dreamers and not enough pragmatists, and
far too many disconnected from their senses and instincts and the
Earth, and (the males especially) disconnected from their emotions as
well, living inside their heads and in their dreamworlds. Or, as Neil
Young put it, living in our sleep.
If I were not very careful, my ideal Intentional Community would be,
collectively, brilliant and imaginative and utterly incompetent at
living in the real world.
I am strongly attracted to artists and
hedonists and naturalists, but I tend to drive them to distraction with
my inability to see the world the way they do, despite extraordinary
efforts. My relationships with them tend to be fiery and short-lived.
Here's a very rough and highly judgemental mapping from the four Jungian orientations to some of the capacities we need:
| sensual | emotional | intellectual | instinctual | all four (in
different ways) | | sensing | letting-self-open | making sense | letting-self-open | learning | | focusing attention | conversing | imagining | intuiting | understanding | | playing | collaborating | conversing | trying | appreciating | | telling stories | letting-self-believe | interpreting | experimenting | contextualizing | | showing | intending | creating models | synthesizing | provoking | | entertaining | entertaining | integrating (consc.) | deciding | adding insight | | letting emerge | offering | questioning | letting emerge | letting-self-change | | reflecting | reflecting | facilitating | integrating (unconsc.) | following through | | perceiving | loving | realizing | reacting | relating |
none are particularly good at capacities needing patience: suspending, letting come/go, seeing other perspectives
So
as someone with (if I were to be honest with myself) a primary
intellectual orientation and a secondary emotional orientation, I think
I'm pretty good at the capacities in the blue and white columns, so-so
at the capacities in the pink column, and still awful at the capacities
in the yellow and green columns. What's worse, appreciating capacities
we lack doesn't make it any easier to acquire them.
I don't
know enough artists and hedonists and naturalists, but more than that,
I don't know how to love them and get them to love me well enough to
live with them in Intentional Communities and make a living with them
in Natural Enterprises. I just keep gravitating to others of the same
orientations and away from those with different orientations, and these
tendencies seem to be mutual. It's just easier and more fun to spend
time and love and work with people who 'get' you, who you 'get' too.
How
does this work in indigenous cultures? Are they just more tolerant or
more well-rounded in their capacities? Or when it comes to love, does
chemistry finally trump everything else? And if not, what can we do to
find, and keep together, people of different orientations and diverse
skills, to build Intentional Communities and Natural Enterprises that
are collectively competent and resilient?
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
