Holistic Thinking in Public Policy: Building a Case

Shoshanna N. Silverberg30 Girard Avenue/Apt.C-3Hartford, Connecticut 06105SNSilverberg@gmail.com

Culminating Project-July 2008 Master of Arts in Holistic ThinkingThe Graduate Institute, Cohort 08-02Advisor: James Trifone, Ph.D.

“I do not know the exact historical date of this present moment, its material or spiritual birthdate; I do not know its age. This imprecision regarding the state of development of the universe, of the living world, and of the human species obliges me, in all strictness, to questioning, to incompleteness or to relativity. It is not, therefore, a question of uttering a truth valid once and for all but of trying to make a gesture, faithful to the reality of yesterday and to that of today, that indicates a path toward more continuity, less tearing apart, more interiority, concentration, harmony—in me, between me and the living universe, between me and the other(s), if that is or becomes possible…”

--Luce Irigaray, Between East and West: From Singularity to Community

“I would like to distinguish between the ‘history of ideas’ and the ‘history of thought.’ The history of ideas involves the analysis of a notion from its birth, through its development, and in the setting of other ideas which constitute its context. The history of thought is the analysis of the way an unproblematic field of experience becomes a problem, raises discussions and debate, incites new reactions, and induces crisis in the previously silent behavior, habits, practices, and institutions. It is the history of the way people become anxious, for example, about madness, about crime, about themselves, or about truth.”

--Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech

Preface

My culminating project is a continuation of theoretical I work I began in college. For

my Division III (which is a cross between a senior thesis and a doctoral dissertation) at

Hampshire College, I researched Medieval and early modern European jurisprudence,

beliefs about truth and practices of torture, and the phenomenological role that spectacles

of punishment played in the competition between church and state power throughout the

Middle Ages. All of this I meshed with postmodern philosophy dealing with issues such

as discipline and punishment, the existence of the Self, corporeality and authenticity. My

parallel research was into my own consciousness, using the frameworks of creative

arts/movement therapy and meditation. My project was a performance piece consisting

of me ‘dancing’ improvisationally throughout a 25-minute soundscore inside an

installation of text I created using paint and light projection. The soundscore was

composed of a song I re-arranged and an essay I composed and recorded myself reading

that related all of the research components mentioned above.

Because I was not artistically trained my work couldn’t be evaluated the way most art

pieces are. At the same time, I found it incredibly hard to produce a paper that satisfied

my professors’ concepts of valid scholarly writing. In retrospect, I felt incapable of

creating anything that would be regarded as a finished product, because I felt confused

about how to represent myself in my research. I really wanted to write about the project

as a whole, but it was a huge struggle for me to find language that felt truthful. This

struggle is what I believe creative expression and discourse are about though—publicly

exploring personal spaces of confusion to conjure the most honest ideas and opinions we

can and share them in a way that invites others to do the same—but it wasn’t necessarily

the kind of struggle my professors wanted to embrace. For this reason I appreciate the

academic space The Graduate Institute provides its students to explore whatever ‘truth’

and ‘knowledge’ mean to them.

Introduction

In the fall of 2006 I was hired by Betty Gallo & Company to assist its lobbying team over

the course of Connecticut’s 2007 legislative session. After that session lobbying for a

number of controversial issues, I attracted the attention of the Connecticut American

Civil Liberties Union’s then Legal Director, Renee Redman. Renee had obtained a grant

to investigate the incidence level of student arrests made in Hartford area public schools

and offered me the opportunity to research this issue in the capacity of Human Rights

Fellow for the ACLU-CT. With her oversight and the incredible help of the Legal

Department’s Administrator, Deborah Noble, my advocacy efforts in the intersection of

juvenile justice and education began in June of 2007.

I realized early on that I needed to become an informed participant in various dialogues

within the state’s juvenile justice movement, since even earlier on I realized that getting

data from schools regarding its “problem” students is harder than getting blood from a

stone (although the comparison is sadly apropos). It was also around this time that the

Cheshire Home Invasion occurred, and a firestorm heated up at the Capitol that summer

around public safety.1 Although none of the brouhaha attached to the Cheshire incident

1 For general coverage of the Cheshire tragedy, see “Cheshire Mother, 2 Daughters Killed in Home Invasion”, NewHavenRegister.com--http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18619590&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=624602&rfi=8

was directly connected to the school arrest project, instinct led me to attend various

proceedings at the legislature in the following weeks and months, and the knowledge I

gained in terms of how this state’s adult criminal justice system functions, at least

theoretically, was invaluable. This was particularly interesting since the ACLU-CT was

at that time still confidentially building a case against the State Department of

Corrections due to prison overcrowding and its inhumane treatment of inmates. Also at

roughly the same time as the home invasion, the latest Sheff v. O’Neill settlement was

being fought through the legislature.2

By the fall of 2007 I had attained membership to the state Judiciary Committee’s Juvenile

Justice Policy Operations & Coordinating Council as Sen. Jonathan Harris’ designee (D-

Or see “A Crime’s Repercussions: A Year Since The Petit Slayings”, Hartford Courant Online-- http://www.courant.com/media/acrobat/2008-07/41119565.pdf *This is actually a very interesting piece to look at in terms of the relationship between policy change and media attention. For media coverage of some of the policy implications this event opened the door for, see “Parole Policy Questioned After Home Invasion”, CNN.com/US--http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/25/home.invasion.ap/index.htmlAnd for media coverage of the impact this and related policy questions had on the work of the Sentencing Task Force, see “Cheshire Slayings Change Tone on Justice Reform”, The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog--http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2007/10/ct_cheshire_sla.html

For somewhat more critical media coverage, see “Cheshire Home Invasion: Why?”, Myrecordjournal.com--http://www.myrecordjournal.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=18643765&BRD=2755&PAG=461&dept_id=618103&rfi=6And for much more critical media coverage, see “The Tragedy Hierarchy”, Undercurrents: News and Views from Hartford Independent Media Center--

http://hartfordimc.org/blog/2007/08/13/the-tragedy-hierarchy/Or watch the press conference described in “The Tragedy Hierarchy” (‘press conference-urban vs. suburban violence’)--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qstlXVLlWwo

2 The highest profile school desegregation case since Brown v. Board of Ed in 1954, Sheff has been in litigation since 1989 and is a long-standing interest of the National ACLU and its Connecticut affiliate. For a basic but comprehensive tutorial on the history of Sheff see “A Visual Guide to Sheff vs. O’Neill…”-- http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/educ/css/research/Sheff_Report_July2006.pdf And for more information see the sites below: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2003/olrdata/ed/rpt/2003-R-0112.htmhttp://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/wsd/Education/Missing_the_Goal.pdf

West Hartford), was actively serving on Hartford’s Juvenile Review Board, and was

granted membership to the Connecticut Sentencing Task Force’s Disparity Subcommittee

by the subcommittee’s co-chairs (Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield and Sen. Eric Coleman, D-

Hartford). My purpose for becoming part of each of these was to learn from within the

political system about the climate of public policy, both in ways related to what happens

in schools, and how the factors leading to criminal behavior in general are perceived by

those responsible for addressing it at the state level. It then stood to reason that my

culminating project for The Graduate Institute should grow out of this research

experience.

I began this project a year ago with a two-pronged question: what constitutes holistic

thinking and how can it be applied in the context of public policy? This question feels

important to me because it speaks to a cultural need I and many others strongly perceive

—for some kind of positive, fundamental change to occur within our political process.3

3 One example of this need is illustrated by the creation and passage of CT’s Citizens’ Election Program, otherwise known as campaign finance reform. This policy change in 2005 was a major victory for many advocates because—in a nutshell—it signifies the overhaul of an electoral system that discriminates on the basis of socio-economic status. Campaign finance reform is indisputably of tremendous significance, but I think it represents just one of the ways in which CT’s political system has the capacity to positively transform.

Another example, of course, is Barack Obama’s presidential campaign platform, which up to the Democratic primary essentially consisted of the simple affirmation we can change.

What is Holistic Thinking?

We tend to function in our every day lives vis-a-vis multiple ‘wavelengths’ or states of

consciousness, which are both influenced by and influence our perceptions of ‘reality’.

Although consciousness is often discussed as something like a container of knowledge,

much like how many people view the existence of our minds or brains, it is likely that our

consciousness is actually a matrix of non-physical structures created and affected by

different aspects of itself, and therefore of us, every moment we are alive. Rather than

holding information for us, our brains organize and translate information that comes into

our consciousness sensorially, where the information is processed on whatever

wavelengths of consciousness we are acculturated to using. The meaning we make of

this information is then networked with the meaning we’ve made of so much other

information throughout our lives and from that point on is accessed by our ‘conscious

minds’ through the engagement of various wavelengths of consciousness. This may

sound a little out there, but it’s what happens all the time, every day—agreeing and

conflicting, far away and overlapping states of consciousness constitute the process by

which we are capable of interpreting ‘reality’.

“Community is no longer constituted starting from intimate relations of kinship, from closeness with others, but from the outside, starting from rules, from goods, from borders that are more or less foreign to the subject(s).” --Luce Irigaray, Between East & West: From Singularity to Community

“…what is truly foundational in human understanding is neither particular sense data nor ideal definitions of entities and the laws holding between them, but rather structures that make it possible for sense data and definitions to have meaning.” --Kerry Whiteside,

My personal feeling is that many Americans do not feel healthy—in their bodies and in

their lives—and they are seeking tools to assist them in transforming how they perceive

reality. As is evidenced by the myriad yoga studios and meditation classes offered in

cities and towns across the nation, more and more people are recognizing value in

becoming conscious observers of, thus more conscious participants in, their lives. I think

what people find through these practices is a heightened awareness of what is going on

‘inside’ them. By acquiring this type of self-knowledge, they begin to understand more

about how to steer their consciousness in a healthier way, and can feel a renewed or

deepened sense of personal agency. The knowledge that one’s worldview can change as

a by-product of simply feeling open(ness) to the possibility of perceiving the world

differently is an example of the types of ideas I notice more and more Americans wanting

to explore.

Holistic thinking describes a practice of ‘tuning into’ a number of wavelengths at once in

order to balance the aspects of consciousness involved in observing consciousness. It can

be frightening because there is a certain loss of control one experiences in the process of

‘letting go’ or ‘opening’ to too many wavelengths of information at once. In

psychoanalytic terms, our egos (our “social and conscious” selves)4 can become

overwhelmed by the task of processing certain types or amounts of sensory information.

In moments of crisis or when we suspect someone has a severe biochemical imbalance,

we say people have ‘lost their minds’. But what if they are actually using more of their

minds, or just a different aspect than we are accustomed to using? Facilitated by

chemical changes in our bodies, different aspects of ourselves, or of who and how we

4 Guignon, 98.

have the imagination and (unconscious) presence of mind to be in a given moment, take

over control of our behavior for us when our conscious capacity is exhausted.

We certainly depend on the multiplicity of our consciousness to see us through times of

distress—nor do we tend to take the time in these circumstances to doubt the reality of

our ‘altered states’. Unfortunately, most Americans are not in touch with their ability to

choose which wavelengths of consciousness they function on in any given moment. So

the idea of willfully and purposefully practicing the art of exploring consciousness is at

odds with the predominant consciousness of our culture. But what if this phenomenon

does not need to be limited to circumstances in which crisis has been identified by our

body-minds? What if we can use this capacity of ours intentionally and constructively on

a regular basis?

The psychiatrist and professor Ervin Laszlo has noted that: “On all sides we are

threatened with a problem, on all sides we have to adapt—and that means changing the

dominant consciousness. This is the root of the problem. We have to start thinking

differently, feeling differently, and relating to each other…in different ways.”5 To

accomplish the shift in consciousness Laszlo describes, holistic thinking requires that one

be open to a sort of cognitive meshing between ideas and feelings. To wit, “…what is

truly foundational in human understanding is neither particular sense data nor ideal

definitions of entities and the laws holding between them, but rather structures that make

it possible for sense data and definitions to have meaning.”6 If we can learn to change the

5 Laszlo, 3.6 From a description of Merleau-Ponty’s views of Descartes: Whiteside, 46.

ways our brains translate and organize information—if we can change the structure(s) of

or within our consciousness—we can begin to perceive new possibilities for re-

structuring how we live as individuals and as a society.

A misconception I hear repeated often is that holistic thinking has to do with looking at

the world optimistically or in terms of “it’s all okay, all the time”. Holistic thinking is

not about looking at a glass and deciding to see it as half-full, it’s about being aware of

one’s own consciousness in the interest of becoming more aware of others’. The German

word verstehen means “understanding”; “the empathetic identification with those you are

observing in order to better understand their motives and the meaning of their behavior.”7

“It was introduced into philosophy and the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) by

the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey to describe the first-person participatory

perspective that agents have on their individual experience as well as their culture,

history, and society.”8 It is difficult to put into words, but holistic thinking has to do with

cultivating verstehen as a tool for exploring the subjective nature of truth.

Holistic thinking describes an approach to constructing reality that calls for a cooperation

of ‘wavelengths’ we are not culturally accustomed to operating on. For example, when

we’re trying to problem-solve it makes sense to ‘think outside the box’ and be ‘in touch’

with the feelings of whomever our solution affects (or perhaps it’s unfair to assume it’s

truly a solution). A sign of cultural progress is that these days many people agree: basing

decisions on only one perspective reflects either ignorance that other ways of obtaining

7 McGee & Worms, 85.8 www.w ikipedia.org , search term: verstehen.

information are possible, or indifference as to whether or not a proposed solution can

really be expected to achieve the desired results. But holistic thinking entails more than

interpreting a number of different sources of information the same way—it means

cognitively processing the same information in a variety of ways simultaneously.

Holistic thinking facilitates the formation of a consciousness of consciousness, which

encompasses critical awareness of our individual interests and perspectives, and

sufficient creativity to perceive ‘the bigger picture’ in ways that may exceed our

previously learned methods for processing data, planning for the future, or forming

opinions about an idea’s worth or validity.

Holistic Thinking in Public Policy

As is unfortunately the case in our public school

system, our medical establishment and our justice

system, the definition of knowledge is productive—

we measure success and achievement in terms of

generic product output. At the public policy level, knowledge is generally assumed

solely on the basis of propitious statistical or “objective” analysis. Thus truth is

constituted predominantly by the production and consumption of facts, and policy is by

and large created in accordance with whatever facts offer the greatest capacity for mass

consumption (insert sausage factory analogy here). Whatever methods have been used to

collect and interpret data before serve as incontrovertible bases for collecting and

interpreting data in the future (as the fact that these methods have been used before serves

as proof for many of these methods’ and by extension their findings’ validity). There

“Gregory Bateson wrote and talked about the confusion of map and territory. He said it is like coming to a restaurant and eating the menu instead of the meal.” –Stanislov Grof, The

seems to be a pervasive hunger for what has already been deemed true to remain true, and

for the epistemologies that govern the way public policy is shaped to not just remain

intact, but be resilient against ontological transformation.9 Creativity is not rampant or

valued. Neither are outward expressions of passion. Nor is discourse intended to

illuminate psychological interplays between ‘fact’ and opinion.

To pose this problem in terms of Results-Based Accountability (RBA)10, how much do

we understand about what consciousness is or how it affects the potential for forward-

thinking policies to succeed? How well are we able to empathize with one another in the

competition for resources and clout that constitutes our political process? How well are

we able to create rules that apply equally to everyone? How well do we process

information that is emotionally difficult for us to comprehend intellectually? How often

do we fall back on our assumptions to guide us through periods of crisis? How much or

how well do we use discursive space to explore our collective (political) consciousness?

9 Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, of its foundations, scope and validity; one aspect of this is the idea of worldview. Ontology is the study of the nature of being. Both ultimately have to do with the experience of existing and our ability to live beyond the limitations of who and what we think or believe we are, as individuals and as a society.10 “Multiple definitions of results-based accountability (RBA) currently exist. Results-based accountability (also known as outcome-based accountability) is defined as a management tool that can facilitate collaboration among human service agencies, as a method of decentralizing services, and as an innovative regulatory process. At a minimum, the term implies that expected results (also known as goals) are clearly articulated, and that data are regularly collected and reported to address questions of whether results have been achieved.

RBA can be developed and used at different levels: state, community, agency, or program. For example, a state-wide goal is that child poverty rates be reduced to 8% by the year 2010…” (“Overview of Results-Based Accountability: Components of RBA”-- http://www.hfrp.org/publications-resources/browse-our-publications/overview-of-results-based-accountability-components-of-rba).

There is no limit to the number of “holistic” policies we can pass into law, but unless

holistic thinking becomes an integral part of the policymaking process, we continually

run the risk that a lack of system-consciousness may swallow the intentions of our whole

government or society.11 How much do we want that? How well can we truly be doing if

speaking to the issue of consciousness is taboo? What does this silence say about where

and who we are as a society?12 If our intention is to mass-produce essentially the same

policies for years and years with minimal if detectable positive outcomes, the status quo

adheres to an appropriate paradigm. But if the objective is to create policy that has a

chance at succeeding in any meaningful, systemic way, the process of policy

development needs to be discursively constructive in and of itself, and not just viewed as

a means to an end (which in my experience is the case more often than not).

11 U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy recently teamed with Connecticut’s Rep. Chris Murphy (D-5) to pass the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007. At a round-table discussion with local mental health experts at the state capitol, Kennedy made the comment that “we need a holistic view of our people and their needs and their overall health in our country…And our health care system does not have a holistic view of a person in this country and of course does not treat people as a whole person,” (K. Dixon, CT Post, December 4, 2007). What is interesting about this is the need Kennedy recognizes for individuals to be viewed as whole by the health care system. While I am certainly not criticizing the bill he’s backing, I think it’s important to ask whether we believe the passage of a law can really facilitate the type of epistemological change Kennedy is endorsing. In other words, treatment standards and protocols can change, and that is a positive thing, but if the conditions for those who work in the health care system are not able to change in a way that supports changes within their consciousness and their families’ consciousness, etc., there is a lack in continuity between a theory of holistic care and what is true for those who are providing and receiving those treatment services. Ultimately, this type of productive holistic policy may further entrench the gulf between theory and practice because it raises our expectations in terms of what we assume is the nature and quality of healthcare we provide to our citizens. Crafting an holistic policy framework is very different from holistic thought constituting the processes by which we create and implement policy. 12 When a system lacks a certain degree of self-consciousness, it is a ‘broken’, dysfunctional or diseased system. We intuitively know this is true for individuals, as we validate the concept in both the medical and mental health fields. Any corporate executive these days understands the importance of attending to the emotional-intellectual needs of its employees, and the value-laden possibilities of offering them, for instance, yoga and pilates classes, or workshops on dialogue and conflict resolution as tools for facilitating more effective, less stressful communication. The political system is certainly its own ball of wax, but I bring up this trend in organizational psychology because it demonstrates the credence holistic practices have in the business community, in terms of raising productivity and lowering workplace disputes. It also speaks to that lack of continuity between holistic theory and praxis highlighted by the remarks of Pat Kennedy cited earlier.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, former chairman of the Department of

Psychology at the University of Chicago,

We may call intentions the force that keeps information in consciousness ordered. Intentions arise in consciousness whenever a person is aware of desiring something or wanting to accomplish something. Intentions are also bits of information, shaped either by biological needs or by internalized social goals. They act as magnetic fields, moving attention toward some objects and away from others, keeping our mind focused on some stimuli in preference to others. We often call the manifestation of intentionality by other names, such as instinct, need, drive, or desire. But these are all explanatory terms, telling us why people behave in certain ways. Intention is a more neutral and descriptive term; it doesn’t say why a person wants to do a certain thing, but simply states that he does.13

From this perspective, the matrix of interests and pathways for communication in a

political system inform its collective intentionality, or consciousness. This is true for

large societies all the way down to the most local form of governments, including

families.

Csikszentmihalyi discusses ‘a phenomenological model of consciousness based on

information theory,’ which he describes as a “representation of consciousness…that…

deals directly with events—phenomena—as we experience and interpret them…”14 He

goes on to say that, “In dreams we are locked into a single scenario we cannot change at

will. The events that constitute consciousness—the ‘things’ we see feel, think, and desire

—are information that we can manipulate and use. Thus we might think of

consciousness as intentionally ordered information.”15 To recap: the physical fact of

something’s existence does not make it real, rather, the ideas, feelings and actions our

perception of something (or someone) triggers (in us) constitutes our knowledge of it (or

13 Csikszentmihalyi, 27.14 Csikszentmihalyi, 26.15 Ibid.

them), which then serves as the basis for our consciousness of truth in that particular

perceptual context. Admittedly, the question remains, where does this get us?

As part of his explanation of the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theories on

Hegel’s master/slave dialectic, Professor of Government at Franklin & Marshall College,

Kerry Whiteside writes that, “…mutual recognition stands for the discursive processes

through which communities arrive at generally accepted meanings. We are truth-seeking

beings. We ‘need to have our opinions recognized by [the other] […] to justify our

choices […].’ This means that seeking truth is never simply an individual enterprise.

Without the recognition of others, the universal claims of our inner certainties lack the

stamp of truth. Claims to truth and value, for all their imperfection and contingency, are

inherently public claims.”16 So does truth exist independently from our perception and

expression of it? How does it exist? It would seem it exists in consciousness, which we

have already established, is us. Therefore, our knowledge of truth is directly related to

our perceptions of ourselves, and our consciousness of consciousness is actually

dependent on our capacity for self-recognition. Our capacity for self-recognition,

however, is deeply connected to whether or how we feel we are recognized by society.

(This is where it gets us.)

Below is an excerpt from Michael Lerner’s book The Politics of Meaning: Restoring

Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism.

At the same time that we are caught in cynicism…we are desperate for hope. We hunger to be recognized by others, to be cherished for our own sakes and not for what we have accomplished or possess, and to be acknowledged as people who care about something higher and more

16 Whiteside, 89.

important than our own self-interest. We hunger also for communities of meaning that can transcend the individualism and selfishness that we see around us and that will provide an ethical and spiritual framework that gives our lives some higher purpose. Some of us find those communities of meaning in a religious or nationalist framework, others in social change movements, still others in the framework of shared intellectual or artistic activity. These arenas may differ from one another in political, religious, or philosophical dogma, but they all promise something in common to their participants—that our fundamental value as human beings will be recognized and cherished within this context, and that our desire for connection to a community and to higher meaning for our lives will be nourished.17

A way to facilitate the fulfillment of the spiritual hunger Lerner mentions is described by

Professor of Consciousness at John F. Kennedy University, Christian de Quincy as

engaged presence. In his book Radical Knowing: Understanding Consciousness

Through Relationship, he refers to engaged presence as a methodology, wherein

“recognizing and experiencing the interrelationship between ‘I’ and ‘you’…can also be

called on to reveal the nature of consciousness itself…”18 De Quincy’s notion of engaged

presence rests on what he calls second-person perspective, which is really a

reformulation of Buber’s I-thou framework, and serves as the basis for his concept of

intersubjectivity. Moreover, his notion of intersubjectivity stems directly from the

Socratic Method, “the foundation of Western philosophy”.19 He writes:

Socrates’ method of questioning—while engaging the normal rational cognitive faculties—was directed at the soul or essence of the other person, a process that often left that person with a feeling of great discomfort, and sometimes of transformation. Socrates was a master at penetrating behind perceptual and emotional surfaces to the deeper, core ‘presence’ of the other. To be in dialogue with Socrates was to find one’s precious opinions and certainties, which were based on appearances, dismantled and shattered—and then, as a result, to discover some deeper truth about oneself.”20

17 Lerner, 4.18 de Quincy, 174.19 de Quincy, 173.20 de Quincy, 173-4.

Whiteside states that, “Man realizes truth…by risking private certainties in public

ventures and by seeing them there as others see them—external, ‘objectified.’ The public

character of knowledge is neither incidental to its truth nor the product of a universal

structure of the human mind. The power of subjective visions to gain public recognition

constitutes truth.”21 At the most basic level then, knowledge in a constructive rather than

productive paradigm has to do with being aware of the interplay constantly taking place

between our thoughts and feelings, and consciously exercising the freedom to express

who we are as a composite of these thoughts and feelings to a larger social world with the

intention of consciously allowing others to express their senses of truth as well. When

we attempt to analyze issues or discuss our opinions in discursive space that accepts this

phenomenological underpinning to the concepts of truth and knowledge, a more

meaningful conversation is likely able to take place because participants have taken the

responsibility to recognize their own subjectivity and how their personal concepts of truth

may be impacting the conversation they are a part of, or has in the past affected the

subject of the conversation itself.

Politics of & Applications for Discursive Holistic Praxis

Richard L. Lanigan, author of The Human Science of Communicology: A Phenomenology

of Discourse in Foucault and Merleau-Ponty and Professor of Communicology at

Southern Illinois University, describes the method of semiotic phenomenology:

21 Whiteside, 30.0

“Like Sam Cooke say, change gon' come nephew, and you

1. DESCRIPTION: The procedure is one of describing the interpersonal experience of encountering the phenomenon as a re-presentation of a signification that you recognize in the situation, in others and yourself… Ask yourself: What am I experiencing? Try starting with “I am conscious of…”, or, you might begin by completing the sentence: ‘To me, it is…’ When you engage the ‘to me’ or direct perspective on meaning, you are using facts to describe, a practice usually referred to a ‘cognitive meaning’ or the ‘world perspective’ of the ‘natural reality.’ Recall the Meyers’ definition of interpersonal communication: ‘a transaction between people and their environment.’ The description, other words, specifies those discursive signs or Hjelmslevian relations that depict the signifier/signified (expression/perception) elements and functions of human communication…

2. REDUCTION: This procedure is one of abstracting or reducing to a definition of communication your description of [an] interpersonal experience… Ask yourself: How am I experiencing? Try starting with ‘Other people, who know me, would say I am conscious of…’ or, you might try completing the sentence: ‘To me, myself, it is…’ ‘Myself’ in this context is used to voice the alterity viewpoint that another person would take; it is, if you will, an ‘alter ego’ or ‘metaperspective.’ When you use the ‘to me, myself’ perspective, you are basically using the perspective of personal emotions to define—and this definition is usually referred to as ‘affective meaning’ or the ‘other’s perspective’ in the ‘social reality’…

…in the Reduction step of the analysis, you are using emotions to define the facts you described. This is another way of saying that you are discovering that ‘facts’ are more complicated than they seem—the conceived ‘facts’ are mediated or ‘filtered’ through the ‘fact’ of your emotional (expressive) perspective. This emotional perspective is literally imagination, an imaging (or expressive perception) that you construct by code to represent the view of an other person, modeled on your own constituted view of your Self…Thus, the reduction specifies which signifiers or discursive elements express the essential meaning of the description. 3. INTERPRETATION: This procedure involves interpreting the meaning of the reduction of the description. As yourself: Why I am I experiencing? Try starting with ‘I, who know myself, would have said I am truly conscious of…’ or, you might try completing the sentence: ‘To me, myself, I judge it to be....’ When you use the combined ‘to me, myself, I’ perspective on meaning, you are using values to judge or choose. This is usually referred to as ‘conative meaning’ or the ‘self-perspective’… Here again…in the interpretation step of the analysis, you are discovering a value judgment by using emotions to define the facts you described in your analysis… That is, facts, emotions, and values do not occur in isolation—they are constituted reflexively by human interaction in both the Self-Other-World and Subject-Power-Knowledge communication system… In short, the interpretation step…allows the researcher to specify the signified or perceived element in the reduced signs of the description.22

Lanigan’s notion of engaging in discourse about a subject by exploring one’s own lived

experience of or in relation to that subject is an example of holistic thinking. He takes

22 Lanigan, 36-38.

apart the phenomenon of communication in order to illuminate where within the process

of communication it is possible to pay more or different attention to an aspect of one’s

own process of interpretation. He also explains a sufficient condition, which essentially

refers to a space in which whatever feelings and thoughts are triggered by one’s

perception of something can be expressed and heard in a way that enlarges the

consciousness of everyone who is present in that space:

A ‘sufficient condition’ is an experience in the description that justifies the understanding (read: reduction) of the value judgment or conation (read: ‘interpretation’) that any person can make. That is, we make a judgment that we understand as possible in a defining way as a concept (eidetic) or as an experience (empirical)… […] the sufficient condition is a lived-through meaning described by the respondent, not you. We sometimes refer to such ‘lived-through’ sufficient condition experiences in our communication with others by saying, ‘You had to be there to understand’ or ‘You won’t understand until you do it yourself.’ The idea of meaning in practice is implicit here, even if the practice is conceptual or eidetic. But with a proper use of the phenomenological method, the meaning can be expressed as a discourse phenomenon. Your communicative discourse can create the meaning as a conscious experience for your listener…23

Lanigan’s articulation of a phenomenological method may sound very rigid and specific,

but he is really discussing praxis for holistic discourse. What he does not address is

intentionality, or the question of how to use this approach constructively in socio-political

terms.

As Vincent Rougeau, Associate Professor at Notre Dame Law School has observed,

“James Boyd White has offered a strong critique of the narratives of American judicial

opinions…and has argued for ‘integration and transformation {of legal discourse}; the

attempt to put parts of our culture and corresponding parts of ourselves together, in ways

that will make new languages, voices, and discourses possible.’ White’s idea [is]

creating a holistic discourse that unites both the disparate voices within a community as

23 Lanigan, 39-40.

well as the often warring aspects of the human personality,” and ultimately, to “link legal

language to richer understandings of human community and the human person.”24

Rougeau’s focus is very much on the legacy of slavery and institutional racism in our

society and the capacity for growth and transformation that exists within the American

legal context. He writes:

African Americans bear an almost impossible burden in American public discourse when they attempt to articulate their experience of group victimization in a legal system that wants to restrict itself to neutral legal principles designed to promote fairness by focusing on individual justice and striving to treat all individuals the same. Not only does that bias toward neutrality and individualism disadvantage claims grounded in a history of repression based on membership in a group, it also makes it difficult to discuss the common benefits that ‘white’ Americans received as a group from the American culture of racism, regardless of whether they were directly involved as individuals in acts or institutions of racial oppression.25

Rougeau is pointing out the lack of a holistic type of discursive space in the context of

American legal theory and public policy. He poses the question, “Can the legal system

be fair or just when it refuses to recognize the racial distinctions that operate everyday in

the lives of citizens?”26 Again Rougeau uses White’s words:

In every opinion, a court not only resolves a particular dispute one way or another, it validates or authorizes one form of life–one kind of reasoning, one kind of response to argument, one way of looking at the world and at its own authority–or another. Whether or not the process is conscious, the judge seeks to persuade her reader not only to the rightness of the result reached and the propriety of the analysis used, but to her understanding of what the judge–and the law, the lawyer, and the citizen–are and should be, in short, to her conception of the kind of conversation that does and should constitute us.27

When we discuss the topic of political discourse, we are inherently referring to the tacit

assumptions of propriety that pervade our sense of what is safe to voice in the theater of

justice, and what is valid to bring public attention to. As White makes clear in the

passage above, if the consciousness of those who formally practice interpreting the law

24 Rougeau, 11.25 Rougeau, 3.26 Rougeau, 4.27 Rougeau, 12.

can evolve, what can then be affected are the ways we as a society regard judicial

authority, and the purpose it serves in each of our lives and the lives of our communities.

However, when an instinct to be safe (politically) overrides a judge’s or lawyer’s desire

to open up sensitive discursive space, a conscious decision is being made to confirm the

practices which keep us feeling afraid to express what is at the root of an issue. For

White and for Rougeau, this means containing cultural consciousness in order to avoid

exploring it, or refusing to publicly recognize the complicated historical and emotional

“baggage” which many people would prefer to assume is ‘a thing of the past’ or just

simply not their problem.

As Rougeau makes clear, the refusal to open up new ways of engaging in political

discourse is a refusal to recognize on an institutional level the barriers that still exist in

our country inhibiting individuals’ and groups’ capacities to positively transform.

Rougeau is implicitly advocating for a type of discourse in which those who participate

are willing and able to offer their own subjectivity as food for thought in the

deconstruction and reconstruction of traditional discursive values and practices. Rather

than keeping the political focus strictly on who will be affected by proposed policies, the

suggestion here seems to be allowing light into the inner-processes by which individuals

and ultimately institutions interpret and create laws.

The first image I had when I considered how I felt reading this article, was of me

screaming in a crowded meeting room. I find this very interesting because it seems to

reflect a deeper feeling of frustration than is permissible to discuss in such an

environment. That deep frustration is something that I think has built over time in this

country, and not just in the ‘souls of black folk’, but in the bodies and minds of everyone

who feels American. It is very much about slavery. It is also about the cultural

inheritance of racialized fears that we as Americans—diviners of the world’s model

democracy—have so far failed to sufficiently understand and transform, within ourselves

and within our institutions.28

Below is an excerpt from an article that was published in the Connecticut Law Review in

May of 2008. I’ve chosen to end with this particular quotation because it crystallizes

better than anything I’ve come across both the essential qualities and utility of holistic

thinking in public policy. The article is “Unconscious Racism Revisited: Reflections on

the Impact and Origins of ‘The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection’” by Professor Charles

Lawrence III. Prior to the excerpt I include the article’s opening paragraph about the

author and his work.

Twenty years ago, Professor Charles Lawrence wrote “The Id, The Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning With Unconscious Racism.” This article is considered a foundational document of Critical Race Theory and is one of the most influential and widely cited law review articles. The article argued that the purposeful intent requirement found in Supreme Court equal protection doctrine and in the Court’s interpretation of antidiscrimination laws disserved the value of equal citizenship expressed in those laws because many forms of racial bias are unconscious. He suggested that rather than look for discriminatory motive, the Court should examine the cultural meaning of laws to determine the presence of collective, unconscious racism. In this Article, Professor Lawrence discusses the origins and impact of his groundbreaking article. He notes that while an increasingly conservative Supreme Court majority has ignored his call to recognize the presence of unconscious racism and to consider the meaning of cultural text, an important body of research and scholarship has emerged to substantiate his assertion concerning the ubiquity of unconscious racial bias.

28 I have been interested for years in facilitating experimental forms of dialogue with policymakers, specifically in regard to phenotypic and cultural difference (i.e. race, ethnicity). Initially for my culminating project I was working on coordinating and facilitating school-based dialogues that would engage policymakers with parents as well as students. I am still committed to doing this (through the Sentencing Task Force Disparity Subcommittee and AFCAMP-African Caribbean American Parents of Children with Disabilities), it is just taking a bit longer than I anticipated it would!

He applauds the work that has advanced our understanding of unconscious bias, but he expresses concern that this scholarship’s focus on the mechanisms of cognitive categorization rather than on the history and culture of racial subordination embedded in our unconscious may have undermined the central lesson of his article: to advance the understanding of racism as a societal disease and to argue that the Constitution commands our collective responsibility for its cure.

****************************************************************

In the weeks before this Symposium went to press, a political controversy placed the issue of race at the middle of the presidential primary campaign and threatened to derail the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama, a man whom many believe may well become our nation’s first African American president. The texts and context of the controversy tell a story that captures, in its full complexity, the essential lesson of The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection. I close this retrospective with a brief reflection on those events.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is angry about racism. He is angry about American violence, about the thousands of precious lives lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in the Chicago neighborhood where he lives and serves as Pastor of the 10,000 member Trinity United Church of Christ. Jeremiah Wright speaks forthrightly about his anger with injustice. For thirty-six years he has spoken from his pulpit, following the prophetic tradition of his Old Testament namesake, giving voice to the injury and anger of his flock and calling all of us to account for our sins against God and our neighbors. In the black church vernacular, he “makes it plain.”

Now he has been pushed into the glare of public scrutiny because Barack Obama is a member of his flock. Opponents of Senator Obama’s candidacy have excerpted the most provocative and intemperate of Reverend Wright’s angry, plainly spoken words, circulated them widely on the internet, and used them to brand him “separatist,” “anti-American,” “anti-white,” to portray him in the stock image of an angry black man, rightly hated and feared.

Of course, Senator Obama is the primary target of these attacks on Reverend Wright. Obama is called upon to denounce his pastor’s words and disown the man. If he won’t, he is anti-American and anti-white. He becomes the angry black man. Faced with this racist image-making, with the demand that he publicly denounce black anger and implicitly accept the demand’s premise that black anger is unwarranted, Obama delivers a speech on the subject of race, to remember and appreciate the sacrifice and bravery of parents and grandparents who struggled to narrow the gap between our nation’s ideals and our legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, to know that this legacy lives with us still. He wants us to understand that we share this history and the illness it has wrought, to use our knowledge and understanding to heal ourselves of the disease of racism. It hardly seems possible. Barack Obama has made the subject of my life’s work the subject of his speech.

Once again, I am aware that I do not watch this speech alone, that millions of other Americans are hearing this text and giving it meaning. Like the text in Little Black Sambo and the text of the of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Parents Involved in Community Schools,29 Senator Obama’s speech is filled

29 See the link below to view Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1, et al. http://www.sheffmovement.org/pdf/Brief_of_553_Social_Scientists.pdf

with racial images and I watch the speech knowing that our collective history and experience will give those images meaning. I know that the images we will see and the meanings we will take from this text are determined not only by the text itself, but by the face of the speaker.

One cannot mistake Barack Obama for anything other than a black man. The Media has dubbed him a “post-racial” candidate. When a euphoric multiracial crowd of Obama campaign workers and supporters gathered to celebrate his historic victory in the South Carolina primary they chanted: “Race doesn’t matter!” But race does matter in America, Supreme Court pronouncements of our colorblindness notwithstanding. Obama’s candidacy compels us to ask, “Are we capable of electing a Black president? Are we capable of overcoming and moving beyond our racism?” We cannot answer those questions in the affirmative while we deny our racism.

Even as I rejoice in the truth and eloquence of Obama’s words, I experience uneasiness and apprehension. I am fearful that he has spoken too much truth, too forthrightly; that even this carefully crafted speech will produce the backlash that always comes when one speaks truth to power. Within hours of the speech, a host of pundits and commentators descend on his words, eager to dissect, to analyze, to reinterpret, assault and condemn. Many of these commentators lift passages from Obama’s speech and reframe them to distort his meaning and silence his truth. They seek to break the bridge of shared humanity that Obama has labored so mightily to build in his campaign and in this speech. They signal to white people, “This man Obama is not you. Remember he is black and black folks are not us.” They do this in the coded language of colorblindness, a language that invokes racism’s images even as it denies racism’s existence or attributes racism only to those who dare remove white supremacy’s colorblind disguise. They never say Obama is scary because he is black. Instead, they use Jeremiah Wright, with his afro-centric robes and unguarded angry words, to re-cast Obama as scarily black. Obama’s answer was to confront the image, to say our history has made blackness scary. The image of blackness as violent, angry, hateful, is not true. Now the truth-silencers strike back by telling the lie again and again, calling Wright, now Obama’s surrogate, white-hating and separatist. The commentators position themselves as colorblind and Wright (now Obama) becomes the separatist who is racist. Like Justice Roberts in PICS, they turn reality upside-down, denying the existence of white supremacy’s structure and meaning in order to silence those who exhort us to be conscious of our racism so that we can heal ourselves.30

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