Brand Integral Jargon

This is a carry over from a discussion that started in the, Emergence of Time, thread.

Defining light and then defining primordial, is kind of pointless to the conversation and the meaning that I'm trying to get across, and you know it Bjorn.
We have these slogans from Brand Integral, and we use them reflexively. In Buddhism we use “emptiness,” and usually without ever actually knowing what we are talking about. I was tossing around words like Nirvana and Emptiness long before I understood them.
Thus we use phrases like, Primordial Light, even though they don't actually mean anything. Is this mind, this awareness, a light? I guess you could say it lights awareness, exposing reality, but then what is this reality? You see, we get into duality again. You have this light that lights that stuff over there.
But, even focusing on that phrase is missing my point. I'm talking about all the slogans of Brand Integral or Brand New Age. They are reflexive and almost always empty labels that are thrown around, but rarely defined. Ken is right that most of the trans-rational movements of the 20th century were high-jacked by pre-rational people. This is where I believe this began, because it creates the illusion of understanding. In a similar way, many academics turn their writing into an impenetrable fog to obscure weak reasoning and borrowed ideas.
My discipline of anthropology is the same way. Ethnographic titles are ridiculous. Take, for example, Romancing Democracy: Compliant Defiance in Contemporary Mexico. Now that is from a book that is intended for the educated lay of any background, and it is a great read, but the author, who is brilliant, can't get passed the tradition of having to title every ethnography with a title a colon and then an obscure phrasing that often tells you little about what your going to read. This is the tradition of Brand Anthropology, where bad writing prevails. So the author is shooting himself in the foot, by marketing a book for the educated lay, with a title that will ensure that non-discipline people will never buy it.
In the context of an I-I pod, these phrases are perfectly acceptable, but if these ideas are to compete in the “global marketplace of ideas,” then we will have to adjust our jargon to make it less reflexive and more accessible.

This isn't a critic of Bruce's title, though, because I do believe he implies an actual meaning, that is defined in the essay. So, think of that as an abstract example.

Re: Brand Integral Jargon

but if these ideas are to compete in the “global marketplace of ideas,” then we will have to adjust our jargon to make it less reflexive and more accessible.

Here's a hearty “damn straight” to that!

This obsession with jargon is a kind of poison to understanding.

And a deep misunderstanding of the usefullness and function of jargon.

If an idea can't be communicated in language accessible to the layperson, have you really understood the idea at all?

Jargon is the single biggest current threat to integral theory and culture.

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Bill says: “Jargon is the single biggest current threat to integral theory and culture.”

A- friggin’ men to that!

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Hi peeps –

Rick, in reference to your sentence This isn't a critic of Bruce's title, though –  the thread you're talking about was actually started by Bjorn.

Mary

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Yeah, but it was started with a link to an essay that Bruce put posted in that thread.

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Ah: I misunderstood. By “title” I thought you were referring to the title of the main thread itself.

Nevah mind!

Mary

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I think primordial light does mean something: it refers to the birth of the universe, 14 billion years ago, the big bang. Apparently, light was the first thing to come down the pike; there was an “eruption of light,” as Brian Swimme talks about here. I understand there are other theories; there are theories of multiple big bangs and such, but as far as I know this is the one that has the most credence. It actually does mean quite a lot–it tells us something about who we are and where we came from and where we are going. The absolute perspective–“nothing ever happened” and “not two”–does not negate this entirely. Some call this the “deep-time perspective,” and it appears to become an operating principle at some point in the spiral.

As for jargon, any field of study or activity has its own jargon. If we want to talk about baseball we need to learn some jargon; we have to learn what words and phrases like base, steal, strike, ball, catch, in-field fly, suicide squeze mean. Until we do, we can't really have much of a conversation about baseball, can we? Have you ever talked about baseball with a guy who didn't know anything about it or any of the jargon? Not a lot of fun, right? Not a very deep conversation about baseball. Same with conversations about Buddhism, Christianity, economics, film–and integral theory. So when we learn anything new there's going to be new jargon. There's tons of computer jargon we all had to learn to even do as much as we are doing now–is that jargon an obstacle to using computers? For some it is; for pretty much everyone it's at least a small challenge, but it's necessary to gain at least a basic competence in it if you're going to talk about computers.

Of course it's possible to use too much jargon, but I don't think the use of jargon is excessive here. There are concepts tied to those words, and until people understand those concepts and the words to go along with them we will have misunderstandings and discussions will get hung up in fairly predictable ways.

David

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Me: “This isn't a critic of Bruce's title, though, because I do believe he implies an actual meaning, that is defined in the essay. So, think of that as an abstract example.”

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Sorry, Rick. Second misunderstanding in the thread. I was looking at the part where you talk of duality and the light that lights stuff over there.

David

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I agree in general that we need to be careful about over-reliance on jargon.  In the “in-group,” it can serve as a useful shorthand.  But it can be over used and over extended and, as others have pointed out, serve as a shield of sorts – a lingo to hide behind when we lack deeper understanding.

However, I also am suspicious of the argument that I often hear that, if you can't express something using conventional language and vocabulary, then you don't really understand it.  To a degree, yes, this is true.   But as Brian Swimme says elsewhere in the essay, “Any cosmology whose language can be completely understood by using one of the standard dictionaries belongs to the former era.”  Our conventional language is not value-free or presupposition-free; it bears within it many deep imprints, many associations, conventions, beliefs, and so on, some of which may be precisely the things you are trying to challenge or replace.  We need to push language to an extent, in my view, as our understanding grows and changes, as old ways of thinking and organizing thought break down or prove inadequate.  If you try to “squeeze” a radically new vision entirely within the confines of conventional language, you run the risk of “translating away” the elements that are truly radical, or “translating down” in such a way that core (outmoded, inadequate) presuppositions are not challenged or even “exposed” as conditioning influences.

So, there's a fine edge.  We don't want to hide behind obscurantist jargon, but neither should we assume that our “conventional language” is always adequate to the demands of our new perspectives.  Some “jargon” or non-conventional languaging can help to push the envelope, expose hidden assumptions, prompt inquiry, etc.

Best wishes,

Balder

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That is a very good point Bruce, thanx for the balance, I think your right.

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Balder:
We need to push language to an extent, in my view, as our understanding grows and changes, as old ways of thinking and organizing thought break down or prove inadequate.  If you try to “squeeze” a radically new vision entirely within the confines of conventional language, you run the risk of “translating away” the elements that are truly radical, or “translating down” in such a way that core (outmoded, inadequate) presuppositions are not challenged or even “exposed” as conditioning influences.

So, there's a fine edge.  We don't want to hide behind obscurantist jargon, but neither should we assume that our “conventional language” is always adequate to the demands of our new perspectives.  Some “jargon” or non-conventional languaging can help to push the envelope, expose hidden assumptions, prompt inquiry, etc.

This is truly an excellent summary Bruce. I'll refer back to it the next time the “jargon discussion” hits the fan :)

Pelle

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Hi Bruce

As someone who usually rants against jargon - I do believe you have a point.
Perhaps its the way in which jargon is sometimes used that I'm against rather than jargon itself. I'll be more precise in future.

Juliee