Unit 2: The Human Spirit, and the Spirit of Being Human, as the development of heart-mind (consciousness)
All professionals are workers with the human spirit – their own and those that they lead and manage.
Unit description:
In relation to a working definition of the process of holistic development this module looks at the nature of, and use of, the idea of ‘the human spirit, and the spirit of being human and what it means to be human’ – by the teacher, or other practitioner, so as to encourage learning, professional development and/or personal growth.
What is it to be human – positively and fully? this is the question that we explore in this module-session.
“Every generation has a definition of man it deserves. But it seems to me that we of this generation have fared worse than we deserve. Accepting a definition is man’’ way of identifying himself, holding up a mirror in which to scan his own face. It is characteristic of the inner situation of contemporary man that the plausible way to identify himself is to see himself in the image of a machine. ”“The human machine” is today a more acceptable description of man than the human animal. Man is simply “a machine into which we put what we call food and produce what we call thought.” A human being is “an ingenious assembly of portable plumbing.” The definition itself goes back to the eighteenth century. Never before, however, has it been so widely accepted as plausible. An animal stands before us as a mystery; a machine is an invention.” Abraham Joshua Heschel Who is Man? Chap 2
The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water. ~ Sigmund Freud
The Danger Of A World Without Enemies
Lemkin’s Word
by Michael Ignatieff
…we belong to the same species and owe each other the same duties of care. This concept came late to mankind, and to judge from the horrible century just past it is still struggling to make headway against the more evident idea that race, color, or creed mark impassible frontiers of moral concern. Most moral principles take root within tribal boundaries and remain confined by the tribe’s allegiances and interests. According to this conception of the ethical life, morality articulates identity and identity depends on difference….
If all this is true, we need to force ourselves to think beyond the platitude that genocide is an abomination, and to understand the more difficult thought that it represents an unending moral temptation for mankind. The danger of genocide lies in its promise to create a world without enemies. Think of genocide as a crime in service of a utopia, a world without discord, enmity, suspicion, free of the enemy without or the enemy within. Once we understand that this utopia is the core of the genocidal intention, we have to realize that this utopia menaces us forever. Once we understand genocide as utopian, we understand also the vulnerability of universalism. The idea that there can be a “crime against humanity” is a counterintuitive one that has to make its way against the more alarming thought that what humans actually desire is not a world of brotherhood, but a world without enemies….
What it means to be a human being, what defines the very identity we share as a species, is the fact that we are differentiated by race, religion, ethnicity, and individual difference. These differentiations define our identity both as individuals and as a species. No other species differentiates itself in this individualized abundance. A sense of otherness, of distinctness, is the very basis of the consciousness of our individuality, and this consciousness, based in difference, is a constitutive element of what it is to be a human being. To attack any one of these differences…is to attack the shared element that makes us what we are as a species. In this way of thinking, we understand humanity, our common flesh and blood, as valuable to the degree that it allows us to elaborate the dignity and the honor that we give to our differences–and that this reality of difference, both fated and created, is our common inheritance, the shared integument that we must fight to defend whenever any of us is attacked for manifesting it. SEE The New Republic http://www.tnr.com/
Short version of our working definition of what it means to practice holistically:
‘holization’ or ‘progress in becoming more holistic’, =
a) ‘consciously realizing meaning-full connections between ever-widening contexts in our world-view, through
b) generating insights using the dynamic of going back & forth between
i) ‘contemplative encounters’ with the ‘Whole’ and
ii) paying attention to particulars parts
Introductory reading/s to get started:
The best writer on this subject that I have come across is Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book Who is Man?
You might also like to dip into the ideas of Martin Buber
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-buber.htm
Human spirit as Mind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind
SOME KEY CONCEPTS: human spirit, being, being human, flow, human spirit, life-force, chi, consciouness, heart-mind, xin
A sense of the field can be obtained from Roger Stack’s ‘Map’ of Holistic Education see also his blog
