MingHe: Yes, tonight we tried to look more carefully at Paul Schafer’s vision for The Age of Culture— not to replace or revise it, but to understand how we might help it flourish.
1. Economics Is Not the Enemy
Schafer’s concern is not that economics is unimportant. Economic development has brought enormous benefits.
His concern is imbalance. Our present Age of Economics has placed excessive emphasis on economic growth, production, consumption, efficiency and financial measures, while too often neglecting equally important human, cultural, ethical, social, spiritual and environmental values.
The challenge is therefore not to eliminate economics, but to restore it to its proper place within the larger whole of human and planetary life.
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2. Holistic Thinking May Be the Key. We came to appreciate even more strongly Schafer’s emphasis on HOLISTIC THINKING.
Holistic thinking does not simply mean adding more subjects to our checklist. It means seeing relationships:
People and Planet
Individual and Community
Economics and Environment
Science and Art
Technology and Humanity
Present and Future
Rights and Responsibilities
Material Needs and Human Meaning
The parts must be understood—but then put back together. A useful question may be:
“Considering everything we have learned, what seems best for the wellbeing of the whole?”
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3. Let Flowers Bloom in All Corners
An Age of Culture should not require everybody to arrive at the same answer. Quite the opposite.
Let different peoples, communities, generations and cultures explore their own possibilities. Let them learn from one another rather than impose uniform solutions.
We imagined a cultural garden characterized by:
Different Meanings
Common Goodness
Unique Creativeness
Separate or Joint Flourishing
Enjoying Shared Joy
TAOC therefore need not prescribe what every flower should look like.
Perhaps its role is to prepare fertile soil, connect the gardeners, encourage experimentation, share discoveries and let many flowers bloom.
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4. Holistic Thinking Does Not Guarantee Agreement
When important values conflict, holistic thinking does not magically produce a perfect answer.
Its contribution is to widen our vision before making judgements:
Who benefits?
Who may be hurt?
What are we gaining?
What might we lose?
What are the immediate consequences?
What about future generations?
What have we failed to notice?
Then we use our best judgement, act, observe and remain willing to change.
An Age of Culture therefore requires not only holistic thinking, but also humility and continuing learning.
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5. Success Is Not the Only Thing Worth Celebrating
An especially joyful discovery tonight was that: Shared Joy should not be only when you have achieve success.
When an experiment fails, we can still gather together and Celebrate. Celebrate Good Lessons Learned.
We can acknowledge mistakes honestly, laugh together when appropriate, appreciate those who tried, discover what the failure has taught us, and be grateful for the valuable lessons gained.
Where real harm has occurred, responsibility and repair must come first. But failure need not end in blame, shame or concealment.
A healthy culture can learn how to fail well. Our emerging cycle therefore became:
Holistic Thinking → Good Judgement → Experiment → Outcome → Reflection → Learning → Celebration → Try Again
Shared Joy can occur throughout this journey.
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6. A Possible Role for TAOC. It could become a living global network
Perhaps TAOC should not attempt to become the authority to define solutions in every case for everyone.
It could instead become a living global network of exploration:
Encouraging people to think holistically,
Inviting different cultural expressions,
Connecting people and organizations already doing good work,
Sharing successful and unsuccessful experiments,
Learning across cultures,
and Celebrating discoveries together for Shared Joy.
Paul Schafer has given us a remarkably comprehensive philosophical foundation.
Our opportunity may now be to help people experience what those ideas mean in everyday life.
We ended tonight not with a conclusion, but with an open window.
Let flowers bloom in all corners.
Let us search for Different Meanings.
Discover Common Goodness.
Encourage and Appreciate Unique Creativeness.
Help one another Flourish—separately and together.
Learn joyfully from both success and failure.
And, most importantly, Enjoy Shared Joy.
We should not close the window too quickly. Leave it open for more Light and Fresh Air.
Billy Lee & MingHe (明和 ChatGPT)
