Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




The World's Conversation

Judd's Hill, Napa Valley, California, USA

March 15, 2015



This essay, The World's Conversation, is the companion piece to Dancing With My Mouth.

It is also the sixteenth in an open group on Language:
  1. Last Word
  2. Speaking Of Freedom
  3. The Transformation Of The World
  4. Constituted In Language
  5. Zen Bland
  6. Source Of Zen Bland: Hand Grasps Itself?
  7. Linguistic Acts
  8. Language: The Scalpel Of Experience
  9. Wordsmith
  10. Source Quote
  11. Being And Acting Out-Here: Presence Of Self Revisited
  12. My Word In The Matter
  13. You Are What You Speak
  14. Residue Of Meaning
  15. The Effortless Breakthrough
  16. The World's Conversation
  17. Read To Us
  18. Everything You Say
  19. Breakfast With The Master IV: Language As Music
  20. Leading With My Word
  21. Language And Results
  22. No, It's What You Say  About It
  23. Located Inside Language
  24. Be A Good Day
  25. Words Are Like Numbers
in that order.

It is also the eighth in a group of twelve on Enrollment: It was written at the same time as


What is transformation? I mean what is transformation really?  Transformation, in its most manifest expression, is a conversation  - which is to say transformation is language. The onset of transformation occurs when a contextual shift  in our deployment of language occurs - which is to say the onset of transformation occurs when a shift in our relationship  with language occurs.

We've inherited  (if you will) language. And the language we've inherited is language as a tool with which to talk about things, language as a tool with which to describe things etc. What we didn't  inherit is language with which to cause  things, language with which to generate  things - in other words, what we didn't inherit is language as transformation. What we've inherited is language as "talking about". What we've inherited is language as narration. What we've inherited is language as description.

I assert the language we've inherited is dichotomous. When I refer to dichotomous language, I mean language which exists in a dichotomy ie language which exists in a schism. Here's what I mean by language which exists in a schism:

There's who we are  ... and then there's language which "who we are" uses to talk about things, language which "who we are" uses to describe things. In this model, we use language - which is to say in this model, "who we are" uses language ... yet "who we are" is different than language  in this model. Now consider a model in which "who we are" doesn't merely use  language. Consider a model in which "who we are" is  language. The shift in our relationship with language from dichotomous "who we are" using language as a narrative, describing tool, to non-dichotomous "who we are" as language  - period - is the onset of transformation.

Transformation as language ie transformation as a conversation, starts off as an inquiry, as a personal inquiry, as a private inquiry, as an intimate conversation, as an individual  conversation. By this personal, private inquiry ie by this intimate, individual conversation, I'm really referring to the conversation between an individual and himself  or between an individual and herself.

But then very quickly (given its true nature) this private conversation becomes a one on one conversation, a face to face conversation, a shared conversation ... until when expressed with full power, transformation is inevitably and inexorably a group conversation - or (stated with rigor) when expressed with full power, transformation is an interconnected group of group conversations. And the group I'm alluding to (to mention but a few of its component groups) interimly includes all of families, relationships, neighborhoods, communities, societies, countries, and more. Ultimately it includes humanity at large ie ultimately this group conversation is the world's conversation.

Nelson Mandela, on the demise of apartheid, one of the most memorable political transformations in the history of the world, said "Nothing of what happened in South Africa was the work of any one individual: the transformation of South Africa came out of a partnership  (a conversation) between many, many people ...".

We love our privacy. To an extent, it's even constitutionally guaranteed - that's how sacred it is to us. Yet even while we honor our rights to privacy, interimly there isn't the full power of transformation in intimate, individual conversation without group conversation, and ultimately without the world's conversation. Bridging the gap (which is to say filling the space)  between individual conversation and group conversation and the world's conversation, is transformation as conversation, fulfilling itself and completing itself over and over and over again, as enrollment.



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