Spiral Logic IV The Seven Life Forces of Energy (2/7)

風

　　　The Wind Person understands the psychology of the situation as of now. The wind persons know how, when, why they have. The wind logic, for instance, forces me to ask myself: Am I writing about the right topic at the right time (when Japan is in identity crisis) and at the right place (A valuable space on YouTube)?

            Or am I discussing the wrong topic (not the issue yet), at the wrong time (when everyone still believes the Western straight logic is the logic), at the wrong place (online instead of off-line or in print)? Right or wrong, as well as good or bad, is determined by time, (time talks), space (space speaks), the currents, the context and last but not least by you, readers, your eyes and ears.

I’m playing the wind person now, like Peter, a wind evangelist, hoping that this little piece of writing on my newly-arisen non-religious faith (emerging rock logic) will cause a ripple effect to the rest of the world.

My red-hot “honne” (emotional honesty construed in Japan as politically-incorrect, thus wreckless) cannot “communicate”, if unaided by the “wind” force.

Christians’ self-sacrificial love could not have spread like a wild fire without the missionary zeal of passionate but “windy” missionaries.

The wind is spontaneously generated as long as the earth is rotating on its own axis. The wind causes water to move in waves. More specifically, water in a fluid stage ripples, waves, swells, tides(tsunami), influenced by the sun and the moon. The wind despite being influenced by other natural forces remains on its own ―― on nature’s own.

Spiral Logic IV The Seven Life Forces of Energy (1/7)

The Seven Life Forces of Energy

火         Let’s see how life comes full circle. Let’ begin with fire.

                The Fire Person is energized by fire ――primary engine of emotional outburst.  Their passion cuts both ways. Their innate red, hot molten rock breaks through ancient regime and turns the system around. Socrates, Jesus Christ, Adolf Hitler were all fire persons. Passion rise and fall. Those heroes, despite or because of their willingness to fight for their passionate goal, died in agony. Passion on fire (情熱) turns out to be passion in futility (受難). They are so emotionally honest, that the occasions arise when they inadvertently get carried away and self-destruct under their own big egos.

                Socrates’ passion caused him to self-destruct ――drinking hemlock. Jesus’ passion cost him a death on the cross.

                Adolf’s passion backfired on himself, inflated first by the passionate crowd and deflated second. What goes up in flames, comes down in ashes. Back to the earth. Life goes on. I’ll discuss “rock” later.

                Back to fire. Fire is necessary to be a creative leader or possibly a visionary. But fire is not sufficient to make a creative genius. Genius comes at a price. You cannot afford to be overly creative, or overly imaginative to be a political leader, at the risk of violating the principle of political correctness. (wind logic) Fire is Janis-faced: life-wish vs death-wish. Let’s suffice it here to say in conclusion: fire IS necessary, but NOT sufficient to secure a constructively destructive leadership. Let’s move on to the wind person.

Coffee break: The spiral look at money

            If everything has two sides, like a coin with heads and tails, debate has two sides of argument: pro (yes) and con (no). It’s either light or shadow, right or wrong. Debate as a skill has a loyal supporter, logic. The conventional straight logic has had a large following among monotheists, while it has left polytheists and atheists totally cold.

            Imagine there’s no heaven or hell, there will be no eternal salvation or eternal damnation. Following this monotheistic logic, light is God and good, while darkness is Satan and evil. If this logic is good, shinto’s pre-logic is evil. Because in value-free shinto thoughts (light and darkness reverse each other as night and day. They are not mutually exclusive – apologies to Greek (formal) logic.

The either-or logic is as solid as the brittle rock since ancient Greece. Any alternative logic? A water logic instead of rock logic? Supposing there is no such thing as the logic, there must be “logics”, syllogistic logic, for one, being a logic. Edward de Bono, philosopher-consultant, on his enlightening theory of Lateral Think opened my eye, with his serendipitous discovery of “water” logic found in Japanese poetry. A water logic of Japan, as western rock logic practiced by Socratis and developed into a science of dialectism by Aristotle, is uniquely valid. Why? Because it doesn’t build like rock, doesn’t dichotonise like rock, doesn’t erode or get weather-beaten like the marble steps on Acropolice in Greece.

            The water logic, responsible for Japanese empathic arts, evidenced in “Hyakunin-isshu” (A hundred poems by hundred famed poets), and rock logic go separate ways: emotional development or cognitive advancement.

            Water logic fuzzifies things and thoughts. Black or white can be fused into a fuzzy being. A fuzzy (water) logic. Ao(literally blue) is a fuzzy color connected to water. Ao can be blue or green depending on the context. Millions of shades of a color. A light blue (green), a deep blue (green). Blue can be strong or weak. Midnight blue or deep-ocean blue takes your breath away as it nears death. Makes you feel blue, doesn’t it?

            Do rock logic and water logic collide? Yes, says the believer in fission (as in nuclear fission). No, says the believer in fusion or “wa” (fused harmony).

            Encouraged by the water logic by Edward de Bono, I fancied a famous poem by Matsuo Basho: 静かさや岩にしみいる蝉の声

            Tranquility. Penetrating the rock. Cicada’s cascading chirps

            What do you make of this haiku? What does this prove?

            The proof of silent music (iwanishimiiru)? Wrong.

            The proof of noise (semishigure)? Wrong.

            Which of the two? Wrong.

            The answer? Both. Never think either music or noise. Think both. Both music and noise merge into each other, like water. Water logic is a logic, never the logic.

Spiral Logic I Gut logic goes spiral

Logic is a human invention. It goes linear.

Pick a problem. Analyze where it comes from. Eliminate its cause. And the problem goes away. It doesn’t all the time.

Nature logic is far more complex. It’s far more wicked. Because it spins. As the earth spins, so does the wind. Water, rock, fire – none of these natural phenomena goes straight. Nature is spiral. No reason why logic shouldn’t spin, is there?

Nature has two spiral options: spinning upward or spinning downward. Spinning inside – centripetally, or spinning outside – centrifugally.

If your logic spins out of its gravitational center (the gut issue), it is bad spiral logic.
All guts (bowels) go spiral, gut itself being “void” and stationary – like the eye of the typhoon or the Black Hole.

Spiral debaters try to “gut” each other’s arguments by competitive-cooperative means.

Spiral debate is a biologically-correct mental exercise, born of natural forces of energy.

Spiral Logic I Circular logic is bad; spiral logic is good.

Circular logic is bad; spiral logic is good.

What’s peace? Absence of war. What’s war? Absence of peace.

Tautology (saying something twice in different words) is a circular logic. It’s bad logic.

Spiral logic is good, because it works.

It works like this.

A wealthy man sees a poor, homeless man lying under a tree with a pity and asks him questions.

Why? How can you be so lazy, doing nothing under the tree, in broad daylight, when everybody else your age is working?

Working? Why are you working?

Because I must make money.

Why?

Because I must support my family; I’m a married man with kids.

Um. Supporting your family members?

What’s in it for you?

I want to eat well and live well. Pure and simple.

Living well? What do you mean by that?

Well, I can buy a bigger house…. 

Bigger house? How big?

Big enough to have a bigger garage for more fancy cars and, yes, a swimming pool. That’s Maslow’s self-actualization. Isn’t it logical?

That’s what you call, “having it all”? I get it. How does your simple logic measure your happiness? I mean, how do you relax – switch off?

Well, I’ll have a big tree planted by the swimming pool and I’ll sleep under the shadow of the tree.

That’s exactly what I’m doing now.

・・・

Now, that’s spiral logic.

What goes around comes around. Your life or your logic.

Spiral Logic IV Debate goes spiral (4/4)

            Here’s the whole of poetic message I sent to Barack Obama, prior to his visit to Hiroshima this year (in 2016). He offered flowers without an official apology.

POETIC JUSTICE, PLEASE

Hiroshima was A-bombed.
We thought that was enough.
Wrong. Nagasaki was A-bombed again.
They thought an A-bomb wasn't enough.

We lost the war, lost the flag.
We didn't hit back, We just apologized.
"We're sorry. Won't happen again."
They won the war, and proudly said "We got them.”
”The A-bomb saved more people's lives."
Which lives? Their lives.

We were sad and cried. They were glad and laughed.
We gave up our tradition. They gave us democracy.
Everyone thought the war was over.
Wrong.
They gave us military tribunal.
"You had this coming." Military justice got us.
We lost face. We had none to defend our case.
Patriots were hanged as criminals. Humiliated.
Killed again in the name of humanity.
We pleaded, "Your honor, is this revenge?"
They said, "No, Justice."
Why? Because they won the war.
We don't want military justice: We want poetic justice.
Poetry doesn't kill. Poetry heals. Justice kills. Justice doesn't heal.

Justice kills, Poetry heals.
Justice kills, Poetry heals.
A poetic apology from a President of the United States,
would heal me, the Japanese, and those who seek a nuke-free world.

by Michihiro Matsumoto
Samurai poet with a wounded self-esteem

            It is with mixed emotions to offer you two contradictory logics: straight logic and spiral logic.

Spiral Logic IV Debate goes spiral (3/4)

            Japan had a logic of her own, spiral logic, Kenka-ryo-seibai (in quarrel both parties are to blame): It takes two to tango, as they say in the west. All’s fair in love and war. Amen. Japan was both guilty and innocent. Spiral, isn’t it? What kind of logic is this? I can see Westerners shaking their heads in disbelief.

            “Japan is guilty or not guilty. Nothing in between. If Japan is found guilty, she deserves to go to hell. The winner is always free of guilt and capable of playing God.” Winners’ justice is a winner’s trophy.

            Is God always on the side of the winner?

            Yes, God or only winners, can draw the line.

            I’m not saying that Americans, the winner, are guilty because they ”overwon”. What I’m saying is both are guilty of war efforts. Neither deserved to go down to hell. Or neither for that matter was free to go up to heaven.

            It’s not US or THEM; it’s both US and THEM.

            We would be wasting our time “demonlizing” each other (college debaters and American presidential debaters often do), without debating the missing link called “ma” between cause and effect.

            The ma (the real reason) deserves to be debated in Tokyo Trial. Alas, the ma was never allowed to be cross-examined to “get it right”. What a blind justice. The MA, natural-born wisdom, makes or breaks the line between cause and effect, guilty or not guilty.  

            The classic example of the traditional ma-less logic is Armageddon, the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgment.

            Justice kills. Poetic justice, often poopooed by the westerners, heals (like Ooka’s “humane” verdict), because the win-win-win logic is inherently spiral.

Spiral Logic IV Debate goes spiral (2/4)

“When Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot secretly drew their lines on the map of the Levant to carve up the Ottoman Empire in May 1916, at the highest of the First World War, they could scarcely have imagined the mess they would set in train: ---“ (The Economist; May 14, 2016, page 9)

            Sinful Sykes and Picot drew their (not God’s) lines, playing God. Something had to give. As it turned out, something did give. Breaking bad.

            Imperial betrayal, Palestinian issue, Arab resentment, wars, colonizations, oppression, slavery, radicalism, uprisings and current terrorism. Line drawers and line-crossers. Heaven or hell. Us or them.

            White Americans drew the lines to conquer the predominantly black virgin island, North America and played God, to realize the Manifest Destiny. Those early settlers, with the Bible and weapon on hands, played the bee game of colonization as part of their marketing strategy. They were hornets disguising themselves as pollinators.

            Japan’s military crossed the line between US and THEM. Japan was not one of them. Out of the chorus line. So she deserves to be judged guilty and punished, humiliated.

            American presidents loved lining. “If you’re not with us, you’re with terrorists.” This either-or logic, the product of single-celled logic proved to be an effective weapon for ambitious monotheists to manipulate atheists or polytheists into submission, by free trade or else… .

            How does the straight logic work the way it does? It works like the swindler’s logic does. Either-or logic that begins with the line. Are you in or out? Pro or Con? With us or with them? The line, the L-word, loves life, Lord, lofty, luminary vision of light (heaven) over darkness (hell).

Spiral Logic IV Debate goes spiral (1/4)

         Debate has come a long way. Debate has gone circular? Oops! It’s gone spiral, coming full circle back to “natural’ logic. Let me put logic into perspective.

In the beginning, there was logic and word.

The logic was with God.

God, the Creator, loved the magic number THREE, one, two, three, because He loved anything logical, straight-- past, present and future.

          Man loved Him. Man feared Him. Man created His God and created Logic, three-step logic called syllogism (major premise, minor premise and conclusion).

          The primitive form of logic valued life.

          Life comes, develops and goes. Life or Death. Period.

          Beginning. Middle. End.

          Heaven. Man. Earth. Before you know it, earth turns to hell. Light or darkness. God or Satan. God drew the line between God lovers and God haters. God loves God-loving and God-fearing humans. God loved lining (kejime). If you cross the line, you’ll have it coming.

           The jealous God asked Man: Do you love me or love me not? God loved sheep more than goats. God didn’t love curious animals fond of asking questions, WHY in particular. God, the Redeemer, loved judging and lining. God judged Man guilty of crossing the line since birth.

           Humans proved sinful enough to create GOD in their image and copy the God’s idea of lining. Oh, my God!

Spiral Logic IV How does spiral debate work?

Spiral debate values win-win-win. You, we and they.

Ooka Echizen (18^th-century City Commissioner of Edo) made three parties (the accuser, the accused and the judge, himself) happy.

The accused man A lost 3 ryo somewhere on the street, 3 ryo was a lot of money for a small business leader who had to pay his employees as a year-end bonus. December is a busy month for merchants.

The accuser B who picked up the money on the street developed empathic feelings for the one who lost the money, spent the whole day looking for the distressed man. But when he found the man A, he refused to accept the money, arguing that the money belonged to the finder, because it was no longer his. Neither gave an inch. So they brought the matter to the City Commissioner for justice.

Justice? What kind of justice is this? Ooka Echizen wondered loud. 3 ryo is a lot of money. He thought hard to himself and passed a verdict.

“This town magistrate is hugely impressed. So we’ll donate one ryo. And you must surrender the 3 ryo to this bugyo (magistrate). That’s 4 ryo, right? Now, listen. We’ll give you 2 ryo each.”

Both men, the accused and the accuser, shook their heads with disbelief and said, “Why, your honor?”

Ooka said, “3 ryo ought to belong to either of you legally speaking. And either of you deserves 3 ryo. But both of you have accepted the loss. So both of you don’t mind losing one ryo and we the magistrate can happily lose one ryo. Everyone of us loses one ryo. Everyone suffers. And everyone is happy now.”

That’s an offer any samurai cannot refuse.

The end of the legal (or paralegal) case.

This is called “sampo-ichi-ryo-son”(three parties lose a ryo), because everyone is happy by sharing the loss of a ryo.(円満解決)

This is nothing but a win-win-win solution.

What a beauty of spiral logic.

Why? A win-or-lose ends up hurting the loser. A win-win deal is often made behind the scenes at the expense of the bona fide outsiders. A win-win-win deal honors everyone involved and it hurts nobody. That’s the self-sacrificing spirit of Bushido . The story will make every samurai weep, even today.

Spiral Logic IV Definition 2

How does spiral debate work?

Spiral debate values win, win, win. You, we and they.

Ooka Echizen (18^th-century City Commissioner of Edo) made three parties (the accuser, the accused and the judge, himself) happy.

The accused man A lost 3 ryo somewhere on the street, 3 ryo was a lot of money for a small business leader who had to pay his employees as a year-end bonus. December is a busy month for merchants.

The accuser B who picked up the money on the street developed empathic feeling for the one who lost the money, spent the whole day looking for the distressed man. But when he found the man A, he refused to accept the money, arguing that the money belonged to the finder, because it was no longer his. Neither gave an inch. So they brought the matter to the City Commissioner for justice.

Justice? What kind of justice is this? Ooka Echizen wondered loud. 3 ryo is a lot of money. He thought hard to himself and passed a verdict.

“This town magistrate is hugely impressed. So we’ll donate one ryo. And you must surrender the 3 ryo to this bugyo (magistrate). That’s 4 ryo, right? Now, listen. We’ll give you 2 ryo each.”

Both men, the accused and the accuser, shook their heads with disbelief and said, “Why, your honor?”

Ooka said, “3 ryo ought to belong to either of you legally speaking. And either of you deserves 3 ryo. But both of you have accepted the loss. So both of you don’t mind losing one ryo and we the magistrate can happily lose one ryo. Everyone of us loses one ryo. Everyone suffers. And everyone is happy now.”

That’s an offer any samurai cannot refuse.

The end of the legal (or paralegal) case.

This is called “sampo-ichi-ryo-son”(three parties lose a ryo), because everyone is happy by sharing the loss of a ryo.(円満解決)

This is nothing but a win-win-win solution.

What a beauty of spiral logic.

Why? A win-or-lose ends up hurting the loser. A win-win deal is often made behind the scenes at the expense of the bona fide outsiders. A win-win-win deal honors everyone involved and it hurts nobody. That’s the self-sacrificing spirit of Bushido. The story will make every samurai weep, even today.