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Strategic plans are particularly excellent examples of a process with questionable results, especially if stakeholder collaboration is desired (Tiwari & Winters, 2017). The logic behind strategic plans, however, is indicative of the Western paradigm’s contradictory view of the individual as of primary significance, yet also replaceable.

The Western worldview rests on the Cartesian assumption that the mind is more important than the body. Though subtle, this assumption supports the ability of many Westerners to engage in disjunctive thinking (Morin, 2014) in order to break down complex problems into proverbial bottom lines that can be mapped through pure reason alone.

Strategic plans are particularly excellent examples of a process with questionable results, especially if stakeholder collaboration is desired (Tiwari & Winters, 2017). The logic behind strategic plans, however, is indicative of the Western paradigm’s contradictory view of the individual as of primary significance, yet also replaceable. The Western worldview rests on the Cartesian assumption that the mind is more important than the body. Though subtle, this assumption supports the ability of many Westerners to engage in disjunctive thinking (Morin, 2014) in order to break down complex problems into proverbial bottom lines that can be mapped through pure reason alone.

The silence is not merely golden; it is replete with meanings. Those meanings in turn testify to a corporeal semiotics, a movement-anchored corporeal semiotics that resounds within us. It resounds within the volume of our being an animate form of life, in all the so-called “systems” that functionally describe us—our respiratory, circulatory, and digestive systems, for example—some of which we can and do at times directly experience. (Sheets-Johnstone, 2019, p. 37)

Perhaps our ability to share (external and internal) space is predicated on the extent to which we are able to be free of ourselves in order to become ourselves. Imagined without time, space as metaphor enables us to participate in creating, making, cleaning, growing, shrinking, shifting, expanding, and reconfiguring the metaphorical and literal spaces within, outside, and between us.

Whereas many of our discussions as a species revolve around borders and boundaries, space as metaphor removes the implied directionality of such conceptualizations, which inadvertently exacerbate the perceived divide that separates humans from self, one another, Earth, and cosmos. Space as metaphor is empty, yet full of potential, enabling individuals with diverse viewpoints to participate—and be heard—in collective space, a place in which there is still room for the occasional hero.

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2019). The silence of movement: A beginning empirical-phenomenological exposition of the powers of a corporeal semiotics. The American Journal of Semiotics, 35(1/2), 33–54. https://doi.org/10.5840/ajs20196550

Tiwari, R., & Winters, J. (2017). The death of strategic plan: Questioning the role of strategic plan in self-initiated projects relying on stakeholder collaboration. International Planning Studies, 22(2), 161–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2016.1220288

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In various fields (counseling, education, business, and leadership, etc.), transformation and change are often framed as part of a metaphorical hero’s journey. Patients, students, and employees are handed a list of goals and outcomes, and then a proverbial journey is mapped out regarding how to get there. This sort of logic generally informs not only business and productivity but also approaches to (and belief in what constitutes) knowledge in general.

The ways in which we ontologically express our humanity, then, are paramount, as they connect us with not just our culture and world today but also our ancestors, history, and the cosmos. For Indigenous cultures, embodiment is a way of knowing (Dall’Alba & Barnacle, 2007)—and to some extent, systems theory and the complexity paradigm validate this position, although it is not explicit.

The Western approach, however, often privileges the artifacts of knowledge as opposed to the ways in which we express and share our humanity. In European American contexts, this emphasis on knowledge acquisition and production lends itself to an output-oriented framework. 

What if the process, or the ways, in which we come to know and express ourselves, was the goal or outcome? What if treatment, learning, and strategic plans were no longer exclusively oriented around the needs and desires of the individual or organization?

In part II, these rhetorical questions are explored.

References

Dall’Alba, G., & Barnacle, R. (2007). An ontological turn for higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 32(6), 679–691. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070701685130

Dei, G. J. S. (2000). Rethinking the role of Indigenous knowledges in the academy. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 4(2), 111–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/136031100284849