Chapter Two - Neville’s Model for a 250-Year
Transition to a Humane Caring Epoch
INTRODUCTION
During the years 1993
through to 1998 (when I started this thesis), my understanding was that the
main reason Neville was evolving networks from the early 1970’s in Far North
Queensland and the Darwin Top End in Australia was to keep these networks away
from dominant interests who may seek to undermine and subvert the social action
he and others were engaged in.
In October 1998 I found
Neville’s paper, ‘Mental Health and Social Change’ (Yeomans, N. 1971a; Yeomans, N. 1971c) in his Mitchell Library archives. It is a
scribbled half page note and a hand sketched diagram written back in 1971. It
discusses the nature of transitions to a new epoch. It revealed that Neville
had specifically chosen Far North Queensland because of his analysis of its
strategic locality on the globe as a place to start towards a global
transition. Still, I did not take this seriously and immediately turned the
page to the next item. I sensed that it was more to do with being ‘away from
mainstream’. I did not realize at the time that this was a crucial document
briefly specifying Neville’s core epochal framework. In this ‘Mental Health and
Social Change’ file-note Neville clearly specifies epochal transitions. (I even
missed the significance and evocativeness of the title ‘Mental Health and
Social Change’. What for Neville was the link between ‘mental health’ and
‘social change’?) This is an example of how my pre-judging mind limited my sensing.
Neville wrote (Yeomans, N. 1971a; Yeomans, N. 1971c) the following on epochal change in that file
note:
The take off point for the next cultural
synthesis, (ed. point D in Diagram 1 below) typically occurs in a marginal
culture. Such a culture suffers dedifferentiation of its loyalty and value
system to the previous civilization. It develops a relatively anarchical value
orientation system. Its social institutions dedifferentiate and power slips
away from them. This power moves into lower level, newer, smaller and more
radical systems within the society. Uncertainty increases and with it rumour.
Also an epidemic of experimental organizations develop. Many die away but those
most functionally attuned to future trends survive and grow.
Diagram
1. Neville’s Diagram of the Growth
Curve of any System
In saying, ‘Its social institutions
dedifferentiate…’ Neville is talking about a shift away from dynamic
differentiated adaptive far-from-equilibrium states to non-adaptive
sameness. With the words, ‘those most functionally attuned to future trends
survive and grow’, Neville was hinting at his own aspirations.
In the same document (1971a,
1971c) Neville went on to talk about the strategic significance firstly, of
BUT - it is also the only
continent not at war with itself. It is one of the most affluent nations on
earth. Situated at the junction of the great civilizations of East and West it
can borrow the best of both. Of all nations it has the least to lose and most
to gain by creating a new synthesis.
Given all of the aspects
outlined above, for Neville, the
In December 1993, Neville
told me to remind him to get me a paper that he had written back in 1974
called, ‘On Global Reform – International Normative Model Areas’. Neville later
told me he could not locate the document. It was not until July 2000 (two
months after Neville’s death) that I found this ‘On Global Reform’ paper (Yeomans 1974). This is one of, if not the most significant
of the papers Neville wrote. Once I read it I suddenly knew of the strategic
significance (way beyond just minimizing interference from mainstream) of the,
‘Mental Health and Social Change’ paper mentioned above (the one that I had
spotted in the archives in October 1998). On Global Reform is discussed in
Chapter Thirteen.
The thesis will detail how
the essence of INMA (International Normative Model Area) specified in Neville’s
poem[1]
of the same name(Yeomans 2000a) was woven into Fraser House and into the
many Fraser House outreaches leading up to the evolving of the Laceweb social
movement. Chapter Twelve and Thirteen describe how Neville’s creation of an
INMA in the Atherton Tablelands and another in the Darwin Top End were
fundamental in evolving the Laceweb.
A
NEW CULTURAL SYNTHESIS
Neville’s view (Dec, 1993;
July, 1998, Oct, 1998) was that culture was ‘how we live together’. Science,
technology, economics and politics all take place in the context of how we live
together in our places. Neville set out to action research fostering new local,
regional and global ways of living, playing and sharing our artistry together
(cultures and inter-cultures) towards new cultures, new cultural syntheses and
a new global intercultural synthesis. The processes he explored were guided by
humane caring respecting values, and his action research involving
dysfunctional people on the margins embodied these values. Neville’s view (Dec,
1993; July, 1998, Oct, 1998) was that new directions and uses of science,
technology, economics and politics would evolve, guided by these values enacted
in everyday life together. This is explored further in Chapters Twelve and
Thirteen. The next segment introduces the Laceweb.
WEBS AND LACEWEBS
One summer morning in December 1993 in Yungaburra in Far
North Queensland, Neville and I were discussing the networking he was linked
into, and it seemed that the movement had, as far as Neville knew, no name.
Neville knew the potency of symbols, icons and logos and said these were not
used in the movement, and he did not think them in any way appropriate at the
present. Neville talked about naming the movement. Within seconds he came up
with ‘Laceweb’. This name was, in Neville’s terms, ‘an isomorphic metaphor’ –
something of similar form and resonance to the social movement that was
evolving.
The name was from a natural outback Australian phenomenon
that Neville had personally experienced. Some years previously Neville had been
travelling alone in outback
Neville’s
dreaming was of an entirely new form of social movement - an informal Laceweb
of healers from among the most downtrodden and most disadvantaged marginal
people of the world. What follows is from my file note about how Neville
described the desert web and the Laceweb as being of similar form (December,
1993):
‘The
Laceweb is the manifestation of a massive local co-operative endeavour. Not
carved in stone, rather – it is soft, light, and pliably fitting the locale and
made by locals to suit their needs. Like the spider web, the Laceweb would
appear out of nowhere. When you discover it, it would already have surrounded
you. It is exquisitely beautiful and lovely. When you have eyes that see it,
the play of reflectant light upon it in the morning sunlight is extra-ordinary.
It attracts and stores the dew in little beads. Like the desert web, the
Laceweb extends way beyond the horizon. It is suspended in space with links to
shifting things - no solid foundations here. It has no centre and no part is
‘in charge’, and in that sense, no aspect is higher or lower than any other. It
is not what it first seems. It is at the same time riddled with holes, whole
and holy. It is merged within the surrounding ecosystem and lays low. In one
sense it is delicate - in another it is resilient. Bits may be easily damaged.
However, to remove it all would be well nigh impossible. It is formed through
covalent bonding between its formers and within its form. It is an attractant.
Local action may repair local damage. It is very functional. It is what the locals
need. And it does help sustain them.’
Neville
and I explored the derivation of ‘vale’, ‘valence’, and ‘valency’ - from the
Latin imperative – to be well, to be strong. ‘Co-valence’ is to be bonded
together in mutual attraction. After the foregoing spontaneously poetic
expression, Neville told me (December, 1993) that the desert web was the
perfect metaphor for his movement.
SUMMARY
This Chapter has introduced the topic and the
history, theory and practice leading to the evolving of a social movement known
as the Laceweb. The next chapter reviews the literature on therapeutic
communities.