As individuals, what we believe, support, affirm, acknowledge, ally with, stand by, or salute--is hugely powerful. To the extent we understand what holds our attention--is all important. In the end it may be all that is valuable or what might be called beautiful. Let's Agree tries to understand how these allegiances are formed and codified. Our religions require it, our prayers struggle with it and our search for concurrence--a predicate for peace--yearns for community building activities which encourage even more reflection.
Our Let's Agree methodology begins as a process:
a) to identify concrete expressions to communicate facts upon which diverse people can agree.
b) we are also trying to identify discrete expressions to communicate ideas for which there is only concurrence.
In each instance, the Let's Agree expression must work on two levels:
1) it must have the potential to inform or shape a moral frame of reference through reflection; and,
2) there must be no exceptions which apply.
We are also trying to raise awareness, our own for sure, about the importance of reflecting on the ideas and facts we hold as the building components of the moral compass which guides us.
Portability is another feature of the Let's Agree assertion we consider important. Broad applicability to human beings is one way to test whether we might simply be pondering an intriguing idea with culturally bound idiosyncratic application only--rather than something which is notionally more comprehensive.
Many Let's Agree acknowledgments (statements) are affirmative declarations of fact. The facts which we may choose from are unnumbered. The one's which make the list in these pages are those which we believe challenge naive assumptions each of us may harbor. Naive assumptions are those ideas which form the backscape of our thinking and often operate, once long in place, unchallenged.
The popular term "sunset" is a case in point. Based upon what we know, the "sunset" is a naive if existentially supportable perspective. The phenomenology of the experience is unequivocal--the sun appears to set in the West. We have also known for more than 400 years the sun is eclipsed by the earth as it rotates about its axis. Naive assumptions can survive as social convention when held in common by enough people--and for a long while. Let's Agree seeks to minimize the content of our thinking which may be described as naive. (And, we look for hints which suggest the naive assumptions at the collective level of large numbers of people are shifting or giving way to notions which feel closer to a standard Let's Agree would describe as comfortable--the popular song, "Do You Realize" by The Flaming Lips is an encouraging case in point.)
Last, our motivation for Let's Agree thinking is one of steward-ship. We are stewards of ourselves if little else. Stewardship, while it may be a duty, for our purposes we like to think of it as a skill--the utility of which is improved with practice and repeated use. And, in the instance of stewardship as a skill--it appears to be most serviceable when it operates within the framework of one's moral compass.
We set out, many years ago, trying to understand how the moral compass of one's devising comes to be. Let's Agree is the out-come of this pursuit.
The presence of a compass as guide is apparent in myriad social and cultural conventions, including our world religions as Islam, Judaism, Christianity as well as the devotion to Buddha, Vishnu, the Western Mystery Tradition, and anything one might be able to construe as a journey on the path of return.
We think the infrastructure of one's moral compass, including the naive assumptions which linger untested within it, may give rise to learning about human conflict, its station as a ubiquitous dynamic of the human condition where two or more persons are gathered, as well as its will to form and its remarkable capacity to dissolve suddenly.
If there is no disagreement about the fixed points of reference afforded us by the stars--and the collisions at sea which are avoided by ships which pilot by them---perhaps there are fixed points of agreement which can be ascertained by trial and error, and by them, we move inches closer to a place in history relatively deconflicted when contrasted with our time and our place.
Let's Agree is such an experiment.
Here's a fun (but scary) notion how naive assumptions creep into our thinking and lead us to conclusions which, while intuitive, may be fundamentally unhelpful:
Situation: occassionally ships collide at sea
Desires: zero collisions
Solution: build one monstrous ship
We invite you to email via our "Contact Us" page. We are good at replying to sincere expressions of feedback. We are always seeking to add to our growing list of acknowledgements which know only concurrence. After all, if there is to be many voyages, and there must, we must desire there to be many vessels (many mansions within the house)---for the compass building to be, it must be a collaboration.
So let it be done.
Shalom.
Updated as of 2 January 2006
In full view since 12 February 2004
