Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...

Subject: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: WyoWoman
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 02:09 PM

And no, it's not a prison term I'm looking for. This has absolutely nothing to do with music, but I'm trying to think of a term to use as a metaphor and I simply cannot come up with it. Since the Mudcat is the largest collection of smartypants people i know, I figure someone will say, "Oh, yeah. It's .... " and my mystery will be solved.

so here it is:

In geometry, there is a term for the phenomenon in which you start out at the same point in an angle, then if you vary the angle by only twoor three degrees, it doesn't make much difference immediately, but if you keep drawing the two lines out farther and farther, as you go along the two lines diverge more and more.

The metaphor is about activism (so it is loosely related to some of the discussion on Mudcat) and about Margaret Mead's statement that two or three percent of any population fiercly committed to an ideal can change the world, and indeed, that's the only thing that ever has.

Anyone? Anyone?

Bueller

This is driving me crazy. ...

ww

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 02:26 PM

divergence (German: Divergenz - can't reach for my dictionary right now, it is at the office, and the online version seems to be down) is what comes to my mind. Is this what you are looking for?

MudGuard

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 03:00 PM

exponential divergence effect?

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: sophocleese
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 03:22 PM

Escher loved doing what I've heard termed 'parquet deformations' where he altered one line in a pattern, repeated it and then altered another etc. so he came out with a very different pattern at the end of a line than he had at the beginning using incremental changes.

I have been trying to find a particular quote by Rufus Jones, about significant change being effected by small groups of people in small meetings. However I keep runnign into information about Rufus Jones the wrestler and I have to go now. I'll see if I can find it later, I used to have it written on one of my University Binders.

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 03:28 PM

Sounds like the Divergence Theorem aka Gauss' Theorem.

Rog and I just started talking about this, as I was picking his smartypants brain. He says this becomes a problem when applied to sociology in that in society one can only diverge so far without violating things such as our Constitution, etc., whereas in linear geometry it can go ad infinitum, unless of course you are in an enclosed space. Don't quote me on this, I may have got it wrong.**BG*

BTW, the Natrona County Grassroots Project uses Margaret Mead's quote on our brochures, etc.

This can get into some interesting metaphysics, too, i.e. strength of a few gathered for positive reasons vs many gathered for negative. I have a new novel to read, written by Deepak Chopra and someone else. It sounds as though it is going to be about this, from what I've read of reviews and on the back cover.

BTW, WW, which issue of Mother (never realised till now the acronym is MEN!)was Alice in Montana's artwork? I'm afraid I may have missed it. Just picked up the Nov. issue.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: Allan C.
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 03:47 PM

It was September, kat.

WyoWoman, I really like your "exponential divergence effect" even if it might not be what you set out to find, it certainly sounds learned. I think you ought to go with it. After all, these things have to originate someplace; why not with you?

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 03:56 PM

Thanks, Allan. BTW, it was Susan who came up with that term.

This probably is a bit of thread creep from your original intent, but in looking at google for quotes by Rufus Jones, I did think this was well worth reading:

Nations are not thugs. They are bodies of intelligent people. Their claims and causes and charges are either just or unjust. They would practically never push their claims, causes and charges to extreme issue if they were met with kindness, intelligence and wisdom by the nation with whom they are in dispute. In any case, fighting will not settle whether the claims were just or unjust. It will only settle which nation can mobilize and handle its fighting forces and its economic forces the better. When the war ends, it will be found that there was an equal amount of "thuggery" practiced on both sides, that terrible things were done to force the final victory. Multitudes of innocent persons will have suffered. The little children of the two countries will be the main victims. Lands will be made desolate. Social progress will be arrested. The poor will be swamped with taxes for an entire generation. The mutilated men will drag out a broken life to the end of their days. A large part of the "facts" used to arouse patriotism and to stir the fervour and the fierceness of the fighting spirit will be discovered to have been "propaganda". And yet not one single thing will have been done to determine where right or justice or truth lay in the issues involved.

Along those same lines, the same website has some interesting links to Pacifist Writings.

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 05:03 PM

WW,

Oh. I think you are looking for a scientific equivalent to the following Native American saying:

"He was as far from himself as a hog from the moon."

Cascading sellout and/or rationalization.

I think that what you are talking about it the same thing I saw in all my social change work-- "We are working hard, so we must be getting somewhere. It's taking longer than we though tbut we just need to keep doing what we are doing, longer, better, harder. Let's just encourage each other to be positive... after all we mean well."

This attitude would persist past the point of exhaustion and absurdity-- even tho people had lost any connection to the original motivating goal or vision... and thus had no feedback loop to use for comparing actual, operational results against first hopes.

It was actually pretty easy to get people back on track though. The key was making a setting safe enough for them to have space to think and feel in response to the main question:

"What had you hoped when you first took this on?"

The tears and rants that followed often led to a complete re-evaluation of current methods, and a way of proceeding with complete elegance and effectiveness, at least until the person would get swamped in that morass of effort again. Then they would need that friendly question from someone outside the effort, again.

There were some other powerful mission-restarters I could share with you. E-mail if interested.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: WyoWoman
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 08:55 PM

I like Exponentional Divergence Effect quite well. At least I have someplace to start, to see if I can hone this a bit. Thanks for the contributions. (And no, Susan, I'm actually talking about the truth that it doesn't take a huge number of people to effect enormous change in a society, for good or evil. Throughout human history, it's always been just a handful who were the instigators, the change-agents, the visionaries, again for good or ill, and their committed action actually has moved mountains.Take, for instance, the framers of our Constitution. They really weren't a huge number of people, but they rocked their world. And even that relatively tiny thing they did 200+ years ago expanded out far, far from where they began, and far from where we would have been if they had sat on their hands and said, "It's not for me to do," or "I'm too insignificant to make a difference." But I do know what you mean about burnout and about the necessity of being reminded what our original vision/mission/purpose was.)

Kat -- that was in the August/September issue. If you can't find one, email me your mailing address and I'll send you a copy. And, yes, I know the acronym is MEN. Let's hear it for life's little ironies. Not that I have anything against men, doncha' know. In fact, I'd like to have ...

nivver mind.

Subject: RE: Help: Non-Music: WW LOOKING FOR TERM ...
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 30 Sep 01 - 09:41 PM

Stick to the B.S. prefix woman!

It is most appropriate for most of yer posts.