{"id":387,"date":"2011-03-22T22:04:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T05:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storyresolution.org\/?p=387"},"modified":"2011-07-12T23:16:06","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T06:16:06","slug":"the-value-of-affording-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/the-value-of-affording-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Affording to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I received an email question about my previous post, Confluence of Cultural Stories<\/a>, from a friend. He insightfully noticed the story\u2019s absence of resolution, resolution of struggle and frustration in the multi-layered Paraguayan Guarani-Mennonite dilemma. \u00a0Here is his question, and this post is my response:<\/p>\n

When I first read this, I thought you had left something out or that I had missed the last part of your post because you normally have something more directly\u00a0positive to say.\u00a0 After thinking about it more, I think you might be saying that this is the reality of the world we live in. I guess we can choose to react to it in either positive or negative ways.\u00a0 Have I missed a more important point?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/span>Friend, you did capture a key intent of the post, thank you for that. \u00a0Like the perfect \u201cstraight man\u201d, your question hovers as an invitation for elaboration.<\/p>\n

The intent of the article was to describe a currently unresolved story conflict on a large scale. I felt awkward in describing my Paraguay experience because I prefer pointing toward resolution, and the lack of resolution in this story stimulates dis-ease for me. \u00a0I told the Paraguay story to set up an introduction to a concept I call affording-to-know<\/em><\/strong>. Affording-to-know came to mind when I read a quote by Upton Sinclair:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary<\/em> depends upon his not understanding it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I believe there is an economy-of- knowing<\/em>; its an economy of emotions, identity, circumstances and feelings, an economy where we transact in what we can afford to see, in what we can hold in our awareness. New knowledge is an investment. The investment cost is our capacity to adjust our current stories, or to live with contradiction until we do. The cost can be considerable when what we learn is in conflict with the story we\u2019re currently living, in conflict with the context we\u2019ve built to support our lives. The currency, in our economy of knowing, is our capacity for story adaptation and resilience. Some knowing may require our capacity to change our life\u2019s infrastructure, our current support system, so we can move toward a new, more congruent story.<\/p>\n

When we encounter a contrasting view, idea or perspective, we test it against more than our current understanding. We test new stories for impact on our survival, for their impact on our identity. Even stories that are more consistent than our current stories, measured with our own experiences, and with experiences of others, are often filtered when they challenge what we can emotionally and circumstantially accept.<\/p>\n

My Paraguay story is a tragedy in progress. Though the Spanish settlers have thoroughly mixed blood, culture, and language with the Guarani, the Mennonite settlements still hold to beliefs that the Guarani are genetically incapable of participating as members of Mennonite culture. My wife and I could see the strain this produced in both cultural stories. Cultural stories run deep. To question our cultural story is to question our belonging, is to threaten our connection with our community. For a culture to hear, and to face the incongruent parts of their cultural stories, requires their group investment in courage, adaptation, and cultural resilience.<\/p>\n

I believe that clinging to stories, stories incongruent with our experience, is a generator of much, if not most, of the tragic suffering in the world. There is grace in recognizing that the tragedy is generated by stories, and that people can change the stories they are living, if they can mature their capacity to afford-to-know. I also believe that the path to a peaceful resolution is through story co-creation among those currently in story conflict. Coherent co-creation begins with mutually affording-to-know the conflicts in the stories we are living.<\/p>\n

So, thank you friend. You saw into my intent when you said: \u201cthis is the reality of the world we live in. I guess we can choose to react to it in either positive or negative ways<\/em>.\u201d Affording-to-know our current stories, our circumstances, and our needs, is our kind investment in the economy of knowing. I believe this is the first step in disarming adversarial responses to conflicting stories, in moving toward a story co-creation resolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I received an email question about my previous post, Confluence of Cultural Stories, from a friend. He insightfully noticed the story\u2019s absence of resolution, resolution of struggle and frustration in the multi-layered Paraguayan Guarani-Mennonite dilemma. \u00a0Here is his question, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-problem-resolution","category-our-stoired-lives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyresolution.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}