Dr. Luanne Frank opened the Conference on Global Transformation 2010, occurring this weekend in San Francisco.  Because she is a professor of philosophy, those who want quick and easy information might find her dry.  She commented, in fact, “Information is largely bereft of being.”

I found her fascinating.  Imagine having a job thinking about how people think, and why they think that way, by studying the sources of those thoughts.

This two minute video clip is Dr. Frank’s extemporaneous answer to a question from the audience, “What is Truth?  Heidegger’s sense of Aletheia is an attempt to understand the meaning of truth in a completely new, or rediscovered manner.

Dr. Frank ’s presentation of post-structuralism included the thoughts of Heidegger (the 20th century philosopher), whose thinking is rooted in pre-Plato times.  As best as I can tell, being a fringe student of philosophy, Heidegger is the main man of post-structural thought.  As opposed to analytical thinkers, Heidegger was the expert/writer/author about the world AS we know it; AS means it’s “a burdened world.”  Post-structuralism attempts to point people toward a clearing, an opening.  That we (people) are the givers of meaning to this world requires words if we are to have meaning. Post-structuralism asserts that we have made our world, we can change it.

Dr. Frank made several additional points that stood out for me, within her intense, dense academic message.  She said, “Information is largely bereft of being, and being comes before knowing…. Daza is “Being THERE, there is no being without ‘there”; being is related to the world of there. …. Two-sided-ness is necessary, for example to bring in the light requires darkness….. We are always there, in the way!…. Hermeneutics (one of those pot-structural comments) means interpretation, or understanding…

What I make of that presentation (and my Landmark Education eperience) — that is to say, my interpretation of her incredibly deep and mind-bending presentation — is that information, data, reality is not real, it is infused with our interpretation which is limited by where we are at any given moment.  Being-in-the-world is Heidegger’s replacement for terms such as subject, object, consciousness, and world. Being is temporal meaning it is related to time.

I am particularly mindful of paradoxes, and although she didn’t SAY “paradox,” her comments clearly point to the requirement of the paradox (a seemingly opposite which is in fact two ends of a continuum).  For example, she said, “We can only know a given truth when we also know it’s opposite.”

Touching this deep subject of how we think, why we think, what we think FROM was surrounded by the request that we look, in the conference, at where are we coming FROM, and what are we speaking FROM, and where are we listening FROM… right now!  As we have embarked on this weekend inquiry for ourselves, it is clear that my “evil twin” is sometimes speaking, my “higher self” is sometimes speaking, my “ego” is sometimes speaking…. and being aware if who is speaking gives me access to myself at a more forgiving, understanding, compassionate level.  I can then extend that forgiveness, understanding, and compassion to others with whom I am speaking.

So far, it has been a phenomenal conference… more later.

I am not politically inclined as a general rule, I am environmentally inclined because as an environmentalist, it is easier to see that the winner is the planet and the people on it.  Likewise, it is pretty easy to see that waste is bad, preservation is good.  Not so easy in politics to spot clear winners.  However, even the Democrats appear to be running for the hills politically.  This, from the Wall Street Journal.

If you haven’t seen Ted Talks you have really missed something!  For more inspiration and innovation, go to www.ted.com.  Enjoy!

I’ve been dialoging on the topic of trust and integrity on a LinkedIn group called the Executive Reform Movement, hosted by Phillip Tanzilo.  In response to a suggestion that  we have the talent in this country to innovate and strengthen sustainable solutions, I said the following.

I don’t think it’s talent that’s missing. It’s good old fashioned values — for example, putting the good of ALL (including self, of course) as the forefront of considerations, asking, “How will this decision/product/financial strategy impact others? The world?”

To answer your original question, for me integrity and trust are not the same things. Integrity is how you go through the world, as I said before, reliably or not. And none of us is perfect! What we could be trusted to do, when we fail ourselves or someone else, is clean it up and make a new promise.

I believe that trust is generally granted to those who have integrity (to tell the truth, clean it up, take responsibility, be on time if humanly possible…), among other values.

In the broader realm, then, trust is earned, through consistent, continual behavior where evidence exists that my well-being (as a consumer, for instance, or a citizen of the world who has to breathe this air and depend on these oceans for food and eco-balance) has been considered when making that business decision, producing that product, creating that strategy.

For example, a garbage patch of plastics floats in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas, killing fish and destroying our oceans. Yet we all purchase plastic bottles and throw them away. CUT IT OUT. Lots of talented people produce those bottles, which are damaging our eco-system.

At an event recently, someone brought 2 plastic-wrapped boxes of many small water bottles, and I succumbed… it’s easier… rather than say, “These pollute. Take them back. Write to the manufacturer. Buy a water filter for your sink, use glass bottles they recycle.” Shame on me, and shame on all of us, for doing what is easy rather than what is right. It puts a tiny ding in my integrity, and I trust myself less the next time… why should others trust me?… if I don’t trust myself to do the right thing…  well, I did, and do, recycle.

Taking a stand for the greater good takes something. It is so utterly human to fail ourselves and others, and so incredibly courageous to take ourselves on, to tell the truth, to make a new stand and then live from it. Not unlike dieting… we know how to honor our bodies, do we do it? If we don’t honor ourselves, why would others honor us? And the human condition beat goes on…. but we’re seriously paying for it.