CHAPTER V

RE-VISIONING SOCIETY -- SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The concept of synergy gives us a reasonable framework for re-visioning society and beginning the work of humanistic sociology without losing intellectual respectability. Synergy is related to love -- it is the experience in which all participants are enhanced. It is a valid conceptualization of a humanistic process. Although precise formulations for synergy are lacking at this time -- 1983 America -- the exploration of synergy does show a hopeful direction. It is clear there are a number of approaches to achieve synergy that cannot work: we cannot have synergy by compromise. We cannot have synergy by norm. We cannot have synergy by reducing the human or by subjecting one person's will to another's. The forceful version of power will not bring us closer to our goal. Yet conceptions of synergy do suggest possible avenues of research and exploration.

Throughout this work, a case has been made concerning the nature of the social disciplines. To embrace humanistic values requires an approach much different than what has typically been mistaken for academic respectability. The social disciplines are an attempt to envision a world and create it in that ideal image. It has been demonstrated that the physical sciences, while claiming to explore the truth, have actually functioned in much this same manner. The self-fulfilling prophecy of science has been reified far past any practical necessity for doing so. Synergy provides the opportunity for visualizing a different vision of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Humanistic psychology has laid the groundwork by exploring the nature of the healthy personality. The fully functioning human being operates by a different criteria than the tightly manipulative, fearful person. At base level, we cannot have synergy by compromising or reducing the healthy person to some lesser role. At this level, humanistic sociology must take seriously the contributions of humanistic psychology.

Although it does not articulate it, humanistic psychology implies another type of social world exists. When a person is fully functioning, things work themselves out and "accrue" to the individual "as if by magic." This implies a different theater of the social than sociology has thus far imagined.

Kant make the critical distinction (which has been noted several times) between noumenon and phenomenon. Noumenon is reality-in-itself. Phenomenon is the appearance or the expression. As was briefly explored in the Science section, this is the same distinction that Castenada's Don Juan makes and illustrates as the core of the magician's vision. Don Juan calls noumenon the Nagual and phenomenon the Tonal. The tonal is everything that can be named, placed on the table, etc. It is treating the world as an object. The Nagual is everything else -- it is the creative force where "power hovers.''

One should not neglect the fact that Mead (1934) makes this very same distinction in talking about the self and refers to it as the "I" and the "me." After the self is creative and spontaneous, reflecting on that act turn the act of an "I" into a "me" -- an object.

Kant's distinction could have held the key to a different vision of reality instead of merely reinstating science. As Bosworth (1977) noted, the word "phenomenon" has two possible root meanings: one is the traditional interpretation: "to appear" which places us in the scientific reality and the world of appearances. The other possible reading is "to show." To treat reality as "shown" would have opened up the realm of the magician; it would have launched Western thought into developing a totally different epistemology. However, in Kant's time, such was too threatening. Science had only recently succeeded in putting the shadow of the magician to sleep. Embracing a world that is in essence "shown" would have released the old insecurities. And yet, from the late twentieth century, this is precisely what is needed: a world view and epistemology that embraces the magician, the artist, and the lover. Perhaps this is nowhere better demonstrated that in Jung's discussion of syncronicity. If love can be operationalized as synergy, then syncronicity can be treated as an academic canopy for discussing magic.

It is amazing that J. B. Rhine's work on extra-sensory perception has been so totally shunned by the scientific community. It represents perhaps some of the most rigorous, tightly controlled scientific experiments ever done. Yet, they are an anomaly to the scientific world view; and science as it is today cannot afford to accept them. There is something much different going on in the world than just the things explained by science.

Jung (1973) originally posited syncronicity as an alternative to cause and effect explanations: it is the idea of meaningful coincidences and chance happenings. Throughout our lives, we go through relatively few major life transitions: a death here, a marriage there, and possibly a major career change. We are "outside'' our patterns so seldom we have little opportunity to examine the forces and the very winds that blow our lives. The causes of transitions in our lives may not be seeable. They are experienced so infrequently that we have not been able to build a full sociology around a cause and effect model. Syncronicity offers the possibility for a different method of exploration.

We would be quite mistaken if we think that syncronicity can ever be diagrammed on the blackboard. Syncronicity posits that the life force will not be explained by our science, and despite Jung's stated allegiance to the umbrella of science, I would suggest that the idea of syncronicity poses the possibility of not only an acausal, but an ascientific understanding.

We must be prepared to admit that between the unconsciousness of the dream and the reality of day-to-day existence, there is another world different in all its subtle shades and hues. We cannot attempt full explanation of this. Final causes will not be the culmination of our efforts in social science. True "scientific" discoveries have not taken place because of our established methods (Phillips, 1973) and we must be suspicious of methods that promise such final conclusions.

In introducing syncronicity, Jung (1973) wrote it was amazing how the individual fates and the dramas of individual actors were all interwoven into one world. Somehow destiny stretched out before us separate, but connected. Connections that could not in any way be casually influenced often became meaningful beyond anything coincidence could suggest. A method different from causation must be articulated if we are to do more than just allude to such occurrences.

We cannot grasp the life force and coerce it into revealing its secrets just as syncronicity cannot be forced. Syncronicity takes place at the very edge of our lives, beyond the boundary of self and our understanding. We can be aware of syncronicity, but we cannot make it happen. Similarly, syncronicity cannot be "followed.'' We cannot wait for it to happen because it occurs concurrently with our actions. The necessities of our Aristotelian logic which we have taken to be the very basis of thought itself (Whorf, 1956) make it most difficult to talk

about syncronicity. We are forever wanting to declare it a mysterious "black box," circumscribe it, and deal with it in a cause and effect manner. Such an approach is not only absurd, but dangerous. We are dealing with what the occult might refer to as the ''cosmic trigger" (Wilson) -- the detonating device behind the evolutionary time bomb. This is perhaps why David Hume introduced the idea of the "secret springs."

As previously noted, the classic Western way of dealing with the secret springs" was Kant's distinction of noumenon and phenomenon; noumenon can only be grasped intuitively while phenomena can be studied scientifically. Phenomena can be used as approximations of noumena.

However, as Meeker (1977) pointed out, if we are making approximations of the truth, we are interested in getting closer and closer. It is as if we were on the road to Canterbury and each night we ask "how far is it to Canterbury?" we are assuming our journey is taking us closer to our destination. Syncronicity would suggest that Canterbury is in our very midst. We must find a different mode of movement than a journey toward it.

Syncronicity cannot be captured territorized, or capitalized upon; it cannot be dealt with heroically; it is not a matter of stealing fire from the gods. The scientific task of charting the unknown does not fit syncronicity. Freud's mandate of "where id was let ego be" is responded to by Jung's notion of syncronicity. It is not knowable in a rational, causal manner; it can be recognized and lived with. We can take it into account in envisioning society. But it cannot be reduced. Syncronicity cannot be "claimed" by a science of man.

We cannot afford to reduce man to the small reified image that normally passes for human in most social theories. The task of sociology is to consider the creature who is dancing on the very hands of time itself.

Humanistic psychology has embraced this larger version of human nature. Yet, we have not managed a sociological articulation of the fully human and the social structures and processes that enhance such creativity precisely because we have held out for a scientific understanding. Syncronicity and "magic" provides such an ascientific understanding. Yet the respectable sociologist has been frightened to use such words. It must be recognized here that humanistic psychology has been reticent to fully advance into this area. Still, we must fully recognize that syncronicity is the latent assumptions of human psychology -- that if one gets "in tune" with one's self, one will find relation, meaning, and opportunity. This implies a much different conception of the social than we have pretended. Such is not psychological reductionism, but positing the social to be of a particular nature, but not exploring or articulating that nature.

It will be remembered that Castenada's Don Juan claimed that all one needed for ''power" was ''impeccability" -- the ability to be at the right place at the right time. Syncronistically, then, everything would fall into place. We must note here the connections with religious theories of realization. The word ''impeccability' means literally "sinless." Religious postulates become insights of a much different order than normally attributed.

This all implies a dramaturgy of a totally different origin and nature. The magician frames, shows. The self-realized person is magical: not just in charisma, but in the world that s/he creates -- lives in. In terms of opportunities, the self-actualized person lives in a different world: a new world with a self-fulfilling prophecy that creates another reality. The lover creates a different reality because something else is being shown, acted upon, and envisioned. And this new world comes into being. The artist springs from creativity and points out a deeper, better world. Sociologically, they bring us into a different theater and the dynamics of this drama must be articulated under a different canopy than science. The magician's art -- framing, showing, celebrating a particular view -- provides us with our first step in articulating this reality and this epistemology. Syncronicity provides us with a way of spinning our anomaly with science into a different reality.

The magician as a social change strategy will not probably be fully articulated in our lifetime. But is is an idea whose time has come and we can begin sketching the dimensions here. Magic is by its very nature private and limited. It takes place behind "closed doors" away from the larger reality. As Suttles (1970) noted, even the magic of friendship in a bureaucracy is private: it takes care of organizational problems that cannot be dealt with rationally. In fact, we spin a work "behind the back" of the rational world that we postulate; and this informal, friendship/love-oriented world actually keeps our articulated, formal world functioning.

Magic can never be brought onto the conference table -- it is off the table. It is private, outside the room. We can bring testimony of its presence and importance to our lives to the table -- this is the task of humanistic sociology. We can seek to articulate social theories that respect its dynamics. But we can never bring magic itself onto the table nor chart its flow on the blackboard.

Simmel (1902) spoke of the dynamics of the dyad and the triad. The dyad which is the basis for most of the intimacy that occurs in society is founded on the ''secret." Its intimacy occurs precisely because it is not public; because it is private and away from the world. With the triad, we have the addition of a third party -- an audience that makes the dyad self-reflective. It is with the triad that we have the step to society proper. The dyad itself is not really social in so many typical senses.

I argued in my master's thesis (Du Bois, 1975) that society and its processes could only be viewed with the step to the triad. With the dyad, so much of what we conceive as elementary social processes simply cannot be viewed or do not exist.

Social reality has no meaning in a dyad. Reality is either agreed upon or we are at a hiatus. here is only minimal negotiation of reality because there is no judge of reality aside from each person; there is no social pressure or judge. "When it comes down to just two, I ain't no crazier than you." Reality is democratized. If two disagree, we have a tie. Social reality is simply suspended.

Social power is also not evidenced in a dyad. Power distinctions are usually quite evident to both parties. The principle of least interest says that in a dyad the person who has power maintains that power by the virtue of threatening to go elsewhere, thus terminating the relationship. Such power discrepancy (as an ongoing source of acknowledgment and basis for communication) would simply be too blatant. In dyads, power discrepancies are acknowledged and deference given. But for daily interaction, social power is not an issue. It is a given. It is only with the triad that social power becomes an ongoing, active dynamic.

The dyad is a special case. The intimate spaces spin a different reality through different processes. They are private and away from the world. Carpenter (1970) noted that if we increase the size of an audience, we often dissipate and destroy the message of intimacy. Mass produced intimacy is simply pseudo-intimacy. Love and magic normally are private. Moving them to a public space changes their nature. To re-vision society, respecting the nature of love and the magical, we must realize this.

Magic is not only private it is limited. An old Zen story said that before one is "enlightened they chop wood and carry water." After one is enlightened they also "chop wood and carry water." Magic is not a free lunch. It can only do so much. It leaves the rest of the world intact. The magician or the lover can only show, visit, point out. The magic cannot be tied to a technological wheel. It loses much of its power and changes its nature if we try.

Since magic is limited and private, it can shake us to our very roots as the rest of the world goes untouched. We can go through the most profound changes -- we fall in love, we lose a loved one, we have a realization to the depth of our being -- and yet the world outside even our next door neighbor and the passerby on the street, remain the same.

Love is essentially private. The world goes on much the same way as before; it sells us wedding rings coffins, and sends us sympathy cards. As a line from a fairy tale that I once wrote says: "If magic could change the world or last for more than a little while, then the smallest child playing in the forest would have changed it long ago" (Author, n.p). What about the changes that lovers would have brought? The magician, the lover can only go so far. This is the nature of love and magic. Otherwise, long ago the world would have been made much different.

Love and magic wait and seek and hide in our private regions. There they play and spin their own world. But the public forum can only view them as phenomena, as tonal, as an object -- as a "me" in Mead's sense. The creative the "I", the creative power of the nagual and the experiences of the secret springs are by nature private. The magician seeks to visit, to testify, and to point out.

Each man or woman can do little to change the world. Life is short. Time is long. Even the most profound historical actors seldom leave behind changes that last more than a few hundred years. What is a few hundred years? Or a few thousand? In folklore, the magician knows that "nothing can make a difference." Mortal humanity can do little to change time. But one must still act. One creates the day. Magic takes place in the present -- in the now.

This is where humanistic psychology emphasizes process models. It is in the now that we experience enlightenment, realization, and it is participation of the audience. It is not a matter of "prove it to me,'' but the audience entering into willing participation. This is the "Ancient Mariner's" "willing suspension of disbelief." Magic only goes so far. The magician may show the audience anything, but if they do not choose to look and see -- to willingly enter into dialog -- they see nothing.

This is what every lover knows; this is what the true magician knows. And this is why historically magic was no match for science. Science could offer power to self; magic depended upon the participation of self and some "other" -- be it person, cosmos, animal, or nature. Science offered a brief reprieve from relatedness -- from the mortality of a closed circle. Science promised power in abstraction; that, theoretically, was all powerful and knew no limits. Magic was more subtle.

Science and its power could become "ego's" tool -- a rational approach. Magic combined the rational and the irrational, demanding one recognize the boundary of other and establish relatedness.

The magician requires participation of other, be it the "whenever two or more are gathered" of religion or the more familiar example of the stage magician needing an audience. Without the audience's attention, there is no magic. The magician shows, points out, reframes. The scientist awaits appearances. Magic takes you there, creates a vision, another world. As one author wrote, "the function of poetry is to invoke the muse" (Graves, 1952, p. 7). The magician invites one into an experience.

The scientist can be separated from his world; his truth remains without an audience. The art of the magician requires an audience. Without the co-participation of other, there is no show. Indeed, there is no magic. Magic awaits participation. Otherwise, we see nothing. There is nothing to see, for nothing happens.

In many ways, culture is a shelter against the "world." Magic beckons all the time. Culture prevents it from shattering the walls of our constructed lives. The Nagual. The Noumenon. The Creative Power. The Life Force. They are there all the time. Our cultural description of reality protects us from chaos and the intensity of the fire. As long as we keep the walls of our self-fulfilling prophecies intact, magic has no power; it cannot touch us.

This is akin to the humanistic power. Van Den Berg (1961) illuminated this discussion. He wrote:

When Jesus Christ came to Nazareth, He 'could there do no mighty work.' Jesus was not surprised about His lack of power, not about nature in Nazareth, which, like a modern landscape, left Him no opening for His supernatural interference; but 'He marveled because of the unbelief.' Our belief is the condition of the miracle. Without our belief, apparently, no miracle can happen; the miracle is present in our belief, it is the habitual state of things.

Actually, it is strange that the Evangelist was so honest. He says that Jesus, who is God, could do there no mighty work, although he is omnipotent. Does this mean his power can be compared with the power of the hypnotist, who makes a whole audience shudder with cold while actually it is rather warm? The hypnotist can only do this because the audience believes in him. Why does Mark make this comparison so easy? . . .

It could only have been his honesty that made him write this. Mark was an honest man. He was honest and because of his honesty he stayed out of trouble; while we stare at one of the most amazing texts in the Bible, he writes on as if there were nothing wrong.

And there was nothing wrong; that can be the only explanation for the serenity of Mark's words. The reality of the miracle was so beyond all question -- for those who believed, as well as for those who did not -- that this text could not be misunderstood.

It is as if today someone says, 'Last year I was in Spain and I was very thirsty; I asked everybody I met for water, but nobody understood. I couldn't make them understand.' No one would, as a result of this story doubt the reality of words as a means to convey understanding. For the thirsty man the means was unsound because he did not speak Spanish . . . . The Spaniards must have looked at him with bewildered expressions. So, more or less, must the people of Nazareth have looked. They did not understand Jesus; that was their disbelief, and that is why nothing happened. The reality of the miracle is not affected by it (Van Den Berg, 1961, p. 204).

To create a reality, an experience, we must understand and enter into a self-fulfilling prophecy -- a reciprocal dialog. Without participation, there is no miracle. No magic. We are safe from the poet's spell; the touch of a hand no longer transforms the world; to look into your eyes no longer makes my soul flow; a word no longer changes my world. We see nothing; only the random appearances of sciences remain.

Castenada's Don Juan discusses magicians flying through the tops of trees and how this would scare the life out of the Indians who saw it. But the white men were not frightened: "They see nothing." The truth of such a story makes no difference. Metaphorically, it illustrates the nature of magic. Unless we are open to the possibility, it can be in our very midst and we see nothing. Our culture is a buffer from other realities. Unfortunately, our current scientific culture has done more than keep us safe. It has blinded us to love and the magical.

Outside these safe cultural regions lies possible insanity. As Becker (1968) saw the problem of the artist so well: no one feels they have the authority to offer up new cultural meanings. From the wings of vision, self falls needing support from other. Yankelovich (1981) noted, one cannot be the artist for one's own life; it requires other. There is not enough self-confidence and self-affirmation in anyone to sustain vision without context. The magician requires other; the artist requires an audience. Otherwise, it is a vacuum of self and the magic dwindles when unnoticed.

By oneself, a vision may be a poem; but it begs to be celebrated in life. We must not mistake the strength of the cry (for relatedness) or the convincingness of the new vision for a self-containment that does not need other. As Becker noted, not even our greatest, most compelling artists and thinkers have been able to sustain themselves. One need only read their biographies to confirm this. This is why the counterculture's culmination into humanistic psychology's "self as your own artwork" was doomed failure. Self without meaningful, participating audience is left to fluctuate between vision and doubt; between heights and folly. To create new meanings and enact them in life requires co-participation. To create culture is not an individual act; it is a co-production.

Love and magic are invitations. They require participation to come into full being. The lover's art like the magician's art may go unnoticed. Unless love is an opportunity taken, it is but a light in the window at night, a possibility that could have met the light of day. Without participation, the lover may appear like a fool or an idiot. The paranoid Dobuan will never trust the generous Zuni. The con artist delights in the willing "do-gooder." Love is never more than a opportunity until it is explored.

Love is a pooling of lives. "I" and "you" become "we." While there remains an I and a you, we have substantially changed. I and you are not quite the same either.

The lover, the magician, the artist returns from vision to a larger world essentially unchanged. Perhaps this is why so many magicians in folklore say that "magic makes no difference." Magic only goes so far -- and yet from the private spaces, the world has been transformed totally.

The magician points out an experience and beckons us to join. Magic is shown. The scientist opts to find the truth. The magician realizes there are many truths -- that indeed there is truth everywhere.

Magicians throughout folklore emphasize that "all is the same" -- that "it makes no difference". There are innumerable perspectives on everything. Omar Khayham expressed it that "to each must come the time to decide between truth and wisdom.''

Becker (1973) wrote that we live in a world filled with an overabundance of truth. There are truths and truth systems everywhere we look. But it is Omar Khayham's insight that must serve us well. For it is the magician that returns us to wisdom. The magical incantation may be no more than the proper words at the right time: the proper truth at the proper time. The spell/truth that is capable of restoring us to magical vision where we tap our creativity is what the magician seeks.

Under such an epistemology, truth is not an abstraction that can be built into a system of truth; that is not its nature. A humanistic epistemology emphasizes that truth is an experience. The magician invites us to participate. Truth is an experience that suggests a feeling; the words that initiate it may differ; but it is this experience we allude to when using the word "truth."

This "truth" may well be very similar to what most have called love. It is an experience of source, of meaning. This is why Norman Brown said hat "the truth is either new or not all." The words that return us to wholeness must always be new -- fresh. They must re-awaken an experience of awe and wonder. What worked the last time will not work the next. The spell must be woven afresh. It must hit us where we are in our lives at the time. But it is the experience that we wish to enter. It is not a new experience. We have had it before. This is what Henry Miller referred to when he advised "remember to remember." We must go again to that place where mystery and awe make us feel a part and in tune. Perhaps this is why it was written in the Bible that "only as a little child will you enter the kingdom of heaven." We must go fresh with child-like eyes.

The humanistic vision is based on such peak experience. Its version of truth is based on the love and magic that we have known in our lifetimes. It is this experience the magician wishes to put us in contact with again. One set of words may be no better than another for re-creating this experience. It varies from person to person. Some sets of words will not work, but many others depend on the time and the place. Particular truths make no difference.

The magician's "trick" is phenomenological in nature. It is framing, bracketing. The story is told that Don Juan visited Castenada's office at one time. In the office were stone busts of the great figures in Western thought: Freud, Marx, etc. Don Juan picked up a bust of Husserl, rubbed its head and said, "Now this is a power object." The implication is clear. Husserl was the philosopher who stressed bracketing -- that reality is bracketed; i.e., framed. The magician knows in the end all realities are the same. One view is just one view and there are many views. "Nothing matters." It all is "the same."

Yet it is precisely here that humanism can take its major departure and claim its humanistic epistemology. Past power, one may move to knowledge. If reality is shown, bracketed -- then there is no way to claim one frame is more true than another. All is equal. There is no way to say that one view is more true than another. It is a matter of choice. One view is simply preferred -- i.e., valued. What is shown -- what is framed -- depends on which is valued. 'hat is shown then makes all the difference in the world. Values are then the prime discussion of knowledge. What is valuable? Where does the heart lie? What paths are worth taking? Where does the heart feel good? here does happiness abound?

If humanistic sociology has a methodology, then perhaps it is happiness. Love is difficult to define, but at its best it borders and includes happiness. Magic without joy is too threatening for us to ever allow ourselves under its spell. If we were to seek to operationalize happiness, could love and magic be far behind?

There is another limit to magic. It is our mortality and fundamental inability of the human being to make a permanent dent in time. The human life span compared to geological time is small indeed. We seek to deny death and claim our own heroism. Yet we know the absurdity of such denial.

In life, most of us have come to realize there are no final solutions. We cannot make a large contribution to changing the world. The heroism fades. We realize we are just living and the larger world goes on without us. Our mark in time will not be great, but our experience of life can be full. As we mature, we leave behind the ''change the world" conversation. We begin living. The childish heroism is replaced by a recognition of our own mortality and needs. We enter into life and spend little time filing notes with the "change the world" conversation.

Yet it is precisely with those who have realized that change the world strategies are limited and the heart of life belongs to the living who have the crucial contribution to make to an effective articulation of a viable "change the world" strategy.

Sociological and Psychological Reflections:

The Art of Writing Home

It was David Hume who reminded us that philosophy can never replace living. Serious things have since been loathe to forgive him for such an insight. But we must remember that sociology and psychology are not life; they are reflections upon it. They are what Gregory Bateson referred to as the meta-conversation. A conversation above or across life: who we are and what we might be doing, and where we are going.

The human animal has been huddled by the fire for a long time. From time to time we reflect on this experience of living. From time to time we leave the familiar fire on new explorations. Later we return to discuss our journeys, insights and new destinations.

Legend tells that when Lao Tzu became enlightened, he packed his things and headed out of China. The Emperor, hearing the wisest of his subjects was leaving, immediately sent word to stop him at the border. He was not allowed to leave the country until he first wrote down what he knew. The Tao The King was thus written at "gunpoint." Those who have been actively involved in living have not usually appeared in the philosophical literature except as footnotes or brief references. A full articulation does not seem possible or at least those with the knowledge have better things to do. We should remember there are four gospels and numerous gnostic contenders, but nowhere do we hear of a "Gospel According to Jesus."

For the most part, those who have experienced the magical vision of love have not sought to write about it or leave behind a detailed map. They have simply entered into life. From time to time, we receive "postcards" or brief clues to their journey. But their attention is occupied with the present: they have passed through the door and into life.

Psychology and sociology represent the peculiar attempt to have a conversation at the crossroads. They are in the realm of what might be classified as "writing home." They are a reflection upon life and the human experience. It is through such a conception of the behavioral disciplines as "writing home" that we might understand their intrinsic nature.

One cannot spend all of ;heir time writing home and expect to have an experience. The activity of writing home can never replace living. One may send accounts, maps or even tickets home, but the experience itself cannot be tucked in an envelop and mailed home to the larger reality. The experience of love will always remain separate from the wider public sphere.

The intimate experiences where we find value cannot be brought in full essence to the public conference table. We cannot lay them on the table, dissect them, and expect them to retain their nature and dynamics. They take place in the private spaces away from the public conversation and understandings. Yet, if we seek a full understanding of life, it is these private spaces of love and the magical that we wish to bring to bear upon our public construction of the world. We wish to envision a society in keeping with their nature.

Sociology and psychology cannot replace living. Yet it is the private experience of love and the magical that we find most crucial to a public articulation of a humanistic effort. How do we construct a world view that respects the nature of love and the magical? How do we envision society in such a way that people are transported to the magical experience? How do we construct social structures and forms that serve as resources in the construction of meaningful lives? This is the task of humanistic sociology. This work has focused upon an articulation of some of the groundwork necessary to prepare the way for a rendition of sociology as art. This articulation is crucial, because we cannot just move into the world without also writing home: for we bump into the world reassembled in another place. We need the canopy of a public conversation which recognizes and encourages love and the magical. The professional task of writing home is essential to support the artistic exploration of living. Without a public awareness the individual artist is left to flounder alone.

There are two possible paths that can be taken when one realizes a new reality and vision. One is to bring this experience back to he public forum and enter into dialog with ''what is." This is the traditional approach of our rationalism: to bring all the world to the "conference table" and get everyone to agree on how the world is. Yet, we must realize that will never thoroughly happen. Individual efforts may well be dissipated by public testimony. The group reality may serve as a "cooling-out" mechanism for the individual vision. Some ideas are too new for public disclosure; some pale when placed in public display and subjected to public scrutiny while undergoing a fragile birth; some may be routinized by the public marketplace if presented before they are full grown. Our public conceptions must respect such dynamics. We must recognize the existence of a world outside our public conversation at the conference table. Our effort at writing home must allude to the other experience.

The other path which one might follow is to simply leave the larger reality: find one or two or a few who share the same vision and weave one's way away from the larger reality. This is the effort of the counterculture exploration. By itself, it will never be complete: it needs the support of the public conversation. It needs to be encouraged by a larger world that supports the private exploration of viable alternatives. It needs to find viable resources available to construct meaningful options. The formal effort of "writing home" must always be coupled with the individual exploration. We cannot escape this world for the next; and yet we cannot abandon our vision for a dialog with the past. Mankind is in a state of becoming. Sociology and psychology represent reflection in the mind's eye upon our journey. We cannot desert our explorations to return to writing home full time. Yet we cannot desert the past for the future or the present has no continuity or chance of becoming a viable new direction. Sociology is at this crossroads.

This public conversation is at the heart of our social constructions. The public question of how to re-create the values and the peaks, and how to improve upon the unhappy is central to create new social forms. A politician travels through a land of poverty, hunger and despair and returns with a new political platform. Lovers experience a touching and the depths of their souls and seek to make a public statement of their state: to find a way to daily re-enact the joy of their delight. A mother gives birth and seeks new patterns of "do's" and "don'ts" that somehow make this life better than the last. We seek new forms which some make our struggle for survival less harsh and more related to our needs for relatedness.

Our public conversations must echo our ways to find new social forms to

re-create the meaningful. All our thought-devices -- all our predilections toward the future -- are attempts to institute a way into the future. They are artificial, man-made forms to construct d way into a new reality. For envisioning and making the future, these social forms are the main resources that e bring to creating a new situation. The artist needs paints which ill flow with the water of life; and he needs a palette that he can carry. Our palettes do not need to contain all of the great art works of the past and the future -- such would be unmanageable and impossible; they need only contain the paints.

Questions and directions for humanistic sociology abound, but they need to contain different parameters than those of scientific sociology. In this dissertation, I have sought to sketch the parameters of this new effort. Along the way, I have suggested some possibilities for exploration. Some of the fundamental new efforts that need to be addressed include: (1) we need to come with new economic theories and modes which bridge the sacred and the profane; which bring the ethic or fairness into dialog with the paradigm of love. (2) We need to develop new theories of social control and take seriously the documented insight that reward is more effective than punishment. The primary human motivation seems to be for meaning. If we take the concept of reward and positive reinforcement seriously, then it is not just the converse of converse of negative reinforcement: it is the availability of meaningful alternatives and directions. It is a creative effort which follows the fundamental human impetus towards love and self-fulfillment and seeks to provide resources and opportunity for such direction.

(3) We need to respect the internal dynamics of love and the magical and seek ways which convert the humanistic power into a path of action. We need to develop the art of courtship, invitation, and gaining the attention of those we would wish to introduce to another world. (4) We need to provide resources and opportunities for the person as artist and life as artwork. This moves past the mere provision of support networks into the full conception of society as a series for human fulfillment. (5) We need to bridge "I" an "You" into a "We'' and explore the depths of such operation. (6) Using synergy as our parameter, we need modes of relating which retain the full person in fundamental and fulfilling interaction.

Such tasks are merely the beginning. the hard work is becoming literate with the dynamics of our social constructions. We must seek ways which retain our original directions. We must follow that direction's own subtle nuances and mannerisms. In our visions, another world awaits.