We pay a great deal of attention to 'death'—that which harms, damages, or kills us. We do this a lot in our daily lives, but also in what we prioritize in our social institutions. 'Death' is also central in the thinking of formal disciplines, such as public health (with its language of 'mortality,' 'mo rbidity,' 'burden of disease,' and the 'leading causes of death'), and in much in the social sciences, philosophy, as well as in religious teachings and theologies (through a focus on 'guilt,' 'shame,' 'sin,' 'The Fall,' to name just some framing perspectives).
What if we were to turn the spy-glass around? What if we were to focus at least as much on life as we do on death?
Life is the thing that works. Against the cold, solid running down that we call entropy, life is the energy that runs up, finds a way, expands into every possible crack in the predictable curtain of death, raises up a generation beyond itself. Life is the thing that goes on. And it goes on in any of your or my short, peculiar and particular span of years.
This is the focus of the leading causes of life - a way of thinking about reality that pays attention above all to what is generative for us as human beings, personally and in relation to others and the world around us. It rests on an innovative, concretely useful set of five interlinked and interacting elements—with deep philosophical foundations. Together, they help us understand the complexity of human action and interaction.
What if we were to turn the spy-glass around? What if we were to focus at least as much on life as we do on death?
Life is the thing that works. Against the cold, solid running down that we call entropy, life is the energy that runs up, finds a way, expands into every possible crack in the predictable curtain of death, raises up a generation beyond itself. Life is the thing that goes on. And it goes on in any of your or my short, peculiar and particular span of years.
This is the focus of the leading causes of life - a way of thinking about reality that pays attention above all to what is generative for us as human beings, personally and in relation to others and the world around us. It rests on an innovative, concretely useful set of five interlinked and interacting elements—with deep philosophical foundations. Together, they help us understand the complexity of human action and interaction.
- 'Leading Causes of Life' (some videos) -
Leading Causes of Life
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Public Health Challenges
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Equity, Justice & Eugenics
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'Critical Care & Inequity'
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Iniquitous Mortality Rates
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'Community Mobilization'
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For more videos on congruent ways of thinking,
including a number on 'Positive Deviance," click in the button on the left or see More videos on the menu above. |
Life is what it is about. I want no truck with death.
– Pablo Neruda Life has a way of rolling, not unlike a 'murmuration,' something starlings and other birds do.
A wonderful example of emergent, dynamic complexity unexplained by inorganic or linear logic, only by life.
On El Paso | El Paso docs
Documents prepared for LCLI meeting INCLUDING LCL Theory (PDF) On Positive Deviance On Liberating Structures (with videos) About UTEP Social Justice Initiative |
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