The study of International Communications features reviews, reruns, and replays of a familiar theme. It is the theme of the conflict of opposites. The question addressed in this discussion centers around the proposition quoted here from an unidentified source: “Conflicting beliefs divide us within and without. If we could see through them to the level of paradox, we would understand more and fight less.”

It is the purpose of this paper to:

1. Examine a number of polarities attendant on the increasingly vital question of Mass Media’s role in an advancing global society with an uncertain future
2. Explore the possibility of “bridging the gap” between the challenging state in which technological developments in communication have placed human society and the level of consciousness required for meeting the challenge.

The effort is an experiment in force-fitting the current realities of International Communication as presented in a cross-section of the literature with current expectations in the study of individual and social evolutionary change.

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New Introduction, April 2, 2003

I decided to add the following article on “Iqbal and the Intimate Immensities” from my 1998 book, The Creativity Force. The article is offered as a contribution to the public task of understanding today’s desperate need for peace in a world where East and West are so radically and fatally polarized.

The reading and interpretation ofIqbal’s “Javid-Nama” was a course requirement in a doctoral program at United States International University in San Diego in 1984. Now in 2003 the war with Iraq has caused me to revisit the work of this major Islamic poet and philosopher. Iqbal’s vision is a reminder of the universal commonalities of human diversity and the creative powers that may well be the most unifying forces in the global family.

Introduction

Throughout the reading ofIqbal’s “Javid-Nama”, I experienced an intense personal identity with the poetics of self and space that distinguish his writing, and I knew I was finding that quintessence of a thought long familiar and much treasured— The “Intimate Immensities.” Its discovery has given a sense of reality to the otherwise incomprehensible vastness of the heavens. To find so emotional a response to the first piece of Eastern writing I have seriously undertaken, and to link a new poetic experience so absolutely, so immediately, and so intuitively to what has become a personal paradigm has the feeling of something mystical. It is almost as if the system of universal energies caused a synchronistic connection, and brought the East with its organismic, holistic thought into partnership with the more familiar search for universal understanding of the West. A line from the writing is relevant here: For Westerners intelligence is the stuff oflife: for Easterners love is the mystery of all being. I may flatter myself that I understand the thought which Iqbal’s words suggest. That, at least, is my momentary “truth.” Always assumed, of course, is the accompanying principle of uncertainty. In that somewhat amorphous state, the discussion of Javid Nama is approached more as a synthesis of the “intimate immensities” than as an analysis of literature, and somewhere between authority and apology.

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The Place of Creativity and Humor in Group Counseling: Attention to Humor and Creativity in Psychology Class

From the beginning, my experiences in
a Group Dynamics class emphasizing the Person Centered Approach seemed to have a direct connection to the concepts of creativity and humor, and I began to wonder how much specific attention had been paid in the literature to the established discipline of Creative Studies Ca component of Educational Psychology) and the emerging discipline of the studv of humor by proponents and practitioners in the field of Counseling. Checking the Index of the Course textbook and a number of resources referenced there in the library I discovered a paucity of evidence that these two interrelated significant components of human nature, operating both individually and in groups, had their desired place in the academic literature of the counseling disciplines.

This presentation is the result of a longterm interest and personal background in the phenomenon of Creativity and its relation to Humor as a personal life expression and a significant force in the life of groups.

Read the original article as a PDF here.