Book Title: Samkit Faith Practice Liberation
Author(s): Amit B Bhansali
Publisher: Amit B Bhansali

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Page 14
________________ condition of increased connectivity between people from various places and cultures, by traveling or other forms of interaction, especially electronic ones, that make the monopolization of the good and the real a lot more problematic than ever before in human history. Within seconds, nowadays, voices from all over the world can enter one's room, not only to do business, but also to think about life, family, and even religion. The previous modern times had more a fixed place and time, and when there were clashes, the power of the most dominant party, in weapons or numbers, often solved the issue, the verdict of the real and the good for all. It was the period of belief in only one kind of voice, that of the individual expert, using rational methods of observation and understanding, measurement and science. Relations came later, as unavoidable consequences of individuals who do not know it all perfectly, and, thus, must interact somehow to get back to objectivity, because when subjects disagree, something must be wrong, they must be partially or totally subjective. In a social constructionist view on knowing and understanding, however, relations come first, it is by our engaged interaction with one another that we actually create the real and the good, whereby language is not just the instrument to describe meaning that existed before, but is actually the relational vehicle that creates meaning. Once we understand that meaning is constantly in the make, by doing things together, by talking to each other, we also understand that the study of meaning is inherently historical, in the sense that everything we say or write about it, actually helps to create the corpus of what we talk about. Any book that talks about books, becomes part of the corpus of books that we may talk about, and so it may never end. Mathematicians sometimes call this the theorem of incompleteness, it is even theoretically impossible, let alone practically doable, to be complete in reflecting upon oneself. So, we better embrace the thing that cannot be avoided anyway, and choose for trying to improve the world, or do something, rather than just say what is, with the belief that it always was like that and always will be like that, without any responsibility to engage. The social constructionist perspective on the good and the real is sometimes accused for being amoral, for putting everything in question, but it is just the opposite: by recognizing that the good and the real is a product of our own engaged interaction with one another, we actually make meaning, any meaning, moral, and the question only becomes what interactions we want to attain and sustain, and with whom and for whom. 3. Methodological implications This shift from mirroring to making, as Gergen (2015) recently called this in a paper on the emergence of postmodern research, has far-reaching consequences for what one is supposed to do, or can do to produce significant research. The prototype of an 'enlightened' researcher in previous modern times is that of an individual astronomer, looking up at the skies with a telescope, so that parts of the universe become visible that ordinary mortals cannot see, and then measure exactly what happens in time and space, to establish, usually after long periods of time, a law that says what happens, and will continue to happen even long after humanity has expired. No subjectivity, no contribution of the observer to what is there, only look and see, and report, correctly, in numbers. Newtonian mechanics. Yet, within that branch of science, it soon became evident that just look and 11

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