Friday, 24th January, 2025, 8:00pm to 10:00pm St. John’s Church, Bridgetown
(Both live and streamed)
Dr Malcolm Parlett on
- Living More Intelligently: Foolish or Feasible?
It’s time for a grown-up conversation about
humanity’s chances of avoiding becoming extinct or becoming subservient to
technical overlordship. As a global population can human beings “up their
game”, flourish, and continue to evolve? Being an “intelligent species” is
irrelevant if humanity does not “ACT intelligently”. The Whole
Intelligence framework highlights five areas of capability and strength that
are often taken for granted. Yet each contributes fundamentally to HOW we
function as intelligent animals. They relate to how we: 1. collaborate with
others; 2. access our non-verbal (‘animal’) ways of knowing; 3. operate
mindfully; 4. respond to unique situations with flexibility; and 5. experiment
and innovate, as well as sustain habits. Each of these human capabilities
helps foster higher performance and flourishing of individuals, groups, and
communities. However, it is when all five dimensions are in play that something
extraordinary happens at a process level—like notable increases in spontaneity,
trust between people, enthusiasm, and keenness “for more of this”.
The evening will include some experimental
tasting of the five dimensions – like trying out a new cuisine. We can also
consider possibilities for scaling up Whole Intelligence to affect large human
systems. Our interconnectedness could lead to enhancing greater existential
courage at a time when intelligence of any kind can seem in short supply.
Malcolm Parlett, who lives
in Totnes, completed his doctorate in the 1960s, working in the Cambridge
Psychological Laboratory. Realising he was more an observer of real-life
situations than a scientist in a lab, he changed course. First at MIT and
then at Edinburgh University he developed observation and interviewing-based
research into teaching and learning contexts. Subsequently he became an
international trainer, writer, researcher, and editor in the field of Gestalt
therapy and consultation. His recently re-issued book Future Sense: Five
Explorations of Whole Intelligence for a World That’s Waking Up provides the fullest account of the approach, with lots of case
examples. Copies will be available for purchase. The website also has much to
offer. See www.wholeintelllgence.org
Cost: £5
Booking via Eventbrite HERE
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