The following materials were compiled by Rodney Frey to reiterate, enhance and supplement instructional materials presented during class presentations.

Long ago a servant was sent to the market to buy some salt and flour for his Lord. "Here, bring the flour and salt to me on this plate, but don't mix the two; keep them separate," the Lord says, handing the plate to his servant. So the servant heads to the market, mindful of these instructions.

At the market, the servant has a shopkeeper fill the plate with flour. But as the shopkeeper is about to measure the salt, the servant stops him. He remembers what his master had told him. So the servant turns the plate over and has the shopkeeper pour the salt on the bottom side of the plate. Careful not to spill any of his cargo, the servant proudly returns to his Lord.

"Here's what you asked me to bring you," the servant says. And he presents the Lord with the plate of salt. "But where's the flour?" commands the Lord. "It's here," says the fool, turning over the plate. But nothing is there, and as soon as the plate is turned, the salt is gone as well!

So it is, in doing one thing that you think to be right, you may undo another which is equally right.

Exclusivity breeds destruction. Patterns of exclusivity pervade our thinking. They are often manifested in dichotomized, either/or thinking such as is found in situations characterized in terms of us/them, friend/foe, good/evil, win/loose, true/false, black/white. In these situations of polar opposites, any given position or category is arbitrarily perceived as not the other and is excluded from it. However, when dichotomized thinking is taken to extremes it can stereotype, distort, limit choices and options, and is divisive. In the instance of the Modern and the Traditional world views, when one world view has dominated the values of a particular society or individual, exclusive of the other, the earth and humanity have suffered.

To embrace Traditional cultural values, exclusive of Modern cultural values, is to ignore the welfare of humanity. The creation and accessibility of food, shelter, health care, communication, transportation, recreation: all are contingent upon Modern values. The understandings of our biological, historical and social being as well as the attempts to thwart those stereotypes, prejudices and hatreds driven by our blind ignorance and false assertions: all are contingent upon Modern values. "History," after all, has chronicled the considerable and senseless destruction of human and animal "peoples" in the name of "religion," or "Manifest Destiny," or some other narrowly-defined conviction. And we are reminded that much of the impetus for the emergence of our contemporary "social sciences" was the challenge to the prevailing and pervasive oppression of other peoples -- African American, American Indian, Jew -- as in the example of the American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1942) and the American sociologist and educator W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963). Certainly the very assumptions upon which you have endeavored in this course, to "interpret," are in part grounded in Modern cultural values. Our sciences and technologies, our analytical pursuits and intellectual curiosities are all thus made possible. Modern cultural values bring forth a world of discovery, as new frontiers are to be explored, and a world of hope, as obstacles to human betterment are overcome. Human populations need the nourishments that Modern values provide.

On the other hand, to embrace Modern cultural values, exclusive of Traditional values, is also to ignore the welfare of humanity as well as the welfare of all the earth. When animal, plant and human are defined as material objects alone, and are denied a spirit and soul, are denied "Mind," they are rendered susceptible to neglect, abuse, degradation and destruction. It is so much easier to cut down a stand of trees, endanger a species of animal, and pollute a stream when that tree, animal and stream are seen as nothing more than objects. It is so much easier to hate another person, to be a racist, and to engage in war when that person is seen as nothing more than an object. While the causes of prejudice, whether directed at human or animal "peoples," are certainly varied and numerous, the necessary precondition for them all is objectification. And the greater the objectification, the greater the potential for abuse.

Paradoxically, while Modern cultural values at once bring forth new understandings upon which we as a humanity depend, those understandings are also predicated on the very same values of which we must also be cautious. For those values, when untempered by Traditional values, have ultimately fostered our insidious hatreds and wanton destructions of other "peoples." As two expressions of that destruction, we are further reminded that our emerging "social sciences" also contributed to and, however unwittingly, became instruments of European and American colonialism, and of racist doctrine, as in the instances of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), the German writer Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), the English eugenicist Francis Galton (1822-1911), and the American sociologist William Graham Summer (1840-1910).

And as the great contemporary thinker, Gregory Bateson, once said, "the creature that wins against its environment destroys itself." In our cybernetic ecosystem, the continued viability of any given component, as well as the viability of the complete and total circuit, are dependent of the free flows and exchanges of information through all pathways and among all components. As the wheel fails to roll when some of its spokes are removed, so too within a closed ecosystem. When segments of the circuitry are ignored or eliminated, entropy and chaos ensue, and death is assured. The Inuit "peoples" maintain a balance in their delicate ecosystem by entering into an all-inclusive web of feedback loops and information exchanges with the animal "peoples," regulated in the character of Sedna and an intricate series of hunting taboos. The driftwood survives the turbulence because of the lodging of all the driftwood.

And should not the moral rights of all "peoples" be acknowledged and assured?

Traditional cultural values necessitate a participation with animals, plants and culturally distinct peoples, with the entirety of the planetary ecology. Brought forth is a world of kinship, as an ethic of respect and cooperation among kinsmen is fostered, and a world of inspiration and imagination, as the ultimate destiny and purpose of the Earth and of Humanity, each inseparable, is revealed and given meaning. Brought forth is the world of the Alcheringa and of "Mind." The Earth and Humanity need the nourishments that aesthetic inspiration, spiritual revelation, and ecological humility and balance provide; the Earth and Humanity need what Traditional cultural values provide.

Is exclusivity an inevitable feature of our humanity? Or can one category, seemingly an opposite, embrace and be included along side the other? How then are we to view phenomena as simultaneously divisible, unique, material, devoid of spirit, as well as united within a singular whole, indivisible and transcendent? How can something be many and one, as well as material and transcendent all at the same time? Are we as the fool? Or can we carry the salt and the flour together on the same plate, without spilling one or the other or both?

Our first task is to be alert and receptive to the "possible," and not blinded by unchallenged preconceptions. We must apply elasticity to our story. I am reminded of the Mobius strip (after August F. Mobius, a German mathematician who died in 1868). When can two parallel lines, each never crossing over the other and each with a discrete beginning and end, become a singular line, each inclusive of the other, with neither beginning nor end? An impossibility you say? The resolution is, in part, perceptual, in the way we think and tell the story.

Take a long narrow strip of paper. The outside edges of the strip represent two parallel lines, each separate from the other, each with a beginning and an end--exclusivity. Now twist the strip 180-degrees and link one end with the other. Out of an exclusive, lineal structure of two parallel lines you have created an inclusive circular flow of a singular line, without beginning nor end--inclusivity.

As an expression of our perception of the world, as an ingrained value within our cultural story, I would argue that exclusivity is neither inevitable nor intransigent. Is not the Dreamer a part of the Animal, and the Animal the Dreamer? Can we not attempt to see the world through a Traditional eye while at thae same time see with Modern eye? Can we not juggle our eyes?

Once freed from the shackles of preconception and open to the realm of the "possible," we must next complete our new story. An appropriate metaphor is to be found.

Such a metaphor, I would argue, is to be found when Traditional cultural values, and especially the value of transcendency, are acknowledged and brought into consideration. This apparent contradiction, of the many and one, of the material and spiritual, and of the Modern and Traditional can be clarified and resolved. Simply put, the multiple of phenomena is associated with the overt and the manifest, while the oneness of phenomenon is associated with the transcendent. While boundaries demarcate and separate the "conspecific individuals" within the bioenergetic ecology, a unity of interconnected information pathways encloses the entirety of the cybernetic ecology; Mind and body are unified. Was not this suggested previously in the symbolism of the spokes and hub of the Crow Indian "wagon wheel" imagery. If the wheel is to continue to turn, that which is unique and separate, the spokes, must nevertheless remain part of the wheel, anchored to the rim and hub.

The parable of the "mountain climb" adds further resolution. On the mountain there are many and differing routes for reaching the summit. One route comes out of the hot desert, another from the grassland prairie, one from a lush jungle, and a fourth comes out of a rugged mountain range. As each climber begins his or her ascent of the mountain, each is attired in the clothes and gear appropriate to his or her home terrain. Each necessarily differs from the other, unsuited to the terrains of the others. As the climbers continue toward the summit, much of the gear each once wore is discarded along the way. After much effort, each of the climbers finally reaches their common goal. And what each is now wearing is indistinguishable from the others. In our metaphor, the home terrains represent the unique and multiple found in the history and geography of a people, the overt and manifest differences that separate--the Glass Pane world. The summit, reached only "after much effort," represents the unity and oneness to be found in the transcendent--the Looking Glass world.

As we have discovered, awareness of our stories is a task not easily accomplished. Cultural values are never readily revealed. Yet an informed life is a life with meaning. An uninformed life is no life. To "live lives of quiet desperation," as Thoreau suggested, is to be bound in our imagination and being to a life enslaved by forces unknown to us, to be at the mercy of our ignorance, to be owned by our stories. With knowledge comes an opportunity to celebrate our stories, to rejoice in the meaning and beauty they have for us. With knowledge also comes an opportunity to re-evaluate and re-combine the values of our own stories, and to incorporate the values of another's story, if we so choose. With knowledge comes ownership of our stories and choice; and, with choice comes the possibility of an improved quality of life.

We all have a choice in the particular combination of stories we wish to tell of and to ourselves, a choice in the path in life we wish to take. Because of the tremendous consequences to ourselves, to others, and to the world about us, should we not then take responsibility to explore the particular stories we tell and to appreciate the values that emanate from them, to grow in an awareness of who we are and what humanity is? Which Traditional and which Modern stories are our stories? Which combination of Modern and Traditional stories do we wish to tell? And what do our stories tell--what are their implications--implications for us, for others, for the earth? Should we not take ownership of our stories? Not to take ownership of our stories is to allow our stories to own us.

"The essence of moral decisions is the exercise of choice and the willingness to accept responsibility for that choice." So wrote Carol Gilligan in her book entitled, In A Different Voice (1982).