Beyond the Management Mentality
Whitehead's Idea of Importance
In Whitehead's philosophy the importance of a tomato plant does not lie in the eyes of its human beholders, its price in the marketplace, or even in the mouths of the insects which might eat it. The tomato plant is important in its own right and as part of a larger unity in which it unfolds, the living universe. Blessed are the tomato plants, for theirs is the kingdom of Importance.
To the degree that we see this, we transcend the logic of management that so permeates the 21st century. We see the universe in its importance and beauty. We know that other people, the rest of the natural world, and we ourselves are not simply "things" to be managed but beings to be respected. There is more to life, so much more, than management. Whitehead's idea that we live in a universe of Importance is revolutionary, and just the cure we need for our manipulative times.
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I am a novice gardener. I try to manage my garden in various ways: planning the garden, selecting the plants, preparing the soil, planting the seeds, watering the plants, pruning and weeding, harvesting, mulching, and rotating crops. But there is something that cannot and need not be managed. It is the growing of the plant itself, of its own accord. The ancient Greeks had an idea, picked up by contemporary philosophers, called poiesis. It is the emergence of something new that did not previously exist. I like to go out and sit with the plants, moving out of the management mode into the being-with mode. My guess is that many gardeners are in this situation. They like to be "with" the plants and, at some level, enjoy their poiesis.
There is more to gardening, and to life, than management. There is also the appreciation of the plant as something important in its own right and important in a larger whole, a deeper unity, in which it is included. I'm not trying to be mystical here. I think we all have a sense of this deeper unity, the larger whole, as part of the background of our experience in daily life. We may not have a name for it, but we somehow feel it.
This deeper unity is more than the garden plot, my backyard, my bioregion, and the earth. It is also more than my nation, my ethnicity, my political allegiances, and my religious inclinations. It is the universe itself in its unity. It is the whole within which the plants, and we ourselves, live and move and have our being. There are, then, at least two kinds of importance: the importance something has in itself and for itself, and the importance it has within the larger whole.
In Whitehead's philosophy, importance is part of the very being and becoming of the universe. Importance is as essential to the universe as are gravity, space, electromagnetism, and time. There could be no universe without the importance things have in themselves and for larger wholes, including the ultimate whole, the universe.
Thus, importance is not simply something we humans project onto the rest of the world, assigning more importance to some things than others. Yes, we do that. We assign values to things all the time. Some people even equate value with the price of things in the marketplace. But Whitehead offers the idea that value is rooted in importance.
This very idea contradicts much of what we assume in 21st-century life. In particular, it contradicts what I will call the management mentality. In our age of data-driven technologies, it can seem as if the only real things in the universe are bits of data to be assembled and managed. If we add human life to the mix, it can seem as if our own subjective experiences - our feelings and emotions - must likewise be managed. And if we add the idea that the universe as a whole is a vast assemblage of lifeless or dead matter, devoid of purpose, it can seem as if the universe is purposeless, and thus unimportant, until we assign it. This is the management mentality: it is the idea that management of the world is what there is to life and that all value is assigned by human beings.
A corollary of this is that the good life lies primarily in "attention to details" without worrying too much about the bigger picture. The mind that is attentive to details has, as it were, its feet on the ground, whereas the mind that is absorbed in larger concepts, indeed in metaphysical concepts, is lost in the clouds.
Whitehead suggests, by contrast, that when we are sensitive to the role of importance in life and the universe, we are more grounded and complete as human beings. Here is how Ross Stanway, a philosopher in Canada, puts it. He does into much more detail in his article, reposted below. This excerpt will give you a sense of his argument. It is that, in Whitehead's philosophy, importance is important and out not be trivialized by obession with details.
To the degree that we see this, we transcend the logic of management that so permeates the 21st century. We see the universe in its importance and beauty. We know that other people, the rest of the natural world, and we ourselves are not simply "things" to be managed but beings to be respected. There is more to life, so much more, than management. Whitehead's idea that we live in a universe of Importance is revolutionary, and just the cure we need for our manipulative times.
*
I am a novice gardener. I try to manage my garden in various ways: planning the garden, selecting the plants, preparing the soil, planting the seeds, watering the plants, pruning and weeding, harvesting, mulching, and rotating crops. But there is something that cannot and need not be managed. It is the growing of the plant itself, of its own accord. The ancient Greeks had an idea, picked up by contemporary philosophers, called poiesis. It is the emergence of something new that did not previously exist. I like to go out and sit with the plants, moving out of the management mode into the being-with mode. My guess is that many gardeners are in this situation. They like to be "with" the plants and, at some level, enjoy their poiesis.
There is more to gardening, and to life, than management. There is also the appreciation of the plant as something important in its own right and important in a larger whole, a deeper unity, in which it is included. I'm not trying to be mystical here. I think we all have a sense of this deeper unity, the larger whole, as part of the background of our experience in daily life. We may not have a name for it, but we somehow feel it.
This deeper unity is more than the garden plot, my backyard, my bioregion, and the earth. It is also more than my nation, my ethnicity, my political allegiances, and my religious inclinations. It is the universe itself in its unity. It is the whole within which the plants, and we ourselves, live and move and have our being. There are, then, at least two kinds of importance: the importance something has in itself and for itself, and the importance it has within the larger whole.
In Whitehead's philosophy, importance is part of the very being and becoming of the universe. Importance is as essential to the universe as are gravity, space, electromagnetism, and time. There could be no universe without the importance things have in themselves and for larger wholes, including the ultimate whole, the universe.
Thus, importance is not simply something we humans project onto the rest of the world, assigning more importance to some things than others. Yes, we do that. We assign values to things all the time. Some people even equate value with the price of things in the marketplace. But Whitehead offers the idea that value is rooted in importance.
This very idea contradicts much of what we assume in 21st-century life. In particular, it contradicts what I will call the management mentality. In our age of data-driven technologies, it can seem as if the only real things in the universe are bits of data to be assembled and managed. If we add human life to the mix, it can seem as if our own subjective experiences - our feelings and emotions - must likewise be managed. And if we add the idea that the universe as a whole is a vast assemblage of lifeless or dead matter, devoid of purpose, it can seem as if the universe is purposeless, and thus unimportant, until we assign it. This is the management mentality: it is the idea that management of the world is what there is to life and that all value is assigned by human beings.
A corollary of this is that the good life lies primarily in "attention to details" without worrying too much about the bigger picture. The mind that is attentive to details has, as it were, its feet on the ground, whereas the mind that is absorbed in larger concepts, indeed in metaphysical concepts, is lost in the clouds.
Whitehead suggests, by contrast, that when we are sensitive to the role of importance in life and the universe, we are more grounded and complete as human beings. Here is how Ross Stanway, a philosopher in Canada, puts it. He does into much more detail in his article, reposted below. This excerpt will give you a sense of his argument. It is that, in Whitehead's philosophy, importance is important and out not be trivialized by obession with details.
In Modes of Thought Whitehead frequently identifies the attention to details as both an expression of ‘importance’ and the "trivialization" of ‘importance.’ .. If details are taken in themselves, they are trivial. If the sense of ‘importance,’ however, does not attend to details, it indulges in merely "noble sentiments" (AI 98). Modernity, in both its Ordinary and intellectual life, has come to identify ‘importance’ with the details, treating ‘importance’ as a property of objects or personal feelings. It is little wonder, then, that what vividly claims our attention at one time, or on one occasion, later slips into insignificance. Of course, such is a necessary part of the universe; indeed, it is a necessary aspect of most of it. The absence, however, of that sense of purpose which, Whitehead held, was ultimately derived from the "unity of the Universe" leads merely to organization and to conformity. A. MacIntyre correctly observes, in After Virtue, that managers and therapists dominate too much of the life of modern society.