The Mariposa Literary Society of One issued the following statement following its most recent monthly meeting:
Is reading a political act? Can it be? Might that perhaps depend on what is being read, and the spirit involved?
I have been seeking the engagement of people with literary casts of mind, convinced they could make a distinctive and valuable contribution to public affairs in general, and politics in particular. I am more than ever convinced, however insistent the contrary beliefs and pressures may be. When I say “casts of mind”, I am thinking more of fly-fishing than moulds.
I have been trying to develop this idea along “tetraditional” lines (see Appendix below). After all, the whole idea started with Stephen Leacock’s Tetrad of Knowledge + Imagination + Compassion + Humour, which my colleague and I have attached to KnICH Magazine (www.patreon.com/knichmagazine). When we couple that with Leacock’s call for Resolute + Sane + Orderly + Continuous Social Reform, then I think we have a foundation worthy of the Literary Spirit.
We all know the power of single-mindedness when it comes to getting things done. What I am suggesting, therefore, is a single-minded approach to multi-mindedness, to Fourfold Vision. Our minds are certainly up to that. We need to invent institutions to match.
I am therefore proposing formation of the Liberal + Conservative + Progressive + Libertarian Party. (I am here using “Liberal” and “Conservative”, not in the senses assumed in the names of our two present parties, but in their classical, philosophical senses.) This name, I recognize, lacks the snap needed for contemporary branding, and we must guard against our opponents labelling us as the “Muddle Party”, even though Muddle, in the Isaiah Berlin sense, is quite respectable politically, indeed pervasive.
We need to be more articulate about the complex matrix of visions that shapes our society, and how it works, so that we can be more comfortable with it, and more creative in Social Reform. I believe that literary minds should be in the forefront of that undertaking.
APPENDIX: A (baker’s) DOZEN TETRADS & TRIADS Feeding the eventual Manifesto of the Liberal + Conservative + Progressive + Libertarian Party:
KNOWLEDGE + IMAGINATION + COMPASSION + HUMOUR (Leacockian)
SOCIAL REFORM: RESOLUTE + SANE + ORDERLY + CONTINUOUS (ditto)
PROSPERITY + HEALTH + SECURITY + SOCIAL JUSTICE (Canadian)
PLURALISM + IDEALISM + PRAGMATISM + WISDOM (Foundational)
MAJORITY + MINORITY + INDIVIDUAL + COMMUNITY (Democratic)
RIGHTS + PEACE + ORDER + GOOD GOVERNMENT (Canadian)
HEALTH + THE ECONOMY + EQUALITY + THE ENVIRONMENT (Canadian; recent Throne Speech)
LIBERTY + FRATERNITY + EQUALITY (French)
LIFE + LIBERTY + THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (American)
PRODUCTION + DISTRIBUTION + CONSUMPTION + CONSTRUCTION (Economic)
SPONTANEITY + CONNECTION + BALANCE + OPEN DISCOURSE (Artistic)
FOURFOLD VISION + UNSOLVED RIDDLES + BOTH-AND + MODIFIED MUDDLE (Necessary)
FRAGMENTATION + INCOMPLETENESS + INCONCLUSIVENESS + RECONCILIATION (Mariposan)
The elements of these should be viewed not as singularities but as axes in four-dimensional continuums analogous to Relativity Theory, or even as one n-dimensional continuum, where n in this list equals fifty: “Complex Thinking for Complex Times”, or possibly “Complex Thinking and a Quiver of Single-Minded Actions”.
Submitted by Paul Conway for the Mariposa Literary Society of One
Mariposa Embraces the Fourfold Vision Quest! 