What makes an idea one whose time has come?
An idea’s time comes when the state of its
existence is transformed from content into context.
The matter is not something we can figure out with our minds. This work transcends ordinary intellect.
Werner Erhard, The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come. 1977, at http://www.wernererhard.net/thpsource.html
An Answer You Can’t Figure Out
It is clear that any position one takes will only add to the pea soup. It is clear that nothing we do in this condition will be anything more than a gesture. It may be ambitious and massive, but it will be a gesture nonetheless. It is clear that given the current set of forces, given the current condition, nothing will end starvation on the planet. And it is clear that when its time comes, starvation will end as a function of what we do and we will do what ends it.
It is clear that mere opinion, argument, doubt, mistrust and explanation only contribute to hopelessness and frustration. It is clear that making and supporting gestures is only a way of avoiding responsibility. It is clear that defending a position, arguing a point of view, only adds to the pea soup. It is clear that when the end of hunger and starvation on this planet is an idea whose time has come, then this mess in which we have been living will be transformed into the end of hunger and starvation on this planet.
What Causes an Idea’s Time to Come?
When you know the answer to that, you are no longer a mere speck of protoplasm on a dustball hurtling through space. You know how to have an impact on the world. You know what can make your life matter. The answer to “What causes an idea’s time to come?” is what The Hunger Project is about.
The Hunger Project is not about doing something more to end hunger. It is not about doing something better to end hunger. It is not a different set of solutions to the problem of hunger. It is simply about causing the end of hunger and starvation on this planet to be an idea whose time has come. The people who enroll themselves in the project commit themselves to that. What they do will be derived from that commitment.
The question, “What causes an idea’s time to come?” belongs to a particular class of question. Its answer is not the normal and conventional, reasonable type of descriptive or explanatory statement that a mind likes, that we are used to handling. It is not an exposition, concept, or theory. The answer to this class of question is, instead, a principle more powerful than all the forces in the world.
To answer this class of question, you have to give up your normal way of arriving at answers. Rather than knowing more and then more as you go along, you will need instead to be willing to know less and then less (that is to say, to become somewhat more confused as you go along). Finally you will have struggled enough to be clear that you don’t know. In the state of knowing that you don’t know, you get, as a flash of insight, the principle (i.e., the abstraction) out of which the answer comes.
While this is work that transcends ordinary intellect, all it requires is an unusually high degree of openness, commitment and intention. You will need these qualities to get you past the impatience, frustration and confusion that almost certainly will result from the feeling that what you are reading doesn’t make any sense. In fact, the statement we are seeking isn’t sensible; it transcends the senses. One doesn’t test the validity of such a statement by seeing if it fits into one’s system of beliefs. The test is whether there is a resulting shift from controversy, frustration and gesturing to mastery, movement and completion.
Answers in this class are fundamental principles; they are the source of parts, rather than the product of parts. They come as a whole, which whole can then be divided into pieces. You cannot reach the whole by adding up pieces; obviously the pieces don’t even exist as pieces until there is a whole of which to be a piece. Answers in this class (fundamental principles) can be known only by creating them.
Causing an Idea’s Time to Come
What causes an idea’s time to come? An idea’s time comes when the state of its
existence is transformed from content into context.
As a content, an idea expresses itself as, or takes the form of, a position. A position is dependent for its very existence on other positions; positions exist only in relation to other positions. The relationship is one of agreement or disagreement with other positions.
This agreement or disagreement manifests itself in various familiar forms. For example, your position is similar to, cooperates with, or supports other positions; it is independent from or ignores other positions; it protests, conflicts with, or opposes other positions. Positions exist by virtue of contrast, such as being different from, or more than, or unrelated to, or better than other positions. A position cannot stand by itself; it is not self-sufficient.
To come at this from another direction, we can look at content as thing, because an idea as a position is a thing. That which is without limits is either everything or nothing, and therefore not something, not a thing. It follows then that a thing requires limits to exist. These limits are expressed as the boundary of that thing.
Since the existence of a thing is dependent on its boundary, and a boundary, by definition, is that place between a thing and not-that-thing (i.e., something else), the existence of a thing is dependent on something else-anything else. Therefore a thing, a content, is dependent on something outside itself for existence. Content is not self-sufficient.
Context is not dependent on something outside itself for existence; it is whole and complete in itself and, as a function of being whole, it allows for, it generates parts-that is to say, it generates content. Content is a piece, a part of the whole; its very nature is partial. Context is the whole; its nature is complete.
When an idea exists as a position (when it is a content) then it is an idea whose time has not come. When an idea’s time has not come, whatever you do to materialize or realize that idea does not work. When an idea’s time has not come, you have a condition of unworkability in which what you do doesn’t work, and you don’t do what works.
When an idea is transformed from content to context, then it is an idea whose time has come.
When an idea is transformed from existence as a position to existence as a space, then it is an idea whose time has come. Now an idea as position literally requires other positions for its existence, while an idea as space is both self-sufficient, requiring nothing else in order to exist, and allows for (is the space of) the existence of other ideas. When an idea is transformed from existing as a function of other ideas to being the space that allows all other ideas, then it is an idea whose time has come.
When an idea is transformed from content to context, then it is an idea whose time has come.
(To be continued tomorrow)