{"id":29168,"date":"2022-10-20T11:51:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T18:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29168"},"modified":"2022-10-20T11:51:13","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T18:51:13","slug":"when-you-are-in-the-bush-you-know-what-you-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/when-you-are-in-the-bush-you-know-what-you-know\/","title":{"rendered":"When You Are in the Bush, You Know What You Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We were traversing the Nambiti Big 5 Private Reserve in the South African bush on our evening safari by way of Land Cruiser.\u00a0 It was just after sunset when our field guide, Peter, came to a stop.\u00a0 He jumped out of the auto and walked over to a shrub.\u00a0 The 10 of us in the Land Cruiser were clueless as to what he saw.\u00a0 He reached into the shrub and plucked out a quite large grasshopper looking creature.\u00a0 Peter then preceded to cause the Green Milkweed Locust to extend its vibrant wings with a slight squeeze to its abdomen.\u00a0 Someone uttered, \u201cHow do he even see it?\u201d\u00a0 This question was likely bubbling up within all of us. The answer?\u00a0 Tacit knowing; through his experience he has come to know what to see in the night.<\/p>\n

Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian-British scientist, and philosopher, was the first to explore the importance of tacit knowing. He said, \u201cone can know<\/em> more than one can tell<\/em>\u201d[1]<\/a>, and therefore, \u201cmost of this knowledge cannot be put into words\u201d[2]<\/a>.\u00a0 A collection of three Terry<\/em> Lectures<\/em> makes up his book, The Tacit Dimension<\/em>.\u00a0 Through these lectures he presents the components of Tacit Knowing (part 1), expands his theory \u201cthrough generalizations\u201d[3]<\/a> \u00a0in Emergence (part 2), and ponders whether humans can then \u201cexercise the kind of responsible judgment\u201d[4]<\/a> from within this tacit knowing in A Society of Explorers (part 3).\u00a0 On a foundational level, Polanyi\u2019s epistemology reveals his working out of his Jewish heritage in light of his appreciation of Christian faith; our knowing what we know is mysterious.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on a few of our past readings, I can hear echoes of Polanyi\u2019s argument of the importance of knowing grounded in community in An Everyone Culture<\/em>. In addition, the nature of biases and system 1 & 2 that Kahneman unpacks in Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em> have tacit connections to Polanyi\u2019s tacit knowing. Erin Myer\u2019s notation of \u201creading the air\u201d in high-context cultures in The Culture Map<\/em>, seems to be informed by tacit knowing; \u201cwe recognize the moods of the human face, without being able to tell, except quite vaguely, by what signs we know it.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 For me, the most subtle connection is to Friedman\u2019s A Failure of Nerve<\/em>.\u00a0 Polanyi says, \u201cIn all our waking moments we are relying on our awareness of contacts of our body with things outside for attending to these things.\u00a0 Our own body is the only thing in the world which we normally never experience as an object.\u201d[6]<\/a> This truth finds its way into how we must be well-differentiated and informs us on a psychological plane to embodied self-regulation.<\/p>\n

The most satisfying take away I have from reading The Tacit Dimension<\/em> is finding peace from the anxiety I have had over my NPO and project.\u00a0 I have been long traversing the bush at night in my mental land cruiser with \u201cimposters syndrome\u201d around my project.\u00a0 While my peers seem to have strong projects in response to the need they are responding to, I have doubted I have a worthy concept.\u00a0 Polanyi offered me at least a spotlight to illuminate that which I can see to pluck from the \u201ctree of knowledge\u201d when he said,<\/p>\n

\u201cbut we can know a problem, and feel sure that is pointing to something hidden behind it, we can be\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 aware also of the hidden implications of a scientific discovery, and feel confident that they will\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 prove right.\u00a0 We feel sure of this, because in contemplating the discovery we are looking at it not\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 only in itself but, more significantly, as a clue to a reality of which\u00a0it is a manifestation.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

Polanyi\u2019s words encourage me to lean into my hunch that God is calling the church to a new thing.\u00a0 My instinct to lead the church to discover possibilities of embodying transformed ways of being<\/em> the church, in the contexts it lives, is my calling. Though I only see dimly in the mirror what the solution is, I am now more confident my NPO is important to engage in. \u00a0It is ok if \u00a0my project may not be seen as an appropriate \u201csolution to the need\u201d. \u00a0I know if I keep engaging in the work at some point, I will finally be able to spot the creature in the dark.\u00a0 When you are in the bush, you know what you know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Polanyi, Michael, and Amartya Sen. The Tacit Dimension<\/em>. Revised ed. edition. Chicago\u202f; London: University of Chicago Press, 2009.Page 8.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid. Page 4.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid. Page 48.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid. \u00a0Page 56.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>Ibid. \u00a0Page 5.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>Ibid. \u00a0Page 15-16.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>[7] Ibid. Page 23-24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were traversing the Nambiti Big 5 Private Reserve in the South African bush on our evening safari by way of Land Cruiser.\u00a0 It was just after sunset when our field guide, Peter, came to a stop.\u00a0 He jumped out of the auto and walked over to a shrub.\u00a0 The 10 of us in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2405,2004,4],"class_list":["post-29168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-tacitknowledge","tag-lgp11","tag-polanyi","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29170,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168\/revisions\/29170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}