11 - The Calling of a New Critical Theory: Self-Development, Inclusion of the Other and Planetary Realizations

Summary

Oh Friend, Oh Dear Soul,

You asked, you asked

The embrace of my heart

Our questions are not only questions

Nor are they bombs nor edges of the sword

Our questions are flows – one and many

Flows of our hearts

In between flowers and hammers

Our questions are our stories

Of bathing together and searching together

Of Being Drowned and Rising again

—A poem originally written in Odia by the author and self-translated into English (2008)

The social process of the discursive construction of reality is a transformative cognitive process. On the one hand, it draws on existing knowledge and cognitive structures and, on the other, it generates new knowledge and new cognitive structures and brings about their selective coordination.

—Piet Strydom, Risk, Environment and Society (2002, 150)

I have sought to draw art and craft together, because all techniques contain expressive implications. This is true of making a pot; it is also equally true of raising a child.

—Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (2008, 290)

Introduction and Invitation

Piet Strydom is a creative and critical seeker of our contemporary world who has asked many questions and has also created spaces of mutual learning and collective blossoming. Strydom originally comes from South Africa, and his critique of the then-prevailing apartheid regime made him homeless. He first came to England and then settled down in ireland, where he has taught at the pre-eminent University College Cork for more than three decades.