De-signing a Poem of Re-signation in a Period of Polycrisis

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 29 Jun 2026

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens - TRANSCEND Media Service

Enabling Negative Capability with an Artificial I

Introduction

In a period of polycrisis it is potentially fruitful to ask whether insight could be otherwise presented. One argument of relevance is that of Gregory Bateson:

One reason why poetry is important for finding out about the world is because in poetry a set of relationships get mapped onto a level of diversity in us that we don’t ordinarily have access to. We bring it out in poetry. We can give to each other in poetry the access to a set of relationships in the other person and in the world that we are not usually conscious of in ourselves. So we need poetry as knowledge about the world and about ourselves, because of this mapping from complexity to complexity. (Cited by Mary Catherine Bateson, 1972, pp. 288-9) [emphasis added]

In a time of polycrisis, unadulterated positive thinking is a danger in its own right, as argued by Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-sided: how the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America, 2010). One corrective perspective is the classic call for negative capability by the poet John Keats, namely “being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason“. As explained by Robert French in psychoanalytic terms:

This state of mind depends on our ‘Negative Capability’, that is, on our capacity for thinking and feeling, for learning and containment, for abstention and indifference. Without the quality of attention made possible by this ‘capability’, any amount of insight ‘from a psychoanalytic perspective’ is in danger of remaining irritatingly indigestible or aridly intellectual. (‘Negative Capability’, ‘Dispersal’ and the Containment of Emotion)

The possibility of a “Renaissance” might be enhanced by a paradigm shift, as has often been proposed. Others have focused on “designing” the future — as an adaptation of industrial design — with the dangers of more of the same, but different. “Design” can however be usefully challenged by introducing a hyphen “de-sign”. This highlights the sense in which any design implies a particular understanding of significance and meaning. “Resign” and “resignation can be similarly challenged in the light of their widespread association with abandonment of responsibility and agency. Thus “re-sign” offers the suggestion that significance can be accorded otherwise — with corresponding implications for “as-signing”.

Especially intriguing in this period is the extent to which AI might be able contribute to any reframing of the significance locked into the conventional pattern of categories with which polycrisis can be understood to be only too readily associated. Especially problematic in this regard is the fact that AI has been trained with conventional categories and their manipulation for purposes of “design”. Little investment has been made in AI potential capacities with respect to “de-sign”.

Ironically this focus on significance bears directly on the highly controversial current debate on the identity of AI and assumptions regarding its consciousness and intelligence — by comparison with that of humans, pets, collectivities, mountains and rivers — as variously recognized and framed by legislation. A potential future challenge is the case of extraterrestrials — now that UFOs are accorded increasing credibility. The debate itself is problematic in precluding future understanding of intelligence and consciousness, given the tragic historical track record of authoritative assertion of the subhuman nature of indigenous peoples — and the soullessness characteristic of those who do not share a particular belief, namely unbelievers.

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