Re: play and power

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Sat, 2 Mar 1996 09:22:55 -0500

Rolfe's anecdote and its "Heyoka-like" moral, "to show
another path in the morass by the simple expedient of walking it"
reminds me of a similar story, another one of Gregory Bateson's.
This one is set at a conference that Mary Catherine Bateson wrote
about in _Our Own Metaphor_ (sorry I don't have more specific
info and citation at hand); there was apparently a disagreement
between a couple of participants the night before the conference
began about how to set up the conference room for the opening
presentation. Should the chairs be placed in a circle or in rows?
The more vociferous participant insisted on rows, to signal
the seriousness of the event. The more playful participant
waited until everyone was asleep to rearrange the seating.
When conference attendees arrived for the opening presentation,
chairs were placed "every which way" around the room and they
sat wherever they wanted to.

It is actually quite difficult to perform the alternative path
when it goes against "social gravity" -- I agree with Rolfe when
he says, "The ecosocial relationships between (potentially endless)
discourses, power and play" are "fertile ground for speculation" -
but why not also for systematic study? I don't mean that we should
look for Heyokas, but that we should pay attention to the Heyoka-like
effects of certain interactions, in certain activity settings. Kris
Guttierez identifies the "3rd space" in classrooms, where official
(teacher-controlled) scripts and counter (student-controlled) scripts
intermingle. Maybe performing the alternative path against social
gravity needs such a "3rd space" or maybe we should ask how "3rd spaces"
can be deliberately framed.

- Judy

At 06:06 PM 3/1/96 PST, you wrote:
>The ecosocial relationships between (potentially endless) discourses, power
>and play strike me as a fertile ground for speculation. I can recall working
>at the Berkeley People's Office back in the late sixties (initially to
>assist incarcerated protestors and later as an organizer in the first
>attempt to form a tenants' union) and one of the standing jokes among a few
>of us "operatives" was that we could get a lot more done if only the talk
>would stop for awhile (the political meetings had a certain interminable
>quality since issues were rarely resolved and there was always a bit of
>one-upmanship going on of the "more revolutionary than thou" variety).
>
>However (to provide some "alternity" to Hannu and Jay's points) instead of
>resorting to violence or direct power displays against confederates, some
>cadres would simply decide on an action and initiate it on their own. Group
>solidarity subsequently demanded that others, even those who had argued
>against that specific action, must perforce join in the activity; thus was
>social motion and engagement initiated by material example.
>
>Some of these "spontaneous" actions were extremely playful in nature but
>they all were also just as certainly rational, or perhaps more broadly,
>logical -- either to break the deadlock or, in the Heyoka sense, to show
>another path in the morass by the simple expedient of walking it.
>
>Rolfe
>
>
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Rolfe Windward (UCLA GSE&IS, Curriculum & Teaching)
> ibalwin who-is-at mvs.oac.ucla.edu (text)
> rwindwar who-is-at ucla.edu (text/BinHex/MIME/Uuencode)
> CompuServe: 70014,00646 (text/binary/GIF/JPEG)
>
> "I respect belief, but doubt is what gets you an education." W. Mizener
>
>
>
Judy Diamondstone
diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Rutgers University

.................................................