Re: play, power & misinformation

Rolfe Windward (IBALWIN who-is-at mvs.oac.ucla.edu)
Sat, 02 Mar 96 14:12 PST

I am not sure how it relates to mis-information _cum_ irrelevance but if my
tendency to use the "personal" narrative-moral/gestalt-analytic style is the
cause of offense then I do apologize.

To end on a more formal note. In structural network theory (e.g., White,
1992) the decouplings and symmetry breaking necessary for fresh social
action are an integral part of the complex topology of social spaces. Efforts
at social control may usefully be thought of as having two extremes: one
extreme may be captured by the example of regimentation as in a military
drill or in strongly caste conscious embeddings where ambage is very high;
the other extreme can be seen as a maze of uncoordinated and changing
contexts woven around participants wherein ambiguity is very high. Both
control extremes seem likely to have their counterbalance in the other to
some degree and the ambage-ambiguity tradeoffs may then be seen as an
integral dynamic of identity formation. Indeed, from a structural perspective
at least, it becomes difficult to explain identity formation in any other
way.

Rolfe

White, H. C. (1992). _Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of
Social Action_. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.