Hi Kathy and everybody,
At 17:27 05-02-00 -0700, Katherine Goff wrote:
>well, i'm not sure how helpful it is when the people who agree mostly nod
>and the people i most fervently wish would listen to what i am saying
>shout their reasonable criticism of my discourse as if it were my grammar
>or my wardrobe.
>so, nothing has changed, except some people have unsubscribed.
I think you are raising important points and ones clearly at issue at the
moment on xmca. I also think it is important that regular contributors have
unsubscribed, which for me clearly changes things. xmca is people, the
infrastructure is just a "thing" or collections thereof.
Having been a "shouter" myself on occasion here, and having learnt very
valuable lessons from the ineffectuality of this approach, it strikes me
that people are often personally attached to their ideas, as if they were
static possessions rather than evolving worldviews that change over time;
open to negotiation; only partial at any given time on any given subject;
contingent upon personal and social histories; etc, ad infinitum. In such
an atmosphere, it becomes difficult to challenge an idea rather than a
person, and this is problematic for any community because it narrows the
number of conflicting ideas available at any given time.
On the flip side, there's a problem, I think, of taking some part of an
argument and extrapolating it out as being representative of some Other,
oppositional political or intellectual worldview. An example of this for me
was the discussion on Stanton Wortham's paper which, in some cases, seemed
to descend into largely irrelevant paradigmatic criticisms rather than
engaging the very valid, interesting, and even contentious points that the
paper raised. Paradigmatic issues are important to me, but I think that
Stanton's insights and the potential discussion they raised were submerged
in the tangential issues of the political arguments about how they were
raised (after all, the data were secondary which I think was an important
choice on Stanton's behalf considering the issues he was addressing). If we
disallow a paradigm or worldview, we disallow the insights it offers and
thus narrow the debate to epistemological givens. I don't think this is
healthy, but I could be wrong.
What to do?
These are issues that have come through to me louder than ever since I
began teaching. Sometimes, in trying to get students to challenge the way
they look at life, I have alienated and/or intimidated them because they
were interpreted as personal assaults. Of course, I had not meant to do
this and have since learned to be much more careful of my language and even
more sensitive to how I approach such issues, and even in choosing the
sorts of issues to approach. There are more and less effective "ways in" to
a worldview in terms of which issues one chooses to address.
Also, there's matters of prestige at work in this forum, as in any. Certain
people are more adept than others in this kind of written forum or mode.
This gives the impression of prestige. Others are better at oral
argumentation or exposition than they are at written forms. Personally, I
would rather write any day, and am amazed by fluent speakers. I bumble and
"umm" and "ahh" in my coarse Australian accent. Leave me to write! Also,
there are well-known scholars on this list, and that is daunting for
anybody wishing to contribute "in public" (which should not be in inverted
commas at all). xmca, like any community, is an emotional as well as
intellectual forum of engagement. The two cannot of course be separated. I
think we ought not forget this and remember, as Jay Lemke has pointed out
somewhere, that the pain of words and the humiliation they can cause is
quite literally physical - it can't be otherwise.
I don't especially like the term "lurker" either (I forget who mentioned
this). It gives the impression that people who wish to join in the forum as
observers are perverse in some way. I listened in for quite some time
before I *felt* strongly enough about something to throw my voice in. I
have never felt perverse for doing so, merely interested.
My overall answer to your final question, Kathy, for what it's worth, is
that I think we *are* supportive and inclusive. At times, various voices
are raised in semantically expressed anger; at others, particular views and
discussions get sidelined or silenced because of prevailing interests. But
the important thing to realise is that this is *not* (usually) personal,
and that it is a recognition that someone's ideas *do* matter and *are*
important –important enough to provoke or illicit a reply of some sort. As
every child knows, there's nothing worse than being ignored. It gives one
the feeling of irrelevance or worse.
And so the worst outcome would be silence and resignation from diverse,
"non-orthodox" perspectives. The most ineffectual and offensive approach is
aggression of any sort. There are not just one or two people who have
practised aggression here, me included. And aggression takes many forms,
from sniping, snide sarcasm, to overt intellectual bashings, to ad hominem
attacks. We need to guard against this and make sure that ideas, once
expressed, are up for civilised negotiation and challenges. At the same
time, we need to realise that we are all people with our own sensitivities,
histories, and tendencies which are easily damaged and offended. Nobody, I
think, is immune from feeling hurt or humiliated, no matter how strong
their words appear.
Ideally we would be a community of disinterested human beings who add to
the development of critical thought and knowledge without confusing the
word "critical" with the word "negative". For me, critical means
questioning - the fundamental nature of inquiry - with a healthy scepticism
of any taken-for-grantedness we might care to name. In short, it would be
understood that all voices are welcome; all ideas open to critical
challenge. We would be (and are, I think) many voices indeed. That's why I
like it here.
What do you think? [with apologies to Eugene for stealing his heuristic
close:-)]
with best regards to all,
Phil Graham
PS Thanks for raising these issues that have been bothering me lately Kathy.
>and being a systems practitioner as well as a systems theorist,
>i accept my responsibility for my support of the current status of this
>system
>i think of as xmca.
>
>mea culpa. no one is innocent.
>
>but, the normalizing practices, the discomfort and potential for
>humiliation are obstacles that i find intimidating,
>my uneasiness about continuing this topic,
>is a red flag to tell me that it's important not to silence myself,
>but it's not much help in giving me a direction or guidance in what words
>to use.
>
>despite all the reasons i should drop this,
>i feel i must refuse to fade off into lurker-dom, or to unsubscribe
>without giving voice to the unreasonable demands of my feelings,
>my desire for the xmca that i remember
>(and maybe never existed outside of my mind.)
>
>it was a uniquely multi-vocal space that en/couraged and supported a
>diversity of discourse, grammar, and appearance.
>
>i am speaking of the change in stance from acceptance and inclusiveness
>to what feels like the current movement towards
>taking up and maintaining a single, rigid position
>that excludes many.
>staking out positions and territory and insisting that this is the way it
>should be.
>
>the way xmca is, is the way we make it.
>
>i don't believe in shoulds.
>so, what i think i am asking this community is
>do we/you want
>to invite those who have been pushed to the periphery,
>those who feel shut out,
>unsupported,
>silenced (and i don't mean that everyone who reads without posting has
>been too intimidated to speak, but i know that some have) ----
>
>is there some way we,
>as the hodge podge, patchwork community we are,
>can negotiate some
>self-organizing practices that will be more inclusive and supportive
>of all
>who we are?
>
>
>
>
>kathie
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>.........Our words misunderstand us..............................
>.....We are our words, and black and bruised and blue.
>Under our skins, we're laughing....................................
>.........................Adrienne Rich..................................
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Katherine_Goff@ceo.cudenver.edu
>http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~katherine_goff/index.html
>
>
>
--------------------------------------------
Phil Graham
Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law
University of Queensland
phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au
--------------------------------------------
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