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Re: [xmca] RE: The Social Creation of Inequality



Larry, the individual person who is also an officer-holder in an institution (or social movement or project, ...) is a *living contradiction*. That is the issue. That's why I cannot see institutions (or other projects) as dead artefacts like buildings or documents, because they exist and live only to the extent that we human beings constitute them by our actions and *act out* their actions (whether inside or outside the institution). And as individual persons we (1) have a finite life span or office, (2) are *also* members of the general community, with friends and family, speaking the lingua franca, etc., while the institution may live for centuries, and is home to norms and rules of its own. I think the whole difficulty of getting funding and maintaining a project is around the fact that we have to deal with institutions and individuals at the same time, with no conceivable dividing line between them.

Andy

Larry Purss wrote:
Andy, Philip
If that *is* the central question, is it true that the "corporate" individual [holder of of a certain office] is the ESSENTIAL relationship. The corporate individual withIN an institution exists in a *sedimented* structuring relation that represents a re-construction of what came before. Andy, I fully agree that the corporate individual may be an essential *aspect* of an institutional structure [the inter-objective *conventionalized* aspect where specific persons are interchangeable] However, I wonder if the inter-subjective aspect is also *essential*. Not primary, not reductive, but essential as another essential aspect to the ongoing re-constructing viability of the institution through time. Just wondering, to generate a discussion. Larry On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 6:18 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:

    That *is* the question, Phillip. Isn't it the case that a certain
    individual, perhaps a head of a particular department, likes 5thD
    and everything is going along well, but then that individual goes
    to a different job or something, and their replacement is not
    supportive, or maybe a person one step further up the hierarchy
    steps in cuts off the funding, or whatever.

    So, in the short-term mechanics of gaining support for the
    project, you are dealing with individual people who are also
    corporate individuals (ie., holders of a certain office within an
    institution). The point is that the essential relationship is with
    the corporate individual, even though it is realised through an
    individual personality.

    I stick to my position, that "institutions" should be regarded as
    projects, not tools or material artefacts of any kind (though
    artefacts are needed in the realisation of an institution, such as
    signage, legislation, all kinds of documents, buildings, uniforms,
    etc., etc). Corporations do of course appear in legal actions, sue
    people, fire people, buy things, make contracts, exercise rights,
    and so on, for all the world like individual persons, but all the
    actions of an institution are realised through individual people,
    just as every action of a person is realised through hands, arms,
    feet, and so on. But, I don't expect to convince you in 5 minutes! :)

    The main thing is just as you say: does the sustainability of 5thD
    dependent on sympathetic individuals who happen to work in an
    institution, or on the institution, or some combination of the two?

    Andy


    White, Phillip wrote:

        Andy, i think that it's individuals within an institution who
        are supporting projects, rather than the institution.  and in
        the same way, it's the identity of individuals that supports
        the sustainability rather than the identity of an institution.
         individuals certain project an identity onto an institution,
        sometimes even with accuracy, but an institution itself is
        without volition, much less self-identity.  perhaps it can be
        seen that an institution is more of a cultural tool, rather
        like a hammer, or a filing system, which we would all
recognize as lacking an identity. so the question would be, How does the relationship with 5thD
        fit with the identity of individuals within the institution
        who are in a position to support the 5thD?

        what do you think?

        p


        Phillip White, PhD
        University of Colorado Denver
        School of Education
        phillip.white@ucdenver.edu <mailto:phillip.white@ucdenver.edu>
        ________________________________________
        From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
        <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
        [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
        <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of Andy
        Blunden [ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>]
        Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 10:29 PM
        To: Bremme Don
        Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
        Subject: Re: [xmca] RE: The Social Creation of Inequality

        I think institutions have to be seen in the same way, so there
        is a
        strong metaphor, I think, between friendships/solidarity etc
        between
        individual people and institutions supporting projects. Think
        of what
        sustains teh identity of an institution? How does the
        relationship with
        5thD fit into that identity?

        a

        Bremme Don wrote:
            Andy wrote:

            ... a 5thD project continues, I think, in much the same
            sense that a
            personal identity continues: continually changing, but through
            overlapping memories and stories, continuity is assured in
            the form of
            continuously changing realisations of that identity, ...
            until it dies
            and can no longer tell its story. So I agree, a project is
            like a mind.

            This description certainly resonates with my experience in
            the 5thD, as well as my reading on identity.

            Don


            -----Original Message-----
            From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
            <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden
            Sent: Tue 7/26/2011 6:45 PM
            To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
            Subject: Re: [xmca] RE: The Social Creation of Inequality

            Ivan, a 5thD project continues, I think, in much the same
            sense that a
            personal identity continues: continually changing, but through
            overlapping memories and stories, continuity is assured in
            the form of
            continuously changing realisations of that identity, ...
            until it dies
            and can no longer tell its story. So I agree, a project is
            like a mind.

            I think for people like yourself, Ivan, and Mike Cole, the
            task of
            leading a 5thD project is challenging, but it is something
            you know and
            love and is do-able. But launching a project today is like
            *flying a
            kite in a storm*. That line (of funding) which connects
            you to the
            ground and keeps you flying, is buffeted by uncontrolled and
            unpredictable forces far greater than you. If the line is
            broken by a
            particularly powerful gust, and the money to pay salaries
            and rent is
            lost, it must always seem like an accident, an act of God,
            so to speak.
            "Community," if it is to pay salaries and rent, etc., has
            to manifest in
            the form of definite institutions with budgets and funding
            sources and
            staff and rules, etc., and someone can leave or change
            their mind and
            Bingo! you're gone. And all the community will be able to
            do is hold a
            great farewell party for you.

            I think it is worth mentioning that a project can secure
            on-going
            funding according to two basic models (excluding wholely
            owned projects
            of government or a business), basically private sector or
            public sector.
            There is a movement called "social entrepreneurs," with
            figures like
            Norman Tebbitt in Thatcher's UK, or Mark Latham, the
            renegade ALP leader
            in Oz, who advocate this approach. The intervention goes
            into an estate
            (what is called a housing project in the US) for example,
            and gathers
            together a group of residents to form into a company to
            tender for the
            maintenance contract for their own buildings, say.
            Generally, import
            substitution to start with and export later. It is a
            really fine,
            petit-bourgeois idea, because it is not only self-funding,
            and by
            earning people a living generates a feirce loyalty, but also
            community-building and independent of everyone. Tebbitt
            coined the motto
            "Get on your bike!" encouraging people made redundant by
            Thatcher's
            policies to invest their redundancy pay-outs to start a
            business.
            Problem is ... capitalism. It's not the perfectly fair
            market place it
            is supposed to be, and what invariably happens is that
            these brave souls
            get screwed in the market place by the established
            players, and end up
            broke and on the dole believing it is their own fault,
            rather than
            blaming the system. But you can see the idea. It is a way
            of avoiding
            the perils of public sector projects.

            In Australia, and I suspect it is similar elsewhere,
            everything is on
            3-year projects, where people spend the 3rd of their 3
            years, drafting
            up the funding proposal for the next 3-year grant, proving
            "outcomes"
            and "key indicators" and all this garbage which then
            dominates their
            lives at the expense of whatever they wanted to do. And at
            the end of 3
            years, if they are successful, and actually get something
            going in the
            community, and raise hopes and expectations, invariably,
            political
            fashions have changed, the funding is not renewed and the
            good citizens
            are dumped back in the muck they were just beginning to
            think they could
            escape from. So, the best projects have to aim to
            transform a community
            in 3 years so that changes are not reversed when funding
            is withdrawn as
            it more or less undoubtedly will be. But in reality,
            poverty and
            generation-long deprivation is not solved in 3 years.

            So we need to get funding which will not bring about this
            awful end,
            which raises and then crashes hopes, but continues, OR,
            creates new
            conditions in a little while so that somehow or other,
            funding becomes
            unnecessary. But because in most civilised countries,
            health, education
            and security are deemed to be public responsibilities, but
            frequently
            denied to large sections of the community, it is pretty
            nigh impossible
            to create projects in these areas which become
            self-funding. So it all
            depends on finding an institution which has a healthy
            prospect of
            lengevity, and someone within that institution to provide
            a line of
            funding. But, people change, fashions change, funding
            requirements for
            even the well-heeled funding institutions change. The
            essential point
            is, I think, how do you secure the real support of an
            institution into
            the indefinite future.

            Apart from hand-to-hand fighting by the 5thD
            "dream-keeper" which can be
            guaranteed I am sure, I think you have to manage the
            institution through
            everyday life, that is, you have to embed the dream of
            your project in
            the language and attitudes of the whole community. Ivan,
            you have spoken
            about the active support you get from the community, but I
            guess I am
            saying that is still not enough. The dream, has to enter
            the language.
            For example, new universities are rarely created,
            generally only in very
            special times in history, but once established they
            usually last
            forever. They become institutionalised. They are after all
            "universities" and the part they play in the life of the
            country is
            inscribed in language and law. Apart from careful choice
            of funding
            institutions, and dogged protection of the commitment made
            by the
            funding institution year in year out, I think public
            popularisation of
            the idea is necessary. But I don't know. We are all
            thrashing in the
            dark here I think. But these are my thoughts.

            Andy



            Ivan Rosero wrote:

                "Continuity" in these scenarios is an interesting
                question, for what exactly is the thing that
                continuous?  This seems to me quite analogous to (or a
                definition of) mind --pulled along through the
                interaction/intersection of various moving, and
                frequently disjoint, "dreams" that touch down here and
                there in activity, and hold somehow (yet ever
                changing) over time.

                ivan

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    Joint Editor MCA:
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    <http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title%7Edb=all%7Econtent=g932564744>
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Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
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