Eva wrote,
> I do get more curious about the structurations of silence and
> speech in the
> non-traditional classrooms that you have been teaching towards for so long
> now, Eugene, than about directly comparing the XMCA and the most rigidly
> structured classroom we may encounter.
Coming from traditional schooling background, my classes are always
traditional in many regards. Like a members of Alcoholic Anonymous
organization consider themselves "dry alcoholics", I consider myself a
traditional teacher who desperately tries innovative teaching approaches and
philosophies. Anyway, my concern about notions like "silent participation"
is who is going to define what is participation and what is not and who is a
participant and who is not. There is a political inclination in our Western
culture to reify the notion of participation, as objectively "existing out
there," forgetting that is a sociocultural (and historical) construction.
The danger of such reification is to create a hierarchy. Here is my mock
version of the hierarchy for XMCA: Leader participant (more than 20 messages
per month on a systematic basis for minimum 5 years), Full participant
(between 10 and 20 messages per month), Participant (uneven number of
messages per month), Lurker (systematic reading all messages, rare if any
postings), Peripheral Participant (non-systematic reading messages). Power
and perks should be distributed accordingly :-)
My another related concern of messing with defining "silent participation"
is coming from Foucault as possibility for obsession to document and, thus,
to surveil acts of others. Everything is under public scrutiny, even such
thing as silence.
I think the paradox that we have is how to make our email list inviting for
all even if we know perfectly well that our words and ideas are always both
attracting and repelling, encouraging and discouraging at the same time but
selectively for different readers. I personally see a solution of this
paradox in experimenting with email relations among the participants and
creation of what can be called "non-annihilistic disagreement." By
"non-annihilistic disagreement," I mean such a relation with your opponent
that does not lead you to desire semiotic (via an agreement) or physical
"annihilation" of your opponent. There is appreciation of how much your
opponent contributes to development of your way of thinking and doing things
as well as appreciation of the relations that tolerate the opposition and
tension. In my classes, I try to promote "hot issues" that appeal to whole
person of my students and transcend our class curricula. Relationally how
such hot issues often erupts in forms of very tense and risky disagreements
with each other. For me, this is an exciting "teaching-learning-living"
moment of jump and redesigning ourselves.
> On the other hand, I cannot help wondering about THIS electronic
> medium and
> the way that asymmetric participation structures keep emerging without
> anybody's intent. Wasn't this the medium where "floor" is not a scarce
> resource, everyone can "talk" at the same time, etc?
I'm not so sure that we don't have what conventionally is called "floor." We
have a "floor" of a "collective focus" that unfolds in replies and quotes of
each other's messages. As far people reply (as defined broadly) the
messages do get through and are successful (in some sense). We are as we
are replied! Our existence as writers on XMCA is in replies to your
messages. The replies can be direct on indirect (e.g.., replies on replies,
via personal communication or even via rumors), immediate or postponed,
pleasant/desired or unpleasant/undesired. By replying, we changing modality
of our participation on XMCA (using Latour's term): we promote author's
affiliation with XMCA by supporting and aligning with his/her writing and
alienate the author by challenging the author. There is constant dynamic of
participation on the XMCA: more dramatic for ones and less for others. In
my view, this process works not only for XMCA authors but also for readers:
if messages resonates with the reader, the reader's affiliation with XMCA
gets stronger and vice versa.
The reply by silence is probably one of the most powerful ways to discourage
and control one's postings that XMCA can collectively apply. The power of
reply by silence is in its collectivity, unity, and anonymity. You can't
appeal to the electronic community to reconsider the silence or ask to
explain it's rationale. Reply by silence is the most democratic way of
public control since it requires just one person to break the silence.
There is a similar phenomenon for XMCA readers. In my view, all XMCA readers
are virtually active writers -- they/we privately react and even imaginary
reply to the postings of others (cf. speech for oneself) -- they/we just do
not compose their/our messages in a written form and do not send the replies
to the mail list. There can be reply by silence to their virtual messages
as well.
What do you think?
Eugene