It seems to me that Phillip's clarification brings us to one of the core
CHAT analyses of this. The destruction in NY and Phillip's murdered woman
are disturbances to the system. We must intervene to try to eliminate or
neutralise the proximate actors who initiated the immediate disturbance.
But the disturbance lifts the curtain on an underlying contradiction. If we
do not address that contradiction then the conditions that catalysed the
disturbance still exist, and we can expect it to be replicated in some way
but through the actions of different proximate actors.
Worse - the underlying contradiction tells us that there is a constituency
of support for the actions. If we pursue the perpetrators in ways that
create new grievances amongst that constituency, then we run the risk of
increasing, rather than decreasing, the frequency of such disturbances.
One of the grievances that is becoming apparent to me in posts I am
receiving from friends and colleagues in Europe, Africa and Asia, goes
something like this:
" Yes, it was awful, but why does it take the blood of innocent New Yorkers
to produce such a will to act? Why was the blood of the people of Belfast
(Moscow, Gaza Strip, Baghdad, Kurdistan......) so much less worthy of such a
global response? Is America concerned with the world, or just America? Or
does it genuinely believe that there is no difference? Yes, let's go along
with it for the moment because they are targeting people who bring us grief
as well. But let's wait and see. We'll know how far we have a shared object
when the jihad gets launched against Pakistan or next time the IRA rearms
with Boston money."
This looks like the big foreign policy test to me.
I may never know your response to this. I am off. I may be about to spend
the rest of my life in a queue in some as yet unidentified airport. If I
ever emerge into cyberspace again it will be in the office of Yrjo Engestrom
in Helsinki.
Phillip Capper,
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business Ltd. (WEB Research),
Level 9
142 Featherston Street
(PO Box 2855)
WELLINGTON
New Zealand
Ph: +64 4 499 8140
Fx: +64 4 499 8395
Mb: +64 021 519 741
-----Original Message-----
From: Phillip White [mailto:Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, 18 September 2001 6:48 a.m.
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Cc: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re(2): RE: a contrast [another point of view]
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>Phillip,
>
>I'm confused, too. What did you mean?
>
>Charles
>
good morning, Charles - i'm less confused today - Rachel's recent set
of postings helped me clarify my own position - which is that i don't
want to use standard rhetoric to problematize foreign policy of the usa
and/or to de-problematize the behavior of the hijackers and their
cultural-historical roots, which includes pain inflicted on them, perhaps,
from the usa.
sixteen years ago a 58 year old woman was walking home in the dusk with a
bag of groceries - only to be beaten to death by a gang of four black
crips members with golf clubs -
i know the racial oppression ever constant in this country, as well as
other methods of oppression woven into daily social practice - the world
is not a kind place - historically it has always been cruel - monstrous
-
and i can not at the same time condone acts of violence in the name of
liberation, etc. and those who do commit violence should be held
accountable.
i do agree that we should find out the participants in this crime and if
we are able to - just as we did with milosovic - attempt to bring them to
a place of consequence.
phillip
* * * * * * * *
* *
The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.
from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.
phillip white
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.html
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu
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