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Re: [xmca] critique of pure tolerance



Jay and Yuan
Is it prosperity that leads to tolerance or tolerance that leads to prosperity?
I think that we could look to places like Venice or Florence or Moorish Granada   Were they places of tolerance that allowed multi-culturalism and the interpenetration of ideas to flourish (and create wealth) or were they wealthy and therefore became tolerant?  
 

----- Original Message -----
From: yuan lai <laiyuantaiwan@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, January 3, 2010 8:43 pm
Subject: Re: [xmca] critique of pure tolerance
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> I don't know what genuinely pluralist conditions and elements 
> are, Jay. I
> would think one thing is a willingness to acknowledge that we 
> have a problem
> to deal with. Some Canadians, who are proud of its history of 
> embracingmulticulturalism, say to me, when I mention racism, 
> that we don't the
> problem of overt racism in the US. To me, a petty crime or white 
> collarcrime still is a problem to acknowledge as a first step.
> 
> I think of Zhuangzi as a Chinese exemplar of critical thinking 
> (he was said
> to flourish 350-300 BC). 
> *http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zhuangzi/*  That
> is, if you believe that the encyclopedia is generally 
> trustworthy, that the
> translation is good enough to allow evaluation of Zhuangzi's 
> words, and so
> on.
> 
> How do we speak to politicans so they understand the seriousness 
> of the
> matter at hand, testing babies? In general I favor the idea of 
> silliness.American politicians enjoy or at least get football, 
> right? Did skilled
> football players, when they were 2, 5, or 15 years old, practice 
> isolated,decontextualized skills, catching a ball in midair and 
> staying there or, as
> a ball is thrown, players running away from each other to show 
> who is
> fastest? (I know, I am being silly) Even professional football 
> players work
> on developing critical thinking; a neighbor, a CFL player, told 
> me that his
> team spent more time indoors, watching videotaped games, than 
> out in the
> field. But politicians understanding is one thing, acting on that
> understanding is another.
> 
> Yuan
> 
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Jay Lemke 
> <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Nancy and all,
> >
> > Dialogue is both the most natural form of communication and 
> also an
> > improvable art. It does easily degenerate into binary, partisan
> > polarization, and I think we know that historically this tends 
> to lead to
> > violence and to long-lasting, even multi-generational 
> conflicts. It is also
> > a favorite tool of politicians, especially those who wish to 
> move from being
> > the representatives of a small minority to building their one-
> issue, or
> > one-enemy coalitions of the uncritical.
> >
> > But it can, on the other hand, become the art of reciprocal 
> perspectives> and dialectic advance of ways of seeing the world 
> and acting in it, if we
> > can find ways to re-enunciate the words of Others, to re-
> adjust the scope of
> > common ground, to do what majority politicians usually aim 
> for, "bringing us
> > all together". Of course that is a somewhat unrealistic ideal, 
> and it too
> > degenerates into pushing majority views onto everybody, so 
> learning nothing.
> >
> > Pluralist societies seem to require a certain kind of general 
> cultural> ethos, and I am not sure that the US really has it. 
> Interestingly, a
> > frequently cited example of a genuinely successful pluralist 
> culture/society> is Hawai'i, Obama's home. I don't know what 
> specifically the elements of a
> > genuinely pluralist culture are. What cultural values or 
> habits predispose
> > people to tolerance? to curiosity about the viewpoints of 
> Others? to a
> > desire to learn across differences? to a disinclination 
> towards simplistic
> > analyses and polarizations?
> >
> > Most historical societies seem to contain both tendencies, towards
> > pluralism and toward monologism. Times of prosperity seem to favor
> > tolerance, times of scarcity feed intolerance.
> >
> > What else do we know about the conditions for productive pluralism?
> >
> > JAY.
> >
> > Jay Lemke
> > Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> > Educational Studies
> > University of Michigan
> > Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> > www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
> >
> > Visiting Scholar
> > Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> > University of California -- San Diego
> > La Jolla, CA
> > USA 92093
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Dec 29, 2009, at 5:39 AM, Nancy Mack wrote:
> >
> > > Jay,
> > > I like your emphasis on the Bakhtinian cross-difference discourse.
> > > I am alarmed by the over emphasis on argument in first year 
> composition> courses and the new language arts core standards.
> > > The emphasis on argument:
> > > Eliminates narratives of individuals.
> > > Promotes binary thinking.
> > > Asks us not to reflect on our life experiences.
> > > Sets us up to be one issue voters.
> > > Makes the world a safe, uncomplex world of simple decisions.
> > > Creates enemies from difference.
> > > Makes peace into oppression.
> > > Prefers logic rather than ethics.
> > > Polarizes emotion as the opposite to logic.
> > > Prefers discourse that badgers rather than communicates.
> > > Disrespects different world views and philosophies.
> > > Divides us into winners and losers.
> > > Privileges dogma over openness.
> > > And so on.
> > >
> > > Nancy
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
> > > Date: Monday, December 28, 2009 10:14 pm
> > > Subject: [xmca] critique of pure tolerance
> > > To: XMCA Forum <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >
> > >>
> > >> On the ethics of engaging respectfully with positions you really
> > >> strongly disagree with.
> > >>
> > >> Recap: some of us are trying to figure out effective ways to
> > >> challenge conservative/oppressive discourses about 
> education and
> > >> other matters in ways that are not as likely to be marginalized
> > >> as many left rhetorical strategies have become in many places
> > >> and for many audiences.
> > >>
> > >> One strategy might be to see what the core values and discourses
> > >> of those to whom our opponents appeal might say that is 
> more to
> > >> our way of thinking. For example, what Christian discourse may
> > >> say that is in favor of critical thinking, or against the
> > >> priority of decontextualized learning, or just against the
> > >> "gospel of prosperity" (which, if you haven't seen recent news
> > >> interest in this is an explicit movement in fundamentalist US
> > >> christianity that says God wants you to get rich).
> > >>
> > >> In doing so, however, we tread the slippery slope. Historically
> > >> the Anglo-Saxon left has been rather purist, and its internal
> > >> squabbles have mainly been over who is more perfectly
> > >> marxist/democratic/etc. Leaving not much room to develop
> > >> discourses that overlap or penetrate those of the non-left
> > >> majority (who in the US are also mostly non-right). Something
> > >> different happened in Latin America, where a fusion of Catholic
> > >> populism and left communitarianism did a much better job of
> > >> appealing to both rural populations and university intellectuals
> > >> (Freire as a case in point, but he is part of a much larger
> > >> discourse tradition). As I recall a few popes have actually
> > >> condemned Latin American bishops for being too leftist. So they
> > >> must have been getting something right. :-)
> > >>
> > >> Nonetheless, the fear is that we might lend credibility to
> > >> oppressive discourses by speaking partly within their discursive
> > >> worlds. That is probably a justifiable concern, given Bakhtin's
> > >> close linkage in the notion of heteroglossia (diversity of
> > >> discursive worlds, or "social voices") of ways of 
> describing the
> > >> world and ways of valuing it. But to my mind communication is
> > >> not about conversion, nor indeed even about being right. It is
> > >> about establishing new cross-difference discourses that produce
> > >> surprising ideas and values. I have always thought that there
> > >> was rather too much missionary spirit in leftist discourse, that
> > >> it remained uncomfortably close to christian messianic and
> > >> evangelical models. The problem with this being that it assumes
> > >> an end to history, that answers are known, and so there is no
> > >> real incentive for a dialogue in which one is open to learn with
> > >> one's interlocutors.
> > >>
> > >> So, yes, there is risk, but there is also much to gain.
> > >>
> > >> BTW, is there a good history of "critical thinking"? someone
> > >> must believe it was invented in the Englightenment, or in the
> > >> Renaissance, or by the 400 BC Greeks, by the Jews (when?), by
> > >> the Chinese (when?). If we are going to claim that Jesus or
> > >> Buddha exemplified critical thinking, are we also going to
> > >> believe it's true?
> > >>
> > >> JAY.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Jay Lemke
> > >> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> > >> Educational Studies
> > >> University of Michigan
> > >> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> > >> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
> > >>
> > >> Visiting Scholar
> > >> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> > >> University of California -- San Diego
> > >> La Jolla, CA
> > >> USA 92093
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
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> >
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