[Xmca-l] Re: The manologue

[HENRY SHONERD]

Gente,
Three things occur to me here, and really have been in the back of my mind all along: 1) The listserv is a VERY long list, hundreds. How do you get personal with so many? 2) From a white-guy perspective, gender and race are equally littered with eggshells. Is this an especially American white-guy problem or does it hover over white guys from other parts of the world? 3) Like it or not, this chat has a huge range of expertise in philosophy and psychology. I often feel dumb, in over my head. What motivates the chatters to engage in dialog if not greater expertise? Is there something deeper than expertise driving the dialog? 

I sort of think I know the answers to these questions, but not really. I do like the first person perspective here and sense it will help me address these questions in ways I haven’t been able to before. 

Henry


> On Apr 22, 2016, at 4:41 AM, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> The eggshells are toughened by shared experience – there are things I know I can say to people who know me but which I would not risk saying to people who don’t.
> 
> XMCA is a strange space – I feel I have a bit of a sense of where some contributors are coming from but I am also aware that there is a whole host of people who don’t know me and who can’t be expected to know where I am coming from.
> 
> Rod
> 
> 
> From: Lplarry [mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com]
> Sent: 22 April 2016 10:47
> To: Rod Parker-Rees; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re: The manologue
> 
> Philip, Annalisa, Rod,
> 
> So this turn in the conversation certainly is a rich vein. This focus of joint attention which opened upon an image of collaboration, which Andy says is best understood by imaging the archetype of *marriage*
> Now marriage (itself) can be appropriated within 1st, 2nd, and 3rd voice.
> I will just add that I can relate to *marriage* as an external phenomena and as Rod says *explain* this archetypal relation as an institutional gestalt. But as Rod highlights there is some quality, some *sense* that is missing within this approach.
> I can also reflect self-consciously upon  how I personally experience my *self* orienting within a *marriage*. My way of walking that sometimes feels as if I am walking on eggshells.
> 
> However, there is also a third way of expressing the archetype of marriage which is marriage as a dialogue.
> 
> Rod, your personal story of the particular work settings as collaborative places adds a depth to understanding your way of approaching this rich vein.
> Also interesting that you feel the eggshells cracking under your feet as you give voice to a male perspective on this topic as you *lived through* ways of collaboration unfolding within con/texts pre/dominantly feminine in make up.
> Now my question is do you feel eggshells cracking when this topic emerges within your work settings or are the eggshells cracking more specific to this forum?
> 
> My turn is up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
> 
> From: Rod Parker-Rees<mailto:R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> Sent: April 22, 2016 1:10 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The manologue
> 
> Hi Annalisa,
> 
> I think this is a rich vein to mine but clearly a difficult and potentially treacherous topic for online discussion precisely because here online all we have are words.
> 
> I have spent my whole working life in very 'female' environments - as a nursery teacher (the only male teacher in a nursery and infants school and then the only male teacher in a primary school - where dealings with parents were almost exclusively with mothers) and then in a university school of education where nearly all students and most staff are female. I am pleased to say that the Early Childhood Studies team which I lead (yes, a team mainly of women, led by a man but I have tried to pass on the baton!) includes, unusually, 4 men as well as 15 women. There are some odd inversions of gender issues in the field of Early Childhood Studies but these operate, of course, within the wider culture where people are gendered in particular ways.
> 
> The reason I am responding is because I see connections between my own interest in very early, pre-verbal, forms of communication and some of the issues around 'mansplaining'. This leads me to wonder whether part of the problem may be associated with a shift of focus from the social, relational function of talk to a focus on 'free-floating' ideas. I think written communication tends to cut off the 'suprasegmental' information carried in voices as well as more widespread information from bodies, which makes face to face interaction a very different KIND of thing.
> 
> I feel the eggshells under my feet cracking as I write this but I suspect that there may be a spectrum of preferred forms of communication which corresponds rather closely (in some cultures) with the spectrum of gender. Some people are more comfortable in face to face kinds of interaction and would choose these in preference to 'cooler' forms, while other people are uncomfortable in fact to face interaction and prefer more detached, more abstract forms. Of course for most people 'it depends' and life is better when there are opportunities to engage in a mixed diet of different kinds of interaction.
> 
> I can feel myself sliding towards explanation here so I had better stop - but I just wanted to also throw in an observation about the popularity of text-messaging among teenagers when this first emerged. Sometimes it is easier if you don't have to deal with the complexity of information that sloshes around in face to face interaction. In online forums I think it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that there are flesh and blood people behind all the keyboards and screens, so exploring ideas can come to feel like a detached, unpersoned activity.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Rod
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Annalisa Aguilar
> Sent: 22 April 2016 05:59
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The manologue
> 
> 
> Hi Philip,
> 
> Thanks for your reply! I have heard about the particular (and historical) gendered patterns on XMCA. Even experienced some myself! :)
> 
> By the way, I learned yesterday in my Greek class that "Phillip" means "lover of horses." From "phil-" meaning "love," and "ippo" meaning "horse," and also that it was an aristocratic name, since only aristocrats would have horses, certainly elegant animals in their own right. I'd never known that.
> 
> But to the topic at hand: It would be marvelous to have more women post on the list, not only to this thread, but in general. (OK marvelous ladies, where are you?) But perhaps it's just not worth it for them to do so because of past personal experiences, I don't know. I can't speak for all women on the list, obviously, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were connections to be made between patterns of written posts and their asynchronous appearance on the listserv and patterns of verbal speech, and how they make women feel included or excluded.
> 
> I can say I have felt hazed and ridiculed at certain points in my time here; maybe another person wouldn't have bothered to return. But there are, for the most part, really great experienced thinkers here. The thread on Collaboration started by Michael last week is an example of the best we have to offer. Real gems in that tapestry.
> 
> Phillip, do you require a formal invitation to share your ideas about why men regularly dominate xmca through multiple long postings? If you do decide to share, I hope that there are enough grownups in the vicinity that will allow for mature and caring exchange on this topic? And if there is no pleasantness to be had, might there be just the right number of grownups in the vicinity that will send the unpleasant ones to their rooms without any supper? Can we send in the tickling clowns as a last resort? Maybe squirt guns?
> 
> Might we collaborate upon a discussion of gendered speech patterns on this list or in general, you know, and "play well with others?" Can we allow our interlocutors to make mistakes? Can we maintain our humor? Can we offer care and community to try to crack this very hard nut and actually transform this here apparatus? Can we improvise and create meaning not "to-get-her" but TOGETHER?
> 
> I feel confident that if we refrain from posting asphixiating generalizations or gobsmacking stereotypes, we'll make our getaway clean!
> 
> If we try by way of experiment to post in the first person rather than in the second and third, so as to share feelings about it, I believe there will be a lot of beneficial discovery ahead.
> 
> Let it be so!
> 
> Perhaps our collaboration and cooperation will start a meaningful shift in our activity triangle of written speech patterns on xmca? Who knows?
> 
> I mean, aren't men curious about how women feel and think about xmca topics? Just to have a different viewpoint? To learn something new? Don't we want to learn how some, if not many, men feel who may miss not hearing from the other side of our population? As another side of discourse? And won't we all benefit from this equality in speech?
> 
> Thanks for your courage Phillip! (plus all the other brave ones, past present & future: you know who you are)
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Annalisa
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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