[Xmca-l] Re: Groundings that make life worlds MORE real

[Greg Thompson]

Larry,
Thanks for the engagement here.
First off, I remain ambivalent about the idea of "more" real. On the one
hand, I think it gives some flexibility to a concept ("the real") that can
be overly simplistic - either it is real or it is imagined (as if
imagination isn't real!).

On the other hand, I think that it could easily slide into a way of seeing
social worlds as "less real" than material worlds. (I would prefer to avoid
that dualism but it seems that a building has a qualitatively different
nature than does a sewing circle. But I'd like to think about that some
more before being so bold).

Off the top of my head, I'm wondering if a better way of thinking this
might be "finished" or, perhaps, "finalized" (as in Bakhtin's notion of
"finalizability"). Thus, just as a building can be not yet "finalized", so
too can a social group or a social act. An unfinalized real. Perhaps.

Yes, I think the hearth as interobjective binding of oikos makes perfect
sense to me. But I wonder, where is the hearth today. Despite all the
laments about the television in the 50's and 60's (or the radio prior to
that), it at least had a hearth like quality to it. Family members would
gather round it and watch their favorite show (but yes, notice that as
compared to a campfire, tv's didn't put people face to face). Today, each
family member has their own screen and they might sit in the same room
while watching their screen, but the oikos-tic interobjectivity is rather
limited.

Just my thoughts here. Thanks again for allowing my inscriptional object to
pull us together...

Best,
greg





On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 9:06 AM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Greg Thompson posted the article - temporality, stance ownership, and the
> constitution of subjectivity - to academia.edu
>
> Greg, this article carried me through your exploration of -stance
> ownership - that opened new ways of connecting particular ways to make life
> more real.
> The three groundings presented:
> - intersubjectivity through recognition
> - embodied indexical iconicity
> - interobjectivity as the stance of things.
>
> Your paper guided me to a deep appreciation of the complexity of making
> life worlds more real.
> I found the exploration of embodied indexical iconicity the most
> transformative learning.
> However, I wanted to explore the notion of interobjectivity as agentic in
> one particular case.
> Can we imagine the oikos realm as interobjective?
> For the oikos realm to be interobjective is to recognize this realm as an
> object of evaluation.
> This means an orientation towards this object that has particular
> characteristics.
> In other words the oikos realm having some specific quality or value.
>
> I am suggesting that the specific quality of the oikos realm is -mutuality
> - in itself.
>
> The notion of mutuality for its own sake.
> If the figure of Hestia embodies this oikos realm, then the gathering
> around the hearth in itself results in flourishing.
> The hearth as interobjective stancetaking leading to particular
> characters or figures of intersubjective stancetaking and particular
> characters or figures of embodied iconicity.
> The quality and values of the places within placings in particular as
> evaluative orientations toward the oikos realm as interobjective.
>
> I recommend Greg's paper as a contribution to understanding particular
> groundings making life worlds more real.
>
> I found the connections generated were transformative.
> Larry
>
>
>


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson