Francoise
Francoise Herrmann
fherrmann who-is-at igc.org
>
> This is also an extremely interesting question for me. I'm very
> interested in understanding how we can talk about beliefs as shared
> (and there must be some shared component--interactions are like
> dances, and if there's no shared understanding of what the dance is
> and what the appropriate steps are, then we only step on each other's
> toes; admittedly this happens at times, but things go smoothly often
> enough to suggest some real "sharedness"...)--and yet we are each
> uniquely different. I've been conceptualizing it as a continuum of
> shared discourse representing different levels of commonality. At
> one extremely broad level we are all human beings, and so there is
> the potential for understanding one another at that level. At other
> levels, I'm a psychologist, and a northeasterner, and a liberal, and
> a catlover, and a Yalie, and so on--and I can share certain types
> of discourse with others who fit into these categories that I can't
> with those who don't. I'm also middle-class, white, and American,
> and these also shape the sorts of discourses that I share. But I also
> don't think of these different discourses as a randomly scattered,
> heterogeneous collection of possibilities within myself; instead,
> they seem hierarchically ordered--some seem more salient and more broadly
> defining than others. I think probably being white, middle-class, and
> American are the most broadly defining for me. Well, just some
> half-baked thoughts...
>
> Robin
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