Re: Externalization and non-existence

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Mon, 15 Dec 1997 18:41:44 -0500

I am writing in response to Bill Barowy's moving farewell
to his wife's younger brother Wendell. Although I haven't
read all the messages in the relevant threads as carefully as
I want to (& will eventually), I couldn't help but note an
ironic lapse in the performance of what xmca messaging has
been ABOUT lately - for me, among other themes, the
inextricability of one term from another in dualities like
externalization/internalization and emotion/cognition.

Bill wrote:
\With
>non-externalization comes non-sharing of information. Without
>externalization, what one individual learns cannot benefit others and
>social adaptation to the experiential world fails to occur. The
>manifestation of individual knowledge through the creation of artifacts is
>an essential first step to social adaptation.

I don't see it exactly as manifestation: externalization is one
move in the production of knowledge/(the practice of a community).
By addressing my thinking to others, I/they make thinking/knowing
happen. Or more accurately, since we are positioned in our relations
to one another, I/they make thinking/knowing/caring/feeling/valuing
happen. And thus we enact/make possible the other internalizing
move in the production of knowledge/the practice of a community.
2 moves of an existential act?

If I am writing fuzzily, it could be because of the piles of final
papers all around me, and it could be because I'm responding to
Bill's message as an enactment, not a message; an
"entextment" of current concerns. It seems like an occasion
that warrants more participation....
Judy

Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183