first, yes, i am restless and itchy and thinking about weird stuff as
usual,
looking for something to prod me thinking, so yes, ok, whatever, i read a
few of alfred's papers.
in "Thinking Rich, Thinking Simple..." (Lang 1998)
>How can we avoid, while using rigorous conceptualizations,
>our well-defined concepts dissolving in our hands precisely by applying
>them rigorously to concrete situations? I think the key to solving the
>problem lies in accepting that all our traditional concepts are neither
>genuinely evolutive nor ecological in nature. This is understandable in
>that they have been shaped in times denying the evolutive and the
>genuinely systemic character of the world. Person and environment, action
>and perception, self and culture, and so on--all are concepts defined
>separately and then put together to form a synthetic system. Similarly,
>these concepts are not genuinely temporal; though meant to refer to
>processes they are in fact pointers to isolated states or episodes that
>are then
>arbitrarily chained to sequences. Yet evolutions are more than sequences.
>In addition, those concepts do not reckon upon the intrinsic identity of
>the ecological and the evolutive: truly evolutive systems are always
>ecological systems; only ecological systems truly evolve, that is,
>systems whose more flexible parts generatively engage in dialogue with
>the more fixed parts, thus constituting each other and moreover time. We
>desperately need genuinely evolutive-ecological concepts.
i have read similar arguments in nearly every discipline within the social
sciences - that (a) concepts are fictive and constraining and ultimately
destined to fail the needs for understanding the human condition as a
complex change- and so (b) here are some concepts that portend to defy the
failure of concepts.
how does that work? if a concept is, basically, a piece of biographical
writing, it is also invariably framed and constrained by its historical
context, gendered in its invention and institutionalized in its
articulation - so how do NEW concepts succeed if this is their
construction?
as with "dialectics" and the freaked-out passion for Hegel that seems to
be almost au courant if not the latest fashion in theory, the words
themselves have no function, rather, it is the desire embedded in the use
of the words that
reveals the theorists' intentions, n'est pas?
speaking the same language, agreeing on the same conceptual rigour of a
word such as "dialectics" or "activity" or "subjectivity" provides a forum
for same-space speeching, yes,
but is this progressive in material terms? isn't it just almost redundant?
is an image a concept? i am thinking more and more that judy's interest in
imagery helps move away from the conceptual baggage and into alternative
sites for thinking about
how to act ... the trick, perhaps, is keeping the image from slipping into
the habits of conceptualization,
to keep the image in motion, perhaps. but while i can admit to an interest
in semiotics
and symbolism in the ways French Feminists are writing,
i can also see the spaces where critique is necessary when concepts take
over the sense of the ideas that come from speaking about bodies as human
- the desire to conceptualize "humanity", for example, over the
possibility of imagining the human body.
sometimes it seems as though it's all just one big equation that gets
factored over and over without anyone stopping and thinking maybe the
equation is never going to work, maybe the variables are wrong, or maybe
the formula is flawed,
or maybe the equation is never going to surpass its two-dimensional fold.
does anyone get what i mean?
am i just blabbing again?
bah.
probably. in evolutive constructs, i'd reckon transactions are part of the
evolutive discourse,
and transgressions are part of the chaotic babbling perhaps.
still can't seem to reconcile the paradox of concepts though.
ne'er mind, i'm fumbling here,
diane
**********************************************************************
:point where everything listens.
and i slow down, learning how to
enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.
(Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
***********************************************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
==================== ==================== =======================
university of colorado, denver, school of education
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