paul asks many questions. since i am procrastinating on other more
pressing projects,
typically, i'll give it a go.
>this all brings us back to the basic question: what self are you
>referring
>to, an innate, transcendental, substantial self? a biologically encoded
>self, eg, innate sexual predisposition, an unconscious self? what is your
>definition of self such that it can possess this attribute you call
>"freedom" and how exactly is that self accountable to itself?
i would be asking, "how" is this self, not "what" or "who" is this self,
and of course, as we have discussed here many times, the self is
complexity of personal and social experiences
and memories, activities, beliefs, emotions, histories, relations, ...
it is not singular, as something i "own" but more plural as something i am
a part of,
this self is in flux, depending upon where i am,
what context i am acting within, this self is all of those things, a
social self and a private self who is always turning into and within the
interactions of the world outside of me, and the worlds within (memories,
thoughts, beliefs, dreams, ) -
no, not transcendent, quite organic - but not simply organic: biocultural,
inextricable from the culture that has formed me as much i have formed
myself within a particular socio-cultural context,
multiplied by growth, learning experience,
changing, in other words. not a stable self, but a fluctuating existence
of social and personal -
the aspects of freedom that i understand in this self are in choices,
not Freedom from oppressions, but with an ability to think about what i do
purposefully, as acts of will, = choices.
even as these choices are inextricable from the culture who helps define
my choices, it is still, in the end, a process where i must move my own
limbs with a willful intent - to answer, for example, here,
is a combination of acts that i choose - to read what you have written and
try to understand what you are asking, why you are asking, what you are
trying to understand,
and my own typing actions, trying to find the words to respond in a way
that
communicates without offending your beliefs,
(or tries to, as this is something i have recently learned, about social
communication - the infinite variations of beliefs and the ways these
beliefs inevitably come to define us) -
i think it's theoretically possible to deny the self,
but by the same token, i am contained by flesh and bone, separate from the
world in that physical sense, implicated with the world in my emotional
and historical self, differentiated in particular ways - when i am
menstruating, you don't feel my cramps, for example, when i am sad, you
aren't, i am differentiated by these, but still engaged with this as
social and personal
body in/of/through this social engagement.
my memories are personal, attached to a family you don't know, with a
history there that you don't understand, so these parts of my self are
concealed - personal, with-held - but nevertheless connected to the ways i
choose to act.
we can't know what motivates people to act the ways that they do;
rather we have a choice to try and understand what is being said, and why,
what is being done, and why,
or we can take everything personally, and lose sight of the social
relation that defines the other
who is always implicated in our choices.
> sounds like a
>merry go round to me.
well in a way i suppose it is a circular process, but it is a changing
course, like the spiral effect, or of course it can be a circle that turns
around and around on the same axis, spinning itself deeper and deeper into
the ground.
certainly that is where we work to stop change, to resist others,
we dig our heels in to stop the movement from shifting into some other
place.
but i think Rommetveit (?) wrote about the circularity of speaking,
speech, discourse, conversations, dialogues, and so on,
that there is a generative possibility in communication, where others
listen and respond,
or there is the repetition, where others listen and react,
from a place that is a site of defense, as opposed to a site of
understanding and all the risks that are inherent in that work of
learning.
>
>
>what others? who exists as an other for you? obviously there are
>multiple
>others, some significant, others not?
it depends where i am - here, the others are the people who are on this
list. and yes, some are significant to me because of my history with them,
others are unknown to me and so positioned differently in terms of how i
respond.
this doesn't change my responsibility, it just means i can't control the
outcomes of my choices,
because i don't know everyone who listens or reads, nor do i necessarily
know those who respond ... again, this doesn't mean i am not responsible
for what i write, and by that i mean responsible for being accountable to
my words, and their effects - i may never know all the effects of what i
write,
which is all the more reason to think closely about how i choose to
respond.
>
>what about the others who are so other that you don't even know they
>exist?
>are you responsible to them if you don't know they exist?
i am responsible for myself, in the sense that i am speaking in a public
site - i am aware of the others who read me, in the sense that many of
them are strangers. this doesn't mean they don't exist, and people i don't
know of course have an existence. just because i don't know them, doesn't
mean they are less important to my responses here,
because they might or might not be reading.
it is precisely because i can't control that aspect of communicating here,
that i am responsible for different kinds of outcomes - therefore, it is
my interests to be prepared to be accountable, to be able to account for
what i write,
to assume responsibility for what i write, to change in my responses are
other responses are generated. it means i might change what i believe, i
might change what i read, i might change the way i write, but it does mean
change is implicit in the acknowledgement of this kind of freedom to act
within this flux of persons who read/don't read/listen/don't
listen/respond/don't respond/respond with an effort to understand or
respond with a desire to assert their own beliefs - all of it is implicit
in the act of writing here.
i still believe that in choosing to respond publicly, i assume a
responsibility for the words i write and the ideas i try to communicate.
one thing a writer can never control is the reader, of course.
that is the peril of writing, and all the more reason why academic writing
involves a kind of responsibility that is particular to academics - we
hold positions of privilege and so on, but we also know that many other
academics do not have access to the same kinds of
privileges, they have lived different histories, hold different beliefs,
and construct themselves in different relations to the white-dominance, or
the male-dominance, or
the lesbian-difference, or the middle-class assumptions, and so on -
that is an aspect of responsibility that matters, i suppose, when
thinking about others than i can't know, but must assume are reading - the
activity is to convey ideas without othering or alienating others who i
don't know,
and i'm not saying it's easy,
but that it's implicit in the choice i make to respond.
other times, i might respond differently, indeed i do, i assume different
kinds of speaking, sometimes irreverent, sometimes explicit, blunt, bold,
arrogant, ridiculous -
but i do assume responsibility for the outcomes of these, whether they are
pleasurable or whether they involve my getting hurt,
it's all part of the risks and perils of these kinds of freedoms to speak.
i might situate this in a different social context, such as where i work
at a web-design company, but the basic principles are the same, that i
make choices every day, hundreds of them, and there are outcomes that i
can't predict,
so i have to deal with that in ways that are accountable.
there are strangers on the street who ask for help - i choose to ignore
them, or say hello to them, or give them money if they ask me, or smile,
or whatever - i can't know the outcomes of those choices, but those people
are real,
and my choices to engage with them, or not, are a responsibility.
if someone is rude with me, i have a choice of responding in kind,
or ignoring it, or refusing the rudeness in my response, or in trying to
understand why this is what this person has chosen to do,
why is this person being rude to me - and most times, it is not personal,
and if i don't take it personally, i can act in different ways to it - if
i do take it personally,
then i will also act in different ways, but with each case there is a
choice, and a responsibility implicit in the choice.
there are hundreds of examples of our social encounters in the course of a
day - i don't see these as abstractions or moments of transcendence, i see
these as features of a sociality that engages both the choice to act, and
the implicit responsibility of my actions with others.
i don't hold much to the grand-theories of "Freedom and Responsibility" as
i have written before, but more as material qualities of a human condition
that we can actively participate with, or actively deny, or negotiate
within our own behaviours, and so on.
in the end it is not about who i am, but how i act.
diane
>
>Paul H. Dillon
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Diane Hodges <dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu>
>To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 4:43 PM
>Subject: Re(2): freedom & responsibility (2)
>
>
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>> >who are you saying one is responsible to?
>>
>> i know this is for judy,
>> but because i, too, am writing about this, i can say the responsibility
>is
>> towards yourself
>> and to others.
>> because there is little to differentiate between yourself and others,
>> the responsibility works both ways.
>> 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
>>
>> Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
>>
>>
>>
>
**********************************************************************
: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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Oct 01 2000 - 01:00:51 PDT