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Re: [xmca] critique of pure tolerance
Hello XMCAers:
The issue of humor has been addressed at XMCA prior. My take at the time
was that most members of the academia world hold humor to mean post-annie
hall woody allen, spaulding gray (sp?), michael moore, etc. and rather
look down on the low brow humor of Larry the Cable Guy, Chevy Chase, The
Three Stooges, etc.
anybody interested here is a link to the thread:
http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2001_12.dir/0126.html
I would agree with Jenna about her thoughts on tolerance. I have always
thought tolerance to mean well below acceptance and merely the lowest
common denominator for social relations, such as tolerating a noisy
neighbor, tolerating a pesky co-worker, tolerating a pushy boss, etc.
etc. etc. etc.
eric
Jenna McWilliams <jenmcwil@umail.iu.edu>
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
01/08/2010 07:06 AM
Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
cc:
Subject: Re: [xmca] critique of pure tolerance
What a fantastic discussion--the affordances of new media technologies!
I do wonder if tolerance is what we really want to sell. Tolerance,
after all, is so often thought of as a gift from the powerful to the
(relatively) powerless. It's what the dominant groups grant those
marginalized groups that are lucky enough not to be too threatening or
offensive. As in, "she's messy, but not intolerably so."
Or "she's a lesbian, but not one of those ~in your face~ lesbians."
Or "he's a Mormon, but he doesn't preach his craziness to me."
And so on.
When it comes to silliness, play, and senses of humor, the powerless
have to learn to deploy these things and engage these senses in others
in careful, strategic ways. Silliness walks a knife's edge, after all.
Over on that side is jokesterism; and on the other side is
insubordination, blasphemy, revolt.
Revoltingly,
Jenna
~~
Jenna McWilliams
Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
~
http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com
http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com
~
jenmcwil@indiana.edu
jennamcjenna@gmail.com
On Jan 8, 2010, at 1:28 AM, Jay Lemke wrote:
> Larry,
>
> I wish we could sell tolerance as something that would bring
> prosperity. Would be a great argument in the US right now.
> Unfortunately, I don't believe it. I think it works the other way
> around. :-(
>
> Jay Lemke
> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> Educational Studies
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>
> Visiting Scholar
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> University of California -- San Diego
> La Jolla, CA
> USA 92093
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 3, 2010, at 10:13 PM, Larry Purss wrote:
>
>> Jay and Yuan
>> Is it prosperity that leads to tolerance or tolerance that leads to
>> prosperity?
>> I think that we could look to places like Venice or Florence or
>> Moorish Granada Were they places of tolerance that allowed multi-
>> culturalism and the interpenetration of ideas to flourish (and
>> create wealth) or were they wealthy and therefore became tolerant?
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: yuan lai <laiyuantaiwan@gmail.com>
>> Date: Sunday, January 3, 2010 8:43 pm
>> Subject: Re: [xmca] critique of pure tolerance
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>
>>> I don't know what genuinely pluralist conditions and elements
>>> are, Jay. I
>>> would think one thing is a willingness to acknowledge that we
>>> have a problem
>>> to deal with. Some Canadians, who are proud of its history of
>>> embracingmulticulturalism, say to me, when I mention racism,
>>> that we don't the
>>> problem of overt racism in the US. To me, a petty crime or white
>>> collarcrime still is a problem to acknowledge as a first step.
>>>
>>> I think of Zhuangzi as a Chinese exemplar of critical thinking
>>> (he was said
>>> to flourish 350-300 BC).
>>> *http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zhuangzi/* That
>>> is, if you believe that the encyclopedia is generally
>>> trustworthy, that the
>>> translation is good enough to allow evaluation of Zhuangzi's
>>> words, and so
>>> on.
>>>
>>> How do we speak to politicans so they understand the seriousness
>>> of the
>>> matter at hand, testing babies? In general I favor the idea of
>>> silliness.American politicians enjoy or at least get football,
>>> right? Did skilled
>>> football players, when they were 2, 5, or 15 years old, practice
>>> isolated,decontextualized skills, catching a ball in midair and
>>> staying there or, as
>>> a ball is thrown, players running away from each other to show
>>> who is
>>> fastest? (I know, I am being silly) Even professional football
>>> players work
>>> on developing critical thinking; a neighbor, a CFL player, told
>>> me that his
>>> team spent more time indoors, watching videotaped games, than
>>> out in the
>>> field. But politicians understanding is one thing, acting on that
>>> understanding is another.
>>>
>>> Yuan
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Jay Lemke
>>> <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nancy and all,
>>>>
>>>> Dialogue is both the most natural form of communication and
>>> also an
>>>> improvable art. It does easily degenerate into binary, partisan
>>>> polarization, and I think we know that historically this tends
>>> to lead to
>>>> violence and to long-lasting, even multi-generational
>>> conflicts. It is also
>>>> a favorite tool of politicians, especially those who wish to
>>> move from being
>>>> the representatives of a small minority to building their one-
>>> issue, or
>>>> one-enemy coalitions of the uncritical.
>>>>
>>>> But it can, on the other hand, become the art of reciprocal
>>> perspectives> and dialectic advance of ways of seeing the world
>>> and acting in it, if we
>>>> can find ways to re-enunciate the words of Others, to re-
>>> adjust the scope of
>>>> common ground, to do what majority politicians usually aim
>>> for, "bringing us
>>>> all together". Of course that is a somewhat unrealistic ideal,
>>> and it too
>>>> degenerates into pushing majority views onto everybody, so
>>> learning nothing.
>>>>
>>>> Pluralist societies seem to require a certain kind of general
>>> cultural> ethos, and I am not sure that the US really has it.
>>> Interestingly, a
>>>> frequently cited example of a genuinely successful pluralist
>>> culture/society> is Hawai'i, Obama's home. I don't know what
>>> specifically the elements of a
>>>> genuinely pluralist culture are. What cultural values or
>>> habits predispose
>>>> people to tolerance? to curiosity about the viewpoints of
>>> Others? to a
>>>> desire to learn across differences? to a disinclination
>>> towards simplistic
>>>> analyses and polarizations?
>>>>
>>>> Most historical societies seem to contain both tendencies, towards
>>>> pluralism and toward monologism. Times of prosperity seem to favor
>>>> tolerance, times of scarcity feed intolerance.
>>>>
>>>> What else do we know about the conditions for productive pluralism?
>>>>
>>>> JAY.
>>>>
>>>> Jay Lemke
>>>> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
>>>> Educational Studies
>>>> University of Michigan
>>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
>>>>
>>>> Visiting Scholar
>>>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
>>>> University of California -- San Diego
>>>> La Jolla, CA
>>>> USA 92093
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Dec 29, 2009, at 5:39 AM, Nancy Mack wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Jay,
>>>>> I like your emphasis on the Bakhtinian cross-difference discourse.
>>>>> I am alarmed by the over emphasis on argument in first year
>>> composition> courses and the new language arts core standards.
>>>>> The emphasis on argument:
>>>>> Eliminates narratives of individuals.
>>>>> Promotes binary thinking.
>>>>> Asks us not to reflect on our life experiences.
>>>>> Sets us up to be one issue voters.
>>>>> Makes the world a safe, uncomplex world of simple decisions.
>>>>> Creates enemies from difference.
>>>>> Makes peace into oppression.
>>>>> Prefers logic rather than ethics.
>>>>> Polarizes emotion as the opposite to logic.
>>>>> Prefers discourse that badgers rather than communicates.
>>>>> Disrespects different world views and philosophies.
>>>>> Divides us into winners and losers.
>>>>> Privileges dogma over openness.
>>>>> And so on.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nancy
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
>>>>> Date: Monday, December 28, 2009 10:14 pm
>>>>> Subject: [xmca] critique of pure tolerance
>>>>> To: XMCA Forum <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On the ethics of engaging respectfully with positions you really
>>>>>> strongly disagree with.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Recap: some of us are trying to figure out effective ways to
>>>>>> challenge conservative/oppressive discourses about
>>> education and
>>>>>> other matters in ways that are not as likely to be marginalized
>>>>>> as many left rhetorical strategies have become in many places
>>>>>> and for many audiences.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One strategy might be to see what the core values and discourses
>>>>>> of those to whom our opponents appeal might say that is
>>> more to
>>>>>> our way of thinking. For example, what Christian discourse may
>>>>>> say that is in favor of critical thinking, or against the
>>>>>> priority of decontextualized learning, or just against the
>>>>>> "gospel of prosperity" (which, if you haven't seen recent news
>>>>>> interest in this is an explicit movement in fundamentalist US
>>>>>> christianity that says God wants you to get rich).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In doing so, however, we tread the slippery slope. Historically
>>>>>> the Anglo-Saxon left has been rather purist, and its internal
>>>>>> squabbles have mainly been over who is more perfectly
>>>>>> marxist/democratic/etc. Leaving not much room to develop
>>>>>> discourses that overlap or penetrate those of the non-left
>>>>>> majority (who in the US are also mostly non-right). Something
>>>>>> different happened in Latin America, where a fusion of Catholic
>>>>>> populism and left communitarianism did a much better job of
>>>>>> appealing to both rural populations and university intellectuals
>>>>>> (Freire as a case in point, but he is part of a much larger
>>>>>> discourse tradition). As I recall a few popes have actually
>>>>>> condemned Latin American bishops for being too leftist. So they
>>>>>> must have been getting something right. :-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Nonetheless, the fear is that we might lend credibility to
>>>>>> oppressive discourses by speaking partly within their discursive
>>>>>> worlds. That is probably a justifiable concern, given Bakhtin's
>>>>>> close linkage in the notion of heteroglossia (diversity of
>>>>>> discursive worlds, or "social voices") of ways of
>>> describing the
>>>>>> world and ways of valuing it. But to my mind communication is
>>>>>> not about conversion, nor indeed even about being right. It is
>>>>>> about establishing new cross-difference discourses that produce
>>>>>> surprising ideas and values. I have always thought that there
>>>>>> was rather too much missionary spirit in leftist discourse, that
>>>>>> it remained uncomfortably close to christian messianic and
>>>>>> evangelical models. The problem with this being that it assumes
>>>>>> an end to history, that answers are known, and so there is no
>>>>>> real incentive for a dialogue in which one is open to learn with
>>>>>> one's interlocutors.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, yes, there is risk, but there is also much to gain.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> BTW, is there a good history of "critical thinking"? someone
>>>>>> must believe it was invented in the Englightenment, or in the
>>>>>> Renaissance, or by the 400 BC Greeks, by the Jews (when?), by
>>>>>> the Chinese (when?). If we are going to claim that Jesus or
>>>>>> Buddha exemplified critical thinking, are we also going to
>>>>>> believe it's true?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> JAY.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jay Lemke
>>>>>> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
>>>>>> Educational Studies
>>>>>> University of Michigan
>>>>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>>>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Visiting Scholar
>>>>>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
>>>>>> University of California -- San Diego
>>>>>> La Jolla, CA
>>>>>> USA 92093
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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