Re: [xmca] RE: The Social Creation of Inequality

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Andy, Philip
If that *is* the central question, is it true that the "corporate"
individual [holder of of a certain office] is the ESSENTIAL relationship.
The corporate individual withIN an institution exists in a *sedimented*
structuring relation that represents a re-construction of what came before.
Andy, I fully agree that the corporate individual may be an  essential
*aspect* of an institutional structure [the inter-objective
*conventionalized* aspect where specific persons are interchangeable]
However, I wonder if the inter-subjective aspect is also *essential*.  Not
primary, not reductive, but essential as another essential aspect to the
ongoing re-constructing viability of the institution through time.

Just wondering, to generate a discussion.

Larry

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 6:18 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> That *is* the question, Phillip. Isn't it the case that a certain
> individual, perhaps a head of a particular department, likes 5thD and
> everything is going along well, but then that individual goes to a different
> job or something, and their replacement is not supportive, or maybe a person
> one step further up the hierarchy steps in cuts off the funding, or
> whatever.
>
> So, in the short-term mechanics of gaining support for the project, you are
> dealing with individual people who are also corporate individuals (ie.,
> holders of a certain office within an institution). The point is that the
> essential relationship is with the corporate individual, even though it is
> realised through an individual personality.
>
> I stick to my position, that "institutions" should be regarded as projects,
> not tools or material artefacts of any kind (though artefacts are needed in
> the realisation of an institution, such as signage, legislation, all kinds
> of documents, buildings, uniforms, etc., etc). Corporations do of course
> appear in legal actions, sue people, fire people, buy things, make
> contracts, exercise rights, and so on, for all the world like individual
> persons, but all the actions of an institution are realised through
> individual people, just as every action of a person is realised through
> hands, arms, feet, and so on. But, I don't expect to convince you in 5
> minutes! :)
>
> The main thing is just as you say: does the sustainability of 5thD
> dependent on sympathetic individuals who happen to work in an institution,
> or on the institution, or some combination of the two?
>
> Andy
>
>
> White, Phillip wrote:
>
>> Andy, i think that it's individuals within an institution who are
>> supporting projects, rather than the institution.  and in the same way, it's
>> the identity of individuals that supports the sustainability rather than the
>> identity of an institution.  individuals certain project an identity onto an
>> institution, sometimes even with accuracy, but an institution itself is
>> without volition, much less self-identity.  perhaps it can be seen that an
>> institution is more of a cultural tool, rather like a hammer, or a filing
>> system, which we would all recognize as lacking an identity.
>> so the question would be, How does the relationship with 5thD fit with the
>> identity of individuals within the institution who are in a position to
>> support the 5thD?
>>
>> what do you think?
>>
>> p
>>
>>
>> Phillip White, PhD
>> University of Colorado Denver
>> School of Education
>> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
>> ______________________________**__________
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf
>> Of Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net]
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 10:29 PM
>> To: Bremme Don
>> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: Re: [xmca] RE: The Social Creation of Inequality
>>
>> I think institutions have to be seen in the same way, so there is a
>> strong metaphor, I think, between friendships/solidarity etc between
>> individual people and institutions supporting projects. Think of what
>> sustains teh identity of an institution? How does the relationship with
>> 5thD fit into that identity?
>>
>> a
>>
>> Bremme Don wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Andy wrote:
>>>
>>> ... a 5thD project continues, I think, in much the same sense that a
>>> personal identity continues: continually changing, but through
>>> overlapping memories and stories, continuity is assured in the form of
>>> continuously changing realisations of that identity, ... until it dies
>>> and can no longer tell its story. So I agree, a project is like a mind.
>>>
>>> This description certainly resonates with my experience in the 5thD, as
>>> well as my reading on identity.
>>>
>>> Don
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
>>> Sent: Tue 7/26/2011 6:45 PM
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] RE: The Social Creation of Inequality
>>>
>>> Ivan, a 5thD project continues, I think, in much the same sense that a
>>> personal identity continues: continually changing, but through
>>> overlapping memories and stories, continuity is assured in the form of
>>> continuously changing realisations of that identity, ... until it dies
>>> and can no longer tell its story. So I agree, a project is like a mind.
>>>
>>> I think for people like yourself, Ivan, and Mike Cole, the task of
>>> leading a 5thD project is challenging, but it is something you know and
>>> love and is do-able. But launching a project today is like *flying a
>>> kite in a storm*. That line (of funding) which connects you to the
>>> ground and keeps you flying, is buffeted by uncontrolled and
>>> unpredictable forces far greater than you. If the line is broken by a
>>> particularly powerful gust, and the money to pay salaries and rent is
>>> lost, it must always seem like an accident, an act of God, so to speak.
>>> "Community," if it is to pay salaries and rent, etc., has to manifest in
>>> the form of definite institutions with budgets and funding sources and
>>> staff and rules, etc., and someone can leave or change their mind and
>>> Bingo! you're gone. And all the community will be able to do is hold a
>>> great farewell party for you.
>>>
>>> I think it is worth mentioning that a project can secure on-going
>>> funding according to two basic models (excluding wholely owned projects
>>> of government or a business), basically private sector or public sector.
>>> There is a movement called "social entrepreneurs," with figures like
>>> Norman Tebbitt in Thatcher's UK, or Mark Latham, the renegade ALP leader
>>> in Oz, who advocate this approach. The intervention goes into an estate
>>> (what is called a housing project in the US) for example, and gathers
>>> together a group of residents to form into a company to tender for the
>>> maintenance contract for their own buildings, say. Generally, import
>>> substitution to start with and export later. It is a really fine,
>>> petit-bourgeois idea, because it is not only self-funding, and by
>>> earning people a living generates a feirce loyalty, but also
>>> community-building and independent of everyone. Tebbitt coined the motto
>>> "Get on your bike!" encouraging people made redundant by Thatcher's
>>> policies to invest their redundancy pay-outs to start a business.
>>> Problem is ... capitalism. It's not the perfectly fair market place it
>>> is supposed to be, and what invariably happens is that these brave souls
>>> get screwed in the market place by the established players, and end up
>>> broke and on the dole believing it is their own fault, rather than
>>> blaming the system. But you can see the idea. It is a way of avoiding
>>> the perils of public sector projects.
>>>
>>> In Australia, and I suspect it is similar elsewhere, everything is on
>>> 3-year projects, where people spend the 3rd of their 3 years, drafting
>>> up the funding proposal for the next 3-year grant, proving "outcomes"
>>> and "key indicators" and all this garbage which then dominates their
>>> lives at the expense of whatever they wanted to do. And at the end of 3
>>> years, if they are successful, and actually get something going in the
>>> community, and raise hopes and expectations, invariably, political
>>> fashions have changed, the funding is not renewed and the good citizens
>>> are dumped back in the muck they were just beginning to think they could
>>> escape from. So, the best projects have to aim to transform a community
>>> in 3 years so that changes are not reversed when funding is withdrawn as
>>> it more or less undoubtedly will be. But in reality, poverty and
>>> generation-long deprivation is not solved in 3 years.
>>>
>>> So we need to get funding which will not bring about this awful end,
>>> which raises and then crashes hopes, but continues, OR, creates new
>>> conditions in a little while so that somehow or other, funding becomes
>>> unnecessary. But because in most civilised countries, health, education
>>> and security are deemed to be public responsibilities, but frequently
>>> denied to large sections of the community, it is pretty nigh impossible
>>> to create projects in these areas which become self-funding. So it all
>>> depends on finding an institution which has a healthy prospect of
>>> lengevity, and someone within that institution to provide a line of
>>> funding. But, people change, fashions change, funding requirements for
>>> even the well-heeled funding institutions change. The essential point
>>> is, I think, how do you secure the real support of an institution into
>>> the indefinite future.
>>>
>>> Apart from hand-to-hand fighting by the 5thD "dream-keeper" which can be
>>> guaranteed I am sure, I think you have to manage the institution through
>>> everyday life, that is, you have to embed the dream of your project in
>>> the language and attitudes of the whole community. Ivan, you have spoken
>>> about the active support you get from the community, but I guess I am
>>> saying that is still not enough. The dream, has to enter the language.
>>> For example, new universities are rarely created, generally only in very
>>> special times in history, but once established they usually last
>>> forever. They become institutionalised. They are after all
>>> "universities" and the part they play in the life of the country is
>>> inscribed in language and law. Apart from careful choice of funding
>>> institutions, and dogged protection of the commitment made by the
>>> funding institution year in year out, I think public popularisation of
>>> the idea is necessary. But I don't know. We are all thrashing in the
>>> dark here I think. But these are my thoughts.
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ivan Rosero wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Continuity" in these scenarios is an interesting question, for what
>>>> exactly is the thing that continuous?  This seems to me quite analogous to
>>>> (or a definition of) mind --pulled along through the
>>>> interaction/intersection of various moving, and frequently disjoint,
>>>> "dreams" that touch down here and there in activity, and hold somehow (yet
>>>> ever changing) over time.
>>>>
>>>> ivan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
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>> ------------
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