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
<mailto: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 <mailto:phillip.white@ucdenver.edu>
________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
[xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of Andy
Blunden [ablunden@mira.net <mailto: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
<mailto: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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