Thanks Larry.Although I do agree that collaborative projects are needed as a response to the problems of modernity, my point is that "collaborative project" is a *unit of analysis* for social life, i.e., that everything we do is to be taken as part of collaborative projects. I stretch the patience of my xmca friends by rabbiting on about projects because, if this is the case, actual research needs to be done on collaboration and projects. We need to learn more about collaboration, and what faciitates or undermines the formation of long-term collaborations. Is there any more important question?
The other point you raise about duration and liquidity: given that we cannot have recourse to any eternal abstractions, human nature, etc., being able to theorise across duration is important, and collaborative projects do this because of the way individuals come and go, and are inducted along the way, actually weaving and maintaining durable social fabric, even as their identity changes. This gives a believable process for ideas and patterns of action which outlive individual persons. It responds to the observation about "liquidity" because projects continuously *realise* their aims, that is, aims and objectives (sources of motivation) are continuously revised in the light of the experience of the project. Projects are "iterative" as they say. Occupy?
Andy Larry Purss wrote:
Hi Mike, and others discussing solidity/fluidity. Andy is asking us to recognize the centrality for collaborative projects to be a meaningful response to the issues Bauman is articulating. ... Andy, I agree that collaborative projects are the answer to Bauman's question. The question then becomes "what particular projects?" My suggestion is that these projects must be able to give an answer to the limits and ambivalence of freedom and "self-expression". I also intuitively sense that the answers must also in*form structures of some "duration" that recognize not only who we "are" and who we are "becoming" but also are structures which recognize who we "were". ... Larry
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