Re: [xmca] Abstract to Concrete

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Hi Christine

Thanks for responding and interweaving so many threads from our previous
chats. Christine, as I read your response I was trying to find the central
theme weaving through your response.
You highlighted a fragment of my commentary as the place from which to join
in conversation. I was playing with notions of *rhythm* and *recurrence* as
a metaphor of *hearing* and *musical* composition which recurs in patterns
BUT with each NEW occurence there is a slight variation on the recurring
pattern [which therefore is NOT an identical repetition of the pattern but
rather an expanding recurrence.

Christine, you responded with questioning *institutional CONTESTS of
recognition* and how this *contest* implicates notions of *alterity*
You were illuminating the quality of *othering the other* in scholarly
writing as the *norm*[an unquestioned good or *ought*] as a dis-position
and academic standard.

Christine, you then brought me back to our conversations on notions of
*witnessing* or *hearing the other into voice* as an ethically different
understanding of *recognition* that is NOT *mutual recognition* which
focuses more on *fairness* and *equality* as an ideal type.

You then mentioned Levinas key understanding of Levinas which emphasizes
the ethical dis-position comes BEFORE epistemology or ontology.. In his
phrase *face of the other* is the UNIQUE *other* who if categorized [pigeon
holed] is totalized.
Christine, you then link *face of the other* with *dialogical expression*
and a PARTICULAR quality of relations.
Next, you caution that THIS quality of witnessing *the face of the other*
may be lost in written text or shifted to a generalizable *everyman*

In the next paragraph you return to *current writing* practices which
illustrate *unfolding* relations through a standard of *distancing* and
inventing the *untouchable other* or the *intelligent reader* [as a type of
reader]. This *intelligent reader* is addressing or answering no UNIQUE
person as a particular living embodied person.  In other words this
distancing looses the sense of *co-presence*
Phrases such as *joining existing institutions* as expressions express this
distancing position.
Christine, you then shift to focusing on *passion* [duende] ARISING in
flamenco, an origination of deepening passionate feeling FROM which
performance springs [as source]
This source in the passions, a moment of duende, BRINGS into consciousness
potentialities felt, experienced, and then "theorized" within the
performing *conditions*

Christine, you then shift to *othering* in the English essay form which
RELIES on the quality of separation of audience through the *construction*
of a particular type of reader - *the intelligent informed reader*.

In your final turn you remembered our earlier conversations on *plurality*
of forms of living. Plurality is NOT relative, or random. Plurality is
multiple [discourses, traditions, genres, EACH constituted within effective
history. Pluralism is NOT looking for universal truths, nor is it relative.
It is multiple and contrasting VALUES or NORMS which may be brought into
dialogue but NEVER made *equal*
Your final reference was to al-andulus which I *imagine* as a historical
moment when pluralism was honoured.

Christine, I may have mis-read or mis-understood some particular points but
I hope I captured the theme I saw moving through your commentary.

I would like to pause here with a comment Huw made in response to the
concept of rhetoric grounded at its source within reading and readers.
The history and development of *reading* and our conscious understanding of
reading as a phenomena I heard in your response describing the distanced
intelligent scholarly reader.

*Reading RESPONSE theory* explores the PLURALITY of ways of reading.
I wonder if a new way of reading *as conversational* and *as dialogical*
may be developing to *see through* the intelligent scholarly reader who
is distancing from others [as a particular historically constituted  kind
or norm of reading]
As we explore the plurality of norms of reading [and the value
presuppositions within each type of reader] we may be developing a new
understanding of developmental psychology.

Christine, I considered writing this off line as a more private response,
but I am questioning the boundaries between private and public discourse
and the values and presuppositions embedded in these fuzzy boundaries.

Christine, thanks for this response and opportunity for a chat.

Larry

On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 10:13 PM, Christine Schweighart <
schweighartc@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Larry,
> >
> > [LP] Christine, could you elaborate on the contrast between *transitional
> > objects* and *formal objects*
> >
> > Christine, as I read your comment, I was also reflecting on Dewey's
> theory
> > of aesthetic *experience* which is an example of all experience for
> Dewey.
> > The concepts he plays with are *rhythm* and *recurrence*  All activity as
> > occurences participates in rythmic sequences of activities. These
> > rhtyhm's can be perceived as mechanical with pre set units in relational
> > interaction. However aesthetic recurrence is another type of relationship
> > in which persons operate within these previous rhythm's repeating as
> > recurrences BUT as aesthetic experience the persons *summarize* what has
> > previously occured and then through their needs, desires, and motivated
> > intents participate in the *developing* rhythm *expanding  of an
> expanding
> > horizon of understanding.
> My references will be very particular and probably obscure to the
> list: but I don't suppose anybody will be offended by that:  First of
> all there seems something particular in British cultural life
> influenced by empirical thinkers in philosophy which draws on 'formal
> logic' ( Ilyenkov discusses this at painful length - but probably was
> up against 'incomprehension'); such that 'rationality' in Alan's
> inclusional characterisation attributes this vein to 'dialectics'.
>
> I am looking at this as it is might be very painful in the
> institutional contest of recognition . I was looking at past papers
> for discussion on xmca yesterday and revisted Basil Bernstein's
> 'horizontal and vertical discourse', which seems to make this
> fundamental slip ( june/july 2005) - my impression, I was looking for
> another paper- which I didn't find -discussing alterity by Wertch
> around this discussion
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Mail/xmcamail.2006_08.dir/0038.html
> Either  papers would do at the time - serendipity which- my difficulty
> arises from the 'othering' in scholarly writing as ( unquestioned that
> it is a 'good' thing to master writing in such a form) academic
> standard ( and yes especially in British institutions as I'm oriented
> here pragmatically). In the past I'm sure we've talked about this and
> witnessing, recognition - drawing in 'the face of the other' in
> Levinas' work - which figures dialogic expression and relations - and
> in written text might be translated or lost -  or  might be shifted to
> a formal 'everyman' or to a figure of universal: particular by an
> individual writer - or be a shared standard in collaborative writing.
> We have also in the past - with Roy Reynolds - off list - discussed
> the poetry of  Rainer Maria Rilke, and Goethe - where the orientation
> of the untouchable  Muse ( which I find more disturbing than -small r-
>  romantic).
>
> In universal particular and individual - a line comes from Tonnies on
> gesellschaft gemeinshaft - in  current writing the concept of
> 'individual (family):particular(institution) and universal practices
> illustrate unfolding relations - still through the standard of
> distancing of  untouchable other 'the (standard) intelligent reader'
> an appeal to no person in particular living embodied co-presence(
> though often challenges come pretty close). Distance slips in when
> seen in expressions such as  'joining existing institutions' etc In
> this discussion of aesthetic we have also talked about 'duende' from
> the work of Garcia Lorca - who also contrasts  'angel' as another mode
> . Jack Whitehead, on the list sometimes, also.  Duende as passion not
> sparked on 'untouchable distance' , arising in flamenco  through
> 'artist- in -audience' ( but not as a passive reception , an
> origination of deepening of feeling from which perfomance springs )- a
> moment of duende brings into consciousness ,  from the potentialities
> felt expressed experienced and 'theorised' in the perfoming
> 'conditions' . This isn't necessarily family, and isn't
> 'institutional' in the senses of  marriage/a movement /or
> organisational institution such as the British Law Society.
> 'Othering' is quite different to that in written perfomance in 'the
> english essay form', which relies on separation of audience towards
> the muse of the constructed 'intelligent and informed reader'.
>  ( And we also discussed plurality of form of living  and mystery of
> al -andalus ).
>
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