Re: Institution mediated mind
Charles Bazerman (bazerman who-is-at humanitas.ucsb.edu)
Fri, 22 Sep 1995 15:28:05 -0700 (PDT)
In response to Michael Glassman's comments, I certainly admit from time
to time of proactive cheerleading--I like to think of that as the effect
of enjoying more than my share of Pete Seeger concerts, dating back to
the Weaver days, although not quite the Almanac singers.
But I am also very aware of the need to understand how the world
is. But there are issues of what part of the world one looks at in what
aspect with what focus and method. Certainly if we look at individual
lives and the difficulties individuals address, from the perspective of
active problems and unresolved issues as perceived and reported by people
struggling with their situations, we are more than likely to note the
many coercions, alienations, oppressions, suppressions that have resulted
from multiple mal-integrations of the individuals into the circumstances
around them. No shortage of these in most people's lives, nor of the
complications that result therefrom and the attempt to keep our heads
above water. Moreover in our proactive desire to have people re-emerge
into straightforward, fairly honest, need -expressing and satisfying,
creative activity and relationship, we have a major stake in noting the
discontents of civilization, as Freud put it.
Unless people are caught up in the delight of newly achieved joy
or success in positive, creative need-satisfaction with others, however,
they are less likely to note the successful integrations with others nor
see their social-mindedness or institution mindedness--that is the
organization of their perception, affect, participation, etc. in relation
to the communal activities they have oriented toward. The
"naturalization" of the conditions of our life make it more difficult to
see the particularity and artifice of our social and cultural position,
as anthropologists regularly remind us. If aspects of our life are not
perceived as problems, they are often not perceived, or at least not
perceived as objects of contemplation, even while we may perceive the
minute information which is operationally part of our participation.
If we look at the workings of a society as a whole, we may
notice, nonetheless, that certain institutions may aggregate at least some
degree of participation from a range of individuals with some positive
consequences for the participants. Sometimes these may be driven by
coercion, and accomplished in a largely alienated and cynical manner.
But at times these participations are reasonably freely chosen and form a
deep part of the individual's orientation, despite some perceived
problematic aspects and some grumbling.
One of the things I find fascinating about scientific discourse
(as well as the discourses of a number of other professions) is that it
is part of a complex social system that to some degree has worked
(despite the various problems and limitations that we regularly note).
That is, it allows the coordinated, cooperative work (although often
agonistically organized) of many disparate individuals who share some
common background and focus, but who also assert individual experience,
thought, and interests. Within specialties there is a high-degree of
mutual understanding, and there are social processes by which
disagreements lead at times to some degree of common judgment, a judgment
which often has strong practical payoffs in terms of better medicine,
faster chips, p[rediction and remediation of disasters. And many of the
people who take up this (and some other professions) quite
enthusiastically and freely orient themselves toward their communal work
as an identity, a way of thinking, and personal commitment. Although we
may have different evaluations of the consequences of the work of
different sciences, I think they way it succeeds as a social work
communication system is worth understanding.
Another more mixed example is the academy. Pretty much all of us
on this list may have mixed feelings about their particular experiences
in the academy, their particular institution, or even more general
structural problems in the academy. Nonetheless for most of us it works
to some degree, enough to keep us interested in talking to students, in
conversing with our colleagues, in identifying ourselves with and
engaging in academic life. And for all of us past eighteen years, this is
all more or less freely chosen. Schools work enough for us to remain
oriented toward them, no matter how radical the reforms we fight for or
how upset we get with our colleagues or our state regents. While there
are teachers and students who inhabit schools from K though graduate
purely for reasons of economic coercion, multiply embedded social
inertia, family pressure, and the like, I don't think that characterizes
most of the members of this list, or at least the ones I've met.
There are lots of other institutions we are more or less
positively oriented towards, which help frame our minds. Most of us may
scream about our political choices and what those elected are up to, but
we still strongly orient towards democratic institutions--so strongly in
many cases that our complaints and alienations arise precisely from the
difference we perceive between current enactment and institutional ideals.
Mike Cole's ironies about the Pledge of Allegiance Curriculum were built
on this tension.
I suspect most people on this list think of themselves as having
led pretty individual, idosyncratic lives and have had their various
run-ins with the many institutions that they have had contact in--I know
I have, and I rarely feel that any institution has adequately
accommodated to my noisy presence, but that has sonmething to do with the
vociferousness with which I try to participate in my own peculiar way
within those institutions. Sometimes it works better than others. At
times, I wondered how anything in the world could possibly work, given
the miscommunication and poor cooperation and coordination I saw around
me. Failure of social life was no news; what was amazing was to find
anything that worked. That is why I find it worth figuring out how
institutions work, when they work, and how we become different as we work
within them.
So, while I see the place for Michael Glassman's research agenda,
I don't see my research agenda as simply trying to wish things into
existence.
I have also gone on too long, and even longer.
Chuck Bazerman