Re: doubled moms

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Fri, 2 Feb 1996 09:26:36 -0500

Jay has nailed down one sort of doubling, the sort I referred to in my
first response to Eugene, where mom is both mom and critical theorist.
I find it helpful to distinguish the phenomenon Francoise described,
where one shifts easily between roles, and that which Jay elucidated,
where a shift isn't easily accomplished (one can't easily "consciously
override a practice that is supported by the deep habitus of
enculturation"), despite
the alternative interpretive frame one might bring to the practice.

However, there is yet another meaning of "doubling" that I had in mind.
Forget the "analytical, deliberate perspective" for a moment. Imagine
living for successive phases of one's life in different environments, with
different significant others, and living there long enough to walk, talk,
and think differently than before the move. Or imagine those environments
side by side, and moving throughout one's life between them, as in a diglossic
environment. As I understand habitus, and maybe I don't have it right, what
I have just described entails some change or alteration in habitus, depending
on change in sociocultural context. It is doubling at this level of "being"
that I also had in mind; doubled ways of being that may force one to an
analytical, deliberate perspective.

I wonder if Gregory Bateson's definition of "Learning III" ["learning how
to learn how to learn"] fits the sort of psychological processes that
would be entailed by a deliberate change in habitus?

- Judy

Judy Diamondstone
diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Rutgers University

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Eternity is in love with the productions of time. -- Wm. Blake