> Dear USAmericans
>
> I also do not see how my pointing out of this potential difference in
> perspectives means that I condemning John as forever endorsing the actions
> he participated in 30 years ago -- does ANY questioning of a US-centered
> perspective automatically instantiate that kind of imputation?? (I have
> heard no US voices expressing any puzzlement after John's posting.)
>
> There are, of course, many possible reasons for the absence of any apology
> to Naoki Ueno. What I needed to be reassured about was NOT John's
> non-endorsement of the war but the possibility for voices not just to speak
> from out-of-US perspectives on the xmca but also being heard.
Eva - and everyone - when John's comment about Memorial Day first
appeared, I thought of Edouard Lagache (someone whose voice I greatly
appreciated and enjoyed, even when I differed) who - I believe - a couple
of years wrote rather noble passages about the role of France during the
world wars, especially WW I. I don't remember anyone feeling offended by
them, or at least writing to say so.
However, when Naoki responded, I was very startled by the terms
"immature" "strange" and something else, I forget. And I thought, well,
this isn't going to help much. Name calling usually gets everyone upset.
I still keep on wondering about mediate - mediation - joint
construction of meaning -
I keep on on wondering about asking people what they mean when
they write something - this email text is at best a bare-bones outline
-
and each of us as readers brings our own meaning to the text - and
sometimes in our alone-ness - well, things get messed up.
I also wonder - Naoki noted at least four specific sorts of
identity - each constructed by different contexts - and now I'm
wondering the degree of choice we have in using different identies in
different contexts.
Can I with my XMCA identity alway hold at bay my _american_
identity? my _gay_ identity? my identity as _father_? _school teacher_?
_Coloradan_? _San Franciscan_?
I keep on wondering who of me is going to meet you - indeed which
of you, Eva - in Aarhus ...
looking forward to the meeting - decontextualized xmca-er, me.
phillip
phillip white pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu
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A relation of surveillance, defined and regulated,
is inscribed at the heart of the practice of teaching, not
as an additional or adjacent part, but as a mechanism that
is inherent to it and which increases its efficiency.
Michel Foucault / Discipline & Punish
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