At 17.32 -0700 0-03-04, Phillip White scrobe:
> i just have observed that we humans throughout this world have
>difficulties accepting culturally constructed differences. for surely
>differences that make a difference are cultural constructions.
...cultural productions, erected/entrenched thru the repetition of minute
trivialities of everyday practice.
>myopia seems to
>be part of a larger human condition
Yes, Esteban seems to have inspired both of us to point at the same time
(in the time shadow of the server lag) in the direction of the larger human
condition.
>that a kind of myopia seems perhaps
>to be an effect of any activity practice that is also an attempt to create
>a particular sense of community
Well, a community would seem by definition to have an inside and an outside
-- even open communities... so metaphorically "community" would mean
focusing vision mostly at short range while being in, working in, producing
a specific community. I don't know if this necessarily leads to
metaphorical myopia (atrophy of the metaphorical musculature of distance
vision).
But what I have taken from old xmca discussions about
communities-of-practice et al. is that practices MAKE the
community/activity system -- so community will typically NOT involve a
homogeneous set of subjects, but a variety of more or less complementary
subjectivities according to the practiced division of labor within the
community/activity system. Methinks there are many myopias and deafnesses
enacted to keep these subjects in their respective places.
>however, i wonder if the reason Americans are held up as examples of
>failure is because of the............ what ?...
Oh, because of the cultural (re)production of the US as a gravitational
center of military, political, economic powers on the global scale. It
ain't none of your fault, xmca colleagues, but it's the slopes we're all
slippering about on.
Eva
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:20:33 PDT