Re: [xmca] Ingold linking "figments" of imagination and "figments" of materiality as a single ontology

[Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>]

Thanks for sharing this wonderful treasure Larry!

           It is interesting ( and perhaps instructive) to imagine the
polar opposite of Ingold's
view of imagination. For example in Newspeak, “all ambiguities and shades
of meaning” (Orwell, 1949, p. 304) are purged from languages so that one
word conveys one rigidly defined thought. Freedom for example, could only
mean one thing. The result is that thinking in metaphor becomes less and
less possible.  Orwell gives an example of this one dimensional aspect of
freedom in Newspeak by saying that “The dog is free of lice” (ibid.).  You
don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see the trends toward Newspeak in
standardized thinking, standardized tests and test preparation materials
that comprise what  Herbert Kliebard calls a "curriculum of
followership"(1995,p. 95).

Robert





On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 8:57 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Mike [and others who enjoy Ingold's writings]
>
> I'm reading his article "Ways of Mind -walking Reading Writing Painting"
> [see attached article if interested]
>
> I love the way he writes and links up concepts and images into "fertile"
> generative perspectives [as real]
>
> Page 16 & 17 describe how he "developed" the ideas for this article through
> "accidental" encounters that were linked into coherence. This descriptive
> journey of "mind" is in itself worth the effort of reading the article.
>
> However, I want to introduce the BIG question Ingold asks in this article.
> He writes on page 16
>
> "The question of the RELATION between the observation of marks and traces
> inscribed or impressed in surfaces in the WORLD and the imagining that is
> carried on, as it were, on the hither side of eyesight, 'in the mind'.
> Reading and writing surely involve the exercise of both eye and mind, and
> the same must be true of walking. Is it possible, then, to find a way of
> describing the imaginative activity that goes on as one walks, reads or
> writes, without having to SUPPOSE that it involves the perusal of images?
> Perhaps it is the very notion of the image that has to be rethought away
> from the idea that images represent, ON ANOTHER PLANE, the forms of things
> IN THE WORLD, to the idea that they are PLACE-HOLDERS for these things
> which travellers watch out for, and from which they TAKE THEIR DIRECTION.
> Could it be that images do NOT stand FOR things, but rather help you FIND
> things?"
>
> This is a BIG question, worth asking.  The fundamental question, Are
> aesthetically produced objects productions or compositions OF things in the
> world, or are they LIKE things in the world in the sense that we have to
> FIND OUR WAY through and among them as wayfarers dwelling in the world.
> Ingold says he has NO FINAL ANSWERS to this big question, but as an
> anthropologist the way he approaches the question is through an analysis of
> the answers that people of radically different life experiences have come
> up with. In other words Ingold accepts the EXCESS and "ambiguity" at the
> center of his inquiries into the big question.
>
>  Ingold, [like Zygmunt Bauman] engages with metaphors as a fundamental tool
> for exploring the place of the imaginal within the world.  Not as two
> separate realities or ontologies but as a single ontology. Ingold
> definitely thinks outside the frames of received knowledge.
>
> In a simple phrase the question becomes, Is it "true" that imagination IS
> reality???
>
> Hope you enjoy the article.
>
> Larry
>
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-- 
*Robert Lake  Ed.D.
*Assistant Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-5125
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA  30460

 *Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
midwife.*
*-*John Dewey.
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