Then thereís the mental health system. ìHypernormalityÖ[is]Öanother form of deviance."
Tribal behavior. Cultural Studies. Social Interaction. Media Studies.
Conference paper, anyone?
And who knows that song, 'I've got too much time on my hands....'
November 2004 Archives
"...post that stuff about disconnection, rootlessness, and interpersonal/social marginalization and how it works to give cohesion and purpose to the in-group members who need community to understand their own sense of self but also for the outgroup members who live in the interpersonal margins....
For example, if the Judeo-Christian-Buddhist-Muslim death myth is all about
being reuinted with "loved ones" or entering a paradise with others good enough to get into heaven or Valhalla (or wherever the goody two shoes go who kissed God's ass), or returning to earth in another life or form, then why would anyone who has no real connections to others and who lives mainly alone in a life that has become almost unbearable want an afterlife? I would think that those who find life painful at best and unbearable at worst would want what
they "experienced" in the moments of pre-birth, pre-conception, and pre-
consciousness. I would think they would want to feel, see, hear, and experience
nothing. The idea of being insensate (experiencing nothingness) need not
inspire dread if one takes into consideration the day-to-day world of human
contact which creates and exacerbates in the rootless and alienated the "sturm
and drang" inherent in the social acts of cultural navigation and negotiation."
Stephen, it seems to me you're doing just fine with what you call my "non-answers' - you've had plenty to say about them! I appreciate that we can go at each other hard, isn't that your favorite Kenneth Burke phrase - "sparring without parting"?
I honestly don't know what you mean by an answer about my views on "human nature" that you "can use." Use for what? How? Are we even talking about/trying to get to the same thing? My students and I have been talking about how truth becomes "problematic" once one really engages others and has to take into account their perspectives, experience, bases of knowledge...what "truth" do you want to pin down? What kind of knowledge are you trying to generate? Or are you just yanking my chain? :-)
On Nov 28, 2004, at 1:06 PM, Donna Halper wrote:
"...how is it that some people, Burke and Perelman come to mind in addition to Levinas, seem to somehow refuse to give in to despair no matter what was going on around them? I wish I had that optimism-- or that sense of confidence that somehow things will get better..."
Quoting from a recent email from a commgrad:
"...how many times have we read in self-help books or heard from business people that direct communication is key to success? Well, that's not true. Lying, manipulating, and pretending are what are really key to success. How many times have you asked someone you know at work or at school if there's a problem and that person looks at you, smiles, shakes her head and says "Oh, no, everything's fine" when you know damn well that everything is not fine. Is that person simply using tact and discrimination in handling conflict or is she just trying to avoid the possibility of having a discussion in which she has to say things the social environment tells us we can't say (e.g. "I don't like you"; "You get on my nerves"; "I think your opinions are born of ignorance"; "I resent you"; "you turn me off when you talk about..."; "You remind me of someone else I hate," etc.). In fact, the dominant discourse on such "negative" perceptions and feelings insists that it is wrong to feel or think this way and it is especially wrong to communicate these feelings. However, what does covering up these truths really do for our relationships? Are we really better off when we only accentuate the so-called positive in human communication? Is there a way to shift the interpersonal landscape so that backbiting, backstabbing, and gossip become unnecessary? I feel that people backstab because they can't frontstab. Backstabbing is born out of the norms or rules of social interplay, which constitute a type of repression."
My opinion on human nature is that most of us make most of our decisions based on fear. I think we're conflicted about meeting our own needs and those of others; I think our current culture has us deeply, deeply trained to think about ourselves first - hence, anything that threatens - or appears to threaten - the self is a very powerful motivator. I don't think we're EITHER "essentially good" or "essentially bad". I think we are co-constructed (interpellated) into our morality and ethics just like any other "identity."
The challenge of "not rolling over" in the face of a reality that feels almost unbearable to many of us is to take the risk of putting ourselves on the line in ways that invite change. I *want* to be different tomorrow than I am today! If I can engage with others who feel the same, are compelled toward a similar - DIFFERENT! - future, are willing to engage and listen to the other side as we have done with each other in this class...then there might be hope of constructing an ideological narrative or grand myth that shifts the basis of debate away from fear to possibility.
There is no short-term solution, only short-term immediate actions that invoke a long-term solution.
"It's very public, what's happening to her." Oh attention-seeking one, do you recognize yourself here? :-)
What's happened to me in the last six months is also public. 20 pounds is noticeable. My students refrained from critiquing my dress at this level (ill-fitting, baggy, whoknows what adjectives they'd use. skank? Uh oh, THAT's why I don't try to talk street!)
I am LOVING this book, Shoveling Smoke, assigned as the last text in class. A whole new conversation is coming into view for me, a cognitive leap as it were. Love figuring out how dumb I've looked! :-) That's learning for ya; you can only be where you are and know what you know. Onward and upward! (Who says that?)
I'm psyched about the upcoming discussion - Gu Li and....two others (?) will present. And I'm eager to learn what holes Danny can poke in it. He's one of the best at that. :-)
I had to start taking notes when we got to Karl Marx. Did you know he was ìa middle-class guy in debt like everyone else?î Lived beyond his means, couldnít get it together. It was image. Pretense. Reminds me of Donnaís questions about Ö not Benjamin (heís the good guy). Heidegger. The philosopher who was a Nazi. ìLetís not look too much into stuff like that.î
Department politics: We're full of strong hard cutting edge folk shifted to the right. Sleeping Beauty and the AntiChrist. Who do you want to work with? Will they work with you?
Can we manage the coordination of meaning?
ìIts stupid to dismiss someone just because you donít like them.î ìIs it possible my reaction is different than everybody elseís? Is it possible?î
I want the coolish folk - those with some courage and a tad bit of the foolish.
ìSrinivas looks like a tv commercial.î This was said by one of the two women who saved my butt yesterday, Elizabeth or Lynn. I think. I didnít actually see who said it but we were the main three in the kitchen, and it was a womanís voiceÖ
Donal sent out this link to Saila's News of the Week from the University of Helsinki.
"Finnish women donít date" proclaims the headline. Now, why is it that this is framed from an American point-of-view? Eye-catching, certainly. But doesn't it set up the Finnish norm as an "exception" to the "American way"? I say, poop on that! I kinda like the idea of serendipidity...
Balibar again. :-) He's both totally depressing and marvelously inspirational:
"But when, by a structural necessity, the criteria of distinction and triage become violently discriminatoryÖÖ[devastating description of injustice]Ö..We must set the idea of a ëcommunity of citizensí back into motion, in such a way that it should be the result of the contribution of all those who are present and active in the social spaceî (emphasis mine, 2004:50).
this one's for Ben. Innovation in Open Source communities through processes of variation and selection.
Balibar: "a wider framework of rights of representation and participation in public life acquired by birth or by naturalization: that of a ëcommunity of fateí whose limits cannot be determined in advance but are elaborated pragmatically in confrontations between different historically constituted groups whose interests and modes of thought do not converge spontaneously but that are indeed obliged by history to live together and invent the rules of their coexistenceî (2004: 43-44).
International Association of Conference Interpreters
Maybe I want to follow up with these folk too, Multilingual Communication on the Eve of Enlargement, 7th conference hosted by the SCIC (Directorate General on Interpretation) and Universities.
A bunch of documents from Justice and Home Affairs, including the "First European Handbook on Integration of Immigrants" (10/11/2004). BULLSEYE! It's wicked long...87 pages or some such and I can only print "low quality" cuz I don't have a passcode. sigh.
Wending my way through the DG interpretation website. So far, all conference interpreting (no real surprise) but good information and usefu links. Here's some:
I was looking for another link to What the Bleep and I found a link to a review board that looks pretty interesting: OFFOFFOFFfilm. We'll see if they vet my comment through or not. :-)
I was thinking about the two movies, Huckabee's and Bleep, and what it is that makes people react so differently to them. Perhaps, its in the way they "structure" the message? Because I did read essentially the same message in both but they are packaged quite differently.
Huckabee's presents a mainly connected knowing view of the world, and Bleep is almost totally separate knowing.
At least someone is protesting somewhere. Thousands of someones, facing their own government's attempt to repress them (sound like the US? What *will*happen at the inauguration? Will protest be visible?)
Chileans mobilize. "We're not bomb throwers," she said. "We want to confront
APEC, but only in the realm of ideas and paradigms."
~ passed on by Ximena to the social justice listserv.
Much more entertaining and artsy than "What the Bleep", but with a generally complementary message. Many humorous moments. Overall though, it made me feel sad. Not that that's so hard to accomplish these days. :-( Taking the "long view" hasn't made any tangible difference in my day-to-day life.
Oh well. Wah Wah. Dinner was yummy and the company good.
David has been telling me about this movie, Mindwalk for awhile...maybe I can squeeze it in over the "holiday", or even as part of the turkey day feasting...
Its based on the work of physicist Fritjof Capra.
Almost missed it. I'd seen this link to the Blogora recently but hadn't GONE there yet. Thanks to Becky for sending it on. It looks a good un. (One for the rss.)
One of the authors posted a piece on today's Transgender Day of Remembrance which includes some additional links, including this one to Venus Envy, a cartoon blog by a transgender high school student.
(Switching back and forth between Balibar and mullets has complicated my intellectual experience this afternoon.)
Labeled one of the "extremes," Balibar marks the boundaries of possible identity- construction:
also known as a "Lady Bucks cut" (see the original comment). I don't know if this site lives up to my friend's claim of elucidating social meaning: they boil it down to aggressiveness. :-( Most of the people at the following site do not exactly appear as prime, representative specimens of the human race. Is that the point?
Now, Balibar has gone and said it beautifully:
ìI think that lessons are always taught reciprocally or, better said, are drawn from the confrontation and subsequent relativization of oneís experience with the diversity of the worldî (2004: xi).
Welcome to democracy 101! I finally get it. Ok, yes, I feel a little bit like, duh. How many times has Stephen gone over this? :-) Balibar, however, makes it plain enough even for me, or perhaps its simply a matter of receptivity and timing. Maybe this time it will stick:
"two notions of the people: that which the Greek language and following it all political philosophy calls ethnos, the ëpeopleí as an imagined community of membership and filiation, and demos, the ëpeopleí as the collective subject of representation, decision making, and rights. It is absolutely crucial to understand the power of this double-faced construction ñ its historical necessity, to some degree ñ and to understand its contingency, its existence relative to certain conditionsî (2004:8).
We had a great class today. I was thinking about my friend Matt's puzzlement at how I "teach" - what is it that I'm "doing" when you are working on a project in class that doesn't require me to be in the room with you? What I think I'm doing is creating space for student learning. :-) Am I delusional?
I'm writing this with an intended audience in my mind: "my" (!) students (they're becoming co-researchers, so the possessive sounds more awkward even than usual).
"...she has gone to her desk before daybreak, a habit begun as a way to give form to her suddenly nebulous days. Sleepless with the unknown, scenes from her marriage unreeling like a nightmare movie in her head, she needed a defense to stave off the creep of her misery."
So, Benjamin sees me today and asks, Do you call your hairstyle a mullet? I say, other people do, so I kinda go along with it. He said he'd just learned about it as a hockey symbol, that the Montreal Canadians all, at one time, had this short-on-the-top, long-in-the-back look. He said a few other things too which I hope he'll clarify here as I was rushing to teach and wasn't able to absorb everything in that moment....
"I dunno what your mother did to you..." !!
:-)
So said one of my classmates after I gave some feedback on her proposal. It was a compliment - I was able to say something about two of my peers' work today that got the class into discussions that clarified something important in their projects. They said nice things to me. :-) It was a good day for me to get some recognition. :-)
"The inside and the outside world function as highly open Systems that have intense transactional relationships. The self, as a highly contextual phenomenon, is bound to cultural and institutional constraints. Dominance relations are not only present in the outside world but, by the intensive transactions between the two, organize also the inside world . . . the possible array of imaginal positions becomes not only organized but also restricted by the process of institutionalization . . . some positions are strongly developed, whereas others are suppressed or even disassociated."
~ Mikhail Bakhtin. Applied in this review of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. The first paragraph sums up how I'm feeling:
I had two anecdotes shared with me today about mullets - one about the Lady Buckeyes who all shared the same hairstyle (!) and another one from a student whose....cousin?....has a haircut "exactly" like mine but "doesn't have a gay bone in her body". :-)
It's encouraging that there actually ARE other women out there with this haircut. Tina had mentioned that she normally thinks of men having this kind of haircut, and I'd replied that I think that's part of the reaction people have, that it is a haircut that seems to be associated with men.
And, as both my "informants" (!) today shared, it isn't necessarily a sign of any particular sexual orientation. Gosh. You mean there's actually variety?
:-)
Well, I'm going to use the rant against the south as my explicit text, am still looking for an implicit one. Meanwhile, some blogs that discuss FTS.com and may be of future/further interest:
the liberal reality-based avenger" who is based in China.
StumbleUpon, a community tool that acts as a search engine of sites recommended by "friends and peers" and perhaps not accessible via Google. Hmmm!
Hunju has pulled together the 2nd UMass Korean Film Festival which begins tomorrow night in the Campus Center and continues for three nights only.
Catch 'em while you can!
This project with the 6th graders at Hannah's school is winding down. Today we viewed a scene from The Iron Giant when the Giant figures out how to actually stop his own automatic defensive reactions and make an active choice to de-escalate a conflict by caring enough about the other person, in this case the boy, Hogarth, who has befriended him and taught him "how to be kind" (as one of the students said today).
So, I've been thinking about this more since Gabi asked if it was a "feedback wrapping" (per the interpersonal communication curriculum utilizing Seashore, et al). I don't think it was just my wrapping. I think folks might have recognized their own reactions, at least some of them. Today, while I was sharing some of this "story" with Uncle Sam, I again characterized it as "funny", and we did laugh together. David shared that he'd had a similar, somewhat taken-aback (?) reaction upon meeting me for the first time. It is funny, on one level, that we (people? in a universal sense?) are so sensitive to first impressions and... maybe the laughter is a self-laughter that also protects us from recognizing how strongly these first impressions (especially of difference) may affect our willingness to learn about/try to understand someone else? I dunno. I'm reaching....trying to understand....I don't think the laughter is a "bad" thing. It definitely protects me from some pain, but it also...opens communication? Maybe if we share the laughter together, we somehow "own" or acknowledge a connection, a similarity?
I always thought this was a "Sam-ism" but he says its Winnie the Pooh. :-) He said it in response to the most boring part of our conversation today - how people have become less known by their "job" and more by their "career". My pal David and I were there for nearly two hours! We had to roust Sam out of bed and his Alaskan/nun clothes. :-) He was sick yesterday, threw up, but "felt better afterwards". He also said that I have to write that he felt better because we visited. :-)
Two bits of happy news:
I got referenced! ;-) It's the first (and only, smile) time that I know about, but Deborah M. Davidson, author of the cover article for the current VIEWS, cites me! Whoopee yahoooooo! Somebody reads me! :-)
And, a different piece that I wrote for the VIEWS will be republished in the UK Interpreters' Magazine, Newsli. It's a much better piece now, slightly revised, because Austin W. Andrews went to all the trouble of hunting me down after it was first published because part of it was decidedly unclear to someone who wasn't "there" at the event I wrote about. With his questions and comments, it's all spruced-up and ready to go. This, I like. :-)
A friend just nudged me to look up an old favorite quote:
"The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens."
In my currently labile mood, Rilke speaks volumes.
an updated version to the First International Conference on Qualitative Research. Jung Yup shared the call, and I notice the first theme is autoethnography and performance. It occurs to me that this weblog in toto is a form of autoethnography....not to mention some of the specific categories and uses to which I've put it, most specifically with my interpersonal comm classes...
Other themes are relevant to me as well: critical ethnography as performance, critical pedagogy, democratic methodologies, discourse analysis, decolonizing the academy (!)...indeed, this is just a sample!
Here's some info on election results that show its not ALL going to pieces:
Bright Spots by Evan Derkacs, Alternet
and more promising results not mentioned in the above article.
~ Thanks Camille!
One person (thanks Nadine!) approached me after the panel on Saturday saying she'd like to know how things turn out. I don't know, yet, but I'm mapping a possible path....
The overall audience response was ... remarkable, now that I stop to think about it.
David sends this link, as a response to the link shared earlier. Evidence that cultural combat continues.
Well, I suppose it was worth the trip. The highlight might have been Hunju trying to leave our hotel room through the bathroom door - twice! And other social gaffes and moments of humor. I'm 300 emails behind, not to mention papers and reading and...you know the drill!
Was bummed to miss Danny's presentation yesterday, not to mention both of Kirstin's. Saw Emily briefly yesterday morning - did you know she's scored the very last presentation slot 3/5 times? She's probably getting ready to go right about now. Hope someone shows up!
Raz and I head out in about an hour; we'll squeeze in Iris' presentation and then catch the shuttle. After the debacle on the subway last night (!) we decided to play it safe and let a Chicagoan navigate for us. :-)
Despite being mislead by our erstwhile guide (ahem), we arrived at an Ethiopian restaurant way way way up on the north side and had an absolutely delicious meal. I was able to waylay a new "victim" to listen to me carry on about problematic moments - grin - and much laughter was shared by all. Not to mention a bit of department gossip - gasp!
I had to wedge myself in between bodies at the door to hear Hunju's presentation!
Now I'm at a workshop on displacement and "bringing the lived experience into globalization".....will bail early to go see Kennaria.
Raz had himself another European morning. I enjoyed it yesterday but am really glad I drug myself up today to go to this panel on all the problems with North American communication theory. Iím gonna have to join the intercultural and international division of NCA.
Saw Lynn; she was jazzed up, jotting down fieldnotes (!) from a conversation sheíd just had with someone who (if I remember right) was at her panel yesterday. Joanna, Olga and I had a great talk about theory and practice, not to mention merging the macro and the micro. Joanna shared with me Vernonís sense that such a merger is the task of our generation. :-) Well (!) ñ letís get it on!
Am gonna follow-up with Alexa Dare. Intriguing presentation on post-development discourse in which sheís using a Butler-Freire merger between performativity and dialogue to posit the possibility of social change in moments of repeatabilityÖnow, Iím off to join Max who is lingering in the hall trying to listen to two panels at the same time. Iím gonna hear the great HUNJU (who now knows, by the way, that I drank her contacts this morning).
that I almost drank her contact lenses this morning! Actually, I did. :-( Luckily, I felt one of them hit my lip and was able to retrieve the other one from the sink where I had dumped the remnants of (what I thought was) the water I had last night before Hunju returned from her presentation prep.
THEN, Raz, ever the gentleman, offered to set his phone alarm instead of me using a wake up call. Fine. Except the turd got me up at 5:30 instead of 6:30! Of course I didn't realize this until I'd already been up for an hour. Retribution for the "aberration" is forthcoming!
Weeeeeeell, here we are at NCA. After an uneventful flight and a loooong van ride to the hotel out in the boondocks where the wisest of the wise found a "reasonable" rate, I was disappointed that threats of "accidental petting" or even "drooling" didn't occur while sharing a bed last night with the questionable character who shadowed me in to the hotel.
The windy city it is. While our peers present away...Lori yesterday (long before we arrived), Matt & Bryan today (competing with Raz, who I'm already committed to go see, darn), and rumor has it Olga and Lynn are also presenting at that time. Double darn! I think the department *ought* to produce and share a list of not only current students but also alumni who are presenting. Maybe it's my penchant for "groupness". (Don't GROAN!) :-) What about a little COM Dept spirit? It won't be long before we might only see each other at conferences like this....
Sam was awafully cozy with me yesterday. :-) A bit more touchy than usual (with me, anyway). It was quite sweet and made me feel good.
Paul showed up about 5 minutes after I had arrived and regaled us with stories about seasickness (Karen's success with a patch, Bob's fishing expedition in which he alternated catching fish with puking - poor guy!). The impetus for these stories was the patch Sam's wearing behind his ear - which he told me about before and now I'm a bit unclear about but I think it was for dizziness. (If someone knows please say so, and don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong!)
Haven't been able to access my site for t he past 36 hours or so. Finally this morning it went through - a problem with my ISP, apparently, but I had friends teasing me about the FBI confiscating my hard drive. I could only wish to be so influential a target! :-)
Greg Palast
November 04, 2004
Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided-known as "spoilage" in election jargon-because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Palast's investigation suggests that if Ohio's discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, Ýthe Cleveland Plain DealerÝreportsÝthere are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots.
Kerry won. Here's the facts.
"A NASA photo expert's analysis makes it clear: Bush is lying -- he wore some kind of device in each of the three debates. So why won't the media go near this story?" ~ passed on by Yasser.
50% of us showed up today, although there have always only been 7 in our face-to-face social gatherings. Two miscreants said they'd come and didn't (for shame!) and one has apparently abandoned us forever. (Hell no I ain't gonna let it go!) ;-)
All I can say is, Todd for President!! Not only did he perform an inspirational counter-Bush rhetoric and proclaim moderate Republicans as his new heroes, he used his old money to treat us all to breakfast! Buy my influence anytime dude, anytime! :-)
Mostly we just caught up on news, although there was ONE bit of gossip about someone who has a new boyfriend. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Hey! No one told ME it was a deep dark secret! The only other secret is that Todd has forgotten how to be a grad student. Fatherhood has gone to his head. He spent some time in the library impersonating other students, trying to get into the swing of things.
Stephen, I was trying to find a definition of "the political" online and failed. Was this concept articulated by Mouffe or someone else? I'm remembering Shannon challenging you on this count in class....
Sidenote (for moi): In trying to find a definition of "the political" online, I came across this description of LaClaus & Mouffe's Discourse Analysis which looks quite important to me. :-) And this one by Mouffe on Wittgenstien (we have one similar for DRP but I don't think its the same).
Heavens to Betsy but did we have a genuine Problematic Moment tonight! It was great. :-) Nothing like junk poetry, wine, and a bunch of grad students carrying on about the meaning of it all. :-)
In addition to grousing about the election results, there was a fair amount of humor in class last night. (And I like it that now I'm being directed what to record for the blog!) :-)
Donna was on a roll with witty characterizations and good humor. The joke that won the day had to do with her desire to see "an Orthodox Jewish player in Hasidic clothing who wins the game and then says to the media, 'Oy, I am so glad I dahvened (prayed) before the game! And now that we won, thank G-d, I am gonna go out and buy everybody bagels and lox!'"
We read a piece on Franz Fanon by Robert Stam for class tonight. It grabbed my attention more than the other articles in this reader, Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality, and Transnational Media, because it describes applications of psychoanalysis deployed by Fanon. It also brings to mind the way we are being taught to pick apart and critique academics - Fanon is accused of a gender bias and homophobia. One day (we hope!), we will be the subjects of such scrutiny. It continues to challenge and puzzle me about how we can prepare each other against future exposures by addressing and dealing with the evidence of such oversights (which I conceive of as typically unintended)
Not sure who compiled this list; it came to me via Barbara Love on the social justice listserv (UMass). It includes prominent democrats, republicans, and pundits/preachers":
Now that I'm becoming a Jon Stewart watcher (!), last night he said it was the first time he really "got" the culture wars. It really is about developing a system that can accommodate difference - the most radical alterity - those whose vision of what human culture ought to be is different than ours - the red states.
I want to disagree with Stephen's reactive insistence that we have to resort to the rhetoric of fear in order to sway those still "reachable" through various forms of communication. I want to contest his pronouncement, "Democracy is not possible." (Viveca's retort, "What about rhetoric and performance?" was a gem.) :-)
It was a grim day in the COM dept, lots of long faces and low energy. A few folks raged. Some shared diversions and jokes. Some went for beer at noon.
Sam was just wrapping up a newsletter meeting when I arrived today. The new issue has a quote in it from George Eliot that I really like:
"It's never too late to be who you might have been."
