linking...

Tragic Rhetorical Response:

Or, instead of accusing (part of a blame ritual) the professors for ìtraining grad studentsîólike the dogs you are. Wait, scratch that; I admire dogs for their ingenuity!óìwith a skill set that can pretty much only reduplicate the entire dehumanizing system of academia,î you just might actually think about doing the work of correlating ideas yourself and bringing them into conversation. What an interesting concept, no? What ifówait, epiphany!óTHAT were the point of an active intellectual life? And then the time grad students spent complaining could be time spent synthesizing. Or to put it another way, itís hard to train foxes when itís a class full of hedgehogs.

Comic Rhetorical Response:

Weíve all been there, Steph. Thereís a more charitable read of both the professors and the graduate students that seems missing, namely the creation of linkages given that life is too short to read everything. Much of graduate school, and indeed a professorship, is mercenary. Recall the old academic joke: ìDid you reach such-and-such-a-book?î ìRead it? I havenít even TAUGHT it yet.î Being human, all professors come from different personal trajectories and intellectual curiosities. I was interested in myth and language. It led me to try Classical Studies, then Folklore, then Communication and Culture. When I teach a class on rhetoric, I have in my head connections between Cicero, Sibundoy Indian proverbs, and Judith Butler. Let me tell you: it ainít an easy thing to make room in my head for all of those things. Itís even more difficult to forge a connection between them. But doing that is what I love. And rather than treat it as if I were ìfilling in the gapsî that my professors missed, I see it as contributing to the good work they accomplished. Or as Mark Twain said:

When I was fourteen I was embarrassed at how ignorant my father was. When I was twenty-one I was amazed to see how much he had learned.

I was going to respond to
the intellectual question outlined above in a witty, pithy, and wise manner that would satisfactorily shore up this debate, forever. then i made the mistake of clicking on the link to "bifurcated," and ive been projectile vomiting ever since. if anyone reading this has split their penis(es?), be it for "pleasurable or decorative reasons," i really think youre taking the concept of phallocentrism to unprecedented and, frankly, unnecessary lengths.

I should have added something about "divide and conquer" to the last line of my previous response. Damnit!

So for the last five minutes i've been feeling a little guilty about being flippant. i'm interested in steph's statement that as academics we "distance ourselves from power." this, as far as i can tell, is roughly aligned with the idea that academics seek shelter in the ivory tower, and don't care to muddy their hands with "real world" issues. and then the next logical step is the contention from the Right that universities teach students unnecessary or frivolous things that will be of no use to them in the "real world" (duggan addresses this powerfully in her chapter on the SUNY sexuality conference controversy--ive been entertaining fantasies of how i'd respond to mike wallace if i was SUNY faculty at the time. and of course i offer him a witty, pithy, and wise response that shores up the debate, again, forever.) anyway, i think its all nonsense, and falls into what stephen wrote about the importance of drawing connections between seemingly disparate or even arcane bits of knowledge. as an academic, i think the most effective thing i can do to create change is not write scholarly essays, but take the ideas i generate in those essays and help students understand how there ARE real world implications to things like critical theory. if you can make an undergrad see the parallels between poststructuralism and, say, advertising, and then analyze how these things shape their lived experiences with each other and themselves, and make clear how politcal life is inextricable from social life, i'd argue youve done more effective work than a protestor spitting on an SUV or a passing republican. again, i don't mean to be flippant, but i think we need not disregard the work of the academy, cause god knows the public tends to.

ok, I admit, the bifurcated link might have been a bit much, but in the spirit of irony it was a hell of lot more entertaining than the "bifurcation map" I was considering instead!

I am misread if the interpretation is that I'm completely dissing the academy. Sorry - too selfish for that! Why would I be here if I didn't think it, as in "we", matter? Of course we do. But valorizing the effectiveness of our teaching, or assuming that naming a gap is a complaint instead of the recognition of a link, are different takes on the same side of the coin. All of my professors have helped me to see connections between seemingly disparate things. My critique (and perhaps it is old and tired to some, but imagine we are on different trajectories, and there isn't just one solution) isn't directed at individual professors (or students), its directed at an institutional set-up in which no structure exists for what I'll call "synchronous" connections and linkages to occur. Yes, in traditional academic fashion we can each work solo on our papers and presentations, integrate whatever feedback we can elicit, and throw ourselves at the world.

But if we're talking about things like producing grand narratives, establishing a think tank, practicing democracy or redistributive politics or WhatEver change we'd like to see enacted socially....that means we need a group. And we need a structure that supports the formation and maintenance of said group. I have been arguing that there is a natural "group" constituted by the membership of the department (faculty, students, and staff) and - it just seems obvious to me, so feel free to whale away at my presumption(s) - if some combination of the various
"constituences" or "subgroups" or whatever PC or ironic label we devise to recognize the fact that there are divisions in the department which work against our (let me sound new age-y) full potential - if we actually put our heads together with the amazing trajectories of knowledge and curiousities we collectively embody, we might be able to generate institutional power that has a societal ripple effect. Which isn't to discount whatever individual impact we may have on students, but it takes a hell of a long time for individual effects to accrue into a power bloc...POWER comes from people acting together.

I agree with much of what stephen says but also feel that Steph is (partially?) right in saying that we become specialists at being intellectuals--even if we consider ourselves to be interdiscplinary or whatnot.

it's not just the mediator in me. . . I hope. I do think that we read across and between the lines, whether for ourselves or in view of broadening our scope. Yet, I agree that we are often immersed in the pedagogy of that often complicated perspective on a complex (e.g. class-race-sexuality-nation-religion, etc.) phenomenon. How do we teach what we know? how does that knowledge take on an "acceptable" form in order to even be processed? It gets complicated--and still, the linkages are what makes it all make sense. here is where i agree with stepehn (okay, and dewey, perhaps). . . it is at the points where we bring into the conversation our disparate experiences that open up the gaps and push us toward something else. None of us can provide that on our own (not even KB)--we need the conversation.

Along those lines, I have always been saddened by the fact that so few of us faculty read each other's work. I (lots of back patting going on here) have always tried to do that--and for that reason i tend see connections (e.f. between my work and Lisa's) where others' don't. . . I don't berate people for this--but there is a hierarchy of shcolarship. Much better to comment on Bourdieu than to admit you have read (gasp) a fellow colleague's work.

okay--the wine's talking now--doesn't take much. . . hope some of this makes sense.

leda

Quick reply: I couldnít disagree more strongly with the equation that to ìpractice democracyî we need a group. (I defer as to whether a group is necessary for producing grand narratives, think tanks, or redistributive politics, though my instincts doubt its, too.) What we need to practice democracy is a public, not a group. Groups can be just as private, just as elitist, and just as fascistic as individuals, especially if the group is nothing more than a gathering of individuals. Again, my issue here is with the psychologizing of the political I see in many of your posts, Steph. And I donít mean to sound like Habermas or even Arendt, but what matters for democracy is the constitution of a public and counter-publics.

Hereís my gut problem with groups, and with group psychology: in my reading of them, they are usually predicated on shared qualities rather than differential qualities. A healthy public operates in precisely the opposite manner. So too do many groups exist out of what Aristotle would call necessity or utility rather than character; e.g., people are thrown together in the same time and same space, but have no ethical or political connections and disconnections to commit themselves to collective action and recognition. So the idea of a ìnatural groupî constituted by mere membership in the department not only disagrees with me intellectually, but actually creeps me out. Remember, Iím a curmudgeon who just happens to appreciate democracy. For me, my time is best spent with a few friends and dogs, not as a member of any presumed natural grouping. Ask me to join a club, and Iíll refuse, because I donít want my private life colonized by yet more obligations to other private individuals. Ask me to come and participate as a citizen in a public forum and conversation, and Iím there.

What you indict in the university experience, Steph, I sometimes appreciate, namely the structure that prevents group action. Yes, the alienation can be haunting, but lord knows I have enough meetings to go to already; you want me in more of them just for the sake of some abstract power that comes from acting together? Bottom line: You havenít sold this idea to me yet. I can be persuadedóI want to be persuaded. And I appreciate Ledaís re-reading of your point that we need conversation and opportunities to share ideas (and would note that Leda has always been willing to read my work). But this whole talk of ìgroupsî makes me very uneasy. I suspect youíre trying to share your expertise in asserting this, Steph, but remember the immortal words of the great Marx: I wouldnít want to join any club that would want me as a member.

Universities are no more or no less opportunities to practice the constitution of a public than any other aspect of the systems world. If you want to address the lack of opportunities, then, Iím begging you to abandon the language and psychology of the group (the whole specter of it makes me think like weíre a bunch of hairy primates standing curious in front of some black obelisk) and show favor to the rhetoric of the public, counter-publics, and the political. Or at least provide us with mouse-ears or secret decoder rings or something for joining up.

I'll respectfully bow out of this debate after this reply, as i'm as new as can be to this department and do not yet have a sense of the divisions you speak of. i also come from an english department where the divisions were as distinct and openly hostile as a high school cafeteria (i was a "theory jockey," i.e. a michael ryan acolyte in dept parlance.) i literally used to think lodge and hynes novels seemed rather understated. so in comparison this dept seems quite civil, as of yet.
i hope i dont bring the level of discourse down with my relatively informal offerings, but you can always take me as a case study and do with it what you will. i'll swallow my pride and insecurity, just this once. i think the most productive part of my inclusion in this dept so far has been the profound sense of confusion and at times alienation that its bred. i cant imagine myself, or my cohort, ever being able to agree enough to form a politcally cohesive group. in fact,most of us argue viciously almost daily, and i think thats healthy, if a bit socially inconvenient. my kneejerk reaction is to assume people who dont agree with me have been indoctrinated into a viewpoint based on disciplinary "skill sets" (to use steph's term) that i feel are limited in their scope and divisive by nature. then i writhe in bed and worry that i'm the one who is limited, and send chains of emails (as steph can attest) retracting and re-instating whatever i had espoused with total conviction just minutes before. ultimately, i tend to think i'm right, of course, but theres is something distinctly productive going on in the process. i also have a generally negative view on humanity and our natural inclination (i think) towards self-serving, brutal, and decidedly non-democratic ends. i suppose i should (and i do) examine that in light of my own lived experience, etc etc, but at the end of the day i'm still going to have to agree with stephen that dogs are our most amenable company (happy servitude? oh, the political implications...) in any case, i just dont think group formation is possible or necessarily advantageous. but then again, i'll probably feel differently in about 10 minutes, which is probably the best argument there is for enlightened chaos...
wine's talking for me too, god bless it. im going to bed to worry for a few hours...

Brett, you should feel no reason to bow out of this discussion due to relative newness to the department, and if you do opt to bow out you should certainly not do so respectfully. I agree: Our department (UMass Communication) is one of the most civil Iíve ever been a part of in a very long chain. Civil war broke out at Indiana just after I left; my dissertation was literally the only one that could claim to have been written at a time when the commitment to crossing intellectual topoi was still a visionary promise and not a liability. We are remarkably civil around here, and remarkably supportive, and remarkably willing to provide opportunities for dissent, trouble-making, and practical jokesóif people know where to look.

I see several similarities in your and mine lines of thinking (e.g., generally negative view of humanity; emphasis on indulgences; emphasis on drawing connections for undergraduates between high theory and everyday life; suspicion of group formation). I trust we will find ample places where we differ as well; in the brief conversation we had when I visited Ledaís class, for example, you raised the question about the democratic and our own cultureís role in securing it (speaking as a fellow Krameresque egalitarian) that might be a profitable conversation to invite others into. So I hope you donít bow out.

And when you meant ìhappy servitudeî in reference to dogs, you did me OUR servitude to THEM, yes? They are the most duplicitous species on the planet, preying on our wide range of primate emotions to accomplish a most delightfully robust existence, and it for that utter and unabashed act of manipulation that I admire them. Since I am wont to end these latest emails with quotes, I sign off here with Helen Hayes, who also says something about the kind of people I most enjoy as well:

When I hear tell of the character and the loyalty and devotion of dogs, I remain unmoved.
All of my dogs have been scamps and thieves and troublemakers, and Iíve adored them all.

Now we're talking! :-) Distinguishing between a group and a public...ok, I can see a distinction that helps me make sense of some of the ways I've felt misread. But I don't think publics materialize in the absence of groups advocating for the institutionalized structures that hold publics together. We have only to look to the concerted and coordinated action of the neoliberals for proof.

I'd be worried if the notion of a natural group didn't creep people out - the group notion allows consideration of the irrational, which academia does its damnedest to suppress, repress, ignore, avoid (shall I go on?!)....we become sophisticated at poking fun at ourselves and our idiosyncracies, but don't want to investigate the ramifications of them in social terms because of all of those horrific experiences we've all had. I concur, wholeheartedly, that this department is amazingly civil and respectful - how else could I even dare attempt this? I've been supported over the years to take the risk of trying to assert some of what I *think* I know (!) and haven't yet been punished too badly for it. (fingers crossed!)

a couple of thoughts:

- why hasn't neoliberalism become a negative term in public (electoral) debates? Part of a new grand narrative might be to educate publics about this, which would require a rhetorical reversal along the lines of other discursive switches in political history, yes? Because "liberalism" has been demonized, it's like a preemptive strike against neoliberalism: this needs to be countered.

- I wonder if the generally negative view of humans as thuggish, selfish, etc is "code" for irrational? Or vice versa. :-) Maybe we're talking about the same thing....?

- I woke up thinking about epistemology, and the basic difference of "separate" and "connected" knowing articulated by feminist theorists (Clinchy, Women's Ways of Knowing). I'd say the discussion here started out very "separate" - aggressive, prove it to me, look at all these holes. I was thinking, what a great way to make sure this discussion stays limited! Make it hostile enough and who would WANT to join in? But, to prove the overall civility and competence of our department, all kinds of connections have just been made....the flux between these modes may be what I miss (and am complaining about) the most. I agree that it would be too cultish to be "connected" all the time, yet operating predominately in the "separate" mode has pitfalls as well.

Stephen: "Ask me to join a club, and Iíll refuse, because I donít want my private life colonized by yet more obligations to other private individuals. Ask me to come and participate as a citizen in a public forum and conversation, and Iím there."

Steph: "But I don't think publics materialize in the absence of groups advocating for the institutionalized structures that hold publics together."

Coupla comments: at my HCC class last week, some students talked about the community they feel when they attend Catholic mass. My mom just joined a "renegade" Catholic church in her area, and she is now enjoying the community she feels there.

Groups, or communities of people, are not to be feared per se, but understood. Groups can employ democratic practices (or not). Groups can lead to coalitions with other groups to advocate together for a wider good. Once we dismiss groups as a creepy thing, we avoid thinking about the complex ways people like to use groups. (which we have ignored since we only looked at ways they used us).

Democracy, in part, entails the obligations others make on you to do your part for the community as a whole. And there are ways that being in a group help you get your actions as a citizen accomplished. Not entirely necessary, but it helps.

How do you get to a public? Is it not through groups first? Interest-based groups can have internal disagreements, and they can also find points of commonality with other groups when a shared goal is in view (only to go back to fighting a few months later).

Steph, you ìwoke up this morning thinking about epistemologyî? Thereís your problem, right there. I woke up this morning thinking how tired I am of this semester and wondering if the dogs were going to let me sleep in a little more.

Speaking as a contrarian, I have to ask why you insist that we move from separate knowledge to connected knowledge. I donít agree with the necessity or seeming virtue of the transformation from an aggressive, prove-it-to-me discussion towards something more charitable and welcoming, as if the latter were automatically preferable. And yet again, I see in this call a distinction between a psychological versus a rhetorical mode of interaction. Does not the psychological seek a pre-determined condition of wellness, of connectedness, of maturity? A rhetorical, rather, only asks that we not kill each other. I donít mean to be flippantóIíll let Brett do that for usóbut I do mean to point out that I canít read your posts without always seeing a telos lurking ahead, and one that I will not agree with because it seems conditioned on your interpretation of what is beneficial for a common good. That might make you a good interventionist, but not necessarily open possibilities for public judgment. To put it bluntly, I think you stack the deck in favor of your sincere desire to help the world on your own terms. While I appreciate that, and suffer the same entrapments of ego, I also want to escape a psychological legacy that locates the definition of health within the control of the analyst.

And I completely disagree (again) that groups are a precondition necessary for advocating the structures to materialize a public. Publics are constituted through acts of rhetoric, in which individuals heed an invitation to identify with, dissent from, or negotiate certain attitudes, performances, actions, judgments, etc. Why this requires a prior convocation still is unclear to me, although in an era predicated on ìcoalitions of the willing,î perhaps I am missing the new way politics is done. If so, consider me part of a coalition of the unwilling.

Youíre quite charitable if you replace my concern that humans are ìthuggishî with ìirrational.î Irrationality I appreciate; thuggery I fear, because it is violent. The ìvirtuesî of neoliberalism lie precisely in its advocacy and apology for violence, and hence it is not likely ever to be turned into a negative, while it so feeds the species. I agree that we can educate / socialize to a different ideology, but not easily.

I have to say my waking thoughts were definitely along the lines of how do I get through the day...

Going way back in the conversation, I just wanted to add that I hated my mother until I became one. I don't mean to be trite but it has given me a different outlook on life....

For some time now, I've wanted to contest the idea of coming up with a Grand Narrative, hasn't that been done? A la Marx, the religious right, etc. It seems to be only capable of violence (no offense to Jesus or Marx.)

Postmodern politics say we don't need a grand narrative but networking and alliances. So, as for myself, I feel rhetorically constituted and identify in a variey of counterpublics and act through them as often as possible. Which means that the Comm Department is one sphere for me but wouldn't be where I would put all of my energy and time. (ie. all of my incompletes, oops that's the 'too comic' frame!)

Regarding neoliberalism, there are some great protests and alternative discourses/counterpublics being generated in Latin America (see article "Southern Democrats" at Alternet.com, which touches briefly on this.) Also incredibly inspirational are the performances in Argentina right now. Did anyone go see the group that was here not long ago at UMass? (I will try and get their name, if interested.) Actually in 1996, when I was in El Salvador, I brought home a copy of a popular education book about neoliberalism. It is of course the dominant paradigm of both dems and repubs in the U.S. so therein lies part of the problem. If the supposed left and right are pro neoliberalism, fostering counterpublics is a little more challenging in our two party system--And we really are more two-party than ever. Did everyone know that the Greens and Libertarians are no longer state parties in MA?

Also, to Bryan and Becky thanks for the Democracy in Vermont article. This is why I still contend that Bryan is a Green! These are green politics! Again, not perhaps of the dominant greens in large corporate NGO's but of my Greens, definitely. You might also like Wendall Berry.

Lastly, I have become an ardent fan of Alternet (thanks to whoever mentioned them.) Over the weekend, there were two very interesting (short) articles. One proclaimed that the relgious right were all powerful ("Battlefield Earth" by Moyers) and the other that it really isn't them so much as White voters in general ("The White Elephant in the Room". They would be good articles to incorporate in the discussion but I don't know if people have time. I will leave the other article and both of these in Stephen's box tomorrow. I don't really expect people to have time now but they might be of interest later.

Best to all,
Camille
ps. anyone up for the Leigh movie tomorrow at 6!?!? Scott and Shannon give it big thumbs up and I need to destress!!!

O lord.

Stephen: "And I completely disagree (again) that groups are a precondition necessary for advocating the structures to materialize a public."

That's not what I wrote. Advocating the structures to materialize a public? I don't understand. I am not being a jerk here, I really don't understand that. Be kind if you think I should. I'll do the same for you. ;-)

"Publics are constituted through acts of rhetoric, in which individuals heed an invitation to identify with, dissent from, or negotiate certain attitudes, performances, actions, judgments, etc."

You start from "individuals".... ok I'll play that game for a bit: Let's say Joan invites new-to-town Cate to a political action group meeting. If Cate accepts, she will join a pre-existing group and signal her alignment with their motives and actions.

The political action group has shared names, and bodies, to contribute money, to go to a meeting of the School Committee, to pack the polls (or the town meeting), to contribute time, to talk with others, to write letters, to stand & wave at the prime sign-holding spots, when they feel called to action, or when they call themselves to action, depending on the issue and their relation to it and the players involved.

People still do exist in a place; starting from a vaccuum doesn't help.

Becky, my comments were directed at Steph, since I took your analysis to be an advancement of ìcommunityî rather than ìgroup,î but let me try to answer your challenge. This is a LONG response for a blog, but let us see if we can do real theorizing on the internet.

First, a quick review of the argument as itís developed:

(1) Steph reviewed her current classes and noted that economic issues were left out of DRP. This lead to a claim that the department should make connections between classes rather than endorse a typical conceptualization of the intellectual / academic working in isolation. She called for the need of groups to ìpractice democracy,î identified the department as a possible ìnatural groupî as a basis for this political action, and asserted that power comes from people acting together.

(2) I replied that publics and counter-publics are necessary for democracy, not groups. My objection to an emphasis on groups lies in that I see nothing inherently democratic about group behavior; I suggested to that contrary that much group behavior can be fascistic. I drew a concern about groups as a category of human organization that emphasizes shared rather than differential qualities. I also lamented that a vocabulary of group psychology may not get us very far in understanding the constitution of publics.

(3) Steph replies, directly, ìBut I don't think publics materialize in the absence of groups advocating for the institutionalized structures that hold publics together.î She also offers the suggestion that an emphasis on groups allows an emphasis on irrationality, which the academy suppresses.

It is as this point, I believe, that the argument moved from one about the department / academy to one about theorizing the political around groups. There was no uptake to Stephís challenge about the academy suppressing irrationality, nor discussion of irrationality as it relates to groups.

(4) Becky joined in, showing differences between Stephís and my assertions. She introduced the notion of community, or at least the feeling of community that people share when in groups such as religious organizations. She noted that groups can help citizenship thrive, and (quite rightly, I might add) asserted that we scholars should look at how people like to use groupsóthat is, drawing attention to both the practical AND to the ethnographic. She did, however, also assert directly, ìHow do you get to a public? Is it not through groups first?î

(5) I take Steph and Becky to be in agreement that groups precede publics, from my reading of those quotes. I disagree with this, since I do not think group behavior is a precondition for either the constitution of a public or of a democratic polity, asserting that individuals can do both without groups. My argument is not that groups donít matter, but that they are not a NECESSARY precondition for democracy. To date, I do not believe this has been addressed by those asserting the importance of groups for the democratic.

(6) Becky introduces the example of a PAC, with a hypothetical Joan invited Cate to join in a group that aims to influence public policy, as a solid example of the role played by groups in democratic action.

In response, I am not ruling out the importance of groups for political action. I continue to call upon leftists to go and join church communities in red states, for example, in order to re-humanize the left through group involvement. But I am not budging yet on what I am taking to be a suggestion that (1) group involvement precedes the constitution of publics or (2) group involvement is in some way preferable to the democratic than individualism. I also remain concerned that (3) a psychologized vocabulary of the group often means an attempt to escape the rhetorical.

As an example of this last concern, take John Gastilís Democracy in Small Groups (1993). I think Gastil is very well-meaning. He defines a small group as one likely with less than 30 members, or ìmore than two people who have a perception of common goals, a network of communication, some interdependence, some shared norms, and a sense of wholenessî (6). By democracy, he means ìequally distributed decision-making power, inclusive membership committed to democracy, healthy relations among its members, and a democratic method of deliberationî (6). By democratic deliberation, he means members have ìequal and adequate opportunities to speak, neither withhold information nor verbally manipulate one another, and are able and willing to listenî (6-7).

ìNeither withhold information nor verbally manipulate one anotherî? HmmmÖ.where have I heard that before? Oh yes, right: In two millennia of disparaging rhetoric for its power to move people and constitute themselves as audiences to certain ideological visions of the world or leadership. This is a perfect example of what I mean by the ìproblemî of psychologizing groups vis-ý-vis the democratic. I donít mean ìinterest groups,î here, nor took Stephís initial assertion as a call to formulate a PAC or interest group. I mean ìgroupî in the sociological / social psychology sense, as in Cooleyís primary groups or the locus of analysis in studies of group communication.

I do share a desire, I think with Steph and Beckyóand Kurt Lewin and John Dewey and Gordon Allport (others who have stressed both groups and communities with respect to a democratic public)óto create structures that foster democratic behavior and interaction. But too many of these theories have highlighted the shared features of community or erased rhetoric for some non-competitive, often anti-individualist version of communication. In siding with agonism, I would argue that (1a) group cohesion or (1b) the individualís psychological relation to a group is not as important as (2) expression of personal opinion in the learning and practice of citizenship. And research by Pamela Paxton (see recent American Sociological Review) suggests that only CERTAIN kinds of group or interest group involvement promotes democracy (such as involvement in human rights organizations) while others (religious groups and unions) counter it. So my objection remains that groups do not inherently constitute a path to the democratic.

The psychologizing of group communication also seems to suggest that competition be removed from dialogue. Check out this website for an example:

http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/democracy/demo.html

I appreciate what theyíre aiming at (although ìSASPENDî bugs me), but from the vantage point of a rhetorician, suspending judgment is precisely what cannot be done in the constitution of a public or in the coming to political action in a world of contingencies. This website suggests that effective group communication does indeed suspend judgment, and while I appreciate Burkeís notion of democracy as a colossal getting in oneís own way, I donít read that as a suspension of judgment but rather as an unending tension or competition of ideas. Put bluntly, Gastil and the website above are just plainly too saccharine for me, and I guess, Steph, that I hear in your call for groups too close an association with what they seek. If you can distinguish for me, I would be grateful.

(While Iím at it, I am also not entirely convinced by the arguments of either (1) Frank Baumgartner and Beth Leech in Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and Political Science (1998) or (2) Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone (1995). See Wrightís review of Baumgartner & Leech in Public Opinion Quarterly 63/1 (1999): 151-154 and Lemannís review of Putnam in Atlantic Monthly, April 1996.)

If I read the call to groups charitably, it is a call against a mode of existence defined by individualism infected by consumerism. I suspect all of us in this discussion seek an antidote to that problem, and I hope we could agree that the opposite and productive identity to a consumer is a citizen. But I wonít abandon a version of the political individual here in favor of the group. (Camille last night joked that I was ìjust a liberal, not a radical.î I agreed, telling her that at least I can claim something she canít: my political party has a chance of winning again someday.) I donít mean to ìgo liberalî on all the radicals here, but what role does the political individual play in this? In your example above, Becky, Cate CANNOT act politically without adherence to a group. Okay, returning your challenge, what happens if that school board is constituted through a commitment to fascistic valuesódoes poor Cate have no agency to escape their clutches once she agrees to go to a meeting? And also, what about the individual rhetor, who can direct the resources (symbolic and material) into constituting a space for public action (that is what I meant by ìadvocating the structures to materialize a public)?

The psychologized individual needs the group for, as Steph introduced above, ìfull potential.î The political individual does not; a group may or may not assist the attainment of potential. Call me a liberal if you must. But I am also inspired by Walt Whitman, who had a term for a combination of radical individualism combined with a deep commitment to solidarity: personalism. Whitman hated political parties and most other interest groups. He also did not care for the individual who cared only about herself or himself. The delicate experiment of democracy, as he saw it, was one that brought an equal commitment to self-reliance and solidarity. Friendships were important for democracy in Whitmanís view, as were songs of oneself, but not organized and associational groups.

To summarize my challenge to Steph and Becky, I suggest three issues: (1) the claim of inherence of groups as preceding publics or constituting the democratic; (2) the potential problems of a psychologized group absent of rhetoric; (3) the possibility of personalism as an antidote to consumerism. I look forward to your response.

Hi, gang:

I'm just joining your thinkings here, and hope to be working out some of these (dis)junctures in my paper this term for DPR (which I've just discovered is Our class-- not another French term I'm missing).

I'm interested in a form of dance sometimes called Authentic Movement. It's used by dance therapists and by folks who are interested in tapping the unconscious mind to voice it through the body. It's a dance form intimately linked to Embodiment and Imagination as well -- both of which are chaotic expressions and ones, I think, that have a lot to offer (and do!) to a Democratic (a'la Irigiray most clearly for me so far).

Above, in Stephen's response to Steph, there is a thread that wasn't picked up -- one about the academy not legitimizing irrationality. I would argue that it DOES in the case of Authentic Movement. (This name is troubling, I should add, even for practitioners -- others call it Contemplative Dance, to acknowledge its Jungian roots as well as its meditative/mystical connections.)

In any event, this dance practice certainly involves irrationality. During the course of my semester while "moving" (as distinct from "witnessing" other movers), I may have appeared (to anyone not versed in the course aims/process) as a "crazy" person -- zooming, falling, crashing, sprinting, twirling, crawling, etc. Now, I'm not a kook. I'm overly fond of theory, love me some dense reading, and understand the body to be a political site of expression and means of understanding the political.

This dance form/movement, for me, is one place where the therapeutic model IS irrational, is Playful, is chaotic and disorderly. I was part of a group; we witnessed each other doing these things, created a container in which it happened, and welcomed this kind of "craziness" as it propelled us through/towards a creative process as artists/academics.

Where is the output, the focus, the political in this practice? It's in process and product, and I'm working that out. Arguing the political in an agonistic sense for this method of dance isn't as easy as arguing for its subersiveness. Still, I wanted to post my preliminary thoughts on the very real connections of the irrational within/legitimized by the academy (well, Hampshire College and now the PhD program in Literature at UMass!).

But I'd also argue that it's not self absorbed and isolated. There are public performances of authentic movement, and very discernable ways (even to those unfamiliar with watching dance) that it demonstrates the fragility, energy and power of the body/mind, maybe imporatantly among academics, whose bodies are typically in public contained and orderly.

Shannon, Iím intrigued by this topic. My excitement will not temper my role as curmudgeon, as you will see below, but let me first praise this idea before I sink teeth into it.

I went online and learned what I could about authentic movement and dance in general as it might relate to democracy. Two fruitful gains, both of which you probably know. The first is Ann Dalyís public talk at the New School, ìDancing Democracy.î Itís located at:

http://www.anndaly.com/speaker/democrac.html

(Daly even cites Robert Putnam, so it ties nicely to the question of groups, above.)

The second is the Animating Democracy Initiative at:

http://www.americansforthearts.org/AnimatingDemocracy/

Looking all of this over, I think the promise of the body returned to the democratic is quite significant. I am looking with great anticipation for the January 2005 publication of Debra Hawheeís book, Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece. Therein, she makes a case for the relationship between mind and body with recourse to such concepts as agonism and metis. It might echo Julia Chevilleís Minding the Body (2001), a study of student athletes and ìembodied cognition.î You should not shy away from these resources simply because they address sport; aside from its problems as a capitalist venture, sport also asks that the mind-body relationship be sutured. And the challenge here is modernityís emphasis on mind-body dualism (a problem) coupled with a recognition of modernityís reinvention of democratic politics. This is no easy task, and part of my critical response lies in demanding a kind of rigor about this. I do not think that a mind-body dualism is a necessary condition for democratic modes (the ancient Greeks, for example, showed us an alternative), but one cannot easily dismiss this specter of modernity lurking in the contemporary democratic.

Three ideas spring to mind as productive sites to bring together theories and practices of the body with those of democracy and those of rhetoric / performance:

(1) The concept of space. Daly introduces this into the paradigm, drawing upon space for dancing and civic or public space for democratic exchange. Drawing the ties closer may be a very productive endeavor, especially if one regards other communicative forms such as writing or oratory as a kind of ìdancing.î

(2) Choreography as a metaphor for the political. Iím not sure if others have used this; I suspect they have. But if we think about certain forms of playóincluding warówe quickly release there is a way to understand them as a choreography. Read Mussoliniís The Doctrine of Fascism; it is nothing if not a highly choreographed expression of the political. So in this manner, we might now seek choreography for democracy.

(3) Therapy. In reading up on authentic movement, I see this idea come up with some frequency. It strikes me that a good comparison is with Habermas, who himself draws upon psychoanalysis as a model for social therapy. Habermasí dilemma, of course, is that the therapy of critique for democracy remains cerebral. He stays squarely within the modernist fashioning of the mind-body. But you might productively shake up what therapy could be as we move away from the fascistic to the democraticóindeed, do we not already use the metaphor of movement to describe social change?

Against these promising ideas, I would identify a fairly major thorn: the transcendent. Again, in a very limited exposure to AM, I see it has some roots in Jungian / archetypal psychology. That doesnít surprise meóJung certainly located a space for artistry in psychotherapyóbut the problem is one of the use of the transcendent. Iím not opposed to the experience of transcendence, especially if it is part of a creative act that encourages the consumer-individual to erupt from a closed sense of self and experience desire and longing in community or in public participation. But there is something potentially cultish to this. Camilleís warning last night about certain yoga practitioners who drop out of society politically and turn to psychological navel-gazing might, I fear, also be a fair warning against AM. You might, then, need to theorize the role of the witness to the dance, for witnessing is a metaphor of action that arguably prevents dancer from turning a blind eye to the real world. In short, if AM aims for a transcendence that heals the body and mind but removes it from the world of suffering, it can do no good for a democratic, which must ultimately ground itself back into the rhetorical and the political material realm. If you can answer these issues, I think you have groundbreaking work ahead of you.

Thanks to Stephen and Steph for continuing this discussion; I second Stephenís call for more participants (and I obviously wrote this before seeing Shannon's interesting post....I seem to recall a grad student at IU who worked on the rhetoric of dance....it was ballet, I think. Not a helpful comment, sorry.)

What I had written as a response to the ones below:

Yes, I am making a call for community as a preferred term for human organization in democracies. I was not claiming that groups are inherently democratic; just as I am not claiming they are inherently fascist. They exist in human society, for the raising of society (and for you cynics out there, I am using raising in both senses).

Once we discount groupings as unimportant, we miss their important role in creating publics; we ascribe to an ultra-individualist notion of effectiveness. (AnyONE can pull themselves up by their bootstraps.) (The Society does not OWE YOU anything.)

I agree with Stephen and think Putnamís conclusions have their own problems. A summary of Putnam's work is at the end of this note. Bob Edwardsís and Michael W. Foleyís critique of Putnamís work aligns with what we three are trying to say here (I think...). See ìSocial Capital and Civil Society Beyond Putnamî American Behavioral Scientist 42 (1998): 1-15. I use the online versionósee http://arts-sciences.cua.edu/pol/faculty/foley/putnam2.htm

From their abstract: ìWe argue Öthat social capital should be divested of any social-psychological ëvalue-addedí and treated as a more limited social-relational concept characteristic of social networks and organization. In so doing we criticize recent work on the US by Robert Putnam for turning the useful social relational concept of James Coleman and Pierre Bordieu into just another label for the norms and values associated with the empirical democratic theory of the 1950s.î

Later, they argue: ìsocial capital should be conceptualized more narrowly as a social relational and structural resources characteristic of social networks and organization, leaving aside the ënorms of reciprocity and trustí which inspired Putnam but which might more properly be considered a sort of ëcultural capita;í. Secondly, social capital should be considered in conjunction with other forms of capital, including financial capital, human capital (Becker 1993) and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986).î (p. 10).

I think youíll find it relevant to our discussion here. We cannot escape human networks and organization into groups. James Madisonís notion, which Lani Guinier (Clintonís ìquota queenîóughóbut thatís what folks remember her for) forwarded in her own work _Lift Every Voice_, and which I see operable in Town Meetings, of ìshifting majorities,î started from an assumption of groups or social networks. This is not a psychological model, but a relational model; one which I see as primarily issue-based in TM.

To get back to my quasi-hypothetical example of Joan and Cate: let me clarify: the political action group is not the same as the School Committee; they are different (but members of the SC could belong to the other political action group). The SC exists in communities as the elected body to represent the school districtís population and set school curriculum, to set policies in place, to decide where the money is spent, to over see the management of the schoolsÖ..

These duties are set by general law. So if a SC is acting outside the bounds for democratic procedures (one example: they meet in secret), there are procedures for individuals or groups to act to bring them in compliance with state law (i.e. notify the DAís office). A yet-further safeguard: notify the Superior Court. The court has the power to ensure compliance with democratic practices and laws.

BTW: For a ìfunnerî critique of Putnam read ìKicking In Groups: Just As Intriguing As Robert Putnam's Theory That We Are ëBowling Aloneí- That The Bonds Of Civic Association Are Dissolving- Is How Readily The Theory Has Been Accepted.î By Nicholas Lemann. The Atlantic Monthly, April 1996 v277 i4 p22,24-6. He uses US Soccer as the new Bowling of civil society.)

"In 1993 Putnam published a book called Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Though its main text is only 185 pages long, Making Democracy Work is the fruit of immense labor. In 1970 Italy created local governments in its twenty regions and turned over many of the functions of the central government to them. Putnam and a team of colleagues almost immediately embarked on a study of the new governments' performance, covering the entire nation and focusing particularly on a few localities, including a town quite near the one where Banfield researched his book.

The finding that leaped out at Putnam was that the governments in the prosperous north of Italy outperformed the ones in the benighted south. Through a variety of statistical exercises he tried to demonstrate that their success was not simply a case of the rich getting richer. For example, he showed that regional government officials are less well educated in the north than in the south, and that in the northern provinces economic-development levels are not especially predictive of government performance. He found the north's secret to be a quality that Machiavelli called virtu civile ("civic virtue")--an ingrained tendency to form small-scale associations that create a fertile ground for political and economic development, even if (especially if, Putnam would probably say) the associations are not themselves political or economic. "Good government in Italy is a by-product of singing groups and soccer clubs," he wrote. Civic virtue both expresses and builds trust and cooperation in the citizenry, and it is these qualities--which Putnam called "social capital," borrowing a phrase from Jane Jacobs--that make everything else go well."

Spin my head around!

OK, Stephen, I think I may have responded already to some of your challenges in my comment in the strand called "trickle down democracy"

http://www.stephaniejokent.com/weblog/archives/001141.html

where I also continued the conversation about irrationality. Thanks Shannon, for weighing in on this with concrete local evidence of the irrational being legitimized in/by the academy.

Stephen, I didn't mean to imply the causal relationship you read in my comments between groups and publics, I agree they are differently constituted. I read your response as an argument for one over the other - in your case, publics over groups and in mine, groups over publics - which is NOT (in my mind) what this argument is about. I think you clarified this in your long theoretical post, and I hope I clarified it with my post in the "trickle down democracy" thread. However, I can see where my diction lead to this view with the statement that publics don't materialize without groups - there is a much more complicated interrelationship here which we may now be on the road to articulating...

The reason I keep advocating for the formation of an engaged, cross-difference, group in the department is because there is so much evidence of overlapping concerns and/or awareness/recognition of issues/problems/concerns and yet no mechanism to do the personalism you advocate! It seems to me there are "natural" (spontaneous, emergent, syncronous) linkages to be made discursively across faculty-student boundaries, among and between students of different interests and origins and even among seminar topics as they unfold during semesters.

Meanwhile, our department is relatively highly ranked and obviously this is due to the work faculty does and to the environment that supports that work. Can we engage in enough agonism to really apply what we know (tying in Brett's comment from the "trickle down democracy" thread about our own self-knowledge of duplicity with a system that is increasingly constraining the opportunities and possibilities for any kind of conscousness-raising without tearing apart what, in many significant ways, seems to be working?

I am posting for the third time. Steph, this blog is very unfriendly to mothers! My hard belabored posts keep disappearing! Thus my post is shorter b/c I'm too tired to rewrite it all.

Stephen you told us run, not walk to buy the American Prospect. I assume you meant for us to read it too. There are quite a few articles in there that argue that the grass-roots is exactly what the right has been doing and the left hasn't so I don't see how you can say myth always trumps grass-roots. It seems to me the articles argued that we need both in equal force. There is also an article on Alternet today ("Mr. Rogers") that talks about right wing grass-roots organizing.

Also, it's a good thing that I'm leaving Amherst now that you've made my anti-yoga statement public! I hope none of my friends see this or I'm in big trouble! But I did want to add a reference to your references on Choreography. You and Shannon probably have already seen this but it's "Choreographies of Gender" by Susan Leigh Foster which obviously as the title states is about gender but it's possible that some theoretical moves could be gleaned from her article to democracy?

I hope to join in soon about groups "vs." (since Steph is countering the vs.) publics/counterpublics.

How about the raisin of society? Strikes me as an apt metaphorÖ

It seems the dust is settling and Becky, Steph, and I are coming to certain agreements. I think this is helpful, because it means we can now start doing real theoretical work necessary for productive intellectual and political practice. In the ìTrickle Down Democracyî postings, Steph introduced the concept of ìgroups-that-become-communities.î I like that term and think it is a profitable way to engage the kinds of things that relate similar concerns here. I am still not convinced, however, that groups are necessary for democratic formulation in the same manner that publics and counter-publics are. Iím not arguing for the latter simply because itís ìmy term.î Rather, I would argue that the democratic must be constituted through a public, both in the sense of (1) a division from the private (although the private may be democratic, and as some theorize, it needs to be or at least needs to relate to the public intimately) and (2) a ìspace,î literal and metaphorical, for collective action that leads to public judgment and the ratification of authority and acts of power. I see how groups CAN inform the democratic, but I think that a public is an inherent necessity. ìCommunityî might be the best intermediary between groups and publics, so long as we do not overstress commonalities and shared experiences in them. I see in the groups / communities emphasis a possible influence of the ethnography of communication, which tends to stress what unites people over what divides them. Itís nothing that canít be worked out if it is, but a point we should put through the grindstone as we proceed in theorizing the group-community-public relationship.

Becky, I do agree that ultra-individualist notions are antithetical to the democratic, and I further agree that neo-liberalism, consumer capitalism, and fascism all emphasize the individual (as body and as concept) in ways that are sickly subjective formations. But as I wrote before, I would encourage us not to toss out the importance of the individual, for two reasons. (1) A politics that asks the individual not to matter as much as the communityówhether this be socialism or communitarianism or the likeódoes pose a dilemma for advancing certain rights guaranteed by a commitment to liberalism; even radical democracy keeps an emphasis on the individual in this manner. (2) A practical politics understands that to speak American is to speak the language of the individual. Just as Brett claims, that no one can win an election by saying, ìVOTE ME IN 2008: NONE OF THIS IS "REAL", IN A SENSE!,î so too do I think it unlikely that one could win the hearts of voters without recourse to the individual. I bet you agree with this, and I would encourage us to rethink some of the ideas of personalism that informed Whitmanís creation of a grand narrative for American experience.

Hear, hear to the critique of Robert Putnam and to the two articles you offer, Becky. And in reading your explanation of our friend Cate, I would concur, but would also suggest that what youíre describing as a group here is a political association, not a psychological relation, more akin to ìinterest groupsî than to a primary group. If weíre going to advance this discussion, I think it is imperative for us not to be sloppy in the words we use and how we use them. Iím accusing no one of doing this, but only making the point that from hereon further theorizing means tightening the language. ìGroupî is a very open-ended term, and can signify something very different from ìPACî or ìcommittee.î My reaction to Stephís call for the creation of a group through the department has always been in alarm of any collective gathering that requires either (1) too bureaucratic or ritualistic a structureóone more meeting to go to in order to be in a clubóor (2) an investment in the group for its own sake as a presumed source of identity and values, in the way that kinship groups function.

Finally, Camille, I never said grassroots was unimportant. Again, Iíve been consistent in saying leftists should go to church organizations in red states. I say this in jest, but I begin to feel like John Kerry here, accused of an inconsistency I do not demonstrate. So to your charge: Yes, by all means, grassroots, grassroots, grassroots. But myth STILL trumps. Join as many grassroots organizations as you wish. Get hundreds of thousands of like-minded folks to rally together under common cause. Unite people of similar interests who are not aware of each other, for there is strength in numbers. But for Christís sake, have a grand narrative to sell to people about why they are uniting. No amount of grassroots organization will work if the message is not clear and mythic, because the people you need to convince are the part of the electorate who will not join grassroots organizations easily. Iím willing to be persuaded, here, and Iím certainly not ruling out grassroots action, but I am unapologetically saying myth matters more than manpower. ìVote for Us: Weíre One Million Strongî is nice, but Iím just not convinced it will supercede ìVote for Us: Weíre Fighting the War against Evil.î

Jeepers Stephen, nothing like veiled accusations of laziness softened by possible excuses of 'end of semester' busy-ness to generate my typing......

"I would concur, but would also suggest that what youíre describing as a group here is a political association, not a psychological relation, more akin to ìinterest groupsî than to a primary group."

Then excuse my misunderstanding; I talk about groups as associations of 3+, and not primarily in terms of what they do on a psychological level.

What then are the differences? Or should we care?

As far as groups as "an investment in the group for its own sake as a presumed source of identity and values, in the way that kinship groups function" What about civic clubs, specifically, that have that as a side benefit/downfall AND have other goals as well? It's hard to make gross distinctions across all groups/clubs/collectives....and as communication scholars we are more interested in what is "said" and not necessarily what they feel internally. How emotions get constructed is of interest, but how individual members think is not particularly what I am interested in (so that's why I was surprised at your response; I hadn't been used to thinking of groups in the way you feared.).

Ok; time to make cookies and finish that vita.

Without going back and re-reading the context of the quotes you just pulled out Becky, I think Stephen's "fears" are directed more to my angle on groups than yours. I do think the phenomenological, affective experience of group members matters a great deal to the kinds of goals set and work accomplished by any type of associated group. Motive makes a difference. I'm not trying to exclusivize (!) the psychosocial/relational angle, but I find it typically Completely Missing in communication analyses and I think that's a theoretical oversight if not, even, an impeding blindspot. If someone can suggest to me another way to bring irrationality into view I'm game to check it out! You did, rhetorically, by naming some of Stephen's tactics, but you generated the rhetoric on the basis of recognizing your own affective response to those tactics! Rationally, knowing his tactic was designed to evoke affect, recognizing your own affect, and still, I don't know, doing what he wanted (?) has elements of the irrational in it, don't you think? (Note: I'm glad you did respond!) These are the impulses Stephen wants the left to mobilize (as in "use" rhetorically) in order to counter the right's much more effective use of them. The debate, it seems to me, falls moreso along the lines of different sets of assumptions: Stephen assumes that the affect mobilized by the Right is the only affect that can be effectively mobilized. the more radical contingent of the class assumes that there may be other affective bases which can be equally, if not more powerfully deployed. But we can't get to them if we keep avoiding the irrationalities that we ourselves enact. Those very irrationalities are "the data pool", if you will, for teasing out the bases of the different assumptions about human impulses and figuring out ways to mobilize them.

Which brings me to a point I've wanted to make for a few days, which is simply that groups mobilize publics, especially groups-that-become-communities, or at least have such a configuration at the core of an association.