group dynamics: February 2005 Archives

"I was really impressed with your latest blog posting. Lots of self
discovery going on there."

"How do admissions of psychological/emotional vulnerability contribute to getting people to move to action? It's very easy for people to say, "Ah ha! I knew it wasn't about the department; she's having personal problems and using the department as a scapegoat."

Probably this is what Stephen's been on my case about - does acknowledging the personal (what he has been defining as "private" and labeling "psychological") move people to action? ? Perhaps not, but maybe it depends on what kind of ìactionî is desiredÖ

I am so jealous of anyone who's already done with Paula's paper! And, I'm kinda....having fun (!) re-reading Mumford (1963) after Chris made more of it legible to me with his presentation yesterday. :-)

I'm just over half done with the paper. I'm enjoying what I now see as a merger in Mumford of the material and the ideological, to wit:

"...instantaneous personal communication over long distances...is the mechanical symbol of those world-wide cooperations of thought and feeling which must emerge, finally, if our whole civilization is not to sink into ruin" (241).

The recordability of such instantaneous personal communication is one example of "the new permanent record" which "suggest[s] a new relationship between deed and record, between the movement of life and its collective enregistration: above all, they demand a nicer sensitiveness and a higher intelligence. If these inventions have so far made monkeys of us, it is because we are still monkeys" (245).

;-) Gimme a banana!

So did our favorite son tonight! It was sweet. :-)

You never know what might happen if you stay late in the computer lab!

If you've missed out on how Jeff Gannon burned Bush, a woman formerly known as an esteemed colleague of the COM dept discovered several porn sites of this wanna be reporter who apparently was paid off by the White House to ask Bush questions that would make him (Bush) look good. Turns out Gannon is not a reporter at all, but an online porn figure. PLENTY can be found by a google search, but none of you will beat the stiff competition of our colleague's wit: "My husband's is bigger than his." A hard job indeed. As John Aravosis said, quoted in the Washington Post story linked above: "The larger issue is how did someone like this get access to the White House."

I think this is what group relations people call parallel process. As grad student reps, we have to make a "group decision" that "represents" a larger body than just us three.

My students are starting to look at how they make decisions in small groups.

I examine how I make decisions in groups.

Starting at the mid-level (structurally in the organization), the parallelization occurs "downward", but does it also occur "upward"? I.e., are "we" reflecting a decision-making structure that pre-dates us and perhaps is hierarchically/structurally "imposed" upon us?

The next part is about me - intrasubjectively, but with bearing on intersubjectivity (although I don't go into role).

was a hit, as far as I can tell. :-) The dozen folks who came drank a lot of vodka, sniffed a lot of bread, and ate a lot of pickles. Not to mention the pelmeni, potatos, spiced carrots and cabbage. What else could one expect?! Oh yes, there was the candy and dessert, and Olga drew herself to win the doorprize (I dunno, maybe she rigged it somehow?)! Talk was loud and animated, and I even got to have some lengthy discussions with several different individuals. It helped that the trip to the Russian grocer in Westfield yielded easily and quickly prepared traditional foods. Folks stayed late to watch "The Russians are coming, The Russians are coming," which was a pretty silly flick but still got quite a few good laughs out of us.

"Until we know what others think they know, we cannot truly understand their acts." Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, 13.

I did attend a party last weekend. For someone who just turned in his Master's Prospectus! All 60-some pages of it! I was one of the first to arrive and almost the very last to leave, sans the one who stayed to sleep on the sofa. Again.

Good music, good food, good people. Dancing. Me and Blondie "know the routine." :-) Wish I had the moolah to hire that soup man. {sigh}

I still have some. :-) They suggest that all I need to do is get pregnant and change my "funny" hair style and everything will be good.

I thoroughly enjoyed the yummiest meal I've had in weeks, great company, and lots of laughs.

Na na na na boo boo! You're just as tragic as me and you want to be remembered just as much! (No one performs like you do intending to be forgotten.) Obviously you haven't taken a peek at the pic under "Seriously" (on Reflexivity's Main Page) for a while. Please do, and imagine me blowing you a raspberry.