group dynamics: June 2006 Archives

Last night, I arrived (unusually!) early to work, giving me time to walk the labyrinth (built in the classical style).

It was cool. It took longer than I anticipated (oops), but was a strikingly parallel experience to the process of receiving feedback on a paper earlier in the afternoon. My pace was slow, measured; my mood contemplative. I wove through its curves, following the path. I wasn’t conscious of time passing – or I thought I wasn’t – until the moment I thought I’d arrived at the center and realized there was another circuit to complete. A visceral feeling of shock rippled through me. Ah, I’ve already felt this today! In retrospect, the event and interaction around it were unfortunate, but possibly (?) not avoidable? Different sets of expectations and priorities. Two strong personalities. Crash.

But the morning was incredible. I had a massage (first one in three years or so) and the masseuse said it was a pleasure to work on me because my body was so responsive. She could see the muscles sussurate while she worked some of the pressure points. I was struck by the fact that even though I was tired and nearly fell asleep, my jaw remained clenched throughout. I couldn’t keep it relaxed. What? Me worry? It has to go somewhere, so they say.

At the end of the appointment I asked if she happened to know a tattoist. She hesitated, thinking. Yeah, she said, this guy Gabe. He just opened a shop in Easthampton. As she was digging out his phone number she added, “His body is covered with birds. He has a pair of lovebirds on the back of his neck.” He’s the one, I thought (actually felt) to myself (recognition?) The masseuse hadn’t remembered the name of his shop and didn’t have his work number so when I reached him on his cell phone he suggested I get directions by checking out his website. It doesn’t get more perfect than this!

Mango lassi and chanasamosa started me off. Well, actually this was after the almost gender-divided hugs. Puru wouldn't let me get away with just hugging the women. :-) It was pretty cool, actually, as I got about a half-dozen hugs (handshakes with the folks I was just meeting for the first time). Did I mention I sortof kindof invited myself? shhhhhh! It was a great party to crash for some social interaction - just as Neil's has been the perfect idiomatic crash pad. (Countdown to departure has commenced, wah.) Although I doubt I'll miss Satya's militaristic party garb.

Food segregation continued. At least this time it was on the basis of vegetarians and carnivores, instead of men and women. Although then we noticed that the men were clustered at both ends of the table, essentially surrounding us. The most trapped, by the way, was the birthday girl herself. Neil had to pick a fight with the waitress (can’t take him out in public!), who threatened to withhold his food. (His behavior subsequently improved tremendously.)

The most interesting thing I learned was how to smuggle mangos. This is an Indian cottage industry. The first thing you do to throw the customs officials off the scent is to scrupulously recite the several dozens of different spices you’ve brought back. They really don’t want to know. Second, the amount of spices will confuse the dogs, who won’t be able to distinguish the smell of mangos in the midst of sneezing. Third (most important), sing English songs in Punjabi. Folks will be offended by the dissonance and they’ll usher you through as fast as possible.

I might have been offensive (?) as I heard (with my untrained american ears) “Sulu” as Sudarshan’s nickname. And Shiva had to fight with the clothing rod in my backseat all the way home (not to mention his virtual exclusion from Sitma's and my dive into Althusser). Hema! You’ve gotten email from me before! Did I forget meeting you? Oh my. ;-/

"What the heck is that about?" I wondered as a colleague drove past me with arm fully extended, middle finger high in the air, yelling a resounding "F*ck You!"

Per shall remain nameless.

I'm gonna need some help on a few details, please? What's the Turkish word for the type of dream in which a dark lump settles down on your chest, preventing movement?

And what was the name of that most fantabulous mini-Australian dessert? Can a non-chef make them?

The luminaria ushered me in, as part of the second wave of guests to a combo-birthday, defense, summer solstice celebration.

Highlights abound (noteless, we'll see what I recall).

The defense queen greeted me, aglow herself with success. I think she raked in a bundle too (although there was a slight question regarding whether two donations in particular actually arrived to the envelope).

Luscious was on the hunt for nationalistic fandom. I know someone wishing for a Brazil-Argentina final. Arturo (from Mexico) and Maria (from Argentina) preserved their relationship on the agreement that whoever could beat Germany should win.

Fascinating thing - talking about my (anticipated!) trip to Iran - was Arturo and Maria's concern not about my going, rather about my ability to return. Will US Customs allow me back in? Do I need to fill out paperwork with them, traveling against the State Department's advice? Lord help us all if such is the case.

Greg and I had an extended discussion about French pessimism and US optimism; with the caveat that there are stupid people everywhere. :-)

The dream analysis was cool, although there's no doubt someone had a secret agenda in offering an interpretation. Mine, I'm sure was no better, being, as Florencia noted, so incredibly qualifed to offer definitive opinions!

I missed Raz. Folks ask me about him at each event.

JC told me the blog looks "very professional." I wonder if he'll change his mind when he reads that I got to fondle a young hunk's six-pack?!

There were other conversations, esp with folks I just met and/or only briefly said hello to before either I or they were spirited into another discursive direction. All-in-all, it was a blast, and was still going strong when I left just before 1 a.m. Did you beat last year's record and make it to the dawn?

Germany took Sweden apart in short order today; it wasn't much of a game except for the performance of Sweden's goalie, Isaksson (11 shots on goal were credited to the German side; he saved most of them with no help from his defenders). I recall a few games like that, when my defenders just couldn't anticipate and left me alone to field more shots than anyone should ever have to face in one match. He played one hell of a game, even though it's the Germans who gain all the attention. I admired Teddy Lucic's calm reaction to receiving a red card after two undeserved yellows.

There's been some magic about the first ten minutes: Germany scores in the 4th and then the 12th minute, and later Mexico and Argentina both scored in the early minutes of their tense match. I wound up passionately on Mexico's side even though I entered Delano's with no preference whatsover. They were the identified underdog, for one thing. And the mostly international crowd was cheering for Argentina - or seemed to be. As the match wound on it became evident that the crowd was evenly split, which made for a great atmosphere: both in terms of fellow-fanship and also that everyone seemed to appreciate great plays by either team. (I heard there was a rabidly anti-Mexico contingent in "the back room" - watching Univision in order (apparently?) to pique their fervor to a maximum pitch.)

Some months ago I was nearly skewered at the pinpoint of a rapier. I deflected the blow and mine enemy did retreat. I was accused of Nietzschean ressentiment, of being an unwitting participant in “the revolt of the slaves in morals” because of my “depriv[ation]…of the proper outlet of action” and thus particular behaviors were perceivable as reactive attempts “to find [my] compensation in an imaginary revenge” (“Good and Evil,” “Good and Bad” p. 19).

I hadn’t yet read Nietzsche then, so wasn’t aware of the extent of the insult. Reading The Genealogy of Morals now, I can readily perceive two constitutive/constituting elements that brought forth the judgment:

1) the rationale for characterizing me as having succumbed to the so-called slave morality at the sublime ideological level, and
2) that the epistemology which justifies this judgment of my character was motivated dialectically – as an essential response to certain unfortunate dynamics that played themselves out in the beginning of “Communication in Crisis” conference planning. (Which, let it be duly noted, was a resounding success.)

I’m working on point one: the accusation of slave morality. Being of a more heteroglossic rather than essentialist bent I’m less inclined to accept Nietzsche’s polemical terror at what he calls the victory of the priestly-aristocratic caste (using the Jews as his exemplar) as a death knell for humanity. My own self-assessment now is thus a combined yes-and-no affair. (In fact, it seems evident to me that Nietzsche drops hints that he himself is not quite so disdainful as he deliberately seeks to appear.) Indeed, there is an important distinction to be made between stereotypical labeling of aristocratic or slave morality and recognition of the typical characteristics in diverse individuals. I did react - on the basis of emotions Nietzsche valorizes as aristocratic - and I did react - on the basis of another, uncontrollable situation in regards to which my emotions were unresolved.

Thus was I greeted upon arriving at Shakespeare under the Stars for opening night. Who, me? Not paying attention? Didn't notice something? For shame! I chattered with the assembled peasantry (!), laughed hard at the Porter (MacBeth's servant), and admired the passion of our friend Dan, exposing the depths of his capacity for depravity. Yes, Daniel Kennedy is Macbeth! He is accompanied by a stellar cast. The witches and Lady Macbeth are well-worth seeing, but forsooth - none played poorly!

Besides terrorizing my cat, and scattering football players with his amazing defensive skills, the dude came after me last night! I thought it was great. :-) He reminded me that US ignorance of the rest of the world population's actual experiences living day-to-day is racism. Period. It could have been the end of conversation.

It wasn't, however, because I concede the point. There are situations when the nuance of naivete/deliberation matters a great deal, but if we're going to establish a baseline definition the material fact of privilege is that it shields one from needing to know. So we moved on to some other topics with more room for intellectual exploration, including Nietzche.

The point I was trying to make with Satya - that I circled around for awhile, getting lost in my own preamble (!)- is Nietzsche's assertion that we (human beings) NEED fear in order to truly live. I am not opposed to this thesis, but I'm not sure I agree with the terms with which it seems Nietzsche limits fear's range. I'll have to look closer at his actual language (as translated, since I don't know German), to see if there's a way to tease out the implication I perceived of a limited domain of what he might consider "legitimate" fear.

Jung Yup hosted a World Cup event for the Asian-Pacific forces yesterday. It was too bad Australia lost, but the Korea-France match was tense! France had the first ten minutes, then 70 minutes ensued of close calls and tension and growing concern until Korea took the last ten minutes for a 1-1 draw. Very exciting. :-) They didn't quite live up to the banner, "We Go Beyond!" but who knows...they're already gone beyond where some folks expected them to be. FYI - Univision's in-between game coverage (in Spanish) was much more entertaining than ABC's.

I've been resisting watching because I MUST keep FOCUSED on comps. So far so good. Bumped into Gita and Pei at Rao's; one of them was crushed to learn she'd been associated with the losers who celebrated my birthday with me this year. Oh dear. (At least she's not one of Nietzche's frogs.) Then Puru and Tejal came by; he practically dared me to give him a hard time on the blog! He insists his moves away from the women (which began the gender division were motivated only by a desire for food but I'm not sure I'm convinced....

Meanwhile...Nietzsche (online text provided by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC.) I'm reading the Dover Edition, 2003, "an unabridged translation of a standard edition of the 1913 translation by Horace B. Samuel."

"...I am told it is simply a case of old frigid and tedious frogs rawling and hopping around men and inside men, as if they were as thoroughly at home there, as they would be in a swamp" (originally published 1913, p. 10).

I don't think I would particularly enjoy having Nietzsche pissed off at me. He is referring to "English psychologists" and speculating as to their motives for "pushing to the front the [shameful part] of our inner world, and looking for the efficient, governing, and decisive principle in that precise quarter where the intellectual self-respect of the race would be the most reluctant to find it..." (p. 9). He continues that he doesn't wish to believe in their frogdom, rather that they are, "at bottom, brave, proud and magnanimous animals who know how to bridle both their hearts and their smarts, and have specifically trained themselves to sacrifice what is desirable to what is true, any truth in fact, even the simple, bitter, ugly, repulsive, unchristian, and immortal truths - for there are truths of that description" (p. 10).

Don may (?) be encountering one of those truths this evening... :-0

I had more fun yesterday evening than I have had in a long time. :-) I'm not convinced of my own skill as a conversationalist, but I'm pleased that I know so many people who are talented in this regard. It also felt good (!) to be wished well on my anticipated travels by so many. Of course, such is returned to all! (Hmm, kinda mushy, huh?!)

I'm reading Bakhtin, experiencing a string of those phenomenological moments that lend themselves to a more mystical form of epistemology. Check this out:

"The chronotope of the encounter; in such a chronotope the temporal element predominates, and it is marked by a higher degree of intensity in emotions and values. The chronotope of the road associated with encounter is characterized by a broader scope, but by a somewhat lesser degree of emotional and evaluative intensity. [thank heaven!] ... The road is a particularly good place for random encounters. On the road ('the high road'), the spatial and temporal paths of the most varied people - representatives of all social classes, estates, religions, nationalities, ages - intersect at one spatial and temporal point. People who are normally kept separate by social and spatial distance can accidentally meet; any contrast may crop up, the most various fates may collide and interweave with one another. On the road the spatial and temporal series defining human fates and lives combine with one another in distinctive ways, even as they become more complex and more concrete by the collapse of social distance. The chronotope of the road is both a point of new departures and a place for events to find their denouement. Time, as it were, fuses together with space and flow in it (forming the road)..." (Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel, in The Dialogic Imagination, 1981, p. 243-244).

In addition to this coincidence, I was given the best belated (by two years!) birthday present imaginable. I investigated some of the tips on choosing a name ...my first choice is already taken. Here's Bakhtin again:

"“Essential to these three figures [rogue, clown, fool] is a distinctive feature that is as well a privilege – the right to be ‘other’ in this world, the right not to make common cause with any single one of the existing categories that life makes available; none of these categories quite suits them, they see the underside and the falseness of every situation…” (p. 159).

There's a bit of "full circle" magic to reading all this now as it was the first place I went outside of the assigned curriculum of courses. And you know what? It got blogged! Leda Leda Leda, it seems you knew where I was headed . . .

Oo Oo Oo - "News from the Profession discusses tutoring with ESL students!

And an application to Henry James The Golden Bowl.

My dentist told me (as he ripped out some seven ancient fillings to make way for two new crowns) that my bite is eccentric. (He'll have to tell me if bruxism is at fault.) He used the term, properly spelled eccentric but pronounced e-centric, to simply mean off-center. We couldn't help but notice, however, the common use of eccentric to be a potentially apt descriptor of yours truly. {gasp!}

He gave me quite the hard time for my "thrilling" reading material. (We'll see if I go back to him again, hmmph!)

My new roomie and his pals are into it, though. Not that it was a subject of discussion last night, instead, as we ate our scrumptious dinner last night Smita and I both noticed the gender division: men at the table, women in the living room. We teasingly applauded ourselves for having a higher order conversation. Within minutes, while we were discussing the 1970’s Emergency in India, the men become quite animated regarding hairstyles.

That sums up the meterosexual portion of the evening. (Perhaps I can inspire more political discussion?) Prior to this, however, Sourya tried to set me right regarding quantum mechanics...a "pillar" of physics that I think can be a metaphor (and vice-versa?) for human relations.

I was introduced to the granth at a gurudwara last night, ate langar (delicious!), and made eye contact with the granthi. The latter happened twice, once while I was veiled (during the service, happy), once when I wasn't (departing, not so?) The veil hides my hairstyle, y'know? :-o

The most fundamental principle of the Sikh religion is seva.

Need advice? I'm feeling a bit out-of-place this morning, so I decided to "take hukamnama: I received Page 721.

The granth is written in Gurmukhi.

I received quite the welcome to my primary lodging for the rest of this month. First of all, my bedroom has glow-in-the-dark stars. How cool is that?!! I've always wanted them. :-)

Then, a spectacular meal by Neil and spirited discussion from Sai and Satya. What got us going is a book by Tariq Ali about the 1960s, Street Fighting Years. It is a sad commentary on my own education as a representation of general U.S. myopia, but I really didn't know that the civil, social, and political turbulence of the 1960s was a global phenomena.

A few features of our interaction impressed me: the vigor of disagreements and that these lacked animosity, episodes of silence punctuating the exchange, and the sheer pace and density of thoughtfulness these young men possess. My own contributions felt fumbling and awkward by comparison. I recognize the vitality as a characteristic of youth (!) but also as indicative of intellectual and emotional presence: these young men have been actively aware of and engaged with their own lives and the world around them. Each of them is younger than I was when it first pierced my consciousness that such perception was even possible!

I'm looking forward to more debate. :-) In particular I'm eager to test an observation about a tendency toward extremes. One theme involved the experience of oppression and whether or not a member of a targeted group, such as African-Americans in the US, might prefer the overt racism of the South to the covert racism of the North. This was taken to the furthest ends of the continuum of violence: "I would prefer any day to live where I could sit down at a table with a white man instead of where I could be killed."

Of course! It's in the middle range of these extremes that the question becomes intriguing. Where is the boundary between tolerance and acceptance, to what extent is one valued over the other, under which conditions and circumstances, to what ends? I often reflect on the amount of tolerance I encountered during my most passionate, public activism. While I dwelt in the possibility of acceptance (presenting it as a challenge more than an invitation [aha!]), it was the tension itself that was instructive and compelling. That none of my exertions brought me into contact with direct violence seems coincidental - a coincidence of white-skin and apparent middle-class privilege and the good fortune not to encounter someone prone to violence at a vulnerable moment.

It's not a done deal yet, but "Just-in-Time" might have located me a place to hang for the rest of June. And none too soon as Elizabeth's hospitality is not to be taken casually! I'd gain 100 pounds if I stayed here for very long!

JIT also relayed a joke about (me?) becoming a spinster. Actually, the joke was about how spinsters are related to strong young men. Through their cats. Do you think this means he might yet agree to keep Mei-Mei for the summer while I'm gone? I am gonna be gone . . . I think. Timing is tight, but various bits keep falling into place...

The movie JIT selected for our viewing pleasure was intended to inspire my pending visit to Iran. The Suitors, however, does not live up to its billing as half-Hitchcock (sortof) and half-Lucille Ball (hardly). We tolerated it after realizing it was made in 1988. A few of the opening scenes with the sheep were mildly humorous. And JIT giggled quite a bit at the end when my early sympathy for the woman under siege turned out to have been premature. Oh well.

We did not dicuss critical realism this time (because we were living it). Nothing like your upstairs neighbors blasting rock-n-roll while doing aerobics at 4 am!