Reflexivity

Mike said that, talking (to himself?!) as he entertained a couple of neighborhood girls by trying to figure out one of their toys.
Yesterday was full of tugs. I spent the afternoon and evening enjoyably, after taking a much longer time than usual to blog (and cook! shhhhhhh). Being on the periphery of two kidnappings with happy endings left me full of vicarious emotion. For the last three days I have been feeling a bit de-centered, as if there’s “a disturbance in The Force” (!), or – as the new roomie said, I am “out of alignment” with myself. My thinking is slow, difficult; my self-consciousness heightened. I speculate that I’m experiencing fallout from being (now) in a timespace different than expected (on land rather than still at sea), or the process of absorbing recent life lessons, or the malaise that lingers from old wounds . . .
I know I don’t have the jazzy hectoring tone considered most successful in writing on/for the web. The thing is, I don’t want to play into that collusively heeyyy cowboy insider attitude that Jack Shaffer promotes. Yet, I appreciate that friends do (sometimes, smile) actually read the blog and (rarer still, hence precious) give me feedback on my writing. Building “indexes” over the past few days must have put me in a summative mood, because I carried that mode into writing about Alf’s freedom instead of just blogging the moment. Perhaps I’m feeling it more necessary than usual to justify my existence (I got flamed!), to explain the reasons for my choices, or otherwise try to articulate how I perceive things going together? I am also prepping to teach, and I never (ever!) stop learning.
Even though I’ll probably never capture the tone of our times, my mind resonated with resemblances to another angle of Caleb Crain’s reflections on online literary style. In particular, he writes (and I insert comments):

I’ve kept a blog for several years (ditto), and although its readership is tiny (mine too), I of course notice when the hits rise and fall. (I should pay more attention!) I seem to get more readers when I post frequently, when I write about people or topics in the headlines, when I have been drawn into a conflict, and when I write something that speaks to a self-image that a group of people share. (Hmmm, it would be interesting to know if any such patterns are evident here in Reflexivity.) Over the years I’ve gradually revealed more personal details (we differ in this); I still reveal very little, comparatively, but enough to entitle me to say that I feel a tug there, too. Perhaps the tugs that I feel are a better data source, come to think of it, than my blog’s underemployed hit counter. If I were to interpret those tugs, I would say that writing on the internet tends to be more popular when it satisfies the reader’s wish to be connected–the wish not to miss out.

Funny – is Crain suggesting an internal (his own) or external (from others) tug to reveal more? Where (with whom) does the wish to be connected originate, and can it be cultivated as a social/relational force for institutional/historical change?
Only if we act on those wishes.

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Chunks of quantum wave packets defined by continuous variables of position, energy and momentum may not yield a frequency/wavelength ratio but – metonymically (something the human brain does via consciousness) – couldn’t we use this language to describe the shape of the social world?

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Work on optical illusions show how the distance from which one views a face alters the expression you think you’re seeing. Some constructions are creepy!
I’m intrigued with the function of distance. Part of what me and my committee need to sketch out is the scope of the lens I’ll use in exploring the practice of simultaneous interpretation at the European Parliament. Since each of our relative distances from the object of study differ, establishing a reasonable range might be a challenge.

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They did give me exactly what I needed during my prospectus defense, even though a hazing frenzy seemed to build as we spoke. Perhaps I still give off the vibe that being clubbed with a two-by-four is the only way to get my attention.
I had meant to mention my science fiction mind at the beginning of the presentation – not that they aren’t already aware (!), but to highlight the challenge of fitting my perceptions into academic boxes. Science fiction was the first wholistic knowledge system that I encountered, followed by fantasy. The frame of a person being randomly at a juncture in time and space from which things unfold seems, as near as I can tell, to be the deepest level of neuronic organization in my brain: cognition overlays the rhizomic net.
They want me to fix the time/space of the study in accordance with pre-established knowledge. This is the tricky one. The other feedback about clarifying and expanding the details of methodology is useful and productive: although I have confidence that I will successfully navigate whatever happens during the fieldwork process, anticipating the possibilities (a series of “if-then” imaginings) can only help. Most of this nitty-gritty I have intended to do in August anyway; now I just need to organize it sensibly for them as well.
The crux of the matter seems to be a concern that I won’t deliver something that they expect, emphasis on lack of surprise. We are entering into a contract, and my conformity to the terms of the deal is demanded. The conservative bent of academia weighs heavily here, and the question of whose authority is in play is, in fact, the very point of the entire exercise. What else is voice if not the ability to put words into action? I clamber through my own extraordinarily limited exposure to this world, (this lifeworld?), taking in so much: not “feeling” as in mere emotion, but sensory perception. English lacks common vocabulary to distinguish among types of “feeling,” hence I am often in trouble/at risk of conflation.
Not only that, I’m not so keen on reifying institutionalized authority of any kind. So, for instance, in this moment of spacetime, I do a Google search (gasp!) to see if there’s anything out there right now that complements the notions I have in mind. Nice! So what that I can’t translate the text of Blommaert’s rejoinder; or that the “lifeworld” reference I found has to do with computer science – these two references say what I intend:

“The concept of a lifeworld will not appear as a specific mathematical entity in our formalism. The intuition, however, is this: while there is an objective material environment, the agent does not directly deal with all of this environment’s complexity. Instead it deals with a functional environment that is projected from the material environment. That projection is possible because of various conventions and invariants that are stably present in the environment or actively maintained by the agent.”

Such an eclectic, synergistic mode of knowledge construction is anathema to the stable march of paradigmatic knowledge sanctioned by universities. How, why can I trust the authority of these authors? What if they “got it wrong” and I, foolish and naive that I am, perpetuate the error?
Now we’re into morality.
Granted, I have not always understood the nuances or sophistication of certain ideas at particular times. So what? I have understood others. Yes, I am not always as clear as seems desirable – not only to others, to me, too – and (!) clarity is also an interactive accomplishment. The challenges presented by my committee carve edges into the frame of what this study will actually become.
What environment is being actively maintained by discourses about simultaneous interpreting in the European Parliament? What stable conventions and invariants are currently present? Which functional environments are being projected? My role in the projections of Members of Parliament and EP Interpreters matters just as much as their role in mine: this is what makes the proposed research action and process-based. Nonetheless, all that swirl does have a center: a contractually fixed point-of-reference in the practice of simultaneous interpretation.

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Imagine the Angels of Bread

Change is always resisted. At the cellular level patterns of survival screech to continue unaltered. It is we, the thinking aggregate of living cells composed into consciousnesses with conscience who must impose a break with violence and the talk that spurs it on.

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Not new information -

“Pain as an Art Form”

- but the images are striking and several links to amazing work are provided. I guess I never blogged about Frida Kahlo when I listened to the biography three or four years ago. Her spirit was incredible. (The jokes I make while my sadomaschistic physical therapist works out the knots in my IT bands are pathetic by comparison.)

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My smart friends are posting wicked cool stuff:
Flaws of Gravity, a review by Christopher Hitchens of a new biography of Isaac Newton.
and
Critical Art on Trial, about a group of tactical media practitioners doing digital disobedience (among other fusions of art, pedagogy, radical political action). Their activist work includes an installation that “encourage[s] citizens to make informed decisions about the biological and chemical substances which have become such a part of everyday life.” They’ve gotten into some trouble for this, leaving them (and us) to wonder “precisely what kinds of communities&emdash;real or virtual&emdash;we will be able to make” – ever.
In the review cited above, Hitchens quotes Sir Leslie Stephen, who “claimed genius was ‘the capacity for taking trouble.’” Taking, you notice, not necessarily (or only) making. Intriguing.
Relating to a lively discussion (currently in a bit of hiatus) via email with some friends, Hitchens also writes this:

the day is not far off when we will be able to contemplate physics as another department&emdash;perhaps the most dynamic department&emdash;of the humanities. I would never have believed this when I first despairingly tried to lap the water of Cambridge, but that was before Carl Sagan and Lawrence Krauss and Steven Weinberg and Stephen Hawking fused language and science (and humor) and clambered up to stand, as Newton himself once phrased it, “on the shoulders of giants.”

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Barack Obama said this last night, as others have said before and with increasing urgency as the scientific evidence becomes stronger, more clear and convincing.
But can we change the ways we talk? Can we alter the tropes of political discourse? He is trying, valiantly.
Whether he wins or loses the nomination, the consciousness accompanying his talk – that which has appealed to millions of voters across the U.S. and millions (?) more across the globe is the real prize.
Australians indicate overwhelmingly that the environment is the burning issue of our times. Al Gore has been saying this for some time, among many many others (including nearly everyone I know in the sciences at UMass). The economy matters, but the environment is the lowest common denominator. We’ve got to wrap our minds around the interrelationship between self/other & self/situation: the determinative frame being between us (people) and our context (the planet). Vectors of history propel us along paths set in motion from ambition, greed, dreams, and visions. Which of these lead to convergence (as in a mathematical series) and which to divergence are not transparent but certain measurements and predictions become increasingly possible.
As an optimist, I do not believe we are on an inevitable path to absolute (unavoidable) convergence, but the attentiveness with which we anticipate consequences to our choices is due for a radical upgrade.

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I asked students in the Group Dynamics course to engage with the title of John Robison’s book, look me in the eye, in order to investigate the meanings associated with eye contact and then consciously link that range of meanings to the notion of indirect interaction. The few students who tackled this challenge in full show how communicating across differences is quite a challenging task. Buckets34 discerned no link but trusted one must exist (to which I’d say, “no, not unless we make it!”) Freshkicks6 wrote:

In class when we commented on Steph writing sideways, she responded with, “Maybe I’m a sideways type of person.” In our culture it is expected (and we have all learned from a similar frame) that when you write, you try to write straight, horizontal, left to right. The fact that she didn’t do this, stood out and allowed us even to poke fun at her about it. Writing straight, left to right, is a cultural norm, just like looking someone in the eyes is when having a conversation. Often times, because someone does something out of ordinary, we like to comment on it and point it out. The author of “Look Me in the Eyes” talks about this often because people either make fun, or just don’t acknowledge his “sideways” behavior, so he never learns to act “normal.”

Several students comment on how the title provides a frame, which Thumpasorus suggests is a kind of proof that people actually think differently:

“Each person’s thought process brought him or her to a different conclusion about the meaning behind the title. After reading the title I thought “[Robinson] meant it figuratively. That is, he meant to say, examine me closely . . . as I read I found there was a double meaning.” I can now see that other people have thought processes different than mine, which can bring them to conclusions equally as valid. Robinson’s thought process certainly functions differently than many of us. This was expressed especially well in his explanation of his smile at the news of a death of a stranger. As we have been slowly been learning since the beginning of the semester, Steph too has a thought process somewhat foreign to many of ours. This was quite clear when she started “writing sideways” in an attempt to express herself graphically, leaving us with confused, amused expressions”

Arturo, a colleague from Business Strategy & Organizational Theory (School of Management), describes the juxtaposition of John’s and my thought processes thus:

I just finished reading your exchange with John Robison. I have to say that it is very interesting at so many levels: from structure and style to goals and understandings. It is like observing a dance where the rhythm is a 2 by 4 where one of you follows the 2-tempo while the other goes for the 4-tempo. Both of you are dancing to the same tune yet an external observer can see the differences in “beat”. On one hand you are articulate and constantly link concepts left-to-right. You use your own voice to bring in your student’s ideas and expectations and frame them in the context of his appearance in the class. Yet during all this process you do not forget your own role as mediator/referee of this engagement. On the other hand he goes linear, ignores the social innuendos. He focuses on personal goals yet he makes a noticeable effort to address your issues as they link to his ultimate goal: awareness on the autistic condition. Nevertheless when all this is happening he is still a curious mind. He seeks to grasp where are you coming from in your interpretation of his world / words as you do not conform to any standard that his linear thoughts would have foreseen (he is a linear thinker while you are a sideways traveler). So far it looks like he has partially moved from seeking/perceiving you as a means to his goal (awareness of autism) to exploring/understanding you as a means for understanding himself. He used your “eyes” to see himself from the outside at a group communication level.

Certainly I can identify with these statements: I perceive similarities in the way John and I approach the world as out-of-the-norm (noted by Fresh and Thump), and I am aware of the differences articulated by Arturo: can a strictly linear thinker and a sideways traveler form enough of a bond to co-construct a common goal? A longer exposition of this question is posted in my teaching blog as I urge students to consider deeply: Audience: to imagine or ignore?

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A vigorous debate between two faculty members dominated conversation about Marc Crépon’s “What We Demand of Languages,” an extended footnote to Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other.

I had been worried about arriving late to the Center for Communication Studies event, however Briankle Chang and Vernon Cronen were deep in discourse, ranging from the mistake of theology (not a feature of all religions), the influence of the Platonic opening, Aquinas’ linkage of physics with the New Testament, to structuralism as the antidote to transcendentalism, and whether “topos” is a place that contains all topoi and all vocabularies or a place that can be talked about in infinitely many ways.
I always learn more from faculty interactions with each other than from monologistic pedagogy!
A colleague translated Crépon’s article from French. Srinivas Lankala explains:

“Crépon summarizes Derrida’s argument, provides references to the argument that Derrida did not provide, and extends the argument to new areas:

• the question between what language is and what language means in terms of politics of nationalism or politics of identity
• the definition of identity
• the definition of the self

“One important thing called into question is the notion of a singular cultural identity: identity is formed in advance by language &emdash; the whole question of identity which cultural studies depends on, what post-colonial studies depends on, is nonexistent in that sense, it does not exist before language. Crépon extends Derrida’s proposition that the monolingualism of the other is not just his unique case of (to put it too simply) a French-speaking Jew in Algeria who is speaking French as the language of colonizer, this is one kind. Derrida goes beyond the particular to show that the idea of monolingualism is not simplistic. Crépon builds on the understanding that the colonized has no other language than that of the colonizer, but that all cultures are always colonized, because a culture comes into being through the question of naming, giving names, which is a function of language and calls language into being.”

Naming sets Chang and Cronen off again (providing me descriptive data for “saying something,” according to Chang). [Note: the provided link is not particular to the discussion, it merely invokes the complexity.]
It was suggested that “The point behind this extension of monolingualism is so that it is not understood as the empirical problem cultural studies tries to make it but rather a broader problem that applies to all of us: we all only ever speak one language and we never speak only that language.” I am not familiar enough with cultural studies to know the (attempted?) formulation of this “empirical problem” – and I certainly won’t speculate (although I am curious!)
Meanwhile, Lankala continues:

“What Crépon is doing to extend Derrida’s notion is to explore: how do we go beyond this situation, what do we do to go beyond this restrictive monolinuguaism that we all share? Derrida suggests the way beyond is to invent one’s language as one is speaking it. This is something Derrida associates with translation as a radical way to call language into question, to call identitiy into question. Not in the simple sense of from one source language to another, but a translation without sources, which only has a target language, which only has arrival; in its arrival it creates its own sources. This radical idea is what Crépon extends. How to invent new language to go beyond the monolingualism of the other that is a common situation for all.”

The subsequent exchange between Cronen and Chang was much too quick to transcribe adequately, here are the main points that I think I can parse from the words I managed to capture.
Cronen questions the privileging of the speaker, the one who speaks, i.e., the one who names over “the responsiveness of the other.” His argument is that there is no stability of language – any language – without a correspondence of action/response between the speech of one and the responsiveness of another. Cronen goes so far as to say that “the emphasis on naming is fundamentally misplaced” and poses “joint action” instead.
“Where,” Chang asks, “does that joint come from” Joint, you already presuppose jointed, being joined. That is la langue, the package.” Cronen illustrates by describing how a child learns language only through interaction. Chang concedes “two facts: we all have a father and a mother, and we speak,” agree also with Cronen’s emphasis on vision. Later, Cronen will characterize this vigorous exchange between them as a horror to those with a strict or narrow conception of dialogue, and Chang will call it “quotidian. We do this every day.”
Hmmm. Yes. I am getting ready to “say something” (but certainly not everything! and guaranteed not yet well enough) by building on the use I made of their exchange to illustrate a distinction between representation and symbolism. After some more discussion on Derrida’s emphasis on language, Lankala asserts, “The whole question of naming comes up because he’s talking of language as the force which calls culture into being, and culture is nothing but this whole process of naming.”

• Lankala: Leaving Derrida’s book aside, how can one disagree that culture is nothing but naming? Culture means singular. The point exists because someone is naming someone else…. It exists because it is named as a culture….. [this is] “naming” properly understood; it is not making things ostensive.
• Cronen: Then what is [language]?
• Chang: [Language] allows us to call things out from their natural state, again. Not fixing a lexicon, it is about establishing presence.
• Cronen: [The] complexitiy [is] in the interactive process.
• Chang: No. Naming &emdash; we found the point of disagreement. Interaction makes no sense without naming having already taken place.

It is this “point of disagreement” that I will take up, eventually. First, here is the rest of my re-construction of the conversation. Lankala moves to another interesting question:

“the relationship that Crépon makes between language and how language is appropriated in movements seeking nationalism or defining identity. [Crépon uses a] completely opposite definition of what language should mean from the way language is generally used in more mainstream cultural studies tradition, [which is] as the language of the colonizer or language of the oppressed without calling into question or breaking apart what language actually is, what its function is in defining that movement or culture, where is it from. [Derrida and Crépon's] move goes one step beyond the relationship between language-culture to discuss the functional role of language in creating a culture…..”

What ensues is a discussion of how forced multilingualism can lead to monolingualism (e.g., the case of India), and problems of language being misconceived as a possession – the “mother tongue,” as if language exists outside of/beyond the “me,” which returns us to the beginning assumptions of appropriation (for identity construction: of “self”, “culture,” “nation,” etc.)

• Cronen adds that promise is “linked to the notion that meaning is not just a presence but a pointing-into the future” (drawing on William James).
• Chang: A promise never promises anything, nothing but another promise. This is why it is linked to time, the future; that’s why they smuggle in Kant (law) and Kafka, how can they assemble these ideas together?!
• Cronen: Dewey [also, with his notion of] ends in view, not fixed. Using my vocabulary, [there is] always a punctuality, not a destination, [there is] always opening up, even when we think we’ve fulfilled … still [there] opens up a new horizon of possibility
• Chang: If fulfilled, [a promise] is not a promise any more, it is not promising.

Finally the giants (!) relented enough (!) to let us peons into the fray.
I mentioned the ideas I’m working on regarding interpretation as a way to keep promising, to keep language and meaning in motion. George asked about the use of the term, “political.” Ellen brought in the notion of “power.”
The entire 90 minutes rocked!

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