Comments? Contributions? Write to Serchan.
> Perhaps it might help if Kerry gives a brief summary > of or reference for what I'm guessing is some academic work > on electronic communications (?) to help give some of us (or is > it just me?) a better understanding of what the underlying > idea [is.]Only when one looks back, does a 'sensible' shape emerge from the series of events that led one forward. Although this is the experiential basis for the adage that one only learns from mistakes, it is understandable that at the organizational end of the spectrum, 'funding agencies' want reproducible results. The idea behind all my participation online these days is packed into those two sentences, as solid a bit of conceptual DNA as can be.
Circumstances warrant my unpacking it, and I am always pleased to go through the exercise, as each opportunity not only improves my fluency in expressing the idea thus far, but throws new light on its further ... development.
Here, I offer it in easy stages (separated by ===== ), but I emphasise (usually by an asterisk) the point that it comes apart much easier in dialogical form. If, at any point, this bare outline begs your questions, then may I humbly say, it is your responsibility to ask them?
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On the one hand, as anyone doing the real work knows -- whether they
are benchtop prototyping (to a production deadline) or learning a
(school) subject or damming a river (within budget) or raising a child
(when the parents are at work), in short, developing -- trying to bring
something new into being by rules of accountability can only distort the
process. Ultimately it forces description to be prescriptive.
In particular, those in the 'development field' are constrained to do only what they have done before; to reproduce what they know -- even when that knowledge is secondhand ('book-learning'), rather than from the school of hard knocks. On the other hand, one must be careful with ones terminology when venturing onto cross-disciplinary turf. For instance, 'accountability' at one end of the spectrum of human relations is not synonymous with 'responsibility' at the other. One may say that the idea is to make the difference between these two terms -- literally, points of reference -- clear, because their conflation obscures the entire spectrum. (2)
===== To use two neutral perspectives to illustrate, between fellow Researchers (both 'going down' let's say, as in understanding) as between fellow Executors (both 'going up,' as with a building or investment), all kinds of 'shorthand' circulates -- but Heaven help the researcher who tries to talk to the executor! I'm not saying merely that they have specialized terminology, but that the states of mind reflected by the relation between terms are diametrically opposed. All the jargon in the world will not help; they have to acquire some ground of shared, time-consuming, lived experience, in which to find a common perspective, in order to build a language they can trust. They have to acquire, I suggest, a new head which is neither Research or Execution, but something newly grown between them. What happened on Devel-L was that my researching this idea, trivial as it appears, met Doug's hardheaded executorial stance in which (if I can sum it up) one either already knows or doesnt know what one is doing.
===== On this level, when Doug perceived that I was not 'respecting' the correctness of his position, that was enough for him to conclude that I must be stoned, or sick, or deliberately mischievous. For my part, I failed to make clear that I was not criticising his abilities or experience or his performance anywhere else. I was not able to establish that my 'interest' (that is, plane of reference) is only in the dialogue he and I might have, and (after the first blush of complementarity) that failure coloured everything else. (For instance, the 'light touch' I tried to maintain was read as sarcasm -- but if one doesnt ask, how can the other's saying it's not make any difference? All there is between us is words, pixelated text.)
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-- and if doing this job in this place at this time under these conditions and above all, with enough input from these people so that they at least understand (perhaps to accept) the results, isnt something new, then what on earth is? --why do they turn them off when it comes to computer-mediated communication (maybe to save the batteries...)? If everything developmental is now cut and dried, where are the glowing results of this unquestionable Progress? Can you tell me please? (Is it Seattle?) Perhaps, I thought, after 50+ years of international technological failure (if truth be told), the assumptions of development should be examined for relevance. If the basic issues of population and resource maldistribution can only be 'solved' by the billions of ordinary people who are themselves the 'problem,' it is faintly plausible that communicating this responsibility -- this belief, let me say -- to them is a relevant matter. Why, then, shouldnt some of us ordinary people start to look at the problem of communication? (Otherwise, if we wait patiently until our global masters tell us its okay to communicate their way, we'll all be sterile and there wont be enough food anyhow, and ...)
===== (Looking back, I agree I might have gone on with that. Instead, I raised the more abstract 'terminological' distinction: and then took Douglas's reply :> Isnt it is this disjunction between 'farmer' and 'businessman' > (more than 'lost traditions') which needs to be understood? In > other words, why isnt 'development' more nearly an equal trade in > psycho- social -- not to mention economic -- terms? as his agreement on the point, rather than as an expression or image of agreeability -- and a third time, in responding to his next sentence:> It seems to me that we *do* have a disjunction here between the > players involved. The traditions lost were traded off for something > that may well be valuable in itself (although that doesn't obviate the > loss), but it also may well be incomplete or poorly adapted to the > farmers own needs and/or perceived goals. I missed the opportunity to be in agreement 'for discussion's sake.')> However, let's say for discussions sake that in this case the product > really *is* capable of providing a real benefit for the farmers But yes (I could have said then), a strong native tradition of dialog has been exchanged for a mess of atomistic, objectivist, reductionist, absolutist (cf. Richard Norgaard, Development Betrayed, pp 71-73) terms. In fact, it is jargon, even tho no one can say who the 'ingroup' is, how one joins or withdraws, or whether it is going 'up' or 'down' relative to anyone else. In these terms, the map is the reality, everything is accounting, everything is executed with efficiency, and everything is progress because we believe it to be(3) -- except, of course, human tradition, which is simply old and in the way. And I would agree that (if one is such an absolutist), one might therefore 'campaign,' 'protest,' 'organize' a 'movement' against such a 'hegemonic discourse.' One might sneak into a nice quiet forum like this one to launch a polemic, a tirade, an indictment, a call to revolution. That is most certainly not what I did, or do, or plan to do (and if anyone can produce any evidence to the contrary, I'll turn in my gold Devel-L card immediately) -- because in my case the assumption is false: I am not an absolutist ;-)
The alternative, relativistic p.o.v. is that one must (sorry, I forgot to
change heads: can only) use the tools one has to deal with the one
problem (and there is always only one) that one faces at the
moment -- in this case, the problem is not getting the masses to
revolt, its getting each person to understand the need to be responsible
for hyr own revolution
===== (The inalienable advantage of dialog is that one has time to share -- and the touchstone of the objectivist is that if one needs more time, one buys it: from the past (via a priori, 'prepared' status) or from the future ('on the never-never'). So there is another level, the downright personal -- If your time is not your own, then I'm sorry for you, because you're stuck. There is no rational solution, dialog or no. You're under the gun, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, and getting deeper in debt to somebody who couldnt care less what language you speak, 'cause you for sure ain't speaking to him.===== -- but as you can see (from here), there is not much to be said or done 'down there,' (although there is evidence that making noises palliates the tension for one in that position.) Rather than end on that... note, I'll bring this note back to a higher plane, in anticipation of my reply to Mike Mychajlonka. (Doesn't his note deserve a reply from someone?) Recalling Korzy's description of man as the 'time-binding animal', if language is a tool for understanding, and shared experience is the ground on which that tool acts, what is the (first? only?) 'product' of that understanding? I think it is time -- subjective, relational time, not that objective, 'hard-wired' clock-stuff. Specifically, what can one most easily discern from an email response? Isnt it whether one party has taken more or less time to write (and presumably, to think about) her message than the other? 'Is she going the same speed as oneself?' (not, 'How long did she take?') is the question which, I suspect, arises in any correspondent's mind. Furthermore, the Q depends on no 'instant' other than that which is its A: the 'internal evidence' of the message in hand, not the sender's 'track record' or her vocabulary or her so-lamentably-lost RL attributes of gender, colour, ethnicity or orientation, and most certainly not the hours logged by the machinery used to produce say, a 20k text, nor the time it takes another to scroll blandly through it, looking for 'relevant' answers to questions that are never asked. (Cant one use the interval between receipt and response as an objective 'first approximation' if one needed to talk about subjective time? Of course -- but what is there to say, and to whom, and for what purpose? Isnt it sad, tho that those questions lead us off topic -- to power, organization, and control? But see below.) In this light, here's another fragment of the recent 120k data-capture (8/12/99; for anyone who doesnt know, it's all in the archives at http://library.wustl.edu/~listmgr/devel-l ).
KM: Douglas replied (having earlier said, 'I think you're playing games I frankly don't have time for.' and quoting the line, '...suppose, for instance, that one party... '),> Certainly,if a common language exists, then your assumption is quite > safe: you're "home and hosed," as they say. On the other hand, what > if it is not quite as common as you assumed -- suppose, for instance, > that one party 'takes one's time' and the other is 'in a hurry'? and, in conclusion,> Suppose what you like. I'm done playing games. > ... do everyone a favor and either take it off list, or > contribute something positive Despite being done, less than 24 hours later he begins again, and concludes,> ... I have also asked you to refrain from addressing yourself to me > publicly on this list, since the content of your messages of of a > strictly a personal nature.... > > However, once again, I am going to engage in what I hope is not more > that 15 minutes of irrelevant chit chat with you below, just to keep > in shape... > What counts however, is the preparation of the people you'll be dealing > with, and what they lack you'll have to give, in order to reach the > goals you and they share. (I'm using a generic you here, directed to > the list as a whole, if anyone has actually bothered to wade through > this needlessly constructed maze. - Unless it was just an exercise - > which it was - and all it was, for me). At the time, I was pleased that he continued to reply, because it is essential to language-building to have something to talk about. Are you surprised that it does not matter what? Of course, one tries to play the 'topicality' game, as if both parties are (al)ready to share the same tools and dig the same ground. In terms of time-binding, however, instead of his asking, we read a) his decision for me what were my intentions and motivations ('proximate causes' or criteria) and b) therefrom his prescription of what I should do. That is, to save 'time,' (that is, thought) he substituted his own simulacrum in my place, and aborted the discovery process by which he might have drawn a defensible (or consistent) conclusion to our conversation. Similarly, having fixed 'my' position wrt his, he tried to fix me in the public view by c) failing to see that his own abstention would satisfy the proprieties of the list quite as well as 'yours' would. Since, of course, the real I refused to obey his commands, he launched into the 'strictly personal' morass he attributed to me (and on which the wrath of the house came down). But thinking and discovery and consistency do take time -- as does development, in unpredictable, unaccountable but not irresponsible amounts.
The data is there; here's my interpretation: -- and here's its relevance: In the middle, social range (say, on a mailing list), when there is nothing else to use, time is always there to be a basis for the necessary common language. Participants may then discover other things to use, but only in time. If they havent got that, they (and the list) are 'sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.' (5) -- and it's topicality: At the far technological end of the spectrum, one who purports to develop by the clock or by the budget ought not be surprised when the locals read the tension in his face and hands, words and actions, and decide they have better things to do than live like that. (See 'story time,' below) Cheers, kerry
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There is plenty of web space; all responses are likely to be put in the same directory, 'anonymified' or otherwise, in the same way as in any other 'archive.' I will understand, if my having said that now changes your sense of the 'reality' of a response -- that's the Godelian uncertainty of this virtual world. I hope there's enough meat on these bones to make quite a hypertextual feast!
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Ref: The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (Houghton Mifflin (Doubleday Anchor), 1950, 1954. Paper, 199pp.) Norbert Wiener, writing 50 years ago, went to great (but quite readable) lengths to explain the concept of feedback which underlies the concept (and his coinage) of 'cybernetics' -- all of which, of course, goes without saying now, two (human) generations later: It is clear that his concern is with the human social machine, and the difference between pre-configured 'rigidity' and programmable 'learning' -- but, having stated the cybernetic premise as "the view that the structure of the organism or the machine is an index of the performance that may be expected from it,"(p 57) he starts with the ship's steering mechanism and the neuronal construction of a frog's leg, then with the analogous structure of the brain-machine, then the way brains 'control,' that is, communicate by language. Thus he is halfway through his book before he is able to say, In the second half of the book, he lays out a number of 'worked examples' -- the law, science research, industrial production -- to show that in each case the flow of information both 'up' to the 'central processor' and 'down' to the executive extensions is critical. He concludes Chapter X with:
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1. Who is he talking to by this publication 'channel'?
2. Do you think anybody 'got it' who didnt already understand the concepts? Is there a corresponding feedback channel for it they could have used, e.g. to ask questions?
3. His awareness of the civil rights movement would let his easily see his semantic 'gender bias,' once it was communicated to him. Would exposing it to him be an appropriate use of such feedback? Assuming he is alive and well and a subscriber to this list, how would you proceed -- by the rigid 'command language' he decries, or the 'flexible language' of learning and dynamic feedback?
4. If you were to write a preface for _The Human Use, Revisited_, what changes over 50 years would you mention? To whom would you address it, and by what means would you try to discover his or her or their understanding of it?
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Discussion:
Would you say
a. The use of language to send questions is more (or less) important
than its use to receive answers?
b. The use of language to 'process' questions is more (or less)
important than its use to 'produce' answers?
Can you demonstrate or illustrate your answer(s) "through your actions"?
Cheers,
kerry
Btw, "to cut off one's nose to spite one's face" is not an expression of power, but of fear -- or misunderstanding, which is almost always the same thing.
Cheers,
kerry
[...] Aping the style of mainstream advertising has its disadvantages, of course, from a theoretical standpoint. Where old-school culture jammers could guarantee viewership by, say, hijacking a prominent billboard to critique a corporation, the new generation seems more interested, as Winiemko puts it, in "hijacking the internal thought process that makes advertising work." As a result, today's culture jammers have to find a way through the conscious filters set up to protect Americans from media oversaturation.-- Sam Williams, [The Medium Is the Message.]
"A lot of our culture is based on people giving something one cursory glance," [Gordon Winiemko, co-creator of the short film Enjoy, a satire about a huge neon Coca-Cola billboard] laments, sounding like a Madison Avenue executive. "That's hurt us a few times. People don't want to take the extra time to look at something and find out what it's really about."
'Face to face' has been, since Roman times, confrontational. The great blessing of the telephone was not so much 'privacy' (after all, party lines were common into the 60s) as invisibility. One could say what one wanted to say without all the folderol (in those days one might still call it social intercourse) that had been necessary to ensure that a person-to-person encounter would not be understood as confrontational. That this is called privacy only reflects the reduction of communication to its content, while 'public' has increasingly come to mean only just such 'folderol' - superfluous to the needs of 'information.' In cyberspace, this telephonic convention has returned to a public medium, but the public is loath to resurrect the folderol. Ms A speaks with Sri B as if in a vacuum; if some third party speaks up, it is assumed to be reinforcements on one 'side' or the other -- say, with references or corrections to already stated material -- while everyone else waits their turn. (Whether this re-grafting occurred as a consequence of the 'opening up' of the internet, or if it was already underway, I cannot say. Nevertheless, I am not alone in noting the dreary atmosphere of so many lists which were lively and interesting places 4 or 5 years ago, and I am uncomfortable with the implication of there being so many people -- not who have nothing to say, but who do not know they have something to say, because it does not fit in the 'accepted forms of discourse.')
I suggest that the 'accepted forms' are as obsolete -- and uninteresting -- as that of a 1950 Doubleday paperback. We, the wired elite, are not now, here, to talk to someone, but we havent yet accepted the alternative of talking with... the world. For me, at any rate, and on the strength of some evidence -- the necessary conceptual breakthrough is that listening, not speaking, is the issue. (You think I like to hear myself speak? Well, I do -- because I have learned to listen, and I can do it with you, too, if you wish.)
Sadly, learning to listen is taught in none of the institutions (but jails have literacy programs!); and schoolkids become parents without knowing that listening to their kids is the most critical aspect of any family structure. And mature people become school administrators and policy directors without listening to anything but the imperialist, imperative form, as if civil, civilized society no longer exists and as if the regimented, unimaginative, uncreative world Wiener foresaw has actually come about. But adult or child, researcher or executor, is one to demand there be put in place a system for cultivating flexibility? Never mind that it's a contradiction in terms: they havent got the 'standing' to order it done, and secondly, they do not know that in speaking with a System, it is necessary to demand -- because they have not been taught. (All learning comes from teaching, isnt that right?) The quandary is no longer even an issue, because there is no language in which it can issue. (See Noam Chomsky on the 'political' ramifications of speech control.) The one tool that has truly universal application, never wears out, and requires no batteries is atrophying.
Wiener makes the point more than once, that "speech is a joint game by the talker and the listener against the forces of confusion (p 92) and that therefore "language ... suvives by the very fact of its use and survival ..." (p 93, dont you love that recursion?) Use it or lose it -- I shudder to think of the day even English is a dead language, but it surely will not be long.
Another image is that of petrification, as both the cellulosic structure and the cellular voids are mineralized. Environmentally, this is not simple substitution but loss of diversity. Perhaps by now my penchant for emphasising dualities as a dynamic interchange rather than as Aristotelian categoricals (either A or ~A) is understood
You may think it is simply a matter of non-interference; that only wilful attempts to subvert it to ends other than human understanding need be guarded against. (Is this why Robert Johnson's 3 or 4 oneliners triggered several hearty paragraphs of indigant response -- with fully quoted messages to boot? But noise is easily filtered; the question is not what interferes but what confuses the channel. ^D works on RJ perfectly well, but what can you do with empty phrases? How do well-meant but nevertheless personal, irrelevant and essentially reactionary 'position statements' contribute anything? So we know that some people we rarely hear from have some favourite words, and -- I guess -- that they imagine that if others use those same words it will mean the same thing. Isnt it time to grow a little way beyond content as a criterion, when understanding is what is required?)
You may think that speaking only when 'important' matters arise is a valuable trait. I agree -- but I reserve the right to set my own criterion for importance, as any of us online should be learning to do without making any great hue and cry about the fact of doing so. I think language is important, and (knowing that I have at best a short week to make my case), I have spoken to it, as clearly as possible. I have been listening too, naturally, and will continue to do so.
You may think that passively 'tuning out' stuff which is 'not interesting' is unrelated to any active need to tune in. In a mechanical world, they would indeed be binary opposites. For humans, and I think Wiener can stand as a pretty good reference, it is learning which swings the two out of opposition and somewhat closer to parallel: Why is it ? - meaning, what criterion are you applying, and where did it come from? How can one help to make it interesting? - meaning, what other criteria can one apply? In the end, isnt it your 'critical' application which makes your mail 'interesting' to those who have yet to discover what makes this virtual world go around? Why should you not contribute to the massive amount of global reeducation which needs to occur (for any number of obvious reasons) -- that is, to be a teacher even if no one knows who you are or what it is you do? Is it some one else's 'responsibility'? Some one else's WHBY?
How else are the lurkers and the neophytes going to learn to think? I know what they learn from intellectual silence -- they learn to be easily distracted, and seduced, and addicted, and violent, and manipulated because nothing else goes on in their world.
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As I say, 'face to face' is confrontational, and if the Douglases of the world (and they are legion!) insist that they not be confronted in conversation (even when they are not here!) -- that one must approach obliquely (prostrately?) with eyes averted, then I confess I started out pretty awkwardly. But the solution is not to just say 'Sorry,' and move to greener pastures where people are more ready to agree with you. We've done that for 50 years, and the world is not a prettier place for it. (Do you prefer Atrazine or cyanide or trichloromethane in your well water?)
But what is one to do? Am I still grinding the same old axe, or does language technology offer a solution? What else is there, in fact, except to surround them? In dialogue there is not just an A and a B, there is also C, Sr(s) Tres, for very good reason. My mistake was to tackle DMH singlehandedly -- and once he started to run, he did rather get away from me. But then, where was 3, my comrades in discourse? Christian resigned, and Don has bowed out## -- I suppose Robert might have come in if he'd been up to date! (Again, content or competence does not matter. We're on a deeper plane, remember?) Several others I know simply sat on their hands behind their invisible screens, and while I am not embarrased by their negligence, isnt it clear that a generous dollop of intervention ('moderation' is too loaded a term!) would have saved you the embarrasment of having your synapses dissected here in front of the world?
But, why buy trouble? Midwest US farmers learned in the the Depression that your neighbour's farm is your own. Folks pool together, buy it at the foreclosure auction, and give it back to him -- because he'll do the same for them. Su casa es mi casa.
Everybody likes to talk about virtual community, but there is precious little evidence of it in the event, because, simply, we're scared to put anything on (the) line. We post platitudes and homilies and jokes, and wait for people to agree with us, by posting more hollow speeches and more inanities. But we never get to the common ground, because we have not learned that speech is action, that understanding is a shared experience, and that it doesnt come easy -- that it is the antithesis to the do-it-alone ethos of the North.
So, when the next hothead shows up, I hope we see a halfdozen folks who can strike up a lively conversation not as a 'distraction,' but as an education. It would sure make life a lot easier for those trying to figure out what in blue blazes is going on here. But is that maybe too much? Am I a generation or two too late? Should I settle for the hope that even one person knows what conversation is, and what it is for? (What, did you think I meant one person as a speaker? God knows, there are always speakers!)
Thanks for listening, I've never thought these ideas quite this way before, and I couldnt have done it without you. But you'll have to excuse me if I dont yet call this outfit a 'development community.'
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A footnote:
##
"I hadn't meant [that] the interchange between you and Douglas be brought up again...." No, I understood what Don meant was, "Here's an opportunity to play your hand of Citations, Authorities, References and Degrees," but again, I declined to follow that one-up/ one-down strategy. Let's say I had a vision, and I go out into the street to determine how much of it is real. But instead of asking what is or is not, my command of the language (my phrasebook) is such that I can only ask, Who sees what I see? Even when I (with Douglas' help) provide real-time 'footage,' I get evasions instead of Answers, most folks (of course??) are too busy to look, but one asks for permission to see anything, another sees it, but policy forbids admitting it... Almost no one asks for more detail, or analyses the differences between what each of us sees. (Isnt it interesting that a person-in-the-street has to be the scientist/ expert/ professional, because real (that is, paid) scientists study only what facts, and professionals profess only "what works"? Hmmm, is that why they gussy it up with neologisms; that is, imaginary terms?)
But this paradox led me, as it now leads you, to this climactic point: the testing and evaluation of development. How does one know when a conversation (even a friendly one!) is finished and its time for a new topic?/ How does a community communicate that it has had enough development (thank you kindly), even if it thought its benefactors could control the process? Yes, feedback, that's right -- but what kind of feedback?
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Once, I wanted to survey development agencies and their beneficiaries, and to include the question, Would the agent's having had more understanding of how to develop have improved his or her performance on the project? This was struck by a survey-design expert, who pointed out that the target group was far too diverse to get meaningful answers. She is quite probably right (even tho one suspects every response would have been YES) but it led me to a discovery. There are no after-the-fact data from beneficiaries. Internal agency 'evaluations' may compile evidence of cost effectiveness, or the region of influence, or the projected returns on investment -- but few read them, and even fewer get them into the hands of those whose lives have been enriched, let alone carry back any suggestions from that side as to what might be done with them. Development is one field in which one defines ones own terms -- and by them, every project (however costly or extensive) is a success. But, again, what kind of evidence would one look for? How does one know whether what one has achieved or undergone is 'development' or, shall we say, 'other'? I began to look for possible parallels in education -- after all, isnt evaluation considered an essential part of that process? There may be problems of execution, but dont the ed-theorists know how to tell learning from mere imitation, copying of manners, the regurgitation of protective colouring? Unfortunately, and although there are as many ed-theories as theorists, not one of them ever says. Sure, they have plenty of 'performance' data, but performance of what? So my quick-and-dirty get-the-degree-and-get-out proposal to analyse development per se foundered, and here you see before you today, the dire consequences -- let it be a lesson to your youngsters! One thing led to another (as my advisors had seriously warned me they would if I took too long), and I took to thinking (well, what would you have done?), Why not use a cybernetic model? If the purpose of feedback is to change an initial action (and while no-feedback is also feedback, it does not prompt change -- as you may have noticed), then couldn't I posit imitation as evidence of a noncybernetic relation, and look for things 'student's did differently from 'teachers' as a result of their interaction? It didnt take long to notice that students do masses of things differently from their teachers, but never mind -- I didnt give up, and the quintessential statement finally occurred to me: How many students (ever) act like teachers? (Whereupon, the answer popped right out: barely 1 in 30, and dropping -- think about it). Well, then, how many communities ever act like agents of change? Do the good citizens of Donwanna ever organize (that is, plan for themselves) to bring their fellows to the light, across the way in Makimi? Not that I ever heard of. Does this suggest that they 'got developed' but they didnt learn to develop? That while they may have imitated development (by giving 'right answers' to the agents of change), they really werent into change? That the putatively dynamic, interactive outreach of cross-cultural understanding ("to create an equitable and just world," 11/23) is a process as dead as a lab frog's hind leg? |
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Coda:
So when I say I'm looking for folks who can converse as an education, I mean to apply a plain and simple test: does their conversation lead to more conversation? If folks havent learned to develop (or even recognize it as development) at this piddling scale, what are they doing out there in the real world? Understanding that would indeed make life easier for those of us who are trying to figure out what is going on -- that is, who wish there was a language in which to express our concerns -- because understanding is the essential ingredient for any human (not mechanical, administrative,or systematised), recipe of change.
And when I say I thank you for listening, I'm equally serious. I hereby testify that none of the posts of the past week were pre-planned or regurgitated. I might have learned to do it, but I havent been able to do it half so well, before your profound patience and quiet smiles pulled it together. So that everyone can appreciate the power of virtual listening, altogether now (the world is watching!), let's hear it for Donwanna -L!
kerry
<-- Contents
(9) The odour of nausea about it that Nicole noticed may be a sign the air needs diffusion, as with any other pollutant. This leads to an interesting thought. A signal is distinguishable from the background by its consistency. On the Net, its the altogether too clear signals, like RJ's, which are called noise -- is the entire notion inverted, wrong-side-out? Is 'information pollution' in general simply over-concentration; that is, from too few people trying to do the job of too many?
Perhaps, instead of trying to pin down ( or 'clean up') content at this stage, its more effective to maximize the terminals -- the points of origin, and more important than ever to wash the 'telephonic' mindset out of our global threads.
Whatever happened to "Each one, teach one"? Isnt "making a joyful noise" a fitting way to observe Millenia, regardless on whose calendar/ watch it may occur? Back <--
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On Tue, 23 Nov 1999 13:00:53, Kofi V Anani
This is nice talk ... but how do we ensure the dreams of Pan-Africanism are realised? What concrete steps need to be taken in light of the flawed Modern African States on the continent which seem to have lost all direction and capcity to promote peaceful co-existence and transformation of the poor majority?. Is it not time for the pan-African crusade to include concrete suggestions and strategies to achieve that envisaged african unity? Is it only enough to call for African unity without any proposed agenda on how to get to that goal? Have we not heard enough of this call for unity which always end as soon as the delegates leave the conference halls [and mailing lists] and back to their countries? |
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On 11/23/99 6:21:41, elaine3@mindspring.com wrote:
[...Maimonides,] a Jewish philosopher in the 13th century stated that the highest form of charity is that which ensures that the poor person gains an [*]independent[*] means of earning a living [and expressing a belief]. |
On Tue, 14 Dec 1999 14:55:00, Kelly Thompson If we are addressing development issues we are missing the point if we cannot interact respectfully on an individual level. Without relationships based on trust, we will get nowhere in meaningfully exploring issues or furthering the "development" agenda with each other, or, as in my case, with southern partners. ... This is "our" listserv and we have an ethical responsibility as a group to protect participants. If we do not, the listserv will lose credibility and people with potentially valuable contributions will leave or remain silent in fear of retribution or harassment.
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