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April 23, 2005

Come on Get Happy

In the extreme OMG category, I saw an ad in Entertainment Weekly announcing the DVD release of the Complete First Season of The Patridge Family. !

!

The season includes all 25 episodes (were there really that many?) and a bonus CD of 4 of their biggest "hits". (I'm guessing that will include "I Think I Love You" - a song someone was singing the words to a couple of weeks ago in the hallway at school without knowing that it came from that show, or at least claimed not to know that... which might have had something to do with my advanced age....).

True confessions: I was addicted to The Patridge Family. 8:30 pm every Friday night, immediately following The Brady Bunch. The threat of being denied TPF was sufficient to get me to do all kinds of things - including cleaning my room when I didn't want to at amazing speeds. I knew every song by heart, and had at least two on 45's (you do remember 45's, don't you). I still remember entire plot structures for several episodes, and in many cases can tell you the song that went with the plot. I owned both the first and second albums and played them often. Like many other young girls of that era, I had a serious crush on David Cassidy. And, the really BIG confession: I was a charter member of The Partridge Family Fan Club.

There. I'm out.

Now, don't take this to mean I'm rushing out to buy this new DVD collection. Far from it. I am in fact stunned that it has made it to DVD status. But then we were just talking the other day about how it seems the new thing is to find every old TV series ever and DVD it. (For evidence, see the "Customers who bought this also bought" portion of the Amazon page.) (Oh, and read the reviews, too. Just because it shows I'm not the only one...)

travelin' along here's the song that we're singin' - c'mon get happy

Posted by cageyer at 11:03 AM | Comments (1)

April 20, 2005

Global Civil Society

All semester my "Globalization and Religion" class has been examining texts to answer questions about global civil society, mostly as to whether there is such a thing, and if so how we recognize it, or if not can there be such a thing, and if so what would comprise it. Last week, we read a set of articles that offered some definitions and historical concepts of civil society. Selected from three anthologies to cover a range of world cultures and religions, the articles brought up the idea of "the good life" as part of the purpose of civil society - that civil society existed to provide a space for individuals to come together and build a "good life." That notion obviously has different meaning in different cultures, which got me thinking about Hegel's dialectic, Watts's Six Degrees and Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Ready? Here goes:

Michael Walzer points out that since Hegel, "the words [global civil society] have been known to the knowers of such things but they have rarely served to focus anyone else's attention" (8). He goes on to discuss the resurgence of global civil society as a concept among eastern European intellectuals. This comparison raises a point I find compelling: the notion of civil society that has emerged, developed, and existed in the post-Hegelian western European/North American world has been centuries in the making. Such a system can't just be laid wholesale over an existing state apparatus and expected to flourish. This is true in the same way that democracy can't simply be "applied" to a country and expected to work. In both cases, an appropriate infrastructure has to be developed. Baynes highlights this in his mention of Habermas's notion of democracy – a deliberative politics where the process of opinion forming is just as important as the actual vote (126-7). That process occurs when there are a range of voices in a public arena each trying to inform and persuade others to a particular point of view. This type of debate, increasingly shut down in the United States and completely foreign to whole generations in other countries, is the realm I think of when I think of civil society.

Walzer also observes that civil society is associative and pluralistic. Just as individuals have different interests that cause them to form different associations, so no one structure can define civil society. The role of the state is important not only for stability, but also for protection against unequal distributions of power within the social sphere. So far, so good. But if taken across the range of these essays, across the cultures of Islam and Confucianism and whatever else we didn't read from these anthologies, this plurality starts to hit some bumps. In western states with governmental structures based on the rule of law and a Judeo-Christian heritage, the abstraction of the individual subject separates moral from legal forces. By this, I simply mean that what might be "legal" isn't always morally right, and in the absence of the moral imperative, the law can only protect so much. That moral imperative has historically come from the associations that make up civil society, including the family and religion. But in a culture that does not have the same heritage, doesn't have the "rule of law" in the same way or the same abstraction, the imperatives are different. In Nosco's discussion of Confucianism, expectations of moral goodness allow for the power of shame to order the social structure. This reminded me of Vine DeLoria's talk here a couple of years ago. He talked quite a bit about the power of shame within the Indian community, and particularly noted the loss of that tool in shaping the character of younger Indians. It's again a moral quality, the formation of socially acceptable ways of being that come from care for and respect for others.

In these readings, the commonalities I see in the various systems include: protection of basic human needs – food, shelter, freedom from violence; respect for the ideas and opinions of others; equality before the law; balance of power between the state and the people (or between the ruler and the people, or between the strong and the weak; moral goodness in leaders (leading to serve and help others rather than just to gain power). It seems that these ideas came up in Confucianism, in Islam, and in the goals of the western Enlightenment tradition. There are, therefore, points of commonality to build on. Here's where the dialectic gets involved:

That combined group, or either part of it, then moves outward to connect with yet another group, renegotiating along the way, and so on. In this model, global civil society is the space that allows for the discursive sharing of ideas and coming to synthesis, but it will look different in different places because there will be different forms of resistance depending on the differing governing structures (i.e., where religions oppress other ideas, then the discourse has to take place outside of that arena, but where a totalitarian type state exists, then the religious environment might be the place where the discourse takes place.)

The thing about global civil society is that is has to be something universal enough to allow all inhabitants of all states/nations/societies to have access to the discourse at some level, but particular enough that the access is appropriate to their particular governing or dominant structure.

I've blogged about David Weinberger's notion of the 100 lb. backpack of default philosophy before, in a similar vein. For civil society to be truly global, it seems to me, the first bunch of folks that have to be willing to let go of their backpacks are those who have the most wealth and privilege (world as a whole considered). The Sarvodaya Movement, discussed in the same post, is about working in communities to build communal sensibility. That movement, and others like it, are necessary if GCS is to happen, but they must also be at work within the borders of the United States, and not just raising money "here" to do work "there," but doing the same work "here" as well.

If GCS can be conceived as a system, and I think it has to be in the context of the question of its existence, then Watts's questions about emegence apply. He asked,

the particular manner in which [individuals] interact can have profound consequences for the sorts of new phenomena--from population genetics to global synchrony to political revolutions--that can emerge at the level of groups, systems, and populations. As with the cascade in the power grid, however, it is one thing to state this and quite another matter altogether to understand it precisely. In particular, what is it about the patterns of interactions between individuals in a large system that we should pay attention to?

The answer, Watts says, will come from the new science of networks. This new science has numerous and interesting overlaps with the theorizing about global civil society. John Keane called GCS the project that doesn't end, and why Walzer called it the project of projects. I've been seeing little links and overlaps between these two seemingly unrelated courses all semester, and with this entry as background, will try to capture more of them in the days ahead.


Works Cited:
Baynes, Kenneth. "A Critical Theory Perspective on Civil Society and State." Civil Society and Government, eds. Nancy L. Rosenblum and Robert C. Post. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. 123-145.

Walzer, Michael. "The Concept of Civil Society." Toward a Global Civil Society, edited by Michael Walzer. New York: Berghahn Books, 1995. 7-27.

Watts, Duncan. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003.

Posted by cageyer at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)

Public and Private, Knowledge and Space

Note: This entry was originally posted at Networked Rhetorics on March 9, 2005. I meant to cross post it then, but forgot to change it from "draft."

What I've been trying to do is "go somewhere" with the distinctions between private and public when it comes to knowledge creation and ideas about space. Collin commented that the web affords "place without space," which is an intriguing path all its own. Then Madeline grabbed a snippet from Weinberger that I loved about the Web flipping private to public and went on to say that notions of "rights and ownership" are the results of exclusionary systems. Her argument is that in the web "space" if all own it, no one "owns" it, that ownership is not applicable in such a space. We said in class that the threshold for membership in web communities is interest (well, and access, or course...)

With me so far? This part is largely recap, I know.

So then in another class I was reading Habermas (yes, I have finally read some Habermas), who argued that through the public sphere, the "passive" public became the "critical" public. This notion of public sphere is tied to conversations we're having about global civil society, and what will count as the public sphere in a global sense. Back to Weinberger, who wrote:

what counts as ‘the public sphere’ has changed. It now includes the Web. We’re just not sure how (14).

Then I'm thinking, as Madeline did, about Weinberger's 100 lb. backpack, and how light you can be if you let go of individualism, realism, relativism, and solipsism, which seems to me to be part of the necessary condition to be able to "think outside the box" or become the kind of self-healing organization or community or even person described by Watts in the Toyota story. That sort of knowledge can't be taught, but it has to be learned, not by procedures and rule books, but by being open to ideas and alternatives and newness. As Watt wrote:

The trick is to focus not on the stimulus itself but on the structure of the network that the stimulus hits (249).

The nature of the network on the internet is one of paths and links and ends--of connectedness within a few steps (or degrees). This connectedness facilitates socially constructed knowledge, which is itself a form of public knowledge, which by definition isn't private, and if you follow Madeline's logic isn't actually "owned" by anyone, but is accessible to everyone. And because it's public, because it is constructed from many foci, the potential for a cascading effect increases. So back to Weinberger, who said:

the Web also returns knowledge to its roots in heated arguments in the passageways of Athens. Knowledge isn’t a body of truths stamped with a seal of justification. Knowledge on the Web is a social activity. It is what happens when people say things that matter to them, others reply, and a conversation ensues (140).

This conversation is what can produce the cascading effect.

This class is, I think, about imagining academe is a new and innovative way, about sharing knowledge and ideas and facilitating through the social network of the internet knowlege that couldn't come about with each of us working alone or even in our relatively limited physical spaces. We work with traditional elements, like publishing, citing, and credit, but look for new ways to make it work. We find some brand new elements, and look for ways to bring them into our traditions. How far can we reach? How much of the hollow sphere can we collapse and how many new ways can we see our doings?

I guess that's it for now. I'm not sure I've really gone anywhere with all this, but I'd like to, so if anyone can help me make sense of it, your comments will be appreciated.

Posted by cageyer at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

One and Twenty

I have have this little book I originally bought for $4.95 at a book store in a small beach town in Washington about 25 years ago. It has a lovely burgundy sueded cover and is called A Treasury of the World's Best Loved Poems. The last time I looked at it was at least seven years and four major moves ago when I decided that everything in it was too sad to read. If I have learned nothing else in my college career, I have learned that sad poems aren't about sorrrow, necessarily.

Anyway, I took it down tonight because a line from a poem I was sure was in it was in my head, and I wanted to read the whole thing. Guess what? That poem isn't in this volume. I know I have it. I'm just not at all sure where it is now. But in reviewing this book, I realized again how much valuable literature I have had on my shelves all these years, and only in the last six have I learned why it's valuable or "how" to read any of it. This little volume is suddenly worth much more to me than it ever was.

As for the poem I thought I would find there, it is actually available here.

Posted by cageyer at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2005

Conversations

Conversing with the textual form of Porter Perrin this morning, I find this gem that reminds me why I wanted to get into comp/rhet to begin with:

Much of our work deals really with style, with judging the appropriateness and effectiveness of the language used in a particular circumstance. Style considers not the conventional patterns of the language (agreement of subject and verb, and so on), but the selection among the various possibilities in words and constructions that our vast and various language offers.

yeah. wish I'd said that.

Posted by cageyer at 12:20 PM | Comments (1)

April 10, 2005

There should be a "first sunny week" rule...

There were golfers(!) on the course today. envy. envy. envy. I'm determined to get enough done to join them before this fine weather turns dismal again.

Cleaned up the grill yesterday, but got to the propane place too late, so grilling has to wait a couple of days. Should be porch sittin' sippin' beers with friends this evening, but too much work to do.

There should be a rule, at least here in Central NY, that the first full sunny week of the spring is a holiday from all classes and schoolwork, including rough drafts, weekly response posts, and yes, even blogging...

Posted by cageyer at 06:15 PM | Comments (3)

April 08, 2005

Rant: Defacing Library Books

Today I opened a book I checked out from the library yesterday. On the very first page of the table of contents, I knew I was going to need the new pink eraser I just bought. I was right. Nearly every page has pencil marks, underlines, and comments, that interfere with at least 40% of the text. This one even has highlighting in it. In a library book! The eraser isn't even enough. I'll never be able to read this copy. I don't know why the library charges 50 cents a day in fines for late books and charges nothing at all to the borrower who ruins that book by writing in it.

When I buy books, I often buy used ones, and when I do, I assume a certain amount of other people's markings. I don't expect that in a library book.

So today's rant is aimed at those who write in library books:

[rant]
JUST STOP IT!! Those books are borrowed! They do not belong to you. Other people will want to use them. Writing in them is vandalism. It defaces the property of another. It's not just wrong, it's rude. If you want to mark up the text while you read, BUY the book.
[/rant]

Posted by cageyer at 06:14 PM | Comments (1)

April 03, 2005

Centripetal/Centrifugal

Earlier this semester in Networked Rhetorics, we discussed the centrifugal/centripetal features of the internet, and of blogging in particular. I’ve wanted to write something more about that for weeks, especially because I’ve been seeing references to these terms in other part of my studies. When a classmate in another course commented in her weekly post about observing the "simultaneous centrifugal/centripetal force" in an essay by Anthony King about Binghamton, I realized it was time to just say something, so here's some somethings.

The centrifugal effect made sense to me right away. I used to give blood regularly, and for a long while every time I went in I had to go through special screening for anemia before they’d let me donate. Several times, that meant “spinning” some blood, putting it in the centrifuge and spinning it into its parts. Even putting lettuce into a salad spinner to spin the water away from the leaves seems centrifugal. The centrifugal nature of blogging is the outward gesture. This post is an outward gesture. I’ll post it, and hope someone will read it, and maybe even comment on it. In this way, I’m inviting contact, shared knowledge and shared development of knowledge.

Centripetal was a new term for me. I understand it to be the opposite of centrifugal, a gathering in rather than a spinning out. I think a black hole falls into this category. In blogging, this is when I look out to the blogs of others, reading them and gathering information back to myself. Researching by reading blogs is a centripetal action.

Blogging allows for springboarding ideas. I read other people's blogs and see what they're thinking about and how they are approaching different aspects of the world, and if I am open to new ways of seeing my own world, I can find an idea that can be fit to whatever I'm working on. The openness is important. As a searcher, I have to be open to ideas, and those ideas have to be freely available for me to find as my openness allows. As a poster, I have to be willing to share ideas, to let go of some or all of the sense of ownership that comes with ideas and ways of thinking, and in the other direction, I have to be willing to offer thoughts and comments for others when I see their situations in a different way.

Once I had this idea in my head, I really started to see examples of it. In Six Degrees, Duncan Watts described thinking about how studies of disease spreading could apply to financial markets (193). He was able to springboard principles from one field into another, even though he wasn't an expert in either one. Outward gestures invite people with different knowledges, or different ways of seeing, to see your problem or question in new ways. Watts's description of Barabasi and Albert being "one step ahead" of the team he was on because they were looking at a different part of the probled reminded me of making a puzzle--when I've been working on it long enough that I stop seeing some details, and then another person walks up and plunks the piece I've been looking for right into the spot.

In a different field, Jeff Zaleski, a journalist who wrote about religion and the internet in a book called The Soul of Cyberspace discussed the role of the internet in providing options to mainstream or on-the-ground religions. Like blogging, online religions tend to offer flatter, less hierarchical structures. Zaleski wrote:

Because the medium influences the message, it’s possible that in the long run the internet will favour those religions and spiritual teachings that tend toward anarchy and that lack a complex hierarchy. Even now, those who log on to cyberspace may tend to gravitate to religious denominations that emphasize centrifugal rather than centripetal force, just as the medium carrying them does. Authority loses its trappings and force on the net.

Much was made during the 2004 presidential campaigns, and particularly the major party conventions, of the role of bloggers vis-a-vis traditional journalists. Bloggers bypassed the normal editorial processes to “call it as they were seeing it.” These types of blogs, many of which are purely outward gesturing, offer a new and unmediated way to receive information. Similarly, bloggers in the academic realm can self-publish, or get open feedback on works in progress, or collaborate in ways the traditional academic publishing world. This means two things. First, it means academics can share more ideas more often, and in less developed stages, thus increasing the potential for springboarding and leaps in knowledge production. Second, it means access to ideas and resources that might never make it into publication, never get past an editor’s careful marks, never get read even if published. The potential is somewhat staggering, but it also begs the immediate question, what will count as production and contributions to the field for tenure, review, and promotion purposes?

Enough for now. Next, linking up the several references to social networks and communities with the internet as the meeting ground.

Posted by cageyer at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)