[In response to http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2012/01/06/mort-zuckerman-we-must-reignite-americas-can-do-spirit]
Mort is a wordy guy for just this: we need a president who "will try anything consistent with our values that restores our national belief in ourselves". I shouldn't talk about wordiness, but this is an example of an extreme. From the point of view of good writing, he could have supported this conclusion in about half as much, if that. Oh, I recognize that we are not here to talk about writing and style, but for such a lame conclusion about the kind of president(?) we need, he could have wasted less of our time, AND focused more on all those obstructionists and unthinking hubrists in government and society who have taken us off an original, pretty good course. (Contrary to popular practice, we do not need to be supersized in everything from meals to wheels.)
Oh, for the good old days. Fact is back then we had other just as weighty issues to contend with and we somehow muddled through as much because we had to as for some can-do hocus. Invocation of Churchill was the right note, however, to strike, if I may be allowed to mix my metaphors.
Isn't the conclusion really that we need leadership at least at the national level with balls? as well as a citizenry that won't stand for anything less? Yes, embedded in Mort's "evidence" are concrete steps towards building that self confidence or whatever it is we seem to have lost. But I don't think that pessimism or some deficiency in some immeasurable public attitude really is the issue. At issue is America's survival and thrival as a credible and worthy world citizen. For that we have to go back to work--you are right--spend some money, collect some money, tighten our belts, consume less and conserve/preserve more and . . . walk the walk. What are the concrete things to be done to achieve that? Feeling good will follow as will some milktoast can-do trait Mort seems unable to find right now.
Mort, this is a first draft. Go back and give us a more concise thesis and some meaty bullet points to communicate to our candidates. Then let's see what they say and have an election. If they behave like the GOP field has done all these many months so far, we will get Obama again, and we should then sing like Janis Joplin and Nike, nothing left to lose so let's just do it. Can-do by popular default, if Obama doesn't choose otherwise, or have the you know whats. Better than spinning ourselves for another couple of decades until the eventual bump on the head or skinned knees brings us to our new reality.
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
January 10, 2012
September 12, 2011
Meaningful message, obscured
[See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7342071.stm]
The BBC today reported that a "nude photograph of France's first lady, Carla Bruni, has been auctioned for $91,000 (L46,098)--more than 20 times the expected price." If one reads beyond the headline and the first paragraphs, we learn that "Christie's said money from the sale of the photograph will go to Swiss charity Sodis, which provides clean drinking water to developing countries."
It is all too easy to miss the message of this apparent bit of fluff, the universal message. There is so much to obscure our vision to see the meaningful.
Take the nudity of a well-recognized person now made public by an auction and an international news medium. Sex sells news and other things. Is this the message? that the BBC gains readership by reporting this news? It titillates us and tempts us to enter the world of who is doing what with whom and how many times? Too mundane.
Ms. Bruni participated in the occasion of taking the picture. She posed, perhaps was paid, consented implicitly or explicitly to the publication. All pretty straightforward. Are the model and her career and the industry of which she was a part the beneficiaries? and the lessons? Perhaps, but this is hardly noteworthy in the larger scheme of things. There are other models and other nudes in pictures and paint. Significance of who and what again do not seem to be the point.
Money. The root of all that is good and evil. The fact that a photo has sold for such a sum is a commentary on the values and affluence in our societies. Or is it? Surely photographs and photographers and subjects have commanded this and higher sums for fashion or art. And prices are always going up. We can't be surprised if a photo or a gallon or liter costs us more today that it did yesterday. For what purpose--money--does not seem to point to that which is meaningful.
The argument may be that we need gas/petrol more--we use it to get around. We don't use a photo in the normal course of things. Okay, let us make the comparison with a coffee-table book. High-end books to look at in plain view of self and guests are almost like the oeuvre of Carla au natural. Case closed? No lasting smack between the eyes about the meaning of life or some such thing in a book or its use.
Christie's. Do we live better or more meaningful lives knowing that it was Christie's and not the Akron Museum of Modern Art that sold, or bought, Carla's likeness? Fat chance. And is it giving to Sodis, a charity, that we can relate to? Another, with all due respect, charity. We need not proceed further. What can the message be, and is it in any sense universal?
Representing or presenting the female figure throughout history has been seen and understood as that part of us which is always and ever aspiring. We seek beauty. And the effect of giving with whatever motivation to a cause or someone is, unadorned by speculation, interpretation and such, an unselfish, good act. A truth.
THE True, the Beautiful, the Good — through all the ages of man's conscious evolution these words have expressed three great ideals: ideals which have instinctively been recognized as representing the sublime nature and lofty goal of all human endeavour. (From A lecture by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, January 19, 1923, http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/TruGoo_index.html.)
Take the particulars away. The specific details--BBC, Christie's, Carla, money, charity-giving, etc.--are not the message of the fluff. The universal message without obscured vision is to see ourselves and others and the best that our humanity in all its facets, and foibles, are capable of. That we aspire--and aspire yet again--let there be more nudes and more auctions and more unselfish acts. We can take pride and comfort in the meaningful, and ourselves.
The BBC today reported that a "nude photograph of France's first lady, Carla Bruni, has been auctioned for $91,000 (L46,098)--more than 20 times the expected price." If one reads beyond the headline and the first paragraphs, we learn that "Christie's said money from the sale of the photograph will go to Swiss charity Sodis, which provides clean drinking water to developing countries."
It is all too easy to miss the message of this apparent bit of fluff, the universal message. There is so much to obscure our vision to see the meaningful.
Take the nudity of a well-recognized person now made public by an auction and an international news medium. Sex sells news and other things. Is this the message? that the BBC gains readership by reporting this news? It titillates us and tempts us to enter the world of who is doing what with whom and how many times? Too mundane.
Ms. Bruni participated in the occasion of taking the picture. She posed, perhaps was paid, consented implicitly or explicitly to the publication. All pretty straightforward. Are the model and her career and the industry of which she was a part the beneficiaries? and the lessons? Perhaps, but this is hardly noteworthy in the larger scheme of things. There are other models and other nudes in pictures and paint. Significance of who and what again do not seem to be the point.
Money. The root of all that is good and evil. The fact that a photo has sold for such a sum is a commentary on the values and affluence in our societies. Or is it? Surely photographs and photographers and subjects have commanded this and higher sums for fashion or art. And prices are always going up. We can't be surprised if a photo or a gallon or liter costs us more today that it did yesterday. For what purpose--money--does not seem to point to that which is meaningful.
The argument may be that we need gas/petrol more--we use it to get around. We don't use a photo in the normal course of things. Okay, let us make the comparison with a coffee-table book. High-end books to look at in plain view of self and guests are almost like the oeuvre of Carla au natural. Case closed? No lasting smack between the eyes about the meaning of life or some such thing in a book or its use.
Christie's. Do we live better or more meaningful lives knowing that it was Christie's and not the Akron Museum of Modern Art that sold, or bought, Carla's likeness? Fat chance. And is it giving to Sodis, a charity, that we can relate to? Another, with all due respect, charity. We need not proceed further. What can the message be, and is it in any sense universal?
Representing or presenting the female figure throughout history has been seen and understood as that part of us which is always and ever aspiring. We seek beauty. And the effect of giving with whatever motivation to a cause or someone is, unadorned by speculation, interpretation and such, an unselfish, good act. A truth.
THE True, the Beautiful, the Good — through all the ages of man's conscious evolution these words have expressed three great ideals: ideals which have instinctively been recognized as representing the sublime nature and lofty goal of all human endeavour. (From A lecture by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, January 19, 1923, http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/TruGoo_index.html.)
Take the particulars away. The specific details--BBC, Christie's, Carla, money, charity-giving, etc.--are not the message of the fluff. The universal message without obscured vision is to see ourselves and others and the best that our humanity in all its facets, and foibles, are capable of. That we aspire--and aspire yet again--let there be more nudes and more auctions and more unselfish acts. We can take pride and comfort in the meaningful, and ourselves.
Invented truths?
In an article titled "Texas sect temple 'used for sex'," we read this from the BBC Web site on April 11, 2008.
Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband.
It is 2008. If ever there was an invented truth, this must (still) be it.
Not to cast stones at the sincerity of some character or others, this precept, or "revealed truth" is a prescription for God knows what, and only s/he can know. No man or woman today with a mentality beyond mythical can swallow this. But apparently some have. And they have allegedly included children in the mix, but to date it is unclear how children play a role in the "sect's" marriages and families.
Perhaps it is desperation or some strong sense of "I can beat this death-inevitability thing by sowing my seeds." It is unclear, except again in an omniscient's eye. We cannot know that even by the standards of the most devout, who acknowledge a better and brighter yet unknowable force in and through and all around us. That s/he has spoken audibly on this specific approach to marriage and male-female relations and not on other matters of great import yesterday and today seems highly suspect.
To be accurate, the quote refers to three wives at the same time, polygamy. Otherwise many of us are already guaranteed a place because of three or more legal, lifelong commitments, which may successively have found rocky shores.
The subservient-to-men piece is archaic by anything we can learn from the further reaches of human and social development, developments we can document by advances in knowledge, prosperity and consciousness. How is it that there is great want of awareness in this world of seeming plenty? Perhaps we are too full of ourselves and what we have accomplished, while at the same time losing our vigilance to what is reasonable and good.
Some would argue that the good is relative. In the context of faith, sex with minors and multiple wives (why not husbands?) is sanctioned. But is dominance over and exploitation of the young or naive ever justifiable in the face of what we know causes physical, mental and emotional (let alone spiritual) harm? Call this then stupidity, or more kindly, ignorance. But today, to be possessed of either is both a curse and the self-inflicted disability of religious and non-religious alike. Okay.
Maybe it is about Texas. After all, it is not the first sect to have been uncovered in that state. Perhaps it is in the soil or the water of the place? No, too simplistic. By that my own place could breed as much weirdness, and it does. So the idea of doctrine growing out of location seems fruitless, or it deserves much, much more careful thought and study. What then?
Some would have us see this as a male conspiracy and the brainwashing of women. These then attribute a level of consciousness and premeditation to promulgating the doctrine. Isn't this just a cover for coveting the other for pleasure or dominance, and taking what the ego or the devil says is there for the taking?
Some would claim that women and men in this sect believe. Although that has been dismissed above, perhaps there are some believers. Enticed or enrolled into a polygamous program before the opportunity to see and learn the world apart from one belief's lenses could account for this. If this is the case, do we need to save ourselves from ourselves, thus justifying state intervention?
All of this to say if not strongly suggest: The end of the world is at hand and in the hands of those who would have us believe invented truths and the exploitation of the poorly informed. They are killing us with their words and fervor for their own, not God's, pleasure.
_____
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7341077.stm
Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband.
It is 2008. If ever there was an invented truth, this must (still) be it.
Not to cast stones at the sincerity of some character or others, this precept, or "revealed truth" is a prescription for God knows what, and only s/he can know. No man or woman today with a mentality beyond mythical can swallow this. But apparently some have. And they have allegedly included children in the mix, but to date it is unclear how children play a role in the "sect's" marriages and families.
Perhaps it is desperation or some strong sense of "I can beat this death-inevitability thing by sowing my seeds." It is unclear, except again in an omniscient's eye. We cannot know that even by the standards of the most devout, who acknowledge a better and brighter yet unknowable force in and through and all around us. That s/he has spoken audibly on this specific approach to marriage and male-female relations and not on other matters of great import yesterday and today seems highly suspect.
To be accurate, the quote refers to three wives at the same time, polygamy. Otherwise many of us are already guaranteed a place because of three or more legal, lifelong commitments, which may successively have found rocky shores.
The subservient-to-men piece is archaic by anything we can learn from the further reaches of human and social development, developments we can document by advances in knowledge, prosperity and consciousness. How is it that there is great want of awareness in this world of seeming plenty? Perhaps we are too full of ourselves and what we have accomplished, while at the same time losing our vigilance to what is reasonable and good.
Some would argue that the good is relative. In the context of faith, sex with minors and multiple wives (why not husbands?) is sanctioned. But is dominance over and exploitation of the young or naive ever justifiable in the face of what we know causes physical, mental and emotional (let alone spiritual) harm? Call this then stupidity, or more kindly, ignorance. But today, to be possessed of either is both a curse and the self-inflicted disability of religious and non-religious alike. Okay.
Maybe it is about Texas. After all, it is not the first sect to have been uncovered in that state. Perhaps it is in the soil or the water of the place? No, too simplistic. By that my own place could breed as much weirdness, and it does. So the idea of doctrine growing out of location seems fruitless, or it deserves much, much more careful thought and study. What then?
Some would have us see this as a male conspiracy and the brainwashing of women. These then attribute a level of consciousness and premeditation to promulgating the doctrine. Isn't this just a cover for coveting the other for pleasure or dominance, and taking what the ego or the devil says is there for the taking?
Some would claim that women and men in this sect believe. Although that has been dismissed above, perhaps there are some believers. Enticed or enrolled into a polygamous program before the opportunity to see and learn the world apart from one belief's lenses could account for this. If this is the case, do we need to save ourselves from ourselves, thus justifying state intervention?
All of this to say if not strongly suggest: The end of the world is at hand and in the hands of those who would have us believe invented truths and the exploitation of the poorly informed. They are killing us with their words and fervor for their own, not God's, pleasure.
_____
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7341077.stm
November 12, 2009
Meme in a Kosmos
[A short gloss. Memes are _structures_ we can perceive of recurrent _mutual understandings_ along side of _science_ and _art_. The quartet is a Kosmic description, which is also not the whole but part. Our participation is required. But this piece will be the last of merely naming, therefore claiming. It does not do what it says it should.]
Strophe
Have you seen a meme?
It is like a theme.
_Seen one I've never.
I'm not so clever._
It's like what we do,
needs one, maybe two.
_Can you eat it, yumm?
Something cooked by Mum?_
More like over time,
things we eat, or rhyme.
_Made then they are.
Memes are not so far._
Close at hand we see.
Out of sight they be.
_Are they fixed on land,
timeless as the sand?_
No, they sometimes shift.
We must through them sift.
_So to say they're there,
memes are when we stare._
Yes, and more with some,
before you say, "Done!"
_Why we themes do sew,
if memes come and go?_
Occupy our time--
till we wax sublime.
_Trees are one with ground,
if Truth is never found._
Antistrophe
That may be for you.
Some massage the goo.
_Thus they form a pense
to avert the rends?_
Yes, tears and more, say,
to effect what may.
_Some things we create
science cannot sate._
Ideas finely posed,
are our history's prose.
_Without good and new,
little would be true._
A poor life we'd lead
without ideas' good steed.
_That along with text
we can forge what's next._
Nature, time and space
include thoughts apace.
_Silly rhyme is this.
Beauty's part we miss._
Let not us deceive.
Kosmos can conceive.
_Truth is science 'main.
Structure not disdain . . ._
Words our meanings make.
No poems forsake.
_Thank you gentle god.
We'd be more than clod._
Strophe
Have you seen a meme?
It is like a theme.
_Seen one I've never.
I'm not so clever._
It's like what we do,
needs one, maybe two.
_Can you eat it, yumm?
Something cooked by Mum?_
More like over time,
things we eat, or rhyme.
_Made then they are.
Memes are not so far._
Close at hand we see.
Out of sight they be.
_Are they fixed on land,
timeless as the sand?_
No, they sometimes shift.
We must through them sift.
_So to say they're there,
memes are when we stare._
Yes, and more with some,
before you say, "Done!"
_Why we themes do sew,
if memes come and go?_
Occupy our time--
till we wax sublime.
_Trees are one with ground,
if Truth is never found._
Antistrophe
That may be for you.
Some massage the goo.
_Thus they form a pense
to avert the rends?_
Yes, tears and more, say,
to effect what may.
_Some things we create
science cannot sate._
Ideas finely posed,
are our history's prose.
_Without good and new,
little would be true._
A poor life we'd lead
without ideas' good steed.
_That along with text
we can forge what's next._
Nature, time and space
include thoughts apace.
_Silly rhyme is this.
Beauty's part we miss._
Let not us deceive.
Kosmos can conceive.
_Truth is science 'main.
Structure not disdain . . ._
Words our meanings make.
No poems forsake.
_Thank you gentle god.
We'd be more than clod._
October 9, 2009
Clinical trial failure
GIRL: No, that was nice, really.
BOY: I am so sorry.
GIRL: It's OK. Some guys just can't.
BOY: Oh?
GIRL: Yeah, sometimes it's like that.
BOY: How do you know?
GIRL: Well, I just know.
BOY: You just know? This is something you just know?
GIRL: Yeah. And we talk.
BOY: Who's we?
GIRL: You know, girls.
BOY: You mean girls talk about this stuff? between each other?
GIRL: Yes. It's OK. We can try again sometime. Soon.
BOY: [silence]
GIRL: So?
BOY: So what?
GIRL: So what do you think? about trying again, I mean.
BOY: Seems a bit clinical to me.
GIRL: What do you mean?
BOY: Well, you seem to know all about it. And you even know people and talk with your girlfriends and . . .
GIRL: Yes, we need to know. I mean we need to be prepared.
BOY: Prepared for what?
GIRL: For . . . for aborted attempts.
BOY: Now it really sounds clinical. Pretty cold.
GIRL: We could try again right now.
BOY: Jeese. I don't like talking about this. It is like school or going over the steps before bungee jumping or something. You--I really got to get up the nerve for something like this.
[prolonged silence]
GIRL: I think it's time to cut you off.
BOY: Cut me off? Off what?
GIRL: All this. I don't think you are mature enough to handle it.
BOY: Handle it? I can handle anything. I can prove it.
GIRL: Well, not just, er, recently . . .
BOY: I don't want to talk about it.
GIRL: OK. See you later then.
BOY: Just like that?
GIRL: Yep. You're not up to it, or can't . . .
BOY: That's a bit harsh.
GIRL: OK. If you say so.
BOY: I do. I do say so.
GIRL: Well, see ya.
BOY: Doubt it.
GIRL: Don't be a spoiled sport.
BOY: I'm not. I just . . . I just thought . . .
GIRL: Thought what?
BOY: That it would be more . . . soft or romantic or something.
GIRL: Maybe I didn't use the right words.
BOY: Yeah, maybe.
GIRL: See ya!
BOY: Hmm. Charlie said it would be like this with you. I didn't believe him, but now I do.
GIRL: Charlie? Charlie! What did he say?
BOY: I think it's time to cut you off. I'll spread the word.
GIRL: What did you say?
BOY: I am so sorry.
GIRL: It's OK. Some guys just can't.
BOY: Oh?
GIRL: Yeah, sometimes it's like that.
BOY: How do you know?
GIRL: Well, I just know.
BOY: You just know? This is something you just know?
GIRL: Yeah. And we talk.
BOY: Who's we?
GIRL: You know, girls.
BOY: You mean girls talk about this stuff? between each other?
GIRL: Yes. It's OK. We can try again sometime. Soon.
BOY: [silence]
GIRL: So?
BOY: So what?
GIRL: So what do you think? about trying again, I mean.
BOY: Seems a bit clinical to me.
GIRL: What do you mean?
BOY: Well, you seem to know all about it. And you even know people and talk with your girlfriends and . . .
GIRL: Yes, we need to know. I mean we need to be prepared.
BOY: Prepared for what?
GIRL: For . . . for aborted attempts.
BOY: Now it really sounds clinical. Pretty cold.
GIRL: We could try again right now.
BOY: Jeese. I don't like talking about this. It is like school or going over the steps before bungee jumping or something. You--I really got to get up the nerve for something like this.
[prolonged silence]
GIRL: I think it's time to cut you off.
BOY: Cut me off? Off what?
GIRL: All this. I don't think you are mature enough to handle it.
BOY: Handle it? I can handle anything. I can prove it.
GIRL: Well, not just, er, recently . . .
BOY: I don't want to talk about it.
GIRL: OK. See you later then.
BOY: Just like that?
GIRL: Yep. You're not up to it, or can't . . .
BOY: That's a bit harsh.
GIRL: OK. If you say so.
BOY: I do. I do say so.
GIRL: Well, see ya.
BOY: Doubt it.
GIRL: Don't be a spoiled sport.
BOY: I'm not. I just . . . I just thought . . .
GIRL: Thought what?
BOY: That it would be more . . . soft or romantic or something.
GIRL: Maybe I didn't use the right words.
BOY: Yeah, maybe.
GIRL: See ya!
BOY: Hmm. Charlie said it would be like this with you. I didn't believe him, but now I do.
GIRL: Charlie? Charlie! What did he say?
BOY: I think it's time to cut you off. I'll spread the word.
GIRL: What did you say?
Advice to a young student upon entering college
Set aside your feelings and realize that a world exists that is purely, or almost purely, in your head in the form of immaterial ideas, ideas like pure concepts and thoughts, such as those _about_ things. Yes, they can be in the form of images, and yes, they can be more or less clear. And they can be accepted or rejected or shaped in different ways--by thinking and considering, often with the help of others living and dead.
Fellow students and teachers will discuss with you what you are trying to understand or learn _about_. And writers will talk to you about these things also, because all is not in the repertoire of each student or teacher. The world of knowledge is greater than any one person.
So, there are these things--ideas--which are the stuff, the major amount of stuff, in college. Yes, college is about other things, but in the main teachers and students entertain and work with ideas, and they do so regardless of how they feel about them. Set your feelings also aside so that you too can see clearly what they are. Don't feel that you have mastered something because you have had the introduction. There is always more to know of the things themselves and about them.
Next, realize that all the cognitive content (the ideas) of what you and your fellow students and the teachers work with is not you. An idea is not yours until you decide to embrace it, that is you make it yours and with some level of feeling you own it and you represent it as how you as a unique and individual person think and will act. But because the content is not yours at the beginning, or not yet yours, you do not need to defend or justify it except on its own terms, using your head not your heart. It is separate and apart. It does not have to be about you.
Beware when answering questions such as, "What do you think about that?" This question is often answered by likes and dislikes and feelings. Which is not the answer to the question! Pay attention to the exact, specific questions before stepping into the quicksand.
When you write something or present something to a teacher or a class, you are giving evidence of your understanding of a _what_--an idea or set of ideas. What you have written or presented can thus stand outside of you as an understanding. That understanding and the way in which it is presented can be judged as good, better, best, or not good or relevant--and these according to faithfulness to the original idea or ideas and according to the correctness and effectiveness of presentation, because in this area too, there are ideas and practices (acts) for which there are accepted ways. So once you have externalized what you think in a way that can be good, better, and so forth, in communicating, all these things take on that immaterial character of ideas also and can be talked about without much if any emotion.
College is about learning the ideas and how to communicate them in ways that are understandable and actionable. Failure to be able to show evidence of your understanding by either expression or the content of expression is failure to learn one of the most important skills college has to offer.
Be aware that many if not most students do not truly learn these things in three or more years of college study. It takes a lifetime of practice to separate ideas from feelings and to combine them when the situation properly calls for an integrated response. Some people never get it. Imagine an idea half-baked, or eloquence without substance.
Next, try and then find your preferred approaches to studying and taking exams. This too is a content area with information, knowledge, and practice that have worked for others. Survey what others have said to do and experiment until you are comfortable with your approaches, and employ them if they work. Do not lose time at the beginning by ignoring this. Half or more of a term can pass by floundering around before you settle in. The earlier you settle in, the better. With practice you will refine your study and preparation skills.
Not lastly, listen carefully. Read carefully. Reflect without regret. Respond not too carefully. There is much to gain from others in college, and you are someone who can learn from others as well as from how you yourself perform.
Fellow students and teachers will discuss with you what you are trying to understand or learn _about_. And writers will talk to you about these things also, because all is not in the repertoire of each student or teacher. The world of knowledge is greater than any one person.
So, there are these things--ideas--which are the stuff, the major amount of stuff, in college. Yes, college is about other things, but in the main teachers and students entertain and work with ideas, and they do so regardless of how they feel about them. Set your feelings also aside so that you too can see clearly what they are. Don't feel that you have mastered something because you have had the introduction. There is always more to know of the things themselves and about them.
Next, realize that all the cognitive content (the ideas) of what you and your fellow students and the teachers work with is not you. An idea is not yours until you decide to embrace it, that is you make it yours and with some level of feeling you own it and you represent it as how you as a unique and individual person think and will act. But because the content is not yours at the beginning, or not yet yours, you do not need to defend or justify it except on its own terms, using your head not your heart. It is separate and apart. It does not have to be about you.
Beware when answering questions such as, "What do you think about that?" This question is often answered by likes and dislikes and feelings. Which is not the answer to the question! Pay attention to the exact, specific questions before stepping into the quicksand.
When you write something or present something to a teacher or a class, you are giving evidence of your understanding of a _what_--an idea or set of ideas. What you have written or presented can thus stand outside of you as an understanding. That understanding and the way in which it is presented can be judged as good, better, best, or not good or relevant--and these according to faithfulness to the original idea or ideas and according to the correctness and effectiveness of presentation, because in this area too, there are ideas and practices (acts) for which there are accepted ways. So once you have externalized what you think in a way that can be good, better, and so forth, in communicating, all these things take on that immaterial character of ideas also and can be talked about without much if any emotion.
College is about learning the ideas and how to communicate them in ways that are understandable and actionable. Failure to be able to show evidence of your understanding by either expression or the content of expression is failure to learn one of the most important skills college has to offer.
Be aware that many if not most students do not truly learn these things in three or more years of college study. It takes a lifetime of practice to separate ideas from feelings and to combine them when the situation properly calls for an integrated response. Some people never get it. Imagine an idea half-baked, or eloquence without substance.
Next, try and then find your preferred approaches to studying and taking exams. This too is a content area with information, knowledge, and practice that have worked for others. Survey what others have said to do and experiment until you are comfortable with your approaches, and employ them if they work. Do not lose time at the beginning by ignoring this. Half or more of a term can pass by floundering around before you settle in. The earlier you settle in, the better. With practice you will refine your study and preparation skills.
Not lastly, listen carefully. Read carefully. Reflect without regret. Respond not too carefully. There is much to gain from others in college, and you are someone who can learn from others as well as from how you yourself perform.
Behold the lamb of God**
Father Rumi hung up the phone after having promised to stop by the farm and have a look late that afternoon. He promised, after Colin told him of the eerie way all except one eye looked at him. Father Rumi readily admitted to himself that he was more curious to see the abnormal lamb for himself than to minister to Conlin's apprehensions about how they--the other six eyes--stared at him. Father Rumi thought he should reassure his parishioner that at least and in this case a most unusual creature also bore the stamp of God's flock. And after all, Colin was one of Rumi's flock too, who called in need. It was Father Rumi's _raison d'etre_, to respond compassionately and unreservedly to any call for help.
_Seven eyes. There's a curiosity. And one on top of its head that stared just up in a vacant or knowing gaze. That image brings new meaning to adoration and contemplating the divine. Silly thought. But what did that eye see?_
To be stared at with six eyes, six pairs, that was almost normal, Father Rumi thought.
_But for animal or human to have seven eyes, well that was a wonder, not to mention that six gave Colin the creeps. Colin was probably just unnerved or amazed that they were staring at him, following his every move about the barn. Maybe the lamb was just hungry and Colin held the promise of salvation from hunger? Or was it just the fact of a lamb born on Christmas eve with seven eyes?_
Superstitions abound still in this land, he dismissed.
_No awe or omen need necessarily be our response. Colin was probably just a bit taken aback by one of nature's mistakes. I'll go and visit him and bless his lamb. The church's complicity averts duplicity._
Father Rumi, proud again for his clever rationalizations, went about tidying up after this special day's rituals and celebration, and he settled into his reading chair and was soon in a kind of waking dream reminiscent of images conjured up by Coleridges' Xanadu and its gardens sprinkled with colorful koans.
Colin was not easily agitated, but this event and that being in his barn were enough to stir up and hold valid Jungian archetypes made manifest and then some. Colin was odd but not a fool and not unschooled. His offbeat readings as well as his interest in the esoteric practices of the ancients who once lived on his land made perfect sense to him as a modern if modest small farmer, and bachelor with not too much time on his hands. The seven-eyed lamb born coincidentally(?) last night on Christmas eve took on an auspiciousness and importance beyond the mere vicissitudes of nature that one sees, or hears about after five beers in the pub, or reads about in the sensationalist press. One eye in the position of the seventh chakra contemplating the heavens--well, that was just too much to ignore, that is if one could ignore the silent other eyes that just watched his every move.
Colin wondered whether he had done the right thing, calling Father Rumi. Well, at least he could give witness, especially since he didn't know if there would be any more surprises involving the lamb, or anything else. Village folk, once they got hold of this news, would be asking to see it or would just show up, like from last Christmas until after Twelfth Night when that light, UFO they said, had appeared in his horse pasture that bordered the state highway to the north.
__________
** Page 181: A shepherd calls the local priest when one of his sheep gives birth to a lamb with seven eyes. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
_Seven eyes. There's a curiosity. And one on top of its head that stared just up in a vacant or knowing gaze. That image brings new meaning to adoration and contemplating the divine. Silly thought. But what did that eye see?_
To be stared at with six eyes, six pairs, that was almost normal, Father Rumi thought.
_But for animal or human to have seven eyes, well that was a wonder, not to mention that six gave Colin the creeps. Colin was probably just unnerved or amazed that they were staring at him, following his every move about the barn. Maybe the lamb was just hungry and Colin held the promise of salvation from hunger? Or was it just the fact of a lamb born on Christmas eve with seven eyes?_
Superstitions abound still in this land, he dismissed.
_No awe or omen need necessarily be our response. Colin was probably just a bit taken aback by one of nature's mistakes. I'll go and visit him and bless his lamb. The church's complicity averts duplicity._
Father Rumi, proud again for his clever rationalizations, went about tidying up after this special day's rituals and celebration, and he settled into his reading chair and was soon in a kind of waking dream reminiscent of images conjured up by Coleridges' Xanadu and its gardens sprinkled with colorful koans.
Colin was not easily agitated, but this event and that being in his barn were enough to stir up and hold valid Jungian archetypes made manifest and then some. Colin was odd but not a fool and not unschooled. His offbeat readings as well as his interest in the esoteric practices of the ancients who once lived on his land made perfect sense to him as a modern if modest small farmer, and bachelor with not too much time on his hands. The seven-eyed lamb born coincidentally(?) last night on Christmas eve took on an auspiciousness and importance beyond the mere vicissitudes of nature that one sees, or hears about after five beers in the pub, or reads about in the sensationalist press. One eye in the position of the seventh chakra contemplating the heavens--well, that was just too much to ignore, that is if one could ignore the silent other eyes that just watched his every move.
Colin wondered whether he had done the right thing, calling Father Rumi. Well, at least he could give witness, especially since he didn't know if there would be any more surprises involving the lamb, or anything else. Village folk, once they got hold of this news, would be asking to see it or would just show up, like from last Christmas until after Twelfth Night when that light, UFO they said, had appeared in his horse pasture that bordered the state highway to the north.
__________
** Page 181: A shepherd calls the local priest when one of his sheep gives birth to a lamb with seven eyes. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
Recommended reading***
Manager: Let me get this straight. You recommend to every customer the same book? We can't keep it in stock.
Clerk: Yes, that's right.
Manager: Let's see. _The Satanic Verses_. To everyone?
Clerk: Yes.
Manager: Why, for God's sake?
Clerk: It's a good book.
Manager: Have you read it yourself?
Clerk: No.
Manager: How can you possibly recommend it if you haven't read it? Not to mention that it is sort of politically incorrect for me to even stock it.
Clerk: It says it all.
Manager: But you haven't read it.
Clerk: Don't have to. It is all in there.
Manager: How do you know?
Clerk: Well, if you must know, here is the deal. If you read anything, anything of some substantial minimum length, doesn't matter, fiction or non-fiction, in there you will find the answers to all life's mysteries.
Manager: Interesting thesis. But I doubt _The Satanic Verses_ is going to help you bake a cake or prevent a souffle from deflating. Otherwise we could put it with the other cookbooks. What am I talking about? This is crazy. You have got to stop it.
Clerk: Well, think of all the sales and no complaints ever lodged against me, or dissatisfaction with my recommendations, what I have said, I mean . . .
Manager: You don't make recommendations. You make only one.
Clerk: You seem to be the only one complaining. Have you read the book?
Manager: Well, no. But that's beside the point. We can't be recommending just one book. We have others to sell.
Clerk: People buy other books. I don't prevent that.
Manager: But they go out with their book and either a copy of that damn book or they have reserved a copy for when the backorders arrive. And I only order and re-order _The Satanic Verses_. Nothing else.
Clerk: I guess our customers' experience reading this book stands as a testament to what I have said. I mean my opinion that one book is as good as another, if you read it carefully.
Manager: I don't think that follows. But why this book?
Clerk: There is enough there, they tell me, to keep them entertained and enlightened for a lifetime. When they come back to get a copy as a gift, that is. Seems like pretty often.
Manager: Pretty strong recommendation.
Clerk: Yes.
Manager: What do you say to customers? Do you reveal your opinion about reading or this philosophy of yours?
Clerk: It depends.
Manager: On what?
Clerk: On the customer.
Manager: Now you are a psychoanalyst. I don't believe this.
Clerk: Is there anything else?
Manager: Hmm. Could you just recommend something else once in a while or something.
Clerk: Sales'll drop.
Manager: I'll take that . . .
Clerk: Chance?
Manager: Yes. I mean, no.
Clerk: I think you will find the right answer to your questions after you read _The Satanic Verses_ and consider this chance business of yours. At least it might help you with your indecisiveness.
Manager: Don't start with me. I am not the one on trial here.
Clerk: I'm on trial?
Manager: Go back to work.
Clerk: Yes, sir.
Manager: I suggest you read that book before recommending it to another customer. You might change your mind, or your philosophy or whatever.
Clerk: I have another one to recommend if _The Satanic Verses_ ceases to please and instruct.
Manager: And what is that?
Clerk: Oh, it will come to me. The dust jackets and any illustrations figure into an important decision like that.
Manager: For Christ's sake!
Clerk: Sounds like a lesson from _The Satanic Verses_.
Manager: I haven't read it. And besides, half the world hates him for writing it. There is, or was, a contract out on his life for writing it and defaming the prophet.
Clerk: Which prophet?
Manager: See, you should read the book.
Clerk: Why?
Manager: To see what it says and why all these people are so up in arms.
Clerk: Brilliant. I can use that with some our customers--like you--teetering on the edge. Thanks.
__________
*** Page 126: A bookstore clerk decides to recommend the same book to all customers, regardless of what they ask her. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
Clerk: Yes, that's right.
Manager: Let's see. _The Satanic Verses_. To everyone?
Clerk: Yes.
Manager: Why, for God's sake?
Clerk: It's a good book.
Manager: Have you read it yourself?
Clerk: No.
Manager: How can you possibly recommend it if you haven't read it? Not to mention that it is sort of politically incorrect for me to even stock it.
Clerk: It says it all.
Manager: But you haven't read it.
Clerk: Don't have to. It is all in there.
Manager: How do you know?
Clerk: Well, if you must know, here is the deal. If you read anything, anything of some substantial minimum length, doesn't matter, fiction or non-fiction, in there you will find the answers to all life's mysteries.
Manager: Interesting thesis. But I doubt _The Satanic Verses_ is going to help you bake a cake or prevent a souffle from deflating. Otherwise we could put it with the other cookbooks. What am I talking about? This is crazy. You have got to stop it.
Clerk: Well, think of all the sales and no complaints ever lodged against me, or dissatisfaction with my recommendations, what I have said, I mean . . .
Manager: You don't make recommendations. You make only one.
Clerk: You seem to be the only one complaining. Have you read the book?
Manager: Well, no. But that's beside the point. We can't be recommending just one book. We have others to sell.
Clerk: People buy other books. I don't prevent that.
Manager: But they go out with their book and either a copy of that damn book or they have reserved a copy for when the backorders arrive. And I only order and re-order _The Satanic Verses_. Nothing else.
Clerk: I guess our customers' experience reading this book stands as a testament to what I have said. I mean my opinion that one book is as good as another, if you read it carefully.
Manager: I don't think that follows. But why this book?
Clerk: There is enough there, they tell me, to keep them entertained and enlightened for a lifetime. When they come back to get a copy as a gift, that is. Seems like pretty often.
Manager: Pretty strong recommendation.
Clerk: Yes.
Manager: What do you say to customers? Do you reveal your opinion about reading or this philosophy of yours?
Clerk: It depends.
Manager: On what?
Clerk: On the customer.
Manager: Now you are a psychoanalyst. I don't believe this.
Clerk: Is there anything else?
Manager: Hmm. Could you just recommend something else once in a while or something.
Clerk: Sales'll drop.
Manager: I'll take that . . .
Clerk: Chance?
Manager: Yes. I mean, no.
Clerk: I think you will find the right answer to your questions after you read _The Satanic Verses_ and consider this chance business of yours. At least it might help you with your indecisiveness.
Manager: Don't start with me. I am not the one on trial here.
Clerk: I'm on trial?
Manager: Go back to work.
Clerk: Yes, sir.
Manager: I suggest you read that book before recommending it to another customer. You might change your mind, or your philosophy or whatever.
Clerk: I have another one to recommend if _The Satanic Verses_ ceases to please and instruct.
Manager: And what is that?
Clerk: Oh, it will come to me. The dust jackets and any illustrations figure into an important decision like that.
Manager: For Christ's sake!
Clerk: Sounds like a lesson from _The Satanic Verses_.
Manager: I haven't read it. And besides, half the world hates him for writing it. There is, or was, a contract out on his life for writing it and defaming the prophet.
Clerk: Which prophet?
Manager: See, you should read the book.
Clerk: Why?
Manager: To see what it says and why all these people are so up in arms.
Clerk: Brilliant. I can use that with some our customers--like you--teetering on the edge. Thanks.
__________
*** Page 126: A bookstore clerk decides to recommend the same book to all customers, regardless of what they ask her. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
Unimagined life worth living?****
Gary sat on his bed and thought about retiring. He decided to just have a brief nap and get up later and take care of toilet, teeth, and tea, a ritual before falling deeply asleep for the day.
Gary had a night job, so it was his routine to get to bed about nine or nine thirty in the morning, get a good eight to twelve hours sleep, eat, do house chores and return to work, six days, that is nights, per week. Sometimes he lost track of the day and date, but this didn't much matter. The guys at work always told him during the last shift before the seventh night off.
Gary's naps were filled, as was his sleep, with vivid and colorful adventures. Naps often brought blonds and panoramic parts, like giant breasts gently hovering above him, begging to be touched and tasted. It was when he could bury his whole head in the soft fleshy parts around the imaginably large and tumescent nipples that he enjoyed the most. Yes, naps were short, wet and pleasurable.
Longer periods of sleep had him doing the daily things most people do. Shopping for food, going to the cinema, meeting friends for beer. These dreams were mostly predictable, not particularly exciting, comfortable. Gary had all he needed, including reading material, philosophy mostly. And he read, or reviewed word for word what he had read, while asleep sometimes, if that isn't too strange, or too much of a stretch for the imagination. Gary felt content and fulfilled in most parts of his life.
Work was not much different from his immaterial imaginings during sleep. There he had set duties that he did and did well. There were colleagues to chat with and girls to watch and fantasize about. Life was good. No nightmares waking or sleeping, and no dramatic turns or challenges to contend with, until this.
As he lay back and put his head on the pillow this morning, Gary felt something he had never felt before. Or rather, he didn't feel it and didn't remember having felt it before. Although his head lay cradled in something soft, there was no pillow, no bed, no shades to draw, no sound of morning traffic outside his window. In fact, if it is not stretching the truth too much, there was no apparent window where during his nights and days there had been one before. Gary looked down towards where the foot of his bed should be. He saw nothing. There was nothing there.
"Now, what the?"
Gary immediately recognized it. He had fallen asleep and this was one of his lucid dreams, but definitely a dream. He relaxed and waited for what would happen next. He thought about a particular pair of recurrent big breasts, but not one materialized. He considered having beer with some friends, but could not remember or visualize where the sports bar was, or who his friends were.
"Funny."
He decided to stop this non-starter nap, get up and have a snack or bit more. Now, was it to be breakfast or dinner? He couldn't remember the last time he ate, or what he ate. He wasn't particularly hungry, but eating sometimes helped him doze off when he had a difficult time getting to sleep.
"I have no body!"
Gary was slipping away, from himself. No nap, no dreams, no breasts or shopping, no sleep, not even his own body.
"Time to get up."
Gary sensed that he was now awake. But nothing was any different except the suspicion that it was all in his mind, his imagination. That existed but nothing else.
"Now, who was it who wrote about everything is mind, that we construct our realities?"
Gary couldn't remember, and he couldn't find his bookshelves where he thought the answer was, some writers whose last name began with H? It would surely be there, but where, if it is not stretching the truth too much.
"Ah, I get it. It must be my night off, my day, er, night of rest. I don't have to work or sleep. So, what can I conjure up now to do?"
__________
**** Page 192: A philosopher comes to the realization that all known existence is a product of his imagination. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
Gary had a night job, so it was his routine to get to bed about nine or nine thirty in the morning, get a good eight to twelve hours sleep, eat, do house chores and return to work, six days, that is nights, per week. Sometimes he lost track of the day and date, but this didn't much matter. The guys at work always told him during the last shift before the seventh night off.
Gary's naps were filled, as was his sleep, with vivid and colorful adventures. Naps often brought blonds and panoramic parts, like giant breasts gently hovering above him, begging to be touched and tasted. It was when he could bury his whole head in the soft fleshy parts around the imaginably large and tumescent nipples that he enjoyed the most. Yes, naps were short, wet and pleasurable.
Longer periods of sleep had him doing the daily things most people do. Shopping for food, going to the cinema, meeting friends for beer. These dreams were mostly predictable, not particularly exciting, comfortable. Gary had all he needed, including reading material, philosophy mostly. And he read, or reviewed word for word what he had read, while asleep sometimes, if that isn't too strange, or too much of a stretch for the imagination. Gary felt content and fulfilled in most parts of his life.
Work was not much different from his immaterial imaginings during sleep. There he had set duties that he did and did well. There were colleagues to chat with and girls to watch and fantasize about. Life was good. No nightmares waking or sleeping, and no dramatic turns or challenges to contend with, until this.
As he lay back and put his head on the pillow this morning, Gary felt something he had never felt before. Or rather, he didn't feel it and didn't remember having felt it before. Although his head lay cradled in something soft, there was no pillow, no bed, no shades to draw, no sound of morning traffic outside his window. In fact, if it is not stretching the truth too much, there was no apparent window where during his nights and days there had been one before. Gary looked down towards where the foot of his bed should be. He saw nothing. There was nothing there.
"Now, what the?"
Gary immediately recognized it. He had fallen asleep and this was one of his lucid dreams, but definitely a dream. He relaxed and waited for what would happen next. He thought about a particular pair of recurrent big breasts, but not one materialized. He considered having beer with some friends, but could not remember or visualize where the sports bar was, or who his friends were.
"Funny."
He decided to stop this non-starter nap, get up and have a snack or bit more. Now, was it to be breakfast or dinner? He couldn't remember the last time he ate, or what he ate. He wasn't particularly hungry, but eating sometimes helped him doze off when he had a difficult time getting to sleep.
"I have no body!"
Gary was slipping away, from himself. No nap, no dreams, no breasts or shopping, no sleep, not even his own body.
"Time to get up."
Gary sensed that he was now awake. But nothing was any different except the suspicion that it was all in his mind, his imagination. That existed but nothing else.
"Now, who was it who wrote about everything is mind, that we construct our realities?"
Gary couldn't remember, and he couldn't find his bookshelves where he thought the answer was, some writers whose last name began with H? It would surely be there, but where, if it is not stretching the truth too much.
"Ah, I get it. It must be my night off, my day, er, night of rest. I don't have to work or sleep. So, what can I conjure up now to do?"
__________
**** Page 192: A philosopher comes to the realization that all known existence is a product of his imagination. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
August 26, 2009
What it is like to write, Part 1
1 A moment just so
". . . most of us take for granted [what] can be abolished with an incomprehensible rapidity."*
This about memory calls to mind the news I got yesterday, on June 17, 2009. But it is not the memory now of the substance of yesterday's news or memory per se of which I write, but the now fact that H- faces the greatest challenges in his life, not the least and first of which is staying alive. His condition must be, in spite of my limited knowledge of the facts, other worldly, painful, and deeply disturbing--for him and his closest.
My hope as I write is that there are angels present in whatever guise bearing comfort and gifts to help him and those who love him and those he loves, now and forever.
A life without what it once had "also poses the problem of how anything that permeates our lives so deeply can be lost so irrevocably."
H's accident marks the beginning of something for him and us that we cannot know in fullness and cannot change--that his accident happened. Although each moment is just so--each cannot be taken back, and some we cannot forget.
May angels attend us as we proceed, and God embrace us all with an understanding that so often eludes us when some things happen with incomprehensible rapidity and change everything forever.
2 It came to pass
An e-mail informed me that H dove into shallow water. He now cannot move or speak. He is 18 years old.
3 No other excuse
Such are my thoughts and prayers today, and I realize again in an other worldly, painful, and always deeply disturbing way that I cannot share with anyone even the news or the memories of my life, in this case about H. (Explanations irrelevant.) Nor can I help.
I do not make this mistake: _H's accident is not about me_. However, the fact of my knowledge of what has happened is, and pushes me selfishly onward to release the angst and anguish.
I know again that I am alone, distant in time and space from those I love, and those I have loved in different and special ways. In the face of what so wonderfully was and sometimes tragically or regrettably came to be, judgments I openly own, the silence of writing (for no audience) is best and my only hope, my only consolation.
I need to express and discover me, my humanity, my compassion, my limitations, and to open myself to that ineffable other I know silently attends. Writing is one road I take. Get it out. I have no choice or other excuse.
(I am no pettifogger. I won't pontificate about _we_, or try to be the teacher of others' lessons. I will hold secret the otherwise readily accessible and the ironies and I-told-you-so's I sense in what I observe around me. I will not speculate about intentions or assume machinations. I have no need to talk more, or recall for anyone the lessons I tried to teach my students and would have tried to teach those closest now gone. In the beginning as in the end, I alone. I control and affect nothing--if truth be told again, to re-mind me.)
"Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love."
This is the only answer, the only matter.
4 Anti-thesis
The synthesis of these understandings--the externalizations that have been this project called noematics--is in the making. Memory figures largely in the enterprise and in each piece, either directly if written in the first person or indirectly if written in the third.
Except for op-ed scratchings, there has been a curious absence, with minor exceptions, of the second person. It is not surprising in that the first piece I decided to include was for no audience. The blog nee "depository" was not even open for comment or Web-search result at the outset.
There has been no overarching theme of "This is for intersubjective understanding, have at it." That would be the second person. And yet, that "Read me!" is at the heart of writing as speech, isn't it? Isn't a text's presence an invitation to consume and comprehend? Or it just is, presencing if not inviting. An is at hand.
If it is not, then the sound I could in your ear or in your head is just for me, self expression and expression of self. But where does either of these get me? Get you? Why? Why take up these spaces?
It is not to dabble in a pseudo- or would-be discipline of noematics. Great thinkers and writers deserve that space and our attention and have amply attempted to explicate.
It is not for truth, beauty, goodness. These do not come from soul journeys of the support cast. What is required always is ascent to what is true, beautiful, good that we need to make them so, right?
I told myself that the only matter was love, understanding, consolation--compassion. And that is and can only be one person's expression-in-action. If it is only expression that can materially and non-materially be as in a spoken word, then so be it. If a different kind of expression, then so be that.
Compassion offered resides then in silence, perhaps for eternity, the eternity in the moment and in the succession of moments that we recall as we proceed down the years. These eternal moments are sacred in our lives. Rapid changes to the everyday remind us of this. And memories serve us also in this way.
And so it has come to pass that the synthesis continues on its paths, and nothing changes. We are lovers and teachers and parents and associates still, in hope, in love, in understanding, and in the apparent absence of these things.
Let me hear your voice. Hear mine. We have nothing else. We have no excuse. Let nothing and everything permeate our lives in sound and silence, deeply and loud so that we cannot be lost irrevocably.
5 Denouement
I received another e-mail saying it was a mistake that I was among those informed about H.
Which memory shall I now forget? Which noema externa shall I attend to? Which truth be told?
Precisely! A noema need not have any correlate in physical reality. Echo Husserl. Echo Heidigger: care brings into awareness our dasein, a being conscious of and concerned about its beingness.
6 The re-minding of this
A feeling and an idea bothered me. I sat at the computer not knowing what to do about these. Soon I was writing what you see here above, and about two hours of so-called work produced an almost final copy. I had little self-consciousness of the tools I was using in making the text--a book, an electronic dictionary, a text processor.
[Writing was an all-absorbing labor of love and I was aware of the time and my surroundings most of the time. I held in my mind the feelings and idea and started out by chance reading a book on memory. Within the first pages of my reading I had my opening with which to structure and approach what I said. What I wanted to say was not clear or specific. I knew that there were things around each, the emotion and the idea, but how it should come out or what the point was or was to be, I did not know. I have been wrestling with some other ideas lately, and these too began to come out as I began to write. So the piece was not all about one or two things that first brought me to the act of writing, although the act could be seen as beginning before my fingers put letters together. Organization suggested itself almost from the beginning and got its current form during and after the text had been drafted the first time. And because I wanted to precisely convey what I really thought and felt, the writing was challenging. I used the dictionary to make sure I was getting it right, sometimes to find the right word. Editing and writing went hand in hand versus one after the other. A kind of self-editing writing process. I knew in the background that someone might be (future) reading the text and so was somewhat cautious about being too direct or too vague. Although honest, I took some care not to offend by what I wrote. The text led to some admissions of personal values and "wisdom" that I had a hard time justifying including, since in the main the text was about and for another. But the text worked its way toward something about my larger themes and so saved me from personal admissions or possibly hurtful expressions, although this was not a hard struggle. I felt honest and positive and not uncharitable. I recalled reactions I included specific to the inciting events and then I generalized as a philosopher-teacher, but I was uncomfortable with that perspective, and so the text had to take up that additional theme. I did consider many things to express, but the writing was a combination of directed-by-me and intention and a kind of frcnvey [sic] flowing or rambling just to let out what was inside. So the piece had a mixture of first and third. I avoided a you [second person] except where the text content addressed that matter. Energy and no fatigue characterized how I completed the task, but it was not felt as a task. But I also checked the number of words, by section and totally to see if I was saying enough, enough being measured by the number of words, which to me now sounds strange. This description of what happened is being written by touch typing with my eyes closed. The piece above was done wholly awake, eyes open, no meditative or contemplative attitude. Allusions enriched the text, although I am not sure anyone is able to see where they are. They were not intended to be recognized and were mostly for my own fullness of description. This piece was mostly for me, although in a strange and academic way it started out as a post to this blog where H's mother could read it. I am afraid that aspect of the text is now in question. I am not sure any of this is good for reading other than as a part of the noematics project. Some sentences and short paragraphs got written and upon careful examination were deleted because they did not seem to be in the main of what I as writer think I wanted to say or that the directions the piece was taking. I was very conscious of me/I throughout. And I wanted to separate the first from the third person. I wanted to describe, but in doing so I could not avoid the _I_ because what I was describing was inside of me. I also tried to avoid the third person; I wasn't feeling like an author or teacher as much as. . . . The process of writing was a kind of alternating between two or three questions, although they did not echo as such in my head as words. I just went from one to the next and back as a kind of process. 1. What do I want to say? My answer was writing, writing, writing. 2. Have I said it? My answer was keeping my place in the flow of things, reading above and sometimes below what I had just written. 3. What's next? And then I would think about what I wanted to talk about next. Writing is kind of like slow talking, although sometimes it comes so fast it is hard to capture it all. Most often I do catch it all. The pace is felt as slow and methodical and deliberate. But gobs of time pass, and often I have little to show; other times a lot. It is hard to say except it feels like progress always. Very few breaks--I take really no breaks once I start. Writer's block never happens when I am in it. And seldom do I have nothing to write about. The difficulty is choosing among the many ways of expressing, and which ideas are the best to marshal in support or in illustration of what I am trying to say. There is always a consciousness of what I want to say, if not always stated in a thesis or point. Often the full reasons for the writing come towards the end, when things get wrapped up. But this piece seems to be without wrap-up. It is more of reverent care and a question or questions in the face of what to say. I am also trying to nail down how best to respond to an other or others and to settle my own disturbed equilibrium about some people I once was close to. I guess if I had to summarize what it is like for me when I write, I can say that it is fully engaging and deeply satisfying, most of the time, and it is a deeply conscious state without very much reflection of what it is I am doing, like now. I just do it and employ all my faculties of feeling and thinking to get it, whatever it is, just right. And then it comes to a stopping point, a sense of completion of what to say if not how it is said. Often I fiddle and edit with a text till I can let it go. This piece got fiddled with for five days before its end-point. All my faculties . . . ]
6 Grasping for that sense of an ending
Sometimes the strangest holds a partial truth. A fact. A sentiment. A reflection. An offshoot, or bracketed item not an integral part of the whole, or an idea stimulated by what was said or not said.
. . . To restate the beginning, realizing that we are still there: We take for granted what we overlook or misjudge, and thus all of that is abolished with incomprehensible rapidity. Lost treasures, or perhaps gold dust in some sand we cannot pick out but we see clearly, brilliantly there. Our loss, unless we take the time to look carefully, consider, try to express even the inexpressible. Such projects are never clean, never entirely coherent. Sometimes all we find is pyrite. But why take the chance? We do overlook important things. It is the condition of finitude.
An accident, memory, moments, writing, compassion, realities suddenly taken away--among other themes--haunt me. May they cease to cause recurrent dilemmas, occasional nightmares, and all-too-frequent waking moments full of fear of what does happen, and dread in the face of what could.
No, not clean at all.
Part 2
Lest you, dear reader, think these clumps but scattered detris of little moment or logic, let me recap.
First there is a subject which touched me and brought me to write--the motive and energy behind calling up words and ordering them. The degree to which that subject should concern me was tempered, and thus what began as respectful, thoughtful, heart-felt concern turned into reflections on the necessity of writing vis a vis expression for sanity's sake--and for discovery--and the nature of the writing processes themselves that produced this seemingly incoherent stream. The justification of including all of this in this noematics project became clear, either to preserve whatever small part may be of value that had been said, or to figure as an early sketch of what might be called the phenomenology of writing, or the experience of writing.
And if I cannot find that someone else has done it, better than my first attempt above, I will give it a serious shot.
To be continued.
_____
* Casey, E. Remembering: A Phenomenological Study. 1987. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
June 25, 2009
Protocol*
PARTICIPANTS
Guide, the one who gives verbal cues to the Mediator, the one who wishes to travel a path toward his or her true Self.
Meditator, the one who freely and in a relaxed and safe state undertakes a practice--a series of steps--to experience Buddha mind (or whatever name s/he wants to call it).
INTRODUCTION
I'm going to ask to speak to some various aspects of your self, some different voices you have inside you. Everything is already there, within you. It's all there. You are not lacking any of the wisdom, any of the compassion, or anything that has ever been discovered or revealed. It's all there. That's why your true Self can be revealed. We're all born with this unborn Buddha mind. This exists within all of us, and I am here to accompany you on a way, a path to experiencing your true Self.
I know this to be true. I know you can realize your true Self, to make this shift. There's no reason not to. The only thing that might keep you from making this shift would be that you don't want to, or we might not proceed at the same pace along the path. Communicate with me if it happens. Let me know if you start to feel lost, or sidetracked, or you need more time at one or another point. Give me a signal so that I know when we are not in sync. That way we can have 100 percent success, and you can experience your higher being.
You can feel safe to just talk as yourself, like an observer. You are not to re-experience anything negative. Just report, don't re-live. Assume a "been there, done that" perspective, and just step back and observe as though you're watching a home movie. If I see you getting agitated, I'm going to remind you of this by simply asking you to "step back," and you will automatically know that you are safe, are not re-experiencing anything, simply reporting past events or reasons for your being. You arose out of circumstance, and although you are still here and now, those circumstances are not.
Make a physical shift in your posture to help make the mental shift when talking to each new voice. We're going to learn about each voice in you in order to drop your self, to set aside your ego. Keep your answers, your insights, very simple. Start with the most obvious. This will make more sense as we progress. Are you ready to begin?
STEP: Relaxation
[If the Meditator wants help to get into a relaxed state, use a suitable procedure.]
When you are completely relaxed, you can tell me by moving your finger. Take as much time as you need. I will check with you in a few minutes.
Are you relaxed?
[If yes . . . ]
STEP: Induction (addressing the voices)
[When the person is relaxed . . . ]
I am now going to help guide you down a path. With their permission, I'm going to speak to the various voices who hold the keys to the gates along this path. Some of these voices want to be heard; others may be reluctant to come forth, but I want to assure you that it is with the intent of bringing you towards peace and joy and fulfillment that we are doing this exercise. Each voice is important, and so each voice that needs to be heard will be.
It is completely safe for these voices to separate and speak out on their own behalf and yours. They play a vital role in your being and play a vital role in your journey to enlightenment. There is no need for censorship; just let the aspects of yourself speak freely and openly. There is no judgement here, only understanding and awareness. These voices have manifested themselves to serve you in this human existence. After listening to them, I'm going to ask for their permission to step aside for a while to help reveal your true Self, of all time, all worlds, of everything and of nothing. This is our goal on the path we follow. With the help of your voices willingly surrendering the keys they hold, you will unlock the gates along the way to your Self.
Ready? Signal with your finger.
[If yes . . . ]
May I now speak to the controller?
[Proceed based on answers given and intuition.]
What do you do?/What is your job?/What is your role?/What is your function?/What are your duties?
What do you want?
How big are you?
Where are your boundaries?
Will you ever stop doing what you do?
Why are you important?
What are the benefits of your presence?
What are the disadvantages/dangers of your presence?
What are the disadvantages/dangers of your presence?
Are you appreciated? Needed? If you weren't around, what would it be like? You have a very important function and need to be appreciated.
[At a point of completeness or surrender, ask . . . ]
Will you do me a favor? Would you allow other voices to speak so that your true Self can have complete and total access to what is? [alternatively, to be with the non-seeking, non-striving mind?]
[If yes . . . ]
OK, thank you for giving access to a clear channel.
[At the conclusion of talking with the controller, ask permission to speak to other voices. Let the person name the voice that rises in consciousness for him or her.
The following are possible other voices.
The Skeptic
The Vulnerable Child
The Protector
The Damaged Self
The Fixer
Seeking Mind
Non-Seeking Mind
Academic
Wounded Animal
Fear
Anger
Competition]
Whom am I speaking to?
[Proceed based on answers given and intuition.]
What do you do?/What is your job?/What is your role?/What is your function?/What are your duties?
What do you want?
How big are you?
Where are your boundaries?
Will you ever stop doing what you do?
Why are you important?
What are the benefits of your presence?
What are the disadvantages/dangers of your presence?
Are you appreciated? Needed? If you weren't around, what would it be like? You have a very important function and need to be appreciated.
[After exploration of each voice . . . ]
Would it be possible to step aside for a while?
[Yes/No]
Are you ready to step aside now?
[If yes . . . ]
Thank you.
Is there another voice who would like to speak?
[If yes . . . ]
Whom am I speaking to? etc.
[In the event of some apparent blockage or disruption . . . ]
Who am I talking with now?
Is there anything else I can help you with? that you need to say?
Everything is all right. Everyone is safe. Would it be possible for me to speak with [previous voice] again now?
[If yes . . . ]
Thank you.
STEP: Are all voices set aside?
You have set aside the different voices that compete for attention. You can experience your true Self. Reside here. I will be quiet now. Move your finger if this is OK. If you have another voice that needs to speak, please speak.
[Allow 15 minutes of silence.]
Are you ready to come back? Move your finger if you are. Otherwise I will remain silent.
[Allow more silence then repeat.]
[If yes . . . ]
STEP: Reintegration
I am going to slowly help you return from where you are. You can remember this space or place and return anytime you want.
The voices I have spoken with may now take their proper places.
[Slowly name several of the voices the Meditator mentioned.]
STEP: Awakening
When you're ready to return, come back into your body and this current life on the slow count of three, remembering what you have just experienced and knowing it's always there any time you wish.
One. Your eyes slowly open.
Two. Refreshed and radiant with vitality, wiggle your toes and fingers.
Three, begin moving and raise your head, fully awake.
Proceed from this moment forward, thanking yourself and the universe for the shift that has occurred within you by opening your mind and heart to its power.
__________
* Special thanks to Colleen Grimard for substantive contributions to this protocol and her interest in and willingness to be a guide.
Get my meaning?
A "Now you have raised a question again, and I have to try to do the hard work so that you can understand. Maybe you will; maybe you won't; maybe you will understand in a different way than I understand. Maybe you will have your own opinion. That is all OK, even the opinion, which no one, you realize, can work with."
B Gloss: One of two or more introduces a response in a conversation where there was another question and now this question--neither given--the answer to which will be a meta-response about matters affecting future understanding of what will be hard to construct. Herein is a care-less concern and aim of transferring a definite understanding, while at the same time acknowledging possibly a different one will result, perhaps more accurately termed an opinion embedded in the holder and therefore inaccessible to any other. The speaker accepts this challenge and risk, born of some obligation or insistence, and so will continue thus. The invitation to converse includes confirmation of a prior truth that having an opinon will arrest any mutual progress.
C "If I am entirely truthful with myself and write it down or talk about it, then at least I have done my part, which is the first step towards conversation. In the end, hopefully not before, I and you can evaluate or judge what has gone on and make any decisions based on that, or not. We are free to choose at all points."
D Which leads to the hypothesis: A text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening.
E Aha: No wonder without wonder.
F Another sample, this from the King James version.
4 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
5 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
6 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
G Seemingly didactic report of an event with quote claiming the protagonist descended from God and that business shall not be conducted in God's house, the temple. Driving merchants and animals out as well as pouring out money and overturning tables suggests less emotionally-charged methods were or would not be effective.
H And
7 . . . his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.
8 Then answered the Jews and said to him, What sign show you to us, seeing that you do these things?
I In the face of this "scene" and echo of earlier scripture (Psalm 69?), the protagonist's disciples question his "wretchedness"? or the action born of it? These disciple-Jews, or others, then ask in response to the behavior--with or without the wretched part--what was its meaning?
J It seems again that a "text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening." But language-action plain or in translation can also but dimly denote exactly what it is we are to understand.
K Aha: Wonder with wonder.
L Imagine the impossible, that at the time of the above language-actions, or before, there was no interpretation. A baseline text once read is different from what was said if by the tiniest of margins, for it is the consciousness of the now other who has created it in reading or hearing. No full access-entry is possible into a text. Add to that the slipperiness of words and phrases and larger aggregations, as evidenced by illustrative reductions, we can only hope for coincidence. The closest approximation is what we are after, but that persistently and by the very nature of communicating intentions eludes us.
M Yet we proceed based on what we can apprehend, and through interaction, progress towards what we assent to as understanding.*
N The initial reduction, whatever its shortcomings, has to be compared with the original as re-read, decoded again. And if there is some large measure of satisfaction on what it is we have hold of then, we can accept the interpreted in an I-acknowledge sense.
O To restate the now convoluted.
* One, a text, an original.
* Two, the text is read. In the experience of reading, a first-hand interpretation is made. It is called what-I-think-it-says.
* Three, that interpretation is then reduced to match the text. Here is the second-hand.
* Four, the second-hand is compared with the original for fit and adjusted as needed. The comparative reading-rendering process becomes conceivably a revised second-hand interpretation, call it now third-hand, in that a third results from the process of interacting texts.
* Five, the third-hand, if taken up, becomes a fourth text in that it is a part of making additional texts which may bear great or little resemblance to the original.
* Recycle the process. Here is interpretation beyond the original and must be handled in the same manner as above in order to make sense of it.
P Aha: Wonder that we wonder?
Q To interpret in an I-acknowledge sense is roughly to have decoded a text and understood it within one's own language filters and horizons. If one adds external-to-the-text material, or voices, as somehow implied or inferred or reasonably understood as aides to understanding, we run the risk of nothingness, and . . .
R Aha: No wonder!
S We have fullness of how messed up things can get. This without the impossible, that at the time of the original, or before, there was--we assume, another of the genus interpretation--one or more intentions to communicate something or -things, consciously or unconsciously.
T Interim conclusion: Jam-packed, full of wonders, seen and unseen, to delight and dissuade us, much as the spells of sprites for good or ill when we think we are looking.
U The font of expression is metaphor, just as the impossibility of communicating intentions devolves into images and unspoken meanings as we separate.
V-Z [available for rebuttal or additional observations . . . perhaps a final Aha:]
__________
* Ken Wilber in unpublished material asserts that it is enough if I say something and you say you understand. Such assent is enough to proceed. There is no need for devolutions, reductions, convolutions, etc. See http://www.shambhala.com.
B Gloss: One of two or more introduces a response in a conversation where there was another question and now this question--neither given--the answer to which will be a meta-response about matters affecting future understanding of what will be hard to construct. Herein is a care-less concern and aim of transferring a definite understanding, while at the same time acknowledging possibly a different one will result, perhaps more accurately termed an opinion embedded in the holder and therefore inaccessible to any other. The speaker accepts this challenge and risk, born of some obligation or insistence, and so will continue thus. The invitation to converse includes confirmation of a prior truth that having an opinon will arrest any mutual progress.
C "If I am entirely truthful with myself and write it down or talk about it, then at least I have done my part, which is the first step towards conversation. In the end, hopefully not before, I and you can evaluate or judge what has gone on and make any decisions based on that, or not. We are free to choose at all points."
D Which leads to the hypothesis: A text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening.
E Aha: No wonder without wonder.
F Another sample, this from the King James version.
4 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
5 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
6 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
G Seemingly didactic report of an event with quote claiming the protagonist descended from God and that business shall not be conducted in God's house, the temple. Driving merchants and animals out as well as pouring out money and overturning tables suggests less emotionally-charged methods were or would not be effective.
H And
7 . . . his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.
8 Then answered the Jews and said to him, What sign show you to us, seeing that you do these things?
I In the face of this "scene" and echo of earlier scripture (Psalm 69?), the protagonist's disciples question his "wretchedness"? or the action born of it? These disciple-Jews, or others, then ask in response to the behavior--with or without the wretched part--what was its meaning?
J It seems again that a "text of any length, if translated into its own or another language, has worlds to open to us that we may but dimly sense without the most careful scrutiny, the most careful listening." But language-action plain or in translation can also but dimly denote exactly what it is we are to understand.
K Aha: Wonder with wonder.
L Imagine the impossible, that at the time of the above language-actions, or before, there was no interpretation. A baseline text once read is different from what was said if by the tiniest of margins, for it is the consciousness of the now other who has created it in reading or hearing. No full access-entry is possible into a text. Add to that the slipperiness of words and phrases and larger aggregations, as evidenced by illustrative reductions, we can only hope for coincidence. The closest approximation is what we are after, but that persistently and by the very nature of communicating intentions eludes us.
M Yet we proceed based on what we can apprehend, and through interaction, progress towards what we assent to as understanding.*
N The initial reduction, whatever its shortcomings, has to be compared with the original as re-read, decoded again. And if there is some large measure of satisfaction on what it is we have hold of then, we can accept the interpreted in an I-acknowledge sense.
O To restate the now convoluted.
* One, a text, an original.
* Two, the text is read. In the experience of reading, a first-hand interpretation is made. It is called what-I-think-it-says.
* Three, that interpretation is then reduced to match the text. Here is the second-hand.
* Four, the second-hand is compared with the original for fit and adjusted as needed. The comparative reading-rendering process becomes conceivably a revised second-hand interpretation, call it now third-hand, in that a third results from the process of interacting texts.
* Five, the third-hand, if taken up, becomes a fourth text in that it is a part of making additional texts which may bear great or little resemblance to the original.
* Recycle the process. Here is interpretation beyond the original and must be handled in the same manner as above in order to make sense of it.
P Aha: Wonder that we wonder?
Q To interpret in an I-acknowledge sense is roughly to have decoded a text and understood it within one's own language filters and horizons. If one adds external-to-the-text material, or voices, as somehow implied or inferred or reasonably understood as aides to understanding, we run the risk of nothingness, and . . .
R Aha: No wonder!
S We have fullness of how messed up things can get. This without the impossible, that at the time of the original, or before, there was--we assume, another of the genus interpretation--one or more intentions to communicate something or -things, consciously or unconsciously.
T Interim conclusion: Jam-packed, full of wonders, seen and unseen, to delight and dissuade us, much as the spells of sprites for good or ill when we think we are looking.
U The font of expression is metaphor, just as the impossibility of communicating intentions devolves into images and unspoken meanings as we separate.
V-Z [available for rebuttal or additional observations . . . perhaps a final Aha:]
__________
* Ken Wilber in unpublished material asserts that it is enough if I say something and you say you understand. Such assent is enough to proceed. There is no need for devolutions, reductions, convolutions, etc. See http://www.shambhala.com.
The view from 1998
. . . [A]mong my dreams you may count coming to quasi-definitive understandings of things. I will list a few of my partial understandings of synchronicity/meaningful coincidences here. But before I do, I need to point out that I and I suspect we still know an infinitesimal amount about ourselves and our world, and perhaps even less about other worlds, or realities. I say this not to humble others but to report what I observe. We, the general _we_, are not very rigorous or precise about what we claim we know. And there are still mysteries that can consume lifetimes of devoted study and service in order to unveil. You may disagree.
In my experience and to my observation, I think I have hardly scratched the surface on what I took over two years to come to understand better. Perhaps others can report more definitive results in their pursuits, but I have been trained now, by doctoral work, to question that conclusion and hopefully help to reveal how it is or might not be so. This calling is an honorable one and comes with an ethic that says respect what others do in trying to push the frontiers of what we can claim that we know. So, on to some modest claims.
"An Inquiry into the Phenomenology of Meaningful Coincidences" can make one major claim. That is, the study describes the experience of having a meaningful coincidence in a more complete way than other studies of the same or similar phenomena. It also lists the qualities and features of that synthesized experience in a way not done by other investigators. The description and catalog of qualities and features of meaningful coincidences can stand on their own and be used by others to extend and expand understanding and be a guide to what is and is not the phenomenon. And I believe my work is sufficiently transparent as a study of my consciousness and of my understanding of other percipients that others, from whatever source of curiosity, can examine how I got what I did.
Among the lesser claims that I could make is that the study revealed a wealth of worlds beyond our words which try to capture our experiences. In the end the experiences are not captured. They are merely glimpsed. And the richness that is can sometimes only be told in a story which has to stand by itself for a self.
The Coincidence experience holds in microcosm a world beyond imagining for those who stop for more than a moment to consider it. And if my study is testament for others to stop for a moment and consider what it might be like in another's world, it will function as a foundation for respectful social action. And I would say that this accomplishment of my study is, for those who take the time and effort to read and experience it, consistent with the highest goals of human development, working with organizational systems, and Fielding's mission to support informed and sensitive social action.
These stories or experiences are important for those who have and report them. They are a part of being and becoming and growing self. And I suspect that Jung was really on to something important when he started this whole business, and is happy to see that I have re-discovered some of that for myself.
An aside. Jung noted names of people and how, apparently quite often, the names seemed to reflect something accurate about the person. I started doing the same thing long before I knew Jung did this. It is like the head of the Colorado Reading Association having the surname of Reading. Now I find great delight in the name of the external examiner for my study of a phenomenon that many people group with magic and the paranormal, things to seriously doubt. I can wait for Keith Doubt's comments, but I am quite curious as to what they might be given my interest in the possibility of the significance of people's names.
[That Keith was an external reader with his significant last name makes the dissertation and process "coincidental" in and of itself, a kind of meta- or over-coincidence. An observation not to be overlooked!]
My study did not convince me that the experience of meaningful coincidences as a type of synchronicity always has a numinous charge. And meaningful coincidences because of symbolic and figurative language will always escape solid, definitive meaning. In saying "Yes, that is what that was and this is what that means," it will be the percipient's convictions and beliefs that makes it so, not a test that can be performed by others, non-percipients. I concur with Searle (1992/1994) that subjective experience is valid and important territory for scientific, in this case phenomenological and hermeneutic, investigation.
There are certainly other findings included in the study, but perhaps these are the main ones that might be discussed in an oral review. The question arises now for me, and it may for you: Having done what I have done and tried so very hard to understand what was there and what was not--to try to come to an understanding of this somewhat common experience that people have--what is a reasonable conjecture for what it is and how it occurs? Good question. The topic of another dissertation, or a fun seminar. One which takes us again to Prague or Paris, or maybe some place new, like Costa Rica, or even our own inner worlds!
AND
The world for the individual and in association with others is optimistically open and full of possibilities. Pessimistically, it is a closed and cold place. Realistically it is a place where what is and can be are mediated and negotiated. I hope for the first view. At times I only see the second. And I live in the third, sometimes reluctantly.
In my experience and to my observation, I think I have hardly scratched the surface on what I took over two years to come to understand better. Perhaps others can report more definitive results in their pursuits, but I have been trained now, by doctoral work, to question that conclusion and hopefully help to reveal how it is or might not be so. This calling is an honorable one and comes with an ethic that says respect what others do in trying to push the frontiers of what we can claim that we know. So, on to some modest claims.
"An Inquiry into the Phenomenology of Meaningful Coincidences" can make one major claim. That is, the study describes the experience of having a meaningful coincidence in a more complete way than other studies of the same or similar phenomena. It also lists the qualities and features of that synthesized experience in a way not done by other investigators. The description and catalog of qualities and features of meaningful coincidences can stand on their own and be used by others to extend and expand understanding and be a guide to what is and is not the phenomenon. And I believe my work is sufficiently transparent as a study of my consciousness and of my understanding of other percipients that others, from whatever source of curiosity, can examine how I got what I did.
Among the lesser claims that I could make is that the study revealed a wealth of worlds beyond our words which try to capture our experiences. In the end the experiences are not captured. They are merely glimpsed. And the richness that is can sometimes only be told in a story which has to stand by itself for a self.
The Coincidence experience holds in microcosm a world beyond imagining for those who stop for more than a moment to consider it. And if my study is testament for others to stop for a moment and consider what it might be like in another's world, it will function as a foundation for respectful social action. And I would say that this accomplishment of my study is, for those who take the time and effort to read and experience it, consistent with the highest goals of human development, working with organizational systems, and Fielding's mission to support informed and sensitive social action.
These stories or experiences are important for those who have and report them. They are a part of being and becoming and growing self. And I suspect that Jung was really on to something important when he started this whole business, and is happy to see that I have re-discovered some of that for myself.
An aside. Jung noted names of people and how, apparently quite often, the names seemed to reflect something accurate about the person. I started doing the same thing long before I knew Jung did this. It is like the head of the Colorado Reading Association having the surname of Reading. Now I find great delight in the name of the external examiner for my study of a phenomenon that many people group with magic and the paranormal, things to seriously doubt. I can wait for Keith Doubt's comments, but I am quite curious as to what they might be given my interest in the possibility of the significance of people's names.
[That Keith was an external reader with his significant last name makes the dissertation and process "coincidental" in and of itself, a kind of meta- or over-coincidence. An observation not to be overlooked!]
My study did not convince me that the experience of meaningful coincidences as a type of synchronicity always has a numinous charge. And meaningful coincidences because of symbolic and figurative language will always escape solid, definitive meaning. In saying "Yes, that is what that was and this is what that means," it will be the percipient's convictions and beliefs that makes it so, not a test that can be performed by others, non-percipients. I concur with Searle (1992/1994) that subjective experience is valid and important territory for scientific, in this case phenomenological and hermeneutic, investigation.
There are certainly other findings included in the study, but perhaps these are the main ones that might be discussed in an oral review. The question arises now for me, and it may for you: Having done what I have done and tried so very hard to understand what was there and what was not--to try to come to an understanding of this somewhat common experience that people have--what is a reasonable conjecture for what it is and how it occurs? Good question. The topic of another dissertation, or a fun seminar. One which takes us again to Prague or Paris, or maybe some place new, like Costa Rica, or even our own inner worlds!
AND
The world for the individual and in association with others is optimistically open and full of possibilities. Pessimistically, it is a closed and cold place. Realistically it is a place where what is and can be are mediated and negotiated. I hope for the first view. At times I only see the second. And I live in the third, sometimes reluctantly.
June 22, 2009
Invented truths?
In an article titled "Texas sect temple 'used for sex'", we read this from the BBC Web site on April 11, 2008.*
"Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband."
Now if ever there were invented truths, these must (still) be two of 'em. And it's 2008!
Not to cast stones at the sincerity of some and the damned foolishness of others, these precepts or revealed truths are a prescription for God knows what, and only s/he knows! No man or woman with a mentality beyond mythical can swallow this stuff. But apparently some have.
Perhaps the reason is desperation or some strong sense of I-can-beat-this-death's-end-of-everything thing. It is unclear, except of course in an omniscient's vision. And we cannot know that even by the standards of the devout who acknowledge a better and brighter force in and through and all around us.
To be accurate, the quote refers to three wives at the same time, polygamy. Otherwise many of us are already guaranteed a place because of three or more legal, lifelong commitments made serially because each has proven short lived. My stairway to heaven.
The subservient-to-men piece is archaic by any wisdom to be gleaned from the further reaches of human and social progress, development we can document in higher levels of knowledge, socio-political organization, and consciousness studies. Slavery has been declared dead, and civilized peoples have already nailed that coffin shut, in word if not in deed.
How is it that things continue to go arrested in this country? Perhaps we are too full of ourselves and what we have and have accomplished, while at the same time losing our vigilance to what is sane and good.
Some would argue that the Good is all relative. Relativity be damned. Is dominance over and exploitation of the impressionable justifiable in the face of what we know causes harm? Call this Good Evil and stupidity, or more kindly, ignorance. Today, to be either evil or ignorant, or to inflict these conditions on others through rationalizations or deprivations, this is the curse and self-inflicted disability of the religious and otherwise self righteous.
OK, OK. Take that back. This is just one person's perspective, so back to Texas. Perhaps it is in the soil or the water? No, too simplistic. By that explanantion my own place breeds as much weirdness. And you no doubt can name other places and not just in this country. What then?
Some would have us see polygamy-subservience as a male conspiracy and the brainwashing of women, or more anthropologically correct as an aspect of a culture to be respected and accepted. These explanations then attribute a level of consciousness and premeditation to promulgating doctrine. We usually call this kind of thing propagandizing untruths, a sin. In this reading, polygamy is just a cover for coveting the other, and being coveted, and taking what the ego or the devil (same thing) says will save Me.
Some would claim that women or men in this sect(?) believe. Although that has been pretty much dismissed above, perhaps there are some Believers. No doubt there are. But here is that old counter-argument. Enticed or enrolled into a polygamous program before the opportunity to see and learn the world in all its accomplishments except through belief's lenses could account for the preachings and the practice. But this does not justify it.
Which finally (aren't you glad) brings up this: Do we need to save ourselves from ourselves?
The end of the world is at hand and in the hands of those who would have us believe in invented truths and the exploitation of those unquestioning and impressionable. The perpetrators are killing us with their words and fervor for their own, not God's, pleasure--I suspect.
Otherwise, polygamy sounds like a fun idea.
_____
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7341077.stm
"Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband."
Now if ever there were invented truths, these must (still) be two of 'em. And it's 2008!
Not to cast stones at the sincerity of some and the damned foolishness of others, these precepts or revealed truths are a prescription for God knows what, and only s/he knows! No man or woman with a mentality beyond mythical can swallow this stuff. But apparently some have.
Perhaps the reason is desperation or some strong sense of I-can-beat-this-death's-end-of-everything thing. It is unclear, except of course in an omniscient's vision. And we cannot know that even by the standards of the devout who acknowledge a better and brighter force in and through and all around us.
To be accurate, the quote refers to three wives at the same time, polygamy. Otherwise many of us are already guaranteed a place because of three or more legal, lifelong commitments made serially because each has proven short lived. My stairway to heaven.
The subservient-to-men piece is archaic by any wisdom to be gleaned from the further reaches of human and social progress, development we can document in higher levels of knowledge, socio-political organization, and consciousness studies. Slavery has been declared dead, and civilized peoples have already nailed that coffin shut, in word if not in deed.
How is it that things continue to go arrested in this country? Perhaps we are too full of ourselves and what we have and have accomplished, while at the same time losing our vigilance to what is sane and good.
Some would argue that the Good is all relative. Relativity be damned. Is dominance over and exploitation of the impressionable justifiable in the face of what we know causes harm? Call this Good Evil and stupidity, or more kindly, ignorance. Today, to be either evil or ignorant, or to inflict these conditions on others through rationalizations or deprivations, this is the curse and self-inflicted disability of the religious and otherwise self righteous.
OK, OK. Take that back. This is just one person's perspective, so back to Texas. Perhaps it is in the soil or the water? No, too simplistic. By that explanantion my own place breeds as much weirdness. And you no doubt can name other places and not just in this country. What then?
Some would have us see polygamy-subservience as a male conspiracy and the brainwashing of women, or more anthropologically correct as an aspect of a culture to be respected and accepted. These explanations then attribute a level of consciousness and premeditation to promulgating doctrine. We usually call this kind of thing propagandizing untruths, a sin. In this reading, polygamy is just a cover for coveting the other, and being coveted, and taking what the ego or the devil (same thing) says will save Me.
Some would claim that women or men in this sect(?) believe. Although that has been pretty much dismissed above, perhaps there are some Believers. No doubt there are. But here is that old counter-argument. Enticed or enrolled into a polygamous program before the opportunity to see and learn the world in all its accomplishments except through belief's lenses could account for the preachings and the practice. But this does not justify it.
Which finally (aren't you glad) brings up this: Do we need to save ourselves from ourselves?
The end of the world is at hand and in the hands of those who would have us believe in invented truths and the exploitation of those unquestioning and impressionable. The perpetrators are killing us with their words and fervor for their own, not God's, pleasure--I suspect.
Otherwise, polygamy sounds like a fun idea.
_____
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7341077.stm
February 1, 2009
No One Here But Me
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 12/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A passage from Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth, gives rise to a short discussion on the locus of reality. The unconcluded contemplation is that all exists in mind, mine. There is no separate external reality.
No One Here But Me
At one point in Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth (2003), "José Palacios, [the General's] oldest servant, found him floating naked with his eyes open in the purifying waters of his bath and thought he had drowned. He knew this was one of the many ways the General meditated, but the ecstasy in which he lay drifting seemed that of a man no longer of this world."
Upon awakening from this apparent trance, the General said to his servant, "Let's go . . . as fast as we can. No one loves us here."
This passage has raised this possibility: The world is located in mind, in my interior, not outside of my body somewhere. The world is not separate with an independent existence. It is only by consensus with others that we suspect an objective and separate-from-me world.
Based on this understanding, I often "just feel like" taking some action or changing course, because nothing really matters except as I would have it inside me. So much is this true for me that sometimes I even choose based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it.
As the General is described above and for me, there appear to be multiple realities. There are those we can sense physically and there are those of the mind, or internal. Ecstasy is of the mind. The idea that no one loves us here is also an internal experience. That idea, fact or not, seems to give the impetus for action for the General. It is his call to action, which is leaving. We also act and change course based on the world we have, the mental experiences.
What is the relationship between these realities, the physical and the mental? The contention here is that the relationship is flawed oneness. What I experience inside me is my only reality, but what I experience is not always intentional. Some stuff happens that I (we?) just (have to?) attend to.
Before I am accused of not being of this world, I declare that I am not immune from stubbing my toe on a rock or enjoying pizza and Pepsi as I write these words. Toes are real, but mine the most, as is this pizza; and, just a moment, so is my (experience of my) Pepsi. However, these supposed physical things have reality because it is I who through my intentions, awarenesses, mental experiences, and mind-directed actions accept and make them so. My internal experiences are the only things that exist that I can be sure of. Things out there do not exist, for me.
Another way to say this is to answer this old quandary. Does a tree make a sound when it falls to the forest floor? Although I am not a philosopher and this meditation is a bit speculative, I answer no, the tree makes no sound if I am not there to hear it.
Even though the reality of what I believe to be true is what I think or somehow internally experience, and this is paramount and the definition of real, other stuff happens which calls for, sometimes demands, awareness, focus, and action. Because of the call or demand, I choose to attend, that is I intend to have it real. One objection is that we may not be aware of every "intention," but after the fact of having done something means that at some level of mind (perhaps it is consciousness), there was a choice.
So I can act and change course because nothing really matters except my experience of. If I choose a course based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it, this might be instinct or intuition. I do not know. But this suggests a lengthier consideration.
As with the General, there is no great, unconditional affection for me, or anyone. So run as fast as you can, or silently escape as I do into my own world of a computer, music downloads, and Internet games I can play with people whose physical existence I do not acknowledge. It is as if they do not exist, or if they do, they are just objects of mind that exist for a time and later do not. I never know them. I only make choices based on my intentional engagement with their actions and the tacit understanding that their actions are part of my experience, a part of my reality, until I let them go.
Some would say that you can gather evidence (impressions or opinions or convictions--again "immaterials") that there is affection. This would be to rely on memories (past mental experiences). At my age the idea of many loves and sensual adventures such as the General may have had, as recounted in The General in His Labyrinth, is very tempting. The better orientation is that that reality is in my head. Sex is not real or of this world without my mental-immaterial reception and recognition.
Enough for now. I appear to be drifting. Am I in a trance and no longer of this world? Am I either in meditative ecstasy or in someone's physical reality? These questions, let alone that reality only exists inside me, are way too difficult to conclude in a little over two pages. For now I say, "Let's go, as fast as I can, for there is no one here but me."
REFERENCE
Marquez, G., (2003). The General in His Labyrinth. London: Vintage.
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A passage from Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth, gives rise to a short discussion on the locus of reality. The unconcluded contemplation is that all exists in mind, mine. There is no separate external reality.
No One Here But Me
At one point in Gabriel García Márquez's book, The General in His Labyrinth (2003), "José Palacios, [the General's] oldest servant, found him floating naked with his eyes open in the purifying waters of his bath and thought he had drowned. He knew this was one of the many ways the General meditated, but the ecstasy in which he lay drifting seemed that of a man no longer of this world."
Upon awakening from this apparent trance, the General said to his servant, "Let's go . . . as fast as we can. No one loves us here."
This passage has raised this possibility: The world is located in mind, in my interior, not outside of my body somewhere. The world is not separate with an independent existence. It is only by consensus with others that we suspect an objective and separate-from-me world.
Based on this understanding, I often "just feel like" taking some action or changing course, because nothing really matters except as I would have it inside me. So much is this true for me that sometimes I even choose based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it.
As the General is described above and for me, there appear to be multiple realities. There are those we can sense physically and there are those of the mind, or internal. Ecstasy is of the mind. The idea that no one loves us here is also an internal experience. That idea, fact or not, seems to give the impetus for action for the General. It is his call to action, which is leaving. We also act and change course based on the world we have, the mental experiences.
What is the relationship between these realities, the physical and the mental? The contention here is that the relationship is flawed oneness. What I experience inside me is my only reality, but what I experience is not always intentional. Some stuff happens that I (we?) just (have to?) attend to.
Before I am accused of not being of this world, I declare that I am not immune from stubbing my toe on a rock or enjoying pizza and Pepsi as I write these words. Toes are real, but mine the most, as is this pizza; and, just a moment, so is my (experience of my) Pepsi. However, these supposed physical things have reality because it is I who through my intentions, awarenesses, mental experiences, and mind-directed actions accept and make them so. My internal experiences are the only things that exist that I can be sure of. Things out there do not exist, for me.
Another way to say this is to answer this old quandary. Does a tree make a sound when it falls to the forest floor? Although I am not a philosopher and this meditation is a bit speculative, I answer no, the tree makes no sound if I am not there to hear it.
Even though the reality of what I believe to be true is what I think or somehow internally experience, and this is paramount and the definition of real, other stuff happens which calls for, sometimes demands, awareness, focus, and action. Because of the call or demand, I choose to attend, that is I intend to have it real. One objection is that we may not be aware of every "intention," but after the fact of having done something means that at some level of mind (perhaps it is consciousness), there was a choice.
So I can act and change course because nothing really matters except my experience of. If I choose a course based on what I think is true, whether or not I can otherwise prove it, this might be instinct or intuition. I do not know. But this suggests a lengthier consideration.
As with the General, there is no great, unconditional affection for me, or anyone. So run as fast as you can, or silently escape as I do into my own world of a computer, music downloads, and Internet games I can play with people whose physical existence I do not acknowledge. It is as if they do not exist, or if they do, they are just objects of mind that exist for a time and later do not. I never know them. I only make choices based on my intentional engagement with their actions and the tacit understanding that their actions are part of my experience, a part of my reality, until I let them go.
Some would say that you can gather evidence (impressions or opinions or convictions--again "immaterials") that there is affection. This would be to rely on memories (past mental experiences). At my age the idea of many loves and sensual adventures such as the General may have had, as recounted in The General in His Labyrinth, is very tempting. The better orientation is that that reality is in my head. Sex is not real or of this world without my mental-immaterial reception and recognition.
Enough for now. I appear to be drifting. Am I in a trance and no longer of this world? Am I either in meditative ecstasy or in someone's physical reality? These questions, let alone that reality only exists inside me, are way too difficult to conclude in a little over two pages. For now I say, "Let's go, as fast as I can, for there is no one here but me."
REFERENCE
Marquez, G., (2003). The General in His Labyrinth. London: Vintage.
Tailoring Learning for International Students
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A unit of instruction that uses the Internet in a variety of ways needs a context. The context in this discussion is a traditional college course and how it is designed for students coming from different countries. What follows is a sketch of the course and its units of instruction. These center around classroom and computer laboratory meetings. The meetings have a structure, or process, and the instructor has a limited number of roles to play. Student learning is based on choices in objectives and computer learning activities. The sketch concludes with an example learning objective and some different types of Internet activities to help meet that objective.
Tailoring Learning for International Students
Introduction to Computers is a beginning college course for intermediate level English students (at the Anglo-American College, Prague.) The course takes place in the classroom and the computer laboratory with the instructor acting as a meeting facilitator, content presenter, and tutor. Although the course is documented online and uses the Internet, it is traditional face-to-face pedagogy (Wuensch, Aziz, Ozan, Kishore, & Tabrizi, 2008).
Because students come from different national educational systems and they have different computer skills already, the course has to make room for these differences. Giving choices of which learning objectives to work on helps students develop their computer literacy as well as demonstrate practical skills.
The course has ten three-and-a-half hour classroom-lab meetings. Each meeting is a three-step process. The process gives the instructor the roles above and looks like this.
1. What have you discovered? This is a review of required readings and what students have been working on so far.
2. What do you need to know? This step introduces new material and gives time for discussions and student presentations.
3. What do you need to be able to do? This step is about discovering and demonstrating skills in the computer laboratory.
The topics for the class meetings show the general scope of the course. The student chooses one or more of the objectives for each meeting. If the objectives and their learning activities for a meeting do not give the student something new to learn, he or she can work with the instructor and decide what is best.
Here are example objectives students can choose for the first five class meetings.
1. Course Overview, Computers and the Internet: The learner should be able to design a directory structure for a student taking three courses, or for an office worker involved in three projects. The design should include folder and file naming, the types of files included, and sample content for each.
2. Hardware and Software: The learner should be able to analyze a recent version of MS Windows and report on what it should have to be an operating system.
3. Word Processing: The learner should be able to create and print or upload a one-page, double-spaced text document showing as many features of the program as possible--fonts, point size, tables, columns, pagination, and so forth.
4. Presentations with Media: The learner should be able to produce a simple outline of a presentation for school or work with at least five PowerPoint slides.
5. Spreadsheets: The learner should be able to create two original spreadsheets, one showing a personal or project budget with monthly and annual sample numbers and one showing the formulae for the calculations.
These are the rest of the topics for the meetings: Mid-Course Exam; Databases; Sharing Information on the Web; Current Issues and Review; Final Presentations and Exam.
To show how this course uses the Internet to meet learning goals or aims for different students, the first thing to remember is that the course’s approach already tells the teacher what to do. When a student selects an objective for a topic, choices of what the student does in order to learn opens up. Here is an example from meeting three. The learning objective is that the student should be able to list five Internet applications for school or work. The list should include why each application is helpful.
Computer lab activities to help learn or demonstrate meeting this objective include the following types and examples. A student would work on one or more of these.
Search: Search for "computer operating system" using Google and define what it is.
Quest: Go to the Web sites for two different operating systems and find what applications come with them and what each does. Afterwards, open the programs menu on your computer and find out if you have these applications.
Message Board: Go to the university learning server and leave a message on the Newbie forum about programs students find most useful for their school work. How many different programs do students list? Are any from the Internet?
OCLC: Go to the university library catalog online and find this article: Pierre Dillenbourg (2008). Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems. Distance Education, 29(2), 127-140.
E-mail: Copy and paste the abstract of this article into an e-mail and send your instructor a copy.
Reading: Read the article. Does it say anything about Internet application programs?
Self-archiving: Put a short bibliography for a paper on one of the free bibliography Web sites. Then retrieve it in print or document form.
Document Storage: If you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, go to the document storage area and upload a document, maybe a draft of one of your papers.
Reference: Look up APA style guide online. Can you use any of the information presented to complete assignments for this course?
If one sees these activities as part of the design of teaching a lesson, the above fall into place in the process. First is in the classroom. The teacher talks about two or three things you can use computers and the Internet for. The teacher leads a discussion. Step two is also a classroom activity. It might be to hear and watch a PowerPoint presentation on how to access some online resources like the ones in the lab learning activities. The instructor would make the presentation. Finally, the students work out their own list of applications to help them in work or school. The instructor circulates in the lab helping and tutoring to make sure students are learning and completing the work each chose.
Reference
Wuensch, K. L., Aziz, S., Ozan, E., Kishore, M., & Tabrizi, M. H. N. (2008). Pedagogical Characteristics of Online and Face-to-Face Classes. International Journal on ELearning, 7(3), 523-532.
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
A unit of instruction that uses the Internet in a variety of ways needs a context. The context in this discussion is a traditional college course and how it is designed for students coming from different countries. What follows is a sketch of the course and its units of instruction. These center around classroom and computer laboratory meetings. The meetings have a structure, or process, and the instructor has a limited number of roles to play. Student learning is based on choices in objectives and computer learning activities. The sketch concludes with an example learning objective and some different types of Internet activities to help meet that objective.
Tailoring Learning for International Students
Introduction to Computers is a beginning college course for intermediate level English students (at the Anglo-American College, Prague.) The course takes place in the classroom and the computer laboratory with the instructor acting as a meeting facilitator, content presenter, and tutor. Although the course is documented online and uses the Internet, it is traditional face-to-face pedagogy (Wuensch, Aziz, Ozan, Kishore, & Tabrizi, 2008).
Because students come from different national educational systems and they have different computer skills already, the course has to make room for these differences. Giving choices of which learning objectives to work on helps students develop their computer literacy as well as demonstrate practical skills.
The course has ten three-and-a-half hour classroom-lab meetings. Each meeting is a three-step process. The process gives the instructor the roles above and looks like this.
1. What have you discovered? This is a review of required readings and what students have been working on so far.
2. What do you need to know? This step introduces new material and gives time for discussions and student presentations.
3. What do you need to be able to do? This step is about discovering and demonstrating skills in the computer laboratory.
The topics for the class meetings show the general scope of the course. The student chooses one or more of the objectives for each meeting. If the objectives and their learning activities for a meeting do not give the student something new to learn, he or she can work with the instructor and decide what is best.
Here are example objectives students can choose for the first five class meetings.
1. Course Overview, Computers and the Internet: The learner should be able to design a directory structure for a student taking three courses, or for an office worker involved in three projects. The design should include folder and file naming, the types of files included, and sample content for each.
2. Hardware and Software: The learner should be able to analyze a recent version of MS Windows and report on what it should have to be an operating system.
3. Word Processing: The learner should be able to create and print or upload a one-page, double-spaced text document showing as many features of the program as possible--fonts, point size, tables, columns, pagination, and so forth.
4. Presentations with Media: The learner should be able to produce a simple outline of a presentation for school or work with at least five PowerPoint slides.
5. Spreadsheets: The learner should be able to create two original spreadsheets, one showing a personal or project budget with monthly and annual sample numbers and one showing the formulae for the calculations.
These are the rest of the topics for the meetings: Mid-Course Exam; Databases; Sharing Information on the Web; Current Issues and Review; Final Presentations and Exam.
To show how this course uses the Internet to meet learning goals or aims for different students, the first thing to remember is that the course’s approach already tells the teacher what to do. When a student selects an objective for a topic, choices of what the student does in order to learn opens up. Here is an example from meeting three. The learning objective is that the student should be able to list five Internet applications for school or work. The list should include why each application is helpful.
Computer lab activities to help learn or demonstrate meeting this objective include the following types and examples. A student would work on one or more of these.
Search: Search for "computer operating system" using Google and define what it is.
Quest: Go to the Web sites for two different operating systems and find what applications come with them and what each does. Afterwards, open the programs menu on your computer and find out if you have these applications.
Message Board: Go to the university learning server and leave a message on the Newbie forum about programs students find most useful for their school work. How many different programs do students list? Are any from the Internet?
OCLC: Go to the university library catalog online and find this article: Pierre Dillenbourg (2008). Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems. Distance Education, 29(2), 127-140.
E-mail: Copy and paste the abstract of this article into an e-mail and send your instructor a copy.
Reading: Read the article. Does it say anything about Internet application programs?
Self-archiving: Put a short bibliography for a paper on one of the free bibliography Web sites. Then retrieve it in print or document form.
Document Storage: If you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, go to the document storage area and upload a document, maybe a draft of one of your papers.
Reference: Look up APA style guide online. Can you use any of the information presented to complete assignments for this course?
If one sees these activities as part of the design of teaching a lesson, the above fall into place in the process. First is in the classroom. The teacher talks about two or three things you can use computers and the Internet for. The teacher leads a discussion. Step two is also a classroom activity. It might be to hear and watch a PowerPoint presentation on how to access some online resources like the ones in the lab learning activities. The instructor would make the presentation. Finally, the students work out their own list of applications to help them in work or school. The instructor circulates in the lab helping and tutoring to make sure students are learning and completing the work each chose.
Reference
Wuensch, K. L., Aziz, S., Ozan, E., Kishore, M., & Tabrizi, M. H. N. (2008). Pedagogical Characteristics of Online and Face-to-Face Classes. International Journal on ELearning, 7(3), 523-532.
Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 12/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
The author asks a text to reveal what life was like. The text is a short oral history interview, and it reveals several major themes as a result of textual analysis. These are then reported and discussed in terms of an alternative to a hypothetical standard history text. A partial yet richer understanding of a person and a period appears as a result.
Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash
An oral interview can write history (Geraci 2005), but in some important respects, it tells a different story than that in a learned, bound volume. It is a story for richer understanding of what life was like. This then is the central question for storytellers and -gatherers. A close examination of one example can uncover this richer, personal texture of a time in history we might otherwise gloss over.
The act of commemorating by asking someone to recount may also be about forgetting (Hamilakis and Labanyi 2008), and an oral history may reveal as much about that as what is remembered in the moment. In addition, the act of telling one's history can reveal tensions that a carefully crafted text might overlook, or ignore all together (Saikia 2000).
What of all of this--in a concrete example? "Mrs Joan Lash, wife of an ADC [aide-de-camp] to the Governor of Madras," talked in 1985 about everyday life in India to Mary Thatcher. The text of the interview, made available by the Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge, has been included here. An abbreviated thematic analysis of what was said is this paper and a suggestive object lesson in what history does not always tell us.
To let the text speak, the transcribed version of the Lash interview, including Thatcher's questions, was first formatted in a table with 108 rows, one for each sentence, and three columns for numbering and notes. Repeated readings generated questions and comments--the notes--for many sentences. From these notes, larger categories, tentative themes in the third column, were isolated. A careful reading of the text, including the words of both interviewer and interviewee, showed it had many more candidate themes than those highlighted and can be reported here.
Textual analysis focused on Mrs. Lash and at the sentence rather than word or phrase level. However, the importance of the themes selected come from the words and phrases, or their equivalents, that Mrs. Lash provided. Thus, adherence to the text and what it says gave rise to the themes. Independent of the text, as may be seen below, the themes stand on their own as important in the texture of a life.
The themes selected for further study and analysis after the sifting out was a result of a back and forth reading/re-reading process, a kind of hermeneutic spiral both up and down until the briefest, cursory analysis could be summarized (Gadamer 1988).
Mrs. Joan Lash, at the time of the interview and in the eighth decade of her life, showed "placid acceptance" of "the pattern of life" as she knew and experienced it. She also showed she had "different mothers" and different ideas about what and where "home" was. Forgetting about or not remembering figure into the themes of home and different mothers. Tensions around "Being abandoned everywhere" (Line 107) relate to home and mother as well as seem to have contributed to placid acceptance of the pattern of life.
The pattern of life is Mrs. Lash's phrase, and she uses it three times (Lines 2, 31, and 80). In lines 28 and 79, she also uses phrases which can readily be understood as the pattern of life. Five references to the way it was for her, combined with being placid and accepting (Line 45) and just taking it (Line 46), strongly suggest a way of being.
Telltale in this pattern of the way of Mrs. Lash is how she refers to what happened. She is often acted upon rather than acting. Consider what she says after "just taking it": "And then when you became eighteen my father and mother were both out in India then and I then went out to India." It is as if there was a protocol for people of her background or station, that that next step was natural, a part of a known process. When she reflects that she may not have been proper when in Madras enjoying herself (Line 77), as if that were terrible, there is this preoccupation(?) with some determined-by-other way.
Mrs. Lash has one mother, the one she cherishes with a particularly vivid memory from childhood (Line 2 and following). This is the same person she can describe as her mother in the third person, without much detail or emotion. "She was a very beautiful person, very lovely, rather helpless I suppose" (Line 12). This is perhaps the same mother she yearned for (Line 44).
One wonders what the specifics were that Mrs. Lash could describe her one mother in such general terms: The cherished mother is forgotten in the interview as commemoration.
Mrs. Lash appears to have spent her early years away from her mother, perhaps both of them coming or going between England and India. She also has mother figures in nannies, unnamed aunts, and an unnamed nun.
As has been stated, Mrs. Lash was abandoned everywhere, even in early childhood (Line 9). Everywhere raises the matter of different houses. Home seems to have been England and India. The tensions Mrs. Lash felt in her houses-not-homes of boarding school and various aunts are less clear but strongly expressed (Lines 40 and 30 respectively).
In the end, although this theme would seem to figure large in the texture of a life, we have few details except the presumed number of houses in different places of residence. Perhaps Mrs. Lash did not place much importance on them.
This oral history is rich as the above analysis, transcript, and comments suggest. However, it is partial. We have a sense of Mrs. Lash, but her life is sketched only. We do not have the luxury of follow-up questions, and the analysis can help us get just so far in understanding.
Some themes are quite clear and suggest further inquiry. How did the life of a young man or young woman turn upon parents in service of the empire? What is done to the notion of home when two or more places could be called so? Women and mothers adapted in earlier times, yes, but in the main how did they? And how was life for these patriots abroad, a prescribed pattern to be followed and placidly accepted, or was there zest and excitement enough as with Mrs. Lash (Line 108)?
Mrs. Lash gives us an insight in this interview that we cannot gloss over, but lest that be all there is, history, the history of people, would be and is much more--a story for richer understanding.
References
Gadamer, H-G. (1988). ‘On the circle of understanding’ in J. M. Connolly & T. Keutner (Eds.), Hermeneutics versus science? Three German views (pp. 68-78), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Geraci, Victor W. 2005, ‘Letting Sources Become the Narrative: Using Oral Interviews to Write History’, The Public Historian 27, no. 1 (January 1): 61-66.
Hamilakis, Y., Jo Labanyi 2008, ‘Introduction: Time, Materiality, and the Work of Memory’, History and Memory 20, no. 2 (October 1): 5-17.
'Interview: Mrs. J. Lash by Mary Thatcher' (1985), Centre of South Asian Studies 004, viewed 5 December 2008.
Saikia, Yasmin 2000, ‘Creating Histories: Oral Narrative and the Politics of History-Making’, The Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (November 1): 1084-1085.
[Appendixes omitted.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Abstract
The author asks a text to reveal what life was like. The text is a short oral history interview, and it reveals several major themes as a result of textual analysis. These are then reported and discussed in terms of an alternative to a hypothetical standard history text. A partial yet richer understanding of a person and a period appears as a result.
Abbreviated Thematic Analysis of an Interview: Mrs. Joan Lash
An oral interview can write history (Geraci 2005), but in some important respects, it tells a different story than that in a learned, bound volume. It is a story for richer understanding of what life was like. This then is the central question for storytellers and -gatherers. A close examination of one example can uncover this richer, personal texture of a time in history we might otherwise gloss over.
The act of commemorating by asking someone to recount may also be about forgetting (Hamilakis and Labanyi 2008), and an oral history may reveal as much about that as what is remembered in the moment. In addition, the act of telling one's history can reveal tensions that a carefully crafted text might overlook, or ignore all together (Saikia 2000).
What of all of this--in a concrete example? "Mrs Joan Lash, wife of an ADC [aide-de-camp] to the Governor of Madras," talked in 1985 about everyday life in India to Mary Thatcher. The text of the interview, made available by the Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge, has been included here. An abbreviated thematic analysis of what was said is this paper and a suggestive object lesson in what history does not always tell us.
To let the text speak, the transcribed version of the Lash interview, including Thatcher's questions, was first formatted in a table with 108 rows, one for each sentence, and three columns for numbering and notes. Repeated readings generated questions and comments--the notes--for many sentences. From these notes, larger categories, tentative themes in the third column, were isolated. A careful reading of the text, including the words of both interviewer and interviewee, showed it had many more candidate themes than those highlighted and can be reported here.
Textual analysis focused on Mrs. Lash and at the sentence rather than word or phrase level. However, the importance of the themes selected come from the words and phrases, or their equivalents, that Mrs. Lash provided. Thus, adherence to the text and what it says gave rise to the themes. Independent of the text, as may be seen below, the themes stand on their own as important in the texture of a life.
The themes selected for further study and analysis after the sifting out was a result of a back and forth reading/re-reading process, a kind of hermeneutic spiral both up and down until the briefest, cursory analysis could be summarized (Gadamer 1988).
Mrs. Joan Lash, at the time of the interview and in the eighth decade of her life, showed "placid acceptance" of "the pattern of life" as she knew and experienced it. She also showed she had "different mothers" and different ideas about what and where "home" was. Forgetting about or not remembering figure into the themes of home and different mothers. Tensions around "Being abandoned everywhere" (Line 107) relate to home and mother as well as seem to have contributed to placid acceptance of the pattern of life.
The pattern of life is Mrs. Lash's phrase, and she uses it three times (Lines 2, 31, and 80). In lines 28 and 79, she also uses phrases which can readily be understood as the pattern of life. Five references to the way it was for her, combined with being placid and accepting (Line 45) and just taking it (Line 46), strongly suggest a way of being.
Telltale in this pattern of the way of Mrs. Lash is how she refers to what happened. She is often acted upon rather than acting. Consider what she says after "just taking it": "And then when you became eighteen my father and mother were both out in India then and I then went out to India." It is as if there was a protocol for people of her background or station, that that next step was natural, a part of a known process. When she reflects that she may not have been proper when in Madras enjoying herself (Line 77), as if that were terrible, there is this preoccupation(?) with some determined-by-other way.
Mrs. Lash has one mother, the one she cherishes with a particularly vivid memory from childhood (Line 2 and following). This is the same person she can describe as her mother in the third person, without much detail or emotion. "She was a very beautiful person, very lovely, rather helpless I suppose" (Line 12). This is perhaps the same mother she yearned for (Line 44).
One wonders what the specifics were that Mrs. Lash could describe her one mother in such general terms: The cherished mother is forgotten in the interview as commemoration.
Mrs. Lash appears to have spent her early years away from her mother, perhaps both of them coming or going between England and India. She also has mother figures in nannies, unnamed aunts, and an unnamed nun.
As has been stated, Mrs. Lash was abandoned everywhere, even in early childhood (Line 9). Everywhere raises the matter of different houses. Home seems to have been England and India. The tensions Mrs. Lash felt in her houses-not-homes of boarding school and various aunts are less clear but strongly expressed (Lines 40 and 30 respectively).
In the end, although this theme would seem to figure large in the texture of a life, we have few details except the presumed number of houses in different places of residence. Perhaps Mrs. Lash did not place much importance on them.
This oral history is rich as the above analysis, transcript, and comments suggest. However, it is partial. We have a sense of Mrs. Lash, but her life is sketched only. We do not have the luxury of follow-up questions, and the analysis can help us get just so far in understanding.
Some themes are quite clear and suggest further inquiry. How did the life of a young man or young woman turn upon parents in service of the empire? What is done to the notion of home when two or more places could be called so? Women and mothers adapted in earlier times, yes, but in the main how did they? And how was life for these patriots abroad, a prescribed pattern to be followed and placidly accepted, or was there zest and excitement enough as with Mrs. Lash (Line 108)?
Mrs. Lash gives us an insight in this interview that we cannot gloss over, but lest that be all there is, history, the history of people, would be and is much more--a story for richer understanding.
References
Gadamer, H-G. (1988). ‘On the circle of understanding’ in J. M. Connolly & T. Keutner (Eds.), Hermeneutics versus science? Three German views (pp. 68-78), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Geraci, Victor W. 2005, ‘Letting Sources Become the Narrative: Using Oral Interviews to Write History’, The Public Historian 27, no. 1 (January 1): 61-66.
Hamilakis, Y., Jo Labanyi 2008, ‘Introduction: Time, Materiality, and the Work of Memory’, History and Memory 20, no. 2 (October 1): 5-17.
'Interview: Mrs. J. Lash by Mary Thatcher' (1985), Centre of South Asian Studies 004, viewed 5 December 2008
Saikia, Yasmin 2000, ‘Creating Histories: Oral Narrative and the Politics of History-Making’, The Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (November 1): 1084-1085.
[Appendixes omitted.]
Options Versus Goals
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Deborah Davis (2006) identifies one way of developing critical thinking. That is, we can develop our skills by looking at options and their advantages and disadvantages (p. 83). This leads to selecting the best option under the circumstances to solve a problem.
What Davis does not develop is what an option is. It seems to be a course of immediate, practical action. I would propose that problem solving is not as simple as that. At least among options you have an embedded problem. Given two or more options for problem one, then the next problem is to select which one? How do you do that without carrying out this problem-options process again and again?
I would like to suggest a way to stop this regress by turning an option into a step towards a goal or objective that needs to come about because of some action. What am I trying to accomplish by doing this versus that? Once I have that, all the rest falls into place.
For example, in this exercise, how can I answer the question of which critical thinking skill can I or should I develop more? I can say one option for this problem is to stay up all night to get this paper turned in on time. Another answer is a goal, a condition or state of what it would be like that I want to have.
That desired state might be something like this: I will always be prepared for the requirements of school. From this ideal, action steps (options) come, and may include for me to prioritize everyday challenges at school such that I can turn my work in on time and perhaps get better grades. The option of staying up all night for a one-page paper then is not optimal. It does not help me get to my goal or objective very well. Think of what it would mean for me. I have. Staying up late or working all night will deprive me of my beauty rest, another important goal of mine.
Reference
Davis, D., (2006). Adult Learner' S Companion. City: Houghton Mifflin Company.
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
Deborah Davis (2006) identifies one way of developing critical thinking. That is, we can develop our skills by looking at options and their advantages and disadvantages (p. 83). This leads to selecting the best option under the circumstances to solve a problem.
What Davis does not develop is what an option is. It seems to be a course of immediate, practical action. I would propose that problem solving is not as simple as that. At least among options you have an embedded problem. Given two or more options for problem one, then the next problem is to select which one? How do you do that without carrying out this problem-options process again and again?
I would like to suggest a way to stop this regress by turning an option into a step towards a goal or objective that needs to come about because of some action. What am I trying to accomplish by doing this versus that? Once I have that, all the rest falls into place.
For example, in this exercise, how can I answer the question of which critical thinking skill can I or should I develop more? I can say one option for this problem is to stay up all night to get this paper turned in on time. Another answer is a goal, a condition or state of what it would be like that I want to have.
That desired state might be something like this: I will always be prepared for the requirements of school. From this ideal, action steps (options) come, and may include for me to prioritize everyday challenges at school such that I can turn my work in on time and perhaps get better grades. The option of staying up all night for a one-page paper then is not optimal. It does not help me get to my goal or objective very well. Think of what it would mean for me. I have. Staying up late or working all night will deprive me of my beauty rest, another important goal of mine.
Reference
Davis, D., (2006). Adult Learner' S Companion. City: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Social Research Ethics, Preliminary Thoughts
[An academic exercise and part of a larger project on authenticity in writing, 11/08.]
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
The title alone of McIntyre’s article (2002) about doing the right thing in conducting social research suggests another, first-order matter not to be dismissed easily. Is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done, or is doing, the right thing? In considering this matter, I found I could work with the following questions to come up with some preliminary if tentative thoughts. Here are these presented with the idea that they might lead to a greater insight into social research ethics and the ultimate concern McIntyre’s article rests upon.
One: "Is it possible for anyone to genuinely consent to being objectified through the research process?" (Davidson).
Two: Do voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity (Trochim) pretty much cover the bases for ethical research on human subjects?
Whether quantitative or qualitative research approaches are employed to study human phenomena, the knowledge quest rests on the thing--the object of study. Whether researchers, ethics committees, the public, or others like it or not, human subjects become objects in the service of an other's discovering, confirming, or advancing knowledge.
Objectification comes with all that is the research enterprise. If, however, in a clinical or confidential study, a subject, or we can now say object, is not treated per proper procedure and respect, there may be cause for complaint. Any ethics violation may then have to be determined by those closest to what was actually proposed and done.
Davidson's question seems more philosophical than practical. It may not be nice or politically correct to objectify people in some ideal world or in some contexts, but in the interests of research we do it, just as we do it elsewhere in our lives (e.g., picture the finals in a body building competition).
Voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity are not the only matters for care in planning and conducting research involving human subjects. No doubt any ethics committee or listing of standards, rules, or procedures would specify these and others, and in some detail. However, there is at least one additional base to cover regardless of the group to be satisfied or the expectations to be met.
The expectation or standard should be articulated that ethics should be addressed whenever researching human subjects. This may seem self-evident, but if not stated in whatever fashion the governing or advisory body wishes to, not having some self-referential language about the advisability or requirement of the process itself has a possible negative consequence. For example, if there is no process, the possible claim above of violation could not be addressed except out of the good citizenship or manners involving those closest to the action. Another possibility is that if researchers as a group do not "require" the process of reviewing the ethics of what is proposed, a researcher need not review. If review is required, then the substance and process of research, its approval, and--it is hoped--research implementation will help ensure the proper treatment and care of those studied.
By and large, research today is not carried out by independent researchers. It is sanctioned by higher education by having research and publication as a part of the academic’s job description. Grants and contracts routinely require as much quality and transparency as is humanly possible, or affordable. The public can scrutinize pharmaceutical companies and governments when their work involves health and the common good. The researcher or sponsor that does not adhere to ethical precepts risks being ignored by an academy that embraces the almost universal norm of doing so.
There are some research studies that need to be covert, that is the object of study need not or should not be disclosed beforehand. Disclosing might in these cases bias results. This seems to contradict the principle of informed consent, but this depends. An ethnographic study might be an example exception. If a cultural informant knows he or she is being viewed as such, results might be other than what would be without this knowledge. Margaret Mead reportedly got into this difficulty with the subjects of her classic study (2001). Degree of disclosure as an ethical expectation needs to be carefully worked out for each social research study, for the integrity of the study as well as the protection of the subjects.
Now, given all of the above, is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done the right thing? It appears that as much as we prescribe and proscribe trying to ensure that we do right in social research, it appears as if the answer is akin to the imperfection we de facto accept in our lives. However, there is a difference. In social (and other) research, we would try to be extra deliberate and careful about achieving incontrovertible explanations and understandings, reducing the chances of making errors and doing wrong. Otherwise, what are we trying to accomplish?
Works Cited
McIntyre, Lisa J. “Doing the Right Thing: Ethics in Social Research.” The Practical Skeptic. Mcintyre, Lisa (Ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Perennial Classics, 2001.
Trochim, William M. K. “Ethics in Research.” Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2006 25. Nov. 2008
[THIS PAPER MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FOR ILLUSTRATION OR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES WITH OR WITHOUT PERMISSION.]
The title alone of McIntyre’s article (2002) about doing the right thing in conducting social research suggests another, first-order matter not to be dismissed easily. Is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done, or is doing, the right thing? In considering this matter, I found I could work with the following questions to come up with some preliminary if tentative thoughts. Here are these presented with the idea that they might lead to a greater insight into social research ethics and the ultimate concern McIntyre’s article rests upon.
One: "Is it possible for anyone to genuinely consent to being objectified through the research process?" (Davidson).
Two: Do voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity (Trochim) pretty much cover the bases for ethical research on human subjects?
Whether quantitative or qualitative research approaches are employed to study human phenomena, the knowledge quest rests on the thing--the object of study. Whether researchers, ethics committees, the public, or others like it or not, human subjects become objects in the service of an other's discovering, confirming, or advancing knowledge.
Objectification comes with all that is the research enterprise. If, however, in a clinical or confidential study, a subject, or we can now say object, is not treated per proper procedure and respect, there may be cause for complaint. Any ethics violation may then have to be determined by those closest to what was actually proposed and done.
Davidson's question seems more philosophical than practical. It may not be nice or politically correct to objectify people in some ideal world or in some contexts, but in the interests of research we do it, just as we do it elsewhere in our lives (e.g., picture the finals in a body building competition).
Voluntary participation, informed consent, risk of harm, confidentiality, and anonymity are not the only matters for care in planning and conducting research involving human subjects. No doubt any ethics committee or listing of standards, rules, or procedures would specify these and others, and in some detail. However, there is at least one additional base to cover regardless of the group to be satisfied or the expectations to be met.
The expectation or standard should be articulated that ethics should be addressed whenever researching human subjects. This may seem self-evident, but if not stated in whatever fashion the governing or advisory body wishes to, not having some self-referential language about the advisability or requirement of the process itself has a possible negative consequence. For example, if there is no process, the possible claim above of violation could not be addressed except out of the good citizenship or manners involving those closest to the action. Another possibility is that if researchers as a group do not "require" the process of reviewing the ethics of what is proposed, a researcher need not review. If review is required, then the substance and process of research, its approval, and--it is hoped--research implementation will help ensure the proper treatment and care of those studied.
By and large, research today is not carried out by independent researchers. It is sanctioned by higher education by having research and publication as a part of the academic’s job description. Grants and contracts routinely require as much quality and transparency as is humanly possible, or affordable. The public can scrutinize pharmaceutical companies and governments when their work involves health and the common good. The researcher or sponsor that does not adhere to ethical precepts risks being ignored by an academy that embraces the almost universal norm of doing so.
There are some research studies that need to be covert, that is the object of study need not or should not be disclosed beforehand. Disclosing might in these cases bias results. This seems to contradict the principle of informed consent, but this depends. An ethnographic study might be an example exception. If a cultural informant knows he or she is being viewed as such, results might be other than what would be without this knowledge. Margaret Mead reportedly got into this difficulty with the subjects of her classic study (2001). Degree of disclosure as an ethical expectation needs to be carefully worked out for each social research study, for the integrity of the study as well as the protection of the subjects.
Now, given all of the above, is it ever possible to know if a researcher has done the right thing? It appears that as much as we prescribe and proscribe trying to ensure that we do right in social research, it appears as if the answer is akin to the imperfection we de facto accept in our lives. However, there is a difference. In social (and other) research, we would try to be extra deliberate and careful about achieving incontrovertible explanations and understandings, reducing the chances of making errors and doing wrong. Otherwise, what are we trying to accomplish?
Works Cited
McIntyre, Lisa J. “Doing the Right Thing: Ethics in Social Research.” The Practical Skeptic. Mcintyre, Lisa (Ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Perennial Classics, 2001.
Trochim, William M. K. “Ethics in Research.” Research Methods Knowledge Base. 2006 25. Nov. 2008
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