When it all starts to look the same…

I’ve been working on a paper for my Contemporary Social Theory class (among too many other things it seems) and I have reached a point where all the readings are melding into one another…Even in the standard Foucault/Habermas debates, i am seeing similarities in thought – the same thing being said a different way…Lyotard and Habermas – same thing… Z. Bauman and Habermas.. Bauman and Foucault.. in class, the differences are distinguished.. but when I read it, it seems to blend into one.

I know that it leads back to the [pivotal] enlightenment period. Whether they are trying to downplay this event in social history, and its effects (or lack of..!) on the rest of history, or giving it full props for who we are today, all the theory seems to iterate the ‘what if’ or ‘look at it this way instead’ of theoretical debate.

I cant imagine how fine one can split a hair!

I was impressed with Immanuel Kant’s work on theory of the present ‘Aufklarung’, until Foucault decided to dissect it, along with J.F. Lyotard.

This is what i see [based on the selected readings of my coursepack] in the Modernity vs Post Mdernity debate.

claim 1: There is no distinction, only evolution of modern, since modern is defined as distinct from the past. Bauman talks about this in terms of the fluidity of time being the key, not the solidity of space..

claim 2: Modern was created (very loosely speaking) to break free from the rigid rules of the ‘ancients’, but is now becoming as rigid as what it was trying to break from. (claim 1 makes sense according to this – but again, there are slight distinctions that keep them seperated..)

claim 3: Modern is predictability, Post Modern is spontaneous and in no way predictable..

claim 4: Even Post Modernity has become as predictable as modernity, falling back into the circle of claim 2 therefore – there needs to be a post post modernity?

claim 5: Post modernity is not about breaking away from modernity’s structure, but to redefine better structures…

I think it is easy to see how the debate becomes blurred, and i have to say – all this cyclical thinking hasnt cleared up a darn thing and i have a paper due tomorrow !!

Technical Admin

Ill look into the reading list etc this weekend.

Worse comes to worse, you can always email me the list and i can post it.

Ive been dying to write the last few days as things are heating up as reading week approaches.. workload has increased, and alas this equation can only calculate to a big fat “0” ! Nothing left in my head but the spinning wheels without any oil..

come next thursday night, all should go back to normal… whatever that may be =)

Posting reading list?

Kelly – have you figured out how the rest of us can participate in the Reading List over there on the right? I don’t think with blogger you can give us access to the template — or can you?

If you get bored this week between writing papers, being a mom, a research assistant, a student, a SO, etc. etc. can you check into it? 😉

Thanks.

Notable site

Kelly – given the explorations of power that you are doing in your classes and in the post you put up last week, I thought you might enjoy this site that is about all things Foucault…

It’s called Foucault Resources — dumb name but great site.

May I suggest we put it in the site links over there at the right?

Experiences at uni

This one isn’t so much a rant as an actual question to y’all…

It seems I end up in classes all the time that have at least one person who is…what’s the PC term these days?…. “mentally disadvantaged”?

I mean that literally, not ironically. In each semester at Concordia so far, I have at least one class in which there is a student who seems to have some sort of impairment, be it down’s syndrome or some other actual acknowledged _thing_ that means that they aren’t at the same mental level as the rest of the class.

So what I want to know, at the risk of sounding callous and mean, why are they there? They don’t seem to understand most of what is going on in class. Prof hands out an assignment and inevitably they’ll pipe up with some comment like “But I don’t WANT to write a paper!” or worse…”what’s a paper?” (that really happened in my AHSC 220 class!). If they aren’t at the university level mentally (and each of the 4 people I’ve had in four different classes haven’t seemed to be past primary school, mentally)…why are they there?

Another corollary question — how did they get in? And what to they hope to get out of it?

Am I the only one who has noticed this? I know Tamara has seen it too, ’cause she is in a class with me this year that has such a person in it.

Kelly? Any experiences with this? Any insights? Can you sell me a clue?

Differences between “real” world and academia (Part 1)

Okay where do I start?

I think I’ll just be generally prolific today (i.e. spewing opinions)! So you’re warned! This is the first of many over the next few days…

/rant on

For Kelly’s post about learning through talking things out the way I think happens in a seminar session in the upper years….made me think about something that happened at work lately that stood in stark contrast to that and made me think about the difference between so-called “real world” and academia…

I’m the type of person that figures things out and sorts them out by talking them out with someone or writing them out. I’m also a collaborative type. All of this means that when I’ve got a problem to solve or an issue to address or a bunch of avenues to explore to do some type of task, I want to sit down with someone and hash it out by talking it out loud.

No problem right?

Sure. No problem in academia.

Try doing it on the job. Especially with a man (there’s no gender police on this blog, is there?)

See…I’ve gone through three bosses in three years on this job in big pharma here in Laval. My first two bosses understood my collaborative and vocal tendencies and indulged me. To digress a bit, given that I’m doing web stuff AND I’m kinda doing bleeding-edge stuff (as least, bleeding edge compared to everyone else in my company and the pharma industry)…no one gets me. So I can’t talk to just my general co-workers, cause I don’t have any …and I can’t talk to my clients…cause they don’t get it…

Anyways, I get this new pseudo-temporary-boss last fall when my second boss went off to become a sales rep in the company. I’m working on a project. It’s an important project for the company. I hit a snag or an issue or whatever on a few occasions. Project, life. Normal right? I schedule a quick meeting and I sit down with my pseudo-boss dude and I talk about it with him. We come up with solutions. I implement them. Figured all was well.

Not so fast.

Today I get my annual performance review for 2003 in the internal mail from my actual boss, who’s the VP of the department. Turns out she’s asked my pseudo-boss to do most of my review and he has put something in there about how I have trouble problem solving and managing projects and he had to hold my hand on more than one occasion and that means that I need serious help and coaching and trianing on project management!

This…from the guy who ALSO got pissed when he ISN’T consulted!!!

So because of that ONE DAMN COMMENT from him, I won’t get a bonus this year!!!!

ARGH!

Someone! Quick! Check! Is the top of my head still there????

/rant off

Media/Technology/Politics – Discussion Topics

I complained about the girls in my class yesterday, and must retract [SOME] of my commentaries.. since i got off by butt to answer the questions the professor posted, i kind of suppose maybe they had some relativity BUT to be fair – they also told the prof. not to argue with them!

Anyways

Figured i would post the questions we had to answer this week for our online discussion group along with my answer – see what you think…

Is political power affected by technology? Reworded: Do the enframing qualities of technology act as structural determinants for power?

The development of technology has its history in military funding, and therefore, politics and power are inherent within its materiality. Structural form and function were, by design, intended to benefit the power structure of those funding the research and development. The relationship between power and technology is apparent in how we determine a nation’s position within the global hierarchical power structure. The most “powerful” nations are those with the furthest technological advances.

Food for thought…In Z. Bauman’s foreword to his work “On being light and liquid” (2000) discussing [political] power in post-modern times, he writes;

Power can move with the speed of the electronic signal – and so the time required for the movement of its essential ingredients has been reduced to instantaneity. For all practical purposes, power has become truly exterritorial, no longer bound, not even slowed down by the resistance of space…This gives the power-holders a truly unprecedented opportunity: the awkward and irritating aspects of the panoptical technique of power may be disposed of…

Many bemoan the impoverishment of language. Is the capacity of thinking affected by this possibility? Reworded: If language is impoverished, is thinking likewise lessened?

As stressed by the commentaries in class last week, the debate appears to be whether language is indeed impoverished or simply in its natural state of change. IF language is impoverished then the capacity for thought is as well, [based on pure logical deduction of the question – following the idea that language is a tool of expression] IF language is evolving so must the thought process. Better or worse is again open for debate; is the “bemoaning” simply a nostalgic cry for traditional use of language?

The question above must be contextualized to be answered fairly. Who is the question addressing, the ‘general population’ of western society? Who determines whether language is in a state of impoverishment – the elite? If rhetoric and metaphor in the traditional sense is lost, what is replacing it?

I do not believe that such generalizations can be made, seeing as rhetoric and metaphor appear to be alive and kicking within many academic fields and contemporary writing. If there is disintegration of language structure and quality therefore potentially affecting the ability to think we have to ask ourselves to what extent], I cannot believe that technology is ‘impoverishing’ language but rather the lack of government support for basic education.

Reminder why i bother

In reply to my own post earlier today, i must say, that the reason i bother..

I got to spend the afternoon at school, working [intermittently] on the research im working on. Through all the people who think that they are in university to express their opinions, and not necessarily to learn, i am blessed with meeting people who understand critical theory and how it functions. I have been lucky to meet people who challenge what i understand of the things i am learning, and can only hope that these people will be around for some time to continue to challenge me. Again, Kathleen has helped direct my thought process on post modernism in contemporary educational systems etc. What does this mean to me, and how does my last commentaries fit into our conversation. She helped me work through the difference between lectures and seminars.

How you can learn, have opinions and still add food for thought to a conversation that furthers your knowledge. People who claim to know what they are talking about 100% are being equally ignorant to the process of learning. People who are unwillingly to hear out another party completely to see how another view fits into their own are denying themselves the intellectual benefit that is the university experience. I understand that my own negative attitudes towards what [in my opinion] was off topic opinionated commentaries by these girls may even undermine my own advice of listening to alternative views, and i promise i would have IF they had spoken on topic and in context of the course that i am paying the university to teach me about. I am not there to tell other people what i think, personal stories and off topic reflections are irrelevant.

Although i am learning the process to think critically and am developing my own opinions based on what i am learning, i dont think i have the right to impose my views on the class, especially when it takes up more then half of the class time.

Anyways – enough gripping from me! If anything, this will teach me to try to take what i can out of a class – regardless who or what tries to derail the topic at hand.

On to deeper thoughts… =)

Why Bother?

I find myself constantly asking myself this question in respect to those people who go to University who [think] they already know everything thing. Im sitting in my media/tech/poli class and the prof is talking about the loss of rhetoric and metaphor in our society. The question posed to the class was along the lines of this “Is the impoverishment of today;s language affected by technology?” The question was based around the idea that language has lost some of its effect and how does that affect things like mass media, and public understanding. Instead, there were several girls in the class who felt the need to attack the use of the word impoverished – stating that language changes – whether it is for the better of for the worse should be irrelevant… that from a linguistic persperspective, language use is contextual, therefore any historical debate is arbitrary (thats my interpretation of what they were saying) From them, it came out more like “You cant say that language is impoverished – I’m a well read linguist and therefore you cant really argue with me…”

I think to myself, well, the point of the original debate has been missed… AND these girls have the nerve to tell the professor that he is wrong, and that he shouldnt disagree with them??? I find myself asking why do these people bother attending university if they already know everything? Can’t somebody just give them a piece of paper stating they’re too freaking smart!?! At least it would get them out of my classes… Sadly, we didnt have much time to get to the actual [relevant] point of the topic at hand..

And so, i lost another 3 hours of education to people who think they know it all../sigh

Academic Entertainment

My Ethnolinguistics class can be dry at times – we are still looking at the historical debates in language development some 10,000 years ago…

My professor added this in our reader – made me smile!

http://www.icw-net.com/howto/funstuff/euroengl.htm