Archive for March, 2007

I was having a conversation with a friend earlier today, when discussion turned to the ways in which anger and frustration could transmit themselves through individuals within an institutional context - discussing examples of situations in which someone high up in an institutional structure could direct anger downward to someone who would then re-direct it to their subordinates, and so on - until the transmitted anger either reaches someone who refuses to perpetuate the pattern or, as my friend suggested, is finally grounded in someone who lacks the ability to retransmit to anyone else…

As interesting as all this might be, I found myself far more captivated by the… sociological implications of the metaphor my friend used to describe the final person in such an institutional chain. It opened my eyes to some dimensions of rural Australia that, I’ll admit, I have never previously encountered:

My friend: “It’s like, you know, when you get in a line, and someone touches the electrified fence…”

Me: blank stare

My friend: “You know: when you get in a line, and you all hold hands, and then someone grabs the electrified fence - and all of you get shocked, but the person on the end - well they really cop it!”

Me: “What?!”

My friend (realising that this might not be a practice with which I have personal experience): “oh… maybe ’cause it’s a farm thing - you probably weren’t doing this in Chicago…”

Me: “So… you get together with friends, hold hands, and… shock yourselves on an electrified fence?”

My friend: “Yeah.”

Me: “Not much to do in your hometown?”

My friend: *looking sheepish* “Well, you know… we didn’t do it at the bull paddock or anything. I mean, you’d want it to be somewhere else…”

Me: “How did you get the person to agree to be on the end?!”

My friend: “Oh, you’d swap it ’round - you don’t always cop the end…”

So we have a group of friends, united around a practice that causes pain for all of them, because it doesn’t cause most of them as much pain as it does the poor bastard on the end - and because, even though they sometimes are the poor bastard on the end, most of the time, this role is filled by someone else… Honestly, this is such a perfect metaphor for so many things - I don’t know whether to laugh or cry…

I suspect this counts as one of the stranger backchannel communications to float around the reading group - from an email this evening that is, apparently, an invitation to our discussion tomorrow of The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology:

Dear Theodore and Jürgen,

12.30 it is. I’m hungry already.

Karl - Jürgen has agreed to wear a red carnation, so you will know where to aim.

Yours sincerely,

M Horkheimer

But… but… but… how did Horkheimer make his way into this discussion???

A colleague just observed one of my discussion sessions, and walked away expressing some surprise at my technique - specifically: “It’s very… Socratic…”

The pause makes me somewhat unsure whether this was meant as a compliment, or more an expression of dismay… ;-P

I mentioned the other day that L Magee and G Gollings foolishly allowed themselves to be tempted by a lunch invitation, little knowing that this would entrap them in a four-hour discussion of how I can best carve a thesis out of a life project. While this discussion was very much in the spirit of the methodology slam, those who know me well, also know that my extensive involvement in teaching and consulting on research methodology very much embodies the spirit “those who can’t do, teach” (those who are currently teaching jointly with me may then wonder where one goes when, as seems to be happening to me this term, one can’t necessarily teach either - I plead the 5th [I can do that in Australia, can't I? ;-P])… When one’s work seems not to involve a methodology per se, and when the discussion therefore revolves more around the logic and coherence of the narrative presentation of the dissertation, I’m not sure one is permitted to say one has been slammed. Perhaps a new term is required: perhaps I have been… dissed!

In the wake of my dissing, I have tossed together some personal notes and placeholders - I’ll write on all of this in a much more adequate way when I have more time and am less tired. I post this here mainly for GG and LM (and others locally who have been involved in more truncated versions of such discussions), in case they are wondering what I’ve “done” with these talks. My guess is that what I’ve done with them won’t much resemble what one might have hoped, given the detail of our discussions and the excellent suggestions made by everyone: by way of apology, I simply haven’t had time to digest and assimilate everything you’ve said. I’ll therefore stress that the following notes are not intended for prime time viewing, don’t even meet the usual loose standards that govern gestural comments around these parts, and are internalistic, rather than shaped for public discussion and debate. Below the fold they go.

So my friends are now giving me shit about how much I complain on the blog about how busy I am (I likely complain about this too much in person, as well, so these folks get a double dose…). At yesterday’s reading group meeting, I had to interrupt the discussion at one point so that I could decline someone’s meeting invitation (which, I admit, was a funny thing to need to do: hold that thought! I have to decline an invitation!), and the torrent descended:

You know, I feel incredibly graced by your presence, given all these meetings you attend…

And:

You know, soon she’ll have no time to do anything but respond to meeting invitations - not even attend them, just declining them will take all her time…

Of course, given the empathy and support I customarily receive from each of you, I’m sure you’ll all understand that I won’t have time to summarise the reading group discussion - I have too many meeting invitations to respond to…