Message-ID: <1567.991207@acnet.net> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 13:37:38 -0600 From: Douglas Hinds <mailto:dmhinds@acnet.net> Subject: Re: Transferring Environment-Related Technologies To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Hi Kerry,Monday, December 06, 1999, 12:19:20 PM, you wrote in response my stating:
>> The language it takes is the language that's spelled out more by
>> actions than words themselves, which after all are only pointers. When
>> a frame of reference is lacking due to an absence of clearly appropriate
>> precedents, it may be necessary to provide graphic examples, either by
>> associating with a local person who is willing or by supporting the
>> creation of the antecedent at ones own cost.
KM> ..Yes, the referent, the _ground_, is what is *really necessary KM> and sufficient; all our best efforts in 'language' or 'graphic KM> examples' or 'stories' are simply makeshift and artifice ...
They are quite useful as pointers, if one doesn't forget that this is all they are. Also, perhaps the pointer is *not* pointing to an external reality but rather to an *internal* map that serves to direct the attention of the *listener* to where *he* can find it for himself. The implication here is that the speaker *must* be a well centered and grounded individual, in order to communicate effectively, and by extension, he must eat well. sleep well and exercise.
KM> That is, as long as one doesn't start taking the sizzle-story as KM> *just as good* as the steak- reality, one can go quite a ways KM> towards 'constructing a shared reality.'
This is what drugs do.
KM> (Hmmm - now *I'm using the 'lost tradition' gambit: wasnt it the KM> West which prided itself on having its 'feet on the ground'? How KM> did it come to this _hubris, that only words and gestures were KM> 'relevant'?)
Words. *What* ground?
>> > ... [doing their level best to share their own experience, even if
>> > 'those people' can only listen to their stories].
>>
>> This is my point. Stories are cheap. Those people need to see it for
>> themselves and b able to apply the results to their own possibilities and
>> circumstances.
KM> Should we posit a new word, or can I get by just saying 'real' stories?
Words are pointers and an excess can hurt. We don need "stories" at all. The local people need to see it unfold themselves, to be there where it's happening, in order to take it in, to believe it, and then to apply it (or even consider that) to their own lives, thereafter. It has to happen in real time (which is gradual), for them to take it in, digest it and chose to get involved - to make it part of their own arsenal.
Here involves planting what are called evaluation plots and demonstration plots, and doing this is basic to getting anything new established. For one thing, if it isn't done, no funding will be available from any institutional sources, private or public.
So forget any other kind of promotion. Period.
BTW, this began when I posted in relation a request Turlough Guerin made recently, after having done so months ago. This made suspect he may have run into a problem with the backers of the study due to the approach taken (which he had been kind enough to share). The question is, where is Turlough now in is thread? (It was his post hat kicked it off).
KM> ... interestingly, it's those underdeveloped, impoverished, KM> fatalistic farmers who have the sharpest eye/ ear/ flim-flam KM> detectors...
Seeing is believing.
>> KM> [By] gaining the unexpected understanding doing that will bring,
>> KM> as well as [giving] credibility [to the other party] [both will
>> KM> have] successfully assimilated [and been somewhat assimilated to
>> KM> each other's (_appreciate_ is perhaps the more vernacular term)]
>> KM> culture."
This is what a social worker does. To achieve the changes desired, it will take more.
>> I don't think that language springs from linguistics but rather from
>> the physical reality of the people involved.
KM> ...The paradigm I use derives ...from my having lived 'locally' in KM> Nepal for several years. I dont pretend for a moment that I'm KM> Nepali
You shared the experience to a degree, you *are* to that degree.
KM> (at whatever level of one's discrimination, the 'inside/ KM> outside' boundary is always there)
You don't stop being Kerry Miller.
KM> - but I have (successfully, imho) 'assimilated' the levels which KM> my friends and neighbours were able to expose for me. We'll have KM> to ask them what they got from my stories, but it never occured to KM> me to sell them short -- you can guess as well as I which level I KM> would have been exposed to/ on if I had!
Stories are fine, as far as they go.
KM> As for 'linguistics,' I find it quite worthwhile to apply the KM> above 'reality- test' on a word-by-word basis. For instance, KM> 'assimilate' is not wrong, insofar as 'making [oneself] similar' KM> is the root meaning. I suggested 'appreciate' as it (literally) KM> raises the ante somewhat, in the same way I can assimilate a meal KM> you serve, but its my *appreciation that may get me invited back KM> again ;-)
I can appreciate that, but as pointers, the etymology of a word is significant in terms of the analogy but not so much in terms of of it's present application. Furthermore, thought is not so discrete a process so as to depend on dysjuncted (that was for for your benefit) words. We think and speak in sentences and contest is the all important issue.
There are certain substances that do increase the discrete aspects of perception, but those who use them are considered to have substance abuse problems.
>> This is why Eskimos have and use an extensive vocabulary where snow
>> is concerned, Bedouins regarding camels and certain South Pacific
>> islanders re duangs. Without the shared experience (and probably
>> the *need*), the words are left dancing in the wind. They neither
>> sink in nor take root.
KM> It is in this sense that the highest use of a global KM> communications netowrk, imo, is to 'reify' the level of KM> language-use as a ground of experience.
Sorry, but for me they're no more than pointers. This is why I don't get lost in them so easily.
KM> To take this present case in point: I do not know beforehand what KM> your language is (that is, what you 'mean to say' by the words you KM> choose), and it is highly unlikely that I will be able to share KM> enough of *where you're coming from* to *ever say 'I knew what you KM> meant before you spoke.'
The important thing is to know what the speaker did mean, before or after.
KM> As far as I can see, all we can do is act (speak) on the KM> 'precautionary principle' -- *Don't Assume Too Much* -- about what KM> is 'acceptable' or 'obvious' or even 'assimilable.'
Don't assume anything. Listen.
KM> (Now, before someone assumes that I mean 'never assume anything,' KM> isnt it obvious I don't? On the contrary, one has to 'start KM> somewhere'; the point is not to insist that the point one chooses KM> is always the right one.)
Your only assumption is that is that a medium for understanding (i.e. a common language) exists.
>> KM> (Here is the crux, for in my experience, there's no 'trick.' All
>> KM> it takes is remembering that one is a human being.
>>
>> All might be a little too strong a word here.
KM> I learned it from some darn fine teachers -- so fine it never KM> occurred to them they were 'teaching.' They just showed me what KM> they know, and let me *remember it all by myself. When they saw I KM> had gotten that much, they showed me some more -- sort of like KM> bringing up a child, you know? It's my honour to call them Uncle KM> and Mother and Grandpa and Sister.
Sorry, I don't find that helpful in the present context. Turlough has an assignment.
KM> Suppose you and I meet, out in the middle of a listserver somewhere.
Like this one.
KM> What goals shall we have? How do we measure or feel convergence?
It doesn't seem to be easy.
KM> Again, I start with an assumption of a shared experience of KM> humanity. (If that fails, I start to move quietly in a different KM> direction!) If it is affirmed, wont we have *mutually established KM> a fundamental goal? - viz, that convergence not only is possible, KM> but we feel it is a Good Thing. The details of where and how far KM> and fast we go from *here we can work out, I suggest, by exactly KM> the same recursive algorithm.
I accept your humanity but fail to see any "details of where and how far we go from *here". I wish you would define your goals. To me the issue is grounded in Turlough's commission and what he needs to complete that, in relation to what I can contribute in that regard. Otherwise, this interchange while interesting, is a little too general for me, given other commitments at hand.
I like theory if it's concise and in well grounded terms. I don't feel we've achieved that.
>> ... my experience has served to emphasize a need for performing
>> organizational tasks that are difficult to achieve alone. Often you
>> must integrate with the local powers that be and this can be
>> complicated, due to vested interests and the degree of control
>> exercised by by those who *don't* have the quality you describe,
>> but rather feel their power threatened by that which they poorly
>> understand.
KM> I'm sorry - you're using some terms I dont understand: 'organization,' KM> 'power', 'complication,' 'control.' (How do you say em in vernacular KM> Nepali?)
I'm talking about vested interests and corrupt leaders & public officials, but I don't know how that's said in Nepali.
KM> But, taking a hint from your saying 'difficult to achieve alone,' KM> maybe these are aspects of (let me guess) 'working with someone who KM> doesnt understand how to do one thing at a time,' and thus one keeps KM> tripping over 'details' that might have been dealt with in their turn, but KM> their turn was missed.
That's part of it. But the crux of the matter is that to deal with that you need to work with and through an established organization that shares your goals while having it's own ethnic roots within the community you're dealing with.
KM> If that's close at all, can you help me understand how (and *why!) KM> one might get into such a situation from where we had been KM> situated earlier, that is, in sharing both real-time experience KM> and story-telling?
I would emphasize the real time experience and limit the story telling to the minimum necessary to actually undertake the experience.
KM> You see, I'd like to be ready, if this conversation is going to KM> suddenly become *complicated by issues of power and control and so KM> on - then I'll be watching especially close and can maybe learn KM> something about this puzzling transition (not to say quantum jump) KM> from 'convergence' to 'performance.'
You have to negotiate your terms in such a way that *you* do not lose control of the project you're promoting, unless that is part of your plan (it could be). In other words, it depends on the goals of the project which will in turn determine who should be involved and in what way. It is impossible to be precise except in terms of a concrete project.
KM> Otoh, if Im wide of the mark, can you please amplify the idea that KM> something can be threatened by (even poor) understanding?
There are ignorant people that wield power over equally or even more ignorant people, who will view anything going beyond they're own frame of reference as a threat. Their interest is control, not (control for the sake of) progress.
KM> Do you mean, reality can change according to how much one knows KM> about it?
No. I'm talking about development and the problems that have to faced.
KM> (What do the scientists among us say about that?) - but KM> wait!, *obviously 'power' is not a part of reality. Can I have KM> another guess? Is it part of *being in a hurry*?
Everything has it's cycles and these must be respected.
>> KM> "Language itself may be useless unless implemented [as] a totally
>> KM> organized [lifelong] project, and the local culture may not yet
>> KM> support doing that. (Indeed, not every country permits
>> KM> immigration.)
>>
>> Even so, there would be no denying it, at a gut level that had been
>> well demonstrated (even if the emperors' new clothes and those in his
>> court were off chasing other horizons).
This means that a person must be congruent and that a congruent person can cut through a lot of garbage.
KM> I'm afraid I understand you, and I have to disagree.
Fine.
KM> There seem to be remarkable numbers of people who can deny almost KM> anything (several of them before breakfast ;-)), including the KM> embeddedness of language in experience. I would surely like to KM> know where *they are coming from.
Not me. I could care less, unless they are people with whom I *must* deal with. In that case, there are a number of ways to either make sure assimilation occurs and I get the respect I deserve, or to of the need to deal with them. I do this all the time.
>> KM> It's in the [citizen's] best interest to help ...
>> KM> people from start to finish, but that's something else [we're]
>> KM> rarely willing to do...."
>>
>> Learning anything requires a beginning and an end, or the concept can
>> not be assimilated.
KM> I would modify this slightly: [What we call learning] ... because as soon KM> as one looks at the *experience of learning, what does one see if not a KM> lifelong bumble and tumble, trial and error process?
That's not what I see, nor feel.
KM> Now, I may have jumped the gun - your categorical clause is of KM> course true: *the concept* cannot be assimilated (because, of KM> course, it cannot be 'identified.')
It is outside.
KM> But if I may hark back to the fine meal you have just dished up, KM> are you saying I have to *identify everything before I can even KM> begin to eat? -
It's not you yourself that is supposed to eat that which you have prepared, in this case. You seem to have lost track of what the discussion is about: Transferring Environment-Related Technologies.
KM> and that, without having been in the kitchen while KM> you cooked, or in the garden where you grew the produce? Whew!
It's interesting that you should bring this up, because in my case I *do* need to know much more about what I buy & eat than most sellers know - which is one of the reasons I try to deal with the source.
KM> (Say, why dont you come over to my place? You'll never guess what all KM> goes into my concoctions, but I guarantee, you wont be hungry!)
Thank you, perhaps another day.
>> KM> In this way, one may acquire a lifetime of experience, during
>> KM> which one recognizes that *conveying that experience is neither an
>> KM> easy or a short ... task. By that time, one starts to _understand
>> KM> the way 'Westerners' go at things as if they need not trust anyone
>> KM> at all, but also to wonder at their surprise that the result is
>> KM> widespread _lack of trust_.
>>
>> We have a very discrete society that doesn't teach a whole lot about
>> sharing. Also, there's very little that's left (or recognized) in terms
>> of absolute (rather than relative) value.
KM> Even more amazing, thousands of citizens go off every year to other KM> cultures, *but dont seem to bring home anything about sharing* (maybe KM> they've been inoculated?)
Perhaps they haven't been well prepared for that. The norm is: One's own bed in one's own room with one's own toys etc., from the start.
>> But there's still a lot that can and should be done. I hope we're
>> getting somewhere with this.
KM> Gee, are we to Setting Goals already?
We'd better.
KM> I've been so enjoying the talk, I hardly noticed the ground we KM> covered.
I can believe that.
>> What we're each saying is at least complementary.
KM> I'm pleased to agree -- shall we go on to Correspondence? (It wont take KM> long, I promise!)
KM> kerry
Only if it's focused, pertinent to the purpose of the original post, within the context of this list, and can be put in concrete terms. Otherwise, it will be difficult to keep sorting through it and still do the rest of what I have to do. Sorry, but that's the reality of the situation from where I sit.
Douglas Hinds, CeDeCoR, A.C. Centro para el Desarrollo Comunitario y Rural, Asociacion Civil (Center for Rural and Community Development, a non-profit organization) Cordoba, Veracruz; Cd. Guzman, Jalisco & Reynosa, Tamaulipas Mexico mailto:dmhinds@acnet.net, cedecor@acnet.net, mailto:cedecor@ipnet.com.mx, dhinds@prodigy.net.mx