Message-ID: <19991208202739.AAC20707@jubilee.ns.sympatico.ca@LOCALNAME> Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 14:57:13 -04 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca> Subject: Re: Transferring Environment-Related Technologies To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Douglas,> 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.
Once again a breath of fresh air stalls/ stales out in the fog of 'what I have to do.' But before you fade completely, can you help this poor impertinent sinner find some way to get from this:
> 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.
to this:
> 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.
Specifically: Is Turlough's situation one you can see unfold, in order to take it in, to believe it? Is your contribution one that happens in real time *for him*? How do you manage to define your goals on the ground of his commission, especially without reciprocally stating what *you need and what he can contribute in that regard? Is there a protocol of who goes first, and who decrees what is 'focussed'?
In your development committments, is it always a matter of 'original posts,' so that you never have to wonder if a proposal makes sense, or if a client is missing the forest for the trees? You just do what you're told ('words are pointers'), right?
If I gave you a commission, would that help the present undertaking? Here's a pointer, then: I'm a Nepali farmer, who would like to know what to do now that 'modern' fertilizers have sterilized the soil of my rice paddy. From my understanding of your presentation thus far, I have the following questions:
What real time experience will you emphasize? How will you limit your story telling "necessary to actually undertake the experience" of your contribution? How does 'assuming a medium for understanding exists" differ in this case, or would you suggest that you don't find the experience of rice farming helpful in the context?
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Here's another pointer: I'm not a *real Nepali farmer, and I'd like to explore the possibility of using the Internet to establish or construct or scaffold a common medium for understanding when neither party has the faintest clue what can be assumed of the other's experience, or their ability to tell even a primitive story about it?
What experience would it be helpful to have?
==========
You say 'Sorry,' and in your language, that means, 'Dont talk to me, my reality is different from yours, good day.' In my language, it means something different, and while you dont know how sorry I am for you -- that you havent got the time to work on *this story, that even 'story' seems to be such a strong 'pointer' for you -- that's okay; I understand you're a busy person who works only on *problems, not on the problem of identifying problems.
Now, in regard to focus, may I take this, your last contribution, as an exercise in refocillation? It provides so many good pointers to the way one's "internal map" > serves to direct the attention of the *listener*
-- and I did warn you: 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 KM> and so on - then I'll be watching especially close...
========== I hardly know where to begin, but let's see if this listener's attention-map covers some of the territory. Most saliently, were you embarrassed by the play on words, complementarity and correspondence? And in reaction to this revelation of humanity, did you 'decide' you were wasting your time ("We don need 'stories' at all"; "I like theory if it's concise and in well grounded terms.")? If it is impatience that colours your abrupt one-line responses, is this not the sort of cultural gap that one needs "to work with... through an established organization"? (In this case, might not a list of 1400+ people - if they would only say something -- be an adequate organization?)
Datum: > > I would surely like to know where *they [people who deny the
> >embeddedness of language in experience] 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.
Datum: > > > > All it takes is remembering that one is a human being.
> > > All might be a little too strong a word here.
> > I learned it from some darn fine teachers...
> Sorry, I don't find that helpful in the present context.
Datum: > > ... all we can do is act (speak) on the 'precautionary principle' --
> > *Don't Assume Too Much* -- about what is 'acceptable' or 'obvious'
> > or even 'assimilable.'
>
> Don't assume anything. Listen.
... > Your only assumption is that is that a medium for understanding (i.e.
> a common language) exists.
The inferential contour line that weaves between these dots (and others) is "your only assumption." Earlier, you advised me not to forget that words are only pointers -- and I agree -- but here, arent you using them as if they *are reality? How does one verify that a common language exists? - or is one not interested in verifying ones assumptions? How does one make a lived experience helpful to another's development? How on God's green earth does "make sure that assimilation occurs" fit with "Listen"?
Certainly, if a common language exists, then your assumption is quite safe: you're "home and hosed," as they say. On the other hand, what if it is not quite as common as you assumed -- suppose, for instance, that one party 'takes one's time' and the other is 'in a hurry'? Do you say 'Sorry,' and turn away as if you had no commission to *develop a "medium for understanding"; as if your own participation is above and beyond that kind of grunt work; as if a culture which uses only 'pointers' trumps one which uses spades, or kodali?
But of course a 'community of practice' takes time, and no one can pay you to contribute.
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It's too bad there isnt a *word for a mailing list when its ground for being has collapsed into hardpan like Father-in-Law's field, but I guess there just isnt any way to address that reality, is there? Let's all just go back to our so-very-concrete Transfers of Environment-Related Technologies, and forget that language might ever have been one of the ways of relating them, eh?
kerry