A Justice Site
A Justice Site
What Is Truth?
The Problem with "the" Truth
How Will I know Truth When I See It?
RESOURCES: Community Building - Visual Sociology - Message Building
RESPOND: Transform-dom: Open Discussion Group on Yahoo
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FACULTY ASSISTANCE: Letters of Recommendation - Susan - jeanne
UWP Criminal Justice Dept. - CSUDH Dept. of Sociology
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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: December 9, 2006
Latest Update: December 10, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Topic of the Week:
When Different People See Truth Differently Collaborative Leadership: Piaget to Goffman to Hall to Bales on Communicating Learning. We have become used to hierarchical leadership, which may be appropriate in some corporate structures, but is highly inappropriate in most learning situations. Be sure to read Collaborative Leadership, so you'll understand that when teaching others, bullying them with how much YOU know is really ineffectual and retards learning.
One of our primary social issues in America today is increasing violence. People "go postal," assault, rape, kill, kill themselves. Even where crime rates are down, we are all more conscious of the dangers of the city to children, women, minorities. Fear trumps reason. We need to discourage fear and violence, without over-reacting to apparent dangers. The most common instance of our structural concerns is the bully.
The four-year-old hits the five-year-old over the head with a tin plate from their play set. The five-year-old screams. The four-year old says nothing and looks innocent. The five-year-old is fussed at for disturbing adult activities or discussions. The five-year-old, less assertive than the four-year-old, pouts and sees the world as unjust, and not protective.
If the bully weren't permitted to give his/her version of the truth without questioning in the terrified silence of those who dare not oppose him/her, and if he/she were not then accepted without question by other children and/or adults, lots of harmful behaviors and rumors might be avoided. We want children to question what they're told, by other children and by adults, so that they will learn that ethics and morality can be obscured by one who is willing to tell untruths. When all are encouraged to learn the skills of contribution to the group, all will find and polish their voices so that they are heard. They will learn inclusion, if inclusion is encouraged, and through inclusion, they will build stronger communities. (Lots of references go in here. I'll add them later. jeanne)
This is confusing even to me, still, today. When someone insists with absolute certainty that they are right, I cannot believe that they would do so without believing that what they are saying is the truth; and I cannot just refuse anyone's claim to the truth. (I'm naive.) But sometimes in the adult world, people are telling untruths. They are claiming to know what they do not know. They claim to do a job for which they do not have the training or knowledge needed. Or they claim to do a job which doesn't really exist. What about legislators who add money into a bill that must be passed, and they do it just to build a bridge to nowhere and gain profit thereby? How do I not become cynical at such shenanigans? Bullies grown up and still behaving like bullies, and five-year-olds who are fussed at for complaining?
Our world has grown so complex that we cannot let our identity and our morality rest on the good will and ethical foundatiions of elected representatives we cannot know personally. We elect them to govern by our shared morality. We must teach that shared morality when bullies first assert themselve. And we must teach the less assertive to raise their voices when they are bullied to mentors and parents who will listen attentively and stop the injustices, from preschool on.
- Making Our Voices Heard.
It's about how the individual and the community are interdependent or separate. Modern science suggests that we are mightily interdependent, and that we cannot escape that. I believe that we are so interdependent that the harm we do to workers reflects onto the strength of our nation, far beyond the harm of failing to see our interdependence. For so long as one of us is not free . . . But there are those who disagree with my conclusions. When we talk to one another, and try to iron out our disagreements about these fundamental issues from many different perspectives, that is governance discourse. And as we engage in government discourse, our skill in making our voices heard grows ever stronger, and we shall find freedom in good governance.
- One group in the U.S. believes that those who can should be permitted to make all the profits they can, with no controls or accountability that would impair their freedom to move humans forward to greater power.
- The other group believes that profit is earned by the efforts of many and that those profits should be shared by all whose efforts made them possible, and that "the costs of doing business" should be charged to those who control the profits from that business, so that no one is harmed by another's gathering of profits.
Actually, these beliefs aren't so far apart if they are carried out in good faith with collaborative governance. But there are bullies, like Representative Don Young of Alsaka, who authored the bill for the bridge to nowhere. Why didn't our representatives stand up to his bullying? Unless we raise our voices together, money desperately needed for repairs from the damage of Katrina will go to a bridge that no one needs, but that will make Don Young popular for bringing jobs to Alaska. I don't understand the need to bully and the "They can kiss my ear." rejoinders. Bullying is wrong. Most of us share that understanding and morality. We need to make our voices heard, so that our representatives understand that bullying is not acceptable in our government.
Sticker for this week's issue: In the sticker I've tried to put the problems with truth into plain English that people can understand. Problem: I haven't pointed out in the sticker how a lie can masquerade as the truth. Will still have to think on that. But I think this one might do for a first introduction of the "stickiness" of truth.
Messaging and Plain English: The first rule of good writing is to be sure you know who your audience is and what you want them to hear. Our goal on Dear Habermas is to build the oral skills and presentation techniques that promote governance discourse. That is, we want to learn all that we can to let us share our informations and feelings on current social, economic, and political issues that affect our everyday lives.
The theory and practice we learn in the classroom are essential to understanding the facts as they are reported and rumored. We all hear different versions of those facts and of the arguments that accompany them. Our goal in community-building is to summarize what we have learned in plain English that everyone can understand, even our children, so that we can meaningfully talk about the issues with casual friends, neighbors, even strangers. Talking to one another is how we gain a sense of who our community consists of and how we can govern so that our needs are met, we and our children are protected, and we can move forward with our shared goals without offending anyone's spiritual and philosophical ethics.
. . .
You see the problem with the theory message as the child has learned it. Dominant discourse used to hold that women wear skirts and men wear trousers. "Mommy" must have explained that dominant discourse today does not differentiate that completely between men and women, and that that's not "Daddy" in any case. The child responds to the message in plain English. It looks like "Daddy." But the child, from the vantage point of her view, sees only the triangular shapes of the trousers. She therefore interprets DaDa as "trousers." She has learned, but only a part of the concept. When trousers are on Daddy, then the man is called DaDa. When trousers are on other males, they are called "men." When trousers are on females, well, . . . and you see how the concept requqires a little while to get. By calling all trousered men DaDA, the child lets us know how far her understanding of the concept has developed. This is what fascinated Piaget. How children learn to construct language.
Piaget and concepts. Daddy and the UPS man. Trousers, schemata for concept "Daddy". Mommy using words the child could not possible understand (like dominant paradigm) instead of searching for ways to say the same thing in plain English.
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Concepts in a Different Language Just as the child has not yet constructed the full concept for distinguishing all men in trousers from "Daddy" in trousers, one sometimes has the concept, but not the name for it in the language. A sample of this can be found in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Old men on front porch of the town's general store - discussion whether the child learns not to touch the stove by experience and teaching by the parents, or by his/her natural fear of the intense heat. In psychology class, we call it "nature" or "nurture." On the front porch of the general store, Zora Neale Hurston's characters are having the same discussion about the same conundrum, but without the technical jargon we use to describe the problem. .
There Is No Asbestos in Tampons: E-Mail - The Need to Evaluate Authority Because the Internet has grown in use with YouTube and other web site sources, you're going to discover more and more e-mails coming from friends telling you things they've just discovered. For example, they might want to tell you how a virus causes cervical cancer, and how a vaccine is now available for women to prevent that cancer. Is that true? Even more important, can you rely on the information in the e-mail about what to do?
Snopes on Urban Legends is a web site devoted to publishing "urban legends," that is, stories told many times with the kinds of detailed confusion that accompany most rumors. Some of these stories are true; some not. Urban Legends is a privately owned site that checks out the origin and validity of the stories, to the extent possible. My suggestion is that when you come across an e-mail of this type, check it out on Snopes.com.
References:
Piaget, The Language and Thought of the Child.
- FAQS of Urban Legends Snopes.com site. See the last question on Snopes as a family name from Faulkner's writings. Faulkner is a name you should recognize. See Faulkner's A Rose for Emily, with a brief summary of the Snope family's origins and exploits. Might be a good story to share with a middle-to-high school teen who's asking questions and thinking about morality.
You might also want to enter "cervical cancer" on the Snopes site to see what e-mails are circulating on that one. jeanne
- The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarassment. The Heritage Foundation Web Site. Both this and the next reference describe the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, where even the Alaskans are saying it is unnecessary, and that the money should have gone to repair the needed bridge over Lake Ponchartrain in New Orleans, after the Katrina disaster. jeanne
- The bridge to nowhere Salon.com.
Public Art Works for Community Building:
Grades at CSUDH: Check Issue No. 14, Week of December 3, 2006, for any information you need on winding up this semester at CSUDH.
Cautions on Health Hazards: This week's topic is the result of an e-mail I received this morning warning all women that they must be careful in the use of tampons. Well, yes, but the e-mail is a HOAX, terribly inaccurate, and could prevent an appropriate understanding about how careful we should be with tampons. This is precisely the kind of information we need to get out in our communities.
Say Thank You to our troops: In the process of reviewing new additions to the Snopes site, I discovered the link to The Let's Say Thanks to Our Troops Site. I chose a postcard and message. They did offer to let me write my own, but it was late, and I wanted to post the link for all of you, too. love and peace, jeanne
Catalog for Fall 2006 Naked Space Exhibit
Presented at the American Society of Criminology National Meetings in Los Angeles in November 2006.
The catalog is separated into sections to keep the files at least relatively short. jeanne
- Catalog Cover for Believe It. Own It. Series 1. Fall 2006.
- Section 1: Our Flag and Its Meaning to This Nation-State
- Section 2: Using Unit Shapes for Image Creation
- Section 3: Models and Instructions
- Autism
Entering the Imaginative World of Children with Autism or Asperger's Site of Dan L. Edmunds,Ed.D.,B.C.S.A. Diagnoses of autism are now so frequent that all of us need some understanding of autism. Many of these children are being main-streamed, so that we will encounter them along with children who do not have their difficulties with understanding social interaction and meaning. We can all help by helping others understand autism.
- Speech Act Theory and Changing the Dominant Discourse
The Role of Repositionable Stickers
Our environment: "A Terrible Thing to Waste. Or Try This." By Jeremy W. Peters. New York Times. Week in Review. Sunday, December 10, 2006.
DEUTSCH “We wanted to shake people up and let them know this is a grave situation,” said Bryan Black, an executive vice president with Deutsch in New York. In addition to the print ad, his firm proposed a mock magazine that would be aimed at readers who live in a polluted future.
. . . . .
KIRSHENBAUM BOND & PARTNERS “America, to be truly free in the world, needs to be dependent on itself and not on foreign oil,” said Lance Ferguson, associate creative director with Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in New York. The slogan is meant to tap into both national pride and feelings of vulnerability.
. . . . .
ANOMALY “This is really more to be symbolic, but it has some practical application as well,” said Johnny Vulkan, a partner with Anomaly in New York. His firm proposed a campaign that would include these signs and temporarily lower the speed limit to 54 m.p.h. to demonstrate how a relatively modest effort could produce significant results.
- Think
Think Before You Go
References
- Steven's Portal "A NEW GATEWAY to the common good. It is based on the efforts of real people who are helping and healing the world every day." Nice way to gain a sense of how others are trying to make this a more caring, gentler world. I didn't have time to go through the whole site, but I did discover the I-Wish Project there. November 26, 2006. jeanne
- I-Wish Project Story of a project that has a mission similar to ours. Differences: it's not asking for learning; it's not on current events; but it is trying to hear what people consider focal points and gains some illocutionary understanding from that speech act. November 26, 2006. jeanne
Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times - The National Review
Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation - The Cato Institute (Libertarian)
BBC NEWS | Americas - truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - La Opinion - The Washington Post
Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report
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