This is rhetoric, perhaps even rhizorhetoric, at it’s best
I want to frame my comments in the distinction between reductionist thought and complexity thought, a habit of mind I attribute to Edgar Morin’s book On Complexity
tension between a reductionist understanding of power and a complexity understanding
I find the fourth view, the one from Foucault, to be the most engaging, as it approaches a complex view of power
first three views of power assume a Classical, simple (not simplistic, but not complex, either) epistemology
“‘Power’ in its most generic sense simply means the capacity to bring about significant effects: to effect changes or prevent them.”
The One-dimensional View posits two agents disjoined from one another, and power occurs when one agent prevails in some way over the other agent
too simple, too explicit and over
The Two-dimensional view adds agenda control by the more powerful agent, and finally, the Three-dimensional view adds social influence
it also encompasses being able to secure their dependence, deference, allegiance or compliance, even without needing to act and in the absence of conflict.
the successive views move in the direction of complexity, but they are always limited by a Classical epistemology that posits disjoined, discrete agents interacting in deterministic ways across or through clear boundaries, either in accordance with or in violation of some social contract or rules.
its affordances are outweighed by its limitations
This is where Foucault’s view of power comes into play, and note that it’s the only unnamed view
complexity is often nameless, even unnameable
power is the flow of energy, matter, information, and organization throughout a complex, multi-scale system
an agent is formed and informed by the flows of energy, information, and organizational structures of the systems within which the agent lives and functions
we are not discrete entities, independent of an enclosing ecosystem
those flows all implicate power
Power is the weave of the fabric we are all woven into, and it is difficult, often impossible, to isolate any single thread of power and to trace it back to a single cause.
what does this mean for how we should decide who is in Rhizo14 and how we should behave there?
the more open the use and sharing of information, the more important it is to clarify how we expect that information to be used
Clarity has great affordances, but it also has its blindness
This is a fine example of a clear, classical social contract. Independent agents agree on boundaries and behaviors between themselves
This assumes discrete agents with clear boundaries, a simple view of power and reality
A complex view of power and reality—my view—says, however, that Frances is already part of the Rhizo14 group and the document
Likewise, I suspect that Frances has herself been in/formed by the Rhizo14 discussion
circular causality, a core mechanism of complex systems with their complex flows of power
Power as flows of energy, information, and organization have already woven us together in ways that I do not know how to disentangle.
really only a very small part
request not to be part of the group leaves me with some sticky issues
most views of plagiarism are based on the simple view of relationships among agents and social contracts
ole authorship is a reductionist’s fiction, a useful fiction perhaps, but perhaps becoming less useful as online, open spaces emerge
How to behave in an open community, then, where flows of power are unavoidable and many are uncontrollable, even unknowable
if we don’t confront this problem, then we will continue to apply the old social contracts. I don’t think those social contracts alone can address the issue
interested in learning how this group will write this document. Like all good ethnographers, I think I can learn most by living and functioning within the group, by helping to write it. I want to define the process from the inside
I don't always feel that way. Sometimes I feel it is a guiding hand, but after two of these rhizo things I am beginning to think of it as a shving hand in a cattle chute. The chutes only appear down, but the binaries still suggest two paths: objective/subjective, content/no content, dave/no dave and whatever the hell the other one was. This is not rhizomatic teaching.
Not really too sure about this. He creates a binary and expects us to reconcile it. And then where does that takes us as far as a rhizomatic practice is concerned? Not very far at all.
If Dave is the Gardener,then the way he weeds is to point to the weed and say, "Isn't that interesting?". Irresponsible? Unethical? Bait and switch? Not sure. Personally, I am much more drawn to Heraclitus and Voltaire. For the latter the world is in flux and idiosyncratic as can be and for the latter he has Candide say, "That is very well put, but we muct cultivate our garden." We must be our own gardeners.
Dunno, the videos seem pretty scripted to me. He has an agenda and wants to get it out there. The community has been guided by each week's prompts, using it as a jumping off point but not really going too far from fold. I wanted to see much more rebellion and spontaneous, adhoc-osity. I tried, but no one paid me any mind. Par.
Of course it is the gardner who decides between the weeds and “flowers”, sets the parameters of the garden, and ultimately decides who lives and who dies – but that is my next blog post.
I agree that the gardener controls but I think it is illusory. Who plucks the gardener? Who tends the gardener? Who weeds the gardener? The gardener lives in a larger system that subsumes the garden, a larger Garden. The gardener thinks he is managing the complexity that is the garden. Fools paradise for a sock puppet?