Ok, this is frustrating. I spent a lot of time mapping what constitutes legitimate knowledge in both Cushman's piece as well as in the Barton and Hamilton chapters. To account for the different sources of knowledge, I have created three categories that I feel are present in the two pieces: institutional knowledge, community knowledge, and personal knowledge.
Making this map helped me by allowing me to visualize what community research looks like in these situations. However, now I can't figure out how to post it. I did it in a word document on my mac. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm game! If nothing works out, I'll bring my map to class on Tuesday.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Being a Good Reader
For this post I decided to give a more personal response to the readings, specifically Barton and Hamilton. I am not sure if this exactly kosher, but it’s the immediate response that I had to the readings.
One thing that I read over and over in the books I read for the book review and the Barton and Hamilton book was that people weren't viewing themselves as "good readers." "Apparently, the only real writing occurs in the classroom; the only real reading occurs when reading Shakespeare." (Sohn, Women of Appalachia, 115). I think that we need to re-think the idea of "reading" and "writing" instilled in us from the education system . Since there is more than one way to skin a cat I am sure there is more than one way to be a good reader, or considered "literate."
In light of this line of thought I decided to do my own "case study" on myself and Michael… cause those are the only people whose daily routine I know.
The use of literacy in my everyday life.
Lately the first thing I do when I wake up is look at my emails. I have no idea why. Like I am going to get anything important over night.
If I have texts I read them…
Then I get ready for work.
If I am making dinner in the Crockpot I read the recipe to make dinner, I always have recipes on the fridge and will usually look at them before I leave for work so I have an idea of how my evening is going to look. I always use a recipe--not matter what---not matter how many times I make it certain dish I use a recipe. If there were a recipe for cereal I would use it.
I drive to work, listen to music, read the titles and artists on my mp3 player
Get to work…start my computer and my day full of reading and writing begins.
On any give day I read recipes. I read instructional manuals, books, news articles, tweets, facebook statuses, emails, charts, etc.
Literacy in the life of Michael the Farmer
Watches the news. Does paper work… lots of it before going to work. Takes a look at prices of certain things before heading to work…
Who knows what kinds of things he reads at work. He uses a calendar and a white board to keep track of over 400 cows. He reads vet bills, feed bills, milk reports… all of these have to be quality checked.
He reads so many magazine articles and other publications relating to agriculture.
He reads bills, organizes bills an expenses and so much other stuff. His desk is an "organized disaster" it’s the one area of the house I refuse to clean.
He will spend hours on the internet reading up on machinery and other type of stuff. The amount of numbers and information he can retain is AMAZING.
Doesn’t read books….
So which one of us is a good reader?
I have to take notes on my reading for class and look over them in class in order to engage in a conversation about them. Until I started graduate school I wouldn't have referred to myself as a critical reader. I would have said I was an avid reader because I love to read ALL kinds of novels. Yes even harlequin romance novels. I have a collection of over a 1000 books ranging from Jodi Picoult to Janet Evanovich to Tamora Pierce to Shakespeare. I love to read.
Mike reads articles and newspapers, websites other stuff to learn about farm equipment and the latest farm practices. He doesn't take notes but at any given point in time he can recall any information that he has read. You can also give him any number between 1 and a 1000 and he will tell you if he has a cow with that number and if he does he will give you her complete history. Mike would say he hates to read and that he is not good at it.
One thing that I read over and over in the books I read for the book review and the Barton and Hamilton book was that people weren't viewing themselves as "good readers." "Apparently, the only real writing occurs in the classroom; the only real reading occurs when reading Shakespeare." (Sohn, Women of Appalachia, 115). I think that we need to re-think the idea of "reading" and "writing" instilled in us from the education system . Since there is more than one way to skin a cat I am sure there is more than one way to be a good reader, or considered "literate."
In light of this line of thought I decided to do my own "case study" on myself and Michael… cause those are the only people whose daily routine I know.
The use of literacy in my everyday life.
Lately the first thing I do when I wake up is look at my emails. I have no idea why. Like I am going to get anything important over night.
If I have texts I read them…
Then I get ready for work.
If I am making dinner in the Crockpot I read the recipe to make dinner, I always have recipes on the fridge and will usually look at them before I leave for work so I have an idea of how my evening is going to look. I always use a recipe--not matter what---not matter how many times I make it certain dish I use a recipe. If there were a recipe for cereal I would use it.
I drive to work, listen to music, read the titles and artists on my mp3 player
Get to work…start my computer and my day full of reading and writing begins.
On any give day I read recipes. I read instructional manuals, books, news articles, tweets, facebook statuses, emails, charts, etc.
Literacy in the life of Michael the Farmer
Watches the news. Does paper work… lots of it before going to work. Takes a look at prices of certain things before heading to work…
Who knows what kinds of things he reads at work. He uses a calendar and a white board to keep track of over 400 cows. He reads vet bills, feed bills, milk reports… all of these have to be quality checked.
He reads so many magazine articles and other publications relating to agriculture.
He reads bills, organizes bills an expenses and so much other stuff. His desk is an "organized disaster" it’s the one area of the house I refuse to clean.
He will spend hours on the internet reading up on machinery and other type of stuff. The amount of numbers and information he can retain is AMAZING.
Doesn’t read books….
So which one of us is a good reader?
I have to take notes on my reading for class and look over them in class in order to engage in a conversation about them. Until I started graduate school I wouldn't have referred to myself as a critical reader. I would have said I was an avid reader because I love to read ALL kinds of novels. Yes even harlequin romance novels. I have a collection of over a 1000 books ranging from Jodi Picoult to Janet Evanovich to Tamora Pierce to Shakespeare. I love to read.
Mike reads articles and newspapers, websites other stuff to learn about farm equipment and the latest farm practices. He doesn't take notes but at any given point in time he can recall any information that he has read. You can also give him any number between 1 and a 1000 and he will tell you if he has a cow with that number and if he does he will give you her complete history. Mike would say he hates to read and that he is not good at it.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Facebook/Blog Post
So, I realized kind of late that I was not exempt from posting this week simply because I am The Discussion Leader. In an effort to contribute to the conversation, I offer here the transcript of a mighty active facebook conversation that took place on my wall last night. It was based on a quote from Fendler's article (p. 309). While the quote doesn't have much to do with community literacy, it did actually cause community (as action) to occur. Friends who did not know one another began to interact and discuss the quote. They did not necessarily agree, as you can see, but, they were able to engage in civil communication. What I found most interesting was that, while the non-academics may have felt left out of the conversation, several of them chimed in to voice their difference.
LB "the separation of reason and affect perpetuates the assumption that reason is somehow objective and impartial; the separation does not recognize that systems of reason have been produced as the effects of culturally and historically specific power relations that always entail an array of human faculties."
Yesterday at 5:48pm
GG likes this.
AD I need a contextual definition of "affect" and "effect", as used in this article, to interpret what this statement means.
Yesterday at 5:49pm ·
LB "the term 'affect' can be taken to indicate an instinctual reaction to stimulation occurring before the typical cognitive considered necessary for the formation of a more complex emotion."
apply the common definition of "effects."
Yesterday at 5:57pm ·
AD So in other words: logic should not be considered empirically neutral just as instinctual reactions should not be considered intrinsically subjective?
Yesterday at 6:02pm ·
CS Source?
Yesterday at 7:51pm ·
GG But how can we demonize other people with our minds if we pay attention to our emotions :)?
Yesterday at 8:11pm ·
LB ad: pretty much
cs: "others and the problem of community" by lisa fendler
gg: i'm sure there is a way around this pesky theory...lol
Yesterday at 8:20pm ·
GG Ah, Fendler...I knew her...
Yesterday at 8:25pm ·
AD I can't believe Im saying this -- being a snob and an intellectual -- but philosophers really codify their language just to make their ideas sound more complex than they really are.
Yesterday at 8:26pm ·
GG They do, but, then again, who doesn't? I find the discourse of teenage girls very alienating, for example, but then: I'm not a teenage girl (at least I don't think I am).
Yesterday at 8:29pm ·
LB ad: you're no snob. :-)
gg: and you're no teenaged girl.
Yesterday at 8:32pm ·
AD The major difference is that teenage girls talk as they do out of necessity. They simply do not have the vocabulary to speak differently, even if they so desired. Philosophers deliberately choose their verbiage in order to feign a false assent into the cerebral stratosphere. How's my alienating intellectual alliteration? Quite proudly pompous, hehe.
Yesterday at 8:33pm ·
GG See, I would disagree: I'd say teenage girls are far more rhetorical in their word usage than we give them credit for. They don't talk the same way to their say English teacher, for example, as they do their friends.
Though clearly their is an institutional difference between teenagers and academic philosophers: I think at a fundamental level circulation matters more than anything else. Less people speak philosophical discourse, hence it seems more valuable.
Yesterday at 8:35pm ·
LB excellent thread. i'll have to post quotes more often!
Yesterday at 8:36pm ·
GG I'm stealing this quote for my collection, by the way...heh, heh...
Yesterday at 8:38pm ·
AD I consider academics to be like any other segregated subgroup. They feel alienated from the surrounding, mainstream community, thus they formulate their own codified language, which then only serves to accentuate the divide between them and the very people with whom they should be attempting to establish a discourse. Philosophical lingo is really just ebonics for nerds.
Yesterday at 8:42pm ·
LB steal away, my friend!
Yesterday at 8:43pm ·
GG I would pretty much agree with philosophers...but not all academics are engaged in that project. A lot of people in universities want to do engaged scholarship with communities outside the university, for example, and so they develop jargon that translates better.
At the same time, however: would we call doctors an alienated subgroup? Because they use some of the most alienating jargon there is.
Jargon is shorthand. It's a particular term that has a particular meaning in a particular community. The only difference between doctors and philosophers is that philosophers are not considered necessary members of our culture anymore.
Maybe we should continue this conversation on each others' walls rather than L's though. We're using our faculties to co-op her wall :).
Yesterday at 8:52pm ·
AD I would call doctors and alienat-ing subgroup. Their lingo is derived from Greek and Latin roots, which are maintained because of both tradition and choice. My father is a doctor, and I worked at a hospital for four years, so I can quite assuredly say that doctors are extremely proud of themselves and hate being brought down to the level of common folk. Notice that the only time understandable terms are used in medicine is when a company is trying to sell a new treatment: ie, "swine flu".
Complex verbiage is used to organize and maintain power of one group over the other. Look at credit card and cell phone contracts, legal documents, etc. Doctors, lawyers, and all the rest would like the general population to believe that their words are somehow necessary, that they are more accurate or descriptive, but this is not the case at all.
I think Lorelei enjoys this back-and-forth. :) At least I hope so.
Yesterday at 9:00pm ·
LB of course i do. my wall is your wall! :-)
Yesterday at 9:07pm ·
GG Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing that power isn't a BIG part of this. I'm just saying there's a pragmatic meaning behind all of this. There are very good reasons why doctors, lawyers, philosophers and all kinds of professionals use jargon.
That use-value for them is inseparable from the institutionalization of knowledge that heralded the modern meritocracy. The ability to use these terms fluidly is power, definitely, but it doesn't have to be that way.
These terms can be liberating for people that encounter them and use them to help other people. The difference is between determination and choice. If jargon is always already alienating then it would mean that language is fixed, stable, and meaningful in an unproblematic way.
But language is slippery, complex, has multiple audiences, is contested, etc. Thus: it is never determined. Just because what you're saying is how things play out, often, in our society, doesn't mean that this determined to be the case. It's a product of certain historical conditions created by people. People with a lot of power, yes, but people all the same. THUS: it can be changed by people. It does change all the time. Every usage is a slight change. It's dynamic, not stable and fixed.
Yesterday at 9:16pm ·
GG By the by, I've got to go take Cynthia home and go to the gym, but feel free to respond and I'll respond later...
Yesterday at 9:18pm ·
AS Now THIS is a thread...I may have to augment my feeble coconut with a third hemisphere to fully comprehend all the details, but a fascinating read regardless...
Yesterday at 10:18pm ·
AD My hangover prevents me from commenting further. I am out of gas for now. Perhaps I will return tomorrow.
Yesterday at 10:20pm ·
GVB I agree with this statement but I had to read it about 5 times before I understood it. Maybe you just needed to use a lot more commas to give us pause to think. LOL You'll have to learn the language of the iliterate if you want to become the first woman president of the U.S.A. This academic lingo isn't going to be understood by the masses
Yesterday at 10:46pm ·
LB gvb: brilliant. you are awesome! :-)
Yesterday at 11:00pm ·
AS LB, methinks that "She is brilliant" fits GVB quite nicely as well...
Yesterday at 11:22pm ·
BB in a Chicago accent WTF?
10 hours ago ·
LB bb: that's my bro. keepin' it real. :-)
5 hours ago ·
DS Very interesting thread!
LB "the separation of reason and affect perpetuates the assumption that reason is somehow objective and impartial; the separation does not recognize that systems of reason have been produced as the effects of culturally and historically specific power relations that always entail an array of human faculties."
Yesterday at 5:48pm
GG likes this.
AD I need a contextual definition of "affect" and "effect", as used in this article, to interpret what this statement means.
Yesterday at 5:49pm ·
LB "the term 'affect' can be taken to indicate an instinctual reaction to stimulation occurring before the typical cognitive considered necessary for the formation of a more complex emotion."
apply the common definition of "effects."
Yesterday at 5:57pm ·
AD So in other words: logic should not be considered empirically neutral just as instinctual reactions should not be considered intrinsically subjective?
Yesterday at 6:02pm ·
CS Source?
Yesterday at 7:51pm ·
GG But how can we demonize other people with our minds if we pay attention to our emotions :)?
Yesterday at 8:11pm ·
LB ad: pretty much
cs: "others and the problem of community" by lisa fendler
gg: i'm sure there is a way around this pesky theory...lol
Yesterday at 8:20pm ·
GG Ah, Fendler...I knew her...
Yesterday at 8:25pm ·
AD I can't believe Im saying this -- being a snob and an intellectual -- but philosophers really codify their language just to make their ideas sound more complex than they really are.
Yesterday at 8:26pm ·
GG They do, but, then again, who doesn't? I find the discourse of teenage girls very alienating, for example, but then: I'm not a teenage girl (at least I don't think I am).
Yesterday at 8:29pm ·
LB ad: you're no snob. :-)
gg: and you're no teenaged girl.
Yesterday at 8:32pm ·
AD The major difference is that teenage girls talk as they do out of necessity. They simply do not have the vocabulary to speak differently, even if they so desired. Philosophers deliberately choose their verbiage in order to feign a false assent into the cerebral stratosphere. How's my alienating intellectual alliteration? Quite proudly pompous, hehe.
Yesterday at 8:33pm ·
GG See, I would disagree: I'd say teenage girls are far more rhetorical in their word usage than we give them credit for. They don't talk the same way to their say English teacher, for example, as they do their friends.
Though clearly their is an institutional difference between teenagers and academic philosophers: I think at a fundamental level circulation matters more than anything else. Less people speak philosophical discourse, hence it seems more valuable.
Yesterday at 8:35pm ·
LB excellent thread. i'll have to post quotes more often!
Yesterday at 8:36pm ·
GG I'm stealing this quote for my collection, by the way...heh, heh...
Yesterday at 8:38pm ·
AD I consider academics to be like any other segregated subgroup. They feel alienated from the surrounding, mainstream community, thus they formulate their own codified language, which then only serves to accentuate the divide between them and the very people with whom they should be attempting to establish a discourse. Philosophical lingo is really just ebonics for nerds.
Yesterday at 8:42pm ·
LB steal away, my friend!
Yesterday at 8:43pm ·
GG I would pretty much agree with philosophers...but not all academics are engaged in that project. A lot of people in universities want to do engaged scholarship with communities outside the university, for example, and so they develop jargon that translates better.
At the same time, however: would we call doctors an alienated subgroup? Because they use some of the most alienating jargon there is.
Jargon is shorthand. It's a particular term that has a particular meaning in a particular community. The only difference between doctors and philosophers is that philosophers are not considered necessary members of our culture anymore.
Maybe we should continue this conversation on each others' walls rather than L's though. We're using our faculties to co-op her wall :).
Yesterday at 8:52pm ·
AD I would call doctors and alienat-ing subgroup. Their lingo is derived from Greek and Latin roots, which are maintained because of both tradition and choice. My father is a doctor, and I worked at a hospital for four years, so I can quite assuredly say that doctors are extremely proud of themselves and hate being brought down to the level of common folk. Notice that the only time understandable terms are used in medicine is when a company is trying to sell a new treatment: ie, "swine flu".
Complex verbiage is used to organize and maintain power of one group over the other. Look at credit card and cell phone contracts, legal documents, etc. Doctors, lawyers, and all the rest would like the general population to believe that their words are somehow necessary, that they are more accurate or descriptive, but this is not the case at all.
I think Lorelei enjoys this back-and-forth. :) At least I hope so.
Yesterday at 9:00pm ·
LB of course i do. my wall is your wall! :-)
Yesterday at 9:07pm ·
GG Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing that power isn't a BIG part of this. I'm just saying there's a pragmatic meaning behind all of this. There are very good reasons why doctors, lawyers, philosophers and all kinds of professionals use jargon.
That use-value for them is inseparable from the institutionalization of knowledge that heralded the modern meritocracy. The ability to use these terms fluidly is power, definitely, but it doesn't have to be that way.
These terms can be liberating for people that encounter them and use them to help other people. The difference is between determination and choice. If jargon is always already alienating then it would mean that language is fixed, stable, and meaningful in an unproblematic way.
But language is slippery, complex, has multiple audiences, is contested, etc. Thus: it is never determined. Just because what you're saying is how things play out, often, in our society, doesn't mean that this determined to be the case. It's a product of certain historical conditions created by people. People with a lot of power, yes, but people all the same. THUS: it can be changed by people. It does change all the time. Every usage is a slight change. It's dynamic, not stable and fixed.
Yesterday at 9:16pm ·
GG By the by, I've got to go take Cynthia home and go to the gym, but feel free to respond and I'll respond later...
Yesterday at 9:18pm ·
AS Now THIS is a thread...I may have to augment my feeble coconut with a third hemisphere to fully comprehend all the details, but a fascinating read regardless...
Yesterday at 10:18pm ·
AD My hangover prevents me from commenting further. I am out of gas for now. Perhaps I will return tomorrow.
Yesterday at 10:20pm ·
GVB I agree with this statement but I had to read it about 5 times before I understood it. Maybe you just needed to use a lot more commas to give us pause to think. LOL You'll have to learn the language of the iliterate if you want to become the first woman president of the U.S.A. This academic lingo isn't going to be understood by the masses
Yesterday at 10:46pm ·
LB gvb: brilliant. you are awesome! :-)
Yesterday at 11:00pm ·
AS LB, methinks that "She is brilliant" fits GVB quite nicely as well...
Yesterday at 11:22pm ·
BB in a Chicago accent WTF?
10 hours ago ·
LB bb: that's my bro. keepin' it real. :-)
5 hours ago ·
DS Very interesting thread!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Is This What Dewey Meant by Active Democracy?/Characterization of the Characters
While reading Young's article, "Activist Challenges To Deliberative Democracy", I couldn't help but think of Dewey and his approach to active democracy and active education. Although both the characters have opposite methods or participating in democracy, they both participate. Young herself explains that "this essay constructs a dialogue between two 'characters' with these differing approaches to political action" (Young 670). So they take action in democracy - a pretty Dewian idea, right?
Okay. Let me move on from that for a bit. What I thought was interesting was that she chose to characterize the activist as male and the deliberative democrat as female. She explains her reasons for this and claims that she chose to characterize the deliberative democrat as a women because "this assignment more associates the female with power" (Young 671). I'm not sure exactly how she sees that. Is it because society sees those who engage in deliberative democracy was more powerful and women are so often portrayed as members of the downtrodden minority??
If I may delve into a discipline I am more familiar with (German Studies) for a moment:
Reading this made me think of the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion [RAF]). This a left-wing terrorist group in Germany founded in 1970. Now, granted, the activist in Young's article does not condone violence against people or animals, but the RAF was a pretty powerful group, and one could consider them violent activists. Where I'm going with all of this is that it was co-founded and by a woman, Ulrike Meinhof (although Gudrun Ensslin was more a leader of the group). My point? Women can be powerful activists and aggressive, too.
I find this characterization problematic because it still portrays women in a weaker light even though the deliberative democrat is associated with power, I think. Because, let's be honest, actions speak louder than words.
Okay. Let me move on from that for a bit. What I thought was interesting was that she chose to characterize the activist as male and the deliberative democrat as female. She explains her reasons for this and claims that she chose to characterize the deliberative democrat as a women because "this assignment more associates the female with power" (Young 671). I'm not sure exactly how she sees that. Is it because society sees those who engage in deliberative democracy was more powerful and women are so often portrayed as members of the downtrodden minority??
If I may delve into a discipline I am more familiar with (German Studies) for a moment:
Reading this made me think of the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion [RAF]). This a left-wing terrorist group in Germany founded in 1970. Now, granted, the activist in Young's article does not condone violence against people or animals, but the RAF was a pretty powerful group, and one could consider them violent activists. Where I'm going with all of this is that it was co-founded and by a woman, Ulrike Meinhof (although Gudrun Ensslin was more a leader of the group). My point? Women can be powerful activists and aggressive, too.
I find this characterization problematic because it still portrays women in a weaker light even though the deliberative democrat is associated with power, I think. Because, let's be honest, actions speak louder than words.
The Panopticon as Structural Oppression: Does Opression a community make?
As an opening note, I really hope I don't excommunicated for this title. I like being Catholic.
In the post, I hope to connect the issues of oppression, social movements, social groups, and community. In particular, I want to adapt Foucault's idea of the Panopticon and connect it to these three previously mentioned ideas. And then, where does difference fit into this discussion?
This post is not going to talk about the Papacy, but it is going to talk about the Panopticon as a metaphor for the function of social function. The basic idea of the Panopticon (traditionally a design for a prison) is that there is some central entity (usually ambiguous in his power despite some general and global descriptors) that keeps all individuals in order as defined by that central entity. In a sense, this is a form of oppression. Lets' take the Pope and the Catholic Church as an example. The pope, while not ambiguous in identity, is very ambiguous in terms of power. He is the representative for Christ on Earth. There are some holes there. But, that association carries too much semantic weight to be questioned. So individuals follow rules that determine appropriate social action as laid out by this central figure.
The repetition of these action reinforces the Panoptic structure. Young pulls an idea from Foucault to illustrate this point: "Foucault (1977) suggests taht to understand meaning and operation of power in modern society, we must look beyond the model of power as 'sovereignty,' a dyadic relation of ruler and subject, and instead analyze the exercise of power as the effect of often liberal and 'humane' practices of education, bureaucratic administration, production and distribution of consumer goods [look to Fraser for this one] medicine, and so on" (Young, 41).
As long as the Panoptic structure is in place, the group is maintained organically by repetition of social actions and reuse semantic relationships: Christ is linked to the pope. The pope is trustworthy authority on the divine.
Loosely, this is an example of structural oppression. Young states "[Structural Oppression] causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following those rules"(41).
The interesting part of Young's point is not in the defintion of oppression, but in her view of how groups form as a result of oppression. They are formed almost organically by those who choose not to follow the rules or those who are unable to follow or disallowed from following the rules. Young defines social groups as "a collective of persons differentiated from at least one other group by cultural forms, practices, or a way of life" (43).
So if oppression can help to create social groups, does oppression a community make? Looking at social movements, this question becomes more complicated. Social movements require collective action, which is usually triggered by a shared matter of concern. A forum is then chosen for the discourse over this matter of concern. By this, the black community during Civil Rights Movement was a community in these aspects. They were also a social group, who was oppressed.
But I still remained unconvinced pending further inquiry.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? I found myself asking that very question while doing the readings this week, I even double checked to make sure I was reading the correct articles.
Oppression, The Other, Recognition, Activism? What does that have to do with community? With literacy? With Community Literacy? I wasn't sure… so I began to think outside the box…I think…
I found Young's two articles to be very insightful. I felt that Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy was very well put together, understandable, and insightful but it was very black and white. There seemed to be no middle ground, which isn't how things are in real life.
The way I see Activism vs. Deliberative Democracy is the deliberative democratic can be found in the middle of the spectrum. He or she is not extremely left or extremely right. The activist on the other hand is (or rather, can be) extremist---either to the left or right of the political spectrum. Obviously this theory isn't concrete and is most certainly open to criticism and exceptions.
At first, while reading this article I felt that the Activist was being portrayed negatively, but after reading further I changed my mind. My question is which character is more effective? Though I think that deliberative democracy has its place and can do good in many situations, I know that actions speak louder than words. Activist can get their issues out there for the people to hear about.
If in fact, communities don't exist without conflict, or at the very least, if communities are built around conflict then activism brings communities closer, and makes them stronger.
Deliberative democracy, on the other hand, brings two communities or a community and the opposing force, together to solve their issues.
I think this article could easily be read along side Fleming's book, identifying activism and deliberative democracy throughout the examples provided.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Oppression, The Other, Recognition, Activism? What does that have to do with community? With literacy? With Community Literacy? I wasn't sure… so I began to think outside the box…I think…
I found Young's two articles to be very insightful. I felt that Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy was very well put together, understandable, and insightful but it was very black and white. There seemed to be no middle ground, which isn't how things are in real life.
The way I see Activism vs. Deliberative Democracy is the deliberative democratic can be found in the middle of the spectrum. He or she is not extremely left or extremely right. The activist on the other hand is (or rather, can be) extremist---either to the left or right of the political spectrum. Obviously this theory isn't concrete and is most certainly open to criticism and exceptions.
At first, while reading this article I felt that the Activist was being portrayed negatively, but after reading further I changed my mind. My question is which character is more effective? Though I think that deliberative democracy has its place and can do good in many situations, I know that actions speak louder than words. Activist can get their issues out there for the people to hear about.
If in fact, communities don't exist without conflict, or at the very least, if communities are built around conflict then activism brings communities closer, and makes them stronger.
Deliberative democracy, on the other hand, brings two communities or a community and the opposing force, together to solve their issues.
I think this article could easily be read along side Fleming's book, identifying activism and deliberative democracy throughout the examples provided.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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