[Sigia-l] Evangelism -or to- Hold Up a Mirror to Catch Stars

[Lane Becker]

> But *you must be made to be aware* of your preconceived notions, and to
> understand -- that is -- to be culturally and psychologically prepared
> (open) to uncover.

Sigh.  This makes for one serious case of "Shoot the messenger."

Derek, as a not-so-great man once said, you misunderestimate your audience.
I think a more honest way to put the above might be: "You don't think like I
think, so I'm going to make you think like I think."  In another context:
"That's not what the user wants to do?  Well, that's what I want the user to
do, so that's what I'm going to make the user do."  Or: "Now click on that
banner ad!  Click, damn you!  Click!"

What I'm trying to say is this: Know your audience better.  Those of us who
once studied critical theory in graduate school have since left, and the
rest of us never went; this is not necessarily a bad thing.  We (all of us)
share a different language here. If you want to be intellectually honest,
take your audience into consideration, understand their perspective, work to
inhabit it.  Make us understand you by entering into our worldview, adopting
our terminology, adapting it to your ends.

I think we would all benefit from this -- I do appreciate your attempt to
broaden the perspective from which we all operate, but a gently didactic
nudge would be preferable to the semiotic body-check you currently favor.

lane
 
> Therefore, although my knowledge of this matter may be more advanced
> than my ability to communicate it, I am, nonetheless, communicating it
> -->
> 
> ***This matter embodies a commitment to the process of knowing, rather
> than to a single or determinate end.***
> 
> Within it, meaning is continually deferred so that the enterprise
> becomes a 'site' of production, and not one of (fixed) consumption.
> "Insight moves sight to the site" -->
> http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/0202/0035.html
> 
> 
> With that said -->
> 
> I believe your difficultly is caused by having been told, or suggesting
> to yourself, that the subject is going to prove difficult, so that, once
> confronted, you throw yourself into a state of consternation very
> unfavorable to receptivity.
> 
> Instead of beginning, as you should, in a state of sensitivity, you
> confuse your good sense with the desire to be clever and to look hard
> for something (you don't know what) -- or else by the desire not to be
> taken in . . .
> 
> And finally, there is the difficulty caused by the author having left
> something out which you are used to finding, so that, you, bewildered,
> grope about for what is absent, and puzzle-in-your-head for a kind of
> meaning which is not there, and is not meant to be there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
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