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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 30, 2004
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Latest Update: June 30, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Wondering About Our Discourse Model

Reading your topic of the week June 26th I was taken by the concept of identity. Especially in the collective sense, then I pondered what makes up "we"

Well it is you and I, held in orbit like electrons revolving around our core. But what holds us in that orbit and what of the "core"

Is belief the force that charts the course?

The core the manifestation of that belief?

For instance you and I crossed paths

When I first showed up at your lecture

Yet we both have our separate paths

We are united by a common covalent bond

Let’s say there are two children

One is playing with a ball

And one without the ball is going to make a move

Does the child (bush for example) make the move to "obtain" the ball?

Or does the child make the move to play with (experience) the Other

I see your dilemma in attempting to identify

It is way too nebulous for me at this juncture

to name, for to name is to limit

The first Naked Space we did, had such an impact, which was experiential, in the moment, as it unfolded we began to realize the impact. And some characterization took place it was about interaction, manifest in the community, hosted in academia, both and neither simultaneously. Is it about the ball or the other, the ball could represent academia and our human desires to "own" it, for once we own it we can control it and sell it and hoard it, ad nauseum.

You give it away every moment of your existence you do not know any other way, you don't put a premium on traditional education because you realized long ago it was only a facade. Under those circumstances you flourished, created your own sacred "naked" space and moved within the system. Against all odds and the barrage of criticisms and obstacles they had to put in your place to substantiate their existence, but served to validate yours. Sort of like all the objections raised by the right in objecting to Michael Morre's new movie Fahrenheit 9/11 which only helped to make his movie a greater success.

All the distinctions separate us from our humanity, Ivy League to dummy hills we seek to categorize and explain and and and it boils down to us n them, even the supreme court said separate is not inherently "equal".

Ray Charles and Ray-gun both huge personalities in our culture, Charles united us by a common bond, a sense of the aesthetic, with harmonies and verse. Yet Ray-gun with his real star wars and decimation of vast numbers around the globe was hailed as some kind of hero. How do we look beyond the facade?

Chris Carter with his x-files coined a term "the truth is out there" once and again removing the core and placing it like the god of Christianity in heaven, detached apart and that justifies the keepers of the keys...

Understanding takes place within us, somewhere in our core, the model is flawed if it resides out there, even the internet is out there. The learning and understandng and compassion are all inside of us, as is fear, hate and guilt and it is consumerism that feeds us our daily dread, which is designed to leave us lacking...and ultimately afraid of one an Other.

So we strive for understanding in our journey we somehow need to formulate ideas around a language which identifies and limits. How does this really lead us to understanding? It all seems so circular and we often end up where we started attempting to identify another peak experience which we inherently understand when it’s happening, but the ability to define and explain it escapes us...

Incessant Ramblings,

Michael