INGRAHAMDum defeated by JONESDee - or is there a better way to discuss! A Blog
Saturday, 18 Jul 2015, 17:05
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Steve Bamlett, Sunday, 19 Jul 2015, 15:00
INGRAHAMDum
defeated by JONESDee - or is there a better way to discuss! A Blog
Steve Bamlett H800 (BTG)
This piece really requires Fig A for its effect as an Alice satire. However, the picture was big - so see attached Word file version if you are at all interested.
Is academic debate over-pugnacious
in its attempt to win the argument! I think it is if the aim of each side is to
just knock each other's blocks off. As I read Ingraham's side of the debate, I
find a desire to 'compete and win' in it that I equate with 'academic'
traditions at their worst. Not that I think 'Ingraham' is being bad - just following
an academic culture of getting one over on my competitor for the attention and
publication space it wins me, like, I have to say many others in the business. I do not see the same impetus in
Jones: whose tone is calming and participative - and aims to a greater
understanding of how to describe the emergent and (as yet) unclassified forms of
co-production and co-regulation facilitated by new technologies.
In a sense this is because Jones
understands metaphor as an emergent factor in the development of communicative
language, whilst Ingraham does not even attempt to do so. I am not sure the
latter would even consider the nature of language important, as both Jones and
Engeström clearly do.
For Ingraham this debate is a
binary matter. My metaphor is bigger / better / more enhanced than yours (come
off it boys!).
It is a 'debate' about how to
describe innovative ways of participation and co-production made available by
Web 2.0 / 3.0 (or whatever other metaphor you prefer). We need metaphor because
otherwise we would strain to find a SINGLE concept that can express what these
forms are. After all, if such a concept existed, it would mean that the 'emergent'
forms are not emergent at all. They would have to have already have EMERGED to
be named.
It's not a 'network with nodes', says
IngrahamDUM, 'it's a rhizome: anyway
people aren't nodes they are agents and
decision-makers'. JonesDEE might have retorted, 'No! They are not rhizomes
they are networks with nodes.' But he does not fall into that binary - yes or
no - trap. Metaphors are not meant to express a judgement about the nature of a
'thing' in one word or picture - they are provisional and loose. We use them
when we do not know yet what the thing we want to express is. We are not even
sure it is a thing. That is why Jones talks about the 'reifying' nature of the
way Ingraham approaches metaphor - he thinks metaphor is a statement about a
thing (the 're' in reifying is from the Latin for thing). We may need to ensure
that people know when we use metaphor it is a 'loose usage' (Jones 2004b:190),
because that is HOW LANGUAGE ALWAYS USES METAPHORS. Look at the perfect way,
Jones uses knowledge of comparative language to make the point, whilst
discussing the metaphoric use of the word, 'node'.
"node can be
applied at various levels in what may be described, like the Internet itself,
as a network of networks. ... node in English derives from a biological reference
to growth points in plants. In French the word is 'noeud' and derives from
knot, suggesting a less particular interpretation of what a node might be
(ibid.)”.
Metaphors apply complex pictures
and ideas that sometimes have to be very loose alternatives for each other not
precise placed (or topological) contestants and co-debaters. Their effect is to
work with not against each other precisely because what they try to express is
(as yet, at least) inexpressible in ordinary language. The same could be said
of good poetry. When Shakespeare wants to show the beauty that might have lay
under the monster Caliban in The Tempest
became, he makes his experience a compound of the most beautiful metaphors:
"Be not afeard, the isle
is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that vie delight and
hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices, That if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming The clouds methought would open, and show
riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again."
(Act 3, Scene 2)
Jones too is very aware of what
language is - sounds yearning to escape conventional meanings they take on when hardened into words. The only refuge is for words and meanings to play loosely with each other until we begin to know
what they might be made to mean. Then meaning emerges for acquisition or appropriation for
a short time at least. Metaphor, he
claims, is about its function in creating meaning out of novel experience.
I believe Engeström (2007) does
the same. His essay, as if aware (as I think Engeström is) of the debate above,
does not say the fungal life form, 'mycorrhizae' is the true metaphor to
replace 'rhizome'. He sees it as a continuation of the 'play' (and the tone is very
playful) by showing that the emergent and unspoken potentials of new forms of
communication (his instance being the co-production involved in the 'open
source software community') are as yet indescribable in any one way - even one
metaphor (however fancy). Thus what it yearns to describe is a 'runaway object':
it runs away before it can be 'grasped' (in the metaphoric sense of that dead
metaphor).
The object is
at the same time a product and a project: it does useful work for users, yet it
is unfinished, full of challenges and continuously developed further. (ibid:52)'
Meanwhile three cheers for JonesDEE
for a short time. The Jabberwock you killed is the hydra of over-literal
thought. IngrahamDUM will however live to see another day and another light.
INGRAHAMDum defeated by JONESDee - or is there a better way to discuss! A Blog
INGRAHAMDum defeated by JONESDee - or is there a better way to discuss! A Blog
Steve Bamlett H800 (BTG)
This piece really requires Fig A for its effect as an Alice satire. However, the picture was big - so see attached Word file version if you are at all interested.
Is academic debate over-pugnacious in its attempt to win the argument! I think it is if the aim of each side is to just knock each other's blocks off. As I read Ingraham's side of the debate, I find a desire to 'compete and win' in it that I equate with 'academic' traditions at their worst. Not that I think 'Ingraham' is being bad - just following an academic culture of getting one over on my competitor for the attention and publication space it wins me, like, I have to say many others in the business. I do not see the same impetus in Jones: whose tone is calming and participative - and aims to a greater understanding of how to describe the emergent and (as yet) unclassified forms of co-production and co-regulation facilitated by new technologies.
In a sense this is because Jones understands metaphor as an emergent factor in the development of communicative language, whilst Ingraham does not even attempt to do so. I am not sure the latter would even consider the nature of language important, as both Jones and Engeström clearly do.
For Ingraham this debate is a binary matter. My metaphor is bigger / better / more enhanced than yours (come off it boys!).
It is a 'debate' about how to describe innovative ways of participation and co-production made available by Web 2.0 / 3.0 (or whatever other metaphor you prefer). We need metaphor because otherwise we would strain to find a SINGLE concept that can express what these forms are. After all, if such a concept existed, it would mean that the 'emergent' forms are not emergent at all. They would have to have already have EMERGED to be named.
It's not a 'network with nodes', says IngrahamDUM, 'it's a rhizome: anyway people aren't nodes they are agents and decision-makers'. JonesDEE might have retorted, 'No! They are not rhizomes they are networks with nodes.' But he does not fall into that binary - yes or no - trap. Metaphors are not meant to express a judgement about the nature of a 'thing' in one word or picture - they are provisional and loose. We use them when we do not know yet what the thing we want to express is. We are not even sure it is a thing. That is why Jones talks about the 'reifying' nature of the way Ingraham approaches metaphor - he thinks metaphor is a statement about a thing (the 're' in reifying is from the Latin for thing). We may need to ensure that people know when we use metaphor it is a 'loose usage' (Jones 2004b:190), because that is HOW LANGUAGE ALWAYS USES METAPHORS. Look at the perfect way, Jones uses knowledge of comparative language to make the point, whilst discussing the metaphoric use of the word, 'node'.
"node can be applied at various levels in what may be described, like the Internet itself, as a network of networks. ... node in English derives from a biological reference to growth points in plants. In French the word is 'noeud' and derives from knot, suggesting a less particular interpretation of what a node might be (ibid.)”.
Metaphors apply complex pictures and ideas that sometimes have to be very loose alternatives for each other not precise placed (or topological) contestants and co-debaters. Their effect is to work with not against each other precisely because what they try to express is (as yet, at least) inexpressible in ordinary language. The same could be said of good poetry. When Shakespeare wants to show the beauty that might have lay under the monster Caliban in The Tempest became, he makes his experience a compound of the most beautiful metaphors:
"Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that vie delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again." (Act 3, Scene 2)
Jones too is very aware of what language is - sounds yearning to escape conventional meanings they take on when hardened into words. The only refuge is for words and meanings to play loosely with each other until we begin to know what they might be made to mean. Then meaning emerges for acquisition or appropriation for a short time at least. Metaphor, he claims, is about its function in creating meaning out of novel experience.
I believe Engeström (2007) does the same. His essay, as if aware (as I think Engeström is) of the debate above, does not say the fungal life form, 'mycorrhizae' is the true metaphor to replace 'rhizome'. He sees it as a continuation of the 'play' (and the tone is very playful) by showing that the emergent and unspoken potentials of new forms of communication (his instance being the co-production involved in the 'open source software community') are as yet indescribable in any one way - even one metaphor (however fancy). Thus what it yearns to describe is a 'runaway object': it runs away before it can be 'grasped' (in the metaphoric sense of that dead metaphor).
The object is at the same time a product and a project: it does useful work for users, yet it is unfinished, full of challenges and continuously developed further. (ibid:52)'
Meanwhile three cheers for JonesDEE for a short time. The Jabberwock you killed is the hydra of over-literal thought. IngrahamDUM will however live to see another day and another light.
Steve