CONTINENTAL  PHILOSOPHY  GROUP

SOME  REFLEXIVE  REVISION

Lindsay  Mell

Continental  Philosophy  Group

Seminar  Paper

CONTINENTAL  PHILOSOPHY  GROUP

13	November  2005

Some Reflexive Revision

What I wish to broadly challenge through this brief seminar paper is the somewhat predominant and growing contemporary notion that reality and experience, or ‘life’ as such, together with identity, are forged out as if through some form of construction project and/or work site.  

Implied in this will also be a basic revision of the proposition that language, words and grammar, and discursive practices – or loosely the structures inherent in conversation/ dialogue – form the presumed ‘tool kit’ through which this construction process proceeds. 

Rather, what I propose is that socio-cultural and (inter)personal development is predominantly a derivative process whereby aspects of character and humanity are acquired through the emergence of thematic elements in the broad context of life and awareness. 

These aspects and elements may not necessarily be derived through deliberate or consciously realised interventions, but rather may be realised through intuition and/or associated forms of spontaneous awareness, even serendipitously. 

From such a perspective, culture itself can be recognised as a gradually formed and derived process of experience, reality and identity formation which cannot be adequately conceived or envisaged as a construction site exercise.  It’s not as if a framework is meticulously worked out from grammatic and discursive postulations, after which an elaborate overlay is then strategically devised and then elegantly set in place. 

Rather the raw material of derived awareness emanates from what I have established as ‘situational images, metaphors and referential episodes’, as I have proposed in a recent seminar paper, entitled Friendship and Sentiment (Mell, 2005: 2) 

These are not merely constructions formed from sets of words and/or expressions, but actually emanate often intuitively through an innate ‘sense’ which is not perceived as predominantly structural or constructed in nature.  Evidence of such a form of awareness and/or appreciation is apparent through the tendency for people to acquire and remain resonant with such predominant socio-cultural manifestations.  This applies despite a depletion of adequate logical, or even reasonable, explanation as to ‘why’ or ‘how’ these elements have become so resonant. 

Such insights also often figure as resonant, significant and relevant in meaning across socio-cultural contexts, so that their occurrence, influence and significance may be realised throughout historical and spacio-temporal periods.  The essence of these forms of awareness may therefore remain evident and resonant, even though how these are expressed may vary relative to the context and situation in which they emerge. 

So any ‘construction of reality’ which is based primarily on the ‘use of language’ is therefore a bounded constrictive perspective which cannot adequately incorporate the realisation of, and sensitivity to, such intuitive and spontaneous awareness, from my perspective. 

Such awareness can be said to emanate from ‘the heart’, as it were (Tointon, July 2005: 5), or at least from the essence of who we are as persons, in that such awareness and realisation is linked inexorably with the feeling aspect of who the person is in this perceptual sense. 

So ‘we cannot ‘escape our past’ ‘ (Ibidem 2005: 5) from this perspective and facet of perception, nor would we likely want to do this, because these referential cultural elements and influences sustain our viability as 
universal citizens, and enable us to retain our inter and cross-cultural association(s). 

Therefore all these influences contribute to our distinctive (inter)personal identities, but they may not be absolutely definitional in this respect, and this interpretation thence constitutes my basic perspective on this. 

Again, straying from a predominantly structuralist perspective in this, my sense is that a blending or melding of the elements implied here, more in the Deleuzean sense of intricate ‘unfolding’ aspects of reality and awareness (1997 [1994]) which merge or morph progressively, is a more pertinent perspective of how this process develops and can be said to work out. 

Such a perspective resonates more emphatically for me than the more blandly constructivist alternative of constant striving or effort to balance out conditions and contingencies.  The latter notion forms out for me as a much more contrived interpretation, perspective and perception of reality and experience in the socio-cultural context.  It is notable that the prerogative of ‘function’, and therefore ‘functionality’, often seems to figure prominently in such an interpretation, thereby situating such perspectival analysis predominantly within the ‘orbit of a tightly contrived neo-Talcott Parsons ‘structural functional’ form of perspective and world-view. 

Language may ‘reflect … what we think’, as Noel proposes (Ibidem 2005: 1).

However, the challenge or dilemma here is to explore how thinking may be associated with other such human states as feeling.  Indeed, it is complex enough to consider particularly what is entailed in thinking, how the brain might be associated with what would be the mind, and what could be proposed as the processes through which cognition, perspectival and perceptual analysis proceeds. 

Anyone who has lived and worked in rural regions of Australia for any substantial period will know that ‘farming’ as such is only one of many essential services which take place in these regions so that the whole process of agricultural production, transport and marketing can feasibly proceed.  

All these services, in turn, tend to focus around vital regional centres, which can have a complexity of aspect and nature formidable enough to resemble the situation of modest-sized cities. 

Indeed, these centres are sometimes called ‘cities’.  

This whole process of support for ‘farming’ and agricultural production requires highly concentrated, synergised, concerted and consistent integrated activity which is continuous and even incorporates a myriad of interpersonal, moral and ethical dimensions which proceed in somewhat diverse socio-cultural contexts, at least from a broad aspect.  So, in many respects, although in a more concentrated contained context, people in regional ‘cities’, and even towns or villages, face concerns of awareness, realisation, perception and identity which resemble those experienced in complex urban situations. 

Moreover, while it is clearly valid to observe the substantial majority of people in Australia do live in the State capital cities, nevertheless the populations of regional areas and centres remain substantial.  Accordingly, all these people require services and resources to exist, all of which entails interpersonal and vocational support which extends far beyond the aspect of agriculture and production. 

All these considerations obviate the pertinence of the ‘village’ context and metaphor in this respect.  Moreover, the notion of a ‘village’ does resonate particularly with the early agrarian socio-cultural ethos, through which social, cultural and interpersonal interaction gravitated around villages where people were closely involved in attending to each other’s situations. 

Throughout the 1990s there was much consideration of the potential extrapolation and application of this metaphor in a globalised context, with the prospect of nodes of interpersonal interaction serving global purposes, with the support of technological infrastructure such as through the Internet and world-wide web, such that ‘global villages’ could exist and thrive.  This movement, along with the metaphorical underpinning of the ‘global village’ ethos which supported it, received substantial impetus from Hilary Clinton’s declaration:  ‘It takes a village to raise a child’.  This then became a key theme of the education debate in the United States, and which ultimately figured prominently, as I recall, in former US President, Bill Clinton’s ascendency to the Office of US President. 

Now, if we want to do so, of course, we can pass off such ‘images, metaphors and referential episodes [or perhaps ‘touchstones’, in this context]’ (Mell 2005: 2) as passe, as it were, perhaps, and not even relevant or worthy of consideration on this basis.  However, this will not change the reality these do have relevance and resonance in the broad context of collective awareness and realisation.   Therefore, it behoves us to respect, remain sensitive to, and seek to appreciate this reality, rather than pass it off as simply a kind of ancestral relic, or the equivalent. 

Such relevance and resonance is substantially what constitutes the significance, meaning, and therefore the place of aspects and facets of reality and experience such as tradition, along with the rich intricate threads of historical continuity and consistency, and of socio-cultural trajectories. 

While a so-called ‘post-modernist’ might consider these perspectives as superfluous, even potentially misleading, the reality is they do retain relevance and resonance for many, perhaps even the majority, of people.  So they are worthy of respect through close scrutiny and substantial resonant analysis on this basis at least. 

There is some sense in which Noel does recognise such contextualities.  

For instance, he observes that ‘despite the accelerating flux of change, most people in Australia seem to find themselves still in a sense of community as citizens in one country where we continue to directly and indirectly look after each other by various means …’ (Tointon, July 2005: 4) 

The profound paradox here is that, given this is a fair representation of the ‘change’ which is inherent, then our quest to retain, elaborate, adapt, substantiate and expand our sense of ‘community’ is thereby indeed predominant in the ‘change’ which is proceeding. 

Such an authenticity of experiential metaphor substantiates and justifies this as an authentic reality for us as our ‘ ‘home’-in-the-world’ (Ibidem 2005: 4), as Noel puts it, and therefore far from a ‘virtual’ reality. 

Among the problems here is the penchant for duality which tends to exacerbate competition through what I have characterised predominantly as the ethos and milieu of ‘contra-distinction’, as I put this, through which we exist and carry out our lives, and therefore seek to interact (inter)personally, often in consequence of this condition. 

Clearly, there is an evident ‘sense of community and common culture … continuing to develop’, as Noel puts this.  Yet he interposes this with the qualification ‘despite past perceptions of a multi-culturalism and current perceptions of a cultural pluralism’.  Why would there be this implied discontinuity and schism between ‘community and common culture’ and ‘multiculturalism and … cultural pluralism’?  Such implied polarity through contra-distinction is not a mandatory consequence of late modernity.  It is possible for all these elements to coexist and interact without being juxtaposed as contrary aspects of reality and experience. 

While ‘plurality’ implies a diversity or plethora of elements and/or aspects, what is ‘common’ basically implies such a plurality of elements can exist as a whole in some sense.  The term ‘common’ in itself doesn’t imply compliance and/or conformity, even if some complicity and/or acceptance, as such, may be inherent in the sustenance of a common heritage in this context. 

Rarely is a person’s work, or even vocation, as such, comprehensively influential in how I regard and/or consider them as a person (cf. Tointon, October 2005).  

Rather, I am basically much more interested and enthused by their character and nature as a person and how these attributes and/or qualities have emerged and formed in the context of their (inter)personal aspect in this sense.  

Generally, what a person does as ‘work’ in the sense of a job position or employment is not an aspect I seek of a person at the outset of meeting them.  Where it is the probably rare case in which I engage in such interpersonal inquiry from the respondent in question on meeting them, this would almost certainly derive simply as an opening salutation through which to raise more substantial considerations in coming to ‘know’ and be aware of the person in the context of their situations and perspectives in life. 

Where vocation and/or employment background and details, as interpersonal considerations, impinge on such deeper matters, of course I will remain interested in and alert to any prospects for deeper interpersonal awareness and/or realisation, particularly of any prospect of mutual collaborative endeavour.

Clearly, people will be more or less influential in how they ‘each and all’ contribute to the constitution of a person’s reality and/or experience in this respect.  As our lives proceed, of course, we each form and ‘fashion’ our lives in the context of each of our situations in life.  Therefore, we will be in some sense collaborating and/or associating with each particular person in this endeavour, whether or not we happen to ‘know’ them ‘well’ or not.  So we actually ‘co-author’ in life in some sense with every person with whom we consequently are, or become, associated. 

Over some years now, I’ve explored with another person involved closely with The Community Project initiative our respective perspectives on the nature and place of work for our respective lives.  Their perspective is that broadly a perspective of ‘working to live’, or work as something you do – or have to do – so as to have what might be considered an authentic life from the (inter)personal and social perspectives … It is more or less the means a person has to bear with to realise an optimal end. 

Whereas my perspective is that ‘my life is my work’.  

So that however I’ve managed whatever I’ve done or could be considered as doing for work over the years, I’ve taken the time and attention to ensure this integrates with my whole-of-life activity and initiative, and all this means for me from an (inter)personal and communal aspect. 

Consequently, I don’t retain this strong sense of bounded distinction of ‘work’ and ‘life’, as implied in my friend’s perspective, and which I believe is implicit in Noel’s notion of an ‘hierarchical sense’ of ‘work identity’ and ‘personal identity’. 

Further, I believe such a perspective is essentially problematic because the contextualised all-pervasive nature of day-to-day work which is construed from it tends to marginalise the meaning, significance, relevance and resonance of the authenticity of each person’s whole (inter)personal journey throughout life, and each personal distinctive contribution in this.  

It is this very dilemma of (inter)personal significance and/or destiny in the broad socio-cultural communal context which The Community Project is situated to address. 

It is through this aspect of (inter)personal journeying that the meaning, significance, relevance and resonance of whatever is happening in life, and therefore the broad pattern of experience and reality, can be optimally appreciated, as proposed through the auspices of The Community Project.  However, the comprehensive nature and aspect of the project from such perspectives could only be suitably appreciated through fine-grained consideration of the project activity and initiatives, along with the collective and personal accomplishments, prospects and experience of those involved in the project.  

The 2006 National Year of Community initiative has provided the context for such broad-based consideration and appreciation.

Meanwhile, the challenge of considering all these contingencies from the perspective of ‘cognitive dissonance’ is that the emphasis here is on ‘thinking’ by virtue of the reference to ‘cognition’.  There is effectively little or no place in this perspective for the element of ‘feeling’, which is a whole dimension of life, experience and reality marginalised through a ‘cognitive dissonance’ perspective.  

Even the use of the term ‘dissonance’ implies some form of endemic discontinuity and/or extreme ‘difference’ (Macquarie Dictionary: 142), and therefore effectively conflict, which pervades socio-cultural and (inter)personal communal relations.

Lindsay Mell, 

10 November 2005.

REFERENCES

Deleuze, Gilles  1994	Quote from Difference and Repetition, 
				Athlone Press, London, UK.

				Quoted in The Political As Personal
				- individual influence in politics, p.18						by Lindsay Mell
				State of the World Forum,
				Seminar Paper presented in October 1997,
				Academy of the Word,
				Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia. 

Macquarie Dictionary 1991:	The Pocket Macquarie
					The Macquarie Library,
					Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

Mell, Lindsay  2005:		Friendship and Sentiment
				Seminar Paper presented on 25 October 2005
				at the State of the World Forum, 
Academy of the Word,
Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia.

Tointon, Noel  2005:	

Going … Going Home … - … but Where? … and When?!
	Seminar Paper presented for the Continental Philosophy Group,
	Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia, July 2005.

	What is the Real Nature of Work …?  And Should We Go Fast … 
Or Go Slow …?  Some Miscellaneous Notes and Observations
for the Continental Philosophy Group Open Forum: 
Employment and Identity
Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia, October 2005.