I have bunch of essays due tomorrow, and even though I’m kind of stressed out because I have a lot to write, I’m enjoying figuring out what the hell I want to say.
Here is something that I just read from Mark Childs about public space and the theories of the commons:
…
“Conflicts may easily arise when participants use similar terms to refer to differing concepts, and when goals based on one theoretical base are not recognized, understood, or valued by those invested in other theories. Moreover, theories are frequently taken predictive beyond their kin.
Nevertheless, the breadth of inquiry into the nature if the commons points to its potential power in defining who we are. If various viewpoints are clarified, the dialog between them may help bring rich naunce to the process and products of design, and also may help clarify the interactions between physical design and social form – between urbanitas and civitas.
‘Knowledge…is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges toward an ideal view…It is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible(and perhaps even imcommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth that is a part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation and contributing…to the development of our consciousness’(Feyerabend 1975:30)”
yeah…I’m a nerd.
May 13, 2008 at 4:23 am
I love this!
It brings together some of the things that interest me most, such as:
1.) taxonomy (“Conflicts may easily arise when participants use similar terms to refer to differing concepts”). I’m working tonight on a little taxonomy project, trying to differentiate between things like landscape as a subject of an artwork (http://images.google.com/images?q=landscape%20painting&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi) and landscape as an artwork (http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=landscaping&btnG=Search+Images). Also, China as country and china as type of porcelain. Etc.
2.) types and grouping. I’ve been thinking a lot (thanks to my psychology classes and a weird encounter with that one lady who’s married to that one guy who you’re quoting in your papers…) about our innate desire to classify EVERYTHING. Why? Because we’re human, and also too lazy too look at each individual thing we encounter as separate from the rest. My two plants are both shamrocks, even though one is green and one is red, because they have similar shapes. I know what a chair is, and what the sky looks like before a rainstorm, etc. I know what to expect from plants and chairs and clouds. But then we get into sticky territory, right? Do I know how short people behave? Or white people? Or black people? Or people from Texas? I say no, because people have things like brains and experience that plants and chairs and skies don’t have, but I think that sometimes our brain treats them (consciously or unconsciously) in just the same way, because our brain strives for efficiency, and grouping is efficient. Efficiency isn’t always good.
Anyway, that was my tangent based on the first part — I’m going to have to ponder your last paragraph for a lot longer. Good luck with the end. I so wish I could make it out there now — definitely when you get back from Paris.
Love from,
Your Sister.
May 13, 2008 at 7:44 am
You’ll like this one too…
“the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts” (Orwell 1981:57)
…quoted in the same reading