Gail
Wonderful to hear from you again. Excellent post. Many points of
consideration. A "way of Life" in a country without "predators".
Sounds like Eden. I, for one, would like to see how it fits.
'Cause /my coat /is full of moths.
Try to write more often,
Darryl
On 11/24/2010 9:35 PM, Gail Stewart wrote:
Hi Arthur and all,
I'm uneasy with the notion of excluding people from the list,
especially long-standing participants. On their behalf, I'd like to
suggest that it is at first distressing and then perhaps increasingly
irritating not to have one's perceptions or deepfelt convictions
addressed, especially when the issues raised are clearly related to
issues of work and hence the FW list, e.g. predators, on Chris's part,
and cultural perceptions, on Ray's.
While I don't pretend to have read everything everyone has said, I try
to keep up with a general sense of where the discussion on FW is
going. I don't recall seeing any sustained attempt to address Chris's
"predators" whether psychologically, politically or economically (for
example). We seem to have treated the matter more as a conspiracy
theory personal to Chris. The theory is surely more prevalent than
that in our society, although under a variety of names and is not
irrelevant to "work and working." Maybe we could give it a more
thorough going-over than has been done.
Similarly, I think we have been rather dismissive of Ray's attempt to
illuminate our understanding of his culture, tending often to see it
as merely a variant of our own. (I hope I'm not being unfair -- it is
at least my impression that we are not treating his participation as
coming from a different (forgive me but the term may be more familiar
as denoting radical difference) "paradigm."
If I'm not mistaken, it is near impossible for those of us immersed in
conventional Western culture to perceive the world as I suspect Ray
must perceive it. Making a couple of guesses, I would suggest that,
rather than seeing the environment as we do, as "out there," he may
see it as context, so that all of us are "in here." I've known very
few persons non-native to North America who can even glimpse that
perspective, let alone sustain it. (My own glimpses of life lived that
way around, which involve a Copernican shift in my "Western" outlook,
have been few and unsustainable.)
Similarly, human relations are perhaps perceived differently by
Ray, his culture possibly being far more accepting of us (i.e. other
persons) than we who are of Western culture are of other
persons. Indeed the FW list is so biased itself in terms of the
gender of its participants that dialogue with Ray comes heavily from
the odd angle of male rather than Western culture more
inclusively. (The list would of course be enlivened, made more
intelligent and empathic with more balanced participation from both
genders. But perhaps I'm biased myself. <grin>)
A wise woman I knew insisted, "we are enriched by our differences."
Rather than, on this list, trying to argue each other into abandoning
other outlooks in favour of our own, perhaps we might re-embrace our
current "transgressors," avoid an "our way or the highway"
approach, value our differences -- and get back to discussing "work."
Ray, would you please say something again about the perception of
"work" in the community in which you grew up? A friend of mine, an
aboriginal elder, shocked me when he insisted that, in his village,
they didn't have an "economy" but only "a way of life." As an
economist it took me a while to understand how it was possible not to
have an economy, let alone the important implications of this for our
Western concept of work. In a very practical way it seemed to me these
implications might be used to strengthen the arguments for the basic
income of interest to Sally and others -- and indeed could helpfully
affect a number of our policies.
All this said, I do deplore the decline in civility which has occurred
and have been surprised and saddened by it. I hope that era is behind us.
Regards,
Gail
P.S. Apologies for all the Western culture talk -- I wish there were a
better term. Any candidates?
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Harry Pollard <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Wednesday, November 24, 2010 5:24 PM
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] Lets get back to the future of work
and awayfrompushing and shoving
My experience, Mike, is that when restrictions are placed on a
list to make it better, it tends to disappear.
We must be careful about any actions we take.
Harry
*From:*[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*Michael Gurstein
*Sent:* Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:38 AM
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] Lets get back to the future of work
and away frompushing and shoving
Arthur,
What you seem to be suggesting for list governance is rather more
of the "hidden hand" market place--bad actors will be shunned and
correct their behaviour as a result. It appears that for whatever
reason some of those in the marketplace don't respond to the same
set of product cues in the same way as others do hence the bad
behaviours are in many cases engaged with rather than shunned.
If the list were in fact self governing rather than left to the
laissez faire of the open market there would be some process of
_collective_ self-regulation/governance.
Having been involved in several such efforts I know that they can
be tedious in the extreme but perhaps as list coordinators you
folks might like to suggest a few simple rules for collective
self-government as for example along the lines of "formal
complaints by two members of the group to the coordinators and
then there is a public process of voting people "off the island"
-- or some such.
M
-----Original Message-----
*From:* [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*Arthur Cordell
*Sent:* Wednesday, November 24, 2010 6:29 AM
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
*Subject:* [Futurework] Lets get back to the future of work
and away frompushing and shoving
I received this message from an active FWer. And I am adding
my own plea to FWers below.
========================
Arthur,
I won't participate in the futurework list as long as racist
and venomous comments continue. This kind of "talk" doesn't
contribute anything to the list but bile.
==========================
My open plea to FWers.
FW was set up to discuss the future of work but seems to go
off track from time to time. The conversation soon leads to
schoolyard type of talk "I said this, no you said that...you
are a creep, no you are a creep". Pointless schoolyard pushing
and shoving.
If people want to engage in this virtual pushing and shoving
please do it off list. One to one. So that others don't have
to be party to what are private shoving (pissing?) matches.
I have asked individual FWers to not respond to those FWers
who provoke in this way (you know who you are) thinking that
by shunning those who behave this way would cause them to
change their ways or drift off to another list where this sort
of behavior is tolerated. But for whatever reason a few (you
know who you are) seem to want to pick a fight and so things
heat up.
Now is our chance to be a self-governing group. Let's not do
or say anything virtually that we wouldn't say if we were
talking face to face.
I prize civility and exchange of ideas. How do other FWers
feel about this? Suggestions and ideas welcome.
Arthur
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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_______________________________________________
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https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________
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https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
