tinkerer's damn
"I think on this debate a great deal turns," says the Tutor, pointing to E. J. Dionne Jr.'s overview of a 1997 Brooking Institution study of Civil Society. Much indeed turns on the question of what constitutes civility and society.
Dionne ably summarizes views that reach beyond narrow leftie or rightie boilerplate to suggest that new social forms are what we need. He eases into the metaphor of forging, of tinkering -- the comfortablly craftsmanlike language of the workshop:
Let's rip this bandaid and look at the teratoma beneath it. Sitting in the Brookings Institution we might agree that if we just act with sufficient effervescence, we could "invent" something or other is sure to nurture civility.
If Mr. Dionne were reflecting on civil society while chained to the walls of Abu Ghraib, with a rectal insertion the size of a piano leg to inspire him, he might command more attention.
Stop talking in a vacuum. We cannot repress every idea of antisocial reality and then talk about how to be civil. Run some alien workers across the border, get shot at, then talk to us about civility, Mr. Jr.
Dionne ably summarizes views that reach beyond narrow leftie or rightie boilerplate to suggest that new social forms are what we need. He eases into the metaphor of forging, of tinkering -- the comfortablly craftsmanlike language of the workshop:
Many (in these essays especially) see effervescence and creativity in the effort to forge new forms of civil society. But they also assert that we are only at the beginning of this process and more social inventiveness is required.
Let's rip this bandaid and look at the teratoma beneath it. Sitting in the Brookings Institution we might agree that if we just act with sufficient effervescence, we could "invent" something or other is sure to nurture civility.
If Mr. Dionne were reflecting on civil society while chained to the walls of Abu Ghraib, with a rectal insertion the size of a piano leg to inspire him, he might command more attention.
Stop talking in a vacuum. We cannot repress every idea of antisocial reality and then talk about how to be civil. Run some alien workers across the border, get shot at, then talk to us about civility, Mr. Jr.
posted by Tom Matrullo at Saturday, July 03, 2004
1 Comments:
Thanks for articulating key ingredients of this Maginot line. My point was not the validity of this debate, but had more to do with the implications of the form known as "debate." In the realm of "media ecology," for example, it is widely believed that setting has much to do with medium, message and the impact of both -- something Mel Brooks richly understood. Just as, in another of your superb posts, you note that we live inside stories that run on tracks which are predictable, conventionalized, and difficult to move, so I am suggesting that forums such as think tanks, white papers, academic gatherings and the like, despite the appearance of openness, dialogue and collective good will, have difficulty reaching into the complex world beyond the end of their armchairs. USian broadcast media is trapped in the same kind of limited discursive space, which always assumes a family straight out of Father Knows Best is watching from the comfortable cushions of some idyllic Family Room. The sacred hearth, to which reality is sacrificed daily. And that's the way it is. You are there.
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