Dear network,

I would want to be critical towards some ideologies, in fact I would like to
argue them out of existence or at least make their expression deeply
problematic in our network in particular and our respective professions and
other social networks in general. Those ideologies are those that promote
ageism, disablism, heterosexism, racism, sexism and so on and that support
systems that place us on a social hierarchy were some of us are valued and
others are devalued . For me, this level of criticality towards such
oppressive ideologies and social practices requires us to be at our most
destructive and pernicious to  - destrutive towards such systems, but not to
the people in those systems.

There is another way our critical work can operate to ensure that by which
ever route we seek to wreak our destruction of such social practices and the
ideologies that support them and social systems in which they are embedded,
that we support each other to refine our thinking and our practice to
achieve that aim. This is why I would not want some of our 'postmodern'
inklings to be unsupported by rejection but supported by critical thinking -
to help us work in a way that meets our aims to marginalise ideologies that
tear people apart physicallly and spiritually. I delight in the clown army
and their use of the carnival, the surreal and so on to pull apart the
capitalist system, for example. Carnivals can be a fantastic site of
contestation of oppressive ideologies. The clown army protest with tickling
sticks and an armoury of cheesy jokes. Here is one wonderful account of what
they can get up to: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/10/299369.html. They
can be very, effective. I delight in Marxist critique also and admire the
effectiveness of such critiques. Whoever the school pupils in Frankfurt are,
they sound cool and we should encourage these young people to join our
network too (cheesy joke ... Frankfurt School, sorry)!

I wonder whether we should/could support our different routes to achieve
common goals. I wonder if we need electicism, to recognise we come from
different places (culturally, professionally, educationally, spirtually,
economically, historically and so on) and that if we embrace such diversity
in where we have come from which has led us to the point we are at now, that
each of us needs our views respected if we are seeking to be destructive
towards the oppressive practices described in the second paragraph above. I
wouldn't want to persuade you should be a clown , for example, because you
might not be a terrible funny one (if I am wearing a red nose at the next
cpuk conference it is more likely that it is just because I have a cold). I
would not want someone to feel they can't participate in these discussions
because they don't know their Habermas from their Derrida or references to
Foucault from refernces to go and f&%k off. I would want to encourage us to
work as best we can to meet our aims as successfully as we can. That is
where I find our criticality to be important.  And for those who support the
oppressive social practices described in the second paragraph above, I want
them to work deeply hindered so that they are deeply unsuccessful. That is
where I find our criticality to be important too.

In sum, could we ever be an exclusive group in relation to our aims (ie., a
world in which we can live where we are all equally valued and so on) but an
inclusive, critically reflective group in respect to the means we seek to
achieve those aims?

citizen p

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