Your post has sent me on a thoughtful trip Rebekah.  It seems to very
neatly get to the heart of the issues we all seem to be struggling with.
I have no answers at all but feel the need to muse anyway....

"I think we could give some attention to how we can offer critical
exchanges without them being personal exchanges"

This really made me think, and then realise my own views are completely
contradictory....  Mostly I feel I want to struggle against notions of
objectivity, to revel in inter-subjectivity and to resist the
'impersonal', even to encourage personal exchanges in fact (1 to 1, or 1
to many).  Sophistry really frustrates me, I always want to know what
people 'really think' and for people to take responsibility for what
they think. Perhaps debate must be personal? It is an intriguing paradox
that so many researchers think this kind of Internet discussion has a
special value because it lacks social context cues (focusing us on the
content of discussion rather than the 'persons'), yet many of us find
that same lack of social context can quickly lead to misunderstandings
and unnecessary conflict.

I don't think we will be able to find any 'perfect speech' or
Habermassian rules for 'communicative' action that will lead to a some
kind of 'rational' world.  LIfe is agonistic, it has loads of vital
elements of conflict.....and it would be terrible if we all agreed.
Power is always lurking in our communications.

Can we ever separate criticising a person's views or opinions from
criticising them as people (unless we turn into Carl Rogers style
humanists...)?  When we debate like this surely we are actually changing
one another, searching for better ways to live, I must be able to risk
my 'self' when I engage in debate, and be prepared to change? Perhaps
safety and diversity are in a peculiar tension here, just as community
and identity can be seen to be in tension.  Some of our 'Community
Psychology' core values are certainly in tension....which is probably
what makes it all so interesting.  Progress towards social justice will
be elusive if we cant cope with some tough (personal) debate.

Because communities can crush and silence individuals, and communities
are so easily disrupted by powerful competitive (individual) voices, we
need to be prepared to be passionate about our values (obviously without
slagging each other off, it might be better just to look away or stay
silent sometimes :-))).

Knowing when to agree to differ and keeping a sense of humour help too.
Obviously I don't really know quite what I think yet, but thanks for the
mental stimulation!

Grant (contradictorily but personably ;-)


-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rebekah Pratt
Sent: 13 July 2006 10:01
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] expectations

It is very interesting reading what our different expectations are and
they way those match nicely, or have bits of friction too!  All good
Comm Psych stuff isn't it.  I guess I wanted to chip in a little on this
idea of being open to different perspectives.  There are two community
psychology values that jump out for me here, one being 'diversity' and
the other being 'social justice'.  One of the things I'd like to discuss
more is the tension between celebrating diversity through being open to
different perspectives, and the value of social justice.  So, if someone
offers a perspective that is oppressive, eg. Racist, sexist,
homophobic/heterosexist ... How do I reconcile that respect of other
perspectives alongside the values of social justice.  This is sort of an
easy example, as the answer is fairly clear, but what happens when the
perspective is more subtly oppressive, maybe individualism could be an
example - which value matters most about what I say/do/reflect on next?
I'd like as a community psychologist for us to also think about those
tensions too, and how that debate might lead to times when we don't
offer equal value to all perspectives.
Another expectation I wanted to add in, is I think we could give some
attention to how we can offer critical exchanges without them being
personal exchanges, how we can disagree and challenge whilst still
building the discussion and relationships we have on the list. I
sometimes wonder if it is possible to have critical exchanges with
people when we are really communicating with a big group where we don't
know much about each other.
Are there ways we can develop a collective expectation around having
safe and constructive critical debate?
Rebekah

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