Jack -I understand the meanings of living standards of judgment to be 
an assisting heuristic tool for the individual to feel more 
ontologically secured, contended, dignified and at ease with 
himself/herself in his/her eternal self-quest, self-searching.  I 
understand it to be something very personal, living, dialecticaly, 
critically, systematically and autopoietically pushing itself forward.  
Inyentionally helping one making his/her ontology and ethics and quest 
for ethics a bit more bearable.

I am not sure I need Jack's visual clips to identitify and tell me what 
living standards of judgement are.  I have been engaging with them all 
my life.  And have constructed a heuristic tool and approach for and 
based on them.  I believe it is something human-all-too-human that all 
human beings do and are committed to.

I must add to the below that I took both me and me to a couple 
theorist.  With the theorist being a psychoanalyst we spent five years 
of two sessions a week: Each session costing 100 dollars US.  After 
five years of such an extensive couple therapy me and me and me were 
told by the therapist or to be more exact shouted at with great 
frustration and anger that he has never had such awful clients.  And 
that for the first time in his career he advises us to split up. As we 
are hopeless case.  So he suggested that I divorce me.  I then went to 
write a fiction on this and a series of writings and blogging that I am 
hopping will be published soon.  Alon


Quoting Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]>:

> Pip - Not sure if it is I who chooses my audience.  I think it is my
> audience who chooses me.  All I have and aspire to do is to be as
> faithful and authentic to/with myself and my language as possible: Who
> I am and whom I wish myself to be:  This may be a clear and convincing
> writer, also personal history, values, ambitions and desires for
> optimal dignity, meaning, productivity empowerment, self-development,
> ontological security and sustainability, integrity for myself as an
> Husserlian/Searlian intentionality.
>
> Also, I said what I said in light of Gadamer's logic of questions and
> answers.  So I'd add that all I want is to ask myself and respond to
> myself, pushing myself forward.  This is what dialectical reflection is
> about.  Some of it  in public.  And make myself clearer and more
> authentic and pleasant, meaningful, productive and constructive to
> myself.  A bit easier for myself to be able to live with myself.  As
> part of the construction of my embodied and reflective heuristics of
> human existence me and me had the worst fights with me.  Those were
> most vicious fights.  We stopped talking to each other on many
> occasions.   Many times, though, it was just a big misunderstanding.
> We simply misunderstood each other.   But we pulled through.  And we
> are now trying to convey our fights as an alternative heuristic
> possibility for the understanding of human existence.  But then we
> fight terribly trying to convey our fights properly.  I says X.  And me
> says Y.   But then this is the whole point of the heuristic tool and
> exercise.  And my, Alon, view of the human subject and his/her human
> existence.  Alon
>
> Quoting Pip/Bruce Ferguson <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> Hi Brian and others
>> I am inclined to agree with your 'exoteric' plea below, Brian!  Having tried
>> to offer professional development opportunities to classes that included
>> media arts, nursing, business, mechanical engineering, catering and
>> horticultural tutors (all in the same class) I have found that 'simple' is
>> better, as far as reaching a wide audience is concerned.  One does, however,
>> risk resistance from those who prefer to communicate in postmodern dialogue,
>> or in terms that are preferred by a smaller group.  Alon's recognition that
>> if he reaches one, that's a 100% improvement on previously, is a case in
>> point.  Respect, Alon; you choose your audience and seek to appeal to that
>> audience.
>>
>> However I also very much value Yaakub's insight in his comment, "If the
>> other (person) isn't drawn to bracing invitation then that's an important
>> piece of life knowledge for that person isn't it."  I think that it then
>> becomes the choice of the 'contributor' to recognize whether his/her words
>> are attracting the kinds of responses that he/she seeks, and mediate his/her
>> language if the desired responses and 'recognition' are not forthcoming.
>>
>> So my inclination is to try to communicate simply - not necessarily
>> simplistically I hope - to appeal to as many practitioners as I can, be they
>> agriculturalists, traditional scientists, social workers or garbage
>> collectors.  We can all learn, using action research, to improve our
>> practice.  I'm thinking, here, of an example my second supervisor for my
>> PhD, Dr Neil Haigh, gave.  He was facilitating action research in the
>> commercial environment of a local engineering firm.  All the staff were
>> engaged in the improvement of their practice using Neil's AR facilitation.
>> An innovation was suggested by one of the cleaners, which saved the company
>> thousands of dollars.  This company manufactures electric fences, and uses
>> copper wire in the process.  The cleaner had noticed, as she moved down the
>> production line, that she was sweeping up and discarding lengths of copper
>> wire from one part of the assembly line, and further along the assembly
>> line, workers were cutting smaller pieces of copper wire from a large coil.
>> By recycling the pieces she swept up, the company was able to avoid this
>> duplication and save the company $$$.  If the AR facilitation had occurred
>> in language that this particular worker could not understand, the company
>> would have missed out on her valuable input.  Might help to make the point?
>>
>> Respect to all contributors, and thanks for your varied and rich sharing.
>> Kind regards
>> Pip
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian
>> wakeman
>> Sent: Wednesday, 6 December 2006 10:45 p.m.
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Judging the educational influences
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>>
>> 1.    It seems to me that we have examples of "World
>> Class" practitioner research among the postings over
>> the past two months, that have been recognised and
>> appreciated by respondents.
>>
>> (I have valued Pip's wisdom, Sarah's practical
>> classroom-based work with colleagues, Alan's amazing
>> creative thinking, and Yaakub's scholarship.)
>>
>> What is it that makes these contributions "World
>> Class"?
>>
>> 2.   I think we have an issue with the expression
>> "practitioner research".
>>
>> From the postings we seem to have a very broad
>> inclusive understanding of "practitioner".
>>
>> I have an anxiety that colleagues with a narrower view
>> thinking of a practitioner as a person involved in
>> hospital, social work, business, police, church, and
>> school settings, may feel excluded from our
>> discussions.
>>
>> It's the complex, academic, philosophical
>> language....what I call "esoteric"....that is the
>> problem.
>>
>> I understand esoteric as:
>>  "intended or understood  by only a small number of
>> people with a specialised knowledge or interest".
>>
>> Many posting express appreciation and admiration for
>> these discussions.
>>
>> However, for  colleagues busily working in various
>> professional settings reflecting about practical
>> issues, seeking to improve their practice, or clients'
>> experience, their students learning.......in the
>> everyday language of their profession.....
>>
>> what constitutes "quality" in terms they can
>> understand?
>>
>> Do we need different qualities of judgement for this
>> 'practitioner' research in a narrower sense so that
>> our discussions are EXoteric...likely to be understood
>> by a wider audience...?
>>
>> In the spirit of Advent......"light to all"
>>
>>
>> Brian
>>
>>
>>
>> ###
>> --- Keith Kinsella <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Yaakub, Pip, and others
>>>
>>> I'm just 'coming up for air' after being swept along
>>> in the multiple wave
>>> minor  'tsunami' of ideas, references, questions,
>>> and suggestions that my little
>>> query  about what being 'invitational' seemed to
>>> generate. Thank you both,
>>> especially  you Yaakub, for your warm responsiveness
>>> and generosity of spirit and
>>> time, in  helping me expand my understanding both of
>>> this 'theory' (I didn't
>>> know I  was 'doing a theory' - therefore, I fit into
>>> the unintentional
>>> category - thanks  for the references, Pip) and the
>>> exciting flow of ideas about
>>> Ubuntu that  accompanied these.
>>>
>>> I printed out your last three postings,  Yaakub - so
>>> I could get a sense of
>>> the whole as well as the parts - and found  that
>>> you'd written over 5000 words
>>> in the short space of a day, full of ideas,
>>> references, suggestions for
>>> further study, personal appreciations, and so on.
>>> Amazing! And all written in what
>>> I'd now call a 'bracing' invitational  style: it
>>> felt like I'd been guided on
>>> a difficult walk  along the cliffs in a high wind,
>>> that I'd been taken to
>>> the(my) edge on a number  of occasions, but had been
>>> enabled to return safely
>>> feeling a little tired and  spaced out, but full of
>>> ideas and possibilities.
>>>
>>> So thank you for making the effort to generate
>>> those Ubuntu inspired waves
>>> within me....it will take a while for me to make my
>>> own sense of them, and see
>>> how I might work with the many aspects  you've
>>> offered, both to help myself
>>> as well show the two African students on the  MA
>>> programme, a possible path
>>> they might want to tread in their dissertations.
>>> I'm thinking particularly of
>>> the Zimbabwean who I'm sure is desperate to find
>>> ways of making his and his
>>> family/friends/colleagues' lives more livable. And I
>>>  think this is where your
>>> point about situating ubuntu in its historical
>>> context could be so powerful as,
>>> at the moment as you indicate, this has been
>>> subjugated/marginalised by
>>> mainstream thinking from the Western canon, and  in
>>> danger of re-appearing cut off
>>> from its roots and context. More on  this
>>> later....but definitely interested
>>> in working towards crafting 'a multiple,  complex,
>>> and inclusional
>>> epistemology of Ubuntu'
>>>
>>> Still pondering on the many ideas you  offered on
>>> the impact and 'doing' of
>>> invitational. As I read it the first time,  and
>>> using Polanyi's formulation of
>>> tacit knowledge,  I got the feeling I  was becoming
>>> more aware of the many
>>> 'subsidiaries'  that synthesised/were integrated to
>>> form the 'proximal' of being
>>> invitational. And this will allow me to dig deeper
>>> into these roots of the
>>> invitational, and expand my practice/behaviour into
>>> the larger space created by
>>>  the languaging we've been doing. I hope this isn't
>>> mysterious: I'm just
>>> saying  that talking about invitational and
>>> exploring its meaning has given me a
>>> kind of  permission to actually do more of it.
>>>
>>> Your references to the 'vessel' metaphor and the
>>> letting go of others'
>>> categories also resonated as it's something I'm
>>> still very  much in the process of
>>> doing. The 'conduit' or connectivity metaphor that
>>> you're  now exploring
>>> reminded me of the pair practice of 'pushing hands'
>>> in t'ai  chi - something very
>>> subtle is passing between the hands just enough to
>>> define a  very dynamic
>>> boundary where it's unclear who is
>>> pushing/retreating and  where any 'edges' might
>>> be, all within a conduit of continuous  movement.  I
>>> wonder if this might be a
>>> crude illustration of Alan's  inclusional boundary
>>> which connects rather than
>>> separates? Does it suggest in a  physical/energic
>>> mode how we might take
>>> steps 'towards mutual  availability', that would be
>>> experienced as invitational,
>>> appreciative,  shared? And what kind of standard of
>>> judgement would this help
>>> us live in  supporting the education of others
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Keith
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> Brian E. Wakeman
>> Education adviser
>> Dunstable
>> Beds
>>
>>
>