Hi 
thank you Marie that is really helpful -I'll give it a go.

Jack, I feel as though I'm talking 'out' of recent readings and into a
space here where there is probably more common ground than differences! 
However I think we are also coming at things from quite different
directions and maybe we can usefully explore some of this...
I've understood Habermasian  perspectives to be about 'communicative
rationality'  I speak; you hear kind of relationship when the press is
for concensus through dialogue - this invokes subjectivities whereby it
is possible to say what you mean and mean what you say and when
adjustments, amendments etc are all taken onto consideration we can all
arrive at something.  Deleuze is a philosopher of difference and for him
(I think...  don't quote me on it!) it is less interesting to ask who we
are?  and ask instead who we are becoming?  in either an indiv sense or
in social bodies.  The question, How do I improve....?  in educational
relationships or in educational research might therefore be usefully 
reconfigured as  how can we think anew?  "From being transcendentally
situated as the experiencer, there is the possibility of being inserted
into the plane of experience itself"  (Roy  2007;171)

Re active citizenship I think Deleuze has probably done more than any
other philospher to understand what entices us to act and how desire
functions within our lives.  His work also enables  a fluidity of
identity whilst never losing its impetus to connect with other social
bodies and movements - indeed may even have given us (Laclau and
Mouffe??) some ways of thinking the political as well as the social.

so not sure, if any of this is helping Louise  but they are interesting
questions and prompt reflection on what matters in teaching and research
and so to that end  maybe not wholly without a paddle and up the creek!

Cathie

>>> Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]> 04/16/08 2:20 PM >>>
On 16 Apr 2008, at 12:09, Cathie Pearce wrote:

> Thank you - by way of an experiment have drafted a short response  
> attached here.... how have you managed to create a link direct to  
> the page rather than a doc attached like this here?  sorry, I'll get  
> better at this one day!   Cathie

I think most participants will need to do what Cathie has done and  
attach a .doc file to a posting in order to develop a point. I've  
access to a server at both home and work so I can just create web  
files from the Save as Webpage facility in the File menu of Word and  
put the files in my public_html folder on a server which allows anyone  
to access them with the url.

Cathie - I like your point:

I ... can’t help thinking that despite our best intentions we (as in  
human beings) are arguably at our most delusional when we think we are  
doing  the ‘right’ thing...

My 'shocked' recognition of this came in 1971 on watching video-tapes  
of myself teaching when I thought I'd got enquiry learning going with  
my pupils when in fact I could see myself giving the pupils 'their'  
questions and pre-structuring the learning resources to answer these  
questions!

Since then I've stressed the importance of processes of democratic  
evaluation for strengthening the validity of one's beliefs about  
oneself and one's influence. I find this process has deepened and  
extended my self-understanding. I use Habermas' four criteria of  
social validity to help me to avoid being 'delusional' when I think  
I'm doing the right thing - hence my questions to others in the  
democratic forum of this e-space, about the validity of believing that  
flows of life-affirming energy can distinguish educational research  
from social science research and believing in the importance of  
legitimating new living standards of judgment in the Academy, as  
active citizens who believe that we are doing the 'right' thing.

Where you say that you take Deleuze to be attempting to reposition our  
questions and understandings I'm wondering what significance you think  
Deleuze'The first is 'How do I improve what I am doing?' in my educational  
relationships with my students. I ask this question from a practical  
concern to enhance my educational influences in their learning.

The second is 'How do I improve what I am doing?' in my educational  
research as I seek to contribute to the legitimation of new living  
standards of judgment in the Academy. I am thinking of the standards  
of judgment that are used in the Academy to determine what counts as  
educational knowledge.

I'd also be most interested in understanding how Deleuze's ideas have  
helped to reposition your own questions and understandings.

Love Jack.