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Hi Alon
I agree with you that human beings cannot be reduced to  films, however that is 
not what I am intending to do in using video in  my research. I am trying to 
develop my use of video and image together  with text to enhance my 
communication of the ontological values that  form my explanatory principles and 
living standards of judgment of my  practice, as they emerge and are clarified 
in the process of researching  my practice as a living theory researcher. I 
tried to express something  of this in a short article I wrote, Huxtable, M. 
(2009) How do we  contribute to an educational knowledge base? A response to 
Whitehead and  a challenge to BERJ. Research Intelligence. 107 (pp.25-26).  It 
can be  accessed if you would like to read it from 
http://www.bera.ac.uk/publications/ri/

I  would be interested to learn more about how other people are  developing 
their use of multimedia narratives in their practice and  research, particularly 
in how it contributes to developing an  environment that calls out the best in 
everyone.

Enjoy a smile and pass it on
Marie





________________________________
From: Alon Serper <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, 20 May, 2011 8:57:39
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the 
best of everyone

Just to clarify that in my thesis I criticised in details the youtube method to 
which LET was transformed from autoethnography.

Re- This is what watching real human beings, being with one another, (in
real time or on film),

Real human beings cannot be reduced to films.  For a start because filming 
misses on smell (very important), taste and touch.  It merely covers seeing and 
hearing.  Hardly sufficient.  Also, there is the question of
human behaviour in front of camera.  Not asking permission is unethical and I 
think illegal.  People like to be portrayed favourable in front of a camera and 
this hinders natural behaviour.
I offered an alternative of dialectically enquiring-within-b/logging into the 
question, how do I lead a more fulfilling, meaningful and secure existence and 
relationships in, with and towards the world for myself?  I argue this method to 
be more profound and analytic in the phenomenological analysis and processing of 
ontolological experiences and values. I discuss this AR method in details and 
try to develop it into postdoc project that will popularise it and legitimate it 
further.

The thesis was a very practical suggestion of a dialectical AR method that I 
think is superior to LET in the studying of human existence and human subject.

In 2009 was told by an Internal Reader who was reading a previous and very 
different draft why I criticise LET for doing something that it did not intend 
to.  But then in the LET homepage, it is described as an approach to human 
existence.  My thesis tries to transform it into a superior 'AR approach to 
human existence'.  One that better delves into, identifies and processes 
ontological experiences of human being in the world.
Alon

Quoting "Salyers, Sara M" <[log in to unmask]>:

> Dear Alon and All...
> 
> Alon wrote:
> "My main disagreement with LET is with the point that verbal  language cannot 
>express ontology that therefore requires  audio-visual youtube clips.  Then,
> the problem of course is that audio-visual clips only cover seeing  and 
>hearing.  What about smell, taste and touch?  I think efforts  need to be made 
>to express oneself verbally.
> ...I keep seeing the most amazing examples of creative writing and  the most 
>amazing creative writing tutors."
> 
> 
> Boy, this conversation is forcing me to to reflect and clarify more  and more 
>deeply! It is very hard work and I thank you for making me  do it!  I think, as 
>one who is profoundly in love with the beauty  and power of language, I can 
>empathize with what you say.  Actually,  in terms of precise definition, I agree 
>with you - but in terms of  what you *mean* by what you say, I take a different 
>view.  If  Ontology is "A science or study of being: specifically, a branch of  
>metaphysics relating to the nature and relations of being; a  particular system 
>according to which problems of the nature of being  are investigated; first 
>philosophy", then, ontology is absolutely  expressed in words. In fact, there is 
>no such thing as inquiry  *without* language.
> 
> If, however, we are appropriating the word ontology to mean, not the  inquiry 
>into 'being-ness' but being-ness itself, then the case is  somewhat different. 
>(You notice that I do not use the word  existence. This is because 'existence' 
>does not convey the qualities  of presence and awareness, for example, that we 
>assign to  ontological inquiry. Which is why, of course, ontology is so often  
>'reassigned' to describe being-ness.) Being-ness is a clumsy,  cobbled together 
>word, and quite ugly; but substituting the word  'ontology' is a 
>misappropriation of existing language to meet a new  purpose, something that 
>makes the process of distinction,  articulation and reflection extremely 
>difficult. We do need a new  word but until we have one, I shall use 
>being-ness.  As we know,  words describe experience and assign meaning to that 
>experience;  i.e. they are descriptive and interpretive. Words 'name' and 
>thereby  describe experience, (never entirely adequately), but they cannot  *be* 
>the experience. Being, just like sunshine, roses or starlight  has no meaning 
>that we do not assign through language; (we see, we  feel, we name and we 
>interpret). Being and naming are two different  things. We do these two things, 
>describe experience and assign  meaning, congruently, fluently and seamlessly, 
>which is why we  confuse the two more often than not; that is, we mistake 
>assigned  meaning, or interpretation, for experience to such a degree that it  
>is almost part of the human condition. Here's an illustration:
> 
> Suppose you are stopped in traffic when look to your right and see  the driver 
>of the car next to you - staring at you with a look of  absolute venom. You say 
>to your friend who is driving, 'That man in  the car beside us looked at me with 
>pure hatred'. What happened,  though you did not know it, was that you looked at 
>a man in the car  beside you at the same moment when he turned his head toward 
>you. He  seemed to be staring - but he did not really see you at all because  he 
>was thinking about how to tell his wife that he had just been  fired. You 
>*could* have described the experience by saying, 'That  man just looked in my 
>direction with a terrible expression on his  face.' But you instantly, and 
>unconsciously, 'named' and assigned a  meaning to his expression, one that was 
>personal and hostile. It was  to that meaning that you reacted. (Notice that the 
>meaning you  assign to the experience exists in and arises only out of the  
>language you use for your interpretation.) You did not notice the  process by 
>which you have now come to own and internalize an  experience of being stared at 
>with hatred by a frightening stranger.  Your brain will react to the meaning as 
>to an actual experience and  will produce the appropriate chemicals, so that you 
>will feel shaken  and perhaps upset for some time afterwards, thus confirming a 
>'real'  encounter. But what happened actually occurred, not in experience,  but 
>only in the naming of what you saw and the meaning you derived  from that 
>naming.
> 
> Thus what happens when we (daily), mistake meaning for experience,  is that our 
>interpretations create our descriptions of the world  which, in turn, generate 
>new ideas which create further description…  or to put that more simply, our 
>'stories' become self-referenced,  grounded in and sustained by their own 
>internal consistency rather  than by living experience. Since human beings live 
>in stories, this  substitution of interpretation for experience can, and 
>sometimes  does, have deadly results. Please forgive me, I mean no disrespect  
>or criticism by it, if I take another example from one of your posts  where you 
>describe the psychological anatomy of a racist. (This one  doesn't have any 
>'deadly' results but I think it shows the  possibility of a common progression.) 
>Your postulation of the racist  character is entirely consistent with your 
>description of racism;  this in turn is supported by a good deal of evidence 
>from other  sources. (Not all the evidence, however, and not all sources.) In  
>other words, your analysis is entirely self-consistent - but it also  puts 
>meaning in place of experience and then self-references. A  racist is not an 
>idea but a person. You have described 'the racist'  and then presented that 
>story as if it were an existential reality,  i.e. in place of a human being who 
>thinks feels and acts in ways  that we would interpret as racist. You have 
>analyzed that story and  drawn sound, compelling conclusions from the evidence 
>contained  therein. But as this is self-referenced, it's fundamentally flawed.  
>Here is an amazing thing about it, for me. *I* found your story both  satisfying 
>compelling. It put the racist firmly in the camp of the  'other', flawed by 
>design, less healthy than 'us', and definitely  less human. And I have to say 
>that at visceral level I really liked  that! But then, that is precisely what 
>racism does - dehumanizes the  'other' while vindicating 'us'. So now I can see 
>that the story  cannot be true because enjoyment of 'othering' - even those who  
>offend my own humanity because they 'other' and then oppress on the  basis of 
>class, race, sex, belief etc. - demonstrates that the  operant factor is as 
>present in me as it is in 'racists' and, in  fact you and everyone else!
> 
> What has that to do with what can and cannot live in words, with AR  and Living 
>Theory? Just this. The only way to avoid the kind of  inauthenticity that lives 
>in the substitution of meaning for  experience, is to understand, absolutely 
>clearly, that words are  *not* and never can be the experiences they describe; 
>that you must  live, and live in, the experience that you describe; that you 
>must  return to the experience again and again to test your own  description. 
>Thus, my own experience of enjoying the 'portrait of a  racist' and then 
>reflecting on that enjoyment was all that pulled  *me* up short; there were no 
>flaws in the internal consistency of  your story and analysis. This is why we 
>have to ring-fence  unfiltered experience in ways that constantly bring us back 
>to it,  that remind us that description is not the 'thing-in-itself', so  that 
>we can stop describing and self referencing our own stories and  begin to give 
>the being-ness that precedes description and meaning  its true place.
> 
> This is what watching real human beings, being with one another, (in  real time 
>or on film), does for us. We can allow ourselves to see  and feel, just the way 
>we might turn our faces up to the sun or the  rain. Then we can look at one 
>another with love or wonder and say,  'What *was* that?' And begin to talk. And 
>we will know that the love  and wonder that we write and talk about are 
>what-they-are, and are  beyond our words. And we will also know that it is 
>wonderful to  reflect, to talk and to write about them so that we can share and  
>grow from the experience. We will also know that the words and the  experience 
>are not the same thing. The being-ness lives in the  experience; the reflection 
>(an image of the real thing only), lives  in the words. This is one of the 
>things that makes subjective, LT,  and our sharing of the experience in its 
>being-ness (on film if  that's all we have available) so powerful.
> 
> love
> Sara
> 
>