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Rich conversations at our July meeting, and since.  See below as well as Reflections on openness and structure in education, Truth and power in education, The Taoist story teller and culture, Evolving Systems and Education, Reflections on openness and structure in education, From homes and perches to the cosmos, and back again, and Loopiness: conflict, humanness, and the universe.  Much of this draws from our July discussions of how to most effectively work together and, in turn, contributes to those discussions by considering similar issues in a different context, that of the classroom and educational practice.

Let me start with my own reflections with the meeting itself, and move forward/outward from there.  Anne says of the meeting and with reference to me, "we insistently refused him the role of group storyteller, and very quickly began to stand aside from his narrative of our sharing a "dissatisfaction with academic discourse."   Yep, I noticed that too.  And think both parts are interesting/worth glossing a bit.

Individual and group story telling

In Notes from the Underground, Dostoyevksy suggests that "the whole work of [humans] seems to consist in nothing but proving to [themselves] that [they are humans] and not piano-key[s]."  One of the problems of "group stories" (whoever the teller) is that they frequently feel constraining to individuals.  People in general (and individuals in this group in particular?) are more comfortable being "authors of our own stories" as opposed to being "characters in others." 

On the flip side, group stories can serve useful functions.  In some contexts (such as disciplines) they facilitate joint work on a common problem, making it possible for groups to achieve things that individuals would find difficult or impossible to achieve alone.  In other contexts, they can serve productively as a "base story," a common take off point from which there can be created both new individual stories and new group stories.

There is no necessary conflict between this and the wish to avoid being a piano-key as long as one bears in mind the distinction between an individual story and a group story.  One need not think of either as a replacement for the other.  One can instead appreciate differences between them and use those differences as the grist for further evolution of both (see Group mentality and group stories).  That's not always easy to do (cf Wishes/thoughts/stories/needs for change) but its probably a skill worth cultivating.

With that said, there remains the question of whether I inappropriately claimed the mantle of "group story teller," and the more general questions of whether there is/should be a "group story teller" and, if so, who serves  that function and by what authority.  Barack Obama, in a recent press conference, said "In my choice of words I unfortunately gave an impression ..." and "I could have calibrated those words differently.".  Me too.  I didn't actually mean what many people heard, apologize for my contribution to any misunderstanding, will clarify a bit below,  and will be more careful about this in the future.  I do think though that for any effective group inquiry a "group story teller" function is necessary.  I've written about this elsewhere in the context of a comparison between brain architecture and social organization, where I argue that generative individual and social cohesion both depend on a "fuschia dot" (see Figure 1 of the paper).  An important difference between brain architecture and social organization is that in the latter case the fuschia dot or group story teller function needn't always be fulfilled by one particular fixed element in an interacting system of elements.  It can, and should, move freely among as many individuals as are willing to take on that role.  By the authority that derives from that satisfaction of individuals in continually shaping both individual and group stories.

"a dissatisfaction with academic discourse"?

I don't think I actually misread an emerging consensus from our starting points and our first meeting, however poorly (and perhaps prematurely) I might have described it.  Regardless, the suggested "group story" clearly served a useful "base story' function, opening up a whole series of questions and revisions for further consideration.  Let me try and be clearer about what I actually meant and see to what extent that and the conversation it opened up might move us toward a revised group story and in turn in promising directions for further revisions of both group and individual stories.

I don't have the negative associations with "dissatisfaction" that (I now understand) other people do (this may well be related to my also making less of a distinction than many other people between perch and home,  personal and public, and action and message).  For me, to be dissatisfied with something is not to feel "angst," nor to assert that such a thing has no value, nor to "reject" it.  It is rather to notice that there are ways it might be made "less wrong."  I work from the presumption that there is no such thing as "perfection" and so to be dissatisfied with something is not to mark it as distinctively unworthy but rather to notice things about it that one feels some inclination to change. 

In these terms, I regard my own "disatisfactions with academic discourse as it is currently practiced in a wide variety of disciplines" not as an expression of angst nor a blanket condemnation of academia but rather as a creative engagement with academia, a contribution, reflecting my individual story, to a group story that I presume is generally recognized to be continually revisable.  It was in this context that I heard/read peoples' starting positions and our first meeting discussions, and still do.  I wouldn't trade my life as an academic for any other life I know of, but yes, there are things about it that I would like to see changed and will try and contribute to changing.  Among them are many of the specifics that were described by others, including a wish to have an arena that isn't structured by the group stories of disciplines.  I am not opposed to disciplines.  I believe they serve a valuable function, but think the academy needs as well some structures that not only permit but encourage wider exchanges and perspectives as well (see Exploring Interdisciplinarity   and Interdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity, and Beyond).   Just as one can contribute to, and benefit from,  different individual and group stories, so can one contribute to, and benefit from, several different group stories.  I don't see my engagement in transdisciplinarity as oppositional to my disciplinary engagement but rather as a way of expanding both, and my own still different individual story as well.

And on ...

Does all of this bring us any closer to a shared group story? some of us, in different groups, to several different group stories?  Whether it does or not, it certainly opens some new terrain for exploration in connection with my own story, terrain I'd be happy to explore with any one else interested ....

• What is it about our brains that makes us equate dissatisfaction with opposition?  Can this be changed?  See The Taoist Story Teller  and Loopiness: conflict, humanness, and the universe  for some recent thoughts along these lines. 
• Does productive change always depend on dissatisfaction?  "What about opportunity? Harmonic association? Aspiration?"
• How useful is the distinction between "provisional/immediate" and "directed/deliberative"? For individuals?  For cultures?  Can it be made sense of in terms of the brain?  in terms of an unconscious/story teller distinction?  in terms of "feel only situational, not existential, dissatisfaction"?
• "Can thinking and acting happen independently of commitments and power structures.  I think the answer is no."   And my bet is yes, there is a way out of the "castle of disappointment".  See Putting a toe in  and Taoist and Loopiness above.
• Can all, or any, of this help to better understand (make less wrong stories about) physics, geology, biology, the brain, interpersonal relations, history,  art, culture, philosophy  ... form, meaning, and aesthetics? understanding itself?  I think so but we'll see  ...