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Shotter Yancy Chapter8
Shotter Yancy Chapter8
The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots
are as deep in us as the forms of our language and their significance is as
great as the importance of our language.
(Wittgenstein, 1953, no.111)
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Early influences
Grammar school (1949 to 1953 and 1954 to 1956)
An early incident will characterize the issue here. Aged 12 years, I was among
a small group of boys allowed into the local grammar school in virtue of
having passed the 11-plus exam (IQ tests) established by the post-war Labour
government. The other boys in that years intake had attended the fee-paying
preparatory school, we hadnt. The headmaster took us on one side: You boys
are part of a special experiment. You ought not to be here, so you had better be
on your best behavior. Clearly, I never felt at home in that school and I left it
at 15 to work as an engineering apprentice in an aircraft factory, but returned
to it later, to study mathematics and physics.
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doubt about it but I left after one year, to return to school to become a mathematician, so that I too could become one of the staff, and have some say in
the making of things. I was sixteen at the time. Then, I never thought that I
would be writing on communication and the role of bodily feelings in its conduct in ways which in fact connects these two memories, in two different
ways.
One way is to do with how (a) the feeling into the hidden inner structure
of materials through the use of a tool like a file, connects with (b) sensing the
(also supposedly hidden) inner structure of the social world through the use of
words-as-prosthetic-devices. The other is to do with how (a) our lack of
words then to express how and why these trivial things mattered so much to
us, connects with (b) how we still do not quite understand how to articulate
the way these small things work to influence us in our feelings as to who we
are, i.e., to influence us in our identities, and how legitimately to counter
them. Nor do we quite understand how it is that, if one feels oneself reduced
as a person, one feels oneself as living in a reduced world.
Indeed, as an aside here, although Im convinced that we human beings
are the makers both of ourselves and what we take our realities to be, the kind
of constructionism of interest to me has always been much more of the
river-bed than of the river (see Wittgenstein, 1969, nos 95, 96 and 97),
i.e., to do with that aspect of our lives which goes on between us unconsciously and spontaneously, rather then cognitively and deliberately. Indeed,
with apologies for the sexist (and Enlightenment) terminology within
which it was then framed, I set the scene for my overall project in an earlier
1975 book as follows:
Men have created and are still creating the characteristics of their own
humanity. It has been produced, not as a result of evolutionary processes
processes that produce changes of a biological kind for men seem to have
stayed biologically constant for some time. Its development must be
considered to be a historical, cultural one, a matter not of natural processes
but of human imagination, choice and effort. And in inheriting this
manmade nature, this second nature, mens children do not inherit it
genetically like blue eyes, but like the houses and cities, the tools and other
more material artifacts they have fashioned, and besides teaching them skills
at using these they teach them skills at fashioning more. Children inherit
their humanity, then, in a process of communication which takes place after
birth... What has been overlooked in modern psychology, especially in its
more extreme mechanistic-behavioristic manifestations as a natural science
of behavior, is that man is not simply a being immersed directly in nature but
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is a being in a culture in nature. Thus people must not be treated like organisms
that respond directly in relation to their position in the world, but as rather
special organic forms which deal with nature in terms of their knowledge of
the position in a culture; that is, in terms of a knowledge of the part their
actions play in relation to the part played by other peoples actions in
maintaining (or progressing) the culture. (Shotter, 1975, pp.1314).
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careers; not, however, before having two children of our own, and adopting
two more.
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2.
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action research the methods of a social poetics which focuses on the new
responses that can function as the prototypes for new language-games
(Wittgenstein) but also on new styles of writing: participatory (with-ness)
writing rather than representational (about-ness) writing (Shotter, 1998).
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2.
To the extent that all human activities occur and have their meaning
within a larger whole, not only must others understand their meaning
in terms of their relations within that whole (i.e., meaning is a
relational notion), but that complex meanings can be played out or
specified between people, step by step, over a period of time.
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I soon began to realize that the distinction between action and behavior,
between events happening within and outside of our agency to control, was
not at all clear cut. For there are many events that, while they occur only
within and as a result of human involvements, occur without any of those
involved having any clear sense of having directly produced them, let alone of
having intended them. Further, the notion of understanding set out in the
1977 book was, to the extent that it focused on interpretations, an interindividualistic, cognitive notion. It depended on events occurring within the
heads of individuals. I needed to return to the beginnings occasioned in me by
Vygotsky, Dreyfus, and Dewey.
Thus, in articles written between 1978 and 1980, I introduced the term
joint action (stolen from Blummer, 1965/1966) to account for a special
third form of spontaneous social activity (i.e., activity that cannot be
accounted as either individual action done for a reason, or as behavior with an
outside cause), activity that cannot be attributed to any of the individuals
involved in it, but which is itself productive not only of the situation that
they are in, but also provides them with resources for their continued action
within it.
While the notion of joint action remains central to my whole research
program, my conception of social life at large has gradually grown more complex. In my 1984 book, I began to talk of everyday social life as possessing a
moral ecology as if people acted from within a landscape of ethically
defined but still contestable rights and duties. That landscape contained a
political economy of developmental opportunities, with certain regions of it
containing more opportunities than others, with different people having differential access to such opportunities. I also explored further the whole social
ontology of a world in which it was possible for human actions to make a real
difference to its future a world of becoming rather than merely of being.
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application for, rather than theories of their nature, I have focused on certain
special methods for their development methods, but not a methodology, got
from following Wittgensteins (1953) methods in his philosophical investigations.
What is so special about these methods is that they work in terms of what
Wittgenstein (1953) calls reminders philosophical utterances that, if
uttered to onself at the appropriate moment on encountering a difficulty in
ones involvements, move or direct one to act in a particular way.
The importance of such self-directed utterances such inner speech, in
Vygotskys (1962) terms can be understood in relation to two of his claims:
(a) that our higher mental processes are developed from our learning how to
marshal, deploy, and direct our already (biologically provided) lower mental
processes so as to orchestrate them into complex sequences; (b) that a spoken
word which might later become a symbol, i.e., have a representational function at first plays the role of means in forming a concept (p.56). This is
because in their expressive-responsive function, words spoken to oneself can
enable one to direct ones attention to an event, select distinctive features
within it, and to interrelate such features with others in other events.
As I see it, there is a direct connection between Wittgensteins (1953)
philosophical methods of investigation and inquiry and the part played in
them by the power of the living, human voice, and the methods we all as parents and teachers use in helping our children grow into the intellectual life of
those around them (Vygotsky, 1978, p.88), as outlined by Vygotsky. Thus,
Wittgensteins (1953) methods should not be thought of as methods of
research aimed at discovering already existing facts, but as concerned with
exploring possible next steps in the development of our already existing forms
of life.
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times of need. Let me add here that Rom Harr has also provided this kind of
encouragement in dark times (see Shotter, 1990, for an account of his work
and my relation to it).
I first came to the Department of Communication at the University of
New Hampshire (UNH) in 1991. The original enticement was an offer to help
begin a graduate program here. That, unfortunately, was overtaken by the
financial stringencies that struck the university about that time. Thus my
supervision of PhD research, instead of continuing at UNH, was cut short.
However, while at UNH, my scholarly writing continued, and I was blessed
there by a couple of enthusiastic colleagues in social constructionism both
strong scholars in their own right: Sheila McNamee and Jack Lannamann. I
was also able to do some collaborative work within the research projects of
other colleagues.
One of these arose out of Conversational Realities (Shotter, 1993b), in which
I discussed extensively a dialogical approach to social scientific research. In
1992, Professor Bjorn Gustavsen, originally an industrial relations lawyer but
at this time the director of the Worklife Research Institutes of both Norway
and Sweden, published Dialogue and Development (Gustavsen, 1992). He outlined a way out of the adversarial strife between unions and management in
European work life, using more dialogical forms of enterprise development.
He was also the architect of the Swedish Learning Regions project, based in
the idea of dialogue conferences amongst regional stakeholders, as well as
other similar Norwegian projects. He contacted me, and this has been one of
my main research involvements in recent years.
Another set of involvements has been in the medical sphere. Together
with Dr. Arlene M. Katz in the Harvard Department of Social Medicine, we
have published a number of papers on diagnostic interviewing, mentorship
programs, and psychotherapy. Of particular importance here, I think, is her
work with a Council of Elders, who functioned as consultants to young
doctors training in geriatrics, helping them to orient them toward aspects of
health care for the aged they might otherwise overlook (see Katz et al., 2000).
Following the leads provided by Wittgensteins (1953) philosophical methods, we have begun to develop what we call the methods of a social poetics,
a set of methods that works by focusing on unique and fleeting but nonetheless striking moments to which participants involved in an interaction
respond moments that Bakhtin (1993) calls once-occurrent events of
Being (p.2). These methods make visible the uniqueness of another persons
life, what matters to them. For this is the kind of understanding that is required
by practitioners who face everyday the practical task of deciding how to treat
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this particular person. Working with Dr. Ann L. Cunliffe, then from the
Whittemore Business School at UNH (and now working in California), we
showed how these methods for the refinement and elaboration of people
practices from within the practices themselves could be applied to management (see especially Shotter and Cunliffe, 2003).
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cannot ask bats. They can at least try to tell us of the nature of their world
(according to their own degree of eloquence) in their own terms. The question
now is what kind of stance ethical and otherwise is required if we are to
open ourselves to them as they tell us of themselves, and allow their otherness to
enter us and to make us other than we already are.
Concluding remarks
I have charted a course that has stretched over nearly 50 years but clearly, it
is not over yet. My hardback copy of Wittgensteins Investigations (now held
together by duct tape), has Nottingham 1968 inscribed inside the front
cover. But even now, it is still not a matter of me thinking that I am at last
beginning to understand it fully and authentically. Something else is at work.
At last I am beginning to see how the remarks in it can indeed work, at crucial
moments in ones own involvements, as reminders. Like Vygotskys (1962)
inner speech that we can use to instruct ourselves in the conduct of complex
actions, so we can use Wittgensteins words (his utterances, his voice) in the
same way. They can halt us in our tracks (halt the spontaneous, routine flow of
action), then direct our attention, not only to previously unnoticed features of
our immediate surroundings, but also to links and connections between them
and other important aspects of our lives.
More so, his methods get us up close to the details that matter to us in our
lives; put us, so to speak, so closely in touch with them that we can get a feel
for how we can go on in our practical affairs with a sure sense of where our
next step is coming from and going to: In order to see more clearly, he
remarks in commenting on the complexity of what occurs, even in the simple
activity of describing an array of colored squares, here as in countless similar
cases, we must focus on the details of what goes on; must look at them from
close to (Wittgenstein, 1953, no.51). When we do, it is in terms of everyday
details, accessible to all of us, that he is able to bring out into the light of day
distinctions of importance to us, distinctions that we do in fact use without
being aware it. Not troubling to pay such close attention, we can easily ignore
such facts, jumping to false conclusions as to how we must be acting to accomplish such achievements. It is this aspect of Wittgensteins work, its ability to
enable us to get inside the moment of acting, that makes it so powerful in
relation to my concerns along with Vygotsky, Vico, Bakhtin, Merleau-Ponty,
and others I have mentioned.
Our academic and scholarly training to do with human affairs, I now feel,
has been and still is wrongly oriented. In being modeled on scientific styles
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of inquiry, it orients us toward focusing on an already determined set of fundamental entities, and on the merely causal relations between them. This, as
indicted with respect to our inquiries into communication, leads us to ask
questions only about the patterns discernable in completed actions. In other
words, it orients us toward the scene of inquiry at much too late a stage, and
then leads us to look in the wrong direction, with the wrong attitude. We only
arrive on the scene after we have passed our exams and adopted certain already
agreed upon versions of what is supposed to be occurring out in the world
between us officially, everything of importance is hidden in the heads of
individuals. But then, not content with that, we look back toward past accomplishments, toward already existing actualities to find a causal pattern in them,
seeing them as mechanisms external to ourselves, rather than looking forward
toward the new possibilities provided to us from within our relational involvements. We do all this with the wrong attitude. For we seek a static, dead picture, a
theoretical representation, of a phenomenon, rather than a living sense of it as
an active, authoritative and action-guiding agency in our lives.
Clearly, what I have been trying to do in my allusive, linguistic gesturing
above, is to outline the character of something-yet-to-be-achieved, something about which I still feel disquiet, a something-not-right with how we
currently are with ourselves. In short, my life has been, and still is, a process of
moving on by backing away.
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