I am exploring/developing a concept of "cultural stacks" in the hope it may help me clarify my position...
(And maybe for comparing types of creativity: (1) access to emergence & (2) construction
(I need a simple yet extendible concept that focusses attention on ideology and is inclusive, not bound to the dualism of language!)
The cultural stack is a continuum between a defined "commons" Zizek (2010)* and a situated subject position (Davies and Harre, Henriques) ....
(c.f Finding a groundless solidarity? re the Flat Plane post structural and the "Individual"
What is a cultural stack?
The vertical poles/arrows represent the extended 'identification' of a subject position in cultural space
The discs represent cultural layers: each layer specifies :'objects', 'actions' and 'names'
The top of the stack is where we always find a situated & located subject position
(c.f post-structural theory)...
(c.f Our exclusive I-ness?<> specific role?)
The foundation of the stack is where we find the Commons (our inclusive We-ness) (a meta narrative?
Subject, Subject Positions and Stacks
A specific subject (me, you) may have access to numerous subject positions, (c.f. roles)
Another aspect of this theory is that of transparency of layers
To the specific situated individual subject position, certain layers of the stack with their options of action, owned objects, and names are transparent, some are not, some can be changed, some cannot...
If a layer is not transparent then the actions/objects/names of that layer are taken as given, they are 'facts' not assumptions... here is how cultural stacks depict ideology....
Can the specific subject position change the transparency of layers and change the values within the layers:? here is where we find the importance of meta-language, to be able to discuss access to values...?
When access to these layers are available (i.e. they are transparent) the 'common layers meta-narrative' is able to be discussed in relation to the subject position as compared with just imposing an ideology...as 'fact'
The transparency of layers is directly related to designed perceived affordance and affect
"for in design, we care much more about what the user perceives than what is actually true. What the designer cares about is whether the user perceives that some action is possible (or in the case of perceived non-affordances, not possible)."
c.f
"I use the concept of affect as away of talking about a margin of manouverability, the 'where we might be able to go' and 'what we might be able to do' in every present situation. I guess 'affect' is a word I use for 'hope':
Massumi is concerned with human value , Norman is concerned with design value...
Levels of creative enquiry may only be concerned with an objective task, i.e. the transparency of deep cultural levels may not be addressed, though they may well influence the enquiry
They may concern wider human values...
Yet as most design tasks take place in the context of a user/subject position human values are always relevant...
To retain and extend the hope (and affect) Massumi is concerned with in such a context may require the following...
" the abandomment of conditioned influences, abandonment of reassurances about reality, and ultimately the sacrifice of ones Weltangschuung. as long as these influences remain intact, thepossibility of unending enquiry remains a myth" D'arcy
Looking at Theory via Cultural Stacks:
Bordieu and Cultural Stacks
Bordieu admits social formations are structured in hierarchical fields
The Dispositions/inclinations of habitus could be depicted as flowing along the arrows
The (objects)events of the world trigger responses (actions) based on these dispositions/inclinations
however
Another important feature of the concept of field is that
it is a dynamic concept; a change in the positions of the
agents acting in the field will change the structure of the
field itself. The field is therefore nothing more or less
than the total positions of the agents interacting in it
The agents in the field, low versus high, compete for the
scarce resource they can harvest in a particular field, for
instance academic qualifications in the academic field -
academic qualifications are equal to what money are in the
economic field, creating a universally acceptable resource
for obtaining high or low positions in the field. (p.187 Theory of Practice) Bourdieu argues that human view not only economic capital, but social and cultural capital as scarce resources, which as he writes,:"...may be 'fair words' or smiles, handshakes or shrugs, compliments or attention, challenges or insults, honour or honours, powers or pleasures..." (p.178 Theory of practice) These forms of capital can be harvested in different fields
(Think about these )
Example : engineer a may be a punk rockers so he has
* an engineer layer with tools and skills
* "punk" layer with accessories and actions
* he has a "human" layer with human needs (Shelter, love, food etc)
Some of these layers and there attributes may be more accessible/transparent to him than others...
If they are not transparent then he is subject to ideology...
Discussing a particular attribute of the engineer within a particular layer is not the same as discussing the stack, they are a different type of discussion...
Discussing the layer within the layer would be a meta-discussion (different from a meta narrative) it would show self awareness- reflexivity.....
Bridging the specific technical (The limb) with the collective commons (the social body)?
Social Research is concerned with norms of name, action and object in the layers of the stack...?
But only in relation to an individual do they become enacted....
The academic tradition has an aim of creating/enabling access to knowledge: transparent cultural layers as experienced from specific subject positions...
Does the market has an interest in defining the top of the stack as real and obscuring the more communal levels
Does it drive an ontology of exclusion
Is this done by fixing subject positions that lack knowledge of alternatives to products sold
These alternatives may be simple material replacements, or different relations/interpretations that sit at different cultural levels of the stack
Information overload can also obscure access to alternatives...
We could perhaps explore Gaaltungs Transcend via this: see article (re Habermas/Bourdieu/ Foucault/)
What about comparing types of creativity: (1) access to emergence & (2) construction
*"today intellectual property is our commons, information is our commons. Something that Marx could not have predicted is taking place today: we are witnessing a strange regression to the same kind of enclosure of the commons, and people having to pay rent to people like Bill Gates for intellectual property." Zizek 2010
‘The enclosure of the commons is a process of proletarianisation of those who are excluded from their own substance… The present conjecture compels us to radicalise it to an existential level well beyond Marx’s imagination. We need a more radical notion of the proletarian subject.’
Zizek - "First as Tragedy, then as Farce"
** Transparency of information re reaching decisions due to technology c.f information overload c.f
Heylighen
*** D'arcy
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