Beth Schaible, Take Root

Shaun Slifer, Obligatory Bird

Josh MacPhee, Plant Seeds

The dialectician…plants and sows…discourse accompanied by knowledge- discourse capable of helping itself as well as a the [wo]man who planted it, which is not barren but produces a seed from which more discourse grows in the character of others. Such discourse makes the seed forever immortal and renders the man who has it happy as any human being can be.

Aristotle, Phaedrus

Discourse?

What is important to the sustainment of social and cultural capital is not language, and surely not grammar, but saying (writing) - doing - being - valuing - believing combinations. These combinations are "Discourses"...

Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes. James Gee, linguist

Forms of Capital

EconomicNaturalProducedHumanSocial *Cultural *

* Social and Cultural Capital consists of mutual understandings, socially constructed and valued knowledge, and cooperative agreements among groups of people sustained through discourse.

Imagine that you enter a parlor. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is all about. In fact, the discussion has already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before.

You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending on the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, and you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

— Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (110-111)

Aristotle’s School in Mieza

Popular views of rhetoric ignores the shared dialectical nature of communication by characterizing the rhetorical interaction as moving in one direction--from the rhetor to the audience.

Discourse is not something that exists in our minds before communication nor does it exists out there in the world for us to use objectively. Instead, discourse is generated transactionally in this larger system of understanding, knowledge, and beliefs.

In contrast, rhetorical theory places us within complex rhetorical ecosystems where we are but one small agent within the ongoing system of exchange.

On Christmas Eve in December 1968 a turbulent world gained a new vision of the planet Earth. This photo of "Earthrise" over the lunar horizon was taken by the Apollo 8 crew …showing Earth for the first time as it appears from deep space.

In a historic live broadcast that night, the crew-- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders--took turns reading from the Book of Genesis, closing with a holiday wish from Commander Borman: "We close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -- all of you on the good Earth.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnyNXLXl8iA

Earthrise, 1968, NASA

We are as gods and might as well get used to it. So far, remotely done power and glory as via government, big business, formal education, church has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing--power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.

Steward Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue, 1968

NASA Zond 5 Image of Earth (September 18, 1968)

To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening.

To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency.

But is is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among many [many] other cases, a world among many [many] worlds [on one earth that we must steward together].

Clifford Geertz, Anthropologist

It is perhaps not too much to say that, in the first decade of the new millennium, humanity has entered into a condition that is in some sense more globally united and interconnected, more sensitized to the experiences and suffering of others [and our shared planet], in certain respects more spiritually awakened, more conscious of alternative future possibilities and ideals, more capable of collective healing and compassion, and, aided by technological advances in communication media more able to think, feel, and respond together…to the world’s swiftly changing realities than has ever before been possible. Richard Tarnas, 2006

How can we effectively engage in DIALOGUE with diverse WORLD VIEWS, stewarding and inventing SOCIAL & CULTURAL

CAPITAL ?

NYC, June 7, 2006University of South Australia

Taruja Parande, India