Devi -- I wonder what the opposite pole of the construction
INTELLECTUAL might be? Would it be, like [to use an overused term],
PASSIONATE? Are you alluding to the great PASSION-REASON dichotomy passed down
to use from, like, Aristotle????
How about IRRELEVANT-INTELLECTUAL?
I did make some comments relative to the thread to which you have
addressed your heady comments. I appreciate your directness.
I would guess that you might have located my comments on the
INTELLECTUAL pole of whichever dichotomous construct you had in mind. And,
I wouldn't mind, at all. After all, Roger's spoke testily of Kelly's
formulations as being excessively "cognitve," by which he meant INTELLECTUAL,
if one uses the PASSIONATE-INTELLECTUAL polarities. But, since I wouldn't use
that set of poles, I was not contrained by the fear of engaging in a bit of
PASSION. Some of us are quite skilled at enacting an emotional life drama
which others might call passion. We have taken lessons from people who would
regard Anna Magnagni's enactments as TAME.
If I didn't post other comments, I believe, I was constrained by the
possibility that my comments would be judged to be BORING or IRRELEVANT.
But, having read something of a reprimand addressed to those who tried
to deal with a heavy issue in a way that might be judged as INTELLECTUAL, I
will put down some thoughts that might be judged as IRRELEVANT, or BORING.
You, Devi, might be able to provide some feedback to my comments. I
say that, because I gather that you have done a great deal of work with
organizations -- their structure, etc.
As I followed the interchange generated by the issue of rejection by an
organization, I thought back over "Mancuso's theory of the coterie of forty."
You've never heard of it == It was an unpublished rumination, shared with
friends, etc. [Currently, I think, the Mancuso theory would gain credibility
by being published in a book on organizational psychology in a chapter on
NETWORKING.]
The fundamental postulate: In order to advance in the academic world,
one needS to develop a coterie of forty colleagues.
The corollaries go on to describe the features of the individuals in
the coterie -- two journal editors, etc., etc.
In discussion the theory, I did discuss the idea that the most crucial
member of the coterie would be one's dissertation advisor. He/she would be the
keystone to the development the rising academic's developing coterie.
Now, some people fail to develop the dissertation advisor as key to
coterie -- so, the struggle is on.
What advice would you give to a young person who is about to set off on
a quest for coterie?
I am not sure, of course, that my advice would be useful, but ---
I would guess that the first thing one would want to do is to identify
potential members of the coterie by looking carefully at the work of others in
the discipline [note the term CAREFULLY].
The object of this careful survey??? To try to find someone who has
ideas which are compatible to those you regard as worthy of development!!!!
Now we come to the hard part!!! Get something useful down on paper --
or into electronic bits, or whatever. At any rate, it must be down in hard
copy -- ready for the next tough, grating, frustrating, invalidating, round of
activity: exposing the work to those you had thought to be like-minded.
If the coterie doesn't begin to develop, of course, there is a need for
reassessment!!! What might be the next steps??? No one is obligated to give
someone entry into an existing coterie.
No one is obligated to take the aspirant's work seriously.
[Personally, I found it very offensive to have someone present me with a work
on PCP in which THE WORDS were used, surrounded by a text that showed little
understanding of the issues which drove the theory and the theorists'
resolutions of those issues.]
If the aspirant made the wrong assessment of the potential members of
his/her coterie, he/she might need to reassess his/her choices, and cast about
for another coterie -- time is passing, meanwhile, so she/he had better "move
it."
These, then, are some of the thoughts that I might have written.
Readers can now lay their own personal constructs on this discourse.
It, too, can be regarded as INTELLECTUAL. Or BORING!!!??? Or IRRLEVANT.
However -- I am aware that INVALIDATION can be very conducive to
prompting heightened effort to bring about an end to discrepancy between one's
constructions and the continued flow of inputs from the world of occurences.
Some people construe the consequences of HEIGHTENED EFFORT as EMOTION. So, it
would be possible to say that I am speaking of a very EMOTIONAL scencario. We
would rather speak of EMOTIONAL LIFE NARRATIVES. Exposing one's efforts --
one's self construction -- one'e future directed narratives to others is to
risk clear indications that one's self constructions cannot receive
SOCIAL WARRANT [Ted Sarbin has suggested that we might consider using the term
SOCIAL WARRANT, rather than VALIDATION. More on that, later.] The heightened
effort to reach discrepancy resolution, with or without SOCIAL WARRANT, can
wear one down, can't it???
Perhaps it would be of considerable value for some of the "central
coterie" of the people who work with personal construct psychology to discuss
the whole matter of gaining entry into a vital coterie of like-minded people.
Jim Mancuso
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