It is interesting for me to watch the Sotomoayor confirmation hearings while I’m working on a manuscript on multiculturalism. I think the whole “Wise Latina” imbroglio could be clarified by a look at Charles Taylor’s classic essay on the politics of recognition. In it, he emphasizes the great psychic harm done to individuals who are misrecognized in a society:

misrecognition shows not just a lack of due respect. It can inflict a grevious wound, saddling its victims with a crippling self-hatred.  Due recognition is not just a courtesy we owe people.  it is a vital human need.

This misrecognition causes damage becuase we are dialogical in our identity formation (i.e. reading cues from others in making assessments of our own self worth). This reality has led us politically towards the affirmation of a discourse of recognition where we actively seek to address misrecognition in our society. Sotomayor’s explanation of her “wise Latina” comments in her testimony on Tuesday suggests an effort on her part to combat this idea of misrecognition — that Latino/a’s are not capable of being lawyers and judges.

The pushback to Sotomayor on the right occurs because, as Talyor highlights in his essay, a politics of recognition has come to mean two distinct things. One one hand recognition can be defined as the recognition of commonality — the idea that we are all worth of equal dignity. This universality approach to the politics of recognition has been embraced by the right, at least rhetorically. The inference is that we in public life should emphasize our commonality.

Sotomayor’s response was to invoke a second way of thinking about the politics of recognition (i.e. group differences are valuable in public discourse and should be encouraged). Here’s her defense of her comments:

I think life experiences generally, whether it’s that I’m a Latina or was a state prosecutor or have been a commercial litigator or been a trial judge and an appellate judge, that the mixture of all of those things, the amalgam of them help me to listen and understand.

Or as Taylor puts it:

with the politics of difference, what we are asked to recognize is the unique identity of this individual or group, their distinctiveness from everyone else. The idea is that it is precisely this distinctness that has been ignored, glossed over, assimilated to a dominant or majority identity. And this assimilation is the cardinal sin against the ideal of authenticity.

Of course when put in the harsh spotlight of American political theater, Sotomayor seemingly did what most smart people do — she retreated to what is politically expedient and in the American context, a politics of difference is not politically viable. Here’s her response to Sen. Pat Leahy’s question on the “wise Latina” issue:

“I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging,” Sotomayor said. “I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences.”

Sounds very universalistic to me. But in thinking about it more, I’ve decided that she’s not walking anything back, but rather she believes both things.

This multiculturalism stuff is sticky business. While both a universalist and particuarlistic claim originate from the same universality place, (all people deserve human dignity, all people have distinct identities worthy of recognition), they produce distinctly different outcomes. While a universality stance is blind to group differences, a politics of difference calls for additional benefits/concessions for specific groups (Quebecquois, Aboriginal peoples, etc.)

The trick, I think, is being able to hold both concepts in your head simultaneously. There are spaces where universalism is appropriate and there are spaces where particularity is appropriate. The challenge is figuring out where those spaces are. it is kinda cool that this is even coming up as a point of contention in American politics more frequently.

Crossposted on Rhizomicomm

I was reading a review on Salon of Ellen Shell’s Cheap.  The premise is an intriguing one.  The world wants cheap, mass-produced items that are relatively disposable, but we are often unaware of the global implications of our desires, in terms of labour and the environment.  I’m currently revising a manuscript on innovation, technology, and China, so these concepts are top-of-mind.  One of the arguments that Shell makes is that downward wage pressures in low-wage nations are used to keep wages in the U.S. down through threats of downsizing and outsourcing.  The linchpin of the argument is one of costs, i.e., keeping them low, which revises quality expectations and feeds the corporate oligarchy.  Shell goes on to use IKEA as an example of a company selling disposability at the expense of true craftsmanship.  Sure, there is design that goes into the pieces, but the materials used and the mass-produced nature are indicative of a society that values disposable furnishings with cutesy names.  Palahniuk used what he called the “Ikea nesting instinct” as a social critique on consumption providing meaning, which Fincher captures in his adaptation of Fight Club {1999}::

I think that IKEA is doing what all mass-cult brands do.  They sell a meaning system, but this meaning system is increasingly tied to a fashion system {Roland Barthes; Grant McCracken}.  So, it’s not that we just want new things, but we want new things that have the right meanings.  After all, that’s the key to happiness.  While this may seem cynical, I think that this reflects a trend towards impermanence in our lives, in terms of jobs, where we live, and relationships.

Where’s the loyalty, where’s the love?

It’s in places like Red Hook, Emeryville, East Palo Alto, Coquitlam, Etobicoke, Boucherville…

Is IKEA that bad?  They could stand to do a better job of living up to their positioning, but I think Shell is right to make us think about our own culpable actions.  I think we need to be more conscious of what we value.

Twitterversion:: New book by Ellen Ruppel Shell takes on IKEA&what we value.Is the disposable society increasingly pervasive?#ThickCulture http://url.ie/22bq @Prof_K

Song:: Ikea – Jonathan Coulton

On the lighter side, I offer this {click on image to play video}::

Via @ZanyPickle on Twitter.  I’m not geek enough to tell if this is 8-bit graphics or not.  I’ll freely admit that many readers of this blog might be muttering TLDR when seeing my blog posts.

Twitterversion:: RT: @ZanyPickle New: How to speek geek http://cli.gs/TrqML || https://thesocietypages.org/thickculture/2009/07/15/geekspeak/ #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Technologic (Radio Edit) – Daft Punk

Inside Higher Ed has a good piece on the fiscal crisis (or bump in the road, depending on your politics) affecting the University of California system (HT: Org Theory).

The budget crisis facing the University of California, a 10-campus system serving 225,000 students, is without precedent. According to the latest projections – and these numbers change all the time – the system can expect last year’s $3.61 billion state budget to be reduced by about $813 million or approximately 20 percent.

While California has unique dysfunctions that explain their particular shortfall, the question of financial viability central to the “public” nature of universities across America. Already, many top public universities, including the UC system, draw their funding from non-public sources (fundraising, investments, grants, etc.). The ability of public universities to effectively fund raise and stay viable makes it easier for state governments to cut back on public expenditures for higher education, as they have been doing throughout the 90’s and 00’s.

Universities have a compelling case to make for public funding. They can persuasively argue that their viability is inextricably linked to a state’s global economic competitiveness. However, making this case poses a double edged sword in the political arena. If your reason for being is to produce a quality workforce, what’s the point of taking a class in Hebrew or Renaissance art? Of course, the standard response is that such courses are vital to the development of a well rounded individual. But as UC English professor Jack Miles points out in the article regrading the need to maintain liberal arts courses:

There are always people who call it frills and say ‘Who needs that? Who needs a symphony? Who needs a library?’ Those voices will always be around, and they become more compelling at a time of triage.…

In my own work, I’ve been examining the increased use of a “global competitiveness” frame in promoting diversity efforts at public universities. What gets lost in the discussion about global competitiveness is how framing dictates policy outcomes. If you sell yourself as primarily producing worker for the labor force (albeit highly skilled), then your institutional framework is going to have to adapt accordingly. This framing poses a critical set of questions for academia: how does your research contribute to economic competitiveness? How does your major contribute? How does the way you use your time as a professor contribute? All these questions, of course, beg the question of whether economic competitiveness is what we really should be selling.

I am vaguely replying to Ken Kambara’s recent post on environmentalism as a luxury.  I am teaching a class on environmental communication as part of an Upward Bound program here at California Lutheran University.  Upward Bound is a federally-funded pre-college program that offers first-generation and often low-income students preparation for college.  Several weeks ago I assigned students to write a rough script for an environmental PSA.  I pointed the students in the direction of various environmental organizations and supplied them with an article on eco-tunes published in the Sierra Club magazine.  I also allowed them to search out their own songs and sat back in amazement viewing their enthusiasm and skill in this task.

Despite the class’s overwhelming Latino and Spanish-speaking immigrant origins, songs from Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” to Ted Nugent’s “Great White Buffalo” soon start echoing through the computer lab. The students have just team-produced four video PSAs and will soon try their hands at reviewing environmentally-themed films.

Over the weekend I spoke to a former local school board member and teacher who has retired to teaching among Native American and Latino youth using Google Docs and other Web 2.0 tools with surprisingly favorable results among a population traditionally struggling with conventional learning. I guess the lesson is that we can produce positive outcomes among underrepresented groups using New Media and working with sustainability. I guess neither the environment nor education for all are luxuries.

I’m doing a lot of reading on the issue of multiculturalism and justice and I came across this piece by Amytra Sen in the Guardian (HT: Notes on Politics, Theory and Philosophy)

The idea of justice demands comparisons of actual lives that people can lead, rather than a remote search for ideal institutions. That is what makes the idea of justice relevant as well as exciting in practical reasoning.

Here, Sen is critiquing universal theories of justice (John Rawls as an example) that seek to prescribe one set of institutions for all persons. This form of justice, extended to all people, represents a “thin” form of multiculturalism which emphasizes our commonalities. The issue with having one form of justice that applies to all is that it ignores contextuality. It disembodies beings from their particular experience. The flip side then of a “thin” multicutluralism is a notion of justice that recognizes and supports difference (Iris Marion Young’s work as an example). This emphasis on individual distinctiveness situates people within their unique contexts by seeking to affirm group rights. This would be a “thicker” notion of multicultural justice. The problem with this approach is that in recognizing difference, “thick” multiculturalism ignores the real need for individuals to make collective decisions.

In the work I’m doing on diversity at public universities, I find that institutions are moving towards a thinner notion of multicultural justice. Court decisions, pressure from regents, donors and the business community all compel institutions to frame diversity in a less controversial language of diversity as a “competence” or a “skill set” that individuals need to be competitive in a global marketplace. This approach suggests that diversity is reducible to a uniform set of tools that can be applied to any context. This idea of “plug and play” diversity (apologies to Richard Florida) ignores the idysyncratic and ad hoc nature of dealing with others. This is what I like so much about Sen’s quote. Instead of teaching students to be deductively “culturally competent,” we should be teaching students to be inductive learners, building up their base of knowledge from experience and opening themselves to the ad-hoc and contingent nature of different interactions. I’m a fan of Charles’ Taylor’s call for “adhockishness” in our interactions with diverse others.

Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE, online MBA namesake {this Economist article is funny}, and policy critic is no stranger to controversy.  Here’s “Neutron” Jack warning of Obama running up deficits::

I have no problem with criticizing policy, but when it drifts from rhetoric towards potshots, my patience wears thin remarkably fast, regardless of the ideology.  Welch offered the curious advice of a “fake plan” after revisions of the deficit came out and Obama already responded to the news.  In my book, Welch isn’t offering analysis, but just stirring the pot and trying to seem relevant in the eye of the public.

Fast forward to June 28, when Welch offered up more controversy at a human resource management conference and was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article.   Now, after his comments have gotten into the press, Welch is getting into a bit of hot water for statements he made on there not being such a thing as a work-life balance.  Welch said those taking time off for family won’t be there “in the clutch” and could be passed over for promotions.

“We’d love to have more women moving up faster…But they’ve got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one.”

According to Welch, there is a consolation.  While you might not get to the top for trying the career-family balancing act, you can still have a nice career, nevertheless.  Some praised Welch for his bluntness, while others lambasted him for being “out of touch.”

One comment on the article accused the WSJ of attempting to increase pageviews with inflammatory articles and another accused Welch of trying to peddle his book.   The Twittersphere was abuzz with Welch’s statements, as of 7:12 EDT, with plenty of retweets of the article and quite a few naysayers.  Welch himself, who has a Twitter account, is in the hospital with a serious spinal infection, so don’t expect anything from him on the matter any time soon.  One Tweet called him a grumpy old man, as did a blog at The Conglomerate {via Salon}.  Grumpy or not, is he right?

While his words might seem to apply to both men an women equally, the fact of the matter is that there are key perceptual gendered differences in organizations when it comes to family, bringing up a double-standard.  Scott Coltrane’s paper, “Elite Careers and Family Commitment: It’s (Still) about Gender,” makes this point clear::

• “Family men” are viewed as having mature leadership qualities
• Women getting married or having children can derail their previous “fast track” status, as that choice renders her as less-qualified

Welch is advocating what some in sociology call a “separate spheres” ideology, regarding gender, allowing the double-standard on the meaning of “family” to persist.  The fact of the matter is that even if you talk about “family” with respect to both men and women, the meanings aren’t the same.  Research on CEO succession are consistent with the tenets of economic sociology, i.e., if one desires to be heir to the CEO throne, social relations within the organization and with the corporate board matter {e.g., See Cannella & Shen}.  So, if you’re up for a CEO spot, it matters how others perceive you, whether you like the double standard or not.  Welch is promoting a mythology of the CEO as an individual totally committed to the organization.  Along with his other statements, CEOs and managers all should have a draconian stance and total obeisance to the almighty shareholder value, or perceptions thereof {including cooking the books?}.

It’s a bottom-line world, right?  Companies face a reality and Jack is simply reflecting it.  Maybe not.  BusinessWeek taped a Q&A session with the CEOs of Sony {Howard Stringer} and Best Buy {Brad Anderson}, two companies with very different attitudes towards the “balance” issue::

“What became apparent in subsequent discussions from both CEOs was that personal time was pretty hard to come by. Stringer talked about the differences in the Japanese and U.S. career cultures. The Japanese work much longer hours including one weekend day, and the idea of a great deal of leisure time, or time spent in their homes with their families, is still not part of their culture. He also noted that many employees, manager level really, were still mostly male (something he hoped to help change).

This was in stark contrast to the recent changes at Best Buy and their new flexible hours program being implemented at all levels of the company. Mr. Anderson gave the example of two women (working mothers) promoted to manager who were now able to job share, since neither due to child care commitments could work the hours required.”

Organizations are social systems and are often in states of flux.  Welch is advocating a received-view way of thinking, but on the basis of what logic?  I would argue that we need to rethink the role of the CEO, away from organizational financial performance and towards meaning and leadership.  A strong leader creates meaning, which guides actions throughout.  It would be interesting to compare the meaning systems of Sony and Best Buy and how it affects corporate culture and decision-making.  Maybe students in Welch’s online MBA programme can take that on.

Twitterversion:: Jack Welch stirring pot w/comments on work-life balance. Oldschool ideas reinforce faulty logic. #Fail  http://url.ie/21sr #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Work Is A Four-Letter Word – The Smiths

ThickCulture bloggers and friends, what kind of tech user are you?  According to Pew, I’m a digital collaborator::

Click on the image of the link here to find out which type you are & feel free to post your results here, as well as your thoughts on it.  Detailed descriptions are here.

“Digital Collaborators: 8% of adults use information gadgets to collaborate with others and share their creativity with the world.

For many Digital Collaborators, digital information is input into a creative process that often involves others and whose output they share with the world using the web. Members of this group can almost always get access to the internet, whether that is with an “always on” broadband connection or with an “always present” mobile device. With such robust connectivity, Digital Collaborators share their thoughts or creative content with others. Using blogs and other content-creation applications, they collaborate with others online to express themselves creatively. For Digital Collaborators, the internet can be a camp, a lab or a theater group — places to gather with others to develop something new.

This pattern of active and continuous information exchange puts ICTs [information and communication technology users] at the center of how Digital Collaborators learn, work, socialize and have fun. Most play games on electronic devices, with half playing games on the internet. At least occasionally, most of them watch TV on a device other than a traditional television set. And one-quarter have avatars that let them participate in virtual worlds. The typical Digital Collaborator is in his late 30s and has had years of online experience to hone his skills to get the most out of ICTs.”

I think this is fairly accurate.  I’m not tethered to my cellphone, using it primarily for texting and quick “I’m at the front” type of calls in “real-life.”  One of these days I might tweet a Giants or ‘Jays game, but maybe just uploading photos via TwitPic.  Speaking of games, untrue to the digital collaborator type, I’m not into electronic games at all.  My technology use is primarily forms of blogging, including Twitter.  My presence on Facebook {social networking site} is often phantom, since I push my Tweets over to my wall.

So, again, what type are you?  Feel free to post your responses in the comments.

Twitterversion:: What’s your”techuser”type?Take short test@ #PewInternet.Link to test:: http://url.ie/202m Feel free to post results/thoughts. #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Home Computer – Kraftwerk

Crossposted on Rhizomicomm

In 1959, my Chicagoan parents visited Toronto, Ontario and the city left little impression upon them.  Architecturally nondescript, it was seen as an unfortunate product of postwar growth in an uninspired age.  I remembered this and when I was driving from Montréal to Los Angeles in 1992, I didn’t even stop to visit Toronto.  My only recollection of the city was seeing a cluster of highrises in the distance while on a huge swath of a highway with express and collector lanes, the mighty 401.  Living in Toronto over the past few summers, I’ve found the city to be much more fascinating than I gave it credit and a lot has to do with how much of the downtown core is walkable.  I’m reading a book, Walkable City, by Mary Soderstrom that draws heavily on Jane Jacobs, a key urbanist figure here in her adopted Toronto.  Toronto from its inception, started with a grid::

Toronto’s grid, unlike that of New York City’s Manhattan, consisted of short streets and encouraged the development of neighborhoods and community.  José’s blog earlier this year notes how grids are safer than dendritic street patterns.  Jane Jacobs helped to thwart a freeway project, the Spadina Expressway, which would have taken cars from the mighty 401 allowing them access into the heart of the downtown core.  The expressway would have encouraged more sprawled developments outside of the core, but some have argued that Toronto’s anti-car policies have driven development out towards the suburbs, with cheaper land and lower taxes.  One of the outcomes of the Spadina Expressway failure was the creation of the Spadina subway line, which focused development along that corridor.

Flying into Pearson and seeing maps of the Greater Toronto Area, there is no mistake that there is sprawl.  The Toronto I’ve encountered is one of surprises, as the downtown core is walkable and much can be accessed on foot.  While I complain about the local mass transit, the TTC, particularly since it’s often crowded and expensive {cashfare of $2.75 CAN is one of the highest in Canada}, it works.  If you live in the downtown area, one doesn’t need a car and like in Manhattan, a car is often a liability, rather than a convenience.  Nevertheless, I see Toronto as at a city at a crossroads.  Increasingly dependent on automobiles in an era of volatile oil prices, with an infrastructure dependent on gas taxes and registration fees.  Toronto is the largest city in Canada, comparable in size to Boston, but runs the risk of being gridlocked and subject to the “tyranny of the automobile,” as a prescient 1966 Toronto Planning Commission warned.  From a marketing point of view, I see glossy developers’ ads enticing residents with more space and lower prices {and possibly lower taxes} outside of the downtown core, which I’m sure are compelling to many.  Unfortunately, many of these developments aren’t factoring in walking.  While they may be close to mass transit, they often aren’t in vibrant communities with mixed-use {housing and businesses} and adequate amounts of affordable housing.  I’m afraid the thinking is still along the lines of modernity’s arboreal tree, as opposed to the Deleuzean rhizome, but A City Is Not a Tree.

In discussing public financing of infrastructure, a curious split occurs.  When discussing freeways, there’s often a mentality of built more to alleviate the strain.  Like Internet bandwidth, there can never be too much carrying capacity.  The minute one talks about mass-transit, there’s often a discussion of whether or not usage and fare revenues will be sustainable.  Transit-oriented development might be a solution, if increases in property values from proximity from mass transit can be leveraged to finance its construction {an overview of this is here}.

In the past few years, I’ve come across a microculture of mass-transit afficionados.  Some go as far as to create “fantasy” transit maps, particularly of subways or light rail::

I think this stuff needs to get plugged into a Sim-City-like environment, but like any abstraction, it’s only as good as its assumptions.  My utopian vision of Toronto is one with concentrated development along corridors and with a direct connection to Pearson {Airport}.  My idea was a line that went from Pearson to downtown, following Queen in the downtown core, and eventually looping back up to the Bloor-Danforth line.

Any thoughts on your town/city?  Is it walkable?  Does it matter?

Twitterversion:: WalkableCity-#Toronto,Transit& CarCulture.Can TO dvelpmnt be shaped,creating vibrant communities sans cars? http://url.ie/1zuk #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Come To Milton Keynes – The Style Council

Jessica Lussenhop says our kids are awash in pornography, but for the most part they can handle it, or at least exhibit a nonchalance about it. Shudder inducing quote (for me at least):

“I have 140 gigs of porn on my computer,” one of his buddies says. “I was going to put it all on an external hard drive and pass it to all my friends. And I said this in front of my friend’s parents.”

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, his frankness is astounding. Second, this very nice boy with the 140 gigs of pornography gives his first and last name to include in this article. I’m not going to print it here.

I’ve thought some about this ubiquitous pornography question because we had Naomi Wolf come to our campus a few months back and give a thought provoking talk about how the deluge of porn had the effect of demystifying (rationalizing – although she didn’t use that work) the female body. Channeling Max Weber, She called for bringing courtship and magic back into relationships.

My own view is similar to Weber’s in lamenting that “the romantic mystery ship has failed.” The broarder implications for me as a parent and as a political scientist is the hyper-rationalizing of our youth. Our students, in my view, are evolving into “hyper-processors” who are able to synthesize vast amounts of information. I think, in general, this makes them more goal oriented and focused. The flip side is that they are less reflective. I think my big fear is that our young people are losing an ability to be intentional in their behaviors….i.e. they are too preoccupied by their increasingly complex habitus that they find it increasingly difficult to exhibit the agency necessary to alter their habitus. Not to get all sci-fi, but it would seem like the technology pushes structural change in ways that are not rational or driven by conscious thought.