sociodrama

[Adam Blatner]

Dear Peter, you make some good points. They warm me up to an encounter.
      Last question first:
         PH How can we expect others to have great debates when we can't chew on each 
other's liver here?
 AB: Great debates? Well, there's debating to win in a zero-sum, win-lose way, very 
collegiate..
            And there's vigorous discussion that explores creative synthesis.
        As for great debates, I am fairly certain that temperance, civility, tact, 
acknowledging the good in the other, and other elements can co-exist with feelings. 
Feelings need not mean incontinence. It isn't necessary to swear, for example, nor to 
denigrate the other.
       Also, I'll say again, the idea that an email listserve is the same as an in-person 
encounter is illusory and misleading. The lack of involvement of perhaps the great 
majority of "lurkers" offers an ambiguous interpretation. The lack of nonverbal 
communications, of being able to say, "Whoa, don't walk out the door!"---all are 
important.

    PH   How about we celebrate the ongoing development of a place (this forum)  where 
participants are able to speak/present/respond in a less strictured way.
        ab: depends what you mean by less strictured way. Do you envision no strictures? 
Open discussion as to what kinds of strictures.

   PH  I know I respond when it happens. I think for two reasons - I like to see what 
others are moved by (it helps me to find my place and thinking in the world) and I love it 
that people are able to respond in a way that allows their thinking to then progress.
       ab: Alluding to Hamlet's soliloquy, "Aye, there's the rub!" What if it seems as if 
people are responding in a way that suggests that their thinking is NOT progressing, but 
rather simply spouting-off, opinionating, and defending the right to engage in logical 
fallacies. If it's said to be a "feeling," many thoughts thus seem to demand special 
treatment, as if irrationality combined with feeling must be granted credulity.
       People are moved more often by irrationality, the urge for simplistic 
solutions---the "Let's just bomb them into the stone age" modes of thought, than they are 
by the "stricture" of the neocortex, the "wait a minute."
     They should, and Let's often becomes confounded by questions such as "who's going to 
get people to agree," "how will it be done, enforced?" and other details. "Might the 
innocent be harmed along with the guilty" becomes mixed with "do we know which ones are, 
in fact, guilty? and How do we know?"  And on and on...

        PH  I mean this forum has to be one of  the safest group spaces around. I think we 
have enormous margins to make
 mistakes but only if we take them and don't get killed - metaphorically. ab: I don't 
agree, I feel that I've been slapped down by strong language by a number of people on 
occasion in the last decade on grouptalk. (yep, it has been going that long!)
       It's not just that these hurt a bit, but more, it's unclear what to make of these 
reprimands. I'm not talking about reasoned disagreement, here. If no one speaks up, and 
often no one did, sometimes some folks did, then one wonders. What is safety?

    ab continues. In summary, the plea for more spontaneity need not blur into permission 
for self-indulgence in hostility, transference, and emotional incontinence. Now this whole 
counter-argument will be interesting, because Peter is a good fellow, his proposition is 
friendly and plausible, and my desire to respond and modify it in no ways reflects on him, 
but rather focuses on the need for an undertone of civility and a search for 
understanding, synthesis, clarity. I wonder what others will say, and what will not be 
said? What will remain between the lines?

       Such considerations are also pervasive in group dynamics. Warmly, Adam




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Howie" <peterhowie at macquariehouse.com.au>
To: "Adam Blatner" <adam at blatner.com>; <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 3:20 PM
Subject: Re: article Sociatry


> Hi Adam,
>
> RE: So there's a sociometric dynamic: Can I object to this or that turn of statement 
> without feeling that others will be overly angry?
>         Thus does intemperate language affect the social field.
>
> In the hope of stating the obvious and in the hope of being wishy-washy and also in the 
> hope of keeping this going a bit longer - Adam isn't this dynamic one of the, if not the 
> main cultural controlling factor we become imbued with from our families and more 
> especially our schools and other institutions. And the corollary -  If someone gets 
> overly angry with me then I will be rejected/isolated/attacked etc. And then I am faced 
> with the "psychotic fear of abandonment" as Bion put it.
>
> And I think you are well aware that there is no rationality without emotion/feelings. It 
> is these feelings and emotions that drive us in a particular direction where our 
> rationality then becomes applied.

>  How about we celebrate the ongoing development of a place (this forum) where 
> participants are able to speak/present/respond in a less strictured way. I know I 
> respond when it happens. I think for two reasons - I like to see what others are moved 
> by (it helps me to find my place and thinking in the world) and I love it that people 
> are able to respond in a way that allows their thinking to then progress. I mean this 
> forum has to be one of the safest group spaces around. I think we have enormous margins 
> to make mistakes but only if we take them and don't get killed - metaphorically.
>

>> How can we expect others to have great debates when we can't chew on each
> other's liver here?
>
> Cheers again
>
> Peter
>
>