Comments on: What’s missing from this picture?

By: Ben Tremblay

Ben Tremblay — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 02:20:59 +0000

It came clear to me one evening, late, in Killam Library (Dalhousie University) … I happened to have Habermas’ “Discourse Ethics” open on the table while flipping through John Willinsky’s “If only we knew: Increasing the public value of social science research” (2003) … as though the scales fell away and the required design came clear.
I had been beavering away at it since 1975 … and that was December, 2003. (I’ve always said, “I ain’t stupid but I sure am slow!)

What’s the largest challenge? Getting someone (anyone) actually interested in actualizing the thing. Techne is all well and good, but heh as Karl would say using today’s vernacular, “The point is to make it so!”.

“Gnodal”, I call it.

@bentrem

p.s. intentionally cryptic; after a life of collaboration pro bono I’m just tired of giving away my work … edifying, it has been … cruelly edifying.

By: Paul Evans

Paul Evans — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:01:54 +0000

Just a quick follow up – when writing it, another point occured to me but the phone rang (someone from Porlock!) and I couldn’t remember it.

It came back to me in the small hours of the morning: Final question: Where is the conflict? The one thing that the Hitchens brothers agree on is the need for a good scrap about important issues. Dismissing the charge that, between them, they create more heat than light, they pointed out that heat is the only source of light.

And my Marxist Id would add that it’s not just the intellectual conflict that is both important and missing from this model either. Where is the conflict between social groups and classes?

Where are the threats and counter-threats? The dialectic that takes all discussion out of the ivory tower and into a more relevant space?

By: Paul Evans

Paul Evans — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:51:33 +0000

Looking back on my post, I can see that there is an implied criticism that could be seen as unfair.

I wasn’t saying that ‘this diagram is bad’ – I was instead saying ‘if I drew a diagram illustrating the interesting questions, it would have these things on it’.

By: A model of how local issues are debated « Spartakan

A model of how local issues are debated « Spartakan — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:49:11 +0000

[...] Over at the Local Democracy blog, Paul Evans has picked up on this diagramme and come up with an excellent series of questions critiquing the assumptions behind the diagram, and the context that’s missing. Have a read! [...]

By: Peter Cruickshank

Peter Cruickshank — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:48:13 +0000

Hi Paul – great critique – there nothing on your list I disagree with! To be fair on Steve Dale though, it should be pointed out that I ripped the diagramme out of context – he was representing how e-democracy.org’s forums work: it’s a kind of picture of the ‘hard’ system – with the context left implicit.

Many of your points are (IMO valid) questions relating to the purpose and effectiveness of online forums as a tool for deliberation – points that the diagramme couldn’t be expected to address I don’t think.

Still, your points have given me something to think about when discussing the context and processes around e-petitions and their roles in local debates, so thanks!