It was brought to my attention that I have been letting this space die. And it's true. I haven't been doing it purposefully. Quite frankly, I've had a lot of great adventures in the last half of 2010. But I'm lazy, and I also don't want my parents to read some of that stuff (Hi Mom and Dad!). ;)
I've been thinking about some stuff lately that is shockingly world appropriate. And I was nagged to start writing in this space again. So here I am.
When I was in my MA program, I concentrated pretty heavily on bureaucracy. Within the bureaucracy literature, there is a debate as to whether one needs to be "like" someone in order to accurately and adequately represent their views and desires. This is the old "you need to walk a mile in my shoes before you get me" argument. When I first found this argument, my gut reaction was to say "no, of course not." After all, if you need to be exactly like someone to represent them, the whole idea of Democracy is probably flawed. However, the more I contemplate this, the more I wonder if it's not true.
Thoughts welcomed.
Hmmm, I don't think someone needs to be exactly like someone else to understand what their lives are like. But there are some things that, although you can guess, you can never really *get* it.
Someone who grew up in a rich city family will never understand what it was like for me to grow up as a poor farm kid. Straight guys won't get what it's truly like for someone gay like me, while I will never get what it's like to be a woman. But, maybe we can get close by analogizing to some similar experience in our lives.
Posted by: Michael M. | December 31, 2010 at 02:38 PM