tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post7550539267186529985..comments2023-04-09T05:54:18.997-04:00Comments on Learning Complexity: #change11 Defining the Rhizomekeith.hamonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-62508378235324124792011-11-11T17:04:57.327-05:002011-11-11T17:04:57.327-05:00Bon, thanks for the reference to Donna Harraway. H...Bon, thanks for the reference to Donna Harraway. Her concept of the cyborg has been on the edge of my vision for some time, but now I'm moving it inward. I'll read her.<br><br>In the meantime, I like when you say <i>map or lens, the rhizome is a visual tool that changes the terrain viewed</i>. This is the correct understanding to my mind. The rhizome doesn't tell us exactly how to travel across any given terrain (techniques for the classroom), but it does help us see the terrain in different ways, which will likely suggest new techniques or ways to rework old techniques. Thanks.Keith Hamonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-291277235353382782011-11-10T09:52:16.166-05:002011-11-10T09:52:16.166-05:00smak, I like your questions, and I think I can ans...smak, I like your questions, and I think I can answer both of them by starting with the first: How is the rhizome nothing?<br><br>As I understand the rhizome, it is not a <i>thing</i> in our usual sense of things: a discrete unit with a rather fixed set of describable features usually shared with other units of its type. Each thing may interact with other things, but it maintains its own identity. And perhaps most importantly, we humans always stand outside the thing—we are the viewing subject and it is the viewed thing.<br><br>The rhizome is not a thing in this sense. That's what I meant by saying it is no<i>thing</i>. I am not saying that the rhizome is an absence, or emptiness, or vacuity. I want to elaborate on this, but it is too long for a comment, so I'll refer you to a post I haven't yet made. That's very rhizomatic of me. :-)<br><br>Thus, the rhizome is not a thing to be contrasted with reductionism. The rhizome is the fertile ground within which reductionism may emerge. The rhizome uses reductionist thinking when it finds it useful, then discards it, or rather, it flows around it just as the Internet flows around any attempt to censor it.<br><br>This is a start. I'll write more.Keith Hamonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-67258351971319369792011-11-10T09:29:22.639-05:002011-11-10T09:29:22.639-05:00John, i'm going to leap in (over my head, like...John, i'm going to leap in (over my head, likely) to say that that concept of the rhizome undermining the systems of thought that formed it has strong parallels with Donna Haraway's vision of the cyborg. because the cyborg is a personification i find the conceptualization perhaps easier to grasp. <br><br>Haraway's cyborg - which, like the rhizome, is a construct developed for rethinking and mapping the ontologies of the late 20th century, with their tendencies toward reductionism - is what she calls "the illegitimate offspring" of the military-industrial complex, patriarchal capitalism, and state socialism. it is a myth figure, like the rhizome is a metaphor. as an illegitimate offspring, the cyborg both has its origins in these systems of thought and yet no investment in replicating their structures, because it is denied the benefits of "belonging" to those structures. rather it is always partial and hybrid, part machine/human/animal/organic/inorganic, thus breaking down the dualisms that those systems and structures reinforce. <br><br>once you can "see" the cyborg, it is very difficult to unsee it. once you accept the ideas of partiality and hybridity as part of humanity, the boundaries that those systems of power enforce no longer seem "natural." it is a myth that exposes what we have come to accept as real. it undermines what spawned it. it presents a new way of seeing, an alternate ontology, just by becoming visible.<br><br>i'd say the rhizome does the same. i talked about it yesterday as a lens for seeing learning without necessarily having to see schooling: it can be much more, of course, and it could also be applied to schooling, if that were one's interest. <br><br>in ANT terms, as Dave was saying in the presentation Tues, the cyborg and the rhizome both serve to open the closed black boxes which hide the power relations, historicity, and specificity of the structures by which we have come to view our world.<br><br>map or lens, the rhizome is a visual tool that changes the terrain viewed.Bonhttp://theory.cribchronicles.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-22094828066506744972011-11-10T08:41:27.325-05:002011-11-10T08:41:27.325-05:00Hi Keith,I read your post with interests. You men...Hi Keith,<br>I read your post with interests. You mentioned that rhizome is nothing. You also stated that "Rhizomatic thinking, then, is a useful strategy for looking at learning in a different way. It includes positivist thought and reductionist thought and all the other systems of thought, but at the same time that the rhizome provides a rich context for those systems of thought, it is also shifting, deterritorializing and reterreitorializing, and thereby undermining the very systems of thought that it incubated." I don't quite understand how it works here, as you mentioned that it is inappropriate to use a reductionist approach in the thinking of rhizomatic learning. What do you mean by undermining the very systems of thought that it incubated? Is power inherent here, when undermining the system? Hope you could help me in better understand these concepts.<br>Johnsmakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996589245560033624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-55849573729699580602011-11-08T21:18:32.823-05:002011-11-08T21:18:32.823-05:00Glen, I think the rhizome can reboot one's vie...Glen, I think the rhizome can reboot one's view of reality. It has mine. I see whole swaths of reality that were obscure before, and I'm seeing more with every conversation. It can provide a new context within which we can devise new processes and procedures and rework old processes.<br><br>I'm confused, though, by your comment that "Others who describe the metaphor seem so reluctant to break any symmetry at all." Help me understand what you mean. I'm curious.Keith Hamonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-15792087358762742432011-11-08T21:08:28.369-05:002011-11-08T21:08:28.369-05:00Thanks for the comments and compliments, Jeffrey, ...Thanks for the comments and compliments, Jeffrey, and thanks most for the question about what I have gained with the rhizome metaphor. That's at the heart of my argument, after all.<br><br>The rhizome gave me a coherent vision of a range of ideas I had been struggling with for several years and trying to deal with mostly through the concept of networks. Rhizomatic structures are quite similar to network structures, and what can be said of one can often be said of the other, but the literature I read about networks didn't quite pull together my thoughts the way Deleuze and Guattari did with their talk about rhizomes. Perhaps it was the more technical nature of most conversations about networks, understandable in light of the rise of the Internet, but I found the rhizome more conducive to the kinds of thoughts I wanted to have. Or to say it as D&G might, the conversation about the rhizome mapped reality better for me than the conversation about networks.<br><br>For instance, the vocabulary D&G use to describe the rhizome resonates well with the thoughts I was trying to form: multiplicity, asignifying ruptures, deterritorialization, reterritorialization, cartography, decalcomania, and so forth. All of a sudden, I had words that hit much closer to the center of ideas I was grappling with.<br><br>Finally, it's the rhizome that allowed me to see my life as one noodle in a plate of spaghetti. I think I could have studied networks forever and never made that connection. The rhizome made it obvious.<br><br>Ahh … that was fun. Thanks.Keith Hamonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-33211377179061439762011-11-08T20:43:26.541-05:002011-11-08T20:43:26.541-05:00I enjoyed this post very much. It seems to explain...I enjoyed this post very much. It seems to explain an idea about the rhizome metaphor that isn't approached in other descriptions that I've read, that is that the Rhizome is a starting point in education to recontextualize or create new. Others who describe the metaphor seem so reluctant to break any symmetry at all.glenhttp://apointofcontact.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/background-independence-in-education/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-31307337796328787862011-11-08T20:08:58.592-05:002011-11-08T20:08:58.592-05:00Interesting post, Keith. You inspired me to order ...Interesting post, Keith. You inspired me to order that text A Thousand Plateaus to better understand Dave's influences.<br> <br>I also really found your noodle metaphor helpful, and think your use of language, "Reductionism wants to disentangle the single noodle of my life, stretch it out on an examination tray, name and number the parts, establish the tidy sequences of cause and effect, and finally declare that it understands me. And here's the thing: it will understand a great deal about me that could not have been understood so easily while I was tangled up in the plate of spaghetti. But it will also lose a great deal, if not most, of the contours, the arcs, the twists and turns, the connections and intersections, the forces and counterforces that truly make my life interesting to me, if not to others" brilliant. Absolutely brilliant example and use of language. <br> <br>My only question for you--now that you are using this term to shed light on a tremendously complex life--what does this metaphor provide that you did not have before its use?<br>JeffreyJeffrey Keeferhttp://silenceandvoice.com/noreply@blogger.com