Wild and Willing

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

The third floor corridors of the MHT Building are looking better for a new coat of paint (although it seems slightly mad to do this while staff and students are trafficking by). The collection of framed film prints and posters in the stairwell also look good. I was intrigued by The Wild and The Willing, filmed in Lincoln in 1962. The plot outline on IMDB didn’t hugely appeal but out of interest I watched the first segment on YouTube (1/12).   Like all vintage films it provides a snapshot of  the social and cultural attitudes of the day; in particular,  local reaction to having students in their midst. Prophetic or not? Watch and make up your own mind!

I also came across this 1997  THES article  from Roger King, late of this parish, or VC  of the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside as he and we were once known. Again, it’s interesting to look at then and now. Don’t you just love Google sometimes 🙂

Digital Nations and Virtual Revolutions

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital exclusion 2010

A blog link arrived via an rss feed, email, colleague (not quite sure of the correct order but thanks Julian) Are you digital natives paying attention draws attention to Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier; a production (in nine episodes) shown in the US as the BBC’s Virtual Revolution is being shown here.  Programme website

I was interested in author Derek Morrison’s suggestion that “Both public service broadcasters (in US and UK) should normalise providing transcripts for resources like these” because “there is a lot of valuable commentary and potential citation in each production.” I’d like to add an additional reason. Those digitally excluded from the Virtual Revolution, through lack of inclusive design and affordable assistive technology, are those with the most to gain from alternative modes of access. I’ve watched two episodes of the BBC programme and have yet to see any mention of the ‘revolutionary’ ability of digital data to be customized to suit individual preference or need. No mention of it in the blog outline of the nine Digital Native episodes either. Talk about invisibility!

What about Carl Jung?

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

TMA2 completed (and backed up twice, thrice and more). Continuing to look at the self, the course materials stepped back from Lacan’s ‘subject of language’ approach to the early psychoanalysis of Freud and Klein. TMA2 was about the effect of Kleinian thought on social relations compared with more recent developments in sociology. In psychoanalysis the root of identity is underpinned by primitive emotions and desires; a product of unconscious reactions to early experience. We learn to repress socially unacceptable behaviours and develop defences, which sometimes turn to neuroses, in later life. Sociologists such as Giddens, deny there is an unconscious layer and suggest that identity is a product of post-traditional culture. Freed up from pre-established restraints of family, subjectivity is about reflexivity; founded on future possibilities, based on individual choice.  Psychoanalysis has largely been replaced by psychodynamic counselling and the origin of the authentic self transferred from the internal psyche to the external environment.

I wonder where Jung is in all of this. Subjectivity for Jung was inherent  “. . . Man brings with him at birth the ground-plan of his nature. . . .” (Collected Works 4: 728) Neither a product of an unknown psyche nor a cultural response, identity was part of a shared spiritual experience.  “In some way or other we are part of a single, all-embracing psyche, a single ‘greatest man. . . .'” (The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man [Collected Works 10: 175])

What’s been most interesting about this unit is the evidence of a changing knowledge base but Jung seems to have slipped out of the frame altogether. What’s missing often says more than what is present. As what we don’t say reveals more about us than what we do. One problem with Jung is that he was seen as discrediting Christianity and his reputation unfairly damaged. Unfairly because Freud was also anti-religion and far more vehemently so. But I wonder if there is another reason. In an era of individualism, and dominance of the narcissistic personality type, it’s maybe not surprising that the idea of a shared spirituality is downplayed. With sharing comes responsibility and in a postmodern, post-traditional society, that’s no longer a popular idea. However, to cover Freudian psychoanalysis without at least a mention of his one time partner or his work on myths, symbols, archetypes and the collective unconscious is a loss and discredits his contribution to the literature on the identity of the self.

Read this and be warned…

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

I hate the torch icon. Especially when it shines its light from side to side in what the designers must have imagined looked like hopeful anticipation. Windows is searching for a copy of this document. To locate the file yourself click Browse. Why bother; the Missing Shortcut menu is always bad news. I’ve been using computers for longer than I care to remember. Over the years I’ve made a few mistakes. But it’s been a long since I lost a document. Yes I did name and save it to a folder on my hard drive. Yes I did regularly press save throughout the seven hours I spent working on it. No I didn’t get any error messages. Yes it did close down nicely without any problems. And then promptly disappeared. Like being swallowed by a black hole inside my laptop. I suspect the chances of this happening increase in direct proportion to the importance of the file – in this case my OU assignment.  So don’t just save, make a back up copy. On a cd. On a data stick. Your computer isn’t to be trusted. It’s not your friend. It doesn’t like you. It has a mind of its own and is not afraid to use it. Read this and be warned….

BBC’s Virtual Revolution

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital exclusion 2010, equality and diversity

The first of four programmes in the BBC’s The Virtual Revolution was called the Great Leveller.  It sounded promising but it wasn’t. The script was full of cliches such as empowering everyone and giving equal access to information while neatly sidestepping all the issues around barriers and inaccessible websites. It did get one thing right, when they said  ‘the potential of the technology was to offer a paradigm shift on a par with the invention of the printing press’. It was a shame it didn’t go on to acknowledge those who have always been excluded from analogue text who will continue to be excluded from digital unless access technology gets cheaper and content produced inclusively.

The programme ended by suggesting that the original bottom-up democratic vision of the Internet was being undermined. Focusing on the domination of organisations such Google and Amazon, it claimed the web’s inherent inequality is a reflection the hierarchical nature and inequalities in the world. Well, at least that was one point you can’t argue with!

Repetitive but needs to be said…

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital exclusion 2010

In 1994, the UK government made the decision to use technology to deliver ‘improved’ public services via the Internet. In 1995 and 2005 Disability Discrimination Acts were passed. In 2009 the Digital Britain report made explicit the needs of those who are digitally absent. The report highlights links between digital and social exclusion. These links are pertinent but there is a danger of creating a mutually exclusive binary where the real issue escapes attention. The Governments newly published ICT Strategy is evidence that this is happening.  

Section 2  UK Public Sector ICT in the 21st Century states how “Technology can be used to provide access to citizens who might otherwise be excluded from services delivered using traditional methods.”  So far, so good.  What better use of technology than to enable those unable to see text to listen to it instead? But the document doesn’t even go there. Instead the two examples it gives are ‘using websites to inform teenagers/children about the dangers of drugs (FRANK – talktofrank.com), or providing online learning for young people excluded from mainstream education through NotSchool.net.”  What about the needs of those already excluded from analogue text who continue to be excluded from digital equivalents. In 5.2 Strategic principles there is one mention of the word ‘accessibility’. The concept, so crucial to the Internet, doesn’t even qualify for a tag.  From Gutenberg to Google, access continues to be denied.

Hunt the ICT Strategy

Sue Watling / / equality and diversity, inclusive design

The governments ICT strategy was launched yesterday. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places, but I expected to see a bit more publicity heralding the event. As it was I saw nothing.  Same again today. Not the BBC news, or Technology pages, no mention in the Guardian Online. So I turned to Google and eventually, after following several links to non-government pieces referring to it, I finally arrived at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/cio/ict.aspx

My point is on the one hand we have a government promoting digital inclusion and on the other it doesn’t seem to be aware of what it’s like to be digitally excluded. Having to search to find its own ICT Strategy suggests it’s not that bothered about it being found. In digital Britain, it won’t be enough to have access, it’s not even the skills and the confidence that makes the difference. It’s the format in which digital information is provided and promoted.  

 Once you get there then Write to Reply encourages audience participation and the text enlarges well – although if you were unfamiliar with the format then navigation becomes problematic. I’d like to see the statutory button called Accessibility. Even if it can’t offer anything alternative it would at least show awareness of the issues. The home page graphic has no meaningful Alt text; ‘Wordle’ doesn’t count; it means nothing if you are unfamiliar with the concept. Again, sometimes it’s what you don’t do that often says more about you that what is done.

Reinterpreting Oedipus

Sue Watling / / Uncategorized

My second assignment is fast approaching, gathering speed in the way that only deadlines do. Nombre deux goes back to the roots of psychoanalysis. Familiarity with Dr Freud’s concepts of tripartite personality and the oedipal process is a prerequisite. The starting point is Melanie Klein and Object Relations theory. The essay title is along the lines of ‘what has object relations ever done for us?’  The answer seems to be quite a lot – but only if you lived in the UK. The fall out between Anna Freud and Mrs Klein,  resulting in Miss Freud moving to America to peddle her father’s psychoanalytic practice, led to an Atlantean split in ideas and approaches. Interestingly, both ladies seem to have issues which suggest all was not well in their own ‘psychic’ lives; particularly intriguing is the estrangement between Klein and her daughter. For someone who promoted expertise in the management of infant anxiety, she seems to have well messed up her own maternal practice.

Following on from recent posts on the potential resurgence in feminist politics, I’m finding it appropriate to be revisiting identity construction. Both Freud and Klien were products of their cultural time with an unchallenged acceptance of partiarchal systems and values. When Karen Horney  postulated womb envy as an alternative to penis envy, and dared to suggest that rather than a portion of the male anatomy what women were  really envious of was the male role in society,  her work was not enthusiastically received.  Most 20th century analytic thought still rests on Freud’s oedipal assumptions despite their emphasis on the category of male and invisibility of the female,  perceived as lack rather than possession.  The symbolism of Oedipus blinding himself is apt one, in more ways than Freud might have ever realised.

cure for exceeding profile storage space

Sue Watling / / nothing to do with work

 I’ve found a cure for exceeding my profile storage space. Didn’t work on campus but it’s solved the problem on my laptop. Paste this code into Notepad

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
“EnableProfileQuota”=-
“ProfileQuotaMessage”=-
“MaxProfileSize”=-
“IncludeRegInProQuota”=-
“WarnUser”=-

 Save the file to the Desktop with the name undopolicy.reg and select All Files. Double click the Desktop icon and say Yes to  add to Registry.  Problem solved.  I can now shut down with that horrendous bleeping noise and those irritating messages 🙂

that ‘F’ word again…

Sue Watling / / nothing to do with work

On 8 January I asked what the F word did for us. I may have been unfair because it’s thanks to feminist politics that I’ve had choices which would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. However, being of an age where my children’s generation are now having children of their own, I see increasing pressure to conform to a stereotyped body image, male as well as female. Activism against body politics can’t be far away.  A new book by Natasha Walter,  Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism  looks  at contemporary expectations on young women and the return of a sexism that privileges appearance. Two more books are due out this year; Kat Banyard’s The Equality Illusion, and Reclaiming the F Word: The New ­Feminist Movement by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune’s. A resurgence of feminist politics may well be on the horizon.

Some backlash against feminism was inevitable; such as the reinterpretation of the label to support the cult of female celebrity and all its physical fakery; fake nails, fake tan and fake breasts. Maybe that in itself is a form of political feminism. In the same way that happy housewives defended their right to prioritise the home and childcare, taking control of the body may be seen as the right to find identity and meaning. However, rather than unrealistic cultural expectations my greater concern is the absence of status for the pregnant body and the role of childcare.  At the risk of sounding essentialist, you can’t alter biological design. A key error in feminist politics was to assume that all women wanted freedom from subordination via autonomy when to be sustainable the real issues were about achieving a balance of power. Childcare is key to feminism. Jenni Murray calls for altering public policy to change its perception into as something all parents do, not just women’s work. Therein lies the answer that was missed last time round; feminism is not about existing independently, it’s about collaboration between the sexes and recognition that childcare is a joint responsibility.  As the media reports widely on toxic families and the break down in social structures there’s never been a better time for the policy to catch up with a contemporary need for gendered social equality.