Social Knowing

Shedroff's Model of Understanding

"Use Schedroff's model of Understanding to describe how your knowledge of a particular topic was affected by the new understanding of authority that Weinberger articulates in the last paragraph of the section on Authority and Truth, p. 143." 

"In a miscellaneous world, an Oz-like authority that speaks in a single voice with unshakeable confidence is a blowhard.  Authority now comes from enabling us inescapably fallible creatures to explore the differences among us, together." (Weinberger, p 143)

OK, let's look at Facebook:

I had no desire to be on Facebook until my foster daughter went to college.  It quickly became apparent that if I ever wanted to know how she was doing, I was going to have to do it via Facebook.  It was the only way she communicated long-distance.

So I got a Facebook account.

For a while it was fun to post, to browse, to find old friends.  I enjoy the fact that I can search and re-connect with people that I have lost touch with; I like maintaining relationships.

But, as Weinberger points out, the knowledge is between us; not inherent.  It is in what we don't say, not what we do say.  

So here is me being transparent.  You will notice that my Facebook photo is a daffodil.  Daffodils are symbolic of many things for me, not the least of which is that they grow in almost any soil.  They are hardy, and they are beautiful, to me.  Daffodils are also poisonous.

My Facebook banner is a photo of two of my cats.  I have discussed my cats on this blog before, so I will not go on about them again.  But, you can infer that I like my cats, because they are the largest photo on my Facebook page.

Now, if you check out the rest of my Facebook photos, you will see that there are exactly twelve attached to my account, through tags.  I did not post any of them.  Two of them are of people whom I have never met, and places I have never been to.  Further research reveals that a friend tagged them and somehow attached them to me, but again, I know nothing about them.  They are completely unrelated to me.

One of them has a Christmas tree in it.  That is not my house, but I did sell the tree to a friend in India when we left.  Pine trees being pretty rare in the tropics, she was excited enough to tag the photo of the tree with my name.  If you showed me this photo on paper, without the clickable link, I would never know what connection it had to me.

Six of them have children in them.  Only some of these children are mine.  I will leave you to guess which ones.  

One of them has two women in them, standing at the Red Fort in Agra, overlooking a very misty and distant Taj Mahal.  That was one of the best trips of my life, with one of my oldest and dearest friends.  That photo alone is one that I would have posted.  However, I am not Muslim; other than architectural beauty, the Taj itself has no meaning to me.  The beauty was experiencing the trip with my friend.

I am actually only present in five of the photos.  You will note that there is a beautiful young woman in four of them.  She is not related to me, but she is a great person, and a good friend.  As a born-digital youngster, you can learn a lot about her from her Facebook page.  Go ahead, click on it.  Her name is Crystallyn, and she has 542 photos attached to her Facebook page.  Most of them are of her.  She is a model, very photogenic, and you'll enjoy her amazing pictures.

Using Shedroff's model, what do we learn from the two Facebook photo spreads?  Well, first of all, I've gathered and researched data on my Facebook photos, by clicking on them to find out who posted them.  I discovered that 17% were unrelated to me.  Next, I have organized and presented the data about my photos; and I have given a brief summary of Crystallyn's pictures.  Integrating what I know about myself and about Crystallyn, I can tell you that while I hate having my photo taken, Crystallyn has a natural affinity (and I'm not saying she is vain; she just loves to ham it up) for the camera.  Crystallyn likes to create and document herself through photography.  I notice, however, that she has not posted many pictures in the last several months.  Because I personally know Crystallyn, taken in context, this leads me to wonder if she is ill, or extremely busy.  It is not like her to not post on Facebook.  Contemplation and retrospection about this leads me to act upon it, which is wisdom, and send Crystallyn an e-mail, asking if she is all right.  

"Comment on the last paragraph of the chapter and incorporate what you have learned about how you learn through the course. Again, relate to Schedroff's model and remember that context is everything."

"For 2,500 years, we've been told that knowing is our specie's destiny and its calling.  Now we can see for ourselves that knowledge isn't in our heads: It is between us.  It emerges from public and social thought and it stays there, because social knowing, like the global conversations that give rise to it, is never finished." (Weinberger, p 147)

Despite our glaringly obvious differences about posting photos of ourselves on Facebook, Crystallyn and I actually have some very deep, very special connections.  Some of them I don't wish to share, but some I do.  We both have a passion for children and orphanages.  We have both volunteered at orphanages in third-world countries, and we would both like to continue to do so.  We both love to travel.  We are both brave, and take risks that other people might not.  We both live in chronic, constant pain.  We both married men who were in the military and graduated from a little-known federal academy named Kings Point.  We are both women, and happy to be so.  We have spent quite some time exploring the differences and the similarities between us, and I for one, feel extremely grateful to know someone was extraordinary as Crystallyn.

In a broad context, based on our Facebook photos, Crystallyn and I have little in common.  But, if you take into account the space between the photos, in a personal context, we do have a lot in common.  I certainly hope that the richness of our relationship continues throughout our lives.

P.S.  Crystallyn is not my foster daughter.