Monthly Archives: July 2008

What’s in a Word?

Posted on by
Non Sequitur, by Wiley

Non Sequitur, by Wiley

Sunday morning, while sitting on the porch, sipping coffee, I picked up the comics in The Newark Star-Ledger, the only Sunday paper available in this North Jersey outpost. As the dealer told us when we asked for The New York Times, “We don’t carry The Times. The people here don’t have time to read such a paper: They are working class people, too busy just trying to survive.” No mind. The funnies are the funnies, and The Ledger carries many of my favorites including Non Sequitur by Wiley. Moreover, that day’s cartoon was not only very clever, it was especially pertinent to my readings and reflections at “The Lake.”

Entitled “The First Wordsmiths”, the comic strip featured three cavemen trekking through the woods. One, the ostensible leader, is pointing to objects and identifying them for the others, who then repeat the words — rock, rock; tree, tree; water, water. When the leader inadvertently steps in a pile of mud, so to speak, he blurts out “Aw, S***”, and the others respond with the word “Politics!”

Laughing at the comic strip, I was struck by how it captured aspects of the most recent book I have been reading, The Stuff of Thought: Language As A Window Into Human Nature, by Steven Pinker (2007). Written with the non-professional in mind, this book about words is both eloquent and interdisciplinary. Perhaps the theme that appealed to me most was Pinker’s discussion of how words come about, and how their meaning is determined not simply by someone pointing and identifying “objects,” as in the case of Wiley’s cavemen. Rather, as Pinker describes, the full meaning of a word emerges from and reflects the social interactions of the specific context in which the word evolves. No wonder, then, that with all the mud slinging going on today, many people share Wiley’s dark humor in associating politics with “S***”.

Words are also important at Lake Hawthorne, where, over time, they have taken on unique meanings of their own. Consider some of these words:

  • the island
  • the beach
  • the meadow
  • Pirate’s Cove
  • the old road.

These are not just the names of things; they are also–and as importantly–the names of places where special kinds of activities and interactions, fraught with emotional meanings, have taken place. Thus, the island is the place where children first experience setting up tents, enjoying their independence in an outside overnight. The beach is where families convene each afternoon, the children building sand castles and enjoying swimming and other water sports while their mothers and fathers socialize. For community events, such as meetings, picnics, and weddings, the meadow is the place to go. For more frivolous activities, explore Pirate’s Cove, where from your boat or canoe you can catch a frog, capture a turtle, or look for treasure. And, if there is time left, one option is to gather some neighbors together, and hike the old road, recounting all the while the lake lore and a shared repertoire of ghost stories.

In this vocabulary of lake-goers, one word stands out above all the rest. This word is “The Lake.” It is a symbol, commonly referred to by all, a metaphor — if not a substitute — for the experience itself. Like the other words, it is emergent — the product of an evolutionary process, the result of ongoing social interactions. But it subsumes the others, and at one and the same time is far greater than the sum of these parts. As Pinker might agree, the meaning of “The Lake” has evolved through interaction over generations — on the island, at the beach, down the old road.” At the same time, it gives guidance and greater meaning to those who are presently engaging in, and reproducing, these activities.

On Technorati: comics, Language, New York Times, Pinker, politics, Wiley

Share

Commons are Common Enough

Posted on by

In all my classes I try to get students to think about theory by following James Rosenau’s prescription in his book Thinking Theory Thoroughly (2000), which calls on readers to ask themselves “What is this an instance of?” and in this way to work their way up what Rosenau calls “the ladder of abstraction.”  I took on this challenge myself when, in my last blog, I decided to reflect about my surroundings here at Lake Hawthorne through the lens of the theories I am reading about. The first book I picked up was Brian Skyrms’ The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure.  Reading it, the first related thought that came to mind was “Of course, Lake Hawthorne is a Commons.”  That is to say, it is one big, on-going stag hunt.  Let me explain…

Brian Skyrms begins his book with Rousseau’s metaphorical account of the Stag Hunt, which now constitutes a well-known game in game theory. Based on this metaphor, Skyrms explores the question of how cooperation comes about, given the relative strong disincentives not to cooperate.   At issue in this case is what a hunter will do, given a choice to hunt stag–which has a higher pay off but requires the cooperation of others, and thus entails the risk of gaining nothing–or to hunt for hare–which has a low payoff but entails little risk, because the hunter can accomplish the task independently, on his own.    

Of course Elinor Ostrom has made a convincing case for how certain kinds of institutions and “rules of the game” can alter the incentive structure so that individuals cooperate to sustain a “commons.”  But Skyrms goes further, exploring the question of how do these incentives/norms, themselves, come about.  What accounts for the evolution of the social contract? How can it overtake the strong incentive to defect? His tentative answers are very CCT-like: They all have to do with spatial structure, location, and locational interaction.  Greatly simplifying, the key to cooperation is to assure that stag hunters (cooperators) are positioned so that they come into contact with one another before they meet hare hunters (defectors) who together constitute a a basin of attraction large enough to take over the stag hunters.  With signaling–the subject of a future blog entry–the size of the cooperative community can be quite extensive and unstructured to a greater extent. 

The history of Lake Hawthorne’s evolution is fully consistent with Skyrms’ characterization with respect to both how the social contract was established, and how it evolved and was maintained over time. The purchase of the Lake property in 1895, as a resource that was to be held in common, was greatly facilitated by the fact that all the founders already knew each other in a variety of ways.  For example, many were teachers in the Paterson/Newark New Jersey school districts, a number were related, and all were participants in a hiking club that drew its members from the same locale.  Linked to each other in so many ways, none of the founders were likely to encounter a viable hare hunter–and so defect.  Over five generations, these links have been continuously reinforced and made more dense through social interactions and the process of jointly administrating the property–activities that are sometimes difficult to differentiate.   Surely–as Skyrms points out–there is a possibility that hare hunters might invade the commons at the edges, and convert some stag hunters to hare hunters.

Snowshoe Hare / Lièvre d'AmériqueThe most dangerous prospect of this so far has been the attempt by a major developer to build luxury homes just above our mountainside, making the prospect of privatizing the commons and selling out to developers a much more lucrative option. Instead, the stag hunters of Lake Hawthorne joined together in opposition, and even extended their protest and resistance efforts to outlying towns and communities.  The result: That part of Sparta Mountain now constitutes an even greater commons–it is public parkland owned by all the people of the State of New Jersey.

Share

Blogging Lake Hawthorne

Posted on by

It might be somewhat unusual to start a blog on vacation in the highlands of northern New Jersey, but I thought that this was a good time to read the stack of books I have been collecting, and to try to tie them together in anticipation of teaching my courses Networking, Technology, and Society and Networks and International Development in the Communications Culture and Technology Program this fall. It so happened that, once we became ensconced in our chairs on the front veranda, my husband stared at the pile of books I brought and asked somewhat skeptically: “Do all the theories is those books really tell you anything about every day life?” That statement became my inspiration. My plan now is to reflect upon and characterize my surroundings here at Lake Hawthorne through the lenses of the theories presented in my books. The question I ask myself is: What do I see that would have been invisible to me if I had not used theory to focus my attention?

First, let me say a little about Lake Hawthorne. It is located in the mountains, literally at the top of New Jersey. My great-grandfather, H. P. Dillistin, belonged to a hiking club in Paterson, NJ, and he and his friends would explore the area. One day, when he found out that he could buy the property (540 acres) for $540 dollars, he didn’t hesitate. The land was purchased and then parceled out to independent families with the number being limited to 30. This limit remain in place today.

Who knows, if behind the next turn in the road, you might find a coyote, fox, or bear. Sometimes they come visiting.

The house we live in, at the south side of the lake, was built in 1908 by my grandfather, Franklin Crosse. Except for indoor plumbing, the installation of a refrigerator to replace an “ice box,” and the electricity, the house is pretty much the way it was when my grandfather built it. Imagine the screened-in veranda facing the lake, and the creaking sound of the front porch door. The house is ten feet from the lake, so the view is both spectacular and serene. Around us is a second growth forest, which is home to a large variety of birds, including an occasional herring or bald eagle. Who knows, if behind the next turn in the road, you might find a coyote, fox, or bear. Sometimes they come visiting. The motto of Sparta, New Jersey, the township in which we are located, is very apropos: “People living with their environment.”

It has been my good fortune to have spend most of my childhood summers here, as did my son Steve and daughter-in-law Haley, who are now rearing our grandson Ben and granddaughter Sophie (five and seven), in accordance with the same kinds of traditions and activities. The common meaning of our experiences is re-enacted each year, generation after generation, so that everyone has come to take it for granted. No matter what our age, we all feel the same excitement, and know what’s in store for us, when we say: “We are going to ‘The Lake.’”

This description suffices as background materials for the coming discussion linking theory and everyday life, which I will begin to pursue next time. In particular, I will look at “the Lake” as a commons, and discuss it in terms of Brian Skyrms‘ book, The Stag Hunt (2003).

On Technorati: CCT, Georgetown, Lake Hawthorne, Skyrms

Share