Patterns of action are typically intertwined with modes of discourse... thus, if we wish to change patterns of action one significant means of doing so is through altering forms of discourse - the way events are described, explained or interpreted... New departures in construction, new ways of putting things, new metaphors and narratives, and new forms of description and explanation are needed.  In effect, we require generative theory, that is, accounts of our world that challenge the taken-for-granted conventions of understanding, and simultaneously invite us into new worlds of meaning and action. (Gergen 1999:^ref 115, 116)

...one of the major routes to social change is through audacious theorizing.
It is important to realize the radical nature of what is being proposed here. From the traditional realist standpoint, the task of the scholar is to furnish accurate accounts of reality, to map or picture the world as it is... Thus to approach an issue realistically is to sustain our conventions along with associated ways of life.  In effect, little is changed.  The move to generative theory, however, invites us to suspend the tradition, and to expeirment with new ways of inventorying the world, describing and explaining... Each of these alternatives opens the way to new forms of inquiry, and possible ways of going on in the world.  In a sense, generative theorizing is a form of poetic activism.  That is, it asks us to take a risk with words, shake up the conventions, generate new formations of intelligibility, new images, and sensitivities... (Gergen 1999: 116, 117)

that i could hope my work might be classified as anything close to audacious theorizing.  wouldn't that be a fine thing.  probably the closest i have come is people saying that its wrong - and that, just on the boundaryless systems part...  or to be a participant/instigator of 'poetic activism'.  [**]

but back to this notion of generative theory - which i might take as my key intention, although perhaps i dont quite see it this way.  for, despite my constructivist tendencies, i still tend to think of sympoietic systems as a description that represents that-which-exists.  although i also offer it as a metaphor that might promote different ways of thinking.    so where do i place myself on the continuum: representationist-constructivist?  or by noting a continuum am i just doing that binary/dualist thing.  is it possible to speak to/defend/actualize both?  does the mandv version of constuctivism help here?  or the notion of 'negotiation'? 

so this takes me back to Gergen to find out what position he takes on physical reality - those tables and trees etc. - and, not surprisingly, there really isnt much.  i think i have pointed out, numerous times, that there is a tendency of constructionists to speak of phycho-social reality - that the 'constructedness' theyspeak of primarily refers to social norms and our sense of our 'selves'.  although i will admit of intricate, even inexplicable, interconnections i think there are qualitative differences between these questions and those that apply to what we refer to as physical reality.  this reminds me of funtowicz and ravetz's term, critical realist, and  who(?) spoke of direct reality or something like that.  is this more of a phenomenological approach? a hermeneutic one? and all of these questions are not to dismiss the importance of what gergen speaks.  the notion of generative theory as a way to manifest change, as a way to challenge the 'truths' we (especially we the priveleged and 'normal') hold.  i suppose that my own interest in the zone of tension/interconnection between social and physical reality is because my own work lies within this zone: something about the social construction of our physical realities.  which then takes me back to the diagrams i have drawn to indicate the range and variety of the realities we negotiate. 

perhaps this is why i keep turning back to m and v - because they put forward something that bridges the physical and psycho-social.   [does it?  does the whole languaging thing keep the physical in there...?]