Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

gen, 1999) Mead exemplifies that our identity, those who we are, is depending on the
actual situation in which we find ourselves. What we do, what we say or in general
how we act is not depending on some inside and observing command-centre. How we
act is a matter of responsiveness among those present. Who we are, our self “… is not
something that exists first and then enters into relationship with others, but it is, so to
speak, an eddy in the social current and so still a part of the current.”(Mead, 1934: 182).
Through and through we are social beings, both in what we actually do and what we
learned before. What we learned before are what Mead calls our ‘me’s’, the attitudes of
what we learned about and from others. Nowadays concepts like scripts, frames,
prototypes, modules, defaults or scenarios would be customary as a label for attitudes
(for an overview see Dennett, 1991). However, it is important to underpin that these
‘me’s’ are provisional, depending on what is going on and not some sort of awaiting
indisputable recipe for use. “The ‘I’ as a response to (a) situation … is uncertain.”(Mead,
1934: 176). As elaborated upon in chapter 4 Mead’s perspective offers a perspective to
see social interaction as a contagious (Hatfield et al., 1994) and interdependent process
of taken-the-attitude-of-the-other and not as some insidious or panoptical game.
However, it is a game with power as immanent in all local interactions.
The way the discussions about organizing dissent in the think-tank, with the members
of the board and with all together evolved, clarifies the combination of power and
responsiveness. How we considered each other before - for instance in ascribed and
formal status, due to former experiences, the present institutional context, and our
mutual habits - is potentially present; for instance exemplified by a remark that the
think-tank was composed of some ‘usual suspects’. When in the discussion ways were
sought to reduce hierarchical impact, we acknowledged existing patterns and at the
same tried to transcend them. No one would have been able to predict how things
would evolve, although attempts were made for instance by formulating starting
points for the discussion of the think-tank and the board (see session 3). Although
these starting points should have conditioned a safe space to discuss touchy topics,
the starting points paradoxically reinforced existing hierarchical relations, maybe thus
leading to an animated but comfortable session. In principle one wrong word could
have caused a derailment in the discussion and might have lasting consequences for
mutual working relations. However, the result is as it is: a respectable meeting produced
by those present. Even when I tried to stir up things by recapitulating the criticism
on the last yearly opening-ceremony and even when in the discussions before the joint
meeting far more critical notes were made.
When I look back I feel that – although being the chairman – I was part of series of social
interactions which surpassed my unilateral influence. Things happened in a way no
one foresaw or wished for, and in small talk afterwards things were experienced as
respectable instead of critical.
My feeling of being surpassed in the situation can be elucidated by notions which
belong to the domain of complexity. These notions paint a different portrait how
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