Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

ject, partly because I had set out on uncharted territories. Most of all my intentions
changed due to the interaction in the discussions with the members of the think-tank
and the board.
Besides, if I would have known the outcomes why bother about involving other people
in discussions? Because my research up till then had made me more and more susceptible
for the uncontrollability of interactions and outcomes I also relied on that time
would tell; something which ‘time’ did and did not. It depends on how time is defined.
Time tells
Within a complexity-perspective time is approached as an ongoing process in which
patterns evolve, change and in due time disintegrate. Time is interpreted as continuous,
experienced in processes of local interactions out of which temporary coherent
patterns emerge (technically called self-organization; (Stacey, 2012b). There is no exact
end and there is no exact beginning of things, there are only temporary figurations.
From this perspective organizations and projects as mine are to be seen as eddies in
the currents of time (Mead, 1934) in which things are brought to mind and if possible
are organized.
The emphasis on local conversations is an emphasis on the here-and-now of social
reality. According to Mead (1932) we are living in the present, in a continuous stream of
acting. The present is a continuous experience, interrupted if hindrances come on our
way. In reality our daily life is not a continuous experience, but experienced as full of
hindrances. For instance if we meet someone with a different opinion, we have to deal
with a hindrance. To overcome the hindrances we act, most of the time by entering
into conversations. The discussions in the think-tank, with the board and with all of
them together are to be seen as conversations in which different opinions - hindrances
- are dealt with, to restore a continuous undisturbed experience of the present.
However, in the very moment of acting we also (re)create our past and our future.
What we were and what we become is changing. In the conversations we reconstruct
our past based on our new experiences and new experiences produce other expectations
about what the future will or should bring. In the interruption of the continuity
something new emerges, something new which is not to be reduced causally on the
past. “Even the statement of the past within which the emergent appeared is inevitably
made from the standpoint of a world within which the emergent is itself a conditioning
as well as a conditioned factor.”(Mead, 1932: 46). From this perspective my
moving targets from corporate jester towards dissent can be interpreted as an ongoing
reconstruction of what is at stake and what should be done due to the ongoing
conversations with all the involved. In the present I was part of a self-organising
process.
If you approach organizations and projects as quantifiable then this project about
dissent is a failure. From a quantifiable perspective an organization is a logic organisa-
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