Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

Before returning to them I recapitulate what I came to understand during my research
as a complex responsive process-perspective regarding the way taken for granted
assumptions can be understood. This recapitulation crystallizes the rather social
constructionist perspective on social interaction, a perspective which was explored by
reflecting on the narratives.
The value of taken for granted assumptions
Taken for granted assumptions are to be compared with what I called the ‘pre-knowing’
in chapter 6. Taken for granted assumptions are to be interpreted as a collection
of entangled experiences which evolved and evolve throughout someone’s lifetime.
Taken for granted assumptions are what we learned and ongoing learn in interaction
with and from others in specific situations. They are what Mead (1934) would call my
organized attitudes, my ‘me’s’. They may be seen as prefab-webs of sense-making
(Homan, 2001).
Taken for granted assumptions are through and through social and keep on changing
due to ongoing social interactions. The most gripping illustration of the socialness of
taken for granted assumptions is the fate of feral children. Grown up among animals
or totally isolated from other human beings, these children are experienced as antisocial,
restless and amoral by us (Newton, 2002). However they have managed to survive
in their different world in developing effective taken for granted assumptions. Just to
note: in the beginning of my research where I started to try to reflect from a complex
responsive process-perspective made me feel a bit feral.
Seen from a Foucaultian perspective the ‘me’s’ bring into interaction what someone
experiences as normal. Generally speaking the ‘me’s’ bring into interaction what
someone has learned about how reality – whether a social or natural reality - is and at
the same time what to expect in this reality. The ‘me’s’ are plural and vary about
behaviour, values, relations, expectations and traditions in all sort of circumstances.
My ‘me’s’ are the narrative which I am. I am a narrative which ongoing evolves during
my life in interaction with others. So I am the same and not the same at the same
time.
Taken for granted assumptions could be labelled as someone’s bias, a collection of
generalizations - or prejudices if you want - regarding what evolves. However, disapproving
of them would imply disapproving of whom you are in favour of some idealized
nonhuman objectivity. On the contrary, taken for granted assumptions should be
approved as the conditions of living and working together, as which enables meaningful
conversation among people (Dalal, 2012). Without a confined history of ourselves
we are nobody (Beauvoir, 1946). Or otherwise stated: only by being someone one can
be worthwhile for other people or in your organization.
According to Mead (1934) organized attitudes (the ‘me’s’) become activated within
social interaction. In the interaction the ‘I’ emerges. The ‘I’ is the present and identifi-
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