Gratings everyone.

I've uploaded & made public S. Parenti's notes 'Towards an Anticommunicative Environment' here: http://bit.ly/anticommunicativeenvironment

One question, partly for Susan for others as well: How do we reconcile the desirability of listening as a participatory* act (as presented by Susan this week) with Herbert’s statement that the power of the respondent must be even “temporarily suspended” in order to protect the [composition]** in question:

“The power of the respondent must be recognized, moderated, and if necessary, temporarily suspended. Not the response, but its falsification of the responded to, must be noted and rejected. Again, any violent manifestation of the respondent’s power must be boldly testified to by an alert witness.” (Brun, ¨ My Words and Where I Want Them, 99)

If listening is to assume consequence, where does that leave composition?

What does listening to music (power of the respondent) have to do with listening to another person in dialogue?

Is listening composition? Counter-composition, perhaps? Paracomposition?

Though these are legitimate questions, there are legitimate returns to be found in M. Enslin’s Teaching Composition: Facing the Power of the Respondent. However, I am interested in hearing what others have to say currently.

*”I participate when I make a difference AND when I am aware that I make a difference.” -Larry Richards (http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/2001/Richards.htm)

**I use brackets to indicate elements whose place within a sentence could be held by another element. In this instance, “composition” could be replaced by “statement,” or “idea.” This is not quite a metonymic relation, I think, but something close. Help? (@Snow Leopard? @Amram?)