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Declaration of Terms

abstracting

Mental processes that often act as a summary or condensation of some phenomena that may be initially difficult to comprehend.

actors

People, who in their daily living perform according to a variety of assigned: ascribed and achieved status, roles and expectations. We are all actors acting all the time and when we act with intent performers.

aesthetics

Anything, although usually in the arts, that triggers the senses, often related to beauty.

aggregate

A sociological term for a collection of people who happen to be in the same physical space at the same time. Key to this definition of aggregate (there are many different definitions for this term) is physical proximity in a particular time and space.

alienation

A term used by Marx and others to connotes the disconnects that arise when a human being and his or her milieu are estranged from their natural ways of being in the world.For an example, see Marx on natural and unnatural means of production and its effects on human needs, wants and desires.

anomaly

Any phenomenon that is considered out of the norm (a mistake), yet from another domain of looking may indicate an alternative premise, paradigm, reality or solution. Thomas Kuhn suggested that scientific advances were often a consequence of observing and responding to anomalies.

apartheid

Any institutionalized regime involving systemic coercion, oppression and domination by one racial or ethnic group over another. Most often associated with the former South Africa system of government.

art

It is the pursuit by a composer to integrate his or her unique emotional, rational, circular and creative styles in a particular medium. Art can involve all the senses simultaneously or separately.

As an object it can go beyond the traditional meanings for life as we know them and provoke new worlds, generating revelations and revolutions.

Art often offers satisfaction without answers.

Anticommunication is an offer - not a refusal.

Communication uses the orders and laws meant to be found by a listener as his or her own. Whereas anticommunication creates, generates, invents an order and its laws in ways so that the listener might hear it for the first time. (Herbert Brun)

authority

A particular type of legitimate power embedded in the culture of modern society.

automation

A system for substituting machines for work that has been traditionally done by humans. 

Things and those who create them that generate unique techniques, technologies often found, yet not limited to, the arts.

bartering

The exchange of goods and services without the use of money.

Any and all body dispositions, movements, actions performed by a living system and observed in the relational space.

behavioral continuum

A system of a possible categorical distinctions an observer may generate for states of human behaviors that is helpful when wanting to de-escalate or as some prefer to do escalate situations.

biodiversity
.....

biology of observing

When looking at our looking find ourselves observers observing in the happening of living in language (more specifically languaging) and in this happening we humans superimpose explanations.

Two different domains: the domain of experience and the domain of explanations: the domain of experiences are what happens to us in our living and the domain of explanations are how we explain the experiences that happen to us. This is part of our biology as living systems immersed in language or more specifically languaging.
So, when one answers a question she or he brings forth his or her epistemology - his or her manners for explaining how she or he knows what she or he knows in accordance with his or her history or herstory of living, knowing and cognition.  (Humberto Maturana, 1990s)

When accepting the Biological Question of Observing it is impossible to know the Truth since one always finds oneself nested in his or herstory of knowing.

One cannot come back to the question what is knowledge too often or to the answer: knowledge is what one knows. (Gertrude Stein)

Then there is the concept of Knowledge or a Body of Knowledge and modern science....

capital

• economic capital - stocks, bonds, real estate, money... any monetary assets or physical, tangible possession

• social capital - human relations that can be used for economic gains.  Not what, but who....

• emotional capital emotioning, acting and performing in ways that might increase one's access to capital.

• political capital - no clear definition, and here's a place to start
  

class consciousness

....

cognitive strategies

....

colonialism

The processes by which some nations enriched themselves via social, political and economic exploitation and dominance of other not so powerful nations. (see neocolonialism)

communication

composer

conflict

Friction within a system that is resolvable within that system. See contradiction.

conflict resolution
.....

contradiction

Friction within a system that is not resolvable within that system and thus requires a radical shift of that system. (Herbert Brun)

conscious(ness)

Awareness and states of awareness that affect and effect one's living, some say a consequence of living immersed in language.

control

The notion of control entails the implicit supposition that the observer either can specify what happens in a system, or can make a complete model of it, so that his or her actions determine what happens in it. Neither of these phenomena happens. Structural determinism precludes both, the first because there are no instructive interactions between structure-determined systems, and the second because cognition does not operate with representations of an independent world. The notion of (see)understanding is different. (Humberto Maturana, Notion of Control)

We human beings want and in fact need order and often  confuse the need to order with a desire to control.

creativity

A creative act is any action that generates something unique. What seems to inspire creative action is an awareness and motivation to do so.

A creative act is any action that generates something unique.

What seems to inspire creative action is an awareness and motivation to do so.

"If we take seriously the dictionary-definition of creation, 'to bring into being or form out of nothing creativity seems to be not only beyond any scientific understanding, but even impossible. It is hardly surprising, then, that some people have explained it in terms of divine inspiration, and many others in terms of some romantic intuition, or insight."

crisis

A particular kind of disorder which is often related to some sort of LOSS.

culture

Networks of conversations and technologies that include material and non-material artifacts that are shared by a particular group of individuals generation to generation to generation

cultural relativity

The social fact that what is believed, valued, expected and or acceptable in one culture is not necessarily the case in other cultures. (Blackwell)

conversation

Literally, "turning together in recursive coordinations of coordinations of consensual behaviors and emotions." The braiding of language and emotion. All human activities take place as networks of conversations. (Maturana, H., 1996, in conversation)

cybernetics

The term cybernetics comes from ancient times, traced to Hero of Alexandria who lived in the first century C.E. (Klaus Krippendorff)

1940s

The scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. (Norbert Wiener)

1950s

"'The art of steermanship: deals with all forms of behavior in so far as they are regular, or determinate, or reproducible: stands to the real machine - electronic, mechanical, neural, or economic -- much as geometry stands to real object in our terrestrial space; offers a method for the scientific treatment of the system in which complexity is outstanding and too important to be ignored." (W. Ross Ashby)

1960s

Ways of looking and a language for expressing what one sees. (Margaret Mead)

1970s

Circularity.... Second-order cybernetics invites an observer to shift his or her ways for knowing - his or her epistemology - away from looking as if things were out there towards looking at looking itself. (Heinz Von Foerster)

1980s

CYBERNETICS is a young discipline which, like applied mathematics, cuts across the entrenched departments of natural science: the sky, the earth, the animals and the plants. Its interdisciplinary character emerges when it considers economy not as an economist, biology not as a biologist, engines not as an engineer. In each case its theme remains the same, namely how systems regulate themselves, reproduce themselves, evolve and learn. (Gordon Pask)

Cybernetics is the science and art of understanding. (Humberto Maturana)

1990s

The art and science of maintaining equilibrium in a world of constraints and possibilities. (Ernst Von Glasersfeld)

The cybernetician is a craftsperson in and with time. What would distinguish this person is that he or she accepts time as a medium in which to create, build and study.... The arts have, at the moment, the most to contribute here. (Laurence Richards)

2000

The science and art of the understanding understanding. (Rodney Donaldson)

Ways of thinking about thinking... establishing ways of establishing connections (Laurence Richards)

Cybernetics is essentially about language, which is about circularity, which is about recursions, which is about languaging.... (Lombardi)

de-escalation

The processes by which a system generates homeostasis out of discomfort, disruption, disorder or chaos..

democracy

Equal access to information and the decision making processes.

A political social sturcture of a social system which are for the people and by the people.... See representative/participatory democracies as well as capital/social democracies.

dissocial relations

Relations in which a participant feels illegitimatized. Such relations are grounded in meanness, control, aggression, dominance and war.

diversity

.......

domination

A situation in which an individual or special category of people are subjected - against his or her or their own will - to do the will of the other. 

dominant culture

dynamics

Change, flux, motion and other action processes often associated with living..., living organisms and living systems.

economic globalization
....

economics

A fundamental sector of any society related to the confiscation, production, distribution and consumption of goods and services for meeting the needs, wants and desires of the members of that society.

economics systems

The means by which the basic human needs of a society are met... in order for a culture to be a society it must be capable of providing its members with the essentials necessary for survival.

ecosystems

....

elements

Parts of a larger system or organization in which each part is considered essential to that system or organization in order to function.

emotionally disturbed

Usually children who have been labeled with a handicapped conditioning which includes 'behavioral' or "emotional' problems as defined by others in their environments. Often, yet not limited to a history of physical, sexual and/or emotional trauma or abuse.

emotions

In the domain of relations, any and all body dispositions (body movements) observed by an observer who then labels those emotions observed as feelings in accordance with his or her cultural experiences or bias.

".... The Western culture to which we modern scientists belong, depreciates emotions, or, at least considers them a source of arbitrary actions that are unreliable because they do not arise from reason. This attitude blinds us to the participation of our emotions in all that we do as the background of bodyhood that makes possible all our actions and specifies the domains in which they take place. And this blindness, limits us in our understanding of social phenomena.

Let us reflect upon this matter:

(i) All animals have different domains of internal operational coherences that constitute dynamic body postures through which their actions and interactions in their respective domains of existence take place....

(ii) The observer distinguishes different emotions and moods through the distinction of the different domains of actions in which the observed organisms move... thus, all animal behavior takes place in a domain of actions supported and specified at any moment by some emotion or mood. Indeed, all animal life takes place under a continuous flow of emotions and moods (emotioning) that changes the domains of actions in which the organisms move and operate, in a manner that is contingent to the course of their interactions. -- We human beings are not an exception to this. Moreover, in us human beings, emotioning is mostly consensual and follows a course braided with languaging in our history of interactions with other human beings....

(iii) The observer distinguishes different emotions and moods through the distinction of the different domains of actions in which the observed organisms moves:

emotion: love

The domain of those behaviors through which the other arises as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself.

emotion: aggression

The domain of those behaviors through which the other is negated as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself.

emotion: hate

The domain of those behaviors through which a particular other is negated as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself." (Humberto Maturana)

enlightenment era

Known as the "age of reason," the enlightenment era was a time, initially in Europe, when rational, logical thinking and reductionism emerged as "modern science".

entropy

environmental degradation
....

environmental injustice

The outcomes related to the human destruction of the biosphere. See environmental racism.

environmental racism

The phenomena by which social minorities, be they Black, Native American, Hispanic or people of a low socioeconomic status, end up living in neighborhoods where toxic waste, and the industrial that produce them, are located.

epistemology

"As science, epistemology is the study of how particular organisms or aggregates of organisms know, think, and decide." (Gregory Bateson)

"Human knowing (as well as that knowing which is characteristic of all living systems)." (Rodney Donaldson)

The study of how individuals and systems of individuals (cultures) come to know, what they know according to what they think, believe and decide.

One cannot come back to the question what is knowledge too often or to the answer, knowledge is what one knows. (Gertrude Stein)

equilibrium

Natural strive for balance between and among the elements of a system, as well as between systems.

escalation

The observation of a systemic shift as indicated in the languaging, moving away from homeostasis toward discomfort, disruption, disorder or chaos.

ethnocentricity

The tendency to view one's cultural values, beliefs, norms, etc. as superior to any other culture or society.

A model for thinking, speaking and doing that is related to the social, political and economic equality for all peoples.

first-order cybernetics

Focuses on observed systems such as machines and how they operate: Trivial systems are synthetically determined, independent of a past, analytically determined and predictable.

generosity

A physical and SOCIAL space, usually located in an urban area, where certain groups of people are "locked in" economically, emotionally and mentally.

globalization 

The reality that, due to technological advances and communication techniques - people - from around the world can be in contact, with one another, doing a variety of activities, instantaneously - as if time, space and place were flat. (See economic globalization)

haiku poetry

An ancient Japanese form of poetry that consists of 17 syllables divided amongst 3 lines. The first line has five syllables, the second has seven syllables and the third line has five syllables. Haiku poetry is most often about the author's feelings about nature.

hegemony

A SOCIAL system in which "rule" is not by political and/or economic forces alone BUT via the manufactured consent and conformity that is established when controlling the very ideas and assumptions of the members of that social system. (Antonio Gramsci)

hierarchy (Social)

The organization of a social system (usually in the shape of a pyramid) in which the institutionalized social structures function to establish and maintain an an unequal distribution of status, position, power, authority and thus previlege and prestige.

humanities

The study and exploration of the human condition as related to philosophy and the arts.

human condition

As long as concepts such as observing, autonomy, self-organization, self-reference and self-observation are left out of conversations about the human condition, we will be lacking in our understanding of us.

ideology

A set of  ideas, values, stereotypes and attitudes that function to support the beliefs and actions of a the dominant culture by distorting to some degree the facts. (Karl Marx)

The traditional practices associated with colonialism and or neocolonialism with the additional threat or use of coercive force such as military. (see hegemony)

intuition

Flashes of insights that appear to be grounded in rior thought processes and experiences, some of which are conscious while others are not.

institutional
.....

language

The circular, dynamic recursive processes for being distinctively human ....

What happens when we language is that we dance together in recurrent interactions that constitute the flow of coordinations of coordinations of coordinations of coordinations of actions. If this is so, language is taking place in the coordinations of actions. Language is not taking place in the brain." (Humberto Maturana)

Just as the fish is the last to know it lives in water, we humans seem to be the last to know that we live in language and that it is our actions in language that give rise to generosity and its opposite, meanness. (Kathaleen Forsythe)

languaging

Awareness that the recurrent interactions that constitute the flow of recursive coordinations of coordinations of actions we have with each other, are always grounded in human emotioning. (Humberto Maturana)

life chances

A concept that suggests access to capital of all sorts, orients one's chances in life in regard to healthcare, marital status, longevity, level of education, career opportunities, etc. (Max Weber)

manipulation

The process by which an actor (or a set of actors) attempts to control another actor (or set of actors) via the use of unfair or insidious means in order to achieve his, her or their will(s) or advantage.

meta

Beyond, transcending, a more comprehensive explanation of a phenomenon -  metaphysical, metalinguistics, metalougue. A higher order or state of knowing, beyond levels, layers or hierarchies.

milieu

modernism

A conscious or unconscious radical shift in the thinking and doing of the aesthetics in a particular culture -- traditionally related to the humanities.

natural trauma

Trauma attributed to natural events and disasters such hurricanes, fires, floods, tornadoes....

neocolonialism

Modern colonialism which often entails indirect social, political and economic exploitation by one nation toward another nation. (see imperialism)

networks

Interwoven webs of elements, relations and processes that entail predicable, sporadic and upredicable phenomena and interactions.

Non-hierarchical systems of interconnections.

Objectivity

A fundamental myth that is the premise for modern science, which suggests that the world exists independent of any observer. Hence the role of science and scientist is to uncover, discover, predict and control phenomena (realism).

When an observations are considered Objective the characteristics of the observer are not a part of the observation. When the observer is considered a part of the observations (objectivity) emerges.

(objectivity)

When explanations about observations (observing) include one's observations.

observer (as a biological phenomena)

".... Everything said is said by an observer...." (Humberto Maturana)

When asking and accepting the biological question about observing it becomes apparent that we human beings live immersed in language through which objects and entities arise.

Observers make descriptions... and as observers, a consequence of our living immersed in language, we humans generate our ways of knowing (epistemologies).

Every I is an observer with an epistemology.

Thus at best we generate (objectivity) -- and with others inter-objectivity.

This way of thinking about thinking and knowing invites an observer to listen for understanding rather than agreement.

observing

A process through which our descriptions generate self, self-awareness and awareness of others.

observing one's observing

As observers, we humans can focus on the present and look at our looking in that moment.

open society
.....

oppression
.....

organization(s)
.....

order

We human beings need to make sense, order (not control although, we often confuse order with control) our sensing.

patriarchy

The organization of a social systems ideas, images, structures and behaviors hierarchically so that male domination is institutionalized  throughout that social system.

paradigm

A set of fundamental assumptions that observers are often unaware of that guide our thinking, including theory development, research, science and daily life.

patriarchical paradigm 

A set of fundamental assumptions that observers may or may not be aware of that guide their thinking and doing in manners that assume the dominance of males over females is an acceptable and normal practice in daily life.

pedagogy
.....

personality

An individual observer's presentation of his or her current patterns for observing, thinking, feeling, acting and being human.

performers

....

phenomena

Anything observable via one's sensing

pivot poetry

A process for generating creativity and accessing one's unconscious by taking the last word of the previous line and making it the first word of the next line. That word is called the pivot word. The pivot word is the point where the poem changes direction only to establish a new one in relation to the first one.

premise

The underlying assumptions that guide an observer's or set of observers ways for knowing and explaining.

propaganda

The intentional distortion of the "facts" that are used by a social, political and or economic groups in order to sway and or persuade the perceptions, opinions and practices of a particular population. (Karl Marx)

power

One's (individual or groups) ability to achieve his, her, their will in relation to the other actors.

racism

The ideological beliefs that there are characteristics and qualities that are specific to physical and thus mental differences between and among humans.

radical shift

A change in place, position or direction in relation to existing ways of thinking, habits, conditions or institutions.

rate of exploitation
.....

reductionism

A fundamental concept of traditional modern science which maintains that complex phenomena can be reduced to a simpler, less complex states of order and thus explained. (See Systems Thinking.)

reality
.....

reflecting

As observers we humans can look at our past experiences and explanations while in a present and evaluate our desired actions. Then there is observing one's observing. As observers we can look at our present experiences and explanations.

relational space

A systemic view in which organism and its medium emerge, intersect and interact.

Logical, rational explanations and theories based on observations that are verifiable via our senses and experiences, often referred to as empirical evidence.

second-order cybernetics

Focuses on observing systems in circular relations and how they might operate:

Non-Trivial systems are organic, dependent on a past, analytically indeterminate and thus unpredictable. (Hienz von Foerster)

self conscious

Awareness of one's self, observing one's observing - a human condition

senses

Body effecters and affecters for registering environmental stimulus both consciously and unconsciously.

social

socialization

The processes by which each societal member is educated both formally and informally about becoming a member of his or her family, community, culture and society.

social facts

Observations shared between and among standard observers that reflect (interobjectivity) some say (intersubjectivity).

social change
.....

social majority

Members of a society (usually the minority of the population) for which the dynamics and structures of that society function in ways that benefit their best interests.

social minority

Members, groups or categories of people (usually the majority of the population) that share lesser degrees of property, power, prestige and thus privilege than the social majority within a particular society.

social movements
.....

social relations

sociocybernetics
....

socioeconomic status (SES)

The analysis of individuals as elements of a special category of people, according to their access to economic, political, social and cultural resources, and thus their degree of power, prestige and thus privilege.

sociological imagination

An observer's ability to generate interconnections between one's self on a variety of levels while considering one's biography, historical contexts and social structures.

social structures

Stable organized social patterns and sets of social patterns considered part of human interaction.

status (Social)

The rank and or position occupied by an individual in a particular social system that is associated with certain roles, attitudes, expectations, previleges and behaviors.

stratification

The organization of institutionalized Social structures that orient the order and ranking of individuals or groups of people hierarchically. ( See socioeconomics for a micro view)

symbol

The cultural use of an item, icon or image to represent something else.

systems

Sets of elements, operations, dynamics, patterns and interrelations as specified... on meta levels, by an observer.

techniques

Rational conscious processes for inventing and using any technology efficiently. Techniques are methods, mental processes necessary for doing anything rationally and efficiently.

Technology is materials, tangible objects, that exist in the physical realm including tools, instruments and machines that possess a set number of possible states, have a particular function and require a technique in order to be used and evolve.

Technology is any kind of practical know how that is part of a culture (including tools and knowledge) that entails creating and designing solutions to problems. (Eileen, B. Leonard, 2003)

technology, composing and anitcommunication

As a composer meets technologies (such as the computer) one has a chance to see things differently than within the usual barries or boundaries, and as such, the composers may recognize that technology is not merely a variety of instruments, devices or conveniences related to techniques and/or engineering. But that technology is the art and science of applying knowledge in ways that solve problems. (Herber Brun)

theory

A summary of how and why specific empirical evidence are thought to be inter-related. Theories are interpretations of data, which guide existing and generate new theories.

to transgress

see bell hooks

trauma

When a living system experiences severe stress and or pain that alters his or her physiology and consciousness

truth

The time during which the intent and content of an observer's statement is not in conflict or contradiction with any other statement that observer would make in response to any situation. (Brun)

understanding

Refers only to the reflections of an observer with respect to the flow of his or her interactions in a medium as he or she operates in a discourse that reflects the operational coherences of his or her coordinations of actions in language. (Humberto Maturana)

unnatural trauma

Trauma that involves physical, sexual or emotional abuse

unconscious

That which one (human) is not aware of that affects and effects his or her daily living

Ewell's Glossary
World Issues Glossary
Social Science Dictionary
An Artsy Glossary of Terms
Another Sociological Dictionary
Schaefer's Sociological Dictionary
Botterweck's Sociological Dictionary