This link has been bookmarked by 25 people . It was first bookmarked on 04 Aug 2006, by John Kellden.
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09 Jan 07
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Codes punish, but they cannot heal.
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Laws are established in opposition to stories. In a criminal trial, we take a complicated narrative of cause and effect and match it to a simple, impersonal code
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In Tilly’s view, we rely on four general categories of reasons. The first is what he calls conventions—conventionally accepted explanations. Tilly would call “Don’t be a tattletale” a convention. The second is stories, and what distinguishes a story (“I was playing with my truck, and then Geoffrey came in . . .”) is a very specific account of cause and effect.
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Here are four kinds of reasons, all relational in nature. If you like Cheney and are eager to relieve him of responsibility, you want the disengagement offered by a convention. For a beleaguered P.R. agent, the first line of defense in any burgeoning scandal is, inevitably, There is no story here. When, in Cheney’s case, this failed, the Vice-President had to convey his concern and regret while not admitting that he had done anything procedurally wrong. Only a story can accomplish that. Anything else—to shrug and say that accidents happen, for instance—would have been perceived as unpardonably callous. Cheney’s critics, for their part, wanted the finality and precision of a code: he acted improperly. And hunting experts wanted to display their authority and educate the public about how to hunt safely, so they retold the story of Cheney’s accident with the benefit of their specialized knowledge.
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Finally, there are technical accounts: stories informed by specialized knowledge and authority.
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Then there are codes, which are high-level conventions, formulas that invoke sometimes recondite procedural rules and categories.
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05 Jan 07
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17 Aug 06
John David Smith“Why?” (Princeton; $24.95), the Columbia University scholar Charles Tilly
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01 May 06
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25 Apr 06
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one kellReason-giving: convention vs story-telling
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A sociologist offers an anatomy of explanations.
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Kore7"A sociologist offers an anatomy of explanations." Sounds like an interesting book.[quote]The husband who uses a story to explain his unhappiness to his wife—“Ever since I got my new job, I feel like I’ve just been so busy that I haven’t had time
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19 Apr 06
John ShortFrom A&L: Marriages thrive on stories couples tell about where each of them stands. Marriages die when they are forced to rely on conventions...
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18 Apr 06
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HERE’S WHY A sociologist offers an anatomy of explanations. by MALCOLM GLADWELL Issue of 2006-04-10 Posted 2006-04-03 Little Timothy is playing with his older brother Geoffrey, when he comes running to his mother. “Mommy, Mommy,†he starts in. “I was playing with my truck, and then Geoffrey came and he said it was his turn to play with the truck even though it’s my truck and then he pushed me.†“Timothy!†his mother says, silencing him. “Don’t be a tattletale.†Timothy has heard that phrase—“Don’t be a tattletaleâ€â€”countless times, and it always stops him short. He has offered his mother an eyewitness account of a crime. His mother, furthermore, in no way disputes the truth of his story. Yet what does she do? She rejects it in favor of a simplistic social formula: Don’t be a tattletale. It makes no sense. Timothy’s mother would never use such a formula to trump a story if she were talking to his father. On the contrary, his mother and father tattle to each other about Geoffrey all the time. And, if Timothy were to tattle on Geoffrey to his best friend, Bruce, Bruce wouldn’t reject the story in favor of a formula, either. Narratives are the basis of Timothy’s friendship with Bruce. They explain not just effects but causes. They matter—except in this instance, of a story told by Timothy to Mommy about Geoffrey, in which Mommy is suddenly indifferent to stories altogether. What is this don’t-be-a-tattletale business about? In “Why?†(Princeton; $24.95), the Columbia University scholar Charles Tilly sets out to make sense of our reasons for giving reasons. In the tradition of the legendary sociologist Erving Goffman, Tilly seeks to decode the structure of everyday social interaction, and the result is a book that forces readers to reëxamine everything from the way they talk to their children to the way they argue about politics.
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That’s what stories do. As Tilly writes, they circumscribe time and space, limit the number of actors and actions, situate all causes “in the consciousness of the actors,” and elevate the personal over the institutional.
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17 Apr 06
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13 Apr 06
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12 Apr 06
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04 Apr 06
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03 Apr 06
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If you believe that stories are the most appropriate form of reason-giving, then those who use conventions and technical accounts will seem morally indifferent—regardless of whether you agree with them. And, if you believe that a problem is best adjudicated through conventions or technical accounts, it is hard not to look upon storytellers as sensationalistic and intellectually unserious.
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