if you don't mind uh I would like to
take a
moment before I start presenting to you
to share with you a an uncertainty a
dilemma that I'm
facing right here right now as I stand
before you on this
stage you see I have a problem with TED
talks and this is why I'm still very
much uncertain whether I should or
should not participate in this
conference I know some of you are
probably thinking hey wait a minute
there wise guy you're up there on stage
speaking that's why I'm going to take a
few steps to the Sid I know the light
engineer is probably freaking out right
now because we're supposed to stand here
but I promise to keep one foot on the
red carpet where I'm supposed to be and
another
out I know this is not a presentational
tactic to grab your attention or
heighten your interests this is a
genuine disclosure of an uncertainty and
that's why I'm stepping aside for a
minute now I started to experience this
uncertainty during our first Workshop
for this very conference a few weeks ago
I was sitting on a stage one very much
similar to this one waiting for my turn
to present my idea to a group of
people and while I was waiting in
silence I was bouncing back and forth in
my head between the polarities of this
dilemma between whether I should or
should not do this whole thing and then
came my turn to speak and I couldn't
help it anymore I said you know what I'm
not sure I should be in this
conference and of course I was asked
why and this is what I
said I said as a
teacher I have a problem with soundbite
information media such as Ted I really
do now this reservation is not in any
way directed at the speakers who appear
on Ted or similar media but rather at
the form or mode of presentation
because I believe that such forms of
presentation usually pack and shoehorn
thinking and experience into short
colorful presentational packages adding
a pinch of motivation here and a
Sprinkle of inspiration
there and as a teacher I've often worked
with students to try to critique and
problematize ideas collected through
such forms of media you know why because
I believe that such media sometimes make
sweeping claims about the nature of
knowledge
and how it relates to practice and
experience and I feel that sometimes
such media also turn thinking and
experience into
Commodities I think that fast food for
thought Industries are not too different
from Fast Food Industries they often
present us with pretam sound bites
quotations
aphorisms which make sweeping claims
about knowledge
the world
life human
nature take the term Global Village as
an
example and in cultural studies courses
that I often teach I often encounter
students coming into these courses with
their own goodie bags full of sound
bites and quotations and sometimes see
some students defend such ideas so
enthusiastically and zealous just
because they happen to identify with the
energy of a certain presentation or with
the charm and Charisma of a certain
speaker I mean don't most politicians
thrive on these qualities on such modes
of
knowledge do we really want our minds to
be receptive and predisposed to such
modes of
knowing and then I told everybody you
know what I know of good teachers out
there who work on developing thinking
and they know that it is a long
laborious anxiety provoking
process I really don't think that
education is supposed to make us feel
good about ourselves and good about the
world yes Hope is
important but I honestly don't think
that education is supposed to be a
therapeutic
experience we cannot always start to
expect thinking to be an adrenaline
pumping rush into ucing
experience
now I said this to everybody who was
present during the workshop and I told
them you know what I'm not here trying
to you know especially when it comes to
Ted Talks I said Ted presentations I've
heard are supposed to spin heads and
potentially change the
world spin heads really I mean if a
short presentation can spin ahead one
way then another short pres presentation
can spin ahead another way and the last
thing as a teacher I want to see in a
classroom are weather veins you know
what those are those instruments that
tell the direction of the wind usually
with a nice little rooster on top and
arrows pointing North and
South I told everybody I'm not here to
try to spin heads I'm not here trying to
change the world or move any of you to
action I would be extremely concerned if
a 10-minute
presentation moved any of you to action
so I told everybody during that Workshop
that this was one side of my dilemma I
also voiced the other side of my dilemma
dilemma I said I've talked to students
teachers colleagues friends of mine who
have used Ted videos and other forms of
similar forms of media to start
conversations to launch discussions on
important matters and very crucial
issues so during the workshop that day
I voiced these two sides of my dilemma
to everybody and guess what
happened we started a
conversation and that conversation has
led me all the way here not there here
so far so what I'm trying to do right
here right now as I stand in this
spot voicing what has gone on so far all
the anxiet IES and dilemas that went
into this process is I'm trying to
invite a
third see I could have either chosen to
not be here at all and say you know I I
don't believe in Ted and similar media
and the underlying ideologies of such
media and therefore refrained from
participating or I could have been
standing right
there and trying to present you a
package of a certain thought and idea
without exposing any of the under
underlying processes and anxieties and
dilemas that went into this but
instead I'm standing up here trying to
invite a
third and some of you are probably
asking right now so what does invite a
third exactly mean please tell
us maybe a better question to ask is
what does invite a third actually
do see I believe we live in a world
between inverted commas that is
continuously presented to us Time and
Again by the media and politicians alike
through polarities through either ores
through binary oppositions take Lebanese
society as an
example where each one of us is at once
expected to be either or not going to
name them to think in either ORS and to
read our lives and social conditions
through either
ORS and I think that our individual
minds thinking in isolation are
sanctuaries for such either ORS for
binary oppositions I sometimes when I
think alone I often imagine myself
walking around wearing on my head one of
these huge u-shaped magnets you know
like the ones we usually see in cartoons
in Tom and Jerry for example where Tom
tries to get Jerry to swallow a small
magnet and then to trap these big
u-shaped magnets I often imagine myself
walking around wearing one of those on
my head and trying to think through my
dilemas on my
own in
isolation my thinking often gets trapped
in that
magnet and maybe this is why most media
channels want us glued to television
screens because they prefer to speak to
an audience of one person in isolation
so they can speak through such either
ores take for
example really is that it is that all we
have from my experience as a student and
from my experience with students I've
often noticed that the way out of this
magnetic trap that is our individual
thinking is not North or South is not
either or but straight out of such
two-dimensional binary
spaces and out into a third unconcluded
inter subjective space located in the
here and
now paradoxically to think in either ORS
is to have already reached a
conclusion and this is why I'm standing
here unsure whether I should step in
there and present to you or not because
presentations are expected to deliver
something and then to
conclude now I promise you I'll be off
the stage in a second this is not a
cunning way just to hog the stage for
the rest of the day and I'm sure a lot
of you are hungry and want to adjourn
for for food but I'm not going to leave
you with a goodie bag full of sound
bites
either I know I'm walking a tight Trope
right now because some of you are
probably thinking so was this a
presentation but he's telling us it
isn't it kind of feels like one but
maybe it
isn't what I've tried to do today as I
stand here and not there is to delay
presenting to you as much as possible in
order to invite you to linger with me in
a pre-presentation space in a
pre-presentation moment and if we can if
this moment remains unconcluded if we
can sustain It And Delay its closure
then we can claim that we have initiated
a conversation we can claim that we have
invited a third thank you