Legibility at the boundary

This morning, the slowly-moving car crash that is my method of thinking things through served up an idea related to a previous note about consequences and boundaries.

Essentially, when we're talking about boundaries we're talking about legibility which is an important component of literacy. Literate practices involve encoding and decoding texts, and sit within an existing power dynamic. There are many forms of literate practices, which as I will keep repeating until I'm blue in the face, are dependent upon literate communities.

Credentialing is type of literate practice within a literate community. At a boundary – for example, a career transition – people need to package up and make legible their experience, skills, and aptitudes. What is acceptable as a credential depends on the community (and in some cases, sub-community). A credential can be a certified piece of paper, or a digital badge, but it can also be the car you drive and the way you dress.

So when we think about questions relating to morality, we need to think about whether the arguments we're making are legible to members of literate communities other than our own. We might not agree with their premises and assumptions about the way the world works, but in order not to talk past one another, we need to agree on the question we're answering. To go back to my 2x2 grid from this post there's not much point in using the language of systemic consequences when you're dealing with someone who is only using the language of duty and responsibility.

Technology can both help and hinder legibility, sometimes simultaneously. For example, social media has normalised being able to "read" the thoughts of others that would previously be left unexpressed. However, as this is a reflexive act and the person sharing said thoughts knows that this is the case, there is an editing of the self which occurs, leading to the "main character syndrome" I discusssed here). In some ways, then, having greater access to other people's thoughts and opinions reduces their legibility to us.

I've got more to say on this, but I'll leave it there for now...

(and then, of course, I go and look at other things I've written and see that I've [already written this[(https://archive.dougbelshaw.com/ambiguities/ambiguity-legibility-and-working-in-the-open/))