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//This, I Believe// by Mike Zizzi media type="file" key="This, I Believe, mxd2 - MZizzi, 9-11-11.mp3" width="264" height="22" align="center"

**I believe that, whereas the force of culture propagates //samemess// (that is, //normalcy// ﻿ ) with a numbing reliability, our duty as members of the //civis// is to counteract this cultural homogenization by developing and, equally importantly, by sharing, even celebrating, //not// our cultural sameness, but our individual //difference//. **  **I call to your mind's eye a picture of humanity—and, included there, all of language, and, with //that,// all of reality—as an infinite array of centers, all in motion. I would, in fact, liken this array of "possibilities in motion" to the vast array of stars in the cosmos. **
 * Across the heavens, there is no first star, nor last, none leading the way, and none behind all the rest: they simply //are//, in motion. In one sense, they are all the same, in that each is a //star//, yet they are also all different, in that each is its own star. **

**We are all stars (//all-stars// ﻿﻿ ?), coexisting, all in relation to each other and wi ****th, as our highest goal, the //celebration// of a multitude of centers, //not// a //resolution// of difference. ****Yet processes of social construction and also those of power imbalance can obscure difference—by homogenizing the talk—if we are not informed, mindful, and purposeful, in our practices as interlocutors, as talkers together, as members of not just the public, but of the //citizenry// ﻿﻿ : ** **of the //civis//. **
 * So it goes, I propose, with human beings, with identities, with perspectives, with nations, ethnicities, speech communities, sexes, genders, institutions, words and meanings themselves, and, for present purposes, for participants in endeavours of teaching and learning. **
 * And I believe that, as human beings entwined in the enterprise of education—both teaching and learning, at once—that there, //especially// ****there, as we develop and perform our civic identities, in talk. . . we bot ****<span style="color: #283d77; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 21px;">h encounter and create the possibility for //dialogue//. **