Assignment 16: You need to know the rules before you can break them

Engagement.

This is a serious step. I mean, you better really like this person. You’re not just meeting up with them anymore. This Stuff just got real. The best thing to do is to keep breathing. Don’t worry. Tons of people everyday are proposing and taking the next step in their discourse communities too. You’re not alone. You’re with people who like you well enough that you should be comfortable with your decision. And don’t even think about the fact that “a lack of mutuality in the course of engagement creates relations of marginality that can reach deeply into [newcomers’] identities”. This is a necessary step to make your community stronger and more welcoming to interweave ideas from many people, young and old. You’re doing the right thing.

Imagination.

“While imagination can lead to a positive mode of belonging, it can be so removed from any lived form of membership that it detaches [newcomers’] indentit[ies] and leaves [them] in a state of uprootedness.” This is a two edged sword when it comes to, well everything, but for this purpose, discourse communities. You may have a great idea but if you’re way too far-fetched, good luck getting people to go along with the idea. There’s a difference between far-fetched and ambitious. Don’t be the former. Use imagination to spark up ideas in your discourse community but keep them imaginative but reasonable.

Alignment.

You’re the mediator. You’re the fence between properties. You’re the person who has to figure out to make everybody happy. That includes you too. You don’t want to be too busy making everyone else happy at any price that it takes away any of sense of identity you would have about yourself. It “can be a violation of [a person’s] sense of self that crushes [their] identity. If you can balance between making all three parties happy, you’ve got yourself a pretty solid discourse community.