the 4th point of reference

I momentarily lost track of Identity, or conflated it into big-D Discourse, and should not have, as conflation backgrounds and underrepresents the agency of self in order to foreground and emphasize the power of the groups one inhabits. However, in order for the notion of bending Discourse to work (and it does everyday), action must be taken by the individual -- action that slightly subverts or pushes against the norms of the group.

Now, one of the beautiful things about "norms" (a generally repulsive but admittedly necessary concept to me) is that there is no "normal" person; the "norm" is a hypothetical point that everyone is measured against. If there were a normal person, he would be a freak (yeah but sorry, it would not be a female; it's a patriarchal world we live in where the theoretical standard is a rich white male -- if you've got ideas on how to change that, let me in on it). What this impossibility of norm means is that in order to function, Discourses allow for a broad range of variations from the norm. So as long as a person doesn't stray too far from the norm in too many ways, s/he is allowed threads of eccentricities.

This is where the agency of Identity can bend the Discourse of one's group. One merely chooses her eccentricities carefully, and get enough others to embrace them too. Pretty soon the eccentricity is within the range of norm, at which point the norm shifts.

Here's an example from Flying Moose: masculine men don't knit, right? (It's an illustrative example only). So one year we get a huge Australian monster counselor, rough, tough, mean, scary -- all the things boys think "real men" are. Except that he sits on the rocker on the summer porch and knits hats. Sure enough, in very little time, knitting is cool. Fast forward one summer and just about everyone has a goofy hand-knit hat. It's almost more of a sign of Flying Moose than our hand-built cear/canvas canoes.

To review then, and to integrate Identity, we have the four points of 1) Identity, 2) Discourse, 3) Design, and 4) Experience. And what I'm interested in creating is a cycle of learning where Design lures Identity from the cozy zone of Discourse into a new Experience that changes Identity, and thereby changes Discourse. Rinse, Lather, Repeat. There's no stagnant pool here. Life's a freakin' River ;-)