Semantic Fight or Flight?

So just won(a)dering out loud - if we operate, at least on some level, with a fight or flight instinct (used loosely, if not metaphorically here), then what would a semantic fight or flight response be in classification or knowledge organization? Would flight be erasure and fight be argument or insult? Are there nuances here that require further elaboration? I'm actually sure there are. One wonders if the concept record, seen only by professionals dealing with KOS could account for the social interaction that might be semantic fight or flight in KOS.

In communication systems it might be different. Social tagging systems - which seem to be a hybrid of communication and knowledge organization tool might provide slices of this, but it would be a mirco-fight (with warring tags or tag wars), and I would think, and invisible erasure for flight.

Does this idea of the flight/flight dichotomy make sense? I'm inspired by some aboriginal thinkers (and thinkers working with aboriginal epistemologies and world-views) on classification, the tensions present in technologies of writing employed by colonizing forces in appropriation of concepts, and the subsequent reaction(s) specifically, but it could be explored in many contexts I think (tho' that's a neo-liberal perspective of mine!).

Coffee anyone?

Quote on Organizations and Individuals

"The tendency of organization is to kill out the spirit which gave it birth. Organizations do not protect the sacredness of the individual; their tendency is to sink the individual in the mass, to sacrifice his rights, and to immolate him on the altar of some fancied good."

Attribution:
Angelina Grimké (1805–1879), U.S. abolitionist and feminist. As quoted in The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina, ch. 18, by Gerda Lerner (1967).

In a letter to the 1852 Woman’s Rights Convention, held in Syracuse, New York. The major topic of the convention was to be the future organizational structure of the women’s rights movement, which was only a few years old.

Restart thanks to Brazil

Well, it's been an inspirational trip here to Brazil. Visiting UNESP in Marilia and a conference here in Joao Pessoa. I'm heading out today, but I'm now convinced that I should pick this blog back up. I'll be posting my talks on this topic here, and perhaps we should start collecting other resources on the topic. I also think I should start writing up a syllabus. Jose Augusto Guimaraes was a great host and inspiration with his syllabi and commitment to this area. His students and colleagues are doing equally interesting work. I look forward to coming back.