Chapter 8

Chapter eight talks about communication ethics within the context of different organizations and how we construct our lives and the way we communicate based on different "dwellings"(the types of space for home created for communication within an organization). What I found interesting about this idea is that it seems (at least to me) to have less reliance on the "good", or at least the idea of a common good. Page 138 says organizational communication ethics requires "minimal common understanding of a given good" and can even "displace a particular sense of the good". The book stresses that organizations are made of with different people with varying ideas and understandings of good, which I find interesting because I think some of the other things we have read have had more of a focus on finding or understanding a more specific good or idea of "the good" in order to have more effective communication ethics. I like this idea that not only do the organizations differ, but so do the ideas and people within them.

Another thing that stuck out to me in chapter 8 was the idea of community of memory. What I found most intriguing about this topic was the idea that community of memory is meant to guide, not dictate. The book says "it responds to changing circumstances within an organization or risks becoming simply a dead tradition" (146). I could not agree with this statement more. We talk a lot about the idea of memory and it being flexible and changing over time a lot in one of my cultural studies classes about history, and I think that in order for these organizations the book describes to keep moving forward, so do the memories. The book talks about how memories change over time because multiple people contribute to them and it is this combination of the past and present that keep community of memory from becoming static. I think this really shows that not only do the memories and ideas change from one communicate or organization to another, but they are evolving within organizations as well. I think this relates to what the book says about the importance of both the "what" and the "how" of community of memory. It is the idea/memory and the evolution and effect on the understanding.