Don't Get Boxed In

Chapter 20 pg. 269
Figure 20-2 “A Morning Exercise” Created by Stan Deetz
After reading the Don't Get Boxed In, exercise by Deetz, I was able to get a clearer understanding of his theory. It is so easy to just be a passive consumer of information, without thinking about who is providing and sponsoring that information to us. A quote that stood out to me about this, “It only shows that all information is sponsored. All data, whether scientific or not, is value-laden and hence political” (269). The author explains that this does not make the information good or bad, it is just value based and chosen from and through those values by the stakeholder. I thought the whole idea of writing your own information about the cereal in the clear containers, was so creative and thought-provoking. I would love to see the different kinds of information on a can of Diet Coke, sponsored by a parent, a scientist, a government agency, a nutritionist, a teenager...etc. There would be thousands of different views of political information, just within those subsets of people themselves. “...government agencies and I have different preferences and therefore produce and reproduce different truths. None of us is more noble or evil by producing a particular truth” (269). I tend to deem people as good and bad based upon the evidence or information they choose to sponsor, but that is unfair of me. Just because my preferences do not align with theirs, does not mean they are bad. I think the point Deetz is trying to make is not about the truth itself, but just the awareness of knowing there are many sides to everything. That information can be manipulated by us and we can be manipulated by it. He believes in a democracy in action, which means being critical, open-minded and aware of as much information as possible.