1. Do you have more trouble articulating your frame (social theoretical questions) or object?
Social theoretical questions, if I understand this question correctly.
2. Do you tend to project-hop or to stick to a project, and what explains this?
I would rather stick to a project, as leaving things unfinished would bother me. In other words, as a matter of principle, if I start doing something, then I would do my best to complete it properly.
3. Do you tend to be more interested in internal dynamics, or external determinations? In the terms laid out by Keller, do you tend to focus so intently on the object of your concern that context falls away (i.e. are you obsessive compulsive, rather than paranoid)? Is your desire to name, specify and control your object? Is your desire is for figure, its ground your annoyance? Or are you paranoid, context being your focus and obsession? All is signal. Only begrudgingly will you admit that something is noise, outside the scope of your project? Figure is hard to come by. Its ground has captured your attention.
I tend to be more interested in my own internal dynamics, so in Keller’s words, I would fear more of the loss of self-control than being controlled by others. Again, according to Keller’s conceptualization, this makes me obsessive compulsive, I guess. And while working on stuff, I do have the tendency of obsessing about understanding thoroughly what I am working on (so I do desire to name/categorize, order and control), but I would still say that I do not obsess about it to the extent that the context (of what I study?) falls away from my attention.
4. What do you do with unusual or counter examples? Are you drawn to “the deviant,” or rather repulsed by it?
Although I have the tendency to force things to fit in the frameworks I build to better understand/control the phenomenon I study (so to be repulsed by the unusual examples), as I am already aware of this tendency of mine (also the obsessive-compulsive tendencies I have in general, not particularly as a researcher) I am pretty much conscious of such practices of mine as well. As far as I observe, my overall work ethic (i.e. if I start doing something then I would do it properly) overwrites my tendency of following what feels better for an obsessive-compulsive person. That is why I would force myself to follow the deviant, even though it initially feels overwhelming. But I would still be able to do so, because soon after the first “shock”, I would again keenly accept the challenge of “getting it right”/ “capturing, hence controlling, it properly”.
5. Do you tend to over-impose logics on the world, or to resist the construction of coherent narratives?
I do enjoy over-imposing logics on the world; however, I do not imagine those as something fully comprehensible by human minds. Thus, while I always resist the simplifying, overarching coherent narratives, I do find peace in believing in the existence of very complex patterns that are only partially intelligible to humans, reminding us how small and incapable humans are after all.
6. Do you tend to over-generalize, or to hold back from overarching argument?
I hold back from overarching arguments/statements when it comes to parts of phenomena that humans attempt to understand, hence to study; but I can also find over-generalizations soothing when it comes to bigger phenomena that I think are elusive to human mind, as I tried to explain above.
7. Do you like to read interpretations different than your own, or do you tend to feel scooped or intimidated by them?
It depends on how extreme the interpretations different than my own are. I would be just curious and willing to read about them as long as they are not fundamentally shaking my own believes and values. But if we are talking about interpretations that would not allow my interpretations/believes/values to (co-)exist, I would not enjoy reading them, and mostly would feel intimidated by them; yet I would still force myself to read them either to better hone my arguments to be able to convince them or to simply keep myself posted about them (which can in future lead me to change my own assumptions).
8. Do you tend to change an argument as you flesh it out, or do you tend to make the argument work, no matter what?
I would definitely change my argument, no matter how much time and effort I already put in it. If I spot any problem in it, I cannot pretend that it does not exist; because to complete a project/essay/argument properly (the work ethic I mentioned in the beginning), for me, means accepting to be challenged for it. If I accept to be challenged for it, then I cannot just make the argument work for the sake of being done with that project. The argument should be as strong as I can make it to be.
9. Do you tend to think in terms of “this is kind of like” (metaphorically)? Do you hold to examples that “say it all,” leveraging metonymic thinking?
I do think in terms of “this is kind of like”, and I have always been taken with the power of metaphors in communication.
10. Do you like gaming understanding in this way? Does it frustrate you that your answers often don’t fit easily on either side of the binaries set up by the questions? (Jakobson suggests that over attachment to a simple binary scheme is a “continuity disorder.”)
Again, it depends. Sometimes, yes, my answers do not fit on either side, and then I create my own middle ground; but sometimes they do fall under one of the choices. In any case, I would not get frustrated by the fact that some of my answers do not fit on either side of the binaries, I would just ignore them and talk about how it works in my reality.
