tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67713194222029929882024-03-05T00:46:43.630-05:00NewFoundationsBloglocusA <a href="http://newfoundations.com/phronetic.html">phronetic</a>, trans-ideological venue of research and review for the reflective professional. <br>
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<a href="http://newfoundations.com/BlogSources/BlogTopics.html"><big><b>Link to Blog Topics</b></big></a></center>Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comBlogger396125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-74379690772377899772021-02-13T13:40:00.041-05:002021-12-16T04:35:30.185-05:00Lab Results and Real-World Disconnects: Covid Vaccinationsedited 12/16/21<br><br>
<blockquote><i>'Tis many the slip twixt cup and lip.</i> -- Adage.</blockquote>
<b>Introduction.</b> President Biden wants kids (young or old) back in school. Their parents do, too. Ditto, the many other people who are inconvenienced, even suffering, from school closures. So do I, having been <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/resumeJn98.html" target="_blank"><b>a teacher for some 43+ years.</b></a> (Older kids likely want to come to school, too, if only to cut classes to hang out with their friends or to enjoy, if only vicariously, other forms of stimulation.) <br><br>
Should teachers, instructors, and professors go back into their classrooms because the Center for Disease Control states that they all, under certain safety conditions, need no vaccinations to return to school?<br><br>
Unless certain special conditions were carefully observed and monitored, I would vote, "NO!". I would so insist, not just because President Biden wants it; I agree with him. Not just because some think the vaccines tested by the CDC can't be trusted; <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-can-you-believe-whom-can-you-trust.html" target="_blank"><b>I trust CDC( -- so long as its pronouncements are scientifically based.)</b></a> Not because I don't care about the economy or about the mental health of our populations; I do care.<br><br>
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I would vote <b>NO</b> because there are, especially in education, too many possible circumstances that can block safe access to schools, despite our political leaders trying to raise morale by appointing "Czars," or "special mandates" or "emergency operations." No matter what directives come from on high, educational institutions tend to be very sensitive to local concerns down to, even, departmental levels. It is a rarity, usually a tragedy, that makes a school event broadly "newsworthy." <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/search?q=politics" target="_blank")<b>(If it bleeds, it leads.)</b></a> <br><br>
Consequently, externally sourced "problem-solving" tends to be late, clumsy and overhyped and only pursued until a more headline-grabbing event occurs. There are many easily recognized "impediments" to "getting vaccines into arms." They might be more or less realistic, for example, realistic: a scarcity of vaccines, or lack of medical resources. Less realistic are: for example, <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/09/power-failure-losing-series-blaming-bat.html" target="_blank"><b>Blaming the bat-boys</b></a>: teacher unions, or expecting too much from <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/05/leadership-philosophers-stone-of-21st.html" target="_blank"><b>Leadership</b></a>.<br><br>
<b>Does Better Science mean Better Practice?</b> Sometimes. Not infrequently, not.<br><br>
A vice-president of a large electronics corporation once invited me to visit a company warehouse where "amazing" inventions were stored away, not (to be) developed for sale.<br><br>
He told me that there were many wondrous things to be seen that really worked but unfortunately couldn't be scaled up from their prototypes to items that could be profitably marketed.<br><br>
Even with vaccines it's a matter of costs and benefits, even though the Federal Government may pick up the expenses. There are two disadvantages with any possible "market" item. The first is that its costs might be greater than the price it can garner from prospective buyers. By "costs" for the producer, here, are meant more than the search costs for and monetary costs of wages and salaries of labor and materials. Also there are <i>opportunity costs</i>: the inability of committed labor to work on other, later discovered, better prospects; and, the costs of materials that may not be recoverable for other purposes.<br><br>
From some perspectives, such considerations might rationalize a comprehensive national response to the Covid emergency rather than a state-by-state pursuit, likely competitive, for lack of individual state funding. (Which is not to say that such a federal response would be problem-free.)<br><br>
<b>Promotional Failures</b>
<blockquote>27% of teachers are considering <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/27percent-of-teachers-are-considering-quitting-because-of-covid-survey.html" target="_blank"><b>quitting because of Covid</b></a>, survey finds. -- AJ Hess CNBC Mon, Dec 14 2020 9:34 AM EST
</blockquote>
American education has a long history of spending on seductive items for improving education. <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/BestPractices.html" target="_blank"><b>Such attractive, even "scientific"ideas</b></a> have often turned out, despite gushes of <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/09/enthusiasm-devils-brew.html" target="_blank"><b>enthusiasm</b></a>, to be not even moderately successful.<br><br>
In addition to production and opportunity costs, there are possible psychological costs, e.g. disappointing prospective customers with products that can't meet promoted schedules or quality. <br><br>
It's too bad that President Biden has put a time limit (100 days) on the injection numbers for the Covid vaccine. I hope such targets can be hit. However, too many uncertainties have already turned up to make that, already, an iffy projection, particularly, we will see, as it applies to schools.<br><br>
Already, Feb 13, 2021 3 A.M., there are indications that one-third of our adult population are <a href="https://apple.news/A1HweRjUWTGCcjZJDxd88gw" target="_blank"><b>undecided about getting the Covid vaccine</b></a>. (But they say they might be persuaded by family or friends.)<br><br>
In the best of times, the expected job-life of a newly graduated teacher candidate is three years. Each year, 12-13% of public school teachers quit the profession for good. In 2019,<b> 50% of teachers report having considered quitting</b> for various reasons.
Teachers who don't quit have likely been long inured to reneged-on promises for <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/07/perpetual-school-reform-american.html" target="_blank"><b>resources for school improvement.</b></a><br><br>
Why and how do people get into (public school) teaching in the first place? A reasonable question. With a hardly-to-be-believed answer that describes my experience and that of many teachers -- not all, far from it, I imagine. <br><br>
The answer is ... by chance. I was a philosophy major with no intention of ever, ever being a public school teacher. I was out of a job after graduation in 1964 and was told that jobs for potential math teachers were going begging in my home town.<br><br>
I applied with the school system and, in Fall, 1964, had my first, formal teaching experience. <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EdBiz/FirsTeaching.html" target="_blank"><b>It was a disaster.</b></a> <br><br>
I had worked three summers, 1961 - 63, as a camp counselor and really enjoyed it. I discovered, Fall 1964 that teaching cooped up with kids in a hot, stuffy junior high school classroom was very unlike being a camp counselor. On that first day, after only an hour, the kids ran out of the room. They did not return. After two hours, I walked out and left the school, despite being told by the school's head secretary that I would never, ever, ever be employed ever again as a teacher, anywhere.<br><br>
The next day I was called up from Central Administration and asked if I would make another try at different school. I did, and had a wonderful experience. After six months, I was hooked. The next September I reported to work for the school district.
<br><br>
<b>Are "Educational Institutions" Primarily Educational?</b><br><br>
Schools, public, private and higher ed institutions are very variable from the perspective of the instructional personnel. One Great American Myth is that their primary focus is on social and/or intellectual development and that supporting such development is the mission of the schooling organization.<br><br>
It may, possibly, be so. It is often not. The overwhelming concern at institutional locations is , commonly, to protect or expand departmental budgets and domains. Anything else is of secondary interest. I found this to be true not only in public education, but in private, religious and university education, also. <br><br>
Not only leaders but jobholders at many levels focus primarily on what they believe supports their individual continued incumbency. This is universal in almost any kind of organization <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-leaders-primary-pursuit-incumbency.html" target="_blank"><b>where output is celebrated and verbally emphasized yet cannot be easily evaluated.</b></a><br><br>
For universities that have them, an education department is often supported as a <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-you-dont-learn-in-teacher-prep.html" target="_blank"><b>cash cow.</b></a> For cash cows all grass tastes good. Committed scholarship is reluctantly appreciated. Obsequiousness is "reinforced" and garrulousness is often accepted as intelligence.<br><br>
Exposure to such training has an effect on teachers in developing disregard of or passive resistence to administrative undertakings regardless of their wisdom or intelligence. Teachers can be very resistant to change as a group, say, a union, or class or activity sponsor, little matter the rationale for the group's existence. <br><br>
If they have survived in the profession for more than five years teachers, particularly school teachers, have likely swallowed more than their fair share of disrespect, condescension or disregard from administrators, parents and politicians. Teachers resent, particularly, broken promises which they understand to be lack of concern not only of themselves, but of the children (or older students) they teach.<br><br>
I worked in one school building for 12 years in which the water fountains seldom worked; the bathrooms had no running water or toilet paper; there were bullet-holes in interior steel doors and where the only air-conditioning to be had -- even in 95+ degree weather -- was to be found in the principal's office. (Parents often really underestimate how deeply concerned teachers can be for the well-being of their students.) Likely to avoid further provocation, in that school, teacher complaints were normally received graciously by administrators and conceded sympathy as to their seriousness. Promises were the made for help and then, ultimately, forgotten. (Except when the presenter of concerns was a building union representative.)<br><br>
(When I left that school after twelve years, the building was pretty much the same, a few haphazard repairs which quickly disappeared had been attempted.)<br><br>
Why are teacher (or professorial, in universities) concerns ignored? Because functional differences in organizations produce cultural and ethical differences. <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/02/teaching-or-mowing-mastering-first.html" target="_blank"> <b>Administrators are most often rewarded (or punished) by higher-ups</b></a> for things having little to do with the development of intellectual or social skills in students (but for the kind of obsequiousness that can be renamed "good citizenship" and treated as an indicator of good "classroom management" or "student relationships.")<br><br>
<a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/09/politics-promises-and-school.html" target="_blank">Politicians</b></a> seldom have any idea, if they care at all, what really goes on in schools. They imagine that an official document to delivered to schools magically manifests itself as behavioral changes in students. And many parents have other concerns so long as their kids are kept out of their hair and make B's or A's and don't come home pregnant or bruised.<br><br>
You shouldn't think that these ills are unique to education. All organizations confront <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/FunConflict.html" target="_blank">conflicts which set internal groups against each other, as well as outsiders.</b></a> <br><br>
Many teachers come to learn that promises from administrators, politicians or parents seldom come to fruition. Recently, the Chicago Teacher's Union has agreed to come be into school provided an independent third party will be available to assure that promises to the teachers from school higher up are in fact being carried out. This is wise. Teachers often can't believe assurances from people not "on the front line."<br><br>
<b>Overlooked <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/05/must-conflict-be-negative-process.html" target="_blank"><b>Sub-group Conflicts</b></a>: disregarding the "elephants in the room."</b>
<blockquote><i>Once the rocket goes up,<br>Who cares where it goes down?<br>That's not my department...<br> </i>-- T Lehrer, <i>Werner von Braun</i></blockquote>
Professional differences in a group addressing a "common problem" may produce conflicting interpretations and different claims on group resources. I taught a class in policy analysis some years back at Widener University. One of my students was a Ph.D. chemist whose company was involved with several school districts in identifying students who might be using illegal drugs.
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I asked the group, consisting mostly of administrators of schools and of related health professions to come up with a problematic policy they were involved with that we could work on in class. They selected "Testing students for drug usage."<br><br>
I had them read <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/FalsePosSum2008.pdf" target="_blank">an article</b></a> that cautioned about common errors of practice that could produce undesirable results in such things as collecting urine samples for analysis. This is especially problematic because control of the provenance of the samples, how they were collected, identified and passed along to the testing laboratory was laxly supervised.<br><br>
A major error was a narrow focus and complete reliance on test accuracy, without considering the likely percentage of users in the population.<br><br>
The results of such error would be a profusion of false positives; that is, student who were not users being identified as users. Such results, the group recognized, would disrupt not only board members, but many other groups in their communities.<br><br>
There was one person who objected to the analysis: the Ph.D. chemist. He insisted, the 99% accuracy used our simulation was ridiculous. In his labs, he said, his test accuracies were reliable to the sixth decimal place.<br><br>
I conceded that the tests he ran were really highly accurate. But those tests were to find out whether the contents of the sample bottles he received with contained an illegal drug.<br><br>
The tests the school personnel were concerned about was whether a sample identified as coming from a certain person was, in fact, from that person. Only then could its contents indicate a drug-user. School people, parents or other community members were concerned with "provenance" or source accuracy; not the accuracy of lab-testing, which is only a small part of establishing provenance.<br><br>
What "the problem" was, was different for the chemist from what "the problem" was for the rest of the group. This kind of interpretive confusion is not infrequently the cause of many frustrations in addressing problems: plausible alternative interpretation. (This might even cause an original group of concerned participants to break up because some members now feel that their professional authority on group decision has been diminished.)<br><br>
I reassured our chemist that I understood and accepted that his laboratories did high quality work. But the real problem, often missed, was a contextual one. It required a broadening of perspective.<br><br>
The chemist grimaced, stood up and left. He never came back<br><br> .
See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/05/public-science-controversy-distrust-is_30.html" target="_blank"><b>Public “Science” Controversy: distrust is not the only issue.</b></a><br><br>
<br<br>See, also, <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Indeterminacy.html" target="_blank"><b>The Indeterminacy of Consensus: masking ambiguity and vagueness in decision</b></a>.
<br><br>
Cordially, EGR
February 15, 2021
Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-82954598737096244052020-11-04T06:52:00.021-05:002020-12-01T12:03:24.196-05:00The Presidential Election: What? No Tidal Wave? Some reasons why not.<i> <b>Updated 12/1/2020 11:32 AM</b></i> <br><br>
I originally wrote this blog Wed Nov 4th at 5:30 AM in my residence just outside of Philadelphia, PA (in Montgomery County). At that point, Biden had 238 possible electoral votes to Trump's 213. This changed. Perhaps it would have been better if I had just shut down and gone back to bed. But I voted for Biden and couldn't stop thinking that two important presumptions among the Biden campaign managers (and possibly Biden himself) had undercut the candidate's appeal to many of the people I lived among in Philadelphia for the first 35 years of my life. (Those people, I suspect, have given strong support to Trump.)<br><br>
I was born in Bridesburg, a section of Philadelphia NOT usually thought of as Middle Class. People moved elsewhere when they started making money (unless their ethnic ties were strong). My father's best civilian job, all his life, was as a machinist working for Westinghouse corporation. By "Middle Class," had he even thought about the words, he would likely have understood to be those people who were scratching out a livihg in our neighborhood as small store owners, or "professionals" like doctors or clerics, local politicians or teachers.<br><br>
My dad was a union member, a WWII veteran, and a member of our active, local Democratic Party. We were not "Middle Class." His union was involved in occasional strikes against Westinghouse. (Yet, I, going through public schools for 11 years, never even heard the words, "union" or "strike," mentioned by any of my teachers, who were all considered to be "middle class".)<br><br>
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I thought Vice-President Biden's focus on "Rebuilding the Middle Class" would be seen by many as unduly narrow. A common charactistic of many of the "working class" people (of whom I was seen to be one, even with a college degree and working as a teacher) was an antagonistic -- yet, polite -- attitude towards middle class people, despite their not infrequent condescension. Such "middle class people? were believed to do "less work" and still make more money, because they had "connections." (People in Bridesburg whom we believed to have "connections" were either occasionally middle-class, lucky by marriage, or mobsters.)<br><br>
America was not built by the "middle-class" alone. Few immigrants arrive, even today, as "middle-class." No coal-miner, nor shoe-maker, nor street-sweeper, nor short-order-cook was, nor even today is, considered middle-class. Benefits promised to "rebuilding the middle-class" are likely seen by many working-class people, job-holders, church-goers, and as civic-minded as leftover energy permits, as benefits not likely designated for them. <b>Advice</b>: broaden the category! Don't talk about class. Talk about function, e.g. "essential workers" or "economic supporters" or "social contributors." <br><br>
The second concern is easy(!) enough to address. Even now I encounter floods of the same old lies about Joe Biden on the same TV channels like clockwork. Repeated claims by Republicans that have been refuted as false by recognizable authorities should be nonetheless repeatedly challenged. One refutation is not enough. We "middle class" people, often highly educated, not infrequently fall into the comfortable presumption that saying something once, or a very few times -- even if sporadically -- is enough. It isn't! I have taught in all levels of education. Intelligently timed repetition is essential. Otherwise the many distractions of life erase the message.
<br><br>
I felt some urgency to blog about this now while it is still likely that Biden will win. I hope he does. But winning presents a danger that sifting the ashes of failure might be more likely to avoid. People who win are more tempted to hubris. What would be overlooked in a Biden win might be the reasons an expected tidal wave success became an actual tight race.<br><br>
For a number of parallel concerns, see <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/01/democrats-rural-vote-wisconsin-441458" target="_blank"><b> Why Democrats Keep Losing Rural Counties Like Mine.</b></a><br><br>
(More on possible root causes, e.g. "factionalism vs diversity," to come in future blogs. - egr. See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2011/02/living-in-cloud-of-buzzwords.html"><b>Living in a Cloud of Buzzwords? Two possible remedies</b></a>.)<br><br>
Cordially, -- EGR
Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-66496883117355463602020-01-16T14:27:00.002-05:002020-10-10T11:19:11.344-04:00Discussing What You "Ought Not" Say: taboo, philosophy and politicsupdated 1/24/20<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0nwWvroQiKRlZzqTrODwQLyb687zLVlLqNwvy2mZGGyVZ8FLDVjfMea4qUi604X5lNaRRfuyZq6GU0c_N8MqT4tl7v5Fpw2cxT9D0W7aMCW_DMSERGlAgdH0TqZRIRhAn29tKj5hqYQ/s1600/See+No+Evil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0nwWvroQiKRlZzqTrODwQLyb687zLVlLqNwvy2mZGGyVZ8FLDVjfMea4qUi604X5lNaRRfuyZq6GU0c_N8MqT4tl7v5Fpw2cxT9D0W7aMCW_DMSERGlAgdH0TqZRIRhAn29tKj5hqYQ/s200/See+No+Evil.jpg" width="200" height="121" data-original-width="400" data-original-height="241" /></a></div><blockquote>Lay lady lay<br />
Lay across my big brass bed<br />
Stay lady stay<br />
Stay with your man a while<br />
Until the break of day -- Bob Dylan, <i>Lay Lady Lay</i> (1969)<a name="cite1"></a><a href="#note1">[1]</a> <br />
<br />
"You slimy weasels want some sex education? I'll give it to you. Just keep your zipper shut and you won't end up with some God-awful disease!"<a name="cite2"></a><a href="#note2">[2]</a> </blockquote><br />
<b>Looking for Consensus on Controversial Topics.</b><br />
<br />
Some decades back, I was invited by a Catholic university to give a lecture on the topic of corporal punishment. The presentation would be open to both faculty and students, both undergraduate and graduate and, in effect, to any interested attenders. I gathered from the invitation that I was to talk about both the nature and morality of corporal punishment, particularly as it might occur in an educational environment.<br />
<br />
My philosophical approach was to employ case studies, common situations, to see what, if any, consensus we could reach on criteria to be generalized for discussion.<a name="cite3"></a><a href="#note3">[3]</a> <br />
The first case I presented was this: <blockquote>5 year-old Arnold is bitten by a squirrel after pinching his sister and running out into the backyard.</blockquote>Question: By his being bitten by the squirrel, has Arnold been punished? The audience was to use a 5-point scale:<blockquote>1 = definitely not; 2 = probably not; 3 = unclear; 4 = probably so; 5 = definitely so <a name="cite4"></a><a href="#note4">[4]</a> </blockquote>On a handout sheet, audience members,indicating only their university status and case evaluation, gave in their responses to a small team who tallied them.<br />
<br />
The audience appeared to be balanced between faculty and others. (Many were identifiable as such by their clerical garb.) However, I was somewhat surprised by the responses. The great majority of the faculty put down 1, a few 2. Among the undergraduate students most put down a 5, fewer a 4. There were very few 3's. <br />
<br />
But before I began a discussion, I told the audience that the description of the case was clearly very sketchy. Perhaps, I suggested, if I had given them more information about Arnold's situation, it might have influenced their judgement. In fact, I suggested that they write down some conditions that might influence their judgement in the opposite direction from their first response, counter-evidence, as it were. For example, what additional information would convince them to change their 1 to a 2 or higher; which, to change a 5 to a 4 or lower.<br />
<br />
I then asked for people who would reveal their original situation and give a reason why they changed it by telling us about their new "counter-evidence." One faculty member, a nun, who initially gave a <i>1 = definitely not punishment</i>, said that there was not clear cause and effect relationship between the pinching and the biting. It looked to her that the biting was a random occurrence -- unless Arnold's mother had trained a squirrel to bite big brothers who pinched little sisters. That got a laugh but was accepted as a relevant condition, thus able to move the judgement away from a 1 to something higher. <br />
<br />
An undergraduate who thought Arnold was being punished, 5, said he thought that the squirrel might be an instrument of God delivering what Arnold deserved. But, after turning in the handout he had some misgivings and reconsidering that, in the original sketchy depiction of Arnold's pinching, it could have been that Arnold pulled the squirrel's tail just before the bite. That would be a more likely scenario. It's easier to delve into the mind of a squirrel, he said, than into the mind of God. <br />
<br />
(Faculty present may, perhaps, have felt some relief, at least, that they had had some influence on that student's education.) Besides, continued the undergraduate, we don't know whether Arnold actually hurt his sister; nor, whether she provoked him. Nor, have we been told how long it was before the biting squirrel incident occurred.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, the discussion developed such that trying to negotiate a consensus on the nature of punishment, was only partially successful for lack of time; but it did seem to get the audience to recognize the complexity of the notion of punishment and the issues of justice and cruelty that were pertinent to them.<br />
<br />
<b>Dirty Words and Obscene Implications. </b><br />
<br />
Ten or so years ago I went into a Whole Foods market to get something. Behind me came a man and woman perhaps ten to fifteen years older than I was. Music was playing softly in the background. I heard Bob Dylan singing <i>Lay Lady Lay</i> in a strangely deep voice. It was the first time I had ever heard the song. It sounded erotic to me, but not unusually so. Here's what happened next.<br />
<blockquote>The couple behind me (call them "the Smiths") stopped, shuddered and hurriedly went back outside. They seemed to be agitated. Mr. Smith came back alone and said to a cashier, "I have to talk with the manager." The cashier called another man, who came and asked how he could help.<br />
<br />
Mr. Smith protested, "Don't you hear what they're singing on that record. I can't bring my wife in here with that garbage playing! Turn if off!"<br />
<br />
The presumed manager said, "Look, I'm only the <i>assistant</i> manager. The manager's home sick today. And I have no authority to change the music piped into our store."<br />
<br />
"Well, then," said Mr. Smith. "We certainly cannot stay to shop in a store that plays pornography!"And out he went.</blockquote>We ought not dismiss this as an ephemeral example of the sexual "hang-ups" of "old fogies." So let's extend our attention to other areas of present-day controversy. Often we are chided, often quite vehemently, not to "speak evil," i.e. not to use dismissive or biased terminology in discussing people. This caution often occurs in attempts to acculturate not only non-English speaking immigrants but also native-born Americans to settle conflicts between and within their different groups. Issues of conflict are often not only terminological but also racial and gender-related.<br />
<br />
<b>Speak No Evil, Teach No Evil, Mention No Evil?</b><br />
<br />
Back in the '70's I got a position in a Philadelphia Junior School (grades 7-9) teaching in and "coordinating" an ESOL program. (ESOL means English to Speakers of Other Language."Coordinating" means "a lot more responsibility, some little blandishment, no extra remuneration.")<br />
<br />
The school had a regularly assigned officer from the city Police Department, whose presence and quick access to reinforcements kept the turbulence in the school to a generally non-threatening minimum. But violent incidents were not infrequent.<br />
<br />
The 1200 students assigned to the school -- built for 600 -- were a mixture of 30% neighborhood kids, and bused-in others. The neighbor kids were those White kids not attending local Catholic schools. The bused-ins, not neighborhood kids, were about half African-American and half Hispanic. My program served about 100 immigrants from several nations whose English language skills ranged from almost nothing to American 2nd-grade-level.<br />
<br />
Conflicts between different student groups of boys were usually along ethnic lines; although, infrequently, when Cupid crossed such barriers, girls would fight ferociously, too. Exceptions to the general ethnic bellicosity were the ESOL students. <br />
<br />
After a few years I started running presentations for the faculty and other staff on cultural difference and cross-cultural and ethnic conflict. Attendance was fine, since I was given time from the regular schedule of Wednesday afternoon faculty meetings. Few absented themselves. No one from outside school came in.<br />
<br />
Then I announced that I would hold a session on vulgar and obscene words that our Hispanic boys, in particular, used to insult each other, and occasionally, staff and faculty. The use of such language was an issue because it often provoked student fights or faculty upset. (Once the students inclined to use such language found out that I knew Spanish, they never confronted me with "bad words", especially as I would contact their parents if they persisted.)<br />
<br />
On the afternoon of the meeting, at 2:30 PM, our school library, which could comfortably hold about 50 adults, was packed full (SRO) with close to 100 people others standing out in the hall. I did not recognize many of those visitors (but some seemed to be parents of our charges). <br />
<br />
I was a little concerned that not being members of our staff nor a teacher, the extra people would not understand what I was doing, especially when I repeated the kind of language that "their kids," regularly used. "Their kids" they held to be, maybe, occasionally "mischievous," but really deep down "merely somewhat immature, not intending any harm. (For some "kids," I thought otherwise, having been a school disciplinarian for several years.)<br />
<br />
I announced to the audience that I was going to review the most frequently used improper and/or obscene language commonly heard throughout the school. I would give them first in Spanish, then translate them into English. Then I would indicate the degree of offense they were considered to offer in various circumstances, e.g. talking to your peers as opposed to your parents, teachers or to strangers. The words would range from sexual crudities to ethnic slurs.<br />
<br />
I then said, "You might find some of these words, especially in the English translation, to be offensive and inappropriate. If you feel you might be uncomfortable or upset, please take the next five minutes to leave the room and make space for someone standing out in the hall waiting to come in."<br />
<br />
No one moved. No one so much as shifted their weight or moved a muscle. It seems as if they were holding their breath. I waited two minutes and then began: "The most frequent Spanish taboo word I have heard in our school is <i>mama'o</i>. It is formed from the verb <i>mamear</i> which means <i>suck</i>. The corresponding English word to <i>mama'o</i> has three syllables and means, <i>one who performs fellatio</i>.<br />
<br />
I said the English word. Dead silence. Five long seconds passed. And then the reaction occurred...<br />
<br />
<br />
To find out what happened and its consequences, see <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Racial.html" target="_blank"><b>Philosophy, Race and Language: Conflicting Value Priorities </b></a>)<br />
<br />
Cordially<br />
--- EGR<br />
<br />
---------------<br />
<br />
<b>FOOTNOTES</b><br />
<br />
<a name="note1"></a><a href="#cite1">[1]</a> See <a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/bob-dylan/lay-lady-lay" target="_blank"><b>Bob Dylan <i>Lay Lady Lay</i> Songfacts</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note2"></a><a href="#cite2">[2]</a> My junior high school gym teacher (Spring 1957, Vare JHS, Philadelphia, PA) very begrudgingly was set to teaching <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2019/08/between-you-and-i-please-be-is-friend.html" target="_blank"><b>us</b></a> ninth-graders "sex education" after it was made a school board policy emphasis. --EGR. See <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Violence.html" target="_blank"><b>Doing Violence to 'Violence'</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note3"></a><a href="#cite3">[3]</a> Unless I am dealing with formalized languages, e.g. logic, mathematics or some general scientific theory, I avoid beginning with specialized definitions and trying to "deduce" suggestions for practical application. "High-level" theories normally do not enjoy broad recognition, much less consensus, outside of their specializations. <br />
<br />
I used a formula to generate my case study examples, but it was not divulged to the audience until they had discovered most of it for themselves after the lecture during the discussion and development session. That formula was: <i>Person P imposed a "treatment" T on another person V, for which P had a reason (for T}.</i><br />
<br />
For a theory-first approach, see Rozycki, EG <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/SchoolViolence.html" target="_blank"><b>School Violence, Punishment, and Justice</b></a> The concept of punishment used in the school violence article I took from Anthony Flew in S.I. Benn and R.S. Peters, <i>The Principles of Political Thought</i> (New York:Free Press, 1965) p. 202.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name="note4"></a><a href="#cite4">[4]</a>For more on this procedure, Rozycki, EG <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/DoingEthics.html" target="_blank"><b>Doing Ethics: concerns & procedures. </b></a><br />
<br />
Also, for expanded instructions for case analysis, see <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/CaseModels/CaseIntro.html" target="_blank"><b> A Library of MODEL CASES FOR ANALYSIS</b></a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-14257801758766085852019-08-07T12:31:00.000-04:002020-01-03T05:44:19.342-05:00Between You And I: Please, Be I's Friend!: Is case-grammar just a matter of taste?<i>updated 12/31/19</i><br />
<blockquote>In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors... -- Bertrand Russell</blockquote><br />
I had an elementary public school teacher, call her Miss Taylor, who insisted that the correct way to pronounce the word "piano" was <i>pee-ah-no</i>.<a name="cite1"></a><a href="#note1">[1]</a> She gave up trying to "correct" our normal pronunciation, <i>pee-an-o</i>, after many of my classmates began parodying it with such pronunciations as "<i>bahnahnah</i>", "<i>run, rahn, run</i>", "<i>sit, saht, saht</i>", "<i>Mahs-ah-chu-sets</i>". Or, using a popular song lyric, "If I didn't <i>cahr</i>".<br />
<br />
Still, Miss Taylor was a good teacher, kindly, interesting and informative. She no doubt acted so as to prepare us to "climb up in the Cold War World," socially, if not so much economically. Had she lived into this 21st Century, however, she might have shaken her head sadly at the many linguistic traditions of "standard" English that have succumbed to an apparently historically uninformed pursuit of status. <br />
<br />
Why does status matter? It opens or maintains pathways to wealth and deference. How does one acquire status? Through wealth, inherited or earned, random good fortune, or celebrity. What is somewhat perplexing is that people who already have above average status due to their having higher than average wealth, celebrity, academic degrees, social position, governmental office, or judicial position, appear to have abandoned distinctions of English grammar that, formerly, not even members of the "lower" classes seldom would have abused.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5pKs_z0cZz84eBlzsB5ozGwR61l_1EOkpMSWjVI2e7xIU0yv3LNWP28y6-Hc_wmtudqsgp_-ReI0bpqoFGR7z56iggz48p-VTS34LcVyvL0ICbEcmaV4Sbq0erBpRnZGVJNA34f4ZYbo/s1600/Bugaboo+Heart+With+Worm+In+Holes.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5pKs_z0cZz84eBlzsB5ozGwR61l_1EOkpMSWjVI2e7xIU0yv3LNWP28y6-Hc_wmtudqsgp_-ReI0bpqoFGR7z56iggz48p-VTS34LcVyvL0ICbEcmaV4Sbq0erBpRnZGVJNA34f4ZYbo/s200/Bugaboo+Heart+With+Worm+In+Holes.png" width="192" height="200" data-original-width="277" data-original-height="288" /></a></div><br />
I have heard PhD's (even in the Liberal Arts) say such things as "This will be my wife and I's third visit to Cambridge this year." Not only academics, punctilious in so many a smaller detail, but major media and governmental spokespersons, overcorrect what should be formulated "between you and me" into "between you and I", as if "me" were some kind of dialectal aberration.<br />
<br />
So, too, we not infrequently hear "This is a gift for you and we." Have <i>I, him, her, us, them</i> become taboo words? What is going on here? Is every or just any novelty an improvement? (Or, perhaps, a random manifestation of a need to belong?)<br />
<br />
<br />
So, is it merely a matter of taste? Conceded, some people say "between you and I", others say "between you and me." So what? Perhaps it is a soon-to-be-discarded fad like that of the 18th Century French nobility's dressing up like shepherds or shepherdesses. Or, like American college students wearing pre-shredded pre-faded denims. Or, not so long ago, sporting "Leninist" wire-rimmed glasses and "Russian" workers caps. Even discourse that is at one time considered socially unacceptable, may, at another time be tolerated as "colorful." (See <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Racial.html" target="_blank"><b>Philosophy, Race and Language. <i>Conflicting Value Priorities</i> </b></a>)<br />
<br />
<br />
However, there are three social functions, not necessarily beneficial nor ephemeral, that disappearance of grammatical markers might affect:<br />
<br />
1. Maintaining variability in sentence structure while preserving action relationships, for example, in poetry or oratory, or very formal speech. "Let's consider John. <i>Him</i> I would trust with my life!" This is not clearly "merely" a matter of taste. (Compare, English with German "It's all the same to me." with "Mir ist das alles egal." Or, to English speakers, the redundant Italian "La ci darem' la mano.")<br />
<br />
2. Maintaining traditions of in-group barriers and acceptance. Such barriers commonly dissolve and are re-erected by all kinds of groups along the lines of age, activity, language, religion, and so on. Slang, jargon, argot and other language variabilities are manifestations of such a function. So are schooling and work divisions, e.g. disciplines and departments. (See Becher, T. <i>Academic Tribes & Territories: the Cultures of the Disciplines</i>. 1989. Also see <a href="https://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/MultImm.html" target="_blank"><b>Multiculturalism & The Problems of Immigration </b></a>)<br />
<br />
3. Maintaining "Targets of Disdain, (TD's)" i.e. classes of persons-to-be-disdained. While still an undergraduate, (for many graduate students and professors, usually considered a TD) I was asked in class, "What does ethnic or religious or other diversity provide a tolerant individual?" I answered, "The opportunity to indulge their belief that "outsiders, although to be tolerated, are not quite so 'fully acceptable' as people of 'their own group.'" Class reactions ranged from a few chuckles, to a small minority of perplexed, to a vehement protestation from a large, apparently upset number -- still not a majority. <br />
<br />
I was not championing any viewpoint. I thought I was merely stating a sociological fact. After all, the "holier-than-thou" attitude is so common even among those who ardently preach all kinds of tolerance, that a common joke-line has long been invented:<br />
<blockquote>There are many people who hate others different from them. And I just HATE people like that!</blockquote><br />
<br />
For more examples and to pursue this issue, see <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Case.html" target="_blank"><b>The Case for Case</b></a><br />
<br />
Cordially, EGR<br />
<br />
-------------------<br />
Footnote and Comment<br />
<br />
<a name="note1"></a><a href="#cite1">[1]</a><a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/11/academic-formalities-just-making.html" target="_blank"><b> Academic Formalities: Just Making Teacher Clones?</b></a><br />
<br />
Comment: For more on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case" target="_blank"><b>Grammatical Case</b></a>, you might begin your inquiry on Wikipedia which has a good presentation with explained examples in many different languages.<br />
Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-35483182521628249452019-05-10T20:14:00.120-04:002022-12-16T16:01:23.033-05:00Value Alignment: "Acculturating" Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).<i>edited 121320, re-edited 121622</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTz7JtwX02K4q-lPNEtQr47OuOKtTMBUedjAPClWqXfQ79hlzPReqJvaH4BZagFwkkFX5djy8KSBQ2e4KDII46uycxhYcHFkrEK0Nr9KrZivKjZ0fz4OSwLKDOni1gMSQoaz0NAMgu3qE/s1600/GradRobot.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTz7JtwX02K4q-lPNEtQr47OuOKtTMBUedjAPClWqXfQ79hlzPReqJvaH4BZagFwkkFX5djy8KSBQ2e4KDII46uycxhYcHFkrEK0Nr9KrZivKjZ0fz4OSwLKDOni1gMSQoaz0NAMgu3qE/s200/GradRobot.png" width="140" height="200" data-original-width="293" data-original-height="420" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote>Before AGI arrives, we need to figure out how to make AI understand, adopt, and retain our goals. -- Max Tegmark (2019) in Brockman (ed.) <a name="cite1"></a><a href="#note1">[1]</a> </blockquote><br />
<br />
<b>Value alignment is not a problem new or unique</b> to the pursuits of artificial intelligence researchers. Value alignment has long been seen as a general and ancient problem: for governance, for education, for all forms of social control. It is often generally referred to as values- or moral- or citizenship education, or even indoctrination or brainwashing or group-think.<br />
<br />
<b>Value Alignment? What are values?</b> A profusion of ideas. Writings on AI behavior often tend to loosely use interchangeably the words, <i>behavior</i>, <i>goals</i>, <i>wants</i>, and <i>values</i>. In this essay I will use examples, described in English, of commonly easily observable human actions focusing on <i>values</i>.<br />
<br />
Part of the problem in dealing with values is that the term "value" in used in many different contexts, not necessarily compatible among themselves, and often based on a consensus more hoped for than actual. For example,<br />
<blockquote>1. Promotional (as in marketing): presuming a high degree of consensus on certain values, e.g., "Our new cars have arrived! Don't miss out on the many values we offer."<br />
<br />
2. Explanatory (promise of effectiveness): assuming consensus on certain cause-effect relationships, e.g. "Their training will inculcate values of obedience and alacrity."<br />
<br />
3. Focus of contention (judgement of desirability): "The contract is so vague as to be of little value in confronting problems."<br />
<br />
4. Discursive modification (turn of phrase): creating an abstraction believed to provide a needed de-personalization for general (scientific) investigation, e.g. “A term indicating an item which someone values, valued or will (might) value we will call a “value.”<br />
<br />
5. Theoretical: demarcating limits for analysis, e.g. “A value is a hidden variable, of which behavioral instances are indicators.” (Below, we will use a variation of examples 4 and 5.)<br />
<br />
6. The manifestation of value pursuit or maintenance may be impeded by lack by the valuer of any of the following: rationality, knowledge, ability, circumstantial impediment, and priority.<a name="cite2"></a><a href="#note2">[2]</a></blockquote><br />
<br />
<b>Whose value is it? What kind of value? </b> Forty or some years ago, I was taking a graduate course in mathematics in an evening class during a winter semester. There were eight students in the course: seven who had degrees in mathematics and I, a philosophy graduate. They were there clearly enjoying themselves but for the late hours. I, interested but not enraptured, was there to accumulate credits for state certification as a mathematics teacher. After copying three chalkboards of a proof, the instructor stopped and, looking at the boards, muttered, “No, that step won’t work. Something’s missing.” After another short pause, he almost jumped into the board and wrote a formula, (I forget the formula.) and continued on with another board of proof.<br />
<br />
I was lost. I had never seen that formula before which was clearly an identity. It equated the number “1” with some log of a function containing an imaginary argument. Up until that point, I thought I had been following the proof very closely. I looked around to my classmates to see whom I might ask later for explanation. They seemed as perplexed as I was.<br />
<br />
One of them actually spoke up and said, “Is that a step in the proof?” The professor asked, “How many of you have taken Math 636 (or something like that). No one raised his hands. The prof continued, “Well, when you do, you will understand it completely! There are four methods to prove something: deduction, induction, seduction and intimidation. So, for now, you will have to take it on faith! By the way, which method of proof I am using here?” And he resumed filling the boards.<br />
<br />
The discussion among the students at the end of class, after the professor had gone, was somewhat heated. The math majors, for whom the proof was valued <i>intrinsically</i>, I thought, were close to revolt. One said, “I didn’t major in math to take things on faith!” I, for whom the proof was mostly of <i>extrinsic</i> value, found it to be minorly disappointing. <br />
<br />
<b>But, what is a Value? What is Value Alignment?</b> To put it most succinctly, <br />
<blockquote>7. A value, V, is a constellation (a set of prioritizations) of defense and pursuit contingencies relating to V. (The apparent circularity here is intentional. See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/search?q=+wff+"><b>Concept as Abstraction. A hindrance in developing intelligence?</b></a>)<br />
It is not "free-floating", i.e. "V is a value" implies "Someone values (valued or might value) V." <br />
<br />
8. A value is not a feeling nor an episode of behavior, but a disposition to behave in certain ways under certain conditions, unless stifled by certain standard conditions of impediment. For example, valuing a cup of coffee does not mean one is now imbibing nor ever again will imbibe a cup of coffee. (One might, despite valuing coffee for the taste and for the caffeine, need to give it up for the sake of one's blood pressure.) Similarly, sleeping people have not lost their <b>values</b>; just their <b>ability</b> to manifest those values while unconscious. (See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Trait/index.htm" target="_blank"><b>Trait vs. Behavior: the sometimes non-science of learning.</b></a>)<br />
<br />
9. A given behavior-type may under different conditions manifest itself in the pursuit, maintenance or defense of different values. <br />
<br />
10. Values Alignment is achieved when a consensus among different parties on values and their conditions of manifestation is achieved.<a name="cite3"></a><a href="#note3">[3]</a> <br />
</blockquote><br />
<b>The Intrinsic-Extrinsic Dimensions of Value</b> seem to mark an important boundary between humans and robotic AGI. (Perhaps not with cyborgs built from some animal nervous tissue.) Extrinsic values indicate dispositions which can be chained into a sequence, the final link of which is designated as the "intrinsic" value. This is called by some theorists a "sacred" or "fundamental" value.<a name="cite4"></a><a href="#note4">[4]</a> <br />
<br />
Humans have intrinsic values to pursue because they have basic needs. They have basic needs because they are organisms that have to find and use sources of air, water, food, shelter, etc. These basic needs have a more or less "natural" priority. Maslow offers an interesting model that he calls a "Hierarchy of Needs."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ERO1OQ3s72fzzoDKcIFeTt5JuCbc1Gw2PuT7lBMYjL8rxENn86c3_uuM52Ul0lr_1iDWjOW_coEAKx767YViBTUK4MTnEMMmeYXgg-ovqtlkk7dYz_YT5hNgS-fn7D7nsv2s-ArIVqw/s1600/Maslow.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ERO1OQ3s72fzzoDKcIFeTt5JuCbc1Gw2PuT7lBMYjL8rxENn86c3_uuM52Ul0lr_1iDWjOW_coEAKx767YViBTUK4MTnEMMmeYXgg-ovqtlkk7dYz_YT5hNgS-fn7D7nsv2s-ArIVqw/s320/Maslow.gif" width="320" height="209" data-original-width="628" data-original-height="411" /></a></div>Acquiring items at the bottom level of the pyramid requires little more than one's animal abilities. But the second level up, with companionship and affiliation, already requires some value alignment, normally inculcated through random encounter or with applications or withdrawals of pain and pleasure. These encounters are often strengthened by verbal communication and evolutionarily built-in dispositions of acquisition, affiliation and their naturally accompanying emotions.<br />
<br />
But what can substitute to establish needs, and consequently values, for AGI, lacking the capability of pain or pleasure? Needs, alone, won't do it. There is an ambiguity in the use of the word, <i>need</i>, which often produces a confusion between need as merely technical cause, and need as <b>approved</b> or <b>promoted</b> cause. For example, a robber may need a gun to terrorize his otherwise blasé victims; but, we, disapprovingly deny the robber's need for gun because, more fundamentally, we disapprove of robbery.<br />
<br />
Another example is when Sam says to friend Harry, "You really ought to buy a new jacket." Harry replies, "What do I need a new jacket for? This one is just fine for when it's cold." Sam insists, "But it looks kind of worn. Shabby is not stylish anymore." Harry argues he needs the jacket for its function, an extrinsic value. Stylish clothes do not seem to be much, if at all, valued (intrinsically) by him. <a name="cite5"></a><a href="#note5">[5]</a> <br />
<br />
Of course, Maslow's model is one among many. It is likely that depending which groups you investigate you would come up with substantially different priorities. For example, Gert Hofstede identifies nationality groups according to such dimensions as Power Distance, Individualism, Assertiveness, Avoidance of Uncertainty, and Long-Short Term Orientation. It is very likely that the priorities built into Maslow's model would be substantially reorganized depending how a population is selected choosing among variants of these five of Hofstede's dimensions. <a name="cite5b"></a><a href="#note5b">[5b]</a> <br />
<br />
<b>Whose Values Should AGI Be Aligned With?</b> Who will wait for answers?<br />
<blockquote>Even if we give robots the ability to learn what we want, an important question remains that AI alone won’t be able to answer. We can try to align with a person’s internal values, but there’s more than one person involved here. … How to combine people’s values when they might be in conflict is an important problem we need to solve. — Anca Dragan (2019) <a name="cite6"></a><a href="#note6">[6]</a><br />
</blockquote><br />
I have not heard nor read that the general consensus is that <b>The Trolley Problem</b> <a name="cite7"></a><a href="#note7">[7]</a> has been solved. Nor have I seen, heard nor read that auto-makers have stopped rushing to put "self-driving" vehicles on the market, despite collateral damages involving them.<br />
<br />
Despite the profusion of glad tidings of burgeoning crowds of marketeers, there seems to be little consensus among professional researchers and users of AI as to the safety of its present state of development.<a name="cite8"></a><a href="#note8">[8]</a> <br />
<br />
Consequently, I am even less sanguine that anyone with the capability to do so, is holding back from constructing AI for military purposes, albeit it is still may be quite primitive or indiscriminate in its effects. I suspect that the fear of being caught at a military disadvantage offsets any worries about lack of value alignment with their AI adjuncts or about the "collateral casualties" among their targets.<br />
<br />
See, also, Rozycki,EG (2010) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Indeterminacy.html" target="_blank"><b>The Indeterminacy of Consensus: masking ambiguity and vagueness in decision</b></a>.
<br /><br />
For more recent comment, see (Quanta Magazine, Dec 20,2022) Mitchell,M <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-does-it-mean-to-align-ai-with-human-values-20221213/" target="_blank"><b><What Does It Mean To Align AI With Human Values?></b></a>What Does It Mean To Align AI With Human Values?
<br /><br />
Cordially--- EGR<br>
<br /><br />
FOOTNOTES<br />
<br />
<a name="note1"></a><a href="#cite1">[1]</a> Tegmark, M “Let’s Aspire to More than Making Ourselves Obsolete” p. 85 in John Brockman (ed.), <i>Possible Minds. 25 Ways of Looking at AI.</i> Penguin. New York. 2019.<br />
<br />
<a name="note2"></a><a href="#cite2">[2]</a> See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/RatPlurTol.html#Active" target="_blank"><b>The Conditions for Active Valuing.</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note3"></a><a href="#cite3">[3]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/search?q=sacred+values" target="_blank"><b>Short Articles on "Sacred" Values</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note4"></a><a href="#cite4">[4]</a> See <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/07/sacred-values-in-us-public-schools.html" target="_blank"><b>“Sacred Values” in US Public Schools: pretending there is no conflict.</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note5"></a><a href="#cite5">[5]</a> See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Needs.html" target="blank_"><b>NEEDS ASSESSMENT: A Fraud?</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note5b"></a><a href="#cite5b">[5b]</a> Hofstede G, Hofstede GJ & Mindov, M (2010) <i>Cultures and Organizations. Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival.</i> New York. McGraw-Hill.<br />
<br />
<a name="note6"></a><a href="#cite6">[6]</a> Dragan, A , “Putting the Human in the AI Equation.” p.136 in Brockman. See, also, Clabaugh,GK & Rozycki,EG (2007) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/Consensus/NatureConsensus.html" target="_blank"><b>The Nature of Consensus.</b></a> <br />
<br />
<a name="note7"></a><a href="#cite7">[7]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/05/self-driving-cars-run-away-trams.html" target="_blank"><b>Self-Driving Cars, Run-Away Trams, & “Unavoidable” Accidents</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note8"></a><a href="#cite8">[8]</a> See John Brockman (2019), throughout. Also, there is a natural tendency for the breadth of consensus on criteria to diminish, proportionally, as research becomes more intense, precise and specialized; especially when choice of criteria bears on economic or political interests.Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-20830058600997698262019-04-03T14:57:00.000-04:002020-03-15T13:38:51.618-04:00The Curse of Knowledge vs The Dunning--Kruger Effect: an instructor's dilemmaupdated 3/15/20<blockquote>Damned if you do, damned if you don't. -- George of Trebizond (c. 1433)<br />
<br />
Laurence J. Peter: “Look around you where you work, and pick out the people who have reached their level of incompetence. You will see that in every hierarchy the cream rises until it sours.” -- Laurence J. Peter <i>The Peter Principle</i> 1970<br />
<br />
Too often, our confidence that we know what is going on is greater at the beginning of an episode, than it is at the end. -- Sloman S & Fernbach P (2017) <i>The Knowledge Illusion</i> p.19<br />
</blockquote><br />
<b>Introduction.</b> In 1960, in the early years of the Cold War, my freshman year, I was placed in ("invited to") a course called "Honors Physics." Three days a week at 8 AM our professor, who, we were told was a renowned researcher, would come in and fill six boards with notes. Except for the two class "geniuses" who, having built a cyclotron in high school, just sat there occasionally nodding their heads, we spent all our time furiously copying. The prof, an apparently shy person, entertained no questions and was not accessible outside of class. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1TiAN7_gRz_hhLifw1AnZk0UhtvjHjW7aIhIsUBSEbpifjP-NoSk79A0850mxCl-hSZLTM2-RcdnnzLTYBgTJxL-xyFaleKvHugeTN9l_Q9niR0-LLNXD5A0mNoeMzkbrY_TU8ab2Sg/s1600/ScyllaCharybdis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1TiAN7_gRz_hhLifw1AnZk0UhtvjHjW7aIhIsUBSEbpifjP-NoSk79A0850mxCl-hSZLTM2-RcdnnzLTYBgTJxL-xyFaleKvHugeTN9l_Q9niR0-LLNXD5A0mNoeMzkbrY_TU8ab2Sg/s320/ScyllaCharybdis.jpg" width="320" height="313" data-original-width="305" data-original-height="298" /></a></div><br />
Help understanding the prof's notes was to be provided in small-group seminars by graduate physics assistants. We, the freshmen -- geniuses excepted and usually absented -- often couldn't understand what the prof was getting at. More than occasionally, a graduate assistant would confess the same problem. The seminars soon evolved into deciphering sessions. <br />
<br />
Of course, we worried about our grades, since nobody -- geniuses excepted -- ever made above a 50 on the quizzes. (The geniuses regularly got 100's.) On the final, the geniuses were excused by the prof from taking the exam. The rest of us were graded, we were told, by the prof. I got a thirty-six, which seemed to be about average, so far as an informal consensus determined. No matter, the class average was a 34. So I was awarded a B. After all, we surmised, how could a class of "specially invited honors students" be flunked <i>en masse</i>?<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Caught Between</b> <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=curse+of+knowledge&go=Submit&qs=n&form=QBLH&sp=-1&ghc=1&pq=curse+of+knowledge&sc=9-18&sk=&cvid=9553BFCEE0C744A9B43C4974D8222C2D" target="_blank"><b>The Curse of Knowledge </b></a> <b>(COK) and</b> <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=dunning-kruger+effect&qs=EP&pq=dunning-&sc=8-8&cvid=7780D74705D34EB0B15F337A8FEB7576&FORM=QBRE&sp=1" target="_blank"><b>The Dunning-Kruger Effect</b></a> <b>(DKE).</b> Many of us have had a teacher or professor who, we felt, consistently "talked over our heads." This was mostly, I would hope, not done intentionally. What usually happens is that the teacher overestimates how much their students know. This happens often, if not more, as you go up the educational ladder (where it is more embarrassing to admit to ignorance). The professor exhibits this psychological bias, the <i>Curse of Knowledge</i>, by not taking into consideration the possibility of class disparities in prior knowledge. (College entrance exams are presumed, I suspect, to have precluded such ignorance down, even, to course-level specifics.) <br />
<br />
Students often exhibit a bias complementary to the COK, the DKE. This is a tendency to overestimate the knowledge one has acquired from minor acquaintance with a topic or area of concern. It seems that some people, even in high places, believe that, from TV, or conversation, or reading fiction, or newspaper reports, they know as well, if not better, as anybody, -- excepting, "nerds" and "wonks" and "so-called" experts -- about, say, law, espionage, economics, politics, and diplomacy, etc.<br />
<br />
<b>Countering the Biases.</b> The instructor can counter both biases to some extent by giving pretests that don't affect the students' grades. The procedure is <blockquote>a. create (an often difficult procedure) and administer the pretest (See, e.g., <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/UnivImage.html" target="_blank"><b>Your Image of University Life: a course prequiz </b></a>);<br />
b. have students indicate what they think their grade will be (they can write it on the pretest;<br />
c. grade the test and let the students see their graded papers.<br />
d. tell them about the Dunning-Kruger Effect.</blockquote><br />
I have used this technique for years for students through high school up through doctoral education. For upper-level research writing, make the students' grades partially dependent upon their writing in critical "editors-subgroups" reviews of each other's papers.(See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/SYLMODELS/Ethics/ETHICSSamples/PapersPalette.html" target="_blank"><b>Examples of Papers and Critiques</b></a>.)<br />
<br />
<b>Institutional Resistances to Trying to Counter COK and DKE biases.</b> Sometimes students react to pre-testing by dropping out of the course. I had one such student - in a course focussed on policy evaluation -- tell me that he thought his experience as a highly trained laboratory technician would get him through "the BS of the soft-science stuff."<br />
<br />
I had a dean worry to me that letting students on to how much they would have to learn might reduce the number of applicants in the long run.<br />
<br />
I talked with a professor -- who really worked at accommodating his students' personal weaknesses -- who told me how his college was going to relax admissions requirements so as to increase tuition revenues. He didn't think he could deal with both increased numbers of students whose literacy and math levels were much below the already feeble standards that were traditional.<br />
<br />
At another university of my long acquaintance, professorial folklore has it that new faculty who win recognition for excellent teaching take it to be an omen of future failure to get tenure. Trustee opinion: "If a professor spends so much time trying to engage students well, how can he or she be participating in committees and doing good research besides?"<br />
<br />
An interesting situation is when a governor of a university exhibits DKE with respect to how educational processes proceed. At a meeting of faculty and university trustees, I heard the following comment from a trustee, "I hear that there are members of the faculty who have published books this last year. That's really good! Very productive! What I want now is to see you all publish two books next year."<br />
<br />
To pursue these issues, see <a href="http://newfoundations.com/EGR/WorthKnowing.html" target="_blank"><b>What is Worth Knowing? A Philosophical Distraction from a Problem in Leadership </b></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially, EGR <br />
<br />
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Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-82020640250716347112019-03-18T20:49:00.000-04:002019-03-21T10:56:11.096-04:00A Conundrum(?) about Empirical Knowledge and Empirical Belief.<i>addenda 031819</i><br />
<blockquote>In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.” -- Karl Popper<br />
<br />
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. -- Albert Einstein</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjppPqOlAYD4WFNCMjY1Gcv75wewqaU1xKVBI9fGp2dn4H3RQ8rZ1YmJutrAE0dGW7Tki8qAtLI8s9vITlZ5jDRRV1i3bv0ZOv7yJ3IeX-nuYIfKZC_OSA0J9VznmQntBX8gCceHC0msNM/s1600/Alchemist.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjppPqOlAYD4WFNCMjY1Gcv75wewqaU1xKVBI9fGp2dn4H3RQ8rZ1YmJutrAE0dGW7Tki8qAtLI8s9vITlZ5jDRRV1i3bv0ZOv7yJ3IeX-nuYIfKZC_OSA0J9VznmQntBX8gCceHC0msNM/s320/Alchemist.jpeg" width="221" height="320" data-original-width="160" data-original-height="232" /></a></div><b>BEGINNING:The Empirical Conundrum.</b><br />
<blockquote><b>Original Assumption</b>: Knowledge and Belief are not the same.</blockquote>Belief may be a component of Knowledge, but Knowledge need not be a component of belief. Some beliefs are not knowledge.<br />
<blockquote><b>Proposition A</b>: Empirical Knowledge Claims are Defeasible (falsifiable), by virtue of their being empirical.</blockquote>, i.e. <i>defeasible</i> means subject to withdrawal by virtue of possible (though maybe as yet unknown) countering evidence, CE. (See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/07/three-human-dimensions-of.html" target="_blank"><b>Three Human Dimensions of Conceptualization.</b></a>)<br />
<br />
Then, <br />
<blockquote><b>Proposition B</b>: Empirical Knowledge claims are, at best, Empirical beliefs.</blockquote>So, it follows that<br />
<blockquote><b>Proposition C</b>: if something is at best an Empirical Belief. it is not Empirical Knowledge,</blockquote>according to the Original Assumption.<br />
<br />
Proposition C applies to anything that is claimed to be empirical evidence.<br />
<br />
Thus Empirical Knowledge is not defeasible and consequently not empirical, gotten via the contrapositive of Proposition A.<br />
<br />
<b>Attempted Rebuttal.</b><br />
<br />
But what is this CE? Is it Empirical Knowledge? If so, then by Proposition A, it is defeasible, ergo, merely Belief.<br />
<br />
Thus, if counter-evidence CE is merely Empirical Belief; it is not really counter-evidence. Thus, Propositions B and C are gainsaid and consequently, Empirical Knowledge is, indeed, defeasible. (GO BACK TO <b>BEGINNING</b>.)<br />
<br />
When you've gotten tired going repeatedly back to the Beginning, in considering the vulnerabilities of the above argument, see both<br />
<a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/08/reporter-professor-russell-is-it-true.html" target="_blank"><b>Pseudo-Science: the reasonable constraints of Empiricism</b></a><br />
and <br />
<a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2015/01/knowledge-residues-of-practical-caution.html" target="_blank"><b>Knowledge: The Residues of Practical Caution.</b></a>.<br />
<br />
Cordially, EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-10997924748435503712019-02-24T18:08:00.003-05:002020-11-01T12:58:28.820-05:00The Virtues of Hypocrisy<i>edited 030919</i><blockquote>Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive ...<br />
-- Israel Zangwill (1906)<a name="cite1"></a><a href="#ft1" name="cite1">[1]</a> <br />
<br />
When you're smilin', when you're smilin'<br />
The whole world smiles with you.<br />
Yes, when you're laughin', when you're laughin'<br />
The sun comes shinin' through.<br />
But when you're cryin', you bring on the rain<br />
So stop your sighin', be happy again.<br />
Keep on smilin', 'cause when you're smilin', <br />
The whole world smiles with you.<a href="#ft2"name="cite2">[2]</a> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe-t56IHrnLT_Vnz6EbyrObFiHlkFekX8mGPYjfoQbqVAWUoD6tmegABFugpNTNgyTPlPyNcy7hYTp_IBmJCNG3S9c0qrxA6D6r5xrpY9dcmFhRUNeA2XDtZlYZYZyeid6SQDlxbT4Zgk/s1600/Russell.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe-t56IHrnLT_Vnz6EbyrObFiHlkFekX8mGPYjfoQbqVAWUoD6tmegABFugpNTNgyTPlPyNcy7hYTp_IBmJCNG3S9c0qrxA6D6r5xrpY9dcmFhRUNeA2XDtZlYZYZyeid6SQDlxbT4Zgk/s320/Russell.png" width="191" height="320" data-original-width="258" data-original-height="433" /></a></div><br />
</blockquote><b>Hypocrisy</b> is consciously and deliberately saying something which you believe to be false or doing something you believe or feel is not right while maintaining a public demeanor of righteous indifference or neutral sanguinity.<br />
<br />
If what you say is a statement, e.g. "I have returned your book to the library," when in fact you haven't, then it would be commonly called a <em>lie</em>. But if your statement is intended to have some sort of moral force or focusses on an act which you would reluctantly, at best, perform yourself, then it would also be considered hypocrisy, e.g. "Stop your sighing', be happy again." <br />
<br />
Hypocrisy is generally considered undesirable, especially, in theorizing (moralizing?) if possibly mitigating circumstances are not considered. However, there are many situations which arise where disregarding concerns for hypocrisy is reasonable. Human history abounds with examples.<br />
<br />
<b>Two common social situations follow:</b> the first is when a person of less power is dealing with someone threatening. For example, when importuned by persons (whether true believers or hypocrites) who are authorized, capable and willing to cause you hurt or harm.<a href="#ft3"name="cite3">[3]</a> Such situations can be a matter of life, death or imprisonment.<br />
<br />
<b>Situation I examples.</b> Austrian Lutherans, for example, when offered the options by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1623-1637) of emigration, death, or conversion to Roman Catholicism, pretended to convert.<br />
<br />
The Russian Communist Party membership purge under Stalin 1929-1930 resulted in the execution of over 3,000 people and tens of thousands who lost their positions and privileges for either former membership or sympathy with those who resisted Bolshevik dominance. The "Great Purge" of 1937-39 resulted in the deaths of from 600 thousand to over one million Communist Party and government officials, and wealthy landlords. We can imagine that the victims would have felt no pricks of conscience at vehemently, though hypocritically declaring their loyalty to the Party.<br />
<br />
German resistance to Nazism was generally unable to mobilize political opposition that would lead to a coup against Hitler. However, 77,000 German citizen resisters, presumably non-Jewish, were killed by Special Courts, or People's Courts. "Tens of thousands" more were said to be sent to concentration camps. <br />
<br />
During the years 1947 - 1954 many Americans were pressured by US government officials and police as to whether they were communists or communist sympathizers. Rumors abounded and jail was not an unlikely outcome for many. In order to be eligible for employment as a substitute teacher in 1965, I, myself, at age 22 had to sign a document attesting to the fact that I was not, nor ever had been, a member of or sympathizer with the Communist Party of America. <br />
<br />
I signed easily since, having had little political experience at my age, my declarations were true. If they had been false, I would have signed anyway, since I badly needed a job and I considered such documents to be irredeemably stupid and counter-productive. It seemed to me that anyone who was actually a Communist would sign it, anyway; rather than draw back and say "Sorry, I can't sign this oath for reasons of conscience." Back then in 1965, such a declaration, divulged as a lie, might just get you, not a job, but a prison sentence.<br />
<br />
<b>Situation II</b>, where hypocrisy is a matter of course, occurs with a tactful inquiry, "How are you?" where the conversants lack sufficient intimacy to reveal the truth. Tact is hardly even imaginable as being other than a virtue except, say, when a normally tactful, if rather informal, question is severely out of place. For example, upon being presented to the Queen of England to receive the CBE, one extends one's hand and asks, "How's it goin', Toots?" Whatever fault we might find with this, it is not likely to be that of hypocrisy.<a href="#ft4"name="cite4">[4]</a><br />
<br />
<b>The Values of Hypocrisy.</b> If you are in a position of relative power or authority over some persons then your own hypocrisy (often reconceptualized as "leadership discretion") may facilitate any of the situations mentioned above: examples:<blockquote>To reinforce the legitimacy of organizational or social status. <a href="#ft4A"name="cite4a">[4A]</a> <br />
<br />
To maintain the hierarchy deriving from an ethos.<a href="#ft5"name="cite5">[5]</a> <br />
<br />
To intimidate persons of inferior status to forestall defiance or resistance.<a href="#ft6" name="cite6">[6]</a><br />
<br />
As a procedural step in the initiation of military or academic recruit training.<a href="#ft7" name="cite7">[7]</a><br />
<br />
To maintain a of veneer of respectability or sanguinity.</blockquote><br />
These are no small incentives for hypocrisy. Such hypocrisy, if at all held to be morally objectionable, is likely to be considered a <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2014/03/choosing-lesser-evil-moral-failure.html" target="_blank"><b>"Lesser Evil"</b></a> than the likely consequences of <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2013/10/institutionalizing-wisdom-uses-of-delay.html" target="_blank"><b>"Transparency"</b></a>.<br />
<br />
James G. March (1976) suggests that we would be better off with less rationality. And that we would be well served by a concept of "sensible foolishness". Freed from the constraints of pre-existent purposes, the necessity of consistency and the primacy of rationality (formal or algorithmic approaches, e.g. policies, mathematical theories) often appear less salient. <a href="#ft8" name="cite8">[8]</a><br />
<br />
We could use the act of intelligent choice as a planned occasion for discovering new goals, unpredicted and attractive value consequences. We become intelligently foolish by treating goals as hypotheses, intuition as real, hypocrisy as a transition, memory as an enemy and experience as theory.<br />
<br />
For a continuation on these issues, See March, J. G. & Olsen, J. P. (1976) <em>Ambiguity and Choice</em>. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget. Accessible at <br />
<a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Rationales.html#generalizing" target="_blank"><b>Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy: generalizing the Rationale.</b></a> <br />
<br />
REFERENCES <br />
<br />
<a name="ft1"></a><a href="#cite1">[1]</a> Zangwill, I (1896) Children of the Ghetto. A study of a peculiar people. New York: Macmillan and Co. page 510<br />
<br />
<a name="ft2"></a><a href="#cite2">[2]</a> Written by Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay, Mark Fisher (1928). See, also B Ehrenreich (2009)<i>Smile or Die</i> ISBN:9781847081735 <br />
<br />
<a name="ft3"></a><a href="#cite3">[3]</a> See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/HurtHarm.html" target="_blank"><b>Hurt, Harm & Safety</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="ft4"></a><a href="#cite4">[4]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2012/09/good-lies-wise-evasions.html" target="_blank"><b>Good Lies, Wise Evasions</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="ft4A"></a><a href="#cite4">[4A]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2017/02/merchandizing-science-religion.html" target="_blank"><b>Merchandizing Science (...or Religion? ...or Politics?)</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="ft5"></a><a href="#cite5">[5]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2017/10/constricting-social-ideals-breaking.html" target="_blank"><b>Constricting Social Ideals: breaking the values-action link to ensure "stability."</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="ft6"></a><a href="#cite6">[6]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2012/09/good-lies-wise-evasions.html" target="_blank"><b>Good Lies, Wise Evasions</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="ft7"></a><a href="#cite7">[7]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2018/07/teaching-values-basic-lessons-in.html" target="_blank"><b>Teaching Values: basic lessons in hypocrisy?</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="ft8"></a><a href="#cite8">[8]</a> See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2014/03/choosing-lesser-evil-moral-failure.html" target="_blank"><b>Choosing The Lesser Evil: a Moral Failure?</b></a>Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-26604057810210818732019-02-21T10:40:00.000-05:002019-11-05T01:10:29.372-05:00Are You a "Person of Principle"?<blockquote><em><b>Transactional</b></em> (in)Psychology. An interaction of an individual with one or more other persons, especially as influenced by their assumed relational roles of parent, child, or adult. -- <em>Dictionary.com</em></blockquote><b>Principles? Or Excuses?</b> It's interesting that that the term "transactional", particularly in referring to President #45, has become his normal description. His admirers use it to explain his decision-making, finessing the issue of principle. His detractors use it to focus on (what they considers his lack of) principles. <br />
<br />
Were the question of the title posed to you, you might respond, "It all depends on the principle," implying that there is a distance between being "principled" and being "unprincipled." I would tend to agree with you. <br />
<br />
In the wider world, especially in this our multicultural, multi-religious, multi-political, more-or-less democratic United States of America in 2019, there are scads of principles, many of them contradicting others, or even themselves. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCe-nENH33Sgu9VWeBZvYysAlHzYBkvbNI-WhnJflT1Xrb9s824Zi6Nf2Iec38r6RCVgjb2qfbNtwJGTUwya2BhEtmm6rOzY27mN7kIjD-GiPpB6MFurHqfZF-go-pE6ENbfyUO1emPY/s1600/transparency.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCe-nENH33Sgu9VWeBZvYysAlHzYBkvbNI-WhnJflT1Xrb9s824Zi6Nf2Iec38r6RCVgjb2qfbNtwJGTUwya2BhEtmm6rOzY27mN7kIjD-GiPpB6MFurHqfZF-go-pE6ENbfyUO1emPY/s320/transparency.jpg" width="320" height="267" data-original-width="479" data-original-height="400" /></a></div><br />
<b>Do Principles Exacerbate Conflict?</b> Despite this multi-dimensional pluralism (or, perhaps, because of it) we find many, many people who think it is important to be a principled person. They tend to believe that people who claim to be such are more trustworthy than those who are reticent to proclaim such.<br />
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Interestingly, it appears that the vaguer, the more-distant-from-everyday-goings-on the principle seems to be, the more likely it will have adherents. Such principles tend to become slogans of camaraderie, rather than moral or practical guides. This development is likely to bolster our democracy, rather than undermine it. It reduces the likelihood of conflict over specifics. Every successful negotiator recognizes this.<br />
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<br />
<b>But What If You Consider Yourself Principled?</b> (I personally do. I do not preach or practice, I believe, otherwise.) Then, can you answer the following questions about any of your principles?<br />
<br />
Here are Ten Questions for Examining a Principle. Can You<blockquote>1. ... state the principle (clearly)?<br />
2. ... explain the important or critical terms in the principle?<br />
3. ... give an example of an application of the principle?<br />
4. ... contradict the principle?<br />
5. ... give examples of the contradicted principle?<br />
6. ... give reasons, if possible, for accepting the principle?<br />
7. ... give reasons, if possible, for rejecting the principle?<br />
8. ... tell how the principle helps us to think rationally or opens up possibilities for action?<br />
9. ... tell how rejecting the principle restricts possibilities for thought or action?<br />
10 ... find two other principles one more important, the other less important than the principle being evaluated?<br />
</blockquote>Here are two examples of possible principles to consider:<br />
<blockquote>A) An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.<br />
B) To get ahead, learn how to fake competence and passion.<br />
</blockquote>Use the questions above to decide whether, and under what circumstances, you might accept or reject the principle.<br />
<br />
For fuller explanation, and examples to practice on, see <br />
<a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/DoingEthics.html#know" target="_blank"><b>What is it to Know How to Use a Principle?</b></a><br />
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Cordially, EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-4963204451117710142018-07-15T17:36:00.000-04:002019-01-10T08:55:13.217-05:00Escaping Accountablity: selecting the "right" scapegoat.<blockquote>It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat. -- Richard Hofstadter <em>Anti-Intellectualism in American Life</em> (1963)</blockquote>Not many years ago I heard an interview on National Public Radio during which the guest, to the apparent delight of the host, expressed the view that it was time to "hold colleges and universities responsible for the failure of their students to graduate on time." <br />
<br />
"Public colleges," he explained, "have never been held accountable for, that is, given state appropriations in proportion to, the success of their students. The have received funds merely on the basis of the number admitted." Things had to change!<br />
<br />
Excuse me! Is this a person who has ever worried about grade inflation? Or about "empty diplomas?" Should "party-school" graduates number among the most successful? Will medical schools, in the long run, also, be held to this notion of accountability?<br />
<br />
The provost of a local college in Philadelphia, strapped for funds, recently informed the faculty that all their classes will begin to be "bimodal." What is this? Well, in the past, there were two groups of students identified by the admissions committee: those who met admissions standards; and, those who failed to meet them. The former group had, on the average, higher high school and SAT averages than the latter.<br />
<br />
To increase university income, both groups will now be admitted. It is up to the professors to "individualize instruction according to the unique needs of the student" in order to that No Student (tuition payment?) be Left Behind.<br />
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Professorial reaction has been muted to the point of indiscernibility, much as that of many public school teachers was, when <i>No Child Left Behind</i> was vaunted as a "school reform." <br />
<br />
I learned from my mentors many years ago when I was pursuing licensure as a school principal that the first, the Primary, Rule of Administration was <i>CYA</i>, <i>Cover Your Asse(t)s</i>. You practice the first rule by putting to use the Second Rule of Administration.<br />
<br />
The Second Rule of Administration -- I have learned through experience -- is, <em>Theorem</em>: "Pick on the quiet, the long-suffering. <b>Otherwise, "Never</b> Scapegoat the Squeaky Wheel." <br />
<br />
<em>Lemma</em>: "Dump on the Humble, the Self-sacrificing and the Patient, <b>but not if they are protest-prone</b>." (Also, available for bullying are those stupid enough to believe that it is "unprofessional" to protect their own interests.)<br />
<br />
For references and to examine these issues further, see <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/05/buffering-enhancing-moral-hazard-in.html" target= _blank ><strong> Buffering: Enhancing Moral Hazard in Decision-Making?"<br />
</strong></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially, EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-64954721328626802892018-07-14T11:52:00.000-04:002019-11-05T01:11:46.185-05:00Teaching Values: basic lessons in hypocrisy?<br />
<blockquote>But of all wrong there is non more heinous than that of those who when they deceive us most grossly, so do it as to seem good men. -- Cicero <em>De Officiis, Book 1</em>, 13, 41.</blockquote>You might have had a childhood experience similar to the following: your parents, or teachers, or religious leaders, intensely, seriously labored to impress on you that it was important always to tell the truth. (In the US it used to be presented to elementary schoolers that George Washington never told a lie so you shouldn’t, either.)<br />
<br />
But if you mentioned that Grandma’s breath stank, or that something Mom made for dinner tasted bad, or that school was boring, you were scolded for being nasty or for deliberately saying what you knew wasn’t true, “just to be hurtful.” ("Fake news" as some of today's would-be 'moral leaders' drone about in their admonitions.)<br />
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Perhaps you let it be known you didn’t like playing or sharing with your cousins, or neighbors, or classmates. You may have been told by an adult, “You’ll like it if I tell you to like it, or else.” Being no dummy you soon realized that telling the truth brought pain; telling lies and calling those lies “the truth” brought you, more often than not, adult appreciation.<br />
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You may have learned that the word <em>hypocrite</em> was an important word. But even more importantly you learned that whatever a 'hypocrite' was, it couldn’t be any adult who had the power to punish you. If such a thought even crossed your mind, it was best you just kept quiet.<br />
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As we became older, supposedly wiser, we learned that (almost?) all general statements could be prefaced (if only to ourselves) with the phrase "Under certain conditions,..." We were initiated into the perpetual struggle between morality and acculturation.<br />
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This process was called “learning values.” It was an important part of what was called “growing up.” (So tedious, so omnipresent was this struggle -- many of us thought -- that we grew to defaulting to "what we wanted (felt)" so long as we could act as though in accord with the cultural or moral environment we found ourselves in.) <br />
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Apparently there are still many people around today who worry (feel?) that kids are not learning “values.” And they want the schools to teach, legislators to proscribe, or police to enforce “values.”<br />
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But can schools, legislators or police improve on what family and community, for better or not, already do?<br />
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To examine these issues further, see <a href=" http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/ValuesConflict.html"” target=“_blank”> Values Education or Values Confusion? </a><br />
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Cordially-- EGR<br />
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P.S. Thank you Mahdiabbasinv. See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:زبان_tongue.jpg<br />
Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-73923109143266420752018-06-12T15:50:00.000-04:002019-06-03T05:17:03.929-04:00Learning Common Sense: tricks and false consensus?<em>updated 061418</em><blockquote><a name="cite1"></a> <br />
AI still lacks what most 10-year-olds possess: ordinary common sense. -- Paul Allen, quoted in C Gohd "It’s Really Hard to Give AI “Common Sense” <a href="#note1">[1]</a><br />
<br />
...once (AI) becomes very large, and it has thousands of units per layer and maybe hundreds of layers, then it becomes quite un-understandable. - T Jaakkola, MIT <a href="#note2">[2]</a><br />
<br />
AI is useless until it learns how to explain itself. -- L James <em>Towards Data Science</em><a href="#note2">[2]</a><br />
<br />
"It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree." -- Baudelaire <a href="#note3">[3]</a><br />
</blockquote><br />
<b>"Playing" with Deception.</b> Many of the games adults play with even very young children work at getting them to recognize that sometimes what they see, hear, feel or remember can be misleading. Even one-year olds can be introduced to "peek-a-boo" in which they learn that the immediate disappearance brought about by covering one's eyes does not, by itself, make what they have just seen, go away. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNJ_fakqjjXl_gX1Py84RbUS0UkUTJEPjBL2wR9fR3wQ_N6A4NvJ94vki2tOkrIWp8JOr9dIbL7oPFm0NeQyeaaYNC6FdAyMe5XV_i4ozg0ibncw2ZGcE-1gKOI4drhG6kELgsMxd73Kg/s1600/King+Magic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNJ_fakqjjXl_gX1Py84RbUS0UkUTJEPjBL2wR9fR3wQ_N6A4NvJ94vki2tOkrIWp8JOr9dIbL7oPFm0NeQyeaaYNC6FdAyMe5XV_i4ozg0ibncw2ZGcE-1gKOI4drhG6kELgsMxd73Kg/s200/King+Magic.jpg" width="143" height="200" data-original-width="256" data-original-height="358" /></a></div><br />
Two-year olds can be surprised and entertained with a game called, "I caught your nose," where the adult or older, less naive child, uses curled forefinger and middle finger of one hand to gently clasp the younger's nose, moves the hand away while sliding the thumb in between the two fingers and says "I caught your nose."<br />
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I have seen such games played hundreds of times. The naive child's initial reaction is usually one of surprise -- although sometimes one of dismay or even shock -- but, as the "nose-holding" hand opens up empty and the adult says, "feel you face" the child, relieved, will smile or even laugh and invite: "Do it again."<br />
<br />
But playing with deception most likely only works under two (among many possible other) conditions. These are that<blockquote>1. the children are more or less "normal," i.e. healthy, awake, and undistracted by such things as a wet diaper or hunger and <br />
<br />
2. the experiences of the learners bring them to develop a sense of probability concerning what they perceive in contrast to other options that might occur.</blockquote><a name="cite4"></a>If, for example, a person playing peek-a-boo hides or, say, dons a mask, while the child is covering its eyes, the experience will likely not teach much about what is likely to happen under which circumstances. Nor will it happen if the child is developmentally too under- or overdeveloped to benefit from the interaction.<a href="#note4">[4]</a><br />
<br />
Deception games in educational contexts are usually a kind of training in "normality," e.g. merely covering the eyes does not change what's "really there." Or, if something's where it should be, say, you nose on your face, then it can't also be somewhere else. This is training in what we call "common sense."<br />
<br />
<b>However, a sense of "normality" is different from "common sense."</b> As children grow, they might get training in a more sophisticated, less "common," form of "common sense." For older children we might use a poem such as <blockquote>As I was going to St. Ives,<br />
I met a man with seven wives.<br />
Every wife had seven sacks.<br />
Every sack had seven cats.<br />
Every cat had seven kits.<br />
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,<br />
How many were going to St. Ives?</blockquote>One or more students hurry to do the arithmetic and come up with 2401. We "correct" them by saying that the answer is "one", because I, alone, was going to St. Ives. The teaching point is usually to get them to read more carefully. <br />
<br />
But a more insightful student might point out that the poem does not originally indicate, "I <i>alone</i> was going to St. Ives." It's possible, therefore, had I already had (unmentioned) co-travelers, that at least 2402 were going to St. Ives. The original teaching point -- Read Carefully! -- fails, but is (hopefully) compensated for by the discussion of the possible assumptions and what they let us infer. <br />
<br />
Even relatively sophisticated adults can be fooled by clever illusionists who appear to make coins disappear and, then, pull them from a spectator's ear. Trained scientists have been known to insist that they have seen individuals bend spoons without touching them. Illusionist's confederates are "seen" to get cut in half and survive the sawblade's mutilation. And elephants can disappear in a puff of smoke!<br />
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In such circumstance, however, the victims of the illusion either <blockquote>1. are not able to carefully examine the surroundings of the events, for e.g. being seated in an audience; or,<br />
<br />
2. are generally ignorant of techniques of illusion, e.g. coin-palming, or attention-distraction,</blockquote>which, though employed in their present circumstances, are rare in day-to-day experience. <br />
<br />
Of greater concern to us, perhaps, should be the abundant presence of illusionists of political and commercial enterprise armed with well-established research on psychological biases and manipulation techniques. Educational institutions have yet to catch up with, much less keep abreast of, these clever people.<br />
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<a name="cite5"></a><b>Both schooling and experience</b>, in general, work toward refining "common sense" even to the point of supplanting it with something else. But a socially important, very problematic conception of these processes is the common myth that some substantial residues of the original "common sense" remain as a substrate, so to speak, of newer learnings. The myth holds it that the residues remain not merely as individual inclinations and skills, but as widely shared, if only latent, tools all can rely on.<a href="#note5">[5]</a><br />
<br />
<a name="cite6"></a>Consider the following conversation between an employer (E) and a prospective job-holder (P): <br />
<blockquote>E: P, I've brought you in, P, to ask you to run our Department of X.<br />
<br />
P: But E, as a Y manager, I haven't had any experience really working with X!"<br />
<br />
E: Yeah; but, you've been successful with Y. And your heart's in the right place. I feel we'll get along just fine. So when it comes to working with X, just rely on your common sense!"<a href="#note6">[6]</a></blockquote><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklwpIjdpwok_cUPTpShyphenhyphenRpIjFo4UQVDT_5C-NPbscL-5eZzsHEgz7zHZfpMsZtkzVnUEikaBZREkUULcu6SJTlBSkxIlmYYG3j10wi9Vn42tvrZKbHmvqonCTH7MXfNEqyO9KTjM3i9Y/s1600/Woodward2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklwpIjdpwok_cUPTpShyphenhyphenRpIjFo4UQVDT_5C-NPbscL-5eZzsHEgz7zHZfpMsZtkzVnUEikaBZREkUULcu6SJTlBSkxIlmYYG3j10wi9Vn42tvrZKbHmvqonCTH7MXfNEqyO9KTjM3i9Y/s400/Woodward2.jpg" width="292" height="400" data-original-width="292" data-original-height="400" /></a></div><br />
<a name="cite8"></a>Whether or not we find such a conversation problematic might well depend on the kind of organization E and P will be involved in. If it is, say, a small but expanding family-owned-and-run retail operation, that is one thing. However, if it is a middle-sized medical-surgical establishment, or a large kitchen-facilities factory, other concerns arise.<br />
<br />
As Joan Woodward <a href="#note8">[8]</a> has long argued, there are important and complex relations between organizational structure, staff social relations, and productivity.<a href="#note9">[9]</a> <br />
<br />
<a name="cite10"></a><b>What is Common? What Makes Sense?</b> A typical definition of <em>common sense</em> from <em>The Cambridge English Dictionary</em> gives us:<a href="#note10">[10]</a><br />
<blockquote>The basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way. <br />
Examples:<em> Windsurfing is perfectly safe as long as you have/use some common sense.</em></blockquote><br />
Note how many terms presume anterior "definition": <em>basic level, practical, knowledge, judgment, reasonable, perfectly, safe.</em> But what level is "basic?" What kind of information is "knowledge?" Who does "we all?" refer to? What is "reasonable;" what is "safe?"<br />
<br />
<a name="cite11"></a>Our natural languages use terms that are often vague and ambiguous, highly dependent on situation. Many of our linguistic choices are based on our belief that others can understand and trust us even though we vacillate in choice of words -- not meaning "literally" what we say -- to color our speech with our own values, moods and intentions.<a href="#note11">[11]</a> We make them functionally precise ("clear" enough) by adjusting them, <em>ad hoc</em>, to the contexts we use them in and in relying (perhaps, wrongly) on our assumptions of normality. <br />
<br />
Consider the following example of an all-too typical conversation, <blockquote>Harry: Snow again! It's May! I've lived here all my life and never before seen so much snow!<br />
Jack: Uh-huh. It shows how global warming is just a fraud!"<br />
Harry: What makes you think so?"<br />
Jack: It's obvious to anyone who has any common sense." More snow, less warmth!</blockquote><br />
A critical claim here is "More snow, less warmth!" This is common sense to millions of people, in the U.S. at least. We may say they are mistaken, but the falsity of their premise does not necessarily affect the logic of their argument. The argument may be based on a "confusion" between the notions of "climate," a characterization of weather events over extended periods of time and with large areas of occurrence; and, "weather," states of the atmosphere, e.g. phenomena of temperature change, precipitation, etc. considered from restricted perspectives which are more likely to be experienced by individuals or smaller populations. Breadth of perspective is independent, one would think, of commonality. <br />
<br />
<a name="cite12"></a>When was the last time a poll was taken to ascertain which individuals living under which conditions share common agreement on the assumptions underlying the definitions of the Cambridge English Dictionary? <a href="#note12">[12]</a><br />
<br />
Depending upon where they are located and how informed they are, they may well be exercising their "common sense" even though it brings them to false conclusions. Recall only how phlogiston once provided a scientifically acceptable theory of combustion. Recall, also, that despite the efforts of Lister and Pasteur, many educated people rejected bacterial action as a cause of infection.<br />
<br />
Every linguistic transaction is a wager which may not gain "high predictive probability" by being written down in "black and white" or entered as code into a computer program. Just as arguments can be valid without being sound, so can valid arguments yield falsehoods though they rest on common sense.<br />
<br />
To continue with similar considerations, go to <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Indeterminacy.html" target="_blank"><b>The Indeterminacy of Consensus: masking ambiguity and vagueness in decision.</b></a><br />
<br />
-- Cordially, EGR<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Footnotes and References</b><br />
<br />
<a name="note1"></a><a href="#cite1">[1]</a> quoted in Chelsea Gohd (<em>Futurism</em>, 3/11/ 2018) <a href=" https://futurism.com/teaching-ai-common-sense/" target="_blank"><b>It’s Really Hard to Give AI “Common Sense</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note2"></a><a href="#cite1">[2]</a> Knight, W (<em>MIT Technology Review</em>, 4/11/18) <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604087/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-ai/" target="_blank"><b>The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI</b></a><br />
See also James, L <em>Towards Data Science</em> (2018) <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/ai-is-unless-until-it-learns-how-to-explain-itself-7884cca3ba26" target="_blank"><b>AI is useless until it learns how to explain itself.</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note3"></a><a href="#cite1">[3]</a> Baudelaire, C <a href="http://centretruths.co.uk/fahdtu/INTIMATE%20JOURNALS.htm" target="_blank"><b><em>Intimate Journals XCIX</em></b></a> <br />
See also G Clabaugh & E Rozycki (1999) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/Consensus/NatureConsensus.html" target="_blank"><b>The Nature of Consensus</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note4"></a><a href="#cite4">[4]</a>"Developmentally appropriate" is one of those educational concepts that is both theoretically dense and vague as well as hard to specify a non-circular definition for. See Redden & Frederick below.[7]<br />
<br />
<a name="note5"></a><a href="#cite5">[5]</a> See Rozycki, E (2014)<a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2014/09/common-sense-or-merely-common-hubris.html" target="_blank"><b> Common Sense, or Merely Common Hubris?</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note6"></a><a href="#cite6">[6]</a> See Rozycki, E (2017) <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2017/12/hard-practical-questions-why-not-dodge.html" target="_blank"><b>Hard Practical Questions? Handle Them or Dodge Them! Here's How</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note7"></a><a name="cite7"></a><a href="#cite4">[7]</a> Redden, JP & Frederick, S (2011) <a href="http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/166024.pdf" target="_blank"><b>Unpacking Unpacking: Greater Detail Can Reduce Perceived Likelihood</b></a> <em>Journal Of Experimental Psychology</em><br />
<br />
<a name="note8"></a><a href="#cite8">[8]</a> Joan Woodward, <em>Industrial Organization. Theory and Practice.</em> Reprint. (London: Oxford University Press, 1966)<br />
<br />
<a name="note9"></a><a href="#cite8">[9]</a> See, also <a href="http://goo.gl/BDRhSD" target="_blank"><b>Productivity, Politics and Hypocrisy in American Public Education.</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note10"></a><a href="#cite10">[10]</a><a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/common-sense" target="_blank"><b><em>The Cambridge English Dictionary</em> on 'common sense'</b></a> <br />
<br />
<a name="note11"></a><a href="#cite11">[11]</a> See Rozycki, E (2016) <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/07/three-human-dimensions-of.html" target="_blank"><b>Three Human Dimensions of Conceptualization</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note12"></a><a href="#cite12">[12]</a> See Rozycki, E (2016) <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/09/all-definition-ultimately-rests-on.html" target="_blank"><b>All Definition Ultimately Rests on Stipulation, i.e. Communal Agreement.</b></a>Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-14171070489170783292018-03-27T14:05:00.001-04:002019-11-05T01:14:14.683-05:00The Nearly Overwhelming Influence of Technology: only for dumbing-down or distraction?edited 5/29/19<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_t3CXQmf-Sh2XFpJX_y6KYg95KthMTaFA2SAZKIY7Bvy9IiQbZIyEcGLjakXWOE7aCj3Vw2DQmJNjpZRya7iuyS_uo2fyciwkySRoSc0zkMUhnUC7nP_tbzfRQnjWVDyIa-rQIOhsd_8/s1600/Tsunamis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_t3CXQmf-Sh2XFpJX_y6KYg95KthMTaFA2SAZKIY7Bvy9IiQbZIyEcGLjakXWOE7aCj3Vw2DQmJNjpZRya7iuyS_uo2fyciwkySRoSc0zkMUhnUC7nP_tbzfRQnjWVDyIa-rQIOhsd_8/s200/Tsunamis.jpg" width="163" height="200" data-original-width="182" data-original-height="223" /></a></div><blockquote>"Consumerism is Communism." -- Comment (circa 1960) made by a head of a Philadelphia area Chamber of Commerce president critical of the evaluations published in the magazine, <i> Consumer Reports</i>.[1] </blockquote><br />
<strong>Teaching Clever Folks to be Discreet.</strong> Outside the university, clever thinkers, purportedly so prized in academia, can often be tolerated only if the mouths controlled by them stay shut. This is called "discretion."<br />
<br />
Why? Because, to begin, clever thinking may obstruct otherwise easy commercial transactions. On the still just legal side of that narrow boundary separating clever marketing from fraud, bigger profits are more easily extracted, in the short run, at least, from naïve, misinformed or confused customers. The 1960 "Consumerism is Communism" comment in the epigraph alludes to this. <br />
<br />
But the concern that only commercial institutions fear criticism is somewhat dated. To examine a more recent rhetorical exercise on the theme that Big Business, hand-in-hand with Big Government, is crowding us all into "Communism," see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm6i2K9ayYc" target="_blank"><strong> How consumerism leads to "communism".</strong></a><br />
<br />
Clearly commerce is not the only area in which ignorance can be exploited. Clever folks have a habit of nosing around in various traditional realms. Our legal, religious, governmental and educational institutions all have their own dirty wash to hide. For example <blockquote>a. Scientists persistently complain that much published research is sloppily done, or non-replicable, yet is still often celebrated as an important breakthrough. (See <a href="http://www.webexhibits.org/bogus/" target="_blank"><strong>Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science.</strong></a>)<br />
<br />
<br />
b. Government regulatory agencies fall down in policing misrepresentation in financial transactions; or in medical exaggerations. (See <a href="http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/lawjournal/issues/volume70/number1/list.pdf" target="_blank"><b><br />
Why is the SEC Ignoring Its Greatest Asset in the Fight Against Corporate Misconduct?</b></a>)<br />
<br />
<br />
c. Clergy who would impose a strict morality beyond the boundaries of their own congregations, themselves protect their confreres who indulge the vices they condemn in their flocks. (See <a href="http://goo.gl/dCKLwa" target="_blank"><b>The Catholic Bishops Lobby Against Legislation to Protect Children </b></a>)<br />
<br />
<br />
d. Lawyers and judges have colluded, for example, in facilitating incarceration of children in private prisons for payments from the proprietors. (See <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-massive-juvenile-justice-bribery-scandal" target="_blank"><b>Pennsylvania Judge Sentenced For 28 Years For Selling Kids to the Prison System </b></a>)<br />
<br />
<br />
e. Educators and school governors have absconded with or misused monies given them in the name of reform. (See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdge/Charters.html" target="_blank"><b>De-Regulation and Charter School Swindles</b></a>)<br />
<br />
<br />
f. Casinos prefer unthinking customers. (Why else the free drinks?) Clever players, e.g. card-counters, are ostracized and expelled from the gaming establishments. (See <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/region/2012/06/10/Local-casinos-use-countless-methods-to-discourage-card-counters/stories/201206100121" target="_blank"><strong>Local casinos use countless methods to discourage card counters. </strong></a><br />
<br />
<br />
g. Most ominous is that some institutions attempt to squelch whistleblowers or critics by adopting policies or laws that criminalize those who would reveal illegal or unethical goings-on within them. (See <a href="http://goo.gl/45TaLF" target="_blank"><strong>Silencing Whistleblowers.</strong></a>)</blockquote><br />
To reiterate: clever folks are tolerated only if the mouths connected to them stay shut -- or are being viewed on the Comedy Channel. Statistically, events of the types listed above may be but a small proportion of the activities of the gigantic enterprises they are found in. Happily, they still cause shock and outrage, since they are unexpected, because they are considered egregious even though they relatively small in scope.<br />
<br />
Individual scandals of the types listed are often not paid much prolonged attention likely due to their overwhelming frequency -- there's always something new -- but also because there is little immediate issue of wealth involved. But such small misadventures will occasionally -- or always, in the supermarket tabloids -- be exaggerated as to their seriousness, especially if they make good media attractions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> Better Access to More Distraction?</b> Perhaps it is the emphasis in our expanding culture of technology as the primary, if not the sole, hope for the future that has disemboweled our educational systems of the wisdom gleaned from traditional sources of moral, legal and educational knowledge. Or, it may just be a matter of ease of access to more entertaining options by a public generally not too interested in those issues. (We'd probably win any bet that more people play video games on a daily basis than watch The Science Channel.)<br />
<br />
<br />
To take an optimistic perspective, easier access to information, true, false or otherwise, that new technology affords, answers an apparently vast curiosity possessed by multitudes of people enjoying ever more leisure time to indulge it. But is this accessibility making for smarter, better informed and wiser people? Recalling the concern about "teaching" clever folks to be discreet, we might well wonder how much and by whom smarter, better informed and wiser people are wanted.<br />
<br />
<br />
All of the items on the list above involve attempts to shift authority, the recognition of trustworthiness and truth-telling, from more traditional sources to newcomers who hope to enjoy substantial gains in wealth and influence.<br />
<br />
If we read widely -- another waning habit? -- we run across even Ph.D.'s in "hard science" disciplines engaging in intellectually ham-handed debate. For example, there is no end of quibbling as to whether brain-research bears on the question as to whether "mind" and "spirit" are separate. Similarly with the notions of "natural" and "supernatural." The participants in such arguments seem to define themselves as opponents without even checking first to see whether they mean the same thing with such words as "natural," "mind," "spirit" or "separate." Even less often do they bother to say, if they could, what kind of evidence they can offer that supposedly addresses the questions <br />
<br />
<b>Masking Struggles for Authority? Or Snatching For the Collection Plate?</b> A more recent, more subtle grab for recognition is the attempt by technically trained practitioners in various "hard science" disciplines to replace older traditions as definers and arbiters of broad philosophical and religious concerns. (See <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/08/reporter-professor-russell-is-it-true.html" target="_blank"><b>Pseudo-Science: the reasonable constraints of Empiricism</b></a>)<br />
<br />
Perhaps the disregard for long-established procedures of investigation and debate are not so much oversights or sloppiness as indicators of a much more attractive pursuit, that is the purloining, the usurpation, even, of authority. But this usurped authority, not about the search for discovery or truth, but more intensely in the competition for benefits more familiar, more widely valued in our pluralistic, commodity-focussed culture: wealth and influence.<br />
<br />
Cordially, EGR<br />
<br />
<b>Footnotes or References</b><br />
<br />
[1] I have been unable to retrieve my original citation and its stated source either from a faded, distant memory or from the Internet. However, there is much similar to be found online using the search phrase, "consumerism is communism." -- EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-14269487613600368052018-03-13T12:08:00.001-04:002018-07-15T16:47:37.229-04:00Promoting "Good Citizenship" Over Political Ideology, Religion & Social Class<blockquote>The key consideration for the conduct of interpersonal affairs is that the activities of people can harmonize without their ideas about ends and means being in agreement – Nicholas Rescher <em>Pluralism</em> (1995. Oxford. Paperback) p.180<br />
<br />
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...entangling alliances with none." ― Thomas Jefferson</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFxzFnu0SlvXYjG77Gq54MNG3ujanxhT6S52ZiTG9m87ZyrHnVyodMTM3itEL_rXh5sVzbpWuhDdBMOOecwoLPfsXdNGnea_X8uglf3C9rtgsFbkSChEYSqeYysOYYmOM2Af86xQnfssk/s1600/Jefferson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFxzFnu0SlvXYjG77Gq54MNG3ujanxhT6S52ZiTG9m87ZyrHnVyodMTM3itEL_rXh5sVzbpWuhDdBMOOecwoLPfsXdNGnea_X8uglf3C9rtgsFbkSChEYSqeYysOYYmOM2Af86xQnfssk/s320/Jefferson.jpg" width="223" height="320" data-original-width="145" data-original-height="208" /></a></div><b>The (Assumed) Basic Agenda of the U. S. Public Schools</b> has long been baptized "promoting good citizenship." The fundamental mission of the public schools in the multicultural, putatively democratic society of the United States of America is to forestall or ameliorate conflict between different cultural and social subgroups, quite independently of whether such conflict is morally justifiable. <br />
<br />
Clearly, "good citizenship" is seen as the fundamental, if not sole, goal of public schooling; especially when one considers that very few people would be willing to disregard conflict among groups in order to pursue any of the other vaunted aims of public education, e.g. acculturation and skills development.<br />
<br />
Indeed, the very possibility of the public school structure serving its functions presumes such conflicts are under control. Consider the present proliferation of posters in public schools that declare, "No Place for Hatred." (Effective? Perhaps; disregarding student and public behavior at pre-game sports rallies.)<br />
<br />
This subordination of many of the "obvious" goals of schooling to those of "stifling conflict," "getting along" or "respect for authority" is anything but a sign of irrationality, irresoluteness, ignorance or perversity, even though honored intellectual and social goals might suffer from emphasis on good citizenship. <br />
<br />
In a society that imposes some form of primary education on all, "public" education by default, the rock-bottom demands for order and for the recognition of easily recognized value commitments, e.g. obedience, manners, timeliness, patriotism, etc., become the only foundations for functional mass education. This is particularly the case where great variations in family income or religious commitment are prevalent and likely to be persistent.<br />
<br />
Also, this mission of pacification has supported commercial interests to exploit the vast territorial expanses and abundant natural resources of North and South America (and the world) resulting in the development of industries and patterns of settlement that tend to stabilize expanding local and national governance systems.<br />
<br />
Persistent warfare, in the long run, dissipates wealth and threatens the stability of governing groups. War can be fatal to commerce. Conversely, commerce has played a substantial part, historically world-wide, in restraining military ambition, whether fed for the sake of domination, ideology, wealth, or religion. (But this perspective is greatly complicated by many other factors. See <em>Berman</em> in references.) In time, of course, commerce itself, since it minimizes the often substantial collateral damage caused by military action, may become a preferred means of pursuing domination, ideology, wealth, or religion. (See <em>Downs</em> in references.)<br />
<br />
The preceding comments, I take it, are relatively common knowledge, discussed by many, many others in far more detail and exactitude than I have taken to present here. Those comments are not intended to identify heroes or villains, or to judge either militarism or commerce to be morally better than the other. Clearly, they fail to include mention, much less detail, of the millions of human beings who have fallen victim over the centuries of human history to their processes.<br />
<br />
Our interest here is to understand how the public schools in the United States of America have fit in with the governance and social control processes of our society by pursuing their main goal of promoting good citizenship, even to the extent of often giving little more than lip service to other worthy pursuits.<br />
<br />
Public education has been promoted and controlled to domesticate the populations who are be compelled, either by law, custom or poverty to accept its ministrations. The standard curricula of public education reflect the mission of producing "good citizens."<br />
<blockquote>a. this mission is served by policies which promote "passive valuing", i.e. some kind of esteeming which does not involve the pursuit of that which is esteemed -- typical of so-called "appreciation" courses or of values clarification classes, smatterings of much, little of depth; <br />
<br />
b. this mission is also served by policies which gainsay any of the conditions necessary to connecting action with value, i.e. the conditions of rationality, knowledge, ability, opportunity and consistency. <br />
Since it is active valuing, the pursuit of values, which might cause conflict where values are not shared, certain policy directions can be drawn immediately from the above formulations. (See <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2017/10/constricting-social-ideals-breaking.html"
target="_blank"><b>Constricting Social Ideals: breaking the values-action link to ensure "stability."</b></a>.}<br />
</blockquote><br />
Thus, a rational school policy serving the social goal of reduced conflict could well promote -- with studied disregard: <blockquote>a. irrationality, by letting evanescent preferences - whether of governance, organizational or student bodies - determine study options, rather than bias toward longer term considerations. (Universities and private schools, also, do this in favoring religious, social, or disciplinary traditions over scholarship);<br />
<br />
b. ignorance, by granting certificates of completion without adequate testing for knowledge;<br />
<br />
c. incompetence, by giving credit for "life experience" without clear definitions of skill obtained;<br />
<br />
d. unequal opportunity, by <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/10/tracking-vas-differentiated-instruction.html" target="_blank"><b>tracking</b></a> students by family background, or inadequate funding of educational programs; or<br />
<br />
e. inconsistency of conduct, passing grades for "effort" or to satisfy school board demands for "higher achievement: -- read "higher recorded grades." </blockquote><br />
Hardly anyone would think such aims educational. Our considerations are suggestive, however, as to the persistence of these ills despite continued exhortation to eradicate them.<br />
<br />
Final misgivings (from the political dimension of schooling): who decides what "operable" criteria of "good citizenship" are to be? Might they not come biased by political ideology, religion & social class?<br />
<br />
To examine these issues further, see <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2018/01/desired-ideal-docile-citizen-wimp-and.html" target="_blank"><b>The Desired Ideal: a Docile Citizen? Or...?</b></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially<br />
--- EGR<br />
<br />
REFERENCES<br />
<br />
Harold J.Berman, <em>Law and Revolution. The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition</em> (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983 (See "citizenship", throughout.)<br />
<br />
<br />
Jacques M. Downs "American Merchants and the China Opium Trade, 1800-1840" <em>The Business History Review, Vol. 42, No. 4 </em> (Winter, 1968), pp. 418-442 Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-59350589199508059322018-01-24T12:57:00.003-05:002018-03-03T09:13:08.837-05:00Armed Guards in Public Schools: will this prevent violence?<blockquote>"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." -- Thomas Gray, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (1742) </blockquote><blockquote>For in much wisdom [is] much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. -- Ecclesiastes 1:18 KJB </blockquote><br />
Did you know that there are “mental hospitals” in which are incarcerated young children, at least as young as seven years old, who have murdered other human beings? A relative of mine who for several years worked in such a hospital with homicidal children -- until he burned out -- told me that he thought that what those kids really needed was good parenting. He insisted on this even though, from time to time, he had to disarm a child who attacked him with a hastily improvised knife or club.<br />
<br />
We all just want to be happy. But some of us are willing to sacrifice too much in pursuit of that happiness. Many people are self-lobotomizing. You find them everywhere among parents, educators and in the “helping” professions -- but frequently even in politics, business and in the military. It is just too much to bear to accept that people we love or esteem might -- lacking extreme duress -- have committed some heinous act against another human being.<br />
<br />
Having spent more than thirty-eight years in the School District of Philadelphia (as both student and teacher), I know from direct experience and from talking with my peers that violence in schools has been around for at least that long. (However, see <a href="https://goo.gl/enhZyj" target="_blank"><b>Violence, even in school, is not necessarily wrong.</b></a>) But, like today, it was not everywhere; not even in a substantial minority of schools. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotsYCya4ORRYCMxH2xl2lWHVs46WzLcAhdCevonCvdNiH2qVwkUAACm9Mur64zIsUCcCiKmDu5Bw0xPfrYoEGo1dNpyNk2ijK2FUnDQuAB_UhIbBIbFHlL9lAPNbI2CjicHsy-XRKCzE/s1600/Los_Angeles_School_Police_Department_Patch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotsYCya4ORRYCMxH2xl2lWHVs46WzLcAhdCevonCvdNiH2qVwkUAACm9Mur64zIsUCcCiKmDu5Bw0xPfrYoEGo1dNpyNk2ijK2FUnDQuAB_UhIbBIbFHlL9lAPNbI2CjicHsy-XRKCzE/s200/Los_Angeles_School_Police_Department_Patch.jpg" width="200" height="171" data-original-width="300" data-original-height="256" /></a></div>But where it was common the school had a widely known, if seldom loudly declared reputation as a hell-hole. When I was in junior high school (1954-57) teachers, administrators and local politicians knew which public schools not to send their kids to. And they pulled strings to make sure their kids could avoid them. (I was not so lucky.)<br />
<br />
But a New Day was to dawn: <em>The Philadelphia Inquirer</em> of April 9, 2011 reported that city officials in education and government were considering a proposal to place armed police guards in every Philadelphia school. That would complete the circle: compulsion to incarceration. Parents would be compelled by law to send their kids to schools where there were armed guards; thus, no doubt giving the students ample experience for the penal system many were said to expect to graduate to. (The outcomes of the official considerations, if and when completed, were not given much, if any, media attention. No bleed, no lead.)<br />
<br />
With armed guards in their school, students in Philadelphia would be able to enjoy “the prison experience” without even having had to commit a crime. The system could, for example, start budgeting for HIV prevention. (Or perhaps they might permit gangs go take over some supervisory functions, just like in many a “real” prison. See <a href=“https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2011/10/interventionism-helping-interfering-or.html” target=“_blank”><b>Intervention: helping, interfering or just being useless?</b></a>)<br />
<br />
We might hope the inmates, (oops! …) --- the kids — might acquire the wisdom of real prison inmates and come to understand that even armed guards can’t prevent violence in the institution so long as our educational, business and governmental “leaders” narrowly pursue their own personal interests, able to disregard in-school happenings.<br />
<br />
For references and to examine these issues further, see <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/SchoolViolence.html" target=“_blank”><b>School Violence, Punishment, and Justice</b></a><br />
also<br />
<a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2010/09/do-warm-hearts-and-gentle-people.html" target=“_blank”><b>Do Warm Hearts and Gentle People Promote Violence? You Betcha!</b></a><br />
<br />
Cordially<br />
--- EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-60991493959848641022018-01-21T13:28:00.000-05:002018-01-22T08:49:37.191-05:00The Desired Ideal: a Docile Citizen? Or...?<blockquote>It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover our impotence. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi (See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2013/01/was-non-violence-gandhis-ultimate-goal.html" target="_blank"><b>Was Non-Violence Gandhi’s Ultimate Goal?</b></a>)<br />
</blockquote>In the many years I taught classes in ethics, both inside and out- of the university, I encountered fewer than five or so implacable pacifists. These were people who professed themselves ready to sacrifice their nearest and dearest to death by unjust, intrusive attack, when they themselves could only intervene with violent action. In every case, I would ask them how they would justify letting their loved ones perish for the sake of their own, possibly egoistic, commitments. <br />
<br />
They would reply to the effect that they believed in an after-life in which those loved ones would find a better situation. Also, they indicated that they were not ready to pursue that train of investigation: change the topic. (But see <a href="https://goo.gl/LsgEFp" target="_blank"><b>Belief, Disbelief, Truth, Falsehood and Faith.</b></a>)<br />
<br />
Adults, parents, teachers and counseling personnel all over this great country of ours have gotten into the habit of preaching to their children or underage charges that "Violence is never the answer." Every kid, when confronted with such easy pacifism, immediately recognizes two things:<blockquote>1. What they are being told is false; and,<br />
<br />
2. Their mentors are either not serious, or out of touch with reality, or liars.</blockquote><br />
All kids have to do is listen to the radio, watch TV, or pay attention to their elders' behavior to see more than ample proof that violence, on some occasions, is very likely reasonably, the unavoidable answer. Their easy preachment against violence, a dollar-store pacifism, is just one more depressing example of a major rule of everyday adult practice: "Do as I say, not as I do." <br />
<br />
Another preachment kids encounter regularly is that if someone hits them and they hit back, they (the original victims) have "lowered themselves to the level" of their bullies. What's this "level" nonsense? Why is physical violence lower, more reprehensible, than the psychological torture inflicted by sharp tongues spreading malevolent gossip? Do psychological torturers imagine themselves morally superior because they refrain from touching their victims? They aren't; and, no kid who can fog a mirror thinks they are.<br />
<br />
It's hard to be a parent, or teacher, or counselor. You don't want to encourage random unconstrained physical battle. Not because it's morally inferior -- look at the many sports which are both violent and educative because contact is controlled by rules -- but because it runs risks of outcomes that outweigh any benefits to be gained in the combat. Also, kids are prone to sudden seizures of anger, which, if restrained and reflected on, can be controlled to their benefit. (See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/PermissibleViolence.html" target="_blank"><b> Permissible School Violence</b></a>)<br />
<br />
On the other hand, who imagines that any kid with half a brain can't recognize hypocrisy? And what does this hypocrisy teach? <blockquote>a. People in authority don't really want to get involved in having to exercise -- and make public -- their weak capacity for rational or fair judgment;<br />
<br />
b. Talk is cheap. Fast tongue exercises authority as it dodges challenge;<br />
<br />
c. Adults (superiors, leaders, gentry) are, at best, inferior teachers or models, who don't want to get involved with kids (inferiors, followers, servants) beyond what is absolutely necessary.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUbOkeao3_eEqT99DTz5W8b-4G9u7p1qupyWWi_vfT2P0MOTbdPFf4q_inHiaaCrayECpdKl8r3hqWnNwnizk6FJ_p9_epylahULgYAJLSFb1_qHIS0ht4wbki-_kBNDC3GCk4RpQPqJI/s1600/Reeve_%2526_Serfs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUbOkeao3_eEqT99DTz5W8b-4G9u7p1qupyWWi_vfT2P0MOTbdPFf4q_inHiaaCrayECpdKl8r3hqWnNwnizk6FJ_p9_epylahULgYAJLSFb1_qHIS0ht4wbki-_kBNDC3GCk4RpQPqJI/s320/Reeve_%2526_Serfs.jpg" width="320" height="251" data-original-width="200" data-original-height="157" /></a></div>Docility is valued -- is preached to be a sign of "a superior person" -- because a docile person offers little resistence to a superior's importunity, is long suffering, and, in continuing traditions of hypocrisy, undermines himself or herself morally so as to destroy any basis for resistence to exploitation.<br />
<br />
Pacifism, which starts out with the highest, the noblest, hopes of transforming human societies to tolerance and love, when glibly practiced in the contexts of our power-ridden institutions, becomes the means by which courage and forthrightness are fed to tyranny.<br />
<br />
<br />
For references and to examine these issues further, see <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Violence.html" target="_blank"><strong><b> Doing Violence to "Violence" </b></strong></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially<br />
--- EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-63273548360357459782018-01-16T11:55:00.000-05:002019-09-17T11:20:06.186-04:00Maintaining Traditions of Practical Wisdom: Not Becoming a "Fool."<i>edited 091719</i><br />
<blockquote>Practical wisdom is not musing about how someone else in a hypothetical situation ought to act. It's about "What am I to do?" -- right here and right now, with this person. A practically wise person doesn't merely speculate about what's proper; she does it.<br />
-- Schwartz, B & Sharpe, K <i>Practical Wisdom. The Right Way to Do the Right Thing.</i> (2010) New York: (Penguin) Riverhead. p.7.<br />
</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTRSNIidcqEqlA2GW3BBqV8RWe06geT5J8S5JkWcFVoGetSNE1iwqVbc2eKhKxr7yLcoS1LetQ1_-hbvMnbSZatxE4jTIbPskMt-YhBunwLOg3vhW_YVYuC_OUUK0I6rf0Dl4bpNpz7i4/s1600/PlatoAristotle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTRSNIidcqEqlA2GW3BBqV8RWe06geT5J8S5JkWcFVoGetSNE1iwqVbc2eKhKxr7yLcoS1LetQ1_-hbvMnbSZatxE4jTIbPskMt-YhBunwLOg3vhW_YVYuC_OUUK0I6rf0Dl4bpNpz7i4/s320/PlatoAristotle.jpg" width="244" height="320" data-original-width="220" data-original-height="288" /></a></div>Ever noticed how many of the things we purchase come with assurances of "foolproof" usage? Why is that? Probably because, in order to save money, we purchase things that need assembly, or finishing of one kind or another, yet we are unlikely to have the familiarity with the objects involved to know how to avoid technical problems with them.<br />
<br />
Those of us with a lot of schooling like to believe that having read abstruse texts and done difficult mathematics has somehow made us clever and handy when dealing with physical objects in the real world. Why waste money on completed items, or hire presumed "experts" -- likely a person with a few days instruction -- to assemble them for us, when we can do the job ourselves?<br />
<br />
But just try, for the first time, to do any of the following:<blockquote>a. digging a round hole one foot deep;<br />
b. baking a soufflé ;<br />
c. hammering a nail into a board;<br />
d. assembling a small multicomputer network with peripherals.</blockquote><br />
We would do well to start off with some ancient wisdom: nothing is as easy as it looks. The few days' instruction that the kid at the hardware or electronics store gets is a few days more than we have. But, rather than take a few days to consider and prepare for what has to be done, we -- not wishing to "waste time" -- rush ahead and, if we are lucky, do a barely passable job.<br />
<br />
If we break something, we put it back into the box and take it back to the store, telling them that "it came that way." The merchant, without objection, takes it back -- he has insurance (or warranty sales) covering such losses; and, a sale is a sale, the profit being substantial enough to cover several replacements -- for which they get credit from the manufacturer anyway. "Practical wisdom" often trumps even "honesty."<br />
<br />
Social obligation can suppress personal virtue. Ruth Benedict in <i>The Sword and the Chrysanthemum</i>. (1946) Boston: Houghton, gives an example in the Japanese complaint, "I lost my virtue by fulfilling my obligations." This is offered as explaining why, in a "normal" movie plot shown to Japanese subjects of Benedict's research, a teacher shields his wealthy yet thieving mother from opprobrium, accepting the blame for the theft of school funds. This, in turn drives the teacher's wife, taking their young child with her, to commit suicide (and murder) rather than live with the familial shame. Filial piety, in some cultures, trumps many a personal consideration. (Consider the fatal feuding between the Hatfields and the McCoys. See also <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/07/honor-killing-serving-idols-of-tribe.html" target="_blank"><b>Honor Killing. Serving the Idols of the Tribe</b></a>.)<br />
<br />
"Modern" cycles of short-term use and replacement, "planned obsolescence," keep much of the economy going. But if fashion, alone, can't make you "upgrade," foolishness, e.g. mechanical ignorance, or deliberate planning, even, will. (Just think of mobile phones, "finished" and sold encased in slippery glass.) <br />
<br />
But planned obsolescence or planned fragility works not only for mobile phones, DVD players, IKEA furniture, or automobiles or houses -- "fixer-uppers" -- , but also, increasingly, for medical care, law, scientific research and education. (See Schwartz & Sharpe, cited above, throughout.) Political and market, rather than disciplinary, considerations are at work to "fool-proof" the professions.<br />
<br />
In education, unlike in other public service professions who know better than to wash their dirty laundry in public, there are always crusading "reformers" who are quite willing to point out who the fools are: thus we have recurrent attempts at "teacher-proofing" the curriculum. (See see <a href=" http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/CurrLead.html" target="_blank"><strong> On The Viability Of A Curriculum Leadership Role </strong></a>)<br />
<br />
The success of this approach can be judged, for example, by the fact that, despite great hoopla and hype, Teach for America has yet to take over even small minority of public schools. It is the rare dilettante who has the patience, the dedication, to pursue expertise.<br />
<br />
Even more painful for the greater majority of Americans to contemplate is, in these early days of the 21st Century, how dilettantism, not to mention rank incompetence has undermined vital functions of our national government. <br />
<br />
But public service professionals, themselves, tend to shy away from rigorous resistance to the inroads made by those who would dilute professional norms and judgment for the sake of easy political and economic gain.<br />
<br />
For references and to examine these issues further, see <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/PluralCrit.html" target="_blank"><strong>Minimizing Politicization in Public Service Decision-Making </strong></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially<br />
--- EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-82283801679258526942017-12-31T13:22:00.000-05:002017-12-31T13:22:09.106-05:00Describing vs Defining. Does it make much practical difference?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Why don't we teach children definitions for everyday objects? Wouldn't it help them to have a definition of their mother, or their toy train so that they could recognize them?<br />
<br />
It seems not likely. Most kids wouldn't need such definitions. Barring disruptions to family life, children usually recognize their parents or toys. Besides, if they "needed" such definitions, would they need to know, in advance, how to use them? Learning to use definitions is usually what happens during schooling and many schooled people don't learn to do it well, anyway. <br />
<br />
But in order to learn to use specific definitions of their parents and toys, would children need to learn how first how to use even prior definitions to recognize the specific ones of their parents and toys? But, then, etc. etc. <br />
<br />
How do we avoid this logical regress?<br />
<br />
Suppose Harry is someone we all know. It is an everyday kind of question to ask, "Can you <i>describe</i> Harry?" It is somehow odd to ask, "Can you <i>define</i> Harry?" This contrast between what it is not unusual to ask with what it is strange to ask points out an important difference between the activities of describing and defining.<br />
<br />
Consider, again, the difference between the following answers to the question "Who is the town coroner?"<br />
<blockquote>1. She's the elderly woman who lives in the green house on Logan Street.<br />
2. He or she is the doctor who is elected to conduct official medical inquiries for the town.</blockquote><br />
We intuit that describing and defining are, in some ways, similar activities but normally differ in, at least, three dimensions: focus, criteria used, and range. The chart sketched below lays out some differences.<br />
<br />
<center><table width="80%" cellpadding="4" border="1"><tbody>
<tr> <td class="white" width="20%" valign="TOP"> </td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> <b> FOCUS </b> </td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> <b> CRITERIA </b> </td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> <b> RANGE </b> </td> </tr>
<tr> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> <b> DESCRIBE </b> </td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> A unique(?) individual </td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> Easily recognizable,<br />
<p>Often accidental </p></td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> Specific, ... </td> </tr>
<tr> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> <b> DEFINE </b> </td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> (A "typical" individual)<br />
<p>A class (or set) </p></td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> (...) Essential<br />
<p>Sometimes difficult to ... </p></td> <td class="white" valign="TOP"> Strives for ..., <br />
free from ...</td> </tr>
</tbody> </table></center><br />
Scanning the chart, as incomplete as it is, you can see some items which would be problematic for an intelligence, natural or artificial, that relied on only memory and abstraction for categorization, e.g. uniqueness, typicality, context, for a few. (For more on this see <a href="https://goo.gl/qqPxyx" target="_blank"><b>Concept as Abstraction</b></a>)<br />
<br />
For a completed chart and an expansion on this essay with practice exercises to explore the relationship between between describing and defining, see <a href="https://goo.gl/atrf21" target="_blank"><b>https://goo.gl/atrf21</b></a> .<br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially,<br />
<br />
--EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-43525538978688679912017-12-05T15:10:00.002-05:002021-04-24T09:16:39.733-04:00Hard Practical Questions? Handle Them or Dodge Them! Here's How. *<em>edited 4/24/21</em><br />
<blockquote><a name="cite1"></a>If you can't solve a problem, then there is a easier problem that you can solve: find it.¨ -- George Polya, <i>How to Solve It</i> (cited in Kahnemann, p. 98)<a href="#note1">[1]</a><br />
<br />
Don't go 'roun' flippin' cowpies! -- American Common Sense(?) </blockquote><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMl5pc0OKDwfeiQkK46u5bq7CTVeHx7uTBBg8rqwgSNEw9XgRY9oevmqLwCADeQYHQlq2HJOUxA72QDTau7FiYbkVGsl9-YGLu9yrAqsHFTVPfK8UZHYMOvYWXL79dcPrPh0Lro0KbOsg/s1600/Learning+the+Heuristic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMl5pc0OKDwfeiQkK46u5bq7CTVeHx7uTBBg8rqwgSNEw9XgRY9oevmqLwCADeQYHQlq2HJOUxA72QDTau7FiYbkVGsl9-YGLu9yrAqsHFTVPfK8UZHYMOvYWXL79dcPrPh0Lro0KbOsg/s200/Learning+the+Heuristic.jpg" width="200" height="180" data-original-width="236" data-original-height="212" /></a></div><br />
<b>An often useful, cost-saving heuristic.</b> Does watching violence on TV make kids more violent? The answers to this question, it appears, could have important practical consequences. But the question itself is problematic: it is highly ambiguous. And it risks generating time-consuming argument and more.<br />
<br />
It used to be all-too-common, although somewhat bizarre, to observe even "professionally trained" people spending a lot of time and energy vehemently debating this question without taking the trouble to first determine whether they all understood the terms to mean the same (or similar) things. <br />
<br />
<a name="cite2"></a>Getting practical answers to vague questions can often be addressed by operationalization, that is, the specification of vague terms, e.g., "watching," "violence," by providing replicable, observable procedures for their determination.<a href="#note2">[2]</a> The down side is that it might require expensive investigation to answer. All we might turn up, in any case, is a lot of dissensus, an impractical impasse! <br />
<br />
Our original question about the effects of TV on children's propensities to violence generates even more problematic sub-questions:<br />
<blockquote>1. What do you mean by "watching TV"? Need a child be paying close attention to it, or would just having it on in the background count? How do we determine how much TV a child is watching?<br />
<br />
2. What counts as violence? Football? Mighty Mouse? A dramatization of an assault? Documentary footage from a war?"<br />
<br />
3. How are we to determine if kids have become more or less violent? From their play-acting? From their actual fighting? From their arguments or threats?</blockquote>In most situations, people would find this detailing process tedious. It distracts from the entertainment purposes of many a "debate," normally a sort-of quasi-intellectual arm wresting, or a contest in one-upmanship. Easy questions are usually thought to be "more interesting" than hard ones if only because they can be appreciated by a wider, "technically-challenged" audience (i.e. anybody having to weigh in on something beyond the reach of their experience). <br />
<br />
<a name="cite2a"></a>So it is that even though the rituals of open discussion seem to satisfy our commitments to "democratic" participation, they muddy the flow of decision-making. Operationalization with its consequent query-reformulation process takes much more patience, with no guarantees of high-consensus outcomes to enable a push to the point of practical application.<a href="#note2a">[2a]</a><br />
<br />
<a name="cite3"></a><b>Daniel Kahneman</b> calls the reformulation of a query the <b>Question-Substitution Heuristic</b>. Developing heuristics often, if not always, involves operationalizing vague, general terms into something more specific and apprehendable without intricate processes. In his book, <i>Thinking, Fast and Slow</i>, Kahneman gives a chart of comparisons between what he calls <b>Target Questions</b> (hard) and <b>Heuristic Questions</b> (easy).<a href="#note3">[3]</a><br />
<br />
<table width="80%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" border="1" align="center"><tbody>
<tr> <td align="center"><b>Target Question</b> </td> <td align="center"><b>Heuristic Question</b> </td></tr>
<tr><td>How much would you contribute to save an endangered species?</td> <td>How much emotion do I feel when I think of dying dolphins?</td>
<tr><td>How popular will the president be six months from now?</td><td>How popular is the president right now?</td></tr>
<tr><td>This woman is running for the primary. How far will she go in politics?</td> <td>Does this woman look like a political winner?</td> </tr>
</tbody></table><div align="center">Chart 1: Abridged from Kahneman (2011) pp. 98-99</div><br />
<a name="cite3a"></a>Note that working out answers to the target questions, especially when money is involved, is often a laborious undertaking. By contrast, heuristic questions can be pretty much answered off the top of the head: they reduce the information-base for answering to what the questioning persons can easily access in memory. How likely this procedure is to provide good solutions to real problems one might judge by the example of participants of TV talk shows and no small number of our political and social pundits. (The accuracy of an expert, much less a pundit, in futurology tends to randomness. <a href="#note3">[3a]</a>)<br />
<br />
<a name="cite4"></a>But professional scientists, even, have been criticized for providing answers to questions they seem to have reformulated as easy.<a href="#note4">[4]</a> <a name="cite5"></a>Congressional response in 1958 to the question, "Why did the United States fail to beat the Russians into space?" was reformulated in the easier "who's-to-blame" mode, and ultimately responded to with the passage of the National Defense Education Act.<a href="#note5">[5]</a><br />
<br />
<b>The Theory-To-Practice Gap. An example.</b> Public-supported institutions in our democratic society are often under severe pressure to widen participation, little matter whether those to be involved are even minimally informed or not. Consequently, questions that the most practiced and learned professionals might disagree on are usually decided by the least practiced and least knowledgeable of people.<br />
<br />
What is mathematics, in its essence? Professional mathematicians can and do disagree. Likewise professional historians, on history. And professional political scientists, on political science. But, for example, educational institutions or systems, have (often elected) local governing boards, who must act to distribute (often, partially) tax-funded budgets. These governors, often with minimal knowledge, if any, about subject matter content, resource-needs and age-appropriate teachability, tend to decide all such questions as matters of budget. Consequently, matters of mathematics and history course contents become fodder for political brewhahas! <br />
<br />
<a name="cite6"></a><b>The operative heuristic for cost-chary governing boards</b> dealing with broad, general questions is an interrogatory<a href="#note6">[6]</a> that looks somewhat like this:<br />
<blockquote>a. Are there any foreseeable, imminent and severe repercussions to our ignoring this question? If not, "table" it.<br />
<br />
b. Is there any demand for any of these subject matters from <b>Influential Constituencies (ICs)</b> ? If not, "table" it.<br />
<br />
c. What costs would different programs, say, of mathematics education, entail, were we to decide to implement one of them in the schools? Get those estimates. (Don’t rush. "Table" it.)<br />
<br />
d. Will our ICs likely support us in our decisions? If not, "table" it.</blockquote><br />
Lets mimic Kahneman’s chart 1. The target question group, in the left column, will contain the kinds of questions encountered, for example in educational governors' meetings (or, even, in casual public discussions). In the right column well put the heuristic questions, the kinds of questions likely to be substituted by governing boards' committees.<br />
<br />
<table width="80%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" border="1" align="center"><tbody>
<tr> <td align="center" width="50%"><b>Target Question</b> </td> <td align="center"><b>Heuristic Question</b> </td></tr>
<tr><td>What are the aims of our institution's educational programs?</td> <td>How can we use our institution to satisfy the demands of different community and political constituent groups?</td> </tr>
<tr><td>Should beginning (pre-college or undergraduate) students be required to take introductory classes of a general nature?</td> <td>Can we make room in the budget for such new courses without threatening the sacred cows of<br />
influential people?</td> </tr>
<tr><td>Should all K-12 students be prepared to go to college?</td> <td>Who can we overlook without raising a din that threatens our tenure as governors?</td> </tr>
</tbody></table><div align="center">Chart 2</div>From Chart 2 and the preceding interrogatory we can see why, despite much lip-service to the contrary, academic programs will likely continue to be kept in distant second place by educational decision makers in comparison to their personal or political concerns. With a bit of adjustment the processes shown in Chart 2 can be adjusted to many different kinds of institutions and the problems they are faced with.<br />
<br />
<b>Why Is It Wise to Consider Using the Substitution Heuristic?</b> The heuristic can be useful for transforming idealistic, but vague claims into something that can be tested for implementation, <b>but ...</b> nonetheless, it's use is somewhat of a distraction from the original hard problem. In fact it may lead quite far from the original problem if cleverly transformed by sloganeering supported by enthusiastic promotion. For example, instead of dealing with the difficulties of admitting underprepared students to higher education, we focus on "expanding" opportunities by reducing entrance requirements. This may address the issue of underfilled classrooms, but exacerbates the problem of second- or third-year dropouts. <br />
<br />
The drop-out problems might, in turn, be addressed by giving credit for "experience" or watered-down course work so as to satisfy public perceptions of equity in admissions, instead of funding pre-admission courses in remedial training for academic demands.<br />
<br />
A decision-maker ought to learn and retain the Substitution-Heuristic for unforeseen necessities. Why is that? It's because honesty is not always the best policy if one wants to keep one's position or reputation in one's institution. Inverse correlations between celebrated "high expections" demanded and resources available are not uncommon. Just as a stupid question is said to merit a like answer, so does a complex and difficult problem, masqueraded as a simple, "common-sense" inquiry merit calling up an intricate process of analysis, starting with the temporizing of the Substitution Heuristic. Why? Ultimately, for the sake of one's rationality and personal mental-emotional health.<br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially, <br />
----EGR<br />
12/5/17<br />
<br />
* The above blog developed from my essay, <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/NEFpubs/NEFv2Announce.html" target="-blank"><b>"A Pathological Heuristic: dodging hard practical questions/</b></a> published in <i>New Educational Foundations Volume 2</i>, Spring 2013<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><b>ENDNOTES</b></div><br />
<a name="note1"></a><a href="#cite1">[1]</a> Kahneman, Daniel Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) New York: Ferrar, Strauss and Giroux.<br />
<br />
<a name="note2"></a><a href="#cite2">[2]</a> Rozycki, EG available at <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Oper.html" target="_blank"><b>Operationalization</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note2a"></a><a href="#cite2a">[2a]</a> Clabaugh, GK & Rozycki, EG available at <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/Consensus/NatureConsensus.html" target="_blank"><b>"Getting It Together." The nature of consensus.</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note3"></a><a href="#cite3">[3]</a> Depending on circumstances, heuristics often work and are much more economical than alternative processes. See Gigerenzer, G & Todd, P <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/TYPESofHEURISTICS.html" target="_blank"><b>Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart</b></a> (1999) NewYork: Oxford U Press<br />
<br />
<a name="note3a"></a><a href="#cite3a">[3a]</a> Tetlock, P (2005) <i>Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?</i> Princeton University Press ISBN-10: 0-691-12871-5. pp/ 161-162 and throughout. <br />
<br />
<a name="note4"></a><a href="#cite4">[4]</a> See Moyer, M "Person of the Year Nomination for Higgs Boson Riddled with Errors" <i>Scientific American Blog 11-29-12</i> at http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/11/29/person-of-the-year-nomination-for-higgs-boson-riddled-with-errors/?WT_mc_id=SA_CAT_BS_20121130 <br />
<br />
<a name="note5"></a><a href="#cite5">[5]</a> See Rozycki, EG (2008) at <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/IllogicReform.html" target="_blank"><b>Illogic and Dissimulation in School Reform</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note6"></a><a href="#cite6">[6]</a> See Rozycki,EG (12/5/17) Available at <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Interrogatories.html" target="_blank"><b>Developing Interrogatories to Aid Analysis</b></a>Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-91686106554910078252017-10-31T20:04:00.001-04:002021-11-24T10:20:29.998-05:00Constricting Social Ideals: breaking the values-action link to ensure "stability."(re-edited 11/22/17)<br />
<blockquote>"Stability," said the Controller, "stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability."--- Aldous Huxley, <i>Brave New World</i> (1989)<br />
<br />
<a name="cite1"></a>The idea of innovation is the idea of progress stripped of the aspirations of the Enlightenment, scrubbed clean of the horrors of the twentieth century, and relieved of its critics. Disruptive innovation goes further, holding out the hope of salvation against the very damnation it describes: disrupt, and you will be saved. -- J. Lepore (2014)<a href="#note1">[1]</a><br />
<br />
<a name="cite1a"></a>Education is not just human cognition. It's about preparing children for their future as well-adjusted global citizens: mentally, emotionally, socially, physically, and personally. -- W. McKenzie (2014)<a href="#note1a">[1a]</a><br />
</blockquote><center><table><tr> <td width="80%"><br />
<b>Introduction.</b> <a name="cite2"></a>Although saber-rattling by politicians never seems to disappear entirely, generalized, widespread nation-to-nation warfare is a losing proposition for all sides, given the interlocking economic and social relationships of, especially, the biggest and richest nations. (See Dunnigan, 1983)<a href="#note2">[2]</a><br />
<br />
The primary thesis of this essay is that, for the sake of "stability," -- survival, even -- large modernly weaponized, culturally and socially diverse nations will press to develop citizens who, if "rational" appeals to them would likely fail, can be managed via distractions or by the promotion of cross-purposes. <br />
</td> <td><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq0PKrdf1enDXckCThF9lUmjip4PWpUGdo9RSSmFrf13LWVGih8lZPRDmY804riNvu4wUtyjv-rXlfuaBsUpfsTVVaBhUeiKoH2ss-htvATjT75yY3Jf3fuxHAa-qfZ2Yp7XesU2eJykg/s1600/Helix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq0PKrdf1enDXckCThF9lUmjip4PWpUGdo9RSSmFrf13LWVGih8lZPRDmY804riNvu4wUtyjv-rXlfuaBsUpfsTVVaBhUeiKoH2ss-htvATjT75yY3Jf3fuxHAa-qfZ2Yp7XesU2eJykg/s320/Helix.jpg" width="240" height="320" data-original-width="450" data-original-height="600" /></a></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td> </td> <td><center><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DirkvdM_natural_spiral.jpg" target="_blank"><i>Thanks, D van der Made</i></a></center></td> </tr>
</table></center><a name="cite3"></a><a name="cite3a"></a>Not only schools<a href="#note3">[3]</a>, but institutions in every facet of life have long worked to such ends.<a href="#note3a">[3a]</a> How is such distractive, pacifying "education" to be done? By severing the rational bonds between what is publicly preached as socially desirable from those actions individuals or subgroups might take in the pursuit of their personal understandings of such public preachments.<br />
<br />
Institutional procedures are developed, often inadvertently, which interfere with, or subordinate, the efforts which individuals perceive to be rationally related to their pursuit of espoused social goals. Help, even with good intentions, is often less desired than is individual obedience to procedure. For example, leaders of many kinds would prefer "good citizenship" to be interpreted as "following the law" no matter that many people would hold certain laws to be immoral. Leaders prefer to risk errors of group-think, e.g. lynchings or vigilanteism or social activism, than to yield legitimacy to independent, even if "right," in someone's view, outsider opinion. Orthodoxy-vs-Heresy conflicts are long-recognized examples of such conflict.<br />
<br />
<b>Disruption, Innovation or Fundamental Failure?</b> <a name="cite4"></a>The word, "disrupt," has long had negative connotations, as in such usages as "disrupt a ceremony, a meeting, a speaker, etc." However, in today's United States of America, "Disruptive Innovation" (Christensen & Eyring, 2014)<a href="#note4">[4]</a> has become used to re-characterize an institution's misfortune more optimistically as a unfortunate, collateral event, but, still, more importantly, as a contribution to organizational progress. <br />
<br />
American parents and politicians, too, have long complained that schools, especially public schools, teach things disruptive of community, church and family traditions. For example, physical education, New Math, racial tolerance, sex education, audio-lingual foreign language methods, gender equality, core curricula, critical thinking and the other subject matters have long been condemned as disruptive by influential groups of public, private, political and corporate representatives.<br />
<br />
How are the public schools doing? It depends on whom you ask at what point in the political calendar. It also depends on which public schools you are referring to. Even less likely to elicit an open public response is "which students you are focussing on?" <a name="cite5"></a>The politically safe attitude for would-be office holders over the last century and more has been to claim that public schooling needs reform.(Rozycki, 2004)<a href="#note5">[5]</a><a name="cite6"></a> Indeed, banking, commerce, state government and the courts are often claimed to need reform; but only education, almost uniquely, public education, has long been politically vulnerable enough to allow the often random interventions of "reformers" of all stripes.(Rozycki, 2001)<a href="#note6">[6]</a><br />
<br />
<a name="cite7"></a><b>Which Values Does Public Education Support?</b><a href="#note7">[7]</a> <br />
<blockquote>"Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and who is struck with it."-- Joseph Stalin in Interview with H. G. Wells, (1934)<br />
<br />
No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried from time to time. -- Winston Churchill to House of Commons, 11/11/47</blockquote><br />
Which values does public education support? There are, it appears, more basic issues hidden as presumptions. One is : "<i>Whose</i> values does public education support?" And consequently, "Why their values and not those of others?" And "In what way are these values 'democratic'?" These are the elephants in room often left disregarded by hasty focus on the topic question.<br />
<br />
<a name="cite9"></a>Determining whose values persistently influence education, then, seems to be a pertinent inquiry, both politically and morally. But such a pursuit is distractive. It typically leads off into well-practiced expatiation of politics and ethics. <a name="cite8"></a>These areas, being more familiar and entertaining, seldom get us near a practical answer for the question, except perhaps with a sentimental slogan bolstered by a false consensus, e.g. "We all want what's best for all the children!"<a href="#note8">[8]</a> Or, if we avoid sloganeering -- difficult in most public venues, we drop the question and agree to disagree on … whatever "we feel" it is. (Clabaugh & Rozycki, 1999b)<a href="#note9">[9]</a> <br />
<br />
<a name="cite10"></a>But let's consider an even more shunned elephant-in-the-room than the values taught . A second even more fundamental issue is this: On what basis do we judge that a person values something? How can you "teach values" if you don't know what indicates that someone has learned them?<br />
<br />
This risks a lengthy diversion into esoteric philosophy or psychology. Yet, it does invite some investigation essential to planning wise and effective interventions.<a href="#note10">[10]</a><br />
<br />
<b>Teaching Values: how should this be done?</b><blockquote>School Days, school days, Dear old golden rule days<br />
Readin' and 'ritin' and 'rithmetic<br />
Taught to the tune of the hickory stick<br />
(Music by Gus Edwards; Lyrics by Will D. Cobb, 1907)</blockquote><br />
American public schools have long been charged to "teach values." But what this means remains after many years controversial and somewhat vague, at best. Tough talk about about holding someone, somewhere — usually teachers — "accountable" even though hickory sticks are long gone. (Anyway, no one ever really checked to see if they were very, if at all, effective.) <br />
<br />
The easy response by schools to the value-teaching mandate in times when criticism of them is not too vehement is to have teachers mimic preachers. Teaching is Preaching. At the same time, in order to avoid disappointment, little effort has, in the past been expended by trying to ascertain their effects. This lack has been over-compensated for in the past three decades by increasingly disruptive (in the pessimistic sense) program of school testing. Yet, despite much expenditure, few practical changes for the better have resulted.<br />
<br />
Talk is cheap. We live in a cultural of hyperbole where people, especially children, are often induced to talk up what they may not personally value or even know. What is it that can we rely on to show that a person values something? Normally it is that he or she works to acquire it. Or recommends it to others. Or, once acquired, takes care of it. Or tries to defend it against harm or disesteem. Actually, any of these might do. But, how do you test for values acquired in a mass-teaching environment, especially in a culture where, for the sake of cost-cutting, superficialities are conceded to be acceptable as though they were thorough examinations?<br />
<br />
<b>Looking for Excuses.</b><br />
<blockquote>The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. -- Groucho Marx</blockquote>If we really wanted to verify that someone valued something we would check to see if that person pursues, promotes, sustains or defends what we think he or she values (or purports to value). The quickest and most common way to get at this is to consider what excuses a person makes for himself or herself when they "let themselves down." Whichever excuses we accept as reasonable are indicators of what we believe to be preconditions for connecting a person's values to the behavior that manifests commitments to those values.<br />
<br />
This is more complex than it appears: at any given moment a person may be inactive. For example, he or she may be sleeping, or lost in a book. She or he, nonetheless, may be said, still, to value expensive chocolate, or foreign movies, or their friends' admiration, or her or his alma mater's school song, if she or he did so before falling asleep.<br />
<br />
Consider our friend, Harry, who is overweight and flabby. Yet, he claims he really values being in top physical condition, which is quite far from his present physical state. Is he deluding himself, or lying? Not necessarily, because he may believe that he faces substantial, or, at present, insuperable, impediments blocking his pursuit of a buff body. <br />
<br />
What might these impediments be? Harry's belief that either <br />
<blockquote>a. he lacks the knowledge, at this moment, to get himself into shape. Or<br />
<br />
b. he is not physically able to do what is required to get him into shape. Or<br />
<br />
c. he is not where he could work on getting into shape. Or<br />
<br />
d, he has a deadline he won't meet if he lets it go right now. Or <br />
<br />
e. he is not, at the moment, "in the mood" to get to exercising for the buff body he seeks.</blockquote>The impediments are, in respective order, lack of knowledge, lack of ability, lack of opportunity, lack of priority and lack of mood, (some vague kind of "emotional consonance"?). These are not unusual excuses for inactivity in pursuing, at a given time, what one claims to value.<br />
<br />
<a name="cite11"></a>But, by turning the impediments inside out, as it were, we generate conditions practically necessary for planning and evaluating educational goals. Also, satisfying these conditions may be sufficient to transform values inculcated into active pursuits. That is both their promise and their danger. (See Rozycki, 1979)<a href="#note11">[11]</a><br />
<br />
<a name="cite12"></a>All this is somewhat complicated. Little wonder that educators of all sorts, including parents, are still fumbling around with the problem.<a href="#note12">[12]</a> <a name="cite13"></a>The closest we seem to solving it is in situations of very high interest or compulsion which are given close attention to action, e.g. in scouting, sports or military training. In other more relaxed or forgiving learning situations training success drops off exponentially.<a href="#note13">[13]</a><br />
<br />
<b>Active and Passive Valuing: the realities of prioritization.</b> An ancient, though banal distinction is important to continue our undertaking:<br />
<blockquote>a. Instrumental values, sometimes called extrinsic, are those pursued in order to extend the pursuit to something they are necessary for. One earns money, for example, not to eat or wear it, but because it is instrumental to obtaining food and shelter.<br />
<br />
b. Intrinsic values are those pursued for their own sake, e.g. pleasure, health.</blockquote>Note that something may be both intrinsic and extrinsic depending upon one's perspective, e.g. exercise may be done both because it feels good and it leads to better health. Better health may be pursued because it enables a broader experience of pleasures. <br />
<br />
Our friend Harry's excuses for his observed lethargy will be the conditions for what we will call "<b>active valuing</b>." These conditions, briefly put, are: knowledge, ability, opportunity, priority and motivation. The lethargic Harry we observe today still "passively values" physical health, but believing he is faced with an impediment, is doing nothing to pursue it: " You didn't get any physical exercise today! I thought you wanted to get into shape." "I do; but I sprained my lower back this morning and need to take it easy for a day!"<br />
<br />
That is, Harry will actively pursue a value (here, a healthy physical condition) provided he believes he<blockquote>1. (Knowledge) has the knowledge of what and how to so pursue it; and<br />
<br />
2. (Ability) has the (physical and mental )ability to pursue it; and<br />
<br />
3. (Opportunity) has the opportunity to pursue it; and<br />
<br />
4. (Priority) has no present object of higher value whose pursuit impedes this one; and<br />
<br />
5. (Motivation) has the will, is in the mood, is inspired to, the pursuit.</blockquote>(Test these conditions out, e.g. "Harry has no knowledge of what to do or how to do it to improve his health." Note that the lack of any one of them would provide him an excuse for his lack of activity.)<br />
<br />
We begin to understand how easy it is to beg off being responsible for non-performance for doing what is expected of you. You didn't get your late-return IRS tax-forms done by July? Hope someone "understands." You weren't sure exactly what the deadline date meant. Or, you didn't understand the complicated instructions. Or, you were busy nursing your sick mother. Or, you didn't get back from your European vacation in time, etc., etc.<br />
<br />
Seeing how complex the relationship is between valuing something and demonstrating that you do, you can see why it is so difficult to teach people values, especially moral values which often require you to forego something you really want.<br />
<br />
<b>Passive values and <i>Akrasia</i></b>. <a name="cite14"></a>Passive values are what philosophers refer to as dispositions (psychologists, as habits). Active values are episodes of unimpeded action toward those values. The educator's problem is how to get passive values to become active, i.e. to get a student's professions of esteem, wanting, or liking to become behaviors of promotion, pursuit, maintenance or defense.(Rozycki, 1994) <a href="#note14">[14]</a> <br />
<br />
Note the following: if Harry insisted that he very much valued physical well-being and yet continued in his lethargy despite admitting that he believed he had the knowledge, ability, opportunity, priority and motivation to pursue that value, we might well wonder if he was less than rational or mentally disturbed. <br />
<br />
Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics invents a term for such a condition: <i>akrasia</i>. This is basically a covering term for our lack of will to pursue what we know we ought.<a name="cite15"></a> It is not unimportant, however, since showing too many signs of akrasia, whether of irrationality or mental disturbance, invites intervention in one's life by state authorities concerned with particular abnormalities of this sort.<a href="#note15">[15]</a> But <i>akrasia</i> is precisely the general disruption of values-action links. <br />
<br />
<b>Changing resistence into acquiescence.</b> We suggested above that identifying the conditions for linking disposition to active behavior offered both promise and danger. Let's expand on that point. An individual's values often conflict with those of others. <a name="cite15a"></a>Powerholders have long used the active-passive distinction to convert opposition to their values from resistence into acquiescence. Such are the practical, socially defensive uses to which they have been put in governing organizations throughout history: the conversion of the natural dispositions of individuals to actively pursue what they value into a "socially acceptable" kind of passive valuing. This is how one turns people into soldiers, or soldiers into "peaceable" citizens or "overenthusiastic" students into quiet seat-warmers.<a href="#note15a">[15a]</a><br />
<br />
Since it is active valuing, the pursuit of values, which might cause conflict where values are not shared, certain policy directions can be drawn immediately from the above formulations. If it is a mission of the schools in a multicultural society to forestall conflict between different cultural subgroups, then<br />
<blockquote>a. this mission is served by policies which promote "passive valuing", i.e. some kind of esteeming which does not involve the pursuit of that which is esteemed -- typical of so-called "appreciation" courses or of values clarification classes; <br />
<br />
b. this mission is also served by policies which gainsay any of the conditions given above necessary to connecting action with value, i.e. the conditions of rationality, knowledge, ability, opportunity and consistency.</blockquote>Thus, recalling the conditions for an individual's active valuing, knowledge, ability, opportunity, priority, and motivation, a rational -- not necessarily moral -- school policy serving the social goal of reduced conflict might promote ignorance, incompetence, unequal opportunity, or inconsistency of conduct, or irrationality. Hardly anyone would think such aims educational; our considerations are suggestive, however, as to the persistence of these ills despite continued exhortation to eradicate them.<br />
<br />
<b>Must Conflicting Values Lead to Open Conflict?</b><blockquote>"To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, (the Romans) call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. " -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. AD 56 – after 117)</blockquote><a name="cite16"></a>Condoned, even, esteemed, social practices of yesteryear, e.g. subjugation of people on the bases of gender, race, religion, etc., which are condemned (at least, orally) nowadays as evils in our multicultural democracy, were relatively successful in maintaining a kind of social stability and suppressing open conflict in other contexts: shortly put, ancient social practices more or less produced, in the short run, at least what Tacitus characterizes as Roman practice of "peace-making."<a href="#note16">[16]</a><br />
<br />
It is only when we open up to questions of morality that the costs of "peace" begin to provoke investigation. But if educational environments are burdened with promoting not only intellectual or skills development, but, also, morality, how then can they, then, meet expectations that they support social stability and reduced conflict? It could happen, if morality becomes confused with group-think. <br />
<br />
<b>Pursuing Schooling Aims: Intellectual and Moral.</b> The organizational values which tend to be of highest priority are: <blockquote>a. to reduce or stultify individual propensities to act out conflicts; that is, to actively pursue values, i.e. by "vigorous" opposition; and <br />
b. to make a plausible attempt to meet goals formulated by outside controllers.</blockquote><br />
But plausibility is likely inversely related to discernment. Thus, institutions of all kinds relax in trying to produce people with the discernment to evaluate organizational aims in more than a superficial manner. The boss decides what the philosophy means. And his or her bosses decide for him or her, if he or she doesn't know. The question gets passed up and around until it gets lost or forgotten.<br />
<br />
About schools, Harry Broudy pointedly notes:<blockquote><a name="cite17"></a>Especially awkward for the public schools are the accounts of the civic and political process. … The school operates on the principle that it must reinforce the ideals the community professes and not the behavior that it tolerates. Yet it is difficult to keep up the pretense that the behavior of officials, elected and appointed, does not violate professed ideals. For one thing, the mass media are exposing the pretense daily; almost hourly. … How much of this can the school teach as part of the social studies or social science curriculum? -- (Broudy 1981. 23.)<a href="#note17">[17]</a> </blockquote>American schools are not intended to be merely intellectual training centers. They have been burdened by ancient traditions of inculcating morality, more recently repackaged as "values education." <br />
<br />
Staff in American schools, whether public or private, presumably undertake to bring their charges to display behavior that pursues, promotes, sustains or defends things they might not if left alone to their individual pursuit. In this sense, the school a sort of back-up system to the vagaries of family, community and state educational efforts. Schools are to promote both individual and social goals.<br />
<br />
Democracy and multiculturalism (diversity) can give rise to sometimes open conflict among educators, family, community and state. Many of these struggles are, in effect, a form of cultural warfare. Long-held communal, ethnic and familial biases, even though traditionally esteemed in their contexts, are often deprecated in some schools -- particularly in public schools -- as prejudice and injustice, for example, annihilation, racism, sexism, and class or religious bias. <br />
<br />
Thus, importantly, in a multicultural democracy, the schools are believed to reinforce, and enhance, no small part of what students are preached to about in family, church, community and state. This reinforcing endeavor is especially professed to be prevalent in the public schools. And always foremost in the demands made of public education is that the schools promote the values of domestic peace and stability<br />
<br />
<a name="cite18"></a>What is overlooked -- more likely, disregarded -- is that individual goals and social goals not infrequently conflict. So it is that, for example, issues of racial or sexual segregation, religious and class bias, and the submission to school and general legal authority have given and continue to give rise to controversy and conflict in education.<br />
<br />
<b>What to Do? Keep on Truckin'.</b> <blockquote>It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. -- Winston Churchill</blockquote>"Group versus Individual" is not, <i>per se</i> a problem. <a name="cite4"></a>It is a fluctuation in the distribution of perceived costs and benefits between and among individuals and groups. This is a dynamic that all organizations, all people have to deal with to survive. <a name="cite19"></a>(Consider the current, vehement gun-control debate.<a href="#note19">[19]</a>) <a name="cite20"></a>Except for hermit-like individuals who eschew relationships with all other human beings, this dynamic functions to address perceived problems that arise living in a community, or in living in a community among other communities.(Coser, 1956)<a href="#note20">[20]</a><br />
<br />
We can see from the chart below that conflict can benefit a group. But it is important to ask, whom does conflict benefit when it benefits a group? Not everybody in a group may get the same benefits nor pay the same costs. And the kinds of costs and benefits there are may vary considerably among group members. Who does the sweating and who gets the glory? What do they pay and what do they get for it? <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhglhLRbEySYIf7qAtKwSqQrF2O92_7oJ6KDEw7Nto8IJhJuNxaHqaCbZIsoPBZi9uUBgrpqVWBmOis-hshIdpWhwsE8y812lYRBnRUxcdlhcfiHLUU5uIkmRb6gmzseN1iUOVc5iLXjpg/s1600/Conflicts2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhglhLRbEySYIf7qAtKwSqQrF2O92_7oJ6KDEw7Nto8IJhJuNxaHqaCbZIsoPBZi9uUBgrpqVWBmOis-hshIdpWhwsE8y812lYRBnRUxcdlhcfiHLUU5uIkmRb6gmzseN1iUOVc5iLXjpg/s320/Conflicts.jpg" width="320" height="211" data-original-width="370" data-original-height="244" /></a></div>In a world of change, in a dynamic society of non-omniscient beings, such questions are not answered once and for all. The dynamic is not merely repetitive orbits, but a helix, a tendril cycling around, searching as it progresses through time. <a name="cite21"></a><a name="cite21a"></a>Its responses to perceived difficulties, as Charles Lindblom <a href="#note21">[21]</a> has put it, are "muddlings-through," which provide those of us who live in relatively free democracies additional cycles for the sake of adjustment for what we seek as improvement.<a href="#note21a">[21a]</a><br />
<br />
Supreme Court Justice Hans Raj Khanna writes of India what may be easily applied to any country with a constitutional government: <br />
<blockquote><a name="cite22"></a>If the Indian constitution is our heritage bequeathed to us by our founding fathers, no less are we, the people of India, the trustees and custodians of the values which pulsate within its provisions! A constitution is not a parchment of paper, it is a way of life and has to be lived up to. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and in the final analysis, its only keepers are the people. Imbecility of men, history teaches us, always invites the impudence of power.<a href="#note22">[22]</a></blockquote><br />
——----<br />
Cordially, EGR <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>REFERENCES & FOOTNOTES</b> (re-edited 11/19/17)<br />
<br />
<a name="note1"></a><a href="#cite1">[1]</a> Lepore, J (6/23/2014) "The Disruption Machine." The New Yorker. Available as pdf at http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine<br />
<br />
<a name="note1a"></a><a href="#cite1a">[1a]</a>McKenzie, W (June 16, 2014) See <a href="http://www.wholechildeducation.org/blog/no-planned-obsolescence-in-education" target="_blank"><b>"No Planned Obsolescence in Education."</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note2"></a><a href="#cite2">[2]</a> Dunnigan. James F <i>How to Make War</i>. New York. Quill. 1983 See Chapter 25 "Victory goes to the Bigger Battalions: The Cost of War."<br />
<br />
<a name="note3"></a><a href="#cite3">[3]</a> Rozycki, E. (5/2/11) <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-quest-for-loyalty-oaths-promises.html" target="_blank"><b>"The Functions of Schooling"</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note3a"></a><a href="#cite3a">[3a]</a> Rozycki, E. (5/2/11) <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2011/05/functions-of-schooling-to-deaden-mind.html" target="_blank"><b>"The Quest for Loyalty: Oaths, Promises, Contracts, & Vows"</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note4"></a><a href="#cite4">[4]</a> Christensen, C M.; Eyring, J. (2011), <i>The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education</i>, New York, New York, USA: John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-1-11-806348-4.<br />
<br />
<a name="note5"></a><a href="#cite5">[5]</a> Rozycki, E. (2004)<a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/PossNeedReform.html" target="_blank"><b>"The Need for and Possibilities of Educational Reform."</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note6"></a><a href="#cite6">[6]</a> Rozycki, E. (2001) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/EvilsPublicEd.html" target="_blank"><b>"The Evils of Public Schools."</b></a> <i>Educational Horizons, Fall 2001</i>. <br />
<br />
<a name="note7"></a><a href="#cite7">[7]</a> Rozycki, E. (3/13/11) <a href="http://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2011/03/does-public-education-support-american.html" target="_blank"><b>"Does Public Education Support American Democracy?"</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note8"></a><a href="#cite8">[8]</a> Rozycki, Edward G. (2010b) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Indeterminacy.html" target="_blank"><b>"The Indeterminacy of Consensus: masking ambiguity and vagueness in decision"</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note9"></a><a href="#cite9">[9]</a> Clabaugh, G. & Rozycki, E. (1999b)<a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/Slogans.html" target="_blank"><b>"Slogans in Education"</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note10"></a><a href="#cite10">[10]</a> Rozycki, E. (3/31/12) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/LikelihoodImp.html" target="_blank"><b>"Assessing the Likelihood of Implementing Change" </b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note11"></a><a href="#cite11">[11]</a> Rozycki, E. (1979) "Values, Rationality and Pluralism" Philosophy of Education 79, 195-204. Available online as <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/RatPlurTol.html" target="_blank"><b>"Pluralism and Rationality: the limits of tolerance" </b></a> <br />
<br />
<a name="note12"></a><a href="#cite12">[12]</a> Rozycki, E. (2008) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/DemVSEffic.html" target="_blank"><b>"Democracy vs Efficiency in Public Schooling" </b></a> <br />
<br />
<a name="note13"></a><a href="#cite13">[13]</a> Rozycki, E. (2010a) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/ProductivityWEB.html" target="_blank"><b>"Productivity, Politics and Hypocrisy in American Public Education: school organization as instrument and expression"</b></a><br />
<br />
<a name="note14"></a><a href="#cite14">[14]</a> Rozycki, E. (1994) <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Rationales.html" target="_blank"><b>"Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy: a forensic theory of warrants & rebuttals"</b></a>.<br />
<br />
<a name="note15"></a><a href="#cite15">[15]</a> Rozycki, E. (3/31/12) <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/06/are-humans-rational-whats-at-stake.html" target="_blank"><b>"Are Humans Rational? What's at Stake?"></b></a>)<br />
<br />
<a name="note15a"></a><a href="#cite15a">[15a]</a> Kotter & Schlesinger offer interesting approaches to changing resistors to facilitators. See footnote <a href="#note10">[10]</a>.<br />
<br />
<a name="note16"></a><a href="#cite16">[16]</a> See Cameron, C. <i>How Captives Changed the World</i>. Scientific American, December 2017. pp. 78 - 83.<br />
<br />
<a name="note17"></a><a href="#cite17">[17]</a> Broudy, H. <i>Truth and Credibility: the citizen's dilemma</i> (New York: Longman, 1981) p. 23.<br />
<br />
<a name="note19"></a><a href="#cite19">[19]</a> Rozycki, E. (6/15/16) <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/06/gun-fun-or-safe-citizens-must-we-make.html" target="_blank"><b>"Gun Fun or Safe Citizens? Must We Make Trade-Offs?"</b></a> <br />
<br />
<a name="note20"></a><a href="#cite20">[20]</a> Coser,L (1956) <i>The Functions of Social Conflict</i> New York: Free Press. For discussion with some application of his theory, see http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/FunConflict.html<br />
<br />
<a name="note21"></a><a href="#cite21">[21]</a> Lindblom, Charles E. "The Science of 'Muddling Through,"' Public Administration Review 19 (Spring 1959): 79-88. <br />
<br />
<a name="note21a"></a><a href="#cite21a">[21a]</a> Susskind, L & Cruikshank, J, <i>Breaking the Impasse</i>, 1987, p. 63-64. Sloganizing increases ambiguity, and with it, the likelihood of agreement. (However, ambiguity increases the risk of false consensus. -- EGR)<br />
<br />
<a name="note22"></a><a href="#cite22">[22]</a> Khanna,H R <i>Making of India's Constitution</i>. Eastern Book Co, Lucknow, 1981. ISBN 978-81-7012-108-4. Cited in Wikipedia, "The Emergency (India)."Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-8840980062933734842017-10-12T14:37:00.000-04:002018-07-30T10:24:12.216-04:00Pursuing Excellence: cultural rivalry disguised as common market?<blockquote>Everybody talkin' 'bout Heaven aint goin' there… -- Thomas Arthur Dorsey (1899 - 1993) <i>Walk All Over God's Heaven</i> </blockquote><br />
<b>"Excellence in All Things!"</b> A friend was hired as the headmaster of a small (70 students, grades 9 - 12) private school, the dominant if not sole admissions criteria of which was the parents' ready ability to pay the tuition. This school touted its ability to transform reluctant or lackadaisical children into "Ivy League" students. In fact, scholastic achievement, as one might soberly expect, was rather variable.<br />
<br />
At a school board meeting, several of the governing members proposed that the headmaster post and preach the slogan, "Excellence in All Things!" The headmaster suggested that such action would only provoke derision from their rather sophisticated teenagers and likely, also, a certain disdain for the competence of the staff. He, the headmaster, would personally be happy if each student could show better than mediocre accomplishment in a few areas of endeavor.<br />
<br />
A particularly vociferous board member remonstrated that it was the headmaster's and teachers' duty to educate <i>all</i> the students to adopt the slogan and strive to actualize it. But another asked, "Which subjects should be favored if it turns out that time or other resources run short?" Thus began what turned out to be neither a very long nor very comfortable "discussion" among those present at the meeting. <br />
<br />
<b>Creating More Hamster Wheels.</b> Many of us can look back over many, many years to see the sacrifice of the adequate, the good, even, to the pursuit of the excellent. Yet we seldom see memories of such pursuits raise much apprehension of yet another treadmill exercise. Is our communal memory so weak, our resources so plentiful or our embarrassments so forgettable? What accounts for this Sysiphean proclivity (in almost every area of organizational life)?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmIWKmbxzMsnnwF8fy0TqIudidJhoYiVDMI0aRI8fbqcYp_xc9SpdCv6Es1tcc7RGj9wHUPIgDhTt9QvKlh_iXH6_NwR2TpKHqjrITnBRjdZ5JEvZz-iBeZDmdIdWwhWY2P02zUCcqZk/s1600/HamsterWheel2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmIWKmbxzMsnnwF8fy0TqIudidJhoYiVDMI0aRI8fbqcYp_xc9SpdCv6Es1tcc7RGj9wHUPIgDhTt9QvKlh_iXH6_NwR2TpKHqjrITnBRjdZ5JEvZz-iBeZDmdIdWwhWY2P02zUCcqZk/s320/HamsterWheel2.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="320" data-original-height="240" /></a></div>One kind of explanation for cavalier attitudes toward excellence comes readily to mind: disregard of how ideas of "excellence" vary even within the markets pursuing it. <br />
<br />
Broadly characterized, a market is a (theorized) group of people looking to acquire what they perceive to be a benefit, some thing or state of affairs perceived to be of positive value. These market members pursue an exchange via some medium, be it money, labor, time, attention, material items, or the like. <br />
<br />
These and related notions are quite run-of-the-mill. However, here we mean to include in our considerations "externalities," beneficial or damaging effects affecting persons or organizations which are not themselves involved in the markets creating those effects. The motivations of school directors and staff, paying parents and the students involved may be -- indeed, usually are -- somewhat different, despite school slogans proclaiming, say, "Our school community works together in pursuit of excellence!" (See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/05/slogans-junkfood-dead-weight-or-poison.html" target="_blank"><b>SLOGANS: junkfood, dead-weight or poison?</b></a>.)<br />
<br />
<b>Weak Markets</b> Markets can be weakened by attrition or disorganization. If groups that are willing to bear the costs of pursuing "excellence" are lacking, of insufficient size or disorganized, "excellence" remains little more than a vacuous shibboleth. This is often seen with the promises so easily bandied about in our political campaigns: hopes for benefits are much more easily raised than are the sacrifices, e.g. taxes, to pay for them.<br />
<br />
Sometimes a <i>purported</i> benefit is perceived to "cost" too much. Just as the initial costs and future upkeep may "price" a car "out of the market;" so, also, might the burdens of a social relationship with some persons, "high-maintenance" individuals, leave them unbefriended.<br />
<blockquote>It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. — Baudelaire</blockquote>Though many people will agree on the face of it that "excellence" is better than "mediocrity," lack of agreement as to what the term, "excellence," delineates may cause an actual market to dissipate.<br />
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A potential market may not coalesce because of disputes about which criteria exactly should be used to describe the hoped-for benefit. This is a general problem in every area of life with vaguely described benefits, such as security, responsibility, ownership; and, not least, achievement, education and excellence.<br />
<br />
Consensus is often only apparent. Sloganistic terminology abounds. Practical criteria are either missing, or lost in controversy. Leaders of long established institutions, family, schools, churches and governmental entities, may not to be able to find common criteria of excellence that serve each of their particular institutional interests. (See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/12/engaging-conflict-leadership-necessity.html" target="_blank"><b> Engaging Conflict: a Leadership Necessity?</b></a>)<br />
<br />
So, the pursuit of "excellence" and the quarreling about its "true" meaning are not the high-minded undertakings as they often made out to be. They're just fancy forms of rivalry; nonetheless, culture-clashes. <br />
<br />
But,... better rivalry than warfare.<br />
<br />
For further examples pursuing these issues, see <a href="http://goo.gl/BqXMiH" target="_blank"><b>"Sacrificing Public Education to "Pursue Excellence"? </b></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially<br />
--- EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-42125263352708109902017-08-03T16:56:00.003-04:002021-04-14T10:32:17.828-04:00A Most Annoying (crucial?) Question: "How Do You Know That?"updated 111220<br><br>
<blockquote>He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. -- Thomas Jefferson </blockquote>"How do you know that?" Unless we are teachers in a classroom, or students in a philosophy seminar, we tend to raise that question only when confronted with a statement we find unfamiliar or uncomfortable. Just posing the annoying question risks being taken as challenging the good sense or honesty of the claimant. And, as more and more people have come to realize, almost any old statement can, initially, at least, serve as a response to brush off the inquiry.<br />
<br />
So it is that many us stumble through life sticking with the familiar and comfortable beliefs we've had passed down to us, even though, upon reflection, we know that what people believe, or not, is not a measure of truth or falsity. How many times throughout history have people been called to sacrifice themselves (or others) dearly for some Faith in an unexamined "Truth"? (What "truths" have been served by setting off bombs in civilian marketplaces and schools?)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx_4-oYu4-rv60FgHrOak3j1ENYcrfpnulpulDrLRqFU6nFFLrU5eElS0q8Odx0Gk7KZt-mz8ccMhHZORgsVG44M-riMz-2ciqdnTESWNospf02ooAQHkXlB8P2CJy3f_-ScGDLoOfdxU/s1600/153px-Chart_of_the_Hand.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx_4-oYu4-rv60FgHrOak3j1ENYcrfpnulpulDrLRqFU6nFFLrU5eElS0q8Odx0Gk7KZt-mz8ccMhHZORgsVG44M-riMz-2ciqdnTESWNospf02ooAQHkXlB8P2CJy3f_-ScGDLoOfdxU/s320/153px-Chart_of_the_Hand.png" width="204" height="320" data-original-width="153" data-original-height="240" /></a></div><br />
Let's relax and consider. Suppose we wanted to know why the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. As we walk down the street we see coming toward us some familiar faces: three deeply educated men, Lorenz, Maurice and Curlius, believed by many to comprise the Wisdom of the Ages. We stop, greet them and ask, "Why is it that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West?"<br />
<br />
They answer as follows:<blockquote>Laurence, a scholar of ancient religions: 'Tis because Phoebus, the Sun, rises in his golden chariot in the East, drives across the sky to the West and then spends the night traveling underground to get back East to repeat the cycle."<br />
<br />
<br />
Maurice, Ptolemaic scholar: Who believes that anymore? Actually, it is because the Earth, as center of the Universe, is circled by the Sun. What we call night is our period in shadow. The Sun's visible arc begins for us in the East and travels to our West.<br />
<br />
Laurence interjects: Well, Maurice, I disbelieve your story. So there!<br />
<br />
Curlius, erstwhile Copernican companion, declares: You may well believe your falsehoods, but the truth is that the Earth travels around the sun, spinning counterclockwise on an axis somewhat perpendicular to its orbit. So there!<br />
<br />
Laurence and Maurice, both: Utter nonsense!</blockquote><br />
This interchange illustrates some principles we come to know at an early age, even though many fail to put them into practice in the direst of circumstances. <blockquote>That some people believe something does not mean it is knowledge.<br />
<br />
That some people disbelieve something does not mean it is not knowledge.</blockquote><br />
Our continuing controversies over evolution or global warming, illustrate these principles. <br />
<br />
(However, were we to put the annoying question to our three sages, they, being deeply educated would likely be able to produce justifications for believing their respective claims to be true, as well as for rejecting counterclaims as untrue. So much for Plato's definition of Truth as justified, true* belief!)<br />
<br />
But this goes way beyond the concerns of classrooms and philosophy seminars. What damaging actions might have been forestalled, what rash decisions reconsidered, what innocent bodies left unbroken, what promising lives saved, had the annoying question, "How do you know that?" been seriously considered at the appropriate times in the long, sad history of this planet? <br />
<br />
<br />
For references and to examine these issues further, see <a href="http://goo.gl/RNkzr" target="_blank"><b> Questionable Assumptions in Social Decision Making</b></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially<br />
--- EGR<br />
<br />
NOTE<br />
<br />
*The truth condition is not practically separable from the justification condition. (See <a href=" http://www.newfoundations.com/CogTheo/CogTheo1.html#truth" target="_blank"><b>The Truth Condition</b></a>)Edward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-83355494356795776072017-08-02T16:24:00.000-04:002017-08-02T18:43:57.554-04:00Laws and Policies: weak bulwarks against bad character?<blockquote>Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope. --Maya Angelou<br />
<br />
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson<br />
<br />
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. -- Groucho Marx<br />
</blockquote><br />
Sadly, what Maya Angelou says about love holds also for hate, if it is strong enough to overcome the natural impulses of self-preservation. The many suicide bombers we hear about daily in the news media attest to this. Organizational efforts to protect its leaders, or even, its lowest-ranking members, can provide no foolproof barriers to those intelligent and ruthless persons willing to sacrifice themselves to overcoming them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqdTX0oXEDJl-fUTQ6kdeLini8JWol-lRW-Mc6B7zlvw8ZyxHUt6gm-7uZwfUJUy3pxXr4qL0ni7f1q0bWiIuNAopBamyeC5yzrj9T5Gi9dOFMbrSS8EKjWTPe9PYMhJpjwF0-hgJr3Q/s1600/Durer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqdTX0oXEDJl-fUTQ6kdeLini8JWol-lRW-Mc6B7zlvw8ZyxHUt6gm-7uZwfUJUy3pxXr4qL0ni7f1q0bWiIuNAopBamyeC5yzrj9T5Gi9dOFMbrSS8EKjWTPe9PYMhJpjwF0-hgJr3Q/s320/Durer.jpg" width="224" height="320" data-original-width="168" data-original-height="240" /></a></div>Conversely, leaders, despite their frequent and even vehement lip-service to widely shared organizational interests and ideals, may pursue their own exclusive, private interests even at the risk of severe collateral damage. (Of such, recent events in US politics provide ample evidence.) <br />
<br />
Many people in organizations shield themselves from these realizations. Instead they hold on, often unconsciously, to a more peaceful, comfortable model of organizational behavior that misrepresents the nature of much organizational activity.<br />
<br />
In his book, <em>Ambiguity and Choice </em>James March (with Johan P. Olsen, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1976) presents a critique of this Edenic conception that he calls an oversimplified, albeit traditional model of organizational activity:<br />
<blockquote>a. the cognitions and preferences held by individuals affect their behavior;<br />
<br />
b. this behavior of individuals affects in turn organizational choices; <br />
<br />
c. organizational choices affect environmental acts; <br />
<br />
d. environmental acts affect individual cognitions and preferences.</blockquote><br />
This cycle is assumed closed and connected, e.g. a->b->c->d ->a->b->c….<br />
<br />
However, March continues, there may be attitudes and beliefs which do not interact with organizational behavior: for example, rules may prevent racism in hiring. Conversely, organizational obligations may elicit behavior that has no basis in individual preferences, e.g. group-think.<br />
<br />
March asserts that this simple model, a->b->c->d, predisposes us to assume that what appeared to happen, did happen; and, that what happened was intended to happen or had to happen.<br />
<br />
He continues that nothing happens that can be used by organizations independent of persons who interpret these happenings as relevant events. Organizational functioning, therefore, requires trust in such interpreters. But this trust -- better, credibility (not seldom “credulity”) — in "happening-interpreters" may be extended or withdrawn as individual circumstances require.<br />
<br />
Certain problematic happenings may fail to attain status as such within an organization because persons in positions of influence do not want to be bothered with them, whether for lack of interest, courage, resources or competence. So long as the costs can remain hidden, problems need never be acknowledged as existing. (See <a href="https://goo.gl/1m5yf2" target="_blank"><b>Hiding the “Elephant in the Room”</b></a>)<br />
<br />
For a restricted case study illustrating such a situation and its collateral damages, see<br />
<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/OrgProb.html" target="_blank"><strong>THE</strong> <strong>ORGANIZATIONAL</strong> <strong>PROBLEM</strong>: ILLUSION AND REALITY</a></p>. (For broader case examples this late Summer 2017, consult your news media outlets.)<br />
<br />
- Cordially, EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-80516418245070363742017-07-22T15:35:00.000-04:002017-08-18T10:03:28.694-04:00Authority is Like a Condom<center><table><tr> <td width=“50%”><blockquote>The Condom is a Cuirass against Pleasure and a Spider's Web against Danger.<br />
-- Madame de Staël (1766 - 1817) </blockquote><br />
The authority we possess often distances us from others, making the pleasures of companionship or of even more ordinary forms of social intercourse strained, if not impossible. Yet, authority does not in and of itself, protect us from brute force, as any battered spouse with a restraining order knows full well.</td><td><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlx4yTG3Mwlu_WsB7LFVgMof8tIpKIw1O_9hDm_jpdyLG2D8s-zlqu0xluaR8bpXqw56mB7JnP952SLGQa-bL2I6qc3z2AiE9RFZU7Yxelej4xJ1wOhpsh9cJtpcD4-_5Jujy6hWllJag/s1600/Zygiella_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlx4yTG3Mwlu_WsB7LFVgMof8tIpKIw1O_9hDm_jpdyLG2D8s-zlqu0xluaR8bpXqw56mB7JnP952SLGQa-bL2I6qc3z2AiE9RFZU7Yxelej4xJ1wOhpsh9cJtpcD4-_5Jujy6hWllJag/s320/Zygiella_web.jpg" width="283" height="320" data-original-width="309" data-original-height="350" /></a></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td> </td> <td><center><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zygiella_web.jpg" target="_blank"><b>How Does Authority Protect?</b></a></center></td> </tr>
</table></center><br />
All new teachers, like many old-time missionaries, or any person newly thrust into a leadership role, discovers that the reputation of those who bestowed authority upon them may matter very little. Kids, for example, are not impressed with State issued teaching licenses. People raised in one religion, or in older forms of the same religion, are resistant to the new authorizations that have ordained the newcomer.<br />
<br />
Authority of any kind is ultimately based on consensus, an agreement to acknowledge the validity of that authority. This consensus may based on traditionally shared beliefs, values and attitudes, or be merely expedient acquiescence or outward conformity. <br />
<br />
This is the reality of the moral freedom we enjoy as individuals, if we only think about it. We, each one of us, can choose, <b>if we are willing to live with the consequences</b>, not to acknowledge as pertinent to our lives, any "authority" whatsoever. (The possibility of such disregard is why those in authority try to aggrandize power. See <a href="https://newfoundationsbloglocus.blogspot.com/2016/08/usurping-rights-of-others.html" target="_blank"><b> Usurping the Rights of Others</b></a>)<br />
<br />
This is no weird, esoteric practice to be carried out by bald monks on a mountaintop. It is exactly what we do to a great extent when we visit other countries and cultures: we acquiesce in behaving so as to keep ourselves out of jail, or to avoid social opprobrium; even though we disregard whatever other concerns a native of that culture might have. Sight-seeing in a church does not mean you will be a convert.<br />
<br />
Not acknowledging as authority what others do may lead to conflicts of many kinds. But accommodating diversity is what makes possible the differences between families, religions, cultures and nations. But diversity, still, is what sometimes makes teaching and preaching an uphill battle. (Especially where coercive power is lacking.)<br />
<br />
To examine these issues further, see <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Indeterminacy.html" target="_blank"><b> The Indeterminacy of Consensus</b></a><br />
<br />
Cordially --- EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6771319422202992988.post-6548154744256461912017-07-21T15:14:00.000-04:002017-07-21T22:47:49.969-04:00CAUSAL CHARADES: organizational rituals of evaluation<blockquote>"…the only measure of the efficiency of a cooperative system is its capacity to survive." <br />
-- Chester I. Barnard, <i>The Functions of the Executive</i>, p. 44.</blockquote>Any organization in which it is not clear what is being produced, or how what is produced is to be evaluated, will have someone whose job it is to whip up enthusiasm for the daily grind: e.g. provide “staff development” to obscure the indeterminacy of the goals pursued.<br />
<table><tr><td width="70%">Lack of clear, widely accepted theory as to what causes what, produces play-acting and hugger-mugger: mysteries of "attitudinal adjustment," "leadership," or "conformity with policy." Or, even better, secrecies-acts and "classification" procedures to frustrate easy review of outputs. (See <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/DevelopStaff.html" target=“_blank”> How Not to Develop Staff</a>)<br />
<br />
If part of my job responsibility is to sit and listen to some "expert" -- often not a technician, in any scientific sense -- expatiate about peripheralities and, especially, to invite me -- in some "humanistic" way -- to "commit to“ or "open up” and "reveal" how I “feel” about them; then, I, too, will likely sense a need to join in and pretend that that expert, too, is earning his keep.<br />
</td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNJ_fakqjjXl_gX1Py84RbUS0UkUTJEPjBL2wR9fR3wQ_N6A4NvJ94vki2tOkrIWp8JOr9dIbL7oPFm0NeQyeaaYNC6FdAyMe5XV_i4ozg0ibncw2ZGcE-1gKOI4drhG6kELgsMxd73Kg/s1600/King+Magic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNJ_fakqjjXl_gX1Py84RbUS0UkUTJEPjBL2wR9fR3wQ_N6A4NvJ94vki2tOkrIWp8JOr9dIbL7oPFm0NeQyeaaYNC6FdAyMe5XV_i4ozg0ibncw2ZGcE-1gKOI4drhG6kELgsMxd73Kg/s320/King+Magic.jpg" width="229" height="320" data-original-width="256" data-original-height="358" /></a></div></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td><td><center> <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AKing_Magic.jpg" target="_blank"><b>King Magic</b></a></center></td></tr>
</table>The social dynamics of our "democratic" pluralism not infrequently produces exactly such obfuscatory processes in, for example, American politics and education at all levels. Veneers of <a href="http://www.newfoundations.com/Consensus/NatureConsensus.html" target="_blank"><b>consensus</b></a> obscure uncertainties as to which goals are to be pursued, and how and with what rigor their attainment is to be evaluated. That an institution is considered to be a "tradition" is a strong indicator of uncertain productivity. Long survival invariably rests on muddled vision or sloganeering, e.g. "protecting American interests," "answering Society's needs," or "preparing for the future," which masquerade as descriptions of technical outcomes.<br />
<br />
To examine these issues further in specific context, see <a href="http://goo.gl/rzhkQV" target=“_blank”> Productivity, Politics and Hypocrisy in American Public Education</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Cordially,<br />
-- EGREdward Rozyckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11578445351127672585noreply@blogger.com