[MD] The Academy is Evil! Here's what I'd do instead...

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Arlo,
my reply,
Tim

On Sat, 4 Dec 2010 09:22:21 -0500, "ARLO J BENSINGER JR"
<ajb102 at psu.edu> said:

[Tim]
huh, I just noticed your email address!

> [Tim]
> But, the academy, and the entire educational system, is a social
> structure, so
> you cannot expect any revolutionary change to come from the inside. 
> 
> [Arlo]
> I think this conflates the "Church of Reason" with the "brick and
> mortar", but
> to the extent we have made the Church of Reason beholden to the social
> patterns
> that are supposed to support but not control the Church of Reason, I
> agree.

[Tim]
Yes, I think there was some conflation of the social and intellectual
levels.  You were probably more attentive than I to the precise use by
RMP... anyway, I think this is a typical problem: a given human action
is rarely, if ever, attributable to just one static pattern.  Action
comes out of a real conflating of all the patterns at once.  So, any
academician in the academy will have social constraints which limit, and
as you point out at the end of your last reply, open up, the possibility
for the purely intellectual.  This is no different for non-academicians,
it is just that that social patterns will be different.

> 
> [Arlon] As with all things, yes, "change" can only come from "outside".

[Tim]
Mark points out in his reply to this that really we should not attribute
the 'change' to anything but the inter-workings of the inside and the
outside.  I like that.  Both are integral.

> [Arlo]
> For the most part, I'd say this is correct. But as I said way back, I
> wouldn't confuse being "outside the Academy" with ipso facto being a
> revolutionary. There are quite a number of "nutjobs" hanging out outside those walls.

[Tim]
sure sure.

> 
> [Arlo] Pirsig's own case is interesting. He was "outside" to the extent that he
> finalized much of thinking after his experiences there, but he is not a
> full outsider. He taught at the Montana State University, he went to graduate
> school at the University of Chicago and taught classes and the University of
> Illinois. A lot of his ideas took initial root via his friendship and activity with
> Dusenberry, also a professor at MSU, whose academic work brought Pirsig
> into contact with "the Indians". And even years after his involvement in the
> Academy ended, he has been actively involved in support Ant's PhD.

[Tim]
Yes, his story is interesting.  I think the take home for me, if there
can be A take home, is that he decided that the academy was not the
highest Quality place for him.

> 
> [Tim]
> I don't remember the precise numbers, but it was something like - and,
> you all probably know that 'Science' is the creme de la creme of science journals
> - 3 years after publishing only 25% of the articles published in 'Science'
> have not been proven faulty.  My point is that even amongst the best we have to
> offer, it is not all that great.
> 
> [Arlo]
> I actually think this is a GOOD thing, and demonstrates science's
> evolving understanding. But, yes, it is a bad thing when lose sight of the
> provisional nature of "truth" and begin to think that whatever "Science" says is True
> for all ages.

[Tim]
if all it represented was science's evolving understanding I would
concede your point, that it is a GOOD thing.  But, I think it also
represents that a bunch of low quality stuff gets through; low quality
for myriad different reasons: deceit, over-selling, jumping to
conclusions, trying to win the race, etc.

> [Arlo]
> Right. There is a funding/cost/money component to this that I think needs
> a huge rethinking. I don't have a lot of fleshed out ideas, but professors
> are often judged very heavily on the amount of research money they bring into
> their respective colleges. Getting a million-dollar grant is akin to an Oscar
> nomination.

[Tim]
well, I'm not donating any money myself!

> 
> [Arlo]
> Agree. I said something similar to John or Mark yesterday. A lot of these
> problem would "go away" when (and sadly, if) the root understanding of
> ZMM spreads. The problems with the Academy, the problems with in the local
> mechanic shops, the problems with the labor alienation and consumerism, etc etc
> etc.

[Tim]
I didn't see that comment.  But yea, getting to the 'root' sounds a lot
more efficient and effective than trying to cure all the multifarious
symptoms.
 
> 
> [Tim]
> Is it possible to have a society that does not force individuals to
> compromise (dynamic) Quality?
> 
> [Arlo]
> I think your question is oxymoronic, as "society" is by definition static
> patterns of value.

[Tim]
hmmm... here we differ.  First, even if I concede your definition, I
don't see how that makes it oxymoronic.  Second, for me, 'society', is
not a static pattern of value: it is an inter-working collection of
individuals.  Now, I concede that each individual behaves in that
collection in accord with his own static social pattern of value - which
he uses to make sense of the society.  But even in that sense it does
not seem oxymoronic to me: does his own static social pattern force him
to compromise intellectual and dynamic Quality?


> [Arlo] The closest analogy I can think of otherwise is a
> state of pure anarchy, but the freedoms we enjoy that permit intellectual activity
> would rapidly disappear. Some balance between static and Dynamic Quality is
> what moves evolution forward.

[Tim]
I'm not ready to condemn anarchy, but I'm not ready to touch it either.

Regarding the balance between static and Dynamic, this is getting to the
edge of my ability to communicate.  The static patterns, teh necessity
for them, seem to be at the height of dynamic quality too.  But it is
the quality of the static patterns that we can question.  Perhaps this
is why you came to see my proposition as oxymoronic (?).

Maybe I should ask: is it possible for for a collection of individuals
to come to agreement about shared static patterns to such a degree that
those patterns do not impose, necessarily of themselves, a restriction
to low quality decisions?  This still isn't quite right.  I have a very
simple statement that works for me, and I am trying to convert it to MoQ
verbiage.  If justice is to be possible, people must be free to refrain
from injustice.  The problem is that the MoQ doesn't provide for
'injustice', at least not readily.  I have to convert to 'low quality'
versus high quality.  Anyway, I'll have to think about this I guess.


> [Arlo]
> Social patterns certain constrain activity, but I think its important to
> see that it enables a lot of freedom too.

[Tim]
This is a very important point.  And this is what I was referring to
above.  For me, I think the main problem is that low quality static
social patterns institutionalize low quality decisions, and thus they
can preclude the freedom to refrain from those low quality decisions. 
What I am asking is: is it possible to attain to a society (as I use
it), or a static social pattern of value (as you have used it), which
leaves open the option to refrain from low quality behavior arising from
it.   uuugggghhhh, still not quite right.


> [Arlo] For example, laws that require you
> to drive on a certain side of the road, and punish you with incarceration if
> you don't comply, force a certain constraint on our behavior, but these laws
> in turn enable a far greater freedom via the safe, rapid ability to travel.

[Tim]
I agree that liberty comes within constraint.  Elsewhere I have talked
about the human being as being the most liberating constraint for an
'I'.  And I could talk about the liberty that is furnished by the
constraint of physical reality.  Etc. & etc.  But, the idea is that
Quality = Morality, so a constraint to Quality is not immoral...  The
question is: can we, on our human end, conceive of a society which
leaves open the fullness of Quality, or at least one which does not
impose a constraint to low quality?  uggghhhh.  Still not there.

> 
> [Arlo] Thanks for joining in, Tim.
> 

[Tim]
sure.  And thanks for your efforts,
Tim
-- 
  
  rapsncows at fastmail.fm

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Accessible with your email software
                          or over the web