[FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"

Thu Jul 30 17:46:18 EDT 2020

My daughter was admitted to the University of Chicago and the University of
Michigan and I never gave either university a gift.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 3:13 PM Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nick,
>
> I'm a Piketty fan, and he takes on this subject in "Capital" in a variety
> of different ways.  For instance, Harvard, Princeton and Yale are so well
> endowed by alumni that they get a 6.2% return and they become what Piketty
> calls "rentiers", people and institutions able to support themselves
> through their capital income. The rentiers gifts get their kids in. And
> this is just one example of the absence of equal opportunity in our most
> prestigious universities. If we "allowed broader segments of the population
> to have access to (these institutions), this would surely be the most
> effective way of increasing wages at the low to medium end of the scale and
> decreasing the upper decile's share of both wages and total income."
>
> I was excited to find, also,  Piketty's pairing of climate change and
> "improving educational access" as two of the most challenging issues facing
> humanity.  The knowledge that will be needed in the next future is hard to
> imagine, but if we are to keep the peace as the systems continue to
> collapse, we need to get everyone ready to cope.
>
>
>
>
> Later in the book Piketty pairs climate change with the idea of improving
> educational access as two of the greatest “challenges” to the human race.
> Ameliorating schooling is even more important than fixing governmental
> debt: “the more urgent need is to increase our educational capital” (568)
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 1:23 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Eric,
>>
>>
>>
>> A Marxist would say, I think, although I have barely ever known one, that
>> every act of training is simultaneously an act of indoctrination and class
>> reproduction.  If the declaration of independence is correct, what an
>> extraordinary coincidence it is that the children of wealthy well educated
>> people tend to be wealthy and well educated!   Well, some would say that
>> that’s because ABILITY is inherited.  But that precisely is racism, isn’t
>> it?
>>
>>
>>
>> So if, as our colleagues are starting to assert, technical proficiency is
>> an evanescent benefit, what precisely remains of a “good” education but
>> indoctrination in class values and the  inheritance of class benefits?
>> This is NOT for me a rhetorical question, because I gave up on the
>> technical proficiency justification (except perhaps for writing) before I
>> even became a  professor.  So what WAS it I was conveying to my students
>> all those years, if not the indoctrination of class values and the
>> inheritance of class benefits?  Inquiring Readers Want to Know!
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles
>> *Sent:* Thursday, July 30, 2020 1:02 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"
>>
>>
>>
>> Come on Nick... outside new disciplines emerging, those who will change a
>> discipline over the next 20 years are typically well embedded within the
>> discipline now. That's kind of how cumulative knowledge construction works.
>> But... to emphasize it a bit more bluntly.... The primary purpose of
>> college isn't to reproduce the professoriate, or produce the next
>> generation of innovators within the professorate: It is to provide a
>> general set of skills (sometimes called the "hidden curriculum"), which
>> provides a baseline of things a person with a college degree can reasonably
>> be expected to be able to do. College is justified by the assertion that
>> you can't really get those skills outside of trying to do something
>> intellectual with some seriousness; what you are trying to be
>> intellectually serious about doesn't matter nearly so much, though
>> obviously some skills will be emphasized more in some areas.
>>
>>
>>
>> Most jobs most people want require "a college degree". They don't require
>> a college degree in anything in particular. That makes sense, IF college
>> degrees are reasonably well correlated with having some set of skills most
>> general employers value in most of their employees. It generally helps to
>> have employees who can read, write, and math at a certain level, who can
>> present things in standard forms orally, graphically, and in writing. It
>> generally helps to have employees who can integrate ideas and come up with
>> solutions, who can balance various priorities, who can adapt to arbitrary
>> requirements that a boss or company might impose. It generally helps to
>> have employees who can work productively on team projects, as leaders or
>> followers. Etc., etc. The less college degrees reliably indicate those
>> skills, the less valuable they are (on average).
>>
>>
>>
>> There is a quirky college that revamped it's curriculum a few decades ago
>> to focus on "8 Abilities": Communication, Problem Solving, Social
>> Interaction, Effective Citizenship, Analysis, Valuing, Aesthetic
>> Engagement, and Developing a Global Perspective. It looks like they've gone
>> back a bit towards traditional majors, but still all classes, in all
>> majors, have to explicitly focus on developing at least one of those
>> abilities in the students. (https://www.alverno.edu/Undergraduate)
>>
>>
>>
>> Most colleges are not doing anything so dramatic, but many are still
>> making great strides in helping students figure out skills that
>> others arrive with, so they can at least start from a more even place. See
>> examples here:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/04/book-argues-mentoring-programs-should-try-unveil-colleges-hidden-curriculum
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://thehub.georgetown.domains/realhub/experience/mastering-the-hidden-curriculum-1-2/
>>
>>
>>
>> https://college.lclark.edu/live/events/297173-the-hidden-curriculum
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 5:54 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Eric,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for laying this out.  I think some of it’s wrong, but it’s clear
>> and provocative.  I apologize to non-academics on the list for my focus on
>> academia.  I suppose one might argue that the best thing that might happen
>> to Massachusetts is the dismemberment of Harvard and the distribution of
>> its buildings for housing and it’s endowment for income equalization.  But
>> I don’t think so.  Not yet, any way.
>>
>>
>>
>> To the extent that psychology and White Psychology and Rich psychology
>> and poor psychology are all the same, and if they all should be or will be
>> the same 20 years from now as they are now, your analysis makes sense.
>> But, while I would like to think that psychology is like physics in that
>> regard, I think I have to admit that it isn’t.  So, teaching everybody who
>> comes to, say, the Harvard Psychology Department, the skills of
>>  contemporary (mostly white) psychologists, precludes the learning not only
>> of what non-privileged psychologists know, given the drift of things
>> demographically and ideologically, it precludes the learning of what
>> Psychology will be in 20 years.
>>
>>
>>
>> I don’t know what the solution is.  Every once in a while a student in my
>> evolution classes would remonstrate with me for not giving equal time to
>> biblical creation theories.  I would say, in response, “Because everything
>> I know tells me that they are wrong.  Furthermore, I cannot teach what I do
>> not know, and I don’t know those theories.  I am not the person to be your
>> teacher if that is what you want to learn.”  Now of course, that’s a pretty
>> lame response, but it has the marginal benefit of being honest.
>>
>>
>>
>> But what if we knew, for sure, that the country was going to be run by
>> Baptists in 20 years.  Under those conditions, wouldn’t my best response
>> be, “I can’t; you’re right; I resign.”
>>
>>
>>
>> I am sure the metaphor is creepy in some way, but it’s the best I can
>> come up with.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Merle Lefkoff
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 29, 2020 3:02 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric, thank you for your reply.  Forgive me for suggesting a larger
>> systemic problem, connected for me to the problems in our democratic
>> system, our global economic system, and our international governance
>> system--and also ultimately related to the existential threat of the
>> collapse of the living systems that nurture our species.
>>
>>
>>
>> The democracy and Constitution our founders gave us at the end of the
>> 18th century has structural flaws we have tried to overcome.  The global
>> economic system that the victors of WWII gave us at Bretton Woods in 1944
>> has similar structural flaws that we have also tried (not very hard) to
>> overcome.  The United Nations that emerged a year later in 1945 to convene
>> a new international order shares similar structural problems.  There is a
>> pattern here. At its core is domination and exclusivity.
>>
>>
>>
>> The present hesitant shifts in the old narratives--and relationships--
>> that created our major social, economic and political systems are the
>> result of gladiators and dragon-slayers finally targeting the positive
>> feedback loops that keep reinforcing historic institutional design errors.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'll stop here, because I'm even boring myself.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:49 PM Eric Charles <
>> eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Nick, the "ire" is perfectly fine. I didn't need to couch my statement in
>> that way, and doing so obviously opened me to Merle's response.
>>
>>
>>
>> Merle,
>>
>> I think the social criticism is generally valid, but as a critique of
>> college in particular it is feeds a general confusion about what college
>> should be about, which ultimately speeds the fall of the system it seeks to
>> reform.
>>
>>
>>
>> One of the obvious legitimate functions of college is indoctrination into
>> a profession. If you don't want to be indoctrinated into a profession that
>> college indoctrinates people into, then college probably isn't for you.  If
>> you get out of college not-indoctrinated-into-a-profession, something has
>> gone wrong. For example, if you want to get a degree in psychology, you
>> need to learn to write in some reasonable semblance of APA style. That
>> includes its own horribly arbitrary set of grammar rules, formatting and
>> the like. It is screwed up, in some sense, but it isn't imperialist
>> oppression aimed at minorities. Arbitrary norms are found in all
>> professions, and conforming to them is part of being "professional". Also,
>> if you got a degree in psychology, without anyone forcing you to learn how
>> to approach problems, write reports, criticize articles, etc., in the
>> manner that professional psychologists tend to do those things, something
>> has gone wrong. If you want to think about psychology-related stuff in the
>> way you already think about those things, then don't go to college. If you
>> want to learn to think about them in the way the professional community
>> does, then college might make senes. (Note, I'm *not *saying you have to *agree
>> *with how the professional community does things, just that you should
>> be able to replicate, with some reasonable accuracy, the standard
>> professional approach.) Where you start from doesn't really matter; though
>> the curricula *should *be more adaptive to the starting place of the
>> various students, by the end you should be professional indoctrinated,
>> that's the whole point.
>>
>>
>>
>> In addition, college functions to indoctrinate people into a certain part
>> of society... or at least it used to. Because, traditionally, most college
>> graduates don't get work in exactly the thing they studied, this "hidden
>> curriculum" has often been more important than the obvious curriculum.
>> College graduates should be able to read, write, and math at a certain
>> level, generally think through problems at a certain level, be able to
>> present ideas to an audience in spoken or written form, be able to adapt to
>> arbitrary assignments with a certain level of comfort, be a team leader, be
>> a pro-active follower, etc.  Here again, colleges *should *be more
>> adaptive to the starting place of the various students, but that doesn't
>> mean their end point should be abandoned. Here you see big differences
>> between colleges, based on what they are preparing you for. A college like
>> Swathmore or Bucknell is preparing you to be able to do those things for
>> different audiences than Oberlin or Penn State. If you are at a school that
>> is well designed to prepare you for something you don't want to be prepared
>> for... that's not imperialist oppression, that's your having made an
>> unfortunate choice of  where to go.
>>
>>
>>
>> Frankly, most colleges currently suck at those two goals, and most other
>> functions you might want them to have.  It is easy to find studies showing
>> that lots of people graduate college without high school level reading,
>> writing, and math abilities. It is also easy to find students who graduate
>> with almost no indoctrination into the field of study they were purportedly
>> pursuing.
>>
>>
>>
>> Under those conditions, it is not surprising that people view a college
>> degree as largely symbolic marker, required for entry into the job market
>> or some such nonsense. However, the solution shouldn't be to make college
>> degrees even less indicative of having attained particular skills. The less
>> a college degree indicates having a certain variety of skills, the less
>> value is provided to employers to select based on the presence of a degree,
>> and the less value it gives a college graduate to have a degree. Returning
>> to the indoctrination thing, we can see the (potential) flaw in the
>> criticism of the curriculum. It doesn't make a lot of sense to say, "I
>> really want a degree from Rutgers, because employers value degrees from
>> Rutgers, but I also think Rutgers should change its curriculum to not be so
>> strict in only letting people graduate if they actually have the skills
>> employers value." The value of the degree, particularly to a person trying
>> to get out of a bad situation, is entirely based on its reliably indicating
>> some set of skills, and the ability to write in a semi-formal manner is one
>> of those skills (to return to the more narrow original context).
>>
>>
>>
>> If you formed a solid college curriculum around mastering skills other
>> than those traditionally trained in college, that would be fine (and I
>> think that is what Nick is struggling to get at). And if those skills were
>> valued (economically, or merely for personal growth) then a degree from
>> that college would be a reliable indicator of that specific valuable
>> achievement. But that is very different than allowing students to get
>> through college with whatever skills they arrived with, just because you
>> are afraid that enforcing *any *strict requirements might make you an
>> imperialist monster. The former creates a marketplace for students to
>> choose from, while the latter just guarantees that college degrees continue
>> to become less and less valuable, particularly to the people who most seek
>> to benefit by getting them.
>>
>>
>> (Sorry, that ended up longer than intended.... but it's late... I don't
>> think I can get it tighter right now... and your question deserves a
>> reply.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 11:21 PM Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> And why, O Eric of a deep understanding, are you not a fan?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 8:17 PM Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Clearly the implicit bias is that all of these reading requirements were
>> written by White men.  In an attempt to redress this problem I have noticed
>> lately that the NY Times book review seems to be bending over backwards to
>> review books written by women of color.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 7:03 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I'm trying to remember my freshman English class.  Every other Friday we
>> had to submit a five hundred word essay on the class readings. On alternate
>> Fridays we had to write an in-class paragraph or two on those readings.
>> The readings included the following:
>>
>>
>>
>> Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
>>
>> Victory by Conrad
>>
>> The Republic by Plato
>>
>> All the King's Men by Warren
>>
>> Brave New World by Huxley
>>
>>
>>
>> Numerous essays on personal integrity by various authors.
>>
>>
>>
>> I don't see that any of those had to do with unconscious racism or
>> implicit bias unless the personal integrity essays did.  I think I had to
>> read The Invisible Man by Ellison but that may have been in a later year in
>> a political science or US history class at Berkeley.
>>
>>
>>
>> All this was 54 years ago.
>>
>>
>>
>> Frank
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>>
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>
>>
>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>>
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>
>>
>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>>
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>>
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>
>>
>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>>
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>
>
> --
> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> emergentdiplomacy.org
> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>
> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20200730/674ccbdf/attachment.html>