[FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"

Thu Jul 30 18:05:28 EDT 2020

Of course not, Frank, but evidently, many do.

On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 2:46 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> 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
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>>
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-- 
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
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