[FRIAM] types of knowledge

[Frank Wimberly]

I was nowhere near 40.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 1:24 PM jon zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com> wrote:

> "They're not trying to *fix* the thing so much as bathing in its beauty."
>
> I love this observation, universals like beauty are grounded by being in
> the
> world.
>
> "To entice them into such jobs with money is impoverished"
>
> While I mostly agree, I cannot help but notice that (by the numbers given
> in
> the video) the top plumbers can only hope to make as much as an entry-level
> web developer, and then there are the externalities...
>
> "We need to entice them/us into such muck in the same way we entice, say, a
> field biologist into their muck."
>
> The *muck* isn't simply mud or shit, but an ecosystem of hepatitis and
> parasites. Also, there is culture. While working as a laborer to a plumber
> wasn't the worst job I have ever had, the general milieu encouraged violent
> humor and poor diet, discouraged thinking, and a bordering-on-philosophical
> acceptance that we live, breathe, and eat shit. It doesn't take long to
> start to feel the hate creep in, folded into the soul as a consequence of
> being in the world.
>
> Then, there are the strange side-effects of our meritocratic capitalism. It
> seems to me that the cultural dynamics pressure individuals both toward
> specialism and away from meritocratic principles in a number of ways. Two,
> off the top of my head, counterintuitive and interrelated points
> include[†]:
>
> 1. Generalized spoils: Becoming a certified expert in a field occasionally
> confers expertise *over* individuals without certification in matters
> outside the scope of practice. A back of the envelope heuristic is employed
> along the lines of "Well, we know that *this* individual did some hard
> thinking in one area so *at least* we know they can do hard thinking
> *generally*. *That* individual we know nothing about, so place your bet
> accordingly". That this is a common feature of our society suggests that
> with access to deeper levels of certification comes greater access to
> agency. Too often, doing "low level" *essential work* bars an individual
> from being taken seriously.
>
> 2. Optimized employment: A career (whatever those were) is a process of
> canalization. Specialists are often more employable exactly because
> specific
> work is needed and throughput is directly measured. An effect, it seems to
> me, is that valuable generalists are left to roam nomadically between
> careers, under continuous exposure to forces that actively inhibit a sense
> of agency, value, or accumulated skill[≃]. As another option, I suppose,
> generalists survive the optimization through mimicry, the stultifying
> practice/training of one's self toward myopia.
>
> My concern here is that neither with academic work nor manual labor is
> there
> much room for the life of the mind. Especially not for a generalist mind.
> Instead, as youngsters, we are shown futures construed as accolade-valued
> functions along the real line. The rhetorical image, familiar to everyone
> here, is that "If you want options you head toward school"[∅].
>
> [†] Please, pardon the touches of autobiographical bitterness.
>
> [≃] Specialist-Generalist inequity in the workplace is a place that I would
> love to see more attention given.
>
> [∅] Even at 40, people compulsively give me this advice weekly.
>
>
>
> --
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>
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