"Ray E. Harrell" wrote:
>
>
>
> Keith Hudson wrote:
>
> > Peer review would be democratic in
> > that anybody could join whatever policy forum that interested them, but if
> > they wanted their ideas to succeed they would have to argue their way
> > cogently against their peers in order to get their policies accepted at a
> > high level.
"Peer" review depends on who the *peers* are.
These are often though not invariably
persons who have earned the approval of the
previous generation of persons who have earned
the approval of the previous....
This can easily be just a recipe for, as Alice Miller eloquently
described, each generation to get "displaced" satisfaction for the
suffering to which its tor-mentors subjected it, by subjecting
the next generation to similar tor-mentoring.
A few persons don't just "survive" this process,
but flourish -- like, in Physics, Richard
Feynmann. But they are the "exceptions who prove the rule",
including that the orthodoxcracy kow-tows before them as examples
of the freedom available to anyone who is not just a genius
but also exceptionally hardy and/or lucky [excuse me, I meant:
these individuals are cited as examples of the freedom available to
all in our democratic land of opportunity, open-minded
fairness, where those in "peer review positions" never use
their power for sectarian purposes since their purposes
are never sectarian but always disinterested, etc.].
But, at least as often, the "peer review process" is a way
for petty-minded, peevish drudges to try to snuff out the human
spirit wherever it does not show them proper honor, and,
of course, to do this "for [the subordinate's] own good"!
When I was a student in a psychoanalytic training institute,
I had one of these criminals-in-the-role-of-policeman
for a supervisor. This person was (among their other virtues...) a liar.
When I explained to this person that
my analyst had said my interaction with them was a good opportunity
for me to work through my feelings about having to deal with persons
in positions of power over me who were far less intelligent
or knowledgeable than myself, this person could not themself
deal with serving this useful purpose. When I told this
person (who was a *senior* [whatever they claimed to be...]), that
they needed more analysis to deal with their unresolved problems in our
relationship, the person started explaining how my dangerous
paranoia....
Nietzsche, over 100 years ago, in Zarathustra's Prolog, wrote
about one of the problems which beset all bureaucracies, including
peer review boards. I here refer to "the last man": "The earth
has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes
everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea-beetle....
The last man last longest."
One can argue any position one likes before a peer review board.
If the "peers" like it, one may ascend to become
one of them. If they don't like it, the more compelling one's
arguments, the deeper the hole one digs oneself into.
In psychoanalytic training institutes, the hole goes by
such labels as "the student's unresolved issues with his
mother" -- which, of course, would be true, if only the
peers meant by that that they were not being any more "alma"
[loving...] "maters" than the student's real mater [mother...] was....
[snip]
> This all sounds like Technocracy to me. Maybe someone else could help me on
> this. I believe that the answer lies in culturally sophisticated people
> who can trust each other's professional expertise and experience and which
> doesn't reduce all action to a statement of economic power. What do you all
> think?
[snip]
I think that representative democracy is primarily a democracy
of the representatives, and that the very phrase "representative
democracy" is an oxymoron (more exactly: a performative
self-contradiction), because, as in the classical Greek
polis, a real democracy is government [cracy] by the people
themselves [the demos] -- in direct face-to-face "discourse
aimed at reaching uncoerced agreement based only on the
unforced force of the best argument". The last sentence is
a quote from memory, from Jurgen Habermas. Cornelius
Castoridis is even more eloquent on this issue. Hannah
Arendt provides the background about the classical
Greek polis ("peer space of speech and action") in _The Human Condition_.
Karl Marx stated the goal here succinctly:
To replace the government of men, by
the administration of things.
I myself put it this way: Everyman (woman, child...) is a judge of
the world. (A problem, of course, is that they don't know they are.)
Was Heidegger right in his fascistic pessimistic
prediction that:
Only a god can save us
?
--
Now for a bit of a laugh:
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/gif/OSayCanUSee.html
"Own your vote!"
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
