A few days ago I posted a couple of purported examination
questions to which Ray Harrell and Mike Spencer made
thoughtful and informative responses. I had set up a grading
scheme and at the conclusion of Mike's response he asked how
he did -- so I thought I should play along a bit further.
Both got 20 points for just showing up. Also each got top
marks on their answers, putting each of them at the head of
the class. How so, you ask? Well, with their distinctive
(and to me always welcome and helpful) postings to the
futurework list over many months, each is clearly in a class
by himself! These recent postings were no exception. So
congratulations, Ray and Mike.
On a more personal note, thanks for those responses. I was
deeply troubled by the quotation around which I had posed
the questions and that it was buried in the article from
which it was taken rather than written in headlines.
There are many areas -- child development, homelessness, the
design of working environments, deterioration of the natural
environment, the role of the arts -- where we seem to be
waiting for science to give us "permission" to act. In fact
it is we who are not giving ourselves permission. We do this
when we withhold credibility from anything that isn't
scientifically "endorsed." In many cases this is not only
inhumane but quite unwise.
True, scientific findings do sometimes show that "common
sense" has misguided us, but surely it is even less sensible
to wait upon science to guide us and to fail to act until it
does. The indictment of "the policy world" in the case of
early childhood development that is implicit in the
quotation should wake us up to this practice of waiting upon
science and lead us to review many of our current
priorities. Even beyond "the precautionary principle" (which
is now entering the policy world as a legitimacy umbrella
for acting before all the scientific facts are in), there
are other rubrics for action (common decency, experience)
that are quite valid. For example, it is simply "man's
inhumanity to man" that is, after all, at the root of many
of the problems that we are now waiting upon science to
endorse and resolve. Also we are denying ourselves much joy
and learning from the arts and humanities simply for lack of
being able to prove they are "measurably" productive.
I'd love to give confidence to a policy discourse (on
futurework and elsewhere) that felt itself able to include
but reach beyond science to more profound principles of
policy development in situations of democratic
self-governance. Policy-making is surely not just a science
but an art. Indeed, to speak of policy-making as a science
is a growing problem. We nonetheless do this in hundreds of
courses on "the policy sciences," thus turning out deformed
practitioners who, hired, then interpose their advice
between the citizenry and its elected representatives. It is
one of the reasons that the working world has become such a
deformed institution, deforming workers in deformed
environments -- which is where this thread began. We should
not forget that work, in the perspective of the dismal
"science" of economics that dominates our policies toward
work today, is still defined as a "disutility" producing
income as a side-effect. Work could equally well be
centrally defined as a utility, a pleasurably developmental
learning experience, and so organized, with income
arrangements to match.
Now there's a challenge! 50 points for simply participating,
and 50 points for a great three paragraph contribution on
looking at work as a pleasure (a utility) rather than a
disutility (a pain) and what would be needed to reorganize
work so that it becomes the pleasure for everyone that it
already is for some? A 21st century concept of work. But
this time how about everyone participating in the marking,
giving credit for welcome and helpful postings?
Gail
Gail Stewart
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
