The quote from Habermas is wonderful. When I talk about clarifying the
'ground' that underlies the statements we make, I am trying to say something
similar but, of course, I don't say it nearly as well.
There is a wonderful book that I read a number of years ago as part of my
graduate work *The Dialectical Imagination* It's a history of the Frankfurt
School and the Institute of Social Research from 1923-1950 by Martin Jay; I
wouldn't be at all surprised if you're familiar with it.
It's too bad that sociology didn't pay more attention and went off in the
totally useless direction of trying to mimic the physical sciences in order
to try to get some respect as a science. As a result they have neither
helped us understand human social behavior very much and they now have less
respect than they ever had.
Selma
Selma
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Tom Lowe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2002 11:31 AM
Subject: Re: IQ divide? ~ The underlying division
> Tom Lowe wrote:
> [snip]
> > Can't remember the source, but I believe it's the other way around. The
test makers established the mean at 100 and the SD at 15 (at least on the
Wechsler) and then normalized the test to fit a bell curve with those
characteristics. That's how tests are constructed. You assume a bell curve
and then work backwards to the actual elements of the test. Elements of the
test that disrupt the curve (questions or tasks that are negatively
correlated to the overall score, in other words) are customarily excluded as
inappropriate or "inaccurate."
> >
> > Bruno Bettelheim had a favorite saying: "The end is in the beginning."
If you start out with what the testers (or their paymasters) think is
important, then you will arrive at a measure of those very characteristics.
Because these factors are culturally determined, they are usually
unexamined.
> [snip]
>
> Permit me once again to cite Jurgen Habermas's assertion, which
> undercuts the entire regional ontology of the so-called
> social sciences, including IQ tests. ("Regional ontology"
> is just a big word for the social construction of the
> things we then mistake for "natural" reality, e.g., test
> takers, students, test givers, etc., which, for us, are more
> real than G-d, but in themselves are no less "mental
> constructs".)
>
> The systematic sciences of social action, that is
> economics, sociology... have the goal, as do
> the empirical-analytic sciences, of producing
> nomological knowledge. A critical social
> science, however, will not remain satisfied with
> this. It is concerned... to determine when
> theoretical statements grasp invariant regularities
> of social action as such and when they
> express ideologically frozen relations of dependence
> that can in principle be transformed. To
> the extent that this is the case, the critique of
> ideology, as well, moreover, as psychoanalysis,
> take into account that information about lawlike
> connections sets off a process of reflection
> in the consciousness of those whom the laws are
> about. Thus the level of unreflected
> consciousness, which is one of the initial
> conditions of such laws, can be transformed. Of
> course, to this end a critically mediated
> knowledge of laws cannot through reflection alone
> render a law itself inoperative, but it can
> render it inapplicable. (Habermas, 1968/1971, p.
> 310)
>
> I don't keep repeating this just because I like the sound of
> the words (although I do find thse words
> eolquent...), but because it points the way to the only
> critically defensible path *up and out* from the
> alienation of our lives in the workplace, school, and
> all other such social instititions. I would certainly
> be glad to try to clarify any points that prevent
> "you" from seeing it as the *burning glass* I think
> it is to penetrate the fog of ideologies wherein
> our so-called society continues to wander off
> and mis-take....
>
> If persons treated persons humanely always or even
> most of the time, we could perhaps get along without
> understanding the reasons, but they/we don't.
> The social forces which operate against
> persons, no matter how self-righteous the
> intentions of their agents (e.g., the IQ/ETS constituency) are
> so well fortified with reasons which although they
> are not good reasons, are better than "wishful
> thinking". Therefore we must fight pervasive ideology with
> fundamental theory, expose it for what it is, lance these
> anaerobic pustules of the individual psyche and
> the corporate spirit, and then
> perhaps "people" will begin to realize
> that there alternatives which not only
> are more appealing but also more practical, too.
>
> The answer is hiding in plain sight. It simply requires
> that the test givers open the answer books to the testees
> (so that the tests can never be "given" again),
> and sincerely apologize for having previously ostracized the
> latter from the huamn community of peer discourse
> in which the test givers have since the beginning
> of testing been privileged to life and move and have their
> happy being. Hegel called the general pattern of social relations
> of which this would be an instance (in his story of
> "The Gentleman and his Butler", in his _Phenomenology of Spirit_):
>
> God appearing in the midst of those
> who know themselves in the form of pure knowledge.
>
> For me, I would characterize it simply as:
>
> The war is over; you have come home while yet there is time.
>
> \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]
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
