[snip]
Thursday June 19, 2003
The Guardian
Science needs specialists. When a puzzling new result appears,
or some startling claim is advanced, call on the genuine expert,
narrowly but deeply trained, who really knows what they are
talking about.
On the other hand, unbeatable prowess in solving one kind of
problem often limits a researcher's outlook. The expert can
become a mere pedant or, worse, a narrow obsessive, knowing
everything about nothing. He has a fine collection of hammers
for nails of all sizes, but screws are not his department.
Useful in the lab, maybe, but hopeless in the real world, where
problems are multi-faceted, complex, hard to pin down.
Gaia theory, the idea that all life on Earth is part of one
giant system which shapes its own environment, is the best
recent illustration of the tensions this creates.
But we need something even more all-encompassing than any kind of "GgesammtNaturWissenschaft": We also need political reasonableness, because all of nature finds its place in our construction of our social-personal world of daily life.
There is a fine book here:
_Man in the Age of Technology_, by Arnold Gehlen, Columbia Univ
PressI well remember one passage from that book which is relevant here (paraphrasing from memory):
The technical skills of the expert [from carpenters
to neurosurgeons], which arose in early agricultural
society and which are increasingly elaborated in
our advanced technological society, are increasingly
important for that society's self-reproduction. But
the expert's judgment [as you said, narrowly focused
on means...] is ultimately of no value. Our society
incresingly needs, and richly rewards, those who
have a broader vision. But a punishing fate awaits
those who aspire to such a position and fail in its
attainment [e.g., I-BM].Enjoy your "Gaia": Create and invent new symbolic forms [AKA artworks, inventions, etc.] with it! But don't let yourself be deceived and diminished into ideologically believing you are part of this idea which you *entertain*! Enjoy! (I apologizxe -- maybe none of "you" are in any danger of making such a mistake, because all of "you", unlike me, grew up in a world where you were taught that you were a co-shaper of all aspects of your life, not a "child", "student", "worker", etc. who was supposed to instantiate a pre-existing norm -- what Plato called an "Idea", and which some postmodernists call "positivity".... "You" know and have always known better....}
\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/
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