On jobs. Whatever happened to apprenticeships? We call them interns now, I suppose-but most of those are expected to complete or be in the process of completing some form of higher(conformist) education. Not all professions have interns and I would argue our onerous 'minimum wage' is mostly to blame. I know I'm beating a dead horse here but it seems to me every time Congress passes a law to regulate the economy it just mucks up the process and makes it less efficient.
Montessori school has a decent rep. of encouraging originality. Of course, this is only for the very young children. Looking back in history, many of the truly innovative and brilliant were practically hermits. Less chance of being corrupted by humanity I suppose. Or maybe they were just weird. “I would sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” -- William F. Buckley, Jr., c. 1965 I'd say I agree but I'd pick Provo, Utah over Boston. I'm just sayin'. dj On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 1:14 AM, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > Einstein recommended impudence, and we might draw some ideas from > certain polarities between which he worked and lived. I sense this > would miss the point in some ways by individual focus. If common > sense were reliable we wouldn't need science and I wonder whether most > people even get the messages about just how hard observation is and so > on. Current forensic science, as accepted in our courts, is highly > unreliable, yet so totally reliable in CSI. Something is afoot in > rationalising terms (Freudian) in public "science" - and this involves > massive ignorance pretending it knows what science is about. > Standards in our universities are now dismally low and based on > massively outdated ideas of what might be good for and useful to > students. We lie to them about job prospects and more or less > everything. Incompetence and rigidity have turned to corruption. The > kids I used to teach genuinely believed degrees from my third rate > institution would buy them that BMW, yet their fate was as shelf- > stackers and call-centre fodder. Yet even in more prestigious places > the syllabus is the same sad dross. I don't want to elevate > creativity to something only a few academically capable can do - thus > I follow a sense that creativity must lie elsewhere in large part. My > guess is we could start with jobs that could have meaning and develop > productive skills - this is an essentially communal task. > > On 28 Feb, 20:17, Chris Jenkins <[email protected]> wrote: >> Academia's rigid walls seemed designed to supress dissent, and thus, >> originality. I wonder if I were an academic if I would have the courage to >> publish at all. Some of my heroes were crucified for their ideas, especially >> if any flaw at all was discovered in their proof. Hawking's 10 dimension >> version of M theory comes to mind...sending him into seclusion for ten >> years! Yet when he returned, he had 11 dimension M theory in hand, problem >> neatly solved. >> >> Conformity always has been the enforced ideal. >> >> >> >> [ Attached Message ]From:archytas <[email protected]>To:"\"Minds Eye\"" >> <[email protected]>Date:Sat, 28 Feb 2009 04:37:51 -0800 >> (PST)Local:Sat 28 Feb 2009 12:37Subject:[Mind's Eye] critical consensus >> >> Academics generally hold that your average plonker is about as likely >> to come up with anything original as a Pope is likely to be non- >> Catholic (Francis will no doubt tell us some were!) - this actuality >> runs somewhat in contrast with learning organisation myths and so on >> that stress that we are all originals and it's just school that beats >> it out of us. Quite why a bunch of inveterate plagiarists should hold >> such views on other people's originality, I'm not sure. I seem to >> have wasted much time discussing originality amongst people utterly >> devoid of it. I have a sense of what it might be and that we ascribe >> it to individuals falsely, as whatever we are as individuals is >> clearly linked to culture and groups. The literature on creativity is >> so boring and upitself as not to be widely accessible, but some facts >> are about in it. In teaching I haven't been able to do much more than >> offer people the chance to get into projects and self-expression and >> not drop on them for re-inventing wheels and so on - along with some >> nurture-criticism. I suspect something deeper than schooling (they >> school horses don't they?) is afoot in our not trusting to community >> creativity or allowing its greater expression. I find the notion of >> innovatory entrepreneurialism particularly suspect here, but there are >> no doubt babies and bathwaters. >> >> I wonder if we have any anecdotes or historical notions of innovation >> and its role in a more creative consensus on human living and what we >> are about or want to be about? I'd start by saying the powers that be >> are so frightened by innovation that they have shown and used >> instruments of torture. Descartes quipped somewhere that they had >> done dreadful things to Galileo - and he was an Italian - what might >> they do to a Frenchman? Locally, I have found that a range of >> votaries and bureaucrats quickly try to humiliate dissenting voices, >> rather than get at the real evidence of a situation. >> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
