If I may commit a cardinal sin (comment before I have actually read the linked article) ...
This change of environment created by the communications "revolution" is at the back of a large part of my interest in where quality and truth (and understanding and trust and knowledge and wisdom etc) actually reside. The biggest risk I see with the ultimate in social decentralization of anarchic total democracy is that if there is no governance (even by imperfect systems of imperfect elected individuals) ... is that we are entirely in the hands of the information circulating - how easily it circulates and is assimilated by the greatest number, rather than whether there is any value in complexity and subtlety of direct experience. Pure memetics. (Solutions to this problem will also evolve, but the relative pace of change in communications compared to human psyche makes the possibilities scarily unpredictable. All DQ with few trusty latches.) Ian On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 7:35 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Whewee Arlo, > thanks a lot for your commentary. You gave me a lot to follow up on - first > I'm gonna look up "phylogenetic" and then start from there (and heck, I got > no problem with embedded parens - usta code (before I became a woodcutter)) > But I liked the snippets you pulled out; same ones I read and wanted to show > everybody. > > > > >> >> On a related point, here is an except from David Weinberger's article >> "Technology as a metaphor" >> >> "Societies tend to understand what it is to be human in terms of the >> technology they use every day. For example, when mechanical clocks were >> invented, the universe started looking like a grand clockwork. When steam >> engines transformed industry, we started understanding our psyches in terms >> of various pressures, and we started to talk about "venting." In the age of >> computers, we have inputs, process information, and produce outputs." >> (Weinberger) > > > > And I'd add Pirsig's software/hardware metaphor of consciousness to the > list. > > > >> >> The modern "technology used every day" is networks, the Internet and the >> WWW. Educational practices are also informed by this perspective, which in >> turn draws heavily from the economic modes of production as well. During the >> era of Fordist production, school rooms were neatly organized rows with >> precise manuals for when and how the students (factory workers) could act, >> the teacher (foreman) had his rules as well, and "learning" was tidied up >> into very organized assembly lines of controlled activity. Nowadays, in the >> "network" paradigm, the move is open classrooms, with students >> (co-participants) sitting a circle of open and unbounded participation with >> the teacher (also a co-participant), and "learning" is exploratory and messy >> and "guided" but not "directed". I should point out that this is hardly >> entirely "new", its actually a partial "retrogressive" return (love >> redundancies) to the open school rooms of pre-Fordist agrarian classrooms. >> > > > I agree with you and Gatto. In fact, he came and talked to our home study > parents council some 15 years ago and I got to drill him in person. > > > John > > > ------------ > The self is a point along a dynamic continuum, evolving toward Quality by > Choice. > ------------ > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
