Mr. Fonck's view of the parallels between the political zeitgeist of Hoffer's time and the present has forced me to think more deeply about the matter. I may have been too quick to run to the defense of Obama's politics of hope as a healthy and natural reaction to the Bush-Cheney politics of fear that Obama's supporters desperately sought escape from. My second look is occasioned by a reminder that in PS230 we read an article -- a Q article, in fact -- entitled "Emotional Experiences in Political Groups: The Case of the McCarthy Phenomenon," by Brown and Ellithorp. The McCarthy in this case is not Senator Joe from Wisconsin, but Senator Gene from Minnesota, the initial anti-Vietnam War candidate of 1968. The theory that Brown and Ellithorp are working with is Wilford Bion's. Bion was a psycho-analytic disciple of Melanie Klein, who incidentally was William Stephenson's analyst when he underwent pscyho-analysis early in his professional life -- before he left the UK to take a position at the University of Chicago. Bion's theory of groups distinguishes between the "work" group or the above-board task that any group is formed to address, on the one hand, and "basic assumption groups," the anxiety-driven, latent (typically unacknowledged) emotional needs that give rise to and are served by membership in the group, on the other hand. In the Brown-Ellithorp case, the McCarthy Movement would qualify as a social movement in Hoffer's sense and a work group, in Bion's terms, formed to win Eugene McCarthy the Democratic nomination in the 1968 primaries.
At the emotional level, Bion's work with groups at the Tavistock Institute in the UK lead him to postulate three different types of basic-assumption life: (1) "Fight-Flight," in which the group's manifest behavior can be best understood as if it is acting upon the assumption that it exists primarly to fight or flee from a common enemy; (2) "Pairing," in which the group is inclined to splinter into dyads, usually of the opposite sex, and to manifest a hopeful, forward-looking looking view of the future. Of Bion's types, pairing is the most difficult to comprehend, in part because of the alleged sexual undertones, and in part because the manifest optimism and hope is, in reality, a reaction-formation defense against the anxiety borne of despair in the present; and (3) "Dependency," an orientation which manifests itself as an immature, passive, and overly deferential zeitgeist on the part of group members toward a single leader. The group behaves as if its purpose is to worship and obey without question the dictates of its leader.
Those having had PS230 two Mays ago will remember that we incorporated some "Tavistock Groups" into the class meetings, and the so-called Study Groups were able to see fairly clearly these dynamics as they manifested themselves in a college classroom. For our purposes, here, however, the pertinent point is Bion's notion of the "pairing" group: its overt expression of hope is perhaps what Eric and Hoffer see as the common denominator in Hoffer's True Believer and contemporary social-movement politics, the 2008 campaign of Obama included. If excessive, "hope" -- or any other "positive" emotion for that matter -- may well be the manifestation of its opposite: in the midst of crushing despair, the attractiveness of hope -- excessive, unbalanced hope -- is that it's a strong defense against its opposite. It may also be that it's particularly so in the upper Midwest, a possibility that any reader of Garrison Keillor would sense immediately. If so, it might be at issue in the streets of Madison, Wisconsin now on the part of the anti-Walker forces particularly. But that is not to say the other emotional orientations described by Bion are not involved in that impasse. Clearly, all three and in all valences -- positive and negative -- are involved. Only time will tell which is the stronger.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Hoffer and Politics Today
I'm enjoying reading Hoffer, knowing his own personal story and realizing that this was Dwight Eisenhower's favorite book. This alone adds a touch of irony since the closest thing in today's politics -- or so it seems to me -- to the worrisome "true believer" is the radical right deniers of all that contradicts their dearly-held and unwavering faith: that, e.g., evolution and climate change are fictitious ploys of the left, abortion is murder while the death penalty is justice, healthcare reform is a threat to individual liberty while the Patriot Act is, well, patriotic. There is no doubt in my mind that Hoffer's ideas fit these folks pretty well: they are, at bottom, an unhappy lot--with the present, with themselves and with those who are less in need of the doctrinaire ideology of certainty they subscribe to. While I buy Hoffer's argument that these folks derive some psychic benefits from this mindset despite losing out in real benefits because their politics essentially strengthens the grip of the wealthy on our politics at the expense of most of the non-rich.
That said, I do believe that ours is an age where politics has been largely relegated to the margins and social movements of the left, notwithstanding the paranoid delusions of Beck and Limbaugh, are pretty much moribund, being replaced by a strange kind of estranged disengagement. In class, I likened this to the cumulative effects of all the psychotropic drugs -- xanax, prozaic, ritalin, etc. -- that didn't exist when Hoffer was writing. Sean's point about the effect of technology -- cell phones, email, texting, twitter and the like -- altering or defining down our social capital these days is well taken, and I think that might be part of it. If nothing else, it adds a distraction of gadgetry that makes political pursuits -- and any pursuits that demand concentrated effort -- difficult to sustain at the level that a social movement would require.
The events in Tunisia and Egypt (and perhaps Libya) are timely reminders that power is a relationship between the leaders and the led. And when the latter withdraw their support from the former, even when the Mubaraks and his ilk control the armed services, the fragile nature of the leaders' power is illuminated. So it is here. If we are ruled by an oligarchy of immense wealth, we have to admit that we are, to a degree, complicit in their power inasmuch as those who wield power are empowered by those over whom the power is wielded. The religious right's complicity here is fairly evident given the role of the religious right in the Republican base. But the absence of a real left, a progressive politics with the energy if not the numbers to take on the oligarchy is, in its own way, an element in the story of the unchallenged oligarchy. Tonight I blamed "biochemical desocialization" -- i.e., pharaceutical dependence -- for the pervasive levels of disengagement politically in the US today. You feel powerless and unhappy, tired and irritable? Take a pill -- or self-medicate with illicit drugs or alcohol. We see our lives as atomistically separated from one another, not as connected by economic or social forces, and if we suffer we do so as individuals, as Mr. Muldoon has reminded us from time to time. But we pay politically for these views and these habits. You might say that the result is not what worried Hoffer; instead of mindless social movements submerging the identities of individual members, we have what is basically a "zombie politics" -- pretty much dead from the neck up. As lost individuals we look for the elixir that will dull our pain, thereby perpetuating the political order that imprisons us under the rules that allow those with the gold to make the rules. I may feel otherwise upon finishing Hoffer, but for the time being, I'm inclined to see a deficit in the energy that got translated into social movement politics after WWII.
That said, I do believe that ours is an age where politics has been largely relegated to the margins and social movements of the left, notwithstanding the paranoid delusions of Beck and Limbaugh, are pretty much moribund, being replaced by a strange kind of estranged disengagement. In class, I likened this to the cumulative effects of all the psychotropic drugs -- xanax, prozaic, ritalin, etc. -- that didn't exist when Hoffer was writing. Sean's point about the effect of technology -- cell phones, email, texting, twitter and the like -- altering or defining down our social capital these days is well taken, and I think that might be part of it. If nothing else, it adds a distraction of gadgetry that makes political pursuits -- and any pursuits that demand concentrated effort -- difficult to sustain at the level that a social movement would require.
The events in Tunisia and Egypt (and perhaps Libya) are timely reminders that power is a relationship between the leaders and the led. And when the latter withdraw their support from the former, even when the Mubaraks and his ilk control the armed services, the fragile nature of the leaders' power is illuminated. So it is here. If we are ruled by an oligarchy of immense wealth, we have to admit that we are, to a degree, complicit in their power inasmuch as those who wield power are empowered by those over whom the power is wielded. The religious right's complicity here is fairly evident given the role of the religious right in the Republican base. But the absence of a real left, a progressive politics with the energy if not the numbers to take on the oligarchy is, in its own way, an element in the story of the unchallenged oligarchy. Tonight I blamed "biochemical desocialization" -- i.e., pharaceutical dependence -- for the pervasive levels of disengagement politically in the US today. You feel powerless and unhappy, tired and irritable? Take a pill -- or self-medicate with illicit drugs or alcohol. We see our lives as atomistically separated from one another, not as connected by economic or social forces, and if we suffer we do so as individuals, as Mr. Muldoon has reminded us from time to time. But we pay politically for these views and these habits. You might say that the result is not what worried Hoffer; instead of mindless social movements submerging the identities of individual members, we have what is basically a "zombie politics" -- pretty much dead from the neck up. As lost individuals we look for the elixir that will dull our pain, thereby perpetuating the political order that imprisons us under the rules that allow those with the gold to make the rules. I may feel otherwise upon finishing Hoffer, but for the time being, I'm inclined to see a deficit in the energy that got translated into social movement politics after WWII.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Politics in an unlikely venue
As I was sitting through Mass on Saturday evening, I never imagined I would hear a sermon about the political mess that we are involved in currently in the United States and what implications it has for spirituality in the country. Although I have never heard a Catholic Priest discuss politics (I believe they are "required" not to speak about the matter altogether). The Gospel reading was Matthew 18:9, not a very uplifting text that begins with, "And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." The Bible goes on to establish many laws and rules that people should follow in society in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
While I was unsure what the Priest would preach about, I never imagined he would indirectly link the Gospel to politics by claiming that most elected officials, namely the Republicans, have views on some subjects that are not congruent with their views on other subjects. His theory is that Conservatives are very focused on talking about being "Christian to the core," and very "God-loving" people, while in reality, the views that they have on the elimination of social programs, and opinions on military spending and torture in Guantanamo Bay, are tearing apart religion because of the mixed messages that they send to their base. He also used the example of Conservatives who are "pro-life through and through," only to be strongly in favor of the death penalty and military operations.
It does seem that future generations might have a personal quarrel with Conservative beliefs that have been taught to them by their parents, and what the church and Bible have to say about the same issues.
An interesting thing to think about.
Trevor
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Is Madison, WI: "Cairo of the Midwest?"
The current showdown in Madison, Wisconsin has generated a good deal of verbiage and rightly so: The newly elected Republican governor and the large Republican majorities in both state houses have proposed a draconian measure for dealing with a projected budget deficit of $137 million for the current fiscal year. The bill would essentially require state employees (members of AFSCME, which was formed in Madison in the 1930s, the state teachers' union and other state employees to pay for the deficit by having their pension and health care benefits cut by as much as $12,000 per individual per year; but the biggest issue is that the bill effectively curtails the collective bargaining rights of state workers and would require annual votes by workers to endorse their union and its leadership over the small remants that would be negotiated in the state employees' contracts.
When Scott Walker was elected in November, with big corporate funding courtesy of Citizens United, he called for a special session of the legislature to pass tax breaks for those coporations who'd helped him by ads. In fact, the money spent in these tax expenditures is almost exactly the size of the deficit that Walker is trying to pay for on the backs of state workers. Teachers in Madison called in sick in huge numbers on Thursday and Friday, and today, the crowds grew to a size of about 70,000, most of them supporting the workers but some, bussed in today by Tea Partiers and the Club for Growth, supporting the governor. Given the record number of Republicans elected to state gubernatorial and legislative offices in November, the situation in Wisconsin is duplicated elsewhere or is on the docket, waiting to see what happens in the Dairy State. Prostests by teachers and state workers are in the offing for tomorrow in Indiana and Ohio. Given the upper distribution of wealth in fewer and fewer hands over the past 12 years, and the prolonged recession that has depleted state treasuries, these states have become the new battlefield for the soul of our politics. If Wisconsin goes the way of the governor, the middle class members of the public service sector will be everywhere under threat. In a post Citizens United World these unions are the only political foroces standing between complete corporate control of the campaign cash playing field and the uneven playing field we already have.
Seldom do our politics get so graphically displayed and the class warfare that has been concealed by most press accounts of the past ten years get the exposure that Wisconsin's case provides. It's a big deal.
When Scott Walker was elected in November, with big corporate funding courtesy of Citizens United, he called for a special session of the legislature to pass tax breaks for those coporations who'd helped him by ads. In fact, the money spent in these tax expenditures is almost exactly the size of the deficit that Walker is trying to pay for on the backs of state workers. Teachers in Madison called in sick in huge numbers on Thursday and Friday, and today, the crowds grew to a size of about 70,000, most of them supporting the workers but some, bussed in today by Tea Partiers and the Club for Growth, supporting the governor. Given the record number of Republicans elected to state gubernatorial and legislative offices in November, the situation in Wisconsin is duplicated elsewhere or is on the docket, waiting to see what happens in the Dairy State. Prostests by teachers and state workers are in the offing for tomorrow in Indiana and Ohio. Given the upper distribution of wealth in fewer and fewer hands over the past 12 years, and the prolonged recession that has depleted state treasuries, these states have become the new battlefield for the soul of our politics. If Wisconsin goes the way of the governor, the middle class members of the public service sector will be everywhere under threat. In a post Citizens United World these unions are the only political foroces standing between complete corporate control of the campaign cash playing field and the uneven playing field we already have.
Seldom do our politics get so graphically displayed and the class warfare that has been concealed by most press accounts of the past ten years get the exposure that Wisconsin's case provides. It's a big deal.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Were We Duped?
To finish up the comment on Eric's question, I will say I feel duped by Obama's economic policy, in spite of the changed circumstances I'd cited earlier. The disappointment was not just mine. Most progressive Democrats, from Paul Krugman to Robert Kuttner, have written about Obama's appointments of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner as key economic advisers as terribly "Rubinesque" (after Bob Rubin, the Clinton Democrat guru of Wall Street that championed the scuttling of the Glass-Steagle separation of commercial and investment banks in 1999). The President had different economic campaign advisers, including Paul Volcker, the former Chair of the Fed before Greenspan, a huge critic of Rubin's policies. So I and others have a deep sense of being sold a bill of goods, that Obama ran as a populist and has governed as a Eisenhower Republican or a Rubin Democrat, bowing to the wishes of his biggest campaign contributors, namely the wizards of Wall St. who sent us into this never-ending recession.
But there is another side even to this story. The Court ruled on Citizens United and, like it or not, Obama has calculated that he needs to raise $1 billion for 2012 to be reelected. He will not get that kind of money from people like you and me. Here, the 2010 spending records are instructive: 7 of the 10 biggest spenders for the midterm election were rightwing corporations. The only pro-Democratic contributors in the top ten were unions, AFSCME especially. That's why what's happening today in the streets --actually on State Street -- in Madison, WI is so important. What happens or not with the proposed budget-balancing bill in Wisconsin is the most important political outcome in our history in decades. If the Governor wins, public-worker unions will be busted and, in a post-Citizens United world, the dominoes will fall in those states with Republican governors and legislatures were elected. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the country. That is the world we are facing now as voters, or non-voters. So were we duped? We frankly don't have many choices before us until corporate money is re-regulated and that won't happen with this Supreme Court and this House of Representatives without massive efforts from the grassroots demanding that Congress fix this. For suggestions how, check out FixCongressFirst.Org and write your congressperson.
But there is another side even to this story. The Court ruled on Citizens United and, like it or not, Obama has calculated that he needs to raise $1 billion for 2012 to be reelected. He will not get that kind of money from people like you and me. Here, the 2010 spending records are instructive: 7 of the 10 biggest spenders for the midterm election were rightwing corporations. The only pro-Democratic contributors in the top ten were unions, AFSCME especially. That's why what's happening today in the streets --actually on State Street -- in Madison, WI is so important. What happens or not with the proposed budget-balancing bill in Wisconsin is the most important political outcome in our history in decades. If the Governor wins, public-worker unions will be busted and, in a post-Citizens United world, the dominoes will fall in those states with Republican governors and legislatures were elected. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the country. That is the world we are facing now as voters, or non-voters. So were we duped? We frankly don't have many choices before us until corporate money is re-regulated and that won't happen with this Supreme Court and this House of Representatives without massive efforts from the grassroots demanding that Congress fix this. For suggestions how, check out FixCongressFirst.Org and write your congressperson.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Poltics of Hope vs. Fear
I'd take issue with part of Eric's assessment: Of course Obama's campaign incorporated hope as a key ingredient and emotional draw in 2008. After all, we'd all suffered through eight years of lies and bullying and loss of respect in the world at large, a world that was rightly mystified by the descent of our politics into a cesspool of fear and paranoia. If the Bush era didn't beget a social movement buoyed by hope, nothing could. Obama simply rode the wave into the White House.
My own problem with Obama is that there wasn't much politically underneath the hope. By that I mean I from the get-go had deep suspicions about Barack Obama's politics. If he truly believed that talking up a post-partisan version of politics could put an end to the poisonous polarization, then he ought not to have been elected. What troubled me then and troubles me more now is that Obama seems not to have much in the way of a policy foundation or objective to his notion of politics: it's all "process," lovey-dovey "hold hands and march off into the sunset, singing kumbaya" understanding that, by its very nature, is anti-political. And to the effect that the hope he embodied invited us to "escape from politics" as a conflict-laden, heavy-lifting endeavor, I'd agree with Eric to a point. But the agreement is not that hope is by itself a bad thing; it's that it's not enough; and when it's used to disguise the fact that there are few if any policy ends that Obama sees as worthy enough not to trade away -- tax cuts for the rich, a public option for health care reform -- it's a problem. But by itself, hope is certainly preferable to fear as a emotive frame for political leadership.
In my view the hope that Hoffer is referring to is more aptly embodied by the Tea Party types who insist that Orrin Hatch, Olympia Snowe, or Richard Lugar aren't purely conservative enough to run again under their party's banner. It's more true of what Krugman calls the "Free Market Fundamentalists" -- i.e., the true believers in an economic mantra that has failed repeatedly in thirty years since it was introduced by Ronald Reagan. The kind of hope that energizes the true believers in this snake oil is, in my view, not even real hope. Instead, it is a selfish, intolerant alibi that offers yet another escape from politics and demonizes public life while worshipping at the alter on a non-existent free market that exalts privatization -- in public policy and in political psychology, where a turn away from politics to an embrace of the hallowed private sector produces a psychic privatization that is far worse than the hope Obama embodied.
My own problem with Obama is that there wasn't much politically underneath the hope. By that I mean I from the get-go had deep suspicions about Barack Obama's politics. If he truly believed that talking up a post-partisan version of politics could put an end to the poisonous polarization, then he ought not to have been elected. What troubled me then and troubles me more now is that Obama seems not to have much in the way of a policy foundation or objective to his notion of politics: it's all "process," lovey-dovey "hold hands and march off into the sunset, singing kumbaya" understanding that, by its very nature, is anti-political. And to the effect that the hope he embodied invited us to "escape from politics" as a conflict-laden, heavy-lifting endeavor, I'd agree with Eric to a point. But the agreement is not that hope is by itself a bad thing; it's that it's not enough; and when it's used to disguise the fact that there are few if any policy ends that Obama sees as worthy enough not to trade away -- tax cuts for the rich, a public option for health care reform -- it's a problem. But by itself, hope is certainly preferable to fear as a emotive frame for political leadership.
In my view the hope that Hoffer is referring to is more aptly embodied by the Tea Party types who insist that Orrin Hatch, Olympia Snowe, or Richard Lugar aren't purely conservative enough to run again under their party's banner. It's more true of what Krugman calls the "Free Market Fundamentalists" -- i.e., the true believers in an economic mantra that has failed repeatedly in thirty years since it was introduced by Ronald Reagan. The kind of hope that energizes the true believers in this snake oil is, in my view, not even real hope. Instead, it is a selfish, intolerant alibi that offers yet another escape from politics and demonizes public life while worshipping at the alter on a non-existent free market that exalts privatization -- in public policy and in political psychology, where a turn away from politics to an embrace of the hallowed private sector produces a psychic privatization that is far worse than the hope Obama embodied.
Interesting Paragraph from The True Believer... Did we fall for this?
I got bored and started reading The True Believer, this was certainly a part of the book that stood out to me:
"On the other hand, extravagant hope, even when not backed by actual power, is likely to generate a most reckless daring. For the hopeful can draw strength from the most ridiculous sources of power- a slogan, a word, a button. No faith is potent unless it is also faith in the future; unless it has a millenial component."
Page 9 of True Believer
My first instinct when looking at this section of the book was "did we fall for that?" I will be honest with you, everything in this chunk of the book certainly fits in well with the Obama Campaign that a good majority of us did vote for in either the caucus or election. In my opinion, I feel like we had a great amount of extravagant hope that something could be changed so quickly, when in all reality, the previous 8 years had made sure that that was not going to happen. I also greatly agree with the part of the paragraph that speaks about how the hopeful cling to sources of power. I believe that people were motivated by the thought of "change", a word thrown around so frequently during the election. I can certainly say that looking back on it now, I can definitely see how this makes sense.
The main reason I wanted to post this blog was to see if anyone else had a standpoint on what is being said here. I will be honest with you, political party aside it is something that concerns me when I look at the amazing parallels here, even with the book being from the 50's. I will admit, if this is truly the case (which I have a very good thought to believe it is), that is a very scary thought. It only further proves that people are not voting on the issues, they are voting on the motivation factor, and what they can hang on to.
Scary Stuff.
"On the other hand, extravagant hope, even when not backed by actual power, is likely to generate a most reckless daring. For the hopeful can draw strength from the most ridiculous sources of power- a slogan, a word, a button. No faith is potent unless it is also faith in the future; unless it has a millenial component."
Page 9 of True Believer
My first instinct when looking at this section of the book was "did we fall for that?" I will be honest with you, everything in this chunk of the book certainly fits in well with the Obama Campaign that a good majority of us did vote for in either the caucus or election. In my opinion, I feel like we had a great amount of extravagant hope that something could be changed so quickly, when in all reality, the previous 8 years had made sure that that was not going to happen. I also greatly agree with the part of the paragraph that speaks about how the hopeful cling to sources of power. I believe that people were motivated by the thought of "change", a word thrown around so frequently during the election. I can certainly say that looking back on it now, I can definitely see how this makes sense.
The main reason I wanted to post this blog was to see if anyone else had a standpoint on what is being said here. I will be honest with you, political party aside it is something that concerns me when I look at the amazing parallels here, even with the book being from the 50's. I will admit, if this is truly the case (which I have a very good thought to believe it is), that is a very scary thought. It only further proves that people are not voting on the issues, they are voting on the motivation factor, and what they can hang on to.
Scary Stuff.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Course-Based Projects
Along with the active "democratic deliberation" that is supposed to lead to our reading for Part II of the capstone, we are obligated or empowered -- depending on your angle of vision -- to design from scratch "original research projects" on issues of interest. For reasons of practicality as well as epistemology, the prevailing practice is to conduct a series of Q studies, in the process learning about the logistics and concrete steps taken to identify a problem, sample theoretically from a "concourse" (the term was used by Dryzek; it simply refers to the volume of subjective discussion surrounding a given topic) to construct a Q sample (to be administered to members of our class and to other selected respondents, known as a P-set in Q), enter data and oversee its analysis in available freeware designed specifically for the analysis of Q sorts, how to write up a study, and share the findings with classmates and others who may be interested.
The range of topics is virtually infinite since subjectivity is everywhere in the political and social worlds. Some have expressed an interest in the issues -- or raw nerve -- struck by the "Academically Adrift" book claiming to document the failure of college for a huge percentage of students in critical thinking, analytical reasoning and writing. This volume has spawned a vast concourse of commentary--one in the Room for Debate section of the New York Times that has six pages of online comments added by readers, too--and it cries out for a Q study. Others have expressed an interest in several other topics that are well-suited for Q studies, e.g., the nature of the Tea Party (from the inside out), why Sarah Palin fans are drawn to her, where the Republican (and Democratic) party is or should be at this point in time. What, from the standpoint of ordinary citizens, is at the root of the US's current "governing crisis?" What is distinctive, if anything, about liberal learning--in principle, and/or in practice here at WC? What can we discover about the nature of student expectations about their educations here -- what they'll study, how, with what levels of rigor, with what pay-offs? And how do these expectations differ across and within majors, how do they get "communicated"?
All of these are off-the-top suggestions. There are dozens more of possibilities that we can devise and execute in the time remaining. In the event that two persons -- no more that two -- wish to pursue a collaborative inquiry, I'm open to the possibility providing the problem is clearly defined and can profit from a genuinely collaborative examination.
For those not familiar with Q at all, except perhaps from performing Q sorts for the Intro class, I will be sharing some brief primers electronically. For those whose curiosity is endowed with motivational energy, I'd recommend Steve Brown's Political Subjectivity (Yale, 1980), or Bruce McKeown & Dan Thomas, Q Methodology (Sage, 1988), copies of which are in the library or available for loan by me.
Think about behavior that's of interest to you and it's more than likely amenable to study by Q.
The principal organization that fosters professional conferences on Q is simply QMETHOD.ORG, and you can browse the link to the journal published by the International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity (ISSSS), Operant Subjectivity. There are some 34 issues with abstracts online to give you an idea of the sort of stuff that has been done. My guess is that there will be some of you who "get it" even though Q represents an alternative approach to science than that discussed by Ricci and featured in most textbooks.
The range of topics is virtually infinite since subjectivity is everywhere in the political and social worlds. Some have expressed an interest in the issues -- or raw nerve -- struck by the "Academically Adrift" book claiming to document the failure of college for a huge percentage of students in critical thinking, analytical reasoning and writing. This volume has spawned a vast concourse of commentary--one in the Room for Debate section of the New York Times that has six pages of online comments added by readers, too--and it cries out for a Q study. Others have expressed an interest in several other topics that are well-suited for Q studies, e.g., the nature of the Tea Party (from the inside out), why Sarah Palin fans are drawn to her, where the Republican (and Democratic) party is or should be at this point in time. What, from the standpoint of ordinary citizens, is at the root of the US's current "governing crisis?" What is distinctive, if anything, about liberal learning--in principle, and/or in practice here at WC? What can we discover about the nature of student expectations about their educations here -- what they'll study, how, with what levels of rigor, with what pay-offs? And how do these expectations differ across and within majors, how do they get "communicated"?
All of these are off-the-top suggestions. There are dozens more of possibilities that we can devise and execute in the time remaining. In the event that two persons -- no more that two -- wish to pursue a collaborative inquiry, I'm open to the possibility providing the problem is clearly defined and can profit from a genuinely collaborative examination.
For those not familiar with Q at all, except perhaps from performing Q sorts for the Intro class, I will be sharing some brief primers electronically. For those whose curiosity is endowed with motivational energy, I'd recommend Steve Brown's Political Subjectivity (Yale, 1980), or Bruce McKeown & Dan Thomas, Q Methodology (Sage, 1988), copies of which are in the library or available for loan by me.
Think about behavior that's of interest to you and it's more than likely amenable to study by Q.
The principal organization that fosters professional conferences on Q is simply QMETHOD.ORG, and you can browse the link to the journal published by the International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity (ISSSS), Operant Subjectivity. There are some 34 issues with abstracts online to give you an idea of the sort of stuff that has been done. My guess is that there will be some of you who "get it" even though Q represents an alternative approach to science than that discussed by Ricci and featured in most textbooks.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
I just ran into this idea -- the so-called Dunning-Kruger effect -- about a cognitive bias that operates with great frequency among the less competent among us. Its dynamics are such that their incompotence is matched with paradoxically elevated self-confidence because they are clueless in processing feedback that is accurate about their actual comptences.
It seems perfectly sensible to me: so many of those people who demonstrate so much confidence in themselves often seem the least qualified to hold such high self-confidence whereas those with the most grounds for self-cofidence based on their competence often fall paradoxically short of the cluelessly self-confident.
This notion offers a way to look at the earlier conundrum regarding the apparent willingess of Democrats to compromise when Republicans won't. It's kind of saying, "beware of those who have no reason to doubt their own competence and self-confidence." If you google it, the wikipedia article in resonably informative. Is this something you've encountered in you psych classes Mr Engeset?
It seems perfectly sensible to me: so many of those people who demonstrate so much confidence in themselves often seem the least qualified to hold such high self-confidence whereas those with the most grounds for self-cofidence based on their competence often fall paradoxically short of the cluelessly self-confident.
This notion offers a way to look at the earlier conundrum regarding the apparent willingess of Democrats to compromise when Republicans won't. It's kind of saying, "beware of those who have no reason to doubt their own competence and self-confidence." If you google it, the wikipedia article in resonably informative. Is this something you've encountered in you psych classes Mr Engeset?
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Future of PS460, 2011
Today I was informed by several members of this term's PS460 of some crucial details implicit in Mr. Engeset's summary of what transpired in the seminar's meeting last week in my absence. My curiosity is particularly focused on the "pods" proposed in Mr. Engeset's summary. By pods, I'm referring to a proposal from the group that the post-Ricci future of this capstone be divided in such a way that different factions of the eleven members of the class will each read different volumes and after completing them "report" their learnings to others who will reciprocate by reporting on their selected volumes.
This, folks, is simply a non-starter. The "pod" approach is unacceptable. It's been tried and it's failed on both occasions I mistakenly consented to it. It's an "excuse" for not doing the work that is "required" to pass or earn a grade higher than a D in this course. And apparently I've not made it clear enough to all members of the seminar that the PDF grading format is not one that I shy away from utilizing for those who, for whatever reason, feel that they can hide in the woodwork, let others carry the load of interrogating Ricci, Lindblom, Walker, or Dryzek -- or anyone else in the class for that matter -- and receive a P for essentially going through the motions without so much as giving a thought to one's own obligation to the class as a whole other than to gripe at the few proposals that have been put forward. This won't do. We've had serious nominations of volumes by only Isaiah; a mention of one by Trevor, and none from anyone else. The old adage that attends the choice of non-voting is applicable here: if you don't put any ideas on the Table, you don't have the right to bitch about the ideas that have been proposed. The IR faction is understandably interested in having our reading represent international politics and rightly so. But not a single title has been proposed by the IR folks in more than five weeks. Likewise, with those of you who've chosen to by-pass entirely or virtually entirely the Obamadogs forum for posing possibilities: Not a word on where we might want to devote our collective energies in the bulk of 460--either in reading or writing.
Which makes me wonder: Is it assumed that the "negotiated" nature of the undefined part of the class is something beyond the role of students to play? That I'm not serious about enforcing the rules--i.e., submitting D's and F's for those who have shown hardly any evidence of having read let alone having understood Professor Ricci's claims. We have had at least one member of this class lament the fact that he's not really been challenged in his years at Wartburg and therefore feels cheated. We've had a thread online pertaining the the pathetic findings that nearly half of college students make no measurable progress in critical thought, analytical reasoning or writing ability in their first two years and over a third make no measurable progress over four years. My question is: where have those of you who have reasons to share this disappointment been on Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 9:30? Where have you been in struggling with the readings to prepare yourself to at least be responsible for your own learning and thinking -- leaving aside for the moment whether we all have obligations as class members to anyone other than ourselves?
It's no secret to me that, so far, this year's experiment has fallen way, way short of expectations of what is capstone-level participation, engagement and learning. My best guess is that this is no secret to you either. What is most disconcerting about that is that it is not inevitable -- indeed, just as Ricci's "tragedy" need not be so, simply because in a democracy the citizens exercise free agency and make of their freedom what they will, so it is with higher education when it reaches, allegedly, this level. It is, to put it in cliche terms, exactly what you make of it: nothing more, nothing less. Having been fortunate enough to have "negotiated" with groups that have realized this on their own, it's disappointing in the max to witness those groups unwilling to extend the little bit of personal effort and, perhaps discomfort, that it takes to make this an educational experience worthy of pride rather than embarrassment in retrospect.
Kapiche?
DT
This, folks, is simply a non-starter. The "pod" approach is unacceptable. It's been tried and it's failed on both occasions I mistakenly consented to it. It's an "excuse" for not doing the work that is "required" to pass or earn a grade higher than a D in this course. And apparently I've not made it clear enough to all members of the seminar that the PDF grading format is not one that I shy away from utilizing for those who, for whatever reason, feel that they can hide in the woodwork, let others carry the load of interrogating Ricci, Lindblom, Walker, or Dryzek -- or anyone else in the class for that matter -- and receive a P for essentially going through the motions without so much as giving a thought to one's own obligation to the class as a whole other than to gripe at the few proposals that have been put forward. This won't do. We've had serious nominations of volumes by only Isaiah; a mention of one by Trevor, and none from anyone else. The old adage that attends the choice of non-voting is applicable here: if you don't put any ideas on the Table, you don't have the right to bitch about the ideas that have been proposed. The IR faction is understandably interested in having our reading represent international politics and rightly so. But not a single title has been proposed by the IR folks in more than five weeks. Likewise, with those of you who've chosen to by-pass entirely or virtually entirely the Obamadogs forum for posing possibilities: Not a word on where we might want to devote our collective energies in the bulk of 460--either in reading or writing.
Which makes me wonder: Is it assumed that the "negotiated" nature of the undefined part of the class is something beyond the role of students to play? That I'm not serious about enforcing the rules--i.e., submitting D's and F's for those who have shown hardly any evidence of having read let alone having understood Professor Ricci's claims. We have had at least one member of this class lament the fact that he's not really been challenged in his years at Wartburg and therefore feels cheated. We've had a thread online pertaining the the pathetic findings that nearly half of college students make no measurable progress in critical thought, analytical reasoning or writing ability in their first two years and over a third make no measurable progress over four years. My question is: where have those of you who have reasons to share this disappointment been on Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 9:30? Where have you been in struggling with the readings to prepare yourself to at least be responsible for your own learning and thinking -- leaving aside for the moment whether we all have obligations as class members to anyone other than ourselves?
It's no secret to me that, so far, this year's experiment has fallen way, way short of expectations of what is capstone-level participation, engagement and learning. My best guess is that this is no secret to you either. What is most disconcerting about that is that it is not inevitable -- indeed, just as Ricci's "tragedy" need not be so, simply because in a democracy the citizens exercise free agency and make of their freedom what they will, so it is with higher education when it reaches, allegedly, this level. It is, to put it in cliche terms, exactly what you make of it: nothing more, nothing less. Having been fortunate enough to have "negotiated" with groups that have realized this on their own, it's disappointing in the max to witness those groups unwilling to extend the little bit of personal effort and, perhaps discomfort, that it takes to make this an educational experience worthy of pride rather than embarrassment in retrospect.
Kapiche?
DT
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Injustice with Underwear is Injustice Every Where
Well, he we are on Thursday of a week when the Trumpet announced days ago that the "Underwear Thief" has been apprehended. The article does not identify the alleged culprit by name, but Chief of Security John Meyers is quoted as saying, in effect, "it's not someone you'd imagine would being doing such a thing." Which naturally leads me to wonder: who among the students I've had in the past two or three years is someone I'd not be surprised to discover was the perpetrator? And, why is the community so steadfastly committed to keeping anonymous the identity of an individual alleged to have stolen some 350 or so pairs of (mostly women's) underwear? It may be admirable that the journalists who broke this story were protecting sources, i.e., persons who, if identified, would be put at risk of retaliation and persecution by vigilantes in the community who regard panty thefts on a par with felonious assault. But is that really a prospect?
Is it really violating an unwritten ethical obligation -- or a legal coda -- to publicly name the accused perpetrator? If so, why? For fear of embarrassment--of the perpetrator and/or the identifier? I know that we are confronted with a host of heavy issues and dilemmas on this blog, but we're also members of a committed colony of behavioral scientists and, well, we're confronted here with a case of unusual, perhaps disturbed, behavior. Not knowing the accused's identity makes it hard to speculate on whether this is an instance of unusual behavior rooted in dispositional eccentricities or even more eccentric environmental pressures. Moreover, don't innocent members of the community have a right to know if and when and who when it has been determined that a particular member of the same community poses a threat to their intimate apparel's safety?
Inquiring minds may or may not want to know.
Is it really violating an unwritten ethical obligation -- or a legal coda -- to publicly name the accused perpetrator? If so, why? For fear of embarrassment--of the perpetrator and/or the identifier? I know that we are confronted with a host of heavy issues and dilemmas on this blog, but we're also members of a committed colony of behavioral scientists and, well, we're confronted here with a case of unusual, perhaps disturbed, behavior. Not knowing the accused's identity makes it hard to speculate on whether this is an instance of unusual behavior rooted in dispositional eccentricities or even more eccentric environmental pressures. Moreover, don't innocent members of the community have a right to know if and when and who when it has been determined that a particular member of the same community poses a threat to their intimate apparel's safety?
Inquiring minds may or may not want to know.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
College Today, cont'd.
I tried to comment on Dani D's comment on this post, but it wouldn't let me comment--only edit the post. So I'm posting to comment on the issue she and Trevor raised about the role and import of extra-curriculars in college today. Since our youngest daughter is a high school senior and her school was cancelled today and now for tomorrow as well due to weather, she is "lost." Now, this is odd to me. She used to use spare time to read (voraciously) for pleasure. But as a dual-enrolled HS senior taking classes at UNI as well as rehearsing for the Spring play, and working parttime at Porter's Camera, her days go from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm and sometimes later. She has apparently become addicted to this crazy every-minute-accounted-for schedule, so that she no longer seeks the free time out that allows her to read (or even to write). This is scary to me. If she's accepted to one of the top schools she hopes to attend in the fall, I'm fearful she'll be like many of the students I get in IS101 in their first term of college: they're so used to having their days filled up with scheduled activities, they don't know what to do with their "free time." They certainly, in most cases anyway, don't use it to study, at least judging from their performance on class-based appraisals. And apparently a good deal of time is spent socializing in one form or another -- whether it be XBoxing to binge-ing, the inability to handle the transition is too often the sad story of those who are among the 45% who allegedly make slight progress in academically-related skills during the first two years of college.
Now, this situation is a bit different than the one Trevor and Dani are describing. They're talking about students, I think, whose days are patterned like theirs: booked from morning to night with classes, student senate, work-study, play or choir practice, performances, etc. with precious little time left that might be called "free." I know their pattern is not uncommon for many students at Wartburg. Just try to schedule a meeting for a May Term group or a honor society with a dozen students during the term. Faculty are the same way: no time works for everyone. In our visits to college campuses starting last year with our daughter, we discovered that the very best schools had class schedules that required less in-class seat time than Wartburg by far. In fact, two of the highest ranked schools had first years taking only three classes per term rather than four. The time in class was far less per course than here; the limits on students per class were at 14 or fewer and the reading and writing requirments were higher as well. The idea was that class time would NOT be used to repeat what was in the texts, a wise policy in my view, and students would be expected to assume a lion's share of the time ensuring their own learning agendas were addressed in the class discussions. There was clearly an "ethos" in the air that said "this is how we do it here" and we're proud of it.
One of those schools, Sarah Lawrence College, by the way, does not give grades for classes. Rather they use the written assessments that the old Chrysalis program at Wartburg did. And yet the workload and the ethos were so proudly anchored in a sense of challenge and rigor, grades were seen as superfluous if not insulting.
What I want to suggest is that maybe Wartburg's ethos is a bit out of whack. I am not against extra-curriculars. I went to college to play basketball, not to study political science. But I am amazed at how little "free time" our students (and often faculty) actually have. And I'm curious: Are we somehow afraid that, if left to their devices, the faction that can't make the shift to college because they have too much free time on their hands is watching opportunties slip by because they are not ready to be free any meaningful sense. If they were, they'd be availing themselves of the reading they're not doing or the study groups they're not forming. But they think to be free is to party and play XBOX--or so it seems. Likewise, for some, like our daughter who has been conditioned to have every moment of every day filled with somekind of obligation or scheduled activity, how are you supposed to learn to be free? If there is a part of all the busy-ness that is aimed at perpetuating habits in school, it's no wonder our first two years are having so many adjustment issues. Young people aren't apparently used to being free in any meaningful sense and so some react by overdoing it with scheduled activities that are indivdidually valuable, but added together, take a toll on academic progress; others who haven't know real freedom try Eric Fromm's "escape from freedom" by overpartying and dulling the pain that accompanies guilt over irresponsible choices one isn't used to making. In either case, it's a source of drag on what this school could be if we had more of the ethos that here is where community norms require that I hold up my end of the bargain in sustaining a genuine learning community worth its name and its commercial cost. DT
Now, this situation is a bit different than the one Trevor and Dani are describing. They're talking about students, I think, whose days are patterned like theirs: booked from morning to night with classes, student senate, work-study, play or choir practice, performances, etc. with precious little time left that might be called "free." I know their pattern is not uncommon for many students at Wartburg. Just try to schedule a meeting for a May Term group or a honor society with a dozen students during the term. Faculty are the same way: no time works for everyone. In our visits to college campuses starting last year with our daughter, we discovered that the very best schools had class schedules that required less in-class seat time than Wartburg by far. In fact, two of the highest ranked schools had first years taking only three classes per term rather than four. The time in class was far less per course than here; the limits on students per class were at 14 or fewer and the reading and writing requirments were higher as well. The idea was that class time would NOT be used to repeat what was in the texts, a wise policy in my view, and students would be expected to assume a lion's share of the time ensuring their own learning agendas were addressed in the class discussions. There was clearly an "ethos" in the air that said "this is how we do it here" and we're proud of it.
One of those schools, Sarah Lawrence College, by the way, does not give grades for classes. Rather they use the written assessments that the old Chrysalis program at Wartburg did. And yet the workload and the ethos were so proudly anchored in a sense of challenge and rigor, grades were seen as superfluous if not insulting.
What I want to suggest is that maybe Wartburg's ethos is a bit out of whack. I am not against extra-curriculars. I went to college to play basketball, not to study political science. But I am amazed at how little "free time" our students (and often faculty) actually have. And I'm curious: Are we somehow afraid that, if left to their devices, the faction that can't make the shift to college because they have too much free time on their hands is watching opportunties slip by because they are not ready to be free any meaningful sense. If they were, they'd be availing themselves of the reading they're not doing or the study groups they're not forming. But they think to be free is to party and play XBOX--or so it seems. Likewise, for some, like our daughter who has been conditioned to have every moment of every day filled with somekind of obligation or scheduled activity, how are you supposed to learn to be free? If there is a part of all the busy-ness that is aimed at perpetuating habits in school, it's no wonder our first two years are having so many adjustment issues. Young people aren't apparently used to being free in any meaningful sense and so some react by overdoing it with scheduled activities that are indivdidually valuable, but added together, take a toll on academic progress; others who haven't know real freedom try Eric Fromm's "escape from freedom" by overpartying and dulling the pain that accompanies guilt over irresponsible choices one isn't used to making. In either case, it's a source of drag on what this school could be if we had more of the ethos that here is where community norms require that I hold up my end of the bargain in sustaining a genuine learning community worth its name and its commercial cost. DT
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