Re: Possibly stupid question for you IBM mainframers... :-)

docdwarf_at_panix.com
Date: 07/21/04 

Date: 21 Jul 2004 07:56:22 -0400

In article <f5dda427.0407201908.31ac94b1@posting.google.com>,
Edward G. Nilges <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> wrote:
>docdwarf@panix.com wrote in message news:<cdcn18$2e7$1@panix5.panix.com>...
>> In article <f5dda427.0407171658.12054e2a@posting.google.com>,
>> Edward G. Nilges <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> wrote:

[snip]

>> >The educational system disseminates, as a mark of
>> >pseudo-enlightenment, the idea that "nothing makes sense when dealing
>> >with people".
>>
>> Another blanket assertion without support... consider that such things are
>> likely to be dismissed out-of-hand.

[snip]

>> >The education "game" has always been threatened by the book because in
>> >theory, some slob from the provinces could become that species of
>> >irritating auto-didact outside the university, closed of old to all
>> >but the wealthy EXCEPT when governments, in what has to be a
>> >high-handed manner, open the universities to talents from all social
>> >classes.
>>
>> Hmmmm... this seems to be... why, yes, another blanket assertion without
>> any documentation whatsoever.
>
>This is in fact self-reflexive "documentation" since it's clear you've
>been indoctrinated not to make sense without cites appropriate to the
>hard sciences.

Many things can seem to make sense without being true... isn't it
self-evident that heavier things will fall faster than lighter ones?
Person A asserts that heavier things fall faster than lighter one, Person
G says that objects which experience no resistance fall at the same
rate... where to go from here except to experimentation, observation and
conclusion?

An alternative to this seems to be Carrol's 'Caucus-Race', from 'Alice in
Wonderland', where everyone runs as they see fit and all are declared
winners.

>
>We become in other words well-trained not to make "blanket" assertions
>even when they are necessary by an ideology that dares not speak its
>name.

I have no idea who 'we' might be here... but ideology or no, anyone can
make a blanket assertion without any support or documentation. In that
wise all arguments based on such are equally valid... and equally invalid;
you have, then, apparently rendered you arguments - and the conclusions
derived therefrom - utterly indistinct from any others.

>
>>
>> >
>> >Thus the PhD candidate has always been expected, no matter what, to
>> >Oedipally overcome his professors in oral exchanges.
>>
>> Really? I thought that the PhD candidate, in order to be admitted into
>> 'the club', had to demonstrate to other members worthiness and that this
>> was, in essence, no different than a tinker or a cobbler presenting a
>> 'master-work' to the guild's authorities. Curious that one finds it
>> possible to see this simple test-of-skill in terms that include 'Oedipal'
>> and 'oral exchanges', though.
>
>The problem is that the process, in many instances, fails.

Another unsupported assertion.

>Ability to
>teach is never tested and even scholarship is inadequately tested, by
>a reifying process at second tier institutions.

Ability to teach is not what a dissertation committe is measuring; as for
the inadequate testing of scholarship... oh, look, another unsupported
assertion!

[snip]

>However, when I was asked to help nominate Klemke for a lifetime
>achievement award shortly before his death, I learned that he was
>denied the award by other faculty who'd felt he'd published...too
>much.

Ahhhh, evidence of a sort... but, appropriately matching earlier
statements I made, anecdotal evidence.

We now have evidence of equal quality - both are anecdotal - which leads
to contradictory conclusions. What do you believe the next step to be?

[snip]

>> >This may be a good thing. One needs to be able to think on one's feet.
>>
>> One might hope for chairs in the dissertation-chamber.
>
>With one hopes leg and arm restraints and a high-intensity lamp.
>Bitch-slapping might be a feature of some processes.

Someone of suitable credentials might be able to provide an analysis -
post-structural or otherwise - of the metaphors used to describe academia
which include 'Oedipal... oral performances', 'which dare not speak its
name' and 'bitch-slapping'.

I, with a good bit of relief, will leave such things to The Professionals.

>
>>
>> >
>> >However, it pre-judges such phenomena as "distance learning" to such
>> >an extent that instiutions are pre-characterized as diploma mills
>> >irrespective of the hard work of their students.
>>
>> Oh, look... another blanket generalisation without any support outside of
>> it's own asserting.
>
>Best kind there is if one lives in a corrupt society.

How interesting... the response to the pointing-out of a blanket
generalisation without any support outside of it's own asserting is...
another of the same.

There's a Classic Response to such things that my Sainted Father was
taught in the Bronx, permit me to trot it out here just to see how it
works... 'sez who?'

[snip]

>> >The REAL Socrates appears to have been more "Bakhtinian" than his
>> >amaneusis Plato who when he recorded "Socrates" was invested in the
>> >success of a written Academy. In other words...the corruption was
>> >written-in from the start.
>>
>> I am not sure what you are calling the 'REAL' (caps original) Socrates...
>> are you referring to the depiction in Xenophon? The answer to the
>> question of 'Vass you dere, Charlie' in regards to Socrates seems rather
>> obvious yet you seem to give credence to one depiction over another; this
>> might indicate nothing about what was 'REAL' but, more Rohrshach-like,
>> everything about the prejudices brought to the subject.
>>
>> (Oh... and that assertion about the 'REAL' Socrates had - little surprise
>> here - nothing in the way of support outside of itsself.)
>>
>Except, of course, the text.

Which text outside of itsself, please? Second request here.

DD

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