User:Janos Abel/sandbox

Space to experiment with things without messing up working pages

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Why limit the work to academia?

Seth Wolley posted a comment somewhere (and I cannot find it now) saying that in discussing the possibilities of this project we should think outside the box.

As a non-academic lifelong autodidact I also wonder if it is wise to restrict contributions from academia only. Citizenship is a universal concept. Ensuring that the citizenry is properly educated to fulfil their responsibilities as citizens is also a general concern. Academic institutions are subject to control by the prevailing power structure and are not necessarily able to explore the full spectrum of educational needs of a changing society.

If the general readership could also request contributions on the kinds of issues that may be outside the remits of a conventional academic interest, a balance could be struck between quality and range of contributions. -- Janos Abel 06:53, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

Janos said, ''Academic institutions are subject to control by the prevailing power structure and are not necessarily able to explore the full spectrum of educational needs of a changing society." While there are certainly pockets where this is true, I very strongly disagree with this as a sweeping generalization. Read some works by Michael Apple or Ira Shor sometime. As for limiting it to academia, how about instead experimenting with something like this? Stephen Ewen 19:28, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

Draft response.

Who am I to argue with someone with direct experience of academic life? Below is the hint of the current version of "control by the prevailing power structure".

"Among the issues addressed by Apple are the

advances of the New Right and the forms by which the conservative movements have been articulating themselves politically to impose their views about textbooks, national

curriculum, and teacher education."

Has not this kind of problem always existed in education--higher education especially? There are "tabo" areas in all academic courses mainly enforced by funding policies. In economics, entering areas like history of economic thought, monetary reform, land value taxation, are discouraged. Organisers of a conference at Harward University last year tried to exclude a paper critical of mainstream Islamic Finance. Professor Robert Ashford cannot teach Binary Economics. Noam Chomsky documents clearly how the intelligentsia functions as gatekeepers to protect the status quo. Token dissenting voices are allowed merely to maintain a semblance of academic freedom.

Political theorist?

Talk: Noam Chomsky Or notorious ideological activist? What are his qualifications as a political theorist? I will never forget the disruption to my own linguistics course at MIT by my professor, one of his protégés. He raged, "It's goin' down, man! The poor are gonna rise up in this city!" Thankfully, incidents were relatively isolated, and I did learn more about linguistics than ideology that semester. But when we did hear from Chomsky one day, he injected plenty of political ideology into his lecture about linguistics. <>< Tim Chambers 14:05, 7 April 2007 (CDT)

Why judge the man by one of his silly disciples who was obviously a simple minded Marxist revolutionary?

It would be more useful to discuss Chomsky's exposé of the way social control is exercised by the power structure throught the intelligentsia functioning as gatekeepers. -- Janos Abel 16:28, 15 June 2007 (CDT)

Yes, political theorist. He constructed a rigorous model of a three tier sociopolitical control structure: The ruling groups use the intelligentsia of a society to influece the thinking and behaviour of the rest of the population.

...he probes the policies, testing for consistency and with reference to what he believes is good for humans. His politically ‘extreme’ conclusions are derived from his use of evidence created and supplied by those in power... Recognition of the nature of Chomsky’s thought is a proper prerequisite for the kind of discussion about the quality and value of his political analysis that the issues deserve, but at present is sadly lacking.(Alison Edgley) -- Janos Abel 17:38, 24 June 2007 (CDT)