Thursday, May 06, 2010

Notes on Meaning (part twelve)

From an article about Unschooling
Unschooling, by contrast, starts with the realization that you 'own' your time, and have the opportunity and responsibility to use it in ways that are meaningful and stimulating for you. When you have this opportunity, you just naturally learn a great deal, about things you care about, things that will inevitably be useful to you in making a life and a living. Your learning environment is the whole world, and you learn what and when you want, undirected by curricula, textbooks, alarm clocks and school bells. You develop deep peer relationships around areas of common interest, once you're allowed to explore and discover what those areas of interest are. And the Internet and online gaming allow you to make those relationships anywhere in the world, to draw on the brightest experts on the planet, and to communicate powerfully with like-minded, curious people of every age, culture and ideology.
Once again, fellow netizens, do you SEE?

A child is being asked to disregard how the world works, to totally disregard patterns of authority, and to be a narcissist.

And I'm no fan of rote learning, but this is a solution worse than the problem.

The author just doesn't get it.
If every child was unschooled -- given the chance to explore and discover and learn in the real world what they love to do, what they're uniquely good at doing, and what the world needs that they care about -- then we would have a world of self-confident, creative, informed, empowered, networked entrepreneurs doing work that needs to be done, successfully. We would have armies of people collaborating to solve the problems and crises facing our world, instead of going home exhausted at the end of the day seeking escape, feeling helpless to do anything that is meaningful to them or to the world.
First you take away their anchors and make them autonomous, then you hope that they will live far more meaningful lives.

I had a suspicion that the writer would want the children to have his meanings instead of traditional meanings, that the writer wasn't being upfront about it. And moreover, the writer was probably financially benefiting from such feel-good writing.

Some further research brought the following gems:
I'm an expert on: Knowledge management (e.g. personal productivity improvement, just-in-time knowledge canvassing, knowledge harvesting, personal content management, the cost of not knowing, adding meaning to information), business innovation, all aspects of entrepreneurship (e.g. researching unmet needs, the innovation process, finding partners and allies, organic financing, viral marketing, building networks, strategic improvisation), social networking, information architecture, the virtual workplace, complexity management, cultural anthropology, business valuation, business sustainability, collaboration strategies, the future of business, the new economy, capturing employee and customer intelligence, differentiation strategies, and personal effectiveness coaching. I've written, lectured and presented at conferences on most of these subjects. You can find many of my writings on these subjects in the business category of this blog.

...

... my search to find better ways to live, and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works

...

Preparing for civilization's end: Articles about sustainable living, how our civilization emerged and why it is no longer viable, what we can learn from nature and from history, building community, activism, alternative economies, animal sentience and how to prepare ourselves, and our children and grandchildren, for civilization's twilight and aftermath.

He has willing customers. Happiness abounds!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Harman, would you consider adding a forum to your blog? It's getting increasingly hard for me to follow all the comments and your ideas.It would help readers understand your increasing output of writing better.

tazmic said...

"Unschooling, by contrast, starts with the realization that you 'own' your time...."

It's great that you did the background research here. Upon starting to read it (just the first word actually, deep analyst that I am) I immediately thought of Illich, who's thinking I have a lot of respect for:

"Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavor are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question." (http://www.ecobooks.com/books/deschooling.htm)

but then "...And the Internet and online gaming allow you to make those relationships anywhere in the world, to draw on the brightest experts on the planet, and to communicate powerfully with like-minded, curious people of every age, culture and ideology."

is pure global citizen indoctrination. It amuses me greatly to see many of the ideas I would hold being fed back to me as propaganda, either from undisclosed agendas or simply from people who don't know the difference betwean map and territory (the 'well schooled' in particular). (Perhaps more amusingly, 'map vs. territory' is, ignoring Korzybski, pure Wilson, who I don't think is guilt free in this globalist jamboree...)

But the hand is tipped quite readily:

"Preparing for civilization's end: Articles about sustainable living, how our civilization emerged and why it is no longer viable, what we can learn from nature and from history, building community, activism, alternative economies, animal sentience and how to prepare ourselves, and our children and grandchildren, for civilization's twilight and aftermath. "

Everything we hated about the world is being torn down anyway, and we are being prepared for this transition Betwean Two Ages* in the most subversive way.

* (http://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Ages-Zbigniew-Brzezinski/dp/0140043144 "The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. " "In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason" "It is likely that before long the social elites of most of the more advanced countries will be highly internationalist or globalist in spirit and outlook ... The nation-state is gradually yielding its sovereignty... Further progress will require greater American sacrifices. More intensive efforts to shape a new world monetary structure will have to be undertaken, with some consequent risk to the present relatively favorable American position" "The New global consciousnesses will emerge out of fragmentation and chaos")

tazmic said...

~~skooby doo~~

"Meaninglessness is the future of man. The vast universe, dark, empty, infinite, beckons."

Perhaps I shouldn't take issue with this, perhaps my point is obvious, but this line reminds me of the fairly common occurance of people imagining death to be 'dark and cold...and for a long time', which suggests they haven't really grasped the point.

Maybe the link is wrong, but it seems a subtle conceptual error to speak of a trajectory towards meaninglessness that can retain such 'meaningful' interpretations as 'vast universe, dark, empty, infinite'.

This is not just a matter of symantics, you wouldn't bother pointing out that the universe would be dark, empty and infinite if you weren't trying to be emotive, which would suggest a highly meaningful perspective (just not a very nice one). Is it worth pointing out?

And briefly, regarding the The Last Messiah. Is it not simply a rejuvinated gnosticism?

Harmanjit Singh said...

This is not just a matter of symantics, you wouldn't bother pointing out that the universe would be dark, empty and infinite if you weren't trying to be emotive, which would suggest a highly meaningful perspective (just not a very nice one). Is it worth pointing out?

What I meant to convey was that now man is going to be finally face to face with the reality of the universe, which is infinite, lifeless and on the scale of which our puny conflicts are laughable.

And briefly, regarding the The Last Messiah. Is it not simply a rejuvinated gnosticism?

Nah. It is a parable with philosophical musings, and not a prediction of a savior. "The Last Messiah" is an ironic title.