A Mediated Approach to Disintermediation

Rob, thanks for biting. When you say “trust in corporate and government leaders is falling” I take that as a reference to the elites — central figures that we deify with authority and power. You would suggest, and I would agree, that weblogging allows us to communicate ideas without routing through these elites. I certainly think that worthy of dicussion and debate. And evangelism. I just consider it ironic that you’ve chosen to do this under the umbrella of the one of the strongest most powerful educational “mediating forces” we’ve built: the university. Wouldn’t a true living test of your bifuractive idea be to take the university out of the equation, and to use new social technologies to evangelize “direct?”

Apart from the odd assumption that UPEI is the hot bed of an elite, what is contrary about this concept in substance, Peter, other that the superficial irony? An undergrad university is supposed to be and, despite popular bleating, is still a very good place to experience hothouse thinking to those inclined to engage in it. Other less open places may also serve that purpose - including perhaps the one we are using. What other institutions should be insulated from precious blogging? Perhaps through more formal review, something few proponents of blogging advocate, it will face actual analysis of its claims, measurement of its true effect. Few evangelists relish that prospect but that is the downside of evangelism.

I had to add this tp://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Bugs_Bunny/ltbb_065.wav

Fight the anti-authority tied-to-authority authority, Rob.

This is fun - Past my bedtime though so I will return fresh for our combat tomorow

Campus.
Billing system.
Marketing.
Virus.

Make sure you conform, Rob.

Please note that I’m not characterizing the people of UPEI (or any university) as “elites” in the sense that they’re “stuffy” or “high falootin.” I’m merely suggesting that education no longer requires the mediating force — the brand, the imprimatur, the resources, the facilities — of the university. I lump UPEI in with the corporations and the “brand power” that Rob rails against in his treatise. Universities no longer have exclusive domain over education that they once did; in that sense, anyone who continues to ally themselves with universities is throwing their lot in with a system that contains to maintain, against all evidence, that it has an “elite” hold on the medium. Universities, like record companies are no longer required to perform the intermediating role they once did.

Motivation is the scarcest element when it comes to learning. Information and access to it are critical; luckily the internet makes it easier to get at. Yet university still has a role. The structure of school, the financial committment, being around others who are studying; and the recognition at the end of your program - these improve the learning process for most people coming out of high school. They learn more than they would on their own. University is a place where students prepare for life and work, earning a degree which is recognized by industry. If you learn outside this system your knowledge and skills will not be as recognizable to industry, you will have no accredited degree, and so many employers will screen you out of the hiring process. This is the gap that I wish could be bridged. A university degree is like currency, each field of study issues them like nations print money. The denominations are undergraduate, graduate, and PhD. The value of any given degree, in any field of study can be equated to a monetary value expressed by earning potential. And of course there are counterfeit degrees out there too. Degrees are like currency that measures value in sense rather than cents. What interests me is the black market of knowledge. Cisco certifications in particular represent this, by alllowing candidates to prove themselves in a certain area and be recognized. Of course, these still fall short of the mark. Some certifications are less worthy than others, and some people who are certified don’t live up to the certification - they are paper technicians. The true test of course is if your knowledge serves you in your life. Too often in this big world we rely on accredidation as a quick proof of a strangers knowledge instead of getting to know first hand what skills they have. And too often skills go unrecognized because they aren’t marketed well. The encouraging news is that more value is being placed on true skills and more people are improving their knowledge on their own, outside of academia.

I disagree with your assertion that education no longer requires “the mediating force — the brand, the imprimatur, the resources, the facilities — of the university”, because it assumes that “the brand, the imprimatur, the resources, the facilities” are the primary education-delivering vehicles of the university. The university experience encompasses living with strangers, drinking in the pub, participating in sport, experimenting with hallucinogens and being part of a physical community of learning, as well as taking classes and studying. Sure, I could educate myself at home with google or your version of Rob’s “university-free” courses and remain untainted by the university brand, but I don’t think it would deliver the same quality of experience.

The idea that the teacher has nothing to teach, or that there are no real authorities where knowledge is concerned is thousands of years old. It’s also a self defeating argument that was advanced especially strongly by Protagoras. The self defeating-ness of the argument goes very very roughly and in part like this: if there is no knowledge and you are trying to disseminate the idea and thus teach that there is no knowledge, your opponents can always say that you are wrong and you have to acknowledge that they are correct and that there is in fact knowledge. Protagoras also famously said that “man is the measure of all things.” To which Socrates famously replied and I’m paraphrasing: “Any man? Is a fool the measure of all things? Is a lunatic the measure?” Anyway, this kind of Protagorianism when it comes to knowledge is very trendy right now in North America. Most people who talk about ‘elitism’ are propagators of it. But the irony that Peter points to is not irony at all, it’s an inherent part of being anti-elitist. Some might claim in fact that it is an inherently incoherent position. Re: the “Bifurcative remains problematic for me though because it’s a metaphor that strikes me as inapt and so I remain unsure of what’s going on even after I’ve understood you. You would have to persuade me that the metaphor is apt, and you would have had to do this persuading in preceding sentences not to have left me feeling unsure.” I think even using this term ‘bifurcative’is an attempt by Rob to undermine hierarchy and not an attempt to mystify. As far as I know (and Rob can correct me if I am wrong), bifurcation is just a branching out, it undermines hierarchy because it’s a way of replacing ‘new ideas’ and new idea-ness or a way of not implying betterness and thus progress. Of course there are no new or better ideas because that would suggest that there are smarter people who think up new ideas (which would be elitist), not that I subscribe to this view that there are no new ideas or even the view that bifurcation is somehow better because of this. I think the internet (so far) is just a library attached to a big note pad where people like me scribble for fun and entertainment (which happens also to be attached to one of the most diverse selection of porn imaginable). Okay, there are also some real legitimate publications out there. And I am really grateful for the search functions and the libraries and really it has changed my life for the better. It’s brilliant. But, and don’t take this the wrong way, there sure is a lot of crap as well. And I’m sure I’m being elitist by saying that it is obviously and not at all subjectively crap. It is crap beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, right now we are also coincidentally having a problem with freedom of expression in Canada because for whatever reason there’s really very little representation of centre left views in the newspapers anymore (Okay okay except for the Toronto Star, but the exception proves the rule, I say!). This is a problem because most Canadians are leftist in their political views. The internet has the potential to at least offer to air these perspectives. I wish it were possible, for instance, to hear a real debate in the newspapers about health care or about missile defense instead of hearing fifteen different flavours of Tory allude to the flakiness of left wing views as if the people advancing them had no real arguments to back them up. I’m tired seeing headlines in the news claiming that people like me are like the worshippers of cargo cults.