The bad news about good work

Big Ideas is a TVO lectures program that is accessible through the internet in video as well as audio. The audio is published as podcast and thus I get to pick various lectures. What I have found is that most of the time, one is not missing out on too many visuals and the podcast works quite well.

The lecture by Howard Gardner has a few visuals at the beginning which may make you feel shut out a bit, but from what I have seen in TVO's video stream, it is not so visible on there either and eventually, the visuals are abandoned altogether and we are presented an excellent lecture about the mind set we need for the future. (This lecture build largely on a recent book by Gardner: Five minds for the Future.)

Gardner calls them five minds, I am inclined to call the five principles, but no matter how you call it, the proposal is to have an integrated mind which succeeds in balancing these five qualities: The Disciplinary Mind (a honed, crafty mind), The Synthesizing Mind (a mind that understands and combines ideas), The Creating Mind (a mind of renewal), The Respectful Mind (a mind appreciative of the other) and The Ethical Mind (a mind inclined to the good). Gardner has done a lot of research on how people work and hence he applies these principles on work, calling it good work. It is in many ways an optimistic lecture, thinking in terms of what we can achieve, but there is one element I'd like to pick up and that is, unfortunately, the negative finding. The bad news about good work as it were.

In the bad news we see how those five principles, are not as easily balanced as we might think. This is shown in research when you ask people whether they want to work (live) ethically and ask why they don't even if they want to. The problem they perceive is that ethics gives them a disadvantage and will give their peers the edge in the rat race within society. And that piece of bad news is a very big problem for our culture to solve.

Previously on Big Ideas:
History.

Wise Counsel - psychology podcast review

A great podcaster is Dr. David van Nuys. He makes two psychology podcasts (Shrink Rap Radio and Wise Counsel) that rank among the best of podcasts by all accounts. They are of great educational  value in the realm of psychology. They are a great form of information and entertainment for a wider public on account of their accessibility. And last but not least, they are great podcasts in general with a good balance of the right music, a phenomenal radio voice and all such elements that mark professional radio quality.

Here I would like to draw your attention to two recent issues of Wise Counsel that I can warmly recommend.

1- An interview with Natalie Rogers, on expressive arts therapy. Rogers very effectively explains the quality of creative energy, as opposed to rational energy. The advantage in therapy is that the client is not just met on the rational, verbal level, but in a more complete way that allows more healing effect. An interesting dimension to Natalie's career is that she is the daughter of the famous psychologist Carl Rogers and even if there are differences in her approach, she still feels she elaborated on her father's work.

2- An interview with Marc Kern about various approaches in therapy for addiction. Notably Kern proposes alternatives to twelve step programs which are the dominant stream in specifically the US. He sees a couple of disadvantages in these programs in that that they instill guilt upon relapse. Relapse, however is perfectly normal in the way out of addiction and one needs not feel so bad about that. In addition, twelve step programs aim at abstinence, whereas Kern claims people can lead a normal life with moderate intake of substances, also those that have a history of excess. In that respect he thinks it to be more realistic and healthier to aim for damage reduction than elimination altogether.

More Wise Counsel:
Irvin Yalom,
David H. Barlow,
Richard Heimberg,
Tony Madrid,
Francine Shapiro.

Verzonnen martelaar - OVT recensie

In OVT's serie over beroemde executies kwamen de apostelen Petrus en Paulus aan de beurt. Het gaat voornamelijk over Paulus en van hem is het niet eens zeker of hij wel terechtgesteld is. Het bijbelboek Handelingen der Apostelen, wat toch voornamelijk Lucas' versie van het leven van Paulus is, laat het einde open. In een apocriefe bron, wordt in Rome een heldhaftige, mystieke martelaarsdood van Paulus daarentegen wel beschreven.

De gasten trekken de geloofwaardigheid hiervan in twijfel. Niet alleen is de beschrijving (waarbij er melk uit de aderen van de martelaar komt) als zodanig niet aannemelijk, het tijdstip waarop een en ander moet hebben plaatsgevonden, maakt het niet waarschijnlijk dat Paulus omwille van zijn geloof zou zijn omgebracht. Zo groot was de Christelijke beweging in die tijd nog niet en daarom ook niet als gevaarlijk aangemerkt door de Romeinen.

Niet dat de Romeinen erg beschroomd waren om iemand terecht te stellen die enigszins de orde bedreigde. Dus het gepraat over een messias door christenen en hun aanvaringen met de gevestigde joodse orde, zullen in heel wat gevallen ertoe geleid hebben dat Romeinse machthebbers er eens een paar het zwijgen hebben opgelegd uit pragmatische overwegingen. Maar Paulus? Dat was een Romeins staatsburger; daar gaat dat toch ietsje minder gemakkelijk. Het zou dus ook kunnen dat de apostel een pensioentje aan de Costa Brava heeft genoten, in plaats van terechtstelling.

Meer OVT:
Socrates,
Hoeren en Agenten,
Polen,
Stalingrad,
Handlangers.

The Writing Show podcast review

In the Getting Published series of The Writing Show Podcast we have returned for the eighth time to writer Jean Tennant. Her novel Karaoke Nights at the Twilight Lounge is still waiting to be picked up by a publisher, or even an agent. It has been so long since Jean started, she is beginning to give up on her hopes of getting published the old-fashioned way. In spite of her misgivings about self-publishing, she is beginning to consider it.

Apart from the fact that self-publishing becomes easier, more widely accepted and respected, she also takes into consideration the regional character of her novel. Should she have to take up the publicizing on her own, she still has the advantage of living close to her market. Host Paula B. adds that regional sells well these days, as far as she has been told.

One self-publishing experience Tennant has acquired with the children book she has put out. It was a tough learning experience, but the result is there. Olivia's Birthday Puppy.

More Writing Show on this blog:
Getting Published with Janice Ballenger,
Getting Published with Mark Leslie,
Psychological Aspects of Writing,
Getting published with Jean Tennant,
Self-publishing.

Intuitive understanding - Zander gives music to all on TED

All my life, in a way, I have been wondering about the understanding of great truths and great values. How can we acquire understanding of, for example, the ethical, or the arts, or proper logic, rationality and reasoning? Is that an elite quality? Does it take great intellect, arduous study and plenty experience in order to reach that understanding? If so, we are in a way lost. Great qualities are basically hidden from us and only once reach the proper level, these will be revealed to us. Until then, we either do not know, do not care or worse even, are under the impression there is nothing worthy to aspire. Understanding in this case is not true understanding but rather mystic, revealed, initiated; an object of grace not of virtue.

If on the other hand, it doesn't take elite qualities, what makes great qualities great as opposed to whatever else we are impressed by if we do not put in effort? Applied to for example classical music, this means that either classical music is for an exceptional elite to discern and the rest of us just do not care or even listen in derision. Either that, or we basically have no way of deciding Johann Sebastian Bach is a great composer and Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (of ABBA) are not so, since both their music is appreciated by millions. Understanding in this case is rather plain, non-discriminatory, pragmatic; an object of establishment and not of virtue either.

My way around this problem is to introduce levels of understanding, or a gradual continuum of understanding. In that approach there is complete understanding, which is elitist, but there is a lower level of understanding, which I call intuitive, which is something we all have and is fine tuned and activated by learning, but when not developed, still passively is there. Intuitive understanding allows us to recognize quality when we see it. It allows us to feel Bach is more than ABBA, even if we can't actively explain why. It allows us to identify the ethical, even if we can not actively explain why it is better than plain selfishness. It also allows us to seek, to persevere in study towards the qualities, because we recognized something and carry with us an unfulfilled promise. This makes understanding a virtue.

In the following TED video, conductor Benjamin Zander undertakes an elegant and effective test with the audience, the discerning of classical music and the various sorts of unacquired alike and shows how they are all touched by great classical music. Here we see understanding as a virtue, both at the acquired as well as on the lower levels.



More TED
Jill Bolte Taylor,
Karen Armstrong,
Ben Dunlap. (highly recommended)

The interpretation of anomaly - Missing Link podcast review

The missing link podcast has a new episode with the compelling title Curiouser and curiouser. The issue greatly lives up to the title even if it must go with a disclaimer of explicit language. The explicit language comes from quoting late Renaissance material written by Ambroise Paré. The subject is our fascination with freaks of nature or any other exceptional occurrence or anomaly. Not only in current times, throughout the ages, people were interested.

The point of the show is that the way this interest is worked out and how oddities are explained is fundamentally different. Since the Enlightenment, nature is taken to be stable, uniform and its laws unchanging and everything must be explained within that framework. In earlier times, explanations were sought in the supernatural and hence, on the surface, people from there and then seem hopelessly infatuated with 'monsters'. Host Elizabeth Green Musselman points out, that in all times, people wanted to explain and in all times, the true challenge lies in explaining the exceptional.

There is an additional point that I think I picked up, but is kept slightly implicit. In the days before the Renaissance, or before the Late Middle Ages, the obsession with monsters and such was less, because of a more spiritual image of the world. I felt as if this means Platonic image of the world. Matter is chaotic and what is truly interesting is theory, the mind's construction. It is with the uncovering of Aristotle and possibly also with world shaking events such as the discovery of the New World, may be also the fall of Constantinople, may be also the disruption caused by the plague, that observing the world was necessary and all the puzzling excesses became relevant.

One could even make connections with the disruption of the Reformation and Witch Hunts (I am letting my mind loose here) to see this almost violent obsession with excess. Only after this disruption and the philosophical inclination towards order (such as with Hobbes), the stricter style of interpreting anomalies can evolve.

More about The Missing Link on this blog:
Domestic Science,
Missing Link with monotheists,
Missing Link with Popper,
An evolved controversy,
Time's Arrow.