Re: copyrighted students

Phil Graham (pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au)
Fri, 11 Dec 1998 08:18:29 +1100

At 09:08 09-12-98 -0800, you wrote:
>I see considerable recursion among Mead, Dewey, Vygotsky, Bakhtin with themes
>in complexity theory. I sometimes think that we in the social sciences and
>humanities get into trouble when we take our physics, biology, chemistry, and
>mathematics cousins so literally that we forget the cultural historical
context
>in which their concepts emerged. Agency and responsibility remain alive and
>well, at least in my interpretation and use of complexity theory.

Like I said Molly, I wasn't accusing you of abusing the framework, I was
just noting that "complexity", a concept that even the mathematicians who
are working it out don't quite understand, is often appropriated by
management sociologists (like just about every other new intellectual fad
or fashion) to legitimise unethical or amoral practices: "Hey!, Its a
complex, adaptive system. there's not much we can do about it, coz it's
entirely unpredictable. ... lets fire another 2000 people and see how the
system adapts... at least we'll save some dough ..."

Phil

Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html