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| coberst |
 Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:00 am Post subject: Synthesizing knowledge |
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Forum Senior
Joined: 18 Feb 2007
Posts: 319
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Synthesizing knowledge
As I see it, our fundamental problem in regards to knowledge is that our society, which focuses on maximizing production and consumption, has ignored the importance of synthesizing knowledge. The fixation on specialization leads to a society that fragments; a cleverly synthesized knowledge can facilitate social unity. Such a synthesis cannot be static but must be dynamic; it must constantly integrate new understanding into a new and thus living synthesis. We cannot arrive at absolute knowledge but we can maintain a dynamic synthesis.
Our educational system trains us to become proficient producers and consumers with little serious regard for the problems inherent in developing a moral understanding for constructing and dealing with our social environment.
Anyone who attempts a synthesis utilizing the theories of the world’s great thinkers is always faced with the fact that the thoughts of many great thinkers are constantly being criticized and new ideas supplementing or replacing the theories of these thinkers. Because this is true, every synthesis becomes quickly dated. However, it is important to recognize that we all require a platform upon which to judge the knowledge that is being created and this platform can only come from a comprehensive study of someone’s synthesis.
It is my judgment that we should find those thinkers who are capable of synthesizing and carefully examine their thoughts without regard to criticism of some of the pillars that support the synthesis.
“Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget.”
Ernest Becker has woven a great tapestry, which represents his answer to the question ‘what are we humans doing, why are we doing it, and how can we do it better?’
Becker has written four books “Beyond Alienation”, “Escape from Evil”, “Denial of Death”, and “The Birth and Death of Meaning”; all of which are essential components of his tapestry. Ernest Becker (1924-1974), a distinguished social theorist, popular teacher of anthropology and sociology psychology, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the “Denial of Death”.
Becker provides the reader with a broad and comprehensible synopsis of the accomplishments of the sciences of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and psychoanalysis. Knowledge of these accomplishments provides the modern reader with the means for a substantial comprehension of why humans do as they do.
Becker declares that these sciences prove that humans are not genetically driven to be the evil creatures that the reader of history might conclude them to be. We humans are victims of the societies that we create in our effort to flee the anxiety of death. We have created artificial meanings that were designed to hide our anxieties from our self; in this effort we have managed to create an evil far surpassing any that our natural animal nature could cause.
Becker summarizes this synoptic journey of discovery with a suggested solution, which if we were to change the curriculums in our colleges and universities we could develop a citizenry with the necessary understanding to restructure our society in a manner less destructive and more in tune with our human nature.
I think that it is important for each of us, after our schooling is complete, to begin to comprehend some kind of synthesizing of knowledge. What do you think about this matter and can you suggest how one might go about this process of creating a comprehensive synthesis of knowledge? |
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| Bunbury |
| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Masters Degree
Joined: 26 Sep 2007
Posts: 544
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| “Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget.” |
But this is a truly horrible generalization. I actually can't think of anyone I know who is drinking or drugging himself out of awareness, and no one likes shopping.
I don't understand why society is supposed to provide heroic dedication. What, exactly, does that mean?
Perhaps reality TV and video games are the modern equivalents of an alcoholic hazed prior generation of dopeheads. |
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| coberst |
| Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:07 am Post subject: |
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Forum Senior
Joined: 18 Feb 2007
Posts: 319
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“The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”—Emerson
Critical Thinkers, such as Emerson, must create shock and awe with a new and colorful view of reality because the Critical Thinker ‘sees’ a truth to which others are blind. Most citizens think that things are grand because the wheels of commerce keep churning and the enemy is kept at bay.
Such thinkers as Emerson, at the dawn of the “American Renaissance”, recognized that society was darting about hither and yon without rhyme or reason. Vocational specialization was in the ascendancy and American Universities were failing in their responsibilities.
The European Renaissance of the Enlightenment and the American Renaissance of Emerson’s era, beginning in the 1880s, shared a common problem—traditional religion with God as a common social value, was failing to provide the bond that both new awakenings required.
The Enlightenment was first to shatter any pretense of a common bond under the umbrella of Christianity. Both periods brought forth a new god—knowledge and discovery. These periods indicated that common values were needed but the common values of knowledge and discover achieved only individualism without cement that binds individuals. Synthesis and common values were trampled in a drive for independent thinking dedicated toward a pursuit of knowledge.
A need for synthesis became apparent and several attempts were created to meet that need. The Great Books program championed by R. M. Hutchins was one of these attempts for a unity of knowledge that could serve as cement for intellectual endeavors.
Hutchins noted that “If any common program is impossible, if there is no such thing as an education that everybody must have, then we must admit that any community is impossible.” Hutchins surmised that unity of knowledge is a bridge over an abyss of social morality and stated that “We see now that we need more learning, more real learning, for everybody.”
“What makes a conversation great rather than little?” Asks author Ernest Becker in his book “Beyond Alienation”; “it asks the big questions…instead we ask the little questions, the questions that keep our daily work going in its prescribed ruts, the questions that look out for tomorrow by automatically following the routine of the day, by accepting uncritically the world as we find it, and by not caring too strongly what we are really doing in it, or are supposed to be doing.” |
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