The first week of the program is over. Wasn’t too difficult, but I guess I shouldn’t praise the day before the dawn.
We started with an analysis of “absolute truths” in our industries (journalism, graphic design, gaming and so on) and established the ground for them to be challenged. This was difficult for me: I don’t think there are any absolute truths other than scientifically based ones (water boils at whatever degree and so on). I took the absolute truths in this case to mean “assumptions” or even “cliches.”
But, for the sake of the exercise, I listed the following as absolute truths to be challenged (slightly edited):
1. It is possible to remain unbiased when reporting or working in journalism, especially if you’re from/in a neutral country.
2. “Knowledge sharing,” is done on a purely altruistic basis with nothing expected in return.
3. People visit think tank websites to learn something new.
For the first one, my premise was that some journalists may wrap themselves in the cloak of neutrality based purely on their location or even the shop they work for (if that shop has a reputation for staunch neutrality). They become caught up in circular reasoning: I’m neutral because I work for this place/live in this country; I work in this place/live in this country so therefore I must be neutral.
In terms of “knowledge sharing,” it’s probably no secret to those who know me that I truly dislike this term. The *idea* of knowledge sharing is that it should be done on for the good of the organization. Usually, it’s the worker that does the sharing.
When staff members share their ideas with management, perhaps in the beginning of the initiative, they do so for the good of the group, but if they see their ideas being enacted without some type of reward or exchange (raise, credit, time off, whatever), then that’s where altruism falls through and knowledge sharing fails. I think the by-rote view of knowledge sharing should be revamped to something like “knowledge exchange,” or shoot…just call it that. Using the word “exchange” would highlight more of a give-and-take relationship, and perhaps, subliminally prompt a more equal relationship.
What I meant by “people visit think tank websites to learn something new,” is - and again, this is only my opinion and purely for the exercise - that this is an assumption based on the belief that visitors to academic or news sites are looking for “new” information that might challenge their way of thinking. To clarify this thought, my tutor asked if I meant that (in reality) people visit a site to affirm an opinion they have. I answered:
Of course. A person wouldn’t go The Heritage Foundation (a rightwing think tank in the US) to hire them for a study on the effectiveness of condom usage among teenagers in preventing pregnancy.:-)
But, even with all of the above, what I’m taking away from this week has not that much to do with the program. I’ve (re)learned a couple of things about myself:
1. I have the attention span of a gnat. I thought it would get better as I aged, but it hasn’t. I’ve got to solve this now if I want to be successful in this program.
2. I’m impatient…which goes along with the above.
3. My time and task management skills suck. They’ve always sucked, but the problem has become more prevalent over the past two weeks.
This week, we’ll be using ontological reasoning to examine our industries. Then we’ll be guided into taking epistemological positions.
I’ve got a lot to wrap my head around.