Esther12
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Not sure which forum to put this in to. I was just reading this from a Professor of mathematics, and it made me think of psychosocial approaches to medicine, and the lack of concern about them there is from those within the field. I'm sure things like this have been discussed before, but it was interesting to have it promoted so positively here:
Pretty much the only academics who have looked closely at a lot of psychosocial work are those who want to make a career out of psychosocial approaches to medicine. They will tend to know other workers in the field personally, and build social bonds with them. They will tend to feel similar to them, and trust them as part of a shared community. None of this is good for an honest pursuit of truth imo.
Years ago I was discussing Freud with an academic, and they were saying that they thought Freudian approaches will never be picked apart internally, as those with the deepest understanding of Freud's theories and approaches will be those with the deepest interests in maintaining respect for his work. Instead, future generations will simply become less interested in learning about his work, so it will fade away. I wasn't impressed, and felt that anyone making money from Freudian approaches also had a responsibility to try to pick them apart and make sure that they were reasonable - which was probably highly dysfunctional of me.
A large part of becoming an X-er is joining a community of other X-ers. This often involves joining up with other X-ers, but it does not need to. It’s more an attitude of mind than anything else, though most of us find that it’s a lot easier when we team up with others. The centuries-old method of learning a craft or trade by a process of apprenticeship was based on this idea. [The video games scholar James Paul Gee, in his book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, p. 18] uses the term semiotic domain to refer to the culture and way of thinking that goes with a particular practice – a term that reflects the important role that language or symbols plays in these “communities of practice,” to use another popular term from the social science literature. […]
In Gee’s terms, learning to X competently means becoming part of the semiotic domain associated with X. Moreover, if you don’t become part of that semiotic domain you won’t achieve competency in X. Notice that I’m not talking here about becoming an expert, and neither is Gee. In some domains, it may be that few people are born with the natural talent to become world class. Rather, the point we are both making is that a crucial part of becoming competent at some activity is to enter the semiotic domain of that activity. This is why we have schools and universities, and this is why distance education will never replace spending a period of months or years in a social community of experts and other learners. Schools and universities are environments in which people can learn to become X-ers for various X activities – and a large part of that is learning to think and act like an X-er and to see yourself as an X-er. They are only secondarily places where you can learn the facts of X-ing; the part you can also acquire online or learn from a book. […]
The social aspect of learning that goes with entering a semiotic domain is often overlooked when educational issues are discussed, particularly when dis cussed by policy makers rather than professional teachers. Yet it is a huge factor. […]
Pretty much the only academics who have looked closely at a lot of psychosocial work are those who want to make a career out of psychosocial approaches to medicine. They will tend to know other workers in the field personally, and build social bonds with them. They will tend to feel similar to them, and trust them as part of a shared community. None of this is good for an honest pursuit of truth imo.
Years ago I was discussing Freud with an academic, and they were saying that they thought Freudian approaches will never be picked apart internally, as those with the deepest understanding of Freud's theories and approaches will be those with the deepest interests in maintaining respect for his work. Instead, future generations will simply become less interested in learning about his work, so it will fade away. I wasn't impressed, and felt that anyone making money from Freudian approaches also had a responsibility to try to pick them apart and make sure that they were reasonable - which was probably highly dysfunctional of me.