We're all ignorant about something. It's a value judgement as to whether a given instance of ignorance needs fixing.

I'm not sure when I first got the notion, or whether it occurred to me as an epiphany; or the conclusion of some protracted, introspective analysis; or whether I simply osmoted it from some more venerable and solicitous source, like a philosophy book or a bathroom stall. But I've stewed about this intermittently for a very, very long time. Still, I'll wait to see if there's any interest in the subject before attempting to expand.

k

see if there's any interest in the subject

Fix our ignorance

I value Faldage's judgement.

Is this that "Ignornance is Bliss" special interest group stirring up trouble again? Sheesh!

Not about educating anyone. It's more about expressing a pov. Besides, if I'm correct that education is what one does for one's self and schooling is what gets done to one, then "educating someone else" is maybe as fruitful as squaring circles.

The first of my prefatory remarks.

1. I recall in HS and even in college, people gloating over their perception of certain people's naivete - especially regarding sex, but also things like smoking, drugs, cursing, and so on. It's a mind-boggling thought, really, which we accept without comment that there are people - a great many people - who believe that their vast sexual experience gives them some special insight, if not into the inner workings of the cosmos, at least into the big wide world of "what adulthood means." The prevalence of this view was merely curious to me in HS, but absolutely shocking as I entered college and then sojourned, and finally left - with very little deviation from the norm till near the end. The shocking part is that there are still people well into their twenties who consider experience equal to knowledge or understanding.

2. A related idea is this silly notion that "with age comes wisdom." I've known some older people I thought were pretty wise. These were people I think were already pretty smart in their younger years. But I gotta say, that there are people who were really stupid in their youths who are even more stupid in their adulthood. It's a hopeful idea, but just silly.

3. I noticed in many cases in myriad discussions and arguments the claim made by one party that the other party exhibited "pure ignorance." In the majority of those cases I felt that the claimant had misdiagnosed the problem. In some cases, the problem really was ignorance, but in most, it seemed, the other party wasn't so much ignorant as willfully ignorant, perhaps even malicious (or so it seemed to me). In some cases, the object of rebuke did not appear to be particularly ignorant to me. People who use this sort of language to identify and dismiss the positions of their antagonists are also likely to mention how their mission is "merely to educate" them. Again, though, I assess that this is almost always a mischaracterization of their actions - which so far as I can tell is to humiliate the other person or "score points" as Pfranz and Vanguard have put it. A common assertion is that the ignorant person is "pathetic" and that the educator "feels sorry for them."

So far I'm speaking in general terms here. Sure these are things I've witnessed, but I have to think they are not uncommon observations.

4a. I notice also that some people approach a conversation the way evangelists approach my front door. In my view - and I think in most people's intuitive view - a conversation involves the exchange of ideas. But some people consider that the purpose of any conversation is to convince the listener that they're right. Of course I'm not suggesting - even remotely - that people should never disagree or that there is no room for debate or argument in conversation. Many of my most memorable conversations are of having been bested by a particularly knowledgeable over a casual coffee or a bloody game of chess. But an argument - a real argument is *STILL* an exchange of ideas. "Well, that's very interesting, but did you consider this." "...uh, well, no I wasn't even aware of that." But some faux conversationalists, exactly like that door-to-door religion salesman, don't give a rat's ass what their listener is saying or what the listener feels or, in fact, anything else the listener might have to offer other than complete rejection by the listener of his current view and the immediate, unwavering endorsement of the "conversationalist's" opinions. Knowing the truth - or being convinced of one's possession of The Truth - is more important than trying to discover it.

4b. In Broca's Brain, Sagan quotes Russell's Skeptical Essays (both of which books I highly recommend, btw): "William James used to preach the will to believe ... for my part I should wish to preach the will to doubt ... What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out - which is the exact opposite." I don't know that I agree with this exactly (and, in fact, I suspect he has misinterpreted James), but I do agree with the gist of it. I think there are a great many people who are more interested in defining the truth than they are in figuring out where it is. I don't know - maybe this is a natural tendency for all of us. I haven't figured that part out yet. (BTW, i'm kinda fond of a quote by James that "A great many people think they're thinking when they're merely rearranging their prejudices." even though I think that's a pretty accurate description of my own mental activity much of the time.)

I guess I don't want to type in any more at this point without getting a bit of back and forth on it. All of this and I haven't even gotten to the gist of why I think honest ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of.

k

Regarding a couple of Fallible's observations:

" But I gotta say, that there are people who were really stupid in their youths who are even more stupid in their adulthood."

Personal account: Grand ladies--lovely, well-groomed always, mannerly--from my childhood. I was intimidated by them--I was such a mess, particularly physically. But they were held up as some kind of ideal by family members. Came across them recently. Now they're elderly. Was terribly disappointed to hear most of their conversation centered around: hair appointments--walk-ins v. regularly scheduled ones; best lengths of hair; glasses as stylish accessories. You get the picture. They just had not grown into something wiser. Still stuck in perfected physical appearance. Not saying they haven't done a lot of good. Just saying that I was shocked that their remarkable appearance commented on so much as I was coming up as a child was still what they worked at and talked about.

"William James used to preach the will to believe ... for my part I should wish to preach the will to doubt "

Always doubt. That's how any theory or theory-breaker moves forward. But you still have to have the will to believe in your ability to doubt well. And with direction. And with creativity.

I gotta print this so I can get back to you, in about a week. this is cool stuff.
sorry, not very conversational, but some of these posts are so wonderfully long that I can't get a word in flat-ways... my brain starts to formulate a reply and boom! there's the next great thought, and my prior idea zooms away trying to make room for the next...
this could be several smaller threads, and begins to really shine light on the inadequacies of the forum format.

Wisdom and intelligence are different things. And to quote an uncle (who was probably quoting someone else) "wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone."
I agree that experience does not automatically provide understanding, there has to be some degree of reflection and/or analysis. But knowledge without experience is also limits understanding.

"A related idea is this silly notion that 'with age comes wisdom.'"

There is a very similar thought expressed in "Farewell to Arms." I neither have a copy right now, nor remember the exact words. It is a conversation between the protagonist and an elderly, probably retired, gentleman in a hotel... Can anyone pinpoint what I'm talking about?

What I like about the forum format is that we can come back and revisit things. Moreover, we have the opportunity to think things over before responding (exactly as you're doing and as I've done) and we can include things and refine things, even change our minds in mid-sentence, if we think it's appropriate. We can go off, feed the kids, think some pleasant thoughts, consider things from other angles, and respond when we've figured out what we want to say.

In response to Zed, I'm aware that my view on intelligence and wisdom is at odds with the common view that they are distinct. I consider wisdom to be one component of intelligence, while most people consider the relationship between them to be something like "Intelligence is how well you think and wisdom is how well you apply your intelligence." I don't agree with the view, but I'm willing to accept it for the purpose of the conversation. (However, I'm bound to slip from time to time and I can only beg your pardon in advance.)

I agree with Wordwind on the importance of doubting, but with some proviso, which I have yet to formulate in a way that makes sense to me. I can only give an admittedly poor example of the principle. When I was in elementary school, I had trouble with basic math. I've said before I failed 2nd grade and during 3rd grade when they talked about math, they took me from class to the 1st grade end of the school - this despite the fact that my general mathematical abilities were quite good. I was a victim of the New Math. By Jr High, I was quicker - FAR quicker at basic arithmetic than anyone I knew. I could do things quicker in my head than most people could with a calculator - no kidding. My skills have atrophied over the years, but I can still do math pretty well in my head (my oldest daughter is quicker though). However, I never quite believed in multiplication. I just kept doing these things over and over ... I could have completely rejected what the teachers told me {very, very tempting}, but I didn't ... instead, I figured they must know something I didn't know (and it turned out I was right ... much later I learned about fields and groups and then things started making sense). It wasn't that I couldn't multiply. Like I said, I was really good at it and am still fairly good. But I didn't understand it. Two different things. I didn't reject what my teachers told me. I just had some feeling that there was something that was missing. Not really an argument against doubting, per se, so much as the reaction to one's doubt.

To continue my prefatory remarks,

5. My vocation is programming and my training is in computer engineering. And since I think analogy is a better way to communicate an idea than logic and because I think that one should try to stick with what knows, I'm going to make a case for something from a pov that is familiar to me. In engineering, one learns "The Problem-Solving Method." In every engineering class one learns some variant of Georg Polya's generalized technique. While the particulars may vary, though, by subject they really are all variations on the same theme AND THE FIRST STEP IS ALWAYS TO UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM. Sometimes one draws a diagram, but the purpose of drawing the diagram is to prepare one for understanding the problem. Everything is really riding on this step. One of the most common reasons for the failure of large software engineering projects is failure to adequately understand the problem before the "real work" begins. (Check out http://sern.ucalgary.ca/~shroff/seng613/index1.htm and search for 'causes of failure'. This is just one source, but most sources will say something similar and I think these numbers are conservative.) The thing we learn in the classroom is that you can't solve a problem if you don't really know what the problem is. Imagine this scenario: two people get the assignment to build a bridge. One fellow spends two weeks in the library reviewing statics - that branch of applied physics pertaining to forces that produce equilibrium in physical systems. The other is more of a can-do guy. He immediately whips out a drawing, and goes to purchase materials with which to construct a bridge. He thinks the first guy is just making excuses not to get started. Sound funny? It would be if this exact scenario weren't repeated with such frequence in the world of software engineering. And yet, software systems, as complicated as they are (and some of them are among the most complicated things humans have ever created -- hard for me to judge really, but in my mind, some of this stuff is on par with the creation of the pyramids or what have you), as complicated as they are, I suspect they're pretty simple compared to human systems - cultures, societies, etc. Despite this, there are mitigating factors when dealing with societies - at least some of them - there is the capacity for self-correction in some of them (probably to some degree in most of them). I'm getting ahead of myself, though. The thrust of this is that it might feel good - like one is really making a lot of progress to get that drawing done, and go out and purchase the materials - to get down to brass tacks, but it's not necessarily the right thing to do to solve the problem.

There's this general belief, I think, that it doesn't matter why someone believes something so long as they behave the way we think they should behave. It doesn't matter why they disagree, but only THAT they disagree. A corollary - It doesn't matter that we misclassify a behavior (or as is actually the case 'the motivation for a behavior, statement, or belief') as 'pure ignorance.' My issue with this approach is that it may feel good, and it may even be true, but it's not the central problem and problems don't generally get solved until they are correctly identified.


6. I note that in many cases people are made to feel humiliated when they have made mistakes. Ah, we think, but they SHOULD feel humiliated. This view is a natural consequence of the societal value that manners only apply to those who are correct. After all manners are a mask for truth and truth is more important than mere feelings. This is almost always maintained by people who are convinced they are right. It's a lot easier to discount feelings, of course, when they are someone else's than when they are one's own.

Actually I hadn't meant to get into this one yet .... I'll leave this for now.

Synopsis of first five points:

1. Understanding a problem is vital to solving a problem. The more complicated a problem, the more important is that first step.
2. Pointing out someone else's ignorance seldom seems to be an accurate or important part of defining the problem.
3. Experience alone does not equate to knowledge or understanding or wisdom - with regards to sex, or drugs (or marriage or just about anything else).
4. Communication - even that part of communication called 'argument' - is or ought to considered "a two way street."
5. To rephrase what Van and Pfranz have said previously, scoring points isn't the same as making an argument.

k

fiendishly clever-there!
do you know the book "you really oughta wanna?"- subtitled something like problem analysis and resolution? its a small volume, but its a great problem solving tool.. (its about 30 years old, and still in print! some of the 'problems' it address have become passe-which serves to better make their point! (since one of 'problems' that is addressed is long hair on guys! -- there was a time when management was bend out of shape about this!

it makes a good point, that people often really want to do the right thing, and will most often try to do the right thing.. you just have to make sure your right thing and their right thing are the same..

(one point they make is management provides "negative rewards" for doing the right thing..ie, we have 100 envelopes to address.. each of us gets 50.. an hour later, you are done, and i (did i mention i was goofing off, and talking on the phone?) have only got 10 done.. so the boss give you half again of the remaining envelopes.. ( and hour later, you're done, and i have only done another 10.. so half again go to you, and in the next hour i finish off my final 5.. so i did 25%, and you did 75% work, and the boss says "good job you two!"

so the next time a job comes up, you work as slow as i do, and we both take 4 hours to do a 1 hour job! (or you continue to do 75% of the work, and i continue to do 25%, and we both end up getting raises.. you get 3%, and i get 2.5%)

pretty soon, you either quit, or develop a negative attitude, (and why not, your doing most of the work, and i am goofing off!) You keep giving negitive rewards to people, and you end up with negative people!

but what most managers will see is the negitive attitude that developes in the hard worker,not the irresponsibility of the goof off.. and eventually the negative worker starts getting poor review, and 1% raises,and the goof off still collects his/her 2.5% year after year...and management complains its hard to get "good worker like me, who are always cheerful, and pleasant to work with!"

there are lots of other negative rewards (Oh Jackie, you are so calm, and caring, you do so much, i am going to give you the hardest cases, the most negative people to deal with, since you remain calm with them... or Helen, you do a great job, we need you here, in this department, we want you here! (unspoken, is and we are not going to approve your transfer to that department where you can earn more money..)

in many companies, that go getter who starts the bridge with no planning is a "go getter, stand up guy" and he get rewarded-- even though, his poor planning results in cost overruns when mistakes have to be rebuilt.

I think there are two things being thought about here: honest ignorance, and "argument by pointing out someone else's ignorance" as a means of obtaining or sustaining a place in the pecking order.

1. nothing wrong with honest ignorance. that means not knowing something because you've never had the experience to deal with it. ignorance because you think you know it already and don't want to deal with having to learn something new is not honest, and therefore is un-acceptable.
wisdom subpoint-one can be wise without necessarily being intelligent. experience can beget wisdom, at least for certain situations. and intelligence does in no way guarantee wisdom. lots of stupid smart people out there.
2. Pecking order. we do so many things throughout our lives(well, at least I do) based upon what people will think, and where it will place us in the social strata. who's around, what should I say, etc. one of the easiest ways(we think) is to knock other people down to stay up. humans aren't wise as a species; we don't yet understand that cooperation benefits all...

anyway, a lot of this repeats what has already been said, but i needed to express a bit to get the thoughts flowing...

lots to chew on, thanks, Fiend.

etaoin writes: nothing wrong with honest ignorance.

This is easily said, but I can think of numerous occassions where I just didn't ask about something because I was afraid of people's reactions to my ignorance. When you later find out that no one else knew what the hell was going on, or that you couldn't possibly have known you feel better about yourself, but you could have saved a lot of trouble if you'd just asked in the first place. I have the feeling that honest and open ignorance is very disarming though.

"Pointing out someone else's ignorance" is of course very common, which reminds me that sometimes people will also feign ignorance to suit their purposes too.

Very interesting thread, btw.

Bunch of things; eta, I so agree with your first post! I read, and think, oh, I want to respond to that, and then, ooh, I have to respond to this, and then, no, I have to read to the end... As a matter of fact, I am typing in an e-mail, just so that I can see the posts without clicking back and forth.

by, yes, this is a very interesting thread; I thought, when I started the conversation one, that it was high time we had another good discussion here.

I notice also that some people approach a conversation the way evangelists approach my front door.
Once again, Keith, you made me laugh out loud--I can just SEE what you're talking about!
Also--now I want to know your definition of wisdom, please, if you don't mind.

I agree with yours and eta's opinion about honest ignorance and on what it is; and in most cases, I don't think people should be blamed. I don't think it will come as a surprise to many here that I keep myself willfully ignorant of Shakespeare. Yes, it causes me to miss a fair number of references, but it just plain is not worth it to me, to try and wade through all that, which for me is nearly as difficult as another language. I am very much an "asker" (also no surprise to some here), but if there is something I don't know to ask about... You have to be aware of something before you can ask about it, 99 or so percent of the time.

I also couldn't agree more that you can't solve a problem if you don't really know what the problem is --much of the time. Partly because it's true, and partly because that is my learning style. I have difficulty, sometimes, in understanding parts of things unless I have first seen the whole (which, I suppose, might explain my need to keep going back so I can see your entire set of posts). I would strongly have preferred, before ever doing anything on my computer, to have a complete understanding--make that awareness--of everything it can do. However, that too would have been more of an effort than I was willing to make. But I have since discovered things that, had I known of them earlier, would have saved me both time and aggravation; and I am quite sure there are many more of which I am still unaware. But, back to problem-solving; let's say that my toilet keeps running. I go to the hardware store, the guy tells me I need to replace this doohickey, and I do: problem solved, and I have no real understanding of what I have done. But if the same thing recurs, I'll know what to do next time. However, if I develop a chronic ache in a strange place, I don't want the Dr. to just give me painkillers--I want her/him to figure out what's causing the pain, and fix THAT. And in that instance, I'll usually understand the problem, as well as the solution. Sometimes throwing a bridge up works; sometimes it doesn't.

About doubt, per this discussion: perhaps a better word might be question. This is not at all the opposite of blind-faith acceptance and belief. Doubt kind of implies that you DISbelieve what was said. You seem not to have disbelieved your math teachers, but you did need to question them; not to disprove what they said, but to further your own understanding.

Helen, your post indicates a pretty dim view of managers. I'd like to think most are better than that, but. I hadn't realized people do things like that (working deliberately slowly) on purpose. (Well, I guess that's another one of those willful-ignorance things; *I* don't do that, so I don't like to think that others do it, either.)

well, there are some bad managers out there..
one of the points of the book is most people start out as eager, happy, excited.. and with poor management, they become disgruntled, sullen workers.. and management often complains and tells them to buck up.. they see it at as a morale problem, when in reality it is often a larger problem
(and sometimes it can't be "managed")

one old examplein the book, involve miners in south african mines. Most were blacks. most were unskilled, but a small percentage were the skilled operators of the "face" machine- a huge machine that ground the face of the rock. the noise was deafening.. so workers were required to wear elaberate hearing protectors.. only they didn't..

and when they didn't, they went deaf! you'd think, they'd really ought to wanna wear hearing protection!

the real problem, was status. since the job of operating the face machine was a high skilled, and high paying and high status job, the men who did it wanted to be recognized.. and one mark of the job, was going deaf from operating the machine. at the time (the book was written in early 1970's,) there were very few ways for black south africans to "strut their stuff" and show off their skill and high status.. but going deaf was one way.

men would choose to not to wear hearing protection, go deaf,and 'mark' themselves in their community as a high skilled worker. there pride of their status was more important to them than their hearing!

until management recognize why the men wouldn't wear hearing protection, they couldn't solve the problem, and get them to change. (managment in this case, tried to create evident visual sign to note the mens status.. first off, they started to require them to were uniforms.. and since only the face workers got uniforms, (which they never wore in the mine, they were to hot and uncomfortable) but could wear on the street) the uniform of the face machine operator gave the men a hazzard free way to proclaim their status!(you might ask why they didn't use the money they earned to buy status, but since the men lived most of the year in a dormatory on the work site, there was little they could do to show off their status)

kids often act 'out of their own best interests' too, and many times, when you find people doing things that seem, like they really ought to know better than to do, there are often reasons-- not ignorance, but some other factor that is working against them behaving a certain way.

i was "ignorant" about how to clean the sump pump in our first house.. even though, with out it, i couldn't do laundry. I never could learn how to shut it off, lie down on the celler floor, reach into the stagnent water, grab the slimy filter on the bottom of the pump, slide it up, and clean the slime off.. I remained ignorant- i learned to do remain ignorant, my ex had already displayed his ignorance about changing babies diapers..

people often motivated to remain ignorant!

You've all pretty much anticipated a lot of what I was going to say, but I'll hold off commenting too much at the moment. I've tried to give examples from experiences that I thought were general enough that probably most people had had similar ones.

Point 1.
One very specific experience: when I started university, I had a number of friends who were prodigies of sorts. One had started college when he was 14, the other at 15. Both had a similar problem in dealing with their older 'peers', although the 15 yo was much more adept at understanding what his own motivations and fears were. I've lost track of the second boy, but the first is among my closest friends even today, now that I'm 42 and he's closing in on 40. Both were brilliant. The second boy, though, spoke to me once about a class we were in. I don't recall if we were in it together or if I had had it previously. This was some time ago. Anyway, he told me he really needed to ask questions sometimes, but didn't because he was afraid of being humiliated by the older guys. "Oh, you think your *SO* smart, but you didn't even know XYZ! So much for your being a prodigy!"

This is a very common problem for kids who are good at school or have something (other than sports) that they're really good at. Any failure at all, any hint of intellectual weakness results in an immediate barrage of venom-tipped projectiles at the exposed area.

Point 2.
And yet another thing I was going to bring up is feigned ignorance. I'm usually pretty calm with my kids, but one thing that really sends me into a tirade is when they pretend to be more stupid than they are - particularly if they're asking for my help on something. "Look, I'll help you, but it's your damned homework and I'm not gonna do it for you." I don't have to do this very often, as they know where the line is, but like any kid they'll test the limits occasionally.

Helen:
Very, very good examples. I'm not familiar with those examples, but I've read similar anecdotes in Lister and Demarco, among others. It's not maliciousness or stupidity, I think, but lack of training for managers and - for a long time - the lack of their being anything like 'management science.' You take someone who's a brilliant engineer and put him in charge of a bunch of other people and he may or may not take to it. It's a gamble.

Jackie: As I said, I consider wisdom vs intelligence to be a separate discussion, so I'm willing to accept the common view. Also, I don't understand enough about general intelligence OR wisdom to defend my opinions which are founded on my own gestalted epiphanies and not training or well-considered reasoning. Nor have I thought this all the way through. Still, correct or not, I have my opinion. I suspect wisdom is not one thing, but many things. It's an axis - or more probably multiple axes - in the space of intelligence, though these axes are not orthogonal (independent). It's a kind of intelligence that is dependent on other intelligences and on which other intelligences depend. On the contrary view, I could make a similar view of personality. I think personality is affected by intelligence and also affects intelligence - and yet it seems silly to say that personality IS a kind of intelligence. OTOOH, 50 years ago we might not have considered physical ability or interpersonal skills to be "kinds of intelligence."

k

A few comments here:

I think by's problem with fearing to appear ignorant, even if honestly so, is more an indictment of the idea that ignorant is necessarily bad than it is an indictment of the notion of honest ignorance.

The point about young students being particularly susceptible to fear of showing ignorance is spot on. When I first went to college I had come directly out of high school with good grades but without having developed good study habits, a result of not having been challenged in high school. If I didn't understand something that was being presented in the college class, I didn't understand why I didn't understand it and did have some fear of appearing ignorant. Later, when I went back to college after four years in the Navy and two years of real life working, I understood a lot more and had lost much of my fear of appearing ignorant. If I saw that other, mostly younger (although there were some other veterans in my classes) students weren't quite grasping a concept, I would ask the stupid question. I could do this for several reasons, not the least of which was that I wasn't worried about seeming ignorant, but also because I often *did understand what the professor was trying to get across and I could tell what it was that the other students weren't understanding.

"well, there are some bad managers out there..
one of the points of the book is most people start out as eager, happy, excited.. and with poor
management, they become disgruntled, sullen workers.. and management often complains and tells them
to buck up.. they see it at as a morale problem, when in reality it is often a larger problem
(and sometimes it can't be "managed")"

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing I can manage is myself. If someone else slacks off and gets paid or somehow rewarded for it, I can't really see what I accomplish by being less than I am by way of revenge. If someone hires me (for pay or as a volunteer) the agreement is that I will do what I say, and they will respond as they have said they will. Wasting time and energy figuring out whether it's unfair for someone to do less and get rewarded for it is tempting, but ultimately a waste of, well, time and energy. Intentionally working more slowly than a coworker so they can be given more work is behavior that is a common strategy, but it's nothing to do with how I do my job. It's between that other worker and his/her conscience, it seems to me. The whole situation can be very hard to swallow; I know that from experience. You can't control other people's behavior, only your own response to it.

Re:As far as I'm concerned, the only thing I can manage is myself.

yup, that is true-- and as a result, you are a managers dream-- but many people get caught up in politics, and group dynamics.. and if we are all being paid to do work, and i am not, and you constantly have to pick up my slack, and the manager does nothing.. you have seveal choices.. do nothing, talk to me or managment.. or change jobs..

when i was a (acting) manager ata company (for less than 6 months) they were laying off, and contracting, and years of poor managment meant they were hemoraging people.. i got a 'team' of employees, all under 30, most with less than 5 years at the company, and a boom market.. between "upper management" decisions, and other factors(people quit or were fired for actions that i was not involved in,(ie, one employee was caught stealing by customer at customer site, and was arrested!),i had 75% turn over in employees in 6 months-- and then i was told, i didn't successfull manage to meet all the upper managment set goals! (like improved morale!)

smart dissatisfied employee 'vote with their feet'.. smart satisfied employees remain for ever!

If someone else slacks off and gets paid or somehow rewarded for it, I can't really see what I accomplish by being less than I am by way of revenge.

I read this last night and remember thinking that it's admirable, but you must not be like "most people", who would become demoralized (as helen said) and leave at the first opportunity. Salient example: My husband worked in a factory for a little over a year. There were about six or seven guys in his section, and he produced a full ONE HALF of their section's output. And he got paid the same crummy wage as the others, regardless. Let me tell you, he never let his work slack off to their level, but he was counting down the days until he was out of that hell-hole. I think that's the sort of thing that better management would have avoided: they would've seen that most of the guys weren't working, and fired them, and replaced them with guys who actually HAD a work ethic. Instead, the whole factory got a raise, slackers and all, when production hit a certain number of units per day for a given time period. It may emphasize "team playing", but it teaches the slackers they don't have to do any work, and they'll still get a raise, and it teaches the hard workers to get the hell out of there. Interestingly, I heard the factory is floundering now. Good thing he got out when he did is all I can say.

"I read this last night and remember thinking that it's admirable, but you must not be like "most people",
who would become demoralized (as helen said) and leave at the first opportunity. "

On the contrary. That's exactly what I would do. Have done. It's demoralizing when you don't have that option. But that's the best reason for running your life so that you have as many choices as possible. If you don't have a conspicuously marketable skill, try get along with management and co-workers where you work until you have learned enough to move on. Try to be valuable until something you like better comes along.

OK, after giving it some thought, maybe there are two types of people:

(A) Those who become demoralized, try to learn from the experience, and move on (like you), and
(B) Those who become demoralized and then become unproductive and unhappy, but won't (or don't realize they can) do anything about it.

I think there are substantial numbers of B types around, but depending on the circles you move in, you might never meet many B's. My husband's old job, on the other hand, was full of B-types - guys who could've done well but allowed themselves to be dragged down by the others.

Reading "Othello" and here's Iago on 'management'-- (sortof):

O, sir, content you;
I will follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That doting on his own obsequious bondage
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd:
Whip me such honest knaves

How the hell did Willy the Word know about egg plc's management style? Was he a mate of Nostradamus'?

There were about six or seven guys in his section, and he produced a full ONE HALF of their section's output. And he got paid the same crummy wage as the others
This is exactly why my daughter has always hated being forced to do group projects in school. SHE will do what is supposed to be done; but that isn't necessarily the case with some of the others, and she doesn't want her grade to suffer on account of them.

This reminds me of a slightly related story:

I was working in my first retail job, as a young, energetic, enthusiastic 20 year old. The owners of the small, family owned store, took an extended vacation, putting me in charge in their absence. Before they left, the wife and I discussed, briefly, some projects for me to do while I was in charge. I was given specific instructions for a couple of the projects, but was given carte blanche for the others.....about 10 in all.

So, I worked like a Trojan and completed all of the projects, using my own ingenuity and ideas. I was feeling wonderfully successful and creative by the time my bosses returned.

As they oohed and ahhed over my work, they kept saying, *they* really had some good ideas and were glad they gave them to me to execute. I was stunned! They were not egotistical or tyrannical bosses, but they honesty thought they had been the creative genious behind ALL of the ideas........and I was only the laborer who carried out their ideas.

Protesting this belief they held, would have only served to make me look like sour grapes, so I kept my mouth shut. But, I soon wised up that I would always be their little lackey, however much they valued me. So, I moved on about 6 months after that, to manage my own store.

Not sure why I told this story.....it seemed to fit when I started it!

Surely there are those who respond to criticism better (justified or not) than others. Probably there is some continuum of response. But I suspect very few people are happy to admit ignorance - and for almost all people, it's particularly difficult to admit ignorance to someone who is really obnoxious.

The gist of things is this:

There are different modes of learning, but one of the most important goes something like this:

Observe the world
Build an internal model of how things fit together
Understand the implications of the model
Formulate hypotheses
Perform an action (which might be physical, mental, or verbal)
See what happens (measure the response)
Draw an inference about whether the action had the intended consequences
Revise the model or conduct further test of hypothesis

Briefly:
step 1. make a mistake and learn from it
step 2. repeat step until enlightenment occurs

Making mistakes - to include oversights, etc, is a natural part of learning FOR EVERYONE. But in our society (not just american society, either, as I discern a similar approach is common throughout the west) tends to vilify ignorance. Those who are percieved as naive or unworldly are either discounted or vilified.

(I'll have more to say on this later.)

k

"step 1. make a mistake and learn from it
step 2. repeat step until enlightenment occurs"

I couldn't agree more, or imagine a better way of dealing with the universe. But I know so many people who can't get all the way through step one, because they think that if they didn't get the desired result it's because everyone else is so obtuse. I suspect it's a result of what you were saying about ignorance and fallibility being vilified. It's hard for human beings to believe that "no" is as useful as "yes" when it comes to information, because it's too easy to believe that those two words correspond to "wrong" and "right" respectively. Formal education frequently reinforces that belief.

"no" is as useful as "yes" when it comes to information

Or, to put it another way, the only experiment that is a failure is one you don't learn anything from.

I frequently tell my students that they learn more from being wrong, than they do being right.

make mistakes, and make 'em loud!

I read once that an interviewer noted Edison's refusal to give up despite his many early failures. Edison replied that he hadn't failed he had just learned 99 ways not to make a lightbulb.

I had an interesting conversation with a 10 year old the other week. He maintained that people today are smarter than "in the olden days" because we know so much more now. He could not grasp the difference between knowledge and intelligence. I am aware of the difference cognitively, but confessing ignorance still feels distressingly like confessing stupidity.

hehe. that reminds me that I told a group of 7/8th grade students the other day that they were "ignorant" about something; boy did I hear about it! I did manage, however, to convince them that what I said had nothing to do with their general level of intelligence, just that they didn't know something, and could learn it if they desired. score one for the teacher!

Since ignorant seems to be changing meanings is there a new word to replace it. [opening can of worms e]
warning - totally off topic: caught an old Spin City episode in which a group of rappers explain that "fat" now means "good". He replied that in that case his ex-wife was wonderful.

why I think honest ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of

You are far too modest, ff. "Honest ignorance" is the foundation of all science.

"fat" now means "good"

Yeahbut® it's spelled dipherent.

I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about the sense of futility envloping much of what we do (scientific research). It's very hard to remind yourself every day that someone has to investigate what turn out to be dead ends, just to be sure they're dead ends and not something potentially useful. It can be very discouraging on a day-to-day level, though. I think before you get into research you picture it as a continuum of brilliant new discoveries, rather than the eternal culling of bad ideas, in the hopes of leaving only the good ones to flourish.

(talking to the very old Count Greffi)
You never seem old

It is the body that is old. Sometimes I am afraid I will break off a finger as one breaks a stick of chalk. And the spirit is no older and not much wiser.

You are wise

No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

Perhaps that is wisdom.

It is a very unattractive wisdom. What do you value most?

Some one I love.

With me it is the same. That is not wisdom....

What do you value most? Someone I love. That is not wisdom ...

If that is not wisdom, Emanuela, it is a lot closer to it than anything I can come up with.

BTW I would have thought that old age would make a sensible person less, not more, careful, because they have less time to accomplish whatever is left for them to accomplish.

If there is nothing left to accomplish, what reason to get up in the morning?

but simply a quotation from Hemingway.

but simply a quotation from Hemingway

True, but it's what you took from Hemingway. [It tolls for you.]

It's hard for human beings to believe that "no" is as useful as "yes" when it comes to information


You're absolutely correct that 1) yes and no are both useful things to know and 2) people frequently have trouble believing that.

k

It's very hard to remind yourself every day that someone has to investigate what turn out to be dead ends


It's a very interesting point you raise here, Bean. I got into a very long protracted argument on the net once with a person who maintained (among inumerable other nonsense) that all falsehoods were lies and all lies were bad.

There's an interesting bit in Popper's "Objective Knowledge" though where he says that there's a real danger in rejecting false theories too soon - before we've gleaned everything we can from them.

I was involved a few years ago on the periphery of a very intruiging project. The other teams were doing real research, but my boss insisted that I get around all that research by getting right to some valuable insight. I tried to tell him that it doesn't work like that. I'm a big believer in serendipity, but that comes about when people are immersed in something - making mistakes and learning from them. Getting right to the point without getting immersed in the subject and making bad guesses, etc., is a crazy goal. I tried to explain that he was asking me to get insight prior to experience, but it fell on deaf ears.

k

How frustrating. Sounds to me like the meteorite theory of scientific discovery. All the ideas, inventions and revelations are floating around out there and if you are lucky enough to be in the right place one will fall on you. No effort required.

No effort required

Nuh-uh. Plenty effort required. Just 99.999% of it isn't going to get you any prizes.

Thanks emanuela!! This was it!

Wordminstrel, the discussion about the relation between age and wisdom, earlier in this thread, had reminded me of this passage in 'Farewell to Arms,' and I had requested folks to pinpoint it for me if they had access to the book... So it isn't exactly what emanuela 'took' from Hemingway... not for herself anyway...