Author Archives: Gary Herstein

A Field Guide to the Education Industry

07 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Logic

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Diane Ravitch’s blog, and the attached .PDF file, deserve to be widely read and understood: the handbook of the “for profit” education “reform” industry. Of course, “reform” is less the interest here so much as DEFORM. These corporate mutilators would have you believe that education is a commodity, students are consumer/customers, and teachers are disposable instruments only. For some thoughts that might wash the taste of bile from your mouth that you’ll get from the .PDF that Ravitch has provided, you might look at Dewey’s wonderful Democracy and Education. While Dewey’s language suffers in places from a Eurocentric complacency that tips into “white man’s burden” tripe, his larger ideas remain cogent and worthy of thought.

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

Here is the handbook of the for-profit education industry (although it does advise you to drop the label “for-profit”).

Here are some basic facts that it recites. The world spends many billions on education. The United States spends close to $2 trillion on education, nearly $900 billion on K-12.

This is a huge market for investors seeking to make a profit.

And then it launches into spin about how terrible the American public education system is, never mentioning that our students (white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian) now have the highest test scores ever on NAEP, the highest graduation rates in history (for all groups), and the lowest dropout rates (for all groups). It is the usual “sky-is-falling” hokum, all intended to persuade the public to turn their public schools over to hedge fund managers and equity investors and hucksters who know nothing at all about education.

There is also no mention of…

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Against the Person

05 Sunday Jul 2015

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One of the less well understood fallacies that is committed often enough to have a Latin name is the argumentum ad hominem, the argument “against the person.” Many people take it for granted that an ad hominem occurs any time you say something negative about another person or group. Certainly it does not help when popular references – that are supposed to be authoritative – fail to accurately characterize matters.

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Thus, for example, the online Merriam-Webster dictionary gives two definitions of the ad hominem: The first defines it by saying, “appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect,” the second definition given says, “marked by or being an attack on an opponent’s character rather than by an answer to the contentions made.” (The link may be found HERE.) But definition one is patently wrong; what they are describing is the argumentum ad misericordiam, not the ad hominem. The second is closer, but invites the error of use that I want to mention here. Because, you see, merely by being an evident attack on another’s character is not, by itself, sufficient to mark a statement as an ad hominem fallacy. Continue reading →

Anti-Intellectualism and Racism?

20 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Altemeyer, Authoritarians, General Philosophy, Logic, Racism

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A post over at Psychology Today makes the claim that “Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America.” Citing the horrific mass murder in Charleston by the overtly racist Dylann Roof, the essay goes on to state that, “Many will correctly blame Roof’s actions on America’s culture of racism and gun violence, but it’s time to realize that such phenomena are directly tied to the nation’s culture of ignorance.”

Now, among the more singularly despicable statements made by conservative politicians, pundits, and supposed “news” outlets, have been the cowardly red herring evasions of the obvious and irrefutable fact of Roof’s overtly and explicitly stated racist motivations in the mass murder at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The disgusting refusal on the parts of so many to frankly acknowledge and deplore the blatant racism behind Roof’s act of terrorism is beyond inexcusable. The people engaged in such denial and misdirection are themselves complicit in Roof’s crimes as enablers and legitimizers.mckinney-texas-pool-party_400x295_82

But even though anti-intellectualism and racism may likely be frequent, even inevitable, co-travelers, can we justifiably assert that anti-intellectualism is the root, and racism is the branch, as the author in the above Psychology Today post does? I do not think so. Continue reading →

Science and Philosophy

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in General Philosophy, Logic, Philosophy of Science, Whitehead

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My colleague Brian asked (some little while ago), “I wondered if you might make some comments on the relationship (assuming there is one) between science and speculative philosophy?” Well, now that the generalized madness that is and was the 2015 International Whitehead Conference is behind me, I finally have time to turn my attention to this and other questions.

There is absolutely a relationship between science and speculative philosophy, and it is worth remembering how that relationship expressed itself in the past: Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton all knew themselves to be engaged IN philosophy when they made their grand, speculative proposals. My answer here, however, will be thoroughly Whiteheadian. Not, however, because I’m a “fan,” but because I believe that Whitehead was substantially correct on the issues he chose to engage, and always interesting, regardless.* Continue reading →

Perennial Polyculture

08 Monday Jun 2015

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“Soil is not a renewable resource.” — so quoth Wes Jackson. The statement is not strictly true, but the rate at which soil can be renewed, is so much smaller than the rate at which it is currently destroyed that it is effectively non-renewable. And a second take-away from yesterday mornings plenary with Wes Jackson is that, “Soil is more important than oil.” All the fossil fuels that not only exist, but that can be conjured up in the human imagination, will not save you if the base of your food production has been wiped out. However, Wes Jackson has a plan — actually, he has had one for some 40+ years now — and it is coming to fruition some 10 — 60 years sooner than he’d originally projected. Continue reading →

Ecological Economics

07 Sunday Jun 2015

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Professor Herman Daly’s plenary yesterday morning was actually a pre-recorded interview, with Daly Skyping in to a local NPR radio host and John Cobb. (“Local” in this context should be taken with a grain of salt — the radio studio was in Santa Monica which is an hour and a half away, provided the traffic is kind. The traffic is never kind. One of the things many people fail to realize about the greater Los Angeles area is that it is larger than some New England states.)

The basic ideas are ones that I need to explore in more detail: in describing their ideas as “ecological,” these economists are not simply referring to green-hippy “love your mother” mushiness. There is a concrete program involved that argues for a shift FROM growth TO development that is predicated on economic principles and not just “think happy thoughts.” Continue reading →

Pando Populus

06 Saturday Jun 2015

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Pando is the largest living organism on the planet. It spans an area of over 100 acres in So. Utah, and is over 80,000 years old. It might not survive this century.

Pando is an Aspen (genera = “Populus”) forest. But Aspen’s are not individual trees; they share a common root system, and as such are a single living organism within that root system. Pando is the largest such known, and we are killing it. It has been chosen as the symbol of the encroaching ecological catastrophe, and the image of hope and imperative that is the driving force behind the 10th International Whitehead Conference. When the conference is finished, Pando Populus will be the ongoing site for linking activism, philosophical and scientific information, and community in a common root system of energy and life. Continue reading →

Trees and Ph.D.’s

05 Friday Jun 2015

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There was a long time before this evenings unofficial dinner, and this night’s big plenary. So I managed to catch up with some friends and spend the day strolling (and drinking) on Venice beach. We gave ourselves 2 hours to get back to Claremont, and L.A. traffic still managed to preclude reaching the 5:00 dinner on time. But we were only 10 minutes late, and I was able to call ahead to offer apologies.

The first plenary was rather different than what I had been expecting.

Bill McKibben did get up to talk — eventually. As expected, several other people got up to talk first, so that a string of folks could introduce another string of folks. The first surprise was that the strings were much longer than I had expected. Even more surprising was that many of them were downright charming. Continue reading →

2015 IWC: Arrived

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in 2015 International Whitehead Conference

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I flew in relatively early — the first plenary isn’t until tomorrow night, and the tracks and sessions don’t begin until Friday — to give myself the luxury of being settled in when the conference started, and (most importantly) to attend an unofficial dinner tomorrow before the plenary. Rather than struggle to get here in time for all of that on the 4th, I came in today w/o worrying about the time. (Oh, the tomorrow’s plenary speaker is Bill McKibben.)

Claremont itself is an extremely well manicured place; signs of the devastating California drought are not widely apparent in the lawns and gardens along Indian Hill Blvd. The town is very Middle-to-Upper-Middle class. The downtown area is busy with many mid-scale restaurants that are not franchises. Even at 9:00 on a Wednesday, they are quite busy. Not only a Wednesday, but a Wednesday after the semester is over: The Claremont Colleges are a significant presence in the area, although even here it seems doubtful that the undergraduates would bring sufficient monies into the area to maintain the downtown restaurant scene. So the steady traffic of customers extends well beyond just a student base.