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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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 Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 1:20 pm Post subject: Eclecticism |
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Dear arioch36,
One thing I hated about grad school was the polarization: behaviorists versus humanists. And it was a Dubya-like - "If you're not for us, you're against us" - sort of atmosphere. You seemingly had to be ALL behavorist or ALL humanist. Personally, while I favor the humanist camp more, I am willing to concede that the behaviorists can teach us some worthwhile lessons, as well. I mean, positive and negative reinforcement, for example, DO seem, to me, to be valid ideas. I believe in the eclectic approach: take what makes sense to you from any source. I don't think I'd stick Dewey in there with Watson and Skinner, either. I'd say he was more of a pragmatist than a behaviorist, and a lot of what he wrote still seems useful to me.
http://www.wilderdom.com/experiential/SummaryJohnDeweyExperienceEducation.html
Smoking funny cigarettes? Moi? Not for quite a while now. These days I'm clean and sober - and, strangely enough, I'm finding life to be much more fun that way.
Regards,
John |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 7:40 am Post subject: |
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Dewey...of course i am prejudiced by my mother's and grandfather's dislike of the effect he had on the American educational philosophy (circa 1917?).
Dewey was definitely a "humanist", signer of the Human Manifesto one . By the accepted measure of what a religious humanist is (their term) , he is definitely a humanis. My views are quite contrary, but I consider myself a humanist
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| no experience has pre-ordained value |
,
which on the surface is hard to diasgree with. Reality? I can't measure it, but I know some experiences effect us more then others.
this kind of thought is why I link him with the other two. You could interepret what he says different ways, and much of what he said, personally, I believe he hid is true feelings for what was PC at the time. I would say this was part of the trend of moral relativism, no one can say what is right or wrong (true, no one can, but if no one does, what happens to a society?) we should do whatever feels good, etc.
My interpretation, and a paraphrase from the human manifesto that he drafted, is that man is just a slightly more complex animal, and what ever he feels is good, man should do. You could argue this many ways. Later, the common rationale, "children should be encouraged to be independent, and think for themselves. Now, it is hard to disagree with that. What was the intent of the philosophy? Do I know the man's heart? Should children learn to think independenlty? Sure. But that is not really what he wanted. He wanted to separate children (AKA Hitler, Mao and their youth movements) from the "screwed up" control of traditional institutions and from the average parent who just wasn't capable of being the rationale, enlightened being that these "scientists" were. The social "scientists of this age were going to lead the world out of of the opression of social institutions and into a new evolved, better, being.
yeah I'm lumping a lot of diferent philosphies together, but the common demoninator, to me, was the trend of that that we are just animals, there no moral right or wrong, just moral relativism, etc. And these philosophers (they considered themselves to be scientists, though) were going to lead us to a , and the biggest thing standing in the way were the social institutions, and the parents who could not view the world rationally.
That said, they all did a lot of interesting things, (like the experiments on the boyAlbert), which screwed up society worse then the social institutions they despised
Last edited by arioch36 on Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:46 am; edited 1 time in total |
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arioch36
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 3589
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| Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:35 am Post subject: |
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Xin nian kuai le
Oh, Dewey started a couple of schools, didya know... both had a lot of hype, both were dismal failures
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His lab school however performed so poorly that Dewey was forced to leave Chicago and his failing school in less than three years. He set up his famous Lincoln School in Manhattan where it too ultimately failed.
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Dewey does remind me lot of Clinton at times (insult or compliment?), definitely a non-Bush. While his word are always well said, Dewey had a very real agenda to alter the world in his image
Dewey said
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| A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. |
In the humanist manifesto www.jcn.com/manifestos.html
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THIRTEENTH: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world.
FOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.
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I'll leave it to you to conside the ramifications of what is really being said. perhaps different people would se it differently |
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