I was nowhere near 40. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 1:24 PM jon zingale <jonzing...@gmail.com> wrote: > "They're not trying to *fix* the thing so much as bathing in its beauty." > > I love this observation, universals like beauty are grounded by being in > the > world. > > "To entice them into such jobs with money is impoverished" > > While I mostly agree, I cannot help but notice that (by the numbers given > in > the video) the top plumbers can only hope to make as much as an entry-level > web developer, and then there are the externalities... > > "We need to entice them/us into such muck in the same way we entice, say, a > field biologist into their muck." > > The *muck* isn't simply mud or shit, but an ecosystem of hepatitis and > parasites. Also, there is culture. While working as a laborer to a plumber > wasn't the worst job I have ever had, the general milieu encouraged violent > humor and poor diet, discouraged thinking, and a bordering-on-philosophical > acceptance that we live, breathe, and eat shit. It doesn't take long to > start to feel the hate creep in, folded into the soul as a consequence of > being in the world. > > Then, there are the strange side-effects of our meritocratic capitalism. It > seems to me that the cultural dynamics pressure individuals both toward > specialism and away from meritocratic principles in a number of ways. Two, > off the top of my head, counterintuitive and interrelated points > include[†]: > > 1. Generalized spoils: Becoming a certified expert in a field occasionally > confers expertise *over* individuals without certification in matters > outside the scope of practice. A back of the envelope heuristic is employed > along the lines of "Well, we know that *this* individual did some hard > thinking in one area so *at least* we know they can do hard thinking > *generally*. *That* individual we know nothing about, so place your bet > accordingly". That this is a common feature of our society suggests that > with access to deeper levels of certification comes greater access to > agency. Too often, doing "low level" *essential work* bars an individual > from being taken seriously. > > 2. Optimized employment: A career (whatever those were) is a process of > canalization. Specialists are often more employable exactly because > specific > work is needed and throughput is directly measured. An effect, it seems to > me, is that valuable generalists are left to roam nomadically between > careers, under continuous exposure to forces that actively inhibit a sense > of agency, value, or accumulated skill[≃]. As another option, I suppose, > generalists survive the optimization through mimicry, the stultifying > practice/training of one's self toward myopia. > > My concern here is that neither with academic work nor manual labor is > there > much room for the life of the mind. Especially not for a generalist mind. > Instead, as youngsters, we are shown futures construed as accolade-valued > functions along the real line. The rhetorical image, familiar to everyone > here, is that "If you want options you head toward school"[∅]. > > [†] Please, pardon the touches of autobiographical bitterness. > > [≃] Specialist-Generalist inequity in the workplace is a place that I would > love to see more attention given. > > [∅] Even at 40, people compulsively give me this advice weekly. > > > > -- > Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >
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