Interdisciplinary Connections, Complexity Theory, Classical Liberalism, Integrated Coastal Management, Sociology of Science, and Symbolic Anthropology

As my doctoral studies slowly advance I am beginning to perceive ideological connections between various disciplines that have not, at least from my reading of the literatures, obviously influenced each other very much. I can think of a few reasons why I might be drawing these connections where others have not.

The first, and most unlikely, explanation is that I am a really clever fellow who has managed to stitch together some unified threads that coherently tie all of these seemingly disparate disciplines together.

A more likely explanation is that my relative isolation from academic interactions, (living on an island in the middle of the Yellow Sea) has resulted in a much more random, almost hodgepodge, journey through the major thinkers in academia than is typical for doctoral students. This lack of guidance has allowed me to wander about, so to speak, with greater freedom through the thoughts of academics from diverse disciplines and backgrounds.

The final explanation is that this aimless wandering has caused me to see mirages. Like a man lost in a desert without a guide and water I’ve started seeing connections that aren’t really there.

So as a corrective I thought I would briefly list why I think the above disciplines are connected by common philosophical or ideological sympathies.

1. All of the disciplines understand the world to be a deeply complex place about which we can have only partial and imperfect knowledge.

2. None of the disciplines think that this complexity can be made unproblematic, mastered, or overcome.

3. All of these disciplines are skeptical of centralized and distanced authority and hierarchy.

4. All of these disciplines recognize and value diversity and believe it to be very deeply seated. Believing the world to be ontologically one thing, while admitting the existence of multiple epistemologies, is not sufficient. Rather they all argue, without necessarily retreating into relativism, that one should have a very humble opinion of one’s own opinions.

Does anyone else who is familiar with these disciplines agree, or not?

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, more thoughts on Libertarianism

I’ve finally gotten around to reading some Hayek. He is something of a founding father of Libertarianism. Although I find his writing stylistically questionable, run-on sentences abound, the content of those sentences is much more appealing. The Road to Serfdom provides a convincing account of why Socialism is inimical to freedom. Therefore my love of freedom makes me skeptical of Socialism. I particularly like this excerpt in which he discusses the foundations of the opposite of Socialism, namely Individualism.

“This is the fundamental fact on which the whole philosophy

of individualism is based. It does not assume, as is often asserted,

that man is egoistic or selfish, or ought to be. It merely starts

from the indisputable fact that the limits of our powers of

imagination make it impossible to include in our scale of values

more than a sector of the needs of the whole society, and that,

since, strictly speaking, scales of value can exist only in individual

minds, nothing but partial scales of values exist, scales

which are inevitably different and often inconsistent with each

other. From this the individualist concludes that the individuals

should be allowed, within defined limits, to follow their own

values and preferences rather than somebody else's, that within

these spheres the individual's system of ends should be supreme

and not subject to any dictation by others. It is this recognition

of the individual as the ultimate judge of his ends, the belief that

as far as possible his own views ought to govern his actions, that

forms the essence of the individualist position.”

However Hayek, at least in this book, does not lay out a how those who are skeptical of Socialism, like me, should go about organizing a government, or seek to reform the one that they are a part of.

For as even Hayek admits everyone needs a plan, not just Socialists. He does say that such a plan’s main goal should be to promote fair competition. But he doesn't say how you do that. Perhaps his later book, The Constitution of Liberty will be more forthcoming on this topic.

Beware the of 아주머들 (Ajummas)

"Ajummas" in Korea are famous for their brusque strength and determination. The literal English translation is "aunt" but this fails utterly to capture the nuanced and rich imagery that the word evokes in Korean minds. According to this article it looks as if the North Korean government's latest currency swap policy, known as "Kim Jong Il's Great Confisication," has led to an Ajumma Revolt of sorts.

Hell hath no fury like an Ajumma scorned.

Go shopping China!

Maybe a year or so ago I remember watching a press meeting in which the then U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, chided the Chinese for not spending enough. This week David Brooks, who I often like, repeats this sentiment saying that the “Chinese consume too little.”

I have several problems with this. First, these statements are simply arrogant. Who are we (I’m American) to tell the Chinese people what they should do with their money?

Second, these statements are perverse because they are simply bad counsel. Since when was American-style profligate consumerism something to be promoted internationally? Our economy is in shambles partly because people recklessly spent too much by taking easy credit that they couldn’t reasonably expect to pay off.

Third, such statements are plainly driven by naked American self-interest. We need the Chinese to spend more to help us, not because of some impartial need to, as Brooks puts it, “address global imbalances.”

America has sunk pretty low if it has to try and pull other countries down (like China) in order to pull itself up.

Orthopraxis vs. Orthodoxy, more from Baker's Korean Spirituality

Here is another great insight from Baker's Korean Spirituality. He states that until the introduction of Christianity into Korea most Koreans were more concerned with orthopraxis (acting correctly) rather than orthodoxy (believing the correct thing). Here is an excerpt,

"[Confucian] privileging of performance and emotion over belief was

challenged by Korea’s first Christians, who refused to participate in

traditional ancestor memorial services. They argued that bowing before

tablets representing the ancestors was a form of idolatry, because

it implied that the ancestors were actually present in those tablets. In

the ritual-based worldview of traditional Korean religion, such an

objection to ancestor memorial services missed the point. Bowing

before the tablet was not making a statement about whether the spirits

of the ancestors were present in those tablets. It was not a physical

expression of faith in the actual presence of the ancestors. Rather,

bowing was a way for the descendants to show that they still loved

and respected those who had brought them into this world. Moreover,

participation in an ancestor memorial service reinforced family

solidarity."

What do you think? Is orthopraxis or orthodoxy, more important? Vote at the poll on the right.

The anti-individualism of Korean Spirituality

I’ve written before about how Western culture seems to be unique in the world in its promotion of individuality and independent thought. There is much literature on how Asian societies are much more sensitive to context and relationships than Western Ones. Don Baker’s book on Korean Spirituality (see book list for link) is an easy read and helped me immensely to clarify some of the spiritual reasons why this might be.

He talks about how the Korean concept of evil is better translated as a feeling or state of “disharmony.” Begging the question of disharmony with what, Baker replies, disharmony with other people and spirits. So at a very fundamental level Koreans traditionally have believed that avoiding evil requires one to be aware of, and get along with, those around them. Being in harmony with a group, rather than with a God or with some religious book, is the ultimate goal.

Though certainly only one piece of the puzzle, it is a good insight.

Page 295 "The Absence of Evaluative Data on ICM Programs." Page 297 "Successful Practices Related to ICM Processes" Cognitive dissonance anyone?

These quotes are headings from the otherwise very informative, and widely used, book Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management (see my Book List for a link) by Biliana Cicin-Sain and Robert Knecht, who are probably the two top experts on, and developers of, ICM in the USA.

But everyone has a weak spot and this is theirs. How, I must ask, can one know what is "Successful" if one has not bothered to collect any data by which to make that evaluation? To their credit they spend the 2 pages between 295 and 297 talking about the biases that cause this absence of data. But disappointingly they spend a mere two paragraphs calling for improvement in this area and offer no suggestions on means to overcome anti-evaluation biases or methods by which data could be collected.

Their book was published in 1998 and over the past decade a few people in the field have started making more calls for greater M&E and produced methodologies towards that end, but I have yet to see one really rigorous evaluation performed.