Honestly, Id more-or-less given up on SG. I like the idea of the site but every journal I saw for weeks on end focused on the same myopic struggles. Today I was perusing the SignalNoisejournal and found a glut of cool people. Anyway, Im back.
What is new with me? Since I last wrote Ive been in Dallas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana and Philadelphia. What do all these places have in common? They all make me tired. Actually, Ive just received pretty exciting news that I will be in the PhD program of my dreams starting next year. Im extremely stoked.
Unfortunately, most of the content Ive put up so far has been extremely reactionary. Im failing to construct anything at all. My apologies. Im normally not an intellectual leech.
Now for something good and obscure. I wonder where the SG crowd stands on questions of truth and empiricism. Im rather turned off by most empirical methods. They certainly explain A truth, but they rarely isolate THE truth. People often over-quote and misquote Hegel in order to explain their beliefs that theory informs empirical studies which thereby inform theories, working towards some lofty new synthesis where theories accord with the world as explained by the scientific method.
What pisses me off is the idea of the impartial observer. As if we can or should ever remove ourselves from reality in order to depict it accurately. I also loath the case study writer and practitioner. Should we pick a point towards the center of the spectrum or find a new paradigm? Unfortunately, I think math ability decides many academics' spectrum-locations. What a shitty way to choose an ideology.
What is new with me? Since I last wrote Ive been in Dallas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana and Philadelphia. What do all these places have in common? They all make me tired. Actually, Ive just received pretty exciting news that I will be in the PhD program of my dreams starting next year. Im extremely stoked.
Unfortunately, most of the content Ive put up so far has been extremely reactionary. Im failing to construct anything at all. My apologies. Im normally not an intellectual leech.
Now for something good and obscure. I wonder where the SG crowd stands on questions of truth and empiricism. Im rather turned off by most empirical methods. They certainly explain A truth, but they rarely isolate THE truth. People often over-quote and misquote Hegel in order to explain their beliefs that theory informs empirical studies which thereby inform theories, working towards some lofty new synthesis where theories accord with the world as explained by the scientific method.
What pisses me off is the idea of the impartial observer. As if we can or should ever remove ourselves from reality in order to depict it accurately. I also loath the case study writer and practitioner. Should we pick a point towards the center of the spectrum or find a new paradigm? Unfortunately, I think math ability decides many academics' spectrum-locations. What a shitty way to choose an ideology.
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another good book about academia is "writing for social sciences" - not so much of a how to get thru grad school book, but the title is pretty self-explanatory. it's actually really short - but then, that's the point right? the guy who wrote it makes some nice arguments about moving beyond jargon & just ya know, trying to be *clear* & have a *point*
your quotation from delay is something else. i understand the power dynamics, to some degree, that push politicians to say silly things (b/c ya know, they have to get re-elected & are captured by the soundbyte & thus denied real arguments). and i know how problematic it is to have true deliberative democracy ... but it seems so necessary. otherwise, we just get backed into ideological corners & firm positions - it becomes hard to figure stuff out. our institutions now are doing ok - but i think a shakeup (tho improbable) could do them good.
oh, and you have a research project already to boot? that's sweet.