Trans-discipline

The Ethics of the Internet

The recent discussion abut SOPA on ars technica is fascinating, as much for what it says as what it doesn't. For example, this essay <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/internet-regulation-and-the-economics-of-piracy.ars> by Julian Sanchez takes a purely economic perspective on piracy, arguing that the prevention that SOPA would provide is worse than the disease of piracy. While this may be true, it’s not the same as arguing that living with the disease is a good thing. The ethical problem that piracy presents, that internet sites often serve as a "pass through" for illegal or unethical activity (not to mention outrageous misinformation, bigotry, ignorance and invective) under the thin guise of "user-provided content" without having to take responsibility for that content as if one was a "publisher" (because it’s too difficult or expensive), is simply ignored. Moreover, the general use of hyperbole related to a general shutdown of the internet if any effort at regulation is imposed keeps getting used to drive fearful and anxious responses to these perceived threats. There is the tendency on all sides to cry wolf (or play chicken little, choose your metaphor) all too often.

 

The posting by Nate Anderson in this essay <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/post-sopa-the-path-forward-for-addressing-piracy.ars> is more balanced, a practical argument that the aims of SOPA are not bad (even if the problem is exaggerated, it's still real), just that it takes a one-sided corporate-written sledgehammer to a problem that requires a collaborative surgical approach. His list of issues and processes is really quite constructive, even if it continues the trope of a controlling corporate profit-hawking structure in black hats against the freedom-loving innovative and entrepreneurial internet mavericks in white hats that has grown a bit tiresome. From an ethical point of view, both suffer from the same amoral, consequences for others be damned, I'm going to get my piece of the action (whether that be in terms of profit, exercising creativity, seeing what we can get away with, etc.) mentality that characterizes much of American society and business, corporate or not. 

Let's take Anderson’s article, for example. Great ethical stances on open drafting and hearings (much too much legislation is written, as he describes, in closed door sessions dominated by lobbyists these days, undermining the nature of a democracy), and on clarifying issues and processes in a rational and equitable fashion (although even the adversarial process he mentions is still weighted in practice much too heavily to those with capital). Where I disagree with him is on the DCMA safe harbor argument (which is ably discussed by Timothy B. Lee here <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/the-stop-online-piracy-act-big-contents-full-on-assault-against-the-safe-harbor.ars>) where Anderson cites Sen. Ron Wyden to the effect that "It's important to not increase liability for intermediaries. Just as you don't hold a toll road accountable for a driver's bad behavior, you shouldn't hold the ISPs or other platforms liable for online user behavior." This analogy (with images of the information superhighway, but now with tolls (how telling)) is poorly applied. If SOPA was a way to get around the loose interpretation of safe harbor and tighten it up, it may have had the wrong means but I believe it had the right objective. Part of this is my objection to the basically libertarian/utilitarian ethos of the internet, where such sentiments as "you can't hold the tool-maker responsible for how the tool is used" or the above toll road analogy abound. 

Such arguments by analogy are in themselves logically weak as is, dependent as they are on implication and impreciseness, or even blatant misleading substitution (this is like that, that is unobjectionable, therefore this is, too) where this is clearly on further analysis not like that, even if it at first appears to be. The internet is not a toll road, or a neutral tool; it is an intentionally constructed instrument for the rapid and convenient sharing of information in many different forms, and the shape of programs created for the internet intentionally shape and steer the direction and kind of that information. As much as they might be portrayed by their advocates as innocent open conduits, they are (and here I'll use my analogy, hopefully not a misleading one) in effect like publishing houses, with more or less control over the content they publish. Link-sharing services, for example, are more than simple bibliographies or lists, they are conduits for the acquisition of content and ought to be as responsible and liable for what they provide access to as a publisher or library would be. Arguments that such responsibility would be stifling, expensive, prohibitive, etc. do not remove the ethical responsibility that providers have for the access they "provide," especially if they are going to profit from such provision.

I think we can argue productively about how accountability for such responsibility ought to function in practice, how it can be enforced, regulated, and monitored, and what effects it would have on the marketplace (both of ideas and profit), but the attempt to evade responsibility is exactly what precipitates the ham-fisted efforts represented by SOPA in the first place. Just as there is a lot of good stuff out there (the vast majority of it), there is also a lot of crap (bigotry, misinformation, invective, plagiarism and theft). Identifying the latter is admittedly difficult and contentious, but it does not remove our (content-creators, service-providers, web-page owners, etc.) responsibility to effectively police ourselves. For if we don't, someone will keep trying to do it for us.

 

Reading as Transdisciplinary Art 2

A student asked an interesting question this morning: what did I think of using Kindle or Nook as a platform for course readings? It sparked a chain of thinking related to purposeful reading and study. Electronic reading platforms are an incredibly convienent and fast way to access information, arguments, and critical sources, especially as the amount of work available increases. For those who prefer their information in this form, there is much to say for reading in this way. It is accessible, inexpensive, ready to hand, and searchable. It can automatically bookmark and return us to our last page, even in different readers. And if coupled to a laptop or a smartphone, can provide a place for note-taking that is just as portable and digital as the source.

The difficulty is when we bring our reading habits in other on-line and digital sources to bear on serious, reflective and critical reading. Quickly skimming over the screen, progressively reading less and less as we move down the screen, hurredly flipping from page to page, and barely holding anything in mind for long seem characteristic of how many of us read online. The format is well suited to encourage  superficial reading, especially as it is often done 'on the go,' caught in snatches as we move form task to task, activity to activity in our frenetic lives.

That said, 'traditional' reading from printed materials both benefit  and suffer from similar if distinct dynamics. Books and journals function independent of mediating technology, free from the need for electric recharges, and can be marked in and noted on with impunity. Manual searches in library stacks and bookstore shelves often turn up related and interesting material a search engine might overlook. And there is the satisfaction (for some) of looking at a bookcase of well-read and loved books that a digital list in Finder cannot really replace.

But if we bring the same habits from the casual reading of these materials to our serious reading, they are heardly better as sources of critical study. Sitting down on our comfortable corner couch, with the warm sunlight beaming in over our shoulder as on a Sunday morning leafing through the paper, flipping through pages waiting to find a phrase that catches our eye, or rereading pages when the bookmark has slipped out until we realize, yes, we had read this once before, all lead to the same superficial reading we can so easily blame the new media platforms for encouraging. The point being that both digital and paper media have ways that lend themselves to light reading, and force us to make decisions that promote serious reading and reflection: sitting at a well-lit desk or table, or a good chair with a side table alongside, with note-taking instruments near-by, and preparing our minds and bodies for work, not leisure, are important habits no matter the media. Without such discipline and attention to the matter at hand, the form of delivery hardly matters.

So here's to diligent study, intelligent reading, thorough note-taking, and the critical questioning of texts, whether read on a glowing screen or under a burning incandescent bulb (OK, CFLs can be included). Here's to significant stretches of time dedicated to intense labor over ideas, words, and arguments. And let's not debate whether a book in the hand is worth two in the nook unless we are really prepared to really read them.

The Green Challenge*

Advancing sustainability through innovative technology, creative planning, and ecological design is what we are about today. Much of what we are going to present and discuss could be organized under the idea of being “bright green,” using human ingenuity, science and technology to address the environmental crisis of our times, to solve the green challenge.

The challenge we confront is that being green is both enabled and complicated by who we are as human beings, as members of this planet’s biosphere. We know that ecological and biological systems are not inherently sustainable. Mass extinctions in the prehistoric past have happened repeatedly. Crisis as much as continuity is our natural inheritance. Human history, although it looks progressive to us, is more often characterized by cyclical rises and falls: individual careers, family fortunes, local communities, nation-states, empires, all rise and fall. It is what fills our histories and literature. As much as we need and desire a sustainable natural and social environment, such is not our legacy. In an odd way, being green is unnatural. But the solution to the green challenge lies also in human nature.

We human beings are different from all other species on this planet. We are collaborative and cooperative, which is why we are gathered here today, to work together, to share ideas, to find common cause. We are creative and innovative, as the work here will demonstrate, coming up with great new ideas in energy savings and material efficiency. We are the only species that problem solves through collaboration. Lots of species have social organizations; others are intelligent enough to individually solve problems. We seem to be the only ones to put the two together.

We are also incredibly destructive. It is why we know that “the process of rethinking the world requires time and persistence” as the program introduction notes. We are the only species we know of that has, through our own efforts, caused the extinction of thousands of other species. In our zeal to transform our world, we have altered it beyond recognition. Vast urban spaces, complex transportation networks, and global climate change are just some example of how we have reworked the planet, for good and for ill.

But our hope lies in just this difference. We recognize what we are doing. We are conscious of it. We can collaborate and create, we can think of, dream of, solutions to these problems. But we have to also be aware that the problems, the challenges, are not just external to ourselves. It is about transforming our own natures, about inspiring others, pushing each other to think beyond individual profit, beyond technological fixes, and looking toward changing ourselves as well. It is about “rethinking the world,” especially, if not fundamentally, the human world we inhabit.

There is the old cliché of not seeing the forest for the trees. We will be looking at and discussing a lot of wonderful and beautiful trees today. For a moment, however, I want us to focus on the forest. We in this room represent both the greatest hope for the future of advancing sustainability as well as its greatest threat. Are we going to rise to the challenge of transforming not only the way we do business, design buildings and employ technology, but of constantly confronting the destructive capabilities in ourselves? Are we going to link the innovations and inspirations we discuss today to the bigger picture of human responsibility to other species as well as to each other?

Finally, are we going to use this time to be inspired to create our own solutions, our own designs and plans, to follow in the footsteps of those presenting here today, so that our destructive tendencies as human beings will be held in check  by our collaborative, creative, and innovative use of our imaginations? Are we going to meet the green challenge knowing that it not just a solution to a set of technical and economic problems but a transformation in our way of thinking, our way of life?

I believe your presence here is already a “yes” to these questions. I know that the presentations today will inspire us all to think more deeply about these issues. And I hope that you actively connect these ideas to your own lives, your own futures, and to all of ours as well.

* Keynote given at the Advancing Sustainability: Business + Design Symposium, Woodbury University, Burbank, CA, October 2011.

Almost a year

Can't believe it's been almost a year since my last posting. Much has transpired in that time in the Institute and at Woodbury.

• The university has passed a new integrative learning plan for all students that firmly embeds transdicisplinarity into our curriculum, initially with a course in interdisciplinary studies, followed by a course with transdisciplinary practices as a methodology, such as our upcoming spring course on genocides. 
• We have welcomed two new visiting professors in mathematics (Rubik Yegoryan) and philosophy (Douglas Green) and are conducting searches for regular professors in these two fields.
• We are developing a relationship with The Kelter Center in Los Angeles for assisting students with their learning and professors wth their teaching in several transdisciplinary ways.
• I am guest editing a special edition of The European Legacy on terrorism for 2012 along with my Woodbury colleagues Emerald Archer and Will MCConnell.
• We survived a visit from two extraordinary evaluators from the Council of Writing Program Adminstrators.
• Our own Elisabeth Sandberg went on an international book tour promoting her new work, Elusive Shadows, recreating into English the gahzals and poems of Jamshed Masroor.

Once again, I promise to try to me more diligent at this blogging thing, but don't hold me to it if past practice is any indication. Until next month, then...

Transformation

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chuang Tzu. Soon I awaked, and there I was, truly myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things. --Chuang Tzu

The third movement is to experience transdisciplinarity as transformation. We must be willing and able to drop personal borders and the defense of expertise. We must listen, struggle, and take the time for mutual learning and openness, to confront questions of scientific technique and ethics, issues of both environmental and social sustainability, and commitments, practices and values of a personal nature. We must have a willingness to be changed, to no longer the be the person we have always been, just as the way the world has always been (at least for the length of our lifetimes) has to radically, at the root, change.

Sustainability is not, and cannot be, the sustainability of the current status quo, environmentally, economically or ethically. In these regards we know we are in a cul de sac. What is to be done is a complete and thorough transformation, a transversal and transgression of all the old divisions, disciplines and dogmas that have bound us and driven us to this impasse. It begins with the personal, public and pedagogical changes we have begun; we just need to develop this beginning into an ethos of transdisciplinarity.

Transversal

The second movement is to practice transdisciplinarity as transversal, as comprising equal parts hospitality, boundary crossing and adventure. Hospitality (I've discussed this before in earlier posts) requires the adaptation of our language and a lowering of our guard, accepting the possible transformation of our roles, rules and behaviors. Reciprocal boundary crossing, venturing on to each others’ terrains and undertaking participant-centered investigations must be done with a spirit of adventure and risk-taking by all. 

In this movement, the shift in our notion of hospitality is the most challenging. The acceptance of the stranger into one’s home is much easier than becoming a stranger in another’s home. In either direction, and for all parties, hospitality requires the deferral of one’s own agenda, the potential conflict of values, the disruptions of everyday life, and the sacrifice of time and energy.  

Then there are the intrusions on privacy, the negotiations of notions of rights and prerogatives, the tensions of obligations and refusals, and the forced intimacy. Finally, the need to provide and serve, the ethics of asking and of surrender, the relationship between guest and host and its implicit (if not explicit) power relationship, the images and prejudices surrounding the concepts of citizen, immigrant, and native, the complications of tourism, voyeurism, and superficiality, all are constantly raised, transposed and shifted in a transdisciplinary practice. Add to that the creation of a transdisciplinary space in which all are both host and guest and you get an idea of the complexities involved...

Transgression

When we commit ourselves as educators to inculcating personal and social responsibility in our students and seek to discover if we have been successful in this endeavor, we really do need approaches that transcend philosophical, religious, economic and political boundaries, that start from where people already are and includes them in an active process of examination, critique and change. This is a lot more than adding another ethics course to the curriculum. It is modeling exactly how we want such responsibility to permeate our students' lives. If the questions of ethical responsibility don't infuse our own work, how can expect them to influence our students? The saying “be the change you want to see in the world” is not just something we teach our students, is it? It is a challenge to our professional and personal selves.

The challenge, I argue, has three parts, movements if you will, which comprise the transdisciplinary perspective and practice necessary for dealing with, for example, the complexity of ethics and sustainability. The problems of sustainability cannot be sufficiently addressed, nor can the ethical complications be resolved, without a transdisciplinary approach. In effect, we must adopt the ethos of transdisciplinarity if we wish to create an ethic of sustainability. I'll address each in this and two subsequent postings.

The first movement is to understand transdisciplinarity as transgression; a refusal to privilege any particular discipline, culture or form of knowledge, especially one that excludes social and personal values. Disciplinary experts and community members must be involved on a basis of equality and exchange that is grounded in respect for the participants’ knowledge and experience, diversity and truths. It calls for impatience with participants’ creating barriers and impermeable membranes, seeking unified theories, and exercising dominance.

Out of this movement, the most difficult I believe is the one towards refusing the privileging of our status as experts, the one transgression that is of our own professional, disciplinary and social value. The removal of the haughty veneer, the knowing smirk, the condescending attitude of listening without really hearing because we’re busy thinking of what were about to say next or already deconstructing the argument, however ill-formed, being presented to us. It is the personal transgression that we must allow to happen to ourselves that is the hardest, but it is also imperative to any solution to the problem of sustainability. We must be ready to give-up, surrender, to be the one to whom transgression happens...

Go Big or Stay Home!

Whatever we call it (study-away, study-abroad, field studies, etc.), it involves living and studying in and about an area significantly distinct from Los Angeles ( whatever city or community you live in regularly), the more distinct the better. Although LA is extremely diverse and contains a number of wildly different cultural, economic and social landscapes, it's too close for the kind of immersive experience of otherness that is the hallmark of what we're after. Part of this process is learning how to negotiate "foreign" terrain on a daily basis, even if only for a week or two.

Given these issues of diversity and navigation, we should require at least two faculty from two different disciplines, one representing by dint of either academic experience or training one of our professional fields and another representing  a traditionally defined liberal arts, now transdisciplinary, field. Such studies should not be the wholly owned subsidiaries of a particular discipline, as a mono-disciplinary focus narrows the field of experience and study so significantly that students may not find themselves actually on "foreign' terrain at all, save in name or location only.

Furthermore, students and faculty should deal constructively, explicitly and deeply with the intersection of professional and cultural fields, for want of another shorthand, through projects, journals, essays, presentations, discussions and other forms of writing and producing ideas that draw from both what students bring to the location as well as what they derive from it. The students require at least two faculty perspectives in this process as well, as the issues and complexities dealt with are beyond the abilities of all but the most gifted and talented of professors (and for all of our talents, I don't think that includes any of us, myself included).

We have to take on the challenge on integrating and contesting the different fields of professional and transdisciplinary studies, including outcomes, project design, assignment development and assessment. Such assessment must be both immediate and long-term, including work done shortly upon return to synthesize and embed the learning done while away, and slightly more long-term to assess the overall impact on both transdisciplinary and professional learning. Such evidence could be looked for in a student's capstone project, if it is appropriately designed to capture such experience and learning.

In short, go big or stay home!

Reading as Transdisciplinary Art

So to start the way back, here's a post from last year I inadvertantly left in draft form...

The art of reading, of deep analytical and critical reading, is increasingly a counter-cultural act. In a world addicted to instant gratification, immediate production, and the visual form, to group processes, collaborative work spaces, and video conferencing, the solitary, disciplined and reflective act of reading is one for which we are both poorly attuned and hardly prepared. 

To embark on a plan of close, diligent and demanding reading, to isolate oneself in individual, unseen effort, without  plan for immediate presentation of the fruits of one's efforts, is to partake in an action for which there is little social recognition or reward. In short, it is to set one's self apart from the mainstream, from the culture of making, and to enter the swirling side pool, the culture of reflection.

Now such contemplative reading can then (and often does) emerge into the contemporary world as productive, collaborative work, and one of the signs of the lack of such close reading is all the instant analysis and frothing blather that dominates our electronically mediated discourses. Reading as a transdisciplinary art demands discipline, patience, and moving againt the tides, all good reasons for reviving and deveoping the practice in ourselves and our students.

Coming Up for Air

Well, I've been down so very damn long
That it looks like up to me - The Doors

Apologies for the absence. Last year was dominated by our accediidation reaffirmation process. I co-chaired and wrote our educational effectivenes review and am proud to say we earned a nine-year reaffirmation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Bravo to everyone at Woodbury who helped put this together, especially my co-chair, Paul Decker.

Last year also involved organizing a regional conference for Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Rsponsibilities (SENCER) on our campus. Perhaps some of my ideas from that conference will find their way into these pages in the near future.

So now I can come up for air. I'll try to post more regular offerings as the year wends it's way back to summer. Summer... well that's another topic. Ciao.