Who can say?
Sep. 27th, 2004 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilex_cassineI had a very nice weekend. Which ended this morning at 7:30 sharp at the sound of the alarm. Ah well.
So my lecture today was on political systems. Which went fine, overall. There was one little thing that left me feeling a little bit discomforted though. We were discussing class, and whether or not we lived in a classless or open class (i.e. you can change classes) society. Which is not an open and shut question, which is to say, there isn't necessarily a clear answer. Hence it makes a good discussion question. No problem there.
My problem was that the two "smartest" (e.g. they ask the most smart ass questions in the middle of my lecture, bless their hearts) students up and said they didn't think they had enough data to answer this question. My response, and I think it was good, was that they lived in this society, and based on their observations they ought to be able to analyze and reflect on their society. And to claim otherwise was a cop out.
What disturbed me about this is that I think we are being disenfranchised by "experts" and "statistics." Those students were perfectly capable of forming a coherent answer to the question, with or without census data to back it up. And in fact, we have to be able to form opinions to questions like the one I posed to maintain our democratic society. People have to be able to question and form concepts about the society they live in to chart its direction in a participatory democracy. Secondarily, I think this is why so much of politics is personality based nowadays. People have abdicated their responsibilities to reflect and think about society to "experts" and so all they can evaluate a candidate on is personality. Its just unfortunate.
So my lecture today was on political systems. Which went fine, overall. There was one little thing that left me feeling a little bit discomforted though. We were discussing class, and whether or not we lived in a classless or open class (i.e. you can change classes) society. Which is not an open and shut question, which is to say, there isn't necessarily a clear answer. Hence it makes a good discussion question. No problem there.
My problem was that the two "smartest" (e.g. they ask the most smart ass questions in the middle of my lecture, bless their hearts) students up and said they didn't think they had enough data to answer this question. My response, and I think it was good, was that they lived in this society, and based on their observations they ought to be able to analyze and reflect on their society. And to claim otherwise was a cop out.
What disturbed me about this is that I think we are being disenfranchised by "experts" and "statistics." Those students were perfectly capable of forming a coherent answer to the question, with or without census data to back it up. And in fact, we have to be able to form opinions to questions like the one I posed to maintain our democratic society. People have to be able to question and form concepts about the society they live in to chart its direction in a participatory democracy. Secondarily, I think this is why so much of politics is personality based nowadays. People have abdicated their responsibilities to reflect and think about society to "experts" and so all they can evaluate a candidate on is personality. Its just unfortunate.