Don't let Scratch needle you about college degrees. He doesn't have one, either.
rcrocket
Well, you are right about that. I don't have "one."
As I thought. Quit making fun of folks' lack of education. It becomes you.
rcrocket
Gee, if you knew how many degrees I held, why'd you ask?
Degrees? You don't even have one. At least my idiotic (Dartagnan) foolish (somebody recent) manipulating (you) hypocritic (Sajer) self has been a college professor and has published in peer-reviewed journals. Not to mention appearing before the Supreme Court (well, in opposition to cert petitions) and winning every time. But, now, who's bragging?
rcrocket wrote: Degrees? You don't even have one. At least my idiotic (Dartagnan) foolish (somebody recent) manipulating (you) hypocritic (Sajer) self has been a college professor and has published in peer-reviewed journals. Not to mention appearing before the Supreme Court (well, in opposition to cert petitions) and winning every time. But, now, who's bragging?
rcrocket
I am quite aware of the fact that you'd like to know how many degrees I hold (if any), what fields they are in, where I've published, etc., etc., etc. I know this. Which is why I'm not going to tell you. I feel no need to haul out credentials in order to make my points.
I reiterate. You have no degrees. You have no credentials. I have never seen evidence of them. If you have describe them I've never seen such a description. Why don't you post the area of your expertise and, heh heh, let me test it?
rcrocket wrote:I reiterate. You have no degrees. You have no credentials. I have never seen evidence of them. If you have describe them I've never seen such a description. Why don't you post the area of your expertise and, heh heh, let me test it?
rcrocket
LOL! You'd love that, wouldn't you? No, I am not going to do that. We've been over this before. We all know the penchant that Mopologists and TBMs such as yourself have for ad hominem attack, and worse. Thus, I won't be revealing any of this information to you.
Scratch's accusation isn't clear to me. If he's saying Coggins in particular could benefit from pursuing a degree then I'm with him. I of course do not believe, generally, that getting a degree is necessary for intellectual discipline. Afterall, isn't that the main weapon of choice the FAIR apologists use against the critics? (notwithstanding the fact there is no degree program outside of American Studies which would make one commentator more qualified than another when it comes to the topic of Mormonism).
Of course, I don't believe civility and even reasonable exchanges follow from degrees. My favorite blog, http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/, has an excellent comedy show on the side featuring childish bickering and smearing between some of the smartest people in the world.
But where a degree and Coggins could use some interesecting, is in what seems to be a bad combination between his obsession with dense jargon, and shotgunning sources out. He seems to be bright and an avid reader, but how all that gets gets synthesized is a disaster. His scholarly pursuits remind me all too much of the unrestrained ramblings of Kerry Shirts or Bob McCue (not trying to pick on one side here). Now Coggins does have a sense of humor, so, perhaps his style isn't unconscious and he can flip the switch when it comes time for term papers. But I agree with Scratch, that if his college essays are going to be anything like what he submits to the "Off Topic" forum, he's in for some C-s.
Like Runtu, I don't want to get dragged into an endless back and forth here. But the questions you raise, Coggins, do interest me a great deal because I am a lifelong academic, college professor, writer and scholar. And one of my areas of scholarly "expertise" is pedagogical theory. Its something I've written and lectured on a great deal.
I do not agree that one cannot possibly even understand the concept of 'intellectual discipline without a college degree. One can understand this concept without a degree, however, whether one needs particular experiences to achieve "intellectual discipline" is another question.
I absolutely oppose the kind of credentialism you describe, for one reason because of the class bias that is ingrained within it. Living as we do in a society which does not consider education a fundamental right of any human or citizen (or healthcare for that matter), its pretty obvious that not only are degrees only available to certain classes, but the necessary material resources for learning are also still unequally distributed.
I think this is true despite the fact that I also think the potential of an autodidact is now greater than at any time in previous history. Access to digitized library collections and archives coupled with the searchability of digital databases has changed the scope of intellectual research completely, not to mention the production of knowledge itself. And as you say, not being a "professional" in a field has never precluded the ability of one's having expertise in it. Gramsci's notion of the "organic" vs. "institutional" intellectual could provide an interesting gloss on this, by the way.
However, I also think Bond makes an enormously important point. And that is that in order to achieve intellectual discipline, a classroom is of equal importance as books. Being able to engage with a variety of "ideas and perceptions of ideas that are different from views ones self holds" in the thorough and sustained fashion that a classroom makes possible is what enables one to begin to produce new knowledge and not just reproduce existing forms.
I'm not saying that all classrooms achieve this. A great deal of american education is clearly conducted according to a consumerist model of knowledge acquisition: the end goal is to accumulate and be able to reproduce for testing purposes some previously decided upon "important ideas." That students have the potential to be producers and not just reproducers of knowledge does not seem to be part of the pedagogy of the american K-12. (That's why when I get students in college I first have to teach them how to be actual students, often by "unteaching" them every way they've learned how to be "a student" both directly and indirectly through their previous "education).
Although he doesn't put it in quite these terms, I think Bond also points out that a classroom is a space of continual critique and self-critique ("being taught by people who themselves have been credited through their own testing sessions (PH.D program or graduate school)...they can help with #1....giving ideas and points of view that you may not get due to your own flaws").
So no, I would not dismiss anyone's ideas out of hand for the crime of not having a degree. This is the point I made to rcrocket about his anonymity obsession in the SCMC thread:
"Why would I have to say who and what I was in order to argue that Dr. Peterson is a poor scholar? Would the merit of my argument not come from what I said, I.e., anyone could judge from what I wrote whether I knew what I was talking about or not. What would my name or possible credentials have to do with that? An Islamic scholar, an autodidact, a MacArthur grant-winner, a Mexican journalist, a professor of mathmatics, a mother of five, and so on, could all produce an arguement showing a reliance on ad hominem attack to the detriment of intellect in Dr. Peterson's apologetics. Or the converse.
The proof of the pudding would be in the eating, would it not?"
I'm glad to hear that you want to do some more time in college, Coggins. I think you will find it profitable and hopefully useful.
Last edited by Anonymous on Sat May 26, 2007 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
grayskull wrote:Scratch's accusation isn't clear to me. If he's saying Coggins in particular could benefit from pursuing a degree then I'm with him.
That is partly what I'm saying.
I of course do not believe, generally, that getting a degree is necessary for intellectual discipline. Afterall, isn't that the main weapon of choice the FAIR apologists use against the critics? (notwithstanding the fact there is no degree program outside of American Studies which would make one commentator more qualified than another when it comes to the topic of Mormonism).
Of course, I don't believe civility and even reasonable exchanges follow from degrees. My favorite blog, http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/, has an excellent comedy show on the side featuring childish bickering and smearing between some of the smartest people in the world.
But where a degree and Coggins could use some interesecting, is in what seems to be a bad combination between his obsession with dense jargon, and shotgunning sources out. He seems to be bright and an avid reader, but how all that gets gets synthesized is a disaster. His scholarly pursuits remind me all too much of the unrestrained ramblings of Kerry Shirts or Bob McCue (not trying to pick on one side here). Now Coggins does have a sense of humor, so, perhaps his style isn't unconscious and he can flip the switch when it comes time for term papers. But I agree with Scratch, that if his college essays are going to be anything like what he submits to the "Off Topic" forum, he's in for some C-s.
Yes, exactly, Grayskull. Also, there is the problem of his rhetorical stance, which one typically learns to avoid in college. Coggins's average post is the kind one occasionally encounters in undergraduate composition classes, where the student doesn't understand the meaning and purpose of counterargument. The discussion comes across as one long, uncivil, overzealous rant.
At least my idiotic (Dartagnan) foolish (somebody recent) manipulating (you) hypocritic (Sajer) self has been a college professor and has published in peer-reviewed journals. Not to mention appearing before the Supreme Court (well, in opposition to cert petitions) and winning every time. But, now, who's bragging?
rcrocket
Oh dear. Modesty prevents me from such vulgar credentialism. But I have lectured internationally on pedagogy. And had my work included in the curriculum of graduate courses on pedagogical theory. And published beyond my areas of scholarly expertise in both domestic and foreign publications. And had my hand knitting featured in international design exhibits, DJ'd at various NYC art gallerys and clubs, and won first place in the Utah State Science Fair (Research Reporting Division).
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
rcrocket wrote:I reiterate. You have no degrees. You have no credentials. I have never seen evidence of them. If you have describe them I've never seen such a description. Why don't you post the area of your expertise and, heh heh, let me test it?
rcrocket
LOL! You'd love that, wouldn't you? No, I am not going to do that. We've been over this before. We all know the penchant that Mopologists and TBMs such as yourself have for ad hominem attack, and worse. Thus, I won't be revealing any of this information to you.
How about a thread where everyone guesses Scratch's specialties. I'm thinking Reproductive Therapy, Victorian Poetry, Astrophysics, and Confucian Thought.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo