[p2p-research] P2P Ideology (Jeff Schmidt's Disciplined Minds)

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Tere Vaden wrote:
> Quoting Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>:
> 
>> Athina interprets me just right I think...there is always ideology.  
>> There
>> is no such thing as an anti-ideology or ideology free identity.
> 
> Indeed, as many scholars interested in ideology critique would 
> emphasise, ideology has its finest hour (peak ideology) in exactly those 
> moments where we think that we behave "naturally" or "free from 
> ideology". Some would go so far as to define ideology as "that which 
> comes naturally/without conscious ideology". (This is, as can be seen 
> from the dialectical definition, the Hegelian school).

Just to amplify Tere's point, see this book by Jeff Schmidt:
   "Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the 
Soul-Battering System That Shapes Their Lives"
   http://www.disciplined-minds.com/
""
In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt 
demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of 
the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He 
shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals 
are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict “ideological 
discipline.”
   The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the 
professional’s lack of control over the political component of his or her 
creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society 
and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and 
employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate 
roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, 
undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even 
democracy.
   Schmidt details the battle one must fight to be an independent thinker 
and to pursue one’s own social vision in today’s corporate society. He shows 
how an honest reassessment of what it really means to be a professional 
employee can be remarkably liberating. After reading this brutally frank 
book, no one who works for a living will ever think the same way about his 
or her job.
"""

 From an excerpt of it:
   http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/ideo3.html
"""
For understanding the professional, the concept of "ideology" will emerge as 
much more useful than that of "skill." But what is ideology, exactly? 
Ideology is thought that justifies action, including routine day-to-day 
activity. It is your ideology that determines your gut reaction to something 
done, say, by the president (you feel it is right or wrong), by protesters 
(you feel it is justified or unjustified), by your boss (you feel it is fair 
or unfair), by a coworker (you feel it is reasonable or unreasonable) and so 
on. More importantly, your ideology justifies your own actions to yourself. 
Economics may bring you back to your employer day after day, but it is 
ideology that makes that activity feel like a reasonable or unreasonable way 
to spend your life.
   Work in general is becoming more and more ideological, and so is the 
workforce that does it. As technology has made production easier, employment 
has shifted from factories to offices, where work revolves around inherently 
ideological activities, such as design, analysis, writing, accounting, 
marketing and other creative tasks. Of course, ideology has been a workplace 
issue all along: Employers have always scrutinized the attitudes and values 
of the people they hire, to protect themselves from unionists, radicals and 
others whose "bad attitude" would undermine workplace discipline. Today, 
however, for a relatively small but rapidly growing fraction of jobs, 
employers will carefully assess your attitude for an additional reason: its 
crucial role in the work itself. On these jobs, which are in every field, 
from journalism and architecture to education and commercial art, your view 
of the world threatens to affect not only the quantity and quality of what 
you produce, but also the very nature of the product. These jobs require 
strict adherence to an assigned point of view, and so a prerequisite for 
employment is the willingness and ability to exercise what I call 
ideological discipline.
   This book is about the people who get these jobs and become members of 
the ideological workforce -- that is, professionals. My thesis is that the 
criteria by which individuals are deemed qualified or unqualified to become 
professionals involve not just technical knowledge as is generally assumed, 
but also attitude—in particular, attitude toward working within an assigned 
political and ideological framework. I contend, for example, that all tests 
of technical knowledge, such as the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) or 
the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), are at the same time tests of attitude 
and that the examinations used to assess professional qualification are no 
exception. I consider in detail how the neutral-looking technical questions 
on such examinations probe the candidate's attitude. The qualifying 
attitude, I find, is an uncritical, subordinate one, which allows 
professionals to take their ideological lead from their employers and 
appropriately fine-tune the outlook that they bring to their work. The 
resulting professional is an obedient thinker, an intellectual property whom 
employers can trust to experiment, theorize, innovate and create safely 
within the confines of an assigned ideology. The political and intellectual 
timidity of today's most highly educated employees is no accident.
"""

Also:
   http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/dismind1.html
"""
Nothing reveals more clearly the degree to which employed professionals are 
alienated from their subjects than does the sharply contrasting behavior of 
the hobbyists or "buffs" in their fields. When hobbyists encounter one 
another at a social gathering, before long you will find them talking 
eagerly about the content of their subject of common interest, showing an 
excitement, enthusiasm, wonder and curiosity that is reminiscent of 
beginning professional students. This rarely happens when professionals talk 
casually with their colleagues. Unlike the amateurs, the professionals don't 
talk much about the work itself; they often appear detached from their 
subject, as if they don't derive much satisfaction from it. Yes, they "talk 
shop," but their focus is so far from the content of the work itself that 
you would have a hard time if you had to guess what kind of "shop" they work 
in. A commercial bank? A junior high school? A government agency? A 
university department? Casual conversation among professionals tends to 
focus on the actions and personalities of employers and powerful figures 
within their fields -- the standard gossip topics of the powerless. Their 
gossip is by no means idle, however, for the politics are central to their 
work as professionals.
   Thus, at the wine-and-cheese reception after an English department 
colloquium, a first-year graduate student musters the courage to approach 
the speaker, a well-known professor from another university, and ask a 
question about literature. But before the conversation has gotten very far, 
a local faculty member walks up and derails it with the question that he has 
been waiting to ask: "Is Jones really planning to leave Yale? I heard a 
rumor." Soon the two professors are engrossed in a wide-ranging discussion 
about job openings around the country, research grants, book contracts, 
journal editors and who's jockeying for power in the field. The graduate 
student, realizing that the conversation is not going to return to the 
evidently less important topic of literature, retreats back into the crowd. 
Versions of this generic scene occur frequently in every field.
   The professors here symbolize the tragedy of all employed professionals 
who started out as students loving their subjects. Such students submit 
themselves to the process of professional training in an effort to be free 
of the marketplace, but instead of being strengthened by the process they 
are crippled by it. Deprived of political control over their own work, they 
become alienated from their subjects and measure their lives by success in 
the marketplace
"""

Various reviews:
   http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=disciplined+minds+review

So, one p2p issue is going to be that the idea of p2p is running smack into 
the idea of being a "disciplined mind" as a professional. Compare the whole 
p2p concept with one thing Jeff Schmidt recommends as discussed in one review:
   http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=disciplined+mind+review
"In developing his critique, Schmidt adopts a practical, reader-friendly 
approach. For example, he analyzes the PhD qualifying exam as a social 
framework endorsing the status quo with detailed illustrations from his own 
field, physics, describing the need to memorize tricks that are useful only 
on exam problems, to restrict attention to "problem fragments" and give 
priority to theory, all of which prepare a student to accept alienating work 
in a hierarchical system ... The book concludes with a list of 33 
suggestions for radical professionals working in mainstream organizations, 
such as encouraging coworkers to read radical publications, organizing a 
union, giving activists inside information, breaking down hierarchy within 
your field and seeking to break down the division of labor between 
professionals and nonprofessionals."

But of course, this rebalancing between hierarchies of academics and 
meshworks of intellectuals (some academic, some amateur or hobbyist) is a 
larger movement with other underlying trends as well:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_amateurs
"The 20th century witnessed the rise of many new professionals in fields 
such as medicine, science, education and politics. Amateurs and their 
sometimes ramshackle organizations were driven out by people who knew what 
they were doing and had certificates to prove it. This historic shift is now 
reversing with Pro-Ams: people who pursue amateur activities to professional 
standards are increasingly an important part of the society and economy of 
developed nations. Their leisure is not passive but active and 
participatory. Their contribution involves the deployment of publicly 
accredited knowledge and skills, and is often built up over a long career 
involving sacrifices and frustrations."

More on some of the economics of some of these trends:
   "The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein
   http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

See also, James P. Hogan's novel "Voyage from Yesteryear".

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/