NOTE:If any Dear Habermas students prefer to do a smaller Special Interactive Writing Project instead, an OUTLINE APPEARS IN FILE (SpecProj.htm). Go There Now
Last Update 10-15-2000
Instructor: Prof. Charles Notess, One of the online faculty with the Dear Habermas web site at DearHabermas.org
E-mail address: (cnotess@greeleynet.com). Telephone number in Colorado: 970-613-9967.
NOTE: Notess' former access provider (sni.net) has been replaced by (greeleynet.com)as of September 1, 2000.
INTRODUCTION
My experience indicates that many adults are unaware of recent writings in the areas of: stages of psychosocial and moral development, and especially, the concepts: postmodernism and the "social constructions of reality". In this course we will examine these concepts and see how they interact with each other to influence the variety of responses to uncertainty in a rapidly changing world.
NOTE: Upper-level students who are already familiar with these concepts may skip the quick review of them and concentrate on their interaction and its implications. This opportunity is an advantage of a course given over the internet. If interested, summarize your academic background and interests to Notess via a short e-mail.
My goal is to guide class participants to a broader foundation for understanding why there are such wide variations in approaches to premodern, modern and postmodern ways of responding to the world. These wide variations contribute to polarization and inability to achieve consensus in legislatures, school boards, church organizations and similar decision-making councils. Hopefully a better understanding of these concepts will help class participants to facilitate constructive discourse and build consensus in such polarized groups in the future.
I have not yet found any writers who have tried to interrelate all of the concepts that appear in red in the foregoing paragraphs. I believe that it would be an educational and useful exercise to explore the relation of these concepts. Upper-level students would benefit from synthesizing the ideas in Ken Gergen's and Jurgen Habermas' books listed in the Bibliography, accessible as the (biblio.htm) file or linked=to at the end of my (stages2.htm) file.
The main resources for the course for students new to postmodernism are: a book that treats postmodernism in a very readable manner, Walter Truett Anderson's book: " REALITY Isn't What It Used To Be" (1990); and Notess' web site, which is equivalent to about 70 printed, book-size, pages.
For advanced students who are upper level sociology majors and are familiar with the classical theorists, considerable information on the transition from classical to postmodern sociology is presented in the reader, "Culture and Society - Contemporary debates", edited by Alexander and Seidman. Students might select chapters from this reader, if they prefer. This book summarizes the classical approaches from perspectives of the 1980's and then summarizes the debates among thinkers in the postmodern period. I personally found this second book very helpful.
Other resources, especially for those who might view the foregoing as old hat, and/or who might wish to go more deeply into two or more of the following concepts and areas: developmental psychology, stages of moral development and perspective-taking, the Self, and relationships and negotiation. These sources, for appropriate chapters, are:
James W. Fowler's "Faithful Change - The Personal and Public Challenges of Postmodern Life" (1996),Jurgen Habermas' "Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action" (1995),
Ken Gergen's "The Saturated Self" (1991) and his "Realities and Relationships".
Also helpful are writings, listed in the Bibliography at the end of my (stages2.htm) page, by Barresi and others.
The URL for Notess' pages with crosslinks is:
http://www.greeleynet.com/~cnotess/stages2.htm
These pages are also posted on Dear Habermas websites, and I plan to update, at least, the CSUDH ones regularly; however, my greeleynet site is usually the first one updated and I recommend that you use that site.
To see a SYLLABUS FOR THE COURSE ON RESPONSES TO UNCERTAINTY similar in form to Prof. Curran's syllabii, go to file cnclass1.htm. Go there now.
I plan to post your e-mails and responses thereto in a periodic web posted with the file name: "hablink1.htm". The file is found in the URL: http://www.greeleynet.com/~cnotess/hablink1.htm. The next periodic page would end with "/hablink2.htm", and so on. Sometimes I might reply to a particular student directly, if that seems best and/or if the student prefers. Any personal info in an e-mail, I might omit in the posting.
A Bibliography at the end of the main web site page (stages2.htm) is accessible (crosslinked) at the end of this page.
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SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DEAR HABERMAS STUDENTS taking the full semester course.
Each student is asked to answer the questions listed (in red) at the end of each weekly lesson assignment. In addition you are requested to give some thought to, and answer at least two of the three following questions. Please e-mail your answers including them in the text, or appending them as a .txt file rather than a Word file. Notess does not use Windows Word and thus he can only read .txt files. If you have a problem with this let him know and we will find a solution.
1. What do you think would be a more descriptive title for the chapter than that used by Anderson, relating the content to Postmodernism and how postmodernism has affected adults who have growen up in the Modern Era?
2. What are the 3 or 4 main points that Anderson makes in the chapter? Describe each in a few sentences.
3. Provide constructive comments useful for improving the page in Notess' web pages assigned for the week.
It will be helpful to be familiar with Prof. Curran's files: Exams! Exams! Exams!.
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NOTE: The following outline might be modified slightly to suit the background and interests of particular class members.
The class members are requested to borrow or purchase Walter Truett Anderson's book "Reality Isn't What It Used To Be" ($15.00 less any discount). The assigned readings in Anderson, are supplemented by readings from my web posting: "www.greeleynet.com/~cnotess/stages2.htm"; Click here to get the site.
Most of the weekly reading assignments in this file quot;forum5.htm" for each topic, total under 30 pages in length. A few might be twice that length.
NOTE: A "General Dear Habermas HubNotess Instruction File" can be accessed for additional information and news items about the course. The hubnote3.htm file is similar to the file hubnotess.htm
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Topics to be Covered in the Fall semester, 2000.
#1. Read the web posting stages2.htm; Summary and Introduction (about 5 printed pages. Students are requested to send a short e-mail with what they majored in in their career and/or college; such as: "I majored in liberal arts and was a departmental assistant."
Please read this whole course outline (file forum5.htm), and ask, via e-mail, any questions or concerns that you might have about the course.
#2.a) This second week's item has three parts; 2a, 2b, & 2c. Read the web Sections on CHANGES IN AGE DISTRIBUTIONS AND IN THE MIX OF EMPLOYMENT AND OCCUPATIONS IN THE USA
Discuss these changes and how some institutions and individuals have responded to such changes.
#2.b) Read the web postings through the section entitled: "HOW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS RESPOND TO CHANGE".
Can you think of examples of the way in which individuals respond to change? How do the responses of Democrats differ from those of Republicans? How do the responses of third-world nations differ from those of the Western nations?
#2.c)Read Anderson's Preface.
Outline the section and indicate what, if anything you would add that he omitted. Let the instructor know what you had difficulty understanding and I will try to clear that up for you. Do you think that Anderson should have omitteded any parts of the preface and if so, why?
#3. Uncertainty in a Complex, fast Changing Society, and Constructions of Reality. Anderson's Chapter 1 (26 pages).
Do think that the rate of change is increasing? How quickly and in what way have various political parties and religious denominations responded to some of these changes? The Moral Majority, Vatican II, and so on? Are the number of realities that one encounters in a week, increasing? Is there a limit to the complexity one can handle? Is the stress-level increasing? Rage and crime? Normlessness? What are some different constructions of reality that you have heard? How do you see universal truths and standards of human behavior fitting in with the idea of Social Constructions of Reality (SCR)? See page 14 in Anderson.
#4. Historic Changes in Epochs. Anderson Chapter 2 (22 pages)
What institutions have controlled SCR in the various epochs? Has there been a change in the institutions or organizations that control SCR in the USA? Why did not our institutions and reifications of the modern era collapse after we became aware of SCR in the early 1960's as Anderson says on p.43? Were we still at war, a cold war? What might be other reasons? See p. 48.
#5. How The Brain and Mind Work. Anderson Chapter 3, especially, pp 40-43 and 55-78 on Language. Mainly pp 67-78. From the web site posting, Read the Section: "PROBLEMS OUR LANGUAGE IMPOSES ON OUR THINKING" which includes cross links to the Hayakawa and de Bono sections.
Do you have a favorite writer on creativity and critical thinking? On the limitations of our language? Can you summarize their approach for the class?
#6. Meanings in Literature, Deconstruction and Deconstructing Law. Anderson Chapter 4. Changing Social Constructions of Reality.?
How important is literature in reenforcing and deepening a particular SCR? Which SCR's does literature influence? What is Deconstruction? Who does it?
#7. Read the web section; STAGES OF PSYCHO-SOCIAL AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT. This provides a summary of Fowler's stages merged into 5 stages in psychosocial development: Child, Teen, Young Adult, Family & House, & Retired & Wise and freed from trivia.
The stages of psychosocial development: now go well beyond Piaget and Erikson to the works of Kohlberg, Gilligan, Rizzuto, Fowler, and Habermas If interested read mainly from Fowler's first 74 pages and/or Les Steele's 24-page chapter in Stanton Jones reader "Psychology and the Christian Faith").
What do you feel are the best age boundaries for the different Stages? In what ways might teens respond to change differently from adults in the Family and Home stage? Do you know any persons who have not achieved the capacity to take the perspective of a third person in a disagreement between two friends? Might this be a problem more prevalent in Northern Ireland and Serbia? Do you know any persons who feel that they can not control some of their internal drives (hormonal and other drives) to be a good member of their community? Do you know some who reduce such kind of stresses by following conventional and clear traditions to the letter?
#8. Read Anderson Chapter 5. Making a people, Birth of the Self, Public Opinion, Making Beliefs and Making Believe. See for more details, Ken Gergen's Preface in his book "The Saturated Self".
Which Generation groupings and Age groupings favor what SCR's? Was the individual freed from dependence upon SCR's?
#9. Read Anderson Chapter 6. Becoming someone. The Rise of Individualism and Decline in Commitment to Community. The Importance of Community, Tribalism Still persists.
What are your best examples of points on the scale between commitment to self at one end and commitment to a community or cause at the other end?
#10. Read Anderson Chapter 7. Democracy's Dilemma. Political campaign management as a new profession. The Reagan campaigns. Complexity and the mass media. Too many constructions of reality.
Is Diversity and tolerance of it necessary in our complex postmodern world. Are humans as a species capable of acting democratically in the postmodern era?
#11. Read Anderson's Chapter 8. From Cult and Counter Cult to Process Theology. Vatican II. Religion and the Post Modern Era. The histories of politics and religion provide a record about how such institutions respond to change.
Can religious organizations build in an iconoclastic feature to assure more rapid responses to change?
#12. Read Anderson Chapter 9. The Two Faces of God. Esoteric and exoteric dialectics. Sorokin's idea of cyclical or dialectical oscillations between what, in todays terms, would be called fundamentalism and/or doctrinaire versus the spiritual or mystical is similar in some ways to Anderson's two approaches to belief.
How does this chapter strike you? Does it imply that one must choose between a transcendent (exoteric) God or an internal (esoteric) God within you, or can a person relate to both images off God? What do you think about Anderson's First aspect on page 224? Can a person switch or oscillate between the two and have a healthy faith?
#13. Read Anderson Chapter 10. WW II, The Cold War, Satanic Verses, The Greens. On page 241, writing about the Rushdie affair, Anderson makes a very good statement to the effect that global communication without a global community is a phase of global development that is very dangerous.
How can one judge the veracity of a ideological or political story? How do we defuse the danger of blowups between cos that are more tribal in scope, than global?
#14. Read Anderson Chapter 11. Towards the future, Changes in thinking about thinking, changes in learning, etc. Andersons two mega-issues, environment and human rights.
Which two of Anderson's five fundamental characteristics of the postmodern worldview do you feel are the most important? Why? What might be some of the considerations that limit our capacity to adapt to new stories and to be tolerant to the stories of others? (See Ken Gergen's book, "The Saturated Self".) Are there some truths and parts of stories that are universal and applicable to all societies? Is there no universal transcendent reality, rationality or value system that the postmodern person can use to evaluate alternative constructions of reality? as Gergen implies on page 253? What work, if anything that you aware of, is trying to overcome the weakness of empirical science in helping improve the area of human affairs?
#15. Read my web posting about how postmodernism and constructivism might affect our lives in the next few decades. This starts with the Section entitled: "THE RISE OF INDIVIDUALISM AND THE DECLINE IN COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY" and runs through "SUCCESSIVE LEVELS OF PERSPECTIVE TAKING". Also read the CONCLUSION Section.
How do you think the major institutions of politics, economy, education and religion might adapt to the postmodern age? Remember, the modern era with its faith in science, logic and empiricism led to a weakening of the role of religious institutions. What is your response to the last section on seven levels of perspective taking?
Now at the end of this course, how do you feel about the future of single-issue causes and polarization within congress? Will we mature beyond those tactics and strategies? Include also any questions that are left unanswered, in your mind and suggestions for improvement in the course notes and teaching approach.
Return to the Main Page of this paper on Responses to Uncertainty.
To send e-mail now, to the Notess, with comments or questions on the above remember to click on the send button after typing a Subject and your suggestions in the empty boxes that appear on your screen when you click here.