Who Says?

Whatever the topic or situation, different stakeholders will have different claims, concerns and issues; and these will change on a regular basis.  “The truth” is often contentious and debatable. It is a social construction built of increasingly democratic methods involving a growing range of stakeholders. So “Who says?” what it is?

In 1966 Berger and Luckmann wrote about “The Social Construction of Reality – a treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge”. The book blurb notes that “the authors are concerned to present an analysis of knowledge in everyday life in the context of a theory of society as a dialectical process between objective and subjective reality. Their development of a theory of institutions, legitimations and socialisations has implications beyond the discipline of sociology, and their ‘humanistic’ approach has considerable relevance for other social scientists, historians, philosophers and anthropologists.” Who says? A multidisciplinary team of experts.

In 1989 Guba and Lincoln were dealing with the evaluation of education and reckoned that the time was ripe for what they called fourth generation evaluation. The first three generations had been measurement, description and judgement and the processes were narrowly focused, technical and managed by ‘experts’. Who says? – the number-crunching education experts.

Fourth Generation evaluation is driven by the claims, concerns, and issues of stakeholding audiences, and it uses the constructionist paradigm. This involves identifying and engaging with the full array of stakeholders who are at risk in the projected evaluation and taking systematic account of the many, and often contending, social constructions. Who says? – the stakeholders.

In 1998 E O Wilson wrote about “Consilience – the unity of knowledge”. His concern is with the systematic integration of higher level thought. Consilience refers to the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" to strong conclusions. This means that when multiple sources of evidence are in agreement, the conclusion can be very strong even when none of the individual sources of evidence are very strong on their own. Most established scientific knowledge is supported by a convergence of evidence: if not, the evidence is comparatively weak, and there will not likely be a strong scientific consensus. Who says? - A multidisciplinary team of experts.

In 2002 Minu Hemmati wrote a book whose title says it all – “Multi-Stakeholder Processes for governance and sustainability – beyond deadlock and conflict.” The underlying thinking is that IF the intended beneficiaries from a decision are included through meaningful participation in the decision making process in all its stages THEN there will be a high rate of implementation of the decision. Who says? – the stakeholders.

In 2013 David Christian began web-publishing his Big History Course material. It is thoroughly multi-disciplinary and consilient. Amongst other things it asks and answers the question, “How do we decide what to believe?” When you hear someone make a claim, you’re likely to have one of three responses: there are some claims you trust, others you ignore, and a third group that you may decide to investigate. If you decide to investigate there are four ‘claim testers’ that you can use – intuition, logic, authority, and evidence. Who says? – Me and my team?

The above examples point to the gradual democratization of knowledge. It got dangerously fragmented with narrow focused ‘experts’ shut up in their specialised academic silos and shut off from each other and from the common people. There are now two brands of consilience involving teams of multi-disciplinary experts with or without representatives of the common people. Who says? - Multidisciplinary teams +/- we the people.

My intuition and logic nudge me towards liking the concept of omniscient consilience. And I draw support from cutting edge authorities in various fields of study – especially from neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and mindfulness meditation but also from positive psychology, flourishing, happiness and flow. Who says? – various experts as interpreted by me.

I am short of evidence in support of the new understandings other than through my subjective experiences. They are to some extent idiosyncratic given my exotic life style but they present a case study of a type of uncommon sense that comes with travel and exposure to other cultures. Who says? – Me.

My new stories involve idiosyncratic analysis and synthesis; noting and resolving cognitive dissonances, and rearranging metacognitive categories. This involves norm cracking, paradigm shifting and the creation of metaphors and analogies that lead to new ways of understanding.

I write about the thoughts and feelings that pass through my attention centre and post the little stories to a blog. Why might someone read the stories? Hopefully for a mix of entertainment and education. Some of the stories are summaries of what the cutting edge people are saying; some of the stories are based on ideas that are new to me.

My stories are not peer reviewed. Their worth depends on their being believable, compelling, convincing, credible, and plausible. This calls for developing a writing style which gives the impression of my being reliable and trustworthy.

The stories are freely available on a blog. There is thus the possibility of attracting a few followers who give links to others and that it goes viral. Presently the blog has about 20 visits a day and most of those are from analog friends in various parts of the world. There is the possibility of their giving testimonials.

But my ambitions for the blog are modest. If it is cream it will rise as a result of being mentioned in the social networks. I am retired from the rat race. Most of the work is done by the unconscious. I relax and let it flow.  The joy comes from writing. If the outcome is that the world becomes a better place – if only in the heads of a few like minded souls - then it is cool. Who says? – my unconscious

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Berger P and Luckmann T (1966) “The Social Construction of Reality – a treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Construction_of_Reality

Guba EG and Lincoln YS (1989) Fourth Generation Evaluation
http://www.toonloon.bizland.com/nutshell/4th.htm

Wilson EO (1998) “Consilience – the unity of knowledge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_%28book%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience 

Minu Hemmati (2002) “Multi-Stakeholder Processes for governance and sustainability – beyond deadlock and conflict
http://www.earthsummit2002.org/msp/book.html

David Christian (2003) BigHistory
https://course.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive