Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-battering System That Shapes Their Lives Paperback – December 4, 2001

Some of the less-than-five-star reviewers seem to have not put a lot of thought into the implications of Jeff's book here. For instance ..."I give it a rotten review because I couldn't help stopping as I read it, thinking that his anecdotes reminded me somewhat of some of my experiences in academia, but not all, ... Instead of examining what conditions make for successful experiences, he dismisses any positive experience as being had by those people that became adept at the art of brown-nosing."That would apparently be a different book, and the fact that this book is not that book should not really be a strike against it. Please take a moment to carefully contemplate the implications of a scientific community which has apparently been trained to abandon what was once considered to be scientific norms ... From "Science Education and Scientific Attitudes" by Pravin Singh:---"The current set of scientific attitudes of objectivity, open-mindedness, unbiassedness, curiosity, suspended judgement, critical mindedness, and rationality has evolved from a systematic identification of scientific norms and values. The earliest papers of any importance in the field of scientific attitudes are those of R.K. Merton (1957). He conceptualized the norms or institutional imperatives on the basis of evidence taken mainly from statements by scientists about science and their scientific activity. He then identified four norms. These are universalism, communality, disinterestedness and organized skepticism.Universalism requires that information presented to the scientific community be assessed independently of the character of the scientist who presents the information. The norm of communality requires that scientific knowledge be held in common, in other words, the researcher is expected to share his findings with other scientists freely and without favour. The norm of disinterestedness requires scientists to pursue scientific knowledge without considering their career or their reputation. Scientists are exhorted by the norm of organized skepticism never to take results on trust. They are expected to be consistently critical of knowledge.To this list of institutional imperatives Barber (1962: 122-142) later added two more -- rationality and emotional neutrality. Rationality relates essentially to having faith in reason and depending on empirical tests rather than on tradition when substantiating hypotheses. Scientists are encouraged also to conform to the norm of emotional neutrality i.e. to avoid emotional involvement which may colour their judgement.[...]Is it not possible that these scientific attitudes have been popularised and then reified as a set of ideal attitudes but in reality is not often found in actual scientific practices? The following studies raise serious doubts about the scientists' adherence to institutional imperatives."---Given all of the rather inordinate focus today online on the "pseudoscientists" and "cranks", Jeff reminds us that the far harder problem to solve is the one which we can hardly see -- the dogma which is rooted deep in our most powerful scientific cultures. We are constantly reminded online of how horrible it is to have to listen to cranks disagree with conventional theory, but within the context of Jeff's work, it becomes apparent that our desire to be free of the cranks is horrifically throwing away the entire set of non-professional scientists -- which necessarily also includes the critical thinkers (!), the non-specialists and the free thinkers/explorers. Increasingly, these are some of the few people who continue to do science for the sake of science.Jeff's comments about the strategic use of rote memorization can be corroborated by numerous other authors -- especially that of Joseph Novak, the originator of the concept map. Novak has written extensively in his books about the difference between rote memorization and "meaningful" learning. Some very clever people have actually taken these ideas to a point of profiting enormously from them -- such as Tim O'Reilly, the originator of the "Web 2.0" and "open source" concepts. It would seem that both David Ausubel and Alfred Korzybski (see Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics) both figured out (independently?) what a superordinate concept is. And Tim O'Reilly has used that knowledge to build a rather large & successful empire (for a more brief explanation, see the article "The Meme Hustler" about O'Reilly).The Physics Education Research community is also wisening up to the failure of instruction which encourages students to rote-memorize materials. The inherent problem is that these knowledge structures remain disconnected from the larger knowledge base; connecting them is what Novak calls "meaningful" learning. Eric Mazur, for instance, has discovered that many of his most successful memorizers will completely fail the same test if it is given entirely in terms of concepts! The implications are enormous, for if they don't actually possess a deep comprehension of what they are memorizing, they will subsequently be incapable of (1) questioning that material if they find that observations are not matching theory; but also (2) comparing and contrasting those theories with competing ones. Many of us who closely follow the sciences from the outside -- especially the more speculative disciplines like astrophysics and cosmology -- see very, very strong evidence for both of these phenomena.What Jeff does is show us that there is very likely a strong connection between our failure to create a unified theory in physics with the professionalization of the sciences. And, if we as a culture desire, we can use this as a very strong foundation to actually do something about it. Much of the problem has been in cultivating the system-level view for the causes underlying a lack of progress on many big questions in physics. We now have that starting point. It's now up to the younger generation to reconceive a *realistic* system which can both service the professional community AND solve some of these huge, perplexing problems. I have my own ideas on how to do it, but I hope others will try to figure out others.

I just finished Jeff Schmidt's book about salaried professionals. The central theme of his book is that all work is political. That is, whatever work the professional in America is doing, it's goals are to support the status quo. This includes all areas of work life. It is the same in the Defense industry as it is in the Medical industry.Speaking of the medical industry, I imagine Patch Adams would be considered a radical professional in Jeff's estimation. He challenged the status quo in a way that changed lives.The author traces the indoctrination process from undergraduate social background to graduate admission and through graduate school, deftly showing how each component is in place to select those with the best attitude. And of course that attitude is one of uncritical acceptance of the work assigned. There's never any thought of how your work is affecting society as a whole.His strongest chapters in the book are The Division of Labor and the first chapter in Part 2, Opportunity. The book is worth getting if you only read these two chapters. It speaks to not only the technical divide, but also the social divide that has become more hidden these days. A person who has raised himself out of the working class to the professional class through the "meritocracy" has had a harder time of it. They've had to discard their working class beliefs in equality and freedom and subjugate them to those in charge now: the large corporations.A few relevant quotes from the book that were most impacting to me:"Widespread belief in individual opportunity protects the system from potentially devastating attack -- it protects a backward setup in which a minute number of people exercise control over the nation's huge amount of capital in industry, agriculture, and transportation, while vast numbers of people work that capital and get nothing more than monetary compensation for their time." - page 101"Thus, through the ideology of individual opportunity, the system can keep the majority of workers in stressful and alienating jobs, and even get some enthusiastic support, just by maintaining the opportunity for a few workers to escape their survival-oriented work lives." - page 101So, in a capitalist system, only those with real capital have any chance of competing. And how many times do we see the "under-capitalized" small business with a great idea get that idea stolen and then out-marketed by a large corporation who has money to throw into the venture. The company (C-level's and shareholders) get a bit bigger bonus while the small entrepreneur is decimated.The other bombshell from this book comes from page 128:"The academically average working-class student who gets no offer of employment, but who tries to attend graduate school anyway, is at a tremendous disadvantage with respect to a similar student from a middle-class family with financial resources. The extra burden of having to leave the department to earn money goes to the working-class student, helping to perpetuate that student's relatively low academic standing. This is an example of what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu describes as the university's tendency to transmute social hierarchies into academic hierarchies -- to guide stedents to academic slots that correspond to the socioeconomic slots from which they come."And I always thought it was that I wasn't smart enough to compete! If all of us got into Harvard and had our MBA living expenses paid by our family like Romney, I'll bet a good majority of us could complete the degree successfully as he did.But that wouldn't be the whole story. Because you see, apparently the lower classes aren't as fit as the middle and upper classes to be professionals. As the author states (again on page 128):"Middle-class students are simply easier than working-class students to train as professionals. They are not smarter; their attitudes and outlook simply need less adjustment to meet the system's demands."Wow. Now for statements like this, the book is criticized as a Marxist rant. I'll admit the book is a bit of a rant, but it is not Marxist. I guess the anti-Marxists would prefer that people simply accept their station in life and learn to like it. Well, what's American about that? Sounds like a statement right out of 14th and 15th century Europe and the "divine right of kings."There are some great chapters on how the actual admissions tests are more attitude selectors than aptitude selectors. Those insights opened my eyes and I'm sure they will for you too.It's an admittedly hard read, but well worth your investment. It backs up with solid (not mere anecdotal) references to what you've always had a hunch about in the workplace.The book ends with a bunch of suggestions on how to begin to transform the system from within. You won't agree with all of them, but this is a worthy addition to the legacy of previous writers (Noam Chomsky, Neil Postman, Aldous Huxley) warning us about the systems we are born into.Other books tell you why and who, but if you want to know HOW "They" managed to perpetuate the status quo for all these years, this book gives an inside glimpse. As an independent professional myself, I now know why I was instinctively against staying a full time employee. This book just confirms I made the right decision.

Bought and read this book 20 years ago, and must say it has stuck with me ever since. Found myself this morning, for the umpteenth time, recommending it to a friend. If anything, it is more critical to read and more damning today than when it was written.

I think the world would be a better place if everyone read this. Radical but thought provoking - thoughts that I think are more important nowadays than ever before. I have a lot of aha-moments when reading this - the author talks about things that really should be obvious to us, but that we don't see because we are so used to them. The authors arguments and views are underpinned with a lot of data and examples - very scientific, which helps to keep the topic grounded. If it weren't so densely written... I like the ideas in it so much that I am actually considering simplifying it myself to get the word out there.

Interesting book about why education fails so many.

If you want to understand the behavior and attitude of just about every PhD you ever met, this is the book to read.

Sociologically naive rant from someone who does not understand the purpose of hierarchies and large organizations. Not everything should be a hierarchy, but hierarchies have a place in the world and a function to fulfill.

meme si le livre date un peu et que les generations se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas. Une meme etude devrait etre faite pour les Y et les millenials