I posted earlier about "anti-programming" as a metaphor for cleaning out
our vocabularies, paring away superfluous concepts, and whatnot. Tony's
post, and its droll recital of discoveries and rediscoveries, suggests
(very strongly) to me that another idea we could profitably dispense with
is the notion that knowledge *progresses*. Every generation learns a lot,
yes: but it has to do that just to preserve itself from bestiality.
Business Management is a "humanity", not a species of math or the physical
sciences. The notion that each new generation, in the humanities, is
supposed to "discover" new truths, push at and expand the boundaries of
human knowledge, develop new theories and new statements of "law" to be
appended to all those discovered by earlier generations -- is too silly to
even merit discussion. But it has governed the schools, hasn't it.
> Eccles et al, suggest that even casual reading of management literature
> over the last 75 yrs, shows that every age "discovers" principles anew.
I suggest: the reason that every age "discovers" these principles "anew",
at least for the past several centuries in general and this wonderful 20th
in particular, is that every age has been subject to the delusion that it
HAD TO discover new principles. If it doesn't, it isn't working hard
enough. We had the sterling example of Newton to guide us...
Frankly, I think that whole bandwagon is running out of gas. I'm here on
this list in order, among other things, to help punch more holes in the
gas tank.
One sign that it's running out of gas is that the enormous efforts
expended every year developing "new" knowledge are actually yielding only
new vocabularies. Last year's facts, "seen from a new perspective."
Ach. Maybe it's something I ate. Let's see what tomorrow brings.
--
Regards
Jim Michmerhuizen jamzen@world.std.com
web residence at http://world.std.com/~jamzen/
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