Consequences
I have a whole bunch of notes written down that didn't make it into my most recent Department Of Dilettante Research thread (which you should look back at, since byebyepride made a couple of late comments that I've been thinking about).
(1) What's the reward for teaching well and for understanding? What are the consequences for failing to teach or to understand? --When I wrote those questions I was thinking of how they would apply to an actual dep't we'd set up. Any answer would have to take into account what sort of thing the dep't is, e.g. an actual funded dep't somewhere or a message board or a magazine or a bunch of conversations on the town green or an itinerant group of marauders who "intervene" in some or all of the aforementioned. BUT actually when I glanced at the questions just now I interpreted them as applying to the world in general, not the Dep't in specific. What are the consequences for failing to teach or to understand? Like, in one's life.
If success and failure were its own rewards, then "departments of dilettante research" would have emerged all over the blogosphere. I wonder if the loose gaggle of economists blogs I've been reading - mostly by academics, a few by those in the financial industry, a few by journalists - could actually be considered a de facto Department Of Dilettante Research. Presumably the academics read each other's papers. Or I would like to think that they do. But they also have the ongoing financial support of institutions, and some of them get paid for columns and - presumably - for their blogs. (I don't know this, however.)
(2) Potential ways of creating "courses": (a) A central question, with each class being a different entry into (or growth out from) the question; e.g., my question about taste. "Since most people base their immediate likes and dislikes of music on what I'll loosely call 'visceral response,' how is it that taste tends to cluster along class lines - and what do we or should we mean by 'social class'?" We could get a bunch of people who've thought about such q's in very different ways (a bureaucrat, a sociologist, a member of a street gang; or, anyway, people who have thought a lot about bureaucracies or sociology or street gangs) each teaching loosely related "courses." (b) We could just have people teaching their specialty - astrophysics, greco-roman wrestling, cumulative advantage - but they get to take my course and I get to take theirs.
(3) "Institutionally," where do we start from? (a) We start w/ a band of colleagues-investigators-understanders who look for or create a space for the dep't, and also we work on opening up that space to outsiders. (b) We start with an already existing open conversation, big space, and within that open world those who want to will pair up or cluster into ongoing "courses," taking each other's "courses," and whoever else shows up enriches or complicates the interaction (this doesn't mean we can't have rules of behavior or toss people out: figuring such things out is part of the enrichment/complication). (Again, the question arises why this hasn't happened already, spontaneously?)
(1) What's the reward for teaching well and for understanding? What are the consequences for failing to teach or to understand? --When I wrote those questions I was thinking of how they would apply to an actual dep't we'd set up. Any answer would have to take into account what sort of thing the dep't is, e.g. an actual funded dep't somewhere or a message board or a magazine or a bunch of conversations on the town green or an itinerant group of marauders who "intervene" in some or all of the aforementioned. BUT actually when I glanced at the questions just now I interpreted them as applying to the world in general, not the Dep't in specific. What are the consequences for failing to teach or to understand? Like, in one's life.
If success and failure were its own rewards, then "departments of dilettante research" would have emerged all over the blogosphere. I wonder if the loose gaggle of economists blogs I've been reading - mostly by academics, a few by those in the financial industry, a few by journalists - could actually be considered a de facto Department Of Dilettante Research. Presumably the academics read each other's papers. Or I would like to think that they do. But they also have the ongoing financial support of institutions, and some of them get paid for columns and - presumably - for their blogs. (I don't know this, however.)
(2) Potential ways of creating "courses": (a) A central question, with each class being a different entry into (or growth out from) the question; e.g., my question about taste. "Since most people base their immediate likes and dislikes of music on what I'll loosely call 'visceral response,' how is it that taste tends to cluster along class lines - and what do we or should we mean by 'social class'?" We could get a bunch of people who've thought about such q's in very different ways (a bureaucrat, a sociologist, a member of a street gang; or, anyway, people who have thought a lot about bureaucracies or sociology or street gangs) each teaching loosely related "courses." (b) We could just have people teaching their specialty - astrophysics, greco-roman wrestling, cumulative advantage - but they get to take my course and I get to take theirs.
(3) "Institutionally," where do we start from? (a) We start w/ a band of colleagues-investigators-understanders who look for or create a space for the dep't, and also we work on opening up that space to outsiders. (b) We start with an already existing open conversation, big space, and within that open world those who want to will pair up or cluster into ongoing "courses," taking each other's "courses," and whoever else shows up enriches or complicates the interaction (this doesn't mean we can't have rules of behavior or toss people out: figuring such things out is part of the enrichment/complication). (Again, the question arises why this hasn't happened already, spontaneously?)