
Review of “Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals” (2001) - k1m
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html
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rayiner
> Indeed, do you know many lawyers who support free training for litigants to
> represent themselves, doctors who favor making it easier for people without
> medical qualifications (such as experienced nurses) to practice medicine or
> indeed many teachers who support opening jobs in schools to anyone, with or
> without degrees or teacher training - or letting students run classes
> without teachers?

Do you know many engineers who think non-engineers should play a greater role
in designing airplanes?

Most professionals are less likely to buck the system, but they would see that
system as a "feature, not a bug." The work of society is largely pyramid
building--big groups of people achieving complex goals through disciplined
cooperation. Society needs creatives, but just a few. The system is what
enables all of the comforts of modern life--the creatives just keep the system
vital and fresh.

~~~
jbooth
If we're being honest, it's some % split between the "feature not a bug" case
that you outline and credentialing to remove potential competition.

Nurses can (and do) do about 75% of the work a doctor does, same with
paralegals and lawyers. Have you seen the absurd amount of stuff on the CPA
exam?

I'm not saying we should allow the untrained to do highly skilled jobs, that's
how accidents happen, but the real-world skills for those jobs are often
different than the skills learned in law school, med school etc anyways. Not
that the credentialing has zero value, it obviously has value, but it's not
100% or even 50% of what makes a good doctor/lawyer/accountant.

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kenjackson
The author's argument seems weak. If anything in the medical field I see more
support among professionals for PAs than in the public. Ask someone if their
preference is to see a doctor or a PA and the vast majority will say a doctor.
Likewise, most ppl would prefer to be represented by a bar certified attorney
rather than cousin Jim who has several years of Law and Order under his belt.

There are two types of workers... One which makes a product one can evaluate
before consuming and one whose product isn't. In the cases where you can't
conservative approaches prevail. When the product can be judged than more
liberal attitudes prevail, because one can always judge the product. This is
why the software or art or writing professions are filled with those who
aren't formally trained.

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ap22213
I think this is because all of the professions cited are somewhat
standardized, with most teachers in the US being particularly standardized.
Law is standardized, by nature. Medicine is standardized, by medical boards.
Police are standardized to enforce the laws. Education is standardized by the
government.

This kind of makes sense, if the goal of pre-secondary public education is to
provide a base level of proficiency in skills and common knowledge.

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taway2012
I read the book a while back. This is very good review of the book. Read the
book if you can. If not, read this review at least. I'm planning to re-reading
it to see if I agree more or less with the book now.

I also found "Moral Mazes" to be a good book.

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plurinshael
I might have to read the book. I would have appreciated a clearer definition
of radical. My opinions have already been sculpted to exclude radicals from
serious engineering, medical, legal disciplines.

But I think I appreciate the arguments made.

I wonder if it's always mutually exclusive. Can you be a traditionalist when
it suits your goals, or the task at hand, and a little more of a wild/creative
"radical" at other times? Learn the commonly accepted methods/needs/approaches
but keep a part of my mind as of yet unwritten?

My own education (currently underway) is this constant dance between practical
engineering problems and highly theoretical physics or mathematical
constructs.

At a high level, the question is really: how do we train someone's body and
mind without crushing their soul? The idea that "society only needs a few
creatives" is deeply disappointing and misguided. Society needs discipline,
society needs creativity, an individual needs discipline, an individual needs
creativity.

~~~
calibraxis
I've read the book. While he doesn't define radical, it's clear the author
means two things:

* desires fundamental change in society's institutions

* desires participatory, bottom-up institutions; rather than elitist ones. (This condition excludes right-wing radicals.)

The idea is that professions don't exist in a vacuum; they fulfill goals in
society's context. In particular, professionals are different from other
workers in that ideology is important. So, the system doesn't particularly
care what restaurant dishwashers think, as they have little workplace freedom;
but teachers and lawyers have much more latitude in their jobs.

For instance, we don't have economics teachers helping students design their
own economics systems, since econ is a crucial part of status quo morality.
Instead, they have to teach a (not too critical view of a) narrow subset of
them: capitalist ideologies for the most part, and the more rebellious are
channeled into top-down forms of marxism.

Chomsky, mentioned in the book's preface (might've been the first chapter),
discusses further constraints of educational system:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktNK67M8hkw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktNK67M8hkw)

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yetanotherphd
I think it's good to consider whether a certain outlook or ideology comes
along with being a "professional". Here are some aspects of this outlook that
I have notices:

* "Engaging with the system and trying to improve it is always the best strategy". The other point of view is that if you have an adversarial relationship with an institution, it might serve your interests, or the greater good, to refuse to cooperate or participate until certain demands are met.

* "Bad actions can usually be explained by good intentions gone wrong". I think this incorrect viewpoint also relates the the first point, in that people feel that it is better to correct institutions than to fight against people. It is especially disturbing to me when things that should be crimes, are downgraded to institutional failures.

That said, (and without having read the book), I think that people such as the
author suffer from other, equally serious biases. In particular, thinking
"critically" usually means introducing a bias in our thinking to counteract
some alleged bias we already suffer from. But if we are wrong about the
initial bias, then our attempt to correct the bias will also be wrong.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
> thinking "critically" usually means introducing a bias in our thinking

Interesting argument. I think you're depending a lot on what you mean by bias.
Can a bias be corrected at all? If yes, should it be called a bias? I guess
attempts at critical thinking may not be perfect but they are still the best
thing we've got. If the author's argument has flaws, those need to be pointed
out using critical thinking instead of just saying that "everyone has biases".

------
pagade
Some 'other' reviews - [http://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-
Professiona...](http://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-
Professionals-Soul-battering/product-
reviews/0742516857/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_two?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addTwoStar&showViewpoints=0)

~~~
gjm11
Er, why have you linked specifically to the 2-star reviews? That seems a
curious choice.

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analog31
Perhaps what comes along with training in any profession is an understanding
that what "radical" consists of might be subtle, and not easily recognizable
to a lay person.

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walshemj
Title should say "in the USA" as the paper it's self say in Europe there are
plenty of left wing professionals.

~~~
kaitai
"Schmidt says that professionals may have progressive views about distant
social issues, but in the workplace - and in the work itself - professional
attitudes prevail, and they are uncritical." \-- from post

Is Europe really so different? All those Marxist teachers who really don't do
that much differently...? I've met a few. A different standard sort of
rhetoric, but really no different.

This was an interesting read. Lots of truths. Might read the book.

~~~
walshemj
I could ask my colleague Kieth Flett for his view but i suspect that even
admitting that I know him might get me hellbaned :-)

~~~
elacey
Kieth Flett? That ol'sonuvabitch! How is he? Say hi to his mother for me.

~~~
walshemj
Well I will see him at conference next year in Glasgow

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Matti
Those of you who think this is a positive review might want to read it again,
more carefully this time.

~~~
apw
Interesting. I did as you suggested, but _still_ think it is a positive
review.

Might you offer a hint as to what you meant?

~~~
Matti
The book reads like an extended rant written by a high-schooler on how the
system, like, forces you to conform, and stuff. The anecdotes that are given
in support of the "thesis" are seemingly randomly thrown in and range from
long quotes about how one student had a bad advisor to some stuff on racial
profiling and frisking on the streets. I am not typically a very discerning
reader, but I had to put the book away after a brief amount of time. That
almost never happens to me. Returning to the review with the above in mind the
satire should become obvious as you get midway into the review:

"In developing his critique of professions, Schmidt draws on his own
experiences and uses extensive quotes from correspondents, such as graduate
students who became aware of the political nature of their training. This
makes for an engaging account that feels authentic rather than remote in the
conventional academic style.

Readers familiar with literature on the sociology of professions and the
sociology of education may be surprised that Schmidt has few citations to it.
He makes no mention of works on the professional-managerial class, such as
Alvin Gouldner’s well known The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the
New Class (1979), nor of critiques of professions such as Randall Collins’ The
Credential Society (1979). Actually, Schmidt knew about such works but decided
not to mention them because he found that they were not necessary to his
argument. This may reflect his physics training. A social scientist would
naturally become familiar with "the literature" and refer extensively to it,
in order to show how their contribution relates to it. A theoretical
physicist, on the other hand, may start out with a theoretical framework, such
as Schrödinger’s equation in quantum mechanics, and derive logical
consequences from it, without having to cite prior or related work.

That is essentially what Schmidt has done in Disciplined Minds. The book’s
analysis is quite rigorous in its own terms. Schmidt has set various
challenging fundamental questions for himself, such as why theory is more
prestigious than practical work, systematically examined possible answers and
then made a conclusion based on logic and evidence. His intellectual framework
for this task can generally be characterized as a critique of domination and
inequality coupled with support for egalitarianism and democratization. The
result is bold and refreshing. While Disciplined Minds misses the more
elaborate structural theories and empirical evidence from works in the
sociology of education and professions, it redresses a key shortcoming in
these works, namely a concern for analysis without ideas for change. Schmidt’s
voice has the authenticity of experience and concern, and thus has a much more
subversive quality."

~~~
apw
Fascinating. Thank you for pointing this out.

