Culture of Discourse: Student Silence

Image from Suggested Keywords

The JoongAng Daily recently announced that "Korean classrooms in Korea lack discussion" (September 14, 2015), offering an example:

Oh Soo-young, who attended the University of California, Berkeley, in 2013 as an exchange student, was posed a question by the professor in the first class she attended.

The teacher - who had memorized all the students' names - then continued to ask questions during the lecture. Whenever the students disagreed with one another, the presentation would shift into a debate.

"At first, I hesitated because I was worried about giving the wrong answer," the 24-year-old said. "But I got used to the debates after a while."

After finishing a semester abroad, her classes back in Korea were a marked turnaround from those in the United States. The professors simply read their written lectures, from beginning to end, off an overhead projector screen. And seldom did they pose questions to the class. When they did, they were mostly rhetorical.

I've been talking about this problem for years now - though, for the record, many Koreans have, too, so I'm not alone. I've incorporated discussion into all my classes over my years in Korea, but getting Korean students to talk is like pulling teeth! I should acknowledge, though, that Koreans are getting better as they slowly stop worrying about "giving the wrong answer."

But they were still worrying about that nearly ten years ago, when I taught a bit at Yonsei's Underwood International College. I had several non-Korean students who were happy to discuss, but one bright Korean student would hardly speak. I couldn't seem to encourage him, and he remained silent most of the time. About a year ago, I had dinner with a couple of the non-Korean students, and I asked them why the Korean student wouldn't speak. One of the two - an American - replied, "Because he couldn't predict what you would say next."

I hadn't thought of that, but I think the American man was spot on.

Annoying Game Theorist?

Yanis Varoufakis

Wikipedia

I think the Greek government, led by the left-wing Syriza political party, selected Yanis Varoufakis to 'negotiate' for better conditions in the austerity program because he is an expert on game theory, but game theory presupposes conflict between antagonists, a kind of words warfare, so just imagine the message that the Greek government was sending in making Varoufakis their champion, for in doing so, they showed the EU that they would be fighting against austerity to the last millimeter of terms rather than discussing how to make the austerity program workable, a hint of hostility that instantly alienated the EU, particularly since many in the EU had already come to the point of scarcely any longer caring whether Greece had to leave the euro zone or not, meaning the EU states felt they could not lose, no matter how skillful Varoufakis should prove to be in game theory, because the endgame no longer mattered.

Once the Greeks realized this, Varoufakis dropped out, and Greece began to negotiate in earnest, Or so things seemed to me, but what do I know about any of this?

Korea's Need for a Culture of Discussion?

Crash Site of a Three-Way Train Collision
Yonhap News
The Korea Herald

I'm teaching a course titled "Rhetoric and Composition," and we've just finished reading and discussing my article "Points Toward a Culture of Discussion," a paper I presented at the "2011 Global Forum Civilization and Peace." By coincidence, an article in The Korea Herald by John Power and Kim Joo-hyun, "How safe is Korea's rail?" (September 30, 2013), touches on a related issue, a culture of safety:

Shin Seok-kyun, business development manager of Korea transportation at Lloyd's Register, said many lower-level employees at KORAIL failed to grasp the safety implications of their work.

"They need to feel, 'Why (do) I think safety is first in my work?' They don't think that. 'Yes it is just routine work, that's all. I need to finish the work and go home earlier.' But such routine work can affect or cause a problem . . . . We recommended training. From the senior level to the lower level, we emphasized (that) maybe you need training for safety management, because . . . the lower level doesn't have any chance to have such training from the senior level. The company, especially the senior level, just thinks about money and any profit or (about how to) avoid any blame from the government or blame from the public."

Here's the connection to my paper's theme:

According to Shin, this laxity is compounded by the hierarchical nature of the company and general Korean culture.

"Everybody just follows such a structure and the safety culture cannot be changed within such a culture. That is the big difference between Korea and the other, Western countries . . . . In such a hierarchy, the lowest levels do not want to report the reality to the senior bosses. But the safety issue should be open to all levels, no matter the position. But still the safety culture is maybe 50, 100 years (behind) Europe or other Western (countries)."

Clearly, this issue indicates the need for a more developed culture of discussion in Korea, one in which hierarchy doesn't stifle the raising of questions, a general point upon which others, including Koreans, are agreed.

US Textbooks Trigger Curiosity?

Cho Wan-kyu
Google Images

The JoongAng Daily yesterday published an interview by Lee Gwang-jae with retired Seoul National University professor and administrator Cho Wan-kyu, titled, "Veteran educator seeks ways to fix nation's schools" (July 6, 2013), and Professor Cho had some words of praise for America's educational system, in contrast to Korea's system:

The [Korean] school teachers should always offer curiosity-driven courses, allowing their [students'] imagination to run wild. For example, science teachers should not just explain natural phenomena plainly. They can ask students, 'Why does the sun rise in the east? Or why do the vast majority of flowers bloom in spring, not winter? Or what's the difference between apricot blossoms and cherry blossoms?'

They should not put their answers in the text book. Instead, they should let students think about them for a moment. If we look at textbooks in the U.S., they are designed to trigger curiosity and provoke thoughts.

Well, that's what I always say, so I'm grateful to hear it confirmed by a Korean educator! Actually, though, my wife tells me that Korean textbooks for our kids are much improved these days, but that too many old-fashioned teachers don't make effective use of these books.

Things, however, are changing here in Korea, though I think that these changes are happening more rapidly in private education centers, which are starting to offer courses on critical reading, open discussion, and discursive writing, among other things.

Anyway, read the article . . .

Advice for Squabbling Couples . . .

Professor Keith Sanford
Looking a bit conflicted himself . . .
Baylor University

In my ongoing though nonexistent series on maintaining a good marriage, I cite today a professor from my old, beloved alma mater, Baylor University, whose research results first came to my notice in this autumn's 2012 issue of Baylor Magazine, presented in its Research Briefs under the heading "Anger in disputes . . .":

"[I]f your partner is angry, you are likely to miss the fact that your partner might also be feeling sad," said Keith Sanford, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor University's College of Arts and Sciences. His study -- "The Communication of Emotion During Conflict in Married Couples" -- is published online in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Family Psychology.

Sanford found that while a partner will easily and immediately recognize expressions of anger, the spouse often will fail to notice the sadness.

"A take-home message is that there may be times where it is beneficial to express feelings of sadness during conflict, but sad feelings are most likely to be noticed if you are not simultaneously expressing anger," Sanford said. (page 21)

Good advice! Every couple has disagreements from time to time -- cross-cultural couples perhaps more often due to cultural misunderstandings -- but these are commonly expressed in agitation, even anger, when expressions of regret and sadness would communicate better what the problem is.

Keep that point in mind, whether in a bicultural marriage or not, and the next time you're yelling at your partner, be sure to scream out:

I'm so sad at you!

The message will be better understood that way. If you find expressing your more sensitive, vulnerable feelings in this manner to be rather difficult, you can always try first practicing in front of a mirror.

You see, reading this Gypsy Scholar's blog is worthwhile after all . . .

Margaret Heffernan: "Dare to Disagree"

Margaret Heffernan

Homepage

Yesterday via LinkedIn, I was given a link to a TED lecture by Margaret Heffernan titled "Dare to Disagree," a presentation that I realized fits with my views on a culture of discussion and that needs to be deeply reflected upon by Koreans. Expressing disagreement is never easy, as Ms. Heffernan acknowledges:

[R]ecently, I worked with an executive named Joe, and Joe worked for a medical device company. And Joe was very worried about the device that he was working on. He thought that it was too complicated and he thought that its complexity created margins of error that could really hurt people. He was afraid of doing damage to the patients he was trying to help. But when he looked around his organization, nobody else seemed to be at all worried. So, he didn't really want to say anything. After all, maybe they knew something he didn't. Maybe he'd look stupid. But he kept worrying about it, and he worried about it so much that he got to the point where he thought the only thing he could do was leave a job he loved.

Think about that. Joe was almost more willing to quit his job than disagree with others. And that was in the West! Imagine the barriers in Korea, where hierarchy sets up multiple roadblocks! What did Joe do:

In the end, Joe and I found a way for him to raise his concerns. And what happened then is what almost always happens in this situation [in the West]. It turned out everybody had exactly the same questions and doubts. So now Joe had allies. They could think together. And yes, there was a lot of conflict and debate and argument, but that allowed everyone around the table to be creative, to solve the problem, and to change the device.

The royal road to truth is through conflict and debate, not through superficial harmony, as becomes clear by another of of Ms. Heffernan's anecdotes. A brilliant doctor in the 1950s named Alice Stewart linked childhood cancer to the practice of X-raying pregnant women, but the medical establishment was against her, so she had to be sure that she was right:

So, how did she know that she was right? Well, she had a fantastic model for thinking. She worked with a statistician named George Kneale, and George was pretty much everything that Alice wasn't. So, Alice was very outgoing and sociable, and George was a recluse. Alice was very warm, very empathetic with her patients. George frankly preferred numbers to people. But he said this fantastic thing about their working relationship. He said, "My job is to prove Dr. Stewart wrong." He actively sought disconfirmation. Different ways of looking at her models, at her statistics, different ways of crunching the data in order to disprove her. He saw his job as creating conflict around her theories. Because it was only by not being able to prove that she was wrong, that George could give Alice the confidence she needed to know that she was right.

It's a fantastic model of collaboration -- thinking partners who aren't echo chambers. I wonder how many of us have, or dare to have, such collaborators. Alice and George were very good at conflict. They saw it as thinking.

And that's what we -- Westerners, Easterners, Koreans -- need to master, the art of disagreement! We need to accept the likelihood of being wrong -- and called on it -- for the unlikelihood of being right!

The link given above is to a YouTube video, but some will be able to view the video directly on the TED site, where one can also read the transcript not only in English but also other languages, including Korean.

Fulbrighter Stephanie Kim: Internationalization of Korean Universities

Stephanie Kim

UCLA Graduate School of Education

Because I was once a Fulbright Scholar (1989/90), I receive invitations to Fulbrighter presentations here in Seoul, but I'd never attended one until this past Friday, when I went to hear UCLA doctoral candidate Stephanie Kim speak about Korean attempts to raise university rankings on the global scale, a topic promised in the description sent to me a couple of weeks ago:

In the wake of the Asian financial crisis and of a continuing neoliberal [i.e., classical liberal economics] trend in higher education reform that emphasizes deregulation, competition, and marketization, the Korean government has attempted to minimize the country's educational trade deficit by pursuing measures that discourage students from studying abroad while encouraging foreign students to come study in South Korea. In effect, this policy shift underscores the need to raise educational and research standards at Korean universities and to create campuses with more international settings so as to better accommodate foreign students. One consequence is the emergence of international colleges housed within Korean universities that adopt a Western liberal arts model and are conducted entirely in English.

Stephanie's Fulbright research provides an anthropological analysis of an international college that examines how various university stakeholders navigate their professional activities in the context of the university. It takes the integration of liberal arts education in South Korea as a point of entry to discuss the social, economic, and political debates surrounding university internationalization. Her presentation ultimately argues that the emergence of international colleges reflects a unique model of university internationalization that embodies the Korean attitude towards globalization.

There wasn't much anthropological analysis in the presentation -- not what I think of as anthropology, anyway -- so I'm assuming Ms. Kim saves that for the thesis itself, but the data and her argument were interesting to reflect upon, especially for a man such as myself who has taught so long in Korea, first in 1995/6 and then from 1999 through 2012, and who has ever attempted to "navigate . . . professional activities in the context of the university" systems where I've taught, with varying success among seven universities (portmanteau for "unique adversities") as I've trod the faultline between academic cultures East and West. Ms. Kim's succinct summary of "the Korean attitude towards globalization" in "university internationalization" clearly articulated the point that each international program set up in Korean universities to train students in critical thinking (often taught by foreign professors) has mostly been sealed off in a 'bubble' from the rest of the university, the intention being to prevent critical thinking from being turned upon the larger university system or the even larger Korean society, where hierarchy and Confucian ethics hold sway.

As example, Ms. Kim related an anecdote about one of the first graduates of Yonsei's Underwood International College (UIC), a woman who was interviewed by a national newspaper here in Korea and was asked about the UIC program. She answered the various questions honestly, using the critical skills in which she had been trained at the UIC, so she had both positive and negative things to say. Later, the dean of UIC called her personally and told her that before she gave any further interviews, she should first check with the UIC administration about what to say.

That kind of demand would almost certainly not happen in a Western university, else the administrative official would be laughed out of office! But it's the sort of reaction still to be expected here in Korea . . .

Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond

2011 Civilization and Peace

The papers presented last October at the "2011 Global Forum Civilization and Peace" were recently published, officially in April, but my copy arrived only yesterday, courtesy of The Academy of Korean Studies. The back covers tells us that the forum:

. . . was attended by a number of audiences and scholars including the keynote speaker Professor Jürgen Kocka, the vice president of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Under the main theme "Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond: Humanistic Approach", we tried to look into many aspects of conflicts in the modern global world and gathered to find alternatives for the harmonious resolution. This is the collection of papers that were presented at "2011 Global Forum Civilization and Peace". I hope to share the forum's rewarding experience of intellectual exploration with the public through this publication

The "I" is unnamed, but I reckon it's Professor Chung Chung-kil, president of The Academy of Korean Studies because it reads like a summary of his "Preface." Among the papers referred to is also my own, "Points Toward a Culture of Discussion," to be found on pages 89-114. Readers may recall my posts on this paper last autumn, such as this report, in which I offered my presentation's conclusion:

Let us remind ourselves that this year's Global Forum on Civilization and Peace focuses on the "Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond," specifying "A Humanistic Approach," and our session is concerned with "Difference and Discrimination." I began, humanistically enough, with a conflict between a high-status university professor in the West who advocated critical discourse without reference to hierarchical status but who felt justified in physically attacking a 'lowly' graduate student who had insulted him. We then looked at hierarchy within Confucian Civilization in East Asia and noted some of the problems that result from Confucianism's suppression of open discussion, the implication being that Confucianism needs to find some means of accommodating critical discourse. We considered Huntington's thesis concerning the clash of civilizations, but reflected upon his appeal for intercivilizational understanding as well and noted the possibility of cultural commonalities and even commonalities grounded in our meta-civilizational human nature, especially our mortality. We saw how this common mortality can offer a basis for a culture of critical discourse in which reasons and evidence are privileged over hierarchical status even in strongly hierarchical societies. We drew attention to a necessity for the freedom to insult since even substantive points grounded in reason and evidence can be taken as insults, regardless of intention. All of these things point to the truth that a harmonious society cannot be imposed at the outset but can only be understood as an aim to be attained at the end of a discursive process, if such harmony is ever even to be attained at all. Finally, if this paper has raised issues controversial enough to stimulate critical discussion, then I will have succeeded in my goal.

There's usually a Korean version of the articles published simultaneously, but not this year. I'm not sure why. Anyway, for those interested, the book can be ordered from the site linked to above, and I'll link again here. Ironically, even though the forum was for both foreigners and Koreans, the page linked to bears the heading "Books for Foreigner," but one needs to read Korean to order a copy of the book.

I therefore suspect that my call for a culture of discussion in Korea (and elsewhere) will go unread . . .

"Red Hat" and its "Culture of Discussion"

Jim Whitehurst
President of Red Hat
Photo by Librado Romero
The New York Times

I read some great advice yesterday, relayed to me in the New York Times via Adam Bryant from the "president and chief executive of Red Hat" (provider of Linux and other open-source technology), Jim Whitehurst, who learned it God knows where, so I don't know the originator, but the advice is:

[F]or any business there are three levels of leadership. One is getting somebody to do what you want them to do. The second is getting people to think what you want them to think; then you don't have to tell them what to do because they will figure it out . . . . [The third and] best is getting people to believe what you want them to believe, and if people really fundamentally believe what you want them to believe, they will walk through walls. They will do anything.

How to accomplish this, of course, is the hard part. Perhaps the other advice from Mr. Whitehurst -- given in Mr. Bryant's interview, "The Memo List: Where Everyone Has an Opinion" (March 10, 2012) -- can offer insight. Here's a possibility:

Our employees have always expected this: tell me why we're doing what we're doing, and allow me at least a voice in the decision process. Now a voice doesn't mean decision rights. It doesn't mean you have any say in the answer. But at least you have a vehicle for an opinion to be heard.

This discussion procedure will likely get employees as far as doing what you want them to do, and perhaps as far as thinking what you want them to think, but maybe not as far as believing what you want them to believe. But it's still a good idea to have an internal forum for discussion of issues, and Red Hat does this through its Memo List, which Mr. Whitehurst explains:

We have about 4,000 employees, but on average you'll see a couple hundred posts a day . . . . Memo List is about the business. And I go through it every single day. I would say probably three-quarters of the people are on it every day, either reading or posting.

Such an online, internal forum might not be applicable to every organization, but some compromise will always need to be found between hierarchical decision-making and democratic discussion, especially these days, as Mr. Whitehurst explains:

[W]e're on the bleeding edge of what so many companies are going to face because of this whole millennial generation coming up. It just does not like this idea of hierarchy.

There you have it. The world is changing as technology flattens out various processes. People expect to express themselves and be lisitened to. Organizations must adapt . . . or fail.

Critical Thinking in China

Lei Feng
CCP Hero

Wikipedia

I don't know much about China despite living so close to that enormous country that would border a united Korea if the North and South ever join again, but I do realize how important it is, so I try to keep up with developments over there. Some readers may recall that I even included China in my paper on the necessity for a culture of discussion in East Asia and that I noted the possibility for the rise of critical thinking there, citing the public's skeptical response to the Chinese government's official version of a terrible accident on one of the nation's high-speed railways.

My faith in the Chinese people's potential for critical thought has not been misplaced, for one of the Communist Party's propaganda heros, Lei Feng, is currently being widely ridiculed on the internet in China, according to Andrew Jacobs, "Poking holes in the tale of a propaganda hero" (International Herald Tribune, March 5, 2012):

[T]he Internet has given rise to a legion of Lei Feng deniers who have been merrily poking holes in his story. Using simple math, they have questioned how a poor orphan living on a tiny army stipend could donate so much money to the needy or how he collected 150 kilograms, or about 330 pounds, of cow dung on a single day during Chinese New Year.

Others have questioned the flawless script of his diary and wondered how it is that there are hundreds of photographs recording his every good deed. Liu Yi, a designer in Shanghai, pointed out the absurdity of one famous image that shows Lei Feng in bed reading Mao's collected works by flashlight. In the photo, he notes, the flashlight is off but the room is fully illuminated. "And there just happened to be a photojournalist passing by to capture the moment," he wrote. (page 3, columns c-f)

Unfortunately, many of these examples of critical thinking still available for others to read online might soon become less prevalent, for beginning March 16, 2012, the Chinese government will require real-name registration on the internet, and the anonymous critiques will end, which may force a lot of individuals to fall silent. Moreover, any online post considered 'detrimental' to national interests, always rather vaguely defined, will have to be deleted within five minutes!

Oddly, I haven't yet managed to locate a copy of this critical article on the internet . . .

UPDATE: It's now online.

Intellectual Diversity and Fruitful Discussion

Jonah Lehrer

Firekid

Jonah Lehrer is a really smart guy (as you can see by checking his website), though I think I've mentioned him in just a single blog entry prior to this one. I bring him up now because I'm using an article of his in my Academic English course. Not that I chose the article. The one responsible for that was a colleague who also has an M.A. in the history of science, which means that we have interests in common, so we both liked Lehrer's article "Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up" for Wired Magazine (December 21, 2009). I especially appreciated his description of the sort of discussion that goes on in lab meetings, a process studied by Kevin Dunbar, "a researcher who studies how scientists study things -- how they fail and succeed":

While the scientific process is typically seen as a lonely pursuit -- researchers solve problems by themselves -- Dunbar found that most new scientific ideas emerged from lab meetings, those weekly sessions in which people publicly present their data. Interestingly, the most important element of the lab meeting wasn't the presentation -- it was the debate that followed. Dunbar observed that the skeptical (and sometimes heated) questions asked during a group session frequently triggered breakthroughs, as the scientists were forced to reconsider data they'd previously ignored. The new theory was a product of spontaneous conversation, not solitude; a single bracing query was enough to turn scientists into temporary outsiders, able to look anew at their own work.

But not every lab meeting was equally effective. Dunbar tells the story of two labs that both ran into the same experimental problem: The proteins they were trying to measure were sticking to a filter, making it impossible to analyze the data. "One of the labs was full of people from different backgrounds," Dunbar says. "They had biochemists and molecular biologists and geneticists and students in medical school." The other lab, in contrast, was made up of E. coli experts. "They knew more about E. coli than anyone else, but that was what they knew," he says. Dunbar watched how each of these labs dealt with their protein problem. The E. coli group took a brute-force approach, spending several weeks methodically testing various fixes. "It was extremely inefficient," Dunbar says. "They eventually solved it, but they wasted a lot of valuable time."

The diverse lab, in contrast, mulled the problem at a group meeting. None of the scientists were protein experts, so they began a wide-ranging discussion of possible solutions. At first, the conversation seemed rather useless. But then, as the chemists traded ideas with the biologists and the biologists bounced ideas off the med students, potential answers began to emerge. "After another 10 minutes of talking, the protein problem was solved," Dunbar says. "They made it look easy."

When Dunbar reviewed the transcripts of the meeting, he found that the intellectual mix generated a distinct type of interaction in which the scientists were forced to rely on metaphors and analogies to express themselves. (That's because, unlike the E. coli group, the second lab lacked a specialized language that everyone could understand.) These abstractions proved essential for problem-solving, as they encouraged the scientists to reconsider their assumptions. Having to explain the problem to someone else forced them to think, if only for a moment, like an intellectual on the margins, filled with self-skepticism.

This is why other people are so helpful: They shock us out of our cognitive box. "I saw this happen all the time," Dunbar says. "A scientist would be trying to describe their approach, and they'd be getting a little defensive, and then they'd get this quizzical look on their face. It was like they'd finally understood what was important."

What I glean from this is that not only are problems better solved through discussion, they are best solved through discussion among individuals with different strengths who are free to challenge each other, and are free to do so even at the expense of harmony, indeed especially at the expense of harmony. The importance of this sort of discussion has significant implications for education, especially in Korea, where the educational system still aims at producing identical students intent on getting the top mark on a single exam that determines one's educational future.

Well, not entirely, and Korea is changing, but one doesn't often encounter open discussion, not a diversity of views. I'm interested to see what my students think about this article . . . if I can just get them to discuss it.

Don't you lecture me!

NPR Logo

Readers will perhaps recall that I taught a history course last spring on European integration -- rather pertinent, as recent events reveal -- and that I used an innovative (for me) technique. Rather than lecture -- which I knew from experience would be a waste of time (me speaking English to a class for whom it's mostly a second language) -- I divided the class into nine groups of about six students each and had them spend the first twenty minutes discussing several questions that had been posted online a couple of days before. We then followed this with about forty minutes of class-wide discussion. The process worked much better, I thought, than any lecture that I'd ever given. But that was merely my impression, one unbased on hard evidence.

Now, however, I have some factual evidence, quantitative even! Emily Hanford, for NPR, tells us in "Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool" (January 1, 2012) that discussion is the best method:

[Eric] Mazur's physics class is now different. Rather than lecturing, he makes his students do most of the talking.

At a recent class, the students -- nearly 100 of them -- are in small groups discussing a question. Three possible answers to the question are projected on a screen. Before the students start talking with one another, they use a mobile device to vote for their answer. Only 29 percent got it right. After talking for a few minutes, Mazur tells them to answer the question again.

This time, 62 percent of the students get the question right. Next, Mazur leads a discussion about the reasoning behind the answer. The process then begins again with a new question. This is a method Mazur calls "peer Instruction." He now teaches all of his classes this way.

"What we found over now close to 20 years of using this approach is that the learning gains at the end of the semester nearly triple," he says.

One value of this approach is that it can be done with hundreds of students. You don't need small classes to get students active and engaged. Mazur says the key is to get them to do the assigned reading -- what he calls the "information-gathering" part of education -- before they come to class.

That's the hard part, getting them to prepare! But if they do, this method works wonders. Of course, the results are different for history, compared to physics, but the students do learn to develop their ideas and analysis through discussion, which leads to improved research papers, due to better developed views.

I'd write more on this topic, but I'm using a different computer than my own, familiar one because of internet-link problems this morning, so go to the link to learn more.

Culture of Discussion: Response to Discussant

Response by Presenter Horace Jeffery Hodges to Discussant Lee Taek-Gwang

My presentation at this week's Forum was discussed by Professor Lee Taek-Gwang (이택광) of Kyung Hee University, who raised two questions about my advocacy of a culture of discussion in East Asia to overcome the limits to free discourse set by Confucian hierarchy, namely, that hierarchy exists everywhere and that my ideal of discussion is utopian. I've posted my response below:

I thank Professor Lee Taek-Gwang for his remarks, which are well taken. He raises two main points:

1) Hierarchy: Isn't hierarchy characteristic of every society?

2) Utopian: Isn't my presupposition about discussion utopian?

Concerning Number 1: This is a problem. All societies have hierarchy, and it does tend to inhibit a culture of discussion. For this reason, we need to emphasize the right to discussion and support it both culturally and legally.

Concerning Number 2: I grant that my conception of a culture of discussion offers an ideal to strive for. Is that utopian? Possibly. But it is also a criterion by which to measure our approximation to that ideal situation. We should have evidence and reasons for our views.

I think that a more difficult question -- if I might query myself -- is that of action. We have to act in the world, often when we lack time for sufficient discussion. Knowing when to halt the discussion and act is not simple, easy, or obvious. I suppose that we just have to do the best we can with what little time we have.

But what I would like to emphasize are two points about Samuel Huntington. (1) He's famous for his borrowed expression -- taken from Bernard Lewis -- "clash of civilizations," but he himself stresses the need for intercivilizational understanding, finding common values upon which we can agree even if we have differences to discuss. (2) He alludes to what we share as a species beyond cultural differences, and I suggest that a core similarity is our mortality, our shared human frailty, as a motive for developing a culture of discussion in every society.

Those were my remarks in response to Professor Lee. He seemed satisfied, though he might have merely adopted a courteous demeanor, for we were all exceedingly nice to one another at this Forum.

Other scholars, however, later noted that they agreed with certain points that I had made, though perhaps nobody agreed wholeheartedly . . .

2011 Global Forum Civilization and Peace: "Points Toward a Culture of Discussion"

2011 Global Forum Civilization and Peace

Center for International Affairs

I've now had a night's sleep and can write a bit more, though not much since my classes start early today. I usually post introductions when I note a publication, paper, or presentation, but I'll instead post a conclusion this time:

Let us remind ourselves that this year's Global Forum on Civilization and Peace focuses on the "Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond," specifying "A Humanistic Approach," and our session is concerned with "Difference and Discrimination." I began, humanistically enough, with a conflict between a high-status university professor in the West who advocated critical discourse without reference to hierarchical status but who felt justified in physically attacking a 'lowly' graduate student who had insulted him. We then looked at hierarchy within Confucian Civilization in East Asia and noted some of the problems that result from Confucianism's suppression of open discussion, the implication being that Confucianism needs to find some means of accommodating critical discourse. We considered Huntington's thesis concerning the clash of civilizations, but reflected upon his appeal for intercivilizational understanding as well and noted the possibility of cultural commonalities and even commonalities grounded in our meta-civilizational human nature, especially our mortality. We saw how this common mortality can offer a basis for a culture of critical discourse in which reasons and evidence are privileged over hierarchical status even in strongly hierarchical societies. We drew attention to a necessity for the freedom to insult since even substantive points grounded in reason and evidence can be taken as insults, regardless of intention. All of these things point to the truth that a harmonious society cannot be imposed at the outset but can only be understood as an aim to be attained at the end of a discursive process, if such harmony is ever even to be attained at all. Finally, if this paper has raised issues controversial enough to stimulate critical discussion, then I will have succeeded in my goal.

This is from my presentation at a conference titled "2011 Global Forum Civilization and Peace." The paper was titled "Points Toward a Culture of Discussion."

I've not yet seen any newspaper reports directly on this year's conference, but the Korea Herald does have an article on a statement made by the keynote speaker, Jürgen Kocka, before the conference began, and that can be read online. I hope that his paper is eventually put online, for it's a very interesting analysis of German reunification that emphasizes how history can "surprise" us, and it brought back a lot of memories from my years in Germany, which covered that period, for I went to Germany in August 1989.

But more on this conference if the papers cover it, for I've got to prepare for teaching.

2011 Global Forum Civilization and Peace

Last Year's Global Forum Logo 2010

(Image from The Academy of Korean Studies)

Just yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to be invited by the Academy of Korean Studies to give a presentation this coming October (10th or 11th) at the "2011 Global Forum [on] Civilization and Peace," which will take place in the Grand Ball Room of the Seoul Plaza Hotel. The main theme this year is "Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond: Humanistic Approach," and my session is on "Difference and Discrimination." This is a rather broad subject, but I'll have to narrow down a plausible topic within the next few days and provide an abstract as soon as possible. Based on what I read in the invitation, I'll definitely have to rise to the occasion:

We started our forum . . . [in the] year 2005, inviting world leading scholars to exchange ideas in a view to build peace & civilizations. So far former Korean president Kim Daejung, Prof. Amartya Sen, Dr. Shirin Ebadi and so forth [have] joined our forum as . . . speakers. For more details, please visit our website [Korean or English].

Being associated with such illustrious speakers is a humbling experience, though I'm sure that their role was as plenary speakers rather than as speakers in sessions, but even so I'll certainly have to do my very best -- or better than my best if I want to measure up.

I might try to rework some ideas of mine on the need for a "culture of discussion" since I have some expertise in this area and believe that it is, in fact, sorely needed in East Asia and beyond.

I just need to relate it substantively to the subject of "Difference and Discrimination" . . .

Free Speech 'Killer App': Jason Nemec's View

Free Speech Movement, 1964

(Image from UC Berkeley)

Jason Nemec, one of my old friends from back home in the Ozarks, whom I've always called "Jay," emailed to express agreement, albeit nuanced, with my post on free speech:

[I read] this particular blog with a bit more interest than some others, and I wholeheartedly agree free speech should be included. In my opinion it could even be #1 on the list. One could argue all of the other six have a direct connection to success by having free speech and open dialogue without fear of reprisal. Look at how the Russian and Chinese societies have taken off in all categories when the restrictions on free speech and free thought have been reduced.

I am not quite as sure about the highlighted part below though.

Freedom of speech means the right to express oneself freely without censorship, but for the "app" to become a "killer," it needs to be embedded in a culture of discussion where reason and evidence, rather than the positional status, guide listeners in their evaluation of what the speaker says.

I have yet to find a developed culture, real or imagined, where status did not, or should not, play a role in how an individual will evaluate what is being said to them. Personal biases are too strong to totally disregard them when listening to the ideas or opinions of others. It could be something as small as not liking how the speaker wears their clothes or combs their hair. Conversely, if a well dressed, well groomed person tells us something, I can pretty much guarantee we would be more willing to accept it as "fact", reason or evidence aside, than if a rumpled disheveled person told us the exact same thing. This is kind of a funky example, but even in the "totally" logic and reason based Vulcan society of Star Trek, Spock and others put more value in the words of their leaders/parents than of their peers or lower ranking Vulcans, and certainly ahead of any non-Vulcan.

I think the word discussion is key to what you wrote, because it is through the discussion part of free speech where we can get past the initial biases and first impressions all of us form. Discussion cannot happen by just listening to a speaker and finding reason or evidence. Discussion is communication between two or more individuals, so I would respectively suggest changing the comment above to something like:

Freedom of speech means the right to express oneself freely without censorship, but for the "app" to become a "killer," it needs to be embedded in a culture of discussion where reason and evidence, rather than the positional status of the speaker, guide listeners in their evaluation of what they have heard or witnessed.

Maybe I am rambling too much here as it was a long weekend for me where I was at work more than I was at home. I did want to comment on the blog and felt this would be too much to include in the comments section itself. If you want to put it in there and respond or not, feel free to do so.

I replied to Jay, rather inadequately:

You make good points, and we basically agree. I was interested to see that you focused on my reference to "the positional status." I had originally included "of the speaker" but then considered that "and of the listener" also applied, so I left both out to include both but neglected to remove the "the" in "the positional status." I had just deleted it before reading your email. Fascinating . . . as Spock might say.

But that reply doesn't do justice to Jay's observation. I haven't altered what I posted on positional status, but Jay is right about the role of discussion, and he makes two good points that show why discussion is necessary. One point concerns our deplorable, if inevitable, tendency to stereotype others based on their appearance. The other point concerns our justifiable tendency to defer to authority, justifiable because it is authority. But we can be wrong about our stereotypes and deference, hence the need not only for free speech but also for discussion in which the appeal to reason and evidence can help us to "get past the initial biases and first impressions all of us form."

Jay's opinion is interesting to me because he has had a long, successful career in business, yet expresses views consonant with my own, and our agreement despite different experiences in life suggests to me that free speech really is a "killer app." I should perhaps note, however, that Jay is also an actor and thus might have more personal interest in the issue of free expression than the average businessman . . . and he has expressed himself rather well.

By the way, I looked up "killer application" in Wikipedia:

A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app), in the jargon of technologists, has been used to refer to any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, gaming console, software, or an operating system. A killer app can substantially increase sales of the platform on which it runs.

I now know more precisely what Niall Ferguson meant, and it's not just about smart phones . . .

Niall Ferguson's Six "Killer Apps" and the "Free Speech App"?

Niall Ferguson

(Image from Intelligence Squared)

I noted in yesterday's blog entry that the Spectator's political editor James Forsyth helpfully summarizes an essay by Niall Ferguson that appeared in the inaccessible Sunday Times. I then quoted Forsyth on Ferguson's six "killer apps" of Western Civilization:

1. Competition: a decentralisation of political and economic life, which created the launch pad for both nation states and capitalism.

2. Science: a way of understanding and ultimately changing the natural world, which gave the West (among other things) a major military advantage over the Rest.

3. Property rights: the rule of law as a means of protecting private owners and peacefully resolving disputes between them, which formed the basis for the most stable form of representative government.

4. Medicine: a branch of science that allowed a major improvement in health and life expectancy, beginning in Western societies, but also in their colonies.

5. The consumer society: a mode of material living in which the production and purchase of clothing and other consumer goods play a central economic role, and without which the Industrial Revolution would have been unsustainable.

6. The work ethic: a moral framework and mode of activity derivable from (among other sources) Protestant Christianity, which provides the glue for the dynamic and potentially unstable society created by apps 1 to 5. (Forsyth, "How the West became so dominant," Coffee House: The Spectator Blog, 19th February 2011)

I also linked to "Niall Ferguson on the six 'killer apps' of Western civilisation," a lecture by Ferguson hosted at Intelligence Squared. I noted that one could sign up to join and watch Ferguson give a lecture on these six apps, or not sign up but listen to an audio of the same. I listened to the audio because I didn't want to sign up for the video, so I didn't see the various charts and images that Ferguson used to illustrate his lecture. But the audio was clear enough.

In that lecture, Ferguson began by challenging his audience to listen carefully and judge whether or not he might have missed any "app."

I have now risen to the challenge, having listened carefully to the audio and reflected at leisure. I think that Ferguson missed the free speech "app," which I propose as "killer app # 7."

Actually, I mean something a bit broader than simply free speech. I'm thinking of what I have called a "culture of discussion," concerning which I've written an article, "Toward a Culture of Discussion" ("토론 문화를 위해서"), for The Philosophy & Poetry Journal (애지), which appeared last summer (Volume 42, Summer 2010, 25-38). That article was in Korean, but if you click on the English title of the article, you can read the English version on my blog.

Freedom of speech means the right to express oneself freely without censorship, but for the "app" to become a "killer," it needs to be embedded in a culture of discussion where reason and evidence, rather than positional status, guide listeners in their evaluation of what the speaker says.

Ferguson might argue that "killer app # 2," i.e., "science," entails my suggested "free speech app," but I think that free speech has to be more pervasive in a culture to work effectively and provide that culture with an advantage over other cultures.

What do readers think?

David Brooks: "Americans are not hierarchical"

David Brooks

(Image from Wikipedia)

As an expat American living in "Dynamic Korea," and it is dynamic, I think a great deal about what makes a society successful because Korea is so different from America, and in ways that Americans think shouldn't work -- and we mean that not only descriptively, but even prescriptively! -- yet it does work. Counterintuitively, it does.

I still think the American system preferable, however, and for the reasons given by NYT columnist Davd Brooks in "The Crossroads Nation" (November 8, 2010) on why the place to be now and in the future is America:

You'll want to be there because American institutions are relatively free from corruption. Intellectual property is protected. Huge venture capital funds already exist.

Moreover, the United States is a universal nation. There are already people there with connections all over the world. A nation of immigrants is more permeable than say, Chinese society.

You also observe that America hosts the right kind of networks -- ones that are flexible and intense. Study after study suggests that America is one of those societies with high social trust. Americans build large, efficient organizations that are not bound by the circles of kinship and clan. Study after study finds that Americans are not hierarchical. American children are raised to challenge their parents. American underlings are relatively free to challenge their bosses. In this country you're less likely to have to submit to authority.

Each of these points makes for more flexible, creative thinking within the context of a culture of discussion that can catch errors before they wreak havoc. In Korea, the opposite is true for every one of these points. So how does Korea succeed, and succeed so well?

That's what I want to know.

"Toward a Culture of Discussion," The Philosophy & Poetry Journal (Summer 2010)

East Asia

Spreading a Culture of Discussion

(Image from Wikipedia)

I learned this week about the publication of my article on the necessity for a culture of discussion in Asian societies (or anywhere, for that matter). It can be read online at the journal itself in my wife's Korean translation or here on Gypsy Scholar in my original English. For anyone interested, here's the journal information, with the link:

Horace Jeffery Hodges (호라스 제프리 하지스), "Toward a Culture of Discussion" ("토론 문화를 위해서"), The Philosophy & Poetry Journal (애지), Vol. 42 (Summer 2010), 25-38.

And here's the first paragraph of the Korean version:

1997년 싱가포르에서 '사고Thinking'를 주제로 한 제7차 국제회의가 열렸다. 여기에서 싱가포르의 철학자이자 외교관인 키쇼어 마흐부바니Kishore Mahbubani는 "아시아인들도 다른 사람들처럼 사고를 잘 할 수 있는가?"라는 상당히 도발적인 질문을 던졌다. 일 년 후에 그는 미국의 '내셔널 인터레스트National Interest'잡지에 "아시아인에게 사고는 가능한가?"라는 더욱 도발적이고, 거의 '모욕적인' 제목의 글을 기고했다. 이 글은 같은 해에 그가 동일한 제목으로 발간한 책의 일부를 차지하게 된다. 하지만 이 글은 저자가 의도했던 만큼 큰 반향을 불러일으키지 않았다. 3년 후에 2판을 찍어내면서 그는 이렇게 썼다: "무엇보다 실망스러웠던 것은 이 글이 발표된 후, 왜 아시아 사회와 문명이 유럽 문명보다 몇 세기 뒤쳐져 있는가 하는 질문이 아시아인들 사이에서 토론의 쟁점이 되지 못했다는 사실입니다."

The Korean translation of my entire article is a bit edited and thereby somewhat abbreviated, but here is the full, slightly longer English original:

Toward a Culture of Discussion

Horace Jeffery Hodges

Ewha Womans University

Introduction

In June 1997 at the 7th International Conference on Thinking, held in Singapore, the Singaporean philosopher and diplomat Kishore Mahbubani asked a singularly discomfiting question: "Can Asians think as well as others?" A year later in the National Interest, he followed up on this question by publishing an essay with the even more provocative, potentially insulting title, "Can Asians Think?" This essay became part of a book by the identical title that same year, but it failed to have the effect that Mahbubani intended, for as he writes three years later in the second edition, "My main disappointment with this essay is that it has not yet triggered a discussion among Asians on how and why their societies and civilizations fell several centuries behind European civilizations."

Mahbubani might not have triggered the discussion that he desired on the question of why Europeans rather than Asians experienced the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, but the topic of critical thinking among Asians was being broached by some Asian thinkers. For instance, the Thai philosopher Soraj Hongladarom presented a paper in 1998 on "Asian Philosophy and Critical Thinking: Divergence or Convergence?" that addressed Asia's lag behind Europe and noted several characteristics of Asian cultures that "prevent the full realization of critical thinking skills." Prominent among these are "the beliefs that teachers are superior and [thus] always right" and "that social harmony is to be preferred rather than asking probing questions." In short, discursive hierarchy and social harmony trump genuine discussion and critical thinking. Far from being dismissive about these things, Hongladarom holds that Asian societies perhaps once had valid reasons for deciding that "social harmony should take precedence over critical argumentation and open debates." In today's competitive, globalized world, however, he argues that Asian societies need real discussion and critical thinking.

Perhaps these interconnected issues deserve some discussion, and this discourse will necessarily be discursive, winding its way through such interrelated concepts as discussion itself, communicative action, discursive community, critical discourse, mockery, insults, free expression, critical thinking, self-irony, and various other correlatives of a culture of discussion.

What is Discussion?

But what is real, genuine discussion? In "Visions for Cities: Public Truth and Public Spaces," the Belgian philosopher Bart Verschaffel offers this rather stark answer, arguing that "discussion is a war game fought with questions and arguments to find out if somebody is right or not" based on "evidence or clarification and argument." But his metaphor of "war" is dubious because war is a zero-sum activity in which one side gains at the expense of the other, the object being to defeat the other side. That might better fit as metaphor describing the practice of competitive debate, where each side aims to win by vanquishing the other side, for those two sides are bellicose opponents, enemies. Discussion need not be debate in this sense of pitting mutual antagonists against one another. Since the aim is to attain truth, rather than to destroy an enemy, discussion can be a mutually beneficial 'game.' The metaphor of "game" also appears inadequate for the dialogue that takes place during discussion because "game" implies an artificial situation set off from the more serious business of life. As such, players follow the rules during play but eventually finish the game and walk away from it . . . until the next time to play. But discussion of the sort under consideration here proceeds according to rules that apply to all of life. One ought to have reasons and evidence for one's positions. The 'game' never really ends.

Perhaps the views of Jürgen Habermas on communicative action in his Theory of Communicative Action better express the role of discussion as a social activity that, ideally, pervades an entire culture because rationality in the form of argumentation is a capacity intrinsic to language. Granted, discursive argument is not the only sort of discourse, nor is culture defined solely by discourse, but Verschaffel seems to think of discussion as a more narrowly circumscribed activity of the sort that takes place in seminars. Yet even Verschaffel recognizes that discussion is a "dangerous game" because it, again ideally, poses questions about everything and gives every discussant an equal role. In principle, nothing is sacrosanct, and nobody is the final authority. It therefore transforms individuals and even society, and is thus potentially a destabilizing activity. One can readily understand why some societies have traditionally chosen to favor social harmony over rigorous discussion, as Hongladarom notes.

How Broad the Discursive Community?

Modern societies have decided that discussion is necessary, albeit threatening, but how free should expression be? Should free speech be accorded only statements that follow rigorous rules concerning reason and evidence? An interesting case arises with another theorist writing on a culture of discussion, the sociologist Alvin Gouldner, who described this sort of discourse in The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. He referred to it in rather formal terms as the "culture of critical discourse" and held it to be specific to a new class of intellectuals. This discourse is characterized as "relatively more situation-free," meaning that it "forbids reliance upon the speaker's person, authority, or status in society to justify his claims." The ideal of such discourse is "one word, one meaning" for everyone always.

Gouldner saw this culture of critical discourse as the 'language' of a new intellectual class encompassing the sciences as well as the humanities. One wonders if critical discourse's rigorous ideal of "one word, one meaning" might not make discussion rather stilted if strictly applied to every term uttered in a discursive argument, but Gouldner was largely restricting his culture of critical discourse to the narrowly designated, new intellectual class that he had identified. In a genuine culture of discourse, however, the communicative group would need to be broadened to include, potentially, everybody in a society. But to do so would require loosening Gouldner's criteria a bit and noting the critical discursive actions that intellectuals share with other members of any society characterized by a culture of discussion. Fundamentally, this means the right of everyone to pose questions about anything with the expectation that answers should offer reasons and evidence.

Dealing with Mockery?

One intriguing question that arises, and not merely incidentally, is how one should respond to insulting mockery. The mocker perhaps does not accept the rules for a culture of discussion in a strict sense and offers not reasons and evidence but satirical insults. What ought one do if mocked? Should one follow the example of Gouldner himself? According to the noted essayist Scott McLemee in "Wide-Stance Sociology," Gouldner developed an antagonistic relationship with a doctoral student at Washington University named Laud Humphreys. When a satirical poster appeared in the sociology department depicting Gouldner as a bird of prey that feeds on personalities rather than on ideas, Gouldner suspected Humphreys as its author. The irate scholar sought out Humphreys in his graduate student office, struck him down with a blow to the face, and kicked him as he lay on the floor.

Confronted by insulting mockery, Gouldner seems to have believed that honor stained called for physical violence. In an earlier age, perhaps he would have challenged Humphreys to a duel. Did Gouldner betray his own principles, the rules of his very own culture of critical discourse? Whether or not Gouldner broke with his own theoretical system in attacking Humphreys, insults should in fact be protected speech in a culture of discourse because feeling 'insulted' is a purely subjective reaction. For example, some might feel insulted by the application of critical principles to the study of religion, but that cannot justify any right to physically attack the one applying such principles. Moreover, even calculated insults play a role in literature and the arts and ought to be protected speech.

A Miltonic Excursus

Turn therefore to one of the greatest of literary artists, John Milton. In his famous defense of what we would today call free expression, Milton utters a plea in Areopagitica for what he considers the most basic freedom: "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." Why allow him that? Because he believes that through untrammeled utterance, truth will win, as he reminds his readers concerning truth only a few lines later in his text: "Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter." What should interest contemporary readers is that Milton apparently meant for this "free and open encounter" in the interest of truth to include polemics and even personal attacks.

One sees this sort of polemical, personal attack in Milton's insults of Anglican bishops in Book 1 of his Reason of Church-Government Urged against Prelaty, for he bluntly accuses them of habitually resorting to malicious slander and sophistry when their weak arguments fail them. Whether Milton be right or wrong in the substance of his accusations, he is being decidedly polemical in leveling personal attacks and even insults. He accuses others of slander. He might well be accused of it himself. Certainly, his opponents could well feel themselves insulted. Consider the polemical tone in his attack upon Anglican bishops with words that slur the Irish and the Catholics. He calls the Irish "murderous," designates them as "the enemies of God and mankind," and refers to them as the "cursed off-spring" of the Anglican bishops' "own connivance." The Anglican hierarchy, claims Milton, "maintains and fosters all papists and idolaters as tolerable Christians," a toleration that Milton deplores. Milton blames the bishops for an indifference to the souls of those under the sway of English rule, an indifference that left the Irish in their Catholic faith, but Milton also clearly has disdain for the Irish themselves, as well as for Catholics generally and (of course) for 'idolaters.' Obviously, Milton is hardly above slander, insults, and polemics generally, and he therefore must have felt himself free and justified to speak in insulting terms.

The Right to Insult?

Should such ad hominem attacks be permitted? As already maintained above, yes. Strictly speaking, personal attacks stand mostly outside a culture of discussion, for they are usually poor arguments for or against a substantive position. But they should be protected speech because the defensive wall constructed to guard free discussion needs to be at least as encompassing as the wall built around the Torah in Rabbinical Judaism. Absent that wall of protection, even a substantive statement could be taken as an insult, so if insults are not protected speech, substantive arguments could be forbidden. In a hierarchical society, for example, the substantive words of an individual lower in the hierarchy could be taken as insulting if such words merely question the views of someone higher in the social structure.

In Korea, Japan, and China, for example, with their strongly hierarchical social structure, precisely this sort of problem arises, such that the substantive disagreement of a 'junior' with a 'senior' can be taken as an insult by the latter. Critical arguments are thereby suppressed, and truth (as Milton would say) often suffers. This has been trenchantly discussed by the scholars Ho-Chul Lee and Mary Patricia McNulty in their article "Korea's Information and Communication Technology Boom, and Cultural Transition After the Crisis." In this article, they note that Confucian hierarchy stifles free expression because debating or criticizing individuals of higher rank is considered impolite. Korean culture therefore teaches people not to raise probing questions or to offer critical opinions, but to express themselves ambiguously rather than with a clear yes or no. This hinders Koreans from developing the culture of discussion fundamental to democracy and also to modern business. They attempt to save face, both their own and that of their interlocutor, thereby stifling free discussion and debate. Confucian values put priority on social etiquette over substance. The younger are supposed to respect and obey the older, just as the lower-ranked must respect and obey the higher-ranked, and this deference acts as a barrier to free expression.

From the research by Lee and McNulty, one sees just how subjective the sense of 'feeling insulted' can be. In East Asian societies shaped by Confucian values of hierarchy, any open expression of a contrary opinion can be taken as an insult by a higher-ranking individual, and the awareness of this by lower-ranking individuals can too often suppress uncomfortable truths. Without the right to insult, a free and critical culture of discussion can therefore not be achieved, and since the latter is necessary to the pursuit of truth, then 'insults' must be accepted as legitimate, legally protected expressions.

Core Critical Thinking

Insults might need to be protected speech, but at the core of a culture of discussion lies the ideal of critical thinking. What, however, is "critical thinking"? The consensus of approximately 200 experts has been summarized in "Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts," an article written by the philosopher and educational theorist Peter Facione, who notes the importance not only of skills but also of dispositions.

These experts say that in terms of skills, the ideal critical thinker consciously engages in self-regulated judgments about opinions held and actions needed. This requires several subsidiary skills, among these being the closely interrelated skills of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference. Interpretation involves comprehending and expressing the meaning of what is being judged. Analysis involves identifying the logical relations among expressions stated. Evaluation involves assessing the credibility of statements made and the logical strength of the relations among these. Inference involves drawing reasonable conclusions and conjectures based on statements and evidence. Another subsidiary skill is explanation, which involves presentation of cogently stated reasons and clarification of the bases upon which a judgment is formed. Clearly, there is a lot 'involved' for rigorous critical thought.

But skills, as already noted, are not sufficient. The experts cited by Facione also identify various dispositions characteristic of the ideal critical thinker. According to them, a critical thinker should as a matter of course be curious, informed, rational, open-minded, flexible, fair, honest, prudent, reflective, clear, organized, searching, reasonable, focused, and persistent. Such a list of dispositions, and also of skills, is open-ended, for one could likely think of others to add, but the list as it stands summarizes the dispositions suggested by the experts and can serve, along with the skills, as a convenient statement of a complex ideal.

Because critical thinking is a powerful resource in personal and civic life, one aim of education in a culture of discussion should be to develop critical thinking skills and nurture the dispositions that can provide valuable insights and serve as the discursive core of a rational, democratic society. Producing critical thinkers would not be an educational system's sole aim, of course, for good thinking involves other things, such as ethical reasoning and creative imagination, but critical thinking is also relevant for these other aspects of thought as a pervasive, self-regulating phenomenon. Education alone cannot reform the discursive culture of an entire society, and perhaps relatively few individuals will develop the skills and dispositions to develop as outstanding critical thinkers, but an ideal of critical thinking can serve as an aim, and particular individuals can come to serve as its potential exemplars.

Conclusion

Facione's skills and dispositions, like Gouldner's culture of critical discourse, are rather technical elaborations of the reasoning intrinsic to a culture of discussion. What their explications generally have in common with those of Verschaffel and with Habermas is an emphasis upon reasons and evidence rather than upon the social position of the speaker. If a society wishes to develop a culture of discussion, then discursive hierarchy will require flattening and social harmony will need to be a possible consequence of discussion rather than a normative condition imposed at the outset. Hongladarom remarks that "Cultures, like humans, often make decisions which later are amended or revoked, with new decisions made, when things are not the same any longer. Decisions to prioritize one set of values over another are not etched in stone." But transforming an entire culture takes time. For example, the decision to construct a Confucian Korea may have been reached early in the Joseon Era, but the actual process took several hundred years and never fully succeeded against the more deeply entrenched Buddhism. A 'decision' to inculcate a culture of discussion will likely have faster results in the contemporary world, given the globalizing pressures that push individuals in this direction and the material rewards that are promised to follow, but the process, even so, will not be easy. Not only will one need skills in critical thinking, one will need the right disposition, and since a culture of discussion implies a right to insult, then that disposition will necessarily include a sense of self-irony. If such skills and dispositions are developed, Mahbubani might yet experience the wide-ranging discussion that he desires.

References

Facione, Peter A. "Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts." Insight Assessment.
Gouldner, Alvin W. The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. New York: Seabury, 1979.
Habermas, Jürgen. The Theory of Communicative Action. Translated by Thomas McCarthy, Cambridge: Polity, 1984-1987.
Hongladarom, Soraj. "Asian Philosophy and Critical Thinking: Divergence or Convergence?" Third APPEND Seminar on Philosophy Education for the Next Millennium, May 6-8, 1998, Chulalongkorn University.
Hughes, Merritt Y., editor. John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. Hackett Publishing Co., 2003.
Lee, Ho-Chul and Mary Patricia McNulty. "Korea's Information and Communication Technology Boom, and Cultural Transition After the Crisis." Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), April 18, 2004 .
Mahbubani, Kishore. Can Asians Think? Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2004.
McLemee, Scott. "Wide-Stance Sociology." Inside Higher Ed, September 12, 2007.
Verschaffel, Bart. "Visions for Cities: Public Truth and Public Spaces." Productivity of Culture, ECCM Symposium, October 17-21, 2007.

Well, there it is, my latest effort at 'thinking' things through to the end. At least it got published, so perhaps somebody will read it . . .

Benno Barnard: "Long live God, Away with Allah"

Benno Barnard

Photo by Koen Bauters

(Image from De Standaard)

The Dutch poet and essayist Benno Barnard, originally from Amsterdam, but a resident of Belgium for more than thirty years, was recently shouted down at the University of Antwerp, where he was attempting to lecture on the topic "Long live God, Away with Allah," an obviously provocative title that may well have been intended by him to get the reaction that it provoked, for an interview with Nikolas Vanhecke in De Standaard on the incident is titled "The best lecture I could give" (April 2, 2010).

I don't have access to the talk that Barnard didn't give, but here's my translation of the interview from the original Dutch, based on Google Translate and my knowledge of German:

Vanhecke: The title of the lecture that you intended to give at the University of Antwerp reads "Long live God, Away with Allah." The lecture is primarily about the Judeo-Christian tradition. Why did you choose that title?

Barnard: "Obviously, I made use of the rhetorical technique of provocation in the title. A feature of the Judeo-Christian tradition is debate. This interaction goes back to the Old Testament and has led to the Enlightenment, humanism, and democracy. Provocation is the clearest form of disagreement. Our entire culture is based on this."

"Islam does not debate. To clarify the difference, I switched the metaphor to Allah."

Vanhecke: In other words, Islam is an undemocratic religion.

Barnard: "Real Islam doesn't recognize the possibility of democratization. There are sound democratic Muslims, but they do not respect the strict rules of Islam. Sharia (Islamic law, ed.) is described in the Quran, and the laws are what the real Islam preaches."

"There is a quote from Kemal Atatürk (founder of the secular Turkish state, ed.): 'Islam, which is the absurd theology of an immoral Bedouin, is a rotting corpse that poisons our lives.' And I can provide still more from unexpected people who raise criticisms against Islam. Secularization is against Islam, as it was born from Mecca and Medina."

"And as for all that nonsense about the real Islam, you can study that at the University of Antwerp in the context of active pluralism. Some of the members of Sharia4Belgium study at the University of Antwerp. That's where they came upon the trail that led them to the lecture. Or did you think that they came from outside the university?"

Vanhecke: Would you have preferred your lecture to the incident, or do you think that it made your point stronger?

Barnard: "That was the best lecture I could give. I spoke two sentences and got no further because "Allahu akbar" ('God is great,' ed.) begin to roar. Welcome to the future! By their action they have formulated part of my thesis."

Vanhecke: In 2004, along with other writers, you called upon people not to vote for [the separatist party] Vlaams Blok, as the party was then called. Last year you agreed with Filip Dewinter in his criticism of Islam. What changed you?

Barnard: "I studied Islam thoroughly, reading the Quran but also other books. Today, I think Filip Dewinter is a prophet. Previously, I called him a racist, but I had blinders on back then. He very early realized the true nature of Sharia. As a commited Belgian, however, I am no fan of Vlaams Belang (the separatist party that replaced Vlaams Blok)."

Vanhecke: What are you then?

Barnard: "I've often been called a left-wing conservative. I advocate a leftist emancipation. Many leftists are actually rightwing without knowing it. From a misunderstanding of social reality, they support Muslims. You then get to a point where feminists defend the burka. Education is ruined by a wrong equal opportunities policy of the Social Democrats. I am the opposite of a racist."

"This whole story is in principle the worst of all for the moderate Muslims. One of the officers yesterday (Wednesday, ed.) was Muslim, and was called a traitor."

Vanhecke: Were you actually forewarned that protection would be needed?

Barnard: "The police had contacted the university. Police security had noticed messages on the website of Sharia4Belgium and also knew that the 'Youth of Islam' had called for a boycott via SMS (Short Message Service)."

Vanhecke: Were you shocked by the incident anyway?

Barnard: "What do you think? At the moment it seemed so unreal that it was exactly like watching oneself on television. Only in retrospect did the reality begin to dawn on me. Luckily, I had bodyguards; otherwise, I wouldn't be speaking to anyone today."

I don't know very much about Benno Barnard, but he's written a very readable, engaging essay on "Belgium's Culture: A Dutchman's View" in How Can One Not Be Interested in Belgian History (2005), in which he praises Belgium as a nation and thereby shows that his appreciation of Filip Dewinter's views on Islam is not based on political agreement about a need to break Belgium up into its two ethnic parts.

Barnard may believe that he's given the "best lecture" he could give by being shouted down, but I would have liked to hear his argument on how the West's Judeo-Christian tradition is based on provocative debate and in what sense this traces back to the Old Testament. I'm interested because I'd like to know if by "provocative debate," Barnard means a "culture of discussion," for I would have thought this due more to the Graeco-Roman influence.

Do any readers know if Barnard has posted online the lecture that he didn't give?