J-DEPM+609

=DEPM 609 Distance Education Systems Spring 2011 =

I Have Major Posts Listed Here on Topics From The DEPM 609 Class
Bury the Marx Author: Stuart Adams Created: 2/13/2011 In considering the social context of the study of Systems, I must offer this suggestion: Isn't about time we gave Marx's theories the decent burial that they deserve.

On the idea that the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer," consider this: In the 1920s rich people had telephones, the poor did not. By the 1950s most homes had a telephone, but the rich now had TVs. By the 80s, telephone service was considered "universal" by the FCC, most everybody had a color TV, and the rich folks had personal computers. Now it's 2011 and most people carry in their pockets a telephone that incorporates far more computing power than a 1980s personal computer, and many of these devices have a TV built into them. The long-winded point is that this demonstrates how, contrary to Marx's famous formulation, in absolute terms, the rich get richer and the poor get richer as well. The relative richness of the rich vs. the poor is what varies, has varied significantly up and down over the past 100 years. Other metrics such consumed calories per day per person and life expectancy have generally trended up in all parts of the world since Marx's day, bearing out the falsehood of his famous maxim.

On the notion that sociology is all about class struggle and emancipation: This may have been a reasonable perspective in mid 19th century Germany or England but it is extremely hard to see Marx's hard class boundaries in the 21st century USA. Consider that in the early 70's a smart guy from suburban Seattle developed an effective operating system and became the richest man in the world. A generation later a smart fellow from New Jersey created an effective social network site and became a billionaire before he reached 30. And, after the recent Wall Street failure, there are a lot of people who were rich 5 years ago who are busted now… back down the ladder a notch or two. There are similar examples world-wide. People move up and down the ladder of wealth on the basis of their capabilities and class boundaries are extremely porous.

On the idea of the inevitable evolution /revolution to a "Workers Paradise," consider the worker's paradise in Socialist France which is now a relatively stagnant form of capitalism; the worker's paradise of the Soviet Union has been overthrown; the worker's paradise of China remains dominated by an autocratic elite; and the non-existent worker's paradise in North Korea or Cuba. So much for the Dialectic Model of History.

Marx should bear little relevance in any modern discussion of economics or social theory. He deserves to be ignored.

 Sociology and Complexity Theory  Author: Stuart Adams Created: 2/13/2011 I have found bits and pieces of the treatment of the various schools of Sociology presented by Jackson to be interesting and somewhat useful. However, taken all-in-all, I found the macro-level Sociology discipline (as I did when I was an undergraduate, studying the social sciences) to be of little use. None of it comports with what I understand of social phenomenon, in general. I am not inclined to see societies as independent entities that control or direct the actions of individuals. And, I don't see class struggle and emancipation as the dominant forces of history. That, according to Jackson's typology (after Burrell and Morgan), would place me in the "Interpretive" school. But this is not truly so. I think that the more useful model of sociological action come out of the new Complexity Theory. Complex systems have the following characteristics: Numerous diverse elements that are inter-dependant and mutually adaptive. The characteristic of being mutually adaptive - meaning that as one entity in the system behaves, other entities respond and adapt - is especially important. From this comes what is known s "emergent phenomenon," where the behavior of the system at large is vastly different from the characteristics of the individual. For example, the brain is composed of millions of neurons, but the actions and capabilities of the brain as a system bear little resemblance to the actions of the individual neurons. No one can say that a neuron is a unit of intelligence, but taken together, brains exhibit intelligence. In a like manner, societies are made up of thousands or even millions of individuals. It is the behaviors of the individuals taken in the aggregate the cause societies to appear have existence, sui generis. I think that society is an emergent phenomenon, without existence of its own. Many of the properties that the sociologists discussed in Jackson's Chapter 4 are more effectively explained with complexity theory. A Better Approach Author: Stuart Adams Created: 3/27/2011 When I was growing up in the 60's, guys didn't just want to be policemen and fireman, but also astronauts and scientists. I had great respect for what scientists did and for what I came to understand as the "scientific method" As an undergraduate, with my aspirations to be a scientist behind me, I studied behavioral social science, always suspicious that it wasn't so much a "science." Functionalism was the dominant perspective and I thought that the Functionalists were really on to something. The problem was that there were so many variables to deal with. Calculating the trajectory and force factors that would take an Apollo spacecraft to the moon was much simpler than figuring out how 5 people on a committee might behave, say nothing of a community or a society. Still, I believed that applying the right analytical abstractions, with the help of sufficiently large computers, would lead to useful results, and that social "science" would be a useful discipline.

Still, I was always a bit suspicious that there was something theoretically wrong with the Functionalist perspective. I have expressed this in the terms that Jackson uses, identifying Functionalist theory as holding "society" and organizations as objective entities, apart from the individuals that they are comprised of. The Functionalist approach, using the root metaphors of machines or organisms, could be useful in specific situations and narrow applications. Operations research and systems engineering can be very useful approaches.

I have been able to make use of complexity theory as a way of rationalize Functionalism to fit my view that social systems are immensely complicated, multi-variant entities. I have stated my acceptance of the usefulness of the idea of emergent phenomena as a key component of any understanding of social systems.

But, in my view, objective approaches to understanding social systems always left out the individual and the individuals' complex sets of values and motives, some rational, some not. Functionalist analysis always demeaned the importance of the individual, which, as far as I can see, always existed before (and in some cases, apart from) the social system.

Interpretive systems analysis seems to "come to the rescue" for me. Here, the emphasis is on the subjective nature of social systems and the values and biases that individuals bring to the system. Each of the approaches that Jackson discusses within the Interpretive models emphasizes gaining an understand and accounting for the numerous, often competing value sets of the participants. This, for me, is a huge step forward. I am inclined to continue to try to find a fit for complex systems theory in the Interpretive approach. Jackson clearly sees complexity as having application in the Interpretive model. But, for now, I'm enjoying the Interpretive approaches as satisfying important requirements for social systems analysis.

Bury the Marx - Please Author: Stuart Adams Created: 4/16/2011 I sometimes wonder, with the obvious and consistent failures of Marxist-based socio-economic systems, if all of those scholars that had (back in the 60's) become heavily invested in Marxist/Emancipatory models aren't hanging on a bit too long to the glory days. Habermas' theories are so convoluted as to be only at home in the academic world. Developments in the real world seem to have had little impact on this line of thinking. I have heard it said that the only three places where Marxism is still taken seriously are Cuba, North Korea, and Cambridge. It's really time to move on.

Jackson quotes Craib as saying that "From the point of view of more conventional social scientists, critical theory has no foundation in the real world." Craib also points out - and Habermas is a clear example of this - that critical theory "is often put in deliberately obscure terms which indicate not so much profundity of thought…as the self-indulgence of the authors."

I don't see any real pracitical appliation of critical theory to distance education.

This not to say that critical theory and the Emancipatory Approach have no value. There's no denying that there are inequities in the world and there's no denying that they need to be addressed. Beyond that, all of the social science &systems analysis approaches and all of the methodologies within those approaches willbe more effective if the systems analyst maintains an awareness as to who has the power and how the power might be misused. All approaches to systems analysis have tendencies towards distortion. The effective analyst must be looking out for those distortions. Intimidation and unfair control and limitation of access are primary examples of such distortions.

Common Approaches Author: Stuart Adams Originally Created: 4/3/2011 (Posted July 5, 2011) An observation on both the Functionalist and Interpretive approaches is that their methodologies are really not that different from each other. Each approach, and each methodology with the approaches (whether it's Contingency Theory, Systems Engineering, Social Systems Design, or Soft Systems Methodology) follows the same basic steps:


 * 1) Identify/Define the situation, problem, or mess;
 * 2) Propose possible alternative solutions;
 * 3) Evaluate the alternative solutions against some standard; and
 * 4) Select and implement the selected solution.

The differences between the approaches and methodologies are in the assumptions as to what the nature of the problem might be, the methods that are used to surface or identify the problem, and the techniques for identifying and assessing the alternative solutions. While these differences are irrelevant, it's hard to see why the study of social systems is so polarized.