Dream exercise: I think we all
have great aspirations for our work at the spinoffs (and Vera itself for Joe).
During the short exercise in this week’s seminar, and ever since, I started
thinking more in-depth about what impact or contribution I can have at Center
for Employment Opportunities. I realize this was kind of pre-mentor coffee but
I just wanted to thank the professors for getting the wheels turning and giving
us some quick feedback.
We also talked a lot about perspectives,
credibility, evidence, and objectivity. At least for me, this workshop helped
reinforce the premise that these are factors that should be taken into account
with every reading. In the past I have often been ignorant of these personal influences
unless they were blatantly obvious. Fundamental questions such as; “Is the
author objective,” “What is the authors perspective,” and “Are they credible”
really help to decipher how reliable or trustworthy a source is. I’d also like
to note that Amara and Sally both said they knew they would probably agree with
the Krugman article because they read previous works and knew his background. The
rest of us, who did not have previous knowledge of the author, had to find
credibility within the piece itself. Some of us focused on his knowledge of
economics, the sources he quotes, and who he identified himself with.
As we saw with the letters to the
editor we prepared and read in class the number of different perspectives can
at times be overwhelming. In the case of Krugman’s article some of the possible
other perspectives we discussed were; the rich who agree with him, the rich who
disagree with him, the people in poverty (not middle class) who agree, and the politician
who disagrees. As the professors said, the more perspectives on a situation you
can get the more one can get a full understanding of the complete picture.
Professor Stein wrote the word intersubjectivity on the board and defined it
as, “consideration to how there is always subjectivity but more perspectives leads
to closer and better understanding.”
My question to the class is: How did you find the peer
review at the end of class. After reading the comments were they useful? Do you
agree? What was the most helpful comment you received?
15 comments:
Great post! I want to also thank the professors for a great activity!
The peer review activity we did in class was of tremendous help, especially in identifying certain weaknesses in the argument I was trying to make. The comments were extremely useful, especially the question about “perspective”. Some of the responses were “off” from what I wanted to express, so it made me realize that I had to work on making sure people understood what perspective I wanted to represent when writing the editorial. In terms of agreeing, I had a thought about something when it came to considering “intersubjectivity” and having multiple perspectives.
I am a strong advocate for alternatives to incarceration – I believe that for the majority of crimes and individuals who are caught in the midst of the CRJ system, prison is NOT the answer. My perspective comes from an interdisciplinary approach, ranging from the psychological, physiological, philosophical, and evidence based practice worlds that see prison as an option that causes more problems than it solves. I have delved into Buddhism, Restorative Justice, and the history of prisons to see what a better alternative to our failed prisons system is. However, in thinking about perspectives, I caught myself not fully embracing other perspectives or considering other options – rather, my stance on prisons has only been reinforced, even when looking at the opposition. As informed of multiple perspectives I was, I found myself only using those perspectives to reinforce my belief. Ultimately, I’ve realized that my opinion is very difficult to change.
I agree that looking at multiple perspectives, in a sense that each disciplines or point of view is connected and not on its own, we can get closer to the truth – however this must done in a way that we can change our opinion to fit with those perspectives, not only to reinforce our initial beliefs. Also, as a debater, I’ve learned to take an opposing argument and turn it to work toward my advantage, a tendency I have even outside of debate.
For my feedback, one of the responses was playing “the race card”, or at least that is what my editorial sounded like. I agree, and right now I’m trying to needle out if that’s the direction I want to go with, because maybe I want to have that uncomfortable conversation and have a dialogue that focuses on race in “post racial America”, or change my focus to media, and how it perpetuates a certain image. Overall, great help!
Ditto to Nico and Aaron on the thanks—it was nice to self-reflect on our experiences so far, to think about where we’re headed at our internships, and where we want to be.
I think a lot of what we continue to study hinges on what we learned in In a Grove. Despite our best efforts to be “objective,” it often happens that our subjectivities and personal leanings stay present.
Before I answer your last question, I’d like to touch on Nico’s reflection on his own “intersubjectivity.” It’s interesting how you say, by taking an intersubjective approach, you seemed to have become even more subjective/polarized to a certain cause (if I’m understanding correctly?). The different systems of thought, in a sense, gave you further fodder for your argument for a certain side. I link this to Prof. Waterston’s intellectual inquiry as to whether we can ever really be objective. I would say the first step to realizing our potential biases, even when taking in interdisciplinary approaches, is to be aware of it. Second, I would also adhere to Prof. Stein’s and Prof. Reitz’s advice on gaining more perspectives to shape our argument…even if that may require using the opposing argument in favor of our own.
The questions and issues we pick and seek to argue can be taken as subjective choices in and of themselves. For example, your choice to advocate alternatives to prison…Aaron’s advocacy for reentry services…my advocacy for an evaluation of diversion courts are all individual choices: The questions themselves stem from our impassioned personal experiences and learnt knowledge.
…which leads me into my own paper. Being a forensic psych major, having interned extensively in diversion court settings, and now interning with Vera in similar settings, I have coupled my own personal experiences with relevant academic research and data to build an argument on which I can stand on. Drawing on psychological, sociological, criminal justice, and philosophical-ethical standpoints, my argument is complemented with various views. And even competing views within views (think CJ restorative v. retributive justice, for example).
Overall, I found the peer reviews very helpful, as well as the assignment itself. It was difficult for me to limit my editorial to two pages, so I found myself editing out weaker evidence for my argument (and some counter-evidence to my point, admittedly) to make for a stronger piece. Some of this was caught in my peer reviews (i.e. “evidence missing for the efficacy of these courts”). I think hard statistics and facts helped to solidify my argument, but upon further thought and reading of my peer reviews, I think it could have been stronger (and perhaps less biased) had I included more information on the successes of mental health courts so far.
I also liked the recommendation give to me on getting the perspectives of the court actors in this process (i.e. the judge, lawyers, prosecutors, defendants, mental health workers, etc.). Research, particularly in this setting, is still nascent, so I think compiling all of the perspectives possible is important to moving closer to that objective pole of the spectrum. Everyone has a unique role to play in the court process and may be governed by strict (legal) philosophies. By receiving feedback from my classmates on this paper, and consequently eliciting their own perspectives on the matter, I think I have a pretty good start now on evaluating my own views on this subject and entertaining others’.
Joe,
Yes, you did understand me correctly. I am not saying that we should not take an interdisciplinary approach because it will not successfully get us closer to a truth or be more objective, but that unless we do it in a way where we self reflect and critique our own position, there is little room for change.
I will give an example. With the elections coming up, and having been through 2 debates, the divide between parties is becoming militarized (in the metaphorical sense) where both sides are attacking each other. A democrat may find themselves bewildered by a republican, and vice versa. One side, although having thoroughly researched the position of the other, will seldom switch. One can argue that politicians don't really believe in this, or that the divide is a much more complex issue. But what about the voters?
The informed electorate has chosen a side by now, and even after watching the debates, will not change sides. I defended Obama and criticized Romney, and even though Obama performed "poorly", I came up with multiple reasons as to why. And than, even when it came to the facts and policies, doing research and fact checking, I tended to side with Obama.
What I'm trying to say is that position are hard to change, even if we have a chalk board the size of a block and wrote pros, cons, etc. Somethings just don't leave room for objectivity or the truth, because of the emotional attachment we have to certain things. 2+2=4. I won't argue otherwise, not necessarily because I think its untrue or true, but because I have very little stake in doing so. When it comes to fighting for restorative justice (word paradox) I will find reason after reason to prove it right, because of what it personally and emotionally means to me, even if all the evidence is against me - not to say I won't change, but it will take a very long time.
So exercises, like the one in class, make us self reflect and think about our purpose with our perspective, what bias we may have, and what our intentions are. Not to leave emotion out of it, but we may become far more aware of the different things that come into play when we write our editorials.
Hello Verons. Lets all thank Aaron for a great post and for raising a very interesting question.
Intersubjectivity is definitely a strong concept, especially thinking from an academic standpoint. When we are in class at John Jay we all are actually channeling our "intersubjective" selves as we take a stance on issues raised week to week and we praise and critique everyone else's ideas from our personal perspectives. However, our discussions had almost proven Nico's point that ideas are very hard to change and we are almost wired to take certain stances in certain situations. For example, I myself try to always side with the underprivileged, Joe tends to analyze arguments psychologically and Nico tends to combine the two. Our biases are strong as a result of our past experiences and these have shaped us into the aspiring students that we are.
Speaking of aspiring students, the peer reviews of my essay were extremely helpful for me. I appreciate the fact that everyone took time to read my essay and edit it. However, I had realized something about myself during the activity. Usually I do not handle criticism well from other students as I personally hold my self to a high level at school and thus, I feel that I know how to edit a paper for myself better than a colleague can. I have been happy to discover this has not been the case this semester with you Vera fellows, which has resulted from my bias. I see the other fellows as the cream of the crop and I respect their opinions as much as I do my own. Because I have this feeling I do not take your comments so harshly. The reason I bring this up is to supercharge the bias argument that Joe, Nico and Aaron have mentioned. It took for me to personally grow before I could alleviate my perspective on peer editing, which actually has made me a stronger student. Intersubjectivity is definitely key for improvement but there also needs to be personal growth to break any negative perceptions we may have about academia and life for that matter.
What an excellent blog so far! Thank you, Aaron, for raising these questions.
INTERSUBJECTIVITY, like random sampling in polling or tests of inter-rater agreement for assessing the reliability of testing instruments, is based on the idea that the more people that weigh in on something-as long as everyone is theoretically given a chance to be counted-the easier it is to weed out biases (subjectivity) in a data set. This helps us getting a little closer to objectivity while acknowledging that we will never completely get rid of subjectivity. By the way, as Prof. Waterston reminded us, you do not necessarily want to get rid of all subjectivity; even if we could. The subjective sense of things can lend moral weight to an argument even when a more “scientifically” derived thesis has superficially stronger evidence. And, in terms of pure argumentation, as Nico notes, in the realm of human emotion, sometimes being presented with the other side just makes us more entrenched in our original position.
This is not be confused with INTERDISCIPLINARITY, which is using the tools of different academic fields to inform an inquiry or position, as Joe talked about. Conceivably, you could be interdiscipinary but still completely biased, although with a stronger argument since evidence is pulled from different places. What interdisciplinarity might give you is a way of formulating the different perspectives within an issue. So, for example (and admittedly overly simplistically), psychology heavily weighs the individual, anthropology prioritizes cultural inputs, history looks at patterns over time, etc. Looking at all these “ways of seeing” would certainly make your argument more comprehensive. It might also temper some hard opinions by making your view of the problem more complex, “problematizing” things you thought were no brainers before.
PERSPECTIVIZING asks you to consider how different stakeholders view an issue. This is what the Culture of Poverty town hall meeting demonstrated: that even those on the same side can have remarkably different ways of viewing an issue and proposing solutions. Multiple perspectives can grow out of employing intersubjective and interdisciplinary methods. Our intersubjective method in the peer review process was simply to have different people/raters/stakeholders comment. Andre, I am so glad that you decided to let that information in! I have found that sooner I can let go of my ego in the writing and review process, the quicker I will get to a piece of writing that really expresses what I want to express.
Ah, I see.
To add to the discussion on intersubjectivity then, I reflect on my most recent assignment on the mental health coruts in the US, and something I'm struggling with.
One perspcective that was suggested to me was a judge's perspective. But, since there are only roughly 175 mental health courts in the US, all differing in the way they operate, I feel as though a high level of intersubjectivity would be difficult to achieve.
Professor Stein,
Thank you for your thorough analysis. I always strive to be interdisciplinary in my writing so that I may touch upon a number of different subject areas that relate to whatever topic I am writing about. I wonder if that in of itself is actually intersubjective.
I am actually fascinated by what you call "PERSPECTIVIZING" as I have noticed this phenomena since entering John Jay but I did not know how to phrase it. All I know is that viewing arguments from many different perspectives definitely allows me to get the most out of academia.
Joe, things always sound easier in theory than they do in application. I think the best thing to do is run with the idea. For example,my paper was about the green initiative with HSI and how I can incorporate Lindy Hip into its mission. I told the story from my perspective and one of our colleagues asked if I could write it from the tenants perspective. I am not the tenant but for the sake of personal growth, I will give this perspective much consideration moving forward.
Hello Verans, first off I wanted to thank Aaron for the great post and the professors for the great workshop class!
The peer review editorial workshop we did was quite helpful in attempting to identify the arguments that we exemplify in our writing. I think that it’s important to highlight the questions that were asked about our editorials that Professor Reitz asked in the worksheets were great questions. A lot of the feedback I received from my fellow classmates enabled me to rethink the way in which I write. I’ve also realized how objective and bias I can be, which is something I’m not always able to identify in my writing. In the realm of social justice, we may forget to show or acknowledge the intersubjectivity in our writing, especially since we feel so passionate and unwilling, at times, to evaluate and present different perspectives. Like Andre, after participating in this activity, I realized that I didn’t handle criticism as well as I thought I did--the same way I think my papers are never objective. A lot of questions I kept asking myself after reading the comments were, “Well obviously sex trafficking is horrible what other perspective is there to take.” Asking myself these questions allowed me to reexamine ways in which I can look at other solutions to the issue I’m proposing. As Nico and Andre have pointed out, when we are writing, we want people to see out personal perspective rather than analyzing the issue from different perspectives. With this in mind, I thought that Joe propose a good question that I too kept thinking in which he posed what makes someone a credible source. In addition, can someone be objective and credible at the same time? Is Krugman a credible source in his field even if he is objective?
I love where we’re going with these discussions. So rich. Thank you Aaron leading us off this week with a great post.
I love how these exercises are getting us all to become more CONSCIOUS of our own points of view whether on specific social and political issues or in terms of our worldviews more generally.
However, I’m a little worried we are replacing one set of assumptions with another, so I want to use this space to ask a few questions:
1.Are we conflating “subjectivity” with falsehood? Are we conflating “objectivity” with “truth”?
2.What is subjectivity anyway? Is it a synonym for “opinion” or is it something else?
3.Is the problem subjectivity per se, or do we get into trouble when we aren’t clear on, aware of, precise about the bases on which our points of view rest? For example, Sally writes, “Well obviously sex trafficking is horrible. What other perspective is there to take?” I am sure Sally has a reason or set of reasons for her position that “sex trafficking is horrible.” Part of our task here is to make explicit the bases of our position—it’s not necessarily to change our position. For another example, Andre calls it his own “bias” that he was resistant to having peers review his work. Yet this peer review experience proved useful to him; he saw his “bias” as something that might have prevented him from having a positive, useful experience in our class. But I wonder if what Andre is now calling “bias” is actually a reasonable assessment he made based on lived experience? If so, is calling it a “bias” a misnomer? If Andre were clear and precise about the basis of his viewpoint (what he now calls a “bias”), he might be better able to stop himself from making grand generalizations at the same time retain the validity of his actual experience.
All this reminds me of the struggle I had to work through in the book I recently finished based on my own father’s stories of his life. The book is my narrative of his narrative, which I then analyze in terms of larger history. I had to struggle through my father’s stories and come to recognize and to understand what was “true” for my father, and to understand why it was so (even if his version of events conflicted with empirical facts). This raises the question about the relevance of “truthfulness” as it is related to “accuracy” or “veracity.” I had to figure out what his words and actions revealed about his character and psychology. I had to figure out what his words revealed about the cultural and political narratives of the world that were already in place across the chapters of his life. And then I had to disentangle “truthfulness” from “mythology” in his tales, and in my own rendition of his story.
Great post Aaron I believe perspectives play a pivotal role in our writing. The Krugman's reading highlighted the fact that most reading pieces comes with more than one perspective. I agree with Aaron that this workshop plays a role in reinforcing principles that should always be taken into account when doing a reading. I have on numerous occasions when reading have only taken into account, the side of the author and never looking at the opposite viewpoint and like Aaron have been ignorant of these personal influences unless they were obvious. I was aware of two of the fundamental questions; “What is the authors perspective,” and “Are they credible”. These questions definitely help in our goal in determining whether or not a source is credible. The activity we did in class helped a lot in recognizing such problems, to help correct such mistakes in the argument I was trying to convey. The question I believe that was the most useful was “Does this text have a particular perspective? If yes how would you characterize this perspective?' In terms of myself it may be easier to determine a perspective than to characterize a perspective. One of the most helpful comment that I had received was suggestion of a different perspective I believe it was very helpful to me because these responses offer different perspective that can enhance my argument such as “there are free prep courses provided for some students, success or failure is not always money based”. I think that this perspective is helpful because the argument I conveyed only revolved around cost and hindered the argument I made.
In the spirit of multiple perspectives, there seems to be (at least) two conversations going on here. The first is very practical (from the point of view of someone who wants students to become responsible researchers and writers). As we will see tomorrow during the library workshop, much of this work on perspective is LABOR: doing searches, refining/being precise about your terms, reading sources, learning more and so further refining your terms, doing then different searches, etc. etc. Whether you are exploring different disciplinary perspectives, or recovering historical perspectives -- this is not magic, just labor and clear-thinking.
But the other conversation is much more philosophical (and therefore more interesting): what is truth? If Aristotle were pointing a gun at my head, I'd answer what I said in class last time: I would substitute "accuracy" for "objectivity." Accuracy is less subject to all the cool, problematic things y'all brought up in the comments vis-a-vis objectivity. But truth can be objective or subjective, can be true for one person and not for another. This is not to call into question facts. The Holocaust did happen. But as Professor Waterston points out, her Holocaust and her father's Holocaust might not always have the same boundaries, the same "truth."
George Eliot said (and I will find the quote, though the Internet is failing me now) something to the effect that all writing is lying. that the act of representation (of putting something you are thinking into words) is an act of dissembling (much like Michael Cunningham's point about translation).
I am so glad that Prof. Waterston posed her questions, which are worth repeating.
Are we conflating “subjectivity” with falsehood? Are we conflating “objectivity” with “truth”?
What is subjectivity anyway? Is it a synonym for “opinion” or is it something else?
You will be relieved that I am not going to attempt to answer them in this forum; just raising the questions serves as a cautionary tale about the sloppy thinking that Orwell described. However, Waterston’s inquiry gives me an excuse to bring attention to the ways in which different disciplines use the words “subject” and “object”, which can be quite dissimilar, even opposite, to the way we have been using them here. Some of you, I think, have gotten confused about the words themselves, perhaps because you have seen them used in psychoanalysis, gender studies, literary criticism, post colonial studies etc. in a way that varies from their traditional meaning in the hard sciences.
For the most part, we have been using OBJECTIVITY (or, more accurately, intersubjectivity) to indicate that a genuine attempt has been made to consider the possible sources of bias in our evidence or argument and eliminate them. The term is used most rigorously (we hope) in experiments in the physical sciences. Social scientists like to borrow the term because people associate it incorrectly with authority and truth, which seems much more elusive in the social than the physical realm. SUBJECTIVITY, as we have been using it, has to do with notions we arrive at through personal observation, experience, feeling, etc. They tend not to be tested as systemically or rigorously but they still might be true. In these definitions, we tend to value objectivity over subjectivity.
Other disciplines may use these words very differently, which can get confusing. In gender studies, for example, Subject and Object are used to denote power relationships, where the “subject” (Man) is the one who gets to have a valued perspective and the “object” is the one on whom perspective is thrust (Woman). Subjectivity, in this scheme, is a valuable commodity, while the objectified person has no story except the one given to her by the subject. You could substitute White and Black, Rich and Poor, etc. for man and woman. In this definition, we value Subjectivity over Objectification (notice we don’t use objectivity).
I hope I have not confused things more. It just occured to me that students exposed to interdisciplinary materials need a heads up in this regard.
The peer review at the end of class was somewhat helpful. Critical commentary from colleagues (sorry for the unintentional alliteration) is usually helps one see how their work does with a broader audience. Their eyes might catch something you didn't. Another set of eyes is (almost) always a good thing.
That being said, after reading the comments I received, I wish they could've been a bit more constructive, at least a bit more critical. The harshest comment I received dealt with a different perspective of the issue. "What's so hard about having an ID? Isn't it a requirement for the future?" Upon a second read of my "editorial," I totally left out any information that would've addressed why elderly and other minority groups would've had a hard time obtaining an ID (mostly due to State-set requirements, e.g. Birth Certificate, social security card, etc.)
Had I used an "intersubjecive" approach and thoroughly thought about differing perspectives to my argument, I probably would've made a better case against voter-ID laws, and I probably would've fleshed out a clearer stance on the issue (as some people were unclear as to where I was on the matter).
Lastly, on the matter of the practical and philosophical spheres of objectivity: quite obviously, there is no such thing as true objectivity, as said in class, it is an ideal--something aspired after. Though we can never truly be objective observers (as we are all innately subjective creatures), when trying to relay our message, we should attempt to hold an appearance of objectivity by including different perspectives in our works. By including other perspectives, we create the illusion of objectivity; by understanding of the opinions of others, we strengthen our own arguments, and elucidate our message.
Last week’s class discussion of Krugman’s article was extremely interesting in that it raises the issue of what defines credibility and objectivity. As I mentioned in class, I found the fact that Krugman was arguing against his own interest, by criticizing people of his own socioeconomic class, can be seen as a significant piece of evident that disproves Krugman’s inclination to biased opinions. More specifically, I believe that people are inclined to biased views that are closely alliance to their own interests. In short, if a person is willing to voice opinion contrary to his or her personal interest, it is very likely that such person have reflected on positions that could be beneficial to them but chose to argue for the sake of truthfulness.
Nico has raised a very interesting point regarding the use of number in making arguments, and it appears that many people’s opinion are numerically driven. That is to say, it is extremely risky to associate numbers with of that is perceived as factual and objective evidence. Number orientated evidence such as statistics and survey can are oftentimes misleading and misused. As Amara has pointed out in class, a single set of numerical data can be manipulated and become evidence that can simultaneously prove two polar opposite positions, and it all depends on the intention of the analyst.
With these being said, I am here to argue that, as a social justice advocate, I am hesitated of using numerical data as a supporting evidence of my argument for two reasons. The first is the point I mentioned above, which concerns the easily manipulated nature of numerical evidence. The second is that if we allow numbers to dictate the discourse of social justice, we are reducing human beings and their life stories to mere numbers. In such process, we lost a prominent component in discourses of social justice—emotions. As human beings, people react strongly to lively stories or personal encounters, but numbers often fail to produce such affect. Thus, discourses of social justice should be human oriented.
With all due respect, I think the whole underlying purpose of my post is to reassert the credibility and objectivity of Krugman’s article and remind everyone that HE IS AWESOME!
Hello Aaron,
I felt that last week's discussion of Krugman's article was extremely interesting. Coming into class, I was a bit confused as to what Krugman was trying to state and the point of view where he was coming from. However, after further discussion and all of my classmates reading their letters to the editor, I got a better understanding of Krugman's argument.
Regarding the word intersubjectivity, I do agree highly with the definition. If it weren't for the different perspectives being read in class, I wouldn't have understood it the way I did, nor would I have eventually developed my own personal point of view on the issue of Krugman's argument.
Regarding your question, I really liked the peer review we did tat the end of class. It was nice to see what other classmates thought of my editorial. One of the main reasons why I liked it was because it made me realize what I needed to work on in my revision... That was that I needed to show more credibility. Currently, my only credibility is based off my experiences at my internships, but I should also perhaps add references to the piece and statistics.
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