Thursday, 28 April 2011
Visual Methods in Social Research
I have found the following helpful: http://researchthatmatters.blogspot.com/2011/02/visusal-methods-in-social-research.html on
Saturday, 2 April 2011
The biology of religion
It seems likely that homo sapiens was a religious creature - that is, religion emerged early in humanity's history. Recent scepticism by some is balanced by the wide range of orthodox and unorthodox religious views by others, views on the paranormal, the soul, magic, life force and above all evil forces and entities, so loved by pulp writers and films.
Why is this? The core reason is simple. Early humans developed language which at some point became complex enough to ask Why? Small children do this early enough. The trouble with children is that some questions are too difficult to answer at their level, or so the adult thinks. The trouble with humanity was that they had insufficient knowledge to answer accurately cosmological or existential questions. So an earthquake needed an understandable cause, and was understood as an 'act of God'; jealousy needed an explanation, so evil spirits provided good explanations, as also they did to explain disease and death. Whether personalities live on after death, and in what form, produced all sorts of theories about ancestors. Over-excited causality about the origins of the world produced creator deities and origin myths.
It is hard to test this out. Anthropology may help. The San Bushmen of southern Africa (see my paper) are modern humans who have lives wilderness lives with technology derived from nature (stone, wood, leather) whose ideas were not modernised by western education. Their stories have been paintakingly archived over the past hundred years. When they looked at the stars, they saw not the 3D with huge distances, but the 2D star pattern as presented. So too must early humans. They interpreted the sky intelligently, it the light of their own understanding; and they observed and studies landscape, prey animals and food plants. So they were systematic scientists. They studied the brain too, using the plant drugs they had tested and mesmeric dancing and rhythms, so altered mind states were part of their reality, rubbing shoulders with their dreams. Above all, life for them was a game of chance. They felt themselves caught in the cross-fire of hostile forces; the best they could do is to have enough understanding to recognize it and dodge if they could. Bushman religion is hardly a religion at all, but an interpretation of natural life with supernatural explanations for the unexplainable. There were gods and they were feared, but they were not worshipped or even respected. What ritual was observable, the trance dance, was social and anti-religious (designed to chase spirits away).
So humans are hard-wired to wanting certain answers to questions, even if they have to subconsciously invent that certainty. All questions have answers, however improbable, as Douglas Adams would have said. In evolutionary terms, this is helpful because it helps to plan safety strategies rather than being unconcerned with danger. Humans are hard-wired to be anxious, and have evolved extraordinary ways of resolving this anxiety in order to live with it. Anxiety about socially unacceptable behaviour led to in-group morality, whatever the level of out-group violence. Therefore, humans are also hard-wired to be conformist and conventional. Stanley Milgrom, a holocaust survivor set up a famous (some would say infamous, but I disagree) experiment where experimental subjects were asked to give severe electric shocks to partners (actually actors, unbeknown to them). Two thirds would not resist the demands of authority (the researcher telling them to do it and not spoil the experiment) and administered shocks that would have been lethal. Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiments similarly showed that two thirds not only followed orders, but many did so enthusiastically and sadistically. We are hard-wired to obey, and follow the crowd. As one who has always swum against the tide, ever since my three year old campaign to discredit Father Christmas, I find this hard to comprehend, but I recognize that, in evolutionary terms, in a different society I may have been dead before adulthood, just as any American white in a former generation would have been risking his or her life by protesting against lynching a black victim. German resisters against Nazism put themselves, and their families, in great danger. The herd obeyed.
Nevertheless, we need to deal with this hard-wired obedience. Because of it, humans have been the most violent of species. Principles, standards, virtues, morals and human rights have all been tried.
For the origins, supernaturalism leading to spirits, powers and gods can be viewed as 'religion' but maybe just a set of assumptions. Where early religions (that is, 3000+ years before the present) organised themselves, such as Ra and Aton in Egypt, they were declarations of power. Assyrian gods supported military conquests. Formalised religion produced a group of 'us' who fought against 'them', as Yahweh's Elijah did against Baal, and as all Hebrew prophets did. The final editing of Hebrew Bible texts such as the Torah and histories, and the assumptions of Ezra and Nehemiah, show that after the return from exile in the 5th century BCE, a powerful elite tried to set an exclusivist agenda, even requiring foreign wives to be divorced.
Religions which followed are outside these comments, but I invite readers to consider power implications within the religions which survived, and also the resistance to power that some of them reveal. Ethical religion may be a way of taming the religious impulse which over centuries caused such damage.
Why is this? The core reason is simple. Early humans developed language which at some point became complex enough to ask Why? Small children do this early enough. The trouble with children is that some questions are too difficult to answer at their level, or so the adult thinks. The trouble with humanity was that they had insufficient knowledge to answer accurately cosmological or existential questions. So an earthquake needed an understandable cause, and was understood as an 'act of God'; jealousy needed an explanation, so evil spirits provided good explanations, as also they did to explain disease and death. Whether personalities live on after death, and in what form, produced all sorts of theories about ancestors. Over-excited causality about the origins of the world produced creator deities and origin myths.
It is hard to test this out. Anthropology may help. The San Bushmen of southern Africa (see my paper) are modern humans who have lives wilderness lives with technology derived from nature (stone, wood, leather) whose ideas were not modernised by western education. Their stories have been paintakingly archived over the past hundred years. When they looked at the stars, they saw not the 3D with huge distances, but the 2D star pattern as presented. So too must early humans. They interpreted the sky intelligently, it the light of their own understanding; and they observed and studies landscape, prey animals and food plants. So they were systematic scientists. They studied the brain too, using the plant drugs they had tested and mesmeric dancing and rhythms, so altered mind states were part of their reality, rubbing shoulders with their dreams. Above all, life for them was a game of chance. They felt themselves caught in the cross-fire of hostile forces; the best they could do is to have enough understanding to recognize it and dodge if they could. Bushman religion is hardly a religion at all, but an interpretation of natural life with supernatural explanations for the unexplainable. There were gods and they were feared, but they were not worshipped or even respected. What ritual was observable, the trance dance, was social and anti-religious (designed to chase spirits away).
So humans are hard-wired to wanting certain answers to questions, even if they have to subconsciously invent that certainty. All questions have answers, however improbable, as Douglas Adams would have said. In evolutionary terms, this is helpful because it helps to plan safety strategies rather than being unconcerned with danger. Humans are hard-wired to be anxious, and have evolved extraordinary ways of resolving this anxiety in order to live with it. Anxiety about socially unacceptable behaviour led to in-group morality, whatever the level of out-group violence. Therefore, humans are also hard-wired to be conformist and conventional. Stanley Milgrom, a holocaust survivor set up a famous (some would say infamous, but I disagree) experiment where experimental subjects were asked to give severe electric shocks to partners (actually actors, unbeknown to them). Two thirds would not resist the demands of authority (the researcher telling them to do it and not spoil the experiment) and administered shocks that would have been lethal. Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiments similarly showed that two thirds not only followed orders, but many did so enthusiastically and sadistically. We are hard-wired to obey, and follow the crowd. As one who has always swum against the tide, ever since my three year old campaign to discredit Father Christmas, I find this hard to comprehend, but I recognize that, in evolutionary terms, in a different society I may have been dead before adulthood, just as any American white in a former generation would have been risking his or her life by protesting against lynching a black victim. German resisters against Nazism put themselves, and their families, in great danger. The herd obeyed.
Nevertheless, we need to deal with this hard-wired obedience. Because of it, humans have been the most violent of species. Principles, standards, virtues, morals and human rights have all been tried.
For the origins, supernaturalism leading to spirits, powers and gods can be viewed as 'religion' but maybe just a set of assumptions. Where early religions (that is, 3000+ years before the present) organised themselves, such as Ra and Aton in Egypt, they were declarations of power. Assyrian gods supported military conquests. Formalised religion produced a group of 'us' who fought against 'them', as Yahweh's Elijah did against Baal, and as all Hebrew prophets did. The final editing of Hebrew Bible texts such as the Torah and histories, and the assumptions of Ezra and Nehemiah, show that after the return from exile in the 5th century BCE, a powerful elite tried to set an exclusivist agenda, even requiring foreign wives to be divorced.
Religions which followed are outside these comments, but I invite readers to consider power implications within the religions which survived, and also the resistance to power that some of them reveal. Ethical religion may be a way of taming the religious impulse which over centuries caused such damage.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Cultural capitalists and their symbolic violence.
Reading about Pierre Bourdieu in theses and articles, you might wonder when his critical fangs were removed. This post returns to Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture by Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) to repair his bite. Reproduction means how the cultural status quo is reproduced. It has two parts, or 'Books', the first theoretical, the second an application to French society. I am focusing here on Book 1.
It is the result of a partnership in which every sentence and paragraph was poured over and constantly redrafted to produce the most rational argument they could for the science of society. At its centre is Power, held and exerted by those with influence who set all significant agendas. They control what is taken to be truth and knowledge by allowing no doubt, debate or counter voices: this is a process of symbolic violence. The education system is a site of this symbolic violence, as the curriculum is controlled formally and informally by the arbitary decisions and agendas of those in power (arbitrary is the opposite of rational). Where the link between the decision and its genesis in power is hidden, the violence is illegitimate: the imposed interpretation is claimed to be the only truth. A pedagogic action is, in objective terms, symbolic violence where it is arbitrarily imposed. The claim for privilege implies pedagogic authority and those who are allowed to exert it are carefully policed and trained so that the arbitrary conditions of privilege are reproduced in the next generation. This pedagogic work is inculcated to produce a durable internalisation of the principles and assumptions (habitus). Opposition to the habitus are subject to sanctions and punishments to police the privilege. The assumptions are declared legitimate (consecrated) and at the same time their genesis in power is obscured: the interpretations are simply declared to be true. The edifice of this privilege is built with symbolic artefacts, which combine to make a culture. These symbolic artefacts can be viewed as cultural capital using a financial metaphor. The privileged are 'rich' with cultural mechanisms to impress and gain status. Critical analysts of society need to uncover the arbitrariness and decouple truth and knowledge from power and privilege.
Applying this, the church and governments are viewed as privileged power holders; the working class and immigrants are the losers. Social justice demands that we work to overturn such privilege and expose its arbitrariness.
It is the result of a partnership in which every sentence and paragraph was poured over and constantly redrafted to produce the most rational argument they could for the science of society. At its centre is Power, held and exerted by those with influence who set all significant agendas. They control what is taken to be truth and knowledge by allowing no doubt, debate or counter voices: this is a process of symbolic violence. The education system is a site of this symbolic violence, as the curriculum is controlled formally and informally by the arbitary decisions and agendas of those in power (arbitrary is the opposite of rational). Where the link between the decision and its genesis in power is hidden, the violence is illegitimate: the imposed interpretation is claimed to be the only truth. A pedagogic action is, in objective terms, symbolic violence where it is arbitrarily imposed. The claim for privilege implies pedagogic authority and those who are allowed to exert it are carefully policed and trained so that the arbitrary conditions of privilege are reproduced in the next generation. This pedagogic work is inculcated to produce a durable internalisation of the principles and assumptions (habitus). Opposition to the habitus are subject to sanctions and punishments to police the privilege. The assumptions are declared legitimate (consecrated) and at the same time their genesis in power is obscured: the interpretations are simply declared to be true. The edifice of this privilege is built with symbolic artefacts, which combine to make a culture. These symbolic artefacts can be viewed as cultural capital using a financial metaphor. The privileged are 'rich' with cultural mechanisms to impress and gain status. Critical analysts of society need to uncover the arbitrariness and decouple truth and knowledge from power and privilege.
Applying this, the church and governments are viewed as privileged power holders; the working class and immigrants are the losers. Social justice demands that we work to overturn such privilege and expose its arbitrariness.
Sunday, 13 March 2011
The Bible, research and dialogue
Thanks to Viv for the following, not my normal reading:
"The University of Exeter lecturer told Radio Times: ‘Eve, particularly in the Christian tradition, has been very unfairly maligned as the troublesome wife.’
But former MP Ann Widdecombe, who is a Roman Catholic, said: ‘I would guess that most other theologians will demolish her theory in three seconds flat.’ "
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
The programme is 9pm Tuesday 15th.
I wrote earlier about dialogue. Interesting that politicians (or ex politicians) cannot do dialogue, only express their unconsidered opinions as rudely as possible and do battle with anyone who dares to disagree. No wonder politics is in a constant mess. This however gives me the chance to talk a little about the Bible (and see also my blog 4004BCE). I was brought up by fundamentalist Christians, but managed during A level religious studies to begin to think critically. Their view was that human history is accurately contained in the Bible story. My view now is that the view of history was constructed by the people who wrote the Bible books, and that it was political. It may contain nuggets of historical data, but they are few and far between, and always problematic. I developed this in Creating the Old Testament.
The story of Eve was written for a purpose - a social purpose, a political purpose, a dogmatic purpose. It commented on the view of the writer(s) of relationships between the sexes. Christian use of the story helped to define the policy of the early church. That is not to say that the stories themselves are as stereotyped as my upbringing suggested. They deserve further study as we read the words of the translation too glibly: original meanings are never as straightforward as those expressed from some pulpits. People die, can distinguish between good and evil, women bear children with pain, men provide food with difficulty, and snakes are poisonous - all the ingredients are there. And the writer theologian asserts, none of this is God's fault. Not even wisdom, for then 'humans will become like one of us'. Us?? What better clue to encourage us to dig deeper.
"The University of Exeter lecturer told Radio Times: ‘Eve, particularly in the Christian tradition, has been very unfairly maligned as the troublesome wife.’
But former MP Ann Widdecombe, who is a Roman Catholic, said: ‘I would guess that most other theologians will demolish her theory in three seconds flat.’ "
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
The programme is 9pm Tuesday 15th.
I wrote earlier about dialogue. Interesting that politicians (or ex politicians) cannot do dialogue, only express their unconsidered opinions as rudely as possible and do battle with anyone who dares to disagree. No wonder politics is in a constant mess. This however gives me the chance to talk a little about the Bible (and see also my blog 4004BCE). I was brought up by fundamentalist Christians, but managed during A level religious studies to begin to think critically. Their view was that human history is accurately contained in the Bible story. My view now is that the view of history was constructed by the people who wrote the Bible books, and that it was political. It may contain nuggets of historical data, but they are few and far between, and always problematic. I developed this in Creating the Old Testament.
The story of Eve was written for a purpose - a social purpose, a political purpose, a dogmatic purpose. It commented on the view of the writer(s) of relationships between the sexes. Christian use of the story helped to define the policy of the early church. That is not to say that the stories themselves are as stereotyped as my upbringing suggested. They deserve further study as we read the words of the translation too glibly: original meanings are never as straightforward as those expressed from some pulpits. People die, can distinguish between good and evil, women bear children with pain, men provide food with difficulty, and snakes are poisonous - all the ingredients are there. And the writer theologian asserts, none of this is God's fault. Not even wisdom, for then 'humans will become like one of us'. Us?? What better clue to encourage us to dig deeper.
Critical issues in visual methodology
This is a call for papers for a journal special issues. I doubt if I will be submitting, but this is an opportunity for a few first thoughts.
Methodology is the process of conceptualising and producing evidence to support an investigation being carried out. Much of this evidence is in words, written or spoken. The emphasis on visual methodology is instead on evidence which can be seen. Ethnography is an old methodology based around observing societies and communities. Anthropologists focused on distant traditional societies (Africa, Melanesia, India) until social change gave them different agendas. Sociologists studied groups closer to home, in our own society. Observation had a number of drawbacks. Notes kept in field diaries were filtered through the assumptions of the ethnographers, who recorded what they decided, in the way the decided, and may well not have recorded much that was important. Men were in particular unable to obtain much data on women's lives. They wrote up their notes, often years later, in accordance with existing theories such as functionalism or structuralism. We wonder today how much credence to give their accounts.
This introduces us to issues of research on education. Much research has been based on interviews, recording what teachers in the main think about teaching. Their views need not tie closely up with what actually happens, or with what they actually do. Observation, or perhaps video recordings, can help to fill in this important gap.
The following are some fairly random thoughts on how visual methods might apply to educational research in order to broaden the perspective.
• Observation of schools and classes. The ethnographer, notebook in hand, becomes a commentator on what he or she sees. We know however that people see what they look for, and experience of Ofsted confirms the vision of some observers is very limited. Quality observations require highly trained and intelligent minds.
• Use of video to record events and participants is currently very simple, requiring little more than mobile phones. Pupils can make their own videos. The researcher is advised to encourage wider discussions of the visual material by interpreting it with a representative group of interested parties.
• Video (reflexive) diaries are now easily possible. Computers have inbuilt cameras which can record users. A reflexive diary might record regular thoughts when having to type these thoughts might discourage regularity. Better still, the research could link with a critical friend for regular online conversations which prompt reflexivity through questioning and prompting. A devil’s advocate technique could also be helpful.
• Drama and roleplay are very effective pupil activities which can be caught on video. An educational point is likely to be remembered if part of an enjoyable event, and problem-solving role-play can be part of co-constructivism of knowledge.
• Photographs can represent outdoor work/Forest School activities, displays, school and classroom environments. They can be used as stimulus for discussions.
• Wall of comments: pupils and students can explore, discuss, and make suggestions about a wide range of topics putting their ideas on pop-it notes which are then stuck onto a ‘wall of comments’. These can be sifted, sorted, ranked and reordered to form an argument. Again, this emphasises co-constructivist knowledge-building.
• Creative artifacts (pictures, sculptures) can also become stimulus for discussion..
Any further ideas, please add to Comments. How to incorporate visual data into theses is very easy in electronic academic writing, but tests the limits of the traditional paper thesis. This might encourage Universities to experiment with new forms of thesis using digital technology, thereby encouraging hyperlinks to visual and auditory material..
Methodology is the process of conceptualising and producing evidence to support an investigation being carried out. Much of this evidence is in words, written or spoken. The emphasis on visual methodology is instead on evidence which can be seen. Ethnography is an old methodology based around observing societies and communities. Anthropologists focused on distant traditional societies (Africa, Melanesia, India) until social change gave them different agendas. Sociologists studied groups closer to home, in our own society. Observation had a number of drawbacks. Notes kept in field diaries were filtered through the assumptions of the ethnographers, who recorded what they decided, in the way the decided, and may well not have recorded much that was important. Men were in particular unable to obtain much data on women's lives. They wrote up their notes, often years later, in accordance with existing theories such as functionalism or structuralism. We wonder today how much credence to give their accounts.
This introduces us to issues of research on education. Much research has been based on interviews, recording what teachers in the main think about teaching. Their views need not tie closely up with what actually happens, or with what they actually do. Observation, or perhaps video recordings, can help to fill in this important gap.
The following are some fairly random thoughts on how visual methods might apply to educational research in order to broaden the perspective.
• Observation of schools and classes. The ethnographer, notebook in hand, becomes a commentator on what he or she sees. We know however that people see what they look for, and experience of Ofsted confirms the vision of some observers is very limited. Quality observations require highly trained and intelligent minds.
• Use of video to record events and participants is currently very simple, requiring little more than mobile phones. Pupils can make their own videos. The researcher is advised to encourage wider discussions of the visual material by interpreting it with a representative group of interested parties.
• Video (reflexive) diaries are now easily possible. Computers have inbuilt cameras which can record users. A reflexive diary might record regular thoughts when having to type these thoughts might discourage regularity. Better still, the research could link with a critical friend for regular online conversations which prompt reflexivity through questioning and prompting. A devil’s advocate technique could also be helpful.
• Drama and roleplay are very effective pupil activities which can be caught on video. An educational point is likely to be remembered if part of an enjoyable event, and problem-solving role-play can be part of co-constructivism of knowledge.
• Photographs can represent outdoor work/Forest School activities, displays, school and classroom environments. They can be used as stimulus for discussions.
• Wall of comments: pupils and students can explore, discuss, and make suggestions about a wide range of topics putting their ideas on pop-it notes which are then stuck onto a ‘wall of comments’. These can be sifted, sorted, ranked and reordered to form an argument. Again, this emphasises co-constructivist knowledge-building.
• Creative artifacts (pictures, sculptures) can also become stimulus for discussion..
Any further ideas, please add to Comments. How to incorporate visual data into theses is very easy in electronic academic writing, but tests the limits of the traditional paper thesis. This might encourage Universities to experiment with new forms of thesis using digital technology, thereby encouraging hyperlinks to visual and auditory material..
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Dialogue
A few things have come together to give some consideration to dialogue. But definition it is two or more people talking openly together, discussing ideas and seeking solutions. It is not one giving a monologue to the other, or each giving monologues to each other, in which minds are fixed and unchangeable. Dialogue consists of conversation partners who are happy to share and find answers together. Put one way, the topic of dialogue is something unresolved, with conversation partners wishing to compare and develop what the 'know' and think.
A long history in inter-faith dialogue throws up some questions. There are points that are not open, as the beliefs of each are not unresolved. The so-called dialogue is actually monologue, with each giving their point of view or belief system for the other to appreciate. True dialogue seeks new resolutions, insights and works to constructing new 'knowledge' (that is, shared understandings of the aspect being discussed). Dialogue therefore carries unacceptable dangers and challenges to what I will call the decided, committed and closed minded [I do not regard these as synonyms] who are unlikely to want their paradigm to shift.
In philosophical terms, dialogue describes the form of writing in which two or more characters ask questions and seek answers, the written dialogue allowing multiple voices and arguments being put, weighed and emended. Socratic questioning is a case in point. This is a process of constantly revising what we think we know and subject it to rational discussion and verification.
Dialogue emphasises external challenges to our ideas and assumptions. We also do this by reading so long as we internalise and test what we read and are prepared to be changed by it. Fiction and theatre are as important as these explore emotions and assumptions in vivid and accessible ways.
Is thinking an inner dialogue? In a way we way up pros and cons and 'talk to ourselves', but although we can challenge ourselves by cues such as "How do you know? Prove it! Suppose the opposite is true", it is not like having to respond to a real person. It is a pale imitation, and the term dialogue might not be appropriate. The inner conversation could be externalised by taking a leaf from both fiction and philosophy. If the issue for exploration is the subject of a story in which characters debate prose and cons, and the writer honestly lets the dialogue go where it wills and does not lead it in a pre-decided direction, this may be potentially mind changing for the writer, and by extension for future readers.
For educational research, the sort of dialogue in which many voices declare their interest and point of view, and a win-win solution is sort, then the result is more likely to be helpful than if this is not the case. Such a win-win conclusion is not a compromise, which is a win some lose some ending. Nor is it consensus, which is either a majority decision (with a disappointed minority), or an acceptance of the views of those who should loudest and longest, or a watered down lowest common denominator that everyone can accept. It is a different way of thinking, rejecting competitiveness and assertiveness to seek social and personal justice. Everyone is concerned about everyone else getting as much as possible from the deal which can itself expand and improve through this process. Win-win may however be seen as a defeat by the opinionated and dogmatic, including and maybe especially politicians.
A long history in inter-faith dialogue throws up some questions. There are points that are not open, as the beliefs of each are not unresolved. The so-called dialogue is actually monologue, with each giving their point of view or belief system for the other to appreciate. True dialogue seeks new resolutions, insights and works to constructing new 'knowledge' (that is, shared understandings of the aspect being discussed). Dialogue therefore carries unacceptable dangers and challenges to what I will call the decided, committed and closed minded [I do not regard these as synonyms] who are unlikely to want their paradigm to shift.
In philosophical terms, dialogue describes the form of writing in which two or more characters ask questions and seek answers, the written dialogue allowing multiple voices and arguments being put, weighed and emended. Socratic questioning is a case in point. This is a process of constantly revising what we think we know and subject it to rational discussion and verification.
Dialogue emphasises external challenges to our ideas and assumptions. We also do this by reading so long as we internalise and test what we read and are prepared to be changed by it. Fiction and theatre are as important as these explore emotions and assumptions in vivid and accessible ways.
Is thinking an inner dialogue? In a way we way up pros and cons and 'talk to ourselves', but although we can challenge ourselves by cues such as "How do you know? Prove it! Suppose the opposite is true", it is not like having to respond to a real person. It is a pale imitation, and the term dialogue might not be appropriate. The inner conversation could be externalised by taking a leaf from both fiction and philosophy. If the issue for exploration is the subject of a story in which characters debate prose and cons, and the writer honestly lets the dialogue go where it wills and does not lead it in a pre-decided direction, this may be potentially mind changing for the writer, and by extension for future readers.
For educational research, the sort of dialogue in which many voices declare their interest and point of view, and a win-win solution is sort, then the result is more likely to be helpful than if this is not the case. Such a win-win conclusion is not a compromise, which is a win some lose some ending. Nor is it consensus, which is either a majority decision (with a disappointed minority), or an acceptance of the views of those who should loudest and longest, or a watered down lowest common denominator that everyone can accept. It is a different way of thinking, rejecting competitiveness and assertiveness to seek social and personal justice. Everyone is concerned about everyone else getting as much as possible from the deal which can itself expand and improve through this process. Win-win may however be seen as a defeat by the opinionated and dogmatic, including and maybe especially politicians.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
So-called spirituality in nursing.
I have written before on secular spirituality (Bigger, 2008), that is describing the deep inner selves people have. My model distinguishes this representation of the inner self from belief in [God, the supernatural] and the associated doctrinal content of religious creeds. The problem is that the term spiritual has for centuries linked with religious piety so misunderstandings are easy. Although originally the spirit was the breath, the evidence of life itself and the question is, what can life be at its deepest and fullest. Ours is the first century trying to express this in humanistic and not religious language. We have to make the choice whether to reclaim the word spiritual, or jettison it.
Wilfred McSherry (2006) applies spirituality as a practical concept to nursing and health care. He argues that nursing was a spiritual enterprise of caring (a vocation) but has become mechanistic. Spirituality contains the word ritual within it (actually this is etymologically irrelevant, a coincidence) so justifies references to religion. However he attempts a definition of everyday spirituality using a football made of hexagonal panels as his model (that is, a representation of thought map). Laying aside ‘belief in God or Supreme Being’ we are left with thinking, feeling, relating and expressing.
Thinking – self awareness, view of the world, attitudes, meaning, purpose
Feeling – hope, inner strength, security, fears, expectations, experiencing life
Relating – harmonious relationships, trust, forgiveness, love
Expressing – creativity, expressing values and beliefs
Of course these intertwine and operate together. Our attitudes and sense of meaning involves other people; our feelings are tied into our relationships with others, and we express our deep thoughts and concerns to others. So this list is well described by the philosopher John Macmurray (1961) as Persons in Relation.
This list is expressed in positive terms, what a human could be at best. It could also be described as inner psycho-social (or personal/relational) wellbeing. The list could have a negative aspect where these criteria are missing. McSherry (2006:59) calls this spiritual distress, or the lack of personal/relational wellbeing or personal/relational dysfunction.
McSherry argues that nursing should take an holistic view, and embeds his view of broad spirituality within this. This perhaps overcomplicates something which should be simple. Nursing involves caring, which includes not only caring for but also caring about. This means that doctors, nurses and all other staff aim to identify and satisfy reasonable needs, emotional as well as physical. Given the nature of ‘emotional work’, this needs to be interpreted unsentimentally. That this caring does not always take place is receiving considerable publicity at the moment. The message to care about patients is simple; clouding it with the language of spirituality just obfuscates the issue.
Reference: WIlfred McSherry, Making Sense of Spirituality in Nursing and Health Care Practice, Jessica Kingsley, 2006.
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