Very interesting - listening to you, I kept thinking about Professor Feyerabend's "Against Method" and Dr Irving Janis's "Groupthink", both skirting around the problem of conformity and fashion prejudice for discouraging innovators. I have no experience of the music industry's capitalist foibles. But I do have experience of fashion censorship that discourages innovation. The capitalist "marketing mix" (4 p's) is said to be "product, price, place, and promotion." But that's a misleading word salad. If the product is desirable and unique, capitalist marketing theory suggests, you won't need to advertise, because journalists will hunt you down.
So the question is whether a new genre of music (or of politics, religion, science, war or physics), can be engineered. If it can't, we don't have any autonomy that is meaningful. I think everyone believes in the possibility of a better world. But the disagreement is over how to change things for the better. Do you try to reform the existing system incrementally from the inside, maybe by writing letters of protest to fashion apparatchiks, like the old Soviet dissidents (who had as much chance in the old Cold War as Navalny had against Putin recently!), or do you take the outsider approach and "simply" set up a new genre on the outside?
Feyerabend argued similarly to George Bernard Shaw's statement that "all progress depends on the unreasonable" person, that in science there is no standard method because it is a tool-building system which innovates and so changes existing methodology. Thus, fashion changes methodology.
However, in "applied science" such as technology or the textbook teaching of science "methodology", the radical innovative process is deleted and suppressed by what Janis called "groupthink", which is really just fashion-prejudice. Only small incremental changes in the existing method are permitted in political bureaucracies. ("Groupthink" author Janis, while at RAND Corporation, studied conventional military coercion tactics such inducing emotional stress on people by bombing them in war, including nuclear bombing of civilian cities in August 1945.) It's very hard to change fashion, and so radical ideas are easy to ignore or reject out of hand, especially when they're presented softly, in a kind and gentle way. The status quo can be quite paranoid, ruthless and vicious in opposing kindly suggestions.
It's one hell of a problem. In physics, we have old wives tales: "Be like Einstein, keep doing a menial job as 2nd class Patent Examiner in Bern or something similar, to put bread on the table, while you work on alternative ideas." However, in reality, you can't get much done in the evenings after work. Even people alleged to be lone wolves like Einstein had support networks (e.g. Marcel Grossmann who helped with new mathematics) and rivals trying to do the same thing (e.g. mathematician Hilbert was in a race with Einstein to get the correct energy conserving field equations in 1915). Also, all the really good, unique ideas of Einstein came after he gave up the day job and had time on his hands, as well as motivation. Motivation is essential to overcome the challenges fast, and if it doesn't come from a fan club, then it has to come from competition or some other carrot or stick. The worst label in the world is "being ahead of your time". You have to somehow be a leader, whether you want to or not, if you need to implement innovation. You probably also need financial backing to give you the time to get developmental work done.
Yes, people need patrons! 💚 Thanks for this, and for listening, Nige. Will check out Feyerabend's "Against Method". I should think it speaks to the generative refusal and unfolding in messy dissent my thesis underwent. When I think of Einstein’s holistic processing, play, risk-taking, visualised thought experiments (Gedankenexperiment), etc., I also think about William Blake, (who through Mark Vernon’s scholarship is undergoing a revival of sorts), and the role of imagination and intuition central to both. The imagination, of course, needs time to wonder/wander, which most of us don’t have. Iain McGilchrist’s divided brain hypothesis interests me greatly as his argument that society is in the ‘grip’ of (reductive) left-brained thinking makes a lot of sense.
Feyerabend explained in the concluding chapter of his 1975 book "Against Method" that anything goes which "works" in science, regardless of the method (but how do you define "works"? I.e. communism "worked" for the leaders of the USSR, just not for everybody; similarly, capitalism "works" for millionaires at the top, etc.):
‘All methodologies have their limitations and the only ‘rule’ that survives is ‘anything goes’. … Scepticism is at a minimum; it is directed against the view of the opposition and against minor ramifications of one’s own basic ideas, never against the basic ideas themselves. Attacking the basic ideas evokes taboo reactions which are no weaker than are the taboo reactions in so-called “primitive societies.” Basic beliefs are protected by this reaction … and whatever fails to fit into the established category system or is said to be incompatible with this system is either viewed as something quite horrifying or, more frequently, it is simply declared to be non-existent. …
‘Scientists do not solve problems because they possess a magic wand – methodology, or a theory of rationality – but because they have studied a problem for a long time, because they know the situation fairly well, because they are not too dumb (though that is rather doubtful nowadays when almost anyone can become a scientist), and because the excesses of one scientific school are almost always balanced by the excesses of some other school. (Besides, scientists only rarely solve their problems, they make lots of mistakes, and many of their solutions are quite useless.) Basically there is hardly any difference between the process that leads to the announcement of a new scientific law and the process preceding passage of a new law in society: one informs either all citizens or those immediately concerned, one collects ‘facts’ and prejudices, one discusses the matter, and one finally votes. But while a democracy makes some effort to explain the process so that everyone can understand it, scientists either conceal it, or bend it, to make it fit their sectarian interests.
‘No scientist will admit that voting plays a role in his subject. Facts, logic, and methodology alone decide – this is what the fairy-tale tells us. … This is how scientists have deceived themselves and everyone else about their business, but without any real disadvantage: they have more money, more authority, more sex appeal than they deserve, and the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society. …
‘It is the vote of everyone concerned that decides fundamental issues such as the teaching methods used, or the truth of basic beliefs such as the theory of evolution, or the quantum theory, and not the authority of big-shots hiding behind a non-existing methodology. There is no need to fear that such a way of arranging society will lead to undesirable results. Science itself uses the method of ballot, discussion, vote, though without a clear grasp of its mechanism, and in a heavily biased way. But the rationality of our beliefs will certainly be considerably increased.’
Also, Howard Firth in issue 1692 of New Scientist magazine, 25 November 1989:
"On the importance of being creative – Innovative thinkers should be allowed to come to the fore. It’s not merely that people with creativity and flair are not properly paid; in many places they are not wanted, as they unsettle those in more established positions. The problem is that the result of all the training in the dominant disciplines of finance, personnel and marketing is not to encourage new ways of thinking, but to keep people thinking along established lines. ... each new layer of conventional-thinking, establishment-minded people has to protect itself by appointing more conventional-thinking and establishment-minded people below, thereby building up every year an even stronger wall against the creative thinkers who find that, as time goes on, even their most positive attitudes crumble into bitterness. Every year, some new government initiative comes along – and successive governments deserve credit for at least trying. The trouble with enterprise and training initiatives is that the people who are put in charge of them are often the type of people who have got there because of their ability in conventional ways of doing things.
“Creative thinkers are by their nature often isolated, their ideas either ignored or rejected, or sometimes simply taken up without any acknowledgment. ... … Anyone doubting the ability of creative people to learn rapidly the tricks of PR should watch how quickly they learn to disguise and suppress their ability at school, to protect themselves from the contingent pressures of their classmates. It’s an important learning skill in a society where they are going to find themselves always on the edges.”
Machiavelli noted in Chapter VI of The Prince: "… the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."
C. P. Snow's "Two cultures" in 1959 for generations blocked discussion of dissidents in science by asserting falsely that there is "a" scientific culture and a non-scientific culture. Either you are a card carrying establishment member of the mainstream, or you're not a scientist, in that view. In reality, by contrast, there are two cultures in science, the fashionable dogma and the unfashionable evidence. Even in something like climate change, you can't dare to separate the facts from the politics or you're shot. CO2 doesn't cause more than 4% of the global warming, the rest is asserted to be positive feedback from water vapor. But if water vapor has such strong positive feedback, why are we here? Viz: why didn't prehistoric climate variations trigger positive feedback from water to produce a runaway greenhouse effect? You still can't even ask objective questions like this for political reasons, and it's really stressful seeing the mass media cover up the facts, while claiming to be unbiased investigative journalists!
Such a fascinating paper and it’s been too long since I experienced a conference paper, and what a treat to experience this with the sound of rain and thunder too - thank you!
Very interesting - listening to you, I kept thinking about Professor Feyerabend's "Against Method" and Dr Irving Janis's "Groupthink", both skirting around the problem of conformity and fashion prejudice for discouraging innovators. I have no experience of the music industry's capitalist foibles. But I do have experience of fashion censorship that discourages innovation. The capitalist "marketing mix" (4 p's) is said to be "product, price, place, and promotion." But that's a misleading word salad. If the product is desirable and unique, capitalist marketing theory suggests, you won't need to advertise, because journalists will hunt you down.
So the question is whether a new genre of music (or of politics, religion, science, war or physics), can be engineered. If it can't, we don't have any autonomy that is meaningful. I think everyone believes in the possibility of a better world. But the disagreement is over how to change things for the better. Do you try to reform the existing system incrementally from the inside, maybe by writing letters of protest to fashion apparatchiks, like the old Soviet dissidents (who had as much chance in the old Cold War as Navalny had against Putin recently!), or do you take the outsider approach and "simply" set up a new genre on the outside?
Feyerabend argued similarly to George Bernard Shaw's statement that "all progress depends on the unreasonable" person, that in science there is no standard method because it is a tool-building system which innovates and so changes existing methodology. Thus, fashion changes methodology.
However, in "applied science" such as technology or the textbook teaching of science "methodology", the radical innovative process is deleted and suppressed by what Janis called "groupthink", which is really just fashion-prejudice. Only small incremental changes in the existing method are permitted in political bureaucracies. ("Groupthink" author Janis, while at RAND Corporation, studied conventional military coercion tactics such inducing emotional stress on people by bombing them in war, including nuclear bombing of civilian cities in August 1945.) It's very hard to change fashion, and so radical ideas are easy to ignore or reject out of hand, especially when they're presented softly, in a kind and gentle way. The status quo can be quite paranoid, ruthless and vicious in opposing kindly suggestions.
It's one hell of a problem. In physics, we have old wives tales: "Be like Einstein, keep doing a menial job as 2nd class Patent Examiner in Bern or something similar, to put bread on the table, while you work on alternative ideas." However, in reality, you can't get much done in the evenings after work. Even people alleged to be lone wolves like Einstein had support networks (e.g. Marcel Grossmann who helped with new mathematics) and rivals trying to do the same thing (e.g. mathematician Hilbert was in a race with Einstein to get the correct energy conserving field equations in 1915). Also, all the really good, unique ideas of Einstein came after he gave up the day job and had time on his hands, as well as motivation. Motivation is essential to overcome the challenges fast, and if it doesn't come from a fan club, then it has to come from competition or some other carrot or stick. The worst label in the world is "being ahead of your time". You have to somehow be a leader, whether you want to or not, if you need to implement innovation. You probably also need financial backing to give you the time to get developmental work done.
Yes, people need patrons! 💚 Thanks for this, and for listening, Nige. Will check out Feyerabend's "Against Method". I should think it speaks to the generative refusal and unfolding in messy dissent my thesis underwent. When I think of Einstein’s holistic processing, play, risk-taking, visualised thought experiments (Gedankenexperiment), etc., I also think about William Blake, (who through Mark Vernon’s scholarship is undergoing a revival of sorts), and the role of imagination and intuition central to both. The imagination, of course, needs time to wonder/wander, which most of us don’t have. Iain McGilchrist’s divided brain hypothesis interests me greatly as his argument that society is in the ‘grip’ of (reductive) left-brained thinking makes a lot of sense.
Feyerabend explained in the concluding chapter of his 1975 book "Against Method" that anything goes which "works" in science, regardless of the method (but how do you define "works"? I.e. communism "worked" for the leaders of the USSR, just not for everybody; similarly, capitalism "works" for millionaires at the top, etc.):
‘All methodologies have their limitations and the only ‘rule’ that survives is ‘anything goes’. … Scepticism is at a minimum; it is directed against the view of the opposition and against minor ramifications of one’s own basic ideas, never against the basic ideas themselves. Attacking the basic ideas evokes taboo reactions which are no weaker than are the taboo reactions in so-called “primitive societies.” Basic beliefs are protected by this reaction … and whatever fails to fit into the established category system or is said to be incompatible with this system is either viewed as something quite horrifying or, more frequently, it is simply declared to be non-existent. …
‘Scientists do not solve problems because they possess a magic wand – methodology, or a theory of rationality – but because they have studied a problem for a long time, because they know the situation fairly well, because they are not too dumb (though that is rather doubtful nowadays when almost anyone can become a scientist), and because the excesses of one scientific school are almost always balanced by the excesses of some other school. (Besides, scientists only rarely solve their problems, they make lots of mistakes, and many of their solutions are quite useless.) Basically there is hardly any difference between the process that leads to the announcement of a new scientific law and the process preceding passage of a new law in society: one informs either all citizens or those immediately concerned, one collects ‘facts’ and prejudices, one discusses the matter, and one finally votes. But while a democracy makes some effort to explain the process so that everyone can understand it, scientists either conceal it, or bend it, to make it fit their sectarian interests.
‘No scientist will admit that voting plays a role in his subject. Facts, logic, and methodology alone decide – this is what the fairy-tale tells us. … This is how scientists have deceived themselves and everyone else about their business, but without any real disadvantage: they have more money, more authority, more sex appeal than they deserve, and the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society. …
‘It is the vote of everyone concerned that decides fundamental issues such as the teaching methods used, or the truth of basic beliefs such as the theory of evolution, or the quantum theory, and not the authority of big-shots hiding behind a non-existing methodology. There is no need to fear that such a way of arranging society will lead to undesirable results. Science itself uses the method of ballot, discussion, vote, though without a clear grasp of its mechanism, and in a heavily biased way. But the rationality of our beliefs will certainly be considerably increased.’
Also, Howard Firth in issue 1692 of New Scientist magazine, 25 November 1989:
"On the importance of being creative – Innovative thinkers should be allowed to come to the fore. It’s not merely that people with creativity and flair are not properly paid; in many places they are not wanted, as they unsettle those in more established positions. The problem is that the result of all the training in the dominant disciplines of finance, personnel and marketing is not to encourage new ways of thinking, but to keep people thinking along established lines. ... each new layer of conventional-thinking, establishment-minded people has to protect itself by appointing more conventional-thinking and establishment-minded people below, thereby building up every year an even stronger wall against the creative thinkers who find that, as time goes on, even their most positive attitudes crumble into bitterness. Every year, some new government initiative comes along – and successive governments deserve credit for at least trying. The trouble with enterprise and training initiatives is that the people who are put in charge of them are often the type of people who have got there because of their ability in conventional ways of doing things.
“Creative thinkers are by their nature often isolated, their ideas either ignored or rejected, or sometimes simply taken up without any acknowledgment. ... … Anyone doubting the ability of creative people to learn rapidly the tricks of PR should watch how quickly they learn to disguise and suppress their ability at school, to protect themselves from the contingent pressures of their classmates. It’s an important learning skill in a society where they are going to find themselves always on the edges.”
Machiavelli noted in Chapter VI of The Prince: "… the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."
C. P. Snow's "Two cultures" in 1959 for generations blocked discussion of dissidents in science by asserting falsely that there is "a" scientific culture and a non-scientific culture. Either you are a card carrying establishment member of the mainstream, or you're not a scientist, in that view. In reality, by contrast, there are two cultures in science, the fashionable dogma and the unfashionable evidence. Even in something like climate change, you can't dare to separate the facts from the politics or you're shot. CO2 doesn't cause more than 4% of the global warming, the rest is asserted to be positive feedback from water vapor. But if water vapor has such strong positive feedback, why are we here? Viz: why didn't prehistoric climate variations trigger positive feedback from water to produce a runaway greenhouse effect? You still can't even ask objective questions like this for political reasons, and it's really stressful seeing the mass media cover up the facts, while claiming to be unbiased investigative journalists!
Lots for me to chew on here, Nige!
Such a fascinating paper and it’s been too long since I experienced a conference paper, and what a treat to experience this with the sound of rain and thunder too - thank you!
Lauren, hey. You’re so welcome! Glad you enjoyed the ⛈️⚡️& atmospherics. I hope all’s really well with you! 💚