Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Characteristics of an Unhealthy Culture

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

As I scan through the list of traits of an unhealthy culture as assembled by Dave Pollard - stress, illness, privilege, absolutism, exceptionalism, etc. - it strikes me that while we could be easily led to attribute these flaws to a particular culture, they also resemble in many respects what Thomas Kuhn would describe as an outgoing paradigm. And it's important to understand, I think, that it's not the culture or the people who are lacking, it's just that what we have believed for so long is no longer appropriate to our new and changing understanding of the world. It might one day be worth enumerating this list - though concepts like 'worth' and 'enumerating' are among those obsolete ideas of the old order (so are things like wealth, popularity, fame, power and influence).

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: May 06, 2024 06:31 a.m.

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