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The clairvoyant as expert

I'm working on a paper where I am problematising the notion of 'expert' within educational research.

Last week, I heard a clairvoyant on the radio (which is not what I normally listen to) while waiting for tyres on my car to be replaced. Callers were asking him for advice, direction, and confirmation. There was an interesting positioning of power because they were interested in his feelings about their situation due to their belief in the validity of his spiritual insight and future predictions. To me, many of his comments seemed to be just offering good advice, perhaps even 'common sense' in some respects, just like what you would get when you ask an elder for their advice. But in some ways they were seeking his 'insight' because he was understood to be a spiritual expert. Another complexity to explore.

Hook, line and sinker

When checking my iPhone, I am perceived to have something to do, therefore I must be important. The perception of my human capital or cultural capital becomes higher. I also like having the ability to distract myself from talking to people. I can engage with a screen rather than a person. A narcissistic sense of importance comes when believing one has various forms of capital through the number of text messages and phone calls that demand one's attention. Does this not determine personal value to a certain degree?

There is an immediacy of contact that we demand when we use a mobile phone. We no longer have to wait for people to be somewhere in a place to speak with them, nor do we need to wait for them to be ready to be contacted. By right of the mobile, we expect their full attention there and then. We demand their focus and deny their freedom to choose when and where they will do things.

When the mobile rings, we cast aside all other activities and thoughts and position the mobile on a pedestal to which we bow down and worship. We need to live in the present and focus on the relationships of the moment. The technology of the day may enhance our lives but it should not comprise our life, our thoughts and our activity.

Hook, line and sinker
The social expectation belies a financial commitment. Many young people exceed their ability to pay their mobile phone fees because of the prevalence of their (over)usage which has been perpetuated by capitalist notions of success.

Marketing provides the hook. The prevalence provides the line. The sinker is the gullibility that ‘one cannot do without’. The bind is the capitalist compulsion to continue to pay, exacerbated by the monthly constructs to which we subscribe.

Are our lives improved by ubiquitous use of mobile phones? The mobile phone is one symbol of our fetish on consumerism and materialism, and the compulsion we have to be constantly entertained by technology. There is no doubt that it increases our sense of satisfaction: “No amount of inventiveness or energy is excessive if it results in the creation of leisure, the increase of personal freedom, or the provision of physical comfort” (Watts, 2003, p. 19).

Invasive (?) or beneficial technology

I was going to put this in an essay to publish, but I thought this blog would be a better forum.

On 24th November, 2008, I attended the launch of the newly named Information and Communication Technology Research Institute (ICTR), a research strength at the University of Wollongong (UOW). Dr Hugh Bradlow, a former academic of UOW, who is now the Chief Technology Officer of Telstra Australia, presented a 20 minute keynote entitled, ‘Innovation in the 21st Century – it is no longer about bits and bytes’.

He made a number of comments including stating that his generation had left the current generation with a lot of problems including climate change, the decline of fossil fuel, and an ageing population. He based the rest of his brief speech on the idea that new technologies and increased dependency on them will enable us to solve these problems.

Dr Bradlow stated that now we leave home with our wallet, keys and mobile phone, but that in 10 years time, we will only need to leave home with our mobile phone as our mobile will operate contextually in various ways including fulfilling the role of access to vehicles, access to our bank accounts, and the ability for inanimate objects and actual people to be able to assume and provide for our needs and wants.

Bradlow’s focus was on the ubiquitous mobile phone becoming ever more ubiquitous and invading our bathrooms, bedrooms, offices, commutes and menus in an ever-increasing fashion. He stated that our increased dependence on digital technologies will not only help our lives to be improved by “increasing the productivity and efficiency of society”.

Examples of these ‘personalized technologies’ that will know where you are at all times are:
• your house will sense when you are about to arrive home and so will turn on the air conditioning for you
• your bathroom will recognize you when you get up in the morning and display your calendar for the day on the bathroom mirror
• your coffee will be made by the barista just as you are arriving in the work carpark so that it is hot when you walk in the door
• you won’t need a screen to look at as you will be able to wear a pair of glasses that will project the ‘screen’ on to your eye’s retina

Why would we want to become more dependent on digital technologies? Why is this ‘good’? Why do most people accept and take up these new developments? Are they buying into the disputable concept that “we are what we have” (Johnson, 2009, p. 127)?

Currently, as I am unable to read the gamut my own emotions and anticipate my own needs and wants, I am unlikely to concur that a machine will be able to do it for me. I may just end up throwing it into the ocean off a very high cliff.

How will these new technologies not end up controlling us? Another statement he said was that the last 25 years of the 20th Century was about technologies being developed by humans, but the first 25 years of the 21st Century will be about technologies adapting to us. It seems that the next step we should take on the form of a cyborg, made possible in one way by having a microchip embedded in our body; our microchip will be our mobile phone and comprise our ability to communicate and function in post-post-modern society.

Hegemonic masculinity

R.W. Connell first coined the term 'hegemonic masculinity' in her books (1985; 1997). Some have critiqued the place of this dominant masculinity suggesting that it is just one of many dominant forms of masculinity though other forms continue to be marginalised.

To me, the powerful, athletic, strong, cool, collected masculine man was embodied in my late brother Scott. Though it has been over 2 years since he passed away, the fact remains that while he should have gone to the doctor to find out what was wrong with him and not have viewed this as a weakness, he didn't, and he died from an undetected heart condition. We do not know the extent of his symptoms which he may have been ignoring.

His mobile phone welcome message was 'Harden up'. This was not helpful, but I think it was an important part of his identity.

Hegemonic masculinity, as Connell first suggested, is still alive and kicking.

The importance of being a good listener

If you read about conducting interviews, you may learn about the need to acknowledge yet not affirm, the need to leave space for the interviewee, the 'don't' of not putting words into the discourse/vocabulary of the interviewee, the appropriateness of open questions, the usefulness of probes, and all that good stuff. There is a lot you can do to be a quality or poor interviewer.

What I have come to realize is that while many feign interest in another's conversation, the people who can give me 'space' to reply to their questions mean that my contribution to the conversation will be more generous. When those who are listening actually look in my eyes and nod appropriately at particular points, then they get so much more from me as I am encouraged to speak. This is not rocket science, but it highlights how so many of us are poor at listening. We do not have two mouths and one ear. But we privilege speaking over listening. And we should acknowledge that if we listen really well and privilege that practice, we in fact encourage a quality of response that is not achieved if the audience to whom one is speaking is not interested. We can reach a higher state of awareness and knowledge and connectedness if we listen well to others. There is value in that practice for us and for those to whom we are listening to.

People are important. Life is valuable.

How much more could we get out of people if we just listened better to them? Let's see - make someone the complete focus of your attention.

I didn't listen well recently . . . . I've just been reading Bourdieu's On Television and as I've had quite a few radio interviews, it made me realize that in the last one I had, the questions that were asked of me were actually so poorly constructed that I should have said, "I do not understand your question" rather than just making up a so-called articulate answer on some topic I did understand and could converse about. Journalists need to be accountable too, as well as those of us who believe we have something to say about something we consider important.

Bourdieu talks about fast thinking. It is esteemed by our thirst for sensationalist television. We like those who can think quick on their feet, but we should not dismiss those who engage in a process of thinking and who can contribute far better quality to conversations once they have had time to cogitate.