Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.iastate.edu!vancleef From: vancleef@iastate.edu (Van Cleef Henry H) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Language Use Message-ID: <1991Apr7.231553.15780@news.iastate.edu> Date: 7 Apr 91 23:15:53 GMT References: <4bb36214a43427f8f148@rose.uucp> Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA Lines: 82 In article <4bb36214a43427f8f148@rose.uucp> david.lloyd-jones@rose.uucp (DAVID LLOYD-JONES) writes: >To: olshause@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Ronald Olshausen) >>Orga: Indiana University, Bloomington >> >>one-dimensional, workaholic employees. In terms of America's >>industrial competitiveness, we are surely better off with a multitude >>of high-tech drones, rather than well-rounded, educated, and cultured >>individuals with interests outside their profession. > >I once spent three months chatting-on-Mondays with the senior >management of Mitsubishi Motors, seven guys, roughly equivalent to >the Division Heads of General Motors. Not the Board of Directors >but the people who actually ran things. (This chatting thing was for >the sake of their English and for the sake of their exposure to the >world. They hire a distinguished visitor (I qualified as a recent >member of the Professional Staff of the USCongress) pay the person very >well, and wring them out pretty thoroughly over three months. >then on to the next professor, writer or whoever...) > >I assure you these guys, high level metal benders, are also your >"well-rounded, educated and cultured individuals with interests outside their >profession." And not just because of the program that had brought me >into their use. Japanese workers at all levels have hobbies, studies >and interests outside work. The "drone" of American mythology is an >American invention. > >> >>But in the long run, such an education is not an education at all, but >>rather an indoctrination into High-Tech Corporate America. Perhaps I'm >>just an idealist, but I still believe Education means an introduction to >>the finer things in life, like literature, philosophy, and history... >>things even the most cerebral of students might get a 'C' in. > > >You may think this is idealism. Empirically, on the results, I'd say it's >operational common sense. > > -dlj. >--- I have worked in and around the world of computers since 1958. Suffice it to say that I never took a single course in "Computer Science---there were none to take. My formal education is in History and Philosophy of Science. Some twenty years ago, I went to monthly meetings of all the organizations involved in building the enroute air traffic control display system as the representative of my company. There were ten or twelve of us who met, and we soon discovered that none of us had graduate-level science training---indeed, I think one fellow had a BA in mathematics (not a BS). Evening discussions tended to Shakespeare, Bach (one fellow played a cello, got together with friends for quartet sessions), history, philosophy, etc. These were the people who made the decisions about a system that is still in place and operating. The last twenty years have seen technological developments such that we can put all the computing horsepower most people can use on a desk in a box that draws about 250 watts. Some questions that people are going to have to answer in the next twenty years, as I see it are: 1. How do we make the resources of the machine accessible to people who are genuinely frightened of them. 2. How are we going to convince managements to use these resources in the workplace to improve the work environment? I have very strong feelings about "keystroke counter" and other such monitoring programs being used to create sweatshop environments. 3. How do we protect freedom of individuality in the face of monumental and comprehensive data collection (credit bureau activities are one example, the establishment of a "national identity" data base using social security numbers is another). I submit that proficiency in the C language or any other is not going to help young people entering the field to identify and address such questions. Going back to the Medieval Trivium and Quadrivium isn't the answer either, but it would seem to me that there are some things worth considering there, and my impression is that the existence of an Aristotle is a rumor to the average MSCS. Hank van Cleef vancleef@iastate.edu Iowa State University, Ames. Ia. tmn!vancleef The Union Institute, Cincinnati, Oh. -- Hank van Cleef vancleef@iastate.edu Iowa State University, Ames. Ia. tmn!vancleef The Union Institute, Cincinnati, Oh.