This book looks into the forces at work that have undermined critical thinking and sound intellectual inquiry in the world of public affairs in Canada, have fostered reductive perspectives and destructive blockages to collaborative governance to emerge, and have succeeded in blinding observers to the real sources of the present Canadian malaise, blocking the road to imaginative repairs.
Part I deals frontally with the twilight of critical thinking that has led to a dramatic weakening of the critical examination of issues, and the process of inquiry that has been significantly weakened by ever narrower perspectives.
Part II focuses on two mental prisons: the obsessive and reductive insistence on a quantophrenic twist (only that which can be quantified counts); and the failure by crucial partners to live up to the requirements of their burden of office in circumstances when disloyalty considerably enfeebles the possibility of effective collaborative governance and the chance for organizations to succeed.
Part III suggests that it is not impossible to get rid of the blinders preventing the adoption of more synoptic approaches, and the exploration of more imaginative designs to repair our organizations and institutions. Ways to deal with the challenges facing the Canadian socio-economy are hinted at, and the work of a successful social architect showcased.
The conclusion makes the case for an approach that is both synoptic and guided by reasonableness – against the dogmas of disciplines and skimpy rationality.
Authors
- Pages
- 203
- Published in
- Ottawa, CA
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents 7
- IntrodUctIon 11
- On Social Learning Disabilities 11
- Preamble 11
- A new twist to the entitlement mentality 14
- Unfinished business an attack on the pneumopathological 17
- The general line of argument 19
- Acknowledgements 20
- References 21
- On Critical Thinking 29
- Preamble 29
- Defining critical thinking 30
- Critical description for critical thinking 33
- Exorcizing mental prisons to avoid crippling epistemologies 35
- Preventing asocial and unethical conduct and outcomes 40
- Triangulation I to undo harms 41
- Triangulation II to design new alternatives 44
- Conclusion 47
- References 49
- On Inquiring 53
- Introduction 53
- Inquiring into the practice of administration 56
- Delta knowledge 57
- Professional practice transduction and connoisseurship 60
- The social practitioner as inquirer and explorer 63
- Conflicting frames and circumscribed settings 66
- Delta knowledge and exploration capabilities 67
- Conclusion 69
- References 70
- On Quantophrenia 79
- Introduction 79
- Crippling epistemologies and policy pseudo-sciences 80
- Words of caution about the quantophrenic cosmology 83
- The danger of an overly sanitized stylization of the public policy process 85
- The seduction of quantophrenia 86
- The quagmire of performance evaluation 87
- The crippling potentialities of quantophrenia 88
- Uniformization in the face of pluralism and change 89
- Steering effects 89
- Management Accountability Framework MAF as an innocuous illustration 90
- The unintended costs of quantophrenia 91
- The ergonomics of the public policy process focus on affordances 92
- Conclusion 95
- References 96
- On Disloyalty 101
- Loyalty and disloyalty as different nebulas 101
- Some basic points 101
- Shades of disloyalty 106
- Setting and source of our hypothesis 108
- Is disloyalty increasing 111
- Disloyalty as akin to the underground economy phenomenon 114
- Analytical framework 115
- Disloyalty is growing some conjectures 118
- Some things to keep in mind 118
- Mechanisms at work 120
- In praise of anecdotal evidence 123
- Four clarifying vignettes 126
- The virtue of dissent 127
- Whistle-blowing 130
- Affectio societatis 131
- The myth of the state clergy 132
- Conclusion 135
- References 136
- On The Canadian Malaise 143
- Introduction 143
- A sample of sources of concern 145
- Why such cognitive-dissonance-cum-inertia 148
- Culture of entitlement 148
- The demise of critical thinking 150
- Cult of atonement 151
- A perfect quiet cultural capitulation 153
- What to do 158
- Conclusion 161
- References 164
- On Tom Courchene as Savanturier 167
- Introduction 167
- Canadian economics and a prudent heretic 167
- Une connaissance charnelle of the Canadian socio-economy 169
- Quebec and Ontario 170
- Community of the Canadas First Nations province and a state of mind 172
- Auspices futuribles and the viewpoint from a crane 175
- The new frontier for a market populist 177
- Conclusion 179
- References 179
- On Synthesis and Reasonableness 183
- Preamble 183
- Blending of perspectives in a chaotic age 186
- Synthesis as conduit and reasonableness as guidepost 188
- Four challenges 192
- Coda 195
- References 198
- Sources 201
- Other titles published by 202