{"id":18380,"date":"2017-04-21T10:54:45","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T14:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=18380"},"modified":"2017-04-21T10:54:45","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T14:54:45","slug":"loyalty-in-intellectual-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=18380","title":{"rendered":"loyalty in intellectual work"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Los Angeles) Academics and scholars most commonly\u00a0relate to institutions, movements, or\u00a0fields of practice by assessing<\/em> them. They identify the underlying theory or rationale of a given practical effort\u00a0and assess its plausibility and its consistency with principles of justice. They also observe the actual performance of the practice to date\u00a0and render judgments about success or failure.<\/p>\n

Since my undergraduate days, I’ve instinctively\u00a0adopted a different stance toward fields of practice. I’ve seen them basically as groups of people. I’ve never taken their theories completely seriously, because I expect them\u00a0to evolve. And I’ve never seen the empirical data about success or failure so far as dispositive, because I assume that efforts will<\/em> fail until they are refined and improved. You can start from many premises and get good results if you are open to reflection and change. The theory\u00a0is less important than it seems.<\/p>\n

Fields of practice are\u00a0working communities\u00a0of people who are either worth joining or not. What inclines me to\u00a0want to join a group is a sense of its\u00a0members’\u00a0motivations (in a very general sense) and their capacity or potential. Once I feel that I’m part of the group, I adopt a stance of loyalty. That doesn’t prevent me from\u00a0making critical comments, either privately or publicly, if that\u00a0seems helpful to the cause, but it does pose a question about\u00a0any possible communication: is it\u00a0helpful?<\/p>\n

In\u00a0this general mode, I’ve found myself part of the following fields or movements since my undergraduate days in the late 1980s:<\/p>\n