Posted by chujoe on June 28, 2010, at 8:24:00
In reply to Re: Rice + Vegetables, posted by Dr. Bob on June 28, 2010, at 4:31:03
When I wrote that "the practice of redirecting conversations tends to both demote them and cut them short," I was simply making an empirical observation.
>>Like the organization of stores in Vietnam reflects a parascientific way of conceptualizing nutrition?<<
You misunderstand the analogy. Stores _anywhere_ reflect a paragrocitific view of nutrition. Which is just to say that there is no _natural_ way to organize the shelves in a grocery store & that actual organizations of actual shelves happen in particular cultural contexts. My point is that there is no _natural_, i.e., transparent or objective, way to organize the discussion boards at Psychobabble. This does not mean, of course, that the current organization is wrong, only that it is the result of cultural, not scientific, forces and categories. (Maybe this is obvious and goes without saying.) Or, looking at the issue from a slightly different angle, maybe the organization of the site is "scientific," in that it reflects current scientific consensus about mental illness, but that those categories are themselves culturally determined. (Despite the fact that "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" was published more than half a century ago, I have observed that this suggestion about the cultural influence on science still makes scientists defensive.) My basic point all along, in any case, has been that the structure of the site is open to cultural forces and therefore to negotiation and, inevitably, to change. So I think we ought not to "naturalize" the current configuration, as if it reflected some sort of objective truth about the subjects under discussion.
poster:chujoe
thread:952336
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20100321/msgs/952491.html