Mon, 26 Sep 1994 08:43:29 -0700 for <SOCGRAD@UCSD.EDU>
Date:         Mon, 26 Sep 94 11:13:17 EDT
From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Organization: Central Michigan University
Subject:      Premodern, modern and postmodern knowledge processes
To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY <SOCGRAD@UCSD.EDU>
Part II of a mini-lecture on the Drama of Human Understanding brought to
sociology grad students by the Red Feather Institute and supported, in
part by Central Michigan University as network host.

In Part I, I laid out for you, the different missions and methods of
knowing in of three different sensibilities.  I emphasized that, contrary
to their own special self-knowledge, these three are not mutually exclusive
and naturally enemy to the other but rather they complement the drama of
human understanding, each in its own most valuable way.  I gave you some of
the lasting contributions each makes to the human project.

In this part, I would like to focus in on the organization of the knowledge
process a bit more.  In each section, I take premodern, modern and pomo in that
order:
A.  Agents of the Knowledge process:
    1.  Holy man/woman, shaman, guru, priestly intermediary.
    2.  Scientist, theorist, technician, renaissance 'man.'
    3.  Artist, poet, architect, author, 'reader,' viewer, active citizen;
        knowledge is a poetics, a politics, and a dialectic process.
B.  Institutional locus of the knowledge process:
    1.  Church, temple, mosque...holy space generally
    2.  University, institute, scientific profession
    3.  Multi-local; in the arts, sciences, cinema, politics/public sphere.
        No person or insitution is ceded hegemony over the knowledge process.
C.  Repository of accumulated knowledge/wisdom:
    1.  Prayer, bibles, poetry, song, chant and 'myth'
    2.  Lectures, journals, scholarly books, technical manuals
    3.  In novels, paintings, cinema, musical compositions, buildings, books
        magazines and other popular literature.
D.  Hierarchies of knowledge:
    1.  Divine word; priestly commentary take precedence over folk lore,
        common sense, personal opinion
    2.  Theory takes precedence over all other forms of knowledge; formal,
        axiomatic, comprehensive, eternally valid theory is valued greatly.
    3.  Knowledge is de-sanctified and de-legitimated to show its partisan
        parochial and political character.  Folk knowledge/wisdom on equal
        standing with both theory and theogony
E.  Hierarchies of knowledge work:
    1.  Liturgy...doing 'good' i.e., godly work in the reproduction of
        sacred relationships, statuses, moral judgments.
    2.  Research: empirical and systematic study of all that is
    3.  Praxis; emancipatory research; deconstruction of 'truth' and 'fact'
F.  Social hierarchy: persons within the 'Universal We.'
    1.  Those who are faithful to the word of their god.  Others are nonperson
    2.  High tech societies with 'scientific' principles of management/control
    3.  No hierarchy; shifting combinations of elitecontrol the knowledge
        process but are not accorded special monopoly on honor/esteem.
G.  Sources of distortion of knowledge process:
    1.  Weakness in faith, seduction by foreign gods/devils, 'pagan' beliefs
        modern science; postmodern writings
    2.  Poor theory, personal bias, poor instrumentation, chance, bad scaling
        inferior research design...and more.
    3.  the stratification of power; elitist control over the knowledge process
        unequal access to the means of producing meaning.
Part III to follow:  Alienation, sources and solutions in each epoch/modality