[Museum] The Culture of Mediocrity

[José d'Encarnação <jde@fl.uc.pt>]

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De: F. Pacheco Torgal [mailto:torgal@civil.uminho.pt]
Enviada em: segunda-feira, 31 de Outubro de 2016 06:14

 

Abstract: This article examines the conditions under which mediocrity is selected and maintained by groups over time. Mediocrity is maintained by a key social process: the marginalization of the adept, which is a response to the group problem of what to do with the highly able. The problem arises when a majority of a group is comprised of average members who must decide what to do with high performers in the group. To solve this problem, reward systems are subverted to benefit the less able and the adept are cast as deviant. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-013-9231-0 

 

Acima resumo de um interesssante artigo do mesmo autor mencionado no email abaixo. O mesmo ajuda a compreender a afirmação de Edward Shils (1910-1995), Prof. em Cambridge e em Chicago: "Every appointment of a mediocre candidate makes it more difficult to appoint a distinguished candidate later". E também porque motivo a avaliação de desempenho levada a cabo nalgumas unidades orgânicas do ensino superior em Portugal é apenas uma farsa que não só desincentiva e desrespeita mas também prejudica nitidamente aqueles que mais contribuem para o prestígio dessas mesmas unidades.

 

Saudações académicas

F.Pacheco Torgal

 

 

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De: F. Pacheco Torgal
Assunto: Honor in the Academic Profession: How Professors Want to be Remembered 

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/612675/summary 

 

60 physicists of all ages working at a range of U.S. universities were interviewed in person by the author about multiple aspects of their careers, including the scientists’ aspirations, assessments of their achievements and failures, and conceptions of future and “immortalized” selves. Interviews from which the present work was drawn averaged 90 minutes in length...For the present work, attention is focused on a specific question asked of the respondents: “How would you like to be remembered by your colleagues?”

 

desires to be remembered by colleagues on principally professional terms increase as institutional prestige increases. By contrast, desires to be remembered on principally personal terms increase as institutional prestige declines...As age increases, desire to be remembered on principally professional terms declines; and the desire to be remembered on principally personal terms intensifies. What is more, as age increases, the percentage of scientists “not caring” about how colleagues remember them increases. The percentage of scientists not caring about how their colleagues remember them, combined with the percentage of those desiring remembrance in personal ways, is particularly striking in the eldest cohort, where the attenuation of professional emphases is most pronounced

 

Great scientific achievement—even in an era of modern science—has been connoted with “unlocking the mind of God” (Paul, 1980).  

 

In an absence of great achievement, morality preserves a route to salvation, identifying how people can orient themselves to the “good” (Stets, 2010). In addition, it always marks sacrifice, as though to say: “Look at what I gave up, so that others could prosper.” By invoking claims to a moral status, a scientist—relegated to a location peripheral to the major activity at the center of science—provides an excuse as well as an explanation for not having fully realized one’s own ego. Remembered as “being good” by others in the profession thus becomes compensation for comparative failure...Morality, because it is the embodiment of virtue, is a protected status. Unlike the stock and trade of science, it cannot be criticized, condemned, or cast off. It is thus the perfect way to prevent admonition from colleagues, near and far, who are more successful. By contrast, because it consists in the discovery of properties about the universe, the charisma of science confers honor through great scholarly achievement.

 

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