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• Challenges to modernism
• Postmodern analytical approaches
• genealogy and examples
• de-construction and examples
• Articles of faith
BEAUTIFUL, GREGARIOUS SWF, professor, 30, thin,
living hermetically in NYC because she despises the
Kierkegaardian “crowd”. Seeks classy, marriageable,
Thoreau-like SWM, lusting for mind/body adventures,
financially secure. Postmodernists, literary critics, political
activists need not respond. Send letter/photo. NYR Box 7801.
New York Review of Books August 13, 1998: 63
“Thoreau-like”
postmodernism
art
architecture
Literature &
literary criticism
advertising linguistics Cinema & photography
“The postmodern--a loose umbrella term under whose
broad cover can be encompassed at one and the same time
a condition, a set of practices, a cultural discourse, an
attitude and a mode of analysis” [Lovlie 1992:120]
“..it is impossible to fully define the postmodern since the very
attempt to do so confers upon it a status and identity which it
must necessarily oppose…any attempt at definition must lead to
a paradox since it is to totalize, to provide a single unified
explanation of that which
sets its face against
totalization.”
[Usher & Edwards 1996:7]
“must reject a description of itself as embodying
a set of timeless ideals contrary to those of
modernism; it must insist on being recognized
as a set of viewpoints of a time, justifiable only
within its own time.”
[Nicholson 1990: 11]
“..incredulity towards
metanarratives”
Jean-Francois Lyotard 1984:
xxiv
“is not a term that designates a systematic theory or
comprehensive philosophy. Neither does it refer to a
‘system’ of ideas or concepts in the conventional sense,
nor is it the name denoting a unified social or cultural
movement. All one can say is that it is complex and
multiform, resisting reductive and simplistic
explanation.” Usher and Edwards 1996: 7
•Initiated with the debate over
qualitative/quantitative research
specifically the work of Lincoln
(1985); Lincoln and Guba in
Naturalistic Inquiry (1985)
•Was pre-staged by the critique
of the critical theorists such as
Bates (1980) and Foster (1986)
and feminist critics such as
Shakeshaft (1989)
Historical analyses
that show scientific
breakthroughs did not
follow the scientific
method or logic
Foundational claims
that rest on non-empiricism
or “faith”
Defined as “a conception of
absolute truth founded on
rationality”
Usher & Edwards (1996: 24)
$
Reality is not the same everywhere to all
peoples at the same time; it is culturally
defined
and contextually bordered
Language is neither neutral nor commensurate,
generalizations beyond context cannot hold; no
context free generalizations
A “field” of memory
Jeopardizes the
legitimacy of
the entire field
and its claims
to produce leaders
who are “scientifically
prepared”
While the “field” claims it has abandoned its founding
in “scientific management” it has never renounced
its claim to be a science, nor has it seriously reflected on
the embodiment of the promise of “scientific management”
which was a “scientific” basis for the “one best way”
which is now called “best practice”
The Cartesian Stance of Psychology’s
Pose as a Science
I think--
therefore
I am
Observed actions- science
language is trans-
parent, culture is
universal, context
is not relevant
The interpretative
Non-science
traditions of a pre-
understood world
• The notion of pre-suppositions
and prejudices which form a “pre-
understood world”
• Without these “pre-understandings”
there is nothing to think with
• “Pre-understandings” pre-constitute the
world for consciousness to know
Psychology Lacks
• Psychology as a science refuses to deal
with its “foregrounding”
• If it did deal with the “foregrounding” it
would forfeit its pose as a science
• Without dealing with this foregrounding,
psychology’s contribution in coming to
grips with leadership is stunted (not
much of the variance is accounted for)
Lifting the Veil on leadership:
Getting into the Foregrounding
From Lacan(The Self)
The subject as ego/sense of wholeness:
a focus of unity
The Imaginary
consciousness
(identifications and images)
The Symbolic
(language and culture) unconscious
followers
Confer leader’s
otherness, the “I”
1. The dominant
interpretation
-re-establishing the
2 trace
An Example of
aloof caring
Halpin (1966) lays out his rationale for what he is going
to assess by arguing that leadership is generic (25). Since
he has assumed it is generic he then uses the LBDQ to
assess school superintendents from his work on B-29
bomber captains. He finds a different profile of
“effectiveness”. He then argues that the differences are due
to setting (110). He has no other choice since he has ruled
out an explanation that LEADERSHIP ISN’T GENERIC.
His premise is TAUTOLOGICAL, true by definition or
by assumption.
Move beyond their original
means and contexts
From bomber
pilots
to school
superintendents
1. Do all “good”
bomber captains
also make good
school leaders?
2. Do school
leaders
make “good”
Exchange roles bomber
captains?
Another example of
“For thirty years, the intellectual influence
of Darwin and evolutionary theory laid the groundwork
for a sophisticated new paradigm of human behavior…
but few thinkers took the step from a physiological to
an evolutionary theory of mind more ardently than
Sigmund Freud, with hits conceptual synthesis of the
biogenetic law.”
Frank Sulloway 1979: 497