188 - The Power to Interpret (The Velvet Glove on the Iron Fist)

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Episode #188 - The Power to Interpret (The Velvet Glove on the Iron Fist)

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⌚ Sat 11 October 2003  ☻Stan Goff, Jeff Schmidt (reading)

Download Hour1 Download Hour2This week we hear an in-depth interview with Stan Goff that amplifies on the issues raised in last week's talk, and we start reading chapter 10 of Disciplined Minds, entitled Examining the Examination, which shows the biased ideological nature of professional entry examinations.

Last week on the program we played a talk by Stan Goff in which he spoke about social struggles as issues of power, and he defined power as both the power to interpret and the power to master. This power to interpret, define what is normal, what is good, what is legitimate - to set the standards against which ideas and actions are referenced is also the terrain of communications media and education.

Disciplined Minds, by Jeff Schmidt, the book that I've been reading weekly instalments from from since last October, also deals with process of setting standards that determine which people will be credentialed as professionals, and thus play leading roles in society. The type of people granted these influential roles, what values they hold and to what ends and for whose benefit their work is performed has an impact on everyone in society.

This week we're going to delve more deeply into these parallels, with an in-depth interview with Stan Goff that amplifies on the issues raised in his talk, and we start reading chapter 10 from Disciplined Minds, entitled Examining the Examination that examines in detail how the tests that gatekeep entry into professions are structured to pass through aspirants whose values and future conduct in the field are unlikely to question the domination of society by corporate hierarchies, and the maintenance of those hierarchies by militarism and imperialism.
Some of this episode's content is repeated in episode episode 634.
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