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I argued that a lot of the heat in the Holy War flames on Techwrl is due to
technological changes leading to changes in the fundamental paradigms we
follow in our profession. Bruce Byfield responded:
> Kuhn's ideas and the concept of paradigms can be applied as a loose
> metaphor to tech-writing, but I'm sceptical about taking them literally.
> If you compare the switch from Newtonian to relativistic physics to any
> of the things quoted above, you'll see what I mean. These oppositions
> don't seem to be competing paradigms - fundamentally different ways of
> looking at the tasks - so much as minor differences in emphasis. Both
> paper and structured documents, for example,contain the same elements.
> The difference is simply what is stressed in the writing techniques; if
> nothing else, paragraph styles can bear a certain resembance to elements
> in a markup language. Moreover, once the finished result is published,
> often few people can tell which document was produced by which method.
>
> My own belief is that people argue about these things so heatedly
> because they are minor, not because they represent radically different
> viewpoints. I've long observed that, the less important a topic is, the
> more intense disagreements about it are likely to be (if you've ever
> been in the middle of departmental politics at a university, you'll
> understand what I mean).
I accept that many of the flames (e.g., about serifed vs sans-serifed fonts)
are due to simple bitchiness, headaches and the desire to roast marshmallows
in the fire.
On the other hand, I believe that some of the more extreme wars - especially
over tools and content management issues boil down to the kinds of
fundamental differences I tried summarise briefly in my previous post.
As I have found several in my own life, paradigmatic differences are so
fundamental that they are literally career threatening if not understood and
dealt with. I have also found as recently as 3 months ago when I was trying
to summarise the meaning of knowledge in knowledge management, even though I
consider myself to be a student of paradigms, that the only obvious symptoms
of their presence is a failure to communicate when you and the other guys
both think you are making perfect sense.
I won't try to rehash the argument here and its associations with
technological change, as I have made several attempts on the web to deal
with the issue http://www.google.com/search?q=%22bill+hall%22+paradigm+kuhn&num=50&hl=en&sa
fe=off&filter=0 (beware, you'll need to patch the link if your e-mail system
breaks it at the end of a line), which even I would admit don't do the
subject justice.
I eventually concluded that the only ways to make sense were a book-length
treatment or a formal academic paper. Both approaches are now nearly
complete, and as I mentioned previously, I am happy to post either or both
to anyone who will promise to give me some feedback on whether they
communicate any better than the contributions to Web forums did.
Regards,
Bill Hall
------------------------------------------
Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not wisdom
Wisdom is not truth
Truth is not beauty
Beauty is not love
Love is not music
Music is THE BEST
-----------------------------
(Zappa - Packard Goose)
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