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Overview
This book looks into the forces at work that have undermined critical thinking and sound intellectual inquiry in the world of public affairs in Canada, have fostered reductive perspectives and destructive blockages to collaborative governance to emerge, and have succeeded in blinding observers to the real sources of the present Canadian malaise, blocking the road to imaginative repairs.
Part I deals frontally with the twilight of critical thinking that has led to a dramatic weakening of the critical examination of issues, and the process of inquiry that has been significantly weakened by ever narrower perspectives.
Part II focuses on two mental prisons: the obsessive and reductive insistence on a quantophrenic twist (only that which can be quantified counts); and the failure by crucial partners to live up to the requirements of their burden of office in circumstances when disloyalty considerably enfeebles the possibility of effective collaborative governance and the chance for organizations to succeed.
Part III suggests that it is not impossible to get rid of the blinders preventing the adoption of more synoptic approaches, and the exploration of more imaginative designs to repair our organizations and institutions. Ways to deal with the challenges facing the Canadian socio-economy are hinted at, and the work of a successful social architect showcased.
The conclusion makes the case for an approach that is both synoptic and guided by reasonableness – against the dogmas of disciplines and skimpy rationality.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780776638904 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa Press |
| Publication date: | 08/10/2022 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 203 |
| File size: | 209 KB |
| Language: | French |
About the Author
Gilles Paquet (1936–2019), O.C., MRSC, was Professor Emeritus at the Telfer School of Management and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Governance of the University of Ottawa. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of Arts of London, and served as President of the Royal Society of Canada (2003–2005). He studied at Laval, Queen's (Canada) and at the University of California (Los Angeles) where he was Postdoctoral Fellow in Economics. He taught at Carleton University for almost 20 years before joining the University of Ottawa in 1981. He received honorary doctorates from Queen's, Laval, and Thompson Rivers University, received the Public Service Citation Award of APEX, and was made Honorary Member of l'Association des économistes québécois. He was made Member of the Order of Canada in 1992.
Table of Contents
Introduction – On Social Learning Disabilities
Preamble
A new twist to the entitlement mentality
Unfinished business: an attack on the pneumopathological
The general line of argument
Acknowledgements
Part I – On Liberating Learning
Chapter 1 – On Critical Thinking
Preamble
Defining critical thinking
Critical description for critical thinking
Exorcizing mental prisons to avoid crippling epistemologies
Preventing asocial and unethical conduct and outcomes
Triangulation I: to undo harms
Triangulation II: to design new alternatives
Conclusion
Chapter 2 – On Inquiring
Introduction
Inquiring into the practice of administration
Delta knowledge
Professional practice, transduction and connoisseurship
The social practitioner as inquirer and explorer
Conflicting frames and circumscribed settings
Delta knowledge and exploration capabilities
Conclusion
Part II – On Exorcizing Pathologies
Chapter 3 – On Quantophrenia
Introduction
Crippling epistemologies and policy pseudo-sciences
Words of caution about the quantophrenic cosmology
The danger of an overly sanitized stylization of public policy process
The seduction of quantophrenia
The quagmire of performance evaluation
The crippling potentialities of quantophrenia
Uniformization in the face of pluralism and change
Steering effects
Management Accountability Framework (MAF) as an innocuous illustration
The unintended costs of quantophrenia
The ergonomics of the public policy process: focus on affordances
Conclusion
Chapter 4 – On Disloyalty
Introduction
Loyalty and disloyalty as different nebulas
Some basic points
Shades of disloyalty
Setting and source of our hypothesis
Is disloyalty increasing?
Disloyalty as akin to the underground economy phenomenon
Analytical framework
Disloyalty is growing: some conjectures
Some things to keep in mind
Mechanisms at work
In praise of anecdotal evidence
Four clarifying vignettes
The virtue of dissent
Whistle-blowing
Affectiosocietatis
The myth of the state clergy
Conclusion
Part III – On The Canadian Scene
Chapter 5 – On The Canadian Malaise
Introduction
A sample of sources of concern
Why such cognitive-dissonance-cum-inertia?
Culture of entitlement
The demise of critical thinking
Cult of atonement
Political correctness
Failure to confront
Unreasonable accommodation
A perfect quiet cultural capitulation
What to do?
Conclusion
Chapter 6 – On Tom Courchene as Savanturier
Introduction
Canadian economics and a prudent heretic
Une connaissancecharnelle of the Canadian socio-economy
Quebec and Ontario
Community of the ‘Canadas,’ First Nations’ province, and a state of mind
Auspices, futuribles and the viewpoint from a crane
The new frontier for a market populist
Conclusion
Conclusion – On Synthesis and Reasonableness
Preamble
Blending of perspectives in chaotic age
Synthesis as conduit, and reasonableness as guidepost
Four challenges
Coda
Sources