The essay "The New Agora" is a work examplary of those that would cause your typical college COMP 101 instructor to reach for her nitro pills. "Problématique" describes this paper well. Perhaps this is why the authors chose the term for one of the many easter eggs strewn about this text.
The work is rife with mechanical and gramatical errors that make it ridiculously hard to understand: one section does not flow into the next, new concepts or terms are simply 'dropped' into the discussion without prior defintion or some kind of introduction, topics bounce around non sequitur. I wont beleaguer the point.
Then the relevance of some supporting arguments are suspect or just wrong. For example, the author points to "species based constraints" as inhibitors to dialogue. To support the point, a J. Madison entry in "The Federalist" is cited. However that passage says -nothing- about any kind of "species" dependency. Rather, the piece addresses the relationship between size of a population vs. the political homogeneity of that population. By inference the reader might think that there is some connection between communication attributes and the mechanics of achieving that homogenity --but its a stretch. The author does nothing to help someone draw that connection, if in fact, that is what is intended.
Now, does that mean that there isnt some species dependecy? No, not at all. In fact the next section of text offers three direct examples of said "species" specific constraints. The entire piece on Madison is just flotsam one has to muddle through to get on the path to understanding. Then we're assulted with (high school physics teachers, plug your ears)
"The discovery in the beginning of the twentieth century of the phenomenon called“Doppler effect,” i.e., the curvature of light traveling through a strong gravitationalfield, was predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity."(TOR)
What?!
How can this author expect credibility when he attempts to draw an analogy to a reference that is patently wrong? First, the Doppler effect was described in the late 19th century about 30 yrs before Einstein's TOR. Naturally then, the TOR could NOT have predicted such effect. Secondly, the Doppler effect has nothing to do with the bending of light in any form. It is, however, possible to measure the relative speed, distance and vector of an object that emits light because of the doppler effect. (see here: http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/152.mf1i.spring02/DopplerEffect.htm) Once again, in spite of the blunder, some sense manages to dribble out at the end: In order for Einstein to "sell" the TOR, he had to describe it in terms of Reinmanian geometry vs. Euclidian geometry. This was not only a convenience, but also a necessity as Reinmann geometry also offrered the right language with wich to codify and manipulate his concepts.
But is the entire piece without merit? Obviously not or we wouldnt have been asked to examine it. So, I assume, this is a mining exercise whereby you must turn tons of rock to retrieve ounces of gold. Here are the nuggets I found:
1. To correctly capture collective thought, it is necessary to apply a communication and collaboration strategy which harvests thoughts and ideas, but decoupled from the passions of their originators such that they may be assessed on their own merit.
2. Such a strategy may be achieved via the application of "6 laws of dialog" of which the most significant is #2 "parsimony" (gee..why didnt they apply that on this paper?)
3. Synthesizing the collective mind requires at least 2 passes: the first to elicit the raw materials (thoughts and ideas), and the second actually develops these ideas in homogenized thoughts via an Interpretive Structural Modeling technique.
I'll end this review on what may seem a wierd note: I loved it! Its very much like when one goes to the pound to get a puppy and winds up picking the ugliest one...because he wagged his tail for you. This ugly paper wagged its tail for me. As a student preparing a dissertation on the contribution of knowledge management techniques to the creation and sustainment of enterprise architecture, I became immediately interested in the "group communication" message this train wreck contains. There can be no "management" of knowledge without accurate communication between individuals or groups. Likewise, communication is at the heart of enterprise planning.
This paper, re-written, or at least sent to a professional editor is actually quite golden with respect to content. But as it is, it takes a no life like me to sit there and plow throw the sludge, sifting and sorting, to find that value.
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