BMOC (Big Man On Campus)

[coberst]

BMOC (Big Man On Campus)

 

In our high schools and colleges you will often find that the BMOC is a student engaged in the central attraction of that institution. On the campus where football is king the BMOC is a football player, on the campus where basketball is king the BMOC is a basketball player, on the campus where scholarship is king the BMOC—wait a minute, who ever heard of a campus where scholarship is king. This is, perhaps, a slight exaggeration, I am sure such a campus must exist, somewhere.

 

In the 1920s the campuses where “the most far-reaching revolution of the twentieth century was born in an idyll: a picturesque park in Copenhagen, a quiet side street in Berne, the shore of the island of Heligoland, the meadows and tree-shaded river at Cambridge, the…” In these European campuses the young geniuses of physics, the BMOCs of the century, gave birth to “the tremendous transformation of the scientific view of Nature could only be compared with the change of outlook brought about by Copernicus.” The age of the atom was midwifed by this small group of geniuses.

 

If a high school or college were to shift emphasis from football to basketball, over night the BMOC would change. I think that we Americans, and probably others, need to shift emphasis from what Kuhn identified as Normal Science to those domains of knowledge that are commonly called the Social Sciences. Physicists have been our BMOC but I claim that we need to develop a climate that fosters public concern upon what is known as communicative action rationality.

 

Communicative action rationality is about the form of rationality needed to help agents to join together to develop consensus about social normative goals.

 

I am informed that many social scientists have accepted the notion that ‘value judgments’ or ‘moral questions’ are rationally undecidable. As such, most social theorists “simply assume that any agent, who acts on the basis of a moral principle, or a social norm, is not rationally justified in doing so. This is what underlies the widespread tendency among social theorists to assume that instrumental action is the only form of rational action, and that norm-governed action must have some kind of nonrational source, such as conditioning, socialization, or habit.”

 

I am not schooled in the social sciences but I have spent some time trying to learn these ideas about which the social sciences deal. I know enough about these matters to conclude that our society needs to put much greater emphasis in these domains of knowledge. Our focus seems to be entirely on the natural sciences and that emphasis is reveled in the success of these sciences. However I think we overemphasize the natural sciences at the expense of the social sciences.

 

Society needs to reevaluate our value systems in order to create a consensus about how to reevaluate our value systems, i.e. we need to make social scientists our new BMOCs.

[Buffy]

I'd argue that except for smaller schools where sports are everything, the BMOC is a dead concept. I went to some of the biggest universities in the world, and even the ones where the football team was a national contender, the QB or RB was usually pretty invisible to all of us. He really didn't rate as anything other than just another cute guy at the frat party.

 

I'd argue that what you're really after here--and I think I agree with most of your main points in your post--is the development and direction of "popular culture", although I define this term a lot more broadly than most people to include "popular traditions" (e.g. modern popularity of religion) as well as and political trends in addition to MTV. Individuals really don't have much influence anymore, except as temporary and fleeting icons of pop culture memes that are (slightly) longer lasting.

 

It would be really nice if admiration of intellectual values or logic became more popular in our culture, but there is such a tendency for many of those that do to use it as a club against their lessers, that it often does not gain traction. I have noticed though, that more affluent subgroups of society breed this worship of intellectual ability, and that more than anything else is what in my view keeps the underclasses from progressing (both because they do not promote it and they are dissed for not having it--a classic Catch-22).

 

Great post!

 

Don't be smart, just think smart,

Buffy

[coberst]

 

It would be really nice if admiration of intellectual values or logic became more popular in our culture, but there is such a tendency for many of those that do to use it as a club against their lessers, that it often does not gain traction. I have noticed though, that more affluent subgroups of society breed this worship of intellectual ability, and that more than anything else is what in my view keeps the underclasses from progressing (both because they do not promote it and they are dissed for not having it--a classic Catch-22).

 

Great post!

 

Don't be smart, just think smart,

Buffy

 

I have not observed the more intellectually inclined using their achievements as a club against others.

 

I have observed that there is a strong anti-intellectual element in our culture and this element discourages those who might otherwise become more intellectually accomplished.

 

I think that those of us who comprehend the importance of intellectal matters need to try to encourage greater intellectual interests and also to step on anti-intellectualism everytime we see it.

[Drip Curl Magic]

I have not observed the more intellectually inclined using their achievements as a club against others.

 

I have observed that there is a strong anti-intellectual element in our culture and this element discourages those who might otherwise become more intellectually accomplished.

 

I think that those of us who comprehend the importance of intellectal matters need to try to encourage greater intellectual interests and also to step on anti-intellectualism everytime we see it.

 

 

It also depends on what culture you're talking about. Even within the US, there are different values in different parts of the country.

 

I grew up in the heart of the Silicon valley in California. A little over a year ago, I moved out towards the midwest. I immediately saw a change.

 

All the people my age seemed to have nothing better to do.... than to get drunk and fight each other. Football games were very popular amongst the teenagers as well.

 

But in the silicon valley, it is not like that at all.

 

Silicon valley kids seem to value intellect a lot more profusely than kids growing up in the midwest.

[Kriminal99]

I am informed that many social scientists have accepted the notion that ‘value judgments’ or ‘moral questions’ are rationally undecidable. As such, most social theorists “simply assume that any agent, who acts on the basis of a moral principle, or a social norm, is not rationally justified in doing so. This is what underlies the widespread tendency among social theorists to assume that instrumental action is the only form of rational action, and that norm-governed action must have some kind of nonrational source, such as conditioning, socialization, or habit.”

 

Oh wow. Thats just wrong. This is the current state of sociology? I would like to see some of these arguments or meet someone who is a proponent of them.

[coberst]

Oh wow. Thats just wrong. This is the current state of sociology? I would like to see some of these arguments or meet someone who is a proponent of them.

 

Google Joseph Heath, or Habermas, or Communicative Action, or get ther book "Communicative Action and Rational Choice"