orgtheory.net

Teppo

Last week I raised the issue of using “trump cards” in scholarly dialogue and debate, specifically “language games” as a trump card.

Another trump card that I have seen some scholars (not nobel prize winners themselves) wield is “the nobel prize.”  It is, as if, somehow the granting of the nobel prize makes the associated arguments of that person beyond reproach, somehow transcendent, part of the canon: you’d be an idiot to disagree with spontaneous order, biased decision-making, etc.  Perhaps folks using the nobel prize trump card do not feel that way — particularly since Nobel Laureates of course have disagreed on various issues — but I have seen the nobel prize be used as a similar show-stopper as “language games.”  The problem, of course, similar to language games, is that it makes the arguments themselves fall wayside, not allowing for constructive dialogue about the issues at stake.  So, before you (or I) pull either the “language games” or “nobel prize” trump card out, it might be more worthwhile to try to engage on the issues (or alternatively, just admit that we don’t know what we’re talking about). 

That said, perhaps some things indeed are part of the canon, true, taken for granted, even sacred.  And, perhaps that is where our two trump cards meet: challenging the canon or nobel-prize-related arguments — if the nobel is where the canon gets canonized for some – then may have to emerge exogeneously, from another game.  

 Or, perhaps its back to Max Planck:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.