Plug and Chug, Cram and Flush

Abstract

Productivity has become a norm in modern society. It is used to judge the worth of individuals, programs, institutions, and whole societies. To challenge this norm is a modern heresy. This paper makes such a heretical challenge. The problem is that linear presumptions have become so embedded in our language and practices that we take them for granted. Linearity presumes that wholes can be broken down into parts. The Good, the worth of a whole, is presumed to be the sum of its goods, the worth of its parts. If the world were linear, the humor of a joke, the whole, could be determined by adding up the humor content of its parts, the words. Clearly, this is absurd. This paper reasons that this linear absurdity applies to much of what we do in the name of productivity. A nonmathematical way of describing nonlinear behaviors in human affairs is presented. Engineering education is examined as an illustration of general phenomena in human affairs that are hidden by linear presumptions. If such phenomena are common in human affairs, then our linear habits of thought and practice are seriously deficient, productivity as a norm is too often misguided, and common notions of responsibility are insufficient to meet our ethical ideals.