Developing an Undisciplined Mind

Alroy Fonseca
(Cult)ure Magazine, September 2007

How could corporations and governments run if the professionals entrusted to their high-level operations constantly challenged the inherently ideological nature of their work? For example, what if a physicist working for General Dynamics factored in concerns about the illegal use of the company's weapons by governments into the product development process? Or what if a Pentagon analyst argued that American military operations constituted terrorism under international law and must therefore be stopped immediately? And what if a pharmacologist working for Pfizer argued against the patenting of lifesaving drugs, much-needed in the developing world? Unfortunately, professionals working for such institutions never raise these kinds of questions, and instead carry out their work with full acceptance of assigned ideologies. To do otherwise would be to undermine the employer's interests and to open themselves up to reprisals from their superiors.

One could witness a much-publicized example of this in the case of Dr. Nancy Olivieri, the University of Toronto researcher and hospital clinician who in 1996 alerted her patients to the unexpected risks of clinical drug trials sponsored by the drug-firm Apotex Inc. For doing so, Dr. Olivieri lost both her funding and her position, and was subjected to further harassment by the company, the university, and the hospital where the trials were carried out, all of which seemed more concerned with maintaining corporate funding for research than the health of patients. Importantly, this episode of a professional challenging her employer – the exception that proves the rule – set a precedent, sending a clear signal to other researchers that they should not put the interests of their patients first. But while Dr. Olivieri’s story shows how employers can pressure the professionals they hire into pursuing profit before people, is it correct to say that this is the primary reason why professionals are unwilling to question and challenge the ideology that informs their work? Or, is there something else that makes professionals behave this way?

In his book, Disciplined Minds, Jeff Schmidt argues that graduate and professional schools are filtering and brainwashing institutions that mould accepting students into obedient professionals – disciplined minds, in other words – while ensuring that those not willing to conform do not receive the appropriate accreditation to find gainful employment as creative professionals. Most of us who have gone through grad school are familiar with the routine, of course: to do well, we try to figure out the ideological leanings of our professors and supervisors and then try not to deviate too much from this. We know that since they assign our grades and control our research funds, our careers depend on them liking us and finding us useful. We also figure out whom we need to 'suck up to' in order to ensure we get good reference letters and hear about lucrative new job opportunities by becoming tapped into employment networks. The end result of all this is that we graduate without a willingness to think independently. Certainly, we are able, and willing, to think critically – very much so – but only within the ideological bounds set by those above us. We think about and resolve narrow 'technical' problems, but do not bother examining the wider impact of our work on society, broadly defined. In other words, we become disciplined minds – ideal candidates to fill any number of professional positions within corporations, academia, and governments, which have their own particular ideologies propagated from above, all fitting into the broader status quo.

It is perhaps within this context that one can understand how professionals are able to carry out orders having some of the most awful consequences without apparent difficulty. For example, the Pentagon planners who devised the murderous bombing campaigns in the Vietnam War that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of peasants in South Vietnam were simply unconcerned with the overall effect of their work. Instead, their primary concern was to eliminate the indigenous resistance. The broader effect of the campaign – the cataclysm perpetrated against the people and the land – was irrelevant to the professional planners.

But we need not concern ourselves only with such far-off examples. As the questions at the onset indicate, professionals' lack of willingness to think and act independently has an impact on many aspects of society. Thus, a program of resistance is required.

According to Schmidt, to develop an undisciplined mind, you must:

•    View yourself as a radical before a professional, rather than a professional who happens to be radical. This distinction of self-identification is key, as it helps ensure that you will view yourself as separate from the organization you work for. Instead of using 'we' to describe what your employer is doing, you use 'it' or 'they'.

•    Be extremely critical of the institution that employs you. This means that you will reject the public image put forward by the institution and search for the hidden 'truths' that will reveal the role played by the institution in perpetuating systems of power and hierarchy.

•    Use your position within the institution to make a difference, both on and off the job.

It is natural to ask what exactly you can do to 'make a difference.' Fortunately, Schmidt provides a lengthy list of suggestions that an undisciplined mind can pursue within the workplace. These practical actions vary in risk – in part because of their intrinsic nature, and in part because of the varying levels of repression in different workplaces – and are general enough to be tailored to any number of professional settings. While they are too numerous to list here, the basic goal behind all of them is to fight against the ideological rigidity of the professional workplace by democratizing it and making the institution you work for more conducive to the public interest. As examples, Schmidt suggests that you could help:

•    Organize or join a union.

•    Debunk the myth of objectivity and political neutrality of the profession.

•    Distribute literature to coworkers that challenges their way of thinking.

Schmidt concludes that “resisting the system carries some risk, but not resisting is a far deadlier course for your individual identity.”

Returning to the case of Dr. Olivieri, after a long public battle against the university and hospital, she was eventually reinstated to her position and a report by the Canadian Association of University Teachers exonerated her of any wrongdoing while strongly criticizing her employer.