Academic-Inquiry-Personal

Definition: Academic-Inquiry-Personal - A triad of approaches to the study of Reality and Persons particularly. Commentary Here is an example of the above triad using a study of the Proposition, "XYZ Neighborhood is Socially Fragmented." 1. Academic - At the highest, abstract level, Social Fragmentation may be studied by Academics. They, for example, might pour over the average, the mean, the probability and so on of various statistics about crime, out-of-wedlock births, unemployment and underemployment, as well as many other items of medical, public health, economic and sociological data about the given Neighborhood, all of which is disembodied from any one Person. An Academic approach to Knowledge may be useful as a guide to public policy and protocols for Practitioners. However, driving though the given Neighborhood, how would an Academic Know that his or her data applied to a particular Person he or she saw walking down the street? Some kind of encounter with the pedestrian other than Academic may be helpful. 2. Inquiry - At the mid-level, Social Fragmentation may be identified by an Academic, Practitioner or by a lay graduate of the Cohesion Program simply by making Inquiries. One could ask each Person in the given Neighborhood to name the people who reside around them. "You say your next door neighbor's first name is Joe. Okay, do you know Joe's last name? Is Joe married? What's his wife's name? How many kids does Joe have? Where do his kids go to school? Who lives on the other side of Joe's residence?" Without too much resistance to such superficial Inquiries, one may compile data that confirms or denies the Proposition that "XYZ Neighborhood is Socially Fragmented." 3. Personal - A deep, personal level of encounter with people in the given Neighborhood is the most difficult approach for collecting data. Why? Because it requires trust between the Person in question and the Academic, Practitioner or layperson. The direct question is this: "Do you feel lonely?" That's a difficult question to ask or answer even of one's self especially if the answer is, "Yes, I feel lonely." Loneliness is embarrassing. Going around casually asking people in a given Neighborhood if they feel lonely probably would not elicit many Truthful responses until they got to know intimately the Person asking the question. Yet when it comes to Social Fragmentation, loneliness is the crux of the matter. It is at this deep personal level that the suffering of Social Fragmentation lies. It is from the loneliness of the individual Person that all, or most of all the negative effects of Social Fragmentation flow. Last revised: 10-14-13