Bill Schambra takes on metrics.
But to win funding from a knowledge-generating foundation, the nonprofit must shoehorn its real-world work into the abstract, unfamiliar professional jargon to which data accumulators resort when they wish to generalize across (that is, to make disappear) the varieties of particular experiences.
The ability of a nonprofit to attract funding from multiple sources is, of course, an essential ingredient for a successful grant request. So that means it must recast its programs into as many different languages and metric frameworks as the foundations from which it seeks funding.
Bill's native intelligence is an unfair debater's advantage. He does not defeat opponents, but humiliates, not through personal attack, but by demolishing their terms, and conceptual frameworks. In his own way he is a great Socratic professor manque. I laugh in recognition of the validity of his critique, then wonder what that means for my own convictions. Will I have to reconsider? I should hope not!
Don't forget that it was the original sophist (Protagoras--patron saint of metricians) who held that "Man is the measure of all things."
To which Heraclitus lay down on his back, held up his foot, and argued that it was bigger than the sun.
Posted by: Keith Whitaker | January 27, 2012 at 02:52 PM
Heraclitus must have gotten along well with Diogenes. Certain strains of satire actually do go back to the sophists - pseudodoxia. The Praise of Folly by Folly. http://giving.typepad.com/photos/scenes_of_wealth_bondage/lucianus.html. Lucianis was a sophist by trade, I believe, and satire was him just pushing it all a little too far, until it became intentionally comical. Bill stops short of that, perhaps to his credit.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | January 27, 2012 at 03:41 PM
It is great thanks.
Posted by: Jezreel Ricafort | January 28, 2012 at 10:42 PM