Alec McFarlane - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Alec McFarlane
Deafness as a Great Equalizer
Independent, 2023
This fourth installment of the analytical series is contemporaneous where I am now writing about ... more This fourth installment of the analytical series is contemporaneous where I am now writing about one of Harvard University president Claudine Gay's papers from 2010. Co-written with Jennifer Hochschild, this paper has sequential relevance to my series that can be found in its very title: Is Racial Linked Fate Unique? Comparing Race, Ethnicity, Class, Gender, and Religion.
The reader that has followed my series and checked my piece on human evolution knows that the title is revealing in its predetermination; the fiat accompli element; the prerequisite of race and color.
Independent, 2023
The contemporary social justice imperatives are not wrong in and of themselves, rather the proble... more The contemporary social justice imperatives are not wrong in and of themselves, rather the problem is about the practical inability to answer causation. Social justice and civil rights movements are not wrong to want to address the effect or the consequences but they largely lack the practical capacity to address causation and this is legendary. There are, for instance, United Nations (UN) studies of multination, multi-year, social justice movements that illustrate that about 90% of them fail. And why? Because they fail to address causation.
Independent, 2023
This essay was motivated by and written in Medium and it is being introduced as the second of the... more This essay was motivated by and written in Medium and it is being introduced as the second of the Analytical Series because it takes directly from AI or Artificial Intelligence and expounds upon the premise that underlies the difference between teaching something as fiat accompli and the act of educating people. In this essay I analyze the premise behind two disparate papers presumably looking to endeavor the same objective-making right a wrong by way of "truisms".
Private, 2022
[This letter was originally addressed to members of the American Library Association (ALA) and is... more [This letter was originally addressed to members of the American Library Association (ALA) and is intended to address current issues of race and racism.]
The endeavor of any club, society, association, academic, religious, institutional, state or federal government pursuit is essentially the same in terms of declaration, they all want to solve problems. As information professionals concerned with the facts and opposed to misinformation, disinformation, and pseudo scientific information, it follows that our larger concern should be with the tangible; we are supposed to be the proprietors of tangible facts. The facts themselves are not absolutes; the facts themselves are not good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral, they just are... What we make of them is the real differentiator.
As an explicit matter of intellectual freedom, we must first define freedom along with belief and responsibility: We are free to believe whatever we want but we are alone responsible for said belief. It follows that we want to understand belief as the thing that gives way to what we think, say, and do. Ultimately, what we do is the issue at hand. And where does the belief that gives way to what we think, say, and do come from? The same place bias comes from: our life circumstances. Bias is human nature.
American Library Association, 2016
This paper was used to facilitate a member-based resolution that was passed, in a modified form, ... more This paper was used to facilitate a member-based resolution that was passed, in a modified form, in 2017 at the American Library Association (ALA) where I am a member. The paper was written in 2016 and uses the ALA Annual Report of 2015 to illustrate how we can leverage Pubic-Private Partnerships (P3) in order to effect change. In this paper I use a particular community --those otherwise deaf-- as an example but the larger rationale behind P3 systems work the same way for any subject and any community.
This paper has been lightly edited for punctuation and grammar and the original can be found via The WayBack Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160302135019/http://connect.ala.org/node/249779
American Library Association Conference Accessibility Task Force, 2016
Books by Alec McFarlane
Disabilities and the Library: Fostering Equity for Patrons and Staff with Differing Abilities
ABC-CLIO, 2023
Chapter Contribution: "Deafness as a Great Equalizer", Chapter 6 pp.129-161 The idea of deafne... more Chapter Contribution: "Deafness as a Great Equalizer", Chapter 6 pp.129-161
The idea of deafness is often confused when people are classified by hearing levels, communication modalities, or culture. Deafness is neither a hearing level, nor a communication modality, nor a culture. Rather, deafness is really about the lack of sound—by any measure. When taken at its simplest meaning using first principles, one should realize that the prevalence of people who are affected by deafness is greater than we might have thought. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2019) says that there are about 466 million people worldwide who are deaf—defined as someone suffering a loss of 40db or more, 30db or more for infants.
ISBN/UPC 978-1-4408-5907-6
Deafness as a Great Equalizer
Independent, 2023
This fourth installment of the analytical series is contemporaneous where I am now writing about ... more This fourth installment of the analytical series is contemporaneous where I am now writing about one of Harvard University president Claudine Gay's papers from 2010. Co-written with Jennifer Hochschild, this paper has sequential relevance to my series that can be found in its very title: Is Racial Linked Fate Unique? Comparing Race, Ethnicity, Class, Gender, and Religion.
The reader that has followed my series and checked my piece on human evolution knows that the title is revealing in its predetermination; the fiat accompli element; the prerequisite of race and color.
Independent, 2023
The contemporary social justice imperatives are not wrong in and of themselves, rather the proble... more The contemporary social justice imperatives are not wrong in and of themselves, rather the problem is about the practical inability to answer causation. Social justice and civil rights movements are not wrong to want to address the effect or the consequences but they largely lack the practical capacity to address causation and this is legendary. There are, for instance, United Nations (UN) studies of multination, multi-year, social justice movements that illustrate that about 90% of them fail. And why? Because they fail to address causation.
Independent, 2023
This essay was motivated by and written in Medium and it is being introduced as the second of the... more This essay was motivated by and written in Medium and it is being introduced as the second of the Analytical Series because it takes directly from AI or Artificial Intelligence and expounds upon the premise that underlies the difference between teaching something as fiat accompli and the act of educating people. In this essay I analyze the premise behind two disparate papers presumably looking to endeavor the same objective-making right a wrong by way of "truisms".
Private, 2022
[This letter was originally addressed to members of the American Library Association (ALA) and is... more [This letter was originally addressed to members of the American Library Association (ALA) and is intended to address current issues of race and racism.]
The endeavor of any club, society, association, academic, religious, institutional, state or federal government pursuit is essentially the same in terms of declaration, they all want to solve problems. As information professionals concerned with the facts and opposed to misinformation, disinformation, and pseudo scientific information, it follows that our larger concern should be with the tangible; we are supposed to be the proprietors of tangible facts. The facts themselves are not absolutes; the facts themselves are not good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral, they just are... What we make of them is the real differentiator.
As an explicit matter of intellectual freedom, we must first define freedom along with belief and responsibility: We are free to believe whatever we want but we are alone responsible for said belief. It follows that we want to understand belief as the thing that gives way to what we think, say, and do. Ultimately, what we do is the issue at hand. And where does the belief that gives way to what we think, say, and do come from? The same place bias comes from: our life circumstances. Bias is human nature.
American Library Association, 2016
This paper was used to facilitate a member-based resolution that was passed, in a modified form, ... more This paper was used to facilitate a member-based resolution that was passed, in a modified form, in 2017 at the American Library Association (ALA) where I am a member. The paper was written in 2016 and uses the ALA Annual Report of 2015 to illustrate how we can leverage Pubic-Private Partnerships (P3) in order to effect change. In this paper I use a particular community --those otherwise deaf-- as an example but the larger rationale behind P3 systems work the same way for any subject and any community.
This paper has been lightly edited for punctuation and grammar and the original can be found via The WayBack Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160302135019/http://connect.ala.org/node/249779
American Library Association Conference Accessibility Task Force, 2016
Disabilities and the Library: Fostering Equity for Patrons and Staff with Differing Abilities
ABC-CLIO, 2023
Chapter Contribution: "Deafness as a Great Equalizer", Chapter 6 pp.129-161 The idea of deafne... more Chapter Contribution: "Deafness as a Great Equalizer", Chapter 6 pp.129-161
The idea of deafness is often confused when people are classified by hearing levels, communication modalities, or culture. Deafness is neither a hearing level, nor a communication modality, nor a culture. Rather, deafness is really about the lack of sound—by any measure. When taken at its simplest meaning using first principles, one should realize that the prevalence of people who are affected by deafness is greater than we might have thought. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2019) says that there are about 466 million people worldwide who are deaf—defined as someone suffering a loss of 40db or more, 30db or more for infants.
ISBN/UPC 978-1-4408-5907-6