The psychology of doommongering

[BlueBlancmange]

Following on from the thread about the motives of people who doom monger about the future, I have been thinking about why those who engage feel confident it will work.

To be clear, just as on the other thread, I am not talking about people who, for example, realistically state that we likely won't just be totally back to normal by next autumn. While not ideal, this is a perfectly reasonable outlook. I am talking about people who post things like 'People need to accept that this is the way we live now. Anyone who thinks the vaccines won't be rendered totally redundant within 6 months due to the new variants is quite frankly delusional. I'm afraid we need to get used to the idea that we will need to socially distance forever and that life as we knew it is gone'.

This is not the general scientific consensus, yet they post these alarming prognoses in tones of authority and utter certainty.

I assume their underlying thinking is that no normal person would possibly want the future to be like that. Therefore, when people read it, they will assume that someone would only post something that dire if they have carefully weighed up the evidence and been forced to conclude it's the case (sadly). Also, anyone who would not doom monger with the motive to simply upset others (as in most people) is likely to find it hard to imagine that could possible be the motive of anyone else.

Just wondering what others think.

Because learning isn't simply being the recipient of information from YouTube. It's about discussion, exchanging ideas, discourse. This can be replicated to some degree online, but it's no long-term substitute for actual interaction. I've seen it myself. And as I said above, if online education were so great, why haven't online universities become more popular, especially given how much money could be saved on accommodation and other expenses?

Discussion, exchange of ideas, discourse - This is exactly how everything around you is designed and built. Most of it is already done by people sitting behind screens. Yes we are a little behind the curve here in the UK, but there is a whole world out there that is much more switched on than we are.

If you don't see a problem with learning about the world while not experiencing that world, I can't help.

You seem to be making the assumption that the world our children will be living in and working in will be the same as ours. You also seem to be making the assumption that our children's value systems and social structures will be the same as ours. I am not making those assumptions. I am making the assumption that if they are happy, intelligent and confident people, they will have the resources and temerity to build the society they want to occupy and raise their children in, the way we shaped and defined the society we now occupy.

Discussion, exchange of ideas, discourse - This is exactly how everything around you is designed and built. Most of it is already done by people sitting behind screens. Yes we are a little behind the curve here in the UK, but there is a whole world out there that is much more switched on than we are.

It's not about being 'switched on'. It's about the fact that virtual interaction simply isn't as good as the real thing. I've had months of experience of this. It's OK in an emergency, but if it was so great, then online universities, which have been around for years, would be much more popular than they are.

You seem to be making the assumption that the world our children will be living in and working in will be the same as ours. You also seem to be making the assumption that our children's value systems and social structures will be the same as ours. I am not making those assumptions.

And yet these same children and young people, for the most part, don't seem to like online learning and are eager to go back to their actual schools and universities. You, as well as the universities desperate for their fees, can try to convince them that Teams is as good as real-life interaction, but the majority simply don't agree.

In any case, we've gone way off the topic of this thread so I'm going to leave it there.

@ThornAmongstRoses

Posts predicting doom and gloom have the potential to drag other people down and increase their anxiety. The positive ones aren't likely to do that. It's pretty much agreed that optimism and a positive outlook are better for wellbeing than the opposite.

So basically, people who don’t think life is going to magically return to normal in 3 months time should just shut up?

So much for freedom of speech I guess.

Please look up the term 'straw man argument'

Not good because of the spoken aspect of the language study? Tone and inflection and the difficulty copying and correcting spoken French/German for example? I wouldn't have though learning written language was difficult online. But I can see that conversational French only happens when people have conversations, and the computer screen detracts from that.

The spoken aspect is not really just an aspect though - it's everything. Quite aside from representing approximately 50% of the assessed skills (because the listening part is obviously 'spoken' too iyswim), most MFL teachers conduct most of every lesson in the targer language asa matter of course anyway, even when giving instructions for written/reading exercises etc. So the spoken language is the delivery system for the whole subject.

Teaching adults or sixth formers one-to-one via Zoom etc is ok, but live lessons for 30 kids would not be good. You need the interaction, but it would need to be so much clearer than a lesson delivered in English - not very achievable if both teacher and students were able to contribute.