Rifkin on interdisciplinary integration

In this post of the IPS thread on Rifkin's new book Darrell asks about the placement of Rifin's book in kennilingus quadrants. I don't much think in terms of quadrants anymore.

By holistic thinking Rifkin means "to tear down the walls that separate academic disciplines and to think in a more integrated fashion. Interdisciplinary and multicultural studies prepare students to become comfortable entertaining different perspectives and more adept as searching out synergies between phenomena" (110). The strict placement of academic disciplines into myopically focused areas is indicative of the capitalist and "reductionist approach to learning that characterized an industrial era based on isolating and privatizing phenomena" (113).


This is maintained in kennilingus quadrant and zone fetishism, with little said about how disciplines interrelate. Aside from indexing (giga-glossing),* which is itself just more of the same. Most specialists in particular disciplines are now getting with the newer trend of cross-pollinating their work with other disciplines, thus expanding their specializations while still retaining its boundaries, though now much more porous.

* That was Integral Options' response to this Lingam post.