WE'RE SO EASILY DELPHIED
BECAUSE WE IGNORE ITS TECHINIQUES - By: Joan E. Battey
http://www.etherzone.com/2004/batt030104.shtml

Many of the earlier discerners of what was taking place in education (among other issues), were made aware of the technique which was so very successfully implemented to achieve the goals of the change agents in education. No matter how often it was explained, it was slow going getting any widespread understanding of just how the technique worked. Even less understanding is shown regarding the fact that this discovered Delphi Technique is far from limited to the educational minefields where it was first discovered.

The idea behind this results-achieving scheme is that people like to believe they are part of the decisionmaking process (a favorite change agent/educrat/policy-pushing term). People are so flattered by being brought into the "process" that they leave much of their thinking abilities at the door and dutifully line up to be herded into the path disguised as Our Best Thinking, later found to be Gotcha!

By that time, the damage is always done, though still rarely recognized until much later -- mainly because Delphi is adept at "multi-tasking," as educrats term the ability to perform and achieve results in several diverse things simultaneously.

Delphi-ing is successfully employed by those who know that what people would object to right up front (even those who aren't up-to-speed on such things) must be skillfully spoon-fed in such clever increments that people end up believing that they have outsmarted any charlatans and taken the reins of decisionmaking into their own hands.

Like carnivals where shills are planted in the groups of potential customers, so also in public view, shills are planted to shift public opinion while appearing to be wanting to get public opinion on an issue before actually undertaking any action. In order to do this, clever manipulation techniques are put into play. "Is this an important issue? Then let's define it so we know what it is and how best to deal with it. Okay, now let's brainstorm pros and cons."

Read the rest at link .. http://www.etherzone.com/2004/batt030104.shtml

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