Discipline

While the word has many literal meanings, let alone connotations, I am focussing on the one that relates to a subject, or a body of study. This has intrigued me a lot in recent times as I have felt that more and more entities, seemingly trivial, are being elevated to the space of being branded a "Discipline". What does it really take for a subject matter to be termed as such? I have worked out in my head a simple three-point test for this.

For one thing, it needs to have enough sub-particles that are not merely disparate but also interact thus leading to a terminal whirlpool of complexity such that any simplistic understanding of the field is by definition only the "tip of the iceberg". What follows is that to be an expert in this field, one needs to profess mastery, which in turn, by literal association, conjures up academic images of a Professor or someone with a Master's degree.

Another point is that it needs to have some form of practical application and benefit. But not everything that has practical application is a discipline. This unidirectional logical relationship is quite intriguing if you think about it. If you are a doctor, you are of course practising a discipline. If you are a medical transcriptionist, you are not.

As validation, if the above points are met and the spirit of the times views this body as discipline then it should offer an opportunity to pursue a doctoral program in it, i.e get a Phd in the field of study.

Does it need all three points in favour to qualify? Let's take a few examples:

The art of Engineering consists of several bits that are each a discipline. Materials Engineering is distinct from , say Electronics Engineering in that the first one deals with all there is to know about different materials while the second one centres around the properties of electrons and all the wonders that it creates for human benefit. Each is a discipline. And they also have interactions obviously, since you have certain materials that pertain only to electronics and so on. Engineering is applied science, it is taught in text books and you have to be geeky and good at math to understand it all. It is a discipline, can be researched, and results in benefits to all and sundry. Enough said.

The same could be argued for host of other subjects that are traditional disciplines like medicine, law, criminology, economics, finance and so on. But some of the more novel disciplines that seem to have cropped up more recently should be discussed in more detail.

What about Business? It fulfils the two conditions, but is not really one discipline but can best be described as an umbrella of disciplines like economics, finance, common sense, common sense and common sense. Validation for this is also available in that one cannot pursue a Phd in business but only a Masters.

Organizational Behaviour is voted a discipline today. You can pursue a doctoral programme in it. And it does meet the other two conditions. But yet it was never a discipline in the past. Why? Simply because it is a super-entity that has grown and proliferated in this world to the point that it now has a mind of its own, inherently independent of the individual minds that reside within it. As more such entities come to being as a function of time, the number of disciplines will progressively increase hence the number of Phds will aslo increase. Hence "academics" has a solid growth story by definition.

But I am confused when I think of countries in the same context. Countries are like organisations as I have postulated before. But there is not a Phd you can do in National Behaviour. It would actually be really interesting to actually study this field. The starting point would obviously be a plethora of stereotypes but digging deeper can lead to enough complexity so as to warrant it being labelled as discipline. And there would likely be a behavioral branding of nations. Arrogant Nations, Ungrateful Nations, Pussy-Footing Nations, Hyperbolic Nations, Vitriolic NAtions and so on.

I have rambled long and rambled hard and I'm a bit tired and bored of this line of thinking. So I will suddenly stop without warning. Disciplined writing would have perhaps averted this sudden impasse. Perhaps someday Discipline will also be a discipline that can be belaboured on. Until then, let us bask together in today's randomness.