- Email: [email protected]
A response to Rolfe’s reply to Closs and Draper
Commentary A response to Rolfe’s reply to Closs and Draper Philip Burnard Gary Rolfe Nurse Education Today (1999) 19 (4): 295–298 Rewriting myself
Rod Ward RGN, RNT, BSc, MA Ed, Lecturer, Department of Acute & Critical Care, School of Nursing & Midwivery, University of Sheffield, Ridgeway House, Lodge Moor Complex, Redmures Road, Sheffield, S10 4NA, UK Tel: 0114 230 9921 E-mail: rod.ward @sheffield.ac.uk Homepage: http: //www.shef.ac.uk/ misc/personal/nrlrw (Requests for offprints to RW) Manuscript accepted: 22 April 1997
598
In my humble opinion, Rolfe (1999) is going too far. His ‘reflection at a distance’, on his own writing, as well as on that of Closs and Draper (1998), is an affectation and a dishonest one at that. He claims, at the start of the paper, that ‘all I am able to do, then, is to provide my own reading both of my original paper and of Closs and Draper’s reading of that paper’, having asserted that he could not respond to Closs and Draper by ‘putting them right’, by enlightening them as to the ‘true’ meaning [of the paper]’. However, despite his odd use of a third-person commentary on his own and Closs and Draper’s papers, he seems to want to do exactly that. While Rolfe is happy to allow language to be slippery and does not want to pin down meaning, he is quick to criticise Closs and Draper for having ‘given a new meaning to the term ‘false dichotomy’ and for their definition of ‘research’ to be ‘at odds with much current thinking, even in nursing’’. Given that Rolfe seems to want to embrace diversity of definition, he seems in no position to be able to complain about other writer’s definitions – especially when he then goes on to claim that ‘the fact that the word ‘research’ is used in an unusual way in Rolfe’s paper should be welcomed, not censured’. It would appear that Closs and Draper may be a little ‘wrong’ in their definition of research but that Rolfe’s ‘unusual’ definition should be welcomed. Further, he claims as a fact, the following statement: ‘I will ignore for the moment the fact that an accusation of relativism is probably the greatest insult that a positivist scientist or empirical researcher could possibly endow on a colleague’. It is odd that, in Rolfe’s world of shifting meanings and lack of absolutes, he can find the odd fact – and even that old epithet ‘positivist’ to throw at criticism. It evades me, for the moment, how Rolfe can claim, on the one hand, not to be certain about meanings and yet, on the other, dismiss the point about his being relativist. When push comes to shove, Closs and Draper must be right in their suggestion that there is ‘a
Nurse Education Today (1999) 19, 598
need within nursing for us to speak clearly to one another’. We need that clarity for a number of reasons. First, we need it in order to understand others’ points of view. Second, it is important that we do not alienate people by the ways in which we write. We must write, surely, to communicate? If not, then, for what is it and who is it that we write? Third, clarity in communication is essential from a practical point of view. If we want our ideas translated into practical action (and nursing is a practical discipline) then we need to write about them in ways that practitioners and others will understand. Finally, we need to be cautious about what we claim to know and not hide behind the postmodern ‘safety net’ of ‘you can read this whatever way you like – its just me struggling with my ideas …’ Let us, at least consider, writing with clarity. Or, as Wittgenstein suggested, ‘what can be said at all can be said clearly: and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent (Wittgenstein 1961). And, please, can writers cut the pretension of writing about their own work in the third person? Could writers at least observe the ‘snooker rule’ of having at least one foot on solid ground at any given time? Ideas and notions are all very interesting but, in the end, we still have to get the beds made, the research grants in, the teaching done. References Closs SJ, Draper P 1998 Commentary. Nurse Education Today 18: 337–341 Rolfe G 1999 Rewriting myself. Nurse Education Today 19: 295–298 Wittgenstein L 1922: 1961 Tractatus Logico-Philophicus. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Philip Burnard PhD, MSc, RGN, RMN, DipN, Cert Ed, RNT Professor and Vice Dean School of Nursing Studies University of Wales College of Medicine Heath Park, Cardiff, Wales
© 1999 Harcourt Publishers Ltd
Rod Ward RGN, RNT, BSc, MA Ed, Lecturer, Department of Acute & Critical Care, School of Nursing & Midwivery, University of Sheffield, Ridgeway House, Lodge Moor Complex, Redmures Road, Sheffield, S10 4NA, UK Tel: 0114 230 9921 E-mail: rod.ward @sheffield.ac.uk Homepage: http: //www.shef.ac.uk/ misc/personal/nrlrw (Requests for offprints to RW) Manuscript accepted: 22 April 1997
598
In my humble opinion, Rolfe (1999) is going too far. His ‘reflection at a distance’, on his own writing, as well as on that of Closs and Draper (1998), is an affectation and a dishonest one at that. He claims, at the start of the paper, that ‘all I am able to do, then, is to provide my own reading both of my original paper and of Closs and Draper’s reading of that paper’, having asserted that he could not respond to Closs and Draper by ‘putting them right’, by enlightening them as to the ‘true’ meaning [of the paper]’. However, despite his odd use of a third-person commentary on his own and Closs and Draper’s papers, he seems to want to do exactly that. While Rolfe is happy to allow language to be slippery and does not want to pin down meaning, he is quick to criticise Closs and Draper for having ‘given a new meaning to the term ‘false dichotomy’ and for their definition of ‘research’ to be ‘at odds with much current thinking, even in nursing’’. Given that Rolfe seems to want to embrace diversity of definition, he seems in no position to be able to complain about other writer’s definitions – especially when he then goes on to claim that ‘the fact that the word ‘research’ is used in an unusual way in Rolfe’s paper should be welcomed, not censured’. It would appear that Closs and Draper may be a little ‘wrong’ in their definition of research but that Rolfe’s ‘unusual’ definition should be welcomed. Further, he claims as a fact, the following statement: ‘I will ignore for the moment the fact that an accusation of relativism is probably the greatest insult that a positivist scientist or empirical researcher could possibly endow on a colleague’. It is odd that, in Rolfe’s world of shifting meanings and lack of absolutes, he can find the odd fact – and even that old epithet ‘positivist’ to throw at criticism. It evades me, for the moment, how Rolfe can claim, on the one hand, not to be certain about meanings and yet, on the other, dismiss the point about his being relativist. When push comes to shove, Closs and Draper must be right in their suggestion that there is ‘a
Nurse Education Today (1999) 19, 598
need within nursing for us to speak clearly to one another’. We need that clarity for a number of reasons. First, we need it in order to understand others’ points of view. Second, it is important that we do not alienate people by the ways in which we write. We must write, surely, to communicate? If not, then, for what is it and who is it that we write? Third, clarity in communication is essential from a practical point of view. If we want our ideas translated into practical action (and nursing is a practical discipline) then we need to write about them in ways that practitioners and others will understand. Finally, we need to be cautious about what we claim to know and not hide behind the postmodern ‘safety net’ of ‘you can read this whatever way you like – its just me struggling with my ideas …’ Let us, at least consider, writing with clarity. Or, as Wittgenstein suggested, ‘what can be said at all can be said clearly: and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent (Wittgenstein 1961). And, please, can writers cut the pretension of writing about their own work in the third person? Could writers at least observe the ‘snooker rule’ of having at least one foot on solid ground at any given time? Ideas and notions are all very interesting but, in the end, we still have to get the beds made, the research grants in, the teaching done. References Closs SJ, Draper P 1998 Commentary. Nurse Education Today 18: 337–341 Rolfe G 1999 Rewriting myself. Nurse Education Today 19: 295–298 Wittgenstein L 1922: 1961 Tractatus Logico-Philophicus. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Philip Burnard PhD, MSc, RGN, RMN, DipN, Cert Ed, RNT Professor and Vice Dean School of Nursing Studies University of Wales College of Medicine Heath Park, Cardiff, Wales
© 1999 Harcourt Publishers Ltd