Asking what Mezirow would and trying to link it to Kahneman

Reading through last week's posts really made me ask some questions about how we may tend to use system 1 thinking to label things as worthy or unworthy of our attention even when we read for class in a controlled setting, with more time on our hands to practice System 2.  I think that we really need to look at our everyday lives as students rather than generalizing our experiences at a conference to our daily lives to really realize how we tend to brush off so many things just because they "seem irrelevant". I don't know about you guys, but sometimes, I've come across reading that I will say I have problems with, but often refuse to reconcile when certain strengths are unearthed by others in class, because I've made my evaluation using system 1 because "I don't like it" or it "lies outside the theory I read". Like Ziye said in her last post, abstract academic concepts render us with the option to use System 2 effectively. Why do we so often use System 1 then? The answer could lie in self-efficacy, or in something as simple as convenience.

 Something I'd like to bring in here, because I've been studying it extensively  is Mezirow's conception of true learning. I believe that the ways in which we have come to be 'reared' as students have made us look at existing academic systems in an instrumental manner. Habermas and Mezirow would label our reticence to accept the possible strengths in something we don't favor as instrumental reflection, because we look at systems we don't agree with, and try to break them down by hook or crook using strong words and broken arguments rather than understanding how to use them to transform and mold our own ideologies. Essentially, this can be pictured as pulling the trigger on something, shooting it till it dies, and waiting for it to be reborn as something deformed, molded to fit what we think. This type of reflection lies at the boundary between legality and legitimacy, and could lead to civil disobedience and the annihilation of civil order within a learning context.  In Habermas' opinion, the lifeworld, or context, is filled with "incalculable presuppositions" that need to be united through a bridging of social capital to incite true communicative learning.

The true conception that is imbued within academia (at least from my perspective) is that of transformation. Transformative learning is something that is rarely seen within the academic context, because we've been told that things are black and white, and that's how the system is.  The go-getters with instrumental opinions who refuse to budge get it all (as we were discussing last class), and those that dip their fingers into many ponds for the sake of social good are suddenly told it's quicksand, and are left to slowly sink to their scholarly demise. As academicians, don't we need to adopt this transformative approach to thrive and cram things into our minds, rather than an instrumental one to cram just what's needed to merely survive the semester, or even academia? We often have the tendency to say that we need to "survive", but the point is, we have the "privilege" and luxury to work hard and thrive, just like our undergraduate subjects and students who we often judge and call spoilt. The truth is, we're all in the same boat. We just don't want to thrive, because of how the system has reared us (much like cattle).

To conclude, I think that the links between systems 1 and 2, and instrumental and transformative patterns of thinking seems undeniable, and I'm wondering if there's any journal articles that talk about Kahneman's dichotomous framework that can be cited and linked to Mezirow's work.