Thus spake the Washington Post the other day, in a dazzlingly superficial reflection on the tenth anniversary of whatever happened that day, oh yeah, terror, evil, biff, bop, pow: "A Decade After the 9/11 Attacks, Americans Live in an Era of Endless War".
This resulted in some deficits in both programme delivery and learning, including superficial reflection by PTs on their personal adherence, limited attention for goal setting, management and leadership skills and little discussion of the issue of maintenance.
Norman Mailer's 1957 essay The White Negro was subtitled Superficial Reflections on the Hipster and describes an American existentialist who adopts the jazzier trappings of African-American life to free himself (and it usually is a he) from "the squares".
Durcan the teller of tall tales is on fine form in this book: entertaining, edgy, and with enough ironic self-awareness to make from such quirky subjects more than superficial reflections on his life and times.
This sentiment was further developed by Norman Mailer in his essay "The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster," in which "blackness" is explicitly equated with "coolness," and thus positioned as something to emulate.
It was tailored to the needs of a nursing programme (in Norway) as former studies showed that many students had superficial level of reflection in their reflective journals, few students applied knowledge to their reflections and some met unprepared in the guided reflection groups.
Korthagen (2004) suggests that this is a superficial type of reflection.
Nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, for example, is often termed "exposure," without distinction as to whether this is transient superficial contamination or a reflection of pathogen replication on an external body surface.
Obviously, these examples are a bit superficial but this self-reflection can (and should) occur on both more mind-wracking, microscopic levels and on a greater, systemic level.
The institutions that are responsible for exposing the public to art are dependent on the minuscule but wealthiest segment of society for support, a fact that has inescapably has reduced art to a reflection of their superficial values -- conformity, fashion, wealth, status and power.
The history of this episode is charmingly evoked in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (completed 1595), which is also one of Spenser's most effective pastoral embodiments of a provincial innocent up against the sophistications of a centre of power, with subsequent reflections on false, superficial love and the true love that finally animates a concordant universe.
