'The real world has its limits; the imaginary one is infinite.'
--Rousseau.
The techies, accountants, engineers and other dullards get very excited when it comes to technology and its "application" to universities. On-line learning, massive on-line learning. Sandel has a thousand students in his philosophy class. That's awesome! Massive. Give it up for MC Sandel. Stanford can educate 165,000 kids at the switch of a button (er..except they're too busy fornicating or tripping to take advantage of this bright new world).
Of course, they are just the minor players in the game, the foot soldiers, as it were. As with so many other things nowadays: follow the money! (I'd mistakenly written follow, then money..which is also correct!)
Is it teachers, educationists, parents or students themselves who are pushing for these changes? Perhaps they are. But it's much more likely that it's "educational companies" (what are those, for Pete's sake!), Silicon Valley, corporations interested in 'Big Data', data mining. The wonderful online world of data surveillance and corporate greed! All sing together now, and with meaning: Je suis...
The brilliant Monty Python sketch from the Life of Brian: a mob gathers and says in unison: "we're all individuals". From the back a lone voice can be heard: "I'm not!". Classic.
Individualization as a way of control: 'subjectivization'. Choice, choice is what it's about, goddam you.
Why nowhere? Because attachments to a place, to an identity, to tradition eventually slow down the system, prevent the flow of goods/ideas/knowledge/capital. There's no place like home.
You have to let go of things and acquire others if you wanna grow (with a twist this sounds a bit like that charlatan, Deepak Chopra). It's called the 'natural propensity to truck and barter'. And what's natural has to be right, right?
Universities aren't the last bastion of resistance against capitalism. They've already been co-opted. The knowledge economy, the research grants, the "research" interests, the predominance of economic thinking in various disciplines, the managerial techniques of the administration, the go-getting, cost-benefit attitude of the students and parents. Universities now sell themselves like brands: think Harvard, LSE, NYU. Also, a journey to the deserts and the mystical east will show you that there's big money involved here. Even Saudi is getting in on the act. The global university, ..we aim to be a 'world-class' university, promote 'excellence', 'innovation' ...this is all a cut & paste job from some third-rate business journal from the 1970s.
--Rousseau.
The techies, accountants, engineers and other dullards get very excited when it comes to technology and its "application" to universities. On-line learning, massive on-line learning. Sandel has a thousand students in his philosophy class. That's awesome! Massive. Give it up for MC Sandel. Stanford can educate 165,000 kids at the switch of a button (er..except they're too busy fornicating or tripping to take advantage of this bright new world).
Of course, they are just the minor players in the game, the foot soldiers, as it were. As with so many other things nowadays: follow the money! (I'd mistakenly written follow, then money..which is also correct!)
Is it teachers, educationists, parents or students themselves who are pushing for these changes? Perhaps they are. But it's much more likely that it's "educational companies" (what are those, for Pete's sake!), Silicon Valley, corporations interested in 'Big Data', data mining. The wonderful online world of data surveillance and corporate greed! All sing together now, and with meaning: Je suis...
The brilliant Monty Python sketch from the Life of Brian: a mob gathers and says in unison: "we're all individuals". From the back a lone voice can be heard: "I'm not!". Classic.
Individualization as a way of control: 'subjectivization'. Choice, choice is what it's about, goddam you.
Why nowhere? Because attachments to a place, to an identity, to tradition eventually slow down the system, prevent the flow of goods/ideas/knowledge/capital. There's no place like home.
You have to let go of things and acquire others if you wanna grow (with a twist this sounds a bit like that charlatan, Deepak Chopra). It's called the 'natural propensity to truck and barter'. And what's natural has to be right, right?
Universities aren't the last bastion of resistance against capitalism. They've already been co-opted. The knowledge economy, the research grants, the "research" interests, the predominance of economic thinking in various disciplines, the managerial techniques of the administration, the go-getting, cost-benefit attitude of the students and parents. Universities now sell themselves like brands: think Harvard, LSE, NYU. Also, a journey to the deserts and the mystical east will show you that there's big money involved here. Even Saudi is getting in on the act. The global university, ..we aim to be a 'world-class' university, promote 'excellence', 'innovation' ...this is all a cut & paste job from some third-rate business journal from the 1970s.
5 comments:
I hear Samuel Butler was an alumn! Don't check on Wikipedia though
The page has "some'" issues. Interesting posts.
Thank you, Lea!
Best,
K.
The supposed "great universities" within evidentiary range here are currently no more than beckoning troughs of profit and advantage for all involved persons, whether these be the familiar ward-heeling seekers after grants, tenure & c. (the tried and true oldtime "perks"), or, at a lower level of aspiration, merely a "great job" (read: high-paying tech job), a Lamborghini and a grand piano before age 23. The "industry", not the intellect, is the motor. The "work" is merely a talent-show for the "industry". The product is general harm and private plunder. The ivory tower model still holds true, though now more than ever it must be seen that the ivory tower is built on buccaneering and violation, the institutional fossil fuel investments accumulating into the essential "endowments", meanwhile systematically depleting what is left of Earth, that great and growing mound of dead elephants assembled on the massive killing ground which proudly calls itself "the university".
Yes, I think that's right, Tom: the culture industry, the knowledge economy..it's increasingly difficult to avoid.
A dear friend said: if you can keep your head down, do some work and provide for your family in a halal way you've done a lot. I think that's essentially right, though it's a bit of a struggle. How to remain small (Walser?) is still the key.
Thanks for dropping by.
Best,
b.
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