Was lucky enough to listen to Craig Calhoun's lecture on The Future of Capitalism and then have lunch with him.
Some observations.
Think his book, The Roots of Radicalism, is really fascinating but this talk was too narrow. Wolfgang Streeck is, to my mind, a far more interesting thinker. His article on the future of capitalism really joined the dots.
Side-note. People in positions of power are incredibly smart in a worldly sense (duh!). We're talking about corporations here with lots of different interested stakeholders and considerable sums of money, properties under their management. Vice-Chancellors and Directors are a thick-skinned species who can never, I mean never, get flustered by what you say, no matter how directly you speak. Think of all the years of exposure they get through participating in and witnessing all the day-to-day wheeling and dealing that is to be found in academic departments, board meetings, governing bodies, policy circles and the corridors of political power.
Pretty soon you learn what the game is about and if you don't like it, don't play it. You probably learn how to be "pleasant" or "charming", how to speak the lingo, think strategically, "weigh up options," make accommodations. In some sense I find that somewhat impressive but my sounder instincts lead me to feel quite repulsed by it all.
There's something suspect about the way in which an academic can turn out phrases like "global brand" and "global leadership". "Leverage" is another favourite word. And the fascination with league tables and rankings is simply quite amazing but to be expected in an audit culture. Then you think to yourself: are these people merely fighting a rearguard action? Given the huge cut in public funding the leaders of these institutions-and this is the final triumph of capitalism- find themselves scrambling for funds and hobnobbing with people who manage funds (ordinary people have money; really rich people have funds).
It's as if they're drawn into a crazy game where the only way to save yourself is to kill yourself (or your ideals, to be more accurate). Walk like an Egyptian. Only thing is, before you know it you wonder what you were trying to preserve in the first place and if the extension of markets and the market mentality isn't such a bad thing after all.
But this just makes you wonder: has the university always had its back up against the wall? Hasn't it always been part of some larger project, subject to a number of external constraints? For example, the idea that a university education could further strengthen citizenship in an aspiring middle class? And the notion that it can and should contribute to the economy via the "production" of knowledge is also not without precedent.
Once the disciplines sided with science (even before STEM)-in terms of their methodology, their ideal, that is-what did you seriously expect? So, to say 'social science' forces us to ask the further questions: what is social about them; what is scientific? And the answer, of course, is very little. The answer is that the methodological individualism that underlies those studies and the aspiration to be a value-free mode of inquiry already ties in-perhaps too neatly-with the dominant trend in political liberalism.
That the social sciences have nothing to say about what it is to lead a good life (except, perhaps, for offering its own one-sided mangled notion of the life of the mind as a contender), that it can retreat into a rarefied world of theory or questionable empiricism, set up its own class system and esoterica, indicates, above all else, that it is very much a part of the system.
To suggest a way of life, or to esteem continuity and character, is already to place oneself, in some regards, in opposition to capitalism. To be enamoured by the word "global" and to speak in the language of the markets is already to give the game away.
A friend from York resigned himself to these changes in a typically Larkinesque way: The university is gone. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves (or placing too much hope in the unpredictability of life).
Calhoun made a lot of an American judgement that said that corporations were not souls, not bodies, which meant, effectively, that they were not subject to moral judgement. A punk student at the back, having none of it, asked: "Why not? Why can't we criticize the multi-nationals?"
The usual cartwheeling and acrobatics followed. Worth remembering, you thought: Mr. Calhoun is on 430,000 pounds a year and the LSE is just down the road from Whitehall and the City. No, no, God forbid, we can't morally criticize any institutions (unless they're public ones).
Perhaps the most interesting thing he said was on the distinction between very good thinkers and great ones. And here the question really arises whether an incessant focus on publishing and technicalities will preclude someone from thinking deeply and critically about the fundamental questions (which never really go away but are cast in a new light by each generation).
It is an interesting thought experiment to imagine whether some of the greatest thinkers would now get tenure. Imagine Wittgenstein. In his lifetime he published one book, one article and one book review! Would a Hirschman, for example, even be tolerated today?
Some observations.
Think his book, The Roots of Radicalism, is really fascinating but this talk was too narrow. Wolfgang Streeck is, to my mind, a far more interesting thinker. His article on the future of capitalism really joined the dots.
Side-note. People in positions of power are incredibly smart in a worldly sense (duh!). We're talking about corporations here with lots of different interested stakeholders and considerable sums of money, properties under their management. Vice-Chancellors and Directors are a thick-skinned species who can never, I mean never, get flustered by what you say, no matter how directly you speak. Think of all the years of exposure they get through participating in and witnessing all the day-to-day wheeling and dealing that is to be found in academic departments, board meetings, governing bodies, policy circles and the corridors of political power.
Pretty soon you learn what the game is about and if you don't like it, don't play it. You probably learn how to be "pleasant" or "charming", how to speak the lingo, think strategically, "weigh up options," make accommodations. In some sense I find that somewhat impressive but my sounder instincts lead me to feel quite repulsed by it all.
There's something suspect about the way in which an academic can turn out phrases like "global brand" and "global leadership". "Leverage" is another favourite word. And the fascination with league tables and rankings is simply quite amazing but to be expected in an audit culture. Then you think to yourself: are these people merely fighting a rearguard action? Given the huge cut in public funding the leaders of these institutions-and this is the final triumph of capitalism- find themselves scrambling for funds and hobnobbing with people who manage funds (ordinary people have money; really rich people have funds).
It's as if they're drawn into a crazy game where the only way to save yourself is to kill yourself (or your ideals, to be more accurate). Walk like an Egyptian. Only thing is, before you know it you wonder what you were trying to preserve in the first place and if the extension of markets and the market mentality isn't such a bad thing after all.
But this just makes you wonder: has the university always had its back up against the wall? Hasn't it always been part of some larger project, subject to a number of external constraints? For example, the idea that a university education could further strengthen citizenship in an aspiring middle class? And the notion that it can and should contribute to the economy via the "production" of knowledge is also not without precedent.
Once the disciplines sided with science (even before STEM)-in terms of their methodology, their ideal, that is-what did you seriously expect? So, to say 'social science' forces us to ask the further questions: what is social about them; what is scientific? And the answer, of course, is very little. The answer is that the methodological individualism that underlies those studies and the aspiration to be a value-free mode of inquiry already ties in-perhaps too neatly-with the dominant trend in political liberalism.
That the social sciences have nothing to say about what it is to lead a good life (except, perhaps, for offering its own one-sided mangled notion of the life of the mind as a contender), that it can retreat into a rarefied world of theory or questionable empiricism, set up its own class system and esoterica, indicates, above all else, that it is very much a part of the system.
To suggest a way of life, or to esteem continuity and character, is already to place oneself, in some regards, in opposition to capitalism. To be enamoured by the word "global" and to speak in the language of the markets is already to give the game away.
A friend from York resigned himself to these changes in a typically Larkinesque way: The university is gone. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves (or placing too much hope in the unpredictability of life).
Calhoun made a lot of an American judgement that said that corporations were not souls, not bodies, which meant, effectively, that they were not subject to moral judgement. A punk student at the back, having none of it, asked: "Why not? Why can't we criticize the multi-nationals?"
The usual cartwheeling and acrobatics followed. Worth remembering, you thought: Mr. Calhoun is on 430,000 pounds a year and the LSE is just down the road from Whitehall and the City. No, no, God forbid, we can't morally criticize any institutions (unless they're public ones).
Perhaps the most interesting thing he said was on the distinction between very good thinkers and great ones. And here the question really arises whether an incessant focus on publishing and technicalities will preclude someone from thinking deeply and critically about the fundamental questions (which never really go away but are cast in a new light by each generation).
It is an interesting thought experiment to imagine whether some of the greatest thinkers would now get tenure. Imagine Wittgenstein. In his lifetime he published one book, one article and one book review! Would a Hirschman, for example, even be tolerated today?
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