I have a cunning plan…
Students have had massive debts imposed on them, justified by the claim that only those earning £21,000 p.a. (£5000 below the median wage) will pay back their loans. Thus, they'll work hard and enter high-paying jobs. I've ranted about the evils of this system before, so I won't go into it again. Let's just accept this argument at face value.
MPs' salaries were introduced in the early twentieth-century to make it possible for poor people to represent us. They're paid £65,000 per year, and receive generous housing and expenses allowances. Many of them retain other jobs too, amazingly: in law, directorships and so on. Afterwards, large numbers of them trade on their parliamentary and governmental experience by taking well-paid jobs in the City, in lobbying and so on. This of course leads to corruption and self-enrichment.
So how about abolishing parliamentary salaries entirely? Instead, offer MPs loans, just like the students. If an MP chooses not to join company boards or sell her inside knowledge to lobbyists, they don't pay the loans back. But if they use their public service as a springboard to riches, power and influence, they naturally owe their newfound wealth to us, and have to pay back their loans.
What do you think?
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
The Hero Returns
Like Mad Max, I've spent too long on the roads. Or more specifically, on the Car Parks and Transport Management Plan Committee. As a non-driver, my contribution is roughly equal to the Pope publishing a version of the Kama Sutra, though I did speak up for those of us who'd like to see walking and cycling encouraged.
The meeting largely consisted of bickering about the terms of reference, which appealed to my barrack-room lawyer side, and there are certainly important issues to cover. Is access to car-parking space an equality and safety issue? Or should be be discouraging car usage? And so on… though sometimes I wonder what I've done to deserve this. My suggestion that each staff member be given a free pair of Heeleys didn't go down well.
A Vole's work is never done
Excuse of the day for a student not coming in to chat about her dissertation:
But away from the world of rock and roll, it's not quite so exciting. I have union duties this afternoon. When I signed up, it was on the strict understanding that I'd be in charge of a) constructing petrol bombs b) thinking up chants for demonstrations and c) strong-arming management by leading mass walkouts at the drop of a hat. That's what you get when large parts of your learning comes from reactionary 1950s British comedies like I'm All Right Jack and The Man in the White Suit. I also understood that kick-backs would be involved along the way.
Sadly, no. I'm off to a meeting about Car Park Policy.
'I'm really busy going down to London producing my album'.What can I say, other than to wish her luck? You can hear some of her cover songs here.
But away from the world of rock and roll, it's not quite so exciting. I have union duties this afternoon. When I signed up, it was on the strict understanding that I'd be in charge of a) constructing petrol bombs b) thinking up chants for demonstrations and c) strong-arming management by leading mass walkouts at the drop of a hat. That's what you get when large parts of your learning comes from reactionary 1950s British comedies like I'm All Right Jack and The Man in the White Suit. I also understood that kick-backs would be involved along the way.
Sadly, no. I'm off to a meeting about Car Park Policy.
Festive Wednesday Conundrum
I'm struggling with Christmas presents. I've 5 siblings and - against the odds - they've all acquired partners. Then there are all my friends and extended family: it's testing my wallet and imagination.
So as a bit of light relief, a question for you. In the old days, naughty children would receive a lump of coal. Given that it's been an appalling year for culture and technology, what would you give to your enemies this year? One of my friends received a tin for dishwasher tablets! I was given a six-pack of Fosters' Lager last year. By a close relative.
My choices:
The Green Lantern film - what a shame a great character was served so badly.
The RIM Playbook. A tablet computer that won't even do email without a BlackBerry attached: genius.
Anonymous: shameless, pointless disinformation with a deeply conservative agenda.
Nick Clegg.
Channel 4.
The Metallica/Lou Reed album
Any novel by Louise Bagshawe (now Mensch) and Celia Ahern.
Add your own in the comments box.
So as a bit of light relief, a question for you. In the old days, naughty children would receive a lump of coal. Given that it's been an appalling year for culture and technology, what would you give to your enemies this year? One of my friends received a tin for dishwasher tablets! I was given a six-pack of Fosters' Lager last year. By a close relative.
My choices:
The Green Lantern film - what a shame a great character was served so badly.
The RIM Playbook. A tablet computer that won't even do email without a BlackBerry attached: genius.
Anonymous: shameless, pointless disinformation with a deeply conservative agenda.
Nick Clegg.
Channel 4.
The Metallica/Lou Reed album
Any novel by Louise Bagshawe (now Mensch) and Celia Ahern.
Add your own in the comments box.
Proper live blogging
What an enjoyable way to spend a morning. A colleague doing PhD research on integrating IT into teaching (we call it 'blended learning', presumably because we mush it up to spoon feed the students) got me in, switched on a dictaphone and set me off. It was honestly like blogging in meatspace, and I duly rambled/ranted for 45 minutes without pause. Even better, I was rewarded at the end with a bottle of home-brewed Santa's Winter Warmer. In a bottle, that is, not a foaming pint at 10.45 a.m.
My thoughts on our IT-learning strategy aren't confidential… or original. I'm a fan, just a critical one. I blog, tweet and run discussion fora in the course of my teaching (in fact, I should be marking one right now).
However, I'm wary of the uncritical rush to incorporate IT into every corner of our activity. Some staff and students feel that pedagogical requirements come a very poor second to institutional pressures. Economic and spatial restrictions mean that some in higher management - many of whom are literally ignorant of IT's potential - see 'blended learning' as a way to reduce face-to-face contact, cut down on staff and economise on the use of teaching rooms: we're a large university in a very small space. So naturally, they think that a) all our students are online constantly, b) they'll be impressed if we do everything online and c) we'll save loads of money.
Wrong. Those teachers who use IT as a complement to in-person encounters are the experts. It works. A forum gives students the time and space to research ideas and discuss them with other people in their own space and time: my Shakespeare fora are creative, supportive and intellectually rigorous. But we know, and the students can tell, when IT learning is being used to cut corners. In the midst of the government's swingeing, Philistine attacks on education as a public good, it's important to say, over and over again, that education is not the linear transmission of data, a trap into which many IT-education boosters fall. True education is personal, messy, intellectually and emotionally demanding. It's a herd activity. Unintegrated IT is reductive and isolating. It assumes that education = facts, when in fact the free-flowing seminar should be at the heart of education. I can't tell from a forum post how a student is feeling about an idea or a text. I can't alter my approach or go off on a tangent if my students are posting at midnight, 4 a.m. or when I'm having breakfast. They can't tell me to slow down or speed up, nor can they direct the experience to so great an extent.
One anecdote springs to mind. When I did The Hegemon's postgraduate certificate in education (yes, students, I'm actually qualified!), the session leader proudly announced that in America, English essays were marked by machines, and that this would soon spread to the UK. To him, this was logical and convenient. Lots of students + few staff = a problem solved by software. My horror, to him, was the mark of the Luddite. I think it's a monstrous idea. On a very basic level, students will be paying £9000 next year. Will they be pleased to know that their fees don't pay for an actual teacher looking at their work? I don't think so. A computer can't detect the subtleties of a student's creativity. It can't work out where the intellectual sticking points are, or remember that X wrote it while caring for a couple of children or that Y has a totally different viewpoint on the subject. It can't spot the qualitative difference between a good pastiche and a stumbling attempt at originality.
We have an official policy that 25% of all learning should be conducted electronically. I didn't know that learning could be quantified, but that's not the only problem. Why 25%? I don't know. It seems to be a magic figure dreamed up without regard for pedagogical research or the requirements of the people actually doing the teaching. There's a suspicion that we're in the hands of the neophiliacs: if it's new, it must be brilliant. This is why we had a Second Life presence - rapidly abandoned. That's why the institution has Facebook and Twitter pages which ignores the fundamental characteristic of those media: interaction. I think it's deeply patronising and reactionary to assume that our students will be impressed by IT as a primary medium: they're bright and know that some activities should be electronic, and others should be face-to-face.
What we need to successfully integrate IT into learning is research and a critical engagement with their wonderful possibilities. Without this, we become cheerleaders for 'efficiency', which means isolation, convenience, distancing ourselves from our students, and reductiveness.
Rant over.
My thoughts on our IT-learning strategy aren't confidential… or original. I'm a fan, just a critical one. I blog, tweet and run discussion fora in the course of my teaching (in fact, I should be marking one right now).
However, I'm wary of the uncritical rush to incorporate IT into every corner of our activity. Some staff and students feel that pedagogical requirements come a very poor second to institutional pressures. Economic and spatial restrictions mean that some in higher management - many of whom are literally ignorant of IT's potential - see 'blended learning' as a way to reduce face-to-face contact, cut down on staff and economise on the use of teaching rooms: we're a large university in a very small space. So naturally, they think that a) all our students are online constantly, b) they'll be impressed if we do everything online and c) we'll save loads of money.
Wrong. Those teachers who use IT as a complement to in-person encounters are the experts. It works. A forum gives students the time and space to research ideas and discuss them with other people in their own space and time: my Shakespeare fora are creative, supportive and intellectually rigorous. But we know, and the students can tell, when IT learning is being used to cut corners. In the midst of the government's swingeing, Philistine attacks on education as a public good, it's important to say, over and over again, that education is not the linear transmission of data, a trap into which many IT-education boosters fall. True education is personal, messy, intellectually and emotionally demanding. It's a herd activity. Unintegrated IT is reductive and isolating. It assumes that education = facts, when in fact the free-flowing seminar should be at the heart of education. I can't tell from a forum post how a student is feeling about an idea or a text. I can't alter my approach or go off on a tangent if my students are posting at midnight, 4 a.m. or when I'm having breakfast. They can't tell me to slow down or speed up, nor can they direct the experience to so great an extent.
One anecdote springs to mind. When I did The Hegemon's postgraduate certificate in education (yes, students, I'm actually qualified!), the session leader proudly announced that in America, English essays were marked by machines, and that this would soon spread to the UK. To him, this was logical and convenient. Lots of students + few staff = a problem solved by software. My horror, to him, was the mark of the Luddite. I think it's a monstrous idea. On a very basic level, students will be paying £9000 next year. Will they be pleased to know that their fees don't pay for an actual teacher looking at their work? I don't think so. A computer can't detect the subtleties of a student's creativity. It can't work out where the intellectual sticking points are, or remember that X wrote it while caring for a couple of children or that Y has a totally different viewpoint on the subject. It can't spot the qualitative difference between a good pastiche and a stumbling attempt at originality.
We have an official policy that 25% of all learning should be conducted electronically. I didn't know that learning could be quantified, but that's not the only problem. Why 25%? I don't know. It seems to be a magic figure dreamed up without regard for pedagogical research or the requirements of the people actually doing the teaching. There's a suspicion that we're in the hands of the neophiliacs: if it's new, it must be brilliant. This is why we had a Second Life presence - rapidly abandoned. That's why the institution has Facebook and Twitter pages which ignores the fundamental characteristic of those media: interaction. I think it's deeply patronising and reactionary to assume that our students will be impressed by IT as a primary medium: they're bright and know that some activities should be electronic, and others should be face-to-face.
What we need to successfully integrate IT into learning is research and a critical engagement with their wonderful possibilities. Without this, we become cheerleaders for 'efficiency', which means isolation, convenience, distancing ourselves from our students, and reductiveness.
Rant over.
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Lest we forget…
This was one of the funniest things I've seen all year. By glorious coincidence, the Liberal Democrats were roundly punished for their perfidy in the local election in the same week that Osama bin Laden was killed.
The Lib Dems stood on an election platform of abolishing the £3000 tuition fee, and promoting our European identity. In government, they've allowed the Tories to triple fees to £9000 and sat idly by as Britain withdraws from any serious engagement with Europe just as it becomes clear even to the dullest brain that individual nation states are powerless in the face of the bond markets and ratings agencies (yes, the people said Enron, Lehman Brothers et al were fine, and proceeded to punish governments for bailing out the banks they said were in tip-top shape).
So all in all, not exactly a triumph for Nick Clegg.
The Lib Dems stood on an election platform of abolishing the £3000 tuition fee, and promoting our European identity. In government, they've allowed the Tories to triple fees to £9000 and sat idly by as Britain withdraws from any serious engagement with Europe just as it becomes clear even to the dullest brain that individual nation states are powerless in the face of the bond markets and ratings agencies (yes, the people said Enron, Lehman Brothers et al were fine, and proceeded to punish governments for bailing out the banks they said were in tip-top shape).
So all in all, not exactly a triumph for Nick Clegg.
They seek it here, they seek it there!
Is the Higgs Boson finally going to be revealed today? I hope so, because without it, modern physics doesn't work. If you don't know what it is, try this page, which uses cartoons and a very simple explanation specifically designed to make it comprehensible to a forgotten Tory Science minister, William Waldegrave (apparently pronounced War Grave).*
But the Higgs Boson is so redolent of other cultures. Boson, of course, reminds me of Bosie, Oscar Wilde's lover and eventual nemesis, more formally known as Lord Alfred Douglas. There are also at least two lost or forgotten Higgs other than the God Particle. Where, for example, is John Higgs, Jack Woolley's sinister chauffeur and handyman at Grey Gables? He's disappeared so completely that even the Archers website fails to mention him. Up to no good, I'll be bound.
The other Higgs I'd like to mention is the narrator of Samuel Butler's Erewhon, his Victorian Utopian satire which I urge you to read, alongside William Morris's News From Nowhere. There may be an Archers connection too: the Erewhonians' Goddess is Ydgrun the Incomprehensible - an anagram of Grundy, the similarly incomprehensible Archers peasant family.
One of the very interesting features of the novel is Butler's speculation that machines might evolve consciousness: derided at the time as a weak joke, he insisted that it was a Darwinian possibility (so far unfulfilled: Siri might be able to tell me what a Higgs Boson is, but it's no Marvin). Banks don't come out of Butler's novel looking particularly good either. Higgs himself gets caught up in a romantic entanglement with a native girl…
But the Higgs Boson is so redolent of other cultures. Boson, of course, reminds me of Bosie, Oscar Wilde's lover and eventual nemesis, more formally known as Lord Alfred Douglas. There are also at least two lost or forgotten Higgs other than the God Particle. Where, for example, is John Higgs, Jack Woolley's sinister chauffeur and handyman at Grey Gables? He's disappeared so completely that even the Archers website fails to mention him. Up to no good, I'll be bound.
The other Higgs I'd like to mention is the narrator of Samuel Butler's Erewhon, his Victorian Utopian satire which I urge you to read, alongside William Morris's News From Nowhere. There may be an Archers connection too: the Erewhonians' Goddess is Ydgrun the Incomprehensible - an anagram of Grundy, the similarly incomprehensible Archers peasant family.
One of the very interesting features of the novel is Butler's speculation that machines might evolve consciousness: derided at the time as a weak joke, he insisted that it was a Darwinian possibility (so far unfulfilled: Siri might be able to tell me what a Higgs Boson is, but it's no Marvin). Banks don't come out of Butler's novel looking particularly good either. Higgs himself gets caught up in a romantic entanglement with a native girl…
Hanging on the telephone…
I feel like my head's going to explode. I share an office with four people. We all have our own phone lines (0800 666 VOLE in my case). It's not a large office. I can traverse it in 5 steps. So if the person you wish to speak to isn't free, or there, you'll know within 10-15 seconds.
So WHY in the name of all that's holy, would you keep phoning back for a full 10 minutes? Over and over and over again, as though you think that persistence will bring some kind of reward. Only fear that I might utter bloodcurdling threats prevented me from breaking etiquette and answering my colleague's phone myself.
In any case, the little genius popped in to follow up her phone call. 'Is X in?', she asks me. Yes, he is. He's wearing an invisibility cloak, which is why you can't see him.
Bah. I need some phone music.
So WHY in the name of all that's holy, would you keep phoning back for a full 10 minutes? Over and over and over again, as though you think that persistence will bring some kind of reward. Only fear that I might utter bloodcurdling threats prevented me from breaking etiquette and answering my colleague's phone myself.
In any case, the little genius popped in to follow up her phone call. 'Is X in?', she asks me. Yes, he is. He's wearing an invisibility cloak, which is why you can't see him.
Bah. I need some phone music.
Cameron's European Future
Thanks to yet more bureaucratic tyranny by our European overlords, intent on restricting the ancient freedoms of the Anglo-Saxon financial sector, David Cameron will now be represented at all meetings of the European Union thusly:
Monday, 12 December 2011
"A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow"
Congratulations to the owners of the Billy Wright pub, opening tonight. I'm informed it's named after the truly great footballer, not the psychopathic Ulster loyalist terrorist, though he too was born in this Midlands English town.
You may detect a certain antipathy towards this drinking establishment. You'd be right. I live opposite it. It is next door to two more vertical drinking establishments and round the corner from several more. Each night, my flat overlooks vomiting, fighting, breakups, tiffs and all the other manifestations of alcohol allergy. Despite being a moderate drinker myself, being woken up at 4.30 a.m. by drunk and aggressive 'lads' as I believe they're technically known, is enough to make me take the pledge and join the Pioneers.
This particular licensed premise looks very unpromising. It's named after a footballer and the beautiful game seems to be the decorative theme. It has a hard-wearing carpet and very few seats, and a very limited range of tasteless beverages, which suggests to me that it's appealing to the heavy-drinking footy-supporting contingency: the intention is to poor as much booze down their necks as economically and physically possible, with little regard for taste, decency or the local community.
So I shall have to either continue sleeping with earplugs… or join the drinkers.
You may detect a certain antipathy towards this drinking establishment. You'd be right. I live opposite it. It is next door to two more vertical drinking establishments and round the corner from several more. Each night, my flat overlooks vomiting, fighting, breakups, tiffs and all the other manifestations of alcohol allergy. Despite being a moderate drinker myself, being woken up at 4.30 a.m. by drunk and aggressive 'lads' as I believe they're technically known, is enough to make me take the pledge and join the Pioneers.
This particular licensed premise looks very unpromising. It's named after a footballer and the beautiful game seems to be the decorative theme. It has a hard-wearing carpet and very few seats, and a very limited range of tasteless beverages, which suggests to me that it's appealing to the heavy-drinking footy-supporting contingency: the intention is to poor as much booze down their necks as economically and physically possible, with little regard for taste, decency or the local community.
So I shall have to either continue sleeping with earplugs… or join the drinkers.
Out of Darkness Cometh Light
That's the motto of The Dark Place. Sometimes it's true. This song is 'Stuck', by Ned's Atomic Dustbin. It was composed in this very university. This is what the band has to say about it:
Nice that we've inspired art within these walls.
Top pop song written at [Hegemon] Polytechnic, who found us a room near the squash courts to make a noise in for a while. Apparently it's about Mat being an 'I know it smells like champagne but I'm sure someone's pissed in my glass' kind of guy.
Nice that we've inspired art within these walls.
The World According to Alan Measles
The second stop on my cultural tour of London was Grayson Perry's 'The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman' at the British Museum, a mix of Perry's own work in multiple media, and items he's chosen from the Museum's own collection.
If you don't know Perry, he's hard to explain. He's a heterosexual transvestite, whose female avatar is Clare, a hyperreal version of a little girl who appears when Perry wants to explore his feminine side. His oversexed Teddy bear, Alan Measles, is used to reflect Perry's masculine attributes, particularly sex and violence. In one recent exploit, Perry tried to make peace with Germany and amend for his boyhood demonisation of the Jerries by riding this motorbike around Germany, with Alan Measles mounted on the back in a kind of tabernacle.
Perry specialises in ceramics and seems to be designing tapestries too. I particularly liked his 2011 pot: it memorialises the buzz words and events of the year. 'Going forward', a phrase I particularly dislike, is engraved on the neck ('Alan Measles is not impressed by the twenty-first century' reads another inscription).
Another striking piece was a huge tapestry 'The Map of Truths and Beliefs' linking iconic sites of human fascination: Auschwitz, shopping centres, temples, Las Vegas, Glastonbury, a golf course and various other pilgrimage centres.
What persuaded me about Perry's work over much of the Postmodernist output was that Perry's got the craft skills and the intelligence to use humour to make serious points about our cultures. Too much of the Postmodernist work is one-liners (a building with a roofline that looks like a cabinet: OK, it's referencing the past on a huge scale: and?), whereas Perry's offbeat way of looking at our cultural practices genuinely does subvert our general assumption that we're fairly sensible creatures.
If you don't know Perry, he's hard to explain. He's a heterosexual transvestite, whose female avatar is Clare, a hyperreal version of a little girl who appears when Perry wants to explore his feminine side. His oversexed Teddy bear, Alan Measles, is used to reflect Perry's masculine attributes, particularly sex and violence. In one recent exploit, Perry tried to make peace with Germany and amend for his boyhood demonisation of the Jerries by riding this motorbike around Germany, with Alan Measles mounted on the back in a kind of tabernacle.
Perry specialises in ceramics and seems to be designing tapestries too. I particularly liked his 2011 pot: it memorialises the buzz words and events of the year. 'Going forward', a phrase I particularly dislike, is engraved on the neck ('Alan Measles is not impressed by the twenty-first century' reads another inscription).
Another striking piece was a huge tapestry 'The Map of Truths and Beliefs' linking iconic sites of human fascination: Auschwitz, shopping centres, temples, Las Vegas, Glastonbury, a golf course and various other pilgrimage centres.
What persuaded me about Perry's work over much of the Postmodernist output was that Perry's got the craft skills and the intelligence to use humour to make serious points about our cultures. Too much of the Postmodernist work is one-liners (a building with a roofline that looks like a cabinet: OK, it's referencing the past on a huge scale: and?), whereas Perry's offbeat way of looking at our cultural practices genuinely does subvert our general assumption that we're fairly sensible creatures.
This is an order
I had a whirlwind cultural weekend: down to London for the V&A's Postmodernism exhibition, the British Museum's Grayson Perry The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, and finally the British Library's Illuminated Manuscripts display. No shopping, no fighting my way through crowds, just good company and interesting stuff.
OK, the Postmodernism exhibition was fascinating. I'm very wary of the movement, being a boring old communist. To me, postmodernism was rich wankers and hubristic corporations playing silly architectural jokes. This exhibition partly altered this view. It was very much an exhibition of two parts. Postmodernism emerged as a critique of the failed utopianism of modernism: the idea that concrete boxes could provide suitable living for workers, for instance. Modernism, especially the totalitarian version, tried to make people live in machines, while much of the artwork was forbidding and perhaps overly cerebral. Postmodernism tried to inject some humour and imagination into functionalism, with some success. However, it soon became superficial and far too bound up with power and money to offer any critique of finance capitalism and individualism at all: in this sense, it's deeply reactionary.
The displays included architecture, town planning, music (I own virtually all the records featured), clothing, furniture and much else besides. Photography was forbidden (I sneaked the neon sign above on my phone). So instead, here are some of the music/film videos played as examples of postmodernism:
Sorry about the advert:
Klaus Nomi's mix of electropop and lieder:
Laurie Anderson's art-school experimentation: this reached No. 2 in the UK charts! I heard it first on Mark and Lard's evening show, and it blew my mind. The lyrics 'here come the planes… they're American planes' seem even more freighted with doom now than ever they did'.
Rapper's Delight, by the Sugarhill Gang: cut-ups, montage, music without generic limits.
OK, the Postmodernism exhibition was fascinating. I'm very wary of the movement, being a boring old communist. To me, postmodernism was rich wankers and hubristic corporations playing silly architectural jokes. This exhibition partly altered this view. It was very much an exhibition of two parts. Postmodernism emerged as a critique of the failed utopianism of modernism: the idea that concrete boxes could provide suitable living for workers, for instance. Modernism, especially the totalitarian version, tried to make people live in machines, while much of the artwork was forbidding and perhaps overly cerebral. Postmodernism tried to inject some humour and imagination into functionalism, with some success. However, it soon became superficial and far too bound up with power and money to offer any critique of finance capitalism and individualism at all: in this sense, it's deeply reactionary.
The displays included architecture, town planning, music (I own virtually all the records featured), clothing, furniture and much else besides. Photography was forbidden (I sneaked the neon sign above on my phone). So instead, here are some of the music/film videos played as examples of postmodernism:
Sorry about the advert:
Klaus Nomi's mix of electropop and lieder:
Laurie Anderson's art-school experimentation: this reached No. 2 in the UK charts! I heard it first on Mark and Lard's evening show, and it blew my mind. The lyrics 'here come the planes… they're American planes' seem even more freighted with doom now than ever they did'.
Rapper's Delight, by the Sugarhill Gang: cut-ups, montage, music without generic limits.
Fame at last
Anyone else massively depressed by this?
I sincerely hope that the company responsible has miscalculated the public's egotism. I presume that most of the pictures on photo-booths are acquired by paying models. This, however, assumes that 'being glanced at cursorily while customers look for the coin slot' equates to 'fame', and that people would actually compete to be used as free advertising. Sadly, a glance at the associated Facebook page suggests that the population is deeply susceptible.
No doubt the lucky 'winner' will be young, female, white and scantily-dressed.
I sincerely hope that the company responsible has miscalculated the public's egotism. I presume that most of the pictures on photo-booths are acquired by paying models. This, however, assumes that 'being glanced at cursorily while customers look for the coin slot' equates to 'fame', and that people would actually compete to be used as free advertising. Sadly, a glance at the associated Facebook page suggests that the population is deeply susceptible.
No doubt the lucky 'winner' will be young, female, white and scantily-dressed.
Friday, 9 December 2011
Merry Christmas, Proles!
The semiotics of David Cameron's Christmas card are fascinating.
Of course his children are in it: privacy is something you wield as a weapon, and break when you feel like it. It's nice, though, to see Cameron kicking back in the kind of clothes he wears at home, rather than the rather downmarket clobber he's forced to wear in public because his advisors don't think that Lord Liverpool is a role model the public can relate to.
The union-flag painted child is intriguing. I didn't know that the UK had a team playing in the Nativity, but clearly the Camerons have found someone to cheer on. I'm guessing it's Herod. More worryingly though, they seem to have borrowed Will from The Inbetweeners to pose as Cameron's son.
Clearly there are similarities: one's also a confused and uptight spoilt brat slumming it amongst the proletariat in a derelict public sphere. The other one's a fictional character. The only remaining question is this: which one is really the Briefcase Wanker?
Of course his children are in it: privacy is something you wield as a weapon, and break when you feel like it. It's nice, though, to see Cameron kicking back in the kind of clothes he wears at home, rather than the rather downmarket clobber he's forced to wear in public because his advisors don't think that Lord Liverpool is a role model the public can relate to.
The union-flag painted child is intriguing. I didn't know that the UK had a team playing in the Nativity, but clearly the Camerons have found someone to cheer on. I'm guessing it's Herod. More worryingly though, they seem to have borrowed Will from The Inbetweeners to pose as Cameron's son.
Clearly there are similarities: one's also a confused and uptight spoilt brat slumming it amongst the proletariat in a derelict public sphere. The other one's a fictional character. The only remaining question is this: which one is really the Briefcase Wanker?
A Christmas Carol
I'm a huge fan of Joy Division/New Order/Electronic/Revenge/Monaco/The Other Two and whichever other splinter groups there are. And so I'm proud to present their Christmas song, 'Rocking Carol'.
Genius at work.
And you may as well have their rendition of 'Ode to Joy'.
Genius at work.
And you may as well have their rendition of 'Ode to Joy'.
The day's duties
OK: counselling my dissertation student - done. Very interesting proposal concerning dreams and memory in Pat Barker's novels. I'll miss the mature students who are giving up on education thanks to the new fees regime. They're single-mindedly determined to get the most out of their time here in a way I probably wasn't as a student.
I'm proof-reading an interesting paper on grand narratives of Polish migration for a colleague - a fascinating insight into how migrants framed their decisions. I've also got two internet fora on The Tempest to mark, and would like to fit in a swim before stuffing my face at our English department's Christmas curry.
Soundtrack for the day: more Kate Bush, the new Unthanks album, Trespassers William, and Ned's Atomic Dustbin.
Here's Trespassers William's cover of Ride's 'Vapour Trail', the only reason I bought their 2002 album Different Stars, and it's rather magnificent. If you liked Mazzy Star or Cowboy Junkies, you'll love this.
I'm proof-reading an interesting paper on grand narratives of Polish migration for a colleague - a fascinating insight into how migrants framed their decisions. I've also got two internet fora on The Tempest to mark, and would like to fit in a swim before stuffing my face at our English department's Christmas curry.
Soundtrack for the day: more Kate Bush, the new Unthanks album, Trespassers William, and Ned's Atomic Dustbin.
Here's Trespassers William's cover of Ride's 'Vapour Trail', the only reason I bought their 2002 album Different Stars, and it's rather magnificent. If you liked Mazzy Star or Cowboy Junkies, you'll love this.
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Notes from today's Leveson inquiry
The bloody Guardian isn't covering today's hearings of the Leveson Inquiry. I tweeted one of the journalists to ask why, and he said 'resources'. It's a very lame excuse: the real reason is that today's the academics' turn. There's a list of very learned people there, thinkers who've devoted their lives to contemplating the intellectual, moral, political and commercial roles of the media. You'd think (or I would) that what they have to say might be of some interest to the public. But clearly intellectual grasp comes a very poor second to the outrage of victims and the fame of those who gave evidence on previous days. Sienna Miller (whose existence was explained to me a few days ago) clearly has much more insight than Brian Cathcart.
So I've had to go over to the bloody Torygraph for live coverage. Amongst the gems are these:
Also:
It's not all serious work here at Vole Towers though. Our piss-poor marketing department has sent us all a corporate e-card template with an editable section, the trusting, naive simpletons. Wittily doctored versions are being merrily exchanged. Here's one effort (with the name of this august institution removed):
So I've had to go over to the bloody Torygraph for live coverage. Amongst the gems are these:
The Sun turned down the MP's expenses file - because Rebekah Brooks believed there was insufficient sexual misconduct evidenced thereinSo much for the tabloids' 'public interest' defence. The Telegraph broke the law to buy that stolen information, and did the public a great service. The Sun refused the scoop of the decade because there weren't any tits in it. Other than the MPs, obviously.
The learned panel are criticising the Press Complaints Commission.Cathcart says it is a "confidence trick" by the industry. It has been describing itself as a regulator for twenty years, but it is not. Brock says it is a complaints mediation service, not a regulator. Barnett says there is no way of groups being represented - such as migrants.We discussed this in class yesterday, inconclusively. Nobody trusts the papers to regulate themselves, nobody wants governments doing it (see Milton's Areopagitica for the reasons why). As to sanctions, I propose this: offending football teams are sometimes made to play matches without spectators. How about suspending publication of a paper for a day, two days, a week etc, depending on the level of the offence? The massive loss of revenue would certainly focus proprietors' minds.
Also:
15.05 Mac SÃthigh says it's funny there's criticism of media studies as 'mickey mouse' degree. Now more than ever there's a need to explain power of the media.
It's not all serious work here at Vole Towers though. Our piss-poor marketing department has sent us all a corporate e-card template with an editable section, the trusting, naive simpletons. Wittily doctored versions are being merrily exchanged. Here's one effort (with the name of this august institution removed):
Your dream Christmas dinner
OK, here's something for you to ponder over lunch - a familiar old conundrum.
Who would you invite to your dream Christmas dinner (or Christmas lunch, as the Daily Telegraph has it: 'this is not the Daily Star')?
OK, me first.
Decca Mitford: muckraking journalist, civil rights crusader, communist, friend of the Black Panthers, brilliant and witty writer, liked a drink. Eloped to the Spanish Civil War, aged 18, with Churchill's nephew.
Terry Pratchett. Obviously.
RS Thomas. Though he's a bit gloomy and you'd have to get him hammered before he cheered up (though one biographer claimed he was hilarious). Think of him as a fleshy Welsh Marvin the Paranoid Android.
Bjork. She'd bring roasted puffin and you could wind her up by wondering out loud where Lady Gaga got her ideas from.
William Morris. Big fat cheery lefty artistic genius. Guaranteed to provide comedy crackers.
Alexei Sayle. Clever, funny, Jewish lefty. In fact, much as I imagine Jesus before his PR team (aka Catholicism) got hold of him.
Michel Montaigne. Very clever man, liked good grub and a drink.
For festive illumination, Michael Gove doused in paraffin, on a spit.
Live music from El Vez, the Mexican Elvis. His 'Feliz Navidad' is one of my very favourite songs.
OK, your turn.
Who would you invite to your dream Christmas dinner (or Christmas lunch, as the Daily Telegraph has it: 'this is not the Daily Star')?
OK, me first.
Decca Mitford: muckraking journalist, civil rights crusader, communist, friend of the Black Panthers, brilliant and witty writer, liked a drink. Eloped to the Spanish Civil War, aged 18, with Churchill's nephew.
Terry Pratchett. Obviously.
RS Thomas. Though he's a bit gloomy and you'd have to get him hammered before he cheered up (though one biographer claimed he was hilarious). Think of him as a fleshy Welsh Marvin the Paranoid Android.
Bjork. She'd bring roasted puffin and you could wind her up by wondering out loud where Lady Gaga got her ideas from.
William Morris. Big fat cheery lefty artistic genius. Guaranteed to provide comedy crackers.
Alexei Sayle. Clever, funny, Jewish lefty. In fact, much as I imagine Jesus before his PR team (aka Catholicism) got hold of him.
Michel Montaigne. Very clever man, liked good grub and a drink.
For festive illumination, Michael Gove doused in paraffin, on a spit.
Live music from El Vez, the Mexican Elvis. His 'Feliz Navidad' is one of my very favourite songs.
OK, your turn.
Competition leads to corruption? Say it ain't so!
The media are leading today with the news that an exam board has been running seminars for teachers to show them how to get the kids to pass the exams. The Secretary of State for Education has launched an enquiry!
This is my cue to play - again - one of my favourite moments from that wonderful film, Casablanca.
Why? Because corruption is exactly what happens when things that shouldn't be businesses are made to compete against each other for profit. In the old days, exam boards were state institutions, or run by universities, with the aim of discovering a) what the kids had learned and b) whether they'd benefit from a university education. Seems simple enough.
Then they were privatised. They needed to attract 'business', e.g. schools which would use their exams, and would pay for the privilege. It doesn't take a genius to work out that there aren't many ways to do this. One is to reduce the cost, by farming the marking out to underpaid individuals on a piecework basis, which is why the standard of marking is so low, and making the questions more 'tick box' than discursive. The other is to make sure that the exams are easy to pass. Every school is now judged by the sledgehammer of league tables, so of course they're going to go for the exam provider which helps them achieve a high pass rate.
This is the insanity of a competitive privatised exam system allied to a functionalist, audit-obsessed regime. What's entirely irrelevant is the intellectual development of the children. You can't quantify that. Audit culture is entirely fraudulent.
So who's Captain Renault? At the moment, it's Michael Gove, and before him the Tory and Labour ministers who swallowed whole the depressing and reductive and totally untrue line that business is efficient and audit = facts and competition drives up quality. These are lies. His enquiry should run along these lines:
Amusingly, I heard this exam boards question (not the one about Gove-as-pimple) being discussed on Radio 4's Today programme. The very next item was about separating water companies and retailers. There wasn't a hint of irony or opposition as two guests and the presenter repeated exactly the same tired old lies: competing companies will reduce prices and improve quality. Hello? Rail? Gas? Electricity? Have they not noticed that there's no true competition (how could there be, with the water coming out of the taps?)? Do they not know that bills have increased massively?
I hate knowing more than nationally prominent commentators, politicians and company directors. I want to leave it all up to better qualified people while I truffle around for pork scratchings and weird books. But every time I look up, these utter morons are either deluding themselves or lying to us.
Now go away, I'm toweringly angry.
This is my cue to play - again - one of my favourite moments from that wonderful film, Casablanca.
Why? Because corruption is exactly what happens when things that shouldn't be businesses are made to compete against each other for profit. In the old days, exam boards were state institutions, or run by universities, with the aim of discovering a) what the kids had learned and b) whether they'd benefit from a university education. Seems simple enough.
Then they were privatised. They needed to attract 'business', e.g. schools which would use their exams, and would pay for the privilege. It doesn't take a genius to work out that there aren't many ways to do this. One is to reduce the cost, by farming the marking out to underpaid individuals on a piecework basis, which is why the standard of marking is so low, and making the questions more 'tick box' than discursive. The other is to make sure that the exams are easy to pass. Every school is now judged by the sledgehammer of league tables, so of course they're going to go for the exam provider which helps them achieve a high pass rate.
This is the insanity of a competitive privatised exam system allied to a functionalist, audit-obsessed regime. What's entirely irrelevant is the intellectual development of the children. You can't quantify that. Audit culture is entirely fraudulent.
So who's Captain Renault? At the moment, it's Michael Gove, and before him the Tory and Labour ministers who swallowed whole the depressing and reductive and totally untrue line that business is efficient and audit = facts and competition drives up quality. These are lies. His enquiry should run along these lines:
- Do I tell everyone that private businesses lead to lower prices and higher quality?
- Is there a teensy flaw to this?
- Might companies take shortcuts?
- So is this development due to my own ideological stupidity?
- Should I nationalise exam boards, abolish competition and concentrate on children's needs?
- Am I a suppurating pimple on the face of humanity who should do the decent thing with a glass of whisky and a revolver?
Amusingly, I heard this exam boards question (not the one about Gove-as-pimple) being discussed on Radio 4's Today programme. The very next item was about separating water companies and retailers. There wasn't a hint of irony or opposition as two guests and the presenter repeated exactly the same tired old lies: competing companies will reduce prices and improve quality. Hello? Rail? Gas? Electricity? Have they not noticed that there's no true competition (how could there be, with the water coming out of the taps?)? Do they not know that bills have increased massively?
I hate knowing more than nationally prominent commentators, politicians and company directors. I want to leave it all up to better qualified people while I truffle around for pork scratchings and weird books. But every time I look up, these utter morons are either deluding themselves or lying to us.
Now go away, I'm toweringly angry.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Live-blogging 'The Politics of the University'
Andrew Vincent, professor of political theory/philosophy, speaking on The Politics of the University. Summary of his take on recent university developments (as much as I could type).
Questions: what's politics, what is a university? Defining politics by distributing significance, patterns of order, utilising collective power etc. University: there's no one pure vision. 2 main senses:
1. a corporate community of scholars and teachers dedicated to knowledge and scholarship for its own sake. Derived from medieval principles of liberality: a broad and wide-ranging education and education for the free (liber) man.
2. a functional institution serving the demands of the state and the economy: training students for particular jobs. The university has to be 'useful'. This version developed alongside the modern state.
Many universities try to cover both formations to some extent. Universities have ideological characters. People say that since the 1980s, universities have become infected by neoliberal ideology. However, it's more complex. Universities are political entities, and are saturated by ideological ferment, despite managerial denial. Classical European and Anglo-Saxon liberalism, conservatism and radicalism are all present. UK institutions seem not to have been infiltrated by totalitarian ideology (nationalist, religious etc.), unlike European institutions, such as under the Nazis, and elsewhere. Oddly claims that law, business etc. might have been relatively unscathed, but to me, these seem like prime grounds for totalitarian ideology.
Employability skills as potentially totalitarian/functionalist?
3 broad ideologies affected UK unit: conservatism, social democracy, and neoliberalism. Traditional conservatism is akin to European liberalism. Social democracy is similar to socialist and corporate conservative traditions. Neoliberalism shares ground with conservatism and classical liberalism. It is epitomised in Cardinal Newman's The Idea of the University. It proclaims the civilising intention of the university institution: a training ground for an intellectual aristocracy or 'national clerisy', in an unequal society with a tiny élite. It still haunts the imaginations of those who fear the modernised, functional university, equality, state growth and democracy. From 1919, the University Grants Committee introduced state funding: to the horror of anti-statists. Kingsley Amis, 1960s: 'More [students] will mean worse'. The liberal vision was being destroyed by expansion and state-driven curricula.
Minogue, 1970: expressed anxiety at expansion, state cash and late 60s student riots and radicalism. University independence was under threat from state involvement in education, from a conservative position. All expressed apprehension at social-democratic intervention. The private University of Buckingham was established in 1970 by the conservative elite: Woodhead, Peacock, Beloff, O'Hear. Thatcher laid the foundation stone and became its first Chancellor. Proclaimed as 'freed' from state control, though some traditional conservatives distrusted the 'free market' aspect. But for many, elitism, small classes and independent curricula were guaranteed by privatisation. Not to make it more responsive to the economy, but to retain elitism.
The Welfare State university is another model: an inclusive community of assistance to all citizens. Labour 1945-1970 aspired to some kind of Better Society. University expansion was part of this: more institutions and more students. The state took control over most university finance. Hayek and co hated this state intervention as tyrannous. But it aimed at social justice, equality, full employment, full rights to all citizens, the extension of state funding of education, the right to social minimums, the desirability of a mixed public/private economy with state planning.
Universities were a part of this Keynesian Social Democracy. It critiqued unregulated free markets as inefficient, socially destructive and socially unjust. Student grants were an attempt to allow all citizens to enter HE if they had the intellectual ability. This was popular and central to the 1920s-40s-born population. SD triumphed eventually over classical British liberalism (i.e. laissez-faire). It became the social norm, and an expectation rather than a conscious ideology. Privatised prisons, health, university fees etc. would have been seen as fringe madness. But the arguments for social democracy were gradually forgotten as people moaned about taxes.
Added to this was the random but constant growth of Tory/New Labour/coalition neoliberalism. It overlaps with conservatism but has different emphases. It's the ideology which caused the 2008 economic crash. Its basic tenets are the value of the unregulated free market as the most efficient allocator of resources. Obsessed with deregulation and private wealth creation, and the dismantling of the state and of collective workers' organisations of any kind. Dedicated to constant growth. It appeared in the 1950s in the UK (Institute of Economic Affairs), but was popularised by Hayek and co. Early work was particularly interested in universities and laid the ground for Browne: education as a private good, to be paid for by the individual, who should become a consumer. The Adam Smith Institute and the Centre for Policy Studies were also cheerleaders for converting the Conservative Party to neoliberalism. David Willetts was a former CPS director: now Universities Minister (damn it). Gradually the moral case was replaced by the economic case to appeal to ministers on funding grounds: the faith-based element was present but hidden.
The student as consumer was at the heart of this neoliberal model. The state relinquishes control. The elite model is abandoned: the student-consumer becomes the discerning customer, not what the traditional conservatives wanted at all. This idea is applied to all state services, even though the private sector (e.g. banking) has been proved to be utterly destructive. Public services are being made to pay for capitalist neoliberal disasters: this is the function of hegemony. Privatisation is still proclaimed as the solution for public services, with little opposition.
Since the 2000s, academic managers and leaders have adopted the discourse of neoliberalism, presented as neutral truth, 'common sense' or realism. 'Choice' trumps all other ideas. Universities form businesses, conduct marketing, undertake 'esteem indications' and surveys. Private income is lionised. Students are encouraged to pursue self-interest: public service is derided. What of the future? The banking crisis seems not to have penetrated the ideological carapace of the education sector so far. The Browne Report (2010) is a symptom of an ideological hegemony. It reinforces pre-existing neoliberal premises. Browne is the disgraced former head of enormo-polluter BP. It inspired the 2011 White Paper, 'Students at the Heart of the University': free markets, no state intervention, private goods are multiple, public goods are unimportant, all societies are constituted of self-interested utility maximisers - hence fetching student choice (while rigging the market in certain ways, e.g. protecting medicine and certain other subjects).
Neoliberal Education = atomised individuals unintentionally benefitting other people, if at all. The purpose of education is to reap individual rewards. Education is pursued after cost-benefit analysis. This will drive up quality. Only what you pay for is valuable. Department and institutional competition will drive out poor teachers, universities and students thanks to the invisible hand effect. Market-efficient institutions will cannibalise 'inefficient' ones. Competition will be introduced at any cost, and the failure of some institutions is welcomed. The closure of some courses will also be welcomed.
But there's something new on the way, a new ideological hybrid. Neoliberal nostrums still saturate the discourse, but there are problems. Previously public services are difficult to make work in the private sector. How do train services compete, for example? Universities don't have shareholders or pursue profits. They don't have genuine competitors, and owners can't overthrow management. Resistance to neoliberalism generates 'the worst of all worlds'. The Tories don't want 'choice': if all students chose engineering or medicine, the system would collapse. So state subsidies are built into those disciplines: a tiny recognition that there is public good involved.
The market is rigged by student numbers and tiers of fees. It's a state command structure AND a market economy dressed up as 'student choice'. The state must artificially create and rig a market to get this insane structure to work. In the next stage, private providers will be supported by the state - which looks like the state socialism of the bank bailouts. All subjects other than medicine are 'not important to the wellbeing of society' (Browne) and therefore should be abandoned to the vagaries of the free market.
The challenge is to force this weird hybrid onto academics, who care about ideas? We have to be manipulated and retrained by continuous audit to demonstrate that we're already part of a market. Temporary staff are much easier to dominate, and they're cheaper. Insecurity makes them pliant. Private sector management techniques: PRP, staff development review, appraisals, promotion procedures, REF, nagging to acquire external income - all these things are part of a disciplinary system of functionalism - and they damage real teaching and real research. The Student-Consumer will, think the neoliberals, be the final nail in the coffin.
One further aspect of this hybrid. If a university continually audits and monitors its staff, it faces a blizzard of administration. What do they do with this trivia? They create thousands of administrators. Private companies cut administrators for profit: universities won't have to do this. The fastest growth area in UK and US universities is administrators. Teaching numbers are stable. Academics don't administer: administrators have little understanding or interest in academia. They are the foot soldiers of the audit culture. That is their raison d'être. Best practice. Benchmarking: discourse used as a weapon, not for a purpose. Committees, away days and retreats are a substitute for action. Income-generation is achieved by the means of teaching, rather than teaching as the end of administration. Universities are for distributing investments for the efficient utilisation of resources: not for educating students for the public good.
Governments are frustrated by academic resistance. This market-discipline + auditing + rigged market tyranny + 'professional' administrative control is the neoliberal revenge on the educators. It has begun to eviscerate what was a genuine public good. The dignity of the university is now a huckstering, greedy, shallow institution. Ideology masquerades as reality. Universities aren't and shouldn't be businesses, whatever politicians and VCs want. We aren't driven by personal greed. Collegiality and the love of ideas motivate us: we're degraded by this hybrid of managerialism and neoliberalism: our profound shame is that we don't seriously challenge this discourse. Our everyday activity is an affront to our values. Managerialism administration isn't neutral, or economic reality: it's ideological. We act as though they're true - and thereby sell the pass. We need to resist. This ideology will be supplanted… one day. What level of cultural, intellectual and moral damage will it do to our society along the way?
Q+A session:
private providers will cherry-pick. Elite institutions will remain prestigious. Ex-polytechnics will be under massive pressure. Private institutions aren't universities.
UK universities will be amongst the most expensive in the world: that and visa changes will deter overseas students.
Q: Does deregulation of fees lead to the original elite conservative institutions which are still universities, and a hinterland of non-universities?
A: Yes, I think that's true. Some at Oxford etc. welcome this - they can't lose. Unless the auditing culture affects them too. They whine about the demands of chasing external income too. This might interfere with the formation of these separate sectors. Audit culture is seen as a gross interference in intellectual culture at the elite institutions too. If it diminishes, then these elites would be laughing. Civic universities are integral to their communities: the thought that that historical development might diminish to fly-by-night corporate provision might horrify the old-fashioned conservatives. It would be massively destructive.
Q: Most politicians are Oxbridge - they won't be hugely concerned seeing local institutions sinking.
A: There is a strand of conservative concern for local institutions. But Osborne, Willetts etc. are thorough-going neoliberals.
Q: Orwell, 1984: put your faith in the proles - i.e. students. This move to redescribe students as consumers assumes s/he is fully-formed and fully-informed [which seems impossible]. This discourse hides the fact that they aren't fully-formed. They change their minds, and as they immerse themselves in self-education, will develop in gloriously unpredictable ways. There's a potential for resistance here.
A: We want dissatisfied students. If they're satisfied, something is wrong! [See Plato: it's better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied].
Q: It goes back to Major's dissolution of the Uni/Poly divide. The ideological impact on students isn't just consumerism. The impact on their lives of massive amounts of debt will be huge. They'll be like US students who can't refuse to participate in the labour market on the employers' terms. It silences the critical voices of the intellectuals.
A: That's one view. Another view is that it's not so organised, and is a response to Austerity Britain. Most ministers couldn't care a toss about universities and just want to cut. The weakness of this second argument is that arguments about fees and alternative financing were being kicked about by neoliberal think tanks as far back as the 1960s, e.g. the IEA pamphlets. Government funding of universities is actually going massively up due to the new loans system, so it's more likely to be ideological than the austerity/cuts agenda. It's a very focussed attack in Browne and the White Paper. It's the most radical agenda for a generation: 'poverty-stricken trivia' with an incredibly poverty-stricken view of a human being', which makes the Robbins report look gentle and civilised.
Are human beings simply economic fodder, or people whose needs we need to care for? I was heartened to see the revolting students put bricks through windows. Banks can afford them. Students aren't highly leftwing now or in the 1980s, and I wouldn't see government policy as an attempt to stop students becoming left-wingers, though they do see academics as left-leaning. The idea of lecturers being forced by all kinds of prompts to become market actors gives them some satisfaction.
Q: To what extent is this European or global, or is there an Anglo-Saxon/European schism?
A: I don't quite believe in globalisation in a positive sense. Neoliberalism has patchily affected a range of countries. In education, it's also patchy. Germans are puzzled by what's happening in the UK. In Sweden, the beginnings of the neoliberal ethos can be glimpsed. Australia tends to follow the UK a few years behind [any comment, MfD?]. The All-Administrative University is a recommended read: case-studies of US institutions' manic audit/grant-chasing culture.
If I had university-age kids now, I'd send them to Maastricht University: all-English tuition for €1400 euro, or Trinity College Dublin. Many European universities feel that no sensible British student would spend £9000 p.a. for a potentially crap education from a private British place when s/he could easily reach a good university in a magnificent city like Barcelona.
Questions: what's politics, what is a university? Defining politics by distributing significance, patterns of order, utilising collective power etc. University: there's no one pure vision. 2 main senses:
1. a corporate community of scholars and teachers dedicated to knowledge and scholarship for its own sake. Derived from medieval principles of liberality: a broad and wide-ranging education and education for the free (liber) man.
2. a functional institution serving the demands of the state and the economy: training students for particular jobs. The university has to be 'useful'. This version developed alongside the modern state.
Many universities try to cover both formations to some extent. Universities have ideological characters. People say that since the 1980s, universities have become infected by neoliberal ideology. However, it's more complex. Universities are political entities, and are saturated by ideological ferment, despite managerial denial. Classical European and Anglo-Saxon liberalism, conservatism and radicalism are all present. UK institutions seem not to have been infiltrated by totalitarian ideology (nationalist, religious etc.), unlike European institutions, such as under the Nazis, and elsewhere. Oddly claims that law, business etc. might have been relatively unscathed, but to me, these seem like prime grounds for totalitarian ideology.
Employability skills as potentially totalitarian/functionalist?
3 broad ideologies affected UK unit: conservatism, social democracy, and neoliberalism. Traditional conservatism is akin to European liberalism. Social democracy is similar to socialist and corporate conservative traditions. Neoliberalism shares ground with conservatism and classical liberalism. It is epitomised in Cardinal Newman's The Idea of the University. It proclaims the civilising intention of the university institution: a training ground for an intellectual aristocracy or 'national clerisy', in an unequal society with a tiny élite. It still haunts the imaginations of those who fear the modernised, functional university, equality, state growth and democracy. From 1919, the University Grants Committee introduced state funding: to the horror of anti-statists. Kingsley Amis, 1960s: 'More [students] will mean worse'. The liberal vision was being destroyed by expansion and state-driven curricula.
Minogue, 1970: expressed anxiety at expansion, state cash and late 60s student riots and radicalism. University independence was under threat from state involvement in education, from a conservative position. All expressed apprehension at social-democratic intervention. The private University of Buckingham was established in 1970 by the conservative elite: Woodhead, Peacock, Beloff, O'Hear. Thatcher laid the foundation stone and became its first Chancellor. Proclaimed as 'freed' from state control, though some traditional conservatives distrusted the 'free market' aspect. But for many, elitism, small classes and independent curricula were guaranteed by privatisation. Not to make it more responsive to the economy, but to retain elitism.
The Welfare State university is another model: an inclusive community of assistance to all citizens. Labour 1945-1970 aspired to some kind of Better Society. University expansion was part of this: more institutions and more students. The state took control over most university finance. Hayek and co hated this state intervention as tyrannous. But it aimed at social justice, equality, full employment, full rights to all citizens, the extension of state funding of education, the right to social minimums, the desirability of a mixed public/private economy with state planning.
Universities were a part of this Keynesian Social Democracy. It critiqued unregulated free markets as inefficient, socially destructive and socially unjust. Student grants were an attempt to allow all citizens to enter HE if they had the intellectual ability. This was popular and central to the 1920s-40s-born population. SD triumphed eventually over classical British liberalism (i.e. laissez-faire). It became the social norm, and an expectation rather than a conscious ideology. Privatised prisons, health, university fees etc. would have been seen as fringe madness. But the arguments for social democracy were gradually forgotten as people moaned about taxes.
Added to this was the random but constant growth of Tory/New Labour/coalition neoliberalism. It overlaps with conservatism but has different emphases. It's the ideology which caused the 2008 economic crash. Its basic tenets are the value of the unregulated free market as the most efficient allocator of resources. Obsessed with deregulation and private wealth creation, and the dismantling of the state and of collective workers' organisations of any kind. Dedicated to constant growth. It appeared in the 1950s in the UK (Institute of Economic Affairs), but was popularised by Hayek and co. Early work was particularly interested in universities and laid the ground for Browne: education as a private good, to be paid for by the individual, who should become a consumer. The Adam Smith Institute and the Centre for Policy Studies were also cheerleaders for converting the Conservative Party to neoliberalism. David Willetts was a former CPS director: now Universities Minister (damn it). Gradually the moral case was replaced by the economic case to appeal to ministers on funding grounds: the faith-based element was present but hidden.
The student as consumer was at the heart of this neoliberal model. The state relinquishes control. The elite model is abandoned: the student-consumer becomes the discerning customer, not what the traditional conservatives wanted at all. This idea is applied to all state services, even though the private sector (e.g. banking) has been proved to be utterly destructive. Public services are being made to pay for capitalist neoliberal disasters: this is the function of hegemony. Privatisation is still proclaimed as the solution for public services, with little opposition.
Since the 2000s, academic managers and leaders have adopted the discourse of neoliberalism, presented as neutral truth, 'common sense' or realism. 'Choice' trumps all other ideas. Universities form businesses, conduct marketing, undertake 'esteem indications' and surveys. Private income is lionised. Students are encouraged to pursue self-interest: public service is derided. What of the future? The banking crisis seems not to have penetrated the ideological carapace of the education sector so far. The Browne Report (2010) is a symptom of an ideological hegemony. It reinforces pre-existing neoliberal premises. Browne is the disgraced former head of enormo-polluter BP. It inspired the 2011 White Paper, 'Students at the Heart of the University': free markets, no state intervention, private goods are multiple, public goods are unimportant, all societies are constituted of self-interested utility maximisers - hence fetching student choice (while rigging the market in certain ways, e.g. protecting medicine and certain other subjects).
Neoliberal Education = atomised individuals unintentionally benefitting other people, if at all. The purpose of education is to reap individual rewards. Education is pursued after cost-benefit analysis. This will drive up quality. Only what you pay for is valuable. Department and institutional competition will drive out poor teachers, universities and students thanks to the invisible hand effect. Market-efficient institutions will cannibalise 'inefficient' ones. Competition will be introduced at any cost, and the failure of some institutions is welcomed. The closure of some courses will also be welcomed.
But there's something new on the way, a new ideological hybrid. Neoliberal nostrums still saturate the discourse, but there are problems. Previously public services are difficult to make work in the private sector. How do train services compete, for example? Universities don't have shareholders or pursue profits. They don't have genuine competitors, and owners can't overthrow management. Resistance to neoliberalism generates 'the worst of all worlds'. The Tories don't want 'choice': if all students chose engineering or medicine, the system would collapse. So state subsidies are built into those disciplines: a tiny recognition that there is public good involved.
The market is rigged by student numbers and tiers of fees. It's a state command structure AND a market economy dressed up as 'student choice'. The state must artificially create and rig a market to get this insane structure to work. In the next stage, private providers will be supported by the state - which looks like the state socialism of the bank bailouts. All subjects other than medicine are 'not important to the wellbeing of society' (Browne) and therefore should be abandoned to the vagaries of the free market.
The challenge is to force this weird hybrid onto academics, who care about ideas? We have to be manipulated and retrained by continuous audit to demonstrate that we're already part of a market. Temporary staff are much easier to dominate, and they're cheaper. Insecurity makes them pliant. Private sector management techniques: PRP, staff development review, appraisals, promotion procedures, REF, nagging to acquire external income - all these things are part of a disciplinary system of functionalism - and they damage real teaching and real research. The Student-Consumer will, think the neoliberals, be the final nail in the coffin.
One further aspect of this hybrid. If a university continually audits and monitors its staff, it faces a blizzard of administration. What do they do with this trivia? They create thousands of administrators. Private companies cut administrators for profit: universities won't have to do this. The fastest growth area in UK and US universities is administrators. Teaching numbers are stable. Academics don't administer: administrators have little understanding or interest in academia. They are the foot soldiers of the audit culture. That is their raison d'être. Best practice. Benchmarking: discourse used as a weapon, not for a purpose. Committees, away days and retreats are a substitute for action. Income-generation is achieved by the means of teaching, rather than teaching as the end of administration. Universities are for distributing investments for the efficient utilisation of resources: not for educating students for the public good.
Governments are frustrated by academic resistance. This market-discipline + auditing + rigged market tyranny + 'professional' administrative control is the neoliberal revenge on the educators. It has begun to eviscerate what was a genuine public good. The dignity of the university is now a huckstering, greedy, shallow institution. Ideology masquerades as reality. Universities aren't and shouldn't be businesses, whatever politicians and VCs want. We aren't driven by personal greed. Collegiality and the love of ideas motivate us: we're degraded by this hybrid of managerialism and neoliberalism: our profound shame is that we don't seriously challenge this discourse. Our everyday activity is an affront to our values. Managerialism administration isn't neutral, or economic reality: it's ideological. We act as though they're true - and thereby sell the pass. We need to resist. This ideology will be supplanted… one day. What level of cultural, intellectual and moral damage will it do to our society along the way?
Q+A session:
private providers will cherry-pick. Elite institutions will remain prestigious. Ex-polytechnics will be under massive pressure. Private institutions aren't universities.
UK universities will be amongst the most expensive in the world: that and visa changes will deter overseas students.
Q: Does deregulation of fees lead to the original elite conservative institutions which are still universities, and a hinterland of non-universities?
A: Yes, I think that's true. Some at Oxford etc. welcome this - they can't lose. Unless the auditing culture affects them too. They whine about the demands of chasing external income too. This might interfere with the formation of these separate sectors. Audit culture is seen as a gross interference in intellectual culture at the elite institutions too. If it diminishes, then these elites would be laughing. Civic universities are integral to their communities: the thought that that historical development might diminish to fly-by-night corporate provision might horrify the old-fashioned conservatives. It would be massively destructive.
Q: Most politicians are Oxbridge - they won't be hugely concerned seeing local institutions sinking.
A: There is a strand of conservative concern for local institutions. But Osborne, Willetts etc. are thorough-going neoliberals.
Q: Orwell, 1984: put your faith in the proles - i.e. students. This move to redescribe students as consumers assumes s/he is fully-formed and fully-informed [which seems impossible]. This discourse hides the fact that they aren't fully-formed. They change their minds, and as they immerse themselves in self-education, will develop in gloriously unpredictable ways. There's a potential for resistance here.
A: We want dissatisfied students. If they're satisfied, something is wrong! [See Plato: it's better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied].
Q: It goes back to Major's dissolution of the Uni/Poly divide. The ideological impact on students isn't just consumerism. The impact on their lives of massive amounts of debt will be huge. They'll be like US students who can't refuse to participate in the labour market on the employers' terms. It silences the critical voices of the intellectuals.
A: That's one view. Another view is that it's not so organised, and is a response to Austerity Britain. Most ministers couldn't care a toss about universities and just want to cut. The weakness of this second argument is that arguments about fees and alternative financing were being kicked about by neoliberal think tanks as far back as the 1960s, e.g. the IEA pamphlets. Government funding of universities is actually going massively up due to the new loans system, so it's more likely to be ideological than the austerity/cuts agenda. It's a very focussed attack in Browne and the White Paper. It's the most radical agenda for a generation: 'poverty-stricken trivia' with an incredibly poverty-stricken view of a human being', which makes the Robbins report look gentle and civilised.
Are human beings simply economic fodder, or people whose needs we need to care for? I was heartened to see the revolting students put bricks through windows. Banks can afford them. Students aren't highly leftwing now or in the 1980s, and I wouldn't see government policy as an attempt to stop students becoming left-wingers, though they do see academics as left-leaning. The idea of lecturers being forced by all kinds of prompts to become market actors gives them some satisfaction.
Q: To what extent is this European or global, or is there an Anglo-Saxon/European schism?
A: I don't quite believe in globalisation in a positive sense. Neoliberalism has patchily affected a range of countries. In education, it's also patchy. Germans are puzzled by what's happening in the UK. In Sweden, the beginnings of the neoliberal ethos can be glimpsed. Australia tends to follow the UK a few years behind [any comment, MfD?]. The All-Administrative University is a recommended read: case-studies of US institutions' manic audit/grant-chasing culture.
If I had university-age kids now, I'd send them to Maastricht University: all-English tuition for €1400 euro, or Trinity College Dublin. Many European universities feel that no sensible British student would spend £9000 p.a. for a potentially crap education from a private British place when s/he could easily reach a good university in a magnificent city like Barcelona.
Of suns and stars
Some interesting animations covering the material we learned about at Café Scientifique last night:
Ask an author
Over at the Paris Review, they're telling the story of Bruce McAllister, the 16-year old who in 1963 had an argument with his English teacher about whether symbols are deliberately or unconsciously inserted in literary texts. He didn't let it lie: he typed up questionnaires and sent them to 150 authors, 75 of whom were kind enough to respond, many of them thoughtfully and seriously.
What did he learn? That science fiction authors are happy to share, which I expected. And that Ayn Rand (presiding guru of greed and selfishness), is an ass who thinks it's absolutely fine to be rude to teenagers.
Jack Kerouac
What did he learn? That science fiction authors are happy to share, which I expected. And that Ayn Rand (presiding guru of greed and selfishness), is an ass who thinks it's absolutely fine to be rude to teenagers.
Ayn Rand.
Click the images to enlarge. I'm off to do 2 hours on The Tempest and another two on media ethics.
Bloody scientists
Cafe Scientifique in Birmingham was a blast. It was held in the upstairs room of the fine Jekyll and Hyde pub. The clientele covered the range of ages, sexes and scientific understanding, and there were so many that quite a few had to stand in the corridor outside. Neal and I were lucky enough to stand next to the bar, which was ideal: next to the speaker and within easy reach of the intellectual lubrication which provided me - temporarily - with the feeling that I understood a little of what was being said.
What did I learn? The speaker was the affable and learned Prof. Shomak Raychoudhury from Birmingham University, and his subject was Black Holes: what they are, what they do and how they're detected. Apparently there are two kinds: ordinary ones we (by which I mean not me) largely understand, and the Super Massive Black Holes which seem to exist at the centre of every galaxy and defy understanding. The discussion also touched on galaxy collisions, dark matter and dark energy. We learned that CERN might theoretically create the conditions for a black hole to form, but only for such a brief period that it wouldn't count and certainly won't swallow anything up. I was quite pleased that black-body radiation, which I'd mentioned to Neal, came up in the course of the conversation, and was pleased to hear that our solar system is a freak: most stars exist in binary formations, so Star Trek got a lot right.
We chatted away happily to a range of people (including one who claims to be poisoned by wifi and mobile phones) and had our lives put into perspective by the good professor mentioning that one of his PhD students had recently discovered a new black hole. It certainly makes my PhD in Welsh literature look rather ordinary. However, I'm comforted by the memory of what happened to the student who discovered the Improbability Drive:
What did I learn? The speaker was the affable and learned Prof. Shomak Raychoudhury from Birmingham University, and his subject was Black Holes: what they are, what they do and how they're detected. Apparently there are two kinds: ordinary ones we (by which I mean not me) largely understand, and the Super Massive Black Holes which seem to exist at the centre of every galaxy and defy understanding. The discussion also touched on galaxy collisions, dark matter and dark energy. We learned that CERN might theoretically create the conditions for a black hole to form, but only for such a brief period that it wouldn't count and certainly won't swallow anything up. I was quite pleased that black-body radiation, which I'd mentioned to Neal, came up in the course of the conversation, and was pleased to hear that our solar system is a freak: most stars exist in binary formations, so Star Trek got a lot right.
We chatted away happily to a range of people (including one who claims to be poisoned by wifi and mobile phones) and had our lives put into perspective by the good professor mentioning that one of his PhD students had recently discovered a new black hole. It certainly makes my PhD in Welsh literature look rather ordinary. However, I'm comforted by the memory of what happened to the student who discovered the Improbability Drive:
…just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smartarse.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Won't somebody think of the children?
Don't take your kids to the new Muppets movie. Despite it being a Hollywood production replete with the inevitable corporate tie-ins, Fox News has announced that it's eco-communist propaganda:
Which compared with Jeremy Clarkson, is small beer indeed. And more to the point: what children's literature isn't subversive? All the good stuff, at least. The Phantom Tollbooth is, for me, a Derridean deconstruction of language and signifier. Goldilocks crosses the animal human divide, while even the dumbest pubescent girl will spot the barely-hidden sexual messages of Red Riding Hood. Hell, even Bugs Bunny's eternal tormenting of Elmer Fudd is a clear attack on the armed rapaciousness of Big Farmer and the hunting fraternity.
Virtually every kids' book ever written preaches the joys of sharing and the misery attendant on being a selfish bully. Whenever I meet a Tory or a banker, I have to assume that they read only the nasty stuff: Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, both of which promote greed, racism and individualism in the service of a cruel and vengeful god, and in which the daily toil of the ordinary person is utterly insignificant.
Like this bit, the smashing of Isengard by angry trees.
Apparently if you're an industrial worker, you're a despicable, degraded monster deserving a cruel death, not empathy or advice from a friendly trades unionist. You don't get a name, or agency. You're just a Morlock in the blind service of evil. You hate trees and the trees are going to kill you, rightfully so. For Tolkien, apparently, being working-class means you have no culture, no rights and no future. The world - as all the positive characters keep saying - is descending into darkness, and the victory over Sauron is really only the last hurrah of the ancient and (don't forget), racially pure. Miscegenation is a cause for sadness (when it's 'good' races like Elves and the better sort of men), and for evil when it's the lower orders.
This is what really bothers me about Tolkien and Narnia: the idea that there is no progress, only decay. That racial purity and wisdom are automatically linked. That the darker your skin or the more X chromosomes you have, the dumber and more passive you should be. Who could fail to be revolted by the way Susan is excluded from Narnia for developing an interest in lipstick and boys? Or the way the children die horribly in a train wreck, with the words 'school is over. The holidays have begun', as though life on earth is no more meaningful than sitting in the waiting room?
Now run along before Gandalf rips off your face, peasants. And read Alison Lurie's Don't Tell The Grown-ups.
"Liberal Hollywood depicting a successful businessman as evil – that's not new," said Bolling. He asked his guest, media-bias alarmist Dan Gainor, if Hollywood was deliberately trying to brainwash kids.
"Absolutely," said Gainor. "And they've been doing it for decades." He pointed out that oil could be used to "light a hospital" or "fuel an ambulance". "They don't want to tell that story," he said.
Bolling's Fox News colleague Andrea Tantaros chimed in, saying: "I just wish liberals could leave little kids alone." Bolling wondered aloud why the Muppets couldn't, for once, "have the evil person be the Obama administration". It only remained for him to throw up his hands and cry: "Where are we? Communist China?"
Which compared with Jeremy Clarkson, is small beer indeed. And more to the point: what children's literature isn't subversive? All the good stuff, at least. The Phantom Tollbooth is, for me, a Derridean deconstruction of language and signifier. Goldilocks crosses the animal human divide, while even the dumbest pubescent girl will spot the barely-hidden sexual messages of Red Riding Hood. Hell, even Bugs Bunny's eternal tormenting of Elmer Fudd is a clear attack on the armed rapaciousness of Big Farmer and the hunting fraternity.
Virtually every kids' book ever written preaches the joys of sharing and the misery attendant on being a selfish bully. Whenever I meet a Tory or a banker, I have to assume that they read only the nasty stuff: Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, both of which promote greed, racism and individualism in the service of a cruel and vengeful god, and in which the daily toil of the ordinary person is utterly insignificant.
Like this bit, the smashing of Isengard by angry trees.
Apparently if you're an industrial worker, you're a despicable, degraded monster deserving a cruel death, not empathy or advice from a friendly trades unionist. You don't get a name, or agency. You're just a Morlock in the blind service of evil. You hate trees and the trees are going to kill you, rightfully so. For Tolkien, apparently, being working-class means you have no culture, no rights and no future. The world - as all the positive characters keep saying - is descending into darkness, and the victory over Sauron is really only the last hurrah of the ancient and (don't forget), racially pure. Miscegenation is a cause for sadness (when it's 'good' races like Elves and the better sort of men), and for evil when it's the lower orders.
This is what really bothers me about Tolkien and Narnia: the idea that there is no progress, only decay. That racial purity and wisdom are automatically linked. That the darker your skin or the more X chromosomes you have, the dumber and more passive you should be. Who could fail to be revolted by the way Susan is excluded from Narnia for developing an interest in lipstick and boys? Or the way the children die horribly in a train wreck, with the words 'school is over. The holidays have begun', as though life on earth is no more meaningful than sitting in the waiting room?
Now run along before Gandalf rips off your face, peasants. And read Alison Lurie's Don't Tell The Grown-ups.
On the agenda
It's a fun-packed day today: marking the three Shakespeare forums on which I've fallen behind, counselling the lost sheep about their dissertations, going for a swim and then going to a discussion of black holes. In a pub. Oh, and following the Leveson Inquiry too. Enthralling.
The soundtrack to the day is Adam Green's Sixes and Sevens, another £3 CD bought out of curiosity. It's rather fun: a mix of Kurt Weill, Tom Waits and nursery rhymes. I saw his former Moldy Peaches partner Kimya Dawson at ATP once: similar faux-naif fun.
The soundtrack to the day is Adam Green's Sixes and Sevens, another £3 CD bought out of curiosity. It's rather fun: a mix of Kurt Weill, Tom Waits and nursery rhymes. I saw his former Moldy Peaches partner Kimya Dawson at ATP once: similar faux-naif fun.
Monday, 5 December 2011
Putting the FUN into Fundamentalism
A chance conversation reminded me of the Lost Age of non-commercial indie music, which died out when Britpop became chart fodder. One scene was 'grebo': defiantly uncool West Midlanders in big shorts, para boots and churning out sometimes quite catchy club-influenced hits. Ned's Atomic Dustbin (2 bass guitars!), Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonder Stuff: good serviceable student music.
This is Ned's' biggest hit: Kill Your Television:
And you need some PWEI: gritty yet wittily postmodern forward thinkers: rap, rock and funk mixed together to provide such gems as this, and frankly odd paean of praise to football and a porn-star turned rightwing politician 'Touched By The Hand of Cicciolina'.
Even better was the occasional crossover with the UK hip-hop scene. Who, pre-9/11, couldn't fail to love Fun Da Mental: politically-conscious angry Muslim metal-rappers? Happy days…
This is Ned's' biggest hit: Kill Your Television:
And you need some PWEI: gritty yet wittily postmodern forward thinkers: rap, rock and funk mixed together to provide such gems as this, and frankly odd paean of praise to football and a porn-star turned rightwing politician 'Touched By The Hand of Cicciolina'.
Even better was the occasional crossover with the UK hip-hop scene. Who, pre-9/11, couldn't fail to love Fun Da Mental: politically-conscious angry Muslim metal-rappers? Happy days…
Trouble in Paradise
There's a by-election in Feltham and Heston, a political fact which normally wouldn't detain even a nerd like me for a moment, were it not for this glorious little spat.
According to the Conservative Party,
Michael Fabricant (campaign organiser begging MPs' staff to help out:
According to the Conservative Party,
‘We are fighting hard across the constituency and receiving a very positive feedback on the doorstep. There’s all to play for.Of course there is (by which I mean that the Tories are going to lose very badly indeed). The fun is that some naughty Tory has leaked a rather bitter and angry exchange of emails between two Tory MP's running the campaign. You can read the whole thing here, but these are some choice extracts:
Michael Fabricant (campaign organiser begging MPs' staff to help out:
We are asking every MP to donate 3 x half-days to this Campaign. If you haven’t already done so, please make sure he or she does so!! …you will be included in all the Bulletins sent to MPs so they have no excuse when they ‘accidentally’ delete my important messages!Bob Stewart (aggrieved MP who turned up to do some canvassing):
Who the hell do you think you are? I am furious.
The vast majority of people were out and those that were in wouldn’t open the door. I don’t blame them for that. As I was canvassing there was a drugs raid and the UK Border Agency were doing a simultaneous operation. We probably looked like people from the Social Services, Police, Special Branch or UK Border Agency. There is absolutely no chance of us winning there. I wasted my time all day today and I will not be doing so again.They don't need the Lib Dems to fight with: they'll do it by themselves.
Drinking the Kool-Aid
I don't know if you've been following the American Presidential nomination campaigns, but it's a fascinating example of why we are doomed to a future of environmental misery, scientific ignorance and social decay.
The primary system pitches potential party candidates against each other in a bitter, gladiatorial contest. Any voter registered as a supporter (not member) of the party can vote in their statewide poll. In some ways, it's quite useful: the flaws of the candidate can be highlighted before the actual national election. On the other hand, those flaws are exposed for the nation to see even years before the candidate faces the official vote. Additionally, the public can become bored with the candidate very early on.
Apart from the obscene amounts of money soaked up by essentially 3 years of campaigning during a 4-year election cycle, the major problem for the American 2-party system is extremism. This year's Republican candidates are Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain (until yesterday), Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich. All of them are hugely rich, privileged people - and all of them are running as political 'outsiders': even Newt Gingrich, who led the Republican Congress against Bill Clinton. He's up to his neck in lobbying corruption and accusations of hypocrisy: while pursuing Clinton for the Lewinsky affair, he was conducting several of his own…
The problem with the primary system is this: to win the nomination, you have to appeal to the minority of voters who turn out. This is the hardcore: those who want a candidate exactly like them, which means loudly proclaiming your fundamentalist Christianity, attacking science, denying that there's anything wrong with the environment at all, wielding heavy artillery at every opportunity, and promising to deport anyone who's ever looked longingly at a taco.
Which is all very well: but it pays no attention to the rest of the country. The Republicans are facing a liked but not massively popular incumbent in Obama. There's a percentage of the country which will switch to the Republicans without too much guilt if their candidate is reasonably centrist (by American standards: horrendously conservative by our's). But this is exactly what won't happen. The most reasonable Republican candidate is Mitt Romney, the billionaire Mormon: but even he's had to abandon all common sense and drink the extremist Kool-Aid. So the Republicans will get a candidate in their image - and lose heavily. It's a problem common to political parties everywhere: true believers are often a bit odd, whereas the plausible candidates can't always be trusted (looking at you, Blair), but it seems to be magnified in the US, where the Republicans are becoming a narrow, bitter faith-based sect, and the Democrats are simply technocratic avatars of the status quo with very little in the way of actual, y'know, beliefs.
It's the old conundrum: electable or true believer? I'm pretty certain that there's a big chunk of potential ordinary decent Republicans out there who espouse small-town conservative values who are essentially disenfranchised by the activists' extremism.
And while we're at it, yesterday's Doonesbury is a magnificent attack on Rick Perry and election funding.
The primary system pitches potential party candidates against each other in a bitter, gladiatorial contest. Any voter registered as a supporter (not member) of the party can vote in their statewide poll. In some ways, it's quite useful: the flaws of the candidate can be highlighted before the actual national election. On the other hand, those flaws are exposed for the nation to see even years before the candidate faces the official vote. Additionally, the public can become bored with the candidate very early on.
Apart from the obscene amounts of money soaked up by essentially 3 years of campaigning during a 4-year election cycle, the major problem for the American 2-party system is extremism. This year's Republican candidates are Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain (until yesterday), Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich. All of them are hugely rich, privileged people - and all of them are running as political 'outsiders': even Newt Gingrich, who led the Republican Congress against Bill Clinton. He's up to his neck in lobbying corruption and accusations of hypocrisy: while pursuing Clinton for the Lewinsky affair, he was conducting several of his own…
The problem with the primary system is this: to win the nomination, you have to appeal to the minority of voters who turn out. This is the hardcore: those who want a candidate exactly like them, which means loudly proclaiming your fundamentalist Christianity, attacking science, denying that there's anything wrong with the environment at all, wielding heavy artillery at every opportunity, and promising to deport anyone who's ever looked longingly at a taco.
Which is all very well: but it pays no attention to the rest of the country. The Republicans are facing a liked but not massively popular incumbent in Obama. There's a percentage of the country which will switch to the Republicans without too much guilt if their candidate is reasonably centrist (by American standards: horrendously conservative by our's). But this is exactly what won't happen. The most reasonable Republican candidate is Mitt Romney, the billionaire Mormon: but even he's had to abandon all common sense and drink the extremist Kool-Aid. So the Republicans will get a candidate in their image - and lose heavily. It's a problem common to political parties everywhere: true believers are often a bit odd, whereas the plausible candidates can't always be trusted (looking at you, Blair), but it seems to be magnified in the US, where the Republicans are becoming a narrow, bitter faith-based sect, and the Democrats are simply technocratic avatars of the status quo with very little in the way of actual, y'know, beliefs.
It's the old conundrum: electable or true believer? I'm pretty certain that there's a big chunk of potential ordinary decent Republicans out there who espouse small-town conservative values who are essentially disenfranchised by the activists' extremism.
And while we're at it, yesterday's Doonesbury is a magnificent attack on Rick Perry and election funding.
Science + Beer = Good
Tomorrow, in a fine pub in Birmingham (the Jekyll and Hyde, appropriately), it's Café Scientifique:
Black holes tomorrow. See you there?
informal and lively discussion events around contemporary science issues that take place in local bars, cafes and pubs. Taking place on the first Tuesday of every month, we feature a variety of local scientists and engineers, talking about their work and how it affects the average person in the street. Always fun, sometimes controversial, these events are a great way to get to the heart of the matter.What a wonderful idea, and one we should steal as part of our university's outreach programme: arts, media, current affairs - we could attract a totally new audience. We could turn up in gurdwaras, union halls, village halls, libraries, shopping centres… I'd have to pass a hat round, of course.
Black holes tomorrow. See you there?
Saturday, 3 December 2011
If You Build It, They Will (not) Come
So, I'm sitting here at the university, surrounded by a buffet and empty space. We're hosting a Saturday University: a series of interesting talks designed to attract part-time students to think about taking on a BA in Humanities. It's a fascinating course, designed to tease out the deeper questions about our philosophical and cultural activities.
The day is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing: reaching out to the community in new ways, providing stimulating and challenging opportunities to people who might not otherwise get a chance.
Why aren't they here? Who knows? We blanketed local radio and other outlets with publicity. We reached out to local groups. Perhaps it's us, perhaps it's the time of year, Christmas shopping, local difficulties. Or perhaps it's symptomatic of a wider cultural malaise. I just don't know.
What to do for the rest of the day? I intend to get naked and take a run through the sacred groves of academe (i.e. the corridors).
The day is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing: reaching out to the community in new ways, providing stimulating and challenging opportunities to people who might not otherwise get a chance.
Why aren't they here? Who knows? We blanketed local radio and other outlets with publicity. We reached out to local groups. Perhaps it's us, perhaps it's the time of year, Christmas shopping, local difficulties. Or perhaps it's symptomatic of a wider cultural malaise. I just don't know.
What to do for the rest of the day? I intend to get naked and take a run through the sacred groves of academe (i.e. the corridors).
Friday, 2 December 2011
The horror…
A colleague just sent me a link to candidates for the worst album art of all time. They're pretty shocking, but one in particular caught my eye:
This is Kevin Rowland, to whom The Hegemon is awarding an honorary doctorate, not for this album, but for his wonderful music as Dexys Midnight Runners. I suppose we should respect his bravery. Not everyone can carry off a pearl necklace and mutton-chop sideburns.
Shamefully, I temporarily possessed this album. It was, I assume, his mid-life crisis work. I was sent a review copy for the student newspaper I edited. So bad was it, that I hurled the CD from a high window. Shame really: it only sold 400 copies and is something of a collector's item now!
To take the taste away, here's my very favourite Dexys song: 'Plan B' (dedicated to George Osborne). To me it's pop perfection: insanely catchy, yearning, melancholic, repays repeated listening, timeless.
Shamefully, I temporarily possessed this album. It was, I assume, his mid-life crisis work. I was sent a review copy for the student newspaper I edited. So bad was it, that I hurled the CD from a high window. Shame really: it only sold 400 copies and is something of a collector's item now!
To take the taste away, here's my very favourite Dexys song: 'Plan B' (dedicated to George Osborne). To me it's pop perfection: insanely catchy, yearning, melancholic, repays repeated listening, timeless.
#Occupy Goes To The Opera
How cool is this? The Occupy crowd went to the Met Opera House in New York last night, to point out the injustice of the 1% claiming that philanthropy excuses them from paying taxes. I love opera myself, but the problem with philanthropy is that it gets spent on things that make the rich feel good: opera, donkey charities, art funds while claiming that they're doing good. With taxes, democracy decides where the money needs to go.
But I digress. The Occupy people don't hate opera either. And, it turns out, the opera people don't hate Occupy. The performance was Philip Glass's Satyagraha, his sprawling minimalist eco-conscious, democratic masterpiece based on Ghandi's early life. When it was all over, the composer himself strolled past the police blocks - with some of the opera-goers - to quote the Bhagavad-Gita to the multitude (from about 3.00):
But I digress. The Occupy people don't hate opera either. And, it turns out, the opera people don't hate Occupy. The performance was Philip Glass's Satyagraha, his sprawling minimalist eco-conscious, democratic masterpiece based on Ghandi's early life. When it was all over, the composer himself strolled past the police blocks - with some of the opera-goers - to quote the Bhagavad-Gita to the multitude (from about 3.00):
"When righteousness withers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take visible shape, and move, a man among men, for the protection of good, thrusting back evil and setting virtue on her seat again."As slogans go, that's not bad.
From the vaults
I picked up a cheap used CD a few weeks ago. It appealed on every level: 1990, moody looking pair on the front, one holding a viola, and nothing about them on the interweb I could find. £3 for a new experience? Bargain.
The album is Swans and Turtles, by Mark Springer and Sarah Sarhandi. She's a viola player and composer, I guess you'd say: she exists in the space between classical and jazz and pop. Potentially unutterably pretentious, you might think, but no. Mr. Springer? I have no idea. There's nothing about him anywhere - and no youtube footage of any of it. Even Last.fm has very little, and one comment from someone who did the same as me.
What's the music like? Well, I'm a sucker for the viola anywhere: Vaughan Williams' Flos Campi is one of my favourite pieces of music, and the same goes for Morton Feldman's The Viola in My Life. They say the cello is lovely because it's closest to the human voice's range - I reckon the viola is close too. Terrible violinist though I was, I always assume that I'd be a better viola-ist just because there's the wonderful warm hum about a viola. This album sounds to me like a mix of Vaughan Williams, Delius, the minimalists, 4AD, the Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500/Damon and Naomi and Madder Rose. Soft, melodic, but with an underlying edge. Melancholic, sure but sweet too.
It's so good that I've rather naughtily uploaded some for your delectation. Hope they work.
The album is Swans and Turtles, by Mark Springer and Sarah Sarhandi. She's a viola player and composer, I guess you'd say: she exists in the space between classical and jazz and pop. Potentially unutterably pretentious, you might think, but no. Mr. Springer? I have no idea. There's nothing about him anywhere - and no youtube footage of any of it. Even Last.fm has very little, and one comment from someone who did the same as me.
What's the music like? Well, I'm a sucker for the viola anywhere: Vaughan Williams' Flos Campi is one of my favourite pieces of music, and the same goes for Morton Feldman's The Viola in My Life. They say the cello is lovely because it's closest to the human voice's range - I reckon the viola is close too. Terrible violinist though I was, I always assume that I'd be a better viola-ist just because there's the wonderful warm hum about a viola. This album sounds to me like a mix of Vaughan Williams, Delius, the minimalists, 4AD, the Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500/Damon and Naomi and Madder Rose. Soft, melodic, but with an underlying edge. Melancholic, sure but sweet too.
It's so good that I've rather naughtily uploaded some for your delectation. Hope they work.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
This is what democracy looks like
If you follow American politics at all, you'll know there's a long and dishonourable tradition of trying to keep undesirables of the electoral roll, going back to the Civil Rights era. Sometimes it's bureaucratic: demanding more forms of identification than the poor and mobile are like to have or be able to afford, sometimes it's about intimidation and disinformation. It's happening here too: the Conservatives are about to abolish compulsory registration, in the hope that the poor and mobile (students, temporary workers etc) don't bother, leaving elections in the hands of the stable Daily Mail reading classes.
Ray Lutz is a candidate for the Democratic Party. He set up a voter registration desk in the Civic Center Plaza, where there's an Occupy camp: and was arrested for trespassing (remember me blogging about pseudo-public space a few weeks ago?).
Don't be a Klutz: vote for Lutz!
Ray Lutz is a candidate for the Democratic Party. He set up a voter registration desk in the Civic Center Plaza, where there's an Occupy camp: and was arrested for trespassing (remember me blogging about pseudo-public space a few weeks ago?).
Don't be a Klutz: vote for Lutz!
Nothing is real
There's a perfectly respectable philosophical position which states that if it's possible to build a simulation of the universe, then it's probably already been done, and we're part of it: see Bostrom's article in Philosophical Quarterly v. 53 no. 211 (2003) for a discussion. Or see Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy:
If it's not true already, it soon will be:
If it's not true already, it soon will be:
Parting shots
The last few from the Pensions March of November 30th. Rest here.
Now is the winter of our discontent…
Ken Purchase, former Labour MP
Rob Marris, former MP
The long march…
Some more favourites from yesterday's protest. Rest here, or click these for larger versions.
These teachers are getting younger and younger
Maybe this is what the Mail meant by the 'bloated' public sector.
Meet the marchers
Contrary to the hysteria of the Daily Mail, which yesterday was openly triumphant at the prospect of 710,000 sackings from the 'bloated' public sector, yesterday's protest was packed with saddened, brave, lovely people. The people who teach you, clean your streets, wipe your bottom (as a baby and as an older person), help you with your benefits, make sure you don't drown in the local pool… all the things you might miss if you're not Jeremy Clarkson.
Apart from the incredible cold, picketing was rather fun. Not many people crossed the line, and those who did tended to look embarrassed about it. The Vice-Chancellor came to have an amiable chat, and loads of people honked and waved in support. No abuse this time, unlike previous actions. I was fed lovely pastries by well-wishers, and another scab managed to hit 'reply to all' when grovelling to management, so that's another one off the Christmas card list.
The rally was stunningly well-attended. I met lots of my students, some of them striking from their own public sector jobs, and even the speeches were short and punchy. Hearing former New Labour MP Rob Marris sound left-wing was very weird. Mind you, after 18 months of Paul Uppal, Pinochet's starting to look a bit pinko.
Here are a few of my favourite shots: click on them to enlarge. The rest are here.
Apart from the incredible cold, picketing was rather fun. Not many people crossed the line, and those who did tended to look embarrassed about it. The Vice-Chancellor came to have an amiable chat, and loads of people honked and waved in support. No abuse this time, unlike previous actions. I was fed lovely pastries by well-wishers, and another scab managed to hit 'reply to all' when grovelling to management, so that's another one off the Christmas card list.
The rally was stunningly well-attended. I met lots of my students, some of them striking from their own public sector jobs, and even the speeches were short and punchy. Hearing former New Labour MP Rob Marris sound left-wing was very weird. Mind you, after 18 months of Paul Uppal, Pinochet's starting to look a bit pinko.
Here are a few of my favourite shots: click on them to enlarge. The rest are here.
Possibly my favourite of the lot. Lady with Vuvuzela.
Ah, Vice-Chancellor, how nice of you to join us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)