Valuing Academics

The value of universities has become increasingly dominated by metrics – staff publications, learner completion rates, graduate earnings etc. As metrics become more important (despite the notion of “measuring education” being entirely bogus), those wanting to attend universities, and their parents, have been encouraged to base their ‘choice’ on these metrics. Degrees are chosen on the basis of ’employability’ and “earning power”, and universites market themselves around these. Thus, we are seeing an ideological shift in the concept of the university; the idea that one might study for a degree based on interest – whether personal or community-based – is gradually being written out and off. The very idea of doing this is now being represented as puerile, as an example of not wanting to “grow up”. We can see this being reinforced through government policies: for example, in the UK, there is a movement to defund what are seen as “soft degree programmes”, which essentially means Arts & Humanities programmes. As major cuts are initiated by the reduction in government funding – the operation of “market forces” in the academy when departments and degrees must be ‘profitable’ – Arts & Humanities programmes are the first to be cut, the lecturing staff being ‘redeployed’ or let go.

Of course, we already see this kind of disparaging attitude towards the Arts & Humanities in schools: art, music, civics and history are all considered ‘easy’ options (in traditional, patriarchal terms, they’re considered to be ‘feminine’ subjects). Sociology, philosophy and psychology have no recognised value, therefore, no status whatsoever (unlike in France, for example). As the nostrum that schools should concentrate on skills for life and employment has taken over, the demise of Arts & Humanities in universities has becoming self-fulfilling prophecy, convincing parents and pupils alike that economics is the central factor in ‘guiding’ their apparent ‘choices’ of subject. Metrics drive school curricula, yet we don’t appear to ask the fundamental question: Who dictates the metrics? What is their ideological basis? Nor do we ask the most obvious question of all: It is because attempting to apply metrics to Arts & Humanities exposes any and all metrics as the vacuous, biased, right-wing political instruments that they are?

Schools have become increasingly focused on testing – even primary schools – so that those subjects in which ‘competence’ can be easily assessed, and which have a direct link to the prevalent ideology, are favoured and promoted as being ‘valuable’. Subjects which resist simplistic testing, which require thought and argument, are marginalised. This seems to be the crux: subjects which encourage critical, independent thinking are seen as less ‘valuable’. One is tempted to say simply “those subjects which encourage thought.” Someone who can think for themselves is, in our current system, automatically ‘undesirable’: they might question the fairness, justice and equality of said system. They might also develop a conscience and morality that takes human community as it’s starting point.

In Ireland, the majority of schools, both primary and secondary, are still run by the Catholic Church, an institution that has been proved corrupt on countless occasions. Religious instruction is still part of the curriculum, a rather bizarre notion if we take the purpose of education to be developing the capacity for independent thought, thus, the ability to move away from mythological narrative and it’s magical stories. This is especially peculiar when we examine the central religious idea of enduring the privations of this life to obtain “rewards in the next”. Of course, both Machiavelli and Marx identify religion (per se) for what it is: an effective method of state control, a pre-emptive strike in terms of blind obedience. All we see in the transition from secondary to third level education is a shift in terminology: ‘God’ is replaced by ‘Market’. Other than this, there is little, if any, difference in concept or idea between religion and capitalism. Like God, “the Market” moves in mysterious ways, apparently beyond human control.

Hence the importance of marginalising the Arts & Humanities: critical thought is undesirable to say the least. The ability to think critically represents a threat: compare, for example, thinking communally versus thinking individually. In the first, the object of thought is justice and fairness for all, the focus on how this can be acheived. In the second, the object is the self, and only the self – others are peripheral, mere means to one’s own ends. Back to Thatcher and her “there is no such thing as society.”

We can also identify the ways in which social media contributes to this ideological construction of the “unconnected individual” (which might, at first sight, appear to be contradictory). “Social media” is a term that, without interrogation, appears to suggest a connection with others, with the community (and a myriad of special interest communities). It could be seen as a forum for activism…but examine the term in detail and the inherent contradictions are obvious. Engaging with social media is ‘about’ competition: for followers, likes, reactions (regardless of whether these are good or bad). To use these media is to make oneself a product, to formulate a “marketing strategy” regarding self, to become attuned to the reactions of others, changing oneself based on these reactions, craving the approval of others for personal ‘authentification’. Political activism becomes, quite literally, a box-ticking exercise. Algorithms will present you with like-minded others who, as with any other product, you can consume. You, and they, are absent presences. Overall, social media is about competition with others, perpetual growth (the holy grail of capitalist economics) and the validation of your existence by others (who remain other, only useful insofar as they serve your purpose).

I think that here we can see a direct link to what Stiegler calls the temporal object; he is referring to artefacts, but I’d argue this can be extended to human persons. In social media, the self and the other simultaneously appear/disappear. Stiegler uses the example of someone watching a film. Whilst watching, this person adopts the time of the temporal object (the film) in question. As he says, “you are in the screen.” (N.B. Ironically, he explains this concept in volume 1 of Symbolic Misery) When we are ‘in’ social media we are, simultaneously, self and other – a self that is confirmed by the otherness of others, but a self that also craves identification with such otherness. In short, social media allows us (and I do mean allows) to satiate our need for security while asserting our individuality. This is acheived by positing other human persons as temporal objects (the temptation here is to change this term to temporal bodies).

As business ‘practices’ colonise our schools and universities, this sense of being an individual is reinforced, becomes more ‘refined’ – in that ideas of community, or sincere connections with others in virtue of their humanity, become ever more peripheral. The metanarrative of capitalism conceals itself by propagating the myth that there are no credible alternatives.