Value and Value

As “business practices” have infiltrated every aspect of life, accelerated by the advent of cheap digital technology, the definition of ‘value’ has become more corrupted, more univocal. Whereas we once realised that there are a multiplicity of objects/relations/dispositions that are valuable, as business-speak has colonised our language (therefore, our thought) one Archemedian point has become dominant: profit (another term that used to be defined in terms of its context). Monetary profit has come to be regarded as the only signifier of value, with a knock-on effect when one talks of ‘success’. In another sense, profit has also becomes inextricably bound up with the “the individual”, in that the concept is now linked to there being an advantage for the individual in any, and all, social relationships – personal or professional.

There is also a certain irony in writing this on the day when the newspapers are carrying the story of Tony Blair (the man who began the Labour Party’s move away from socialism, and the destrcution of the left within the party) announcing that the NHS needs to make “greater use” of private healthcare. This is the man who, during his premiership, appointed an ex-CEO of Tesco as head of the NHS because, apparently obviously, selling groceries is a good preparation for running an organisation dedicated to providing free healthcare. I could go on and on (and on) about Blair, but I don’t need to: this single act makes my point. Put another way, Blair introduced “business practices” into healthcare…and look at the NHS now…

Likewise education. What we’ve seen over the past few decades is a shift from education (non-profit, for the benefit of society) to training and skills (for profit, for the benefit of business, therefore, the individual). Education was run by those to whom administrative bureaucracy and personal gain were alien, hinderances to be minimised and endured. Now, some years later, “the business of academia” is run by failed academics (because who would rather administrate when they can teach?) who saw career and revenge opportunities in the extension of bureaucracy to Kafkaesque levels. Layer upon layer of administrative control has been introduced in the name of ‘transparency’, yet this ‘transparency’ does precisely the opposite, obscuring and denigrating the process of education, turning it into a system operating on the traditional business binary opposition of profit and loss. The system has become the ultimate ‘goal’ of the system, its maintenance the primary object, which is to say that the value of the system is dictated by the system itself. The idea that the system is there to serve values other than those dictated by the system itself is seen as puerile thinking. And what are those ‘values’? That education be run (i) as a business, that is, for-profit, (ii) that those enmeshed in the system work for the system and, (iii), the only question to answer is “What does business want?” – the apparent guarantor of (i) and (ii). There is one other significance factor at work here: this system has been devised, and is run, by failed academics playing at being “business people”; their focus is on (a) what others want (‘others’ here referring to politicians and “business people”) and, (b), their own self-interest (defined as being pliable and obedient to the commands of (a)). In much the same way as other fields, mainstream media journalism for example, these folks only occupy their ‘position’ because they will “play the game” according to rules established by others. They have surrendered their capacity for independent thought, contented themselves with the nostrum that “this is just the way things are”…and large salaries. In short, they have abandoned (‘betrayed’?) the values of education: enquiry; challenge to what exists; concepts of “the good”; democracy.

What, then, are we left with? A system which refuses to recognise alternatives to neoliberalism and anarcho-capitalism, a system based on “the individual” (which it defines), a system that is continually moving further to the right. The idea that we are a community of human persons continues to be undermined by nationalism – what else are anti-immigration policies based on?The immigrant is, apparently, ‘foreign’, does not share ‘our’ values…values manufactured to be exclusive, to be ‘ours’: as in “our jobs”, “our housing”, “our services”.

In junking the Arts, universities initiate, perpetuate and hone the myths of separation, competition (as ‘natural’), of individualism and, most importantly, the singularity perspective (rather a contradiction, given that it attempts to claim there os only one). Students are not invited to question, leaners are instructed, they learn: Whereas going to university was, in the past, about a range of experiences – fields of study, social experiences (hence, empathy), developing political views (based on questions of what ‘good’ is for both self and others) – it has now become about training for a job and controling factors that would prevent this. As a consequence, strong student unions are out, as are demonstrations. Studying for a degree in an area that one is interested in is out (seen as being childish), replaced by studying for the one that offers the highest ‘return’ (for four years of ‘investment’). Add to this folks having to live at home (with oarents) because of costs; having to take a variety of part-time jobs to suppot themselves (grants are inadequate), and we can see that university is no longer about experimentation and experience, it’s about preparation. Preparation to live in a controlled, consumer society. Values such as empathy, responsibility and obligation have been lost, replaced by separation, self-interest and the contract which, much like a computer operating system, constantly runs “in the background”.

Quite obviously, the Arts in this society (I don’t subscribe to the idea that, somehow, universities are not part of “the real world”) are, to say the least, undesirable. When we engage with an artefact we are emotion-testing, developing empathy with others, asking ourselves “What would it be like to be in situation X?” or “How would I react to/cope with X?”. The artefact causes us to refine who we are, to question our ‘selves’. It also asks “the Big Questions”: “What is the purpose of living?” and/or “What is my position in society?” and/or “What does being ‘alive’ mean?”. In the Arts, there are no definites but always challenges and questions.

Quite obviously, in this kind of society (I don’t subscribe to those bogus notions of universities not being part of the “real world), the Arts are, to say the least, undesirable. When we engage with an artefact it offers us another perspective, a set of values that can be vastly different to our own – it often forces us to formulate and refine what we think about X, to reflect on “What would X be like?” or “How would I react to X?”. Engaging with Art also forces us to emotion-test, to investigate ourselves, to question the world and our place in it, to explore what are called “the Big Questions”, for example, “What does it mean to be human?”, “What is the purpose of my existence?” “In what senses am I living a sincere, authentic life?”