How do we define ‘imagination’? Or, more importantly, should we even try to define imagination? A definition seems to defeat the purpose; it attempts to tie down something (A ‘quality’? An ‘attribute’?) which seems to be part of the definition of what it is to be a human person. Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, …
Author Archives: ashleyg60
Value Decisions
So, in the TUs, the Arts & Humanities have been manoeuvred into a position whereby their ‘value’ is calculated in terms of their contribution to the profit/loss model of business. They are not seen as valuable in themselves, but only in terms of “added value”, that is as secondary to the primary focus of business. …
Art as Contingent Value
Can Art make you a “better person”? Yes, it can. Artists, through their Art, enable us to ‘see’ what had not been obvious before we engaged with the work. I’ve deliberately phrased the response to this (rhetorical) question like this in order to discuss a statement by Adorno, who wrote, “After Auschwitz, no more poetry”. …
The Value of Art
There’s an idea kicking about at the moment that some call “culture wars”. This seems to be connected to what right-wing ‘commentators’ describe as ‘woke’, although it’s rather difficult to nail down a definition. It appears to be the idea that being thoughtful in how you treat others, being conscious of racism, sexism homophobia, transphobia …
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 …
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 …
Academic Value(s)
Over the past few years, the ‘job’ of the academic has changed: it used to be, primarily, concerned with talking to students, discussing ideas, formulating concepts, trying to go beyond (surpass?) what existed. However, as neoliberalism/anarcho-capitalism gradually made inroads – something we can date back to Thatcher, her resentment of academia and worship of “the …
A Digression on Values
Which it isn’t really – just a way of restating the central purpose here: identifying the privatisation of education and, in consequence, the marginalisation of the Arts, the ultimate purpose being the removal of critiques of capitalism and, more importantly, of critical thinking per se. The aim is to push the Arts out to the …
The Value of Discontent
Art, I’d argue, is initially borne of discontent, of dissatisafaction, with the the way the world is from Beethoven, to Proust, Godard, computer games and hip hop. As Eisenstein put it, Art is produced by conflict, by the dynamic that exists between the maker and their socio-political moment. We can go back to Sophocles to …
Value and its Discontents
Where does one start with value? By pluralising? By identifying different types? It seems to me that a “good place” is with the human person, regardless of any ‘qualifiers’. The human person is valuable. There is no Platonic, Aristotelian or Kantian reasoning required; the human person is valuable because they are human. From this “base …
Murmurs from the Forest 