LRB re: HiEdBiz

hello tasty- "the populist language that dominates so much discussion in contemporary market democracies is not well adapted to justifying public expenditure in other than economic or utilitarian terms, and it is principally as a form of expenditure - a problematic or resented one - that universities now attract political and media attention." Exactly what it is "...the next step appears to be to turn them into limited companies".

->

"Even those statements which are clearly intended to be upbeat affirmations of their importance have a way of making you feel slightly ill. It is not simply the fact that no single institution could successfully achieve all the aims crammed into this unlovely paragraph, taken from the introductory chapter to the Government's White Paper, The Future of Higher Education:

We see a higher education sector which meets the needs of the economy in terms of trained people, research and technology transfer. At the same time it needs to enable all suitably qualified individuals to develop their potential both intellectually and personally, and to provide the necessary storehouse of expertise in science and technology, and the arts and humanities which defines our civilisation and culture.

[...]->

There are two sentences in that paragraph. The first, which is clear enough though not a thing of beauty, says that the main aim of universities is to turn out people and ideas capable of making money. The second, which is neither clear nor beautiful, says there are a lot of other points that it's traditional to mention in this connection, and that they're all good things too, in their way, and that the official with the glue-pot has been having a busy day, and that we've lost track of the subject of the verb in the last line, and that it may be time for another full stop."

there follows at length history of higher education / university culture

NC re "getting with it":

"Since that time, the main body of articulate intellectuals have tended towards one or the other of these poles, avoiding 'democratic dogmatisms' about people understanding their own interests and remaining cognizant of the 'stupidity of the average man' and his need to be led to the better world that his superiors plan for him. A move from one to the other pole can be quite rapid and painless, since no fundamental change of doctrine or value is at stake, only an assessment of the opportunities for attaining power and privilege: riding a wave of popular struggle, or serving established authority as social or ideological manager. The conventional 'God that failed' transition from Leninist enthusiasms to service to state capitalism can, I believe, be explained in substantial measure in these terms. Though there were authentic elements in the early stages, it has long since degenerated to ritualistic farce. Particularly welcome, and a sure ticket to success, is the fabrication of an evil past. Thus, the confessed sinner might describe how he cheered the tanks in the streets of Prague, supported Kim Il Sung, denounced Martin Luther King as a sellout, and so on, so that those who have not seen the light are implicitly tarred with the brush. With the transition accomplished, the path to prestige and privilege is open, for the system values highly those who have seen the error of their ways and can now condemn independent minds as Stalinist-style apologists, on the basis of the superior insight gained from their misspent youth."

Manifest gegen die Arbeit:

"Eine auf das irrationale Abstraktum Arbeit zentrierte Gesellschaft entwickelt zwangsläufig die Tendenz zur sozialen Apartheid, wenn der erfolgreiche Verkauf der Ware Arbeitskraft von der Regel zur Ausnahme wird. Alle Fraktionen des parteiübergreifenden Arbeits-Lagers haben diese Logik längst klammheimlich akzeptiert und helfen selber kräftig nach. Sie streiten nicht mehr darüber, ob immer größere Teile der Bevölkerung an den Rand gedrängt und von jeder gesellschaftlichen Teilhabe ausgeschlossen werden, sondern nur noch darüber, wie diese Selektion durchgepeitscht werden soll."

Aldous Huxley, 1958- The Capitalist "Free Press":

Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the enroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.

one dimensional man style- huxley, that other great distopian author, with an essay not dissimilar to the suppressed introduction to orwell's animal farm

birth of materialistic killing of god with feuerbach super-sexy! remember moment when this was presented to me at a-level phil of religion.. "Fb suggests that human's may just be imagining god.. enabling Freud.. enabling Jung"- first thought "so much more likely than any of the more elaborate plots i've been exposed to.. its just so obviously correct!" imaginge the moment it ocurred to him.. fucking don.. especially by the retrospectively applied measures of KM, who had to fix "essence bit" for social transformative applicability, i.e. add the historical. ding dong!

its funny that marx then goes on to make the ideas -> praxis link explicitely and positively, whilst he seemingly fails to recognise the negative side of implicit relations in development of ideas -> discourse -> praxis (eg. theology pre-feuerbach).

re: sensuous activity

consider that the question of epistemology returns at the level of social reproduction with the investigations into knowledge production and ideology (cf h'mas re: marx naive acceptance of positivist science!)-> therefore introducing an episteme of social praxis.

"If Marx had not thrown together interaction and work under the label of social practice (Praxis), and had he instead related the materialist concept of synthesis likewise to the accomplishments of instrumental action and the nexuses of communicative action, then the idea of a science of man would not have been obscured by identification with natural science. Rather, this idea would have taken up Hegel's critique of the subjectivism of Kant's epistemology and surpassed it materialistically. It would have made clear that ultimately a radical critique of knowledge can be carried out only in the form of a reconstruction of the history of the species, and that conversely social theory, from the viewpoint of the self-constitution of the species in the medium of social labour and class struggle, is possible only as the self-reflection of the knowing subject."

which brings us to that other great pillar, scifaith..

re: opium and seemingly anti-systemic patterns

"Outside the academic establishment, the "far-reaching change in all our habits of thought" is more serious. It serves to coordinate ideas and goals with those exacted by the prevailing system, to enclose them in the system, and to repel those which are irreconcilable with the system. The reign of such a one-dimensional reality does not mean that materialism rules, and that the spiritual, metaphysical, and bohemian occupations are petering out. On the contrary, there is a great deal of "Worship together this week," "Why not try God", Zen, existentialism, and beat ways of life, etc. But such modes of protest and transcendence are no longer contradictory to the status quo and no longer negative. They are rather the ceremonial part of practical behaviorism, its harmless negation, and are quickly digested by the status quo as part of its healthy diet."

marcuse one-dimensional man

i.e. it's even good for sys to have seeming opposing forces going.. cf 1984 and collab of minitruth with anti-front!

re: open mind

hear hear.. do like that

at a certain level i am certainly with you. from all the negation business there must come some sort of positive step, expression, effort of engagement with the subject matter-

"crystallize into helping others find the right paths"

analysis of individuals transcending any particular naive belief system (it's been done) may point to ways of helping others transcend mental cages. emancipatory clarity emerging from smelly mystical muddle..

we have all learnt a lot from chemically induced experiences along those lines.. "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is mearly energy condensed through a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, life is only a dream and we are the imaginations of ourselves." [hicks].. intersubjectivity and love = interpersonal connecion..

i'm not thinking new type of spiritual approach to knowledge- conversations with verdon were actually always in terms of a transcendental aesthetic, with an appeal not unlike the feel fashion invokes. cultural analysis in the light of the revolutionary spark must produce reasonable praxis. spiritualistic soul-searching is easily turned into egocentric wanking exercise at current levels of education- new medieval period on horizon- something must be done.

re: opium and relevance thereof

theses on feuerbach

III

The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.

The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

[...] here's the bacon:

VI

Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual.

In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.

Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence, is consequently compelled:

To abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an abstract - isolated - human individual.

Essence, therefore, can be comprehended only as "genus", as an internal, dumb generality which naturally unites the many individuals.

[n.b. NOT unifying factor, merely abstract commonality!]

VII

Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the "religious sentiment" is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyses belongs to a particular form of society.

VIII
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.

[of course religious experience is a very real thing...]

[...]

XI
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.

re: opium and freedom

"There is another reason which explains and in some sort justifies the absurd beliefs of the people - namely, the wretched situation to which they find themselves fatally condemned by the economic organization of society in the most civilized countries of Europe. Reduced, intellectually and morally as well as materially, to the minimum of human existence, confined in their life like a prisoner in his prison, without horizon, without outlet, without even a future if we believe the economists, the people would have the singularly narrow souls and blunted instincts of the bourgeois if they did not feel a desire to escape; but of escape there are but three methods - two chimerical and a third real. The first two are the dram-shop and the church, debauchery of the body or debauchery of the mind; the third is social revolution. Hence I conclude this last will be much more potent than all the theological propagandism of the freethinkers to destroy to their last vestige the religious beliefs and dissolute habits of the people, beliefs and habits much more intimately connected than is generally supposed. In substituting for the at once illusory and brutal enjoyments of bodily and spiritual licentiousness the enjoyments, as refined as they are real, of humanity developed in each and all, the social revolution alone will have the power to close at the same time all the dram-shops and all the churches.

Till then the people. Taken as a whole, will believe; and, if they have no reason to believe, they will have at least a right.

bakunin god and state (1871)

There is a class of people who, if they do not believe, must at least make a semblance of believing. This class comprising all the tormentors, all the oppressors, and all the exploiters of humanity; priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, public and private financiers, officials of all sorts, policemen, gendarmes, jailers and executioners, monopolists, capitalists, tax-leeches, contractors and landlords, lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades, down to the smallest vendor of sweetmeats, all will repeat in unison those words of Voltaire:

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." For, you understand, "the people must have a religion." That is the safety-valve."

[...]

Christianity is precisely the religion par excellence, because it exhibits and manifests, to the fullest extent, the very nature and essence of every religious system, which is the impoverishment, enslavement, and annihilation of humanity for the benefit of divinity.

[...]

With all due respect, then, to the metaphysicians and religious idealists, philosophers, politicians, or poets: The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and practice.

Don't have time to post much at the moment - slightly drunk, very tired from grading 300 tests, however just must say this...

I don't believe that all knowledge=politics, nor that all critical analysis can be equated with politics. Indeed, Mike, your crit of wandering afield -

"It's opposition integrated within the system (a bit like capitalist production vs. working class), thus only promotes social paralysis, a bit like two-party politics."

- I find to be true of the type of debates we engender as well. Basically, we continue to use the same thought processes as all others out there - whether they be lunatic fringes or establishment characters. When we disect spirituality we will of course not come across anything new, but it is exactly this dissection - the politicizing of spirituality, if you will - that emasculates the very promises that can be found within.

In addition to CT and rational arguments (we are very much all of us working within an enlightenment framework) I think we must try to find some of the thought that leads beyond logic. Phil, you quite rightly observe that this is very personal and, by extension, does not translate well into mass activism. However, that said, if we are to acheive new paradigm it shall not be thru translating supra-rational thought into a political framework. The political CT framework is extremely useful, and can help us see the door, but it will never be able to walk thru it. It can help us slough off the misguided and the misaimed, but it can never bring us to the next level.

Now, in terms of New Agey type things, I think there is a lot of the spiritual vacuum that Phil mentioned earlier, and I think there is a tremendous searching. Without good analysis, searchers will cling to mistaken paths. I suppose our job is starting to crystallize into helping others find the right paths, the useful and helpful ways to bring about change in themselves (and paradoxically, I believe change in the overall system can never be achieved thru large movements within the system, but can only be found thru incremental changes achieved thru radical individual realizations).
Further, I would say that in limiting ourselves to the political - as that is the term we seem to be adopting as synonomous with rational thought - we are limiting ourselves to pointing to the path. Can we not, tho, help others to see what the walking of the path means as well? This is what I mean when I say I wish to not only include the political, but to speak of other larger things as well. Rational thought will always lead to the golden rule, and political thought will always lead to intellectual understanding. I hope that we can break thru the mental barriers and find visceral understanding as well - a much harder course and one that, unfortunately, political thought leaves us unprepared for.
Must sleep.

hadnt noticed this advanced debate starting off! pleased!

re: open mind

once again, the problem of inadequate self-definition arises. if one is to call this a forum for critical investigation, i.e. hegelian-style rejection of all givens, the philosophical framework adopted here would have to be reflective of the mechanisms involved in dissminating the elements of truth, and the aspects of reason which are consciously manufactured to achieve certain ends. "destroying myth" i quite like, although it does carry the smell of the traditional "scientific truth", which a CT approach as below exposes as being part of the authoritarian belief system. we are seeking transcendental truth by eliminating those parts which are merely due to faith in dictated presuppositions.

example - two research outcomes from different academic institutions regarding the "end of world due to eco-disaster" question. one says yes, the other no. it would indeed be very simple to look into where the funding for the project came from. i would thus predict, uncontroversially, that "everything's fine" is sponsored by a member of an industry opposed to environmental legislation- which would harm its profit margin. academic truth is cheaper than environmentally sound production systems. similarly, the "passive smoking causes no harm" news recently was a study heavily funded by the tobacco lobby. surprise, surprise.

i don't even know what is meant here by restriction to "politics".. does this mean "current affairs"? political philosophy? history? any aspect of human activity, even religion and culture, can be interpreted from the angle of the political, by bringing the question of interest into it ("who benefits?"). this does not mean that there is nothing "pure" apart from the "question into purity"- christians may display fervent idealism and the cynical operator be the exception rather than the rule (abusing superior levels of information to pursue own ends eg medieval archbishop, crony to feudal dirtbags). this must nonetheless be recognised as a possible systemic outcome. to develop this example, killing god means liberating humans from the threat posed by a belief system which is essentially very easily transcended.

the enlightenment is the idealist quest by homo sapiens to gain control over its own nature.

dealing with spirituality is an interesting challenge raised. i, too, concur that it is easy to tear down any such framework for faith, and i would be the first to pursue questions of "why?". in fact, of course, i am not the first. nietzsche has some beautiful bits on the "myths" being required to fill in "explanatory gaps" within the outlook of "current shared truth" (cf pragmatism). the existence of nexus mag, for example, which is essentially post-modern type religion (no coherent ethical stance- FN nightmare) could be explained along those lines: at the individual level, this posits "you know what" (aliens?) within gaps of the scientific frame (dios numero uno in developed world) to build a seemingly coherent system of thought. in fact the whole of FN's opus magnum, thus spoke, can and has been interpreted along the lines of an examination of control and belief- it's written in lutheran biblical german, he's got some sort of free-lancing priest running around adopting various models (public speaking, groups, fellowship of scholars) to propagate his apocalyptic news- "the dangers of the end to christian morality" (which he examines extensively elsewhere) and his prediction: whoever will be cheeky (Wille) enough to seize a forum and construct a new ethical frame, (the famous übermensch) will rule the world. then AH comes along and does just that with "his" invention of propaganda. no matter how ludicrous, as long as pronounced loudly and with utmost confidence- the winner takes it all. welcome to the age of grand ideologies.

nexus is not particularly dangerous beyond misdirecting the honest quest for truth- of course there are commercial versions of exactly the same nonsense in circulation that may be of extreme harm to a person's financial and mental wellbeing. and a lot of it can be attributed to a lack of education- that is education a là humboldt, fostering an intuitive knowledge that creative expression offers possibilities for change of circumstance (beyond the personal level!). as NC writes regarding the religious right, from "new age" noise, waco and the bible belt, to alien-fearing and michigan militia-style black helicopter paranoia- "people are afraid of all kinds of things, don't know what to believe in anymore". religious beliefs may thus hinder the development correct understanding of the overarching paradigm, identifying those cynical beneficiaries- and the masses are punished for their ignorance. just like "back in the days".. (feudal times).

similarly (and controversially i know) i would argue (in fact was today arguing with a family friend, psychotherapist with a passionate interest in far-eastern spirituality) that the introduction of new language for religious experience into our individualist society (from animistic "earth gods" to commercial buddhist centers) - by many seen as "the only way forward"- results mostly in religious consumerism ("good for me" i.e. wanking) and does nothing to alleviate the post-modern mess we're sitting in. there is no doubt wisdom to any system of thought, otherwise people would not fall for it. but considering the essence to any one such "this is it" truth claim from the political angle of emancipatory possibility the answer (MEEEEP) will be that it's detrimental everytime- unless the consumer is moving "up" from a more repressive product. this does not mean that cosmological speculation around the big "maybe's" (god & various saints above, insect in next life) cannot be constructed convincingly into "likelies", its rather that this type of investigation is irrelevant to the task at hand: looking into possibilities for active human participation in the course of history. external factors can be accommodated as they arise, and i'll certainly be the last one to tell alien superrace to "fuck off". now to the mechanisms utilised:

if one is to look at religious experience in an abstract physiological way, that is beyond the particular language game it may be associated with by the proponents of this or that faith, ecstasy (from trance to orgasm, direct mind-body connection) seems to me to be a vital component to higher ape function. if one is to take technology (alienation from natural state, i'm talking from agriculture onwards) as a disease (new age "spiritualists" or the more serious end, primitivists, would concur) and the natural monkey-state to be running around foresty environments, feasting, fucking, and so on, there would no doubt be a great deal of confusion within the more "primitive", instinctive regions of the brain when suddenly same monkey is finding itself in front of a radiating piece of plastic and glass for years on end. whilst it would have made sense for the original monkey to be worshipping sun, earth and wind (obv something totally different than believing in, say, the holiness of the trinity or the donness of the buddha) it never fails to amuse me to see whitey acid-dropping upper-class kids to go for aborigine animism.

of course religious experience is a very real thing, and meditation can undoubtedly do "great things for YOU!"- its just a question of the type of frame (context!) this falls into. catholics for instance have always practiced the rose-chain-job (repetitive chant -> trance -> meditation), pentacost (collective chanting -> trance -> free vocal expression), or personal address of deities (jm you cannot petition the lord with prayer applies of course!) and i'm sure they really get off on that- espec in times gone by (?) when the fat feudal lords were raping their daughters (ius primae noctis) with divine authority backing them up- their alliance with the "guardians of truth" who were of course also corruptible in their supposedly idealist ways, proving rather fruitful (fun, fun, fun)!

believing in nothing but the legitimacy (and viability!) of the question-mark, with the total rejection of any dictated system of faith (cultish language situations) does seem tastiest option- just consider historical perspective! as with purist zen (am fan of vietnamese variety personally, which has a conception of solipsis that practically merges with hegelian understanding of subject-object- something you, ryan, can tell me more about no doubt) the imperative seems to be: get hard at work to break down fetishistic structures (yes sir!) of scripture and dogma to allow people to be concerned with the causal mechanisms underlying material relations ruling their life- and concern themselves with the after/nextlife- should there be one- once they get there.

Are we to restrain ourselves to politics? I would rather we develop a method of thinking, of getting at truth, than simply be a political organ. Is our main purpose to develop a philosophy? If so, politics has a part (and often a large part) but it cannot be the only ingredient. Critical analysis is more important - keeping heads receptive to all things and playing with them as we would a puzzle. Spirituality also must be an important ingredient - and I think we must expand radically if we are to deal with spirituality in these times. There are the traditional religions, of course, but right now there is tremendous movement towards "New Age" thought, which is a hell of a misnomer as most of the thought is reminiscent of animistic religion pre-organised structures. And, in keeping with the open mind theme, perhaps a good way of approaching such things as that is not attempting to tear down belief systems, but examine why they exist and are emerging now. The individual truth will rise to the surface thru such discussions. Hence, Phil, love your examination of why conspir t get popular (as a divorce of the self from the bad inherently part of humanity and human systems, basically) but question your seeking of straw men to make other positions appear ridiculous. That's an intellectual game, basically - a debate tool - but I think we should try to get past such games and grasp towards the deeper structure. Instead of "What?!!!" I think "Why?" is more important.

we want a developed political stance! no p-m nonsecock.. self-definition.. working on it!

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