Speaking Greek

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Just the other day came news that the University of Illinois had hired a new president at a new, higher salary of $620,000, $170,000 more than his predecessor. Somehow this escaped the attention of the right-populist crowd now scrambling to find ways to criticize the Obama administration for the malfeasance of British Petroleum. In fact, it hardly seemed to merit much comment at all, despite Illinois’ ongoing budget crunch. It’s just business as usual.

In the midst of economic crisis, the wealthy always find ways to better themselves, even in so-called service professions. The other side of that coin is that the rest of us have to pay the bills and when there are a lot of big bills then suddenly lots of things that we took for granted become much too expensive. It’s in that spirit that I read a recent piece in the New York Times suggesting that maybe we don’t need that many college graduates (Plan B: Skip College.) It’s a hint that Greek style austerity measures might be coming to a town near you.

The problem is those costly liberal arts based undergraduate degrees. Do we need to put students through all that when all we want is more nurses to take care of us as we grow old? Interesting, the writers quote business people who emphasize the need for the sorts of people skills the liberal arts teaches so well. You can’t help but wonder if the real problem is that we’ve decimated the arts curriculum in the public schools and minimized learning, like writing, that isn’t easily quantified.

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Writing

Imperial Nostalgia

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Right about the same time that the genocide of Native American people and culture was complete, say, the turn of the 19th century, Americans began to embrace the Boy Scouts’ simulacra of Native American and Western lore. (By the time I was a Boy Scout, more than 60 years later, this had evolved into all sorts of secret “Indian” societies and rituals. I still have my “Red Arrow” sash.) That’s a good example of imperial nostalgia. Right at the moment when utter defeat is imminent, the defeated become objects of admiration.

The term is most often used to describe a certain tendency in British culture. I think, though, that we are starting to see a touch of imperial nostalgia in academia, now that the old tenure system is just about completely destroyed. I liked Peter D.G. Brown’s ‘s recent Inside Higher Ed piece (“Confessions of a Tenured Professor), and I joined the New Faculty Majority, but I have to say that the admiration the writer feels for those of us who don’t have tenure or a full time job makes me a little uncomfortable.

Brown has his facts right, and the case for the urgency and the severity of the problem is persuasive. It’s also old news. I summarize the same basic set of facts in my book; many others have too. What bothers me is that as one tenured professor trying to speak to other tenured professors Brown seems to feel the need to plead and, again, perhaps over-sentimentalize the lives of adjuncts. (At least in spirit; again, he gets his facts straight). At some point, of course, the shrinking minority of tenured will simply become irrelevant. Is it time to acknowledge that fact?

Posted in: Autobiographical, Professional

The Social Network Bubble

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Americans– I have to put myself in that group too, of course– are easily fooled by Utopian claims. Maybe we don’t really think that an IPAD will transform our lives, not really anyway, but we’re willing to buy one anyway, just in case. In the last few decades especially, this has been the secret of that collective hallucination known as marketing. New technology is our collective self-medication. Inevitably, of course, we are disappointed.

It turns out that multitasking is neurologically impossible. YouTube is used by the military to promote war as much it is by professors to help students understand MLA. IM’ing seems to be gone; texting is a great tool for bullies. And now, it turns out that teen aged social networking, the miracle of MySpace and Facebook, has adult consequences, and according to research reported in the New York Times, kids are backing off. I wonder how long it will take for the next revolution to start.

Posted in: Economics, Professional

Orwell 2.0

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Every time I broke my arm as a kid, I started noticing people in casts everywhere. I’ve been mulling over a paper presentation about consumerism in my field, and I am having a similar experience. Suddenly, everywhere I look there’s an article suggesting something about new communication technologies, good or bad.

Most recently it’s a Slate piece called, “War is Gaga.” It’s written, in typical bourgeois journalistic style, from the point of view of “our troops.” The point, in other words, is that these “ridiculous dance routines on the Internet” (as the subtitle notes) are a way for soldiers to blow off steam. No doubt.

There’s a brief nod to the creepier side of some of these videos (not much on the racism or xenophobia) and an acknowledgment that these videos are a profoundly denatured view of war. It’s imperialism as sketch comedy. The piece also notes that the military, which once resisted web 2.0, has now embraced it.

It’s hard to imagine a better way for the military to naturalize war and to help focus our concerns on “our soldiers” rather than on the policy that put them in danger. It has to be one of the most direct propaganda channels– straight to the hearts and minds– ever created. There’s no putting this genie back, either.

Posted in: Professional, War