Re: Being and consciousness in academe

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lou Paulsen:
>[I don't know if the above paragraph is controversial at all, but if it is,
>here are some of the relevant features of the tenure track: (a)
>individualistic publication; the importance of individual reputation;
>competition with other academics for available rewards (b) managerial
>responsibilities over students; responsibility for punishing misdeeds
>(non-attendance, not finishing assignments, plagiarism, cheating) (c) social
>responsibility for carrying out the process of stratification (you can't
>just give everyone an 'A') (d) ideological responsibilities (this applies
>mainly to the social sciences) (e) relatively high prestige (f) managerial
>authority over graduate students, teaching/research assistants, and
>departmental staff.]

About four years ago I enrolled in the Computers and Education Masters
Degree program at Columbia Teachers College. As an employee I get to take
classes for free. It really dramatized some of these issues for me.

I discovered that as a 50 year old man, I had much less tolerance for the
hierarchical structure of the classroom than I did when I was 19 or 20
years old. In a class on communications theory co-led by the dean of the
school and the headmaster at NYC's Dalton School (Used as a backdrop for
Woody Allen's "Manhattan", in which he had an affair with a teenaged
student. Can you imagine that!), I found myself odd man out.

You might find this hard to believe but these perfectly amiable men, around
my age, were citing Nietzsche every chance they got. Where did that come
from, I wondered? Rising to the challenge, I cited Marx right back at them.
When one of the professors hyped an assigned book "The Control Revolution"
as an essential guide to understanding "modernity", I wrote up a stinging
critique like the kind I post frequently on the Internet which I passed out
at class. The other students, mostly in their 20s and desperate for good
grades, looked at me like I had two heads. Nobody had ever challenged
professors like me before.

To their credit, they gave grudging respect to my seriousness. When it came
time to write a term paper, I chose "Utopia and Communications" as a theme.
It turns out that nearly all the utopian thinkers from Thomas More to
Edward Bellamy had grandiose ideas about revamped communications. But
shortly after turning the paper in, I decided that graduate school was not
for me. I just wasn't ready to deal with dissertation committees and all
the rest. And least of all, I was not ready to be graded. The idea that
these Nietzsche-quoting profs were in a position to slap a C+ on something
it took me a month to write was unacceptable. To this day, I have no idea
what they thought of my term paper.

About two years ago, James O'Connor, an academic Marxist superstar, invited
me to submit a review of David Harvey's "Justice, Nature and the Geography
of Difference" (love that title!) to his blue-ribbon journal "Capitalism,
Nature and Socialism." This was after he had read a short critique of
Harvey posted to Henwood's list.(Harvey had bashed him, Michael Perelman
and others he dubbed "neo-Malthusians" in the book.)

In the two months I invested into putting something together appropriate
for his journal, I could never shake the feeling that I was working on a
term paper. I felt like some graduate student trying to make an impression
on a big name professor, so I could get a "reputation". In some ways the
entire episode reminded me of Joe Pesci trying to become a "made man" in
the movie "Goodfellas".

After submitting the article, I didn't hear anything for nearly 6 months.
Eventually I received a rejection letter that drove me off the deep end.
Not only had O'Connor decided that the concerns were inappropriate for his
journal, he also thought the review was not written well. Now that I think
about it, his rejection letter was written from the standpoint of a
professor admonishing a student who needed guidance. It dawns on me now
that submissions to muckety-muck "left" journals, which are rejected left
and right from what I hear, are just an extension of the competition you
see in graduate school.

That is why I love the Internet. It not only short-circuits the whole
"Marxist-Leninist" notion of discussion taking place only within the
confines of the party, it also challenges the notion that serious
discussion of theoretical questions can only take place in print journals.
As it turns out, many of these journals are in serious financial
difficulties and may eventually have to resort to the WWW rather than the
more expensive print medium. That day could not happen sooner, as far as
I'm concerned.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/