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: A serious problem is that people like Michael Bérubé are understood as “left,” which is a bad and dangerous joke. People like Michael Bérubé, who support George Bush’s military action and want two tiers for faculty, represent the right not the left. The fantasy that he is on the left represents wool over eyes. His putative liberalism serves power effectively. Donald Trump is trying to do the same thing to the nation that Michael Bérubé is trying to do to the academy: create separate but “equal” groups, while Bérubé celebrates alt-ac like Trump celebrates temp jobs. Bérubé’s institutionalized separation of people with the same degree aligns with search committees, who reproduce themselves. There are many rightists at MLA and NEH who, like him, push the neoliberal agenda through alt-ac and changing the Humanities PhD into some MBA-ish degree. Perhaps in a purely “American” sense, Michael Bérubé could be understood as “Left,” but that’s a specific, US understanding, constructed to empower the interests of the right. His ideas couched as “leftist” reflects conservative nature of all facets of academic, social, political and economic life in America today. But it was not always this way. Make America great again by undoing Trump and Bérubé's shared vision. |
: A serious problem is that people like Michael Bérubé are understood as “left,” which is a bad and dangerous joke. People like Michael Bérubé, who support George Bush’s military action and want two tiers for faculty, represent the right not the left. The fantasy that he is on the left represents wool over eyes. His putative liberalism serves power effectively. Donald Trump is trying to do the same thing to the nation that Michael Bérubé is trying to do to the academy: create separate but “equal” groups, while Bérubé celebrates alt-ac like Trump celebrates temp jobs. Bérubé’s institutionalized separation of people with the same degree aligns with search committees, who reproduce themselves. There are many rightists at MLA and NEH who, like him, push the neoliberal agenda through alt-ac and changing the Humanities PhD into some MBA-ish degree. Perhaps in a purely “American” sense, Michael Bérubé could be understood as “Left,” but that’s a specific, US understanding, constructed to empower the interests of the right. His ideas couched as “leftist” reflects conservative nature of all facets of academic, social, political and economic life in America today. But it was not always this way. Make America great again by undoing Trump and Bérubé's shared vision. |
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| − | I was going to respond to this comment that Michael Berube’s ideas are out of date. But maybe his ideas are just with the neoliberal times |
+ | I was going to respond to this comment that Michael Berube’s ideas are out of date. But maybe his ideas are just with the neoliberal times. Oxymoronic concepts like "Neoliberal Humanities" bring steam to my nose. 😤 |
Interesting takes on the two-tier academy are in the comments of this article: |
Interesting takes on the two-tier academy are in the comments of this article: |
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Revision as of 00:03, 19 June 2019
What they don’t understand is that the ostentatious left-wing politics of academia is camouflage for a deeply conservative way of life... with tenured faculty paid six figures to think, and the contingent faculty paid a few thousand a course on a contract basis.The piety of academia – its radical front of social justice – takes place in the context of massive inequities and supremely vulnerable young people. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/back-in-the-mla/
Many tenured faculty, especially those involved with the MLA, exist largely in a process of self-legitimization. They strive to maintain distance between themselves and others ("others" = NTT) and don't want the burden of recognizing that tenure does not mean superior. Faculty without tenure don't deserve a lower status, and people who point this out do not deserve to be harrassed, taunted, and demeaned. If NTT and TT are equal, why are tenured faculty so engaged with alt-ac and two-tier academy? Both schemes are complicit with the death of the Humanities, just like those faculty who celebrate them.
- A serious problem is that people like Michael Bérubé are understood as “left,” which is a bad and dangerous joke. People like Michael Bérubé, who support George Bush’s military action and want two tiers for faculty, represent the right not the left. The fantasy that he is on the left represents wool over eyes. His putative liberalism serves power effectively. Donald Trump is trying to do the same thing to the nation that Michael Bérubé is trying to do to the academy: create separate but “equal” groups, while Bérubé celebrates alt-ac like Trump celebrates temp jobs. Bérubé’s institutionalized separation of people with the same degree aligns with search committees, who reproduce themselves. There are many rightists at MLA and NEH who, like him, push the neoliberal agenda through alt-ac and changing the Humanities PhD into some MBA-ish degree. Perhaps in a purely “American” sense, Michael Bérubé could be understood as “Left,” but that’s a specific, US understanding, constructed to empower the interests of the right. His ideas couched as “leftist” reflects conservative nature of all facets of academic, social, political and economic life in America today. But it was not always this way. Make America great again by undoing Trump and Bérubé's shared vision.
I was going to respond to this comment that Michael Berube’s ideas are out of date. But maybe his ideas are just with the neoliberal times. Oxymoronic concepts like "Neoliberal Humanities" bring steam to my nose. 😤
Interesting takes on the two-tier academy are in the comments of this article: https://www.aaup.org/article/our-job-was-fix-it