Re: <nettime> New Media Education and Its Discontent

[joseph rabie <joe@overmydeadbody.org>]

Dan Wang wrote:

>To state the obvious, then: It is no coincidence that the dramatic rise in
>tuition costs (at all the different types of higher education
>institutions, really) rolled in at about the same time that the American
>university experience reformulated as a largely predictable exercise in
>job and career preparation, as opposed to education.
>
>The trading in of one role for the other stands as one among many changes
>in the character of the American educational experience and academic
>environment--changes which are blunting the democratic spirit felt by
>significant numbers of students for a generation at least, and which are
>effacing the practice and transmission of intellectualism on campus.
>

Putting this in the context of global corporate liberalisation, it would 
seem that the purpose of higher education in the US - today - and 
everywhere, tomorrow, if the WTO via GATS succeeds in privatising 
education everywhere -  is to create a docile elite, one which sees its 
debt to society no longer in terms of social engagement, but in terms of 
loan repayment.

Insofar as consumerism is the dominant ideology, the powers that be see 
this as morally correct. As far as (leftist?) intellectuals see their 
role as questioning this state of affairs, they are the enemy, to be 
scorned for their "impracticality" in the face of a materialist world.

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