In Detroit, the teachers' union is the most active and radical union there is.
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 12:41 PM, c b <cb31...@gmail.com> wrote: > I certainly didn't mean all teachers or humanties people and artists > and philosophers are radical or liberal. Ezra Pound, for example, > was a fascist. Classcists have a lot of conservative ideas, not > surprisingly. Hell, Platoism is reactionary today, and Plato invented > "The Academy" for which academe is named. At least in the "sixties", > colleges seemed to be hotbeds and more a source of peace activists > than other segments of society. The college sections are called > "liberal arts", and liberal are now redbaited as socialists. > > Community colleges are the locus of a lot of radicalizing nowadays. > > On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Ralph Dumain > <rdum...@autodidactproject.org> wrote: >> Historically, radicals have come from the ranks of the >> scientific-technical intelligentsia as well, as arch-reactionaries from >> the humanities. When I was in elementary school and high school, English >> and history teachers were the worst reactionaries. I hated these >> subjects, loved math and science. Who knew I would turn out occupied >> with the former rather than the latter? Thanks for nothing, schoolteachers! >> >> However, the business model that has overtaken universities, coupled I'm >> guessing with financial retrenchment, is gutting various programs, >> notably philosophy, I think in Britain, but also look out for the USA. >> >> Howard University plans to ax its philosophy department, which is pretty >> small as is. In my view, there's too much Africana crap in it, but >> Howard is conservative enough without having to eliminate one of the few >> outlets for critical thinking in it. >> >> On 12/19/2010 8:45 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote: >>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-ma >>> laise-tuition-fees >>> >>> The Guardian >>> 17 December 2010 >>> >>> *The death of universities >>> >>> Academia has become a servant of the status quo. Its malaise runs so much >>> deeper than tuition fees* >>> >>> Terry Eagleton >>> >>> Are the humanities about to disappear from our universities? The question >>> is >>> absurd. It would be like asking whether alcohol is about to disappear >>> from >>> pubs, or egoism from Hollywood. Just as there cannot be a pub without >>> alcohol, so there cannot be a university without the humanities. If >>> history, >>> philosophy and so on vanish from academic life, what they leave in their >>> wake may be a technical training facility or corporate research >>> institute. >>> But it will not be a university in the classical sense of the term, and >>> it >>> would be deceptive to call it one. >>> >>> Neither, however, can there be a university in the full sense of the word >>> when the humanities exist in isolation from other disciplines. The >>> quickest >>> way of devaluing these subjects – short of disposing of them altogether – >>> is >>> to reduce them to an agreeable bonus. Real men study law and engineering, >>> while ideas and values are for sissies. The humanities should constitute >>> the >>> core of any university worth the name. The study of history and >>> philosophy, >>> accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature, should be for >>> lawyers and engineers as well as for those who study in arts faculties. >>> If >>> the humanities are not under such dire threat in the United States, it >>> is, >>> among other things, because they are seen as being an integral part of >>> higher education as such. >>> >>> When they first emerged in their present shape around the turn of the >>> 18th >>> century, the so-called humane disciplines had a crucial social role. It >>> was >>> to foster and protect the kind of values for which a philistine social >>> order >>> had precious little time. The modern humanities and industrial capitalism >>> were more or less twinned at birth. To preserve a set of values and ideas >>> under siege, you needed among other things institutions known as >>> universities set somewhat apart from everyday social life. This >>> remoteness >>> meant that humane study could be lamentably ineffectual. But it also >>> allowed >>> the humanities to launch a critique of conventional wisdom. >>> >>> > From time to time, as in the late 1960s and in these last few weeks in >>> Britain, that critique would take to the streets, confronting how we >>> actually live with how we might live. >>> >>> What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as >>> centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role of academia has >>> been >>> to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, >>> tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or >>> alternative visions of the future. We will not change this simply by >>> increasing state funding of the humanities as opposed to slashing it to >>> nothing. We will change it by insisting that a critical reflection on >>> human >>> values and principles should be central to everything that goes on in >>> universities, not just to the study of Rembrandt or Rimbaud. >>> >>> In the end, the humanities can only be defended by stressing how >>> indispensable they are; and this means insisting on their vital role in >>> the >>> whole business of academic learning, rather than protesting that, like >>> some >>> poor relation, they don't cost much to be housed. >>> >>> How can this be achieved in practice? Financially speaking, it can't be. >>> Governments are intent on shrinking the humanities, not expanding them. >>> >>> Might not too much investment in teaching Shelley mean falling behind our >>> economic competitors? But there is no university without humane inquiry, >>> which means that universities and advanced capitalism are fundamentally >>> incompatible. And the political implications of that run far deeper than >>> the >>> question of student fees. >>> >>> >>> >>> Jim Farmelant >>> http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant >>> www.foxymath.com >>> Learn or Review Basic Math >>> ____________________________________________________________ >>> How to Stay Asleep >>> Cambridge Researchers have developed an all natural sleep aid just for you. >>> http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4d0e0cbc3b5537ba231st03vuc >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Marxism-Thaxis mailing list >>> Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu >>> To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >>> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Marxism-Thaxis mailing list >> Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu >> To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis >> > _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
