It has a worrying history when you consider how influential these ideas seem to be coming within mainstream political discourse in the UK.
To me it’s historically unmatched. I’ve never read or heard of a period like this and I’ve read about many historical periods. But not one in which you can talk to young people the way you can at the college level today and find out that they believe nothing, want nothing, hope nothing, expect nothing, dream nothing, desire nothing. Push them far enough and they’ll say “yeah, I’ve got to get a job. I spent a lot of money at Duke”. That’s not what I’m talking about here. They hope nothing. Expect nothing. Dream nothing. Desire nothing. And it is a fair question to ask whether a society that produces this reaction in its young is worthy of existence at all. It really is. It’s worth asking that. Whether it’s worth being here at all
In 1993 Rick Roderick talks about the students he met while teaching at Duke university. As he goes on to say, these are the youth he met at a site of great privilege… what of youth elsewhere? More to the point, what of the society which works to produce the conditions within this (postmodern) reason manifests itself. What I take Roderick to essentially be saying here is that late capitalism has begun to produce the last men of whom Nietzsche wrote a century earlier. Of course this is ultimately an empirical thesis and one that can only be investigated from a standpoint which takes human concerns seriously. Otherwise the possibility of understanding their debasement and loss is foreclosed from the start.
Somewhat naively I thought I had sold my old laptop for £160 within a day of putting it on Gumtree. Turns out I haven’t and that (quel suprise!) I was unlikely to receive payment if I sent it. So to anyone else in this situation, resist the temptation to believe you’ve found a buyer and lower your unrealistic initial asking price:
Hello, I was just browsing through gumtree to see if i can get a very good and nice item for a very good friend and a colleague of mine who has just been posted abroad on a training course on Environmental pollution while i have being posted to Asia on a training course on Population so we are into exchange of gifts with each other, and i came across your lovely item.
I want to know if the item is in its top condition,I will like you to help me send the item down to my friend in Lagos Nigeria on my behalf as i am due to leave for Asia soon so won’t be able to receive the item here in the state..I will be offering you 150 pounds for the postage via Royal Mail International Signed For,with p&p, so i will quickly want you to get back to me with the total cost including your pay pal e-mail so i can make payment also get back to me with your item number on gumtree and your full name for me to make the payment.
Hope to read from you soon… God bless
Im trying not to slip/ been trying not to lose footing/
Loose land keeps the pressure on my kicks/
and when I fall I tend to land like a ton of bricks/
stand like a man made of concrete and sediment like/ f
uck your skin nobody needs it theres/ Bones and muscles and blood/
Whats realer than fat and tendons?/
Its raw no soft tissue to draw your eyes to it so far flesh aint the truest at all lets rip into it/
Were all sick of them missed shots/
passed over like the last man picked no team so pissed off/
and/ thats not honesty/
thats just soft curves got your world flipped/
got you makin mixtapes for girls/
and thats the skin again/
lets blame the skin again/ stretching itself so fluidly over these awkward/ ligaments/
and I didnt shave today/
I prolly wont tomorrow and its safe to say Im never gonna shed this extra (yeah)/
Chorus:
So fuck it back to the wall/
crush it/ laugh at em all/
hush/ let em try to find the beauty in your face/
something more than a song/
they hatin? Aw come on/
dust/ let em try to find the beauty in the bassline/
aw but then them words dont change/
we wont sing with what will fade away/
yeah we do our own damn thing/
we dont blink at what tomorrow might bring (at all)/
Aw but then them words they dont change/
we wont sing with what will fade away/
yeah we do our own damn thing/
we dont blink at what tomorrow might bring (at all)/
Verse 2
Of how tomorrow might sting/ at all/
in us we trust/ no rush for bucks/
no sweat just enough/ them words from love/ no hits/
I let the track stand/ like how it was written is how it hit me/
or road cycle kids with the grip to skid a fixies/
a rouge wild kid with a stroll that let it roll/ like whatever/
they kick that gingivitis/ them rappers got the itis/
catch me bumpin Isis in a crisis/
instead of watchin yall count and lead sheep at the same time/
whats the science of that?/
I know the ( ) is sweet/ but where the movement at?
We in that coma capital/ spotless home team/
with hands steadily purelled/ germ-exed/
but never quite clean/ bloody as hell rarely will I ever care (for that)/
Chorus x2
So fuck it back to the wall/
crush it/ laugh at em all/
hush/ let em try to find the beauty in your face/
something more than a song/
they hatin? Aw come on/
dust/ let em try to find the beauty in the bassline/
aw but then them words they dont change/
we wont sing with what will fade away/
yeah we do our own damn thing/
we dont blink at what tomorrow might bring (at all)/
I seemingly have swine flu. Arse fuck cunt shit. Grrrrr.
The Guardian reported today that, following the arrival of their new Vice Chancellor*, Oxford are leading the way in campaigning directly for a US style funding system for higher education. Interestingly the article focuses on his advocacy of US style scholarships. The upshot is that a fundamentally retrogressive move can be presented as a progressive one: he is calling for the existing scholarships in the UK to be improved to match their counterparts in the US but for this to take place within the context of a move from the present UK funding system to one similar to the US. Under the latter system, Ivy League universities charge feeds of up to £31000 a year… so while his argument that increasing tuition fees must be accompanied by an increase in student support to US levels is a little better than calling for an outright and unqualified lifting of the cap on fees, it’s hardly the progressive move his language paints it as being.
He says that “The commitment that we must make to [the brightest students] is that they will attend Oxford irrespective of their economic circumstances”. So, much as in American debates of the last two decades, the disingenuous concept of capitalist meritocracy (the ethical goal of social institutions should be to allow natural hierarchies to emerge) acts as a banner under which to undermine the postwar liberal settlement. Of course this ‘debate’ takes place within a political climate where, as a consequence of the media echo-chamber, it’s become accepted that Britain has a “debt crisis”: so the non-political necessity of austerity is seen to underscore the need for yet more privatization of the costs of higher education, as well for universities to seek more diversified funding sources i.e. relying on wealthy individuals and corporate partnerships rather than government.
*Formerly the Provost of Yale no less! Thank god for another socially beneficial American export.
I’ve just added my first ever entry to Wikipedia. It’s the little section on “reflexivity and the internal conversation”. That was fun.
If you type “one of the most horrific” into Google my blog comes #1. If you type “most horrific things” it comes up #3. If you type “most horrific thing i have ever seen” it comes up #3. Meaningless but pleasing non the less.
