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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Teacher Tell Me...

“The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave to him, as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems to presume perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest weakness and folly in the other. Where the masters, however, really perform their duty, there are no examples, I believe, that the greater part of the students ever neglect theirs. No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are given. Force and restraint may, no doubt, be in some degree requisite in order to oblige children, or very young boys, to attend to those parts of education which it is thought necessary for them to acquire during that early period of life; but after twelve or thirteen years of age, provided the master does his duty, force or restraint can scarce ever be necessary to carry on any part of education. Such is the generosity of the greater part of young men, that, so far from being disposed to neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shows some serious intention of being of use to them, they are generally inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a good deal of gross negligence.”
― Adam Smith
The university discourse is enunciated from the position of "neutral" Knowledge; it addresses the remainder of the real (say, in the case of pedagogical knowledge, the "raw, uncultivated child"), turning it into the subject ($). The "truth" of the university discourse, hidden beneath the bar, of course, is power, i.e. the Master-Signifier: the constitutive lie of the university discourse is that it disavows its performative dimension, presenting what effectively amounts to a political decision based on power as a simple insight into the factual state of things. What one should avoid here is the Foucauldian misreading: the produced subject is not simply the subjectivity which arises as the result of the disciplinary application of knowledge-power, but its remainder, that which eludes the grasp of knowledge-power. "Production" (the fourth term in the matrix of discourses) does not stand simply for the result of the discursive operation, but rather for its "indivisible remainder," for the excess which resists being included in the discursive network, i.e. for what the discourse itself produces as the foreign body in its very heart. Perhaps the exemplary case of the Master's position which underlies the university discourse is the way in which medical discourse functions in our everyday lives: at the surface level, we are dealing with pure objective knowledge which desubjectivizes the subject-patient, reducing him to an object of research, of diagnosis and treatment; however, beneath it, one can easily discern a worried hystericized subject, obsessed with anxiety, addressing the doctor as his Master and asking for reassurance from him. At a more common level, suffice it to recall the market expert who advocates strong budgetary measures (cutting welfare expenses, etc.) as a necessity imposed by his neutral expertise devoid of any ideological biases: what he conceals is the series of power-relations (from the active role of state apparatuses to ideological beliefs) which sustain the "neutral" functioning of the market mechanism.
-Slavoj Zizek, "Homo Sacer as the Object of the University Discourse"
“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
― Adam Smith
“The first duty of the sovereign [is] that of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies, [which] can be performed only by means of a military force”
― Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"
“It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
― Adam Smith
“The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ... ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined ... with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men ... who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public”
― Adam Smith, "An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Volume 1 of 2 "

10 comments:

Gert said...

These Adam Smith quotes are quite revealing, thanks for that.

Gert said...

Heaven knows you’re miserable now!:

The happiness survey – officially the World Happiness Report from the Sustainable Development Solutions Network – looks at factors including per capita GDP, life expectancy, social support and “perceptions corruption.” The U.S. comes in at 15 this year – lagging not just the familiar chilly European nations (Switzerland, Iceland, and Denmark took the top three spots) but Australia, Costa Rica, Israel and Mexico. (The good news is that the U.S. is up two spots from where it was in 2013.) Just be glad you don’t live in Syria, Burundi or Togo.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Mexico beat us? Then wth are all those illegal Mexicans doing here?

WomanHonorThyself said...

knowledge for knowledge's sake eh....good stuff FJ! xoxoxox

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Thanks, Angel! :)

@ Gert, Happiness must not be the Summum Bonum that everyone makes it out to be.

Gert said...

Mexico beat us? Then what are all those illegal Mexicans doing here?

I’ve been told many of them have gone back and that there’s a shortage of Texan lawn mowers now! ;-)

One problem with illegal immigrants is that many have been told by their ‘pushers’ that the streets are paved with gold in the West. Ignorance about our economies (in Europe) appears to be a great driver among ‘economic migrants’ from Africa. Many end up very disappointed.

California still advertises itself as a place of opportunity to European audiences, I kid you not!

Farmer: happiness is overrated. And the promise of it used to sell just about anything. But misery and deep unhappiness aren't much fun either.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

In "One Dimensional Man," Herbert Marcuse quoted Freud as having said that "Happiness if no cultural value. Happiness must be subordinated to the discipline of work... to the discipline of monogamous reproduction... the methodological sacrifice of libido is culture."

Can you imagine living in a world with zero culture? Wouldn't it be a bellum omnium contra omnes.

So I suppose one must make a choice (a FORCED choice) to trade a little happiness for the presence and persistence of culture. Because if you don't, you're very likely to find yourself in our prison-industrial complex with a cellmate named "Bubba". ;)

Gert said...

Make that "Big Bubba"! ;-)

Red Herring said...

Do you know the 'Misanthropundit'?

FreeThinke said...

"If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

~ Thomas Gray - Elegy