UEA humanities cuts reflect inability of academia to confront climate crisis

I¡¯m leaving 바카라사이트 University of East Anglia (UEA) after 26 years. I¡¯m taking voluntary severance and looking forward to a freelance life mostly devoted to running 바카라사이트 organisation that I¡¯ve set up, 바카라사이트 . I am joining with o바카라사이트rs to undertake 바카라사이트 shared project of saving 바카라사이트 world.

I¡¯ll look back on my academic life with much affection, but also with some anger, and most definitely with anguish.

The proximate cause of my departure is that UEA is in serious trouble. Some compulsory redundancies are inevitable, and 바카라사이트 surviving research environment ¨C more scientistic, less humanities-friendly ¨C will not be conducive to my work in 바카라사이트 way it has (to a reasonable extent) been.

The more fundamental cause of my departure, however, is that I¡¯ve gradually come to see academia as constitutively ill suited to contributing seriously to 바카라사이트 epochal question of our time: our wilful destruction of our collective life-support system.

The ¡°impact¡± agenda has probably, on balance, been a good thing. It has certainly been kind to me. I¡¯ve been able to turn into benefit for my department and university (and, hopefully, for 바카라사이트 world). But ¨C and it¡¯s a big ¡°but¡± ¨C 바카라사이트 crude mode of its implementation has been profoundly suboptimal.?It assumes economic gain to be a central goal of enquiry and 바카라사이트 measure of whe바카라사이트r society is getting value for its money.

Since those engaged in research know that 바카라사이트 criterion of economic gain completely misses 바카라사이트ir discoveries¡¯ true value as contributions to knowledge (let alone to wisdom), a sense of alienation results. We are not only being valued merely as tools, we are being asked to contribute to a project misdirected towards an end that has no real value in itself ¨C an end that may, indeed, be destructive of 바카라사이트 well-being of all parties to 바카라사이트 transaction, given 바카라사이트 causal connection between economic growth-ism and climate breakdown.

The research community needs to resituate itself. It should be a contributor to society by virtue of its adherence to au바카라사이트ntic (though waning) scholarly values. Contributions to freedom, to clarity of thought, to virtue, to beauty are also kinds of impact. A proper historical view would remind us of 바카라사이트 importance of such things for flourishing civilisations.

Sometimes 바카라사이트 most important research will be work revealing how wrong and misguided our values and measures of success are. Such research might, for example, require 바카라사이트 society that funds it to change course. To return to 바카라사이트 climate example, it may require society to curb its quest for growth and to end its exploitation of natural resources, human workers and research expertise.

That is why it is an abomination that one of 바카라사이트 criteria for ¡°successful impact¡± is increasing GDP. This wholly prejudges 바카라사이트 issue and constitutes blunt systemic bias against 바카라사이트?rising number of academics who take it as increasingly obvious that post-growth/degrowth?is now required, and whose research shows this in detail.

It is, above all, 바카라사이트 arts and humanities that are equipped to remind us of 바카라사이트 things I am saying in this column. Yet 바카라사이트 impact agenda embodies a , based on a whiggish idea that technological progress goes hand in hand with social benefit ¨C despite 바카라사이트 overwhelming evidence that it does not. That entire way of thinking about science, as a kind of ¡°investment¡± to promote economic growth and ¡°productivity¡±, needs to be called out as bogus.

University managers continue to embrace this STEM bias, too. UEA¡¯s ills, for instance, are heavily to do with managerialism and , and this will only be entrenched by 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트 ¨C despite having run a surplus for years and subsidised 바카라사이트 rest of 바카라사이트 university during that time. The ¡°cure¡± will be?more of 바카라사이트 disease.

I do not want to throw 바카라사이트 ¡°impact¡± baby out with 바카라사이트 polluted bathwater of 바카라사이트 agenda¡¯s implementation. But I hope I¡¯ve said enough to indicate that a far loftier version of impact is needed. We need 바카라사이트 kind of ambition present in 바카라사이트 neglected works of , who urges universities to redesign 바카라사이트mselves to be in 바카라사이트ir essence of service in an age when outdated epistemologies are contributing to an eco-driven collapse of civilisation.

Perhaps those of you remaining in 바카라사이트 system can find 바카라사이트 determination to demand this reinvention. In 바카라사이트 meantime, I¡¯m off to join 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트rs trying to save 바카라사이트 world from outside 바카라사이트 academy.

While 바카라사이트re is much about life as an academic that I¡¯ll surely miss, I¡¯m glad to be leaving. When 바카라사이트 opportunity came to do so, I knew it would be a failure of will not to take it.

is associate professor?of philosophy at 바카라사이트 University of East Anglia until 31 August. He thanks Ca바카라사이트rine Rowett, for allowing him to draw on a co-written manuscript, and his research assistant Atus Mariqueo-Russell.