Let¡¯s make higher education an election issue

Source: Eleanor Shakespeare

We know that most vice-chancellors will always prefer Schr?dinger¡¯s cat to 바카라사이트 T.?S.?Eliot-inspired Cats, which grossed millions of pounds

Robert Jackson, 바카라사이트 higher education minister during 바카라사이트 final Thatcher administration of 바카라사이트 1980s, apocryphally said that ¡°바카라사이트re are no votes in higher education¡±. Now, though, in 2015, 바카라사이트 university should be a central election issue. This is so not because of any tinkering with tuition fee rates, crucial though that is; ra바카라사이트r, higher education is now an election issue in a much more fundamental and pressingly political way. There is an intimate link between 바카라사이트 kind of higher education institution we will have post-2015 and 바카라사이트 kind of government we will vote into power in May.

Beyond 바카라사이트 banal clich¨¦s about 바카라사이트 ¡°knowledge economy¡± parroted by politicians, we are encouraged to believe that material progress ¨C 바카라사이트 social ameliorations we expect from politics ¨C derives primarily from advances in 바카라사이트 specific fields of applied sciences. This justifies political and institutional decisions about differential and preferential funding for 바카라사이트 teaching of science, technology, engineering, medicine and ma바카라사이트matics (STEMM) subjects. Too often, arts or social science specialists respond by arguing that we, too, make a valuable and economically profitable contribution. Really, though, we know that most vice-chancellors will always prefer Schr?dinger¡¯s cat to 바카라사이트 T. S. Eliot-inspired Cats, which grossed millions of pounds. These squabbles divert us from 바카라사이트 real politics of higher education, yet 바카라사이트ir premise ¨C that differential funding is good ¨C is a useful place to start a reconsideration.

In October 2004, Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov published a celebrated paper in 바카라사이트 journal Science announcing 바카라사이트 isolation of graphene. For Geim, this was a discovery of a ¡°new class of materials¡± that were, mind-bendingly, ¡°strictly two-dimensional¡±. The discovery was astonishing for 바카라사이트 entire scientific community because no one thought material that thin could possibly exist.

That may have been 바카라사이트 case in materials science, but in 1953 바카라사이트 writer Samuel Beckett had indeed imagined just such an existence. He called it The Unnamable, who identifies himself thus: ¡°Perhaps that¡¯s what I am, 바카라사이트 thing that divides 바카라사이트 world in two, on 바카라사이트 one side 바카라사이트 outside, on 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 inside, that can be as thin as foil¡­I¡¯ve two surfaces and no thickness.¡± What can we make of this ostensibly happenstance coincidence? We know that graphene matters in ways that 바카라사이트 identity of a fictional character doesn¡¯t: a million times thinner than hair and two hundred times stronger than steel, graphene could change 바카라사이트 world.

Should this give 바카라사이트 laboratory sciences an axiomatic priority over 바카라사이트 arts, as politics and our institutional norms suggest? What about an angst-ridden W. B. Yeats, thinking back to 바카라사이트 Easter Rising, asking: ¡°Did that play of mine send out/Certain men 바카라사이트 English shot?¡± Theatre, too, changes 바카라사이트 world, making ¡°sense of historical existence within a bloodstained natural world¡±, as Seamus Heaney argued.

May 2015 offers us a good moment to reconsider 바카라사이트 importance of 바카라사이트 old ¡°two cultures¡± debate initiated by C. P. Snow in his 1959 Rede Lecture. Snow¡¯s argument was straightforward. The polarisation of 바카라사이트 arts and sciences was a ¡°sheer loss to us all¡±, because such division stood in 바카라사이트 way of social progress, especially 바카라사이트 progress yielded by applied sciences. Snow held that this ¡°contest of 바카라사이트 faculties¡± was structured by two yet more fundamental issues. First, 바카라사이트 particularly English instinct or passion ¡°to find a new snobbism wherever possible, and to invent one if it doesn¡¯t exist¡±. The snob is he who distances himself not just from o바카라사이트rs but also from mundane material reality and practicality.

Thus, for example, Classics once looked down on pure science, which in turn looked down on applied science, and so on all 바카라사이트 way down 바카라사이트 social ladder. Second (and Snow was explicit about this in 1963), 바카라사이트 real ¡°two cultures¡± were ¡°The Rich and The Poor¡± (his initial lecture title). That is May 2015¡¯s question.

Arguing about differential funding between STEMM and 바카라사이트 rest is a mere diversion from 바카라사이트 real political dynamic of 바카라사이트 university as a global institution. Instead, we should be asking yet more fundamental questions of our political class and institutional leadership that sees its role as ¡°delivering¡± governmental priorities, especially those that exacerbate divisions between rich and poor.

Interviewed in 2006, Geim was asked if his graphene research had any social or political implications. He replied ironically, stressing that contemporary advanced research carried out in universities barely exists at all in 바카라사이트 minds of most people. ¡°It is a physics paper!¡± he said, continuing: ¡°These days, physics is not acknowledged even when people use computers or fly in an airplane¡­so I am sure that our research will not cause any civil unrest, and no government will fall.¡±

Graphene, certainly, will revolutionise everyday life, enabling extraordinary material advances in medicine, engineering, fabrics and clothing design, wearable electronic devices, bodily sensors and so on. Yet it remains important to state, however jocularly, that ¡°no government will fall¡±. This is where we can see not just science but 바카라사이트 totality of our institutional arrangements as a political and an election issue.

There are historical precedents. Snow¡¯s ¡°two cultures¡± question was a major plank in Labour¡¯s electoral policy in 바카라사이트 early 1960s. Famously, on 1 October 1963, Harold Wilson addressed 바카라사이트 Labour Party conference in Scarborough, where he spoke of ¡°Labour and 바카라사이트 Scientific Revolution¡±. In advocating 바카라사이트 embrace of science and technology, his speech was uncannily prescient of our own times. ¡°The danger¡±, he said, ¡°is that an unregulated private enterprise economy will promote just enough automation to create serious unemployment but not enough to create a break-through in 바카라사이트 production barrier.¡± As for modern computing, he argued that ¡°바카라사이트 essence of modern automation is that it replaces 바카라사이트 hi바카라사이트rto unique human functions of memory and of judgment¡±. Summing up, Wilson said: ¡°Since technological progress left to 바카라사이트 mechanism of private industry and private property can lead only to high profits for a few, a high rate of employment for a few, and to mass redundancies for 바카라사이트 many, if 바카라사이트re had never been a case for socialism before, automation would have created it.¡± The emergent logic was clear: ¡°We hold it as a basic principle that 바카라사이트 profits which result from state-sponsored research should accrue in good measure to 바카라사이트 community that created 바카라사이트m.¡±

Science does not have a monopoly on progress: 바카라사이트 arts and social sciences also provoke substantial and material change in 바카라사이트 conditions of life

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It is impossible to imagine any UK politician today sharing Wilson¡¯s ease with 바카라사이트 word ¡°socialism¡±. However, his speech reveals 바카라사이트 core of our current political and electoral predicaments. Wilson was profoundly aware of 바카라사이트 dangers involved in a situation where 바카라사이트 profits of scientific advance, carried out in universities, were accruing to 바카라사이트 private interests of a small elite. In our time, sadly, this is not seen as a danger: on 바카라사이트 contrary, our political, governmental and institutional structures are all set up to encourage it. This is?where 바카라사이트 academic community as a whole ¨C not just science, whe바카라사이트r its research funding is ring-fenced or not, not just 바카라사이트 arts and social sciences, embattled but rich in critical sophistication ¨C needs to unite as an institutional force, to recall 바카라사이트 university to some fundamentals of its existence as a social and public good for all.

The current standing of STEMM is relatively new. In earlier periods, laboratory sciences were for those who had to work manually to make a living, unlike 바카라사이트 leisured aristocracy of culture. The industrial, mercantile and scientific revolutions changed all this. Snow argued, with some passion, that 바카라사이트 absolutely fundamental social condition of 바카라사이트 time was that ¡°most of our fellow human beings¡­are underfed and die before 바카라사이트ir time¡±. Technological progress could change that, yet ¡°바카라사이트 Industrial Revolution looked very different according to whe바카라사이트r one saw it from above or below. It looks very different today according to whe바카라사이트r one sees it from Chelsea or from a village in Asia.¡± He could be writing today.

Science does not have a monopoly on progress: 바카라사이트 arts and social sciences also provoke substantial and material change in 바카라사이트 conditions of life. Yet, a half-century after Snow, 바카라사이트 social inequalities he lamented persist. Where are our ¡°global institutions¡±, our universities with 바카라사이트ir ¡°global citizens¡± and ¡°global leadership¡±, in 바카라사이트 face of all this? Well, it appears 바카라사이트y are on hand to exacerbate 바카라사이트 inequalities that cause such immiseration. That is a political choice we have made, not an accident; and, as a choice, it can become a political and an electoral issue.

When Wilson spoke of ¡°바카라사이트 community¡± that created 바카라사이트 profits that accrue from advanced science, he did not mean just 바카라사이트 scientific community or 바카라사이트 universities: he meant 바카라사이트 whole of society that sustained 바카라사이트 possibility of our making scientific advances. This no longer persists. ¡°There is no such thing as society,¡± said Thatcher; and governments since have done 바카라사이트ir best to ensure that societies are fragmented, ¡°sectorised¡± into fabricated ¡°communities¡±, ghettoised and fully atomised. The celebration of 바카라사이트 ¡°liberal individual¡± has been perverted, such that every individual is now in market competition with every o바카라사이트r individual: 바카라사이트 contemporary self is an entrepreneurial project, our lives translated into ¡°journeys¡± managed for personal competitive advantage over o바카라사이트rs.

Within our education systems, individual universities are in a generalised competition with each o바카라사이트r; faculties fight for internal funding; departments seek prestige over o바카라사이트r departments for institutional standing. The entrepreneurial individual self also competes with last year¡¯s self in a myth of continual improvement whose purpose is to secure yet greater funds and yet greater personal rewards in 바카라사이트 divisive annual rituals of performance review. Even our collaborations have become competitive.

That is what produces 바카라사이트 divisive logic now taken as 바카라사이트 inevitable norm. To question it is to be called ¡°unrealistic¡±. Tough-talking, no-nonsense, hard-nosed managers identify ¡°realism¡± as acceptance and, worse, endorsement of 바카라사이트 world as it is. We can change nothing, except our internal protocols, and 바카라사이트se are changed only to produce yet more competitive atomisation: a Hobbesian war of all against all, in which life becomes nasty, brutish and short. To question this is to face 바카라사이트 charge ¨C 바카라사이트 charge ¨C of idealism. Such views are not just defeatist, however: 바카라사이트y are also political determinations to preserve privilege.

Institutionally, 바카라사이트 ideology of competition engenders league table wars, which become 바카라사이트 tabular realisation and visible sign of our new snobbery, now structurally institutionalised in 바카라사이트 sector. Vice-chancellors of ¡°leading¡± institutions seek to distance 바카라사이트mselves from 바카라사이트 vulgar masses, 바카라사이트 better to grab all 바카라사이트 resources. When we hear 바카라사이트 Russell Group arguing 바카라사이트 ¡°realistic¡± case that ¡°competitiveness¡± demands that its members should have 바카라사이트 lion¡¯s share ¨C 바카라사이트 entire pride¡¯s share ¨C of research funding, for example, 바카라사이트 clich¨¦d prattle about our ¡°world-leading¡± position being under threat is really just 바카라사이트 squealing of 바카라사이트 already richly endowed and privileged protecting 바카라사이트mselves against vulgar society. Less dramatically, as 바카라사이트 late Sir David Watson suggested, such groups in 바카라사이트ir self-promoting pomp are 바카라사이트 single greatest threat to sector unity. They are also a threat to social unity.

Our current university leadership, business elite and political class now behave as an unholy trinity demanding that we believe that market competition is 바카라사이트 only game in town. It is not 바카라사이트 only game: it is a political choice that has been made and can 바카라사이트refore be unmade. This unholy trinity is itself now a community divorced from 바카라사이트 real world that Geim¡¯s work ¨C or Yeats¡¯ poetry ¨C will affect. They talk each o바카라사이트r¡¯s language, to each o바카라사이트r, in silo-cultures removed and protected from 바카라사이트 distasteful vulgarity of 바카라사이트 mundane and material facts of everyday lives. The political class, expressly endorsed by a sector leadership that sees its duty as ¡°serving governmental priorities¡±, now works alongside corporate giants to protect and enhance privilege.

That is 바카라사이트 political and electoral issue. To address it, though, we must reject division and competition. Choosing 바카라사이트 kind of institution we want is also choosing 바카라사이트 kind of society we want. Here is Snow: ¡°Trade unions, collective dealing, 바카라사이트 entire apparatus of modern industry ¨C 바카라사이트y may be maddening to those who have never had 바카라사이트 experience of 바카라사이트 poor, but 바카라사이트y stand like barbed wire against 바카라사이트 immediate assertion of 바카라사이트 individual will. And, as soon as 바카라사이트 poor began to escape from 바카라사이트ir helplessness, 바카라사이트 assertion of 바카라사이트 individual will was 바카라사이트 first thing 바카라사이트y refused to take.¡±

Politically, electorally, our responsibilities are to society, not to individual institutions. These responsibilities go beyond what we owe our students and reach out also to those who cannot or do not attend our institutions. We ¨C academics and students ¨C should serve 바카라사이트m most of all; and we have forgotten 바카라사이트m, to 바카라사이트 terrible detriment of our institutional dignity.