[iDC] A movement of unemployed teachers

Mon Jun 7 15:46:44 UTC 2010

This is a terribly complex matter, but I agree with Micha (as I often do).
The movement of the academy towards utilitarian ends (replacing corporate
R&D, Obama's support of technical schools over universities, thus
reinforcing Postman's old ideas on technopoly), as well as privatization of
the financing aspect is simply ridiculous.  In short, the involvement of
market sector agendas merely creates short-term solutions for long term
problems and creates a drastic decimation of public infrastructure as the
private sector sucks the profit out of it.  Yes, I know most public
institutions are not necessarily part of the free market, but in attempting
to assuage legislators and taxpayers, these accounting models come into
play. 

Productivity, reliance on quantitative assessment models, and deep
partnerships with the private sector create toxic mixes which ostensibly
serve to suck the life out of the commons, with the academy being part of
that infrastructure.  What is needed is for an understanding that there are
public utilities and infrastructure that are NECESSARY for the maintenance
of society - water, food quality, air quality, education/funding, culture,
health care, environmental care, etc.  The American emphasis on the Dow is
perverse, much like worshipping the users of society.

Secondly, and I may get in trouble in saying so, is that since the 80's,
there has been in the US a race toward degree inflation.  When I got my
engineering degree on 1990, we had a 15-20% retainment ratio.  Now, at my
college, I want to keep standards, but with the recession, I also realize
that I have to let a certain number through in order to keep our program's
numbers up.  My colleagues might say that I can keep retainment up by being
a superior teacher, but at an almost open enrollment college, this is more
valid for Juniors and Seniors.  Therefore, the academic is torn between the
will to retain and the will to standards.

However, the other problem is that there is a feeling towards entitlement to
a degree in order to get a job, even at the graduate level.  This feeds the
whole machine of the academic puppy mill, the
educational/industrial/financial complex, and honestly, not so many people
should have degrees (if they don’t really deserve them).  But then this
challenges the idea of the systemic "House that Jack Built".  At the moment
one sees flat growth numbers, the system shudders and the administrators
slash budgets, while often not taking cuts of their own.

Part of the problem with the mass of unemployed teachers is that far too
many MFAs have been awarded to people - far more than the system can
support.  But then, to criticize the student for not understanding this is
similar to the bank criticizing the credit card holder for overspending when
the bank offers lavish offers of low introductory rates and extras then
raises them upon getting hooked on the system.  It is, in my opinion, the
fault of the academy for over-graduating, but as it has partially
privatized, it means to raise tuition or spiral in a race to the bottom.
There has to be a public commons for education.

Question is: are we to a point where we are ready to strike? I mean really,
really strike?  Personally, I'm not sure most are, but we should!

-----Original Message-----
From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [mailto:idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net]
On Behalf Of Dara Greenwald
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 5:22 PM
To: idc at mailman.thing.net
Cc: nettime-l at kein.org
Subject: Re: [iDC] A movement of unemployed teachers

and while we are talking about the effects of academic economies -
how about a movement of student debtors/debt abolitionists as well?

some graphics to start it off:
http://www.edudebtorsunion.org/graphics.html

On Jun 3, 2010, at 2:25 PM, micha cárdenas wrote:

> Again I'm not sorry for my genuine rage, but this is all compounded by
> the collapse of the educational system where so many of us are being
> presented with our expulsion from academia. We need a Movement of
> Unemployed Teachers like the unemployed workers movement in Argentina
> (if any hope of a movement is still possible, or which may be possible
> again now that we all have os much time on our hands). Just in sheer
> numbers, so many of us are being laid off, having tenure threatened,
> watching adjunct jobs disappear, that we must have the combined energy
> to DO SOMETHING in response... The coming insurrection sounds more and
> more like sweet music that makes so much sense as we're all told that
> we have no futures left...
>
>
> 2010/6/3 micha cárdenas <azdelslade at gmail.com>:
>> As I walk around campus today, I have the urge to peaches' I DONT  
>> GIVE
>> A FUCK song, because I'm so pissed about losing aaaarg.org. This is
>> TOO MUCH. When will we all finally reach our limit? It is my hope  
>> that
>> a million aaaarg mirrors will spring up...
>>
>> Of course a lot of us have been brewing these dreams of escaping
>> social networks for a long time...
>> (http://bang.calit2.net/tts/category/facebook/) but it seems that now
>> we need to organize, we need a distributed strategy, to both help
>> efforts to develop new autonomous networks like elgg, identi.ca,
>> opensim and diaspora, but also to infiltrate and disrupt networks  
>> like
>> facebook, twitter and second life. In fact, second life is a perfect
>> case study of the horror of what these network owners imagine, a  
>> whole
>> world where everything you own, everything that is you, every bit of
>> your body and identity resides on their servers, and everyday new
>> Linden Labs licensing restrictions come out to legally  bind people
>> into the system and prevent escape at all turns.
>>
>> Personally, I've been invested for quite a while in trying to develop
>> new networks, including networks such as radical porn sites, just one
>> example of the parts of ourselves and our lives that are excluded and
>> stripped from us in these corporate spaces. Actually my book calling
>> for the development of new autonomous networks stemming out of the
>> demand for the ability to change my identity constantly and at will
>> just came out
(http://www.amazon.com/Trans-Desire-Affective-Cyborgs-C%C3%A1rdenas/dp/09825
30994/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275588562&sr=8-1 
>> ).
>>
>> Still, even as we need to develop our own networks and software, we
>> also have to move to developing our own infrastructure
>> (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/22/18603456.php)! We can no
>> longer rely on phone companies to provide our connections to each
>> other! We need to be in control of the very hardware itself, and we
>> all have routers in our homes that we can switch for just this
>> purpose!
>>
>> As the case of ricardo dominguez and the bang.lab shows, university
>> networks are no longer any haven for free thought and radical
>> experimentation, we need to seriously dedicate our own resources and
>> lives to these struggles before WIPO controls all of our daily
>> interactions...
>>
>> Sorry for the rant, I just can't take it anymore...
>>
>>
>>
>> 2010/5/28 Sean Dockray <sean at e-rat.org>:
>>>
>>> i'm not sure if I'm doing this (sending a message to the list in
>>> response to Geert) right, but here goes nothing.
>>> there's a few too many question marks and exclamation points and
>>> strident claims, but the form got the better of me.
>>> sean
>>>
>>> --
>>> FACEBOOK SUICIDE (BOMB) MANIFESTO
>>>
>>> Everyone now wants to know how to remove themselves from social
>>> networks. It has become absolutely clear that our relationships to
>>> others are mere points in the aggregation of marketing data.  
>>> Political
>>> campaigns, the sale of commodities, the promotion of entertainment –
>>> this is the outcome of our expression of likes and affinities. And  
>>> at
>>> what cost? The reward is obvious: we no longer have to tolerate
>>> advertisements for things for which we have no interest. Instead our
>>> social relations are saturated with public relations. But at least  
>>> it
>>> is all *interesting*!
>>>
>>> Unlike the old days, when we could invent online identities daily,  
>>> our
>>> social networks today require fidelity between our physical self and
>>> our online self. The situation is unbearable.
>>>
>>> The frightening consequence of it all is that we believe in the  
>>> value
>>> of these networks. We understand perfectly well that our privacy is
>>> being renegotiated without our consent; the rules are changing in
>>> plain view; but we still participate! It is like a new form of  
>>> money,
>>> something we realize is a myth, but we act like it is real and  
>>> that is
>>> its power. We can’t leave because everyone else is there! Or because
>>> we are invested in the myth ourselves.
>>>
>>> The question is how do we extract ourselves from this predicament?
>>>
>>> Recently, some programmers figured out how to computationally do
>>> exactly this. By entering in your username and password, the  
>>> software
>>> would delete as much information as possible, ultimately removing  
>>> the
>>> account itself. It was a radical enough idea to attract the legal
>>> attention of Facebook.
>>>
>>> This software did not go far enough!
>>>
>>> When someone disappears from Facebook, does anyone notice? Does this
>>> software retroactively invalidate all of the marketing data that has
>>> been collected from the account? Has this person de-dividuated
>>> themselves? No, silence has not disrupted the system in the  
>>> slightest!
>>>
>>> Social networks need a social suicide. In the same way that  
>>> 99.99999%
>>> of users on Facebook don’t exist within the cloistered world of  
>>> one’s
>>> home page, an invisible user – one who has committed suicide – is
>>> simply a non-factor in the constant and regular computational  
>>> logic of
>>> the thing. The answer isn’t silence, but noise!
>>>
>>> Suicide on a social network is a matter of introducing noise into  
>>> the
>>> system. It spreads viruses and misinformation. It makes things less
>>> interesting for others. It disrupts the finely calibrated  
>>> advertising
>>> algorithms on which suggestions are made – for friends, groups,
>>> institutions, ideas, and so on. Social networking captures,
>>> quantifies, and capitalizes on positive feedback. It records and
>>> reproduces similarity. Oh yes, everyone is not watching one of three
>>> mass-produced choices; but beneath all of the possibilities there is
>>> only one choice! The one for you!
>>>
>>> A roadmap for an effective Facebook suicide should do some of the
>>> following: catching as many viruses as possible; click on as many
>>> “Like” buttons as possible; join as many groups as possible; request
>>> as many friends as possible. Wherever there is the possibility for
>>> action, take it, and take it without any thought whatsoever.  
>>> Become a
>>> machine for clicking! Every click dissolves the virtual double that
>>> Facebook has created for you. It disperses you into the digital  
>>> lives
>>> of others you hadn’t thought of communicating with. It confuses your
>>> friends. It pulls all those parts of the world that your social
>>> network refuses to engage with back into focus, makes it present  
>>> again.
>>>
>>> Invisibility comes in many forms, and on social networks it is the
>>> form of a radical overload of information – a maximum participation.
>>> No more thought, because every considered click adds to the
>>> collaborative filtering algorithms that makes sure everyone  
>>> continues
>>> to like what they like, but in slightly modified form. Click
>>> everywhere, click often, and don’t stop until you have disappeared
>>> beneath a flood of meaninglessness.
>>>
>>> This is a call for suicide, for the abandonment of seriousness and
>>> belief. It is a call to reclaim ourselves from the sad version of
>>> ourselves that lives in that bloodless village. Don’t become  
>>> nothing,
>>> the singular point defined by an absence, become everything, with
>>> everyone else. Drown the system in data and make a new world in the
>>> ruins that remain!
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> micha cárdenas / azdel slade
>>
>> Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
>> Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies Program, University of  
>> California, San Diego
>> Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
>> Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net
>>
>> blog: http://transreal.org
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> micha cárdenas / azdel slade
>
> Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
> Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies Program, University of California,  
> San Diego
> Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
> Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net
>
> blog: http://transreal.org
> _______________________________________________
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> (distributedcreativity.org)
> iDC at mailman.thing.net
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