>
>I talked with a friend about this distressing message. He is an academic,
>and I am
>not. My parents, however, were academics, at a college (later a state U)
>not very
>far from where Yates is about to retire. My friend's parents were not
>academics.
>
>My friend agrees with Yates' perception of students as increasingly blunted
>and
>stupefied. (Hope he and Yates agree with my paraphrase.). I however clearly
>recollect my parents complaining about their students being like this back
>in the
>fifties. I actually see improvements in the general level of literacy and
>culture
>in the US, from my childhood. Abysmal, of course, compared to Europe, also
>compared
>to the less provincial parts of the US, but still better than it was. For
>example,
>when I was growing up in the Mahoning valley there was no bookstore, and my
>father
>simply maintained an account at B. H. Blackwell's in Oxford, England
>because it
>was simplest to buy books from the catalog.
>
>I've spent my adult life in New York City, and frequently get into
>discussions with
>natives of NYC in which I point out that they fail to appreciate positive
>developments in the provinces. On a different level, they cannot believe
>that
>McDonald's is an actual improvment in cuisine over what prevailed as cheap
>food
>away from home in the midwest in the fifties. On still a different level,
>of
>course, we must celebrate Mr. José Bové's efforts to counter the
>McDonaldization of
>cuisine in France, but then for the French, it is a step down, not up.
>
>I wonder if other academics on this list could respond to the question of
>whether
>or not students are or are not effectively stupider than they used to be.
>
>Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
>
>
>
>Michael Yates wrote:
>
> > Dear friends,
> >
> > I have rejoined a couple of these lists after a hiatus of
>several
> > months. I am about to retire from my job as a college teacher, after 32
> > long and, of late, nearly unbearable years. I have spoken about this
> > before, but in my view academe in is a state of paralysis, at least as
> > far as it being a center of critical thought and action. It is true and
> > to be highly commended that students on some campuses have begun to
> > express outrage at the state of their campuses and the state of the
> > world at large. If only more of their professors joined with them.
> > Unfortunately most professors, including those supposedly on the left,
> > sometimes talk a good game but seldom do much else. For every David
> > Montgomery or Jim Blaut or Angela Davis, there are scores of perpetual
> > conference goers and vita builders, intent on making names for
> > themselves and impressing their more orthodox colleagues, while they
> > oppose their graduate students' attempts to organize and mix and mingle
> > with the common people only by accident (note that I am not here
> > speaking of those admirable souls who labor, often heroically, in the
> > backwaters of academe, themselves badly exploited workers). Meanwhile
> > the colleges and universities become ever more like businesses,
> > becoming, as David Noble correctly points out, primary centers of
> > capital accumulation.
> >
> > And if there are some students who have begun to see the light
>(though
> > as Doug Henwood and Lisa Featherstone have pointed out, they seem to be
> > in dire need of a theory to guide them. Where are their professors?),
> > there are tens of thousands more who have not only not seen the light
> > but are actively opposed to it. Racism, sexism, homophobia, violence of
> > all kinds, hyper-individualism – al are alive and well on our nation's
> > campuses. Not to mention a kind of almost wilful ignorance that has to
> > be experienced to be believed. I used to point out to students in some
> > of my classes the deleterious effects of long hours of labor on a
> > worker's intelligence. Marx has a good example in Capital, vol. I,
> > where he quotes a factory inspector, whose interrogation of child mill
> > workers indicated that they knew virtually nothing. One child said that
> > a princess was a man, and another did not know that he lived in
> > England. Herbert Gutman in his book, "Work, Culture, and Society"
> > quotes a New Jersey inspector to the same effect: One boy thought Europe
> > was in the moon, while another thought that the word "boy" was a comma.
> > These days, however, I wonder how much such examples mean. Consider
> > that I have a student in a seminar on Marx who wrote that the "Communist
> > Manifesto" is a novel. In my introductory class, a student wrote "The
> > Unighted States." Another wrote that a good that is not "inferior" (one
> > for which, other things equal, as income rises, purchases fall) is
> > "ferior." Still another asked seriously whether it was "demand and
> > supply" or "supply and demand." In the seminar, after I had explained
> > Marx's concept of the value of labor power (its value equals the value
> > of those consumption goods necessary for the worker to continue working
> > and insure that the worker's children grow up to become workers), I
> > asked the class what Marx says is the minimum value of labor power. A
> > student awoke from a dead sleep (this in a class of ten, all sitting
> > around a seminar table) and blurted out "$5.15!! I have seriously
> > suggested that our school sell sweatshirts emblazoned with the slogan,
> > "Proud to be stupid."
> >
> > After three decades of increasingly disinterested students,
> > accommodating faculty, and cynical administrators (who engendered the
> > climate that encourages the first two), I have found it impossible to
> > continue. I had to wait til I was 55 to be able to access my pension,
> > but now that I am of age, I can no longer continue to participate in
> > this charade. What has saved me from complete demoralization is that
> > beginning in 1980 I began to teach workers outside of the college. And
> > for the past two years I have been teaching prisoners. I am curious why
> > more progressive academics do not do this. It would be a way of
> > practicing what they preach. For example, I periodically teach
> > economics to union folks at UMass-Amherst. Now this is supposedly a
> > hotbed of radical economics. Yet I fly in form Pittsburgh to teach the
> > class. Where is Bowles or Gintis or Wolfe or Resnick or Pollin?
> > Perhaps the pay is not high enough or they are away on academic business
> > (the class is taught while most of the regular students are on break).
> >
> > As I wind down my last term, I feel nothing for my academic
>career. My
> > wife and I have decided to leave town the week after the term is
> > finished and never come back. We are giving away nearly all of our
> > possessions (I have already given away all of my books and journals,
> > thrown away my notes and files, and put my various awards and plaques in
> > the trash where they belong). When we are done, we will have a few
> > personal belongings, a used car, a computer, and of course, my pension.
> > This has been the most liberating thing I have ever done. We are moving
> > to Yellowstone Park for the summer to work in a hotel there, she as a
> > hostess in the restaurant and me as a front-desk clerk. I haven't been
> > so excited about a new job and a new life in many years. I will
> > maintain my connection with Monthly Review magazine, and I may move to
> > New York to work for MR in the future. And of course we will always be
> > dedicated to the working class from which we came and whose liberation,
> > while a long way off, is the prerequisite for the creation of a society
> > with any pretension at all to freedom and democracy.
> >
> > Michael Yates
>
_________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com