<> On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 14:05:09 -0800 <> martin schiller <mschiller at pobox.com> wrote: <> <>> > My criticism is directed to the actual institutions and their <>> actual <>> > social function <>> <>> Which is (or is not)? <> <> Gatekeeping, basically; the legitimation of <> inequality under the factitious rubric of <> meritocracy.
Boy, ain't dat da troot! I think what annoys me the most about the conversations I have with people I've met since I moved here, is that telling my story becomes some big bad ass legitimation fairy tale.
See there, the people still in the ghetto over there, they didn't have the talent or ambition. They just didn't work hard enough. See, if you work hard, you can get into college, get scholarships, never pay any money for all that schooling, and then you get a good job and get out of poverty.
Meanwhile, what kills you every fucking minute of the day is that it's not true: the people in the ghetto are no less talented and hard working. All your friends still slinging hash at diners, still shoveling manure as landscapers, still muscling around a welder, still wiping asses in nursing homes, still hustling the tables at the club... they are just as fucking talented, motivated, driven - or were 20 years ago anyway. They just didn't make it because there's a simple fact: in a capitalist system, not everyone can make it because capitalism requires this scarcity. It manufactures it, most of the cultural production around capitalism is intended to obscure this fact, is intended to get you to lie to yourself and others about it, get you to think you are resisting it when you are actually reinforcing it with every breath you take.
If everyone got to college for free, you wouldn't have good jobs for everyone.
so, it's great for people to go to college. it's great that people will be exposed to great literature, to knowledge, to science, to logic, to art. but it's just bullshit to say that extending full educations to everyone is some step in the direction of ending social inequality. it doesn't even mitigate social inequality. the system requires winners and also rans, it requires hundreds of also rans for every 1 winner. there is no other option under capitalism, and so cultural production may be lots of things but, at root, what it ALWAYS is is a system for maintaining the supposed legitimacy of hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of also rans for every single winner. a system for telling us that the reason people are also rans is that they just didn't work hard enough, try hard enough, have the talent....