PROSTITUTING THE HUMANITIES

It’s popular sport amongst Humanities faculty these days to have joined ranks with those who find the Humanities suspect and obligated to defend their worth in terms of their contribution to economic productivity. Possibly the question is not why the humanities do or do not have greater economic utility but why the vocational world is ethically bereft if not inhuman. Possibly this is the task before the Humanities that they fear to carry out.

After all if you are not part of the knowledge business that contributes to the bottom line, you are essentially expendable in present day academia. Rather than struggle for a community of learning with a public mission, especially the re-politicization of community itself, the new technocratically conditioned academics would seem to prefer to subordinate the Humanities to the norms of performativity and thus determine the worth of the “liberal arts sensibility” in terms of its potential for sublimation into entrepreneurship.

The “innovative” Humanities, that kind of Humanities discipline worth funding, would be understood as those who study and analyze “what is” in order to identify and evaluate opportunities for improvement thus consciously contributing to “what will be.” In such linear progress from a present of re-workable raw materials to a future of newly profitable productivity, it seems there is little room for any critically reflective relation to traditions and cultures, to memory and history as if creativity and innovation are antithetical to tradition and memory. Whereas the retrospective and innovative are in truth mutually determining, for the new servants of corporate globalization and marketization of knowledge, they seem to be mutually exclusive.

It is one thing to buy into the inevitable globalization and marketization of economic life; it is quite another to presume that cultural change is analogous to the quality of change we see, for example, in “innovative” alterations of the new Volkswagen Beetle. A poet such as T.S.Eliot interprets the Divine Comedy “innovatively” in The Waste Land for its Truth value not as an object lesson in innovative performativity as a mode of corporate entrepreneurship. The new bottom-line Humanists would have our culture and tradition-- or what is left of it in the face of modernist devastation of what cannot be capitalized upon-- made prêt a porte. It would have our cultures change globally with the rapidity and arbitrariness of the fashion industry and with equally uniform universlity. Such “conservation” seems more to embalm the accidental than preserve the essential.

We surely do not proceed tabula rasa in neither cultural nor economic change, and, for example, surely we do not re-write the Constitution every 15 years; however, when Law is politically instrumentalized in the service of trans-national corporate capital it need not be re-written. It need merely be hermeneutically raped in facilitating the interests of corporatization, militarization and the financialization of the economy. The Law itself like the fashion industry can also be re-made prêt a porte thus living up to the virtue of “innovation.”

Whereas the students pursuing knowledge in the productive spheres realize they must compete in the global insurgency of capital and soon after graduating join their “army,” the Humanities student, which should essentially be all students, has not yet realized he must join the resistance against the decimation of culture, tradition, history and memory in order for his knowledge to be truly innovative in the public sphere and not merely exploitable for the purposes of the private sphere. If he does not, he may soon be “innovated” out of his own humanity for a new and more useable ‘replicant’ model that’s easier to reproduce.

Should we revere the Humanities only for providing for a ‘transfer of learning’ which expedites the performative powers of the captains of industry? Should we validate the Humanities only for having been found to provide models for how to practice technically innovative thinking? Are the Humanities now justified merely in having been shown to have similar cognitive skills and processes as in the hard sciences? Is the “innovative thinking” of the Humanities redeemed in the transferability of its kind of learning and inquiry as a utilizable sensibility and set of skills for the technical and productive sciences?

If so, I suggest the Humanities have yet to be understood let alone appreciated especially in their political relevance for cultural self-preservation in the face of globalization and in their human relevance as spiritually of intrinsic worth in the face of entrenched secularist nihilism.

THE PURPOSE OF THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE, POLITICAL AND OTHERWISE

“The purpose of the community college is to train the local workforce with marketable skills…”. So says Hobbes, my ‘friend’ over at Niagara Times blogspot. The occasion for so instructing us as to the limits of the community college was an excursus on the presumed foolishness of NCCC anthropology Professor Phillip Haseley suggesting that there may well be evidence to justify research on UFO phenomena as legitimate work in academia.

Of course this excursus was simply pretext for trashing the professoriate at N-trip and providing further justification for not granting us even a penny raise in our 4 1/2 year contract dispute with a stonewalling Administration. But then that’s apparently what Dr. Klyczk and Co. is being paid a tidy sum to do which action is obviously being sanctioned by the Board of Trustees and the Niagara County Legislature. In short, "bust the damn Union and to hell with the full-time faculty," is their underlying attitude when it comes right down to it.

But that and Haseley’s foray into the question of the existence of flying saucers and such aside, what exactly is the “purpose” of the community college. Such “job training” may well be important as a task of the community college. I won’t contest that. However, if there is anything else we do of worth, Hobbes fails to grasp exactly what that might be. Of course he doesn’t care what that might be. If it were up to him he would eliminate our entire Social Sciences and Humanities Divisions.

If such draconian measures were undertaken, a major disservice would be done to the people of Niagara County and any other students from the surrounding area who choose to come to NCCC for the excellent preparation we provide for the last two years of college. N-trip provides a general education for those preparing to transfer to a 4-year institution. More specifically it provides, within the limits forced upon it by the present sorely deficient General Education Program, for the kind of critical literacy that prepares a citizen for intelligent and responsible participation in the political world.

The reason such as Hobbes and the power elite he represents would sooner suppress any public knowledge that the community college does anything more than job preparation is not only to accentuate and promote this service. But it is to suppress any suggestion that the community college might serve the purpose of the enlightenment of the people as to what is really in their political interest intellectually and economically.

The community college reduced to job preparation is the prostitution of the institution to the pre-determined needs and wants of an economy to which the workforce must simply conform and adapt. Perish the thought that the “workforce” be educated to decide the kind of economy it wants to create or re-create and thus find worthy of working in.

Hobbes “workforce” is the traditional mass of wage-slaves who have been instrumentalized to provide for the economic status quo and at least to get out of the way of an economy now financialzed as an essential whole and otherwise reduced to a service economy for the established profit and war machine of American transnational capital.

During the recent visit of SUNY’s new Chancellor to the campus of NCCC, I suggested to her that the main problem with SUNY education was an emasculated and impotent General Education Program. In short I told her our present General Education is a lip-service program amounting to, in the en d, little more than a pointless smorgasbord of “exposure” to the Humanities and Social Sciences. I suggested to her more concretely and specifically a solution to this problem perceived to be the same as I interpreted the problem, she admitted, by every other SUNY campus in the State: namely, that General Education is sorely lacking in achieving any meaningful and purposeful common goal for our students and our communities.

My solution is that the organizing principle of General Education should, and possibly only can, be the education toward that which the American populace has in common as a federalist and democratic polity: namely, instruction in democratic participation at the levels of leadership, service, discourse and self-transformation toward the American Ideal. This is what the community college system can do best if we were not in fact being prostituted in the interests of business and industry for cheap and easy job preparation.

The community college is the most important institution of critical learning as determined by the proper roll of the people in securing the sanctity of communities and in re-appropriating the federalist political structure long since undermined by centralist and bureaucratic-technocratic forces in America. Everyone gives lip service to critical thinking as a general education goal. It’s just that we are all for the most part quite disingenuous as to what we believe ought to be criticized. The answer to that question as to the target of critical thinking is: the forces and powers of de-politicization and the market managed homogenization and de-naturing of culture and consciousness. The target moreover is a government at all levels long since de-politicized and reduced to a legitimating arm of big business and banking.

So politically mindless job training is not the task of the community college. It’s fundamental and foremost task is the nurturing of powerful citizens with vision and cultural vitality for freedom, equality, culturally specific communities and the economic capacity for the production of material abundance for all, not just for the privileged.
　
　
　
　

MORE MORALISM AND RESENTMENT AT NIAGARA TIMES

Since Hobbes over at Niagara Times blogspot has censored my participating on his site discussions, I continue to respond to his posts “worth” commenting on from my site.

Yesterday Hobbes took Elise Cusack, New York Power Authority board member, to task for failing to adequately represent Western New York. In spirit I agree with Hobbes. But his “critique” politically has much to be desired.

Let me explain. Firstly, why is it that a Board Member is assumed to be chosen to represent an area of the State? Is that the designated task of a Board Member? Or is that just what is expected traditionally in status quo “politics?” I don’t know how the job title reads, but it’s likely it doesn’t state that a Board Member’s first obligation is to his or her region. Possibly it should if it doesn’t say that. My guess is it states that the Board’s responsibility is to the well-being of New York State as a whole first and foremost. Even if it doesn’t state that, nevertheless, that is how the Board acts.

Personally I would prefer that each Board member did best represent the interests of his or her region. But then I’m a populist. Hobbes is a right-wing Republican who practices character assassination “politics” in the interest of power mongering for his party. Hobbes real interest in the prosperity of Western New York as a regional polity is doubtful at best. His interest in a new populist, regional politics is non-existent witnessed by his kicking me off his web site comment section. Any attempt I made while participating at his site to engender a meaningful political dialogue beyond his myopia was childishly mocked by him and his flock for the most part.

If Hobbes could think and see outside the windowless box he rants within, he could see that moralizing about “bought-off” would-be bureaucrats does not explain nor change the political situation of our region. He doesn’t see and is not willing to think about the fact that the bureaucracy and politicians function like a social class whose interests do not lie in maximizing the prosperity and abundance of the given region of the state that they live in. Their interests lie in doing what they have to do to continue to play a part in and personally benefit from the money monopoly which that virtual political class controls and defends.

However, all real politics starts at home and remains local politics. Hobbes hasn’t learned to define “home” in this proper political sense. The partisan power politics of “well intentioned” Republicans does not define our political “home.” “Home” means the communal value foundation and power base which is the source and purpose of any meaningful and effective politics for Western New York.

Cusack hasn’t “sold her soul” in taking the cushy well-paying "job" with NYPA. She simply has done what was necessary to benefit as a lackey of the political class. For such as her it’s not really even a matter of Hobbes-style partisan power politics. Yes, she has no political conscience nor integrity from my point of view. Surely, Hobbes was right in implying that her raison d’tre as a Board Member was the big payday at the end. Yet,it’s not even a matter of “playing politics.” It’s just a matter of playing the managerial game of the administrative wing of the political class. “Just call me Richie” Richie Kessel does it well. I saw his smooth moves from a front row seat during his last visit to the Niagara County Legislature. Kessel and Cusack are not really political people. They are messenger boys for the politicos higher up in the centralist hierarchy. They are the bought and paid for “votes” that keep money, wealth and power flowing out of Western New York.

Finally, Hobbes conclusion is sadly wrong. It’s not that the state of the Power Authority is a “sad, sad commentary.” His perspective and reasoning is the ‘sad, sad commentary.’ Moreover the people of Western New York have not "had enough" any more than Hobbes has. They will keep taking it, practicing their moral judgment and impotent resentment and hoping a political messiah will come along to take care of them. For the people it’s a tragedy. For Hobbes it’s a paycheck from the Republican Party for continuing to write such ultimately self-serving tiresome partisan tirades.

The state of our pathologically bureaucratically centralized and professionalized democracy is the real problem. Politics must be re-thought. The lines of political identity, belonging and purposefulness must be re-drawn. The radical de-centralization of power in the form of re-constitution of community and local democracy is the answer. Cheerleading for the phantom rebelliousness and threatening indignation of illusory “residents” of Western New York is tiresome and no one is buying it.

Back to the drawing board Hobbes!

Lynching Obama at Niagara Times

Apparently, there aren’t enough witch hunts in Niagara County for good ol’ Hobbes over at the Niagara Times blogspot. Seems he’s joined in to support the seemingly ongoing effort to disqualify the Obama presidency. He may not do so proactively. But merely the posting of this story gleaned from other sources leaves one wondering why Hobbes bends over backwards to appear objective and neutral. Why now attempt to posture oneself as having journalistic integrity when his history has been one of unabashed sophistically inspired character-assassinating partisanism. He may not be letting loose with both barrels but his faux observational stance is sufficiently revealing.

Well, Hobbes doesn’t even maintain the façade of objectivity for very long when he refers to a “smoking gun.” He continues, ”Along with the evidence that he was born in Kenya, there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship…”. Well, of course he wouldn’t apply for citizenship if he already were a citizen. And, by the way, what “evidence?” And why refer to “Indonesian Barry Soetoro?” It seems Hobbes, per usual, already has his mind quite well made up, in this case about Obama. It seems he would prefer to just try Obama in the media. But first fry him, then try him. First stoke the fires in the media and press and then throw him into an overheated courtroom, where minds can then also be assured to be already made up.

But the real point is that the crusade against Obama is on the one hand about race. On the other it is about continuing to obstruct, impede, delay, divert and discredit most of what Obama has tried to do since his inauguration. My bet is that there never has been in the history of our country so many forces aligned to see to it that a president fail for the purpose of restoring right wing power and securing the wealth of the power elite.

But this seems odd given that the rich and powerful right wing are making about as much money as ever and are getting to play empire builder now as much as they did under Bush. They seem to be allowed to continue to loot the Middle Class and the tax coffers of the American people with impunity. So why all the fuss? Well, we know why all the fuss, don't we?

But I guess it’s a slow news (witch hunt) day over at Niagara Times. So why not participate in a good ol’ fashioned “lynching.”

Now I write this not with the intention of defending Obama. As I’ve said before, I didn’t vote for him, am not a fan and believe he is proving to be Bush in basic black. I do write to oppose Hobbes who I believe, and have demonstrated in past articles, is as bad for Niagara County as Obama may prove to be for America in general and the Middle Class in particular.

Niagara Times Misses the Point, Distorts Issue on Parkway Removal

The Niagara Times Blog again misses the political point and intention of local environmental activists regarding efforts to remove the Robert Moses Parkway. To claim that "In reality, the supporters of the removal, including Wild Ones Niagara...have little interest in preserving history, the environment or anything else they may proclaim" is defamatory disinformation at best. Driven by his economistic, business first, political motivations, Hobbes, the blog administrator, continues his politics of violence against any progressive forces who strive to fight for anything more than reducing taxes on big business and securing power for the Republican Party in Niagara County.

In short, removal of the Robert Moses between Niagara Falls and Lewiston, which is the real environmental concern, is not about creating a captive audience for business in Niagara Falls nor "creating a wall around the city." No one thinks that removing the Parkway is "a panacea to what ails them." This is non-sensical hyperbole. But of course Hobbes real intent is to make everyone believe that such groups have essentially economic agendas which are wrong and therefore promote an economically futile environmental project. And therefore the project of Parkway removal is misguided and irrelevant.

Sadly and pathetically Hobbes is incapable of thinking outside his economistic, pragmatic box and fails to see the value of Parkway removal as intrinsically worthy in terms of ecological restoration and environmental conservation. He is obiously against Parkway removal for economic reasons and they undoubtedly have to do with defending Lewiston business interests.

His post today is dishonest, manipulative and egregiously short-sighted. In short he is dangerous to the vision of the Falls which is possible and in the long run even economically advantageous to Niagara Falls and Niagara County.

Rock Radio Knows a Good Joke

I heard the funniest joke the other day on Jack-FM. The DJ, who’s name I didn’t get, quipped, “Despite Kevin Gaughan’s recommendation, Jack-FM will not play German Techno.”

Now, if the joke needs explaining it’s that just as any radio station with a taste for good music would not play German techno music, so also any people with a taste for good democratic government would not listen to Kevin Gaughan’s importuning all communities to downsize their representation on town boards.

But sadly, humor notwithstanding, the downsizing fiasco continues with the Amherst Town Board jumping on the irrational Gaughan bandwagon, promising to downsize their Board from 7 to 5. Chalk this up to another earthshaking, revolutionary political move in Western New York. Yes, I do speak sarcastically, very sarcastically.

Speaking of jokes, a “special committee,” as reported in the Buffalo News rcommended that Niagara County go ahead and establish a Homeland Security Department with a full-time director, believe it or not. I find this ludicrous at best given that in my inquiries, protection of high risk targets in our area are under the jurisdiction of either New York State in cooperation with Canada and/or the Federal Government. Although reportedly there is some resistance in the Niagara County Legislature, this project is too sweetly Neo-con for them to resist for too long. None of them are going to want to look “unpatriotic” by putting our homeland at risk. But given that we are already being protected by the aforementioned governmental bodies, what more are we going to protect? Some grape orchards, cows and goats? We need a full-time director for this??? I smell political nepotism in the works, don’t you? If good ol’ Hobbes over at Niagara Times doesn’t come out against this, I’m going to have to hunt him down and expose him for the hypocrite he would otherwise be.

And one more story deserves a cynical smerk, I think. The Niagara County District Attorneys office and Wilson Town Justice George R. Berger continue to conspire to cover up the sexual “hazing” incident last year on a school bus during return from a sporting event. The actions of the students accused were obviously bullying of the first order. But as long as institutions such as small town schools like Wilson continue to condone such violence in the name of “hazing” or “boys will by boys,” then these actions will continue and will contribute to the violation of children’s civil rights, the degradation of viable learning environments and the continuation of unacceptable levels of immaturity among teachers, coaches and administrators.

Banned But Not Forgotten

I haven't been active for more than a month, the demands of latter day fatherhood taking up more time than I realized. Nevertheless I couldn't miss the opportunity to respond to my nemesis, Hobbes, over at Niagara Times. He couldn't help but wonder what I thought of County Manager Greg Lewis' supposed call for the freezing of the NCCC budget for three years. According to Hobbes apparently I've been a supporter of Lewis. Well, not quite. Not in my recollection.

If we look at the big picture, something which Hobbes is want to do regarding all too many issues, from the beginning of County Manager government, I've been against having a County Manager. But given we do have it, let's give the guy a fair shake. I don't believe Hobbes always, if ever, does that, especially in this case, given it seems Lewis is Hobbes latest witch hunt target. I don't care to review all the issues which have arisen around Lewis's actions and decisions and whether I was overall an actual supporter of Lewis. I don't believe I was.

But with respect to freezing the NCCC budget for three years, obviously this is another penny wise pound foolish suggestion as was the whole downsizing fiasco. I hope the Legislature doesn't jump on Lewis' bandwagon this time as they did the wholly irrational, shortsighted and undoubtedly counterproductive downsizing bandwagon of that clown, Kevin Gaughan.

The Legislature, as it is, keeps the college on a year to year shoestring budget. If they want to kill the college just go along with this stunt of Lewis. And if Hobbes wants to improve the quality of critical thinking on his blog he should invite me back and admit he can't stand real, concrete critical thinking that moves him out of the politically stifling pragmatic box he thinks in. I'll accept his apology. In Hobbes own words he did "ban," that is permanently censor, me but apparently he hasn't forgotten me. I wonder why?

PRETEND POPULISM AT NIAGARA TIMES

I had been arguing for months with Hobbes and the gang over at Niagara Times about the virtues of going beyond party politics. But Hobbes couldn't stand the truth unless he could take credit for it; so he barred me from his blog permanently. Now it seems the light has dawned and we hear him pleading for regional unity to fight downstate exploitation of upstate. Some people are just slow learners. But of course he hasn't really learned and is not to be trusted.

Hobbes whines, "We're said it before, and we'll it again - if you vote for a Dem at the state level, you are voting to send all of the power and money to New York City. Get your collective heads out of your asses people, this is not about parties, it's about Upstate getting our fair share and ending the tyranny bestowed upon us by New York City Dems." (October 15, 2009, "States Senate Dems Continue to Spend Recklessly") [Typos are Hobbes' mistakes.]

Well, the truth is that it is and is not about parties. It's about party destruction of the public sphere and civic life. Now that the Democratic party seems to the Republicans to be becoming a political juggernaut in NYS, Hobbes appeals to regionalism if not the populism which, in unusually degraded form, is manifesting across the county. However, his regionalism/populism will last only as long as the Democrats are in power and will stop as soon as the Republicans take control.

Hobbes is an oligarch at heart. Like most Republicans all he can think of politically is reduction of taxes, de-regulation and powermongering for his party. It takes more than random and opportunistic appeals to the people to be taken seriously with respect to transcending party politics. Such meaningful action would require real political thought and diplomacy. Instead he chooses for the most part to moralize and rant about the inanities of local politicos who continue to fail to pull our county and region out of the polluted backwater gutter that it is.

When the Niagara County Communities Comprehensive Plan initiative was getting under way over a year or so ago, Hobbes was stumbling over himself to oppose the project. Even though the lead consulting firm itself said that it would be a major achievement for Niagara County if nothing more than a county wide dialogue was started as a result. The likes of Hobbes, however, does not want dialogue any more than he wants regional empowerment or a sustainable economy. The New Class business bureaucracy that the Niagara County Republicans imagine themselves to be are elitist, chauvinistic technocrats who will not give up their superiority complex any time soon.

Although there are signs that the Republican dominated Legislature might get the value of regionalism particularly in their lawsuit against NYPA, the downside is that they can't see past the limits of such legalistic reductions of political issues to the courtroom. The Republicans see the enemy but then choose to fight the battle on their turf and their terms. What this means is that they have no intention of politicizing NYPA's rape of WNY power profits.

They want to re-appropriate the monies swept to the Albany coffers but they don't want to expropriate the power that enables such bald exploitation of our regional community to continue.

So at present regional Republicanism is the mouse that roared. The lion they could be is not likely to show up because they can't draw the necessary but painful political conclusions. Like their Hobbes-ian mouthpiece the Niagara politicos remain blinded by the impotent but toxic institution of party dominated parliamentarism in NYS. Like their Washingtonian counterparts the local politicos are part of the tail that wags the dog. It's just that at present they don't get to do the wagging. And they don't like it. So they choose to, believe it or not, appeal to the populist sentiments of the people.

Nice try Hobbes. But it's all too easy to smell the hypocrisy and the anti-democratic demagoguery waiting in the wings.

The populist protest in America today, grotesque as it is, is a symptom trying to understand the disease. As the country moves slowly but surely toward Plutocracy, the people fail to understand the disease. Until the primacy and sanctity of the communal roots of democratic self-determination is re-awakened, the dismantling of America and Niagara County will continue.

We live in pre-revolutionary times but someone is yet to pull the curtain back on the Wizard.