Re: <nettime> Chron: Layoffs Without 'Financial Exigency'

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

It's important news.

US academia has primarily been a game of self-interest over the
neoliberal period. Will these new threats finally convince professors
of two things?

One: Only by taking the problems faced by debt-struck students
seriously can they find powerful allies in their own struggle.

Two: only by assuming their responsibility as public intellectuals,
and directly engaging with the myriad political-economic and
ecological problems now facing global societies, can they hope to
regain legitimacy for their own occupations.

The unescapable conclusion from all that has happened since 2008 is
that the former pattern of middle-class society, with the large space
it reserved for semi-autonomous cultural and intellectual producers,
is now considered dysfunctional by managerial elites and is in the
process of being dismantled. We can see where these elites will guide
us: to civilizational ruin, with barbarism along the way. We cannot
yet see where different guidance would lead, because so little is
being proposed, largely because homo academicus remains mired in
short-sighted self-interest.

One more effort, dear professoriat, if you want to be part of your
era!

Brian





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