steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Because in my opinion we're in the middle of a culture war where it suits certain right wing political interests to attack institutions that try (and fail a lot of the time) to give young people the capacity to think critically and for themselves.
In a time of radical authoritarian populism this is seen as dangerous to those in power. After all the catoonist Low taught us that the thing dictators and demagogues fear most is people's laughter. It's beyond that too: it's downright spite in a lot of cases. Dominic Cummings in particular is full of hatred for university educated humanities graduates and departments, and is, according to some reports, preparing to abolish DCMS and largely de-fund the arts altogether, as the luvvies and the alleged Marxist campus caucuses are simply not worth the bother. You're never far from a right wing pundit calling for universities to produce more tax accountants and lawyers as experts in mediavel Sanskrit and Bulgarian politics are luxuries "the people" can no longer afford. At the same time, the business leaders whom these right wing pundits perform extensive analingus on in most other contexts go the opposite way, calling for more humanities and creative subjects to be taught to produce a more rounded and multi skilled workforce. This before we get onto the fact that the UK's heritage and culture sector is a great net contributor to the economy and a provider of really high quality jobs.
The TPUK stuff is the obverse of the liberal m-c coin that proles believe everything they read in the Sun and the Express and thus are racist. The TPUK line presupposes that our students are credulous innocents swayed by manipulative beardy professors into being far lefties. I'd call it facile but wouldn't even dignify it with that. The number of "far lefties" on campus both in the student body and amongst the academic staff is vanishingly small, as it is in any other area of society. Even those who profess far left views actually in practice are anything but; Zizek famously denounced "left wing" academics who played the stock market in their spare time, a few years ago. Young people in my opinion have learnt very well the language of the commons, and of minority rights, but when pressed will act in a ruthlessly individualist manner.
People have internalised indivdualism / the "there is no alternative" line; the indifferent neoliberal subject is everywhere; these patterns are observable in hiring, too. Tenured academics in research intensives often hog tenured positions of influence and power for years on end, leaving a huge underemployed precariat below them, clinging to the wreckage in the hope that one day they'll manage to last zero hours visiting lectureships long enough to reach tenure themselves, or that the consistent public defunding of the sector and transformation of unis into businesses will by some miracle be reversed. It's heartbreaking to witness and actually these issues are at the root of the UCU strikes in the last year.
My experience of teaching millennials is that they are deeply sceptical of everyone over the age of around 35, regardless of their political outlook, and that their respect is hard won, if at all. The generational divide is painful if understandable.
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