[Xmca-l] Re: As of 2020, the American Century is Over

Wed Apr 29 07:53:25 PDT 2020

Hi Greg,

Are you suggesting that you would like to be able to build a personal relationship with each and every one of your students? And with all your colleagues at the university.? And all the staff at the local supermarket? And all the people who work to send you packages from Amazon? And ….

That’s to say, there are reasons why humans have added ‘anonymous’ interactions to the personal and interpersonal relationship that (as you acknowledge) we still build and maintain.

Martin

> On Apr 28, 2020, at 10:13 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Helena,
> 
> It sounds like you are describing the commodity fetish. The labor of the professor is no longer seen as their own production. Instead it is seen that the professor simply draws from some "body of knowledge" or a credential that has a particular (monetary) value. As with any good (i.e., bad) commodity relation, even the exchange relations between buyer and seller (professor and student) are hidden and the professor is merely a conduit to that valuable knowledge or credential. What the professor has to offer is MONETIZED, perhaps we might say that the professor themself is monetized, even BRANDED (take a look at the web pages of young faculty and you'll see how important "brand yourself" has become in the academy). The professor and her work are understood in terms of market value, return on investment, earning potential of students. 
> 
> Students today understand their task as being a good consumer; to get at least equal value from professors as they pay in tuition. (granted much of this is via a credential, but the professors are a big part of what stands behind the university's credential). You'll hear students frequently complain (rightly so) about how much they are paying for their education followed by some specific complaint about a professor.
> 
> This is all part of a larger system in which this is understood as how the world works. You get what you pay for. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. And so on. Can we blame students for wanting to know what they are going to "get" for the money that they pay for college, and note that this gets even more intense during hard economic times, of which we are deep into right this moment (although the fear usually takes a semester or two before people start fleeing the humanities and the social sciences to business, engineering, computer science, or pre-anything).
> 
> (and Lave and Mcdermott's article on Estranged Labor Learning might be worth revisiting in this regard?)
> 
> In addition to Marx's commodity fetish, a related and interesting way to think of this is in terms of Marcel Mauss' notion of gift vs. exchange economy (if you'll allow me to oversimplify a bit). The main difference is that an exchange economy involves transactions that are always calculated to be of exactly equal value. The $13 pair of shoes I buy at the store are worth EXACTLY $13. Each party to the transaction gets their "money's worth". Sounds great right? Fair, to be sure. Except it means that there is no relationship established between the parties. After the exchange, the parties no longer have any meaningful relationship. In contrast, a gifting relationship is not responded in kind (at least not initially). As Mary Douglas says in her intro to Mauss' book The Gift, "there are no free gifts". Note that this is a very different statement from Milton Friedman's "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Douglas means that the gift creates a sense of obligation and thus a relationship. As much as we might understand this in intimate spaces, as Americans in public spaces all we know are exchange relationships (people reject healthcare for all b.c. "why should I have to pay for healthcare for someone else", ditto for education (yes, there is a movement in the US to get rid of public education!)). This is the logic behind the out-of-hand rejection of socialism - it does not make sense in the logic of exchange. And, of course, taxes are justified only in as much as you "get" something for it (roads, police, fire department, public transport, etc.) and increasingly tax dollars are getting hyper-localized so that you get precisely what you pay for and don't pay a dime more (e.g., gated communities with private police force, fire dept, etc). 
> 
> Interestingly I just today was privilege to hear a colleague present about his work in Papua New Guinea (the island of Missima, in the Massim region - the site of the Kula ring made famous to Westerners by Malinowski - and yes, the Kula ring still operates today). He noted that Missimans can't understand why Americans (and other Westerners) are so interested in engaging in exchanges that cut ties (e.g., buying things from them and then running off). And when Missimans do try to engage in gifting relationships with Americans, they are struck by how quickly the Americans run off, never to return (what idiots those Americans are!). It is absolutely baffling to them since they spend their days building relationships with others. Why would someone not want relationships with others? 
> 
> Can we perhaps understand their bafflement?
> 
> And what, then, is human development within a world where relations of exchange are everything? (and thankfully, it isn't total, we Americans still view kin relations as something more than an exchange relation).
> 
> Anyway, that's at least two times two cents too much. And terribly inchoate. Far too "off the cuff". Apologies.
> 
> -greg
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 11:19 AM Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>> wrote:
> thanks!
> 
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen.wordpress.com <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://helenaworthen.wordpress.com__;!!Mih3wA!UVu0FyqJVuJenyvV_scJ3MWPEkVsnH0IzNgN9NaOMBtflAfvMwpBsESRDItyh51rXR3z3Q$>
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 27, 2020, at 7:48 PM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> How about this Helena?:
>> "Time is the room of human development. A man who has no free time to dispose of, whose whole lifetime, apart from the mere physical interruptions by sleep, meals, and so forth, is absorbed by his labour for the capitalist, is less than a beast of burden. He is a mere machine for producing Foreign Wealth, broken in body and brutalized in mind. Yet the whole history of modern industry shows that capital, if not checked, will recklessly and ruthlessly work to cast down the whole working class to this utmost state of degradation."
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm__;!!Mih3wA!UdVCcbdDuRJ5PAOz1I2xGARybzy1-aROYNa0riQEv2ARYM_eX4jHmakwA6fJALX1az8uew$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm__;!!Mih3wA!U0ZIjNUqNnItiZjyJjIUnKMWddqAJiWLdB_L-G5Wb6DNQLTG7uZz_Seq6oZRbIPgrIdiUQ$>
>> Andy Blunden
>> Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!U0ZIjNUqNnItiZjyJjIUnKMWddqAJiWLdB_L-G5Wb6DNQLTG7uZz_Seq6oZRbIM88h444g$>
>> Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!U0ZIjNUqNnItiZjyJjIUnKMWddqAJiWLdB_L-G5Wb6DNQLTG7uZz_Seq6oZRbIOjmsOLvw$>
>> On 28/04/2020 5:23 am, Helena Worthen wrote:
>>> Andy’s paper has basically 4 parts.  One a flyby overview of the history of the US — this is where the majority of criticisms by people I know are showing up because people have different versions of that history. Then the argument that with the US going down as one of the poles of global leadership. My friends and family agree with this and are all, as Americans, offering examples of how they have experienced this. Andy notes that there is an empty spot at the top that hasn’t been taken yet.  Then comes his COVID-19 point, that this is a global moment in which the whole world is participating. Most of the xmca discussion has been about that so far, if I’m not mistaken. And finally a challenge to foresee what we will learn from this experience.
>>> 
>>> OK, now trying to forsee what we can learn is what I’m doing.  So here is my question, appropriate for this list since we are all interested in education. I found myself writing the following, as part of describing the way a workforce can be intentionally divided into feuding packs of enemies so that we can’t take action in solidarity. We’re referring to “the distortions of human development under capitalism” and say that “we see this in its sharpest form in the for-profit part of the higher education industry. We have to look past the distortion to find the original, human connection….”
>>> 
>>> One of our readers asks where this concept came from. I don’t remember!! It makes sense, though, doesn’t? Anyone have any idea where it came from? So far I’m saying, 
>>> 
>>> The concept of “distortions of human development under capitalism” depends on looking at human development as occurring within a social, historical and cultural framework – not just the development of individuals on their own or within a family or even a school, but within a society. Specifically we mean psychological and cognitive disabilities ranging from lack of empathy, envy, despair, alienation and bullying to obesity, eating disorders and stress-related auto-immune illness. 
>>> 
>>> Thanks — H
>>> 
>>>    
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Helena Worthen
>>> h <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://helenaworthen.wordpress.com__;!!Mih3wA!UcGlX0bri43EmtmpvW-FJpbJfMb7jPTAosJ6QpYDWeFiy_BNZhBTLSo7yel8Mfwas-BdIg$>elenaworthen@gmail.com <mailto:elenaworthen@gmail.com>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Apr 27, 2020, at 9:29 AM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I have been circulating Andy’s paper among close friends and family to generate discussion. What is mostly coming back is confirmation of the general arc, with examples from personal experience, but some disagreement about cause. These are “inside” views — meaning, people who are US citizens talking about us, so these are experiences of the passing of an era and what they look like from inside.  
>>>> 
>>>> About a year ago I realized that, for better or worse, I identify as “an American.” And I don’t mean North American. 
>>>> 
>>>> Chris Appy’s book, American Reckoning, is a pretty good history that takes us from the 1940s up to Obama and tracks the hole we fell into with the Vietnam War. For people of my generation (BA 1965 — and I mention that date rather than when I was born because 1965 connects to the draft, the lottery, the anti-war demonstrations, the asssinations, etc etc) the story told with the Vietnam War in the foreground connects very tightly to lived experience. 
>>>> 
>>>> Helena Worthen
>>>> helenaworthen.wordpress.com <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://helenaworthen.wordpress.com/__;!!Mih3wA!UcGlX0bri43EmtmpvW-FJpbJfMb7jPTAosJ6QpYDWeFiy_BNZhBTLSo7yel8MfzvtKpTMQ$>
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Apr 22, 2020, at 4:30 AM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/American-Century.pdf__;!!Mih3wA!UdVCcbdDuRJ5PAOz1I2xGARybzy1-aROYNa0riQEv2ARYM_eX4jHmakwA6fJALUnswooIA$  [ethicalpolitics.org] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/American-Century.pdf__;!!Mih3wA!RX_kT308fV5J979vU0HnZwn3N_ILxa76WV811I3K7Q1lByCHw_H-2IpA6g71m_ZdQvTjgA$>
>>>>> Andy
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>> Hegel for Social Movements [brill.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!RX_kT308fV5J979vU0HnZwn3N_ILxa76WV811I3K7Q1lByCHw_H-2IpA6g71m_bmjhN_kw$>
>>>>> Home Page [ethicalpolitics.org] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!RX_kT308fV5J979vU0HnZwn3N_ILxa76WV811I3K7Q1lByCHw_H-2IpA6g71m_aKuyy5Zw$>
>>> 
> 

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