Victor wrote: Significant social science and serious education must be subversive since
they treat states that are transient and complex and thereby challenge all
those with vested interests in keeping things "as they are."
You said far more elegantly than I a point I tried to make a few notes
back, Victor. In principle, not practice, science in general, not just
social science, should be a critical activity. Both critical of the existing
social order and critical of one's modes of inquiry and "received wisdom."
In so far as universities are sites for scientific work, their function
is to be separate from, alienated from, everyday practice and common
sense. Of course, if they remain alienated and do not engage as institutions
OF the State, they cannot have the experience needed for critical thought.
So (Dewey might say?) the University as process should allow a constant
interplay of alienated, "theoretical" activity and non-alienated
participation, in order to fulfill that part of its mission which is not
simply the reproduction of the status quo.
That is why the stealth privatization of a university such as I work in
is of such concern to me. The large private universities have some advantages
in this respect, but the source of their income is, itself, derivative
from the profiteering of prior generations and is poluted by privelege.
The recent mention of the Carlyle group reveals that polution. It is
no accident that W and his daddy went to Yale. Having taught at Yale,
where the "average" grade is an A- the fact that we are led by a man
who got a C average ought to give everyone pause. It takes hard work
to get a C average, but consider what the work must consist of!
Chappy Channukah.
mike
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