Cracked By the Code

Professor J, 

Before getting into the discussion at hand I have to comment about your foray into Occupied territory. How interesting that just as I was defending the movement to several people based on the fact that the media is only giving us part of the story (and they get to choose the part), you were out proving that very thing! Many who were angry and insulted about how the TEA Party protesters were represented by a few crazy, racist, conspiracy wackos on the evening news when they knew better, now completely believe whatever the media says about the OWS crowd. Wonderful about the guy with the sign that said “Took a bath, got a job, still pissed" They do so hope to neatly categorize and polarize us. Good for you on finding out for yourself!

I hate to keep returning to the sports issue but just this week a prominent southern school with a rich  football tradition fired its coach. So while they hunt for a new one and put together an enticing and lucrative contract filled with a small fortune and perks of various kinds they will be paying the ousted coach 100K per MONTH for the next five years.  the average ANNUAL salary there for full time professors falls somewhere around that same amount and the tuition at this school has risen 6.4% in the last couple of years. Interesting to note as well that the highest paid teachers are in business admin and the lowest in education, another exhibit of what we really value since those comparisons hold true in the private sector. In the very same paper with the story of the coach being sacked and the tuition increase was one about  cuts in humanities departments world wide, a further indication that Hedges' concerns should be getting more attention than they are.


You bring up such a good point about the Blue Laws. I can remember my parents making sure the car had gas and going to the grocery on Saturday (and of course, making sure they had cigarettes!) ;) because the next day everything would be closed. Government regulated "morality" of a sort that served everyone's best interest. Even if you weren't religious you benefited from the break from a normal pace and THAT pace was so much slower than the one we are caught up in now. Slowly over time more and more things began to open up and stay open later and later or never closing. When we marvel that our kids are just going OUT at ten p.m. we fail to take into account that groceries, fast food outlets, and lots of other places are open all the time or don't close until three A.M. Access 24/7 to whatever we might want. (My kids cannot grasp the concept of a television station signing off for the night with the National Anthem.) But hey, we still had those sacred holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving as down time to look forward to on the calendar. Apparently they are on life support. This year I couldn't help picturing Mr. Potter rubbing his hands together and thinking "I wonder what I can get them to do?" It would be so easy for us all to stop playing the game in which we are the pawns; why don't we?


I thought Hebdon was an encouraging example of a thoughtful free thinking young person. We need many more like him. Nearly everything he says needs to be quoted.  I thought this passage particularly insightful: "The competitive efficiency culture --electronic immersion, high paced everything, career networking as a way of life, prestige, money--it disconnects the so-called best and the brightest from the commonsense obligations to society, ecology, and democratic ideals. Somewhere along the way into the free market, Berkeley forgot that learning isn't about handshaking, resume fondling and market rewards."  (p.95)



"Networking as a way of life" has an especially depressing connotation. In a culture where the hectic pace of life allows for so few genuine friendships and and the time it takes to tend to deep meaningful relationships, this buzzword had become a favorite in corporate culture. To me it is the thinly veiled practice of developing relationships with people you hope to use (of course it's touted as an opportunity to share your expertise with others). In a world where time is so precious spending it with people who can do little to advance careers or social status, my actually be seen as wasting time. We already see leisure and recreation  viewed this way with fewer and fewer people taking all their vacation time. We are quickly losing sight of just how valuable some of life's little pleasures are. Didn't we use to work and shop to live? It seems now we are living (or some poor semblance thereof) to work and shop.


Hedges shares a story on p. 96 about having a conversation with a classmate that broke down when in response to a simple question she "unleashed a torrent of arcane academic jargon" which left him with little idea what she was talking about: "You can see this retreat into specialized, impenetrable enclaves in every academic department and discipline across the country. The more these universities churn out these stunted men and women, the more we are flooded with a peculiar breed of specialist who uses obscure code words as a way to avoid communication."  

And why would intelligent people want to avoid communication? He tells us on the next page: "Our elites use a private dialect that is a barrier to communication as well as common sense. The corporate con artists and economists who have rigged our financial system continue to speak to us in the obscure and incomprehensible coined by specialists on Wall Street and at elite business schools."

Any one who has ever actually sat down to try and decipher those annual reports that come from your investment firm knows without question that Hedges is spot on with this observation. I used to wonder who they thought was going to understand it. Now, I know.

Speaking of meaningful friendships, I'm off to stay for a week with a dear friend. Not to worry, have laptop; will travel (and blog when not laughing, eating her delicious cooking and camping out in dusty used book stores). :)