[Air-l] freedom and related issues

[Jonathan Marshall]

ET <et at tarik.com.au> wrote:

> Last weekend I travelled to Melbourne for the graduation party of a 
> family member. [snip]
> All those listening to the discussion expressed amazement that in the 
> year 2004 a university should demand that students bow to a member of 
> the staff. [snip]

> Should any of us be surprised that the kind of organisations that demand 
> students bow to staff members would be purging staff websites?

So do you think that there ever was a time when universities had graduation
rituals and they did not purge the writings of staff members?

simply, if there was then the ritualism is irrelevant.

I'd also suggest that you misunderstand the nature of ritual here.  
This is not a defense of purging of web sites, by the way, but a 
simple statement that some social groups understand ritual in 
different ways to others.

In our society, ritual is usually seen as interferring with authenticity or
genuineness, and therefore as fake or authoritarian.  Suprisingly authoritarianism
can often become more pronounced without ritual, because then you only have 
violence left with which to impose order. If you don't show respect to the
presenter of your degree, do you have any respect for the degree? does
anyone?

Human groups, will have rituals, even if they are rituals to show how 
non-ritualistic they are :)

So I'd sugggest that ritual is largely irrelevant here, although perhaps 
it would be better if another form of ritual grew up which was more 
appealing to modern people.

> Should any of us be surprised that organisations that demand strict 
> obedience to process should disregard the basic human rights and 
> freedoms of staff and students alike?

Well this is true of most organisations.  If you have worked in business or 
the corporate sector, you would see the same things.  Its not simply 
unviersities

I suspect, and its a pretty common suspicion, that it has something to 
do with size.  After a certain size it becomes impossible to run 
organisations in a personal manner - not that that gets rid of 
'process', demands for obedience and so on, but it tends to lessen
the possibilties of misunderstanding, incompatability etc.

However, misunderstanding and incompatibility might be a good thing 
in terms of the organisations ability to adapt :)

> Should any of us be surprised that elements of one academic "faction" 
> feel under siege from a larger faction?
> 
> All of this comes back to human rights, and the respect, or lack  of 
> respect, that is generated in universities.

I'd say this has a lot to do with the respect or lack of respect for human
rights and 'dissenting views' in the wider society.

We might note the huge 'culture wars' which we have all observed.  
Removal of funding from groups which disagree with corporate orthodoxy, 
or right wing history.  The sacking of public servants who give advice 
or information counter to the wishes of their politicians, and so on.

But in a more general way we might note that spokespeaople seem to 
disagree with abuse rather than argument.  That there is little dialogue.
Little attempt at problem solving.  In which case it would be hard
for universities, or any other organisation, not to suffer from the
same kind of inflexibilities - especially so the more beholden they 
are to outside interests - and we see the permeation of universities
with corporatism everywhere.

Again, I'm not sure if anything was ever different, but it seems to me it was.

In any case the question is not so much about universities, but about why 
this is the case generally.

> We are all different, I doubt if any two human brains work in exactly 
> the same manner, yet it seems to me that in universities there is  an 
> obsession, at times, with rigid adherence to process rather than 
> stimulating or even allowing individual students to develop their own, 
> and perhaps better, process.

I'd suspect that this would become more pronounced, the more that 
universities become 'education' and 'career' focused.  People 
employing students seem to want people who can obey process, 
who can fit in and do what they are told - not people who might 
question things, or who might wonder if the system they are working for
is destructive.   

[snip]

> All of the above is about process, but the world is totally 
> disinterested in process, the world wants results.
> The world doesnt want another 50 conferences on how to feed the worlds 
> starving. The world wants food to go into the mouths of the hungry.

Well you see this brings up the issue of what is a result.  Maybe 'the world'
is not the same as 'the powerful'?  Maybe some influential people would 
prefer immediate profit to feeding the hungry?

Maybe the process giving the result is simply invisible to most of us?
Its called 'economic realism', the 'way of the world', 'impractical' etc.

 
> We can not talk about freedoms on one hand insofar as university 
> staff websites is concerned if we do not support
> the right to intellectual freedom of the student. 

Just to be difficult, there are always limits on freedom - out of necessity.
If the student decides to write in a language they have made up and no one else
understands then they can't expect to be marked well no matter how brillian 
their ideas - same goes for the academics.

jon



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