academic life – living in academia – Pagina 19 – COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND

There may never be one truth

15 aprile 2016 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy

But after the contributions last week in Poland – the one on security, the other on precarity I remembered the song

by Giorgio Gaber. Much to think about. And and after workshops with my Chinese students the last two days, I may immediately revise, considering that we are not a lost generation but we still and more than ever can move forward, we only have to be aware that we should not save this “endangered race” of the past; instead we should think more about the future as it is given in the presence, actually this is what I talked about, right?

The two last days made another time clear to me: “we” should not blame “them”. Instead we still can and have to work together to make the future happen instead of continuing to allow that it is “exported to Panama“. Also here it is not “them” who export, but all of us allowing the structures to “make things happen” – again and again. – Also something for the discussion the week after next, in Havana.

Digitalisation

18 marzo 2016 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Yes, writing “quick comments” is admittedly always dangerous, hastily arriving at wrong conclusions. Still, there is occasionally a huge temptation, and it may be justified as such writing possibly provokes …, well, some really important and not so hasty thoughts, easily overlooked when it comes to detailed analysis of …, well detailed analysis.

Reference at presence is a European Commission’s press release, titled

How digital is your country? New figures show action needed to unlock Europe’s potential

It presents results of the recent study of the DESI.

What is the DESI?

The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) is an online tool to measure the progress of EU Member States towards a digital economy and society. As such, it brings together a set of relevant indicators on Europe’s current digital policy mix.

If I am not mistaken, it fundamentally solves one fear of the past. People were afraid of the development, as they did not want to be “just a number”. We do not have to fear anymore that this may be coming up in the future. It is already the case.

And it also allows us to understand the attitude of those people in the glass palaces towards migration and migrants: Numbers cannot simply decide independently to enter an equation. Only the magician with numbers is The Lord, able and allowed to present the formula …, the white hair and long beard now appearing as netting of bits speeding through fiber glass.

Action needed to reach the global top: …

Yes, summits have to be reached – erected like the towers of fortresses. Would it not be an alternative to start with action to reach true global cooperation?

Better connectivity, but insufficient in the long-term: … . The EU needs to be ready to meet future demand and to provide the next generation of communication networks (5G).

Sure, but I am still wondering if our brain is fast enough to cope with the improvement of obtaining information, barely allowing for the time needed to think about it. – Since some years now I am introducing in my lectures a unit under the heading “slow reading”, the aim of which is UNDERSTANDING.

Digital skills to be improved:

It may not be much more than a side note, it may be that it actually is more: Apparently there is a paradoxical constellation in China where the language is strongly characterised by characters (instead of letters) and sound/pronouncation. The computer keyboard requires to write first by using letters, and moving from there to “choosing characters”. The consequence seems to be the emergence of a new form of analphabetism.

e-Commerce, a missed opportunity for smaller businesses:

Two of the issues, if you want: major reference points, in mainstream economics are scarcity and comparative advantage. Well, there is no reason to question the empirical data:

65% of European internet users shop online, but only 16% of SMEs sell online – and less than half of those sell online across borders (7.5%).

However, instead of aiming on change there could be another suggestion: SMEs may claim to move towards comparative advantage: offering something special instead of mass web-products, offer excellent individual advise, offering products that are even individually produced, or produced by individuals working together in cooperatives, and seeing the consumer as co-producer …

More public services online, but they are under-used:

Underused? If so, the conclusio may be that there is still hope and people still have more sense than those who govern them.

As said in the beginning, there are problems with such ad-hoc readings – there is much ore to it, including coproducing in particular due to the internet-use etc. – part of it I will deal with next month, when working briefly in Havana. But the problem of blasphemy is not necessarily the heretic; it may well be the self-acclamation of gods who forget that their suggested prayers are mere phantoms as long as their only purpose is … the bubble of their own believe system, the believe system of an old society of which we may say with Shakespeare:

Sans teeth, sans eyes

Sans taste, sans everything

Sure, talking about the believe system of an old society may end in a paradox: it easily lacks the opportunity to get a really good caffellatte.

PS: I hope my students anywhere do not read this blog-entry – as I am required to push them towards the global top, so to say: migrants with global access rights.

Lectures

18 febbraio 2016 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, works, projects, publications

Two presentations coming up on the 19th of February 2016, another attempt to contribute to understanding a world (‘s development) that is apparently increasingly difficult to be comprehended – but perhaps it is easier than we think.

The one is on:

Space – A Category between Physical Extension, Economic, Re-Production and Understanding the Self

the other looks at

Precarity as Socio-Economic Transformation – New Perspectives on Social Policy

The video of the presentations will be published later.

Values

14 febbraio 2016 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy

Ah well, of course

We cannot change our core values for Chinese students

But how obvious is it?

We cannot change our core Roman, or were it Greek ? values, as we subdued them by European enlightenment,
Smith and Bentham triumphing over Kant and the French tricolore,
leveling the field for the yanks who returned with their reinterpretation to Europe and …
… and allow today Merkel’s Schäuble to squeeze the Greek like lemons
and “allow” Orban’s barbed wires to cut into the veins of migrants who leave war and starvation behind before they can enter Europe

The tricolore did not say that we share with everybody – it only said we have to share something with some — selected. Some – people and countries – have to pay, so said by the slogan of the time:

the inner and outer periphery on which the centre can establish its affluence …. –
reflecting these values of individual freedom = precarious jobs
and equality = not allowing anybody to sleep under the bridges of Paris … – don’t we remember:

La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.

Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894)

and fraternity = the soup kitchens that take the place of the rights that the universal declaration of human rights failed to guarantee ….; where fraternity means redefining sleeping rough by offering a “pillow” near to the churches, softening the hardship by the pretension of a better world, the other world – and for the time being through charity, still leaving space for the question: is there a link between the (name of) the train station Termini in Rome and “its offer of sleeping rough in its protection” – the termination of dignity?

Of course, it may be that these – few – examples also “tell of a political reality far removed from Mr Tao Zhang’s “Europe(an) Dream”, inspired by historical “visions” (let’s take Delors or let’s refer to the founding-FATHERS) and believing in claims that gain much of their positivity not from their inherent greatness but from the fact of a lack of today’s power holders that do not allow to even think outside the ideological and physical fortress of the single finance market.

And of course, all this is about the European Dream which people like Riffkin have, putting like Albert the “Rheinian Model” against the rest of the world – a world order that allows and evokes worries about possibilities to continue selling the same number of Lamborghinis, Porsches and Mercs to the empire of the middle.

Sure, when it comes to education then, we may have to deal with the

difficulty Chinese students face, particularly in the arts and social sciences, is in adopting the critical thinking that the Quality Assurance Agency insists master’s level courses must inculcate

this does, of course, not exist for European students (and lecturers alike) – used to the censorship of peer-reviewed publications and ranking systems that, to a large extent controlled by quasi-monopolist publishing houses, are very much algorithm-ised like google: write what we know, quote what we and our peers stated for many times, contend what is publicly accepted … and redefine harsh principles by using softened and softening frameworks like social investment, knowledge management and the failure of implementation of strategies … – you may easily make a rocketing career as long as you do not question the strategies themselves.

There is a wider perspective, looking at the secular issues and developments – or a perspective that is very narrow: lookig the current debates – you may take it as you like:

It surely opens a field for debate when people call for

[t]he construction of a genuine European supranational democracy

indirectly suggesting the possibility of a national democracy which in actual fact is one of the core breaking points: the contention of the principle of nationality and externalisation – this is how the core value of European democracy worked since the ancient city states until the Fortress EUrope.

And this is the core European and EUropean value that asks if

are European citizens ready to accept the legitimacy of the European Parliament?

without considering that we will not have a legitimate parliament – national or EUropean – as long as we have an economic system that leads to the permanent

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disiganno – the Triumph of Time and Truth

The critical attitude …. – sure, there is some space, though we should not forget that when Baudelaire first presented Les Fleurs du mal, he was condemned to put them aside, allowed to present them later in a revised version, leaving critique to the space of sympbolism, providing there the framework for talking about the Island of the Death (Boecklin) to where Europe seems to be moving, after facing L’angelo ferito (Hugo Simberg) – the disappointed carriers make look grimly but are not allowed to revive the hope they once have had … – not so much changed perhaps, today’s critics turning away from reality and hoping for the savour from Rome who rightly criticises that this economy kills, a critique that is turned down if and when it comes from others who ask for material changes that allow and enforce liberty, equality and fraternity.

.. stating all this does not mean not acknowledging some of the problems mentioned – it means, however, to say that they are much deeper and profound, not least reflecting the need of confronting issues that emerge from the

centre on China’s Confucian cultural tradition

with the issues that are emerging from a limited understanding of rationality that systematically crucifies its own claims and pretensions and sacrifices “Moral Sentiments” on the altar of the “Wealth of the Nations” …

No, we surely cannot change the values for anybody – not for the Chinese, not for anybody … they will pay anyway …

As long as any nation or region claims today that the specifically national or regional core values cannot be changed for those of anybody else we may easily end up as An Idiot Abroad – abroad being everywhere and anywhere, and we being everybody who is still believing in the old answers suitable for dealing with the new questions, questions that are not yet correctly formulated.

PS: Is Austerity Killing People in England?

Liberals

27 gennaio 2016 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, general, joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, publications, works, works, projects, publications

We frequently talk about neoliberalism – and the disastrous implication its proponents cause. Indeed, there is the need to criticise these policies. But preparing my presentation for Hungary, soon coming up under the title

Precarity as Part of Socio-Economic Transformation – New Perspectives

, and of which the abstract can be found already here, I am getting another time aware of the fact how important it is, to overcome the danger not to block oneself by sohrt-termism. I pointed this frequently out, for instance when looking together with Marica Frangakis for The need for a radical ‘growth policy’ agenda for Europe at a time of crisis; or asking if we face a Crisis and no end?, looking for the Re-embedding economy into life and nature. Already at an early stage I asked Crisis? Which Crisis? aiming on Assessing the Current Crisis in a More Fundamental Way. Ireland as a Case Study.

In empirical terms, some of this may be outdated – actually I am currently preparing also the report for the Max-Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich which I am going to visit during the upcoming weeks – it is the annual report on legal changes in Ireland.

There is one point, we may actually learn from the liberals, expressed by David Lloyd George.

Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.

It may well be questioned if he, as liberal, would agree with proposals of today’s liberals – I have my doubts. But in any case, a radical shift in thinking and acting is needed, anything else will mean not more and not less than death, even if it may mean to Die Slowly:

He or she who abandon a project before starting it, who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn’t know, he or she who don’t reply when they are asked something they do know,
die slowly.
Let’s try and avoid death in small doses,
reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.

There should be no place for it, for the Lentamente Muore.

Methodology – some general questions

25 dicembre 2015 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, works, works, projects, publications

I uploaded a lecture I gave today, 25th of December 2015 to Students at 中南林业科技大学班戈学院/Bangor College CSUFT
中国湖南省长沙市天心区韶山南路498号. Changsha, PRC

Though the lecture refers to the work of a group of students and their work on essays (mostly concerned with “Studying Abroad”), some fundamental issues of methodology are raised and may be of interest when doing research in economics and political economy.

They may be used in different ways as a kind of “propedeutico”.

Reference to the books mentioned:

References in the text:

Vernunft und Verstand sind des Teufels Huren

8 dicembre 2015 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, quotes

Vernunft und Verstand sind des Teufels Huren.

ein altes, tüchtiges Pfaffen-Wort, Allen denen zu Lieb und Ehren,

denen Vernunft und Verstand im Wege stehen. Sie sagten auch:

‘Verstand und Vernunft können Gottes Wort nicht verfechten; sie

sind nur große Wettermacher und Hagelsieber in der Schrift!’

Freilich machen sie anderes Wetter in der Schrift, als es die

Pfaffen gerne haben, welche lieber im Dunkeln munkeln und

immer nur vor dem Teufel warnen, aber nicht anders, wie jener

Dieb auf der Flucht, der immer aus Leibes-Kräften rief: ‘Haltet

den Dieb!’ – damit man ihn selber nicht dafür erkennen möchte.

—

Lichter weg! mein Lämpchen nur!

Es nimmt sich sonst nicht aus!

Aus:

Die Sprichwörter und sprichwörtlichen Redensarten der Deutchen: nebst den Redensarten der deutschen Zechbrüder und aller praktik Grossmutter, d.i. der Sprichwörter ewigem Wetter-Kalender; Wilhelm Körte; F.A. Brockhaus, 1847; 567 pagine; hier: Seite: 450

Studying, Responsibility and Ethics

20 novembre 2015 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, publications, thoughts on life and its philosophy, works, works, projects, publications

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein

I uploaded a series of presentations given to students of economics at 中南林业科技大学班戈学院/Bangor College CSUFT in Changsha, Hunan Province in China.

The title/subject of the course these presentations introduced is “Learning Skills” – the recommended book rather stupidifying, assuming students are naive, pursuing a formalist approach to learn – and moreover reducing academic work on the approach: “Give me an answer. We will then look for the question.” It is also the way in which we ignore what is attributed to Einstein’s wisdom, namely that

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

I tried in these lectures to raise awareness of the importance of questions, working towards an preliminary or introductory understanding of methodology.

And I tried also to make students aware of the need to counter the

The Sleep of Reason [that] Produces Monsters

The lectures used in particular arts and history (and a bit of arts history) as means to delve into different aspects of the relevant topics. – Although there are a few references immediately to my Economics course her ein China, the presentation is relevant (and can be understood) beyond this.

The videos can be found here – they also show the used slides (sorry for the audio-quality – but one gets used to it after a while).

The last lecture, given shortly after the attacks in the middle of November 2015, draws particular attention on ethical aspects and questions of responsibility.

Revised versions of the slides can be found on my researchgate site at

simplified

23 ottobre 2015 da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation

Of course, capturing an entire eeast history, present time and future development in one sentence, or even in three, cannot tell everything. Still, the following three sentences from an article in the Times Higher Education surely say lot, making clear what we mean, when we speak about neo-colonialisation and when Rosa Luxemburg presented her thoughts on the ‘inner colonilisation’:

In the aftermath of colonialism, the development of higher education was characterised by publicly funded national universities. However, while the number of public universities in the region doubled from approximately 100 to nearly 200 between 1990 and 2007, the rate of growth in the private sector in recent decades has been much faster. According to the 2009 World Bank report Accelerating Catch-up: Tertiary Education for Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of private universities and colleges, including for-profit and not-for-profit institutions, mushroomed from 24 to an estimated 468 over the same period.

Three things may be added, the first referring to another article from the same source, simply outlining the catastrophic consequences of public “savings” in Higher Education, undermining quality.

The second is an “offer” from a famous publisher of (High Ranking) journals:

Throughout October and November, we’re providing a number of great offers around Open Access Week, including discounts on article publishing charges (APCs) for over 35 journals, and a chance to win one of eight APC credits, meaning you can publish your article OA for free.

So we are doing the work for free as authors (and peer reviewers and colleagues discussing issues), then we are expected to pay for publishing and finally publishers make a special offer:

This month we your rate of exploitation is reduced.

Is this already the result of lowering educational standards? “We at T&F think you are so dumb that you will not see how we are fooling you.” Sure, the other point is that the invasion of the body snatchers, the kraken of inner colonisation moved already so far that we apparently do not have much choice.

Well, coming to the fourth issue then – this is a personal one. To be precise the experience a friend mentioned the other day – and I sincerely hope and believe my dear friend does not object to finding his words here. So, look at his report from a recent visit to the library, after not having been there for a while:

I was shocked and nearly cried!
NO JOURNALS.
Along the wall there were maybe 30 journals that looked like
decoration.. The room was filled with
tables where you can plug in your computer.
Oh, I long for the days that I would spend hours browsing through
journals that were on the shelves. I would go once every three
months to catch up on what was going on in sociology, political science,
policy and economics. Not one journal.
I found more good articles to read by accident, browsing, than those I
came specifically to read. No surprises any more. The academic
experience is utilitarian.

In a way you may see the following as part of a “personal countermovement”. I donated the books that remained from a larger personal collection in order to make them publicly available. I am waiting currently for the press release and will post it here as soon as I receive it. And I how it will a place where readers find books by accident, where they find surprises that stimulate and enhance free research.

Categoria: academic life – living in academia