Categoria: academic life – living in academia

Impressions …

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

Just got the confirmation yesterday, while boarding for Budapest where I am now. It is part the confirmation of the appointment in the framework of the Program of High-end Foreign Experts of the State Administration of Foreign Experts. Gosh one can make so much out of so little. Though I am pleased to be one of the 18 selected people; and the only social scientist (I am realist and guess for no one else an application had been lodged;-).
Not sure about the details but that will soon be sorted.

May be I am getting old … – When I arrived Tuesday evening in Rome, looking at the trees, the terrible noise transforming into some music of a vivid city, the still somewhat strange, though familiar language …, when I left latish the morning, the pleasant warm sun shining … – As I could not say good by personally  I wrote to a friend, already back at the airport

Vero … Roma è una città bellissima. Sono arrivato ieri sera: imbrunire, un bel “paesaggio urbano”, con alberi mediterranei e oggi il sole, avvolgendo la vivacità nel calore. Una breve visita per me; Non so perché, ma ho sperimentato la bellezza soprattutto in questo periodo.
I actually did not feel like leaving. Sure, when I later walked through Budapest, the city of light (walking along the Danube is beautiful at night-time, the chain-bridge, the castle, parliament …; the loving couples taking photographs), sitting down for a glass of wine, I thought that I am possibly right with what I frequently said: at the end it does not matter where you are …, it does not matter if there is any sense and meaning in all this, it is just being and possibly the being together …
On the latter, it is not just the love stories of the world to which we all add one chapter or more; it is also the working together, not rolling the rock upwards, and not grasping that is always rolling back, the art of life being to be fast enough, jumping out of its way.
So it had been this bizarre, strange, bewildering feeling now in Budapest: I am currently here for some work with the academy (another “big thing” though …. – well, I have a friend here, she is actually member of the academy and people like her makes “academy of science” something really great and outstanding). But I have had some time and walked to “my” university: Corvinus. Just to have a look – it had been on the way to the Liszt academy, another great place where I will go Sunday to visit a concert. Indeed, they removed the statue of Karl Marx, just an empty space now – just an empty space in the main hall, disgraceful in its emptiness … I went to the little kiosk for a coffee, as I did so often over the last years … – and walked upstairs: second floor …, being part of something: I walked to the office door through which I walked for so many times, I looked at the sign: Peter Herrmann. So I am still part of it? A name-tag, an empty desk due to cut backs by the government, limiting a special international program, limiting the influence of a political direction of understanding economics … . As said, a  bizarre, strange, bewildering feeling … – you may say being located in a position which is taken out of history, empty, pre-emptied, preempt …
… and the knowledge that despite of all this one is not alone even if one is …
… the knowledge that despite of all this one is alone even if one is not …
Historically speaking there seems to be a paradox. Quoting Camus then – as you say: surely not serene –

Mourir volontairement suppose qu’on a reconnu, même instinctivement, le caractère dérisoire de cette habitude, l’absence de toute raison profonde de vivre, le caractère insensé de cette agitation quotidienne et l’inutilité de la souffrance. (14)

And the paradox: accepting hopelessness, and still moving on, may actually have the effect that gives it the final meaning … the

Ti aspetto
coming from someone, from somewhere, for something …, does it matter as long as it makes some sense, has some meaning with which we can connect? And the expectation that this will not change the world, as every move of the rock by Sisyphus did not change anything, but importantly for him brought him closer to the point from where he could enjoy a most beautiful view, overarching the entirety, the completeness … – something for which he would return another time ….

Why does a Professor have to be treated like that? One of my colleagues here at the College whom I told my story looked at me, there was a silence, …

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia

Publish and perish at Imperial College London: the death of Stefan Grimm

Shocking — the story itself; and that in so many ways we accept it, refrain from massive resistance …

And even already little resistance bears harsh consequences …

if we then add those who retire at an early stage, looking for something else, working outside of academia etc., the picture is quite frightening …

Still, also One scholar’s crusade may matter, is at least necessary …

questionable beauty

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, joys - what we usually take for it, quotes

Economists using mathematical expressions to decorate arguments about the perfection of market systems may believe that their work is beautiful. Outsiders see instantly that it isn’t. Quite apart from the messy problems and ugly realities of the economic world (capitalist or otherwise), no one with a sense of aesthetics would take the clumsy algebra of a typical professional economics article as a work of beauty. The main purpose of the math is not to clarify, or to charm, but to intimidate. And the tactic is effective. An idea that would come across as simpleminded in English can be made “impressive looking” with a sufficient string of Greek symbols. A complaint about the argument can be deflected, most easily, on the ground that the complainer must not understand the math.

(Galbraith, James K., 2014: The End of Normal. The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth; New York et altera: Simon & Schuster: 67)

 

But it being identified as not being an economist may also be perceived as praise.

 

Economics and the redefinition of human experience

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, quotes

To analyze the world in this way, requires, in effect, the redefinition of human experience into a special language. That language must have a vocabulary limited to those concepts that can be dealt with inside the model. To accept these restrictions is to be an economist. Any refusal to shed the larger perspective – a stubborn insistence on bringing a broader set of facts or a different range of theory to bear – identifies one as “not an economist.” In this way, the economists need only talk to one another. Enclosed carefully in their monastery, they can speak their code, establish their status and rankings and hierarchies, and persuade themselves and one another of their intellectual and professional merit.

(Galbraith, James K., 2014: The End of Normal. The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth; New York et altera: Simon & Schuster: 64)

 

Well, this is just another, and better formulated reflection of what I presented …

Language … – or more?

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

The other day I received a mail (I received it as CC), somebody stating

As I mentioned to you, it is clear that our colleague Peter’s mind was not shaped by Central bankers neither other kind of executive format.

Thanks god, though I do not believe in that one.

Interesting as NB is the following: I presented a while back on the same conference as the author of those line – it had been in Cuba, his topic being the Eurocrisis, a reasonably “good” presentation of bad economics, though very affirmative. At the end he also gave out, blaming the victims of austerity etc., and asking for a restrictive monetary and fiscal policy and for further restrictions. Investment, growth as source of eternal wealth — in other words: the ongoing belief in the eternal

… the heavenly lullaby,

The old song of abnegation,

By which the people, this giant fool,

Is lulled from its lamentation.[1]

In the original

das alte Entsagungslied,

Das Eiapopeia vom Himmel,

Womit man einlullt, wenn es greint,

Das Volk, den großen Lümmel.[2]

In my presentation applied in analytical terms but as well in terms of developing a perspective a more complex perspective – much appreciated and welcome. And leading to ongoing cooperation with colleagues from the Cuba government …

for my part I can only see it as praise — and hope that not only the colleagues in Cuba will maintain their critical position to the minds of Central bankers and other kind of executive format.

==============

[1]            Germany. A Winter’s Tale; Text by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856); translated into English by Joseph Massaad; http://www.heinrich-heine.net/winter/wintereng1.htm

[2]            Heine, Ein Wintermärchen caput 1; http://www.heinrich-heine-denkmal.de/heine-texte/caput01.shtml

Lost Generation – Finding Future? Challenges for Youth Policy

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, Peter's Log, works, projects, publications

After just having finished drafting a document under the title

Crisis and a/n/o [and/no] end?

I am now preparing the conference in Moscow later, in a way the application of the topic. It is titled

Lost Generation – Finding Future? Challenges for Youth Policy.

The thesis which I will present is very much reflecting the fact that the current structural crisis means especially for young people total exclusion, establishing a lost generation. However, it may well have another meaning, namely offering a door to overcome the deep structural weakness of capitalism: investment programmes etc may help to reinstall to some extent the status quo ex ante, however such programmes will not be able to make use of the huge productive potential that today’s societies waste: inequality needs to be addressed by fundamental redistribution, redistribution has to be oriented on changing the process of production and opening doors to its real creative potentials overcoming the limited understanding of production, reducing it on a narrow economic understanding of commodity (and profit) production – we have to look the at the processes of producing and reproducing social relationships.

Indeed, another world is possible ….

 

See in this context the still interesting publication:

Burgess, Paul/Herrmann, Peter (eds.): Highways, Crossroads and Cul de sacs. Journeys into Irish Youth & Community Work. A Reader; Bremen: Europäische Hochschulschriften, 2009

 

knowledge society – società della conoscenza – Wissensgesellschaft

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, quotes

There are many people, who always have some boating idea about which they can write.

C’è molta gente a cui viene sempre in mente qualcosa di noioso di scrivere

Es gibt viele Leute, denen immer wieder etwas Langweiliges einfällt, worüber sie schreiben können.

(Reinhard Elze)

Applied Science

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, quotes
Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long day’s work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations. … It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man’s blessings. Concern for the man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours; concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

(Speech to students at the California Institute of Technology, in “Einstein Sees Lack in Applying Science”, The New York Times; 16 February 1931)

Optimism – Pessimism – Realism

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

We frequently talk about the glass, wondering if it is half full or half empty … , and easily deny or overlook when it is broken.

Only looking for a new one then will allow us to avail of one that is at least half full and that may be filled up further.