Categoria: academic life – living in academia

Development or Change – Today’s Challenges for an Emerging Global Society

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

The following are notes made in preparation of a presentation in La Habana, Republic of Cuba in December 2012.

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The background of this presentation is actually far away – a presentation given by my friend and colleague Laurent J.G. van der Maesen at the 2012 Life & Development Forum in Hangzhou. From there some interest had been established to colleagues here in Cuba. Last year’s forum has to be characterised as

  • global in its very character
  • however, emerging from China and actually even more from the work in Hangzhou and thus marking a specific shift in global development – a shift that can briefly be characterised by emphasising the fact of glocalisation: the recognition of the importance of localities in the part of the global processes. This is not simply a matter of the effects of globalisation on localities but also a matter of recognising the actor perspective of these entities.

Looking at the general agenda of global developments, there are surely many contingencies. However, one may point on at least the following moments as characterising.

  • the future will not be ‘capitalism as we know it’ – and it may be added that we probably even fail when utilising the traditional ‘concepts’ and categories as neo-liberalism, nation state and the like as analytical tools;
  • the future faces the challenges of a new and fundamental threat from the side of environmental hazards
  • with this we have to challenge and overcome following the roots of today’s capitalism, namely the individualism as a major source of mal-development.

NB: In this light socialism had been to some extent caught in the same danger, namely as far as applied the basic principle of capitalist development for an extended time: the focus on the development of the productive forces (with reference to Marx: the development of department I) had been initially surely important; however, it would have been necessary to determine a point from where development is not about development of productive forces, thus implicitly the orientation on quantitative growth of consumption but about development of the quality of goods produced in department II, i.e. the development of means of consumption (in the widest sense) as means of developing social quality.

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The thesis is that in order to fully understand today’s challenges we have to look at the roots of capitalism in a more complex way – reaching beyond the economic and subsequent political perspective. In other words it is about fundamentally allowing the return of political economy in its true sense as investigation of the

organic unity of economy and polity

(Perry Andersen).

Such an approach stands against the development of a theory of political economy in a traditional sense of a politico-moral backing of economic processes as we know it for instance from Adam Smith.

Arte. Es la naturaleza creada por el hombre

(José Martí)

A major and fundamental flaws of capitalist development can be seen on the following moments:

  • the emergence of the bourgeois individual
  • based on the – apparent – loss of ‘ontological relationality’ (Slife)
  • leading to the redefinition of social activities as contractual relationships
  • undermining space for social action, while – though only for some – increasing this space on the individual level.

However, seeing this pattern as societal phenomenon we may summarise it as – for capitalist societies secular – process which Niklas Luhmann famously expressed by saying

All could be different but I nearly cannot change anything.

Paradoxically this goes hand in hand with the fact that the individual is made responsible for everything, being seen as rational actor with unlimited capacities to shape his/her life.

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I do not want to discuss in detail any question of human rights and relevant questions of legal philosophy (see Herrmann: God, Rights, Law and a Good Society; Bremen/Oxford: EHV Academicpress, 2012; Rights – Developing Ownership by Linking Control over Space and Time; Bremen/Oxford: EHV Academicpress, 2012). However, one point is of crucial importance, namely the fact that the Universal Declaration argues solely on the basis of the understanding of individualism in the form in which it emerged from the Western enlightenment. Seen in this perspective it is no surprise that it actually emphasises the ‘normality of the capitalist mode of production’ – with the legimitation of employment as actual basis of human existence, thus also providing a ground for defining ‘citizenship’. And furthermore it is from here that human rights are defined as ‘moral obligation’ (see Herrmann: Presentation Narrowing the Gap Between the World’s Richest and Poorest. Contribution for the Deutsche Welle GLOBAL MEDIA FORUM 2011).

For further exploration we may briefly look at a briefing paper Human Rights and Poverty: Is Poverty a Violation of Human Rights? Edited by the Centre of Economic and Social Rights. It

suggest[s] that violations of human rights can be cause, consequence or constitutive element of poverty.

This is surely important – and it has to be acknowledged that the document mentions as one of the consequences also

the destruction or denial of access to productive resources [which] can clearly cause poverty.

However, the overall formulation of the three points suggests that rights are a matter of provision rather than a matter of constituting and maintaining ‘active citizenship’. Talking then of the three dimensions of

respect, protect and fulfil

is more about a top-down approach than allowing the development of a bottom-up-approach towards rights. And indeed, this supports the thesis that HR are fundamentally an add-on, established to secure a capitalist world order. As any law, human rights law is also just a means – in the words of Iredell Jenkins:

Positive law assumes an ordered social context that exhibits certain deficiencies: it envisages more desirable – an ideal – ordering of the context; it prescribes the steps to be taken in order to move the actual towards the ideal; and it orders that these measures be instituted. That is, positive law is at once expository, normative prescriptive, advisory, and imperative. But it is positive law as a means to an end …

(Jenkins, Iredell: Social Order and the Limits of Law. A Theoretical Essay; Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980: ibid. 75)

Based on such an approach we face the following fundamental limitations in the relevant HR-debates:

  • they are very much based on supposedly eternal and socio-independent moral standards (it would actually not be far from here to speak of a-social standards)
  • the ‘we’, the collective identity, is reduced on aggregates of individuals, even defining ‘collective actors’ as the state, organisations, corporations etc. as ‘legal personalities’
  • finally not allowing to understand global structures and processes as other than the conglomeration of national actors, thus remaining in the limits of international relationships, not seeing the global order as genuine identity in its own right.[1]

Though it is at this stage only a short point, I think it is important to point out that many of contemporary debates focus too much on ‘technical’ and ‘individual solutions’, particularistic in character, to current challenges. These remain very much in the framework of individualised strategies. Though surely an important contribution to overall debates, we can point on the important limitation of the work by Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen. In short their orientation is about development of humans and not about human development, let alone about development of human relationality. This means not least that an important perspective remains faded out, namely the perspective of socio-human existence as part of a complex socio-natural setting. Thus we may also say that the major and fundamental problem of the dominant conceptualisation of human rights remains founded in the dissolution of the individual from its genuine social context. With this we find the reduction of the social as matter of relationships of individuals.

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Obviously, this falls short in providing a fundamentally valid perspective on today’s structures. Early capitalist societies had been moving to a systematic de-socialisation of personalities and the undermining of genuine social processes. This could be seen in the difficulties Adam Smith faced in maintaining moral standards within the taken economic perspective – finally resulting in the tendency to separate the question of wealth of a nation from moral sentiments. And equally we can see these difficulties when it comes to German philosophy as for instance expressed in the tension of different reasons in the works by Immanuel Kant.

The Social Quality Approach redresses this flaw by focussing on the social, understood as noun. It

may be conceived as the result of the dialectic (constitutive dependency/c.i.) between processes of self-realization and the formation of collective identities.

(Gaspers, Des et altera, 2013: Connecting ‘Human’ and ‘Social’ Discourses …: 24)

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For the further discussion I want to refer to more recent debates, not least stimulated by developments in Latin-American countries, in particular Bolivia, Ecuador and in the meantime Venezuela. The main point of reference is the constitutional principle of buen vivir or vivir biene. Important is that the standard of defining rights and for the definition of the social is not the individual and his/her well-being. Nor is it about the human existence as such. Instead,

  • understanding the individual as principally relational
  • considering the human existence as part of the overall natural existence
  • emphasising the relation between social and nature as fundamentally constitutive
  • and finally seeing social existence not least as matter of ability to accept collective responsibilities.

The emphasis is on ‘joint existence’ and its sustainability.

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With this in mind, the following issues are of utmost importance – here posed as questions that have to be elaborated and on which the answer has to be searched.

  • the what of production has to be asked anew. Point of departure is Engels’ formulation of the ‘determining factor in history’ according to the ‘materialistic conception’ (see Engels, Frederick, 1884: Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Preface to the First Edition). Whereas in the first instance this had been very much about the development of the means of production, and in particular the development of the productive forces, we are now facing a different situation. In one respect we have to reconsider the meaning of the production of the second department, namely the means of consumption. Though we are apparently living in times of overconsumption, this is not completely true: in actual fact we can see overconsumption in parts of world society going hand in hand with the lack even of the basic means of sustenance in other parts (see in this context for instance Milanovic, Branko, 2011: Global Inequality. From Class to Location, from Proletarians to Migrants; The World Bank Development Research Group. Poverty and Inequality Team; September 201; Working Paper 5820). Another important factor can be seen in the fact that a large part of ‘production’ is actually concerned with processes of transaction. Already in 1994, Douglass C. North, with reference to John J. Wallis and North from 1986 makes us known of

an empirical study that 45 percent of U.S. GNP was devoted to the transaction sector in 1970

(North, Douglass C., 1994: Economic Performance Through Time; in: The American Economic Review. Vol 84.3: 359-368; here: 360)

These are issues that need to be investigated more thoroughly not least in a global perspective.

  • This leads immediately to the second point, namely the question of the relationship between the different departments, in particular department I (production of the means of production) and department II (production of means of consumption); and it means also to investigate the existence of a department III (production of ‘financial services’) and a department IV (production of services)
  • Both, production in department III and IV point into the direction of a new kind of commons. If treated circumspectly we can see development in a new perspective. The development of department I, reaching a certain qualitative point, serves as point of departure for the development of department II as going beyond satisfying immediate needs, allowing qualitative developments. We find with this development a potential release of additional forces, but also of additional ‘needs’ of a higher order: the mentioned processes of transaction and also the growth of services are pointing into the direction of huge potentials of socialisation – and saying potentials means that the technological conditions, under private ownership and control, are in actual fact developing in a counter-socialising way. However, taking the potentials as point of reference we may speak of a development from the production of commons towards the production within commons, or using a different wording: the development of common production.

NB: Stating this does not mean that the development actually follows this path. In actual fact we find right now an extremely problematic development in a global perspective. It is still very much about continuing the old pattern of industrialisation on the one hand – now shifting anew to the NICs and also to new centres (as not least Japan and China); and this going hand in hand with a qualitative orientation of consumer goods in the ‘traditional centres’ (as in especially US and [in particular the old] EU). However, as much as this development is not about a simple ‘shift’ by way of replacement, it is obvious that this development cannot be socially sustainable (let alone sustainable in terms of a simple environmental understanding).

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Let me briefly return to the question of rights in general and in particular human rights. Commonly the Western understanding of rights – this had been outlined earlier – is structurally based n individualism. It may even be said that the very concept of rights depends in its ‘modern’ form on the existence of the bourgeois-citoyen individual. The citoyen – addressed as such during the revolutionary times of – had been understood as individual, socialised at most by reference to the categorical imperative as laid down in 1788 in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Practical Reason:

Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation.

This is based on the assumption of the independent, self-referential though rational individual actor. The understanding of rights developing against such a background can only be protectionist in its very character: it is the protection of individuals against possible infringements by others or the protection of individuals against violation by the state (to some extent an exception in this context is the notion put forward by T. Hobbes). To the extent to which we see the development of ‘modern commons’ – in various ways reflected since a long time, for instance by the common goods, general interest, volonté génerale or volonté du tout …) – and to the extent to which collective actors are emerging as truly relevant (see e.g. Meyer, John W., 2010: World Society, Institutional Theories, and the Actor; in: Annual Review of Sociology, 2010: 36: 1-20), we are asked to develop a new understanding of rights. This may be characterised in short by pointing on two moments:

  • They have to be understood as truly social rights. I come back to the definition given earlier, proposing that the social

may be conceived as the result of the dialectic (constitutive dependency/c.i.) between processes of self-realization and the formation of collective identities.

(Gaspers, Des et altera, 2013: Connecting ‘Human’ and ‘Social’ Discourses …: 24)

  • It has to be added that it is not only about the formation but also about the maintenance of the social. Rights are now emerging not as protection of individuals against individuals but as protection of collectivities against individuals (for a very good example in this context Burghardt, Peter, 18.6.2008: Ecuador. Im Dshungel der schwarzen Pest; in: Sueddeutsche.de. Wissen – it has to be mentioned that this is not [only] about corporations but also about interests of individual states in their ‘modern’ performance as legal personalities).
  • Importantly, these rights are not emerging from any moral and normative standards but their definition has to reflect the objective development of the productive forces as it had been outlined before when reference had been made to the development of the different departments of production and their relationship to each other.

[1]            This is even more needed as long as we do not have a global actor in the traditional sense (as e.g. a ‘global state’)

Aristotle and the Christmas Dinner

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

I am glad that I can inform you about the publication of the proceedings of the

2011 ICA Global Research Conference

edited by

Johanna Heiskanen, Pekka Hytinkoski, Tapani Köppä and Hagen Henrÿ.

The proceedings are now electronically and also as hardcopy available.

The contributions – with their various orientations – show one of the fundamental tensions of what is called “social policy” – and the volume shows especially the problematique of a solely value-based approach, treating economy as a distinct area rather than seeing economic processes as fundamentally social.

Of course, first and foremost values play a role in social policy – and this is not about a peripheral role but they stand very much at the centre. Moreover, actually social policy and economic policy can be seen as two elements (i.e. elementary forms) of the social and societal living together. But this perspective means at the very same time that it is a major shortcoming of  simply transferring Aristotelean thinking into modern societies. Even at his time, Aristotle’s thinking had been obviously hugely burdened by an inherent trap: Talking about a strictly closed economy (as it will be well known, Aristotle had been as much ‘economist’ as he had been philosopher, and as such he had been talking abut the economy of a household) allowed him to base his entire social understanding on two perspectives:

  • the management of closed systems which had been more or less autarkic (the oikos)
  • the good-doing, based on moral standards of the rich – and now doubts: as sure as it is that a well treated slave is in a much better position than a slave that is condemned to suffer from maltreatment as sure is, that both are slaves.

Initially I felt tempted to write

condemned to suffer from injustices

but than I had been getting well aware of the fact that this term is extremely limited in expressing something meaningful. Exactly at this point it is getting obvious that such understanding is essentially limited, has only little real meaning.

Imagine today: People in academic positions (and actually in nominally high positions) being paid an annual income of about 15,000.00 Euro, people doing “good jobs” being left in the loop of insecure contracts, “possibly” prolonged, the conditionality not so much the availability of money but the good-will of an Aristotelian head of an institution that is trapped in managerialist assessment, self- censured, loosing the ability to think by way of opening boxes …, like a wounded fox in the grip of the strangulating clutch.

Today academic departments are frequently called schools – and even to imagine that such Aristotelean-idealist approach to society, (surely involuntarily, unwanted) levelling the way for a new slavery, makes school-making of this kind a horrifying path. Such schools being a disgrace, well going hand in hand with those political stances for which it claims offering redress. I discussed several of related issues already in the three volumes.

As said, values play a role – but we have to localise them in a concise way. And Aristotle as reference can surely be meaningfully rethought. Though we do not agree with each other, I appreciate Amartya Sen’s position as surely considerable contribution to such a debate. What he actually does – in my reading – is exactly this: aiming on rethinking issues in such a way that allows working on a “new economy”. Going further in this argument, we may also say (alluding to Polanyi’s Great Transformation): he tries to think a market economy (his Smithian reference) without a market society (his humanitarian ambition). It is surely a huge difference between such a position and the position of Fred Powell – who may just stand as one of many examples of today’s limited approaches towards social policy: striving with reference to Aristotelean thinking for a smart society, thus allowing the continuation of a devastating capitalist society and shaking the head over the prevailing neoliberalism – precarity.

But sure, we have to be good to the slaves: the slaves of the old regimes and those living and working in precarity today. What had been “animalisation” and complete “objectification” of the slaves in ancient, is today the privatisation and charitybilisation – and it does not make much of a difference if it comes along under the papal gown of catholicism (or any other religious colour ) or the gown of leftist academics that hide the lack of readiness to engage with analytical complexities.

– Well, you may say an annual Christmas dinner may give all of us the feeling of being just a citizen of a smart society, all being good to each other, preparing for celebrating the feast of peace (leaving those pieces of society outside who cannot pay for joining the gathering of joy).

Coming back than to the proceedings, in all their variety that provide surely valuable thinking, issues for further debate and contestation – not streamlined for BBC-broadcasts, not worth being quoted by a president, but surely valuable for research that wants to go beyond tagging of the current crisis (e.g. neoliberslism, austerity …) and surely valuable in looking at possible perspectives.

Arriving

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

Saying Good-Bye – again — This had been the title of a recent posting. And indeed, there is some deep truth in the formulation John used when he wrote the other day in his really nice mail

as you sadly report, your uprooting and once more wandering, as of course scholars and refugees have done for centuries.

It is about sadness, and it is about this close link between scholars and refugees. And there is also much reflection in the words with which he continues, wishing that I find

an academic refuge, a medieval monastery in which to pursue scholarship and teaching as you would like to do.

Not that I may finally reach the state of a monk, defined as

a member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

May be it is poverty that awaits me; chastity is not really something to talk about here – there enough other miseries to report on and there are enough wrong choices in life that one doesn’t have to go with all of them – and finally it is hopefully about ongoing disobedience as it had been such disobedience, some independence that told me that it is Time to Say Good-Bye.

From various feedbacks I learned a bit about my life: I thought I would have been more or less outgoing, vocal and I admittedly missed the affects of it. People not reacting, not listening … – and now learning that part of my life  can be apparently seen as “background noise”. Those who read Niklas Luhmann’s later work will probably  remember … – And being background noise may be as much a praise of a life as I read from a colleague who felt very pleased when he saw his name mentioned somewhere in footnote of a famous writer. Yes, there are always the two sides. The one is the bright fire, dominant and victorious and showing the way …, the other is the small flame, flickering in the background, not much seen but somewhat indispensable when the clear light fades away, turns to be a dazzling instrument: blinding and misguiding.

Nani gigantum humeris insidentes

– Indeed, there is always the gnome standing on the shoulders of the giant, thus claiming to be able to see further as there is the giant walking across the path of the ant, “shouting justice for all” and  guillotining with every step so many of those on which he actually depends. Two sides – at least as long as we live in a society that is characterised by antagonisms they will be and they cannot really be harmonised.

There are also always two sides of Saying Good-Bye: the leaving of “places” and the arriving in “places”. Exciting undertakings. And perhaps all of them, if written down in a very subjective manner, are also allowing others to participate, better even: to make their own experience, to gain new perspectives in and for their life and living.

I tried the writing – impressions from roaming to and through different parts of the world. Kerstin Walsh, a former student and a present friend, contributed some lovely drawings (studying social policy doesn’t necessarily spoil life and the sense for its beauties) and to be honest: all of the people I met during this time, for short moments or for longer spells, played their specific roles – background noises, giants …, small flames and blazing fires ….

Again and again arrivals – Hellos!!!!

You may be interested in ordering

Peter Herrmann: Diary from a Journey into another World

Diaries against nationalism, inspired by trying to overcome personal resentments

You can find an extract here in the Rozenberg Quarterly

PS: I am currently working on a larger piece together with Kerstin. Last week she agreed to join the work I am just starting – hopefully together with Susann Staats co-writer) and Tobias Ruhnke (music). It is a children’s operar about a pink elephant ….

student accommodation, studying facilities ….

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, general, thoughts on life and its philosophy

or what is studying about?

Dear Students – here in Ireland and probably elsewhere.
Recently a mail had been sent to the staff at UCC – it originated from a Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the Department of Education, Uiversity College Cork and stated the following

I am writing to ask you to encourage your students to make use of the weekend study facilities now available in the Campus Kitchen. From now until next May the Campus Kitchen will be open on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holiday Mondays from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day. Feedback from recent talks on “Steps to ensure success in your study of science and engineering in UCC” that I gave to all first year science and first year engineering student students indicates that a significant number of students living in student apartment complexes find it difficult to study in this apartment environment.

Many thanks to Mr … and his security staff as well as … for making this facility available. The Students’ Union will be informing students of the study facilities available but a few words of encouragement from yourselves may help students to settle down to study and to start using the weekend study facilities to help them to keep up with their work. Recent statistics from the HEA (Mooney et al., 2010) on drop-out rates from universities in Ireland are cause for serious concern.

Now, I will be the least to complain about providing additional study facilities to students – when I had been studying, I had been in the privileged position that I could use the library 24 hours a day – there had been one exception throughout the year. though I do not remember exactly, I think it had been the 25th of December that the facilities had not been available.

Leaving various things aside that could be said in this context, I want to raise at least three points:
* is the provision of study-facilities really an appropriate answer on the lack of quality-accomodation for students? – This laves aside the fact that this accommodation is in many cases completely overpriced, pushes students out on the private market, thus contributing via a more or less long chain to problems on the housing markets. If landLORDS (are we still living in feudal times, or is it even meant as prayer?) are making easy money, this, of course, maintains high rents …
* is teaching, organisation of seminars and discussion opportunities so limited during the week that there is urgent need for facilitating additional studies during the week – especially: additional space for individual studies?
* finally, is the lack of space for studying a real and major problem for “high drop-out rates for universities”?
Perhaps such Higher Education Authorities should step down from their pedestals – having a look at the reality of all these supposed  *****-universities, excellence universities may cure them. Though it is boring and we all know it it may be stated again: education is perverted to a commodity. It is “goal-oriented” and the sole goal is availing of a paper that states a degree. I do not want to write a plea for the humanist tradition in its traditional form: it had been highly idealist and elitist in its very foundation. Nevertheless, it surely had been more of an empowering spirit than much today’s skill-orientation. And surely had been more emancipatory, independent it is orientation than social scientists who state in a complaining, and even depressed mood:

This is the consequence of liberalism

Turning around after a deep sigh …., continuously walking the old ding-dong-trotten path, welcoming any success, any start gained or maintained, as a success – it is a little bit like Christmas:

Mai le campane risuonano più dolcemente

Isn’t it time to wake up? – Can be sweet too!

At least this colleague seems to have slept while he had been studying … and needs to improve skills, then justifying a position as Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the Department of Education

We Got IT – Update Your CV …

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

Dear Colleagues,
as it is now clear that EU had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2012, there is some rumour that every EU-citizen can claim to be winner of this prestigious accolade.
You may consider this  when updating your IRIS and other information relevant for Quality Assurance.

Most of you know that I had been engaged for many years in EU-policy making – on different levels. From direct contact I know also – just to mention one tiny point – the the current president of the Commission (in my experience the least qualified during my “term in office” which reaches back into middle 1980s) appropriated the responsibility on “social services of general interest”, taking it away from Vladimír Špidla, then Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs …. – I mentioned this occasionally publicly and do it again although it may have been confidential information I obtained in a personal conversation from the Commissioner. Still, although I left that field of activity for different reasons (leaving some minor engagement aside) I am in principle very much a supporter of the European idea. And I am well aware of the ambiguity – what is today the EU surely being an institutional setting that succeeded on many issues we can relate to in positive ways. Nevertheless, I have my serious doubts that the awarding is in any way justified. An idea that is valuable, being set in a harsh structural setting, is as valuable as the chitchat of a smart society in an increasing “refeudalising” economic environment (having used this term, and having published in 2010 on this [the second of the “New Princedoms” just went to the printer] I am myself aware that much economic analysis is still needed to back this thesis).

Anyway, EU-staff and students may claim that they had been awarded. Colleagues from “Third Countries” (sorry, this is the official terminology) may possibly claim that they know Laureats (which is something, isn’t it).
The details on the award ceremony are not yet clear – so, refrain at this stage from buying flight tickets to Stockholm.
Some additional information for foreward looking people: There is some hope that The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel may be soon going to the EU too.

Irish Excellence – just a rant

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

Just received a job add – adverstising a job at UCD. It may be poiting out an interesting strategy of third level education: completely overpaid professorial positions (in an international comparison), probably reasonably well paid “core staff”, that has to work for the money, and a rather large number of jobs for people who are ready for self-exploitation, working in casual “contract” positions (you MAY TAKE IT as purely accidental that I did not say anything about the work of professorial positions in this country – you MAY …)
It is worth an additional remark. The president of UCC has an income that is shamefully high (I always say: arguing on the ground of morals is useless although some social work and social policy colleagues still don’t get this). And this shamefully high-earning individual suggests that working conditions, security of positions of researchers and lecturers should be more precarised (see the dispute on Tyndall) etc.
And another professor – of maths – claimed not long ago (in a personal conversation) that social science cannot claim the name science.
I am wondering if these people have anythinbg else to offer than a large bag for huge sums of money. But perhaps they don’t have even that and follow in one or another way the traditional way of carrying money: in envelopes.

Sure, you may read this also in a wider context, looking at the Irish crisis, the definition of excellence ….

Growth, Greek and Teaching

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

A Change in my teaching program and implications for politics

Well, the title is a bit misleading – but fact is, for me: as abstract many things are when it comes to teaching economics there are so many things very much about daily lives and daily politics.

Some good news – had been asked to change my program for next years teaching in Budapest at the Corvinus University: A course on Development Economics.

A rather challenging task I think – and that is what I like: challenges.

Teaching about about this hugely contradictory issue of development in such a situation where we can see on the one hand that the traditional development model of capitalism failed – and we may add: failed completely – and at the same time it is strongly prevailing and orienting as matter that strongly guides policy makers. Of course, there is this global dimension – and since Rostow manifested his anticommunism in his pamphlet on on “Stages of Economic Growth” the traditional understanding of development is more or a simple translation of the paradigm of GDP-growth. More recent debates do not make major changes although they stepped slightly away from this tradition by including issues of sustainability and “well-being” – I engaged on some aspects and shortcoming of these debates in the contribution to the International Journal of Social Quality, titled

Economic Performance, Social Progress and Social Quality—Social Sustainability Waiting in the Wings

 But there is more to it – some aspects I developed in earlier blog entries, looking at questions of growth and trying to link it to the fundamental issue of the structural fracture between use value and exchange value. These entries had been titled Sustainability, Non-Sustainability and Crime I, Sustainability, Non-Sustainability, Crime II and Growth and Development and finally the presentation during the recent Poznan-workshop of the EuroMemo-group, which I elaborated very much with Marica Frangakis (Nicos Polulantzas Institute, Athens), also reflected on these issues.

The new course now – teaching is learning, and not just students sitting down and listening bit developing together with the students the new issues – gives an opportunity to develop this further. One point is surely about the systematisation, or should I even say: the precise formulation of the question. Contrary to the mainstream approaches that tend to give first answers, and after that search for the question, there is some need in return to the drawing board …. But then there is another point, namely the systematic (dis)entanglement of the different layers of the analysis. This concerns especially a differentiated approach with respect to local and “societal” dimensions of development, as well as it requires to look at situations of individuals on the one side and collectivities on the other side. As a working thesis we may say that the separation of use and exchange value is very much complemented by a juxtaposition of different aggregate levels. In other words, we see tensional relationships between

  • different aggregate levels
  • individual and social dimensions
  • relevant proprieties.

A thorough approach to this multilayered perspective can help in two ways. It may open a way to approaches to the development that are predominantly based on normative settings. And furthermore it allows us to contribute to a sound debate on methodological individualism.

On some political implication of immediate interest. Greece – more than for instance Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland – is currently in the news. This is in various ways interesting.

One interesting fact is at least worth a side remark: The mass protests going on for a lengthy time now, and actually at least comparably strong in Spain and Portugal[1] did not nurture the same media spectacle as the visit of the German Prime-Minister (Kanzlerin) Merkel. This is very similar to the very old patterns: when the emperor comes, the streets have to be ready for the theatre. And so the protests had been countered with even more violence than there had been before. And a shocking photo had been circulated yesterday on facebook – not one of the many photos showing the brute force of security staff (though they surely had been shocking too), but the shocking photo that showed the decoration for the welcome of AM: blue-white—-black-red-gold—-blue-white—-black-red-gold—-blue-white—-black-red-gold—- – I did not count the flags, enough though to cover many of the victims of this war of the people. – And we should not refrain from saying what it is: a war against a people not just on the open battlefield but on the battlefield of an austerity strategy that is “killing softly” – making it nearly impossible for many children to go to school because they are starving, detaining necessary health services …. – and this happens in a country where only few people have sufficient resources to solve the monetary problems. IF they WOULD PAY taxes, the problem would basically not exist. IF they WOULD CONTRIBUTE to solving the national debt problem rather than contributing to the Swiss, Luxembourgian etc banking profits people could successfully claim what human rights declarations grant on paper but do not allow to be an issue in people’s real life. If politicians would people and their representatives serious solutions could be found – solutions meaning something different than huge programs that (simplified, admitted) shift money from the tax payer in Germany to the banks in Greece from the taxpayer in Greece to the banks in Germany (see also the interview I gave earlier in Athens).

This brings us to the second issue. As easy it is for the Greek government to listen to Merkel rather than to the Greek people it is also easy to speak the old prayer of growth. As important as it is to appreciate the need for a development that is rooted in growth, as important is to start thinking about what growth is about. Sure, as biologist Merkel could easily skip the lessons on Aristotle and Marx (admittedly GDR-education had not been perfect – AM is a showcase for failure) – and so she missed that it is necessary to move a bit further and look at the real meaning of development. Let us for instance refer to Aristotle. He contended that

if every tool, when summoned, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it, just as the creations of Daedalus moved of themselves, or the tripods of Hephaestos went of their own accord to their sacred work, if the weavers‘ shuttles were to weave of themselves, then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers, or of slaves for the lords.

But indeed, Marx referred to this paragraph, writing in the first volume of The Capital (from which I took the previous quote):

Oh! those heathens! They understood, as the learned Bastiat, and before him the still wiser MacCulloch have discovered, nothing of Political Economy and Christianity. They did not, for example, comprehend that machinery is the surest means of lengthening the working day. They perhaps excused the slavery of one on the ground that it was a means to the full development of another. But to preach slavery of the masses, in order that a few crude and half-educated parvenus, might become ― eminent spinners, ― extensive sausage-makers, and ― influential shoe-black dealers, to do this, they lacked the bump of Christianity.

And this marks the point any debate on growth has to take as point of departure – the concrete situation of peoples lives rather than the  abstract calculation of growth figures. A quick overview over developments shows at least two different things:

  • the growth, and in particular the extreme and rapid growth had been gong hand in hand with increasing inequalities;
  • the growth had been in many cases – and Greece is an exemple par excellence – only possible by diminishing indigenous potentials in favour of growth of national and international elites.

In this light, I surely could teach AM some basics in political economy and the course: That development is not about figures but about people in their societies. And the development of societies through and for the people.

Too late for her, I guess – though she should have enough money to pay the fees for the course – unfortunately Mr Orban and his FIDESZ easily succeeded with this program against democratic, accessible education. Still I hope: perhaps one or the other of my students will get into some kind of government position and show: ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE.

[1]             The optimistic interpretation of the relative silence in Italy is that people may be afraid that Berlusconi could interpret protest as people calling him back into office (cannot find the article I read recently in some Italian paper); silence in Ireland is more due to the ongoing belief that god, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael freed the country from the British colonialists and thus god, will know when it is time to move towards a better world).

Time to Say Goodbye – Again

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

Thank you, Auke, for publishing it: Time to say Goodbye. Again.
It links well to the first Time to say Good-bye.

I got several responses to it, to posting the text via e-mail, one speaking of

big decision [towards] more power … for being true to yourself

It is somewhat sad that ‘being oneself’ needs big decisions, and cannot be taken for granted everywhere and for everybody.

Beginnings – Going Astray

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

It is the great time of the year again – at least I like it: the students are returning, or are just arriving at the university. For many a huge step, something like entering the ‘large world’, another step to adulthood.

The other day I had been standing with Michael and Paddy in the student centre, looking across campus where the freshers had been shown by their older mates   how to get around. Well, somewhat oldish terms – and there is surely much of this in the mind: the freshers feeling like making a step towards independence, being a bit unsure about what all this about, the requirements and just …, well for many it will be the first time that they really leave the lap of their parent’s home …; the mates being proud that they can show a bit of what they learned already, showing a bit of their supremacy, and perhaps also a bit of their power: the abilities they achieved. And there the three of us are standing, talking about the way they and we actually go. Are we looking at students out there: the young people we have to teach – we the supervisors, feeling ‘super-wise’ …; are we looking at young colleagues with whom we will collaborate on this huge project which enlightenment failed to establish: a better world – a world which actually cannot be ‘established’ as such; rather a better world will always have to be a process, a movement of people coming together to make a world a common property (process of relational appropriation, as I define it – still grateful to Denisa: I brought this definition forward in class, elaborated it and … forgot the wording. She, at the time one of my Hungarian students, had all the notes from the classes …). Or are we looking at the future competitor on a market on which skills are traded, in societies and regions that aim on being

most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.

Although I am in general very much on the side of those who consider the glass being half-full, I am worried: I listened to last weeks negotiations in Kassel – the German Constitutional Court approving the ESM – in my opinion a decision strictly based on nationalist interests without offering any answer on the problem of Europe which faces the danger of falling apart; I listened to Barroso’s ‘State of the Union’ address at the same time, repeating shallow phrases from over the years, (leaving the bloomy phrases aside) calling for a stronger Europe – sure, I am not against a stronger Europe as such, though the question of the overall aims remains to be asked and answered; and I followed the elections in the Netherlands, the results of which came to many (and also to me) as a surprise, moving the country under the VVD towards a questionable Freedom and Democracy.

And I remember the other day colleagues talking about a high number of registrations for a course:

There are people out there who are interested. We just have to find a way to answer the demand ….

Well, there is definitely interest in education – and now I mean the education in the true sense: education as means of emancipation. And this is something we have to encourage, we have to fight for ways that allow this to happen: this kind of education and this kind of emancipation – not a matter of individuals’ demand but of societal necessity for which we have to create space.

For me, every new teaching period is such a challenge – not primarily a question of what to teach but more a question how we can learn together, how we can develop relevant research skills: brave openings.

May be I be it is an absurd idea. May be not.

Talking about absurdities: The other day a mail had been passed on to me, sent via the staff-exchange server – a former employee from UCC, now retired, talking about the fact needs must be met ‘even in retirement’ and offering the service of a Training and Development Company she set up. It is about More to Explore and Rethinking your Thinking. And courses are offered on the premises of UCC.

Well, it may be I should rethink my thinking, my optimism: A university that is claiming to be ‘Ireland’s first *****-university’, a university that leaves part of the work to be undertaken by retired staff, a university that is particularly proud of sports people as bearers of the academic torch, just recently Five sports people conferred with honorary doctorates. – Yes, well done lads.

I wish you all well in the current academic year!

Indeed – and I hope we can do better!!

Enigmas of Mastery – or Arts Challenges Academia

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

A side remark – isn’t all this blog-epistle a side remark, personal reflections on various issues in which personal, social and societal issues conflate?

So then a short note on dialogue. There is perhaps a reason for talking about the master and bachelor in ARTS that we should not push aside without reflection – as social scientists in particular we are part of a complex social structure – its history in past, present and future. And though we are not independent, we are part of a process that we may consider as symphonic piece of war and peace (borrowing the title from Tolstoi). Monumental and complex, full of contradictions and thoroughly determined by our readiness to truly engage in looking for collective solutions. Yesterday I have had the opportunity to attend an exciting concert here in Munich – exciting not least as it presented a tensional line from Bach’s 5th Brandenburgische Concert, passing Schubert’s 4th Symphony (‘The Tragic’), leading to Strauss ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’. Being confronted with the latter, consequently with the highly problematic oeuvre by Wagner provoked to move further moving beyond the smooth integrity of the Court Society, overcoming the tragedy and crossing the borderline of nihilism – not by denying it but by looking for a synthesis, for instance offered in the magnificent masterpiece provided by Shostakovich in the Symphony No.12 in D minor, Op.112 ‘The Year 1917’ – Admittedly something one has to learn listening – Barenboim once had been teaching me to admire Shostakovich’s work. And admittedly revolutionary processes and ‘results of revolutions’ (which, of course, will always be processes themselves) have to be learned. And looking at processes of learning the words by Albert Schweitzer on Bach’s work gave to come to mind:

It is not about alternating between the Tutti and the Concertino. ; the different bodies are related to each other in an intrinsic tension, penetrate, differentiate and conflate for another time – and all this emerges from an unfathomable necessity, inherent in the art. … One gets the impression to really face what philosophy throughout all times presented as a higher occurrence, the unfolding of an idea, creating its contradiction in order to overcome it, creates from here a new contradiction, overcoming it again and so forth, until it returns to itself, after it went through all stages of life. It is the same impression of unfathomable necessity and enigmatic satisfaction while listening to these concerts, following the subject matter as it first presents itself in the Tutti, then being subject to enigmatic divisive powers, finally returning in the final Tutti again to its inner entity, coherence.

(quoted in Wolfgang Stähr, 2003: Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit – Konzerte von Arcangelo Corelli bis Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Berliner Philharmony Programmheft Nr. 25 zum 21.12.2003)

Wouldn’t this be a matter we should revive in academic culture? A Sunday visit in the Alte Pinakothek paradoxically confirmed this when I joined a new format of arts education: Cicerone. As much as it is about the utilisation of great speeches the visit showed so much that all this is about dialogue, with the paintings, even between the paintings, between the presenters and not least by including the visitors.

Yes, academic life, if it takes itself serious is about the mystery of mastery of arts.