Yes, many students work too many hours, but not all of them just to pay
for college. And I assuredly do not begrudge any worker from making a
living to help support his family or pay his bills. Jim is a good
fellow, and his students are lucky he is their teacher (though
unknowingly lucky for now at least).
Michael Yates
Jim Devine wrote:
>
> Michael Yates writes:
> >I have rejoined a couple of these lists after a hiatus of several
> >months. I am about to retire from my job as a college teacher, after 32
> >long and, of late, nearly unbearable years. I have spoken about this
> >before, but in my view academe in is a state of paralysis, at least as far
> >as it being a center of critical thought and action. ...
>
> The social situation that exists in academia encourages an ideology like
> that of Max Weber, that there's an "iron cage" that prevents anything
> progressive from being done. (Some, of course, have stopped worrying and
> have learned to love the bomb, trying to win the rat-race. Maybe it's akin
> to what Wilhelm Reich called the "moral plague.") The worst for me is that
> most of the time, I don't teach lefty or radical economics -- because the
> students don't want it, not because of the university bureaucracy or my
> department or anything like that. Luckily for me, I can vent on pen-l. If
> I do so too much, it's because it's necessary to my sanity.
>
> As for academia, it's a job. I've got to support my kid, our mortgage, our
> growing debts. At least I sometimes get to do stuff that I enjoy and get
> paid for it. I think it's probably a mistake to assume that any job under
> capitalism will be non-alienating. However, it would be cool to work in a
> bookstore, as long as it's a small independent one (one of those that's
> rapidly disappearing from the map).
>
> >... I asked the class what Marx says is the minimum value of labor
> >power. A student awoke from a dead sleep (this in a class of ten, all
> >sitting around a seminar table) and blurted out "$5.15!!
>
> at least you got an answer.
>
> >I have seriously suggested that our school sell sweatshirts emblazoned
> >with the slogan, "Proud to be stupid."
>
> My slogan for them was "if you're so rich, how come you're not smart?"
> (This was a response to a student who wanted to know why we should hear
> about Adam Smith, Karl Marx, etc. because his rich friends like Justin Dart
> don't know that stuff -- he's now a PR flack for the construction company
> that's building a mega-project, "Playa Vista," in the wetlands below the
> bluff that Loyola Marymount sits on. This threatens not only to destroy the
> environment but also to make traffic conditions even worse.)
>
> But beyond that rich twerp, a lot of students seem stupid partly because
> they're working many hours per week to pay for college.
>
> >... For example, I periodically teach economics to union folks at
> >UMass-Amherst. Now this is supposedly a hotbed of radical economics. Yet
> >I fly in form Pittsburgh to teach the class. Where is Bowles or Gintis or
> >Wolfe or Resnick or Pollin? Perhaps the pay is not high enough or they
> >are away on academic business (the class is taught while most of the
> >regular students are on break).
>
> Wolfe & Resnick's followers have always claimed that they are actively
> involved in politics. One of the two once ran for mayor of New Haven on a
> progressive ticket. (Every on-line debate I've seen about postmodernist
> Marxism has involved its defenders pointing to their political involvement.
> Not all of their critics are politically involved.)
>
> Pollin is actively involved in the campaign for a living wage. He
> integrates his research into his political activism.
>
> I don't know about Bowles, though his textbook (with Edwards) is quite
> useful. The less said about Gintis, the better. See his last correspondence
> with pen-l, in the archives somewhere.
>
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
