Winning the war of independence - Comments

So, Paul, what we going to do about it? Okay, there's enough evidence we need to do something about this in the UK. But freedom is a slippery concept - how we going to ensure it? Not sceptical at all; quite the opposite. But I suspect it comes down to a "local" (eg. individual department, faculty, university) commitment to freedom, and to challenging anything that threatens it. So, how we going to do it? Locally? Nationally?

Hi Lerner, Freedom to - that is obviously something philosophers can debate (and have) till the cows come home. Freedom from - that's much easier. When academics see ridiculous bureaucracy they should point it out and at the very least not actively engage with it to make things worse. I'm talking about a base-line level of professional autonomy. I'm surprised that academics frequently seem so threatened by the idea of standing up for such a fundamental freedom. But perhaps the very first thing is for people to *really* acknowledge the problem. You point out that there is enough evidence that the problem exists - and we all know there is - but in this particular themed discussion (see the other companion article) of US/UK differences, the argument that British academics need more freedom like their US counterparts has been elided by moving the debate into the area of US gun control (or lack of it). There seems to be a strange Kafkaesque atmosphere in the UK in which the key charge just isn't addressed.

Hi Paul - I am sure you're entirely correct. Perhaps, then, some suggestions, based on "freedom from", mostly: (1) I see no evidence that Britain is holding firmly onto its "place" in global HE research/teaching - therefore we should argue, and show, that more academic "freedom from . . ." will assist the future of British HE, which it should, given that this means knowledge being more openly and actively explored; (2) we should place more emphasis on empowerment to contribute, rather than imposing narrow notions of contribution (ie. this being, in some key ways, a return to the origins of what universities are/were all about ,when first conceived). Those might be starters . . .

Paul & Lerner, If I might weigh in with a small contribution... "Freedom from..." is the typical understanding even on this side of the pond, so that "freedom," in whatever form it is articulated, is generally construed negatively: Freedom from censorship. Freedom from managerial oversight. Freedom from control and restraint. This is a highly impoverished notion of freedom and one that can often come around to bite you on the arse. As Hegel aptly described it, "the man who merely flees is not yet free; he does not know how his flight is conditioned by that from which he flees." This is the problem with "freedom from..." We often re-institute and reinforce the very restrictions and organizational structures we wish to escape in the process of formulating our exit strategies. To put it in a more practical and direct form, to ask what kinds of institutional changes can be incorporated in order to free us from overly restrictive measures might just reinforce the very systems and structures we would hope to escape from. This is why "freedom to...," although much more difficult to articulate and institute, is often a better approach.

Oy, spare me the philosophical debate on this topic. Just stop cooperating with the nonsense already. Don't take it seriously. My approach is: "Let's not, and say we did." A bit of pretence goes a long way in this sphere.

It's not too much of a cariacature to say that American academia operates as a kind of free enterprise, whereas the UK follows a welfare state model. As the article notes, American academics have much greater freedom to teach and mark as they see fit. The flip side is that much greater importance is attached to student evaluations of teaching - possibly too much importance. Thus, professors need to find the best ways to deliver their material. In the UK, things are more top down, with an endless bureaucracy composed of second markers, external examiners, review boards, quality assurance officials and teaching and learning professionals. Everything moves so slowly that the end effect of all this bureaucracy is to stifle innovation rather than to encourage it.

I experienced the British system as a student and the American system as an academic. For me, the big flaw in the American system is that there is no attempt to separate the processes of teaching and examining. A mediocre teacher can give students high grades, and they come away thinking they've learned a lot. Fail too many students and you invite low evaluations. Resentment at receiving low grades is directed against the individual instructor, and some students think that complaining loudly is a good way to resolve the problem. There are flaws in the British system, but it would take too long to point them out.

Perhaps, we need to remind ourselves ‘Freedom from’ and ‘Freedom to’ are the same bedfellows. Freedom from and Freedom to aren’t strictly opposites. Between the twoing and throwing there’s something of a ‘Dizzy Discontinuity’ to be had, a material gap, an excess, a remainder ‘from and for’, ‘to and for’ thinking that isn’t commodified? Should there not be a Zizekian third, fourth position and so on. Strange bedfellows might it make perhaps, one that the Taleban spread sheets cannot commercially compute. Does not ‘from and to’ imply freedom of choice? Is that not a ‘forced choice’ as in Lacan’s “Your money or your life?” Cannot ‘Freedom from or to’ be equally binding as the ‘efficient’ Japanese knotweed, where this apparent choice belies freedom to choose? “When academics see ridiculous bureaucracy they should point it out and at the very least not actively engage with it to make things worse.” Isn’t part of the struggle is thinking has become commodified. Your optimism that academics might ‘see’ is a surprise. For many individuals – students – academics - to abandon their commercialised thinking and ulterior investments is something else. Foucault states Prison serves as a mean to remind society that we are ‘Free’. University and Education in the broader sense tells we are free to think. Capitalism tells we have freedom of choice, choice within the pychologized ‘tick box’?

The reason that academics in the USA enjoy greater academic freedom is the that AAUP's "Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure" is now so wide spread so as (in the words of a leading expert on academic freedom in the USA, Robert Fisk) to 'constitute a professional “common” or customary law of academic freedom and tenure’. Nothing similar exists in the UK, or indeed in Europe - which is why I have argued that it is time for a Magna Charta for academic freedom (see THES at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=407578). This article in the current edition of the THES shows that academic freedom is lower in the UK than the USA. However, it is the case that the protection for academic freedom is lower in the UK than in all the EU states - see at:http://www.palgrave-journals.com/hep/journal/v20/n3/full/8300159a.html. In 1997, the UK signed the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher–Education Teaching Personnel, which deals primarily with protection for academic freedom, but has not implemented it. This year the Danish h.e. professional association has made a formal complaint to UNESCO that the 2003 University Act breachs the UNESCO Recommendation to which Denmark was a signatory. It is time that the UCU thought about doing the same.

Why the people aroound here are so philosiphical about these topic, WE must do some thing for that, Guys we must think beyond the level to get away from all these.... Ryan Recovery Bull http://www.recoverybull.com

"...as the sector's raison d'etre evolves from an explicitly public service to an implicitly commercial activity with a scholarly facade". This is a distinction which assumes that serving one's self-interest as an academic is synonymous with serving the public interest. Universities are here to serve the public and that includes the students and the taxpayers as well as our own research interests, career interests and personal preserences. That seems sometimes to be forgotten. Academics are no more and no less altruistic than the next person. Academics are also no more and no less professionally accountable than the next person. Once it is accepted that some form of professional accountability is needed (and this is often a contended point), then we are here in this article presented with two different models for achieving that accountability. The US model of student evaluation is a blunt and unreliable tool for accountability. The alternative UK model is purposely slow , built on the assumption that decisions to spend taxpayers' money need to be scrutinised with care. There is, of course, as with most things, a middle way that is quicker and easier to operate because it starts from a presumption of trust, but, as noted, not everyone makes perfectly altruistic decisions, so there still has to be a scutiny process to capture those instances in which trust has been misplaced.

Ryan You should try speaking arse upwards sometime I recommend it and it can be such a relief! That’s Philosophically speaking! Constipation can be so debilitating. That’s metaphorically and philosophically speaking!

To add to my earlier comment, no-one in this world is free to do whatever they like, and too much time is wasted arguing for this non-existent privilege in the graceless language of entitlement. Only an immodest person would suggest either that the public interest is served simply by virtue of allowing me to do what I like, or that whatever I choose to do is de facto in the public interest by virtue of the fact that I choose to do it - "Le public interest c'est moi" is decidedly and deludedly Napoleonic indeed.

McDonagh --------- I'd like to 'share' this quote from Mladen Dolar with you and add to your thoughts! --------------------------- "There is a sharp division between those who are doomed to be deaf and to work, and those who listen and enjoy, take pleasure in art, but are helplessly tied to the mast. This is the very image of the division between labor and art, and this is the place to start scrutinizing the function of art, in its separation from the economy of work and survival - that is, in its powerlessness. Aesthetic pleasure is always in chains, it is thwarted by the limits assigned to it, and this why Ulysses confronting the Sirens is so exemplary for Adorno and Horkheimer." ---------------------

The US can afford a model that gives academics more freedom and makes them less accountable. If they lose a few million pounds here or there from misguided academic work, it doesn't matter. The UK is smaller and has less cash to throw around. Hence our more bureaucratic system, which of course can and should be streamlined and outcome-based as far as possible but which is a necessary part of our contract with the people who are funding and paying us.

Dear McDonagh, I don't think you are really engaging with the substantive points I made in the article and I think the Napoleonic comments thus appear as displacement activity. E.g. I'm not quite sure where the idea that academics should not be accountable at all comes from. The article compares the situation in the US and UK and points out that compared to the US, UK academics are held to excessive account. Their *basic* professionalism is undermined. I think most US academics would laugh at the idea that they are not held to account at all and I have at no point suggested that UK academics should not be answerable to the tax-payer. If you, like myself are concerned about value for money, I hope you would also like to see less wasteful micro-management of academics and more accountability applied to the ever-expanding non-academic sector of UK Higher Education. To repeat, the issue is to what extent accountability is justifiable and actually productive for the greater good. This leads on to the issue of funding that you raise. I agree with you that the US is much better funded and this is addressed in the article. The fact the UK is less well funded means that we actually need to use the money we do have more effectively. If money is being spent that doesn't contribute *directly* to the revenue-earning academic activities of research and teaching - the onus of proof for the need to make that expenditure should be on the various non-academics in the system. The bigger point in all this is that professionalism as a fundamental value has been eroded in the UK to a disheartening extent - not just academics but people who work in the NHS, BBC etc. etc. have all been on the receiving end. Before anything can be done to reverse the trend, it has to be at least recognised ...

mcdonagh – Your point about funding is important, and I realize that it is formulated in an effort to call attention to the diminished level of financial support for UK higher education (HE). However, the comparison to the US, which is assumed to be better funded, is not quite sensitive to the actual situation on this side. This is the "diversity" point made in the second article. US HE is not a singular, homogeneous entity. There are of course extremely well funded, private institutions like Harvard University or the University of Chicago. These universities have massive endowments and steep tuition—just under $40,000 for one year of undergraduate study. But there are also state-supported institutions, like my own, that struggle to provide their faculty with cost of living increases and need to justify every dollar spent to the state legislature and tax payer or the University of California system, which has recently mandated 10+ furlough days for its faculty and support staff in order to make-ends-meet. And then there are small community and local colleges that struggle to keep the doors open and the heat on. So yes, Harvard University is well funded, but it is more the exception than the rule. Most institutions compete for every dollar and need to be accountable to numerous (and often times incompatible) constituencies—tax payers, private donors, alumni, students, parents, etc. Consequently, 1) we do not have the luxury to "lose a few million pounds here or there from misguided academic work" and 2) funding alone cannot explain the difference in academic freedom or administrative oversight.

A chirp from Canada, forlorn entity in-between the UK & US: While freedom from the purveyors of the research-intensive, enterprising, and innovative knowledge-mobilizing pasture-land is the goal, much of the problem also relates to the ever-curmudgeonly David Soloway's statement: "Good pasture makes for fat sheep." There is far too much in the way of outspoken criticism by full-time tenured faculty who posture but who continue to enjoy the benefits of this "interregnum." I'm not talking about yes-men and -women who support and invoke the professional-training discourse and skill-delivery "learning"; I'm talking about faculty who work to ensure wiggle room for their academic autonomy but who nonetheless service their own goods at the expense of a band of underpaid, disposable, and overwhelmed sessional and contract-based academic workers who do teaching and who chase the tenure carrot like good little surplus-generating machines. For example, in Canada, most graduate students (master/PhD candidates) trade their labour for cash and a small tuition rebate, with labour being construed by administrators as "funding" or "academic support" when it is, plainly, work. This says nothing about the casualization of labour for limited-term appointments or session-to-session instructors. While not suggesting that this is simply a labour issue, the contours of what is called "research" (i.e., core academic work that is imaginative but which becomes the stuff seized as material for bibliometric measurements of "research intensity") and what constitutes "teaching" continues to make legible some of the deep problems outlined in the article. These distinctions also point to what are questions of value, cultural authority, and the stories we continue to tell ourselves about the types of work the pan-'we' may or may not do. This is not only a conflict between the academic and administrative faculties but within the faculties themselves. In North America - Canada esp., where institutions are ostensibly publicly-funded but highly reliant on tuition-fee revenues - there's an increasing division of labour, a widening gap, and a naturalized reliance on that division of labour among scholars and academics who, in a perfect world, could collaborate to refuse the ongoing neoliberalization of universities. While there's a lament for what is without question a client-centered, bank-deposit-learning model and a call always for changes and for more funding (as in, "the 'most' ethical thing we can do is ensure we have more public funding to address the massive funding gaps that exist in Canada's universities"). one has to wonder what the result would be? More robust, flexible, and adaptable opportunities for effective classroom management? More capacity? Given the political correctness of the "access" debate ( but also acknowledging the historico-material realities of who 'gets in') in Canada, no one wants to have a discussion about retraction or refusing capacity in any sense, or about making distinctions or valuations about what a university "does" or what a degree entails - save for the fact that everyone "ought" to have one.

I wonder how realistic it is to keep pretending that the ship is afloat and argue fervently about the mineral content of the water we are drowning in. As the former regimes in Eastern Europe showed, the more passionate the talk about reform, the surer the system is to go. To expect that academic institutions – any institution for that matter - would survive the scorching breath of the Market is to engage in the same proverbial cognitive dissonance that Paul Taylor refers to. Universities have long – it happened around the time when pedagogues supplanted masters - ceased to be the places for free exercise of critical thinking and have turned into certification production facilities. The original idea of the university is as far removed from the beliefs of today's academic establishments as Wall Street is from the business practices of the Pilgrims. Was it Auden who said that language remembers? – in some Slavic languages a “grade” (in the school/university sense) is of the same root as “price”. Education must be lived, it cannot be administered, says George Dennison. The truly interesting question now - and one I find frustratingly difficult to answer - is why does one still risk public stoning by suggesting that the mass, government controlled, compulsory school – of which the university is now simply a spin-off - is detrimental to education, character building, personal growth and the expansion of humanity? How many other public goods and human aspirations do we know that are compulsory (HE is on the verge of becoming so) and isn't that an implicit acknowledgement that most of its supposedly happy customers would opt out of it should they have the choice? There should be little surprise that when the masters of the various professions, crafts and trades renege on their duty as educators (how many poets teach literature?), when societies in general forget how to be educational, governments take over this function through the only means they know - mass, compulsory, disciplining institutions.

To Paul: Thank you for your comment . I agree with you that a person's professionalism is undermined by excessive accountability regimes. I am going to say something controversial which is that if some people behaved more professionally, meaning responding to reasonable requests and to the interests of others, then such a tight regime of accountability would not be in force. The NHS has four administrators for every doctor partly because doctors refuse to recognise any authority but themselves, so it takes four people to overrule them. It also takes four people to provide the slightly different processes and systems that each "professional" insists upon on the grounds that their needs are ever-so-slightly different to those of the next "professional" and they insist on special and different processes and systems just for them: that's why NHS IT projects always fail and it sounds a lot like some parts of HE, doesn't it.... David: my point about funding was not made to make the case again for more funding for UK HE: it was about simple economies of scale - they are much bigger than us. A lot of money is wasted in the HE sector and not just on over-complex bureaucracy, that perennial excuse, but on providing that special treatment I refer to.

The UK has too many worthless post-92 universities.

The UK also sadly has too many stupid, worthless bloggers who have nothing better to do with their lives than criticise post-92 universities.

Undoubtedly there are issues about free speech -- see various THE articles --- on both sides of the Atlantic. And this has another level, more basic to the nuts and bolts of the academic professional enterprise. Research-active academics are contractually required to publish research. How much of that is silenced for the sake of vested interests? In the sciences, as is known, sometimes their research results conflict with big funders` interests. In the humanities a similar situation can arise. Many years ago, for example, someone published an article mistakenly claiming that I had got a scholarly point wrong. Every vested interest has cited said article ad nauseam for its own purposes, indeed in a strange sort of cartel (and that fact is quite well-known). In fact, however, for many years I have been trying to publish a rejoinder --- which is an unarguable and research-rich `final answer` to that frankly sloppy article. Every journal approached has refused to publish it, even sight unseen, and supposed peer-reviewers with a history of `the sloppy article cartel` have taken the opportunity to obstruct and abort and falsely criticise that work further still. If therefore sanyone claims that academics care about scholarly matters, the response can only be hollow laughter.

All of this talk about 'free' and 'freedom' leads me back to where Paul and I both began our academic publishing careers—hacking. In the hacker community 'free' has a rather specific, almost Kantian connotation. This definition is probably most familiar in the recent growth and popularity of Free and Open Source Software (or FOSS), e.g. Linux, OpenOffice, etc. For hackers and advocates of FOSS, the word 'free,' as Richard Stallman (founder of the Free Software Foundation) often reminds us, does not mean 'free' as in 'free beer.' Nor does it mean that anything goes and that I can do whatever I want, which is, a rather juvenile understanding of the concept. Instead 'free' is understood in terms of 'free speech,' which is not speech without cost or outside accountability. This concept of 'free,' as Kant demonstrated, is yoked to a deep and serious sense of responsibility. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, in that kind of direct and 'cut to the chase' form of expression that is so characteristically 'American,' 'freedom without responsibility is not free.' This certainly applies to academic freedom. Not only do scholars and artists need to exercise their academic freedom within the constraint of some kind of professional responsibility, but administrators need to trust their faculty with this responsibility. What appears to be happening, in the guise of protecting the public purse and interest, is an erosion of this kind of trust.

Having read so many Twits (someone who twitters) debating very clearly the current criticisms of both US and UK HE systems, I am, as a UK educated design professional prompted to contribute my twopennyworth, as I have lectured in both countries. Why I prefer the UK system will become clear later. Speaking from the art and design sector, we are one of those disciplines that does not sit happily within the huge beaurocratic ramblings of a university management structure. Its very nature is one of non-conformity, anarchy and non PC, (so-called freedom that has been mentioned before) which is a direct challenge to the strictures of HE government, and therefor it cannot survive in a truly liberated sense. False idols and lapdogs are created through the bullying pressure of managers that are more concerned about clinging onto their final salary pensions than healing the patient. The scandalous gap in earnings between a senior lecture and a vice chancellor exacerbates the tension that exists, especially when one hears what a VC has to say - absolute nothing to do with my job - never! I have lectured at two institutions in the US: one a state university and one independent college of art. The fomer was like heaven, and the latter was like hell. The latter was on the AAUP (mentioned in earlier message) censure list (as were over 30 institutions during the mid 1990's) for two reasons: 1) they deny academic freedom and 2) they did not secure the right terms of tenure for their staff - ie all staff and faculty were on a one year contract, renewable. It was a very unhappy place which put on a brave smile. As a visiting professor the university experience was good because I was made a fuss of, and the Americans are some of the most hospitable people on earth. I was trusted to do my own thing and paperwork hardly existed. My only axe to grind was that the students were less liberated than UK, and hence produced more conventional work. My experience in the UK was great in the 1980's before polytechnics gained university status, but since the demise of the binary divide it has all gone downhill ever since. The same old gripes of more students, less teaching time, less money, less space ultimately means we are producing less qualified designers than we used to. More reliance on self learning is nuts.

You are right fred i must give a second thought to my views...and should thinkupward....but why dont you ask to toher thinks in my way as well...

Hello Ryan - Touche! Hope it's not too painful. It's a suggestion and not about being 'right' as such. If 'think upward' is 'speaking arse upwards,' minus the 'mental constipation' then ! At least there's a connection to thinking and speaking. HE I would say is, should or can be about learning to think for oneself. I'm impressed by your simple sharp return. Don't take it personal, second thoughts it does need to be personal. Asking the 'others' is not for me to do, the suggestion is there: I think the following quote is Plato's : - " Because a free man ought not to learn anything under duress. Compulsory physical exercise does no harm to the body, but compulsory learning never sticks in the mind." and to link it to Todorov's above comments on "when societies in general forget how to be educational, governments take over this function through the only means they know, mass - compulsory , disciplinary institutions." And to close "Since it often happens that one's style of speaking to a person affects one's way of thinking in that person's presence." Once again, touche!

Winning the war of independence... actually, is this a realistic concept? - I mean, for one thing, a freedom one has to fight for actually isn't "freedom" at all; I suppose freedom is something that can be given, but not taken. And who is it that is wanting independence? if it's us, the academics, then the only way to actually have academic independence is to actually walk away from the educational edifice. This might seem appealing - we could start again, small is beautiful and all that... but, as soon s one starts building an organisation, it will gradually take on a life of its own, developing survival strategies and 'instincts' until survival (of the organisation) becomes the key raison d'etre, with everything else increasingly peripheral. So, by the time we get back to this stage, discussing the tail-wagging-the-dog and lamenting the fact that academic concerns take a back seat, the rot has already set in. So, my question is this - is it already way, way too late? Back to the fields, anyone?

I gained my PhD in Fine Art in the US at a state university. I taught undergraduates in my supervising department. I was in a cohort of three and enjoyed in depth supervision. I had access to facilities 24/7 and my own office. I was paid a reasonable stipend and had my tuition waived. I lived in a two bedroom town house with all mod-cons and was very comfortable. I then took a lecturing position in the UK. I have limited access to buildings and facilities out of hours as do my students and I share an office, which makes individual tutorial support difficult. My students are not able to work in the studios late into the evenings or at weekends as students were in the US - which helps with flexible working for students with jobs and also eases pressure on use of studios. Here weekend access is impossible, due to unionised caretakers and a lack of trust in academic staff to have keys, or something to do with health and safety, I teach double the courses that my equivalent colleauges in the US teach, which means that there is less planning time and that my attention is divided 6 ways each semester rather than 3 or 4. My students pay more than the undergraduates in the US institution where I studied, and for less because staff student ratios are higher, access to resources is restricted and facilities are worse. As far as research goes, the message from my university is generate as much research income as possible - so they do not really care about the ideas or the societal engagement that the research might generate. The UK system is very target oriented. I cannot comment on the US here, due to not working as a researcher in their system. However, the emphasis on external targets and criteria does, in my mind, stifle academic freedom and creativity, which one can resist or take with a pinch of salt.

Like many other Canadian scholars, I publish in American journals, attend conferences hosted by American associations and receive regular job postings for positions across the border. I was thus intrigued by the implications, good and bad, of the particular kinds of institutional cultures (rather than one, monolithic HE system) that make up post-secondary education in the US, as described in David’s article. I found this very helpful, as the diversity of the American system makes it difficult to "map," especially by outsiders. As a contract instructor, I was also interested in David's point about cheap and expandable part-time teaching labour. This point gets surprisingly little airplay. I suppose there are few people who stand to gain from making it heard. Since most contract instructors hope to get something more permanent (or already have something permanent in another profession), and since there is no guarantee that a contract will be renewed in a few months time, it is easy for contract instructors to become complicit in their own exploitation ... after all, it's temporary. The problem, as David points out, is that there is a systemic shift toward contract instructors as a "core" part of the HE workforce. Of course, this isn't the stated intention of university administrations. If anything, they will say that they want to have more full time professors and less contract work (usually as a gesture towards increasing retention and the quality of teaching rather than academic freedom). Following David's point in the feedback regarding negative and positive freedom, I would suggest that the capacity to teach depends as much on our "audience" as it does the institutional context. Or perhaps decisions that affect the composition (abilities, interests, etc.) and size of the classes we are expected to teach needs to be understood as a part of the institutional context of academic freedom. Although I've only been teaching for five years, I have noticed that I have to spend more time each year building students' basic writing and research skills. People have different ideas about who to blame for this situation. But it seems to me that the freedom to teach at the HE level is supported by the policies and practices of lower education. It can also be eroded when lower education isn't coordinated with the objectives and capacities of HE.

Thanks Fred for your suggestions once again...you might be right that asking to other is “not for you to do”...But if we are talking about something and people all around us are taking part in that with so much of enthusiasm...that means there is something in that sticks to the readers mind ! We can ask people to think that way also...hope I am right! Isn’t it? You are right Mate that there must be a connection "not at least" between 'thinking and speaking' But connection should in a way so that other also like to involve in the same in healthy manner....I just want to be in the discussion there is nothing to take personal or something…I am happy that at least someone right here is show some attention to my thoughts as well… Please correct me I am wrong with my thoughts somewhere.....Thanks

Hello Ryan - So much in such few words! Perhaps a return to read Paul’s article might help. While I think in part I have explained why I haven’t asked the ‘others’, the ‘enthusiasm’ is something that does seem to be an overflowing excess of reflexivity, going where? There a sense of dismal failure in a passive resignation, they seem to only speak to each other, “training the imagination to go visiting” – “thinking without a banister” - they don’t even get to the bottom of the stairs. To ‘think and speak’ to these ‘others’ I would have to become something other and my thoughts conforming to the same. I would be sharing and experiencing the same story but with no room to realistically consider alternative courses of action. BUT there is - the enthusiasm for some, which could be what Paul hopes for “ perhaps the very first thing is for people to *really* acknowledge the problem.” A certain type of ‘enthusiasm’ could be a move closer to - “training the imagination to go visiting” – “thinking without a banister” Ryan - I’m not so sure that 'you' need to be completely ‘within’ the ‘group’ discussion as such, and it is the others that should let go of the banister rail, at least momentarily. Okay. I’ll say it - there are perhaps others that need to try sometime ‘speaking arse upwards” , “in the same healthy manner”. It's a position and place that can at times create anxiety with little home comfort of 'sameness' of the other.

Training the imagination to go visiting... does a butterfly undergo a lengthy and arduous training regime?

Arduous, preparation for a short and brief frightening flight of freedom!

Ah! - Fred, I see the parallels -young people now have to spend all their best years in school, then finally: out into the wide deserts of unemployment, which a few manage to negotiate to gain employment for a few short years before being chopped in the current round of restructuring. Then - if they can, back to school!

Like the 'tone' of the 'Ah!' Yes, an 'unemployed' mind is a cruel lesson to hold.

Yes, the Devil finds work for idle minds

@Don Quixote/don quixote/don qUixote?!! But the Devil is finding work for some one all evenings, weekends and even on Monday making him to post here!!!!

Yep. Lunchtime is when we type with one hand

@Don Quixote 'Yep. Lunchtime is when we type with one hand' Well - indeed - whatever - quite - unheimlich

chortle

I have taught at the University of Ottawa as a contract instructor for ten years now. My annual earnings are very modest (around $30,000 after taxes), for which I teach between 5 and 6 courses a year (as much as the union will allow me to). I am just about to publish my second book with the University of Toronto Press, and am working on a third for the same press. Aside from the fact that I must either work until I die (which is hardly damnation for a writer), or work myself into an impoverished retirement (which seems to me to be the fate of most of humanity), I have little to complain about. I guess I am among that rarest of working intellectuals -- the contented class. I demand excellence from my students, and sometimes get it. I attempt to deliver excellence in teaching, and sometimes achieve it. I have often wondered what life is like across the pond, or to the South, and I see that it comes with different challenges but few benefits that I do not already enjoy. It seems to me that while Canadians have once again managed to strike a decent balance between the UK and the US models, we are constantly in danger of tripping up. Or perhaps we have already ALL tripped, and are merely on the long slow decline that is the fall (or perhaps the great downwardly push of the nefarious market)? Dr. Strangelove

To Dr Strangelove - do you, also, find your hand seems to have a life of its own? ;)

@ Don Quixote - Lots of Chortle :))