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Ruthless calculus in academia

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The final readings for this semester brought our discussion full circle as we return to our initial question of what is critical theory and what does a critical theorist do? Though not explicitly stated in the readings, questions of our place a critical scholars, as academicians, and as activist working with the structures that constantly oppress groups, were revisited in a large part. Churchill (2007) discussed the myths of academic freedom as he was targeted for “elimination” within an academically “free” department. Prashad (2007) reviews the ways in which the academy restrains students free thinking as well as their access to education simply by limiting the amount of available spaces to its incoming undergraduates. If these scenarios do not sound like that which takes place in corporate America, than I do not know what does.

Reading such work has become a major eye opening experience as I once strongly believed in lofty ideas of free thinking and academic freedom. A majority of us in this class are going to be on the academic market (commodifying our knowledge and begging to join the proletariat rat race) relatively soon and need to learn to engage with these tensions. It truly saddens me to have to think this way, but that is our material reality. So where do we go from here? Its simple really as I stated much earlier in the semester, we must began to and continue to question our values and view the problem as an erosion of morals. What do we hold near and dear? What is of the utmost importance when it comes to our choices? I believe that Dawson (2007) and others have clearly pointed us in the right direction stating “the only way to reassert the university’s public role is to challenge what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called the doxa or commonsense of neoliberalism: that every sphere of social life should be subjected to the ruthless calculus of market-based efficiency” (p. 81)

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