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The death of universitiesTerry Eagleton
Academia has become a servant of the status quo. Its malaise
runs so much deeperthan tuition fees
Friday 17 December 2010 22.00 GMT
Last modified on Tuesday 3 June 201415.40 BST
Are thehumanitiesabout to disappear from our universities? The
questionis absurd. It would be like asking whether alcohol is about
to disappear frompubs, or egoism from Hollywood. ust as there
cannot be a pub withoutalcohol, so there cannot be a university
without the humanities. If history,
philosophy and so on vanish from academic life, what they leave
in theirwake may be a technical training facility or corporate
research institute. !utit will not be a university in the classical
sense of the term, and it would bedeceptive to call it one.
"either, however, can there be a university in the full sense of
the wordwhen the humanities e#ist in isolation from other
disciplines. The quickestway of devaluing these sub$ects % short of
disposing of them altogether % isto reduce them to an agreeable
bonus. &eal men study law and engineering,
while ideas and values are for sissies. The humanities should
constitute the
core of any university worth the name. The study of history and
philosophy,accompanied by some acquaintance with art and
literature, should be forlawyers and engineers as well as for those
who study in arts faculties. If thehumanities are not under such
dire threat in the 'nited (tates, it is, amongother things, because
they are seen as being an integral part of highereducation as
such.
)hen they first emerged in their present shape around the turn
of the *+thcentury, the socalled humane disciplines had a crucial
social role. It was tofoster and protect the kind of values for
which a philistine social order hadprecious little time. The modern
humanities and industrial capitalism weremore or less twinned at
birth. To preserve a set of values and ideas undersiege, you needed
among other things institutions known as universities setsomewhat
apart from everyday social life. This remoteness meant thathumane
study could be lamentably ineffectual. !ut it also allowed
thehumanities to launch a critique of conventional wisdom.
-rom time to time, as in the late */0s and in these last few
weeks in!ritain, that critique would take to the streets,
confronting how we actually
live with how we might live.
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7/26/2019 The Death of Universities
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)hat we have witnessed in our own time is the death of
universities ascentres of critique. (ince 1argaret Thatcher, the
role of academia has been
to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of
$ustice, tradition,imagination, human welfare, the free play of the
mind or alternative visionsof the future. )e will not change this
simply by increasing state funding ofthe humanities as opposed to
slashing it to nothing. )e will change it byinsisting that a
critical reflection on human values and principles should becentral
to everything that goes on in universities, not $ust to the study
of&embrandt or &imbaud.
In the end, the humanities can only be defended by stressing
howindispensable they are2 and this means insisting on their vital
role in the
whole business of academic learning, rather than protesting
that, like somepoor relation, they don3t cost much to be
housed.
How can this be achieved in practice? -inancially speaking, it
can3t be.4overnments are intent on shrinking the humanities, not
e#panding them.
1ight not too much investment in teaching (helley mean falling
behind oureconomic competitors? !ut there is no university without
humane inquiry,
which means that universities and advanced capitalism are
fundamentallyincompatible. And the political implications of that
run far deeper than the
question of student fees.
IZVOR:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-
uniersities-ma!aise-tuition-fees
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-malaise-tuition-feeshttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-malaise-tuition-feeshttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-malaise-tuition-feeshttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-malaise-tuition-fees
