[OPE] Police raids on research club

I assume that in the universities of the future, there is really very little
scope for social science, other than in the sense of "objective" studies of
the environments conducive to business, or adjustment problems between
business and the environments within which business operates. There is
little scope left for the "sociological imagination" other than strictly
within that sort of framework. "Macro" studies are limited essentially to
"objective" stochastic analyses of aggregates or variables and the
mathematical equations which can explain the relationships between them.

In the future, I assume, the knowledge produced in universities either has
to have a consumer value, or it has to have a yield, a return on the
investment into it. Insofar as knowledge has a consumer value, the consumer
has to pay for his consumption ("user pays" principle). Insofar as it is an
investment, those who front up the capital require a curriculum and syllabus
which ensures that there is indeed an appropriate return for the
investment - the training must lead to a job and a salary, otherwise it has
no justification.

The sort of fields I am interested in - political economy, political
anthropology, social archaeology, socio-biology, heterodox economics, or
other interfaces between different disciplines etc. simply do not have much
reason for being in the neoliberal, neoconservative society - they represent
only "subjective" (verstehende) interpretations which can never be
"scientific". They are analogous to art forms. That being the case, then
either you have to pay to "consume" such artistic "teaching services" or
they are not offered.

J.

_______________________________________________
ope mailing list
ope@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
Received on Tue Mar 22 16:10:29 2011