In Praise of Foucault

Young and educated as I am - I have been working my way through Michel Foucault's great works again. As with the great philosophers he is no easy read but his insights into the mechanics of the information age and the spread of modes of power 'everywhere' - alerts us to how this replicates itself in political economy of sexuality and its benefactors.

The Daily Telegraph has enlightened me today with http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/3998514/Universities-should-be-free-to-charge-US-style-20000-tuition-fees-report-says.html a cosy report on the greater expansion of private finance to support higher education in the form of a whopping super-sized top-up to compete with US elite institutions. I believe in a more focused role for state in shaping and funding UK institutions but I really can't see an end to this form of collateral and the damage it will do to the social fabric of the aspiring classes. I use the word class because money is the core transformative mechanism or enabler for the poor but able student. With these new fees, the concept of higher education is being completely redefined - the pressure on students to perform is crippling - and with the psychological misery associated with debt - the philosophy of learning has been imbued with the rationality of monetarist techniques of calculation.

Those who reject this profiteering to boost research endowments are- as Foucault defines- part of the power network - only as a 'exteriority'- a product of betrayal. I can only see this expansion as unpopular, a bloated opportunism already functioning on this level through the pooling of foreign nationals paying extortionate fees. I am amazed, given the current debt crisis that anyone would be so bold as to follow the dreadful US loans system and pray that the great system of UK education (one of the foremost) that has lifted disadvantaged from mediocrity- not be dragged into disrepute with these shoddy proposals.

Things are gonna' slide....

Leonard Cohen couldn't have put it better. The economic crisis is a multilayered monster walled in a secretive world of biblical proportions. The relevancy of Christmas is omnipresent- given that this is the time that we all spend the most money- unneccessarily in most cases. At a time when a lot of us are revising our budgets - it may be interesting to note the true message of the season- a hsitorical perspective on humanity and reclaiming the simplicity of a pre-information age. Drawing comparisons between the great depression and the current crunch at least shows that we are aware of the complexities of unbridled capitalism and the rise of fascism in the 1930s. The collective memory of the suffering of these times and the onset of obscene political notions - tyrannical control - derived from what Barrington Moore defines as a distinct culture in landlocked Europe - at least allows some anxiety about the moral message of regulated capitalism preventing the onset of such cultural conditions. The message of Christmas is of one of taking stock - for me- to reevaluate the structures that bind us together and not be afraid to challenge the forces that threaten to compromise our very existence- and the continuance of humanity. Let us not forget that Jesus was a great revolutionary force- and the message is - that from beyond the grave - good triumphed.