What's clear? Is anything doubtless? Anything? Look, there ought to be facts. Things that... are, correct? I know some deconstructionists. Literary scholars. Well, sort of. Each was once upon a time an academic... College instructors. None earned tenure. Literature departments gush green Ph.D.s into a collegiate labor market that's become a lot like the market for art. Which is to say, no market at all. Increasingly universities are contracting arts and humanities positions through attrition. So tenure-track demand has fallen below replacement levels. Supply of humanists way overwhelms demand.
Markets require a price that will clear surpluses. Yet only a negative price will clear a market like art or deconstructionism. Meaning? Market entrants will have to give their services away or, increasingly, pay customers to take them. Now subsidies are effectively a way to pay customers to accept a product (think Tesla). And while there are significant heaps of government, donor, or endowment subsidies to colleges and universities - they have not reached a level sufficient to clear the market (in fact they've fed the beast). Meaning? There will at first be a bulge in unemployed humanists, until eventually many leave the market, seeking to retrofit themselves to fit the demand for customers who are hiring. These are labor markets only tangentially (at best) in need of deconstructionidt scholarship.
To the market emigrants, deconstruction becomes perhaps a memory, a hobby, therapy, or a creed - maybe all. Trained to deconstruct... they do... in business, government, non-profits... in whatever port the storm's driven them. Which is different from critical or strategic thought. They are graduate critics - a lay priesthood.
Nothing to them is clear. Subjective kicks objective's ass.
They're trained to miss the point. They are driven by a faith in nothing. Nihilism. The critical question is: How acceptable are life options. If we take our eyes off of that for even a moment, we are at risk of allowing distractions away from the obvious. Like the numbers on a pay or assistance check... smiles on family faces... risk benefit results... Or risk benefit analysis at all.
They are driven by a faith in nothing. Nihilism. Only to discover that hope is not a business plan.
The GEEK STUFF? Nothing special. Here's a grab-shot of vessels cooling before packaging at Ireland's Waterford Glassworks. The golden light bulb cast turns mood into fact. Reflections spark the imagination. As in life, we confront each successive object through its foreground. Knowing even the nearest future through what the immediate moment permits us to know. Is reality what filters allow us to believe? Or is it crystal clear that here are three beautiful objects? Of course, beautiful's a weasel word, huh? Adjectives do that.
1 comment:
I just heard from a friend who often travels to Japan, that in Japan, they are wanting to get rid of humanities from the university curriculums. Apparently, 26 universities have already done so. Science is to be the one true religion it would seem.
Critical and strategic thought, is that a thing anymore?
Unfortunately, I do see hope used as a business plan on a regular basis, along with the head-in-sand strategy.
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