As a college prof who teaches film studies, my entire goal is to have fun. If you can't have fun in a film class (or college in general), then something is deeply wrong.
Nicely done. And, no, this is not yelling at clouds. It reflects a stance toward what's happening in US higher ed that will grow as the obvious measures--budget cuts, enrollment declines, institutions merge or close-- show things getting worse.
People have a way of finding their way to the sunny side of the street when their material conditions decline. Of course, this may be wishful thinking on my part, but that does not make it wrong.
Fun, leisure, the slack space to just mess around, are all things that the relentlessness of discourse about efficiency, instrumental outcomes, etc. have just absolutely killed, and it's to everybody's detriment. There's even a good argument that certain forms of inefficiency are ultimately more efficient in many complex systems, but I don't want to make that argument strongly because "fun" in this sense is a good thing whether it produces better outcomes in some narrow sense of "better". It is a *goal* of being human, not a method.
I think that's a big piece of it, but I'd be hesitant to put it JUST on managerialism from the administration-- I think a lot of the grim joylessness is self-inflicted by faculty, as well. Over the quarter-century I've been here there's definitely been a steady shift toward more emphasis on very directed research in ways that originate from the faculty side. There's a lot of demand for more resources and less teaching that is very much not driven by bean-counters, but faculty who would prefer to be at an R1.
For sure. Many of us have bought into the same ideas. I am sure you and I have both have to fend off colleagues who politely ask "How do you find the time to write on the Internet?" where the subtext is "you're inefficient and undirected and I suspect you are having fun".
We definitely have moved away from being a fun society. I'm old enough to remember Mayor John V. Lindsay of NYC declaring the place Fun City, rising crime rate and all. Education used to be fun. Most kids don't feel it today. Hell, sex used to be fun. You can laugh at or decry the old Playboy model, but the cars, the hifi, the key to the club (a key!?!? - What are we, nine?), the romantic artifice and even what one did in the sack, they were all about having fun.
The right always abhorred fun. No one was supposed to have fun. Back then, the left was pro-fun, but at some point they stopped. No more fun for anyone. Was it population pressure? Elite competition? Neoliberal economics? Liberation theology?
As a college prof who teaches film studies, my entire goal is to have fun. If you can't have fun in a film class (or college in general), then something is deeply wrong.
Nicely done. And, no, this is not yelling at clouds. It reflects a stance toward what's happening in US higher ed that will grow as the obvious measures--budget cuts, enrollment declines, institutions merge or close-- show things getting worse.
People have a way of finding their way to the sunny side of the street when their material conditions decline. Of course, this may be wishful thinking on my part, but that does not make it wrong.
Fun, leisure, the slack space to just mess around, are all things that the relentlessness of discourse about efficiency, instrumental outcomes, etc. have just absolutely killed, and it's to everybody's detriment. There's even a good argument that certain forms of inefficiency are ultimately more efficient in many complex systems, but I don't want to make that argument strongly because "fun" in this sense is a good thing whether it produces better outcomes in some narrow sense of "better". It is a *goal* of being human, not a method.
I think that's a big piece of it, but I'd be hesitant to put it JUST on managerialism from the administration-- I think a lot of the grim joylessness is self-inflicted by faculty, as well. Over the quarter-century I've been here there's definitely been a steady shift toward more emphasis on very directed research in ways that originate from the faculty side. There's a lot of demand for more resources and less teaching that is very much not driven by bean-counters, but faculty who would prefer to be at an R1.
For sure. Many of us have bought into the same ideas. I am sure you and I have both have to fend off colleagues who politely ask "How do you find the time to write on the Internet?" where the subtext is "you're inefficient and undirected and I suspect you are having fun".
We definitely have moved away from being a fun society. I'm old enough to remember Mayor John V. Lindsay of NYC declaring the place Fun City, rising crime rate and all. Education used to be fun. Most kids don't feel it today. Hell, sex used to be fun. You can laugh at or decry the old Playboy model, but the cars, the hifi, the key to the club (a key!?!? - What are we, nine?), the romantic artifice and even what one did in the sack, they were all about having fun.
The right always abhorred fun. No one was supposed to have fun. Back then, the left was pro-fun, but at some point they stopped. No more fun for anyone. Was it population pressure? Elite competition? Neoliberal economics? Liberation theology?